Welcome to the Wizard101 Message Boards

We do not need the old system back, we did need change. But not in this way, this isn't change it is destruction. We need a serious raise in the percentage block counts for and in the chance of actually blocking, because gear gives far much critical than it does block. I know you can get far higher block at level 110 now, but people who take part in mid level PvP can't. So we are going to be stuck with not blocking anything if there is no change in our block, it isn't fair and it has ruined the thing we love.

All the money spent on pack gear and pet training to obtain the promise of 100% critical has now been reduced to a 60 percent chance which then gets even further reduced by a percentage the enemy will block on there toll. In effect you have turned my hard earned 100% critical hitting character in to the same character we all had before you sold us all the fancy critical gear.

I feel like I just bought a sports car capable of 100 miles per hour. After closing the deal and taking my money, only then did you disclose the smog restrictions reducing my engines true potential to that of a toyota prius!

amandadaisypetal33... on Nov 21, 2015 wrote:

I feel like I've wasted my time farming Darkmoor for my gear, just to get to level 110 to have less than 30% critical hit or block. I can't even farm Mirror Lake anymore without dying. That doesn't make the game fun. It makes me not want to waste my money on membership or crowns because I feel like its doing no good since I just die. I think some changes needed to be made, because no game can stay the same forever and still be interesting, but I also think this was entirely too drastic.

totally agree, kingisle went complete overboard with this update your lucky you have 30% or a little less block i have 138 block and i somehow have one percent

I will say right off, I have never liked the crit system; it is vastly skewered in favor of the game, not the players (always has been). Most of the time, you didn't need a crit to defeat most of the enemies. the only time I thought it would be useful would be against the bosses, but since I can count the number of times I have seen a crit go unblocked against a boss on one hand, it is not very useful there either. It seems like it is just one more weapon in the bad guys arsenal, and since most of the time in the higher worlds you have to fight 3- or 4-on 1 battles, where they get to start 90% of the time, they get way more pips, and even most of the minions have more hit points than you (depending on your class), they don't need another method of wiping you out. The vrit system certainly isn't there to help the players. I think the crit system is a terrible thing, and that it should be scrapped. You certainly couldn't make it worse.

I was wrong.

You have taken a bad idea and evolved it to where it has pretty much sucked out what fun was left in the game (after all I have found many of the 'improvements' you have made to the game over the last few years to be just the opposite). Now, not only do most of the things in the above paragraph still occur, but your chances (feeble as they were) of criting have been greatly reduced, and your chance of blocking one are non-existant. The enemies, natually, have no trouble scoring a cit on you (I get critted at LEAST once per fight...not per boss fight, per fight; often more than once), and yet on the very rare occasion you manage one, it is still, more often than not, blocked. So, whereas before the awful concept of this crit system was mostly useless to the players before the change (I will not call it an improvement because it certainly isn't), it is now completely useless to the players, and is merely there to wipe you out quicker. Do everyone a favor and trash the crit system; it's worthless.

I'd like to make a few points:

Whatever box KI got itself into with the old critical system, surely there has to be a better way to resolve it. Alienating your loyal customer base is not the way to do it.

Be truthful about why these changes have been made. It would be easier to accept these changes if we knew the real reasons why they were deemed necessary. These changes weren’t made to make the game more fun! They’ve made the game decidedly less fun -- so much so that many of us old-timers may be quitting our beloved game.

Changing the way critical and block are decided in battle is fine, but to continually see our critical and block stats going lower and lower as we level up is beyond discouraging! It’s heartbreaking.

For most schools, there is now no incentive to level up.

Personally, I can't continue playing with things as they are. It's too disheartening to see stats I worked so hard for degrade like this. And I am disgusted with KI for changing the rules after so much time and money was spent building wizards based on those rules. There has to be a better way to achieve your (KI) goals.

Please, please, please, all you smart guys and gals at KI, I know your hearts are in the right place. Please come up with a better solution!

My most highly advanced wizard is a Life so this response is based on my experiences with Life. Critical has never been a huge part of my game. I keep my critical rating as high as possible for the occasional critical heal. With the new system, I go critical far less than before. Not good from a healing standpoint. When attacking I never relied on critical because normally, especially if I was soloing, fights were ones of attrition. Whomever lasted longer won the fight and I usually came out ahead. Now I rarely critical when attacking but it seems that when I do there's a lot better chance that it WON'T be blocked. Maybe I've been lucky but that's just the way it works for me. The more I play around with it the more it sort of grows on me. I think it levels the playing field when it comes to some of the more powerful bosses. Battles might take a bit longer so it means more strategy and planning must be applied. I find I'm shuffling a LOT more than I ever did. I actually think it adds another layer of depth to the combat system. I won't go so far as to say it's an improvement but maybe, hopefully, an expirimental sidestep.(?)

I've experienced not more than five minutes ago a flaw in this system. I was fighting the Black Baroness the scorpion boss in Kandaha Desert. I was hit with 7 consecutive criticals! Not exaggerating either and on the 7th critical I finally blocked one of them. I have 217 balance critical block rating which equates not almost nothing with the new system. If you want feed back on how to balance this system more I'd start adjusting these bosses ability to critical. I also have over 380 Death critical rating and didn't critical once that entire fight. Again this is feeling much like my power has been taken away. I have Krokopatra fez hat the good one, Malistaire Robes, and the good Meowiarty Boots, exalted Fortune Teller wand, alpha omega ring, and the craftable athane from Sardonyx market which I would think would be more than enough to protect in these fights but as I found out I was dying pretty quickly. Lucky death has life drain spells. Adjustments are needed pretty quickly. Also I've never had so many people message me for help. I think people are really struggling.

I was doing the Deep Spawn battle in the Starfall Sea the other night. On the first round, 2 of the 3 Deep Spawns hit me with unblocked crit 13 pip Tempests. If the third one hadn't have fizzled, even if he didn't crit or I blocked, my Storm wizard would have been dead in the first round.

That is not my idea of fun.

If that is KI's idea of fun, then obviously Wizard101 is not the game for me anymore.

This was a terrible change to make. A lot of players have put a lot of effort (and actual money!) into getting high critical and block ratings. Pre change i had critical 4 out of 5 times. after change it was only half, and is dropping as I gain a few levels in polaris. Shows %45 now. And the block that used to work for me about half the time now shows as 1 ONE percent. Really needs a major tweak.

One really not happy life wizard

I am furious. I am level 109 and have 422 critical. And get this I just fought with a level 70 who has 316 critical and has over twice my critical percentage. to have 70% I would require about 650-670 critical. This means I would have to sacrifice damage block and resist just to have a decent critical How is it that a level 70 wizard is easily more powerful than me after all the hard work I have done. Please give me back my critical and block. sheesh I can't block anything I even get critical on even using conviction and I AM WEARING EXALTED LEVEL GEAR that wasn't easy to get i might add. I had to farm one shot duels and darkmoor repeatedly.please do something you must know that this is not right. I want my critical and block back. You didn't even give us extra shadow only gave us more resist and block which the block isn't good I get critical even with 400 plus block. I am seriously unhappy. Why did you even do this to begin with? Tell me how it is fair that lower levels than me have more critical than I do! I worked to hard and you spat on all my hard work I have been playing this over 2 years and it was a long hard road You can't even imagine how this feels!

I daresay I'm one of the few people who is actually fond of the new critical and block update... at least on paper. The issue is that critical and block only goes so far before every hit is a critical and every critical hit is blocked. The whole system is essentially nullified. In many ways, it's like the "Crit Monsters" and "Jadezillas" problem in the sense that the two went back and forth until there were two extremes that couldn't be pushed any further.

That in mind, the change to the system was not only necessary, but also a good change. The idea behind critical was randomness. Seeing the initial damage but not the DoT effect blocked, or having one enemy block but not all of them, or actually landing a critical on a boss for once are all great effects of the update.

It has been tough for some to adjust because it means they are not hitting all critical hits and their opponents are now actually blocking some of them. There are just a few areas that I believe could use addressing (and you may already be in the process of doing it).

First and foremost, the threshold is increasingly quite rapidly. I went from blocking just about every single hit to having a 12% chance to block a critical hit. On one hand, such a change is great because it means old gear can't be used thirty levels later and still be viable (*cough* Waterworks); you have to get something new. On the other, ten levels should not be such a dramatic drop that it is near impossible to block critical hits. Recommendation #1: Revisit and possibly reevaluate the threshold for critical and block at high levels.

Critical itself is not a huge problem because not landing a critical just means a longer battle, but block IS a problem. Bosses getting huge hits can be detrimental. The good news? You've planned for this and balanced Polaris accordingly, and it shows. Your new system has set you on a path for success for every world moving forward. However, going back and fighting Aphrodite has been a bit more of a challenge with such low block amounts. The solution may be tied into the above suggestion. Recommendation #2: Ensure old bosses have balanced critical and block rates.

Even with the higher threshold, we might be okay if Polaris gear compensated for it. I assume you create any piece of gear as a viable choice for combat use, otherwise, why make it? That in mind, the gear needs more critical and block to work with the evolving threshold. Right now, we're needing more to keep up as we level but getting less on the new gear. There is now an obligation in each world to provide gear that can account for this. Recommendation #3: Add additional critical and block to Polaris items.

All in all, the system update went very well and it's only going to get better from here. If these areas are addressed, I feel that wizards may be more accepting of the change. Thanks for your consideration!

Yea I'm done! I can't believe level 70 players can achieve better critical than I can this is sad and seeing it just infuriates me. Shame that after all the hard work over the 2-3 years I played this you tossed the wind. Its just not even fun anymore

I agree with the general feedback. I've been shocked in the last couple of days at how badly the system has been altered. I've scored I believe two blocks against dozens of crits thrown at me, while not scoring a critical more than once that I can recall. It's horrendous.

Not only that, but to add to the problem, of course, is that crits also effect healing! Now that our chances of scoring a crit have been decimated, we can say goodbye to crit heals, which makes everything that much more difficult. I was used to scoring crit heals about half the time - now, I haven't scored a single one since the update, with the same gear.

Really, really bad update...