Welcome to the Wizard101 Message Boards


Player Guide
Fansites
News
Game Updates
Help

Follow important game updates on Twitter @Wizard101 and @KI_Alerts, and Facebook!

For all account questions and concerns, contact Customer Support.

By posting on the Wizard101 Message Boards you agree to the Code of Conduct.

Recent critical changes: Was this a mistake?

AuthorMessage
Defender
May 02, 2015
120
First off, I don't play pvp, but I do understand the desire to not have pvp as explosive as it is with criticals.

But I wonder how much the critical nerf as really affected players. I made a suggestion in feedback to change it to x1.5 instead of x1.25 because I felt it was too much - that it makes the critical system too close to meaningless.

Am I wrong in feeling this way? Yeah maybe x2 is too explosive, but when you cut that multiplier, it reduces how useful block and critical ratings are. And I just feel like x1.25 makes it as though critical doesn't sway the game mechanics one way or another.

I guess this is largely coming from a place of pet construction. Pets with critical and/or block talents are just less useful, significantly so with 75% nerf. Critical and block stats on gear that just comes with the primary reason for using it (damage, resist, pips, etc) is just extra for variety. But what about the pet talents? Where players have intentionally decided to take critical or to take block over a damage talent, or a spell defying, or a fairy friend. I just feel like a lot of perfect pets are no longer perfect because of this and that it hurts a lot of hard working players.

Am I wrong about this?

Survivor
Sep 18, 2009
14
Something had to be done, and while the new Critical changes don't fix PVP, it is a start.

The changes did hurt Storm a lot in PVP as it used to rely heavily on Critical, and it is now arguably one of the worst schools to do max level 1v1 PVP as. Kingsisle stated they have more PVP changes coming in the Fall Update, so maybe the schools will be somewhat more balanced out at level 120...

Survivor
Dec 17, 2014
5
Your not the only one who feels this, am sure along with me, they are many more people who are in agreement to what you have to say. Nerfing critical just makes it very useless in pvp. K I i would really appreciate it if you guys could raise the critical system form 1.25 to a 1.5 other wise all the gold spent by many players to breed and a pet that has double or triple critical talents for pvp are has no use its better to just play a blade on your self that to equip a critical pet.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
I am very happy with the 1.25 damage and do not support raising it to 1.5. Yes, Storm was hurt by this change but it has always been a low tier 1v1 PvP school. Serious changes need to be made to the class as a whole before it becomes viable. That being said the critical change was an overarching positive and a step in the right direction for PvP as a whole.

Defender
May 02, 2015
120
I'm not suggesting that the change hurt storm too much, what I'm suggesting is that a x1.25 change to critical makes block and critical talents on pets significantly less useful, if not completely worthless out right compared to other talents hard working pet builders have worked on in the past.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
luckguy93 on Aug 17, 2016 wrote:
I'm not suggesting that the change hurt storm too much, what I'm suggesting is that a x1.25 change to critical makes block and critical talents on pets significantly less useful, if not completely worthless out right compared to other talents hard working pet builders have worked on in the past.
If you don't PvP it is of no concern to you. Critical still does the full 2x in PvE.

Defender
May 02, 2015
120
Also: Critical jewels are fairly worthless now. Changing it to x1.5 would give them back more utility.

Mastermind
Mar 13, 2010
328
The combination of Critical and the high dpp shadow spells had basically broken PVP. Any school could one-shot a Storm with a landed Critical of their Darkmoor/Polaris spell. Depending on builds, players could one-shot all of the other schools except possibly Ice.

Defending it was increasingly difficult and homogenized max level approaches. In order to have a chance to survive, you had to max block and still hope for the best. While the change did negate Critical and Block talents on pets, this change very likely saved Max level PVP from extinction. Before this change there was an unacceptable level of chance involved; to mitigate that chance players had to make gear choice that sacrificed every other stat. Now a landed Critical is unlikely to decide the match. Players have more gear choices and strategic avenues available to them to succeed.

This change returns skill to the top of the required assets to win. It was way, way, way low on the list a month ago.

If you participated or even watched any PVP, you'd understand.

Defender
May 02, 2015
120
PaigeGoldenspear on Aug 18, 2016 wrote:
The combination of Critical and the high dpp shadow spells had basically broken PVP. Any school could one-shot a Storm with a landed Critical of their Darkmoor/Polaris spell. Depending on builds, players could one-shot all of the other schools except possibly Ice.

Defending it was increasingly difficult and homogenized max level approaches. In order to have a chance to survive, you had to max block and still hope for the best. While the change did negate Critical and Block talents on pets, this change very likely saved Max level PVP from extinction. Before this change there was an unacceptable level of chance involved; to mitigate that chance players had to make gear choice that sacrificed every other stat. Now a landed Critical is unlikely to decide the match. Players have more gear choices and strategic avenues available to them to succeed.

This change returns skill to the top of the required assets to win. It was way, way, way low on the list a month ago.

If you participated or even watched any PVP, you'd understand.
Thank you for the actual, thought out, and reasoned response.

I suppose I understand a little more, but I'm still feeling for others (as well as myself as someone who considered pvp in the future) that spent time/money/effort on builds that included hard earned pets and strategically decided jewels (school critical circles and generic block squares - which can only be farmed for, btw). Those efforts are now pretty much wasted.

I guess I feel similarly to how I feel in my post about Tartarus amulet drop rates and Morganthe drop rates changing with the update: KI, you did the right thing, but you did it way too late and only after those players who had adapted to the brokenness of the system the way it was had accepted it and still put in the work that you designed as necessary - whether it be farming endlessly in the hopes of getting Morganthe's amulet, dropping to their knees and thanking god when an unexpected Amulet of Divine Influence drops at Hades, grinding for days on end trying to get that 5, 6, or 7 generic block jewel, or tossing millions of gold on critical and block pets. That's a lot of now wasted time and money.

Mastermind
Mar 13, 2010
328
luckguy93 on Aug 19, 2016 wrote:
Thank you for the actual, thought out, and reasoned response.

I suppose I understand a little more, but I'm still feeling for others (as well as myself as someone who considered pvp in the future) that spent time/money/effort on builds that included hard earned pets and strategically decided jewels (school critical circles and generic block squares - which can only be farmed for, btw). Those efforts are now pretty much wasted.

I guess I feel similarly to how I feel in my post about Tartarus amulet drop rates and Morganthe drop rates changing with the update: KI, you did the right thing, but you did it way too late and only after those players who had adapted to the brokenness of the system the way it was had accepted it and still put in the work that you designed as necessary - whether it be farming endlessly in the hopes of getting Morganthe's amulet, dropping to their knees and thanking god when an unexpected Amulet of Divine Influence drops at Hades, grinding for days on end trying to get that 5, 6, or 7 generic block jewel, or tossing millions of gold on critical and block pets. That's a lot of now wasted time and money.
Nobody bought packs for Critical jewels for PVP.

Blocking Opals are still the only useful square jewels that exist, so people would have farmed them anyway, rather than putting a useless defense jewel on a PVP set. Those pets and the effort to create them hasn't been wasted - they were useful for a time. Now a different set of pet stats will be useful. Eventually the game will change again and those pet stats will be outgrown and new pets will have to be created. Expecting the game to never improve is sticking it with a chronic illness, only conquered by game death. Without change, the game will stagnate, players will become bored and quit and unless new players outpace attrition, the game dies.

As for complaining about raised drop rates, I can't follow your logic. It hurts you none if someone else gets what you farmed for more quickly. It doesn't negate your time or effort, it's not a slap in the face, they just have what you have. Some people got those things easily before the supposed drop rate change. My Fire and my Death both got their amulets, as well as a Storm amulet and an athame (I think it was Fire, but it could have been Death) in one morning, approximately two hours of farming last year.

The only drop rate rise I've ever complained about was with plants dropping Likes. It used to be that Likes had to be farmed/crafted. Now one Elder harvest grants you more Likes than your backpack can hold. I'm glad plants are dropping Likes, but I wish it was slightly rarer; one Elder harvest should grant one, or even every other or every third. But 20 CPs dropping 10 Litter is overwhelming.

I think you got what you consider to be flip responses because you were complaining about something with no knowledge of the problems that prompted it or the problems it fixed. That's offensive to people who do know, and it's not uncommon to get flip responses in that scenario.