The good:
1. richer set of cmans
2. enhancives
3. the Horland's Hollar buff


The meh:
1. lower player base means some guild tasks developed during higher pop days are harder to perform
2. enhancives currently create a stat gap for THW/polearm users
3. buffing Horland's Hollar means that warriors who tanked INF intentionally are pooched


Remedies?
1. Make guild task abandonment work like bounty swapping. Bounties have a good balanced feel for switching tasks, and you normally get a different one. This also allows for the possibility of monetizing expediting guild tasks?
2. Maybe THW/polearm should have a higher stat allowance and higher default orbs when designed for fusion. For switchable weapons, this might be painful (I can't see the GS4 codebase obviously) but you could divide all enhancive properties by half when someone grips a bastard sword of katana with one hand.
3. For warrior accounts older than the Horland's Hollar buff, issue a fixstat. (yeah, fat chance, i know).

Food for thought, I don't think necessarily right or wrong. Just sharing my feedback. Peace out.

-Grennon, author of Postal/Minimalist for WOW

Just curious, what is the stat gap for thw/poles that you speak of?

Someone with a sword/shield, or two weapons, can have two hand held items with enhancive properties (or 4 fusion orbs).

Someone with two hand weapon (of any type), gets one chance for enhancive proprties (or 2 fusion orbs).

This creates a possible stat gap. I'm not sure if the stat gap was designed to balance in favor of people with two different hand held items or if it is unintentional.



-Grennon, author of Postal/Minimalist for WOW

Someone with a THW or a polearm also, typically, does way more damage than sword/board or two weapons. So one could argue that it is more than made up.

---

Except that THW and polearm's damage is already factored into balance with training points and defense loss. The enhancive edge any character gains by using two weapons/shields hasn't really been balanced - this is seen in fusion weapons that have 2 slots standard regardless of item size.

To use fusion as an example to explain the point. Two handed weapons, polearms, and runestaves should come with 4 standard slots and that would address part of the imbalance - equal slots. The other side of the coin wouldn't be properly addressed though, and that is types of enhancives allowed on one item. The two handed user would still be at a disadvantage over a sword and board or twc user in optimizing the specific stats they use for combat Assuming +25 orbs, a sword and board user can put one +25 edged weapon orb in their weapon, and one in their shield, hitting the +50 mark relatively easily. The two handed user on the other hand would only be able to fill one of his four slots with a +25 weapon orb.

I'm not actually sure much thought to balance has been given to the enhancive system beyond it's initial release. There is virtually no use of the penalty system, seemingly no thought was given to equalizing point value on different sized items, and the crumbly (temporary) aspect of the system is pretty much eliminated. The enhancive system is quickly heading the way of the old enchanting system since there are no checks and balances in place.

While I take advantage of the fusion sub-system of the enhancive system, I question the correctness of the choice to release fusion gear in mass quantities.

Dgry

I haven't really touched the enhancive system. But don't you need to charge the items? Isn't that a big deal?

<<<Enhancives do need to be recharged, though this can be achieved by using points earned via the adventurer's guild, which also gives out powerful enhancives as rewards for dedicated users. You can also have GM merchants recharge enhancives, and once a year use silvers to recharge them as well. Aside from your badge (the Advg enhancive) which must be recharged by you, people can use their own points to charge your enhancive items as well. >>>

SimuCoins also skewed the enhancive balance even further (perhaps unintentionally). It used to be you basically had to make a choice between charging your enhancives, or saving up your points for a FixStats potion. Now people can buy the potion with SimuCoins, freeing up all their bounty points for recharging their enhancives. I don't have many enhancives, but I was hesitant to charge the few I had because of the wasted bounty points. Now that's not an issue. I'm not sure I'll ever need a FixStat potion, but if I do, I'm not worried about how I'm going to get it.

~ Heathyr and freiends

@Aulis

Thanks for the thoughts. I mentioned that allowing people who equip items in each hand might a been a form of balance. Traditionally, the balance was that sword+board users had a higher defense.

It is a tricky subject, but one worth bringing up. Games have fixed "the stat gap" various ways. Some of the more extreme solutions have been allowing dual-wielding two-hand weapons for warrior/barbarian/berserker type classes. However, round time mechanics in GS are incompatible with that probably. The easiest way to fix it in GS probably is just to give all weapons when gripped with two hands, a passive 2x bonus to all enhancives that come from the weapon. That way loot doesn't have to be redesigned with a higher budget of enhancives or more orb sockets.


-Grennon, author of Postal/Minimalist for WOW