Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Daidraco

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer
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I've got a lot to say about the nerfs but I know it just wont go very far. Pointless for me to show my math work and babble on and on about how some nerfs seem insignificant, because the spell seems insignificant - but when you break the change down per mob.. the nerfs are actually MASSIVE in comparison to the prenerf. "Tweaking" numbers, or "tweaking" what level a spell is has huge effects in a game that has this much grinding. In the case in point, Spell Blades - one less proc per mob doesnt seem like a lot. Or nerfing the damage by 200-300 damage per proc. Until you add in the fact that chain pulling mobs that die in 30-45 seconds, over a typical grind session of 2 hours... Thats a whole lot of missing damage, bringing down that classes peak substantially.

So you start to ask what warranted the change.. Was it that they were typically just far too strong in general? Possible. Or was it the fact that they are tuning raid mobs and a group of spell blades could decimate it before the raid mob had the chance to really put up a fight/challenge? If that was the case, could something else have been thought of before going for the jugular of the class? Or Natureskin for Druids when it was 48 instead of 56. Moving Natureskin up 8 levels had a very minor impact at that level. But from 16 to 27, stoneskin's effectiveness was halved, if not worse (as it used to be steelskin at that lvl). Could something else have been done in that situation? Could they have kept the spell line at the levels they were at and just removed the regen component? Or how about just +2 thorns instead of regen? Or add another 5 AC and add the regen back and make diamondskin at 56 (iirc that might have been what was there prenerf)?

Lots of questions about how well thought out their nerfs are. Its their game, and completely their decision. But the nerfs for end game severely impacting the early game is just aggravating. You dont have the gear you want. Gear doesnt drop like "that" in this game, at that point. So yes, they are severe in their impact. Its one of the reasons (outside of my major reason, being population) that I just want to play the game later. I'm not like Heko - I'm not a fan of alts.
 
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V

vegetoeeVegetoee

Trakanon Raider
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Daidraco said:
I've got a lot to say about the nerfs but I know it just wont go very far. Pointless for me to show my math work and babble on and on about how some nerfs seem insignificant, because the spell seems insignificant - but when you break the change down per mob.. the nerfs are actually MASSIVE in comparison to the prenerf. "Tweaking" numbers, or "tweaking" what level a spell is has huge effects in a game that has this much grinding. In the case in point, Spell Blades - one less proc per mob doesnt seem like a lot. Or nerfing the damage by 200-300 damage per proc. Until you add in the fact that chain pulling mobs that die in 30-45 seconds, over a typical grind session of 2 hours... Thats a whole lot of missing damage, bringing down that classes peak substantially.

So you start to ask what warranted the change.. Was it that they were typically just far too strong in general? Possible. Or was it the fact that they are tuning raid mobs and a group of spell blades could decimate it before the raid mob had the chance to really put up a fight/challenge? If that was the case, could something else have been thought of before going for the jugular of the class? Or Natureskin for Druids when it was 48 instead of 56. Moving Natureskin up 8 levels had a very minor impact at that level. But from 16 to 27, stoneskin's effectiveness was halved, if not worse (as it used to be steelskin at that lvl). Could something else have been done in that situation? Could they have kept the spell line at the levels they were at and just removed the regen component? Or how about just +2 thorns instead of regen? Or add another 5 AC and add the regen back and make diamondskin at 56 (iirc that might have been what was there prenerf)?

Lots of questions about how well thought out their nerfs are. Its their game, and completely their decision. But the nerfs for end game severely impacting the early game is just aggravating. You dont have the gear you want. Gear doesnt drop like "that" in this game, at that point. So yes, they are severe in their impact. Its one of the reasons (outside of my major reason, being population) that I just want to play the game later. I'm not like Heko - I'm not a fan of alts.
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Agree. I log in for five minutes the out, because wasting time until the games not in EA or release seems too daunting. Also, if they keep slowing the pace down people won't play. An EQ-like or EQ-lite experience is what people want. At the moment it feels slower than EQ minus maybe the first six months when the game was so new. Not a good formula. Maybe it will change, who knows.
 
Gravel

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Kirun said:
I'm sick of these last few comments from the WoW tards trying to ruin this game.

If you don't like the game...DON'T PLAY IT!
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I think the disaster with AoC is causing some butts to pucker when they notice the commonalities between the two, and how suddenly all the criticism leveled on this game looks a lot more legitimate.
 
Kirun

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
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Pretty much.

We just watched what happens when a project leans too hard on mystique, nostalgia, and a hand-waved "vision" without pressure-testing the systems against modern player behavior and market realities. It doesn't matter how "passionate" the team is. Passion does not override economics, psychology, or player retention curves. And that's the core issue. People don't want to admit that some of the criticism being leveled here might be structural, not emotional. It's easier to dismiss it as negativity than to grapple with the idea that maybe, just maybe, copying the feel of 1999 without understanding why it worked in 1999 is a gamble.

You can build hype on nostalgia. You can build a Discord cult on nostalgia. You can build a honeymoon period on nostalgia. But you cannot build a long-term live service game on it. At some point, players log in and ask, "Is this actually fun to play in 2026?" Not "Did this remind me of when I was 16?".
 
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Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
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Gravel said:
I think the disaster with AoC is causing some butts to pucker when they notice the commonalities between the two, and how suddenly all the criticism leveled on this game looks a lot more legitimate.
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What exactly happened with AoC? I thought it was just broken and unfinished. Did people stop playing because of intentional friction, or because it was trash?
 
Hekotat

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
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vegetoeeVegetoee said:
Agree. I log in for five minutes the out, because wasting time until the games not in EA or release seems too daunting. Also, if they keep slowing the pace down people won't play. An EQ-like or EQ-lite experience is what people want. At the moment it feels slower than EQ minus maybe the first six months when the game was so new. Not a good formula. Maybe it will change, who knows.
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Even with the pace slow downs it still feels too fast. You can hit half level in a few days easily. It's more about the journey and less about getting to the end as fast as possible, and I know most of you will burn through all the content in a week.

Game is really fun to chill with friends and blow shit up, I'm not getting these complaints.
 
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Quaid

Quaid

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Hekotat said:
Even with the pace slow downs it still feels too fast. You can hit half level in a few days easily. It's more about the journey and less about getting to the end as fast as possible, and I know most of you will burn through all the content in a week.

Game is really fun to chill with friends and blow shit up, I'm not getting these complaints.
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See man, I fundamentally disagree with this.

'The journey' is shit. It's an absolute slog through the muck in games like this. Oldschool MMORPGs, when it comes to actual gameplay, just aren't fun. The fun comes from social interaction with other players like yourself, learning the aspects of the world, or the planning and betterment of your toon.

I play on EQ EMUs and when you're in a non-guild group more often than half the time you're crawling through xp with barely conscious 300lbs divorced moms or insufferable 60 year olds on disability. My guild groups gain xp at like 400% the rate of your average pug, and are vastly less frustrating. I'm not 'meeting friends on the journey' when I'm absolutely fucking seething at 4 of 6 players I'm with being total scrubs. I wanna chill with my geared homies in voice comms who play the way I do. 'Rushing to endgame' is exactly the way you find folks like me.

People bemoan the 'raid game' focus, but what that really does is stratify the community and allows you to passively sort into groups where you're likely to find players that want to play the way you do. You're a power gamer? Well if the content is there to support it, namely large raid targets that require focus & strategy, then it's there for you to find. Same with completionist types, or alt-o-holic types. People self sort naturally all the time and group dynamics are better for it. Imagine being at a high-skill employment firm and having a bunch of scrubs on your team who should probably be flipping burgers? It'd be absolutely awful. Trying to flatten out this stratification by minimizing the end-game and focusing on the leveling curve is going to make the community worse, not better. Social options will be fewer and the ones that do form will be less rewarding.

The real journey begins once you sort into a group of folks you feel the best being around. It's not the sorting itself. Rushing to endgame is the rational way to have the best time for an enormous swathe of MMO enthusiasts.

My brother and i are going to pick the two most complimentary classes for grinding in a duo as we can and ideally barely look at anyone until level 60. Then we can grind out gear progression without being utterly frustrated by bads.
 
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Hekotat

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
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Quaid said:
See man, I fundamentally disagree with this.

'The journey' is shit. It's an absolute slog through the muck in games like this. Oldschool MMORPGs, when it comes to actual gameplay, just aren't fun. The fun comes from social interaction with other players like yourself, learning the aspects of the world, or the planning and betterment of your toon.

I play on EQ EMUs and when you're in a non-guild group more often than half the time you're crawling through xp with barely conscious 300lbs divorced moms or insufferable 60 year olds on disability. My guild groups gain xp at like 400% the rate of your average pug, and are vastly less frustrating. I'm not 'meeting friends on the journey' when I'm absolutely fucking seething at 4 of 6 players I'm with being total scrubs. I wanna chill with my geared homies in voice comms who play the way I do. 'Rushing to endgame' is exactly the way you find folks like me.

People bemoan the 'raid game' focus, but what that really does is stratify the community and allows you to passively sort into groups where you're likely to find players that want to play the way you do. You're a power gamer? Well if the content is there to support it, namely large raid targets that require focus & strategy, then it's there for you to find. Same with completionist types, or alt-o-holic types. People self sort naturally all the time and group dynamics are better for it. Imagine being at a high-skill employment firm and having a bunch of scrubs on your team who should probably be flipping burgers? It'd be absolutely awful. Trying to flatten out this stratification by minimizing the end-game and focusing on the leveling curve is going to make the community worse, not better. Social options will be fewer and the ones that do form will be less rewarding.

The real journey begins once you sort into a group of folks you feel the best being around. It's not the sorting itself. Rushing to endgame is the rational way to have the best time for an enormous swathe of MMO enthusiasts.

My brother and i are going to pick the two most complimentary classes for grinding in a duo as we can and ideally barely look at anyone until level 60. Then we can grind out gear progression without being utterly frustrated by bads.
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Since there isn't a raid focus in this game what is your plan when you blow through the content at mach 5?
 
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Quaid

Quaid

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Hekotat said:
Since there isn't a raid focus in this game what is your plan when you blow through the content at mach 5?
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I expect them to give into player pressure on this particular issue within the first 6 months of 1.0, if it even takes that long.

Mind you, I also suspect the 'not raid focused' narrative is cope pushed by the aforementioned scrubs. I've seen Nick admit on several occasions that not only are there multi-group overworld targets even now with an incomplete world, but that full on raid zones exist, or are planned, either as expeditions or perhaps in addition to them.

If enough raids aren't in for multiple guild events per week at 1.0, they will be in very short order. I'll just cancel my sub with a lvl 60 toon and play something else until then. Denying players the satisfaction of large-scale co-operative events in the MMORPG space and hoping people are just masochistic alt-o-holics would be suicide. They're not idiots.
 
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Quaid

Quaid

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Big drop in numbers this test. People still favoring the solo capable & travel speed classes.

Screenshot 2026-02-14 133738.png
 
Del

Del

Potato del Grande
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Hekotat said:
Even with the pace slow downs it still feels too fast. You can hit half level in a few days easily. It's more about the journey and less about getting to the end as fast as possible, and I know most of you will burn through all the content in a week.

Game is really fun to chill with friends and blow shit up, I'm not getting these complaints.
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Agreed. I'm not sure I'm understanding the anger and frustration. The funny thing is, in some ways, I think they've made the game easier over the past 6 months. Spells and abilities hardly ever miss right now and many classes have gotten tools that make controlling groups of mobs and casters a lot more simple and reliable. Leveling pre-40 actually feels quicker than it used to. Maybe this is just because of gear differences and knowledge between then and now, though.
 
Lodi

Lodi

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,542
1,625
It actually felt like AoC died to scope creep. Their vision for what the game would be was just way too broad. I laughed every time they would have a new video and all it would be was "look at all the new mounts we put in!". The peak for me was when they announced they were moving it to an entirely new engine after all that time in development - I knew they were fucked.

I don't get this vibe at all from MnM. I imagine there will be serious balance issues, but a dead game that does not make. Every MMO I've ever played had serious balance issues.
 
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Woefully Inept

Woefully Inept

Bronze Baron of the Realm
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Quaid said:
Ya so not really comparable here.

These guys are intentionally making every decision they possibly could to not get rich quick.
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To get rich quick you have to take money from people. Last I checked you couldn't even throw money at them yet?
 
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Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
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Lodi said:
It actually felt like AoC died to scope creep. Their vision for what the game would be was just way too broad. I laughed every time they would have a new video and all it would be was "look at all the new mounts we put in!". The peak for me was when they announced they were moving it to an entirely new engine after all that time in development - I knew they were fucked.

I don't get this vibe at all from MnM. I imagine there will be serious balance issues, but a dead game that does not make. Every MMO I've ever played had serious balance issues.
Click to expand...

balance is overrated
 
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Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
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moonarchia said:
It just makes or breaks a game.
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Early WoW was an absolute shit-show with Warriors and Rogues out performing some 'DPS' specs by triple digit percentages. Prot Warriors were the ONLY choice for high end raid tanking. Balance Druids, Enhancement Shamans, Shadow Priests, and if memory serves Survival (??) Hunters were absolute dogshit. Paladins were shit across the board for a good while.

Game did OK.

Fun is paramount.
 
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