Reworking the runes system

[MaxBlue01]

Must read before continuing:

This is a message to all readers who are curious about what's going on in this thread. First of all, this is NOT the place for toxicity. If you are going to join the discussion just to harass/insult people and do nothing to participate with the discussion: GET OUT NOW. You have been warned. I'm especially talking to those who don't even take the time and effort to read and understand what other people are saying (while they made effort to write the whole thing), and then complain about the length instead of the CONTENT. Literally, no one cares if you are too lazy to read everything, so no need to post that. Lastly, this is an open discussion about a SUGGESTION. You are free to agree with me, or disagree with me (as long as you explain why. Because just saying "no" doesn't help anyone), or have questions related to the suggestions / or not understanding something.

Summary for lazy people:

general current problems:
- runes too expansives + prices make no sense between runes
- runes too rare, especially for how many we need to max our equipment
- runes drops distribution makes no sense
- runes powers are not balanced, especially fire and poison
- only ice runes have a special way of obtain them: the ice statue

general sugestions:
- no runes dropped at early-mid areas
- runes can only drop at high-mid / late areas, with only low levels runes at high-mid, and all runes levels at late areas (not just high lvl runes).
- increase runes drop chance (maybe between 1/500 and 1/ 1 000?). Could depend with monster's strenght (stronger monster = higher chances).
- create several runes shops (with specific levels at specific locations. early areas: low rune levels. late areas: high rune levels)
- create more ways to obtain other types of runes, not just ice runes

runes types rework: (note: i'm not 100% sure how runes on armor work. some players think it's glitched. I'm also assuming runes effects on armor stack)
- sharpening: more atk
- hardening: more defence
- fire: 2s cooldown on fire dmg, lower overall fire dmg, lower fire resistance
- electric: higher spread damage, lower electric resistance
- poison: higher poison damage value, but with forced 2s cooldown between each poison effect. poison resistance unchanged
- ice: longer ice effect, higher chance to inflict ice effect (i think), slightly weaker ice effect. lower ice resistance

detailed arguments for normal educated people:

current problems:
- runes at vendors are way too expansive for the boost we receive:
H1 cost between 30k and 150k, for just a few defence points.
S1 cost between 100k and 300k, for just a few attack points
I1 cost around 200k. Ice is arguably a weak effect currently, especially at low levels. This is defenitely overpriced.
P1 cost betwen 100k and 250k. To be honest, P1 and + are still too strong, so i guess that's an ok price for P1...
F1 cost 1M (for some reason). While F5 is OP, i don't think just getting F1 should be that expensive.
E1 cost between 300k and 450k for a almost negligeable damage boost
people think it's fine to sell runes based on rarity instead of usefullness, which is not fine. It's quite literally a scam that only profit high lvl capitalists players.

- prices between runes levels make no sense: How f1 cost 1M, while f2 cost like 200k? How P3 cost 1M and P4 and P5 cost 400k? Just like the previous problem, high level players are scamming normal players by putting prices based on rarity instead of usefullness. The selling prices should follow a logic. The better the upgrade, the higher the price. And no, we just don't jump from 100k immediately to 1M next level.

- as i stated before, one main problem about the runes is how rare they are. There is a clear disproportion between the runes rarity and the bonus they provide. Let's not forget that for a character who is dual-wielding, the max number of runes he can use is: 5 x 5 x 7 (types of runes x number of levels x number of equipment pieces). That's 175 different runes, which is a LOT to max a character. And every update that add new stronger sets + armor, that player will have to do everything over again from the start.

- speaking of rune drop chances: it's distribution is a complete mess. For low level runes, a high player have only two choices: either hope to find one and buy at an exagerated price, or invade low-levels areas for DAYS to find ONE rune

- some runes seems way too OP, like fire runes for warriors and poison for cowboys. To the point players can cheese the whole game if they have some runes (a mid level character with a gun + lot of poison runes can easily farm titanium droids, even with only 1 artillery). And let's not forget poison runes are OP/broken in PvP, especially with gunmans. Meanwhile, other runes are nearly useless in comparaison.

- currently, only ice runes have an alternate way of obtaining, with the ice statue inside the ice cave. Others runes types don't have such a special method.



suggestions:

- since runes are pretty much a high-mid / end game boosts, let's not make them droppable for early-mid areas. Meaning no runes will drop at all on like the first half of the normal game progression. This is to prevent high level players invading new players areas while they farm.

- for high-mid / late game areas: make it so there is some kind of rune progression. Stronger monsters will have higher chances to drop high lvl runes. Like beetle can drop H1, H2, H3, S1, S2, S3, P1, E1, I1, F1, while saw guardian can drop almost ANY runes (including low level runes) (Make keep some lvl 5 runes for bosses). For H3, it could be like: Beetle: 1 / 1000, Saw guardian: 1 / 500. For elemental enemies, they can drop higher level of their corresponding rune with higher chances. Low level runes can be dropped from ANY monster after a certain area, so even titanium droids can drop runes like H1, S1, ...

- overall, runes drops should be increased by a lot. Right now, it is a complete pain that is NOT FUN just to get ONE rune. And the runes at vendor are all way too expansive. We absoultely don't need a drop rate of 1 rune every 2 weeks or 1 month. It should be much more frequent, especially since the meta FORCES players to get runes (especially fire and poison). The runes drop chances should be increased significantly, like 1/500 or 1/ 1000 (i don't know the detailed drop rates tables + odds for each enemy). The important point is to have a REASONABLE odds to obtain a rune. Otherwise, new / normal players won't feel like progressing at all for a very long time.

- i also made a suggestion before about creating a special shop (multiple shops) that sell runes (shops rune levels can depend on location: lvl 1 and 2 at teplar, lvl 3 at allion, lvl 4 at mushroom village, lvl 5 at the 2nd resistance shop), although some players disagreed with that, which i can understand. Still, another big problem is how much runes price vary with no logic at all. There must be a way to force specific runes prices that match his boost, not how rare it is. There is no reason only capitalists can be max runed because they have 100x more money than a normal lvl 60 player who can barely afford the next set. Every rune need a max price (like S1: max 50k-100k, F1: 200k, P1: 200k, E1: 150k, ...)

- If most of the suggestions i made before are applied correctly, i think there will be no need to keep the ice statue that random drop ice runes. Or maybe have it nerfed a bit, like one rune every 8-12 hours? (according to the wiki, currently, it drop a random ice rune every 20 minutes? Though not sure how true it is). If my previous suggestions aren't applied, then there would be no reason why only ice runes can spawn naturally. Other runes types should be able to spawn at specific locations (obviously not in the ice cave). Another idea would be to make something similar to the wishing well event, but for runes. Like every 12 hours, the ice statue eject 2-5 runes of various levels (this prevent having only one player farming at ice statue, while others cant get anything because absurd lag)



while runes production is one main problem, i want to also try to fix another problem involving runes: the runes effects. For each rune types, I will first remind how runes effects work currently, then i will propose how we can rework them:

disclaimer: i could be wrong about how protective runes work. I think the defence runes CANCEL the enemy attack runes, instead of direct reduction.
ex: player A have p5 gun (20 poison dmg), player B have 5 x p4 armor (-20 poison dmg in total)
> player B should NOT take any poison dmg. (assuming no elemental boost)
if i'm incorrect, there is NO NEED to be toxic about it, or aggresively insult me. you can just calmy correct me like normal educated people. For every runes, i'm assuming there is NO elemental boost skill applied.


current runes effects:
sharpening (weapon): more base dmg (amount gained depends of original value of equipment)
hardening (armor): more defence (amount gained depends of original value of equipment)

reworked effects:
sharpening: +10 weapon atk stat for all 5 stages (guns weapons can get +15/20 instead, since they have very low base damage)
max: + 50 atk stat
hardening: +4 defence stat for all 5 stages. Maybe it can depend on armor class (like warrior armor get bigger bonus?)
max: +20 defence / armor (keep in mind you will need a total of 25 rune to max defence)
> max + 100 defence total
those changes are mostly for low-mid level equipments. Although it will also still slightly increase high level equipment compared to now.

-----

current runes effects:
fire (weapon): 15% dmg/sec /stage (which mean 30% every 2 seconds)
max: 75% total damage
fire (armor): -3.5% fire dmg / stage
max: -17.5% fire dmg /armor
> max -87.5% fire dmg total (with 5 armor pieces)

reworked effects:
fire (weapon): 20% dmg every 2 seconds / stage.
max 100% fire dmg every 2 seconds
fire (armor): -3% fire dmg / stage
max -15% /armor
> max -75% fire dmg total
fire damage effect happen way too fast/frequently and is way too strong. It's power need to be reduced.

-----

current runes effects:
electric (weapon): 15% "burst" damage/stage to nearby "enemies" per attack. affect enemies on water
max: 75% total spread damage
electric (armor): -3.5% electric dmg / stage
max: -17.5% electric dmg /armor
> max -87.5% electric dmg total

reworked effects:
electric (weapon): 20% burst damage/stage per attack. water effect unchanged
max 100% spread damage per attack
electric (armor): -3% electric dmg / stage
max -15% / armor
> max -75% electric dmg total
just a slight damage boost, while nerfing a bit electric resistance from armors.

-----

current runes effects:
poison (weapon): 4 fixed damage/stage, the poison ignore defence
max: 20 poison damage
poison (armor): -1 poison dmg / stage
max: -5 poison dmg /armor
> max -25 poison dmg total

reworked effects:
poison (weapon): 2-handed weapon: 9 fixed damage / stage, poison ignore defence. HOWEVER the poison effect have a 2 seconds cooldown.
max 45 poison damage (every 2 seconds) (with 1 weapon)
dual wielding: 5 fixed damage/stage, poison ignore defence. HOWEVER the poison effect have a 2 seconds cooldown. Both weapons share the same cooldown: if weapon A triggered poison effect, neither weapon A or weapon B can trigger poison again for 2 seconds. When poison effect would activate, we take the highest poison damage between the 2 weapons (ex: weapon A have P4), then we give a slight poison damage boost depending of the other poison rune (+10% poison damage per poison rune stage). Ex: weapon A have P4 (= 20 poison dmg) and weapon B have P3 (+30% poison dmg). The total poison damage would then be 26.
max 38 poison damage (rounded up) (every 2 seconds) (with 2 weapons)
poison (defence): -1 poison dmg/stage
max: -5 poison dmg / armor
> max -25 poison dmg total
the constant constant damage from poison is extremly strong, and it's completely broken with gunman class, who can literally melt 90% of players in seconds. It isn't fine that gunman's efficiency completely relies on his poison runes, regardless of the artillery stats or the gun used (especially pellet spitter). This suggestion attempt to balance gunman + poison runes, so that it's no longer OP. This change make it so that all class will have similar efficiency with poison runes. And before you complain about this: i still believe gunman class by itself is an OP class, duh to the fact it can literally INSTANTLY AIM at anyone, without them being able to dodge (no, running and rolling do nothing compared to mouse speed. Gunmans can literally predict any movements with non-stop fast attacks)

-----

current runes effects:
ice (weapon): chance (unknown to me) to freeze enemy for 3 sec: reduce defence by 8%/stage
max: 40% defence reduction.
ice (armor): ice defence reduction effect : -1.3% / stage
max: -6.5% /armor
> -32.5% reduction total

reworked effects:
ice (weapon): 10% chance to freeze enemy for 5 sec: reduce defence by 6%/stage. Note: for gunmans, the chance to freeze is dropped to 0,5%-1% per hit (considering their mugh higher attack rate).
max 30% defence reduction.
ice (armor): ice defence reduction effect: -0.8% / stage
max -4% / armor
> max -20% reduction total
Ice effect doesn't seem frequent enough to be viable. Meanwhile, 40% defence reduction is a lot. So i tryed to increase the frequency, but also reducing the strength of freeze effect.



Right now, there is only an extremly small percentage of players who actually have fun: lvl 100+ capitalist who have much more money than they needed. Like spending 100M+ per week (or day for all i know) to buy tons of emeralds from vendor, and tons of runes, just to exploit them and gain even more money. Meanwhile, new players slowly try to progress, while ignoring most stuff about the game economy (especially runes and overpriced equipments), and after some time, those new players will be around lvl 30-50 and will be basically stuck there for month, because the game is NOT new-player friendly and provide NO effort to encourage them keep playing. Instead, they are faced with a huge paywall of 4-5 M coins to buy new gear, and they have no realistic way of doing it in the near future. And no, grinding for months at the same monster over and over again is NOT the solution (and as far as i'm aware, very few players are playing the game 10+ hours per day). In other words: very high levels players already have max gear + max runes + way too much money to spend, while other players are literally stuck. Those very normal players are quite literaly getting scammed by high level players by being forced to sell runes for cheap, only for the high level players to re-sale them again at a much higher price. And even if the normal players manage to gain enough money by selling the few runes they have to progress very slightly, if they need to add runes later, it will cost them another absurd amount of money.

Yes i'm obviously angry at people who don't understand this basic problem (or they pretend to ignore the problem, knowing it's "bad for them" like selfish people). Yes i'm angry at people who refuse to change the current runes system because they enjoy exploiting it to gain an absurd amount of money / cheesing any PvP fights, regardless if it's fair and balanced or not. Yes i'm angry at Robby for even have such a scummy rune system to even be allowed. Yes i'm angry at Robby for not thinking about his own ideas and the consequences it has. And no matter what you say, just because Robby is the developer, that doesn't necessarly make him completely respectful, trustworthy and fair to everyone. There are people in the world that are scammers who are willing to do anything to earn as much money as possible. One usual method is intentionnaly creating bad designed mechanics to trick clueless people (like young kids). I know i'm being rude to Robby right now, but considering what he did to HH, and what he is currently doing with Eliatopia, i still don't feel like he earned my trust as a game developer, which is why i'm often criticising the game (and consideing the several design flaws and things that aren't working, i think it's only fair to say the game wasn't made seriously). But it's not just Robby's fault. It's also the few capitalist players who pretty much want to play by themselves alone at this point. Because let me warn everyone here: if the game stays as it is with no major change, the future of this game will be obvious: no more than 30 very high levels rich capitalists players online, and maybe very few curious new players. That's it, no one else. In other words: it's already becoming a dying game.

[Pro_xGamer]

Support

[TheWood]

Support.
I don't really like resistances, it's a huge waste of runes. In farming monsters don't have that huge damage to kill you with elemental attacks if you have the right gear and level for grinding in that area. Warriors usually have a huge defense for that. In pvp other classes fire and electric damage is not great, and with resistances to these runes they lose most of their use. A warrior with rage already had enough defense to almost ignore electric damage and fire damage from other classes. You only have the sense to use electrical and fire resistance when fighting warriors. If a warrior uses rage and makes his set maxed out, he won't care about your fire and electrical damage, as long as you're not a warrior either. Initially poison damage was fine until ridiculous resistances were added, then a skill to increase your elemental damage by 80% and poison zone to increase poison damage by 80% (120% before the nerf lol), pvp has actually gotten worse since the time resistances were added to game.
Giving runes to bosses is actually a bad idea unless they are reworked. Whipmasters easily outgrind other classes and only one player can grind there.
P5 is not worth 400k, this rune costs 9m and is one of most expensive runes in the game.

[Bill_Rizer]

While the rune drops are a lot bigger than that IMO, at least from my experience because even though I have only been active in the past 2-3 ish weeks I have gotten nearly about 20 runes. But yeah everything else I have experienced and dealt with. I definitely suffer from needing to sell runes cheap (s1 and h1 i usually sell for 25k and element runes for 30k) just for people to buy them and likely sell them for higher. Sharpening and Hardening runes are too hard and too expensive to get to actually use, and element runes can usually only be reasonable grinded from bosses (which usually are grinded by the pros who will even sabotage other players from grinding by killing the boss after saying they won't). With something even remotely similar to this were to be added, then I am certain the game would be much better.

I also like what you said in the beginning, it was pretty funny.

[Joey!!]

i honestly only read the problem summery
i think that,
YES
in pvp, fire with warriors and poison with gunman is too op, not for other classes.
NO
in farming, poison really help gunmen. without poison, it literally takes like 30 seconds to kill a single shrrom warrior with a clean saw pistol.
YES
ice statue does give alot of ice runes, making them not cost very much. but
NO
remember how rare ice runes were before it was added? also that leads up to
NO
the rune rices make perfect sense. its all based on rarity.

if i forgot to cover something in the sommery plz tell me
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
oh yeah
now that im reading the biginning of the solutions summery,
NO
petunias drop p1
fanged/spiked squshers drop s1 and h1, and i think s2 and s3 and h2 and h3
ground spitters drop f1,
see your asumptions arent always right.
if u dont belive me go look it up yourself
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
now im starting to really read the real thing,
your saying h1 prices are 30k-150k, which that is true bc of all the nubs trying to get as much money as possible.
but for highr defence armor/stronger weapons, its not just a few more dmg anymore. it gets up to like 30 more dmg points from a s1 for a hovoc prob
also ice rune prices are like 50k rn not 200k AND yes i dont see alot of use in ice runes

[Joey!!]

Support.
I don't really like resistances, it's a huge waste of runes. In farming monsters don't have that huge damage to kill you with elemental attacks if you have the right gear and level for grinding in that area. Warriors usually have a huge defense for that. In pvp other classes fire and electric damage is not great, and with resistances to these runes they lose most of their use. A warrior with rage already had enough defense to almost ignore electric damage and fire damage from other classes. You only have the sense to use electrical and fire resistance when fighting warriors. If a warrior uses rage and makes his set maxed out, he won't care about your fire and electrical damage, as long as you're not a warrior either. Initially poison damage was fine until ridiculous resistances were added, then a skill to increase your elemental damage by 80% and poison zone to increase poison damage by 80% (120% before the nerf lol), pvp has actually gotten worse since the time resistances were added to game.
Giving runes to bosses is actually a bad idea unless they are reworked. Whipmasters easily outgrind other classes and only one player can grind there.
P5 is not worth 400k, this rune costs 9m and is one of most expensive runes in the game.

yeah resistances arent very good

[TheWood]

i honestly only read the problem summery
i think that,
YES
in pvp, fire with warriors and poison with gunman is too op, not for other classes.
NO
in farming, poison really help gunmen. without poison, it literally takes like 30 seconds to kill a single shrrom warrior with a clean saw pistol.
YES
ice statue does give alot of ice runes, making them not cost very much. but
NO
remember how rare ice runes were before it was added? also that leads up to
NO
the rune rices make perfect sense. its all based on rarity.

if i forgot to cover something in the sommery plz tell me
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
oh yeah
now that im reading the biginning of the solutions summery,
NO
petunias drop p1
fanged/spiked squshers drop s1 and h1, and i think s2 and s3 and h2 and h3
ground spitters drop f1,
see your asumptions arent always right.
if u dont belive me go look it up yourself
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
now im starting to really read the real thing,
your saying h1 prices are 30k-150k, which that is true bc of all the nubs trying to get as much money as possible.
but for highr defence armor/stronger weapons, its not just a few more dmg anymore. it gets up to like 30 more dmg points from a s1 for a hovoc prob
also ice rune prices are like 50k rn not 200k AND yes i dont see alot of use in ice runes

s2 and s3 are not dropped by squishers.
With ice rune, gunner has ability to deal physical damage to warrior.

[Joey!!]

i honestly only read the problem summery
i think that,
YES
in pvp, fire with warriors and poison with gunman is too op, not for other classes.
NO
in farming, poison really help gunmen. without poison, it literally takes like 30 seconds to kill a single shrrom warrior with a clean saw pistol.
YES
ice statue does give alot of ice runes, making them not cost very much. but
NO
remember how rare ice runes were before it was added? also that leads up to
NO
the rune rices make perfect sense. its all based on rarity.

if i forgot to cover something in the sommery plz tell me
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
oh yeah
now that im reading the biginning of the solutions summery,
NO
petunias drop p1
fanged/spiked squshers drop s1 and h1, and i think s2 and s3 and h2 and h3
ground spitters drop f1,
see your asumptions arent always right.
if u dont belive me go look it up yourself
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
now im starting to really read the real thing,
your saying h1 prices are 30k-150k, which that is true bc of all the nubs trying to get as much money as possible.
but for highr defence armor/stronger weapons, its not just a few more dmg anymore. it gets up to like 30 more dmg points from a s1 for a hovoc prob
also ice rune prices are like 50k rn not 200k AND yes i dont see alot of use in ice runes

s2 and s3 are not dropped by squishers.
With ice rune, gunner has ability to deal physical damage to warrior.

wait what?! i need to get some ice runes i guess

[MaxBlue01]

i honestly only read the problem summery
i think that,
YES
in pvp, fire with warriors and poison with gunman is too op, not for other classes.
NO
in farming, poison really help gunmen. without poison, it literally takes like 30 seconds to kill a single shrrom warrior with a clean saw pistol.
YES
ice statue does give alot of ice runes, making them not cost very much. but
NO
remember how rare ice runes were before it was added? also that leads up to
NO
the rune rices make perfect sense. its all based on rarity.

if i forgot to cover something in the sommery plz tell me
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
oh yeah
now that im reading the biginning of the solutions summery,
NO
petunias drop p1
fanged/spiked squshers drop s1 and h1, and i think s2 and s3 and h2 and h3
ground spitters drop f1,
see your asumptions arent always right.
if u dont belive me go look it up yourself
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
now im starting to really read the real thing,
your saying h1 prices are 30k-150k, which that is true bc of all the nubs trying to get as much money as possible.
but for highr defence armor/stronger weapons, its not just a few more dmg anymore. it gets up to like 30 more dmg points from a s1 for a hovoc prob
also ice rune prices are like 50k rn not 200k AND yes i dont see alot of use in ice runes

- I haven't reached late game with my gunner account (i'm still grinding beetles at lvl 40-50 using flare roll), so i don't know how well each actions can do against strong monsters. It is true my main problem was more about PvP and not really about the enemies. The same thing can be said about runes resistances being mostly used only for PvP.

- I'm precisely trying to make runes more availible, more accessible for more people. I don't see how it's fun to grind dozens of hours for extremly few usefull runes (H1 and S1 being mostly for a little extra money, nothing more).

- I get the logic behind "rare = expansive". The issue i have is the cost efficiency of the boost we get. Usually, there is a basic upgrade cost pattern. But in this game, it's whatever is the most rare is expansive, regardless of what is the strongest boost we can get. I still think the price we pay and the boost we get is unbalanced.

- "petunias drop p1 fanged/spiked squshers drop s1 and h1, and i think s2 and s3 and h2 and h3 ground spitters drop f1". I know some WEAK monsters drop certain runes (though i don't know the details of each enemy + drop table), that's what's currently in the game. My SUGGESTION (to improve the rune system) was to REMOVE those runes from being dropped by weak enemies, and instead increase drop chances from stronger eenmies, reducing the number of high levels players grinding at low level areas.

- about runes prices: yeah i tryed to find some prices at the vendor, but they often change, making it hard to know the usual value. Still think most of the prices are unreasonable tbh.


And don't worry, i'm not forcing you (or anyone) to comment on EVERYTHING i write. Just that if you feel like you have something pertinent to say and want to say, you can do it.

[flip_flop]

I agree , poison with gunnermen has killed me more than any mob in the game!
Fire with Swordsman is also OP , the ninja slash only makes it more powerful.
Ice runes are common but are good for dropping defense in my opinion , the ice statue doesn't need changing as the drops are random.
I do agree that starter areas shouldn't be able to have a chance of dropping runes as like you said , that interrupts new players grinding but also if a new player gets an f1 or a p3 then they can sell that for such a giant boost if the price is good enough.
Though i don't see why you couldn't make the rune shop in shroom borough , its such an empty space that its only visited for the armor , its a place to power-up , so its within reason for runes to be there , because the point of it is to power you up , and shroom borough sells powerful gear.
Support!

stonks