In Discussion Class/Skill [Feedback Request] Skill Changes and Balancing

Nice to see the amount of care going into MapleRoyals.

Not sure how difficult the following is to implement technically, but am interested to hear opinions about creating a "dodge" mechanic for all classes by making:

right arrow + down arrow = duck down and move right simultaneously
left arrow + down arrow = duck down and move left simultaneously


This introduces questions about changing directions while ducking, too:

Should a player be able to change which direction they are facing while ducking and moving without having to stand up briefly, or should a player have to stand up briefly?
Currently, a player must stand up briefly to change the direction they are facing while ducking, and cannot move at all while ducking.

Should a player be able to move backwards (keep facing the initially chosen direction, but move in the opposite direction without having to stand up) if changing the direction they are moving while ducking?




183 Bowmaster, 163 Bishop, 150 Nightlord

 

Not to mention removing buccs mobbing and pinning capabilities (snatch) for 1/4 of fight time, which is the entire role other than DPS. Both LHC and RG ruined.

 

pre patch, drks were already not very sought after in certain content due to the nature of zerk and the inherent risk of run failure they bring along.

it is worse now, i don't see any reason someone would recruit drks over heroes for bossing content now that hero can provide so much value with their rage buffs, considering that heroes and drks still have similar playstyle, just slightly more dmg now.

 

It is in fact what I signed up for, because my bucc existed before the update that added 100% super transformation uptime, and a temporary ST is probably what anyone who played ACTUAL OLD SCHOOL GMS signed up for when making a bucc on an OLD SCHOOL MAPLESTORY SERVER. I found that update to be extremely jarring because bucc was a very technical class in 2nd and 3rd job, and then it abruptly transitioned into a class that was so braindead that all the players who leeched their bucc to lv120 didn't even know that they were playing a class with a high skill ceiling.

I'm a big fan of reverting the super transformation = magic rock change for lots of reasons: buccs remaining a technical class from start to finish, actually being able to see your character's cosmetics sometimes, energy orb having a theoretical use, super transformation now feeling more significant when active, and a more noticeable feeling of progression as each new skill improves your single/multi-target DPS. That said, you forgot to remove the magic rock requirement, lol

 

Not sure why some players are unhappy about the drk changes. Sure, drks didn’t get buffed anywhere near as much as heroes did, but the changes are still positive. I don’t think every class can realistically receive proportionate buffs.

With the new berserk, I'm just glad I no longer have to feel bad about overpotting by 1k HP, especially in VL (often during Garg spawn to play safe), since damage dealt is still decent.

 

Charge blow range for 1hbw is not the same as blast range. Blast still had a longer range.

 

because now now one would ever take a drk to any content.
DRK does less damage than hero now and also give nothing to the party (hb is nice but no one care). The heros 12 ATT buff to the entire party is broken AF and no one would give it up to take a drk somewhere. Sure for now you will see DRKs get into CWK until people make their heros but DK is gonna be 100% dead soon because of this update.

 

To be honest, I’m disappointed with the changes to Bucc, and like others have said, I think it’s become more of a hassle.

If we’re going to accept these changes, I think they should at least make adjustments to “Energy”.
While Bucc can’t activate stances at will, I believe the skills used during transformation protected it from the hassles typical of melee attackers, just like other melee attackers.
If they’re going to create a period where transformation isn’t possible, I’d like them to reduce the vulnerability caused by the lack of a stance.
To be honest, there’s absolutely no fun in this charging mechanic, so I think it should be nearly permanent, or at the very least, the charging time should be shortened.
If the goal is to preserve the unique experience of the third job, it would be fine to strengthen this aspect in the fourth job.

Besides, the fact that there are periods when the character isn’t transformed has likely sparked interest in utilizing "Energy"-related skills (mainly Orb) among some players.
However, if the charge runs out during the crucial period when the transformation is over, that would simply amount to a downgrade compared to being transformed.

 

"See if we can introduce a 'Battleship Buster' skill to destroy a Battleship on purpose, starting its cooldown for a full HP version"

This sounds great (and thank you for listening for this change), but could you make it just cancel the boat if you're stunned or have sed on you at that moment? This is since as a corsair you need to manually cancel your ship during stuns and seds by right clicking the icon at top right and I have cancelled countless apples while trying to do that. Just to tackle two problems at once with this new skill.
(Context: During stun or sed you cant toggle boat normally and if you dont manually cancel it, your boat gets hammered unnecessarily during these moments)

Could you also make it manually cancel the debuff called hyperbody? - just joking

I have the same experience. In general, one of the main reasons I stopped playing bucc actively and switched to sair was the transform change and lowering of the bucc skillceiling. It just became boring to me.

Imo the bubble shouldnt run out while you arent using the bubble skills, like during transform. This way when you detransform, you could have bubble to fall back upon since it should be at full power and last until you can transform again, giving a powered up state and unique skills for each moment. I have heard the argument that currently bucc doesnt have enough points for energy orb, but these could be adjusted.

 

First thoughts on the balancing patch:
1. SI nerf is also a nerf to corsair/drk/ST users
2. Rage buff is a buff to NL and Shad (classes that don't need SI)

New Meta: 1x hero with flamesword, SE, 4X NightLords (can substitute with CR or Shads)

2nd Best: 1x hero with flamesword, 5x shads (note: these shads are high CGS and hit cap with rage+attack pots)

Note: SI has reduced DPS and for it to be a viable choice in a boss run it needs to "support" an attacker (drk/corsair/Stonetooth pally/hero).

Will SI + an attacker match the DPS of 2x NL's or 2x Shads? Most likely not.

Whilst the Rage‑stacking buff alone isn’t a major balance concern, combining it with a transformation cooldown and reducing SI DPS creates a serious risk of long‑term imbalance and could ultimately reduce the number of DRK, Buccaneer, and Corsair players.

TLDR: A Bucc (with now lowered DPS) supporting a corsair/drk/stonetooth hero/pally does not equal the strength of 2x NLs or 2x Shads and will create imbalance over time.

 

It's not a 2-3% nerf for bucc but up to 25% in cases where you are only using demo to attack or only demo can reach. Bf, left horntail arm and top right zak arm for example. Just undo this terrible transformation nerf

If we're stacking attack buffs add in concentrate too

 

This Buccs nerf renders the class unplayable.

 

or you know, just make a range mule.

 

the average bucc player when they have to contend with 10% of what the average corsair player goes through on a regular basis

 

so instead of making this game fun to everyone, making those jobs all at the same level, making hero for example stronger to be able to keep up with bucc, you guys just made bucc worst and took the fun out of things, same with shads.
In my opinion, nerfing is not the way to balance things. making players who played some characters for years change to different one because it's almost unplayable or just so bad is not the right call. you should've buffed the other character to their level making the game still fun

 

like i said i didnt even install this game cause just from reading what u did i understand
what you done to shad and bucc is just killing a class this is not balance this is just killing a class
i think i am done with this game good luck everyone <3

 

There are glaring issues that are not talked about enough in my opinion, these are my initial thoughts about this update:

- I want to actually start with a positive: the QoL changes together with the attack range on certain awkward skills are great.

- How is Pally not uncapped? this was confirmed possible so long ago. Why do they not receive the same treatment as the other Warriors?

- Shadowers are not nerfed, they still have the same damage.
Smoke is the same duration but has to be spaced out. You can still be smoked for 6 minutes every 10 mins, that's still being smoked for the majority of the time.
TLing smoke is still a thing if you run less than 4 shads, but with more it's no longer needed.
For VL you can space out the smokes (smoke every 2 TPs considering tp is longer than 1 minute these days) which is not a big deal.
Shad HT gets slightly affected because some parties are not able to down right arm in time with 1 smoke only, but you can just use 1 TL for HW instead now, not a big deal.
The smoke meta is in fact still present, and there is no reason shads will not continue to dominate. 60% smoke uptime is still not great.
The smoke meta should've been gutted to the point where you could only smoke certain dangerous boss mechanics like the right arm mass seds in HT, and not be used for 1.5 mins of afk attacking.
Something like 20 secs duration with the same cooldown would achieve that.

- I don't mind the Bucc changes, I was always of the mind that the Royals version of perma transformed Bucc is weird and I liked how other servers did it more. It's better design to have different styles of play for different situations, however:
1) Energy Orb shouldve gotten it's hitbox fixed, so it would be Barrage + Demo for when Transform is up, Barrage + DS for when it's not, and Barrage + Energy Orb when bubble is up without transform.
In the current version, it's clunky and lacks diversity.
2) This change hits different when its not accompanied by Shad nerf, if both got nerfed to the point where theyre in line with warrior this would feel justified, its ok for Bucc to have a utility role and have Thieves/Warriors do the damage, but this just feels like the same Shad meta with a clunky Bucc.

- It wasn't talked about enough because not many people had a strong Hero and testing was hard, but Hero damage was actually close to DRK pre buff, the different was not that huge.
Currently, I'm absolutely sure it's Hero > DRK in terms of pure damage output now. How's that good when DRK has to Zerk on top of it? Who in their right mind would make a DRK over Hero now?

- What does the Assa fix exactly mean? Is only the damage display fixed, or is it fixed because you actually fixed the formulas to be true now?
If the formulas are fixed to be as described and SE also correctly affects Assa this would mean this patch is a major Shad buff, please clarify.

- Giving everyone a 12 attack party buff that you can mule now is bad design, it creates further power creep issues which was something that was out of control to begin with, I do not support this change in any way.

- No test dummy to check how the classes compare to each other now, I warned of this situation in my thread a few months ago:

Good luck figuring out which class is strongest now and by how much, I know for sure I'm not going to repeat all the past tests the way I used to, it's way too much effort.

 

there will no longer be any reason to buy,scrolling or upgrade bucc gear,bucc will only be used as si and echo mules

 

After calming down, Hero's [+38 WA buff] is probably too much? And 12 of 38 is a party-buff.

 

The community complained for years that Shadower is a busted class that has everything (insane single target, great AoE including best 4target AoE, great mobbility, best survivability in the game with 30% shifter and meso guard & smoke on top of that) and you decided that the correct way of balancing things was to nerf bucc?

It feels like police caught the bystander while the real criminal ran away laughing his a$$ off.

Let's see what phase2 brings.