The Big UMD Change Thread

[strong yeet]

You knew this one was coming.

All I can say about this is that it's extremely difficult to describe in kind terms how extraordinarily negative this change is. I'm sure the rest of the community has their own thoughts. I don't want to be hyperbolic, so I'll say only that it's like the recent monk debacle dialed up and multiplied a good hundred times.

I am wondering what mindset spurred this decision, exactly.

[satan]

I am of another mind. I think a world where not every single person can use wands and scrolls is long overdue.

[Adam Antium]

I can't wait to not be able to do anything to some of the truly ridiculous summons in the game unless I have a cleric who can cast WoF with me now <3

[Cortex]

Self censored.

[Subutai]

How will a mundane character hope to compete on any level against a faster (especially with summons) if they no longer have access to Mord's?

[Nymann]

I most certainly do not like these changes with UMD, Yes it needet a nerf, but this is far too much.

GL fighting all the Casters now.

[Adam Antium]

This is just going to make humans an even larger powerhouse btw, for those extra skillpoints - I mean lorepoints

[14All]

Vestment WoF still works. Paladins, roll out!

In other news, social builds and "recommended" spammers rejoice as the points they dumped into lore suddenly become kind of viable. Hardcore bards scream in outrage that the time spent on their art degree amounted to nothing

[JubJub]

Seems the trade off of less need for UMD so less class dipping for it, and any class can max out lore if they wish. Though good luck trying to reach some of those lore numbers.

[HA GOTEM I DIDNT ROLL]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 8f8.u2.jpg

i'm gonna make a spellcraft-dump specialist now

rename the server to Thayan Island

[godhand-]

I am of another mind. I think a world where not every single person can use wands and scrolls is long overdue.

From my understanding Arelith is meant to be a "low magic" world - this furthers that emphasis by not having every man and his dog knowing how to use a timestop scrolls.

Perhaps in light of this.... Bring back Kensai?

[Irongron]

It's no doubt a change that's going to require a great deal of follow up work.

With the team discussing this for a long time, we're well aware of the major issues. Its a huge boon to wizards, punishing for low skill point characters, and with the issues with dismissal and the almost outright restriction of high level scrolls makes certain situations far more difficult.

It has always been a problem for loot and crafting that scrolls are so commonplace. The low UMD investment, and within a PW environment it was the case that almost every character could use extremely powerful magic without needing to consider 'treasure' items, such as recipes or loot. We're adding in a lot more loot items to counter the most problematic situations, many of which will require neither Lore or UMD, and new recipes will follow soon after.

But the team is under no illusions here; the follow up work is going to be extensive, and based heavily around the situations that only the testbed of the live server can provide. The update itself will not be 'undone' though, the developers that worked on this were all too aware of how mixed the reaction would be, but ultimately the team took the decision that this really was the best for the future of Arelith. When it comes to nerfing summons, changing how skill points are calculated, or making new items & looking at issues with specific spells suggestions and feedback will be most welcome.

Skill change won't end with these two skills though, as we've also been heavily looking at social skills, which will hopefully see significant changes/improvements in the coming weeks. These should be 'additional' features however, and will not require a rebuild.

[Lunargent]

Around ten years ago, Gigaschatten regularly suggested (and sometimes made) changes to other classes because they beat his Sorcerer character ingame. He made items that specifically benefitted that class, too. When he retired, I thought the era of catering to casters on a developer/administrator level was over.

I see that I was wrong! This is far, far more damaging even than any of the terribly biased things that Gigaschatten did.

Irongron, please reconsider. Arelith was in a great place, a place where melees and mundanes in general could well compete with and challenged casters. Now most mundanes will be left without a way to dismiss an epic dragon knight or (potentially endless) palemaster vampire spam, nor a fiendlock's (still incredibly OP) summon.

I wish I were playing a caster right now.

[HA GOTEM I DIDNT ROLL]

man this seems like the kind of update that shouldn't affect the storyline of the live server

maybe it should've gone on a PGCC test server of some form for everyone to sample first

[Anomandaris]

It wasn't clear to me if simply having Lore was sufficient, or if all of those criteria were needing to be met. So if I meet the lore requirements on the table for a given tier I can cast it?

[JubJub]

Some of this hurts, the not having weapon focus feats for a specific weapon kills the free feats for rogues. But honestly I am eager to see some of the future changes Iron mentioned.

[Cortex]

Self censored

[Hexgoblin]

I won't sugarcoat this, and I do apologize if the following sounds entitled. The management are well within their rights to be doing what they're doing, but when I saw Arelith moving towards haks, I like most people was pretty excited for a fresh set of clothing options, fancy areas and perhaps a smattering of custom spells, or otherwise content for classes that the base game neglects.

Instead we get a massive overhaul of how fifteen years of trial and error has built the game up to function, seemingly prompted by an artistic whim, and are put in a position where playing a warrior PC is suddenly a sacrifice you make in pursuit of class fantasy -- as it no longer stands much of a chance when competing with spellcasters, without being able to turn a part of the latter's toolkit against them. In other words what UMD traditionally allows you to do.

Spellcasters, or partial spellcasters were already at or near the peak of Arelith's mechanical hierarchy. The era of Weapon Masters and Barbarians is now years past, with most warrior archetypes that strictly aim for power in modern times pursuing Divine Might/Shield options. UMD did not somehow magically make mundane classes comparable to mages. A Mordenkainen's Disjunction scroll was never equal to an Abjuration focused mage casting the same spell. A Word of Faith scroll did never equal a cleric's ability to clear the board of summons, by bypassing creature Spell Resistance via a far higher caster level. Thus I can only surmise that this change was opted for entirely in the name of thematic views.

I get that this may very well be part of a chain of adjustments, and that items with bound spells, or items that let mundane PCs acquire far higher saving throws than presently might be added going forwards as to even the playing field. It's too early to doomsay. I also comprehend that Arelith isn't an action module, and that mechanics will and has to take a backseat to thematic innovation. But right now, we've sacrificed diversity for a thematic aesthetic of "mr. sword and board shouldn't be able to touch a 9th circle spell scroll," with no adjustments being made to offer an alternative. Something that I think will punish creativity further down the line, unless the ability for players to mechanically confront and contest with eachother is outright removed, or placed under far tighter strictures.

[Irongron]

So if I meet the lore requirements on the table for a given tier I can cast it?

Yes.

[14All]

It's okay, guys, really.

The remaining admins know what they're doing. This is just part one of several updates. Like Irongron said, they spent months of forethought, planning and testing to make sure that this change is balanced as best as it can be so that it doesn't completely destroy the structural integrity of the PVP and PVE scenes alike on the live server. It's refreshing to see how much effort and active play was put into this before it went live.

Stuff will get tweaked (eventually) and people will figure out how to survive in the meantime.

[Anomandaris]

I'm almost more nervous as a caster, if that's phase 1 of updates, and phase 2 brings it into balance... I shudder to think of what will be added to the "Mundane's" arsenal. Should be interesting to see how it progresses! I have characters on both sides of this one so... not freaking out yet!

[Subutai]

It has always been a problem for loot and crafting that scrolls are so commonplace. The low UMD investment, and within a PW environment it was the case that almost every character could use extremely powerful magic without needing to consider 'treasure' items, such as recipes or loot. We're adding in a lot more loot items to counter the most problematic situations, many of which will require neither Lore or UMD, and new recipes will follow soon after.

Not to sound rude, but I'm kind of at a loss about how we should plan our mundane characters' rebuilds. Should we wait for the days/weeks/months for these new items to be released to rebuild then? As it is now, the only way to make my mundane character even moderately useful in a fight is to take both UMD and max out Lore, for even a chance at dispelling any casters. If these new items somehow end up solving that, and my mundane character can somewhat self-buff and dispel somewhat reliably like using Mord's, like he could when UMD 15 was enough, I'll have wasted a ton of skill points on now-unnecessary skills.

When the new items are added, will there be another round of rebuilds, or will everyone who tried to fit into the current changes be SOL?

[strong yeet]

Somehow, I feel like "mixed" is something of an understatement.

And, I see you up there: please don't get my thread locked by being mean. You know who you are. Sure, I get it, and I want to react that way too, but then monks were what they were for six months. It never leads to much except a doubling-down; attacking someone just makes them feel shitty, or worse vindicated.

It has always been a problem for loot and crafting that scrolls are so commonplace.

Why?

But the team is under no illusions here; the follow up work is going to be extensive,

If you are going to massively overhaul how class interactions work on a very fundamental level, it's probably best not to leave a significant part of it to "follow up." Not to mention when all mentions of the specifics are left vague and unknown. Much like this update, which revamped a significant part of player interaction (the thing we all log on for, at the end of the day) with only a warning similarly vague.

I'm not surprised the consensus seems to be that we were blindsided, since, that's pretty much what happened.

[14All]

As a mundane my biggest complaint at this immediate moment is that we are being told the follow-up is going to be extensive, but we only get 48 hours after our log-in to choose to rebuild, a decision that is completely dependent on the full, polished update, not just "stage 1".

If I want to make an educated decision based off of the finished result and not preliminaries, I have to shelf and/or quit my character and play something else or just not play at all until the remainder of the changes roll out and things are tweaked.

Unfortunately, I already logged on.

RIP.

[Aethan]

My main currently is a mundane melee. I can't help feeling like she is entirely beyond salvaging now. There really is no point to playing something that cannot use spells, now.

I'm not trying to be too negative, some things here are kind of cool. The weapon groups - awesome, though the crap weapons are still crap. A really cool change, though. New spells - cool. New classes - jury is out. Commoner feels like an April fool's joke, but I know some players probably want that sort of thing.

UMD needed a change, sure I guess. But now I'm on the fence with do I roll my main and reward fish, or do I just shelf her? Sure her pit fiend is less likely to get WoFed now, I guess. Now she cant do anything against a mage or cleric though, really. So for now I'm feeling forced to shelf her until I see how it plays out. It's a bummer too, she's heading up some really interesting and fun RP atm.