The Newly Released Gear Rebalance!
Editorial
Written by chail3y
Edited by MamaDuckie
Welcome back to a Web-Exclusive Editorial for the
Daily Diviner! On May 1st at 3 AM PST, Potterworld went into maintenance for the first time since The Revelius Update. At 4 AM PST on May 2nd, Gameplay Update 1.3.0 released to the public. There were some major changes made surrounding gear and the way it works on our server. Today I am going to go over the changes during this
Gear Rebalance and how the community feels about them!
There were many complaints about gear from players upon the release of Revelius initially back in July. The Systems team paid close attention to this and has been hard at work revamping the current gear system for the past few months. I asked
apaulled, who is a member of the systems team, what the main goal of the rebalance was and he responded, “To balance the current system, at least to a place where the meta doesn’t feel completely in favor of one subsect of players.”
The server was placed into maintenance to push these changes on the live servers, and soon enough, the players were excited to finally explore the
Gear Rebalance. The first major change is relatively self explanatory: the gear numbers changed. This means that the actual stats of the gear, such as health and damage, have changed. Additionally, gear recipes are no longer part of this system. I asked
Paul about how he thinks the player base will adjust to the changes and this is how it went.
What do you think is going to be the change that will be the hardest to adjust to?
“We have re-evaluated the placement of stats on certain items, so some will feel quite different. For example, you can no longer find type damage on anything except for gauntlets and trinkets.” -
apaulled
What do you think is going to be the change is the most exciting?
“The elimination of gear recipes is my personal favorite. We may revisit them at a later date for specific pieces, especially really powerful ones, but I think not having them on everything will make our game much more palatable for casual players and people more here for the community, and hopefully encourage players to keep playing past the early game.” -
apaulled
Another major change is one that players were eagerly anticipating was broom changes.
Paul explained that, “Brooms are now crafted using broom “components”. These are a handle, handle wraps, bristles and footholds. These still drop from mobs and can be found in chests, but are much rarer than the old materials. We’ve essentially tried to keep the same difficulty in upgrading your broom by reimagining it into a simpler system. In the future, we are considering the possibility of being able to upgrade specific parts of your broom at a time, but we do not currently have the tech to make this possible exactly how we want it.”
This is an interesting change and therefore I asked
Paul to explain why they chose to change the ways brooms are obtained. He elaborated that, “With the elimination of gear recipes, we realized that the only purpose of raw non-mob-specific materials would be to upgrade your broom. So, in the interest of not horribly clogging drop tables with them, we eliminated them entirely in favor of the new system.”
Aside from the gear and broom changes, there also were some early game mob nerfs. This means that the health and damage values of all mobs from level 1-30 have been cut. The amount that was cut depends on the level of the mob and previous health, but this was done to help newer players.
Along with this, there also was a deflation in gold from quests.
Paul explained that this decision was made for a few reasons. He explains, “With the elimination of gear recipes, we lost a major “gold sink” in the game. As such, the numbers had to be adjusted accordingly. Additionally, the previous rewards were just far too much given the number of graduate quests we’ve released since Revelius.”
The last noteworthy change was regarding spell changes & balancing.
Paul explains that, “In general, there have been some spells that have just been completely unbalanced since Revelius. Incarcerum, for instance. These were changed because they needed to be. Some spells were also changed to better accommodate the gear changes. Lastly, some spell changes are just more fun the current way. To use Specutelum as an example again, it was changed because the “machine gun” behavior is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time but previously couldn’t. The new way is more skill-expressive because you can hit all of the shots for slightly more damage than before, or only some of the shots for less damage. It rewards better play.”
Specifically, the change
Paul was most excited about regarding spells was “Nerfing Incarcerum. If you can’t guess why, you probably don’t duel very often.” He wanted to conclude his interview by telling everyone that, “It’s been a long time coming and I really hope everyone enjoys what we’ve done. Some stuff will definitely be an adjustment but we’re really proud of what we’ve accomplished, especially Hunter/Abstract_Magi, who single-handedly developed the entire new method for coming up with gear stats, and in so doing saved us all countless hours of work.”
Now that you have heard a little bit about the rebalance itself, I brought in 3 players from different communities within the server to get their opinions!
Salmandingo is heavily involved in the dueling community,
Klenellie is only a Sixth Year, and
ShatterdHeart is a graduate that is less involved in the dueling community.
What were your biggest problems with the old gear system?
“Damage and healing used to be really high relative to total health and cooldowns were extremely low. The meta felt a bit spammy & most duelists went for damage gear.” -
Salmandingo
“My biggest problem with the old gear system was the effort that went into crafting. You'd need materials from all these different mobs. It was either you grind for the materials or spent gold buying them from player shops on top of buying the actual gear. ” -
Klenellie
“My biggest problem with the old gear system was getting the materials and having enough gold per piece.” -
ShatterdHeart
What are your initial thoughts of the Gear Update?
“So far, I think its a step in the right direction. Dueling feels a lot smoother and more skill based, and I'm seeing people explore charms & transfiguration more which is a great sign
” -
Salmandingo
“My initial thoughts of the gear update were "Oh, wow! Gear is going to be so much less complicated and easy to get.". Turns out this was actually true. Immediately when the update went live, I could easily upgrade all my gear to my current level and it didn't cost me over 10k. Funny story, I spent over 10k to get year 4-5 gear once. ” -
Klenellie
“I'm pretty excited overall about the new rebalance because it looks easier to understand to manage overall.” -
ShatterdHeart
How has the way that you use gear changed after this update?
“The update has pushed me to experiment a lot more with charms and curses. Previously, I stuck with the same jinx gear that every graduate used, but I am now experimenting with different pieces to see what style I'm most comfortable with.” -
Salmandingo
“I used gear for dueling generally and to suit my specific spell tree. I feel this is going to be much easier now. I'm still going to use the gear the way I intended. ” -
Klenellie
“I can manage it a lot better now with the items and not having to have mob loot all over my chests and inventory to find recipes.” -
ShatterdHeart
What do you think is the most exciting change?
“The most exciting change is the buff to Transfiguration & Charms. Players are finally choosing between all 4 styles of Jinx, Charms, Curses, and Transfiguration instead of resorting to mostly Jinx/Curse. Seeing the versatility in the Dueling community is what I'm most excited about, and it's all thanks to the changes. ” -
Salmandingo
“The most exciting change, in my opinion, is the removal of debuffs. Debuffs made selecting specific gear pieces to use very difficult. You'd risk having one thing made more powerful at the expense of something else. For example, a gear piece would have +40% jinx damage, but at the same time add +5% cooldowns. The update allows for you to personalize your magic experience without having to deal with the debuffs. ” -
Klenellie
“For me I really enjoy the new way for making brooms, it's more realistic than using mob drops.” -
ShatterdHeart
Are there any changes you are nervous about or dislike?
“I'm just worried that Dueling classes & challenges may take a much longer time than usual due to the nerfs in damage and cooldowns, but we'll have to wait & see.” -
Salmandingo
“ I'm not really nervous about anything, as the update seems really klene (pun). I'm actually really glad about the update because it really balances some things that are really exploited in the dueling community.” -
Klenellie
“Not really, a lot of the changes are really awesome and enjoyable.” -
ShatterdHeart
Any additional comments you would like to make regarding the rebalance?
“I'm really proud of Hunter & the curse breaker team, as well as everyone who contributed to the gear & spell rework. Those who tested with me as well brought so much valuable feedback and I believe the update is a huge success!” -
Salmandingo
“I really love this update and I'm greatful for everyone that contributed to it. Much love to the developers, testers, etc.” -
Klenellie
“Congratulations and thank you everyone who has worked on this update.” -
ShatterdHeart
I would like to extend a huge thanks to
apaulled,
Salmandingo,
Klenellie, and
ShatterdHeart for their time and opinions. I hope that this article will give everyone a little more insight into how gear has changed. Thank you for reading and be sure to check out these updates if you haven't yet. This was
chail3y reporting and I hope you enjoy the rest of this issue!