quote:

I have always supported the idea of the popular vote winning but I have never supported the idea of allowing one to change their vote as and when they please. Everybody gets 1 chance to vote, why should some people get to regret and have 2 choices? Should everyone be getting another choice now or should we just redo the whole thing?

quote:

I don't think it's possible to change one's vote, and although we understand concerns about the flaws of a system where first place can go to something only a minority of voters support winning or votes past second place not mattering, the forums don't support that option. I think the only way we could do something like that through the thread systems would be voting in stages, such as polls that eliminate the last place and then reopen for another period. Other than that, one way to handle that would be managing a future ranked poll manually by having everyone post a list and then doing a manual sequence of re-tallies that eliminates each last place, then posting the process for transparency. I'll ask about this.

quote:

I do have a feeling that the standings won't change much over the next two weeks (since anyone can see the current standings, anybody that knows how First Past The Post works would avoid voting for 3rd unless they're confident it'll triple its votes while nobody else gets any), but if the main issue is that the standings might change then we could just have a rule of "no switching until the final X days of the poll" where X is like 7-10 (last week to last half). We're only on day 7ish right now (14ish days left) so even allowing the final half would give 4 more days to see how things shape up, and allowing the final third would give us a full week to see if any shifts happen; if there are no shifts we could implement the rules (with an extra handful of days to work out those rules, if any need to be changed/added/removed).

quote:

And "some people" don't have 2 choices, currently, everyone can express interest in their second preferred set.

quote:

Then why did you bring it up as a concern?

quote:

This isn't a general staff response, this is a independent statement from Lorekeeper.

quote:

Evidently, they did, hence we are allowed to switch votes to best represent our interest in the event our first pick seems unviable for victory.

quote:

Because if they do so, they risk their voice being frozen out entirely.

quote:

We only had two sets last year as compensation for decisions made under the duress of exceptional circumstances.

quote:

We're open to suggestions for future contests, however any changes during this campaign would be deemed unfair or undermine the vote. It also creates a lot of "what if.." scenario. To give an extreme example, if offering both sets was put on the table. That'd mean players' remaining vote would go towards set three. If set three caught up, then what?

To keep it as fair as possible we need to abstain from changing what was set out originally, and let it play out organically. When the voting has concluded, we can certainly have a review and take on feedback. Until then please let all cast their votes on what they'd like to see.

quote:

hypercrit benefit is really the best choice as multiple builds can use it.

quote:

If you really think of it there's too much beast build support and recently we've had armors in addition to what existed before. And with most existing hypercrit effects being premium to have the chance at one now while getting free tokens with which to obtain it is a great opportunity.

quote:

Since RobynJoanne's set is out, I really don't know which set I want to win. Both Gwen and Dardiel's set boost spells - which is kinda neat. Lucky strikes are impressive - and big numbers are cool, but damage caps exist. Plot armour exists. This curtails much of its power. Meanwhile, I don't like relying on pets and guests - even though I run 250 Int / 250 Cha / 250 Luk.

quote:

For future iterations of the contest - I suggest hiding the votes. Also, I suggest not unveiling the winner till after the donation contest ends. Would probably help keep the peace while people campaign for votes. There's also the side benefit of having more tokens go around. Not knowing which set will win ahead of time, will result in more donors - since there is this mystery factor. It would help the game's bottom line as well

quote:

Dev Notes for Dardiel's Accuracy/Beast Manipulation Set:
While complex, this is a very interesting set that would provide a chance to set new standards to finally fix the long-standing issue of charge mechanics feeling unrewarding unless overcompensated for in design. However, due to its mechanical complexity, it does enough that we have some notes to communicate on how the set would have to deviate from the suggestion:

At the time being, Ferocious Strikes are coded to have a fixed x2 output and require CHA. Some minor system work would be required to adjust this.

+100% Ferocious Strike rate is a threshold we're very wary of.

We're wary of proliferating more triple mode items. This isn't a hard no, but it's one of those things that would slow down releases and result in fewer cool things being released due to taking longer to make them.

PCF being balanced around it dividing the bonuses based on how many PCF items have their Integration active This gives a lot of potential to get something hugely powered up if you use multiple items to charge it within a fight, and then condense the bonus into a single item. One way in which we could address this would be to cap how high the bonus for an individual item can be.

Weapon: Weapons need to be capped at +/-10 BtH.

Misc: As well as the above note on triple compression, the 2nd option spending HP/MP/SP takes up the MC effect. In addition, we've been moving away from damage-scaling effects over time, this would need to have a X% Meleevalue.

Pet: Highlighting component of a broader set issue through which penalties that pay for effects occur on a miss, while the set trivializes accuracy.

Shield: Rather than give the EleShield at the start of turn, it would likely be better to have it applied on the first attempted hit, or at the end of the player turn if no hit was attempted.

Armor: This has such a heavy amount of compression that it raises concerns for development time and compression standards. It reaches a point that would make it difficult to implement everything even before bringing up the concerns for future expectations, so we would have to focus on the parts most important to the idea. As a last note, the pet damage bonus would have to be lower than expected, and penalties that the set trivializes may need a second look, particularly when a mode funnels the bonuses to the player.

quote:

Dev Notes for GwenMay's Hypercrit/LS Set:
We'd be remiss not to include a large collaboration set that has garnered this much support, but must unfortunately include the caveat that most of it cannot be implemented as suggested. At its core, this is because it revolves around mechanics that are subject to updates at a time when we are too overloaded to predict when we'll be able to revise them. That makes it very tricky to apply this concept in a way that won't be invalidated or left pending a revamp at the uncertain time in the future when this mechanic changes. To cover other specific details:

Lucky Strikes and Hypercrit are currently slated for revision. This is partly due to inconsistent values that need to be consolidated. Additionally, they're based on multiplicative bonuses that make it too easy to guarantee critical strikes with minimal setup. The setup-to-output ratio is virtually all output, making it very unbalanced. It would be very difficult to maintain this idea's identity without having to perform all the work for this revision before or in time with this set, at which point the values themselves would still be different.

Misc: In lacking an elemental component; it'd need either Fire resistance or a non-elemental penalty. Healing based on outgoing damage is already something we're moving away from, and would need an alternative approach. Healing on outgoing crit and multiplying this value by 10, on a set that can guarantee crits, is also something we cannot implement.

Shield: We have not created a LUK drive shield because it would invalidate all stat potency shields. This set's shield is not only a LUK drive, but an effect we specifically moved away from retaining on Ironthorn. We would need to do something completely different.

With nearly the entirety of the set needing to be reworked to make it through, we feel it important to inform players about implementing the closest manageable version with the caveat that it could be impacted by future changes.

quote:

Dev Notes for RobynJoanne's Information-Based Set - The Hunt:
This is a set that would require a lot of work, and we would have to call in some reinforcements for UI features, but the necessary improvements to the UI (A new status display/stat card) could be a huge boon to the game. So while the complexity and workload are both serious concerns, a week in which Ianthe and Kamui work on these items while we get help overhauling the status UI would serve as both a reward to the Giftmasters and an advancement on upcoming QoL revamps that improves the game for everyone.

Some of the bonuses run too high for comfort and would need to be toned down. Ie. triple compression on every item would be a concern. Question from Kamui on that: It seems Tracker should be active at all times and you just swap between Analyst and Striker, no?

Weapon: We've shifted to having DefLoss not require a hit to attempt, and this item's whole setup seems to be perm DefLoss per turn and you can take bonus damage and apply up to a -20 BtH lean to get even more damage. We're iffy on this much bonus damage being sourced from a single piece of equipment.

Shield: Getting -26 to all elements feels OP in general, and for the cost required. We could potentially have it either charge a greater amount per element, or weaken the resistance per element applied, like two elements becomes -24 to both, three elements becomes -20 to all three, etc, though we'd be wary of this still being a bit much while deviating from the idea.

Armor: Shield elecomp is not an available option. We have concerns about both +50% damage and element seeking, and would need to tone that down.

Pet: +100% Damage dealt would have to be toned down.