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Changes & Tweaks

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 7:41 am
by Cyrcle
Just some random ideas I've had floating around after realizing the endless possibilities we have with this emulator. Vanguard is such a great game in that it's so diverse and large. There's so many things to see and do. There's also a lot of stuff that's there that isn't even done yet.

Difficulty
I feel it needs tweaked back to the earlier days, or even re-tweaked. Maybe each dot should equate to how many players (roughly) are needed to kill said NPC?

Re-itemization
I'd like to re-itemize pretty much the whole game. They royally messed up when they re-did a large chunk of the loot in the game, especially with some of the equipped effects from the high 30/40s drops. It needs a complete re-evaluation, in my opinion.

Rifts & Transportation
Get rid of the rifts. Sure, it's nice to get somewhere quick, but I always enjoyed going where I wanted the hard way and seeing things I wanted to see or do later. This brings me to flying mounts. Yes, they are amazing. However, they trivialize quite a bit of content. I still haven't decided on what would be the best route to take with these in my opinion.

Leveling
I hated the 50-55 grind and I know everyone else did too. Drop the level cap to 50 and tweak the 50+ content so it is tiered. Example: Swamp Armor > APW > PotA > Stiirhad. You must complete each step before being able to advance to the next.

Other Systems
Bring back tombstones. What were you thinking getting rid of those? Also, get rid of the death debuff. No one wants to stand around for 5 minutes for no reason.

Unused Dungeons
Some dungeons were complete, but just needed itemization and some quests. These could either be added or even converted to high level content down the line. Dungeons that aren't populated can be populated and fleshed out (I'm looking at you Stiirhad).

Other ideas
- It would be awesome if we can get the old Equipment Expertise system back in the game and maybe toy around with it, but I don't see it happening as it was removed a month into the game.
- I saw Xinux found the Inquisitor class. If it's possible down the line, we could maybe get them in-game along with Beserkers.
- Xinux also found the AA UI/system. May be possible to add that later as well.

Re: Changes & Tweaks

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 8:23 am
by Kilsin
I agree with pretty much everything you suggested mate, although I would keep level 50-55 but implement it properly this time and tie it in with content like PotA, HoSS, Nexus, Stirhaad, Lothenland and AA's.

I would also make the content tough (like it used to be) but I would not raise the amount of players needed per mob dot, due to the fact this emulator won't have a huge player base and finding groups will be most likely harder than it was in the Official VG during the later years, I love a challenge and if we had the population I would agree completely but we need to be realistic.

Definitely re-itemise everything that was added most recently, I would even undo all their changes and not add the items in at all, it would save the team a ton of work and revert the game back to a more balanced/challenging state, fully epic gear raiders were wearing level 30-40 items for the EE and gaining silly amounts of damage/crit/regens, which is ridiculous in my opinion.

I would also remove the rifts and bring back the ferry service, it make horses and boats useful again and carpenters like myself would be very happy

Tombstones were always meant to be in, they took them out more recently (months ago) due to a big exploit and then kept them out due to a crashing bug + new content could be zerged but they were always supposed to be fixed and put back, they just never got around to it since we had like 1-2 devs, this is also why the death penalty was implemented years ago, to stop zerging new content (release and fly/run/ride back) because the Devs were too lazy to put good fights and content in, if that can be balanced though and fights relocated away from altars etc then I agree to remove the death penalty but I don't see how it's possible since it would be such a big job and I understand the reason behind it being implemented in the first place and am used to it.

My memory is a little hazy on this but I believe Equipment Expertise had major issues, which was the reason it was removed, it sounded like a massive job to fix it from my memory of discussions years ago but if it could be fixed, it would be awesome to have it back again.

I would love to finally see Inquisitor and Berserker classes added but first all of the existing classes would require a huge re-balance, after all the years of nerfs and boosts and removing quality class defining abilities/stances etc.

I would love to see the beta UI brought back and tweaked. I think we are definitely on the same level mate, great idea's!

Re: Changes & Tweaks

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 9:03 am
by Cyrcle
I agree on the dot difficulty. It if were popular 100+ on consistently, it should be a thing. I still think at the very least 1-2 dot: solo, 3-4 dot: 2-3 people, 5-6 dot: 4-6 people. Well geared people can go +1 dot basically.

I understand why the death debuff is there, but maybe we can find some way to implement it so when you are not in dungeon, open world boss fight, raid or full group it does not apply.

Lothenland won't be possible. I asked Moorgard about it right before Vanguard closed. It's a myth or at least isn't anywhere on the live client.

Totally agree on the re-balance of spells/classes. A lot of the bard song components need some love and I know most other classes need some too.

Re: Changes & Tweaks

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 10:07 am
by Faux
I asked Ceythos about Lothenland a few weeks back and he gave the same answer that Moorgard did. Lothenland doesn't actually exist. Not in any form apparently.

Re: Changes & Tweaks

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 10:34 am
by Koralith
From my understanding, EE was taken out due to the complexity of the system. There was push-back from users that it was too much to deal with.

It'd make for a really nice alternate rule-set server, that's for sure.

As for the issues with adjusting the client... We have some brilliant folks here from the looks of things, and it seems that the devs have a pretty good grasp on the packet structure... Perhaps a client rewrite may be in order?

I spent a lot of time on the Ragnarok Online emulator project and that ended up going down the rewrite route (in a way, they massively hacked the client to allow for more data structures to be entered) where they modified their client to allow server hosts to add extra data not already covered by the game's updates.

Re: Changes & Tweaks

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 10:49 am
by John Adams
[quote="Koralith"]I spent a lot of time on the Ragnarok Online emulator project and that ended up going down the rewrite route (in a way, they massively hacked the client to allow for more data structures to be entered) where they modified their client to allow server hosts to add extra data not already covered by the game's updates.[/quote]
The main VGO Dev team's primary focus is on the server only, but there are other community members (TigerTiger, Jakkal, others) looking into client mods as well. I'm curious to see what they come up with. If we (VGO) can avoid the SOE Legal Machine, I'm cool with anything that we do as a community.

Re: Changes & Tweaks

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 11:04 am
by verdicaysen
I'd be interested in looking into this as well. I'm not sure if i'd be ok with cranking up a bunch of the difficulty - but keeping it balanced sounds good to me.

Re: Changes & Tweaks

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 11:06 am
by Koralith
From my experience a lot of the trouble ends up with the client and using SOE assets. The more of those that can be replaced the safer the client dev is. Jakkal and TigerTiger's work to revamp the beast races is an excellent start on that front.

Re: Changes & Tweaks

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 6:16 pm
by ArtofWar
I'm in agreement with most points, especially the releasing of dungeons, so many ready to go, but never itemized etc. If we could get EE working again that would be a huge plus in my book, it added an interesting layer to the game, sure you can equip that high level cloak, but you will likely end up wearing only that. ( My Shaman still had a crafted cloak equipped that was about 20 levels above him after they switched to level based gear. I refused to take it off)
Regarding travel, I mentioned in a different thread that we should deff bring back the old system, Shuttle Galleon, ferry service, Caravans etc. I still think we should keep flying mounts in as they were always a planned feature from the very first, we just need to figure out how to implement them without abusing the content. No fly's or mobs in an area that can target flyers etc. or make them obtainable at higher levels etc.
Agree with itemization, lots of items became a huge grind for little to no useful effect. (Xeen Levitate cloak)

Re: Changes & Tweaks

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 6:57 pm
by Kilsin
[quote="Cyrcle"]Lothenland won't be possible. I asked Moorgard about it right before Vanguard closed. It's a myth or at least isn't anywhere on the live client.[/quote]

Yes, I was told the same thing but I still mention it because it's something we could build much later on and it's more tongue in cheek since we are never meant to mention Lothenland and I always do and have done for years lol