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With respect to the updated character models, I have posted an extensive thread in the Discussion section where many players have chimed in. It appears that our suggestions of a "classic" mode face cannot be enacted at this point, given the animation updates and your suggestion that you can't "half-and-half" the update. I would like to know however, if it is possible at all to allow players to retain their old faces.

Attached is a link to the difference between my current and updated face model when I logged into test. It is truly a stark and shocking difference, even with adjustments in the magic mirror shop!

imgur.com/a/nYKiQp5

If there is no possibility of retaining our old looks at all, I have some specific feedback on the faces: the shading is off to me and many others. It makes our characters look tired and old. Additionally, some smoothing could be done around the nose area. The facial brightness looks fine up close in the magic mirror, but in-game, its too bright and makes our characters look washed out. This is especially evident in the character select window, where I feel the faces look the poorest.

I believe there are some great threads on twitter of fan edits to the new looks, here is one: twitter.com/LastSpellbinder/status/1278571467815280640. The changes made here include slightly enlarging the head and eyes, and smoothing out nose and eye line, as well as making the skin tone "pop" more.

I think there needs to be serious work done making the magic mirror view (i.e. the up close view you see in the mirror) translate with integrity to the actual game, i.e. when you're running around different areas, in combat, etc.

I appreciate the new animations though, especially the talking and emote ones. As well as the addition of freckles, and the eyeglasses. Those look great to me.

Do please consider how radically altering the wizard faces will impact the nostalgia factor which keeps many older players around. I myself can barely recognize my new wizard and cannot model a look in test that comes close to the youthful face I currently have in live!

Hey Falmea!

First off thank you and the team for your hard work on the game, at first my I was super frustrated with what I saw on test realm with both new features. After some time though, the character update really grew on me and I actually really enjoy it! It's the right direction to keep the game up to date, it will be hard for lots of us to get used to since we are so used to the old models. Some small things that stood out to me with the new character models were the following: Some of the eyes were very large and made the characters a little creepy looking, not all but some, also sometimes a black line appears then disappears around a characters cheek, and lastly when holding a wand or sword the characters arms are very far from the body unlike before which makes it look a little weird.

Onto my opinions regarding the shadow spells, again at first I was very frustrated with how big of a change it all was but after thinking about it, it does make sense that they are overpowered. The community is going to be angry with this because they are so used to how strong they are, so the changes need to be just right that these spells still feel strong while not being over powered. Some of the spells are really close to meeting that goal, but some are very off including Mystic Colossus and Call of Khrulu (possibly spelled that wrong sorry!). From what I understand you guys want shadow pips to be equivalent to 3 pips of power, so a shadow spell that costs 5 pips would be around an 8 pip spells power. With this idea I think it's a good way to balance them, just some of the spells should get a damage increase, for example if we compare mystic with myths 8 pip spell Medusa, Medusa does 770 damage (this may be wrong currently doing this from memory on my phone) but if that's the case then Mystic should do around 600 damage, considering it's a hit all spell. Same damage changes can be made with other spells that were changed I feel.

Last thing I want to address that I noticed is how this will work, I remember Matt saying that we will get a shadow pip after 3-5 rounds depending on our shadow rating stat. I don't see how this will be effective for us in battle, because I don't see us having a use for our shadow hit all spells. For example let's say I'm a storm wiz, round 1 I'll start battle with 5 pips, round 2 I will be up to 7 pips, and then round 3 I will have 9 pips plus 1 shadow (assuming always getting a power pip and only using 0 pip spells like blades), at this point there is no reason to use Bugs over Sirens

I know the goal is to make choice important, not just spam the same spell every single battle which I think is important for the game, but if it takes that long to get a shadow spell in this example at least I don't see how there's much choice, but I'm excited to see where you guys go with it! Sorry again if any Grammer mistakes, on my phone!!

Part of my issue with the Character Revamp is that the girls look a lot more faithful to their original designs when revamped while most of the eyes on the guys either look too big or there's something off putting that I can't quite put my finger on. Not saying the female revamp was perfect as there have been complaints from others and I have minor issues with it too, but they seem to look better for the most part. One thing I do like is that with many of the old emotes and premium/member ones have a lot more expressions. The new model update allowed for way more details in that area and it was both hilarious as well as genuinely nice to see.

There are a few issues with the shadow changes. A big issue i'm seeing is that it's rendering some of the shadow enhanced spells completely useless. Rusalka's Wrath is almost equivalent in power to Iron Sultan, except it costs two more pips, and there's a chance of a weakness. If you lowered iron sultan's power it would render it useless for it's intended divide mechanic. As is, if i were to use iron sultan on all four enemies it would do 285 damage each. It was to my understanding that a shadow pip's purpose was to act as a next level of pips. Since we're obviously limited by 14 pips, i assumed that adding a shadow pip would continue on as 1 shadow pip and 5 pips would act as 15 pips and so on. If it's not meant to be that way then i'm not too sure what makes a spell 'shadow enhanced'. I'm sure everyone is working on trying to figure that out at the moment, but such a sudden change without any context is giving the community a lot of grief.

Hey Flamea some concerns i have with the shadow spells power would be.
Gaze of fate is already really bad in pve being a double hit spell making feints be no use. On top of that it is so weak now no one will use it at all. It is weaker then the other shadow spells too. In pvp people have 100 flat resist and gaze hits twice which means it hits into flat resist twice. This means gaze is reduced by 200 damage while other spells that hit once are reduced by 100 damage. This two hit thing is a double edged sword in pvp and is bad in pve. I think the damage should go up a bit. Compare gaze of fate to the fire spell hephaestus a none shadow pip 5 pip spell. It does about the same damage and puts up a bubble like gaze. This makes gaze look like it shouldnt even need a shadow pip.
Glow bug squall hits for less then raging bull. The problem i see here is i believed storm cards always had a higher Base damage then fire cards (except overtime spells like fire dragon) With glow bugs 5 pip shadow compared to raging bull a 6 pip shadow spell i believe bugs should hit just as hard as bull bec storm should have higher base damage on their cards. Fire already has been getting more damage on their gear then storm, AND they have more health then storm. This makes it seem like storm gets the short end of the stick.
Mystic colossus is REALLY bad right now. 450 damage when frog a 4 pip none shadow spell does 325 max damage. I would never save up for a shadow pip just to do 150 more damage. The pierce part is ok but this spell is very bad imo. AND myth doesnt get an AOE from level 42-100. They have waited and gone through worlds like azteca without a good aoe which is really really frustrating. Myth needs a better aoe in general for middle level. Now that mystic is gone too this is very frustrating for myth wizards.
This spell i believe should have the shield moved up to 60%. Life pillar kept its 800 absorb and imo weaver should keep its 75 shield. The ONLY reason why its been nerfed to 50% is because of pvp players complaining. Efreet has been untouched so the school with the most damage gets the best defensive card. If weaver got its 75% shield back it would be more defensive like it should be but it wouldnt even have the most defensive card. Even a slight damage nerf like 50 damage for the 75% shield back would be ok with me. Ice is a defensive school and needs its defense.
Concern why does winged sorrow do more damage then resulka? Death is not supposed to be as strong as storm but its 6 pip shadow spell got BUFFED and makes resulka look like a joke? This is unbalanced.
since resulka got nerfed i do think the chance to get a weakness back should be removed. I think it should be a blade all the time.

I have a big problem with the new face update, mostly for the female ones. The faces look much older and very dragging. The shading is just not right and makes the face seem unappealing, especially with the soulless eyes

I'll focus on the Shadow changes mostly, but I think there were some excellent points about the character model revamp being too Caucasian which I definitely agree with.

I will say that EVERYTHING Khrysalis and onward should be nerfed if ANY spell from Live is nerfed. As I've seen mentioned everywhere that this includes enemy health, but should also include spells they output. Many of these spells have additional effects that were nerfed (ice's shield in Weaver, for example) that helped the wizard stay alive longer. Shadow Squal should be reduced to 1 disarm if Bugs is too, etc. Damage output, shadow backlash, but health especially should see a significant decrease.

• Think about defeating Shane von Shane in Darkmoor. Bugs would enfeeble ALL of Shane's blades. This greatly aided players and encouraged storms to Bugs a few times rather than one big hit.
• FFA's fuel was incredibly useful for buffing bigger hits, especially DOTs

The way you worded these questions tells me you want us to say "oh this is fine. There's a few strategies that are impacted, but not much." Empyrea is wrought with bubble caps where Shadow Spells were useful. I can say that the other shadow spells are greatly impacted by this shadow revamp and need to be rebalanced accordingly. Let's not forget about shadow creatures.

I think having FFA leave a fuel was a very good strategy for a lot of later Empyrea bosses that capped damage (and Fellspawn). As a Fire main, I was deeply disappointed that it only left one trap and still does less damage than Efreet. It's no longer viable, I'd rather just spam Brimstone.

For me, as I've mentioned in other threads, the more infuriating part about this (even after an ideal change to all enemies' health and power) is that these spells don't feel super useful anymore. Why would I Raging Bull when Fire Dragon is more powerful and reliable? Why would I FFA when King Art and Efreet do more damage? We get these spells too late in the game for them to have alternatives to other spells. I've used Fire Dragon thousands of times and after 60 levels I get a slightly different alternative?! Wrap that around your head. Death waits 60 levels and finally gets a better version of Scarecrow. Myth never got a 7, 8, or 9 pip AOE and you're going to nerf the best one they got almost 70 levels later. Heck, Life has better AOEs than Myth now. These changes need to be made with spells that would fill that gap. Bugs got nerfed? Storm still has Sirens.

The most distinguishing parts these spells had was that they are the strongest spells in the game.
Bringing them down below means that the azteca Rank 10 spells are the strongest spells for over 30 levels!

Having these spells use the power of rank 8 spells so late in the game really takes down the excitement of getting these new spells. My solution is to increase the pip requirement a decent chunk so the spells are less spam-able. In PvE, most players use shadows as their big hit, since they [used to] do the most damage. Simply balancing these spells reduces their viability and decreases my deck diversity. I can say without a doubt my storm will never use Bugs now. There's just no reason to. I can wait another round to get my guaranteed 7 pips than try my luck betting on a shadow.

I'm not even going to get into how insulting it is that some of the Rank 4 shadow-enhanced spells do incredibly more damage than the rank 5 or 6 counterparts for a small payoff (re: FFA, Sultan). I know you guys planned on "compromising" when you released this to get it the way you originally wanted them (i.e. you'll probably planned on having Bugs be 940 with 1 disarm but released a nerfed version so people would be more receptive to your changes). Be better than this. Nerfs were expected, but this execution and design is offensive to the community.

The current nerf in TEST does significantly make questing at higher levels virtually impossible for many Casual players.

When these Shadow enhanced spells were introduced to the game 6 years ago costing 5 regular and 1 shadow pip (it was assumed apparently) that the shadow pip was equal to a 4-5 additional pips making those spells more in line with our 9-10 pip NORMAL spells. Now 6 years later, we are being told that is not the case and that they were broken when release.

100--200 damage nerf might have been more acceptable to the PvE community but not what is proposed in TEST now.

Unfortunately, this seems to be a consistent habit of KI. You release things into the live game whether it is viable or not then tell us years later it was not supposed to happen or it was broken to begin with.

Sadly, I think this time is going to do more damage as I am seeing many already cancelling accounts if the nerfs go live with this extreme cut. Casual Players can not continue playing when their best spells become useless or less powerful that our best NORMAL spell.

Okay, so this is going to be a rather lengthy post. I would like to start off with the new faces-
As a portrait painter and sculptor, there are so many no-no's being done on the models that make them so undesirable. The major things that make them so weird are:
-The Stylistic Choices
-Even though you are persuing a cartoony style, choosing to render them in a pseudo 3-D lifelike manner confuses the visual language. Right now, there isn't a specific style you have chosen that is clear to me, the viewer. It seems that you are attempting to stylize AND create a sense of realism, but that is simply not working. You will either need to lean harder into either direction, as right now the middle is not a good place to be.
-The Proportions
You acknowledged the eyes, which are a huge gripe of mine. The eyes are way to large and close together, even for a child-like face. They are also too round, which makes them all look surprised-doe-eyed. The Creepy Doll critique I have seen on twitter is rather apt despite being a bit rude. Even for a Child's face, the eyes would not be so extraordinarily large in regards to the rest of the facial features. Right now, the model is 40-50% eye, which is just wrong even for a stylization. Again, it is unclear if you are going for cartoon-anime visual narrative, or pseudo-realism and that causes visual discord.
--Alongside the eyes, the Nose does not have enough room to breathe. The eyes encroach the nose bridge and should not be that close to the center of the face/ the nose. There should be about an eye's width between each eye, not a fingertip.
--The mouth's are also really weird. They are extremely wide, I feel as if the wizard could unhinge their jaw like a snake. reducing the width of the mouth will help with the proportions as well.
--Along with the proportional issues in regards to the spacing of the eyes, and their size, the face sculpt itself is not that of a child's. The cheekbones are too pronounced, and the nasal-labial folds ( mouth corner to nostril wrinkle, smile in a mirror and you will see it) are highlighted which is a HUGE artistic no-no, especially for a younger face. When you draw attention to those folds, they indicate a mature face, not a young one. Flattening that area of the face rig, or re-painting it to remove the shadow in the area will make the faces look rounder, younger, and less gaunt/mature.
-----adding to the gaunt critique, child faces should not have such severe contour shading, especially in direct light. As the paint job/lighting is mostly static, this is more so a task of re-painting shaded areas to be less noticeable, with less cold/grayish browns aging the faces. I think having mature face options is a wonderful idea, but I think they were implemented by accident, not by intention.
-----as an aside, the vanilla faces were largely successful because they had a clearly conveyed style, of anime/ cartoony influence and translated just well enough to not be creepy whilst still being noticeable. When you render cartoony faces in the 3rd Dimension, you have to be careful not to make it 'too real'. Making the faces more stylized and less real/uncanny will help you here.

---TL:DR round out the faces, lessen shading, fix cheekbone/facial difference, work on proportions A LOT.
------ Shadow Changes-----
I will be quaint here; they are very ill-implemented. Shadow spells should be upgrades to normal spells for the following reasons;
-Requires a Shadow Pip -Aquired at Level 100 -Rare
-As it stands, They have been balanced as if they were rank 5/6 trained spells, and lost so much of what made them useful. I think that a good way to go about changing them would to be balancing them as Rank 10 spells, as they originally consumed 10 mana instead of 5. This will boost their damage and keep them in line with other rank 10 spells.
-Why are they ill implemented?
-Well, simply put, there was no sort of comparisons made outside of the shadow hit realm. If there was even a hint of cross-comparison, you would immediately note and find issue with:
----Mystic Colossus is now weaker than :Forest Lord, Frost Giant, Ra, Fire Dragon, Lulu, Storm Lord, Power Nova, and Snow Angel despite being a level 100 spell, belonging to the 3rd Damage school.
---- Mystic colossus being 140 damage above earthquake for a terribly lessened secondary effect
-Glowbug Squall being outclassed by Storm Lord and Sirens for similar reasons
-Call of Lulu being 195 damage above scarecrow for a 52 level gap
--- Call of Lulu being stronger than Mystic despite death not being a primary hitting class
-Snowball Barrage being the best AOE in game by proxy of nerfs
-Raging Bull being stronger than Sirens and Glowbug Squall despite Fire's advantage over Storm Stat-Wise
- I could go on, but I feel it is very Important to Bring Myth back into this discussion. Upon Nerfing Mystic, Myth has 3 AOE's all in the same damage range of 2-400, or 6-750 with enchants. This means they are now the weakest of the 7 schools when it comes to AOE potential, as now life and balance have an advantage over them.
--- Because Mystic was Myth's only trained AOE past the first arc, it means they have no spell to fall back on now to provide them with power. Fire has Rain of Fire, Storm has Lord, tempest, and Sirens. Myth has Frog and Earthquake, which are essentially the same spell in terms of damage. If Myth is not given a high pip/damage AOE, or an X-pip AOE, they will be irreparably damaged and unviable for the remainder of the game's lifespan. Myth was already underperforming and undesirable in most team compositions, and as it stands now, They have no place at all in the game as a whole. I fully believe passing mystic out as it stands nerfed, and not compensating via the provision of a new or more powerful AOE, will bring Myth back to the Darkmoor days, where they were actively avoided/ shunned from groups due to their complete lack of use. Their utilities are available as treasure cards, which means they truly have no place if they fit into your side-deck.
--- Please consider buffing Myth, or giving them a New AOE. A mid game X pip AOE would completely save them from this desolation of purpose and efficiency. You could also rework a plethora of Myth's large cast of single-target spells to be AOE hits, since they have no use for so many single hits.
- Spells that could be reworked into Hit-Alls that Myth doesn't use;
-Dimension Shift -Basilisk -literally any minion spell/spells).
As it stands, the nerfs across the board are way to severe. However, Myth's is unique in that killing mystic colossus will in turn kill the Myth school as a whole.
Death also stands to suffer similarly to Myth, for the same reasoning.
Please take the time to think these changes through, I have no business playing a game in which my 2 main characters are completely useless anywhere and everywhere.
Thank you for reading this.

frost0777 on Jul 2, 2020 wrote:

My biggest problem is mystic, myth NEEDS this strong Aoe. Our best AOE is frog and it does 300 damage!! Post nerf mystic is just not worth the pips. You might as well just frog in pve. People wont want myth hitters meaning myth players will be hurt in every way possible. No one will want them as a hitter in dungeons or questing! Please give myth the AOE it needs so badly again.

i totally agree, as a myth wizard the only wizard i have! mystic is such an important spell for us, it doesn't make sense to nerf it! We already struggle enough, why make it harder b reducing one of our most powerful spells?? especially for pve!

I like the changes to the faces except that we look like we are 40 instead of like 20 and. Once ring shadow spell please listen to the community for once and hear me out when you get your shadow spells that were nerfed instead of nerfing the spells for pvp and pve give us 2 versions the pve version the old version that has the no pvp on it and a pvp version so that people who only play pve aren't getting screwed

Character Models - My biggest concern is that only certain colors are available based on gender. I would like to see more options going cross the gender spectrum. :)

I agree with all the comments on the eyes. Boy howdy are those bad.

Spells - these bosses have tons of hit points. Lowering the damage we can do without also nerfing the mob is going to be an issue.

Thanks for your hard work and for taking the time to create this post. It shows that you care about the community and want to hear us.

Alura DeathBringer
Tavia Stormweaver