I suggest that auf can summon mavericks, seduce going both side. Remove those top platforms for mules. Lowering the HP by 25% on royal guard & core blaze, and increasing auf by 50% will be nice. Which makes muling harder and this END game boss fits.
As much as part of me would like my, and my friends', Auf runs to remain unchanged and relatively straightforward/simple - I do support some of the changes previously mentioned in this thread, in order to make Auf more engaging, rewarding, and most importantly, fun. I support: - Seduce being randomized to going left or right (jumping would be hilarious, but no lol) - with this adjustment, increasing the Auf cooldown of sed to 1 or 2 minutes, instead of seducing every 30-40 seconds, could be appropriate to balance this change (seduce is already a challenging, if not the most challenging, mechanic in Auf, and for the most part anti-fun, as after Hero’s Will is on cooldown, there’s is little to no counter play - not to mention that being seduced and not able to do anything for 5 seconds every 30-40 seconds is SO frustrating and occurs way too often, in my opinion) Increasing Auf's cooldown of sed would also make attacking on a melee character more manageable, as they could have counter play of timing the seduce and jumping to safety before the randomized seduce hits. Otherwise, making this change and keeping the seduce timer as is would likely kill most melee characters multiple times during a run and also probably increase the HP requirement of Auf for melee characters to be 30k (I think most of the community/staff would be against this) - Shifting 25% (or some other balanced and tested percentage) of HP from Royal Guard and Core Blaze over to Auf Haven - I don’t believe it makes sense that Auf (who is the final boss of the Neo Tokyo quest line and Royals as of now) has essentially the same HP as its “pre-bosses” (RG - 400m HP, CB - 450m HO, Auf main body - 430m HP). From a gameplay perspective, adding more HP to Auf main body would also make runs more challenging and rewarding as she has the most engaging mechanics vs. the first two bosses. I do not support: - Auf summoning Mavericks - theme/lore wise (if anyone actually bothered to read the novels of quest text), Mavericks would not fit in the theme of Auf. Core Blaze is an "army of robots, one that can control machines", while Auf is a being from another dimension - having Auf summon more machines (mavericks) does not really make sense in that regard. Also, gravity in the whole Auf map is distorted, how the f are mavericks supposed to be tooting their horns and flying all over the place, knocking you and your mom who knows what way? kekw. Gameplay-wise, Auf's clone summons are already challenging to manage, adding maverick summons seems a bit overkill and out of place. - Changing top platforms - I say this with a caveat, as a change in top platforms could prove beneficial only if extensively tested, especially if seduce is changed to be randomized left or right. The seduce change would already be extremely disruptive to muling - changing the top platforms could just be redundant and unnecessary. With all this said, I would also propose that if the difficulty of Auf is increased, I believe the reward should be increased/buffed proportionately. Perhaps drop rates of certain items (*cough cough* Miracle scrolls to 100% drop rate or almost) could be increased accordingly, or other valuable items could be added to the drop table. As someone who has ran countless solo/duo/trio Aufs, I may be shooting myself in the foot and having some friends/acquaintances rolling their eyes at me for supporting changes that would make Auf more challenging and difficult. Despite this, I still believe that if Auf being looked into by staff and, subsequently, changed, that the changes should be within reason (gameplay and lore-wise) and that the rewards should be adjusted accordingly to match the difficulty of the changes. Edit: And for those haters out there who impose their idea that the game should be played THEIR ultra-specific, niche way, despite little to no end-game experience - if any of these changes are implemented, I'm still going to find a way to solo Auf, regardless of its difficulty or profitability, because I find an immense amount of satisfaction and fun in overcoming such a challenge. You can stay hating (and hydrated) from the sidelines.
Just summon more clones+give clones more mobility/speed. I don't think auf should be solo-able, duo-able, or trio-able, in any given time frame, especially not from people suggesting 100% (or almost 100%) miracle scroll drops. The challenge should be much higher and require teamwork, not mules, and not more exploitable just to bend to the busted circlet. I think it's a really wacky way to spend your time, and it removes you from all other players. If a boss is soloable, it should drop less scrolls, not more. If you're just increasing it's HP, and lowering the HP of the pre-bosses, nothing has changed. All your suggestions just make her easier, you want less sed, you don't really want mule plats moved, you don't want more summons, and you're for lowering pre-bosses HP and just raising aufs, but adding more scrolls. Idk the entire meta is pretty toxic to me, just rich players enriching themselves solo for the most broken item in the game (with no downsides), and is a big RWT magnet, and it has a huge meta gatekeeping it (the HP requirements that still requires washing, the mules). My gut is very anti this whole cycle, and I think it should be much more beneficial for parties and everyone, not folks with the money to sink 200+WS, and the mules and time to spend soloing auf, it's a dizzying meta, and I really wonder what any future end game content could offer besides timeless gear and the future MW30 economy that could compete. It seems PB would just solidify the toxic auf/circlet meta with better gear/skills, instead of other progressive concepts for end game rewards? ranting
Before delving into some of the points you made, I would like to ask you: 1) How many Auf runs have you completed? (ballpark, doesn't have to be an exact number) 2) What experience do you have with full parties to solo, duo, trio, quad runs? 3) Just how profitable do you think solo, duo, trio runs are currently? (mesos/hour) Edit: Also accounting for apples/stoppers/potions spent
I only went like 10 times total, I really didn't enjoy it that much personally, the fight, the exp, or the conceit of the circlet resources. The first two fights were both really boring but very difficult (most people need to be washed high, have constant hb). The jump quest takes no effort, the mob swarm is just a time sink, there's no difficulty. Auf was kinda fun, but the exp isn't great and again, the conceit of the resources/money/time needed to invest into a circlet makes it seem super underwhelming for me. I have no interest in attempting something so insanely time/resource consuming. The times I went were around the time the first legit circlet was completed, I forget the IGN. I definitely don't have a lot of experience with it, but either did a lot of gms it seems (at the time). I still wanna give feedback and input, I don't want the discussion to be only folks who are able to cash in on the circlet, and talking around issues that will change their mule gig
Your friendly staff members actually runs these bosses consistently that even includes solos on their personal characters. Currently, and more at that time. You do know you need to invest 140bil~160bil into this single helmet right? How many players do you think have those hours to invest into the game to complete this helmet? Echoing @Kethoe ‘s question. Just how profitable do you think solo, duo, trio runs are currently? (mesos/hour) Edit: Also accounting for apples/stoppers/potions spent I don’t want this feedback to turn out into be another super custom content where auf helm thats decreases the HP slowly / makes weapon&magic def 0.
It was said that a lot of testing hadn't really happened at the time. I haven't ran auf since the latest changes, that's why I'm not offering or getting into nitty gritty details like that, or how much folks can make with x people, but gameplay, and creative input sure. If you can solo with mules, or only run small parties, it doesn't really matter how much you make or lose, you're doing it for the circlet, either to sell scrolls, use the scrolls yourself, sell wsf, or use the wsf. Anyone doing this has the liquid or assets to attempt it, so it doesn't really matter (income is happening elsewhere) and having a +20 circlet only reinforces soloing, there's no reason anyone would need that much ap for any reason on the server, so, my input comes from a point of reevaluating the circlet first, but that's in a other thread. Where I'm coming from for auf gameplay is that it should be very challenging and not possible to solo, duo, trio for the most part, because of that gig circlet meta. It's my opinion it's a bad move to keep it as is. Circlet having a handicap isn't at all a wild suggestion for the benefits. And all it tells players is, you only need money to be good at the game, not skills, and that auf should require a bit more skill than just HP and mules
If you haven't run a single Auf since the latest changes, and you say you are not offering or getting into nitty gritty details of Auf, then why are you so quick to shoot down the more fleshed-out, detailed ideas of players who are consistently running it and aware of the actual challenges of the boss? If you haven't run a single Auf since the latest changes, how can you justify your idea of: Spoiler: Spoiler It's funny how you dodge the profitability question when you are directly confronted with it, when in the "Feedback Thread: Mules and Multi Client" thread you so confidently and dramatically asserted how: Spoiler: Spoiler Please entertain me with how much you think a player like me makes, on average (mesos/hour), from a solo HT or Auf run, compared to other, much more consistent, meso-making methods such as single-client Skele/Petri Leech, Quad-mage/Hex-mage farming, single-client traditional 5-6 man HT runs. Don't shy away from this question now, when you were so sure of yourself just a week ago. 1) Auf doesn't drop WSF (White Scroll Fragments) - that's the other Neo Tokyo bosses. (Vergamot, Nameless Magic Monster, Nibergen, Dunas V2) 2) Why doesn't it matter how much you make or lose? Do you run bosses simply to burn apples/pots/time? 3) There are already a decent amount of people running small parties, yet only 6-7 known perfected helms - and you're saying anyone running these smaller parties has enough liquid/assets to attempt it? Where are all these finished helms with these people with 150-160b laying around.. nani?? 4) Using me as an example, so now that I've looted a 7 LUK helm and I'm working slowly towards it, I already have 150-160b just laying around (liquid/asset) to attempt it? (Man, wouldn't that be great) It doesn't really matter how much I make (or lose) in a lengthy solo run, when I could be losing out on opportunity cost doing something elsewhere? 5) Why does having a +20 circlet only reinforce soloing? Why is there no reason for anyone to "need" that much AP for any reason on the server? Maybe you could consider asking the rationale of players who have, or are currently working towards, a perfected helm, what their rationale is - instead of projecting your assumptions so quickly and matter-of-factly. Despite you not asking and me not really caring whether you care or not, let me share with you some of my rationale. - For the feeling of accomplishment - To prepare for future end-game content (Pink Bean) Things that are not my rationale: - To reinforce soloing - You honestly think I've solo'd Auf x amount of times... just to complete my helm... to... continue to solo it endlessly? Really? From where you're coming from, you lack the actual gameplay and knowledge of just how difficult Auf is to solo, duo, or trio. Do you know how many players actually have the capacity and capability to solo Auf? I can count those who've actually succeeded on my two hands. If you doubt that Auf is not challenging to solo, I'd invite you make all the characters and meet all the requirements to effectively and consistently finish a solo Auf run in a decent amount of time. Actually, it doesn't even have to be within a decent amount of time - let me know when you've succeeded. To your point of Circlet having a handicap - how is the 150b-160b price projection, on an untradable item at that, not a handicap, nor a fair price to pay for the benefits received? Can you even begin to comprehend the amount of time and dedication a legitimate player would have to commit in order to achieve a perfected helm? I could lay out the math for you (probably give you pretty much an exact number of hours spent farming/leeching at any location), but I'd like to challenge you to show me since making/saving mesos doesn't seem to be a problem/handicap for you to complete a perfected helm. Again, I'd like to ask you if you know how the players, who have already completed their Auf helms and accumulated their wealth to be able to complete it, achieved it - and also, how long. Would you consider and acknowledge the skill, knowledge, and dedication it takes to kill bosses consisently, farm maps, and merch their way up to 150-160b? You seem to think that the legitimately "rich" in this game don't deserve their wealth, nor to reap the benefits of their hard work, and I need to ask you, why do you think that? This is an RPG after all, those who have played longer and have dedicated more time to make money will naturally be "better" at the game and have accumulated more wealth/assets. If you're looking for a mechanically challenging game, Maple honestly isn't really the game to be looking for that - I would suggest League of Legends, or maybe Valorant, or maybe even possibly multi-clienting as that increases the mechanical challenge of the game.
1) Make sed left and right 2) make your diving speed faster. Currently when you stand on the right plat and hit, if you get sed at most you will get bodied by auf once before the sed ends 3) Lower royal guard sniping platform so you will get hit by the rush animation 2c
Why don't you think Auf should be solo-able, duo-able, or trio-able? Also, I think you missed the main point I made immediately before I brought up the possible suggestion of making miracle scroll drop rate to 100 or almost 100%. Spoiler: What I wrote, and you conveniently decided to leave out - I think it's a pretty wacky way to spend one's time flooding the feedback forums with wild and non-sensical suggestions/feedback threads, but to each their own, am I right? - Why does soloing, duoing, or trioing remove you from other players? I'm sorry I didn't know you in vc with me and my guildies/friends and could see that we were all in isolated calls! Okay, tell me when you've solo'd HT or Auf and I'll take your proposition of, "If a boss is soloable, it should drop less scrolls, not more". Let me know if you think it's challenging/profitable for the time and effort spent. This shows your lack of understanding and experience in these end game bosses. As I stated: Spoiler: Another thing you decided to read over and leave out Adding more HP to Auf and taking it away from Royal Guard and Core Blaze: 1) Elongates the most challenging part of the whole expedition - especially if you're adding an RNG factor to the direction of seduce 2) Increases the risk of a failed run - Especially when solo-ing, duo-ing, trio-ing From these two points - by increasing Auf's HP and lowering the hp of the pre-bosses, it very directly increases the difficulty of the entire expedition and, therefore, does change things. For these points, let me just re-quote what I said in my initial reply, because you've obviously missed the details that I already elaborated on and, conveniently, put your own spin and twisted interpretation to: Spoiler: "you want less sed" Spoiler: "you don't really want mule plats moved" Spoiler: "you don't want more summons" Spoiler: "you're for lowering pre-bosses HP and just raising aufs" Already explained earlier in this reply - look up Spoiler: "but adding more scrolls" Again I quote: 1) What do you know about these so-called rich players and their rationale for achieving the goals they set out for? 2) Are we just enriching ourselves through solo gameplay? Do you know whether or not me or other "rich players" are consistently only running solo HT/Auf/farming? Or maybe we do run larger parties and you just don't know about it since you don't know us? 3) As I've already made my point earlier about "no downsides" of an Auf Helm - a perfected Auf Helm is indeed incredibly strong, but a 150-160b price tag on an untradable item isn't a downside? Like... what? 4) Sure, Auf Helm might be a big RWT magnet, but what do you know about that? Are you on staff seeing that people are constantly RWTing scrolls? You don't think that the daily Auf runners (solo to full parties) can see when certain people are buying up all the Miracle scrolls? If anything, Auf helms makes it damn easy to spot an RWTer in the community because you can see exactly who is buying up scrolls and whether or not they're some newly-joined rando or someone who's legit and has been involved in the community for awhile. 5) Is it gate-keeping? Or is it simply a challenge because it's an end-game boss? Maybe you don't want to put in the work or effort to achieve what others are setting out to achieve, but that does not give you the right to criticize things that you simply don't understand. 6) Just because you don't like what's "meta" or what's "in", doesn't mean everyone feels the same way and that it's "toxic" or bad. Riding the anti-meta/anti-mainstream bandwagon doesn't make you cool or right, it just means that you don't follow the mainstream - and that's okay, just don't expect everyone to bend to your non-traditional ideas and beliefs.
meanwhile, I don't even need a mule to solo auf jokes aside, thanks for the wonderful feedback. If the seduce is in both directions, what are yall suggestions on the duration and cooldown? How would you conquer auf if it's implemented?
oh no... that means hp wash is a must now? what would happen to my 10k hp nl =((( , i could barely survive with HB but definitely dies to rando sed now
Honestly setting a timer & timing the seduce from auf should be a must. Be it your 10k or 30k. Right now its just eatting the sed and KEKW go right. Similar to HT back then, basically bishops are required to time & spam heal on sed target. This time in auf, its more challenging. If the player/s does mess up, bishop will be required to will and rescue the dps that is at the bottom. Increasing the sed intervals as suggested by @Kethoe might be a pretty good idea. Increasing the sed duration slightly might be useful as well. Example if auf is at the right/left corner, player will be touched x3 times. Which will be almost certain death unless hero’s will/bishop heal. “Just flyup before sed 4head.”
Now again, I've been unable to play since December, I try to stay up to date with everything because it's interesting to see how things develop, and it's a game I enjoy, and I enjoy trying to add input into topics I enjoy or have insight on (this one in particular, I really don't, but it's an important one) I am not being adversarial to anyone in particular, I just have opinions about things like anyone else. I was definitely wrong about the fragments, totally mistaken, and that's my fault. Again, the changes are a lot to keep up with, and I've been unable to play. I'm not trying to dictate any decisions or progress, just sharing opinions. Any input I offer to outside topics is unrelated, but since it's something that you feel you should always bring up, it's just as fun for me to try and think of creative, helpful suggestions as playing the game. I didn't think my forum contributions, especially unrelated ones, were so divisive. To me, all ideas are for the creative consciousness, in the hope something will enrich the outcome of a project for the better, it's a part of me that I love to open up, and I know I've expressed this same sentiment in a million other expressions. My involvement in this or any other topic is just trying to help, and this is an open topic so if I'm just wrong or mistaken on something, and I have been before and I will be again, apologies. The only reason I watch this thread is because I want to know what folks think about this boss and it's meta, and what GMs are possibly listening to, and the direction it could move in, because I think the circlet, the scrolls, and it's potential are a huge problem. I think the mule culture singularity bends towards this single, broken item now, and I happen to think it's destructive overall to the game, for many many reasons. I was under the impression it was profitable in terms of small/minimalist parties either due to profitability of miracle scrolls/ws, or to save on buying said items. If it's not, I don't see why anyone would run minimalist/mule parties at all. I'm not dodging a question but either you can afford to solo/minimalist party, or you make money from it, otherwise I don't understand why anyone would run. The total cost of the circlet is pointless if you're making mesos elsewhere, especially when WS spring out of the air all day long, and the total cost is also pointless ultimately if you are even in the process of trying it, otherwise you simply wouldn't. If it was so improbable, nobody would do it, but folks do, and the rewards are either clean circlets to scroll, scrolls to use on the circlets or sell, or ws to sell or keep. If it wasn't worth anyone's time or profit or gain, it wouldn't be done alone, or in minimalist conditions, or at all, so folks benefit. The less involved, the more you'll profit. Otherwise, why would anyone attempt it? As for the entire conceit of "earned" wealth and skill in this game, unless you only consider earning items from boss drops and leeching, the bulk of wealth and the economy is lottery/luck based, which is another reason the auf helm being such a massive end game item is a problem. Liquid/asset comes from the air from gach, and lucky scrolling, and lucky drops. Nobody is just selling leech to pay their circlet off. The only other skill is how many mules you've funded, and how fast you can alt tab, those are your only limiters, everything else is a matter of luck and time, not skill. It doesn't matter how many circlets are made right now, or who can solo or not, it's that it's exploitable is the issue for me, so rethinking the circlet was my first instinct, as well as watching the thread to see how the difficulty and meta develops. If you want to complete a +20 helm, I mean sure do it. As for the time and effort it takes, or if it should even offer such benefits, are all three separate conversations IMO, and I can only offer my humble input. If people think it's fine, and the entire process to do it is fine with them then there you go, bit it doesn't have to be such a massive time/meso sink, it doesn't have to be such a massive effort, and it doesn't have to offer such OP advantage, and nobody in the game or meta should feel compelled they need to sink so much time into something just to get ahead. Self accomplishment or being the best aside, the circlet in any state shouldn't be something on the meta table for pink bean or any future content and again that's my only perspective and business here, but if folks think it should be, then it just will
#NerfOPShads!!! (I think their avoid might be a little high...? kekw) hehe jokes aside as well.. As Joong messaged previously in this thread: I was curious as to how HT arm (right and left) seduce works. From my experience, it seems that the sed consistently has a cooldown of ~3 minutes for each arm, and that it randomly seds right, left, or makes a character jump for ~10 seconds, but this only happens once every 3 minutes (coded like the timers are synchronized for sed-right, sed-left, or sed-jump) as long as everyone in the party is on the one side. (I have no idea how the code works, so forgive me for my ignorance here.) Would this be possible to implement for Auf sans jumping, but with the current sed duration - I think ~5 seconds? I do think that the cooldown should be increased to 1 or 2 minutes because the RNG factor of going left or right would make it incredibly hard to dodge direct physical touch damage, especially for melee attackers. In HT, if the sed target is close to dying and has enough MP, they can Hero's Will out and, essentially, they have exactly 2 seds (6 minutes - cooldown of max Hero's Will) to survive through without the safeguard of Hero's Will (unless they have a Bucc to Time Leap in party - usually better saved for ress though tbh) By extending the sed timer a bit, allows for more counterplay and forgiveness for the RNG of the proposed sed change - as players can time the sed duration and float higher to avoid being touched directly by Auf. I mean, players can time the current sed as well, but having it trigger for 1/8 to 1/6 of an entire run (5 seconds every 30-40 seconds) and with the RNG factor seems to be too much in my opinion. As to how to conquer this, with solo client attackers, they can do what I mentioned above. However this would make mules more challenging to keep alive - a topic that some in the community feel very strongly against and could appeal to them. Now I don't think making this sed change would negate the use of mules entirely, but it would make it exceptionally harder as they wouldn't just be able to sit idly in any top corner of the map. There would have to be more attentiveness given to where characters are being sed and require higher-skilled players to time the sed and move their mules/multi-client characters accordingly. This is a challenge that I, as a multi-client user, would see as a challenge to overcome and wouldn't be against.
I would say 90-120 secs if sed duration remains untouched up to 150 if sed duration gets increased, something i would like to suggest aswell is testing it with several configurations(jobs mixed) to try the viability of succed with all jobs 1st, and make proper changes around that too, things like how this affects BM who arent capable of atack on air, or how often does sed+stun happens wich is pretty dangerous for ranged, but its an overkill for melees. etc.
