Player Count Conclusions

[Nurel]

Bards being loremasters actually makes sense from a lore perspective. Fighter/WM's doesn't. I'm all for making 3 arcane caster levels a requirement along with spell focus divination. Just putting these requirements on Loremaster would mean we don't have to actually nerf the class that much, just gatekeep it so certain builds don't have access to it.

I agree, this is also my suggestion. Gatekeep it somehow with more requirements or RPR, and allow people who wish to be actual Loremasters to do just that.

My other suggestion is to just bite the bullet and nerf WM, which would be an extreme change which will rock the foundations of Arelith

[AstralUniverse]

That's easy for you to say because of the fact wizard can ALSO take loremaster and still be miles ahead of a fighter taking loremaster, in regards to being a loremaster RP-wise. So your comparison is not very good here imo.

The fact you see wizards going loremaster, giving up discipline, does not mean that the mundane loremasters you see arent trying to be schollars. They're just still very out-matched.

Maybe if the bonus languages from loremaster werent completely freebe, and would just be a language cap increase, that doesnt stack with hard int higher than.. say... 20(?), and doesnt stack with gift of languages, that would be a good start evening the fields imo.

Also, idk, maybe restrict access to things like scry/yoink/wardTP unless the character already has the coresponding greater spell focus.

[Peacewhisper]

Wizards should be miles ahead of Fighters in terms of Lore. Unless you want to give wizards d10 hit dice and full AB.

[AstralUniverse]

Wizards should be miles ahead of Fighters in terms of Lore. Unless you want to give wizards d10 hit dice and full AB.

Then why even make the loremaster class in first place? LOL.
Maybe you're new around here idk. I mean no disrespect. But you're flat-out wrong.

[Security_Blanket]

That's easy for you to say because of the fact wizard can ALSO take loremaster and still be miles ahead of a fighter taking loremaster, in regards to being a loremaster RP-wise. So your comparison is not very good here imo.

A wizard is intelligence-based, I would sincerely hope that a wizard loremaster is a better scholar than a fighter loremaster who can't even cast a single cantrip yet can open a portal and summon and level 30 PC.

[Peacewhisper]

Wizards should be miles ahead of Fighters in terms of Lore. Unless you want to give wizards d10 hit dice and full AB.

Then why even make the loremaster class in first place? LOL.
Maybe you're new around here idk. I mean no disrespect. But you're flat-out wrong.

So you're saying the INT-based class shouldn't be smarter than the STR-based one? And I'm wrong because I'm new? Okay then.

[AstralUniverse]

I havent seen a single fighter taking those feats anyway. they go ab, ac, health and scry if they're being really optimal.

The truth is, if loremaster wasnt SO fun you'd all be complaining about WM having too easy access to stealth. Let that sink.

[AstralUniverse]

Wizards should be miles ahead of Fighters in terms of Lore. Unless you want to give wizards d10 hit dice and full AB.

Then why even make the loremaster class in first place? LOL.
Maybe you're new around here idk. I mean no disrespect. But you're flat-out wrong.

So you're saying the INT-based class shouldn't be smarter than the STR-based one? And I'm wrong because I'm new? Okay then.

Sorry for double posting, first of all.

I'm saying that the main reason loremaster was designed in first place was to give more characters a more even footing in RPing a loremaster. Whether or not you can grasp this fact, and whether or not it was implemented correctly, are different conversations.

[Peacewhisper]

I havent seen a single fighter taking those feats anyway. they go ab, ac, health and scry if they're being really optimal.

The truth is, if loremaster wasnt SO fun you'd all be complaining about WM having too easy access to stealth. Let that sink.

A guy with a sword sneaking up on his enemy is a lot more believable than a guy with a sword using remote viewing to locate someone miles away then opening up a portal in the fabric of space and time to teleport himself and his 5 buddies to that area to gank them. Just saying. There's also an actual counter play to it in the form of Spot. It's a lot harder to deal with gank squads of WM's that can scry and teleport than it is one guy sneaking up on you.

Sorry for double posting, first of all.

I'm saying that the main reason loreaster was designed in first place was to give more characters a more even footing in RPing a loremaster. Whether or not you can grasp this fact, and whether or not it was implemented correctly, are different conversations.

I get that loud and clear, which is why I said the way it was initially designed was a bad idea. Mistakes happen, I'm sure the team had the best intentions when they added loremaster, but the results speak for themselves.

People aren't taking this class on their fighter/wm's for the RP. They are taking it so they can -scry on their enemies, so they can -yoink their buddies onto their ships, so they can ward themselves against every possible spell while pretending that their "low" saves in the 30's makes them weak, despite the fact they could easily delete any caster in the time it takes to dispel them.

For those who actually want to RP loremasters? I'm sure most of them won't mind taking a few bard levels and spell focus divination. The only people against this are the ones who want to have everything on their character and refuse to give up anything for the sake of balance. I hate to call people out for "power-gaming" since I tend to build my characters powerful as I can myself, but what people are doing now with LM is just blatantly that.

[Security_Blanket]

The truth is, if loremaster wasnt SO fun you'd all be complaining about WM having too easy access to stealth. Let that sink.

It always has? I spent years on PvP servers before I ever got into RP, stealth WMs are nothing new. No, I would be complaining about the save bloat and the position casters are in which I know from years of PvP on other servers that this is not the norm. Loremaster is only part of a bigger problem.

If you want to be a scholar that gets so much for so little you should have to invest for it. The requirement +2 Intelligence. "Oh no, another 33 skill points, how ever will I work this into my build." And of course, a skill focus in lore, because there's no benefit to having +5 lore that on a character designed to read scrolls.

[Scurvy Cur]

Not to mention Paladins.

I'm still somewhat perplexed as to why Paladin is considered such a powerful class. My 27/3 inquisitor never ever felt so powerful except in PVP where I had some moments, but I'm not an experienced PVP player so even those were few. I still got my arse handed to me more than I'd like.

In PVE its hands down mediocre

I can probably shed some light on this for you.

To start with, you’re probably playing the weakest or second weakest paladin option. Reckoner and Ancients are quite good, vengeance is ok, perseverance is a pve sustain king, inquisitor is very niche.

Even then, it’s quite strong. You’re at least partly right in that it’s better at PvP than it is at PvE, but the only real sin of paladin in PvE is that it’s a bit slow when compared to other builds (you need to get used to being outdamaged by conduit summons). This means that in groups, you’ll often find yourself picking away at spawns that your companions are bulldozing. But good AC, consistently high AB, solid saves, and a bunch of utility means that a paladin can solo in places where most melees can’t. Getting to the boss alone is usually a bit of a slog, but once you’re there, you’re happier to be a paladin than a ranger, a wm, a barbarian, what have you (or at least, I certainly am ), because you’re going to be much better off on the AC/AB math game that is the sine qua non of most Arelith boss fights.

However, and you picked up on this, I think, most of what makes paladin strong (and what most people are referring to when they say the class is “op”) is that it’s an absolute pvp powerhouse. Thats because its signature class feature, holy sword, is almost exclusively a pvp tool. You don’t have enough casts of it to use it on anything but bosses/other players, and for the most part, Arelith bosses tend mostly to use buffs that a breach wand will take care of, so holy sword doesn’t offer a huge increase in performance there either. But in both 1v1 and group fights, paladin is deceptively dangerous. It’s hard to kill (especially reckoner), and is well positioned to force attritional exchanges as a result. It also has a tool (dispel on hit) that makes those attritional exchanges very favorable to the paladin.

[Kythana]

"But now my dev crit weapon master won't be able to scry and teleport!"

I like how, once again, in an effort to make a point, you have to exaggerate with misinformation.

Devastating critical is disabled.

Secondly, everyone can already teleport as is, with relatively cheap portal lenses available to anyone. It's also objectively better for everyone to lens, if you're trying to gank someone. Because otherwise, the WM and his buddies have to go in the portal one-at-a-time, slowing everything down.

Scry is also something that can be countered with concealment. And while you can pierce that with certain things like rituals or divination spec wizard, that's not something the average WM has access to on a whim.

Now you got Fighter WMs picking up LM to summon each other and scry you, while being able to hit 80 lore without breaking a sweat and timestop you, while also being super polyglots and smart all around, and so a LM nerf is expected to bring it all under control

This paints this as some sort of epidemic currently, but Fighter/WM/LM only makes up 2% of all builds, and 20% of overall WM builds from last player's count. Additionally, the average build takes AB/AC/Health secrets + 1 greater. Usually, in my experience, I've seen Ward being the most commonly taken secret to prevent lens escape during a confrontation. After all, even if these WMs are scryganking you and summoning their buddies as you say, anyone can just lens out.

Furthermore, they don't hit 80 lore "without breaking a sweat". I don't know why this keeps getting repeated even after it's been shown the gearing they have to do in order to accomplish it. The only build that gets 80 lore for free are bard/LMs.

Even then, many martial builds can build for 80 lore. 5 LM is equivalent to ESF Lore, so if you take both SF and ESF, you have as much of a lore bonus as a LM gets. Yet I rarely see complaints about Fighter/BG/WM, Fighter/BG/Cav, Fighter/WM/Cav, Defiler, Barbarian, ect... All of which who can and have built for 80 lore.

The facts speak for themselves. Loremaster isn't being nerfed because it's op, it's being nerfed because it's popular. We're nerfing fun this time.

Couldn't agree more, yeah. Loremaster will get nerfed, and the complaining will just shift to stealth WMs or whatever is the FOTM WM build.

Just like how the complaining shifted from 25/5 Fighter/WM to Fighter/WM/LM despite the latter being available in the times of 25/5. It seems a theme to me that the issue with the go-to WM build is always focused on anything but the WM portion, and instead hyperfixates on some tangential benefit.

[Peacewhisper]

Loremaster isn't being nerfed because it's op, it's being nerfed because it's popular. We're nerfing fun this time.

It is OP, and while it might be fun for the Fighter/WM being able to scry someone, lens to where they are, throw down a -ward and kill them for the third time that week, it isn't fun for the settlement leaders and people in positions of authority who get to deal with multiple people trying this sort of thing thinking they are all clever. I know I had a lot more fun playing the server when 1/5 people couldn't scry and we didn't always have to whisper in a warded room with improved invisibility on us.

[Wrips]

Suddenly, Loremaster has become the big bad class of the server...

Insane.

[MissEvelyn]

Suddenly, Loremaster has become the big bad class of the server...

Insane.

It is insane, that we're targeting a class that enhances RP instead of going after Weaponmasters, who can solo literally everything on Arelith, including ⅔ of the playerbase.

[Peacewhisper]

Suddenly, Loremaster has become the big bad class of the server...

Insane.

It is insane, that we're targeting a class that enhances RP instead of going after Weaponmasters, who can solo literally everything on Arelith, including ⅔ of the playerbase.

Scry is so disruptive it should never have been given to 1/5th of the population. When weapon masters can -scry along with -ward_teleport and cast 9th level spells on top of that it is just too much. If we tack on extra requirements like spell focus: divination and 3 bard levels, we won't have to nerf loremaster. If we want to keep letting fighter/wm's take it though, we definitely need to remove -scry and probably will have to just gut the class if we want it to be balanced. There should be real tradeoffs if you want to get all the goodies that loremaster provides, more than having 16 int and a single skill focus that benefits you anyways. I think more requirements to bring it in line with the PnP version is the best way to go.

[30 RANGER FROM THE MOON]

People aren't taking this class on their fighter/wm's for the RP. They are taking it so they can -scry on their enemies, so they can -yoink their buddies onto their ships, so they can ward themselves against every possible spell while pretending that their "low" saves in the 30's makes them weak, despite the fact they could easily delete any caster in the time it takes to dispel them.

yeah people dont take dips because of the RP. some do, but i can guarantee most people dont. there are anecdotes on the wiki that support this sort of thing. i didnt take specialist on my paladin because he was specialized in something, i did it cus i wanted spot.

and yeah, their saves are low. my saves on my WM arent amazing, and that's with loaned pre-removal hard5s.
if you want i can go spin up a vigilante with dirty fighting maxed and you can play a WM. it wont be a fun fight to get your saves fished every single round while your opponent has 60 AC and e-dodge.

as for the lore aspect of this. i implore you fellas not to start looking at class balance from the perspective of lore. game devs certainly dont. it also isn't relevant to loremaster's "lore" in arelith. not as it's been established. you can see these use phrases like "holistically" and "logic" and so on. LM on arelith has always been partially a mundie booster. after all, why would it get AB, AC, HP, and refer to "health" boosts, and grant UMD access? spellcasters certainly dont need UMD.

some of the other secrets have wording that doesnt align with the above.

as for the paladin talk. yeah, paladin is oppressive. paladin wouldnt be so oppressive if the staff team were able to bonk and take paladin levels freely.

i wouldnt care about the 66 AC 10 minute holysword up-time reckoning oath listen-bot monster if he wasnt allowed to bend his morals whenever it fits him.

[Joe46]

Loremaster isn't being nerfed because it's op, it's being nerfed because it's popular. We're nerfing fun this time.

It is OP, and while it might be fun for the Fighter/WM being able to scry someone, lens to where they are, throw down a -ward and kill them for the third time that week, it isn't fun for the settlement leaders and people in positions of authority who get to deal with multiple people trying this sort of thing thinking they are all clever. I know I had a lot more fun playing the server when 1/5 people couldn't scry and we didn't always have to whisper in a warded room with improved invisibility on us.

When? When does this happen? When do I hear settlement leaders complaining about LM/WMs being able to do this? WHEN?!

I play a guard in a certain settlement, I know for a fact this never happens as I'd know. You are living in a made up scenario here.

As an added bonus, anyone who thinks Fighter/WM/LM is by any stretch of the imagination the strongest WM class is severely wrong. Perhaps at most, in 1v1 situations. I'd rather have a barbarian wm or a divine wm in a team fight than any WM/LM whose job can be better done by any Bard/LM or any spellcaster support.

WM/LM is simply convenient but by no stretch the strongest WM combination. I don't know where these mythical players able to scrygank someone three times a week are but please show them to me

[Peacewhisper]

When? When does this happen?

It happened at least once recently. I was being hyperbolic so obviously it doesn't actually happen three times a week, but it does happen. The paranoia about being scried has definitely gotten worse since loremaster was introduced. I mainly just really don't like scry and think it should be less prevalent.

I play a guard in a certain settlement, I know for a fact this never happens as I'd know. You are living in a made up scenario here.

So just because it hasn't happened to you or anyone you know, it never happens? Some people cannot even go anywhere alone because they will be targeted.

As an added bonus, anyone who thinks Fighter/WM/LM is by any stretch of the imagination the strongest WM class is severely wrong. Perhaps at most, in 1v1 situations. I'd rather have a barbarian wm or a divine wm in a team fight than any WM/LM whose job can be better done by any Bard/LM or any spellcaster support.

I don't think it is the strongest, but it certainly is not weak. It's definitely a combination that could wreak havoc if the player wanted to and knew what they were doing. It's crazy to me how people keep downplaying how effective and powerful this build is and acting like it's totally normal for a fully decked out weapon master with overwhelming crit to have access to these things that used to be exclusively for epic spellcasters. What's next? Secret of Hellball & Greater Ruin?

[Joe46]

I don't think it is the strongest, but it certainly is not weak. It's definitely a combination that could wreak havoc if the player wanted to and knew what they were doing. It's crazy to me how people keep downplaying how effective and powerful this build is and acting like it's totally normal for a fully decked out weapon master with overwhelming crit to have access to these things that used to be exclusively for epic spellcasters. What's next? Secret of Hellball & Greater Ruin?

Honestly, I agree with you in that it should NOT have access to scry/yoink/ward. I'm leveling a fighter/wm/lm on the side (it was supposed to be vigilante/wm but alas, RP actually made me switch) and I'm determined to not be a "Tool monkey". I'll likely take Tutor or at most illusion.

Ultimately, LM is a gimmik, you can reach 80 lore without it easily.

[Diegovog]

Yes, Loremaster has too much in both mechanics and cookies. The devs are already going to nerf it.

I'd love to see suggestions on the weaker, not fun, not played classes. I'd rather see the extreme sides of the server population (highest and lowest played) to move closer to the average. We all know the devs are already too busy and the whole caster issue is going to take a WHILE to fix. So smaller or easier changes to the least played classes would be awesome.

I personally think knights could be worked to have a much bigger rp impact. Give them something to stand out outside of fighting capabilities.

[Joe46]

I'd love to see suggestions on the weaker, not fun, not played classes.

A class not being played =/ not being fun or powerful. Liberator/wm is a wicked class combination, yet not many play it. Paladin is a blip, 5% and it's a monster.

[MarkRed]

paladin wouldnt be so oppressive if the staff team were able to bonk and take paladin levels freely.

As a longtime Paladin, I agree. I used to see Paladins doing extremely evil acts and the only time I would ever see them "fall" was if they were willfully reclassed from Paladin.

The "weakness" of Paladin is that you're always supposed to be the bigger man, not to take advantage of people, in combat or otherwise blindly. You're supposed to self-Nerf to keep yourself balanced and very few do that these days, especially when every PvP devolves into "I won, therefore, I'm right". Yes I'm aware this is how history is usually made, the victory writes the history, but it's a very boring way to do it.

Though yes Paladin is powerful, regardless of Oath. We have easy access to dispels via Holy Sword, amazing saves before being fully geared, and then we're Cha-based on top of that, allowing an easier time to invest into UMD which gets us access to tomes, items and wands with ease. I can hit 45 without any UMD gear on, or maybe only a single +2 on a swap piece, but either way it's easy.

[Peacewhisper]

I'd love to see suggestions on the weaker, not fun, not played classes.

Sorcerer bloodlines.

More skills for Druids so they don't have to dip.

Any improvements that RDD can get.

Would like to see Divine Synergy for Paladin moved to level 16-17 to let them make more builds. We already have Lib/WM's with divine synergy might as well let us make a lawful variant.

[AstralUniverse]

I mainly just really don't like scry and think it should be less prevalent.

At least we agree on something.

Personally, I would love to see loremaster nerfed in regards to epic spell foci commands. If it required greater spell focus in divination or, hells, even just spell focus as qualifier for secret of scry for example, I would actually like it a lot. I also feel like secret of exploration should be buffed, for the matter. I would be happy to see loremaster being pushed more towards "loremaster" rather than "quasi-mage"of sorts. I also think secrets of ab/ac/health should be left as is, because otherwise everyone would just have both scry, ward and artisian (or explorer if sailor) without any decision-making needed, and since loremaster does not get tumble or stealth, or evasion, or access to bard harps, there's really no point nerfing it's mechanical power for mundanes, because there are already BETTER dips. Objectively.

Some people cannot even go anywhere alone because they will be targeted.

I have a few things to say on this.

If someone is being systematically targeted on repeat and isnt allowed to play the game, that's definitely reportable.
However, we should also talk about why it happens, in good faith, assuming it's not a reportable case, and firstly look at WHY it happens.

If you're being targeted, you must be pretty damn important and you're creating RP/action for others. So kudos to you.
A wise man once said, that when you play a character (especially villains, but not just them), you should take risks and give the opposition an opportunity to get the upperhand, otherwise it's just cheap win mentality and you're not here to make a good story. If you're always surrounded by a gang and you're in constant paranoia of getting ganked if you're alone then sure, you wont give anyone a chance to gank you, but is that even a good thing? Food for thought.

I don't think it is the strongest, but it certainly is not weak.

Glad we agree again. It is not the strongest. So maybe we should nerf stronger things FIRST, and then go down the line rather than nerfing things that arent at the top of the food chain. Just because something is fun and popular doesnt mean it needs a nerf because if you want to beat it, all you need to do is make a paladin character.