Shackles Rework Discussion

[quasi tree]

New shackle changes?! 👀

Curious if the new shackles are meant to give 100% Ang gear chance?

(Also hope it's fine I went ahead and made a thread, where it's beta related I felt this was the most appropriate place)

[turbid basalt]

yes, it's appreciated 🙂

[turbid basalt]

and yes

[inland blade]

I've been championing making that change pretty hard, I'm excited to see it tried 😄

Basically:

• Shackles now f*** you up again
• In exchange, huge buff to anguish gear rates

Unshackled is the efficient way to play, but shackled exists as a way to challenge yourself and potentially even grind out rare drops in their anguished form guaranteed (if you get an ornate).

[boreal cove]

Good changes across the board IMO. A nice bonus for those who want to shackle, while the old shackle numbers make it still difficult content. The 100% gear chance is cool for when you want a particular item or get stuck on a level. Allows AL to be used fully, if desired.

I think the 33% increase to the proofs will also make it worthwhile to farmed shackled in a lot of places even for high AL players.

[quasi tree]

I'm a big fan of the change!!
Seems like it will feel great for the Agony path, making shackled super raids feel much more worth the time investment they take!

[bright ermine]

Compared to current it looks like the only difference difficulty wise is that you are shackled to AL9 instead of AL14, is that correct?

At agony 5 I mean.

[quasi tree]

Yeah it seems the changes a while ago where we had a shackles level increase was reverted

[bright ermine]

Oh okay. And if you progress to "expected" AL, does that just auto-enable shackle bonuses?

[quasi tree]

It seems basically the current decrease from being non-shackled was flipped, making it an increase based off the difference/number of ALs you're giving up

For example my beta account is currently AL99 here is the values at Mel 5/10/20/28/30

[inland blade]

Oh, that's a bit disappointing

Edit: Looking at the rates/when you hit 100% though, maybe it's not that bad

[bright ermine]

So it's marginally changing for those currently playing with shackles, then. I was afraid that shackles were going to get worse and maybe dip from challenging to masochistic, which would have been annoying since they were at least in a workable spot now.

[quasi tree]

This means playing at Mel 5 shackled gives the samne rewards as at Mel 9 unshackled

[mortal tulip]

Even though Knight and I were on opposite sides of the initial shackles conversation, we both fully support this version and as much as my goal was the unshackled experience, I have been trying to back up Knight that the big anguish gear rates is cool and welcome for the shackled experience.

I think its super cool that new players are always going to get anguish levels on the best ornates they get!

[inland blade]

The reworked system incentivizes playing unshackled normally, and only turning on shackles sometimes

Since polling seems to have revealed that's what the largest % of the playerbase desired

[mortal tulip]

Hmm. this may be unintended math. I am not sure

[inland blade]

@quasi tree At what level exactly does gear chance become 100% for you?

[bright ermine]

Might be worth considering a further shackle to keep rewards higher even at target AL, but that is a very niche consideration.

[mortal tulip]

The shackled proof rates should always be higher than unshackled proof rates imo

[inland blade]

Yeah, this is what I proposed too, but tbh you will outgrow target AL quite quickly

[quasi tree]

With my current path choices for Melacholy I get 100% proof chance at level 48 (that has shackles of 178)

[inland blade]

I said gear chance 😅

[quasi tree]

ooohhh mb 1 sec

[bright ermine]

Oh, what are the "new" proofs of anguish looking like? Curious on that first look.

[inland blade]

What do you mean?

[quasi tree]

At Mel level 50 gear chance only hits 29.4% unshackled for my path choices

[inland blade]

Shackled please

Sorry, I should've been more specific

I want to know the AL difference required to get 100% gear chance

[bright ermine]

Oh disregard I am illiterate.

I saw "introduced new anguish proof..." And somehow stopped reading. Next line said bonus

[rain light]

His screenshot shows 5 has it

[inland blade]

And so does 20...

And it scales based on AL difference to shackled level

[quasi tree]

At AL99 Shackles give 100% from 5 -> 21, once I hit 22 it goes to 97.96%, 23 at 89.64%, 24 at 80.04%, etc...

[inland blade]

If you see, 28 does not have it

[quasi tree]

21 shackled is AL69,
22 shackled is AL73

[inland blade]

So it looks like it reaches 100% at a 30 AL difference

[rain light]

That I didn't notice scrolled threw first few of what I could realistically unlock with my 50 als haha

[turbid basalt]

should be 20% bonus/ascension level, to a max of 100%

so 5 needed

[inland blade]

It's currently 30 though, not 5

[rain light]

So if ang 15 is al 45-48 then I should have a 60% chance of anguished?

[inland blade]

Which 30 is OK, I mean it's still workable. I guess it incentivizes someone to keep ascending

[quasi tree]

Will send these 4 screenshots to make it easier for people to visualize

[mortal tulip]

I think it should definitely be lower than 30

[inland blade]

I don't know if Odie actually meant it to be 5 instead of 30 or if he was talking about something else

[rain light]

Personally might disagree this would still make anguish slow down for high al and still have to work to get to proper ang lvl

[mortal tulip]

Certainly not a hill i am going to die

[plucky musk]

Comparing these numbers, shackled PathL21 gives about the same proof rate as unshackled PathL24.

In doing so, you give up 64 ascension levels (132 -> 68).

Would you predict that shackled or unshackled is overall faster for farming proofs, given that?

[mortal tulip]

I want to play with ascensions and this looks good for that. I just want to make sure there are goog rewards for people who want to play shackled too

[rain light]

Depends are you struggling to get the gear to lvl up?

[plucky musk]

Speaking from my own experience, I've never struggled to get anguished gear while farming for proofs at every path level up to 12.
Just the process of clearing towers/monuments for e.g. torment gives multiple on-level anguish gear pieces for unlock purposes.

[inland blade]

Yeah, Fux, I think the goal here was to allow for players to hit the wall where they couldn't push any farther while using the full power of their ascension, since that's what the majority of the playerbase seemed to be voting for.

Shackles are an optional side thing where you grind out gear.

[mystic juniper]

I know it's beta but :
Basicaly, seing those numbers, to me ang2.0 turn into ang1.0 with ascension level cheese being the go to for an efficient gameplay. Feels weird, for something supposed to remove some issues we've seen on ang1.0, to keep the same issues, but even worst.
Some felt disrespected for their so loved AL, I feel disrespected for the real grind I was supposed to experiment on this content.

[plucky musk]

I agree that's what they are now, since I definitely can't see the case where anyone is going to shackle in order to farm proofs.
But I was wondering if Sirith had a similar take or not.

[dull girder]

Just curious, if ang is a challenge by choice thing why is al a requirement to increase your ang level

[mystic juniper]

High AL = reach asap high anguish lvl for the best proof rate, and spam spam spam with higher rewards than before to have more AL to spam spam spam.
That's indeed some respect for AL.
As you can see, I may be a bit tired with the time I spent on thread already those past weeks ^^
I'm happy some gets some released not having to experiment any kind of challenge.

[inland blade]

You'll also notice that enemy stat scaling has also increased dramatically starting at anguish 20

[turbid basalt]

Maluses at high level should draw a separation from high Anguish 1.0 levels

[inland blade]

I would argue that this version prevents spamming of high anguish content more than the version that's currently in the live game. In the live game shackles stop being relevant for most people so quickly that they may as well only exist as a temporary annoyance for the mid levels of anguish.

The experience at anguish 20 in this version is largely the same as the live game, while above anguish 20 begins the march of getting even more difficult.

[mortal tulip]

I am excited to see how difficult i can make the content for my character in this new system!

[broken sinew]

for reference difficulty increases by 20% each level for ang 1-20, ang29 however is already 40%+ per level

[dull girder]

Im in pisslow al but want to torture myself with higher anguished content but it's locked by al, is there any workaround

[inland blade]

Ascend other classes than your main class for cheap

[broken sinew]

doesn't ascending multiple other t10 chars still work?

[dull girder]

I'm already spread thin on my main

I don't want to completely bomb my progression

[midnight quail]

The required AL is the SUM of all of your ALs. So just increase some classes a few levels.

[inland blade]

If you don't want to spread your ALs, there is no workaround: You have to ascend more

[dull girder]

that I'm aware of

But I'm already far behind in progression

And if ang is basically just making the game hellishly difficult for more rewards, why lock it to people that already have high al

Plus what's the downside of just removing the al requirements

[turbid basalt]

we want to make sure folk are equipping themselves properly with ALs to take on the challenge

[dull girder]

well teach it by example rather than al gating it

players will learn a lot quicker when their ass gets otked vs al blocked

[quasi tree]

I think then players will just mainly complain it's too difficult...

[mortal tulip]

I definitely saw new people cranking up anguish 1.0 before they should and actually hurting their progression and getting frustrated.

So i do understand the logic here

[dull girder]

So lower the anguish

That's like saying "I can't beat ds3 with my bare hands game too hard pls nerf devs"

[quasi tree]

Honestly unsure yet, gonna do some more play testing in a bit when I have more time

[dull girder]

That's basically just locking smth like votg behind a level gate, because most new players just get oneshot by ronin immo hydra

[midnight quail]

I agree, I liked the challenge to see how far I can push anguish (1.0) with low AL (horde boss: AL17 gsa for ang50 😉). I don't see the reason why this should not be possible anymore.

[quasi tree]

But my question is why make ALs not needed if it's basically impossible without them?

[dull girder]

We don't need to bottle feed them

[dull girder]

For that extra layer of difficulty

[quasi tree]

The thing is lower ALs than the current beta shackles isn't just difficult, it's basically impossible

[turbid basalt]

you can always hoc

[dull girder]

I like your thinking

[slim scroll]

Not the best comparison, as the level restriction on VotGs makes it appear as a Normal dungeon if you don't meet it, which allows the player to continue to utilize that dungeon spot, as opposed to being handed a thing they can't touch at all.

[turbid basalt]

if this becomes popular opinion, then maybe we can consider. but for now, i think the forced guidance is best for players

[dull girder]

Oh I meant when ur already in t10

And imagine if it's locked behind smth like lvl 230

[dull girder]

Most players hate challenges

[quasi tree]

I can guarantee you from past experience on live that doing Torment 6 with ALs lower than the current beta shackles (AL13) is basically impossible

[dull girder]

I'm seeing tons of ppl run ang 4 with actual hyper bis because they're somehow scared of shackling

[dull girder]

Can't you just katar ss3

[quasi tree]

you can't counter attack if stunned, all it takes is an immortal lord to stun you and the other guys to just smack you once

[dull girder]

Ymir v charm, dodge immo

Or just deity, farm ult off normal mobs, otk with t9 eventualus

Also it's not really counter, woo into ss3

Bring mammoth blackened

At least involve a bit of problem solving instead of just raw statcheck/speed

[inland blade]

I think if you're willing to go through all that you can probably handle the challenge of getting a couple dozen AL 😅

[dull girder]

So what is the point of anguish

Because that doesn't sound like a challenge by choice

[quasi tree]

This is assuming you will have enough random mobs to deal with it, which is not always the case
This is also assuming that everyone has/has farmed for a Ymir virtra charm/the gear and pets/skills you mention which in is not different then expecting people to get ALs no?

[dull girder]

Or is it just another layer to progression

[inland blade]

It is an increased difficulty targeted toward ascended T11 players. It is, in some ways, the postgame

[dull girder]

What I am saying is there doesn't need to be a hard cap on anguish from your al

Players will learn as they get shit on, the cap will become evident naturally

Unless I'm the only souls like enjoyer/masochist here

[midnight quail]

And I would love to say: challenge accepted! But currently it is not possible to try 🤷

[turbid basalt]

i don't think we're solving this today tbh - it'll take time to determine whether players find the AL requirement restrictive or intuitive.

perhaps we can keep conversation focused on the shackle rework?

[midnight quail]

I love the 100% anguished gear chance. Currently I am collecting proofs from dungeons to level up items just to unlock agony levels. For Dungeons it is fast and easy to get anguished gear at max level, for raids this is currently quite restricting

[dull girder]

I also like the gear chance change, just chopping another layer of rng off of drops is also nice. One thing I would like to see is for demonworking tools to be the actual bottleneck in terms of gear upgrades vs mats, because (idk if it's just me) I think there should be a bigger separation between anged and non anged gameplay

Currently it's way too punishing in terms of normal mats to ang gear vs the actual anguish resource

[inland blade]

Yeah in live you can never really target farm anguished gear because it's such a low chance. 1/200 for an ornate and then only like 20-30% for that item to be anguished.

With this, you're given a method to challenge by choice and actually target farm gear. If you're feeling up for it, you could kill tons of Lyncus on Anguish 20 to try and get yourself a premade level 20 Beastfelled Garb and not need to spend any of the proofs on Demonworking tools.

[woven niche]

I too am worried about a slippery slope to runaway farming like Ang 1.0. Letting ALs act as a proof/gear rate buff when the content is difficult is fine, that already seems like "AL respect", but the shackled/unshackled gap should be greater imo (as in lower unshackled floor). If people can queue up non-stop dungeons/raids/etc, the speed/safety ALs provide will overpower the proof inefficiency.

[obsidian garden]

So instead of beeing punished for beeing a top player either way, now you can either choose no punishment, or you can accept the full challenge for additional rewards? :O

Am i awake? Is this reality? Can someone please tell me im awake. Im not kidding im shaking

[inland blade]

This is real, it's what most of the ORN has been championing the past week internally and now it's in beta

[mortal tulip]

This is exactly what we are looking at : )

[simple jackal]

The change to shackles isn't something I like personally. I appreciate the increase to scaling at least

[lyric schooner]

I’m one of the few that is immensely loving shackles so any type of bonus for doing it is gravy. I love the challenge

[mortal tulip]

This isn't just to improve the unshackled experience. Which it definitely does.

This version also makes shackles more rewarding than before and harder while also making so you have more anguish levels to do with less access to AL's for those that want the challenge.

[inland blade]

This version was a shift that makes running with shackles on 100% of the time less viable, however it makes them a larger challenge with larger rewards when you do decide to run with them and slog it out.

[lyric schooner]

I know and understand that. I just wanted one of the voices in this chat to show at least 1 person that is having fun with what is here now. This is the only feedback I have so I will leave the rest of the discussion to you wonderful people

[obsidian garden]

Omnus i would kiss you rn if my eyes could see the screen properly DX

[turbid basalt]

The survey kind of split us into 3 comparatively sized groups:

Those who like shackles

Those who dislike shackles

Those who get shackles, but feel some tweaking is needed

I don’t think there is a minority anymore. So finding a solution that meets everyone in the middle seems to be the best approach

[obsidian garden]

For me, since im now not in a lose-lose situation, im willing to actually take the challenge.
It solves my issue

[simple jackal]

I love the current shackles as well, I don't like making unshackled the "better" option

[heady summit]

This is just anguish 1 with extra steps, where every challenge can be overcome by endlessly farming ascension again

[obsidian garden]

it doesnt necessarily need to be a better option.
Rewards from shackled can be adjusted as well

[plucky musk]

I was pretty active in ORN as a voice for enjoying the current shackles (and arguably wanting them to be more mandatory).
I agree with the sentiment from some of the others that this feels like a removal of shackles; that unshackled is effectively always better.

The sole purpose of shackles afaict now in the beta is specifically for agony (where the good gear is) to gamble on being able to save a few hundred proofs worth of DTs in exchange for much harder raid fights. Past that, I think they just gather dust.

[heady summit]

Raids scrolls aren't even a limiting factor. So if the choice is farm 200 raids quickly to buy tools, or farm 200 raids slowly to maybe get a good quality ornate, the tools are the better option

[quasi tree]

It seems I can run Mel 7 shackles on, completely Buffless (only from pet), I honestly feel running with shackles on is the most profitable way to progress anguish

[inland blade]

BeoH things, lol

(And probably Deity too)

[obsidian garden]

So, my feedback on the general idea of shackles, that includes the previous, and hopefully future iteration.

People pretend farming ascensions is easy. As if you can just farm a few in a couple of hours, cause its just a simple thing, that difficulty can be overcome with just raw grind and, which that is true, the way its portrayed is severely unrealistic.

Yes, you CAN bruteforce yourself through challenge, but i will i farm a couple of hours for a (basically) diminishing 1% in stats that dont even affect anguish gear?

I simply dont understand the sentiment.

This is, at this leve,, a grinding game. Getting rewarded for grinding is not an issue.

You want challenge? Shackle.
You want to reach the level you belong in, according to your progression? Unshackle.
You wanna go back to a maybe easier time later on? Go shackle on lower levels.

There is a solution for literally everybody now - rewards can always be adjusted.

I love the idea.
Im going to test it out once the play store allows me to. Further feedback i can give after

[mortal tulip]

this may allow Odie a better ability to see which classes do shackled better which can help with class balancing in the future

[slim scroll]

That may not ring true for all players.
X Raids to get the proofs to buy tools for an equipment you have vs X Raids to get both proofs and another of the equip you desire without tools isn't as clear cut to me as it is for you.
It all depends on where you're at for proofs, equipment, your state of mind, your willingness to persevere, etc. etc.

[plucky musk]

It's already the case (with current shackles) that we can measure class balance by how far they can go shackled 😅
Seems like an orthogonal change when put next to a comparatively massive boost to unshackled rates.

[quasi tree]

But by comparison there's even more of a boost to shackled rates

Which still makes running with shackles the ideal which is what people want no?

[plucky musk]

In absolute terms, yes. Overall rates are up for everyone (for better or worse; faster ascensions and all that).
In comparative terms, shackles get a slight boost and unshackled gets a monster boost.

[mortal tulip]

Yes, playing unshackled on live is awful and this makes that playstyle fun.

My thought was that who chooses to play shackled with this version would show more of which classes do the content better since its not muddled with everyone feeling forced to it. Buts thats a guess on part and I don't know if it helps.

[inland blade]

This change, essentially, made Anguish 2.0 more about the destination than the journey.

Now you can more easily reach your cap for the Ascension level you're at. The end result is the same in live or beta, but in beta you get there a bit more easily and shackles continue to exist as a way to heavily restrict your ALs and challenge yourself in a different way.

[obsidian garden]

you can choose your style, which is wonderful. It satisfies the one who wants to play hard, and the one who wants to play hard with ALL of what he got.

Some said "harder shackles please" - Delivered.
Some said "please dont devalute my progres into a lose lose situation" - Delivered.
And some said "proof of shackling" and for some reason EVEN THAT - Delivered.

[turbid basalt]

proof of shackling?

[obsidian garden]

i think i misread something

Okay i misread the anguish proof part my bad^^"

So basically, unshackled gives no minus anymore, shackled gives plus per AL forfeited

Honestly. Nothing to complain about :o
Im impressed. Its simple, and it solves my concerns.

[pale glacier]

So an AL 100 with earn more on ang 10 than someone with AL 50 on ang 10?

[obsidian garden]

if they shackle, that is correct

[pale glacier]

Isn't that the rich get richer? Lols

[obsidian garden]

else the reward is the same, but the higher AL player is no longer penalized for having invested more into the game.

[obsidian garden]

Yes and no, we reach the point we belong faster, also, ascension costs only increase per level - looking at the rates, its not enough for me to see an imbalance.

[quasi tree]

Not exactly, as ALs are not a currency, they are a form of power that was grinded for. This is a form of compensation that doesn't make higher AL players feel punished for wanting to use their full strength, but also have there be compensation for those accepting more of a challenge

[dull girder]

So why can't the rewards just be higher for higher ang

[pale glacier]

Oh I fully understand the AL forefit arguments! Haha they have been made time & time again

[dull girder]

Instead of sandbagging in lower ang higher al people can just do much more rewarding difficulties

[pale glacier]

But with current beta, unshackeling only seems to lose a few angs worth of rewards and then the higher AL player will clear faster still

Just seems funny to me that ALs earned on a broken system can earn you more on 2.0

[obsidian garden]

What do you mean with broken system?

[pale glacier]

1.0 lols

[obsidian garden]

So everybody with high AL must have grinded it in your opinion?

personally, i had 20 refineries i used, maybe once a week, or twice.
I had anguish on lv 1 for its entire runtime.

I earned with towers, and guild raids, since i have a nice kingdom.

Im AL 100.

[pale glacier]

Where was that definitive claim?

[obsidian garden]

it sounds like an assumption. Which is the general consensus with people dont thinking high AL deserve what they have

[pale glacier]

To say that majority of high ALs didnt earn a metric ton of prangs is probably quite short sighted

Nothing I said was about removal of full rewards for un shackled. It was just about extra rewards for shackeling extra als

[silk nymph]

Bigger rewards for bigger risk, yay.

Otherwise am a fan of how well this was finessed. Nice work NF. Also glad to see the anguished gear drop changes.

[obsidian garden]

the previous system was like that, which is why we are here now, basically

I could settle for a level up cost reduction instead of extra proofs, would even appreciate that more, would also solve the problem imo

[young summit]

Hold up. Do players with less ALs than shackled cap get rewarded as if they were shackled?

[dull girder]

Nvm I'm high ignore me

[dull girder]

yes

[mortal tulip]

There is definitely a point where an AL 75 player gets to the shackled bonus before i do (AL 150) without penalty and thats totally okay.

Part of the goal is that people can focus on this instead of ascending if thats their preference.

[halcyon shuttle]

the best way to AL was by farm, not even remotely close, towers vs dungeons. Like not even remotely close, like 5-10x better to AL. I am AL 190 and i unblocked i think twice with anguish proofs. Tower guild level 144

[pale glacier]

Zero ang as well?

I was quick to lump all of 1.0 into the word prangs

[plucky musk]

You get rewarded more under shackles the higher AL you are, in this beta version.

So an AL100 shackled down to AL30 gets more proofs than an unshackled AL30 clearing the same difficulty.

There is a cap (afaict, 1.4x proof rate).

[young summit]

Yeah that's a little whack I think

Same content, same difficulty, but the person with more ALs has a higher boost inherently

I'd rather see the proof gain be based on the AL the shackles are at instead of the AL the player has

[plucky musk]

unfortunately that (the current system minus ang1-4) is getting voted off the island.
the current system in live works that way; i.e. you shackle to some AL for some angpathLv and get a fixed amount of reward.

[young summit]

Not quite. The current live system is still based on the player's ALs, higher AL gets less unshackled rewards.

I'm talking about a system that only cares about what AL the system is set to. Either an AL slider, or just a handful of AL values to choose from. Ex:

Ang5 has shackles at AL 0 and AL 8. At the 0 level you get extra rewards, AL 8 is default, AL above that is a bit less

[quasi tree]

You can also look at it from the perspective, imagine there's no bonus, then someone at AL30 is playing at the same difficulty and getting the same rewards even though they've put in a fraction of the time and effort into the game than the other person who is at AL100 getting put down to AL30

[young summit]

Yeah but that's not unfair. Your ALs don't give you the right to get more rewards inherently, it always depends on the content you do and the time you put in

[quasi tree]

But then why should someone who has put in 1/3 the amount of time and effort as me be rewarded more?

Is that not also inherently unfair?

[pale glacier]

Because your choosing to do the same difficulty?

[young summit]

If the content they are facing is harder (say they have 23 ALs instead of the 30 you are shackled to) then they should get more rewards

[mortal tulip]

I am not personally invested in the increased AL rewards for shackled play. I just wanted to play unshackled.

But I get the logic that some people want the challenge of shackled and want to move through it faster because they have already done 10k, 20k, 30k, dungeons etc. Its different for a new person doing their first few thousand.

Its not critical for me personally but I get the logic and this is trying to appease a lot of different gaming approaches.

We should worry a bit less about who has the most optimal path because someone will always have the best route (Deities 😜 ) and just make sure the route we want to play feels fun and rewarding. No one is going to get it all here. Lets just make sure as many players have a fun option as we can.

[young summit]

Increasing rewards for more ALs given up just sounds like a problem waiting to happen. Easier content (less maluses) for more rewards

[quasi tree]

Yes but I'm talking in reference to the statement of why more ALs gives increased rewards by shackling/just trying to show the view from the other perspective

[pale glacier]

As was i!

[young summit]

I really don't think "I put in the grind for my ALs" should ever equate to "I deserve to get more rewards for the same content".

[quasi tree]

There is a cap on the rewards increase at least, it's not like you can just keep getting more ALs for more rewards

30ALs over the shackles is (currently at least) max to increase your rewards as far as I can tell

[inland blade]

Scaling with lost AL is my least favorite part of this tbh (and I tried to convince Odie to get rid of it), but I really don't think it's that bad. With the extremely intense shackles in this version it is absolutely not "easier" content for more rewards

[young summit]

At some point, it will be

[inland blade]

I don't really see how, given how the scaling works

[young summit]

At some ang level

[quasi tree]

If anything it will be the opposite no?

[inland blade]

Shackles at some point become "impossible"

I put it in quotes because it's a soft impossible and power creep or strategy can let people overcome it, but enemies start scaling out of control and the player is super heavily restricted.

[mortal tulip]

I agree with you here.

I am just defending the point that i get why some people want it. If you have the AL"s you have done a shit ton of all of those contents already.

If anguish 2.0 just changed 1.0 but didn't reset guild level, no one would be caring. People who already climbed don't have to do it over.

Now with all of that said, if most people don't want increased rewards for AL's in shackled, then i am not going to fight it. I just want to play without shackles and that looks great atm.

[young summit]

I really can't jive with the idea that someone at 50 ALs would get significantly less rewards than someone with 80+ ALs shackled down to 50 at the same ang level

That makes no sense to me

And of course it makes even less sense if the player with 50 ALs actually has 45 or 40

[slim scroll]

Is it that it is a significant difference in your eyes that you don't like it, or that there is a difference at all that you don't like it?
if it is the significance, what do you propose is more appropriate?

[young summit]

I don't think players should be rewarded MORE for giving up ALs than a player that is already at that target AL

[pale glacier]

Same content for more rewards is a line in the sand for me

[inland blade]

I would propose just dropping it and giving the full shackled rate if a player was at or below the shackled AL, regardless of if they chose to shackle themselves or that's their natural AL

And that's what I did propose in the ORN chat already

[swift forge]

I vibe with it - they played/focused on those ALs for longer and now they're being given up so the compensation is pretty nice

[mortal tulip]

I am good with that Knight

[swift forge]

Means the Anguish would still be relevant no matter how high of an AL the player is

Instead of just turning it into AL race all over agian

[young summit]

That's compounding the rewards that ALs naturally give. Not only can you just breeze through content unshackled, but if you choose to shackle you get bonus rewards. ALs are already rewarding enough on their own

[mortal tulip]

The only thing i like about it, is that if a player finds the perfect difficulty for their style, and its shackled, they can increase their AL to increase rewards. So it gives them something to do with Orns and Mats

so ascending in that situation is to get more rewards but maintain the difficulty they enjoy.

[young summit]

Thing is, ascending will already give more rewards by virtue of allowing them to increase anguish

[dull girder]

isnt the point for higher al people to increase ang

[young summit]

Staying at a low anguish level for more rewards should not be encouraged

[mortal tulip]

Its the only situation i can think of

I am just trying to think about how it might be of benefit to other people.

I also advocated for removing this aspect before it went to public beta

For me personally I am totally fine with it going away

[young summit]

I'm trying to wrap my head around this, bear with me. So currently by design, shackles are optional and give more rewards, but are essentially impossible at some ang level because the difficulty scales much faster and higher than the shackled AL power does?

[inland blade]

Yes

The challenge is finding what level is impossible, and then trying to prove it's not 🙂

[mortal tulip]

you can only add stats to mobs so many times before you can't beat them without also increasing the player stats

[young summit]

I feel like inevitably we will find that impossible spot and ease up the shackle at that level and above, which may be the intent. Not a bad plan overall

[mortal tulip]

I do think once we get through this beta it will be figuring out where things need to be harder and where they need to be easier.

[young summit]

I also think that at some lower level(s) it will be ideal to shackle at a lower ang instead of going up higher, since you can maximize your rewards in the easier content with more sacrificed ALs

Let's say ang 19 or whatever since you get less maluses, no increased difficulty, and a full bonus from sacrificed ALs

[obsidian garden]

Its not significantly less, its also not less at all, they get the normal rate.
The high AL player just gets an increase.

I would just say a cost reduction is a better choice, based on AL over maximum shackles.

[bright ermine]

"you don't get less, the other guy just gets more?"

[young summit]

"The other player gets an increase"
"It's not less at all"

Higher AL = more than the lower AL for the exact same content. That's problematic

[bright ermine]

The way I see it, the numbers go up group got their desired change; they are no longer punished for their AL. Getting a bonus and double dipping on that is just wrong.

[normal egret]

https://tenor.com/view/popcorn-guy-relaxing-popcorm-popcorn-gif-26404903

[quasi tree]

Honestly I don't disagree with you overall, but from my perspective at least I feel like there needs to be at least something that can incentivize the player to at least try shackles, we've come to learn forcing the player to shackle is not ideal, and if the rewards currently/rewards at all are not the solution what do we think could solve the issue?

A few thoughts/points just to throw something out there:

• Is being 30ALs higher than shackles for max rewards too little or too many? What if it was 15/10/5?
• What if the reward % increase was lowered?
• What if it was only to affect Ang gear chance and not proof?

[turbid basalt]

Incentive is the key word here. The larger the AL, the less likely folk will want to give up that power - there needs to be an incentive

The current approach is jacking gear rate way up, as other bonuses (proof, orns, exp) have effects outside of anguish. Anguished gear rate circumvents luck rather than providing a direct power link

[bright ermine]

The numbers go up group already has had the foundation of the anguish 2.0 system changed for them, why do they need more rewards? they will cruise forward and make numbers go up, they don't care about shackles unless it makes number go up more efficiently.

[turbid basalt]

I would say that group just wanted them gone period. This change is in no way changed for any particular group

[heady summit]

The group that wanted them gone got what they wanted. Any system that can be 100% ignored might as well not exist.

The point of anguish was to have a guild devoted to providing a challenge.

It's now a guild that once again serves as an ascension accelerator, and hard content can be opted into. Just like ang 1 could be "hard" by intentionally gimping the character

[bright ermine]

I've been playing shackled since the system was introduced, if the beta is what the actual scaling will be then shackles will devolve from challenge to masochism more quickly than before. That's already a bummer.

[dull girder]

Trust me if the system provided zero benefit no one's doing it

[turbid basalt]

I wouldn’t agree with this - while they may get a way to play with their ascensions, we’re still focused on making shackled the most rewarding way to play

If the no-shackle group was the clear winner, then unshackled high AL would need to be the most rewarding way

[heady summit]

It was the most rewarding when the guild launched, and instead of keeping their intent, they've been butchered to the point of being an optionable bonus

The framing of "bonus" versus "penalty" is semantics. And if shackled proves to be better, the exact same complains will exist about being "punished" for having to lose ALs to grind effectively

[quasi tree]

"Any system that can be 100% ignored might as well not exist" is not really something myself or majority of player base can agree with, 90% (random % not a real number) of the content in Orna is optional, it's all about how the player wants to play and the game provides the player with rewards for said type of content

[dull girder]

(cite expless

[bright ermine]

The whole point of shackles was supposed to be reward for playing the game at the intended level, not just to give out extra stuff at the next easily farmable breakpoint for the numbers go up crowd. If you want more rewards, you should go up in difficulty; ALs already give you more room to do this, it just doesn't make sense to me that doing the same content in shackles should give different rewards to different players.

[turbid basalt]

What? Bonus vs penalty in this context is far from a semantic - it has very real gameplay effect

[heady summit]

And anguish was supposed to be about the players who wanted a challenge instead of power acceleration

Would have been nice if the "play what you want" applied to that

[quasi tree]

Is it, but maybe the rewards gained from shackling are a bit too high? What do you feel would be an adequate reward for giving up your AL/raising the difficulty?

[dull girder]

If the rewards didn't scale, why make the game harder?

Players respond to incentives

[turbid basalt]

It still is - highly ascended folk will still hit a level that no longer requires a shackle

This entire conversation is about how what the road until the point should feel for anyone

[mortal tulip]

I am not going to spend time re-arguing why we should have a reasonable path to play using the levels we have earned over years of work.

The community has voted and a lot of people want a path without shackles. If you get hung up on that, we are past that point.

If you want to discuss making shackles still fun and rewarding for you, then lets do it.

(not directed at Odie, just the other comments)

[heady summit]

And I'm not going to re argue why not every single system in Orna has to be tied to infinite power progression.

Either the guild is difficult all the time, or it defeats the purpose of existing.

[dull girder]

you have alerted the horde

[heady summit]

It can't be the difficulty guild if it's only difficult for some small minority of players that choose to use it some portion of the time

[inland blade]

And why exactly do you think that someone playing at the level their AL doesn't need to be shackled would not be difficult?

[heady summit]

Because 99% of the difficulty is just stat scaling, which can always be overcome by just ascending more

[inland blade]

Which means a higher, and even more difficult anguish, is available. With exponential enemy stat scaling past 20

[turbid basalt]

Yes, exactly. We’re not going to be infinitely outstatting the content. There will always be difficulty for all as the guild scales

[dull girder]

that's moreso an al problem but I get your point

unfortunately al is here to stay

[turbid basalt]

AL and Anguished gear are not exponential

[inland blade]

Anguish 2.0 is the infinitely difficult answer to the infinite scaling of AL.

Each AL is worth less and less power, however each Anguish level is exceedingly more difficult. While you can technically always ascend out of the problem, it becomes an extremely large task that gets larger.

And that's not even accounting for the maluses

I would actually bet money that nobody clears Anguish 50 of any path aside from Agony in 2025 - if the scaling in the current beta goes through.

[young summit]

My idea is to make a couple of shackle levels:

• Set an upper AL bracket for each ang level. Anyone at this AL or higher earns the baseline amount of rewards; this is essentially unshackled. No extra rewards for more ALs.
• Set a mid Shackled bracket. Anyone within this range of ALs (or anyone that shackles themselves to the upper bound of this bracket) gets boosted rewards.
• Set a difficult Shackled bracket. Anyone at or below the upper bound of this bracket (or anyone that shackles themselves to this upper bound) earns further boosted rewards.

Let's imagine that ang 20 has a difficult shackle at AL20 and a normal shackle at AL35. Any high AL player can choose either bracket or go unshackled; they would receive the same rewards as every other player at those brackets.

You could also just have the normal shackles as they are, but no extra rewards or punishment based on ALs lost/kept

[quasi tree]

Currently at AL99 using shackles increases proof chance as follows:

• Mel 5 19.5% -> 26.52% (~36% increase for -90ALs)
• Mel 6 21% -> 28.24% (~35% increase for -86ALs)
• Mel 7 23% -> 30.62% (~33% increase for -83ALs)
• Mel 8 25% -> 32.88% (~31% increase for -79ALs)
• Mel 9 26.5% -> 34.45% (~30% increase for -75ALs)
• Mel 10 28.5% -> 36.73% (~29% increase for -72ALs)
• Mel 16 40% -> 47.8% (~19.5% increase for -49ALs)
• Mel 23 52.5% -> 57.17% (~9% increase for -22ALs)
• Mel 27 59.5% -> 61.22% (~2.8% increase for -7ALs)
  (if there are more numbers anyone is curious about I'm happy to provide them)
  Showing these numbers to give some context, how do we feel these reward % increases?
  Are too high? too low? just right?
  Should there be a cap on how much the % increases? (if someone at a higher AL could check if there is one that could be helpful)

[inland blade]

I don't have a strong opinion either way on proofs, I've always been exclusively cheering for the 100% anguished item rate.

[bright ermine]

I'll just say it: this thought of giving bonus rewards for shackling to the players who refused to engage with the concept of shackles up until this point annoys me. Why do they need to be encouraged to shackle at all?

[quasi tree]

I don't think it's so much for rewarding players at a higher AL but more so for rewarding players who actively want to play with shackles on

If it's feeling like high AL players are just being rewarded too much then the numbers need some tweaking, which is the goal of the beta

[bright ermine]

And that reward is larger for having a higher AL in its current state. I'm going to pull out the same reasoning that has driven this change, even though I hate it: why I am I being punished for not having high AL?

[turbid basalt]

I don’t think anyone is suggesting you should be punished.

This beta will be successful when:

1. Folk can bring on the AL and get base rewards (or slightly reduced from where they are currently - if needed)

2. Others can shackle and get better rewards, as the guild’s reward system was always intended to be

Albeit, these things are only true for a player until they hit the anguish level that no longer requires shackle

[inland blade]

If you want to look at it that way, you could suggest that Tier 10 players are punished for not being level 250 when they only get 22 dungeon floors.

Progressing your character progresses what's available to your character

[bright ermine]

We aren't going to agree on this at all, so I will just say that this specific part of the change leaves a bad taste in my mouth and leave it at that.

[turbid basalt]

I think we need to shift from negative to positive - what change in the current beta would make you feel better about shackling? Ideally this is something we enjoy enough that we can disregard what other folk are doing with their ALs

I’m super pro shackle (and pro penalty) fwiw. But when the community is this divided on something, there’s got to be some middle ground

[heady summit]

Any change that makes shackles optional is a negative. There isn't a positive i can pull out of it.

If I'm the minority so be it, but I want the version of ang 2 that was originally pitched, not whatever this is

[mystic juniper]

You're not the only one with this feeling.

[turbid basalt]

You’re not the minority - it’s basically a tied game - that’s why we’re here

[heady summit]

The entire rest of the game exist with ascension as they were, and we literally can't have one sustem that isn't a slave to them?

Middle ground just leads to something being mediocre at 2 things instead of great at 1

Should have stuck to your guns and kept the penalty

[bright ermine]

Just no bonus based on AL for shackling, that is it. The high AL players have already had the system foundationally changed for them, why do they need more rewards for a system they don't want? If they want to shackle, they can shackle because they want to. if they want to throw around their AL, they are now inherently advantaged in the unshackled area to do so.

[quasi tree]

BoF, and conquers/kingdom wars if you use the equalizer items, these are both forms of content where ALs don't/potentially don't matter

[bright ermine]

Altering both parts of this system gives the perception of caving to a group that has refused to engage with these systems completely until this point. I think the change to unshackled allowing your AL is completely fair and needed to some extent to allow high AL players to enjoy the system, but giving them bonuses for shackling is excessive.

[mystic juniper]

I may not agree with the wording, but that's exactly my feelings too RhinoBusiness. And I'm too disapointed to try to see the positive and to share feedbacp on minor improvements now that the choice made remove the said intents of what ang2 was supposed to be. The voice of the number go up for low challenge won, gg.

[quasi tree]

No bonus for increased your difficulty just doesn't seem reasonable from a game design perspective no?

[turbid basalt]

This issue with no scaling is that we’re reward the same for being 1 AL off the shackle and 50, which created this weird point in anguish progression where it just disappears.

so, a little more logic to the bonus is needed

[heady summit]

Having to spend a currency to negate a power bonus is the exact opposite of ALs not mattering, but not going to argue this one right now

[lament wolf]

Can say the same about people at lower ALs complaining about higher ALs. This isn't catering to either side. It's a swipe down the middle. It's increased difficulty overall and at some point higher Ang shackled gameplay will be fun no matter what AL you are. There's a cap on rewards as it is maybe we can lower it a bit? Coming from a higher AL I'm fine with giving up the bonus proofs for the Ang gear as well as Knight said.

[turbid basalt]

As a general reminder, the current change is an attempt to meet all primary voting populations: #game-announcements message

suggesting this is only for highly ascended AL only takes away your own gusto in this, and just breeds inter-player drama. We can do this folks 🙂

[bright ermine]

"a swipe down the middle" was altering the foundation of anguish 2.0 such that AL is allowed when unshackled.

[boreal cove]

As someone who doesn't like shackles and is high AL, I also don't see why the bonus needs to be tied to AL's dropped. Wouldnt it make sense to just be a flat bonus for playing at the shackle tier? Is the concern that people will eventually outgrow shackles and be rewarded for playing at their own tier?

[quasi tree]

Going to reply to this to bring it up again, to those who are unhappy with these changes, my question is what can be done to these numbers that doesn't involve just completely removing them?
(As that's not reasonable from a game design perspective, there needs to be some incentive to use shackles)
Would halfing these numbers feel better? Would a cap on the increase be reasonable?
On another note, has anyone else been actually playing around in the beta to feel these changes? See how these numbers feel?

[quasi tree]

To quote Odie in a message above:
"This issue with no scaling is that we’re reward the same for being 1 AL off the shackle and 50, which created this weird point in anguish progression where it just disappears."

[boreal cove]

Thanks for the quote, but I'm not sure I understand. I'm just not sure how a player who is shackled to 50 from AL 300 and an AL 50 player are in a situation that requires different rewards. Aren't they both playing the same content at the same difficulty?

[turbid basalt]

The current system just scales to 0 bonus each level, no hard stop

[quasi tree]

Yes but then why would the player at AL300 ever use shackles then? Why should someone who's put hundreds of hours to get their character to a strong power point in the game give up their power to be on the same level then? There needs some compensation for power lost, but what the goal here is to figure out what that bonus should be

As I asked above, if we think there's currently too much of a bonus, load up the beta, run a dungeon, if you're feeling like you're getting too much proof wise give a suggestion on how much it should be lowered. What if there was a cap on the increase?

[boreal cove]

Maybe they wouldn't, but if theyre able to run the content efficiently t enough that shackling is not desirable to them, that is an advantage gained from their AL, just dont shackle in that case. Maybe as you progress there will be breakpoints worth shackling again.

[lament wolf]

Just on agony my shackled bonus was only 5% coming down from AL 108 to 65. Honestly not a massive jump in extra rewards. Kind feels right and I lost 30 shackled ALs (compared to live) to get that 5%. Decent trade off

[mystic juniper]

They had the compensation of already having their AL to participate in more challenging things, or it was what ang2 was supposed to be. for this more specific topic, here is my suggestion : it should be lowered to zero.

[heady summit]

There really doesn't need to be any compensation for power lost. Reward the content being cleared, not some weird hypothetical "I'm being punished more for engaging than you" system

[boreal cove]

IMO the ideal scenario is:
X AL is the shackle level
if you are playing at equal or less than X, you get 10-20% bonus,

I don't think AL needs to come into the equation.

[lament wolf]

That's kinda ridiculous than why would anyone with power run shackles?

[heady summit]

Because it gives a bonus to everybody?

[plucky musk]

If we accept that it's okay for AL300 to have no ascension bonus in BoF, then what makes Anguish different? It just 'is' different, for reasons unclear.

I'm not nearly as hopeful as Odie here -- it seems mutually exclusive that either shackle or unshackle is going to be more rewarded and thus the default mode of play.

Regarding your numbers, something like "30% more proofs, 75 less ascension levels" strongly implies that shackle is intended to be inefficient.

[lament wolf]

I'm gonna take 55% of your paycheck even though you worked harder than everybody for years with nothing in return. Sounds crappy. Side note I don't believe we need a proof bonus again, the anguish gear rates are good enough as a reward imo

[heady summit]

The logical fallacies in this discord are never short of amazing

[lament wolf]

Welcome to maincord

[bright ermine]

I just don't get how being inherently advantaged in progressing unshackled is simply not enough of a bonus. Why does there need to be a profit motive to shackle?

[boreal cove]

I don't really see it like this. Its more like I'm strong enough to blow through content more than 20% faster so the 20% increase isnt worth it for me. I can play at my 'salary' later for a 20% increase to that greater number

[lament wolf]

Was more or less ne being an ass, but yeah I get that

[mystic juniper]

Then you have to be ok receiving 30% less rewards for the exact same job with the exact same difficulty

[lament wolf]

Nah if I work harder than others I should be rewarded. Again I'm with Geppu on this and don't think that proofs should scale with AL. Should be a flat rate if anything.

[boreal cove]

I'm still not sure I understand why AL needs to come into the equation. What is disappearing as anguish progresses? If a player is progressing so they are naturally under the shackle level, they should get shackled rewards.

[lament wolf]

This could ALL be solved if we just got rid of ALs and just relied on anguishing gear for power

[dull girder]

https://tenor.com/view/burning-office-spongebob-on-fire-gif-13729593

[plucky musk]

I believe the play pattern in this case would be to rush through low ang levels unshackled, then when you get to/near your actual AL, enable shackles for the bonus drop rate with no change in gameplay.

It doesn't quite work.

[boreal cove]

I just don't see what is wrong about this.The intended difficulty level is X AL, you are playing at or less than X AL you get a bonus.

[mystic juniper]

Fuximus, voice of the sanity

[plucky musk]

In order to better tune the shackled rewards, we should try to imagine what the upper bound should be.

For the 'unshackled only, shackles don't concern me' players -- is it acceptable to raise the proof rates under shackles by a factor of 100? 10? Is there a point where it's both clear that shackle is more efficient for proofs AND unshackled enjoyers don't mind?

Similarly, what is the upper bound w.r.t. the shop? Can shackled play reward a stack of 200 cort per dungeon, or is that too much? What's the healthy amount of benefit that should come from playing shackled -- and knowing that, is it acceptable that unshackled is a fraction of that rate?

I don't think that the shackle benefit being 100% anguish rate is enough to actually make shackle play more rewarding (as per Odie's statement).

[plucky musk]

Referencing point #2 here

[boreal cove]

My experience is that though I've never liked shackles, I've consistently use them where it made sense. The lower shackles and harder scaling will change the calculus a bit. But even so I don't see much of a world where I play despair or agony unshackled. By the same token I really don't see myself ever playing torment shackled. Its hard to make them all align in a way that makes sense.

That being said, I think around a 20% bonus (the midline of current scaling on beta) or so would be enough encouragement for me to have a lot of scenarios where shackling is the right option.

[midnight quail]

Let me try to summarize:

1. Anguish should be hard,
2. You should have some benefit being high AL,
3. There should be an incentive to run shackled.
4. You should get identical rewards for identical content.

At the moment, we try to make adjustments to the rewards for shackled (which makes it impossible to serve 2 and 4 at the same time!).
What about this:

• Shackled and unshackled get IDENTICAL rewards. Independent of AL.
• But: Unshackled has higher stat scaling, e.g. x1,5 (30% instead of 20% per level).

Result:

1. Both shackled (low AL) and unshackled (high stats) is hard content. (point 1)
2. High AL people can progress faster (unshackled), using all their AL, to a level where it is getting really difficult. (point 2)
3. However, at that point, they still have the incentive to switch to shackled, because the enemy stats are lower, so that they can progress even further. (point 3)
4. (point 4 is by design)

[mortal tulip]

I am not sure #4 is a goal.

[cobalt olive]

Would it be possible to reduce the price of leveling up to 1 (or give us a way to get many proofs at once) so we can test without farming for hours ?

[pseudo bridge]

It's common sense, the advantage of high ALs is that you will be able to progress further into anguish thus giving you better rewards. For example for ang 21 the AL shackle is 69 from a previous picture someone posted, why would an AL69 get lower rewards than a 100AL shackled to 69 when they are doing the exact same content? The advantage here is that you can do it shackled or with your hard earned power (basically people just crying that they can't mindlessly one shot everything in front of them just because they have been playing for years). This just makes no sense

[halcyon shuttle]

that's how it was in the past , with more AL you could orn gear at leastin part for the same content others had to fully gear for, so you did the same content and the higher AL player got more rewards

[halcyon shuttle]

and i hope you realize only a tiny minority of people care about that, while for the rest of the endgamers it's about the activity that rewards you more per minute.

[inland blade]

Yep, if you read the full context for that sentence it's regarding why shackles in the system as proposed are optional.

I'm well aware you only care about efficiency and nothing else.

This entire change is about making a part of the game that has divided and galvanized the playerbase optional while still having Anguish 2.0 provide a challenge at the high end from scaling and maluses regardless of AL. I've seen more turnover in T11 players in the past two months than any other time I've been playing.

[pseudo bridge]

This inst about efficiency, when you are doing shackled content ALs shouldn't matter, if we both are shackled at AL X you shouldn't benefit from having more

[halcyon shuttle]

are enemies scaling faster in the new beta?

[inland blade]

Yes

Past 20

Read the patch notes

[halcyon shuttle]

it could be made temporary. Like 3 months, to have high AL player be able to catch up with their AL. Then you remove the AL-differential based bonus. One of the core issues was anguish 2.0 gets introduced, you need to farm many months at lower rewards than your AL would have permitted, because you progress with the same proofs/time as anyone else for the first months even if you are AL 250 vs 50 or something. That is something that only needs a temporary fix. That's not a personal issue for me btw as i know i wouldn't farm at the max possible anguish anyway in tower and dungeons because it's slower so i don't care for me. But for people who want to be "at their level", rewarding AL differentials is ok. For a time, not for years though

[halcyon shuttle]

because we remove AL from BoF for 2 reasons: 1, BoF has no meaningful rewards (if it was the most important part of the game or one of the most important, people with AL would complain massively). 2 in Bof you have to motivate 2 players or more to play, if the low AL people auto-die all the time you have a lot of peole who aren't going to have fun in that. That matters for a game. In PvE, if the AL 280 is smashing everything for great rewards, that doesn't diminish the enjoyment of the AL 11 doing his things in his PvE.

[pseudo bridge]

So just because you have invested time before, when something new comes to the game, you are entitled to skip the first few steps and get an advantage on everyone else, please think outside of your own case before saying something like this cuz people will read that and agree with this awful take

[halcyon shuttle]

the whole point of investing more time to increase power is to be able to tackle new stuff more efficiently when it comes out yes. That's basically the whole point. If you are "reset" with new content and we all start at the same level, that's very similar to games with seasons and ladder reset, which is contrary to the whole concept of perma-increasing power structurally with AL , which is what defines this game endgame and the reason many endgamers play this and not games that reset the ladders. I never even look at a game that has resets for example. I want to know whatever investment i make will yield permanent positive rewards for as long as i play the game

That's also why me and others focused on AL much more than on gear (even if gear comes along with a lot of farming): because builds can get obsolete, gear can get nerfed, new gear can come out and supersede previos gear. But AL is absolute and eternal, it's like an investment that always pays off, however little per AL. That feeling, the feeling you do things and are rewarded with permanent streams of "income" if you will, is the feeling me and others crave and what we play for.

[pseudo bridge]

And you will be more efficient than someone with less ALs simply because you will get further into anguish, this is a long term grind, why would you get those benefits from the beginning just because you got more ALs when you are facing the exact same challenge as someone with lower ALs

The only thing you want, and it's been clear is that you want an advantage on everyone else right now. You probably already have better gear, better understanding of the game and will progress further anyway

[halcyon shuttle]

btw i proposed to make the AL-gap extra rewards temporary

[halcyon shuttle]

i didn't see numbers in the patch notes, only a reference to "worse malus" over 20 if i read correctly

unless "difficulty modifiers" aren't the malus rather the enemy stat increase, in which case how much more do they increase after 20?

[pseudo bridge]

We changed from a finite Ang 50 to an "infinite" system, if you could just skip to the point where you are using your full ALs it would just make anguish 2.0 a worst version of 1.0, skipping all the grind you have to do to get to that point would only make stronger players stronger, you would get everything faster and earn more, you would just be benefiting more from your work as a baseline and you are not adding better gear, better knowledge that would make it even more efficient.
I'm sorry but you are being a crybaby. You are only thinking about yourself and not what's best for the game.

[halcyon shuttle]

best for the game is to create something that, as much as possible, has "infinite" life in endgame. You don't want to lose the endgamers. Churning out new content helps but that's very very hard to do consistently well creating interest without massive power creep, so while odie still tries hard to do that, the basic game structure needs an infinite game loop or close to that. Which it had with ALs and anguish 1.0, with some limits (too easy to reach the "i clear Ang50 dungeons easily" threshold, although for towers that was never reached). Also rehashing content with replays is good. Othersouls were awesome, they gave old low tier gear a purpose, so people could actually farm some stuff they previously disregarded and so on. Despair path is awesome with current rewards, it allows a different playstyle which was usually disregarded to be rewarding but not unbalanced for people that are interested in it. Ansuighing raids was something that had to happen a while ago but it finally happened and it's good. All in all the direction isn't bad. But if you punish AL by only making it a tool to be able to tackle ultra high unplayable-anyway content, that's bad. People WILL NOT FARM 500 hours per year at the highest possible anguish level they have access to. At least the current beta iteration allows for unshackled play at decent rewards if i gather it correctly. Is your contention only about the AL-gap extra rewards, or something else? i don't understand it

[pseudo bridge]

If you extrapolate what you are asking for another update for example when towers were introduced, you are saying that since you spend time playing before the update, you should get a bonus on shards, and a discount on orns, so you could build your towers faster, because you have been playing for long, so depends on your playtime get a bonus shard% and also you are entitled to a celestial class and a weapon, cuz it wouldn't be fair if your old equipment that you spend hours farming isn't optimal now. Ridiculous

[halcyon shuttle]

people who had more ALs when towers got introduced were massively advantaged , as they were able to tackle early towers (usually a nasty thing to do as an early t10) much easier to get the ball rolling, accessing celestial sooners and building their own towers sooner, which snowballed into massive advantages later on, so i am not sure why you mention that. Anguish 2.0 is something more akin to "towers are released, you can't use your AL until you get your first celestial class, have fun!"

[pseudo bridge]

Same thing rn, you got better gear, better knowledge, and if you grind you will reach a point where your ALs will get you to higher anguish allowing you to get higher rewards, you are just crying because you don't want to grind for that and you want to benefit from your previous time investments

[halcyon shuttle]

as i said i don't intend to farm at the highest anguish possible, it's clearly not efficient anyway in dungeons and towers, that's not my contention

what's your problem with the beta? or you just want to criticize me for some reasons?

[pseudo bridge]

The higher you go you get better rewards, how is that not more efficient. The only problem I have with you is that you aren't thinking outside of what you want.

[wispy ice]

efficiency is time : rewards ratio, harder content with more rewards does not mean that its more efficient if it takes a billion years doing it

[halcyon shuttle]

it's rewards PER MINUTE that matter, not absolute rewards. At some point you increase rewards by X with time increased to clear Y , with Y > X , after that you never again go up .

also when rewards per minute are close / similar, if something doesn't require effort you can do it for longer, so at similar rewards per minute you still do the easiest possible otherwise you can't farm too much

[pseudo bridge]

Please, does the difficulty increase so much from ang 5 to 6 in dungeons? Ofc from 4 to 5 you lose your hard earned power and all that BS but you still kill everything as fast, and the time you spend clicking a buff that you haven't used in years is worth the increase in proofs

[wispy ice]

sure it doesnt, but what about eventually at higher ang? you need to look at the big picture when talking about efficiency

[pseudo bridge]

This is my agony ATM from live since I only have Ang 1 in beta, I'm AL 53 clearing content made for AL 72, if this were the same numbers in beta, someone with 102 ALs will not only have more ALs shackled doing the same content making it easier for them but get rewarded even further. Shouldn't I get better rewards since the same content is more difficult for me? Why do they benefit more for the same content, that's what I'm complaining about this beta

[pseudo bridge]

Of course there is a point where you lose efficiency, the same thing happened with 1.0 towers, I didn't complain when I only cleared Ang 10 safely, while higher ALs will clear 25 and get impossible rates for me, and I won't complain when someone reaches melancholy 30 still one shooting everything and doubling my rates if not more, because they grinded the new content to get to that point, not because they have previously grinded the game to 200 ALs so they can skip to that point and that's ancient is asking for

[halcyon shuttle]

have a feeling that you are a beoH. BeoH is currently broken as it scales so much better than literally every other class in shackled content, because of hybrid. Now with GS AL 190 (me) i get far worse rewards at any anguish from 5 to 15+ than at 4, and at 4 i can farm in full orn gear (including oracle 2x accessory) thanks to panda addition.

[pseudo bridge]

Nah I'm deity, playing ultima with a crappy build not hitting for more than 2m at a time

[lament wolf]

Has anyone that is complaining even tested on beta? Because at Agony 20 for beta vs live with shackles it's 5% bonus for myself and losing 30 ALs for harder content. It's not that big of a bonus and made the content harder. People are making it out to be like the craziest bonus in the world.

[pseudo bridge]

I'm Ang 1 in beta but if you could post screenshots it would be helpful

[lament wolf]

So this is at Ang 20 before mobs stats start cranking up. I get 5% bonus to proofs for a loss of 31 ALs. It's really not that substantial and gives a little bit of bonus to those that have earned it. People say what they want but I have about 3100 hours in Orna. This new system feels like it's respected but not overpowered by any means. Just my opinion and people can deflect all they want and there's no need for argument, just how I feel based on what the beta numbers show.

[broken sinew]

there you go, screenshots

[lament wolf]

Siriths numbers are easier to read haha, ty Yoshi

[quasi tree]

Numbers from Melancholy:
#1394382336535302225 message

Screenshots:
#1394382336535302225 message
#1394382336535302225 message

Math showing the scaling of Proof % increase per AL lost:
#1394382336535302225 message

To help people see the values who are not opening the beta/don't have access in beta 🙂

[pseudo bridge]

You have earned the ALs already allowing you to progress further, why add a bonus on top of that?If shackles didn't really work and we need some incentive, gatekeeping the bonus just feels bad to those who won't benefit. It makes no sense that just because of previous grinds you get rewards about 3 lvls up from your current level

[lament wolf]

Cool beans that's your opinion hence mine. Have a good day, let's get back on track.

[obsidian garden]

People with higher investment get higher rewards? Scandalous.

[obsidian garden]

What is the issue with this? I still dont understand the sentiment, it genuenly just feels like envy to me.
"This person dedicated more to this aspect of the game then me, but i also want what they have without it, so i want to it less fun for them, so they maybe slow down and i can catch up."
Followed by "This person has more then me, and thats unfair."

If i am getting a tiny bonus for my investment, once you reach that point, you will get the same bonus. There is no unfairness in that. Its not that this Bonus disappeares once you reach that point, aka ist not exclusively for me.

[midnight quail]

I agree, that high AL should be able to get higher rewards -> with more difficult content. I strongly dislike different rewards for the exact same content. Otherwise we could just say: each AL gives +x% orns.

[obsidian garden]

So .48% proof increase for 82% stats of enemys is the best way.
I... dont really think that is founded on realistic data.

[obsidian garden]

Now it is a choice. I can reduce my power for more rewards - or just play it without punishment.
The concern is fully dissolved.

[midnight quail]

You talk about the current Anguish, not the beta, right?

[midnight quail]

In the beta, this should not be the case anymore. So unshackled is now in favor of high AL. But now you have different shackled rewards depending on your AL.

[inland blade]

That message was replying to someone that said "It was most rewarding when the guild launched"

However I believe they were only refering to shackles being most rewarding when the guild launched

[obsidian garden]

Why do we need to be punished cause we grinded more, invested more, and did more, then others?
I think not beeing fine with engaging with a system that was put in place just to punish us is fully reasonable

[inland blade]

And yes, that's true, however it was proven very very quickly that the majority of the playerbase absolutely did not like the version of shackles that Anguish 2.0 shipped to live with

[obsidian garden]

The .48% increase is current, the message below is new

[inland blade]

Anguish 2.0 on launch was my favorite iteration of shackles, but it would be dumb of me to keep pushing for it when that version was derided and disliked by most players.

That's why I've given up on forcing shackles on everyone, and I want to see them as the optional large difficulty mode as they are in this beta.

[obsidian garden]

I can choose between penalizing myself but getting compensated, or neither of the both.
Its great.
Before, it was either give me your Power or give me your rewards, so you just had a terrible time progressing anguish because it just felt like you were denounced for the power you had, for no apart reason, then to even the playfield without enough further thought about respecting progression.

[obsidian garden]

And now, you get the old shackle ascension blockage (which i think is more fun and challenging) or just no penalty, so technically, we both win

[inland blade]

What I enjoyed most about shackles on launch was everyone being forced to endure the same challenge on equal ground because playing unshackled might as well not have been an option

But yeah, that is not what most people want, so now I'm pushing this version instead.

[midnight quail]

Sorry for bringing this up again, but what do you think about my proposal:

• Shackled and unshackled get IDENTICAL rewards. Independent of AL.
• But: Unshackled has higher stat scaling, e.g. x1,5 (30% instead of 20% per level).
  I still think that this could solve many issues. But maybe I missed something.
  More details here: #1394382336535302225 message)

[inland blade]

I think unshackled having higher stat scaling risks way too much bringing us back to the problem of unshackled being the 'wrong' way to play

Imo; keep things simple and have it just be rewards that vary between shackled and unshackled

[midnight quail]

"keep things simple" was exactly what I had in mind. But ok 😄

[turbid basalt]

It might be difficult to adjust difficulty in a way that accounts for all AL level amounts that can be brought in unshackled

[flint warren]

The main thing that concerns me about ALs increasing shackled rewards is the possibility that there might be a certain crossover point where the optimal way to farm isn't high anguish or unshackled or shackled at high anguish, but to be Shackled at Low Anguish

Specifically, at a level where you being shackled doesn't really affect your ability to perform (ie Heretic works perfectly fine without ascensions on ANG7/8, in dungeons), so that you still oneshot every content, and at that point, gaining ascensions just increases your earnings more than anything.

This is, however, a fear that I haven't mathed out if it is possible. For this to be possible, we need to know:

• The highest point where you can shackle and still oneshot content (ie ANG8)

• The highest point where you can unshackle and oneshot content (ie ANG??)

And we need to make sure that the earnings on the first one are not higher than the second one. It's illogical and feels wrong.

The issue with mathing these out, however, is that the bonus depends on ascensions, for the shackled content; and that the highest point depends on ascensions as well, due to that being your power level

So these points might differ on a player to player basis

[bright ermine]

Envy? What? This bullshit entitlement is the core of what is dividing people on the new update.
I will reiterate from the start: I think it was a good idea to reverse the shackles this way, and that high AL players should be advantaged in the default state. This happened, and then the conversation shifted to "high AL players should be advantaged even in the optional shackled state" which is the most absurd entitled bullshit I've seen in this game. A group of players refused to give up their power and whined for months, now they should get more for giving up their power after the foundation of the system was already changed to accommodate them?
You know what, all this is teaching me is that I should sit around and whine for months until I get my way. I engaged with this system as intended up until now, I should get increased rewards for that! Jesus christ I still can't understand how we went to the right solution for unshackled then turned around and shot ourselves in the foot on shackled in the exact same breath.

I'm done engaging with this topic, I haven't been this deeply annoyed at something in a game in years.

[quasi tree]

Decided to try and math it out anyways using Mel 8 as it has nice looking numbers.
We know the bonus currently from shackling maxes out at 100% (as per Odie's statement here: ⁠#1394382336535302225 message
Now with the bonuses scaling with AL, doing some (very rough) math simplified it's something like 0.4 * (ALs lost) = (Bonus Proof %), meaning you need to be losing ~250ALs to be doubling your proof rate from shackles.

For Melacholy level 8, AL Shackles = 20, Proof chance = 25%
So after a little excel stuff up to save time, here is the (rough) Bonus if you're 'X' AL at Mel 8:

Your AL  | Your Proof %
--------------------------
  20     |     25
  30     |     26
  40     |     27
  50     |     28
  60     |     29
  70     |     30
  80     |     31
  90     |     32
 100     |     33
 110     |     34
 120     |     35
 150     |     38
 200     |     43
 270     |     50

I did this cause I'm curious at what people think of the current % bonus scale, do we think the % increase should scale less? Maybe a lower cap than double (100%)?

(sorry if that pinged you... meant to turn it off 😅 )

[flint warren]

By all means do ping me, I'm not odie

[young summit]

Yes it would be scandalous to have this level of entitlement

[flint warren]

Now the question is, with those numbers, and with those respective ascensions, are you able to oneshot the anguish level of the respective proof income

[mystic juniper]

This should not scale at all. This is just totally absurd - especially in a world where AL cheese can be focused a lot -, will lead to a ridiculous meta, and I can't understand why this is even discussed as it just completely shift the intent of ang2.0.

[flint warren]

And that's not something you can math I don't think. That needs to be tested

[pseudo bridge]

It's crazy we are arguing about this lmao

[turbid basalt]

Folks, please don’t justify a slow mode on this thread as well. Be constructive to the changes at hand - further shots at each other may lead to a removal from the thread

[quasi tree]

okay I hear you, what if there was no increase or decrease to proof chance and it was purely Ang Gear chances that are increased? almost making shackles the ideal way to farm for gear?
(Currently for 100% ang gear chance you need to be 30ALs above the shackle level but I believe that is a bug and it's meant to be 20% based on what Odie said yesterday)

[young summit]

Just remove the scaling bonus based on AL lost, there is no reason to have it.

The high AL player does not need to be further rewarded by the anguish system, this is a complete inversion of the issue we have on live. Just remove the scaling and treat players equally.

More ALs means you are able to breeze through the content unshackled if you want. That's plenty respectful of your AL (the original request), you don't need to be rewarded on top of it

[turbid basalt]

Yes, we can explore that

[young summit]

If there is still a desire to fast-track lower ang levels when you are high AL, the whole "proof of shackles" thing is also worth exploring IMO. Better that than a boost to the normal proofs

[flint warren]

My ideal interpretation of shackles' bonuses is one that scales up with the anguish level, since shackling becomes much more complicated at higher levels than at lower

[turbid basalt]

The proof of shackling is a little weird as you stop getting them after progressing the guild

[young summit]

Can't it be made "equal to or lower than the shackle AL"

[mystic juniper]

I agree. And AL are already taken into account in the live version.
I feel the changes in beta respect a bit too much AL rather than respecting the game and the grind.
There will be no reason to slow mode because slowly but surely people disagreeing with those change leave the thread. I spent weeks trying to help balancing things, to have a fair system, while keeping the challenge idea of ang2.0. This is just too far from what it was supposed to be imho.

[turbid basalt]

It’d still be weird because new players (who will never need to shackle) will end up with an additional currency

It just kind of bloats instead of incentivizes. It was one of the first ideas explored

[young summit]

This was an idea I liked as a simple implementation of "sheckles", no need for a new currency. Just make it so your cost lowers when you get a proof while shackled/below the shackle level

[inland blade]

You'd need a good name for them, but instead of "proof of shackling" they could be thought of as "Proof of the matched challenge".

Not that I think they need to exist, but it might be a better mindset to think of any extra reward, whether the player shackled or is at that AL normally, is because of the player tackling the challenge at the intended level.

[turbid basalt]

Maybe it’s called “Proof of Anguish” and it has a grey icon with a sad face on it

[boreal cove]

Isn't new players option to either A) continue to accelerate anguish which should be very difficult content or B) ascend further making the content easier. Isn't A deserving of a reward where B is not, rather than the other way around?

[turbid basalt]

Yes, I just don’t think we need to throw 2 currencies per path at new players

[flint warren]

Per example, at 2.5% more proofs per anguish level, you'd have:

• At ANG10, being shackled gives you x1.25 more proofs than being unshackled
• At ANG20, being shackled gives you x1.5 more proofs than being unshackled
• At ANG40, being shackled gives you x2.0 more proofs than being unshackled

That's just an arbitrary number I have picked. I don't know what the optimal number for scaling would be.
Of note, an "Unshackled due to not having enough ascensions" player would also get these bonuses.

[boreal cove]

I was more referring to just the idea of them getting 'free' currency for never needing to shackle

[young summit]

I don't think that was a concern

[flint warren]

The reason this likely wouldn't scale out of control is because, especially with the new exponential stat scaling on ANG20+, shackling on high anguish will become unfeasible.

[young summit]

It really is a bit much to imagine a non-ascended t8 starting anguish journey and getting a pile of proofs as they level up that they can't even use yet.

But I think Geppu's idea in the forwarded message is solid - just directly lower the cost when you gain the normal proofs while shackled

[young summit]

I generally like this idea, but it would have to be closely monitored and bakanced, a hefty task perhaps

[heady summit]

You have to stop assuming that the people who disagree with you don't also have hundreds of ascensions. I've got almost double your ALs and want nothing to do with your desired system, rewards, or "vision" of the guild. And at no point have i felt punished with shackles

[dull girder]

too many cooks spoil the broth

odie's probably looking at this stuff and thinking "lmao I'm doing this 10x better"

[chrome coral]

So queston does the current rates we have for proof/ang gear % change at all when unshackled?

In beta

So is the current rates we have when shackled are the new ones when unshackled in beta and when you shackle its just increased rewards or what

Cant rly check since my mirror is outdated

[plucky musk]

check pins, Sirith posted some example rates in the beta which should answer

[chrome coral]

👍

[proud quartz]

I'm not in the beta but read the thread. Are you guys stating that helping newer players in party play is gonna be a huge incentive for higher ascended players? (mostly mélancolie & agonie path). From what I understand, the newer player will play un shackled at lower mel/ago levels and the high Al player will reap some kind of huge benefits? (more %proof chance)

I don't understand (cuz I'm not in the beta) but does it sounds good for more party play in general? I'm not saying anything about alts

Also, once you get to your AL, no more bonus %proof?

[rain light]

if low al players have to enable shackles then it will somewhat but when i think low als they reach thier proper level within 10 lvls of agony and then theyre unshackled because theyre proper ang lvl so the higher al players would be playing unshackled at that ang aswell so no bonus for them and its more beneficial to run higher anguish than run ang under 10. i think sirith shared a pic that shows al 21 shackled is the same as al 24 unshackled or something like that

[proud quartz]

So same as ang2.0. This ang2.1 sounds like not good for party play and helping newer players progress. Just favorising alt plays and so on :/

I still remember the 1st week of ang2.0. My kingdom discord was full of people all grinding happily. But now that the higher ascended players have more than 10 Mel level out of the new-ish players, I see messages like << run bgs & unthemed in 5 mins, Mel 10 minimum >>.

[rain light]

i mean the system is kinda encouraging people to play solo while giving higher anguish the benefit of party play because the hp gets huge. high al players are sticklers it use to be must have double conc to run and before that it was must be lvl 250. high al players always set minimums because they dont wana waste thier time running content most people can run solo. so when it comes to helping newer players you just gotta find a group whos willing to share with lower al eg me and 2 other people we run together at my ang lvl higher at thier ang lvl for them together and solo at thier max but if one of needs something we all pitch in for eachother.

[turbid basalt]

Hey folks - let's focus on solving the shackle dilemma before introducing the current party play qualms. thanks!

[proud quartz]

Sorry for derailing the conversation. I think the discussion will move toward shackles in party play sooner rather than later

[obsidian garden]

Or, simply, a cost reduction for level up instead of reward increase, which would satisfy that ppl dont want ppl who did more get more

[obsidian garden]

Yet technically you can always go back and Farm them at lower levels, or when you help someone at a lower anguish, you can get them too!
But i get it, it would be weird.

[inland blade]

Interestingly, boosting people for shackling at lower levels than their AL does somewhat help the party play dilema. Not it's intention I think but it's an upside of the AL-related reward system 🤔

[obsidian garden]

I understand. I know that a lot of people with higher ALs have different visions, it is not what i assume. I merely dont like the while mentality some people bring to this discussion, often times the real intentions do boil out under the masquerade and i dont like ignoring that.

[obsidian garden]

That is mostly why i like the idea so much! I have a couple of friends in the game who dont play as much as me, and some who play more.
I can see ut as incentivise to help them, and as an incentivise for them to help me!

So, the dilemma.

Cost reduction instead of extra proofs; maybe that? Seems like the simplest solution to me.

[midnight quail]

In the beta it seems optimal for gear farming to run shackled 8 levels below your max anguish level (for 100 % anguished gear chance) : expected anguish drop level (given ornate) = ~20% x ang vs 100% x (ang-8). With the reduced level, the expected value of anguish gear level is higher, if your anguish level is >10. Works for me, but probably not intended...

[young summit]

It's not "people who did more get more". It's "people who did more got more and are automatically getting even more for no additionsl effort"

No, I don't want to get more rewards at ang 5 shackled just because I have a bunch of extra ALs. That's nonsensical when someone at AL0 would not get that boost.

The reward for my investment into ALs... are the ALs. I have already obtained that reward and should not be further rewarded for my "investment" or "engagement"

[chrome coral]

From what i read it seems more als you the better shackle bonus is for you?

Doesnt that sound rly unfair to everyone else?

[young summit]

Correct, that's the current beta functionality. Inverse of what live shackles is

[inland blade]

Look, I still don't care either way whether or not being overleveled gives rewards, but the argument that "your rewards are the ALs" doesn't really work.

If your reward is the ALs, and shackles take away the ALs, then...

[young summit]

Your rewards for ascending are the AL power boost. That's not a reward of the anguish system

[pseudo bridge]

The ALs you earn will get you further into anguish

[chrome coral]

Dont shackles take them away until you get to a certain level then you have all your als

With those als youll be pushing higher ang than anyone else

[young summit]

Anguish does not give ALs as a reward, that's not what I meant. The power boost from ALs are inherent and not tied to anguish

It does not make sense to double dip on that and also gain rewards from the anguish system

[chrome coral]

Pvp/kingdoom wars/endless to push deeper

Als in All of those stuff is a huge factor

And none of those are ang content

Im not the most knowlegble person but wouldnt making more als= more rewards when shackled make 2.0 a way bigger problem than 1.0?

I think even at the current state 2.0 seems more efficient than, 1.0 imo

[pale glacier]

Rich getting richer sentiment died apparently

[young summit]

Yes in a vaccuum, but it scales with the difference in ALs. So the boost you get is smaller as you go up in anguish; and the base rate decreases as you go down in anguish

[chrome coral]

I mean if the boost is good enough wouldnt most high als stop at the anguish level thats most efficient and beneficial for their als when shackled and just farm that

[young summit]

You can see some numbers here. As anguish increases, the proof rates increase but get closer to default

[young summit]

Yeah probably. I think that's one of the issues

[chrome coral]

Lets say whos the beo guy

With 350als

Would he have 100% on both chance and ang gear%

At a very low ang level

Compared to others

[young summit]

No there are caps

[chrome coral]

Ah ok

[young summit]

100% on anguished gear chance, that's about it I think

[chrome coral]

I saw sirith got 36% boost on proofs when shackled at ang5 with 90als-

So i thought bre with 350als would have 100%

Didnt know theres caps

[young summit]

Well the cap for proof chance bonus is 100%, but that's not +100. It's ×2

[chrome coral]

I see

So he would need to play at ang 15-20 to get 100% on both

Since options with ang gear% wouldnt matter in beta since you allways seem to get 100% when shackled he can just pick all the proof% ones which will make him have 50% at around ang15-20 thatll get doubled due to his als when shackled so he will have 100% on both

[quasi tree]

#1394382336535302225 message

[young summit]

The end result is that higher AL players always gain more proofs overall at all anguish levels.

At low anguish, their proof rate would be up to twice that of a 0 AL player; as they increase in ang level, their proof rates will still always be higher than everyone else's due to the bonus

Just by virtue of already having the ALs and all the benefits ALs provide in and out of the anguish system, they gain more proofs, always

[chrome coral]

My last messege here since i dont know the most

: my personal opinion is that its good to reward higher als if theres alot who feel like their being robbed of their progress (my personal opinion being that they shouldnt)
But i think based on the current state of what nf see as the (reward) is too unfair of a system and way too rewarding

[pseudo bridge]

I think a lot of us would like to get a mirror of our character in beta, would that be possible? Maybe make it so leveling up anguish in beta is just 1 proof for better testing and other qol like all ornate items

[obsidian lichen]

It doesnt really make any sense to not provide additional rewards if you think about some kind of arbitrary maximum difficulty point.

Lets say shackled anguish dungeons at level X is maximally difficult for your character and the shackled AL's, and its impossible for you to complete level X+1, and you have basically maxed out gear.

There would be no incentive to ascend past this level if you were interested in primarily PvE content which is a lot of people presumably.

Ascending past this point and engaging in shackled content only provides some additional rewards, which makes sense to provide

Practically getting to this point is only made faster by having higher AL's which is also probably a good idea. As a new t10 and gradually growing with anguish is interesting, but as a player with 150AL's its not very engaging to just one tap dungeons without even thinking and have to grind this out for an eternity to get to the appropriately difficult content

[pale glacier]

Whats considered an eternity? Lols

Some on here with over 100 als said it will probably take them 2-3months for all paths

While I've read from others who haven't touched it at all are claming insane timeframes

[obsidian lichen]

Leveling content that is significantly below your current power level isnt super engaging as far as I'm concenred, dont really want to spend 3 months on it

Leveling content at your power level is much more interesting

[lament wolf]

Since the main issue seems to be rewards of proofs while shackled are based on ALs, could we potentially nix it and leave it as the anguish gear or change it to something else entirely? Purely as an incentive for shackles overall?

[pale glacier]

Good thing you can get full rewards when unshackled then!

[pseudo bridge]

That's why shackles should be enforced and not an option, so it's hard for everyone

[young summit]

The incentive to keep ascending is to keep getting higher anguish. If shackled content is too hard, then don't shackle

[obsidian lichen]

Yes but there is going to be a point with shackled content that is truly impossible no matter what, so if you want to engage with it why would you ascend more

[young summit]

Why indeed? Higher ascension has nothing to do with shackled content

Ascending is not the answer to shackled content, and shouldn't be

[obsidian lichen]

Well I cant imagine people would play the game a whole lot if they are just doing shackled content to do shackled content with no progression

[pseudo bridge]

The progression is you get slightly stronger, while fighting stronger mobs that make you use your brain a little and not tap the phone once like it's been for years

[young summit]

You can still progress in anguish? Why do ALs matter for shackled

The progression is gaining proofs and rewards and getting stronger

[obsidian lichen]

But there is no getting slightly stronger, there is a point with shackled anguish that will be simply impossible

[young summit]

Ok but ALs have nothing to do with that

[obsidian lichen]

Okay but why would I want to engage with the system if there is no more character progression

If wow stopped releasing new raids I dont think many people would play

[young summit]

What does that have to do with gaining more proof bonus with more ALs

[obsidian lichen]

Because that is the progression

[young summit]

You're conflating "more proofs" with "getting stronger and being able to handle shackled content better"

[obsidian lichen]

But there is a point where there is no getting stronger, you have maxed gear, and are shackled to AL whatever, and one more level in shackled anguish is impossible

[lament wolf]

Again for those that don't like the "bonus proofs" what would be an incentive for anyone to play shackled?

[young summit]

But that has absolutely nothing to do with ALs giving extra rewards

Which is what we are discussing

[obsidian lichen]

It absolutely does, because why would I care to continue to farm at that level, if nothing I do will ever make it faster/easier/better

[compact barn]

At that point you probably needs to party play which raises that ceiling

[young summit]

...Because you still gain rewards

[obsidian lichen]

Rewards for what though, if those rewards are impossible to turn into character power applicable to the situation

[obsidian lichen]

I guess thats possible, I dont really know how high anguish party play works

[young summit]

This is a really bad faith argument. You're essentially saying "if I can't keep growing in power within shackled content, I have no reason to gain more ALs"

[pseudo bridge]

The incentive was that unshackled had a big penalty, if you don't wanna see it like that, make unshackled like it's on beta with no penalty, just give everyone that shackles the same bonus, it can be X2, give it a go and see if in a month anyone is running unshackled, then just removed unshackled cuz it's bad game design and against the point of the anguish guild, there is no anguish if clicking a button removes all the difficulty

[obsidian lichen]

Thats exactly right, how is that bad faith? The whole point of the game is to gain character power.

[young summit]

It doesn't really make sense. You gain ALs for many reasons and being unable to overcome shackled difficulty doesn't mean you should gain extra rewards when shackled

You can still gain power just fine without being rewarded even more for ALs

[obsidian lichen]

Yeah but if I dont engage much in PVP, I guess you just move on to unshackled content at some point? Its basically saying if you are sufficiently high enough AL above the shackled level, dont bother to engage

It will just stay the same forever

[young summit]

Your AL doesn't matter for shackled content. It shouldn't

If there is a point where shackled play becomes impossible, it has nothing to do with how many ALs someone has

And yeah, the solution would be to play unshackled; or ask devs to change the difficulty scaling

Not "give me more rewards"

[obsidian lichen]

So the system just doesnt work at all once you are sufficiently high AL above the shackled level

If the answer is just dont play shackled its a little silly

[young summit]

It has nothing to do with being high AL

Why do you keep bringing up "if you are high AL" when shackled content specifically limits how many ALs you cna bring

[chrome coral]

Dont play shackles if you wanna make full use of your als play shackles if you want the full reward and challenge

Ive been doing all paths when i have less als than recommend and im doing just fine idk why would you want the overkill efficiency in a content thats supposed to give a challenge and a goal for endgame

[obsidian lichen]

Well because there would be just no point in engaging with shackled content at all if you are some arbitrary amount of AL's above the maximum cap. Unshackled is already proably faster than shackled in terms of farming proofs and as your AL gets higher and higher that gap will only widen

I dont think many people would take a significant reduction in efficiency for a task that you need to do thousands of

And that gap would only widen as the more and more AL's you have

[young summit]

But there is no inherent reduction in efficiency from shackled to unshackled

Bonus power with unshackled vs bonus rewards from shackled, you can pick

Nobody's saying unshackled should have a penalty like currently on live

[obsidian lichen]

Okay let me put my point as simply as possible. Lets say for example max shackled difficulty is 100 AL's. And then lets say at 100 AL's unshackled and shackled farming is roughly similar in terms of proofs per hour. I have no idea if this is true or not but just for a point of example.

Then lets say you are 200 AL's, now the max shackled difficult is still at that 100 AL point, and you havent had a single increase in efficiency over 100 AL's, but unshackled farming is significantly faster with the increase in character power

All the increase in proofs for higher AL characters in shackled content is doing is closing that gap somewhat

[chrome coral]

As far as i know unshackled farming is nowhere close to shackled not saying it should be that way but it is

[obsidian lichen]

Well for everyone saying that they want everyone else to engage in shackled content, they should be all for the increased proofs for higher AL's, as that is going to be the only way for the really big guys to engage with shackled content as far as I can tell

Whatever the balance is, it slowly shifts in the favor of unshackled at the very high AL levels

[chrome coral]

Hm is there alot of orna top players not engaging with anguish bcz of that?

[young summit]

In this scenario, the rewards don't matter - you are setting the "max" shackled difficulty at 100. That means you can't go higher anyway, so of course you would unshackle

[chrome coral]

Cuz in hoa all high als almost are high ang rn

They seem to be doing fine with shackles

[obsidian lichen]

Well then youre saying that at some point everyone will just switch to unshackled farming

[young summit]

This is the intent of course. Your ALs are finite and eventually you catch up and will play "unshackled"

Shackles are not meant to be forever

[obsidian lichen]

That just feels silly, that you engage with the "harder" content as a midgame and then the endgame is actually just "easier" content once you have moved past it?

Feels backwards to me

[young summit]

... higher anguish is harder

[chrome coral]

Not easier you will just have all your als while stuff is still hard

[young summit]

You would be unshackled because you don't have enough ALs to be shackled

Or because the shackled difficulty is too hard as you mentioned, which is an unknown level at this time

None of those things are solved by gaining extra rewards when excess AL are shackled

[chrome coral]

Doesnt the stat scaling of stuff increase by alot in beta too?

[obsidian lichen]

It absolutely does, because then the gap between shackled and unshackled content is smaller at higher AL's, thats the whole point

[pseudo bridge]

It's good that there is a cap, makes balance for the high end easier

[young summit]

Yes. It is apparently known that at some point, shackled content is borderline impossible

[obsidian lichen]

The balance is always tipping in favor of unshackled as you gain more AL's, giving more proofs in shackled content for higher AL's just narrows the gap

[young summit]

Read this

[obsidian lichen]

Shackled content and unshackled content should provide comparable rewards IMO forever basically, just allowing you to choose which way you want to go

Slower/harder content vs faster/easier content

The proof scaling seems like a totally reasonable way for unshackled to not totally dominate play at a high level

[young summit]

No, it doesn't "just" do that. It also inherently rewards ALs in a really dumb manner

Literally just showers proofs on people that have more ALs for no extra effort

[obsidian lichen]

I mean I think you will still be ascending faster than the AL 300 guy :), even if they get more proofs

[young summit]

That's not... relevant

[inland blade]

I answered that when Abyss asked in Orna Legends and it's literally in the patch notes

[obsidian lichen]

It just doesnt make any sense to say unshackled is the most efficient way guaranteed at high AL's. There needs to be some parity IMO, and the proofs is the way to do it probably. Not an increase in character power but an increase in rewards

[young summit]

You literally cannot make shackled play the meta at high anguish

The entire point of shackles is for them to be outgrown

[obsidian lichen]

you literally can if you increase the rewards

Its not anguish and training wheel anguish. Its anguish and shackled anguish

[young summit]

At some point. Shackled anguish becomes unshackled

If I am AL 200 and I reach anguish 100 or whatever where the shackles would be above my AL, I am neither really shackled nor unshackled

At a point like this, the answer is to ascend more to be able to do the content

If we reach a point where it is impossible to complete shackled content because it is set too low, you will simply have to play unshackled and go beyond that AL

[chrome coral]

Hes basically saying you will never have enough als to stay shackled forever you will be unshackled at a point

[young summit]

Correct. And at this theoretical "impossible" level for shackled play, you just won't be getting a bonus at all

[obsidian lichen]

It just seems silly that a content designed to be difficult becomes obsolete by getting stronger

[young summit]

How does it become obsolete

[obsidian lichen]

I think I have to be done with this conversation 🙂

Best of luck fellas

[pseudo bridge]

I'm doing content where the shackle is 20 levels above my current AL, still clearing it fine, if I get stronger I will be more efficient doing it, idk what's so hard to understand

[obsidian lichen]

That is not what we were discussing 🙂

[young summit]

I am pretty unsure of what you mean when you say the content becomes obsolete

[patent jackal]

Say it louder for those in the back!

[patent jackal]

From how I understood it when ascensions first came out, was to allow those who rushed to 250 something to strive for. Originally the concept (at least to me) was for personal gain. To feel as if you were still progressing through the game because you sped through the content. That’s not including all the cheese associated with it. It’s been an almost consistent “I did this, now I have nothing to achieve” for what feels like 3 years.

The whole “time spent playing should be rewarded” take is ridiculous. If that’s the case, then I should be demanding something because I spent years farming surtr for a chest piece, where’s my reward for my dedication? Oh it was the chest piece and the acquisition of it.

The same should go for ALs. The whole purpose was originally just for player choice correct? Why should anyone be rewarded for time spent playing? Unless we’re jumping to every gimmick mobile game now. Because that’s what it’s feeling like. It feels more and more like a “well you didn’t do xyz, so you don’t deserve this” or “I did xyz, I deserve special treatment” when most of the people with ridiculous AL most certainly cheesed the game and exploited their way up there.

So the real question I have, is if things are going to be released, despite concerns being voiced about said updates, why act like we’re listened to in the first place? Because truthfully it feels like what Melenitas said; the louder we cry the more we’re heard. And if we appose something we’re “just envious”, which isn’t the case at all. It’s the fact that the whole system is just going to revert back to how it was with Ang 1 and ALs.

[turbid basalt]

Let’s try to put a damper on the whole “whine / cry to get stuff” sentiment. These changes came from a comment-less survey and the current decision is being made via a comment-less poll. No critiques have driven any decisions thus far.

The success criteria for this beta has been shared - let’s try to get back to focusing on how to make shackles work for everyone, not take shots at individual opinions about ascension, etc. thanks!

[pseudo bridge]

At the begining we had shackles almost mandatory, the problem there was that 4 was more efficient than ang 5 and that was a big issue, after that got fixed people didnt liked that they "lost their power" and that they deserve compensation from that which isnt really the case since anguish was made as an infinte endgame content, and with enough time invested to actually climb the different paths people with more ALs will be able to clear higher content making them earn more rewards. High AL people that complain only want that advantage from the start without grinding just because achievents they got in the past, and thats not a good way to balance things arround. If someone with high ALs grinds like crazy and gets an advantage that way it's fair, cuz they put in the hours before to earn their ascensions and now are playing through the content. If you didnt put the time before now you wont be able to climb as high as someone with double your ALs.
I completly undestand the frustration some players are voicing about how getting to that point is boring because for their current gear and knoledge the begining of anguish isnt hard, you still oneshot everything and inst really a challenge. I said it before and i will say it again, the only path that allows a good ratio between time investest and rewards is agony, you can spend 30 minutes killing raids and you will feel like you have progressed, imo this isnt really the case for the other paths, and for some reason people want to nerf this when in reality we should talk about buffing the others so it feels fun, rewarding and interesting to play not a mindless spam 1 atack and kill everything. If everyones journey getting to their point where anguish starts getting hard was faster people wouldnt be complaining about this.

Now on the topic of shackles, imo allowing people the choice between shackles and not was a mistake from the begining, there is no way to balance any content for every AL if you dont use a system like shackles. In the begining it was clear that using shackles was the intended way to play, and unshackled was punished. Now people are saying that it shouldnt be like this, i dont understand how that makes sense, you are playing anguish which is supposed to be a challenge, and selecting an option that allows you to completly remove that challenge isnt pusnished? That makes no sense.
I think we should get back to a system where shackles should be rewarded because that was and is the intended way of playing and the only way to balance the content.If the goal is to make people feel like they arent punished for not using shackles, just make unshackled the baseline and if you play shackled you get a bonus, that is the same for everyone (and this is important). People are already getting rewarded for their ascensions, but the benefits arent and shoudnt be instant, they will be able to progress further that lower AL people and eventually get better rewards. You can say that this is what we had before, if you unshackle you are getting pusished and even if it is, psycologicaly it would always feel better when you are rewarded rather than punished for a choice you make. Im sure if everyone gets a lets say 50% increase in rewards no one would play unshackled.

I think the only good thing about 1.0 was anguish towers, there was a hard cap at 50 that pretty much was imposible, the rewards for increasing the difficulty wasnt about proofs it was for shards, and everyone had an anguish cap based on their power where if they incresed it by a level the chance they would die wasnt worth the risk. People who could clear high anguish towers would often clear lower levels just becasuse of the risk involved. Everyone found what was efficient for them based on their ALs and power without looking at everyone else. You would progress slowly getting Als and better equipment/strats alowing you to be more efficient and moving that cap forwards. I think 2.0 should aim at something similar, we have anguish equipment that honestly is a cool idea playing with the bonus and all allowing for more variety in builds, however since leveling up each anguish level is so grindy it feels bad spending proofs at your level, and you rather keep progressing while leaving your gear at 1 just for the bonus. We could totally use the new guild allegiance rewards to solve this, getting 1 or 2 pathspur/crucible or tools per level would feel good since you would feel rewarded when leveling up, levels 2-6 are great buit going from 25 to 35 for 3 pathspur feels bad. Anyway i got a bit carried away
TLDR:
-If you dont grind anguish you shoudnt get rewarded from grinding ALs in the past
-Shackles should be the intended way to play, unshackled as a baseline everyone shackled gets the same bonus
-Make the levelup faster so people get the benefits from their ALs sooner
-Overall increase in rewards (tool, crucibles) so we can play more with builds without feeling bad for spending tokens in something that isnt leveling the guilds

[random bridge]

I agree with this. I am by no means very high al (56) but i really enjoy the challenge in shackles as i find al to be a broken mechanic as you get farther. Imo shackles balance the content very nicely. But i do think, if an anguish level (ie world and dungeons) takes a lot of time it does get stale. I believe there should be increasing costs per level, but i think they can be a bit lower as to allow a little faster progression. Given that shackles is still the preferred way to go in this

[boreal cove]

Citing towers as the best part of anguish 1 is pretty much what the unshackled play allows on the beta, you can progress at your own pace, make incremental increases based on gear/AL/Strategy, and assess your own comfortable level of risk vs reward. Towers seemed like the best in Ang 1 because they didn't have a realistic cap (though I know there have been reports of some players doing 50). It was my favorite part of the old system too, which is why I'm not in favor of shackles being the main method of play.

Personally for me, the only issue is that shackled play should not benefit higher AL players more than others, but I think that points been well discussed.

[rain light]

Probably not the place to ask but would anyone be interested in seeing a change to pathspur giving full reset for a path instead of just 1 lvl it allows you to change every ang lvls malus with the use of 1 pathspur. I personally feel this would be a better way to allow build changing once you get to a point you hit a wall with your build

[dull girder]

probably just keep it to the anguish live page as much as the slowmode sucks, we've detracted a ton from the main focus of this thread enough times

or just talk in the suggestion that lover made

[young summit]

A scaling bonus based on how close you are to the shackled AL target (instead of basing it off player AL like the beta currently is) may merit testing. This is essentially the groundwork for the AL slider that has been suggested before.

Let's say I'm AL20 running ang 10 (target AL of 30). My shackled bonus should actually be higher than someone with 100 ALs shackled at AL30.

Let's say I'm AL32 in the same situation. My unshackled rate could have a small portion of the shackled bonus added on, since I'm so close to the target AL.

[woven niche]

Has a difficulty/enemy stats modifier for playing with AL above the shackled level been suggested? Maybe even accompanied by a removal of a formal shackles switch, letting you challenge any anguish level no matter your AL, but if you pass the cap it starts to scale against you. High AL players will always be able to play at their AL, low AL following the recommended shackles is basically unchanged. Same rewards per anguish level no matter the AL played at. Stat advantages at each anguish level would then primarily come from anguished gear.

Perhaps AL above the shackle can net a bonus proof rate still, so there is a point to grinding it besides keeping pace with anguish level.

[quasi tree]

With this though isn't this just the same problem but on the opposite end? Just changing the bonus rewards to give them to lower AL players instead of high AL players?
Without giving the player a way to gain these bonus rewards it's essentially making them use a HoC to get the extra rewards
This would work in theory with the slider idea you've been suggesting but not really without it

[pale glacier]

Less maluses make it easier to punch up, definitely agree its the other end kinda thing

[young summit]

They gain extra rewards because they have less ALs and thus facing harder content

[quasi tree]

If enemy scaling is made to scale with AL over the shackles eventually enemy stats will out scale you after a certain point since the bonus stats from Ang gear don't scale with your ALs

Making unshackled content eventually impossible before content

[quasi tree]

But the players at higher AL cannot gain the "lower than shackle AL" without using a HoC, basically making them use their resources to buy a HoC, essentially punishing them for progressing their ALs

[young summit]

They are not entitled to more rewards

[quasi tree]

?

[young summit]

A player at higher AL doesn't have to gain the lower than shackle AL rewards

[woven niche]

High AL have clearing speed instead of bonus to rewards

[young summit]

Using a HoC to do so is super backwards thinking

[quasi tree]

If it's available to everyone they should have the ability to play at that AL level to gain those bonuses since they would have had the option but can't anymore due to already playing past that point

[young summit]

That's really not an issue lol

"Oh no, I can't make use of this bonus given specifically for players taking on extra challenge because I'm too strong"

It's not your bonus to claim

It's not meant for high AL players

[pale glacier]

Oh man... sigh can't we just push this out without anyone trying to get extra rewards

[young summit]

Extra rewards should be given to players taking on extra difficulty

[woven niche]

Well the content becomes impossible at some point anyway, as scaling become exponential no? The enemy stat scaling would/should diminish and eventually go away as you level up the path and the differences between shackle/AL become lower. Maybe after a point post ang 20, the extra enemy scaling goes away completely

[young summit]

That's it

[young summit]

The guild shouldn't be about efficiency and being able to get all the bonuses available

Rewarding players that have less ALs than the cap for an anguish level does not equate to punishing players with high AL

[quasi tree]

Yes I'm not disagreeing with you, but you can't lock bonus rewards behind a door that closes if there are people already past the door, if higher AL could set themselves to that level as something like another level of shackles to play at that level and try and bonus rewards as well it would be perfectly fine, but without a way to lower it it is basically "locked" for players who have already past that AL

[young summit]

Why is this an issue? Should we make the New Player Starter Pack available for purchase to every t11 player?

[quasi tree]

That's cosmetics and items, which are significantly different than gameplay content

[young summit]

Why does someone else getting rewards make you feel like you're not getting enough

It's a bonus for those who do not have high ALs

Not a bonus for the high AL players. Not only that, every player can access it once they reach their appropriate ang lvl

[dull girder]

jealousy fuels the game

(aka pvp

[young summit]

Also, a proof bonus is not "gameplay content"

It impacts gameplay, but it's a balancing issue, not a content issue

I am coming across as belligerent and I'm sorry, just a bit on edge

[woven niche]

Technically orna has been introducing "catch up" mechanics constantly. The early AL grinders cough untold atrocity cough, grinded less efficiently before all the new guilds

[quasi tree]

It's not that I don't feel like I'm getting enough rewards, fwiw I don't really care about extra rewards and if they where removed I wouldn't really mind, my stance these past 2 days is I can understand why people don't want them, but I can also see why some do, so I'm just trying to provide a view from the other side

I'm not saying what you're suggesting is wrong I'm just trying to offer a different view on it, apologies if it came off as too negative (looking back I can understand where it may seem that way)

From what I can tell from this thread so far, it seems that if there is any sort of bonus proof chance made available that it need to be available for everyone, giving them to only low AL or only high AL seems like it's just dividing the community

Though I will say: I still like the idea of making Ang gear 100% at shackles is nice/a good enough incentive to play with shackles, but it should be made much more available (which I think is supposed to be the case at least)

[young summit]

The view you are posing doesn't sound negative, it just sounds entitled. The idea that high AL players want access to all possible bonuses so they can be more efficient is just very antithetical to the spirit of the anguish guild, I think

And it's not actually about high AL or low AL, it's about difficulty. The current beta rewards more ALs instead of rewarding more difficulty

[quasi tree]

It's not that I'm saying high AL players should get a bonus, but giving a bonus this way is just the the same as the current issue just flipped. With an AL slider it makes complete sense I'm just saying without it you run into the problem of players who've progressed already/have ALs don't even get a chance at the "fight at this lower level for better rewards" kind of thing.

But also with this way, higher AL players can just swap to a low AL class and get the same bonus but be able to do it better since they should have better gear?
(Just realizing the shackle ALs are tied to your class... I should probably call it at 1am )

[young summit]

Remember that it's not just "better rewards", it's also less ALs

So I honestly kind of doubt it would even truly be better rewards because of the loss of efficiency

[quasi tree]

Yeah I guess it would just depend on the % of it, as my thought process was then lower AL players can progress faster than higher AL players

[young summit]

Nah that would never happen, you need ALs to progress fast

Maybe in the first 20 ang levels

Looking at live we have that kind of situation with relaxed shackles, but the tighter shackles mean it would be pretty difficult content I think

[quasi tree]

Yeah I feel a lot of people aren't realizing that the shackles in beta are significantly lower than live rn

Honestly the shackles in live currently past Ang 8/9 are not really noticeable

[young summit]

And I still think that some type of "proof of shackling" concept could be beneficial and could be added to appease high AL players

[quasi tree]

I liked the idea I seen forever ago (I think it was omnus, correct me if I'm wrong tho 😅) that was shackling should honestly be its own guild all together with its own proofs and its own shop

[young summit]

Lower AL player? You will have the opportunity to gain extra rewards in the difficult content as you grow and advance your AL at the same time as your anguish levels.

Higher AL player? You will be able to fast-track your anguish progression through shackled gameplay and reach your desired ang faster, where you could also start growing ALs alongside your anguish

[quasi tree]

Based on the second part: This was what I originally thought the goal of this "-AL = bonus proofs" concept but I can see it being an issue when these proofs can be used to buy mats

I have yet to buy anything other than levels/DWTs/Crucibles so my personal experience is purely based on progression and less so on "rewards"

[young summit]

Yeah if instead of proofs you lower the cost of the next level, it would solve this issue

[quasi tree]

Yeah in all reality it is not that people with higher AL want rewards, it's just that they don't want to have to spend months not being able to use their AL

[young summit]

1️⃣ Remove scaling proof bonus based on sacrificed ALs when shackled. This functionality gives more baseline proofs to those with more ALs and less proofs to those without extra ALs at every level of anguish for equivalent or easier content.

2️⃣ Shackled bonus now scales based on how close the player is to the shackled AL target. This extends into unshackled rates, intending to reward difficulty.
Ex. 1: A highly ascended player would gain normal rates for unshackled and boosted rates for shackled content.
Ex. 2: An unshackled player with 2-3 more ALs than the shackle target would gain a small portion of the shackled bonus.
Ex. 3: A player with 5-10 less ALs than the target would boost their rates even more.

3️⃣ Any time you receive a proof while shackled it lowers the level up cost for that level (Geppu's idea). This will aid higher AL players to reach their desired anguish level faster.

[subtle blaze]

It’s true that higher Anglv gives better rewards, but it doesn’t seem to align with the point of maximum efficiency.
Because of that, I feel like players will stop aiming for higher Anglv altogether.
Instead, they’ll just grind at the most efficient level, widening the AL–Shakle gap and turning the gameplay into repetitive farming for optimized reward loops. That kind of shift could really damage the core experience.

Sure, under the beta system, if you manage to find the optimal Anglvl, you might end up getting even greater rewards than with the current live Shakle system.
But I don’t think that alone justifies or supports the system—more rewards shouldn’t automatically mean better design.

We need a system that encourages players to keep pushing, experimenting, and improving.
A system that simply produces players who stop mid-progression to grind endlessly for better efficiency? I think that’s a step in the wrong direction.

[quasi tree]

I like the idea of both 1 & 3, option 3 allows higher AL players to reach where they want to play, and doesn't help them any more once they get past their shackle point, and option 1 removing the bonus proofs gets rid of the possible issues with efficiency and the proofs being used on mats instead of levels

Could even still incorporate option 2 into the Ang gear chance at 100% and make it so when shackled/being within '+/-5ALs' (20% AL per AL that you are closer to the shackle), still giving players incentive to play with shackles

[flint warren]

This is (basically) how live works, except for 3️⃣, and except for extra rewards if you're below shackles rate.

A penalty for being unshackled or a bonus for being shackled are mathematically the same thing, the only difference is in how you present it.

This is to say, if people would be content with that suggestion, one could just make the unshackled penalty in live not be as harsh and then call it a day

[pseudo bridge]

It is the same but it doesn't feel like it, if you punish people for a choice they make it makes them feel forced to play the other way, however if you present it like one thing is the baseline and the other is a bonus for being the harder version you aren't punishing anyone but giving people the choice between mindless spam or the intended way of playing the content. Perception makes a big difference here imo

[flint warren]

Yes, it does. Which is why I'd say that just swapping the perspective would've done wonders heh. Hindsight and all that

[pseudo bridge]

Yup, but honestly just changing that wouldn't make a difference, a lot of people are just frustrated that the difficulty isn't really there in the first few levels, they feel like they aren't getting rewarded for playing the content since the grind is honestly too much in anything but agony, I think they overestimated how much people are willing to grind, and that's making people not really see the endgame potential for the content since grinding to where someone with high AL (let's say 100) gets a benefit against someone with 50 is gonna take them way too long, and people don't want to grind that much. That's why some people are voicing how they feel like they aren't respecting their previous grinds, and feel like they deserve some sort of way to ease their way into higher anguish content.I said it yesterday, the grind is just too much, I think the average orna player won't play 8h a day but maybe 1, and if you are going to spend all your time doing anguish at least you should see some progression like in agony for example.

[midnight quail]

Just to speak it out: You could also simply double the number of anguish levels / reduce the enemy stat scaling by 50% (as well as bonus/malus values) / reduce the proof costs for everything by 50% (demon tools, anguish levels etc.). The general outcome would remain the same, but people would "feel" faster progress. It's similar to bonuses vs maluses: the result would be a different perception of progress, because endorphins are released when you reach the next level.

[turbid basalt]

Yes and no re: grind imo. This is content that is designed to be passively played alongside a player’s ascension journey. Trying to actively farm it would definitely tire some out. But, there will always be players that want to grind everything out now

We do have players now that have exceeded the soft max for Agony, which is too soon imo - this content is supposed to last

[young summit]

Not quite the same. Decreasing bonus for extra ALs negatively impacts every ascended player to various degrees, starting with the harshest losses of bonus. The amount of impacted players starts massive and slowly decreases over time.

Increasing bonuses for being below or slightly above shackled target affects a very small amount of players at the beginning, but affects more and more players over time as those players reach their appropriate anguish levels. The highly ascended player will also always have at least the default rates as the baseline; the bonus only increases if they are near or below the target.

It's the difference between rewarding difficulty and punishing/rewarding AL power

[flint warren]

Decreasing bonus for every AL above the shackle == Increasing bonus for every AL closer to the shackle
It really does just depent where the "base" lies.

• If you see the base reward as the unshackled one, then you have your point of view for the "new" rework.
• If you see the base reward as the shackled one, then you have the current live point of view that "punishes" ascensions.

[young summit]

I wouldn't increase the bonus for every AL closer to the shackle

It should be a very small range, only intended to cover the gap between the current anguish level and the next

[flint warren]

Isn't that what Ex. 2 under 2️⃣ is?

[young summit]

I gave an example of 2-3 ALs above the shackle, and this is only a matter of bridging the unshackled rate to the shackled rate

On live and in beta, the scaling bonus has a massive impact and range

[flint warren]

Ah I see what you mean

[young summit]

Point 2️⃣ is so that a player playing unshackled at AL31 doesn't lose all their shackled AL30 bonuses

That's the one side of it, the other side is further rewarding players at AL20 with shackle 30

I don't want bonus scaling to be centered around player AL, I want it centered on the shackle target

[pseudo bridge]

You can lock content behind a ridiculous amount of playtime and say that its intended because it is long term, that doesn't mean the players will be happy since they wont see any meaningful progress short term. You say that it should be something passively and that we shouldn't actively farm it and I think that cant be more wrong, I don't think anyone has turned it off since release, we want to grind it, and since its now part of pretty much every activity in the game it should be treated as an active activity, not a passive one. For example I just did 2 dungeon runs at ang 6 with 18.5% proofs, I got 7 and 4 proofs from that, each run takes about 3 minutes for me so per hour engaging on this content in this example I would get 11 proof per 6 minutes or 110 per hour (Ofc not real data just an example). To progress 1 level from 6 to 7 its 680 profs I need to actively play dungeons for lets say 6 hours, and the only thing that would reward that time invested is the ability to do that over again with harder difficulty and just a slightly bump in proofs. At this current state, it doesn't feel good to spend proofs on anything other than leveling up, because at some point you will eventually get more proofs this way, meaning if you engage on lets say buying crucibles or tools yeah you do get stronger but you are slowing the progress. The first few levels of anguish we would get a lot of tools for free and that felt amazing idk why stop that al lvl 6, then from 18 to 25 you get something but in the next 10 levels you get 3 pathspur. I think we could get rewards each level and we would be way happier since we would get something for spending hours grinding the content.

Same thing happends with materials, not only we need to get the material we want in the guild but we have to pray that we get it in exchange for agony proofs, because thats the only currency worth using to buy anything.

People have talked about reducing the price to level up if you play shackled but we can go even further with this idea.
When you play shackled content a % of the proofs you earn will be saved and when you level up that path you get back that amount in the form of another currency that you can now trade in the guild. You could used that new currency that we can call proof of shackles(for example) to buy crucibles tools or other items without feeling like you are wasting them not using them to level up, this change would highly incentivise they use of shackles and it would be easy to balance since we can adjust the % of "proofs of shackles" you get back based on the content, for example making it 50% for agony but 75% for the rest, this can be further balance.
How do you guys think about something like this? I think it would solve a lot of problems with the current system, giving people the option to get addicional rewards when engaging with shackled content.

Its also bulletproof for endgame since you only get them if you level up while playing shackles allowing for a more fun progression allowing us to engage with the new content while going up the levels without feeling bad for spending proofs on anything else.

[flint warren]

What odie meant with it being passive is that you're engaging in activities that you were already engaging in beforehand.
You're not doing anything new or exclusive to anguishj - You're still doing World, Dungeons, Monuments, Towers and/or Raiding.

If Anguish2.0 hadn't been released, you'd likely be doing one of those five regardless.

[turbid basalt]

A second currency was explored quite a bit above - I think another currency to juggle is not the best direction

[turbid basalt]

Yes, this

[flint warren]

Which is to say, despite Anguish being a new guild, its influence on your gameplay is passive. You've been doing those content types for their own rewards, and now you can staple Anguish's rewards on top of it, for extra difficulty.
The base rewards of the base content is are still there. Ergo, it's passive: If you just set anguish on, and not focus on it, you'll be getting proof of [content], all the while still doing the same thing you've been doing before

[pseudo bridge]

Its passive until the point where it starts to matter, if I have to change my build around to overcome maluses imo it stops from being passive. If I have to go out of my way to find a way that allows me to clear the content its not passive. Doing towers at torment 0-4 is passive since the challenge isn't really there but when you go to 5 (shackled) in the current system you have to go out of your way to not die, I don't think anguish content is passive if you have to do all those steps.

When you go in a tower now you are actively going out of your way to kill t10 packs, and looking at strays when thats something you didnt do before, idk if you can say thats a passive thing

[flint warren]

While you are right in that regard, realistically, I feel like the majority of people are going to be parking their anguish level at whichever level they still oneshot content at. Which with the beta implementation of unshackled giving full rewards, it'll be all the more feasible.

[turbid basalt]

should passive mean free of gameplay effect? i'm not sure it needs to mean that

[flint warren]

Also, what odie just said heh

[quasi tree]

I can agree with this statement, and from what I've seen (this isn't really an attempt to speak on anyone's behalf just from my own observations) most higher AL would be perfectly fine with that as well as long as progression while unshackled is still an option.

It feels like the beta client as it right now but with the bonus proofs removed would be the a a great step in the right direction. As then there is still the bonus Ang gear chance as incentive to play at that level, and players can progress in their own way either shackled or unshackled, then as people test and play/more data is gathered if it feels like players at a higher AL need a reduced level up cost that could be explored at a different time (Though personally I can't see that being necessary with being able to progress unshackled, but we have no data on it yet so who knows)

[boreal cove]

I understand the sentiment regarding 'free rewards' but difficult to stop 'free effects' even in both previous iterations you find people sitting at 4 and then higher. After a certain point rewards need to be the driver. I don't think its an issue if someone earns X rewards passively when 3X is available actively.

This is why I think shackles should be a consistent bonus but allow people to assess risk and reward at their own rate. As long as people are rewarded consistently for doing the same difficulty of content system should sort itself out.

In some sense its no different than a t10 getting 'free passive rewards' for world farming content in the same way a t9 would.

And to add my experience is due to maluses and hp scaling, even with my 200 al, becomes very difficult to be fully passive pretty early on

[pseudo bridge]

Ofc not but you can't really say that anguish is a passive thing when it has changed the way people actively play the game, the optimal to grind despair now is party play, I don't think anyone was world farming in party play before this, I also don't think people were actively hunting t10s packs in monuments and towers, you can make the argument that it is for dungeons but the only thing you can do there is clear the mobs.

[slim scroll]

I was under the impression that world farming wasn't a thing people typically did in late-/end-game in Orna (Riftbreaks not included). When executed well, Party World Farming has pretty much always been more worthwhile compared to Solo, Anguish/Despair didn't really change that at all in my eyes. It just boosted world farming's "usefulness" to late-/end-game.
-# Consideration for Hero of Aethric not included in this statement.

[short solstice]

I think most low AL's are going to not like this because shackles didnt hurt them to begin with. I being a higher AL is going to welcome these changes because I want to put all the grinding to use. I see both sides of the story tho.

[obsidian garden]

...couldnt we just create a 5th currency, which is the only one we can use in the shop, and we have to convert the other proofs into it to spend the for other then lv up?
Copy pastable from skyshards?

[obsidian garden]

To word my personal grief i had:

If i chose unshackled, i got punished for my previous grind.
If i shackled, i lost a lot of power, just to not be punished.
It was a complete lose-lose situation.

With the new system, i am no longer punished for my investment in the new endgame content and have to grind hundreds and hundreds of hours to reach a point where i am allowed to use what i earned without penalty. Therefore, i have no point in anguish where i belong - i can just grind the content and fully enjoy it.

I see Odie's desire of wanting us to shackle, and i think that is why we got the proof increase for shackling.
While i dont at all agree to the rich get richer statement, because i dont see it with the rates we have in beta - agree that there surely are better options to make us shackle.
With a much higher anguish gear rate, we at least have a reason to sometimes shackle. So i see that as progress.
I would honestly just change the proof increase to gold/orns/exp. Its very minor, but its a cherry on top, and it wont have nearly as much of an impact. Surely it can be cheesed for endless, but also, what in this game can't be cheesed for endless.

[quick lava]

I want to pose a question to folks, as there's a missing piece here that I don't think is being expressly clearly stated.

With the current solve, the highly Ascended players for sure can get ahead by way of consuming Anguish quicker, undoubtedly. I don't fully grasp where that could be an issue, given every player will hit a wall themselves eventually, and need to start utilising Anguish gear, buffs, debuffs etc anyway. So from that perspective, it's only allowing them to get to the challenge level equivalent of their already applied effort over the last few years.

So with that in mind - is the crux of any raised concerns actually about how it impacts base game, namely PvP? (given it doesn't impact base game in a player <> player really anywhere else)
I understand we've polled the audience before on Ascensions in PvP, but I can't help but assume that's an element here that is causing concern for folks when it comes to Ascension discrepancy

[pseudo bridge]

The advantage of high AL people is that with time their efforts will be rewarded in the form of them being able to higher anguish and getting better rewards, if you keep the system where they go up faster they get rewarded for efforts they did in the past again . If 2 people are clearing the same exact content, they should be rewarded the same. With how you want to move forward allowing unshackled content to not be punished that's another advantage for high ALs where with a simple tap they can skip the challenge of anguish itself.
I think ALs are already rewarding enough.

If a 200AL grinds twice what I do Im okay with him getting double rates cuz he put in the effort twice, but if we put in the same effort in a new system we should be rewarded the same. ALs shouldn't give a free pass when grinding new content, as an example when towers released I don't think giving high ALs a celestial class for their efforts before was talked about, this feels like that

[quick lava]

I'm trying to understand the actual impact of this line of concern, though.

Is it just something that you don't think feels nice?
I'm not sure I'm understanding how it impacts you, how another user progresses through the guild. I want to understand that point better

[quick lava]

Given Anguish levels are currently uncapped, it simply allows them to get to their appropriate level of challenge with less friction, which should be ok, no?

[dull girder]

entire point is not to be compensated by how much you played before. if two players shackle at the same difficulty level, shouldn't they get the same reward

naturally the higher angs should give more rewards to compensate, instead of rewarding higher al players to shackle on lower ang

[quick lava]

I'm not sure I understand why they need to - shouldn't it be ok to be rewarded for the high AL grind

[dull girder]

Yeah by enabling them to do higher ang and more rewarding content

Why should players that have higher al be doing the same content as other lower al players and just strictly getting more

[quick lava]

Right, and they'll get there with less friction given their high effort prior.
I think it should be completely ok to acknowledge prior effort, I again don't understand why it impacts a user if another progresses quicker.
What's the tangible impact?

[pseudo bridge]

Because if 2 people one with 50 AL and another with 200 spend the same time doing this new content they will be rewarded differently, their rates of mats per hour would be different. Basically the rich get richer. And with how ALs work even if the higher ascensions require more materials, the gap between those two players won't get closer.

[patent jackal]

Oops, started it back up Dangy

[quick lava]

To get through the Anguish levels quicker, and hit the challenge appropriate to their level of prior effort (i.e., their ascension level)

[dull girder]

the optimized state would be an ang level that is far lower than their real shackled rate

because of the nature of ang scaling + malus

[quick lava]

Not really, I just don't think it's actually clear why users who aren't highly ascended are impacted by what happens here with shackles.

If we can work out that it does tangibly impact, let's solve that tangible impact.
If we can work out their isn't a tangible impact, let's move forward!

[quasi tree]

I see 100% where you're coming from, but I think a lot of people's issues with it are not people progressing faster/getting to where they are supposed to be, but the issue is these proofs can be used to purchase things other than guild levels, aka materials, thus possibly allowing for better progression overall and not just in the way of guild levels

[quick lava]

Right, and where's the impact on a player <> player basis?

Hence asking about PvP, and speculating that this is the cruz of why folks have an actual issue

[quasi tree]

Yeahhhh that part I'm still trying to figure out myself 😅

[quick lava]

One players progression being faster than mine, isn't a solid argument for me to hinder their progress

[pseudo bridge]

The gap between players won't get closer if the same time spent on this new content isn't rewarded the same.

[patent jackal]

I was just meaning the amount of people typing 🤣
At this point whatever happens happens. I’m just gonna enjoy myself in what I’m doing. Not worry about the dilly dally

[quasi tree]

But I'm curious, why should the gap in power between players get closer when one has spent 1000s of hours playing and the other has spent nearly a fraction of that? (Not trying to dismiss, just trying to understand a different pov)

[quick lava]

Sure, same with every live service RPG more or less
I'm trying to understand where the impact is?

How does it impact you as a player, if another user progresses quicker in this guild?

[dull girder]

it wouldn't, one player will get statchecked by al and the other won't

[dull girder]

the power difference, if the strata of already high al players becomes thanos while everyone else doesn't really move forward that much, there's obviously a jealousy element to it (also pvp, conq, war

[quick lava]

Right, but where is the power difference felt?
I'm trying to get into the specific issue here

[dull girder]

Every piece of content

[quick lava]

Jealousy isn't what I was intending to call out, but it can feel that way without clear direction on why that impacts other users in a tangible way

[dull girder]

Because balance needs to be around something

It's like nerfing ss3 raiding, sure it's good for higher al balance, but lower al players get screwed over

[quick lava]

That's different - it impacts base game.
Where's the impact on base game here? Need that clarity so we can address that

[pseudo bridge]

You already got rewarded, you got lots of ALs more now, if both players play some new content with the same rates that gap should get closer but if they aren't rewarded the same it wont, and I don't think not allowing new players to catch up is good thing

[dull girder]

And widening that gap without any feasible catchup mechanics(not saying that one is needed) is a bit of an issue

[dull girder]

most up front change is pvp, but the implications of rewarding older players is discouraging for newer players

[quick lava]

#1394382336535302225 message

Hence the question ^

[dull girder]

there's an element of player interaction beyond pvp

[quick lava]

Cool, help me understand them!
I don't think we can argue that new players should have the same experience in end game content as folks who have put in years and thousands of hours.

So let's get specific on what the tangible impacts are for one player to progress more quickly than others in this guild!

[dull girder]

because most players that play are in some sort of orna community, and seeing other people pull stuff off that would be nigh impossible for you to do is a good incentive to push al. yet if you see that to push al and get mats, you have to higher al, that's demoralizing af

as much as I hate to admit it, the element of comparing yourself to other players is rooted in this game completely. I just really don't understand why one player should be compensated for doing the same thing as another player for no reason except that they played more

[quick lava]

I'm a gamer too, I want to progress quicker than other people, and be at pace with the best.
In my experience, that's my subjectivity getting in the way of reality.

I shouldn't be able to progress as quickly as someone who has objectively put in more hours and effort than me, as much as it bums me out

[dull girder]

if anything, encourage the higher al players to do more difficult content that only they can pull off for more gains

[quick lava]

As in, this current beta patch?

[dull girder]

kind of

that's what some ppl were saying in here (based off my brief backread

[quick lava]

So right now they are encourage to do the more difficult route, and rewarded for giving up their power

[quasi tree]

(Just wanna say catching up is defiantly possible, I've only been playing for < 2 years and personally feel like I've been "caught up" for a while, but that's not the main point I wanna address)
So from what I can understand is it the fact that these proofs can be used to buy mats -> hence more ALs -> therefore an advantage in PvP/leaderboards?

[dull girder]

not giving up, using their excessive power

[quick lava]

No, the bonus is for using shackles.
If they don't shackle, they simply level up quicker in the guild, they don't get additional bonuses

[dull girder]

they'll eventually hit a point where they can't unshackle because their al is lower vs the shackling point

[quick lava]

Exactly!

[dull girder]

and pushing that limit should be rewarded

rather than sandbagging for easier but faster content

[quick lava]

It is - the guild has built in increasing bonuses

[dull girder]

yes, but it's relative

[quick lava]

So you're incentivised to continue levelling in the guild.

[quick lava]

To what?
We really need to be specific here

[dull girder]

I wouldnt want to take a pet act or ward hit in order to get another 2% on top my 60% proof rate

[patent jackal]

That’s what i thought the whole intention of Ang 2 was
To reign in the mats/al pushing

[quick lava]

Not sure anyone in the studio has outlined that as a goal?
Anguish was to give challenge back to end game, while allowing you to continue to do the normal events/loops you love.

[dull girder]

instead of saying "this is the point where I can decimate content and idc about going higher because it's not worth it and gives negligible gains" make it so that the reward for going higher is compensated more

[flint warren]

Fwiw dangy, this is personally my concern: #1394382336535302225 message

It might not be others' concern, but it is mine

[dull girder]

imo shackles should not be the incentive to stay at a certain ang

[quick lava]

It does feel a little like you are unfamiliar with the systems in Anguish currently.
Rewards do increase, and Guild Allegiance exists. Again, be specific - what reward isn't hitting?

Fwiw, this is a completely different argument than what was being raised earlier.
We were talking about the tangible impact of some users progressing more quickly than others, and we're way off track from that now

[quasi tree]

I don't feel like they are in the beta though, as it's good to note that the shackles in the beta are at a lower level (the previous shackles) of what is on live right now, and they are significantly more difficult
(meant to reply here to the concern about shackles at a certain ang being more profitable)

[quick lava]

Thanks John - this one is definitely logged with the team already.
Hitting that perfect math balance will be hard, but we want to make it work also 💪

[patent jackal]

Oh okay, that was my understanding from Ang 1 to Ang 2 at least from a game balance
standpoint

[dull girder]

a 2% additive proof reward on a higher ang is proportionally less proofs vs 2% at a lower ang

eventually it's not worth going for that extra 2% because occasionally failing content is way worse than just lowering ang 3-4 times

make rewards scale (somewhat) proportionally with the difficulty presented rather than making it a flat gain

[quick lava]

Awesome - that's a topic we should cover 100%.

Let's try return to the question I asked earlier for now

If we can understand why players progressing more quickly in this guild than others impacts other users, it helps us informa what to address

[dull girder]

just curious what is the game balance philosophy, because high al and low al gameplay are worlds apart

because my primary concern is that beta ang shackles would widen the gap (or at least make the al gap somewhat constant) between players

and that in turn affects how the game is designed around everyone

[hard vessel]

High al players also need way more mats than lower al players, I don't think those extra rewards will make al grow exponentially

[young summit]

Why would you be upset that someone else is getting a higher salary for the exact same work you are putting in? There's no "tangible impact" to you

It's not jealously, it's simply unfair

[quick lava]

I don't see the similarity here

Though I won't lean into this metaphor too much as I think it's a bit baiting, if someone at the same company had worked there 20 years, and another employee had worked there 1 year, the 20 year employee would have over time received several pay increases within a band

[broken sinew]

that example ignores the fact that the one person has been working that position longer, they might be more proficient in the workflows, have more responsibility, have a better understanding in things etc

eeh yeah what dangy said

[pseudo bridge]

Yeah ofc, but all based on time spent, if the high AL grinds more I'm okey with him getting better rates

[young summit]

Corporations aside (since the new employee would definitely have a higher salary than a 20y employee in most companies 😂) the seniority aspect is already accounted for.

ALs give you benefits across all content. More ALs is beneficial, always; the current implementation double dips and pays them even more

The "seniority" is just all the benefits ALs bring you - the more you have, the stronger you are. It's inherent to the power boost obtained by ALs, it's nothing tied directly to anguish.

But now anguish is further rewarding that seniority

[young summit]

I said this before: Just by virtue of already having the ALs and all the benefits ALs provide in and out of the anguish system, they gain more proofs, always

[mystic juniper]

For real Dangy, are you just kidding us repeatedly Dangy here ? This is official NF question/comment after all the talks regarding this topic ? I just wake up and I'm wondering if I m really awake

[young summit]

Also, I think we are all aware that more ALs does not actually mean more time invested into the game

[quick lava]

We don't need to get passive aggressive with each other, let's keep this productive ;)
It's fine enough to say that isn't the concern you're raising, but let's not make it yucky

[mystic juniper]

What you re currently asking and the way you say it is absolutely passive-agressive, and maybe not that passive when you claim we re just jealous when trying to keep some fairness for everyone in the game.

[quick lava]

That wasn't my point, that was another user

[quick lava]

Perhaps the question I asked has been missed, it's here.
Have a breather, read the whole conversation :)

I'm on your guys side here, I'm trying to get to the nuts and bolts of what specfically we want addressed so we can get this update out and move onto the other pockets on Anguish concerns :)

[mystic juniper]

It impacts everyone as it impacts the way the game is played. If AL offer a push in rewards on top of the push it already give, first it's non sense, second it tends to make players going for some particular way of playing that may not be healthy for them and the game long term. And those kind of things and others have been said multiple times.

[young summit]

I don't think ALs need to have an inherent reward when shackled. Lowering the cost of the next anguish level is a pretty reasonable solution that rewards ascended players in a tangible but less abusable/unfair way

[young summit]

Giving them extra proofs to use as they wish is not "only allowing them to get to the challenge level" they want. It's giving them more money at every level of anguish compared to other players

[quick lava]

Yep, I understand that point. I want to work out specifically where the impact is to other users, so we can try and get a solve that satiates all parties

[young summit]

My work in anguish is devalued by the fact that others will earn more for the same work

[quick lava]

Bear in mind, this latest update in beta was made following a player wide survey

[young summit]

Live implementation: scaling penalty with higher AL, high AL players feel like they're being punished.

Beta implementation: scaling bonus with higher AL, low AL players feel like they are being punished.

The beta implementation has only flipped the problem. Remove scaling based on player AL

[inland blade]

I'll preface this that I think quite a few people are making a bigger deal out of the AL-based buffs than there needs to be, but:

One of the aspects of an MMO is comparing yourself to other players. Orna is a not a singleplayer game, it is a multiplayer game, with a multiplayer world. It has leaderboards. That is why what one person does matters to others.

[quick lava]

I believe I'm just not understanding this well, as everyone is engaging in it on their own

For instance, if the reason that is devalued is because they will now outperform me even further in PvP - totally understand that. I think that could be addressed in some way

Hence asking my earlier question

[young summit]

What Knight said. We are not engaging in this game alone. gestures at this entire discord

Did we ask the high AL players why they felt their ALs were being devalued? The answer has already been given many times

[quick lava]

If the impact is that it feels bad that others are progressing quicker than me, as I mentioned earlier I totally get that too. I'm a gamer, I want to keep pace with the biggest and best, and get bummed out when I can't for various mechanical reasons, or simply because I wasn't around when X/Y/Z existed.

It's also something that kind of exists in games - folks who have been around longer/spent more time progressing advantage loops are almost always going to progress a new piece of content quicker than me.

If I can remove myself from the visibility on their progress, it impacts me less

[inland blade]

But also: Players with low AL can get more AL if they work harder, and then they have access to the same buffs.

[young summit]

Yes, but gaining more rewards for more AL is a positive feedback loop. It's as if for every AL you gained a refinery (exaggeration for the sake of the point)

[inland blade]

It caps out

[young summit]

Yes, but the effects are compounding

If I gain 100 more proofs at ang1, those proofs don't disappear. I will continue to amass more proofs than lower AL peers at each level and be able to ascend more faster

[quick lava]

I think the conversation unfortunately has devolved a little.
My intent here was to try and get this on track to being really specific about the impact areas so we can address those - it's a hot topic, and can be emotionally charged. I empathise with that

I'll leave it be and see how it pans out, perhaps will try help out later again.

Main goal here is to get this one moving so that we can hit the other areas that definitely need attention in Ang2.0 and make it perfect!

[young summit]

I think suggestions have already been made as to how to improve it, you came asking what the issue was

[mystic juniper]

Same content, same difficulty = same rewards. Seems fair.

[inland blade]

The primary thing this thread has devolved into for days on end is an endless feedback loop about the boosts being AL based, that is the concern in this thread.

Until that is either resolved or just given a hard stance that it's happening and conversation is told to stop, that is what this thread will continue to endlessly loop about.

[young summit]

#1394382336535302225 message

Here were my suggestions on how to tackle it

I think the anguish gear chance is a great addition and is a good example of a proper reward for higher AL players

I think that addition combined with reduced level up costs is enough incentives for higher AL players. Option 3️⃣ above is also effectively rewarding proofs to higher AL players, but as a finite number instead of a %boost to proof gain.

I'd also like to point out that this question on the poll is a bit ambiguous. These votes could be interpreted as "I want even more bonus for shackling my ALs" or "I want difficulty to be rewarded more"

[turbid basalt]

stay tuned for the next beta patch, folks

[inland blade]

It turns out this morning's extension of the endlessly looping discussion might've been a bit pointless

[patent jackal]

When it feels like you’re being demeaned and the constant passive aggressiveness-hypocrisy cycle just for trying to voice your view on it does that

Especially with so many different people’s views on it.

[inland blade]

I'm referring to the changes Odie is in the middle of pushing to the public beta

But when I call this thread endlessly looping don't worry, I dislike the entire thread equally, I'm not singling out any particular viewpoint.

[patent jackal]

I know, I’m meaning the 3 chords for Ang feedback and such though too
Exactly as you put it

[quick lava]

I think in general folks are passionate, and if there's clarity seeking it can feel like it's a lack of care for each other.
In general I'd say we all want the same goal: make this system perfect for as many as possible!

[young summit]

My goal is to convince Odie to add an AL slider. And to make manaseep not vanish when I swap pets.

[quick lava]

Might be wise to slowmode this thread with the new patch too.
It's effective in getting well thought out, detailed messaging

[patent jackal]

I can understand that too
My bad started rambling
Going back to sleep now 🤣

[pseudo bridge]

Btw guys, if you want us to test the beta properly maybe we can get mirrors going, we have asked about this a few times

[young summit]

Minor typo (I think?)

[turbid basalt]

no?

[inland blade]

Things changed

I said what I said because I knew the changes lol

[young summit]

Oh I guess we are going back to "penalty" for unshackled instead

[quick lava]

We did a bunch in May, are folks characters drastically out of whack with those mirrors?
Or are you asking as you missed that run?

[mystic juniper]

Sorry for being often too passionnate - and annoying -, it turns out those changes looks nicer, and thank you for the last point about party play, always grateful seing you take care of players suggestions.

[patent jackal]

I understand that too
We love the game
If we weren’t all passionate about it, Orna wouldn’t be what it is today

[inland blade]

Important:

If anyone in here actually tries the beta for once, note that Karmic Retribution charges much faster in beta than it will in live, for the sake of testing.

[quick lava]

All good, I don't think anyone needs to apologise. We get why this draws out passion.

If we can stick to specifics, solutions, and concensus it'll be the best route here. If we disagree with each other, let it show in polling etc, rather than argue ;)

[pseudo bridge]

Yup, in my case I was in a hiatus when that happened, basically Ang 1 in everything in beta so I can't rly test anything, I'm sure that's the case for a few other players too

[mystic juniper]

That said, I feel I will be more helpful for now going back to trying to revive once again party play. Thank you NF/ORN and all players trying to help improving this wonderful game 🥳❤️

[flint warren]

Intended charge rate is approximately 100 proofs of X for a full bar

[inland blade]

Dangy (or another mod) can we get Sirith's numbers un-pinned since they're no longer accurate?

[flint warren]

What numbers?

I see no numbers

[quick lava]

Alright, I can look at some mirrors.
Typically when we put up a thread for them everyone asks for a mirror though, so we'll have to be mindful that it's a manual process per character.

I have a couple of meetings tonight that will end around my 4am, so I think maybe tomorrow is best!

[humble plinth]

Can someone post the bonus for karmic retribution??

[inland blade]

Sure

[pseudo bridge]

Thank you, and don't worry about when I just wanna test the beta properly

[obsidian garden]

So we had a good way and we backpeddled?
I am so confused.
We were happy unshackled had no penalties, and now, it has penaltys again...?
Or did i read it wrong?

[inland blade]

It has penalties but the penalties are now quite small. Just 25%

[obsidian garden]

75% independent of AL? O.o

[young summit]

You were happy =/= we were happy. Lots of discussion has been had in the thread and it may be good to go back and read it

[quick lava]

A 3 day old thread with nearly 1000 comments is a good indicator the prior solution wasn't a perfect solve for all!
We'll get closer to hitting a middle ground where everyone is equally upset hopefully soon enough

[quasi tree]

The penalty is not nearly as bad as it is in live, feels a lot more reasonable, especially when you take I to account that you don't earn any karma when unshackled

[young summit]

Karmic economy is very funny

[quasi tree]

The reduced costs for those curious

[mortal tulip]

Its basically 1.5% more proofs each anguish increase instead of 2%. Then it catches back up after anguish 20 when the difficulty cranks.

It is a touch slower than the prior beta but to me this is still in a realm that's respectful of people who want to played Ascended. Its so much better than the live version of Orna. My goal originally was 1% per level so 1.5 per level is great by me. I think we should embrace this.

[smoky belfry]

Increase mob spawn in Karmic retribution might be good or more complicated like all battle become horde in world encounter..

Ah, I guess it need something that allows you to activate karmic retribution when teleport to other players wayvessel..

[inland blade]

How to tell someone hasn't tried the beta 😉

The bar is activated from your Player screen, not the guild.

[mortal tulip]

Well, its both

I didn't realize it was player screen at first and only noticed the guild screen.

[smoky belfry]

Oh, I thought it was on top when the bar is located..
😅

[boreal cove]

Where is it, I'm in the beta and cant find it?

[obsidian garden]

Thats not 75% flat... Did i misread something?

[obsidian garden]

Oh it caps at 25% now. Okay, o just read it wrong. Then nevermind.

[inland blade]

It only appears after you shackle and start doing things to fill it I think

Trust me, once it's full you can't miss it. To be honest I think it needs to be toned down a bit

[mortal tulip]

And the small penalty doesn't hit apply to the first 4 levels.

We can also choose to shackle a little to grab the discount item

[obsidian garden]

So basically, the shackle punishment gets reduced by 3/4th, and we get an apex bar for shackling that we can use for either barginalus, Wealth Eventualus or ornatus?

Hey come on that one took like all my braincells twice xD

[mortal tulip]

Basically thats the jist. But the slight penalty goes away in the anguish 20's

[obsidian garden]

Yeah no, a reasonable reduction like this is fully understandable.

I can now choose between a reasonable punishment or punishing myself to give myself buffs.
The idea is fun, i will try it out when im home. Honestly like this more then the bonus proofs.

[mortal tulip]

Yeah, i was working with Odie to find some give and take. I am perfectly happy with this solution and would love to play it on live.

Also the karma bar is more fun than I expected. It made me want to shackle a little just because I like more resources to manage.

[obsidian garden]

It cant be worse then the interact button thats shilled on you every move you make but cant even do a complete job DX

[smoky belfry]

🤔
Somehow I got perma buff chance fade on melancholy and torment path..
Already check malus on the path and there is no perma buff fade chance that I pick up to some level..
Is that means perma buff fade chance become default malus?

[obsidian garden]

I liked the idea ton juddgle between shackling and unshackeling. Could call me a shacklebuckler, so to speak.

I am interested. So far this sounds like the most fun thing we have in the game.

[mortal tulip]

I think the exact karma bar rewards could use a little tweaking but this beta is exciting

[lament wolf]

I really like the new update and management in beta. Feels smooth. Run shackled, get a buff, do your highest unshackled if you want. Rinse repeat. Good management all around

[mortal tulip]

And shackled still has the Anguish gearboost

Which i think is cool

[young summit]

Likely a bug, report it I gues

[flint warren]

Here's my first thoughts on the current system:

• Love that it's accessible from character menu, otherwise it'd be a pain when in a wayvessel or away from home

• Hard to feel the impact of the proof rate buff. It doesn't update the rate on the guild menus, I don't know if it's +10 additive or multiplicative, and I don't know if it's drop chance or chance at double proofs. It's also hard to test so I can't tell if it works or not.

• Ornate rates are cool but super untestable in beta due to the enormous blanket ornate boost

• Shop price reduction works correctly. It should see some use for people mass buying tools and crucibles, but since it doesn't affect materials, I don't see "late stage" unshackled people caring for its effect. Which is fine

• Considering you don't want the shop buff most of the time, and the other buffs last 2hr and 30m, you'll have the bar filled with nothing to do on the later stages of Anguish, when the proof drop rates are heavy enough that you'll fill it faster than in 30 minutes.

• • Possibly increasing the oomph of some of the buffs in exchange for decreasing the charge rate could feel good
• • Possibly having some sort of effect related to the bar being filled by default, a-la apex could feel good (though I personally don't love that approach. I want to spend the bar to go collect more)
• • Possibly adding a non-buff to the list of purchaseables, so that you can dump the bar into it if all your buffs are running. Could be simple like a small random cache of materials, or a small random batch of proofs, or who knows, maybe kingdom orns?

[mortal tulip]

@flint warren

"Possibly adding a non-buff to the list of purchaseables, so that you can dump the bar into it if all your buffs are running. Could be simple like a small random cache of materials, or a small random batch of proofs, or who knows, maybe kingdom orns?"

I think this is a cool idea and would be a great addition. Maybe an above average chance at some scrolls?

[inland blade]

I would really really love if one of the bar's buffs improved world farming. Kaiye suggested letting it make all world battles horde encounters, for example.

[mortal tulip]

I support this as well

[turbid basalt]

Would it be possible to replace Tier 11 Players' "Experience Bar" place with the Karmic Retribution Bar, in the world screen? That'd reduce menuing to go look at when it's filled (would happen frequently if charge rate is reduced), plus we already have support for having a bar over there. And I'd like to see bar go up (even moreso if it can do the cool thing you did with the experience bar that it shows how much you earned in an activity)

this was done in the .41 update btw

[flint warren]

Ah, I didn't have the update, whoops

Very cool, thanks :)

[broken sinew]

not really a fan of this, looks out of place

having it just in the player menu was enough for me

[flint warren]

I'm fond of it, and I feel like it's just a matter of getting used to it.
Either that, or putting it at the bottom of the screen instead

[flint warren]

I'd like not to have to check user menu after ~every dungeon to see if it's filled or not, and having it right there is helpful

But I understand if people disagree

[broken sinew]

maybe it could just tell me by lighting this icon ablaze?

[mortal tulip]

I love that

[keen monolith]

btw for the last patch note, can someone explain like I'm 5? Lol

I'm assuming that let's say your party leader has chosen crit maluses, but you chose perma stat fades, you can still do big crits and the leader's stats don't fade?

How does that work for maluses like zerk encounters, 2nd chances etc? Do zerk encounters still depend on the leader (kinda like monumental spec?) e.g the leader has 50% zerk encounters and you have 1%, what'll be the zerk rate encounter in a dungeon? But for 2nd chances ... I'm assuming that kicks in on whoever lands the last hit? If party leader has 50% second chance while you have 1% every mob the party leader kills has 5o% second chance while every mob that you kill has 1% chance to have a second life?

[turbid basalt]

for maluses that effect the entire scope of the battle (ie zerk chance, monster stats, etc), the party leader's maluses will be used

[young summit]

Maybe the bar should have multiple segments that can be used (like flasks)? Essentially increase the total cap for the bar, but keep all the rates the same otherwise - let us accumulate more "charges" for using and gaining rewards

That would also allow for more powerful effects that can use multiple charges of the bar

[obsidian garden]

I spent a good hour in the beta now, and, i agree.

The new system is fun. I enjoy it. I feel like my ALs are respected, and my Investment in the endgame as a player as a whole.
Odie, ORN, damn amazing job.

Things i dont like:

• Theres not enough things to do with the karmic bar
• its an absolute bar, if its full, you have to spend it, or "waste" future charge

Things i would see as an improvement:

• More segments for the charge bar, maybe increase it to 2 or 3, or make the duration of the same buff stack
• Give us a message in the content, that the bar is full (i advanced a dungeon floor, gained a proof, bat is full? KARMIC MAGIC CHARGED!) maybe even an option to use it directly from there, like showing the options around the bar?
• More buffs, like as already said, make all world fight horde fights, give lower tier monsters a chance to drop proofs, and orn/gold/exp increase. Also could remove some maluses temporarily?
• For T11, chance the karmic bar in the player screen to be the circle that previously was our EXP circle, like it replaced the EXP bar on world screen. I Miss this accursed thing going forward and backward and losing it is almost as bad as losing the small swoosh forward when your character acts in battle in fast animation mode (Bring it back pls)

[mortal tulip]

I think I agree with all your points.

[obsidian garden]

Overall its fun, its enjoyable, its creative, it adds something that you dont worry about, but look forward to.
The main thought is to make it the least cumbersome possible. But i think we found the system that stays.

I see this also as a chance to add functions to it that address other things that a good chunk of people would want (T9&8 dropping proofs too, Open World Horde fights) - individually, without forcing it on everybody, while simultaniously increasing the options we have with this new function.

[mortal tulip]

I think once this or something close to it goes live the focus can be tweaking the individual content types and just make sure all of them are fun and rewarding

[violet wharf]

Very impressed at these developers finding innovative solutions that all can work with. If you think hard enough, and work hard enough, you can solve any problem! Great work.

I can't access the Beta since I don't use android, but would love more info on the bar. Filling bars is excellent and rewarding, and I liked the previous bonuses of better proof drop rate.

Now that I have looked at a Karmic reward screenshot in this thread. If the Proof Bonus is +10 percent as in going from a 20 percent to a 30 percent drop rate (do we still cap at 50?), then PERFECT. If the +10 percent brings us from 20 percent to 22 percent, then I would rather the former rate.

Proof discount seems fine, but limited use. Maybe an orn or gold bonus so we can do anguish content while not having to use farm gear to get more currency?

If the luck bonus is additive to the existing anguish bonus AND works for raids, then this is great. Could really help hunt ornates from raids, and combined with the already higher anguished gear drop chance. Perfect.

Would love to see more than 3 bonuses to choose from.

[lament wolf]

An Orn bonus would also be much loved by say the dead Gilga class? Or people who don't like to do endless for their orn piles

[inland blade]

What would stop that orn bonus from being used by people doing Endless as well?

Edit: If you mean from the karma shop

I don't think it'd be good to add to the checklist of things you "need" to do before starting an endless run

[mortal tulip]

What if it was something geared towards newer players?

Like for 30 minutes you get a semi random pile of orns for go up a monument floor?

[inland blade]

Imo nothing in Anguish should really be geared toward newer players

Newer players can't really shackle to charge the meter either

[flint warren]

Shackles are only necessary if they're available

If you don't have access to them, it charges by default afaict

[mortal tulip]

i was making that suggestion because it seemed like Odie wanted anguish to be engaging for fresh tier 10's and such. There is also some rich getting richer talk and helping the next gen is cool by me.

[lament wolf]

This is true, but I was just saying a different form of orn farming vs endless. Doesn't have to be drastic 🤷. Someone suggested orn/gold and thought it was good as well. Just throwing out ideas haha

[quasi tree]

We all the extra MF/DF that has to be done with using DWT a gold booster would be great to see (though I'm definitely in the minority for this 😅)

[mortal tulip]

https://tenor.com/view/gold-joke-seinfeld-solid-good-one-gif-23737331

[halcyon shuttle]

so what is the state of current beta numbers? shackles applied from anguish 1 or 5 like in live?

[inland blade]

5, like in live

[halcyon shuttle]

k

[obsidian garden]

Gold is not real, it cant hurt you!
But yeah a currency booster would be fun.

[inland blade]

I don't like adding to the endless prep needed for optimal endless dungeons, but I'm not going to fight over it either

[midnight quail]

I am not sure whether this belongs here or into bug report: in the beta, the malus of the chosen path is not working correctly. E.g. Ang5 reduces my crit chance, although I didn't choose this option.

[quasi tree]

For those curious on the new karma boosters

[dull girder]

what's the price on those things, didnt read the changes

[broken sinew]

farm x proofs with shackles enabled

currently x is like 10 but i think odie mentioned on live it would be arround 100

[dull girder]

oh ok, that's cool
does it work for raids (the 1% ornate)

[turbid basalt]

could you show me where you are seeing the crit chance reduction?

[quasi tree]

I can understand where you're coming from 100%, what's your thoughts on maybe increasing the Orn booster it from 15% -> 25% but adding "when completing Anguish content" at the end? That way it's more so tailored towards specifically using it with anguish content

[broken sinew]

given this is likely added onto the anguish multiplier i'd assume so

[inland blade]

It is currently seeming plausible that running Endless on Anguish 1 might be the most optimal way to do it anyway 😅

[quasi tree]

ahhhh fair, I have yet to try it but can definatly see that being the case

[quasi tree]

+1, am also receiving crit maluse without selecting it

[boreal cove]

This might be same as this bug where there's some inconsistencies with the selected options vs what you actually get. https://discord.com/channels/448527960056791051/1392113838329172129

[flint warren]

Is this a non summoner thing?

For the crucible bonuses I imagine

[plucky musk]

I've been running all my endlesses at ang1 🤷‍♂️ I end up dying a smidge sooner and I think it's a little worse for raw orns than ang0 as a result, but I like getting a drip of melancholies in exchange. I think with the right anguished gear bonuses it might be overall better by a hair.

[obsidian garden]

Endless is sadistic non the less.
This wont do a lot i would argue

[flint warren]

Probably the case, but it's not like I run endless all too often I suppose

[obsidian garden]

I love the new additions. I do have two more ideas tho.

Maybe... a horde mode for open world with it?
Or even, something like an affinity candle but just T10 mobs?

[turbid basalt]

fixed in 5

[plucky musk]

Regarding endless and anguish, overall I echo that I'm not super happy to see Yet Another Stacking Multiplier for orn endless. Making it non-endless or anguish-only or something would help, but mostly I just don't see the benefit of having that option in the karma shop.

On one hand, it's acceleration. On the other hand, endless is already so incredibly beyond all other activities in terms of orns and how little comparative orns are needed to ascend that it's overall just a very small portion of the game.

Anguish and endless never really meshed, since both are all about scaling up enemy difficulty until the breaking point. Having the same effect twice doesn't make sense. The ultimate goal imo would be to make something special for endless on its own, as it is uniquely different content compared to other pve.

I had written up a suggestion for guildifying endless last year, focusing on getting people to engage with it on a ~weekly basis without making it even more rewarding per run. Linked here, though I doubt it's important enough to prioritize over all the other post-ang2.0 planned development:
https://discordapp.com/channels/448527960056791051/1257928189636771982/1258067756289364019

[quick lava]

Hi all - please see here to vote on a poll re: this update!
#polls message

[obsidian garden]

I dont see the benefit of having +15% currency?

You dont need to use it for endless.
But you can.
You will not get less then before if you dont.
Having it is not negative or detremental in any way shape or form.

[turbid basalt]

I love the idea of making them anguish content only

[flint warren]

That'd be better, though as was mentioned, people will likely be running anguish 1 endless anyhow

So not sure ultimately just how impactful that change'd be - and if worth the effort

[plucky musk]

timed orn bonus = current anguish path level, ship it 🙏
ang 1 endless? 1% more orns

Practically I don't know how much exp/orn/gold farming people tend to do outside of endless, though. The pattern for many years has been that endless does all of that stuff and then everything else in the game has materials (or gear) rewards.

There's like one other halfway decent orn-farm method outside of endless via DMs with all their stacking multipliers, but even that is a shallow comparison. Ang1.0 ang50 goblins and world farm (stardrops) and world bosses (in HoA) was okay, but Ang1.0 is rapidly becoming past history anyway.

[obsidian garden]

Not letting anguish content make normal content easier is good enough of an incentivise for my book!

[inland blade]

Karmic Salvation works... weirdly.

1. Karmic Salvation activated, Anguish off, no bonus HP
2. Karmic Salvation activated, Anguish on, no bonus HP
3. Played with the anguish dial a bit, now I have bonus HP
4. Turned anguish off, I still have bonus HP

[lament wolf]

Big fan of the new rewards and even 15% is good. Also agree on making all of it anguish only on the orn/gold side

[young summit]

I am excited to get 15% more orns in my endless because number go up

I really wish we were able to change anguish level outside of my OT. Not having this option makes party play much clunkier and adding it wouldn't even benefit alt multiboxing