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Crit, Crit Block, and You!

AuthorMessage
Champion
Mar 27, 2011
405
I still seem to lose about 1/3 of my crit from levels 100 to 101. I'm not feeling like any of this is fair or makes sense.

Thousands of hours of farming and pet training, real money on packs - now we're going backwards? Nope nope nope. Sorry, I think I'm done with the game if this goes to live.

Survivor
Jan 23, 2015
10
I am all for new and improved if that is what we were getting in Test for crits and blocks. I was in Test all this morning trying to gang up on my level up on my myth and fire wizard to 101 and found my self getting hit by both boss and minion critical more times than I could count. I usually pack in 3 Satyrs for heals in each wizard for boss battles but am finding myself packing in 1 extra on each for heals. All the work I did crafting the armor I have to block as many criticals as I can to survive the battle. Even in a minion battle (only minions) I am at a disadvantage to complete a simple quest involving minions. I don't know people, I know the old system may have been incredibly random but it is the same system I have been used to for 2 years now and favor more than what we have seen in Test the last week. Either they make it so we can cope in battles with the constant critical hits or go back to the old system and forget the overhaul.

Defender
Oct 22, 2012
133
One point also. For those who do side quests. Whether for story line or to gain xp to be able to make it through the quests better. By decreasing their critical and block this penalizes them for doing more then someone who skips all the side quests doing less.

Edit. Thinking about it even those who craft or fish and do the quests for them get penalized for doing more.

Explorer
Mar 29, 2010
84
Game is making me grumpy and frustrated; not looking good for my family to continue. I'm not sure what KI is thinking or doing, but the crit/block results are just a fiasco.

Combine that with my continued crazy performance in who-goes-first in pvp (coming up on 700 matches with my account first 34% of the time) and KI's refusal to even consider that any factor could possibly be affecting position assignment or to address any of the issues that plague pvp.....not looking good.

Explorer
Jun 27, 2014
82
At the moment in either the present format or this new system when you level the same rating gives a lower chance to either critical or block, but the mobs have a higher chance to do both. It makes sense that the higher the world you quest in the tougher the mobs or bosses should be. We are then led to farm gear just to try to keep an average chance to block the tougher mobs. In the current system the gear for each level manages to keep up for the most part with the level they are designed for. The problem with the new system is the gear no longer functions effectively for the level they were designed for. With the large gap of 30 levels between waterworks dropped gear and Aquila gear for 90 with this new system at 80-90 what are the real options for gear now? Even at 90 the Aquila based gear is no longer as effective as it was in the old system. If i am in boss fights like Malistaire who critical almost every time with spells for 5 or 6 pips that before critical is applied with their natural pierce hits for 1200 or so I sure want a decent chance to block them right? The average Storm, fire and Myth is still around 4000 at most in health so 2 critical hits and their gone. Even the best healers would struggle to keep up if nobody is blocking. there may well be "Jade gear" but it should not be required for the every player to spend countless crowns on the chance to complete a set just to try to be effective in support. The way critical rating and %chance to me seems kinda backwards a lvl60 wizard should not need to critical or block as much as a lvl 110 wizard, but in this new system the lvl 60 wizard could have a better chance to critical or block than the one at 110. if they were to change critical at all surely it would be better to have the wizards who are facing mobs who critical all the time be able to block easier than those who dont? Even keeping a lower overall chance to critical the chance block should be higher the further up in levels you go not down.

Geographer
Mar 12, 2013
923
Another problem related to level decay I've noticed is that block percent is now an "all or nothing" thing.

If I have gear that gives me about 250 block, in the old system that would count for something, albeit small. I could add a gem, and get more, or change back to A + O ring, and bump it up a little.

Now, for levels 101+, I noticed that the same 250 block gives me the display minimum of 1% block. Adding or changing gear does NOTHING to improve it. Not even a little.

It is not until I cross the threshold of 290 block rating, that I can start having an impact by changing gear.

There is a huge "dead space" of 290 block rating where no matter how close you are to 290, it will not count.

I realize now the change they made to critical and block calculations this past summer lumped the decay modifiers together, so that small sources of crit and block rating would still have some value (gems, pet talents, and companion critical boosts). But 290? Really?

I think what's happening here is going to come back to bite later, as we level past 110. That's the problem with a linearly progressive character development strategy - you can only go forward, stats can only go up. That dead space can only get bigger and bigger, invalidating a lot of creative strategy and unique items.

It could be that the best way to handle crit and block is not by a static modifier, but by a more complex equation, one that creates a curving slope, not a linear drop-off. Such that at the extremes of rating, you will still see an effect. At the highest values your percent will begin to plateau near 100%, at the lowest values it will trail towards 1% but still give you a little more. Only on the "shoulder" of the slope will changes in rating be seemingly linearly related to changes in percent.

Survivor
Mar 25, 2014
20
I'm not sure who brought this idea to the table that as we progress in levels we become weaker and therefore the mobs and boss' can level us before we can even do anything. The old system wasn't perfect, that much I gather but this "fix" is anything but. I, like many others, have spent a lot of time and money on our stuff only for it to literally be thrown out the window and the rug pulled from under us. I don't like this, I don't like it one bit. No sane person is happy throwing their money out the window and currently that's what I feel like I've done.

Defender
Oct 22, 2012
133
With the "new and improved randomness" introduced I can see some players just having that off day and the rng laughing somewhere deep inside the KI server as critical after critical makes it through block laughing maniacally.

Historian
Jun 19, 2010
657
Imagine...

...someday in the near future, being able to look at your critical number and stats...

...and there's no confusion what results every time you attack, block or do anything else; just imagine how even more amazing this game can be!?!

Survivor
Oct 08, 2011
6
Not happy with this update at all. It seems that all our hard work in buying gears and packs to get the equipments to increase our critical rating has gone to utter waste. This is a huge blow for life wizards as well. Now Storm wizards will have the disadvantage among all the others because critical was the only thing they were good at. All the schools had some distinctive feature and storm had offence. But now after the malistair gear, everyone's damage percentage has soared up high so the critical rating is all thats left for storm wizards and now you take that away too? Surely displeased with the current updates. We understand you need to reduce the critical so as to keep the game going but this is the new arc. A new system has to be introduced like when critical was introduced in celestia. Not be taken away or changed. This is a complete mess for you and for us as well. Are you happy with the mess right now?

Explorer
Jun 27, 2014
82
dune327 on Nov 11, 2015 wrote:
With the "new and improved randomness" introduced I can see some players just having that off day and the rng laughing somewhere deep inside the KI server as critical after critical makes it through block laughing maniacally.
LOL yes, I have the same feeling :). I dont mind the randomness too much, but I dont like the decay to our stats this new system has implemented. Looking ahead to future levels unless we have block ratings close to 700 we wont block anything ever at some point. There has to be some balance somewhere, In my opinion either make them random but keep current rating system or lower block and critical chance not do both its just too much.

Astrologist
Dec 31, 2009
1124
What is the plan to keep up with the hard cap you have now put in place for critical and block? I expect we will be seeing successive nerfs in the future to prevent us from reaching the cap of 100. Not sure what this fixed in any way shape or form. Just added more rng to and already rng based system, sheesh thanks!

Geographer
Mar 12, 2013
923
Jasmine3429 on Nov 12, 2015 wrote:
What is the plan to keep up with the hard cap you have now put in place for critical and block? I expect we will be seeing successive nerfs in the future to prevent us from reaching the cap of 100. Not sure what this fixed in any way shape or form. Just added more rng to and already rng based system, sheesh thanks!
Those of us who have done the math are wondering this too. It seemed like in the past, block chance was indexed to your block compared with your opponents crit. No matter what happened, you could always keep building on what you did before, to increase your stat relative to your expected opponent's stats.

The latest change just appears to have them painting themselves into a corner! Eventually, in order to keep players from being able to have 100% crit and 100% block, they will need to raise the threshold for >1% crit or block so high, that rating becomes meaningless. The gear that gave you enough block to quest 3 levels ago, is now letting a lot of dangerous hits leak through. Because that threshold goes up every time you level (level decay) a lot faster than it used to.

Defender
Oct 22, 2012
133
Before as I was leveling up criticals I'd see start making it through more and more from mobs, bosses. I had a recourse by adding some more block and I could see a difference in the amount of criticals what make it through drop. At least I would pretty much stop the mob or minion criticals from coming through. Bosses the random critical may still come through randomly. But now adding the same block pretty much is like adding none at all. Unless you make a 10%, 20%, 30% etc. difference you really aren't seeing that much change. Maybe you might block a extra 1 or 2 times out of 50 criticals cast at you.

Defender
Nov 19, 2009
160
Tried the latest life updates and also did my other chars. It doesnt matter with the changes. I would prefer the old system because its more optimal. I worked hard to get that rating. Now to have it pulled underneath me.. Please consider reverting this ki I beg of you.

Geographer
Dec 14, 2009
916
KI I think you have dug yourself into a hole. The way these "critical changes" have been implemented, just reiterates my point even further. I have chastised you for years about what I call "Band-Aid" fixes; a small, and seemingly innocuous change to the rules that attempts to restore balance, but only causes a ripple effect of problems elsewhere. Sometimes, no matter if you like it, or not, you have to do a major overhaul on content, to keep the game healthy, and your paying customers loyal, and happy. Sadly, we are way past that point now. I strongly hope you are listening, but in the meantime, here are a few simple suggestions to help alleviate the issues for now:

1) Go back to the old critical and block system for now. While it is far from perfect, it will suffice until you do a major overhaul of content.
2) Separate PvP and PvE content once and for all. Just because something works in one, does not mean it works in the other.
3) Make Critical Healing a division of its on, and not affiliated, or affected by changes to the critical combat system.

*** Please keep in mind these are only temporary solutions to a far bigger issue, which is quality content. Only by investing time in overhauling the game, and expanding the content, will problems such as these go away, and your customers remain loyal.***

Survivor
Sep 20, 2013
23
Professor Falmea on Nov 6, 2015 wrote:
With yesterday evening's update, we made some changes. Anyone that has jumped back on Test and played since then, please let us know what you think. We're still evaluating the system, so please keep the feedback coming.
My block went from 1% to 11% still not what it is in open which is 42% as far as critical hits I can care less my damage is high enough to kill with one shot. Like I said before I spent 1000's of crowns and a lot of time crafting my equipment to keep me safe in battle. I still say if PvP wants this let them have it but leave us alone in the game that can care less about PvP.

Defender
Nov 24, 2012
124
Renix3 on Nov 3, 2015 wrote:
This still does nothing to help healing on critical life wizard. This is a huge Nerf to us no matter how you look at it. It's too bad, we already have bad selection in gear if we want to be a straight healer already and now this. Defiantly not happy with the changes that are coming.
This is my biggest concern with this new critical system. This new critical system is hurting Life wizards more than any other school. The reduction on criticals will reduce our ability to heal effectively. Critical heals helped us heal more sufficiently and more effectively than any other school. Now with this new system, anyone can heal just as well as life wizards and possibly even better. We would have to drop other important stats like damage, resist, pierce, etc. to gain more incoming/outgoing healing boost in order to heal more effectively.

Delver
Oct 18, 2009
276
Tylerwildpants on Nov 12, 2015 wrote:
Imagine...

...someday in the near future, being able to look at your critical number and stats...

...and there's no confusion what results every time you attack, block or do anything else; just imagine how even more amazing this game can be!?!
The sad thing is I finally understood how the current system worked had a nice thing going. I knew what i needed to get high criticals, I knew that if my opponent had X amount of block thats the chance it would be blocked. Now, now the gear that I spents MONTHS getting has been nerfed to the highest of heavens and I'm getting utterly sucker punched every other round because KI decided to try and "fix it"

Pray tell what was wrong with the old system outside of the fact that they refused to use easier to understand percents for the better half of its existence

Explorer
Jun 27, 2014
82
Discord Spiders on Nov 16, 2015 wrote:
The sad thing is I finally understood how the current system worked had a nice thing going. I knew what i needed to get high criticals, I knew that if my opponent had X amount of block thats the chance it would be blocked. Now, now the gear that I spents MONTHS getting has been nerfed to the highest of heavens and I'm getting utterly sucker punched every other round because KI decided to try and "fix it"

Pray tell what was wrong with the old system outside of the fact that they refused to use easier to understand percents for the better half of its existence
I feel the same I spent real money and allot of time trying to get a reasonably balanced set up for my wizards probably over $300 on packs alone with this new change thats money down the drain for what reason may I ask? This sweeping change which seems to only benefit possibly lower levels in pvp being pit against higher levels but totally crushes pve play, I cannot for the life of me see it as an improvement for anyone. We spent these past years farming gear making pets getting our wizards just how we like them some like me spent allot of REAL money buying stuff from the crown shop or bundles or whatever for what? This system doesnt seem to favour balanced set up having some of everything, but if you want to pursue insane stats to achieve 100% critical or close to it then you have an advantage over other players who most likely wont block you, how exactly is that any different from what happens now? When aquila was introduced we saw an influx of people going for pure critical to conquer arena and the expense of other stats, with darkmoor gear it settled down some to where pierce and resist and block had more importance, this I see as going back to the days of aquila not forward to a new arena of fairness and equality where strategy conquers over luck.

Geographer
Sep 07, 2011
823
Discord Spiders on Nov 16, 2015 wrote:
The sad thing is I finally understood how the current system worked had a nice thing going. I knew what i needed to get high criticals, I knew that if my opponent had X amount of block thats the chance it would be blocked. Now, now the gear that I spents MONTHS getting has been nerfed to the highest of heavens and I'm getting utterly sucker punched every other round because KI decided to try and "fix it"

Pray tell what was wrong with the old system outside of the fact that they refused to use easier to understand percents for the better half of its existence
That's what I am feeling. I finally figured out how the old system worked, and what gear I needed, and how to balance things. I don't want to start over sorting that again. It's not fair! It's like someone decided to change the rules to make Wizard be like some other game, after we spent years to master the rules we had.

I don't like the changes at all. The old system worked great. All it needed was some healing block for high level PvP, and that one real need - the only actual problem in the old system - is now worse on test.

Please KI, reconsider all of this. It's a bad change for players.