WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG POST AHEAD

So, most of those issues have been around ever since the Closed Beta; Several players have complained to the developers about it, and they did even reply to us sometimes. However in the end, our ideas went ignored and they decided to go with their own silly idea of balancing, which is what you see right now. (AKA, ridiculous) So I think it's about time this ends and we get some actual balance in the game, instead of this really screwed up thing you see right now.

We probably won't, but it's worth a try?

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For easier navigation, I've added some head lines to each section. Simply use CTRL + F and search the code inside the brackets to go directly to X section if you don't feel like reading the others.

[1MAT] 1. The future of the economy of materials, Auction House, stuff
[2UVS] 2. Unique Variants' silly system
[3SWL] 3. Swords vs. Guns/Bombs, and their armor sets
[4ARB] 4. Terrible armor/shield balancing
[5STE] 5. Status effects' and resistance's evil system
[6SHH] 6. Don't tell anyone.
[7BRM] 7. The reason you die is not because you suck, it's because monsters are cheating
[8HBL] 8. Heat on Boss Levels vs. normal levels
[9GER] 9. Generic Energy Rant
[10EN] 10. Conclusion

1. The future economy of materials and its relation with tokens and the Auction House [1MAT]

(I have moved the old post here down, instead of deleting it completely. Several things about it are pretty obsolete now with the addition of the Auction House and changes to crafting/binding. The part in italics is the part of the old ranting on this)

Although several things changed on this post, pretty much all of my suggestions still stand:
-Increase amount of materials needed to craft equipment
-Increase rarity of materials
-Remove most of the 3 to 5 star materials from the token seller, or increase their cost by a good amount
-Balance material rarity, or areas where monsters spawn. The problem with some materials not being easy enough to find is because the mobs that drop them are not common enough in normal levels, such as trojans. By constantly running a fire stratum or FSC, you'll be finding flame souls rather easily, for example.
-UV section; Add some sort of material sink, possibly for attempting UVs

Now, there were major changes on the economy with the most recent patch, so I'll divide the new post here and talk about that, in sections.

First of all: Increasing CE prices on crafting.
(note: I say CE pricing because nothing past two stars is possible to craft without CE)

I feel that this is the complete opposite of what should be done. Yes, crafting five stars was way too easy, except that's not bad. There's not nearly enough tiers of progression on gear - This is really the only reason the endgame gear feels easy to obtain. Making it harder to craft is nothing but a temporary and silly solution. It would work out great and would make sense if it was materials, but CE? That's pretty pointless.

There's already enough CE sinks in the game, not enough crown ones, and the only thing materials are used for is crafting. And they aren't even used on many different equipment, even. (although that's something else - current lack of content.) And increasing the CE cost is simply not reliable enough, as a permanent difficulty/longetivity increase for crafting gear. Why? Because of the CE market. The CE market is still fluctuating and did not settle down - It might rise or crash anytime. It's more likely that it'll rise, although with the new Auction House, players are given an incentive to carry some crowns around aswell. But even so, CE is still more important and is always required, while crowns are dispensable.

However, simply imagine once/if the prices reach 7k - 9k. It simply won't work.

It'd be way more balanced if CE prices were decreased back to the original, a bit more or a bit less, (not exceeding 500, nor going lower than 200) maybe, and instead the different materials and/or material amount required would increase.

Permanent bind

Basically, this was really stupid. Don't really need to say anything else right here. Even less, considering there will be an unbind store in the future. However.

As from what Nick has said about this future store, the pricing to unbind will be about as much as it costs to actually craft the item. And in energy.

Also because of the CE market's fluctuation, this cannot work out well. It should be in CROWNS, and simply doubling the value of an item because of unbinding isn't really the proper way to do this - The price for unbinding should not exceed 50% of what it cost to craft. And again, in crowns! Maybe a mix of energy, mats and crowns, but it certainly shouldn't be mainly energy. It wouldn't work, and would simply inflate the CE market even further.

Auction House fees

This is more of my own opinion, but the listing fees/sale fees are waaaaay too high. It shouldn't exceed 5% for either fees.

There isn't much to say on this one, for the percent fee - It's mostly my own opinion, but not managing to sell an item has way too high of a penalty on players. Even if you do sell, 10% is a damn lot of profit lost.

The usual issue is when you're attempting to re-sell items you crafted, recipes, etc. Not managing to sell them one time already cuts a lot of the profit, and for most cases, if you don't sell it on the second attempt, you pretty much lose all the profit you could ever make with it.

A final note about endgame being too easy to be reached

The problem here isn't really that crafting is too cheap, the items can be sold, etc etc - The problem is the content. That is, tiers.

What I find to be the major issue in here is really the lack of tiers of progression. We only have three tiers of content, (or rather, six tiers, counting every stratum) and six tiers of gear. The very first tier, 0-star, doesn't even really count, since you just pass right through it. Most players also opt to skip 1-star directly to 2-star, since the only 1-star equipment that goes past 3-stars would be the Haze Bomb. 2-star lasts really short aswell, in general, while 3 and 4-star could last you quite a while, and 5-star is the endgame.

Comparing this to other games, there's simply not enough tiers on gear or levels. This is what gives the general feel of grind and slow progression. In my opinion, if it was too easy to reach the endgame tier, (5-star) when there's so little tiers, the solution wouldn't be to make it any harder to get to, but rather, to make additional tiers. Sure, this is much harder to code and etc. than a simple change in crafting prices and stuff - but really, you guys (Three Rings) simply brought yourselves into this - There was no need to release this game so early, and with so little content.

That's really all I gotta say here. I hope you guys understand that.

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Old ranting

It should be pretty obvious to anyone that once the Auction House is released, there will be much more ease to sell and buy materials and items, thus, potential sellers and buyers that are quiet before it is implemented will start selling and buying items actively. In general, since there's both quiet sellers and buyers, this situation would balance itself and the economy would stabilize in a nice price for materials and all... However. There's a major issue.

Materials are way too common, even for the rarer and higher star ones. By simply running any T3 gate constantly, you'll notice that some mats will be incredibly easy to obtain.

The general problem here isn't even their rarity, but rather, how crafting requires so little materials, and how literally every single five star and four star material can be obtained with tokens. Having no material sink either, most players never really need X material again, and end up having a ridiculously large stock of it.

Now, considering high end players will have a lot of leftover materials, and the demand will be pretty low, I think it's obvious the price is going to crash to a pretty darn low cost. The problem in this will be that in comparison to crown and CE cost, materials will be much cheaper. If materials cost 30k, CE/crowns will cost 60k. Or, if the price really does crash significantly, it'll be more like, 10k vs. 90k. (Those prices would be if you crafted something from 2* up to 5*)

In my opinion, it does not make sense for the CE and crown cost to be higher than the material cost. Although the problem is mainly how devalued materials and items will be, once there's an auction house, because every single damn person will be looking to craft and/or sell those.

This one little thing is one major point that could ruin the whole economy of the game, if it does happen. There's a chance this wouldn't really harm the economy much, but I don't think that would be the case.

There's a lot of things that could be done on this. Some of my suggestions would be:

-Increase amount of materials needed for crafting.
-Remove a majority of the materials from the token trader. (What's even the point of hunting or buying materials when every single damn material can be bought with tokens, at a rather cheap cost?)
-Balance material rarity, or areas where monsters spawn. The problem when Philoso Feathers and Trojan Horseshoes weren't easily obtainable was that Trojans and Kats didn't spawn in many levels, and were the only mobs that could drop those items. Adding those items on the token trader solved the problem of them being too rare, but ruined their actual variable value. Some other materials such as Sun Silver or Volcanic Iron, on the other hand, are naturally rare, and should probably be a bit more common.
-Add a material sink of some sort. Such as being able to reattempt variants for a high material cost.

EDIT:

So, we have our auction house AND the crafting costs went up, recipe costs went down, and binding equipment is completely permanent now. This is surely the best thing you could have done for the economy, thanks! Wait, no, this is the exact opposite of what should be done.

There are enough damn CE sinks in the game already. You're simply increasing the CE sinks here and thus the in game market for crowns and CE will rise, without any doubt. This will cause a lot of more trouble in the section 9 problems. Not to say that, right now, the energy required increase does not have an actual effect to crafting (people are too busy raging to realize that, I guess?) - Basically, it only adds at most a 5K crowns extra cost at the crafting of anything. Consider that recipe prices went down - Five stars, for example, went from 45,000 to 25,000 crowns. At the current prices, this is about 400CE - The overall increase on 5-star craft was of 500CE.

But anyway. Some people might say this whole update was because of TRD's greed or whatever, although I do not believe it. I believe it is mostly their own ignorance towards players and lack of understanding on actual balancing of a game.

Basically, I believe they think that the CE prices will stay at 5,000 crowns! Which is something really really silly to expect, but I seriously doubt TRD would really just be plain greedy on this. They're just being REALLY silly.

Anyway, I'll repeat myself to the devs: There are ENOUGH ENERGY SINKS. There NEEDS TO BE MORE CROWN SINKS. And that does not mean Auction House fees. AND THERE NEEDS TO BE SOME DAMN MATERIAL SINKS, THEY'RE ONLY USED FOR CRAFTING AND YOU BARELY NEED ANY. MATERIALS BEING COMMON AND NOT NEEDED IS THE MAIN PROBLEM IN THE ECONOMY.

And about Auction House: This is more of my own opinion, but the listing fees/sale fees are waaaaay too high. It shouldn't exceed 2% for listing fee and 5% for the sales fee.

Additionally, the equipments permanently binding now is ridiculously silly. Most of the market consisted of this. Making it harder to craft gear, sure, that raises their value and adds more progression into the game. But this permanent bind seems pretty silly - No matter what, if the crafting prices went up, they'd sell for way too high for people to simply buy their way to endgame. Unless they're hella rich, but then it doens't matter. They'll find some way to buy their way to endgame anyway.

If there was some way to unbind, this could work well, though.

2. Unique Variants eat CE for breakfast [2UVS]

This seems to be the main CE/common material sink. UVs seem to be pretty fine in the bazaar, no? Rare enough, worth quite a bit and all, there's a lot of them... Buuuut, now imagine you want a very specific UV, and no one is selling it, so you have to "ragecraft" for it.

And this is where it gets ridiculous. The overall chance of getting an UV is about 10%, and from my observation, 5 out of 6 UVs will be Lows, while that other one will be medium, etc. Now imagine you want a specific, endgame UV. The overall cost in CE solely would exceed 10000CE to simply obtain a "decent" UV. Overall, the problem with this isn't the price, but how it's a pure gamble, and how it's impractical. It also ends up being a bit expensive, obviously, though that's not really a big problem once you're aiming for UVs.

It simply feels stupid to work on this way. Endgame, you have no other armors or weapons that you really want, but you'd like having some additional stats, some UVs. You're forced to either buy it from other player, which is fair, or ragecraft and get filled up with over a hundred pointless copies of the item you're crafting. And then you'd have to upgrade it all again, and your old one would be obsolete.

Another issue is how this generally ruins the market for low-star items, because of UV masscrafters. It's easy to find Haze Bombs going for 350 crowns or less (...consider it sells to vendors at 300 crowns)

It feels like a really silly game mechanic.

So, my suggestions for this? Some way of reattempting UVs for a high material cost, with a small CE/crown cost aswell. The overall chance of getting an UV should be high (40% - 70%?) if rare (4 - 5 stars) materials are used, and depending on materials used, you could attempt to obtain specific UVs or qualities. It could even be quite dynamic, being able to use as many materials as you wish to increase quality/chance to obtain the specific UV you want/overall chance of success.

As a note, some people might think this would break the game and generate several "OP" items - However, variants are too minimal to make a major difference at endgame. (Note, I say MAJOR. It is quite a nice bonus, but it's nothing that can break the whole game or suddenly make you invincible.)

And since some people seem to be misunderstanding this: The point isn't to make it cheaper/easier, although that would be nice. The overall price would remain the same, (supposing the material prices are not too ridiculously low) however instead of a simple 1 - 2 star material sink, energy sink and creating a billion copies of the same item, it'd be simply a material sink ranging from 1 to 5 star materials, and whatever and however many materials you'd use would affect the success rate, or chance to get a specific UV. Overall, the prices for this wouldn't increase, but it would be far more practical.

3. Swords are given enough love [3SWL]

This should be pretty obvious for any high end player: Swords are incredibly powerful and useful, guns are quite weak, and bombs appear to be solely for support.

On the case of guns, the main problem is on a few specific guns, and mobs: Iron Slug, Antigua Lines, Nova Driver and Umbra Driver. And mobs would be mainly Wolvers. But really, any mob that can dodge will be a problem for gunners and their party, not to say situations with several mobs and healers.

Iron Slug: Exact same as Callahan... But without stun, and it's normal damage. Doens't feel like a fair trade off, to be honest.

Argent Peacemaker: Good against undead and trojans. Ridiculous damage on everything else, and not useful enough against other fiends.

Sentenza: Good against gremlins. That's all, really.

The main problem with the Antigua lines is the ridiculously low damage on anything that isn't weak to them - Mobs' strengths defend more damage than the additional damage weaknesses do; So the damage is really just pathetic on anything that isn't really weak to it. Most other guns end up getting either a status effect, or high damage; Argent and Sentenza, in general, get neither.

Argent is great against undead and trojans, however, Devilites prove to dodge too often to keep a constant damage rate at them, not to say that they can attack you from far by throwing projectiles. Greavers are generally to quick to be worth dealing it using solely guns, and Silkwings have a really small hitbox; It can be really difficult to hit them, and even more if they're surrounded by mobs, although Argent can be nice if you have a good aim or are lucky.

Sentenza is good against gremlins; Forcing them to dodge actually gives you some time to back off and get a hold of yourself. Sentenza is also strong against beasts... But really, gunning wolvers? Unless you're a pure gunslinger, there's no way this would ever work out better than other weapons. Chromalisks? I guess it's good for those! But Chromalisks are easy enough.

Nova Driver: The exact same as Magma, Storm and Hail Drivers, but cannot inflict any status effect! Amazing.

So really, what's the point in this? The Nova Driver used to have a VS Undead High bonus, but that was removed for some reason, it seems? But... why? Some players say it was because it was too strong... But how was it any better than swords, or an Argent?

Myself, I own a VS Undead VH Magma Driver. It deals about 60 extra damage, at most. I cannot see how this is too strong, or how it'd be better to completely remove the bonus and leave as it is rather than giving a lower bonus, or more attack power.

Umbra Driver: It's about in the same situation as a Sentenza, although Umbra Driver is an alchemer. For gremlins, that is - Being pure shadow, it's effective against slimes instead of beast. But a shadow gun simply for slimes/gremlins seems pretty silly - Sentenza will be generally more useful against gremlins, since it's more accurate and faster, and slimes are already easy enough, no matter what gun/weapon you use.

I believe the Umbra Driver used to knockdown monsters on its shots, but that was a bug and was removed? Not sure.

Most other guns are balanced to an extent, although still weak and will not fair well if there are healing mobs in play. But as you see, one of the things I really dislike on guns is that they are way too specialized. They do not fair well against mobs that aren't weak to their attack type, and normal guns... There's only Valiance and Iron Slug. They're pretty nice, I guess - But still way too weak to be considered as good as specialized ones or other weapons.

And something that can be really bothersome is how several mobs ALWAYS dodge/teleport/block when attacked with guns. On solo, this isn't really that bad - It's not that hard to aim at the dodging mobs and continue dealing good damage, except for wolvers. But on party play? Forcing mobs to teleport, dodge or block can be a real mess, and screw up with the rest of your party. Unless you're all gunners, then it'd feel like if you're on a rave or some crazy crap.

One other major point to guns is the gunslinger sets; Why are they so ridiculously weaker than swords? Because guns are supposed to be weaker, and if the sets were as strong as swords, it'd be too much? If attack speed doens't affect reload, or time before reload? If damage bonuses are much weaker than they are on swords?

But so, let's compare. To add to it, I'll also compare with the bomber sets, which are a bit weaker aswell.

Shadowsun set vs Skolver, vs Bombastic. All are damage-bonus sets.
Shadowsun: Low. Skolver: Medium. Bombastic: Low.
Shadowsun: Weakness to poison and curse. Skolver: Resistance against freeze. Bombastic: No resistances or weaknesses.

...What?! Why? Why does Skolver get resistance and medium damage, and the other sets don't? Shouldn't it be the other way around, considering guns and bombs are really weak in comparison to swords?

Nameless vs Vog Cub vs Volcanic. Those are speed-based.
Nameless: Attack Speed Medium for guns. Vog Cub: Attack Speed Medium for swords. Volcanic: CTR Medium for bombs... although the armor gives low?
Nameless: No resistances or weaknesses. Vog Cub: Resistant to fire. Volcanic: Resistant to fire.

It feels a bit weird that Volcanic's armor only gives low, but it somewhat makes sense; It'd be silly to give a maximum CTR just from pure armory and the natural medium bonus. But Nameless not having fire resist doens't make much sense, does it?

As a note, no, I'm not saying opposing sets need to be nerfed. I'm saying the Gunslinger sets need to be buffed, and Bombastic could do with a buff too!

There are some other Gunslinger and Demo sets, although those are different, and there isn't any sword-based sets for their bonuses.

Now, bombs. Those are pretty fairly balanced, and seem to be mainly for support. A Nitronome can even be pretty good for DPS if used well. Though some bombs, such as Big Angry Bomb, Graviton or Irontech, are far too weak, even more in comparison to Nitronome for Irontech and BAB. And I don't know - Bombs that seem to be focused on DPS, such as Radiant Sun Shards or the Blast series don't really seem to be able to compete against any other weapons. The DPS is way too low in comparison.

So in general, the problem with guns is that they are way too weak when compared to swords. Swords shouldn't be nerfed - They're fairly balanced and not incredibly powerful. But guns could do with some buffs and damage balancing, so they aren't so specialized.

In addition, the balancing of different upgrade trees of a weapon is pretty funky. There's no reason to make a Fearless Rigadoon or Fierce Flamberge instead of a Final Flourish - Final gets much more attack power, (as much base attack as a Leviathan - it seems for Rigadoon/Flamberge their attack bars don't even hit the maximum display) Rigadoon is just a Slight chance (that is, really really low.) of moderate stun. Additionally, since stun is currently bugged and causes mobs to instantly attack, it's kind of silly to get a Rigadoon. Flamberge... a Fair chance (still somewhat low) of causing Moderate fire. This is a little better than Rigadoon, however compared to let's say a Combuster, a Magma Driver or Ash of Agni, there's not much of a point.

4. Armor & Shield Balancing: You're doing it wrong [4ARB]

I already talked a bit about this on the previous section, but there's more to it than just the weapon-specific armor sets. My favorite example is the CHAOS SET.

Low normal and elemental defense, compared to every other set, even Mad Bomber. Weakness to EVERY SINGLE STATUS EFFECT THAT EXISTS. And a low universal damage bonus.

SEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRIOOOOOUUUUSSSSLLLLLYYYYY?

I don't think I even need to comment much on this. A ridiculous universal low is not worth all the weaknesses you get and the defense lost, in comparison to other sets, specially when you have sets that give medium damage, attack speed, etc, even if specialized.

Okay so, in the past, this armor used to be a medium damage bonus and a medium CTR, both universal. It lacked normal defense, and because of that and the weaknesses it wasn't even that useful or popular - Some of my friends used it. It was difficult to play with the lack of resists and weaknesses, but the extra damage/CTR was nice. Not nice enough for endgame situations, though, so it was more of a "ninja kamikaze" set for the more skilled to do some levels or tiers that they're used to. But for example, Vanaduke, Danger Rooms or Arenas, it didn't go very well. And this is because the one friend that used this set back then was Magnus. I'm talking about Magnus here, damn it. He had trouble with that set.

And then the devs go and nerf the bonuses to low - This alone was enough for Magnus and others who used the set to dump it. We complained about the silly balancing, and they said they'd work on it, though we weren't given much info on it. Upon the official release of the game, we saw the result of such balancing - Adding normal defense, but removing the CTR and leaving the damage bonus at low.

So yeah. I don't think I have to say much else on this one armor.

Now, most other armor sets and all aren't as bad, although they are still inferior in terms of safety against the popular Vog Cub/Volcanic Demo, Divine, Grey Feather or even Volcanic Plate. But what feels silly is that even back in the Preview Event times, we'd complain about several armor sets being way too weak, and back then, today's popular/good sets weren't as popular/good. Sets like Chaos or Angelic series were pretty ridiculous, but in the end, instead of getting buffed, they only got nerfed. (Fallen/Valkyrie were both universal Medium damage bonuses, instead of attack speed/nothing.)

So yeah, I have complained a lot about the armor balancing in the past, and I think the devs understand my point and other players' arguments too, so, I'll only repeat the main thing I said back then.

Nerfing everything isn't balancing.

Now, shields.

Shields...

shields.

I really don't even feel like saying much here, because it's obvious. There's only four "usable" shields, endgame: Owlite, Volcanic Plate, Ancient Plate and Omega Shell. This is mainly because piercing and shadow damage aren't common enough, and elemental is freaking everywhere. And Omega Shell has great defense against everything.

Edit: As with the Devilite/Wolver/Jelly change, shields such as Royal Jelly, Ironmight Plate and Dread Skelly have more of a purpose. But even so, ones such as Aegis or Dragon Scale fall behind in comparison.

But now, one thing I don't really understand about shields is status effect resistance: Why isn't it passive? Wait, is it passive somehow? How the hell does this work?!

I have been testing shield resistances for quite a while, and I still cannot understand very well how it currently works, if it's bugged, or what. From what I know, it works fine, however it's pretty silly that it is not a passive buff. But I don't know, it really seems to be pretty damn bugged.

From my understanding, it seems status resists makes your shield last longer at any kind of attack that could inflict a status effect, such as a Slag Walker's breath, a fire grate ground trap, or an Ash Tail's bite. This makes sense and works fine, however, I still think shield resists should be passive, somehow.

Another thing I'd like to note about equipment balancing is how pathetic defense UVs are on shields. On an armor or helmet, a maximum would be pretty much 5 bars of defense. This is a pretty high and great amount, but on shields... I own a Grey Owlite Shield with Elemental Maximum, and it has what, 2 more bars of defense than normal. It feels silly that shields gain less defense from UVs than armor, considering shields' stats only affect their own health/defense, even on UVs.

And as a final note, trinkets: There's no damn reason anyone would be willing to collect and spend 100 tokens for a trinket that offers only half as much resist as a five star, or one that offers a pretty darn low amount of defense. Resist/defense trinkets seriously need to be more worthwhile.

5. Status Effects: Resist or die [5STE]

This one is also pretty obvious! Status effects later on are pretty much this: Bring some resist, you can do it somewhat fine. Bring a lot of resist, you're good to go! Bring no resist, die in five seconds.

Status effects focuses too much on resist; Players that simply cannot afford armor with resist yet shouldn't be so severely punished to a point that they can't even do specific levels because the status effect the mobs inflict in there is way too strong. Some of you say, carry some remedy capsules! Yes, they help. But they're not infinite. And at the rate you can be inflicted with status effects if you have little to no resist, your remedy capsules might aswell be completely gone in twenty seconds.

Now, resist has one other major problem: The cap is too low, and does not grant immunity. This means, after you reach a certain amount of resist, although some/most attacks won't inflict you with that status effect, some others still do; And no matter how much additional resist you get, duration will remain the same, damage taken/effect of the status effect will remain the same. Doubt me? I have a Vog Cub set, a Fire Maximum variant, a fire medium variant, a fire resist five-star trinket, and a Grey Owlite shield. Equipped all those, went to Firestorm Citadel; Zombies' fire lasts 5 seconds, dealing 1 - 1.7 damage per tick, three ticks.

Now, I unequipped all those, and went with solely Vog Cub, no UVs for fire resist; went to Firestorm Citadel; Zombies' fire lasts 5 seconds, dealing 1 - 1.7 damage per tick, three ticks.

Yeah.

Additionally, I tested again, using the same set, on depth 26 - 28, against fire retrodes.

...even their swipe attacks would cause fire. And it's not even uncommon - I got hit 7 times by the swipes, and at least 4 of them caused fire. Their beam attacks always caused fire, although I didn't get hit by those more than three times.

I don't know but I feel someone with insane amounts of resist should be rewarded with immunity for simply getting there. Would immunity be too strong? I don't think immunity to a single status effect would be any stronger than great resist to say, 4 different status effects, which is already possible with UVs/armor and trinket mixing.

But I didn't get to the big problem in status effects. This big problem is what I call refreshing; Refreshing is when you're already suffering from X status effect, and get affected by it again, causing an instant tick and resetting the timer.

The problem here is that this causes fire to deal 1 - 3 damage per second if you happen to be stuck and standing on fire. (it's very possible - Imagine a T3 fire slime arena. The oilers were set on fire by red rovers, and you accidentally killed the rovers before the oilers, spawning two gremlin menders and two more oilers. I have done this before - It's just plain insane. I can't even deal damage to anything because of the gremlins casting healing circles and the fire everywhere blocking my vision)

Freeze... If you find yourself frozen with your shield broken, while being attacked by retrodes, devilites, gun puppies or the such, or even standing on top of an ice grate, you cannot even do anything - Simply wait until you get lucky and the next attack doesn't freeze you, or until you die.

Shock. Shock ticks remove the damage immunity you get from taking a hit, so you can get instantly shocked, then hit again, shocked again, hit again, etc, until you die.

Poison, Curse and Stun won't really do anything other than be a bit annoying with the timer resetting. (although stun against multiple lumbers or trojans in T3 can be really troublesome - You'll be moving way too slow to be able to dodge anything, and constant hits means constant stun. Can't attack, either, since you get interrupted before you can finish the animation)

So yeah. My suggestions for status effects? Completely remove refreshing, or at least delay it for fire, and remove it for freeze and shock. And for resisting status effects, monsters should have an overall lower chance of causing X status effect when you have no resist, and resist shouldn't really make this massive of a difference, (Getting half a meter of shock resist made me go from 9 seconds of shock and about 6 ticks to 4 seconds and only 2 ticks) although the cap should be higher so variant & armor/trinket resist stacking is worth something, and immunity should be added with very high resist.

Something that people also often complain is Greavers. Their hazes ignore shields and can go through solid objects or walls, which is just silly. I'd guess this is a bug, but on either case, it needs to be changed.

6. IT'S A SECREEETTTTT [6SHH]

One thing I really do not understand is why devs simply hate to give us concrete numbers and stats on equipment and stuff. I'm pretty sure any hardcore or high end gamer would like having some numbers or some sort of statistic for easier comparison of equipment and set combining.

My main problem here though, is when you have too much defense and it hits a full meter on the character screen, which actually isn't the limit of defense, resistance, attack power, whatever. If you do get too much of a stat that it fills the meter, you won't be able to see if you have more than that, although it isn't the maximum. Examples on this? Plate Mail and Helm sets. It shows a full meter, right? I went and equipped Ancient Plate Mail, together with a helmet with no normal defense. When I checked the character overall stats, it actually showed 1.7 meter of defense. (Defense is halved on overall stats, so 1 full meter shows as 0.5; Ancient was showing 0.85.) Leviathan Blade Vs CIV - Both show the same attack power, but Leviathan actually has more. Etc, etc.

So yeah, although I'd like some numbers or SOMETHING that could help more with knowing the exact stats of armory, I guess I understand you guys don't really want that? But really, at least let us see the rest of the defense/resist/attack if the meter is full! Add a second colour to represent it or something.

While on this secrecy subject, may I ask why the hell are you guys so afraid of giving us more technical information on patches, better information on the availability of equipment, (A GM or dev once commented Blackened Crest was available and obtainable. Except it's a ridiculously low drop from treasure boxes. I do not consider something that only one person out of 1000 players would ever get a chance to find and use to be an "obtainable item".) commenting on our suggestions, (I don't want confirmation that it'd be added or not - A simple answer of how it could be done, other things that have to be considered, hell, a "maybe sometime in the far future, but it's not high priority right now" would just rock.) more information on bug reports, (GMs often handle those often, although some feedback from the devs themselves would be nice. Additionally, I'd really like if you could receive replies for in-game bug reports) etc etc.

You do not have to fear your playerbase. We're not in a rush to get new features, bug fixes, content, whatever, (okay fine we are, since the game was released with so little content. but this isn't really something that bothers most players other than the hardcore ones, and as more content gets added it won't be as bad) and honestly, if you're not going to listen to your playerbase, then who? We're the ones able to give you the best feedback, since we're the ones playing the game. We know the issues it has, the things that could be added, etc... We'd just like to hear more from you guys, really.

This little post by Kalielle sums up this section pretty well:

"It's great to see such thoughtful, well-articulated feedback. The devs are getting for free the kind of thorough analysis for which most companies would have to pay an army of consultants. I hope they're wise enough to take it into account."

(just in case you think I'm just talking about my thread in particular: No, I'm talking about the whole Suggestions forum section)

So, please. Answer our questions, suggestions, bug reports more often, interact with us a bit, hire a community manager, something!

7. The reason you die is not because you suck, it's because monsters are cheating [7BRM]

Originally, this section was about some specific mobs such as zombies having an incredibly long-reaching attack range. But after observing some mobs, I have noticed that there are balancing issues with attack speed, range, and etc on pretty much EVERY mob. So, let's go by monster families. But first, the general issues.

General Issues
-The range of mobs' attacks, and our range too. Hits much farther than the animation actually displays.
Some might say this is a latency issue, and really, it does affect players with latency more often than ones without. But it's not a latency issue.

I have tested this many times - I just stand still and let a mob attempt to attack me from far away. Often there is at least a 1/3 ~ 2/3 of a block of distance between my character and the area where the mob's animation supposedly hits; I still get hit and damaged. This is more easily noticeable with Zombies and Wolvers, since they can turn around while attacking, while zombies attack very fast, making it difficult to dodge this. In general, giving SLIGHTLY more range than the animation shows is "needed", since otherwise it wouldn't hit far enough - However, currently, it's hitting excessively far and making it really unfair and difficult to dodge those mobs, even more if you have any sort of latency. (and personally, I don't think it's really needed)

Beasts
-Wolvers: Hits farther than the animation shows, can turn while casting, and can teleport while casting.
The range issue is explained on general issues. Turning around while casting is fine, but being able to teleport while casting is just really stupid.

I mean, since they always teleport from gun bullets, and often will randomly teleport even if you're using melee weapons, the only time you can generally safely attack them with guns, at least, is when they're casting. Then they just randomly teleport behind you, release the attack and damage you since you simply didn't expect that.

That's just plain unfair.

Constructs
-Lumbers: Lumbers are generally slow and easy to dodge, right? However, the problem is if you get stunned and there are other lumbers or mobs around you; Being stunned makes dodging essentially impossible. (usually, not if you're careful, but with stun weakness it will be pretty much impossible) Attacking isn't even possible either, because of the slow speed. Now imagine you end up getting hit, are knocked back in a corner, then get surrounded by mobs. Not much you can do in this situation.

Additionally, the range issue is somewhat present in lumber's attacks aswell, even after their range nerf.

-Mecha Knights
They simply use their charge attack way too often. This wouldn't really be that much of an issue if it wasn't so ridiculously powerful, (An elemental mecha's charge destroys my Grey Owlite shield with elemental maximum in a single hit, at lower depths. Even at higher ones, it gets it orange. Actual damage? Using a Vog Cub set, at depth 27 it'd deal at least 17 bars of damage.) didn't cast so fast, and didn't have great range. (the range is somewhat broken, aswell, although I believe this is more of an issue with my latency)

Really, when attacking groups of mechas, I usually don't even get any time to even shield before they finish their charge. (again, issue with my latency, but considering I can shield most other things, this is pretty unfair)

Now, in general, this isn't all that difficult to deal with. But a bug that has been present for a damn long time and wasn't fixed yet makes everything worse.

Mechas can damage and knock each other around with their normal attacks.

This ends up causing them to knock charging ones in my face. Can't dodge, can't react fast enough to shield. Just slapped in the face.

-Retrodes
GOD DAMN IT STOP GANGING ME WITH LASERS THAT I CANNOT SHIELD BECAUSE THEY'RE TOO STRONG AND GETTING HEALED BY RANDOM MOBS WHEN I TRY TO RANGE DAMAGE YOU AND ATTACKING MY FACE TOO FAST WHEN I USE MELEE AND CAUSING STATUS EFFECTS EVEN THOUGH I HAVE INFINITE RESIST

...Yeah. I don't think I have to say much else here.

Fiends
-Devilites
They attack too god damn fast. This would be fine, if they weren't so freaking strong. (depth 25+, overtimers were dealing 8 damage on me with their ranged attacks, when using a Vog Cub. And that's before their attacks dealt shadow, and were only normal.)

Personally, I think devilites being fast and hard to dodge fits them well, but with this insanely high damage, it doesn't work.

Additionally, since it's easy to get hit by them, when fighting groups and attempting to melee, their attacks shouldn't cancel ours - It's extremely easy to get hit several times, and be unable to actually attack and hit them when using slower weapons. Even with faster ones this is somewhat of an issue. (again, mostly a latency issue, but I'm pretty sure they're too darn fast! They're sometimes able to start and finish their attack animation before I can finish my DA's animation and hit them)

-Greavers
Stunlocking through status effects, haze is invisible for half of its duration, haze goes through walls, impossible to dodge. Screw this.

-Trojans
Similar issue to Lumbers: Their stun can easily stunlock you, making you unable to dodge other mobs or trojan's attacks. Trojans always spawn with some other mobs with them, and hit an even larger area, (yes, range issues!) so this issue is even worse than with lumbers.

Not to say, for some reason, they removed shield knockback from trojans, so if you get cornered, you're screwed. (unconfirmed on latest update but whatever - this happened even when shields could knockback due to several mobs cornering you)

Gremlins
Okay, screw this crap. SCREW IT.

-Menders
Fine on T1, fine on T2, motherfreaking ridiculous on T3.

Seriously.

Why is a SINGLE mender able to cast TWO healing circles within FIVE seconds, get immune to damage with their weirdo shield, knockback with their heals, heal themselves, and dodge MELEE attacks... all at once? (or rather, in a small time)

It's just plain ridiculous. If you don't focuse your damage on a single mob, or spread it well against several mobs, it's literally impossible to deal with menders. The healing circle is pretty much immunity to damage, since it heals way too fast to be able to out-DPS it.

Now, imagine that they can revive other gremlins, (including menders!) often spawn in groups of 2 - 3 in arenas, and usually have at least 3 mobs to back them up. (or on arenas/danger zones, at least 10!)

This is just freaking unfair. It's like if we HAVE to carry AND spam poison weapons to be able to deal with them, if on solo.

Honestly. Their healing circles shouldn't be nearly as powerful, and they shouldn't be able to cast so ridiculously fast. And their AI should be changed, aswell, so they don't end up hiding behind monsters all the damn time, making it impossible to actually hit them if you're doing an arena on solo, for example.

-Thwackers
GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Okay seriously. Range is also a major reason with Thwackers since they can easily dash and move around, and make combos of attacks. But the worst part in here is. The. Freaking. INSTANT. Spin attack.

Insane damage. (Vog Cub, D26+, 10+ damage) Nearly instant cast, impossible to interrupt. Can use in rapid succession after dashing directly to your face. Insane knockback, high chance of stun.

Come on, seriously? Something like this shouldn't just be instantly casted. It's ridiculous.

Slimes
-Jellies
A recent update changed jellies from a plain joke to a ridiculously unfair and evil mob.

God damn it, ground spikes.

There's quite a few problems with this attack.
>The hole is not noticeable enough. If it's right under you, your character blocks the vision of the hole the spikes cause before they go up and cause damage.
>Stunlocking the jelly cube (that is, interrupting their attacks) will not interrupt the spike. As long as the jelly cube started casting it, the spike will go up and cause damage, no matter what. This is plain unfair.
>It can reach both long and close ranges. Considering you can't see the holes when they're directly under you, this makes it ridiculously unfair on close range.

It's pretty simple: The spikes should have a set range to appear at. No closer to the jelly cube, no farther. Too far? Spike bombarding through walls. Too close? Can't see the spikes when attempting to deal with the jelly cubes on melee. And stunlocking should be able to cancel it, too!

Making it any more noticeable isn't really needed, but would be nice. Possibly an animation of small streams of spike on the ground, before the hole with the big spike, not causing any damage.

Undeads
-Kats
Range issue with their bites in deeper tiers. This is mainly because in deeper tiers, their bite attacks will thrust them forward further, so it's hard to actually dodge it.

-Zombies
Their arms are five meters long. That's all.

-Slag Guards
DEAR FREAKING LORD

Vanaduke
(as a note: haven't done Vanaduke since latest update, although before that, he was still broken like this, and been for a while, so I don't doubt that he remains the same)

And now, just a final question: Why haven't you fixed the ridiculous issues with Vanaduke, yet you fix the more obvious ones? Is lava spawning inside walls actually INTENDED? Is the Slag Guards being crazy and evil intended? Is getting stuck inside lava/knocked directly into lava intended?

I really don't understand. You guys even fixed the error with his fire snakes, which aren't really all that significant in the battle, yet lava and Slag Guards remain the same. If you want him to be hard, then you should just add some new attacks, maybe traps around the stage, whatever, not a bunch of ridiculously broken and unfair stuff.

Additionally, I feel that his lava orbs shouldn't be allowed to hit your character when he performs a dash, or should have their range reduced then. It's really unfair to be side-swept by them when Vanaduke dashes at you from offscreen/edge of the screen, and you weren't fast enough to get out of the way.

-----

Old post for archiving reasons:

I don't really see much complaining about this, because it's only really annoying to people who have at least a bit of latency, so they think they're just having a bad time of latency, when they're not. But it's easy to notice how broken the range of certain mob attacks is.

It's pretty simple. Monsters can hit much farther than the actual animation shows. Zombies can reach over two blocks far, although the animation only shows one block and half at most. Wolvers' bite only really show one block far, but it pretty much can reach two blocks far too. Trojans' sword smash? Hell, you can be to the side of where the cracks spawn and it'll still hit you, magically. Somewhat happens with lumbers and lichen colonies, too. Not to say Slag Guards, aswell - The range of their attacks is ridiculously big, compared to the animations.

So yeah. I'd like if it at least had a better indication of the range. Like this it's just unfair to the unfortunate that play with latency.

(Obviously this affects ones without latency aswell - But at least myself, I know very well how far some mobs can hit, but the latency always gets on the way and I get my timing all wrong. Zombie [apocolypse]!)

8. The Clockworks are frozen, The Royal Jelly King is on FIRE [8HBL]

This thing should be pretty obvious. Clockworks? Bad heat, bad crowns. Royal Jelly King palace, Firestorm Citadel? Incredible heat and crowns. Result? Farm Jelly King like a madman. Avengers and Fausts. Avengers and Fausts everywhere. And no variety in levels if you're looking to make any kind of profit.

The main problem with this is that it'd be completely fair if RJP or FSC were more difficult - but they aren't. If anything, they're even easier - If you want to get a good amount of profit/heat on Clockworks or other levels, you HAVE to do arenas or danger zones, both being incredibly difficult. Or Jelly Farms, if you're lucky enough to find a stratum with those!

On the earlier preview times, getting a lot of arenas/danger zone clockworks was easier, and thus some specific gates were giving incredible heat and crowns. But now, the rate of which levels are created is more balanced, thus creating a lot of worthless levels that give crap heat. This is how it goes:

Danger Zone clockworks > Arena levels > Firestorm Citadel > Royal Jelly Palace > Aurora Isles: Jelly Farms > (Good heat/crowns)
Lichenous Lair > Scarlet Fortress > Gloaming Wildwoods > Clockworks > Devilish Drudgery (Moderate heat/crowns)
Dark City > Deconstruction Zone > Jigsaw Valley > Wolver Den > Concrete Jungle (Terrible heat/crowns)

I might be wrong on some of the ranking but that's mostly correct.

One of the main problems in here seems to be the length of the random levels. They can be incredibly long and give amazing amounts of heat and crowns... Or they can be stupidly short and give nothing. This is a big problem on Clockworks, Wolver Den and Deconstruction Zones. I specially dislike how short Deconstruction Zones can be - I find them to be really fun. (although a bit crazy when you get 20 gremlin thwackers chasing you)

Now, the other main problem? Wolver Den, although random aswell, no matter what, will give terrible heat and crowns, always. Jigsaw Valley, Dark City and Concrete Jungle are set levels that don't randomize, thus they automatically suck. Dark City can actually give decent heat/crowns, however it's ridiculously difficult and unfair, while Jigsaw Valley has some decent levels although the majority is terribly short and/or gives bad heat/crowns. Concrete Jungle is just a plain joke in terms of heat and crowns.

The heat and crowns gained on levels really need to be balanced to be either better or equal to RJP and FSC. Both being much easier than actual normal levels, it's pretty stupid that they give way more crowns and heat.

As you can see in my rating table though, Clockworks with Danger Zones and Arena levels can give much better heat and crowns than RJP or FSC. But the problem is that those levels rely too much on the random factor. (only 1/3 of the clockwork levels I do have danger zones, and for both of them, in their random rotation it's really common to have 1 - 2 other random crappy levels, not to say arenas are very rare. Additionally, some specific monster families do not give as much heat/crowns - Jelly and Undead give great heat, however beast gives horrible heat) And they're insanely difficult when compared to RJP and FSC. (I never understood this - Why the hell are boss levels so easy and rewarding, the boss so unbalanced, and normal levels so ridiculously difficult and unrewarding?)

It also worries me that if we get more content and level variety, this problem might even get worse. Because it's certainly worse from back in the CB times, when Devilish Drudgery levels weren't around yet.

An alternate solution would be to completely change boss levels to give a major amount of heat and little crowns, or a big amount of crowns but little heat. From my point of view, this probably wouldn't work very well, though.

And talking about the heat of boss levels! Jelly King and Vanaduke's heat/crown rate are pretty terrible. Sure, we're given tons of chests, but we're also given chests in previous levels! And the previous levels actually have monsters that can drop materials and whatever. I dunno, they're much harder than the levels themselves. It feels like they should be giving a good amount of heat/crowns. Either that or some sort of more meaningful reward than just tokens. (which end up becoming pretty meaningless when there's 50 avengers/fausts up for sale, or if you already have everything you want from Almirian seals, since the items aren't tradeable or really all that good)

9. omg CE is sooooo expensive this game sucks [9GER]

So now I'm gonna rant about CE! You people will probably think "oh god another noob that can't understand this crap", but no, this is actually more serious. (probably?)

So as you people can see, the CE market started to rise again. It's already past the point it is affordable for newcomers. (not much, though - one full T1 run awards about 3000 crowns... but) PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM TALKING ABOUT COMPLETELY NEW PLAYERS. Materials cannot generate sufficient income on most cases, and their gear is generally too weak, so they won't really be able to do well past the first terminal. (I remember the very first day of the early launch - T1 mobs were taking 15+ hits to die on depth 6/7)

Of course - The CE market rising is actually good for Three Rings so there will be more incentive for buying CE. Most paid players probably think the prices are too low, but would actually trade more CE if more crowns were given. But at the same time, it'll be more and more disappointing for the newcomers.

Now, of course, ME exists. But it only allows for 1 to 2 hours of gameplay, or somehow if you manage to be silly/slow enough, 3 - 4 hours. The big problem is that while you can very well just play on ME, the gameplay time you get is so small that most new players are seriously turned off. (dude, there's a reason there's so many energy threads)

A general issue on this, aswell, is how the game is so limiting on you if you run with ME. Since ME doesn't store past 100, missing a single day of gameplay can be a major problem if you want to progress with a constant rate. You're also forced not to waste any ME, so dying can be really frustrating, and completely ruin the run for the current day. Considering there is little content variety available as it is, and crafting is so expensive now, it becomes a major grind for free-to-play players. Grinding is fine to an extent, however the game advertises itself as grind-free, so there's an issue here.

It's very possible that the CE market will keep raising, and this issue will get worse. But now, simply understand one thing. The problem here isn't slow progression/low profit. (...well, it is, but only partially) It's the limited gameplay. (and lack of tiers too)

New players simply want to have fun, see if they actually like the game, and stick around, actually spend money in it, etc. But when gameplay starts so limited, it simply scares the newbies. Slow progression because materials are rare or expensive is one thing - But slow progression because you can only do a single 2 hours run a day and profit ~4K overall (more on lower tiers, of course) is pretty darn different, and really doens't feel very nice.

The energy system needs to be revamped to simply be more accessible to new players, (and old players too, somewhat!) or the overall activity might take a serious blow.

If you don't believe me, you might simply want to look at where the activity is going, currently. The best way to see this for yourself is to check minerals needed to complete a stratum on new gates - The amount of minerals needed is based on how many minerals were obtained in the last seven days. (remember, OBTAINED, not deposited. Hoarders count.)

The very first week needed 1mil to 1,6mil minerals to complete a stratum - Damn lots.
Later on, the amount started dropping, which is only natural, since the game had just started - 800K, 700K, 650K, 600K...
...Now, the next gate is at 670k. The next RJP gate is at 600k. Alright so far, right? Buuuuut the newest gate is at 420k. This is a major drop in the activity - If it was going at the normal rate of only at most 100K per drop, it'd be fine, but this drop is quite massive.

Note: As of some recent updates, this is no longer possible to be checked - The minerals needed however continued to drop to an all-time low of ~280k, before the change.

It might just be that the activity still has to stabilize itself, I dunno! But I'm pretty sure myself that this is also because of the CE prices.

But for what really matters - How many active players the game has. Well, this is something that a normal player like me isn't really able to find out! But it seems that the current average of players online is 1100 - 1300. At the launch, it was about 1700 - 2000, and the previous week it was at about 1300 - 1500, I believe?

But yeah. I might be completely wrong in this whole activity speculation and whatever, but there's still this worrying chance that the activity will start dying.

But remember - No matter what, if the gameplay time is so limited for non-paying players, most will be annoyed. Sure, even if they had more time some would be annoyed - But not nearly as many.

For actual suggestions for energy? There's a lot of things that could be done. Doubling the amount of ME or/and the recovery rate, reducing the cost of elevators for earlier tiers, adding upgrades purchased with CE, temporary or not, that could increase recovery rate/maximum ME, etc etc.

However changes in the energy system would have a major effect on the economy and gameplay, and for certain changes such as reducing cost of elevators the heat/crowns in lower tiers would have to be drastically changed, etc etc. I'd say this is something the developers need to do themselves, depending on what else balancing changes they would plan to implement, if any. Any change in the ME/energy system would have a big effect on the economy/crafting/etc.

But also, any changes on ME that would allow free players to get more gameplay time would be great - The CE market rising is simply natural and can't really be stopped. On the current state, the CE market rising becomes a problem for the free players, but if they had more gameplay time, I'm sure most players wouldn't really mind that much. It'd actually be good for the game.

Although, considering the game currently has little variety in content, not many tiers and etc, this energy thing is required to limit the gameplay, so players don't simply hit endgame in a single week. Eventually, it's likely that this energy thing will be more balanced, but sadly, it HAS to be limiting right now.

(wait, did this sound like another random energy rant?)

As a final note, I'd like to note that myself, I do not have any problems at all with the energy system, and I think it's mostly fair, although a few small changes would help. But as I said, the problem is on the general ignorance of new/free players towards the energy system, and how mist energy doesn't store past 100. (that is, if you miss one day of gameplay for whatever reason, you pretty much just wasted 100ME)

This suggestion is something mostly to help with all those new players that are turned off by the energy system.

10. Conclusion [10EN]

tl;dr: GOD DAMN THIS IS ONE UNBALANCED GAME

There are some other things that I feel that are unbalanced too, but I think this is enough for a single topic. And I'm tired of writing all this crap!

If you've read all this, then wow, hats off to you! If not, well, doens't matter, this is to the devs, rather than players, obviously!

And to the devs: Please, you guys need to rely on your players a bit more. It's ridiculous how unbalanced the game is, and all those things could be avoided if you had listened to your players in the past. And if you listened to them now aswell.

But really - Know that if you do not listen to some of our suggestions things can and will get pretty bad. The life of the game depends on some of those balancing issues. And content. We need more content, too. Please.

And as a note if something sounds horribly wrong, there's typos or whatever: I'm too lazy to proof read! This took enough time as it is! pleasegivemeabreakiworkedonthisforonehourandhalfforheavenssake