We've posted a devblog on our perception of this revamp, its potential benefit for players, and the avenues we can utilize. Let's go back to the following points:
"When we design items, characteristics have a weight. Currently, we've established a rule for all items that's intended to strengthen dual specializations. For example, a melee-only item will have 100 melee mastery, while a melee + single-target item will have 75 melee mastery and 75 single-target mastery for the same weight.
[…]
The first point to bear in mind here is that we're committed to updating the formula and the abilities of all items in the game in a way that ensures that no one's total mastery will decrease. So that means rebalancing all items in the game on the same basis (via increases, in most cases).
[…]
This will also be a fairly long-term project, even if the solution we've presented here looks like one that can be partially automated. We'd like to implement it with the release of the single-account server if the community reacts positively to our proposal. That's why we've prepared a new, very brief survey to better understand your feelings in response to this proposal."
Devblog: Single-Target and Area Masteries
The results of the survey were very positive. The community was receptive to our idea that single-target and area masteries be redistributed to the item's other masteries. Having explored a number of possibilities, the team also liked this option best. So this is the option we settled on.
Regarding the items to be modified, it has always been crucial to us that they maintain their role and identity. Beyond the massive amount of time a project like this would have required, the fact that certain items could dramatically change might have harmed players with past investments. We therefore decided not to change the identity of items, and so they'll have the same function as before.
For the sake of transparency, we're going to show part of the system used to create items in WAKFU. The values are non-binding and the full context is not given.
All items that grant masteries to equipment follow strict rules to ensure consistency. They specify a weight and a maximum associated with each characteristic. These values may vary, depending on certain factors. Each characteristic is related to one of the four fundamental types:
Each type also has a maximum weight designed to regulate the item's power and allow for a greater amount of interesting, viable equipment items. Thus, each characteristic granted by the item increases the total of its type by its weight. To further boost the variety of possible items, the item has a maximum weight that must not be exceeded and that is below the sum of the fundamental types' maximums.
Let's add a key element to the concept: to encourage specialization, we decided to reduce the weight of masteries when an item acquires more than one. To explain our thinking in relative terms, masteries' starting weight is equal to 300, and it goes down to 200 when this condition is met. This rule applies to melee, distance, single-target and area masteries. Therefore, if an item initially grants X melee mastery with a weight of Y, it could also grant X*300/200 = 1.5*X melee and single-target/area masteries, also with a weight of Y.
Meanwhile, the weight of critical, rear, healing, and berserk masteries works differently. Their weight depends on the item's level; it ranges from 133 for a level 5 item to 300 for a level 230 item, i.e. 1.88 times greater. A berserk mastery point is worth two times less than a melee mastery point at level 5, and is worth as much at level 230.
We therefore established rules whereby the revamp would operate on items that granted single-target or area mastery:
Other changes had to be made to certain game elements. These include updates to sublimations such as Brutality and Brazier, changes to class passives such as the Sram's Ambush and the Eniripsa's Mass Aid, and redesigned gameplay elements for bosses such as Drainacask, Rushu's vestiges, and Badgwitch the Furiox. We did everything we could to avoid impacting any particular play style. At any rate, you can see the full list of these in the changelog for Update 1.81.
Once the initial work was done, we were still unhappy with certain changes. In particular, we thought the initial promise wouldn't have been kept if potential users of an item were to lose over 30% of total mastery with this revamp. Confirming this dissatisfaction, the evolution curve for weights of critical, rear, healing, and berserk masteries seemed superfluous and outdated. If we're to work hard going over 2,200 items, we might as well use the opportunity to start from a more solid foundation for the future of items by going over all the standards for mastery weights.
After thinking a lot about the issues of base weight, the impact we wanted specialization to have on weight, and the best way to keep our initial promise that players wouldn't lose mastery, we came to a few conclusions:
We also decided to slightly lower the "base" weight of masteries; in this case we brought the baseline weight from 300 to 250, but we kept the reduction to 200 when an item has more than one mastery. Let's look at Cire Momore's Headgear as an example:
Single-target mastery cannot be converted into negative critical mastery, and we very much don't want this item to remain the same after the revamp. We're therefore acting as if the item only had single-target mastery, and applying a multiplier to negative critical mastery. Thus, single-target mastery will be 480*300/333 = 432 when single-target mastery is removed, then 432*333/283 = 508 Mastery in 3 elements when weights are updated. With the same approach applied to critical mastery, it has to be changed to -100*400/283 = -141.
This change produced the following curve, this time accounting for all items:
Most of them will see their masteries slightly increased, owing to the reduction in base weight. For some this will be a more significant increase, as distance and critical masteries had a base weight of 400 in some cases. Finally, note the more or less significant decrease for about 20% of items, explained by two key facts.
Reminder: We want to standardize the weights of all masteries; in the case of critical, rear, healing, and berserk masteries, they had a very low weight in the lowest level brackets. Rebalancing these weights on a constant leads to a decrease in total masteries.
In the case of items that had multiple masteries at once and, to that end, enjoyed a weight reduction: If they had X Single-Target Mastery and Y Melee Mastery, for example, it would give (X+Y)*200/300*300/250 = (X+Y)*4/5, which is always less than X+Y. Let's look at Ghast's Belt as an example:
The item is dual-specialized, granting both 275 Melee Mastery and 275 Single-Target Mastery, i.e. a total of 550 Mastery. When single-target mastery is removed, it will be 275*2*200/300 = 367 Melee Mastery; and when weights are updated, it will amount to 367*300/250 = 440 Melee Mastery.
We're aware that this kind of change can lead to a sense of unfairness. But keep in mind that the rate of increase is separate from the average. An item granting a high number of masteries will still grant a high number after the update. The project was designed and the values determined to make things as fair as possible.
At the same time, we seized the opportunity to make it so berserk and healing masteries would follow the same curve in enchantment bonuses as the other masteries. This change is important to us, and we'd been wanting to implement it for some time. We think that combining it with the removal of single-target and area masteries is a positive change. In addition, out of all our changes, we removed the gain in single-target and area masteries from abilities and unlocked the maximum applied to melee and distance masteries at 40. We still want to see abilities evolve in the future, but for now we want to focus on this evolution of masteries.
Since our early announcements about single-target and area masteries, we have read so many discussions and debates on this topic. A lot of players have made compelling arguments, and we understand this is a sensitive subject. We'd like to thank you for participating on Discord and the forums, as this has been a useful source of reflection for us. We did our best to trim things fairly and equitably, but we know that this represents a big shift in your play habits. We hope that the change will accomplish its initial goal: to make the game more accessible and more fun.
1) Why has this change had such a severe impact on berserk mastery?
The results of the survey from the last devblog show that a majority of the community considers this mastery unfair and overpowered compared to other masteries. We therefore decided to make sure it would be of equal power.
2) What's happening to sublimations like Brutality and Brazier?
All will be detailed in the changelog for Update 1.81.
3) What will happen to sockets containing single-target or area masteries?
Once again, you'll have to read the Update 1.81 changelog for details on the changes.
4) How will my set be affected?
Here is a sample of items and how their levels and specializations will change due to the update; note that you'll be able to choose the equipment's element when the update comes out:
Replying to MisutoKiriya
helps with lazy people like me who lose motivation having to re-create every set and character on the beta.
Alas, no such thing is planned for the next Beta. We won't update the character informations on Beta anymore.
Siu.
one more question is what do you plan to do with osa, his whole gimmick is to transform singl in area mastrery when transformed, whole dragon transformation will lose soo much of it original utility, and transorming at that point will become only detrament. even without being transformed you will have access to areas speel, without being restricted to casting them on youself or summon.originally those spells where balanced with existenc of singl and area mastrery, and where kind of week whea you were not transformed. so what will happen with those spells and whole osa class.
- berserker mastery
- 80+ HP mastery
- rear mastery
- front/side mastery
- critical mastery
- non-critical mastery
- indirect mastery
- heal mastery
Players should choose one or more of them to invest. About elemental mastery: You should add automatically fixed elemental damages each level reached.
This will promote variants, more strategy, each character could have different decks and gears. In pvp you can have some variants to fight again antagonists.
I feel like with the removal of ST and AoE there won't be too much strategic thought behind building a character, it will be more like a binary choice: Cra goes Distance and critical, Iop goes melee and critical, Xelor goes distance and critical, Pandawa goes melee and critical, and so on. It won't be as exciting as having a second mastery to specialize on. Don't get me wrong, I like the removal of both stats but at the same time I'd like more ways to further improve my playstyle and reinforce my character's identity.
Maybe new stats we could invest our points into would fix this. I'd be happy if we could put points into Indirect Damage for example to specialize my Xelor around Clock and Sanglass or my Sram into traps.
Are there any plans?
Please ty.
Updated value: 38640 / 283 = 136
In the long run the idea is good, but for those players with several characters who have already made decisions about how to have them builded and are already satisfied because they are high level, it does not seem fair to force them to make new decisions and change some items, because you decided that those who use dual masteries should now be adjusted downwards to be equal to those who used a single mastery xD (compensation?)
You allege that the result of the survey was positive, but we have no way of confirming that, and if I remember correctly they did not explain clearly how it would be carried out as they explain now, I think there will be more players harmed than benefited despite the fact that is a necessary change as only you point out.
My suggestion is that you review again how the double mastery items will be balanced, so those of us who have already supported the game for many years and have our characters built are not heavely affected.
I dont even want to imagine the toppic regarding sockets on the items in dual m. builds, it will be affected baddly as this is going.
- Item Rerolls: it make ppls feel uncomforable everytime they maked it failed, i failed of broke all 17 my yugonets,8 of my sidefins( legendary 230 belts) to make it right colors but still have'nt done it yet. it truly need a better way to fix it. increa more bonus charges or put it alock to get instally 1 more socket or 1 white color after 10 charges maybe.
-the Sublimations : the most unbalance in the game, for example : carapace II, put it on an low items and you have more res than a boss, is this call balance ?. atlest give it a limit. a condion lvl use, like need lvl 170+ gears to use, happen like "influence III", raw power III"...ect
-the Dungeon mechanics: too many mechanics doent make the game look harder, it just make the gameplay boring and anoying, ppls will decide play the game solo 6 characters, with less mistake. It close the contact and make the game feel like a single player version than a MMORPG, even after that. the drop sucks.
the devs put the game ran so far with decisions. so after the remove aoe/std idea. pls take a look about something really unbalance, somethings gain and lost after all
thanks for reading becuase my english sucks
I've recently done a rerun of 1-150 without any powerlevels with friends. The system basically allows you to double down on your stats, it's like a good half of your power, and if you ignore it, mobs are extremely tanky even at low levels (Due to new dungeon revamp). This is bad for new players.
Enchantments make the treadmill so awful. It takes so much value away from gear,, while giving a ton of value to over-optimization. You could work around with average gear and supplement it, but if you went for the optimized route, you would be damaging extremely hard with a bunch of tactical cheese available for you (Literally any positioner makes full class cannon builds most viable)
Forgive me for my ignorance here, but have they ever done a survey for the enchantment system?
Aside from that this looks like a great update, keep the devblogs and info coming!
As it is now, everyone is using full on their sums of the masteries they builded on their characters and they are happy and used to the results they have.
And then from now on you do apply the new improved item creation system for the upcoming items.
So no one ends up displeased when you take out st/aoe.
The players who are dissatisfied is not because you are going to take out these masteries, but because their damage is probably going to be lower, besides, most of us use double masteries, that is a fact.
Just seeing the GHAST is discouraging .. (-110 from the current sum just in 1 item) if you had put this on the survey the result would be diferent.
... so now you might be wondering, what are the weights? From the devlog, we can be sure of some of them:
Knowing this, we can verify that there is nothing weird going on with the examples:
Cire Momore's Headgear
Weight: 480 * 300 = 144 000
Updated: 144 000 / 283 = 508
Cursed Janairo Helmet
Weight: 522 * 300 = 156 600
Updated: 156 600 / 283 = 553
Kannivore Boots
Weight: 80 * 333 + 40 * 300 = 38 640
Updated: 38 640 / 283 = 136
Undersea Voyager Helmet (just my best guess)
Weight: 85 * 333 + 160 * 300 + 160 * 300 = 28 305 + 96 000
Updated: 28 305 / 272 + 96 000 / 236 = 104 + 406
"Nobody will lose mastery" became "everyone who uses 2 specialized masteries (every single player in the game) will lose mastery". That is awful and a complete 180 from what you initially stated, 90% of DPT-characters use 2-3 specialized masteries and they're gonna lose 60-110 mastery per item? Wtf?
You need to look at the items that lost mastery points manually and make it so you're not nerfing 90% of the current builds.
I can understand your point to some extent, but I want to say that it's kind of hard to take you seriously. We did come clean and gave numbers and stats, and it's a fact that "90% of the current builds" will NOT be nerfed.
Siu.
It was mentioned that bringing up all items to the standard of ones like the Ghast Belt would cause all mob and player HP to be adjusted up to account for it. However, I see no mention of the mob HP values being adjusted downward to preserve the current relationship between player power and mob HP.
Failure to preserve the current relationship is going to result in characters on average losing power. This is pretty bad news for those of us that enjoy running high stasis. In higher stasis, this "acceptable" 30% decrease in total mastery (which translates to a 30% decrease in our damage/heals) is going to sting quite a bit.
"From what I understand, the mastery on most optimized builds will be lowered by up to 30% "
"In higher stasis, this "acceptable" 30% decrease in total mastery (which translates to a 30% decrease in our damage/heals) is going to sting quite a bit."
First of all, I'm not sure where you took your values from. Here's the final curve for changes.
As you can see :
As a result, yes, if you had an "ONLY Melee/ST" build, you may experience a reduction of your characteristics. I'm really not confident you will experience a 30% total reduction of your mastery. Keep in mind it's only the mastery obtained through equipments, not the enchantment, not the abilities, not the sublimations.
Also, if you had any elemental mastery on your items, they will be buffed in elemental so that will compensate part of the nerf on Melee/ST items.
I'll be willing to discuss the specific, detailed changes after the beta hits, but I want to be more positive on the overall outcome of the change.
Have a good day,
Siu.
Please check how those double dual specialization are going to be changed, when we went for those kind of items was to achieve certain output for a planned gamestyle and maked the effort to roll those expensive items, and now we have to accept this? where is the "nobody would end up with less damage output" part?
As the other player says you can add the damage from one mastery to the other as it is and builds will end up with no more or less, and apply the ecuation to the new items from now on.
Siu.