Listen I find it very stupid that fire on both shadow spells hits harder then storm like excuse me. I get that glow bugs was very unbalanced in pvp, but your not think about the pve players. I like to solo, and this really pushes me away. For myth, mystic was all they had and now it does 450 for a 5 pip and 1 shadow pip spell. With fire how our we even supposed to fight bosses, listen glowbugs needed a nerf but when we said beef we didn’t mean make the spell useless, but bull and fire from above were perfectly fine. And do I even have to say anything about balance like come on, that’s insane, poor balance, it’s worse then the other nerfs, I really hope you guys listen to the community, because I love this game.
One of the biggest issues I'm having with this update is the faces. I feel like the shading is a bit off, the cheeks are weirdly offputting, something about them feel unpolished and the eyes are far too big. When I exit the magic mirror there is a huge disparity between what I modeled and how the character actual looks. The faces seem more round and the eyes far bigger. The lips are also a problem, and overall right now I feel like the character model update shouldnt go through and instead be delayed for polishing. I'm sure you guys worked hard on it but at the moment, theres too much that needs to be touched on.
The clothing update is also a problem, I feel like the colors have become pasty. They look off compared to how full of life they were before. The daredevil robe has been ruined, its far too baggy and the belt being one set color is a bad choice.
About the spell nerfs, its hard to critique anything if the entire system is being rebalanced atm. I'd compare Gaze to Balance King Artorious and show how outrageous the damage nerf was but due to the unsurity of what spells exactly will be hit, I'm not sure. But all in all, please don't put the update to live without atleast touching efreet, that was the main cause of all the outrage to nerf whatever spells and if a unproblematic spell like Mystic is being touched atleast do something to efreet.
In terms of the character revamp, the new features are very unsettling. I am not sure what to exactly pinpoint that is wrong but I hope that perhaps they can be redone. I think the best way I can describe it, is that at this time the faces seem like a mismatch of different elements that don't work together - especially the eyes and the overall shading of the face. It kind of feels like the old features were just redone 3D rather than thinking through what could really be done with a new character model. I just feel like it is a wasted opportunity not to redo the characters really well rather than just redoing the old version because it is old. I would rather wait for the characters to be redone really well even if it takes longer than putting this out.
For the shadow spells - I only play pve and I guess I just don't understand the point of nerfing all the spells so hard. I feel like if the aim is to have your game be fun then why do it this way? There has to be other alternatives to balancing that isn't just hard nefing spells across the board.
Honestly, the main problem of the update is Level 100 Death (Call of Khrulhu), and lvl 100 Mystic Colossus, both of these spells got nerfed very bad, not only that but Call of khrulhu doesn’t do very well with damage enchantments, I don’t really see a good reason to nerf Call of khrulhu at all, plus Death and myth never even had a strong AoE like Life has with Forest Lord, and Ice with Snowball barrage. This is out of balance because Myth is kinda like fire and storm, Death is more like Half hitting half ulitiy Death and myth aren’t gonna have a easier time with the new world with their strongest AoEs unless they get help from other schools.
I am a Wizard101 player who started playing back in September of 2008 since it's release. Since then for the past 12 years i have dedicated time, effort , and even money towards this game. When i look at how the game was back then and how it is now i am honestly quite disappointed with how this game aged.
First of all, when i heard about the news of you guys revamping the character faces i was honestly really hyped but at the same time really worried. For us OG wizards we appreciate the little things that have been with us since day one and that includes our wizard looks. However, when i hopped onto test realm and saw how oblivious and horrific my characters looked, I was infuriated and disgusted. You guys destroyed the nostalgia factor of this game completely. i don't feel like im playing wizard101 anymore i feel like im playing some starcraft101 now what happened to the wizard theme of this game? The new spells that have been added don't have a wizard theme in them anymore it's slowly shifting towards more of a space themed game and starting to bother me.
I don't think you guys( Kingsisle ) appreciate the long time supporters of this game who have stuck with you guys since day one while you drain our wallets. If you guys truly cared about the future of this game, you guys need to listen to the community not worry about balance issues and pointless updates to infuriate us and drive us away. If these new changes become permanent i am gonna cancel my membership asap. The new faces in this game feel like i'm not even playing wizard101 anymore it feels like an entirely different game now. you guys obliterated the nostalgia aspect of this game and it truly breaks my heart to see my old characters face go. This might sound cheesy but our old faces had meaning to us, it described us and im truly sad to see the face of my old wizard be completely changed for the worst. i've had the same wizard face for 10 years and it did not bother me one bit KI not ONE bit.
As for the shadow spell changes, you guys truly upset me with that one.
I wanted to address two of the features from the Summer update that have been getting a lot of feedback.
Character Revamp
Ever since the Wizard City revamp, our characters have stuck out like a sore thumb against the updated game graphics. We’ve wanted to do an update on our characters and character system for quite a while now, and we knew that something so near and dear to you as your own Wizard’s appearance needs the utmost care. The art team is very committed to keeping the charm and personality of your characters intact as we translate over to the new character system. Some broad initial adjustments addressing comments about your Wizard aging have already been made and will be in the next Test Realm update.
We realize you like some of the changes more than others, and we’ll continue to listen and review feedback and make adjustments throughout the next few weeks. We invite you to check out the new, improved Magic Mirror in the Shopping District (for gold now!), and take a look at the new customization options. The faces cannot be exactly the way they were before, but we want to be diligent about coming as close as possible to what you know and love. We cannot take half measures, incorporating some updates and not others, but we want to make sure that the magic remains that made you choose your Wizard’s look in the first place.
Details and descriptions help communicate opinions on visual feedback – the more, the better. What specifically about the looks of your new character do you like or don’t like? Do you like the new, more realistic size of the pupils or the previous cartoon-y pupil eyes better? Do you like that your characters blink? How about the new animations? What options in the magic mirror do you like or don’t like and why?
Shadow Changes
Let’s talk about those shadow spells. One of the reasons that these power reductions are so noticeable is that these spells were hands down the most powerful in the game. In fact, in their current state, they are entirely unbalanced. This has created a growing problem with game balance and power progression, which will only compound in the years to come as the level cap increases. With this initial pass, our goal was to see what these spells would look like balanced only for their pip cost. Of course we realize there are many other considerations, such as the value of pips themselves (both power pips and shadow pips), the pacing of pip generation, time spent in combat, the other tools each school may or may not have, and the overall "feel" of combat. Our systems designers are immersed in Shadow, reviewing and discussing feedback as we speak.
We do want to reassure you of our commitment to PVE – our goal is NOT to significantly increase the difficulty in high level content, so there will likely be other changes needed to bring the game in balance going forward.
Details over generalities are valuable here as well, as we’re looking at a lot of interconnecting game systems. Are there are specific situations where the current reductions in Shadow Spell power would invalidate combat strategies? How will these spell changes make specific bosses unduly difficult?
The common thread here – we’re listening, and constructive feedback with specific examples helps us greatly! Test realm is precisely for this type of feedback and we appreciate those of you who have taken the time to do so. Thanks for being part of our community, and working with us to make sure the Spiral is a magical place for all of us for many years to come!
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Copying my latest response from in this thread:
"First of all, thank you for the detailed feedback on both fronts! This is the sort of dialogue that helps us make the Spiral awesome.
With the new character system, we had to rebuild the way the character models are constructed (we have to do this often when we update art that's well over a decade old, and the character models are one of the oldest things in game!). So, the answer is that we aim to keep the visuals as close to the original as possible, but we cannot retain the exact old faces, so giving us feedback like, "on this face, I don't like that my pupils are smaller, the shape of my face is not quite as round, and I have smile lines" etc. These specific critiques are super helpful for us to be able to tweak instances where the faces are drastically and unintentionally different than the original.
We'll take a look at all the links regarding feedback and fan edits. I think we're on the same page here, and this will help with the feedback on aging and shading. Definitely check out the next Test Realm update, and we can continue to discuss!
In terms of the Shadow Spells - I'll make sure Matnetic and Ratbeard and crew review all this feedback and wrap it into their ongoing discussions. The very next update won't have any Shadow Changes YET, but we will let the community know what's to come as Test Realm marches on."
Hello professor Falmea, First I would like to Appreciate the wizard101 Art team for such a wonderful Art work that they have done,certainly its a huge upgrade to the old faces we had on the previous versions of the game. A few adjustments in the appearance would make it a master piece for the years to come.
Shadow enhanced spells (A step in the right direction but overshot the change) I have a lot to speak on the shadow enhanced balancing, but I shall confine myself to the core problems here, Some of the All hit spells in game have not been nerfed at an equal pace in the test realm eg- 400 damage reduction in bugs and just a 100 range to bulls,which is going to affect the pve experience of the players in game, Damage per pip is calculated and that's alright,but the role of the schools and unpredictable nature of the spell itself as intended in the game should co-relate to the actual changes in terms of damage addition more than the actual pip value for each shadow enhanced spells.
I also understand the difficulty faced by the wizard101 systems team on balancing on pve and pvp spell damages and utilities, but the all hit spells in pvp are being used just as a "minion killers" which wont drastically affect the pvp part in increasing the damage for the spells accordingly. Some of the spells like glow bugs and mystic colossus have been nerfed badly to the ground which are being rarely used in pvp. I am mentioning only these two because they are intended to be the hitter schools on the elemental and spiritual sides respectively.
Thank you for reading this and making these changes in the test realm for our feedback.
Just an idea, but since we changed Mystic's effect can we also look at making Fire From Above a DoT to fit closer to Fire's theme?
What I mean is that we bring back the Fuel effect and change the damage to be 100% DoT similar to Heckhound
3 Rounds of DoT and 3 Traps means the DoT itself will always consume at least 2 traps giving the Wizard the option to combo off the 3rd trap or let Fire From Above consume them all itself. Sounds like strategy to me!
I am not an artist, so I don't know how clearly I can explain my issue with the new models, but they almost look too defined. Obviously, the old models are outdated and the features are very undefined, but the new ones took the definition too far, to the point that they look more like creepy dolls than young wizards. I have been playing the game since 2009, when I was 5 years old, so I have grown up with my characters and gotten very attached to how they look. I am not opposed to updating the models, I just wish they would bear some semblance to our current models. Logging onto test realm, my characters were completely unrecognizable, and as someone with a lot of nostalgia attached to the game, this is extremely off-putting. I think that the approach to the new models was wrong, and instead of making completely new faces, the focus should be on updating the current models so that they fit in better with the game, but also look like the characters we know and love. If you guys are set on going ahead with this update, I would really like to be able to keep the old models as an option. The default for new players could be the new models, but it would be really nice to be able to have the option to keep the faces that we are so familiar with. If not, I wish that you could push this update back until a solution that the community is happier with comes along. Some specific issues with the models are that the faces are very small and the shape of them is too defined, the nose and cheek bones are contoured too harshly, and the features look decent in the close up view of the magic mirror, but do not look good when you are actually playing in game. The movement of the faces is also very unsettling, as they never seem to stop moving. The blinking is fine, but the never ending face movement contributes heavily to the creepiness of the new design.
Another thing I haven't seen many people talk about is the update to the gear. Although I know this is necessary if you update the character models, there are some specific pieces of gear that I have issues with.
The whimsical hat - The new design is way too big for our characters' heads. It is too tall, and looks much more formal than the previous design. The rim around the bottom of the hat also sticks out too much, making it look strange.
The storm elegant hat - I really do not like the new placement of the storm symbols in the front. It stands out way too much compared to the old design, where the storm insignias were mainly around the rim.
The shirt under the elegant outfit - The red buttons stand out with a lot of color options. This is a minor issue but still noticeable.
Wands- We now hold our wands at an uncomfortable distance from our bodies. This really just looks strange and I do not see the reason for the change.
This post is already super long, but I would also like to quickly touch on the shadow magic nerfs. Although I understand that this is a needed change, I feel that some of the changes were too drastic. Mystic Colossus is myth's only viable AOE in the later levels, and it has been nerfed to be on par with humongofrog and earthquake. When voting in the twitter poll, most people did not expect the change to be this extreme, and I am sure most of us would prefer to break a shield after and not have the damage cut in half. Another example is Call of Khrulu. Death does not have very powerful AOEs, and the nerf to the damage will make it very hard to play death offensively in the later worlds. Lastly, I just don't feel like the amount that Glowbug Squall was nerfed makes sense. I mainly play on my storm, and as the update stands, I don't see any reason why I would use Bugs over Storm Lord. I agree that these spells need to be more balanced, I just feel that in a lot of cases this was done to too much of an extreme.
Overall, I think that you guys had the right intentions, they were just executed in a way that the community is not very happy with. I hope you can continue to listen to us and improve the game! I really do appreciate reaching out to us and asking for our suggestions and feedback. Thanks!
I have a theory that you want to reach out to a new audience and "new generation" of kids. But let's be honest, this is not going to happen. This game running on the 1990s Gambryo engine is very underequipped to deliver what is expected of a game in the 2020s. Second of all, the lack of HD textures in even the BRAND NEW reskins makes some of them look like downgrades rather than upgrades. With the ability for other games to essentially roll out stunning graphics, CGI, features, and superior multiplayer experiences it is a no brainer that younger audiences WILL NOT want to play this game.
Hate to break it to you but WE are your audience. This game was beyond fortunate to get the break it got due to COVID-19. We were too. Players that had not logged on for YEARS had just logged on and started playing again out of the sake of nostalgia and a love for their childhood game. If a successful update would have been mandated, many of the players who came back might have stayed. But with the DESTRUCTION of our beloved characters that we hold SO dear to our heart. The persona we have grown up with for most of our lives now is now ruined. This game's only audience is the one that played it when they are younger and are in their 20s now. This game should be made more age appropriate for 20Y/Os rather than this fantasy of a "new era of 9-12 year olds" that will never play this game because it is outdated and poorly made. The only ones who can put up with KI are the originals. This update might just do that in.
Right now MYTH has no good aoe if this change goes to live. Myth were waiting for YEARS for a good high pip AOE and now it's going to be completely nerfed? What are we supposed to do now, go back to frog?? This is so absurd! We shouldn't be forced to get a particular pet for a high pip myth AOE as well, this should have already been available to us.
Please just give myth a solid high pip AOE that we can get through a quest or storyline progression and not lore or opening packs or a skeleton key boss or crafting, just give us what we need to continue playing this game!
I cannot solo effectively as a myth with this change, yes it is not impossible but it will be painful and tedious and much more difficult than any other school. Why do we need to suffer?
Seems to me, being my main on my other account is myth, she needed to buff a lot anyway. If it didn’t use mythic I always fell back to loremaster spells anyway. So what we need to work now is getting crit and damage up and stop relying on shadow spells.
The Mythic Colossus nerf is the biggest nerf I have ever seen in a game I play. Nearly halving the damage and removing its shatter ability is just insane. The only reason people voted the way they did on your sham of a poll was because you used the wording "wards" not word when describing the changes you would make. It was implicit in the wording that you would keep the shatter function and have it occur before the damage. If they had known you were lying, everybody would have chosen the higher damage option. The spell is now useless which is a massive blow to a school that already has only useless AOEs. That any of the developers can pretend halving the damage of a spell is a "slight decrease" speaks to your dishonesty. None of you listened to feedback in the last update, so I highly doubt you will now, but I hope you decide to do the right thing. It's incredibly depressing to see the game I have loved for so many years decline so drastically.
The shading is really what's throwing the new designs off, in the shop they look fine and the skin tones look very new and fresh. But when you get out of the mirror shop the skin tone either becomes really washed and bleached, or really dark. The blinking has glitched on me before to where my character has their eyelids half way closed. I really appreciate the dedication of the art team but I'd really like to see some improvements on the shading of the skin tones. So far you guys are doing great with listening to the feedback and we appreciate the updates!
In regards to spell nerfs, its just unbelievable at this point. to nerf the strongest hitting spell in the game, to basically useless now is just heart breaking. considering that most of your players are rocking a storm wizard because 1. its the hardest hitting class, and everyone loves to deal all this damage. and trust me i was one of those people. to nerf Glow Bug Squall by nearly 400 damage is just in my eyes insane. please reconsider this change, the spell was never "Broken" on release, its just all the PvP players complaining about how powerful these spelling were. With Glow Bugs in my opinion should maybe be 100 less damage and remove 2 blades, making it a stronger version of sirens but without the -50% of course. You took the fun out of playing a storm and its truly heartbreaking... very sad of you guys to do this...
To the community: After reading countless comments and posts across several social media platforms, I genuinely understand where the frustration is coming from. At first glance, a direct nerf to the level 100 shadow spells across the board does not feel good. No one wants to see their favorite spell no longer doing as much damage as it used to. However the thing is these spells were unbalanced from the very beginning. They were incredibly ahead in terms of pip value and damage per pip. They made many 9-10 pip spells look very unappealing and irrelevant. For instance, why would one use Dr von if they could just use Khrulhu that does the same damage and is an AOE? The fact of the matter is the developers really overdid the first batch of shadow spells, making the spells that followed it also unbalanced as well due to power creep. This nerf wasn't meant to upset the community, but to fix a long occurring issue ever since the 5 pip shadow hits were introduced. Toning down these shadow spells not only finally fixes how broken the shadow spells were, but also alleviated some of the issues of power creep the game was facing. This nerf gives them a lot of leeway and potential to make stronger and creative shadow spells in future level caps. I understand that many of you are upset that the spells are now weaker, and I can agree many spells still need tweaking as of today. However, this is a step towards the right direction in the long run for the game.
The most important thing that everyone seems to forget is that mobs from Khrysalis and onwards WILL be decreased in health to compensate for this change. This means that although we will be doing less damage with these spells, the health of these mobs will also be lower to compensate. Not to mention they will be using the same nerfed spells that we will be using.
To the developers: It is very clear from all of us that schools like myth and balance really got the short end of the stick. You once mentioned during the round table that myth should be a viable hitter that should be acknowledged within the game. They cannot do that anymore when their ace aoe card has been stripped from much of its damage. I understand that the purpose of the utility of removing a ward before a hit is a powerful one and needs to a drawback to balance it out, but to sacrifice this much in damage is too much. Gaze of fate is very underwhelming in a sense that the damage it delivers does not justify the pip cost/dpp even with a balance bubble included. Lastly, as mentioned by many others the 4 pip shadow spells should not be left untouched as it makes many spells such as Rusulka look unappealing when compared to iron sultan.
Let's be blunt about this. Most of the shadow spells were nerfed far too much. They aren't even good for many schools anymore. They have gone from fantastic to plain horrible in many cases. Also, character models. The new faces are a step forward but you need to add more depth options
I see good potential in the new designs the only real problem I have with it, is the shading. In the mirror shop or any other shop, the shading looks fine along with the skin tone. But out of shop the skin tone is really washed out or bleached. The shadowing makes the character's cheeks look sunken in. The color choices of the lips, eyes, eye shape, and eye brows is really amazing and I really appreciate the dedication to the graphic design team, but I would like to see some improvements on the shading and possible smoother lighting. Thank you for keeping us updated!!
i already posted player model feedback in @emmaline iceshard's thread highlighting the problems i saw with the new player models from my perspective as an artist. this time, ill try to focus on what i feel should be fixed & added. id like to point to @iloveharleyquinn22's response to this thread on the first page for a great outline of the major problems with the models.
what to fix: majorly soften the rendering & shading. nose, mouth, neck, and hands are the biggest problem areas. simplify the definition to restore our youth & reflect the age our wizards are meant to be in the story. shading/rendering should stay simplified for any new model imo, unless devs want to fully pursue realism (not recommended, would create game-wide style inconsistency like whats seen with the catacombs humans). sidenote about the neck: please fix its width, the top being thicker than the bottom looks really strange. it also appears to be slightly bent sometimes? i noticed this on my character who uses a spear weapon, which might be the cause.
reduce the face animations significantly in the idle. im all for expressions when we use emotes, but when at rest, stick to blinking only. there is way too much extra movement going on thats extremely unnatural. nobody's face constantly warps between neutral, slight-uncomfortable-smile, frown, and back in real life. maybe the wizard can have a more expressive look when they do their fidget animation (put their hand on their hip and look around). otherwise, stick to neutral please.
perhaps some resizing/redoing of certain features are needed, like the aforementioned neck. as mentioned by others, the eyes look too large now, though this may be fixed if you guys reduce facial rendering to be more simplified. ive heard many players say that mouths are too wide now as well (i think this is mostly for boys), so worth looking into. also, at least for girls, the realistic detailing on the hands looks really strange since theyre still quite geometric and polygonal, resulting in very bony-looking hands & fingers. i really think they'd be best if remodeled completely.
regarding falmea's question about the eyes specifically, im not sure what she meant by "new, realistic pupil size" VS. "previous cartoony pupiled eyes." the new eyes look very glossy and blown out, giving deer-in-headlights vibes compared to the old normal-looking ones. id say the problem with the new eyes might be that the eyelids are too open, showing too much of the iris. alternatively, maybe the irises are too small, showing too much of the white area around the iris. either way, the old eyes were definitely better.
not quite about the models specifically, but i have mixed feelings about the updated wizard city clothing. i cant comment on them all, but they generally appear a bit too shiny/glossy instead of like natural cloth (easy to see with the new starting gear). it seems they kinda suffer from being over-rendered/shaded too, so many appear wrinkly now (ie. cardinal hat, daredevil robe), which i think looks weird because the forms themselves are flat (the wrinkles arent actually 3D). overall, i like the deeper colors and updated insignia, but i think some revamps were more successful than others. i use the full daredevil set on my storm, and the robe and boots are now much puffier than before, especially the boots, making my feet look oversized and my robe look baggy (causes clipping into hair & under belt when riding certain mounts). the whimsical hat looks oversized/loose, and the whimsical boots' legs look bulky; the hermit shoes make feet look big; the regal hat seems to have been thinned or stretched upwards to look a bit too tight/skinny, and it has a clear line/seam on the back; and so on. i know these are harder to fix because its more a matter of taste, and you probably cant adjust EVERY gear piece, but i still hope some polish/adjustments could happen if possible. at the very least, if the character shading gets softened, the clothes' shading should be as well; otherwise itll be really stark in comparison.
what to add:
allow us to slightly resize and/or move our facial features. moving eyes up or down, closer together or further apart, moving mouths up or down, and resizing eyes and mouths would add so much customization & functionality to character creation! obviously keep the movement within reason so you dont get anything nightmarish
update the hairstyles! its a strange clash between their simple, flat textures and the intensely detailed 3D faces. simplifying the face rendering AND updating the hairstyle models would make our models look better just from the added cohesiveness!
related to the hair, it would be really nice to have a few more styles added. there is especially a lack of curly/wavy hair, and some more hair lengths & textures would be nice. if you guys update our current hair, this would be the perfect opportunity to add new ones too, and many players would appreciate this.
improve or add to the nose options. i like having more nose choices, but its a shame that each option is just the same one three times, but one is squished thin and the other is stretched wide. having an actual wide nose, a flat nose, noses with different bridges, and so on would a huge boon to customization!
hope that all makes sense & is worthwhile feedback. i must commend the team for listening to us & being open to making changes. i really was afraid this wouldnt happen, but being able to share our thoughts is a huge relief. i truly appreciate all you guys do. thank you for your consideration
I can't help but to feel like we are getting weaker and mobs are getting stronger with the shadow spell nerf. Myth got hit big time, so basically its a frog with shatter? My ice's blizzard can do more damage and that shouldnt be the case with a shadow pip. If its going to be harder to get a shadow pip why the change? If it's pvp related is there some way to seperate pve and pvp? In a lot of games i play that always seams to be the problem. Pvp affects Pve when they are two different worlds. If they can be seperated that would fix a lot of problems and help both sides with any changes.
Figured i'd weigh in on my stance with the current test realm
Personally, think people are overreacting a bit to the new models. Change takes some getting used to, and the fact that we've had our old models for so long, the sudden change will undoubtedly come as a real shock to the system. But i can't help but adore every little blink or emote that our wizards now do. It really gives them new life! It makes us feel truly a part of the living, breathing world of Wizard101 that is The Spiral. While i was initially shocked at the change (and i had to go to the magic mirror immediately to fix a few things!), the new expressions seem fine. People do seem to complain about the eyes a lot though: maybe a few more options on those would be nice to calm those people down? (And while i'm mentioning the new models, make the lenses on the glasses dyeable, please? )
Now as for the thing everyone's upset and frustrated about.. the Shadow Nerfs. I can understand why this has happened. I couldn't help but feel ever since they were introduced that this was bound to happen eventually. However, i also agree that most of them were over-nerfed. Here's my viewpoints on each:
Fire From Above: 720-840 dmg + 1 25% Fire Trap I'm not going to complain too heavily about the damage nerf (Enchants still bump up the damage a lot). Like with most of the other spells, this was admittedly needed. The damage could be a bit higher (around 100), but my beef with this change is the fact that the Fuel was replaced with a single Fire Trap. I personally think that if it's going to be one trap, it should be considerably higher to make up for the potential loss of the Fuel (45% at most). Alternatively, the Fuel can be restored to the spell while keeping the damage where it is, and i wouldn't complain much. All in all, this is 'mostly' a reasonable nerf.
Raging Bull: 700-820 dmg + -30% Smoke Screen to all enemies Fortunately, Bull hasn't changed too much. The nerf makes it fall in line with the others, and considering the extra pip cost vs something like Bugs, it makes sense for it to have similar damage in my personal opinion. The only complaint I've had about Bull is something that's been there ever since the spell was introduced, and that is the feeling that the Smoke Screen is too weak. I feel it should be bumped up to 40-50% to be effective, but the nerfed damage puts Bull in the perfect position for it's tiering.
Abominable Weaver: 590-710 dmg + 50% Tower Shield to self The 50% Tower Shield feels just right. But the dmg feels a tad too low. 650-750 feels like the more reasonable damage range to me. Not much to say on this one!
Glowbug Squall: 730 dmg + remove 1 blade from all enemies With Glowbugs's extreme raw damage even for Storm standards, and the overkill secondary effect of Enfeebling all enemies, this was the spell i feel like needed a nerf the most. But i feel the nerf hammer has come down a bit too hard on these little guys.. the poor Bugs have been swatted! I've seen other enemies use a variant which removes 3 blades, i thought that would feel just right for the secondary effect. As for the raw damage, 800-900 seems reasonable to me. It keeps the damage high, as storms should have it, but it doesn't push it to overkill standards.
Rusalka's Wrath: 1165 dmg + 30% blade OR 30% weakness With the damage curve being flattened, this nerf seems in line with how i feel things should be. I have no complaints!
Mystic Colossus: remove 1 shield + 450 dmg to all enemies This is one of the big 3 for me. And by that i mean the 3 spells that have been nerfed into irrelevancy. Myth already had things hard as it is due to the lack of high-damaging all hits, the only other decent hits they can readily use being Humongofrog and Earthquake, but with an average of 310 on both, this nerf doesn't leave Myth any options for high damage all hits. And for being a shadow-enhanced spell, this is one of the nerfs i wholeheartedly disagree with. It's far too heavy. If it must be nerfed, 650 seems a much more reasonable number.
Hungry Caterpillar: 590-710 dmg + 800 absorb Before the nerfs were introduced, this was probably the weakest overall 5/1 shadow spell. It makes sense since Life isn't a hard-hitting school, but the absorb is much weaker for harder hits than Abominable Weaver with it's generally more useful Tower Shield. Damage-wise these two spells were identical however, so naturally i propose the same change: Bump up the damage to 650-750!
Call Of Khrulhu: 595 drain to all enemies The second of the big 3. Although all hitting drains tend to have massive returns for health, 595 base feels too low, especially since enchants for drains are gimped to balance things out. 725 seems like a reasonable nerf.
Winged Sorrow: 940-1120 dmg to target and -30% weakness to all enemies Many Death wizards i know felt this spell to be somewhat underwhelming, and the buff, while welcome, feels a bit unnecessary with the damage of everything else going down. To stay in line with the nerfs, the damage should go back to how it was before.
Gaze Of Fate: 250 dmg + 250 random dmg to target The last of the big 3 and what i personally feel is the biggest offender in this update. 250 raw on a 5/1 shadow spell? This is almost outclassed by an enchanted Scorpion in terms of raw damage. And if a 5/1 shadow spell is almost weaker than a 2-pip spell, then something is clearly wrong. I'd bump the damage up to 375 per hit to make this spell worth it's price.
As for Shadow Rating, well.. it seems reasonable enough, but i'd need to get used to it for a bit longer before making any real decisions or forming any opinions on it. Watch this space!
I don't have much to say about the faces. I don't like them, but don't really want to say much about them as it won't be too detailed. I can say, at least, that I don't like the texture/sheen of the faces themselves, now. It makes them look as if they're made out of greased up clay. The new animations are odd as well, especially for the mouth. It sometimes looks as if the characters are chewing something for no real reason and it's really bothersome. The mouths that show teeth don't work as well as the old faces, either, just makes the character seem as if they're breathing through their mouth.
On to the shadow changes; If you won't go back on the nerfs entirely, they need to be made less severe as soon as possible. Some of the changes are entirely insane, to the point I'll just bring up one that was arguably the worst simply because many didn't consider the spell that useful in the first place: Gaze of Fate. For what purpose was GoF gutted so hard? It was already one of the most uncommon DM shads to see, why in the world would it need to be nerfed in the first place? This change in particular makes it seem like these changes aren't actually 'balanced', because I can assure you if you went and told players in the past GoF was getting nerfed near everyone you told would go "but why??", even the non-balance wizards. Absolutely nobody considers this card broken because: 1. It isn't. 2. It's so uncommon to the point that 1 has to be correct by proxy. It honestly seems like the baseline for these changes was simply "lol just make them all terrible" rather than "evaluate each spell, see how often it gets used compared to the others, rework accordingly." I can't go in depth on the other spells as I only have a 103 Myth and 20 Balance, but even I can still see that such (vicious) changes were totally unfounded. Please, unless you're honestly trying to delete Myth entirely and make Balance into the tanky school of blade-slaves + utterly trash PvE only/Solo players, change these awful nerfs.
I wanted to address two of the features from the Summer update that have been getting a lot of feedback.
Character Revamp
Ever since the Wizard City revamp, our characters have stuck out like a sore thumb against the updated game graphics. We’ve wanted to do an update on our characters and character system for quite a while now, and we knew that something so near and dear to you as your own Wizard’s appearance needs the utmost care. The art team is very committed to keeping the charm and personality of your characters intact as we translate over to the new character system. Some broad initial adjustments addressing comments about your Wizard aging have already been made and will be in the next Test Realm update.
We realize you like some of the changes more than others, and we’ll continue to listen and review feedback and make adjustments throughout the next few weeks. We invite you to check out the new, improved Magic Mirror in the Shopping District (for gold now!), and take a look at the new customization options. The faces cannot be exactly the way they were before, but we want to be diligent about coming as close as possible to what you know and love. We cannot take half measures, incorporating some updates and not others, but we want to make sure that the magic remains that made you choose your Wizard’s look in the first place.
Details and descriptions help communicate opinions on visual feedback – the more, the better. What specifically about the looks of your new character do you like or don’t like? Do you like the new, more realistic size of the pupils or the previous cartoon-y pupil eyes better? Do you like that your characters blink? How about the new animations? What options in the magic mirror do you like or don’t like and why?
Shadow Changes
Let’s talk about those shadow spells. One of the reasons that these power reductions are so noticeable is that these spells were hands down the most powerful in the game. In fact, in their current state, they are entirely unbalanced. This has created a growing problem with game balance and power progression, which will only compound in the years to come as the level cap increases. With this initial pass, our goal was to see what these spells would look like balanced only for their pip cost. Of course we realize there are many other considerations, such as the value of pips themselves (both power pips and shadow pips), the pacing of pip generation, time spent in combat, the other tools each school may or may not have, and the overall "feel" of combat. Our systems designers are immersed in Shadow, reviewing and discussing feedback as we speak.
We do want to reassure you of our commitment to PVE – our goal is NOT to significantly increase the difficulty in high level content, so there will likely be other changes needed to bring the game in balance going forward.
Details over generalities are valuable here as well, as we’re looking at a lot of interconnecting game systems. Are there are specific situations where the current reductions in Shadow Spell power would invalidate combat strategies? How will these spell changes make specific bosses unduly difficult?
The common thread here – we’re listening, and constructive feedback with specific examples helps us greatly! Test realm is precisely for this type of feedback and we appreciate those of you who have taken the time to do so. Thanks for being part of our community, and working with us to make sure the Spiral is a magical place for all of us for many years to come!
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Copying my latest response from in this thread:
"First of all, thank you for the detailed feedback on both fronts! This is the sort of dialogue that helps us make the Spiral awesome.
With the new character system, we had to rebuild the way the character models are constructed (we have to do this often when we update art that's well over a decade old, and the character models are one of the oldest things in game!). So, the answer is that we aim to keep the visuals as close to the original as possible, but we cannot retain the exact old faces, so giving us feedback like, "on this face, I don't like that my pupils are smaller, the shape of my face is not quite as round, and I have smile lines" etc. These specific critiques are super helpful for us to be able to tweak instances where the faces are drastically and unintentionally different than the original.
We'll take a look at all the links regarding feedback and fan edits. I think we're on the same page here, and this will help with the feedback on aging and shading. Definitely check out the next Test Realm update, and we can continue to discuss!
In terms of the Shadow Spells - I'll make sure Matnetic and Ratbeard and crew review all this feedback and wrap it into their ongoing discussions. The very next update won't have any Shadow Changes YET, but we will let the community know what's to come as Test Realm marches on."
Let’s talk about those shadow spells. One of the reasons that these power reductions are so noticeable is that these spells were hands down the most powerful in the game. In fact, in their current state, they are entirely unbalanced. This has created a growing problem with game balance and power progression, which will only compound in the years to come as the level cap increases. With this initial pass, our goal was to see what these spells would look like balanced only for their pip cost. Of course we realize there are many other considerations, such as the value of pips themselves (both power pips and shadow pips), the pacing of pip generation, time spent in combat, the other tools each school may or may not have, and the overall "feel" of combat. Our systems designers are immersed in Shadow, reviewing and discussing feedback as we speak. They were broken and needed balancing, yes. However, in the current state of things, quite a few of the spells are just simply unusable, to which i see storm myth and balance specifically.
I rope storm into the case because there's simply no reason to use bugs when storm lords and sirens will accomplish the exact same feat, bugs needs a slight damage buff to compensate, around 820 or 850 would honestly be fine imo
myth however got shafted the hardest. no aoes for 80 levels and now your darkmoor aoe is just... not worth it. damage got hit way too low.
and on the terms of pve content, i find that the outgoing pierce and damage rates might need to be tinkered, as really i find that more problematic than health rates. (as a solo storm most bosses it's either i get bugs within 5 turns or die because i simply can't sustain even with shields when every enemy has around 20-30 pierce and 80-100 outgoing damage, as my natural resist goes around 30-35 running the standard 125 cabal gear and mali hat with decent pet.
spell nerfs, its just unbelievable at this point. to nerf the strongest hitting spell in the game, to basically useless now is just heart breaking. considering that most of your players are rocking a storm wizard because 1. its the hardest hitting class, and everyone loves to deal all this damage. and trust me i was one of those people. to nerf Glow Bug Squall by nearly 400 damage is just in my eyes insane. please reconsider this change, the spell was never "Broken" on release, its just all the PvP players complaining about how powerful these spelling were. With Glow Bugs in my opinion should maybe be 100 less damage and remove 2 blades, making it a stronger version of sirens but without the -50% of course. You took the fun out of playing a storm and its truly heartbreaking... very sad of you guys to do this...
dmg + 1 25% Fire Trap
dmg + 50% Tower Shield to self
dmg to all enemies
drain to all enemies
dmg + 250 random dmg to target
