New Update 1/12/2013! New Skill Trees!

[Kastiel]

Thanks but when to use berserk and kill shot ? kill shot when the opponent is on the ground, stunned or knocked down and berserk when he is disarmed, less active ? and btw in order to knock or stun someone I need to aim to the head right ?

[Dainoji]

Thanks but when to use berserk and kill shot ? kill shot when the opponent is on the ground, stunned or knocked down and berserk when he is disarmed, less active ? and btw in order to knock or stun someone I need to aim to the head right ?

Right now my favorite trigger for my rage gladiator is "if your opponent is war". If that is the case I use lunge or kill shot. If you can't lunge then slash or bash. I make that trigger one of the lower priority triggers like 4 or 5 so I can still trigger off of other situations like getting tired or hurt. It doesn't always work but I've found success with it. Apoc might comment on this as his rage glad Bruce Iee is doing quite well. AFAIK you do not need to aim at the head, I've got stun crits hitting the torso maybe even the arms and legs. I'll try and pay more attention and report back. For a knockout I'm pretty sure you have to hit the head.

[Kastiel]

Ok thanks and since all my glads are with axe/mace they are only good against medium armor right ? and kill shot is good to use when opponent is on the ground or knocked to do a big damage and berserk is for attacking faster when he is less active ? I really dont know what they do

[Apoca1ypse]

Apoc might comment on this as his rage glad Bruce Iee is doing quite well. AFAIK you do not need to aim at the head, I've got stun crits hitting the torso maybe even the arms and legs.

Bruce is rocking just under 200 speed and is set to zerk. i just played around with the "i am ___ tired" triggers. he is an urk though and the extra endurance helps a lot. I have not really experimented a lot though....

As for where you aim, anywhere is fine, but to get a KO you do need to hit the head AFAIK.

[Nate]

Ok thanks and since all my glads are with axe/mace they are only good against medium armor right ? and kill shot is good to use when opponent is on the ground or knocked to do a big damage and berserk is for attacking faster when he is less active ? I really dont know what they do

There is seldom a case where something is "only" good against something else. Axes and Maces are good against all armour types and specialties as are all the weapons. Each weapon has built in bonuses/penalties vs each armour type that you can roughly intuit if you put your mind to the task but they aren't so severe that it will vastly change the outcome of the combat.

Kill Shot: Your gladiator will hold back while building up tremendous power and then let loose a devastating strike meant to bring even the biggest gladiator to their knees! - Translation: Your gladiator will attack less but with more powerful and planned strikes.

Berserk: A gladiator using this fighting style will throw caution to the wind attacking wildly, often and hard! No attention will be paid to defense and your gladiator will burn through endurance at an alarming rate. Translation: Your gladiator will attack a lot with less accuracy and use his endurance faster.

On each page in the game there a question mark icon that provides help text for the page you are on. I'm sure it won't answer all your questions but it I'm sure it will answer some, at least I hope it does!

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Nate]

I appreciate all the feedback in this thread and a few others on the forums. I've chatted with many of you in game and received messages as well concerning the recent update. Based on the feedback I've gotten most people are happy with the update in general but that isn't to say everything in the update is perfect. When making an update I do my best to simulate a lot of fights with many different types of gladiator builds and once I have things where the numbers look good I release it into the wild. Then I sit back, collect data and watch. The PoW community is crafty and in my opinion a step above the rest in the intelligence category and because of this numerous builds and strategy combinations are created that were not accounted for or realized or very obvious and what I call the "low hanging fruit" so everyone jumps on them. This is where the sitting back and collecting data comes in handy. This information allows me to then make more targeted and surgical tweaks to the game engine to bring about more balanced gameplay for as many builds as possible.

I've already begun to make some of those tweaks based on the data and listening to some of your feedback. These aren't radical tweaks as I mentioned above, usually they involve lowering a number by a small amount here or raising it there. I plan to release a quick balance update soon along with some bug fixes that were found and it's possible we might have a few more minor updates as things settle down and more data is gathered. In this update the ability to run defensive builds was a priority as it was a feature that was commonly asked for. At the same time it has always been my vision for the game to be full of action and blood splattering fury! These two ideas are not mutually exclusive but it does require a fine balance so both can live happily in the arenas of the Great Realm and to that end I'll do my best to deliver that balance to you.

For those of you feeling frustrated and even angry, I completely understand where you are coming from but I very much believe this update is very good for the game and ultimately good for you. There will be some short term pain but in the medium and long run things will be for the better. My advice is to not sweat it too much and realize everyone is on the same ride and struggling along side you. Before you know it you'll be smashing heads and listing to the shouts of the crowd once again and bathing in the spoils of war!

Thanks again for all your feedback, you guys are awesome and I appreciate it.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Lunarion199]

The PoW community is crafty and in my opinion a step above the rest in the intelligence category

Yes, not just anyone can keep playing such a quality game which requires so much of foresight and planning-ahead. I guess that's the reason PoW community is limited..but dedicated.

For those of you feeling frustrated and even angry

Just like appreciation, criticism - even if out of frustration - may be necessary too provided it is constructive.. and on this forum probably it is.


Regards

[Narol]

Thanks Nate but for my part I am so disgusted by the current situation that I am considering like Sevenseas to take a break until game balance is fixed back...

Just take a look at Siam's fights against Def wars, it just does not make sense that a dunder with 204 strenght, his offensive strats and offensive skills can't even lay a single good hit on any war tank with a wall shield...

I love bloody fights like you and right now all my fun is spoiled...

[Narol]

Nate, picking the skills for the respec of our glads before we could even test how well they function was kinda harsh, maybe we could all have a second free respec to correct the mistakes most of us made as we did not have enough information yet to do it correctly ?

I would hate to have to pay shitload of trophies just to fix that, and refitting the equipment of the glads who needs it will be already costly enough...

[Kreegan]

From where I stand the complaints come from people whose "favourite" gladiators have suddenly started losing more than usual. Yeah, I have such fighters as well - one particular Rage who was rolling through the ranks with barely any losses now can barely win. So? It's just a week after the release of the update and there are already IMBA! IMBA! screams. You don't have to be a veteran gamer to figure out that this isn't even remotely serious, especially given that it took more than an year to figure out the pros and the cons of the old skill tree (which had major flaws and I hope nobody's going to argue about that).

The defensive Wars... so now they exist. No, there were no really defensive Wars before - what you had were some horrifically buffed fighters (achievements, expensive slaves and whatnot) using a offense-defense combo strategy and maintaining good win-loss ration mainly due to their versatility. So it was hight time to make a heavily defensive War build viable. Before there was no way to exhaust a Rage before he drops the War with heavy hits (there was a time with multiple Trug Rages in Primus top 20 which speaks for itself) so the Wars were not even trying to do that and instead took advantage of the Rages' non-existent defense. Now neither the Rages are so defenseless, nor the Wars are so easy to bring down just by hitting them with the brain dead 10 - Berserk - 10 until they drop. And that's certainly a good thing. Finally - a heavily defensive War (with maxed out Armoured Fortress for example) is nearly as one-sided as a blindly berserking Rage and the weaknesses of this build already manifest themselves.

I for one don't want to see the return to the old system where the fights lasted 4-5 turns and whoever swings faster and harder wins. The new system seems to offer much greater tactical depth which just needs to be explored. Of course it's not likely that it's perfect, especially so soon after the release - but it's certainly a progress.