The Changes to the Grey Have Some in an Uproar
The changes to The Grey have many in an uproar, so here is what Alan had to say in Developer's Corner.
Obviously the changes we recently made in The Grey have stirred up some conversation. This seems like a good opportunity to break down the design process a bit and to show you how and why we do these sorts of things.
First let me talk a bit about AoE groups.
There are indeed several places in the old world where such tactics are used, and used effectively. AoE groups have been around since the early phases of beta. There is nothing inherently wrong with such groups.
But as the designers of the game it is our job to avoid setting up situations where one tactic becomes far too useful. That's what happened in The Grey.
Until the changes, it was possible to use an AoE group to pull and kill an extreme number of NPCs (upwards of 50+) in an almost continuous fashion with a lower level of risk than was appropriate. There were, essentially, three factors that contributed to this, factors that don't exist all together in any other zone. The addition of the light blue experience-giving NPCs made more low-hit point NPCs available to give experience. The Grey had a rather fast spawn rate, increasing the pool of available experience giving NPCs over time. Also the NPCs in that zone were given very low resistances in order to make casters more appealing to groups in the zone.
Looked at individually, these three factors all seem like good things. During testing this zone worked as intended. But when exposed to AoE groups, these factors created a situation that made such groups far too efficient in this zone.
So we changed the zone somewhat. Reports of… let me quote one comment sent in:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Good job! You broke the GREY for casters completely!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
…are exaggerations. Rather large exaggerations at that.
Here are the changes that have been made.
Increased the hit points of all NPCs in the zone 8% (yes, that's 8 more hit points for every 100 it had before).
Reduced the spawn rates on the NPCs in the zone. There are still plenty of NPCs in the zone, but it might not be possible to pull and kill 30 or 40 at a time at a fast rate anymore.
Increased the resistance of the NPCs to moderate levels. Where they were practically unable to resist spells before, they now can resist spells some of the time. Cold and Fire spells might get complete or partial resists half the time, doing full damage the rest of the time. The initial changes to the zone had the average monsters being quite resistant to magic based spells, and after looking at the results the magic resistance has been lowered to a more appropriate level. This change should allow people to snare and root mobs more easily in The Grey.
Additionally, a resistant monster was added to The Grey. The new Shimmering Rockfiend is highly resistant to fire and cold based spells, and adds a bit more danger to pure AoE groups. This is tempered by the fact that the Rockfiend is fairly rare, easy to see, and the soloing casters in the zone will learn to recognize his threat and avoid fighting him. If you are pulling 40 monsters to your AoE group though, chances are you'll pick up a Shimmering Rockfiend or two and have to deal with them.
This in no way makes casters completely broken in The Grey. It doesn't remove the ability to effectively run an AoE group in this zone either. What it does is reduce the effectiveness of pulling massive numbers of NPCs and wiping them out with an AoE group. And the zone is still very workable for the balanced experience group, as well as soloing casters.
I wanted to set that straight. I wanted to clear it up primarily for those that have not experienced this zone before. Some of the rumors about how 'broken' this zone is are exaggerated, and I suggest that if you want to know how playable the zone is that you try it out rather than listening to rumors.
If further testing and play in the zone brings problems to light, we'll evaluate it and make appropriate changes. We want you to play in and enjoy our zones, and provide quality content for every class. We'll continue working toward this goal, and appreciate the insightful feedback we've gotten on this issue.
Alan
