Sorry this is gonna be long, lots of things to adress after we know the custom updates
Ok let's start with one thing ppl seem to be confused about and I can't blame em,
Ravenspine
Players who already own this glider will receive a compensation – a special item that will allow them to choose additional glider from the list.
as I understand the wording, those of us who spent money for this expensive and usefull glider will get the new Ravenspine glider image item (since that's what it really is now) AND get to choose "additional glider", meaning we get second glider as a compensation, hopefully God of War which has similar value to the old Ravenspine, while some read it as "you lose ravenspine and get to choose a glider, either new ravenspine or something else" which wouldn't really be a compensation at all. I think this should be explained more in the patch notes, either "Ravenspine owners will keep the changed ravenspine and get to choose from additional glider" or remove the compensation wording and just put in "Ravenspine users get to choose different glider from box"
also incase we don't get two gliders but just one, will we be compensated for the hundreds of gold and thousands of labor spent on upgrading the glider and getting the improvement we want?
why I consider Ravenspine an image item is simple, and was in part explained already, as it is now, you are lucky to be able to use it inbetween being cc chained by a darkrunner to get out of the hell due to server lag, unless the invincibility becomes an active ability of the glider without the need to actually jump on the glider to use it, similar to auroria or honor weapons, we will get either deleted or cc chained again before the server realises we used the invincibility even if we get lucky and it realises that we used the glider before the incoming cc/deleting
Buff changes, Battlerage and Wave meteor
ok this was already reapeated hundred times with no solid feedback beyond "live does it so we do too" so let's talk about it
to set the situation, as already stated, battlerage is around 10:1 to other main skill threes in population for a simple reason, it's insanely overpowered
battlerage has the most damage potential of all other trees by far, safe for current wave meteor but about that later, it has instant, non-casted, mostly tap targeted abilities that stack with eachother, offer high to insane dmg with built in cc that isn't broken by other battlerage skills but instead chained
if you look at mages, all the damage dealers mages have are separate from CC (safe for meteor), all the damage dealers require long cast and or targetting, requiring CC which is broken and almost never chained by that damage, also lot of cc has cast time as well which gives melee great window for evasion or cc chain
long cast is also pushing mages to invest heavily into cast reduction blocking gems/costume+undies/gear bonuses for damage attack speed or tankyness, while cast time does nothing but slightly offset the disadvantage mages have
every gem melee are getting is to help them deal more damage/become more tanky instead
on top of this you are removing buffs that are very important to survive not only to healers, but to mages as well, mages get very little physical defense from cloth, unlike melee leather that gives decent physical AND magical defense, and without these buffs are deleted by way less geared melee before they get a chance to use insta ability, let alone start casting something (obviously I am counting with good p.def shield, any mage running without shield outside of spellsinger mageball is a madman to me)
one additional point, tho battlerage users can damage and cc ontop of eachother without the slightest bit of coordination
two mages will get in eachothers way breaking cc before big damage spells unless (in the context of this server population) extremely skilled or highly coordinated
these points illustrate why battlerage badly needs to be changed, or if nothing else, heavily nerfed in damage, but removing or limiting the possibilty of some chains would be prefferable along with a decent nerf (even if we remove all cc it doesn't matter if we get twoshot anyway)
Wave meteor
the massive nerf on wave meteor looks bad enough already with your numbers, and tho I agree there is a slight nerf needed, your numbers (base numbers) don't really illustrate how huge the nerf is in reality
from a point of just slighly undergeared mage (6,5k gear with epic ayanad scepter and divine obsidan) the scaling goes from 622% to 311% which is huge nerf on targeted spell with high cast time that needs two solid cc to land and removes the ability to use deep freeze, one of the most important mage cc and the only cc available in sorcery tree, while in theory it looks like increased flat dmg could be welcome addition to help new guys farm mobs with the meteor, those guys won't be able to survive pull big enough to make it worth especially without the large investments in cast time
also compared to some battlerage skills, wave meteor isn't even that powerfull, it's just badly geared 3.5k gs seeing that 1k m.attk mage with decent penetration can oneshot them, but try it on a healer a bit under your gs and it just tickles them
tl:dr Battlerage should recieve a safe 20% nerf on damage at minimum and possibly get some of it's cc removed/revamped, wave meteor should go from 500 > 250% base scaling + 5.5x flat damage to about 400-370% base scaling + 2x-3x flat damage, most stackable defense buffs should remain to close gear gap, turn damage buffs into ribs
Homecoming bike, bikes in general
it should be clearly stated that the homecoming bike is temporary in the patch notes to put an end to this uproar
bike design is way too expensive without the chance to get it for gilda stars in my opinion, I understand that it's a prestige vanity item, but setting the price so high only upsets players, decrease the cost of base bike design but increase the cost of maxxed bike and customized versions instead to make the cost scale better
Merit vs Gilda
so merit was supposed to change into gilda which saw gilda prices increase and merit desgins being moved elsewhere
you decided to keep merit and don't offer the chance to turn it into gilda, which would be ok, but the availability of merit vs the old stock of it is going to screw up merit shop, there either needs to be a conversion ration on merits to new values or this system removed/revamped alltogeder, personally I see nothing wrong with just turning merits into gilda and changing merit shop into gilda shop with higher values, it would increase the demand for gildas and thus lead to more potential pvp on gilda runners
treehouse merit cost goes down from 800 to 350 but there is no mention of axis mundi, does that mean this crucial item will become extremely expensive and hard to reach, or will it be available elsewhere / made cheaper?
also if we can't turn our merit into gilda and we don't get half of the daily gildas we would, I see no reason to keep the increase in gilda costs, the costs should be increased only about 35% of the current increase rate instead, else you are just going to turn off new players from aquiring their fun toys (ships/cars) to play with and keep them from burning out on the gear grind
Car design gilda changes
• Adjusted the Gilda Star Shop prices and items:
◦ Apex Squall Design = Gilda Star x 1500
there is no mention of Timber, Nova or Rampage, which should be cleared out
I assume timber and nova get increased to 1.5k too, which really makes no sense unless the Nova and Apex become 4wD same as timber, will the craft to S200 and B200 change now that these cars cost the same gold and gilda as S200 or will possible upgrade of those into S200 (for those who craft after 4.0) mean you have to pay nearly double what you would pay for building S200 straight up? And will B200 become way more expensive to obtain as it requires old car for the craft?
Updated Friends system
as current frinends system is only really usefull as a watchlist or a tool to add someone who's offline to see when they come online for trading/etc, this change is making the feature nearly useless, but that's my opinion
Speedboat Upgrade Ticket was transferred from Housing -> Licenses to Travel -> Vehicles.
great!, could you also move crest columns, stairs, ramp, dome and round empty frame from costumes to housing? lot of people don't even know those are available because of the location
Adventurer's Growthstones will not be removed from the quest
could we at least remove them along with companion growthstones from daily "merit" mission reward box? those items are virtually useless on this server with boosted labor and exp rates, with companion crusts being so plentifull they aren't even worth listing to me, they only annoy us and honestly I can't get myself to complete 5 merit quests because I would get growthstone anyway, which is not really enticing reward
Added the button to Marketplace that would let you take all items from the Marketplace Mail by 1 click.
awesome, just awesome
HIRAM
this is a huge point that has been avoided in patch notes, as far as I am told hiram is being added in this patch, and while only low grades are added, it is an issue that needs to be adressed
Hiram gear is a mechanic that goes against all the mechanics Archeage is built on, it needs to be nerefed to bring it along with dungeon gear, which is a place it belongs, farmable gear that needs no rng or economy, that is available for newer players while being several steps behind ayanad and T6 obsidian to entice players to get involved in economy and open world pvp to get their real gear after getting the "up to speed" set, I don't think there is a point in having hiram at all, but I am fine with it being alternative to dungeon gear for players to choose from
this isn't just my opinion but the opinion voiced by majority of east/pn players I myself talked with about it, or have seen talk about in chats, and the lack of Hiram is often mentioned as the main factor why people chose to start playing on this server opposed to playing on official servers
why I say this needs to be adressed now and not in 4.5 even tho the hiram we are getting is subpar is so that players don't sink their time and gold in it thinking "this is gonna be the new OP in 4.5 especially with Erenor nerfed"
Welcoming message!
we badly need a welcoming mail or popup that will tell new players they can't use labor except for specific activities until level 52, along with some other important information about this server, this NEEDS to be added as soon as possible
last thing in this post,
Fishing
facts are fishing is not viable, majority of the established players on server own a fishing boat while newer players have option to rent one, yet I never see anyone fishing outside the Fisher's day just to deliver 18 fish and be done with it, I've done some fishing for gold to get a feel for it, even tried to roam around and look for fishers to catch, noone ever fishes and the reason why? It's not worth the time
my sample at around 80k fishing proff (I have massively deleveled the proff because of it's uselessness) is that silver per labor really shines, which is to be expected from the job that gives you the biggest disadvantage in game, being a stitting duck with weapons, costume, title and some armor pieces unequipped, waiting to be easily found even by chance by passing merchant
issue is, while silver per labor is good, the time per labor, and thus time per gold, is just way too bad, getting 140g for about 30m trip (you don't wanna skip fish to hurt your silver per labor or to end up with 3 gargs and empty ship, happens to me often even without letting small fish go) is just waste of your time when compared to other activities, and assuming that u catch full ship, at my low proff 640 labor spent during 30 minutes, while u regen 240 labor, you would have to fish 9 hours a day to use your labor (without using pots from stipends etc.) and sometimes it takes you those 30m just to find a spot, even if you found spot caught 8 fish and delivered in 20 minutes at higher proff, that would be 8 hours nonstop fishing a day under perfect circumstances to use your labor, that's not really viable way to earn gold or spend labor
silver per labor when fishing is good, it might be increased but I think it's fine as is, but the value of fish and labor spent needs to be increased marginably, increasing damage on fish wouldn't really help with the travel and find times, so that is the only option here
however increasing the value of fish to a point it would become viable here (also u need to remember, a lot of things on live are viable because of alt accounts we don't use here), about 2-4 times (4-2h fishing at max proff to still have time for events and daily activities), would only make it easy and juicy pray for pirating, so I gonna repeat my earlier proposition in the old thread that has gone unnoticed, introduce "crafter's cut" mechanic from regular trade packs to fishes, however since it costs no labor to turn fish in unlike packs, the fisher is taking all the labor tax and should be compensated 40-60% of the fish price, this would make it worth for both fisher and the pirate