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Has critical and block become meaningless?

AuthorMessage
Survivor
Jun 10, 2012
14
PottingTea on Nov 18, 2015 wrote:
With Polaris out, and the new update that changes the critical chances (for hitting and blocking), I noticed something: You need double the critical stat to have any effect compared to before, and block seems to have taken an even harder hit in terms of the calculation.

However, when I go up against my normal bosses, I also notice that they seem to hit criticals at roughly the same intervals as they used to...

Except now I cannot defend against the criticals, because my block rate has dropped through the floor with the update. And, with the changes done to Convention, you cannot even rely on that to take off some of the heat (it was dropped from a 90% block to 20%).

I want to hear others' experiences with this - because it seems that criticals and blocks have changed from being something semi-reliable and useful to becoming a difficulty spike that forces a turtling strategy with tower shields and emphasising resists...

(on the bright side, in the rare event I manage to get a critical through the lowered chances, the bosses are also less prone to blocking them).
I TOTALLY agree on this. I had about 35% Critical Chance (Which yes wasn't a lot in the first place but I'm using this as an example) and now after the update it is 3%. Like what!? Also it seems the enemies have not been effect by this, as they critical more than any player can any more, and to top it all off I now can almost never block the enemies critical, when I used to block almost all of them. The new system isn't that great to start with, but when the enemies aren't even effected by the change, there is something wrong.

KI should either revert the critical change, or make a better calculation system, or at least make the enemies have very low critical and critical block chance.


Survivor
Feb 19, 2014
29
I appreciate the effort Kingsisle is putting into balancing the game, but I believe this system, however good the intentions were, is more flawed than the old system. As for my storm character, gameplay hasn't changed all that much, I can still easily crush my enemies. It is my life character I am worried about. I played a few quests through the live realm with her and then went to my storm wizard instead. She was my first and most beloved wizard, I will never forget the great times I had with her, and now it is sufficient to say she is garbage. She can not critical on any heals anymore, and even with the special bonus healing that come with a crit now, if she does critical it's super rare. I feel like part of my identity as a life wizard has been stripped from me. And she was very special to me, seeing her like this really makes my heart ache. She was on her way to PvP warlord too. A sergeant. Now warlord seems to be impossible for her to obtain.

Please take what I have said here into account when determining if this is a good critical system or not, or my poor life wizard may never be played again.

Julia Goldsmith level 100 and level 100

Survivor
Mar 22, 2010
46
This new system has completely ruined PvE and PvP. The percentage of crit that your rating counts for has been lowered, and no matter what your block percentage is the chance of blocking has been extremely lowered too. In PvP I have now seen 360 block not manage to block 390 critical. The idea of it being less likely to block than not needs to go, we should block more often than not. Not the other way around.

Mobs and bosses in Polaris and Darkmoor are still going to be critting all the time, but now our chance of blocking has been made extremely low, even if we have extremely high block we will now hardly ever block. For people who struggle with Darkmoor what will they do now? As well as dealing with the cheats they now have to deal with not blocking a single crit.

And for PvP, level 110s do have far less chance to crit, but they will still crit all the time, only thing now is nobody will ever block. No making it less likely to block does not make gameplay balanced, it makes it broken. And level 50s and 60s virtually have no difference in their percentage, so all 60s need to do is run crafted gear and a crit pet and nobody will block, even max levels. That's legendary PvP completely ruined, 60 vs 60 virtually nothing will be blocked.

If you ask me all that needed to be done lower the amount critical percentage is worth by a tiny amount, but block if anything needed a raise not to be lowered. The update notes say in the old system if an opponents block is higher than the opponents critical, the critical will be blocked almost every time. Is that not how it should be?! The chance of blocking needs to be far more higher. We need to have more chance of blocking than not blocking.

Why not just bring the old system back, and give bosses and mobs extremely low block but make block that gear gives count for a lot more and also give our gear far more block. This would make both the PvE and PvP community happy, it will allow you to crit on bosses and mobs more often, and will stop people from never blocking in PvP, a problem which completely ruins it. If this current system stays I no longer see any point in playing this game.

Explorer
Dec 10, 2008
56
I had just gotten my gear to be OK for Azteca when the update hit.

I am a level 89 Death wizard. My block is 185, and my crit is 285. My damage is 93 and my resistance is 26 Universal. I was actually happy with my gear until this update went live. I actually blocked some of the attacks bosses threw at me. I signed up for death because of its SOLO ABILITIES. I never expected a poorly-planned update to ruin that ability.

Now I never block. I'm constantly hit with critical spells and can't block because blocking has been weakened beyond reason. I can't solo anymore. I'm now forced to go look for players on the same quest, further wasting my time. After talking to other players in game, the consensus is that nobody likes the crit/block update. At all. You've taken everybody's hard work and just crushed it. 185 block means NOTHING now. 185 block is as effective as 10 block from before. AKA useless.

This system needs to be re-thought. It's so bad.

Delver
Oct 18, 2009
276
I'm surprised they released it considering the insane amount of backlash they got in the test forums. You dont make people go months through a monstrous dungeon for the "best gear" then immediately nerf it to tartarus and back the next update. People have payed money for those crazy stats and now its like someone said lol nope and gave us this new even more annoying to understand system. I dont even know what they were trying to fix.

Also most people dont care if bosses block crits bosses have been neigh uncritable since zafaria.(They are bosses for a reason it should be harder to crit on them than a common mob )

Delver
Dec 04, 2013
215
Okay, I know that this update with critical and block was made to help the already broken system--but it made it worse. I got online Nov. 18th--the first day Polaris came live. Everyone I met was rambling about how terrible the new crit system is. Here are a few examples of what I experienced yesterday that made me write this post:

1. My irl friend threatened to quit because of the new system. He's storm and he breaths critical. I literally had to beg him to get him to stay and he agreed to give me a couple months to try to get the system fixed. So if this system doesn't get fixed, my best friend quits the game and I might as well 'cause I only play to enjoy time spent with my friends.

2. Before the update, my brother used the Meowerty Exalted wand. (Pardon my spelling XD) He no uses the Sky Iron Hasta--a lvl 30 wand! He uses this because critical and block is now completely shattered and there is really no point in having block wands. I must admit that even I had converted back to using the Sky Iron Hasta over the Zeus Exalted wand.

3. I went into a dungeon for a side quest in Polaris and two dudes were with me. One asked: "Why the Sky Iron Hasta?" I said, "'Cause critical is broken and so I'll take my chances with ten extra damage over useless block and critical." Guess what? After that one battle, both of the other players switched to the Sky Iron Hasta. I

4. I also got on this morning before school and was doing more side quests. Two out of five people I saw were using the Sky Iron Hasta. I know that's not the majority, but it's just as insane. Exalteds--rather lvl 105s--are using a lvl 30 wand over things like the Zeus Exalted and even the Malistaire wand. Now, if I went into a death boss battle, I'd go back to using the Zeus Exalted for the pierce. Other than that, a lvl 30 wand is better than lvl 100s. This crazy to anyone but me?

I just want to make known that a lot of the players in Wizard101 hate this new system. I havent met a single person who likes it yet. Wizards, please post your thoughts on this topic. I really want to know whether or not you guys want this changed and I only have a few months to get that information because then my irl friend quits. :[ Kingsisle, plz fiz the new system. Even the old one was better. I know it's hard to keep everyone happy in the game with so many players with so many different ideas. I thank you guys so much for keeping up with this game and all of our crazy ideas to make the game better. I really enjoy this game--both the irl friends and the objective. If the critical system was changed due to PvP; I'd recommend making it so that just in PvP it's fixed. It's causing real problems in PvE. Thank you so much for keeping this game alive and doing your best to meet our wants. You guys are awesome!

Explorer
Dec 10, 2008
56
Discord Spiders on Nov 19, 2015 wrote:
I'm surprised they released it considering the insane amount of backlash they got in the test forums. You dont make people go months through a monstrous dungeon for the "best gear" then immediately nerf it to tartarus and back the next update. People have payed money for those crazy stats and now its like someone said lol nope and gave us this new even more annoying to understand system. I dont even know what they were trying to fix.

Also most people dont care if bosses block crits bosses have been neigh uncritable since zafaria.(They are bosses for a reason it should be harder to crit on them than a common mob )
I'm starting to think that Kingsisle doesn't really care about what their players think concerning big, GAME CHANGING (ruining) decisions.

The sheer amount of players that HATE this system is something you really shouldn't ignore. But they did it anyway. Kingsisle didn't listen to any of the criticism and instead went with the basic "we put lots of work into it and there's no going back now" approach. Now people are leaving. My friend quit yesterday when she found out how badly they messed this up.

Bosses are crit-monsters now, and players can't defend against it because blocking is so atrociously rare. The old system had flaws, but this system is just.. it's broken. Schools meant for soloing can't solo anymore. Darkmoor gear might as well be crafted krokotopia gear now. All that hard work players had to go through, down the drain.

Survivor
Dec 23, 2009
6
I don't usually post on the message board, but the critical changes really worry me... Whereas before I had a lvl 100 character with 51% chance to crit, now it has dropped to 17%. My hat gives me about 15%, while each additional piece of gear with a critical stat only gives 1% despite having a considerably high number. The critical rating numbers for high level characters seems completely pointless unless you have a massive rating on a single item. I know that characters receive a penalty on their critical as they level up past 50, but having that penalty apply to each piece of gear individually before they are totaled together seems extremely excessive under the new system. I'm being penalized for leveling up? Isn't that a little backwards. How can the designers make such a major adjustment to the game mechanics without making the necessary adjustments to the equipment and enemy stats? This seems rather slapdash and even a bit lazy.

I also feel the need to address the situation of crowns items that were bought specifically for their increase in critical rating, which are now essentially useless. Am I going to be reimbursed for my wasted crowns which could have been spent on something else? Somehow I seriously doubt it.

Furthermore, I would like to see even a little acknowledgement from staff that this is a problem that needs to be looked at, or that further adjustments may need to be made. So far all I have seen is Professor Greyrose continuously referring everyone to the update notes. The update notes do not come close to explaining the system or addressing the problems people have with it. Can someone please give a more complex explanation of the numbers (crit bonus vs. actual percentage). I shouldn't have to go to an independent website to understand the mechanics of a game that I am paying money for.

Survivor
Feb 21, 2015
23
I have to agree with everyone. Not only has my life depreciated in healing with critical gear (and I don't mean insanely high numbers, just basic good healing numbers without all the bells and whistles) but my 'hitters' (storm, fire, etc.) have been rendered useless with critical hits. This new critical formula change is complete junk and disappointing on all levels and has made the game less fun to play. I signed off my -paying- account early today and turned on a tv show instead. Sorry KI, but this was a terrible move, especially for your paying players who put forth so much time, effort and some extra crowns into a good critical gear setup!

Survivor
Oct 31, 2010
31
For some reason you felt the need to make it less likely for us to block. Yes it is now less likely to Critical but in PvE and PvP Criticals will still be pretty common, so all it has done has ruined our chances of being able to block. With Critical we don't need or want variety, we want to Block more often than not. This update is a step backwards, not a step forwards. All that's going to happen now is nobody will hardly ever block. The update notes say in the old system if an Wizards Critical rating was lower than the opponents Block rating, they would almost never land a Critical hit on that opponent. And this was a reason for changing it to this no block fest? That's exactly how is should be! If your Critical is lower than your opponents block you shouldn't be able to land a Critical on them! Now even if your block is higher than your opponents Critical, you'll hardly ever Block! How is this a fix?

Now the amount of Critical has nothing to do with if you block or not, it's just the amount of block you have that decides that now. But also keep in mind no matter how high your block is, the chance of blocking any Critical is far lower now. So now a low amount of Critical can easily land on a high amount of Block, how can this be seen as a fix? The old system was practically fine, all that needed changing was a tiny drop in the amount Critical counts for, nowhere near as much as it has been. And Block didn't need lowering, it needed raising! In both how much it counted for and how much gear gave. This new system can work, but only if the amount Block counts for is raised. If not PvP at all levels will just be full of people not blocking, even if you've worked hard to get the best Block gear and made a pet with Block talents.

This new system has made me lose any reason to play, and ALL faith I had in the company. I recommend both players and staff take a look at the Wizard101 feedback section of the w101 Central Forum. There is a post complaining about the new system with over 2,000 views and over 100 replies, and not many of them are positive.

Survivor
Feb 17, 2009
1
Before this update i was able to enjoy this game along with my family now i am seriously considering leaving it as it has become unbearable as to the amount of critical hits you receive, I hope you rethink this modification soon rather than later

Survivor
May 14, 2011
5
Personally, I like the new calculation system where your chance of crit is separate from the recipient's chance of block, but I really just don't understand the new rating-to-percent calculation. When I have 117 block, it's only a 2% chance, but if you nearly double the rating to 222 block, it calculates as 24%??? And with critical, the schools that I have 107 crit on calculate at 1%, but then the school I have 202 crit on also calculates at 1%!

I wanted to see if anyone really understood this update at all, because the percentages don't make sense to me, math wise, unless it's some kind of exponential thing. If they wanted to make the crit/block system simpler, why not just replace rating with a percentage, like the rest of our stats?

(Also why is everyone saying this update makes the life school useless? Sorry, I haven't been able to test hits and heals out yet, but life is still the school with healing spells, so how does changing critical make other schools almost as good at healing?)

Explorer
Oct 02, 2012
97
I already stopped my membership cause I thought "Why bother?" I can complain till I am blue in the face but it won't get the message across. It is really too bad cause I really liked the game. I am temporarily playing pirate101 until something like this comes along to spoil that game too.

Survivor
Mar 22, 2010
46
People are complaining about their Critical being lower, but they are missing that the biggest problem is that our block basically counts for nothing now. The idea of lowering the amount Critical counts for is fine, for me it has no major change on the game. The problem is the now very low chance of blocking, even if you have super high Block and your opponents Critical is very low you have a low chance of blocking. People with very high block are getting landed on by mobs, people in PvP are being landed on with people that don't even have high Critical. I really don't think the lower chance of blocking aspect of the new system has thoroughly been thought through. Another huge problem is that Critical on level 60 wizards is virtually the same as before. The percentage is no lower, so people who use a level 60 wizard in PvP will still be getting Critical's all the time, and other 60's and even max levels will not block most of the time, which will make a huge mess of PvP.

I understand people are upset about losing a high amount of Critical percent, but it had to be done so we didn't end up with 500% chance of getting a Critical later in the game. It will never go back. however the amount block counts for and the chance of blocking seriously needs to increase. If not PvP and PvE will be a huge mess of nobody blocking anything, and how is that fun? I PvP to test myself against other players, not to get landed by every Critical. If your block is close to or higher than the opponents Critical, it should hardly if not never land on you. I think your opponents Critical should have to be at least 40/50% higher than your Block percentage to commonly land on you, for the simple reason that gear gives far more Critical than it does Block. Lowering our chance of Blocking makes no sense when gear gives far more Critical than it does Block, right? If there is not a drastic increase in the amount Block counts for, I see no point in playing anymore.

Survivor
Jan 18, 2014
30
agreed im a lvl 100 ice and it took me some time to get almost 300 critical rating but now all the time i put in is meaningless honestly this update is extremely disapointing i liked the ideal of polaris but if this is what comes with it its not worth it.

Geographer
Dec 14, 2009
916
I have tolerated a lot of changes that have been made to this game, though I considered them less than healthy. This is a deal breaker though. I also will be leaving if serious changes are not made. I will not support a company who does not embrace the health of the game, and the legitimate needs of its subscribers.

Explorer
Jan 27, 2013
95
KingsIsle.....sorry to say this, but this new critical is horrible. Storm relied on critical to get battles done before they were killed. And whatever little block we had, came in handy every now and then. And now.... We have nothing.
I'll put it into perspective. I have an exalted storm wizard. He has 473 Critical. Before this update, I had an 80% chance. Now, I have a 50% chance. I had 123 block, which was 20% pre update. Now, its 3%. That's how bad its gotten. Please bring back the old critical system

Survivor
Jun 23, 2015
1
So as of yesterday I was able to solo Khrysalis with the amount of block that I had. Now that there has been a change in the system it's impossible to solo even a simple boss. First question, is this intended? Second, is there any chance of this being changed in the future? Being a student gives me only the strangest hours to play the game, and it's difficult to find anybody who I can actually partner up with, so I will most likely be unable to complete the game. Thanks for listening,

Luke Skywalker, lvl 100 Pyromancer
Talon Shadowblade, lvl 72 Diviner

Survivor
Oct 12, 2011
24
Please urgent, back the old critical system, have a character with 191% and 144% critical critical block, but was not giving critical or blocking when I saw only 1% have critical and 8% block rate. Bad configuration.

almost can not really play alone more, some battles have been impossible to do alone and wait help is very annoying.

Bosses and minions apply critical all the time and without block does not.

Survivor
Mar 14, 2014
1
my dear friends as you know there has been a bad patch that includes critical and my reasoning is if we can get enough people to sign this petition hopefully kingsisle would raise our critical and critical block back up i have read the updates but i still think there is a better way to do it for example my character Brandon Stormbringer lvl 93 has had a 80% critical chance and now with the new patch its 35% and i was like what happened to my critical so i did a little more research and it also seemed that critical block had gone wrong to.

So hear me out Kingsisle every person i met and quested with does not like the new critical patch so give us a chance to change the critical back the way it was with this petition i am creating. you may set the number since its your game but just try to have it be a reasonable number.

People that are against the new critical system sign below on the page

Survivor
Jun 29, 2009
21
The critical situation for the life wizards, on top of the average (good at best) spell is very un-motivating moving forward for us. I'd wish to see the critical system tweaked at least. Overhauling the critical system was a big job, but it isn't up to par right now. I didn't expect PvE to be very much affected, but it has been.


Defender
Dec 20, 2008
139
I made a post about this already but this nerf has basically rendered my wizard entirely useless. My outfits can't even so much as protect me against even the weakest critical now, and my resistance is useless because monsters have to much piercing. I can understand its to "balance out gameplay." Right. That's why fire has almost no resistance, terrible accuracy, moderate damage and health, and BALANCE school isn't even balanced. There are so many disadvantages that all the schools already have thanks to recent updates, even before this, but this is just pushing it over the board. I don't wanna sound like I am spamming about this, and I don't wanna sound like I am flaming, but this is just a bad idea all around. Lots of my friends are considering QUITTING because they basically can't even fight anymore, because of this update. My favorite outfit (used to do around 83-95% critical) had have around 51% blocking chance, little no resistance though. is now equal to that of my old CELESTIA STATS from nearly 3 years ago. I actually had people ask me for help and gift me for my kindness for helping them, even when I said I didn't need anything, and now, I am useless in combat. my other outfit (which gave me well rounded stats in everything) is now even worse then I considered it. This update is NOT going to help in the long run, and should be removed, or at least, just give the players SOME of their critical rating back. Even just 10% WOULD WORK. I know you had good idea's in mind but maybe you should consult players with these ideas more before just going and doing them, listen to as many people as possible, and do what seems best, and if that is what was done, then, Sorry if this sounded like I was being to rude or anything. I just don't (personally) think this nerf is going to go well its LOTS of players.

Explorer
Jan 27, 2013
95
captainjack205 on Nov 19, 2015 wrote:
my dear friends as you know there has been a bad patch that includes critical and my reasoning is if we can get enough people to sign this petition hopefully kingsisle would raise our critical and critical block back up i have read the updates but i still think there is a better way to do it for example my character Brandon Stormbringer lvl 93 has had a 80% critical chance and now with the new patch its 35% and i was like what happened to my critical so i did a little more research and it also seemed that critical block had gone wrong to.

So hear me out Kingsisle every person i met and quested with does not like the new critical patch so give us a chance to change the critical back the way it was with this petition i am creating. you may set the number since its your game but just try to have it be a reasonable number.

People that are against the new critical system sign below on the page
I will sign this petition without a doubt

Survivor
Dec 23, 2009
6
I posted before, but I also wanted to comment on the crit block change. I don't mind so much critical hits becoming a rarer thing as long as it is balanced in PVE as well. I just spent a long time fighting for my avenging fossil spell as my death character. The enemies would critical often and I never blocked once. I also never had one critical hit against them. I am used to adjusting my gear before each battle, but this time it made no difference. These rates are way out of balance and need to be adjusted

Survivor
Feb 19, 2014
29
In a previous post I mentioned that gameplay for my storm has not changed much even though it effected my life wizard greatly. I revoke what i said. My storm is now also garbage. I am a max level storm(110) with all of my malistaire gear. I farmed long and hard for that gear for weeks. Pre update my critical percentage was 84%. My critical percentage was 49% when I was level 100 past update, and so I thought ok I still crit half the time, but now that I have leveled up to 110 my critical percentage is a whopping 38%. This is unacceptable. Storm is supposed to breathe critical and even with vengeance AND astraphobia on I still do not critical nearly as much as I did.

I was still willing to put up with it until the next world with possibly better critical gear. But then I visited Zafaria and went to do some mirror lake farming for some pet snacks. I have become intolerable with this new system. I did not land a single critical on the mobs there, I either didn't crit or I was blocked. In ZAFARIA, three worlds back! If you are still not convinced, my block has been destroyed too! With the zafarian enemies I mentioned earlier I was killed three times due to unblocked criticals, not once, not twice, but three times! I was lucky to have a max life with me, but even they couldn't do much cause their heals weren't criting. Now storms block isn't stellar to begin with, but this is three worlds back with full Darkmoor gear no less. If this isn't fixed, I refuse to renew my membership. This is ridiculous. The amount of complaints you are getting and you are still not adressing this as a serious issue.