Dear players,
In regards to recent proposals and experiences we have made with the Abukir update we prepared a small patch with some much needed changes to your gameplay. Those changes include a reworked paladin distance weapon system, a new speed formula, a new retargetting algorithm, a new summoning behaviour for creatures as well as changes to a very few creatures. We are well aware that not everyone is going to like these changes as they will increase the difficulty of the game. Nevertheless, we believe that those changes are needed to keep the game fresh and exciting for the years to come. Considering the importance of these changes I will explain why exactly we decided on certain aspects of them.
Reworked paladin distance weapon system:
Over the years we have recieved countless of proposals to remove the rune delay on distance weapons. Considering one of the latest proposals regarding paladins, we decided for multiple changes. In our opinion the old paladin was incredibly strong in the lower to mid levels. They do not have to make runes or spend time skilling and the elemental weapons allow the vocation to deal a lot of damage from very early on. As players stated though, the old paladin loses a lot of that power on higher levels when runes become more and more important. That’s why we decided to remove the delay on distance weapons after using a rune. This change will most definitly make higher leveled paladins a lot stronger since using runes becomes a lot more viable, allowing the vocation to easily compete with the other ones. However, that increase in power on higher levels has to come at a cost. We cannot have a vocation that is the fastest leveler on lower and mid levels and still be just as powerful as the other vocations on high levels. That’s why we nerfed the hitchance of all distance weapons. This will cause lower leveled paladins to become a little less powerful and instead increases the power of higher leveled paladins. You can find the new distance weapons down below:
Bows:
Elven Bow (1% Hitchance), 34 oz.
Hunting Bow (1% Hitchance) 22 oz.
Poisoned Bow (1% Hitchance)
Flaming Bow (1% Hitchance)
Daraman Bow (1% Hitchance)
Crossbows:
Elven Crossbow (1% Hitchance)
Enhanced Crossbow (2% Hitchance)
Envenomed Crossbow (2% Hitchance)
Blazing Crossbow (2% Hitchance)
Ancient Crossbow (3% Hitchance)
New speed formula:
Looking at the highscores of both servers you can see that players obtained very high levels. Along with that they have recieved insane speed values. Since PvP is one of the most important aspects of Medivia we deem it necessary to make certain changes to the way speed scales with levels. The permanent increase in power is one of the key features of our game. That will never change. Almost every spell and rune becomes more and more powerful with the levels you reach. This will always provide you with a big advantage over lower leveled players. However, this is where it becomes difficult. Speed does not just change numbers. It makes being hit by runes harder and harder. The human reflex is limited, the speed formula is not. This is not good. We have to make all changes with the future of the game in mind. While it might not seem like a problem right now, you can be assured that in a few years players will have reached a level that hitting them wih a rune will cause huge problems for everyone, resulting in wars where only spells (and therefore only sorcerers) are viable. Yet, we do not want to set a maximum speed. You should still be faster than a lower leveled character. That’s why we decided to change the linear speed formula to one using a logarithm, meaning the amount of speed becomes a tiny bit less and less the higher you get. You will not have to worry about the lower levels, everything will stay almost exactly the same. This change will mostly effect players far above level 100. We know that it will feel bad upon your first few logins to suddenly move a lot slower than before but this change is needed to keep the PvP reasonable. You will still have a huge advantage in speed by being a lot higher leveled, the advantage will just not be as big. Finally, all speed increasing items and spells remain unchanged. Here you can see how the new speed formula looks like compared to the old one (X value being your level; Y value being your speed value; red being the old formula; blue being the new formula).
New retargetting algorithm:
As you might have noticed, the creatures in our game do not retarget very often. Infact, most of them do not retarget at all unless you block their path. This causes many very strong creatures to become pretty weak. That’s why the retargeting algorithm was reworked so now it will work as intended. Almost every creature will be able to switch the target without the player having to block its path. This will make the challenge and last resort spell a lot more needed. Please keep this change in mind during your next team hunts.
New summoning behaviour of creatures:
Upon the release of the Abukir update we have realized issues with the way the summoning on creatures works. Mortem was supposed to be the strongest plaguebringer, but the fact that he heavily relys on his summons made him rather weak since players could just surround him and avoid all sumons this way. That’s why we increased the summoning range of all creatures from 1 SQM to 2 SQM’s.
Creature changes:
The following creatures were changed until the main update goes live: Nether Spider, Lightbringer Knight and Frost Dragon.
Nether Spiders HP was slightly increased and instead its armor was reduced. Paladins hunting them will therefore barely feel a difference.
Lightbringer Knights HP was increased and instead their healing was nerfed. This will make energy waving them worse and instead allow paladins to hunt them a bit easier.
Frost Dragon has both its HP and experience changed. The old exp/HP ratio was far to good. Furthermore, their ranged combat is slightly stronger and they recieved a very, very rare ranged burst attack.
The gameplay update is scheduled to go live with tomorrow's server save.
All of these changes are here to stay. We have tested all of them thoroughly on our test server. Nevertheless, these changes are big. Feel free to post your feedback here or open a proposal thread on how to improve even further on these changes.
http://medivia.org/forum/topic/19544/1/
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