ST needs more freezing, slowing, ice eaters, frost acolytes and terrain changers

Because you are blind and continue to demonstrate that you have no idea what is even going on in this game.

Here is a list of the non-champion runes that have been nerfed recently:

Noraweave
Pygmy Hippo Stampede
Drown
Font Eruption
Snaptooth Crypt

Foul Rite
Festering Wounds
Doom
Steal Life
Repurpose
Chains of Corruption
Witching Hour
Haunt
Bone Circle Staff
Scouring Jasper
Witches' Hourglass
Unholy Tomb
Crown of Nightbarbs

Fan Faire
Carnivorous Vines
Fire for Effect
Bond of Vashal
Eriluun's Favor
Brambles
Overgrowth
Slipstream Fulcrum
Throne of the Circle (twice)
Covenant
Amareth's Lexicon

Righteous Deflection
Macadamize
Might of Ironfist
Mark of Redemption
Forge Hammer (twice)
Morin's Corner
Griffin's Perch
Northern Cross Obelisk

Howling Wind
Ice Storm
Ancient Implications
Ferren Hideout
Star Catalog
L'usara's Staff

Channeled Violence (twice)
State of Confusion
Crack the Earth
Lightning Rod
Slaver's Whip

Mine Field
Magnetize
Dragonfear
Forbidden Fruit
Gatling Gun

Split Personality
Drain Vitality
Masochism
Bane Shift (currently banned from ranked)
Superiority
Dimension Door
Molten Cloak

(Spells in Bold)

Nearly all of this has been since the Nov 18th Patch, when I began a review of all non-champion runes.

And this isn't the first time you have demonstrated you don't know what's going on. Even just this week, when you claimed Channeled Violence was untouched until ballballer mentioned it even though you had talked about it a year ago... well, apparently you never noticed that it got nerfed 9 months ago.

Maybe we aren't as awesome at balance as you, but who can tell when you don't actually give any useful feedback most of the time and when you do talk, you repeatedly demonstrate a lack of knowledge about the current state of the game or what's been happening? Again, there's nothing wrong with criticism or having different opinions than me, but it's incredible to me how you just say things and have assumptions that can be so easily demonstrated to be completely wrong.

I mean, god damn, if most of that isn't "nerfing staples," what is?! We can argue about definition of staples and why X or Y specifically wasn't nerfed, and how some of those are new, etc., but either way it's reasonably easy to see that Ice Storm wasn't randomly nerfed and everything else was ignored.

 

As for the topic, ST actually has the most terrain/damage type interaction in general, and thematically/lore-wise it is the most tied to the damage/terrain as well. I don't think spreading around more Ice Eater/Ice Front is really going to change anything.

That said, I think many of the options are quite outdated and I'd like to introduce some new, more novel stuff for ST players in the future.

 

So here's the thing.

The reason I am snarky sometimes with you really comes down to two things:

1. Quite frankly, you are abusive to other players, who are ALSO my Customers
2. The lack of constructive feedback that I KNOW you are capable of

When I came back, you were extremely angry at Gedden for the revamp, the way the Council was run, etc. I tried to explain to you how I utilize the Council differently, I brought back the Crate so everyone knows what's coming up and can provide feedback, and that seemed to appease you for awhile. I then tried to get you to focus on the issues as well as focus the criticism on me, by repeatedly explaining to you that it really should be on ME. If you have problems with decisions, it isn't Xirone or Markoth you should be complaining about, you should address the ISSUEs so I can understand why you think they are a problem.

And I do this with you because we had a good working relationship in the past where you provided feedback that I felt was valuable (even if some other players thought you were just another ST zealot in my fanclub). I even defended you against other players and their accusations in the past.

So when most of your posts consisted largely of attacking other players, I spoke to you privately. We discussed things and you said you would try and post more constructively. You then looked at the latest patch and gave some GREAT feedback on about 1/2 of that patch, but this quickly faded and you went back to the old habits.

You know I like your feedback when you do provide it. It's why I engage with you so often. There are people who just troll and I mostly just ignore them because I know I won't get anything useful out of them anyway. For example, when you posted the list of things IS has for spot effects, and I suggested you can make a list like that for other factions, you challenged me to do so... and I did. I spent a few hours putting a list together to see if I was right or wrong. You never commented nor replied, and I was disappointed by that, but either way your comments did encourage me to verify my own claims - which I appreciate.

So that's why I keep trying to get you to see how I and other players perceive you. It doesn't mean you don't know what you are talking about. But how can we tell if you aren't showing us the right way?

 

But yea, I am not perfect. I admit this. It's why I take good feedback seriously, and engage in discussions. It's also why I am willing to admit I am wrong, and go back on changes that turned out to be bad.

~

It's true SOME of the stuff on those lists were from buffs. But many others were not. Others that got buffed still don't see play. Some got nerfed multiple times, such as Witching Hour, which went from global to AE3 way back in March.

Ferren Hideout was actually buffed just like some of the others, but it started getting ran often in a number of ST decks for spot relocate, so I put it back to 35 and, as stated in the Crate, am planning on making it work as intended for Ferren specifically and bring the cost back down to the 30 I want it at. So no, it wasn't "firked again out of nowhere" and it's strange to me that you react that way to an ST rune being "unbuffed" but so differently to FW ones being "unbuffed."

Unholy Tomb is still used, and you have to keep in mind my goal is not to nerf things so they are shoebox. Data-wise it isn't auto, and I know a number of FW players who do not auto deploy this thing as they had in the past. It's still a great early deploy, certainly, but also not to the extent it used to be.

And yep, lots of stuff got buffed in many factions. I was doing a fairly wide-scale update to the non-champion rune spells. TONS OF stuff got changed, and certain things, like Crack the Earth which has almost never been ran, turned out to be REALLY good. As I said, I am very willing to admit I am wrong, and I expected to have to roll back some stuff when I made so many changes, especially to old spells that weren't being used often and we didn't have much data on. At the same time, part of the goal WAS to introduce some shakeups in the meta in terms of non-champion runeslots.

Mark of Redemption and Ancient Implications are very similar spells and both utilized quite heavily, so if Ancient Implications is a staple to you, then I don't understand why you would exclude Mark of Redemption.

This was basically 2x auto in every FS deck and is still largely utilized in most FS decks. If you have specific insight as to why it was "uncalled for," I'd be interested to hear it. @doubtofbuddha might agree with you actually, as he had criticism of that nerf as well, but personally, I'd like to see FS' core spell competency be more utility and CC-based.

You have an extreme hatred of KF for some reason. And maybe you are right, maybe I do favor KF. But it isn't done on purpose, and I don't do it specifically. There are plenty of KF players who hate me for nerfing their stuff all the time, so as far as feedback goes, I generally feel like I hate every faction.

I don't know what definition you are using for "staple" here, but most of those runes were heavily utilized in meta (such as C. Vines, which became extremely popular while you were not really active, but it was a 25 nora hard CC spell that was winning mid-fonts all over the place). In other cases, they were used in their themes ala Channeled Violence (Bond of Vashal, Fire for Effect, Throne of the Circle). So if you "like" the nerf to CV and Witching Hour, then I don't think you can argue nerfing Bond of Vashal, for example, wasn't along the same lines.

So I really think you are being unfair with regards to KF here, mostly because of your obvious bias against the faction ever since Gedden nerfed Arctic.

BP doesn't run it specifically cause he thinks it's cheese:

~

Even if it's true... why should they be? You of all people, I don't think, is advocating that if I nerf something one faction, I need to nerf every faction in a similar manner, I hope? Sometimes, something in one faction is just OP and we nerf that thing and that's that.

They really don't. You continue to simultaneously accuse me of not listening to players AND listening to players, and it's just awkward.

It depends on the type of thing. In this case, the goal was go thru all the non-champion runes. I still have some stuff to evaluate, but as you can see from the above list, lots of that has changed in the past few months.

But as I said, there's no reason to nerf ALL of X if only one or two is out of line (on the other hand, you also suggest nerfing Font Eruption was "uncalled for" in a series of patches that nerfed many what I consider staple spells, including many AEs, so again, somewhat contradictory feedback from my POV). There are also some cases where changes require code changes, so they happen slower, such as Summons or dealing with Cliff Diving (which is a core engine change and not something done lightly).

I also targeted mostly direct DMG or damage stacking/buffing spells for nerfs, while buffing or leaving along the less direct impact spells. So that's another reason why some things weren't touched.

So I certainly feel that many staples were nerfed across all factions. You might disagree, but it seems after looking at what was actually nerfed you just feel like it wasn't as "even" as you would have done it, and that's certainly a potentially valid argument.

In any case though, I hope at least after reviewing that list you DO see that Ice Storm wasn't the only staple nerfed out of nowhere like you originally claimed - which was what I was replying to mostly with my list.

I do think, from a messaging perspective, it might have been received better by some if I had done most of these at once in a single patch (so that different factions didn't feel like they were getting significantly nerfed more in a specific patch).

 

I want to highlight this specifically, @Pedeguerra, because this is partly what made me post what I did earlier about you not paying attention and just spouting angry things. If you do not read/reply to anything else, I hope you at least read this section regarding CV so you can understand my reaction better.

CV was nerfed fairly quickly when I came back and got settled. In fact, I nerfed it in the EXACTLY one of the ways you suggested it should be dealt with on March 4th:

So I made it cost 40... RIGHT AFTER discussing it with you in the Crate (over many posts) in the very NEXT patch on March 16th.

So when more I RECENTLY decided on a further +5 increase recently after the addition of a couple of new SL runes that work EXTREMELY well in Draksar (Flashblade and Indignation), you turn around and make the ENTIRELY false claim that I ignored the spell after you complained about it a year ago and that I only cared when Ballballer mentioned it... and then even after I pointed out that I DID nerf it already... you say, sarcastically, "good job on not dealing with it on the first go."

I hope you can at least IMAGINE how it feels to be on the receiving end of this which is... well, quite frankly, bullshit. I mean, how do you expect me to react to this blatant disregard for what actually happened and your anger towards a situation that in NO WAY happened the way you seem to think?

And this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened too - this has happened a number of times this year with various things (such as when you came back recently, and discovered I was telling the truth in regard to the decreased cheap meat spam).

So while I do respect your opinions when you do provide constructive feedback, I hope you can see how when you make these kinds of comments I might be less sure of the validity of your comments than you are (particularly when you don't explain them)?

 

Oh, and this one makes me sad because it's so OBVIOUSLY not what I do.

While, of course, I do make the final decisions and I have to do what I think is right - I make this game for the players and the community. It's why I am so vocal on the forums and engage so much with the players. It's why when I wanted to fix Ferren I spent hours on the ST forums discussion what players would like to see with Ferren, and then started SECOND discussion post-rework of Ferren to hash out the remaining concerns/issues.

Ferren was done under SOE when Corpse and Rev was still working there. Fae have always been in PoxNora. Vashal, Jellebrium and other such themes came later, when players began asking for more coherent themes like the others and continue to do so. If you look at rune suggestions or the "Player created expansion" thread, you will see these are the kinds of things players want expanded - and I oblige. In fact, expansion content is largely based on what players are requesting - if people are asking for Jellebrium, there will probably be Jellebrium 6 months down the line (because that's the timeline/pipeline).

Corgis though, that is 100% Gedden/DOG, I didn't do any of those - I just got the art they requested and did something with them

And Ichor, yea, that didn't work very well in meta (though it was well-liked in Drafts, which was kind of the idea). SOE was also mandating a bunch of stuff at the time including minimal time spent on development of expansions, so we had our hands tied quite a bit in regards to what could be done with a few of those expansions (which is why you saw so many dull abilities like Solo and Ichor which required very little code time).

Personally, I like the way the game is now more than the SOE era of "everything has 8 abilities and is undercosted and themes are BOOST + Stat buffing only and we have all kinds of similar abilities that all work slightly differently" and more into templated abilities, interesting mechanics that embrace the idea of synergy between runes instead of stand-alone power.