Awaiting Feedback update 95.1 ruined bossing (and mobbing)

I'm not sure if this is a technically correct description of Snatch, but:

From my experience, it looks like the amount of knockback is not static, but rather depends on where the monster is in relation to the player when the skill is cast (i.e., a monster farther away gets knocked back more). Normally, this makes all monsters hit stack into a neat pile in front of the player, as long as they can move to that position (e.g. are not obstructed by the edge of the platform, as with Castle Golems on stairs).

I'm not sure exactly where this goes wrong when the monster is too close, causing overshooting. (Maybe the calculated knockback distance becomes negative?) But, I think the ideal solution would be to leave the Snatch hitbox and monster hitboxes unchanged, but give monsters who are too close to the player a *negative* knockback (i.e., actually rush them *forward* such that they end up in the same position as those Snatched from farther away).

Another option (if you can use nonlinear functions) is to scale knockback with something like max(d, 0) would work, where d = mob horizontal position - player horizontal position (possibly with a small positive offset). This is essentially @PinaColadaPirate's suggestion (2):

 

My honest opinion on the aggro change for range:
I think the change was fine. Ranged attackers are supposed to do better single-target damage and suffer a little on mobbing.
Back in the days, ranged attackers trained by either jumping/kiting around mobs or out-range the mobs from another platform. It's not normal for ranged attackers to stay in a corner and hit mobs like people did in LHC ranged golems.
I think a better way to make LHC more inclusive for ranged players is to redesign one of the unpopular LHC maps so that it's more suitable for a hybrid party.
Here's an example of what can be done. It's probably not perfect, but it's just a quick draft. (and ofc please make sure the redesigned map is not something that can be abused by solo LHC farmers)

Spoiler: example

Edit: You can maybe also host a "design a LHC map" forum contest with "full range party" and "hybrid party" categories to see what ppl have in their mind, and also have a cool event at the same time.

 

No matter how many times we changed, solo LHC farmer still alive

 

I just ran a CWKPQ with smooth rushing from the beginning (where i rushed alone), probably just a case of warrior and buccaneer rushing at the same time creating the issue

 

I'm guessing it's not feasible to delay the snapshotting of targeted mobs until the pull is supposed to happen? That would probably be the ideal solution, but another option would be to freeze any targeted mob from the start of the skill until the pull, to prevent them wandering.

 

I assume that's what we had until now and the reason we were unable to move mobs while other people were targeting them is due to knock-back dmg taking priority over other mob-movement skills and locking the mob in place.
The only 2 possible solution I could think of to solve that would be:
1. to just increase the knock-back damage on VL mobs to 200k (which cannot be reached) but then ranged players will... you know... be more useless in mobbing than they already are?
2. Differ between damagae knockback and skill based crowd control in priority (will most likely require client edit but it would be a magic solution as you suggested) allowing crowd control skills to take effect while damage knock back is in place but prevent the other way around.

Edit: rephrased the ideas a lil bit better

 

Even if you just allow skills like ninja storm to work on the golems it'd mostly fix the issue. The fact that golems and ephenia spawns can't be pushed around is what makes this whole thing all the more frustrating, as there's nothing in ranged players' kits to deal with this. Not sure what it's like for sairs or archers though.

 

The biggest downside of this update for me is that it nerfs sair's performance against King Castle Golem in RG. Previously, KCG wouldn't buff defense nor teleport if you were far enough away from it. A sair could use battleship cannon from max distance and KCG would only be able to cast falling rocks. This no longer works, KCG buffs and teleports frequently now at the previously "safe" distance. This might be an intended (or semi-intended) change, but it inherently makes the boss take longer to kill. A fast & efficient KCG kill was sair's only real advantage over other classes in RG and I feel like that's been taken away. It's not a game-breaking problem but it is annoying and disappointing.

idk about LHC but Ephenia summons are fine for sairs as long as you can kill Ephenia before your ship breaks. Ship has no melee bonk attack so the fairies walking into you only becomes a problem if you're forced to rapid fire on foot.

 

+1 to that
but that's not only from last patch, i get KB multiple times every pap for the past year+.

 

I believe the old(current) issue is more like the 2 steps of pushing mobs: 1. becoming mob controller 2. doing actual push that's effective to the server, can't be done with 1 KB/rush skill. So we currently need 2 KB/rush, 1st to fight for the mob controller and 2nd to do an effective push. With new implementation these 2 steps are allowed to be achieved in 1 rush skill so we may expect mob pushing/rushing to become more responsive to the last person interacting with but there will be even more flickering when 8-9+ players keep KB/rushing mobs due to everyone's different ping.

As for Snatch over pulling, if we can't delay the calculation of pulling to match the snatch animation (https://royals.ms/forum/threads/update-95-1-ruined-bossing-and-mobbing.244831/page-4#post-1531807)
Maybe the game could predict the mob position by the time the rope is thrown out to decide which mobs should be targeted, given that at the moment of pressing Snatch key, the mob stats: 1. current position 2. movement speed including buff/debuff 3. the random timer of mob changing their movement direction, are fetchable.

 

Try recoil into the boss to get iframe when u see it cast rocks above you, and time your jumps when you see it raise its arm and about to smash.
A good sair can still kill King Castle Golem fast and efficiently. You just need to adapt the non-lazy way. And btw, that's not the only advantage of sair in RG. If you utilize DoT properly, you can do the bon stage fairly quickly, probably just a rank lower than warriors and shad.

 

On the ranged LHC topic:

The problem with hybrid golems parties is there is no incentive for melee classes to join ranged parties over a full melee pt. Full melee will almost always result in higher exp+totem gain.
I think making ninja storm/dragon breath making golems pushable would be a good fix for now if you can't undo the aggro changes.
I imagine redesigning and implementing new LHC maps would be a long process (a year+ at the current pace updates are pushed?) i support the idea i just don't want to wait this long for ranged LHC to become a thing again
I would also like devs to focus on bigger content releases like balance patch and PB over this, so quicker solutions makes more sense imo.

 

Maybe change the design of side maps to have more plataforms so a 2 or 3 monsters would get stuck on a little area ranged could lure and hit from the other side?

 

Another two changes i noticed as well:

• Puppet skill's effectiveness was reduced, because enemies just randomly walk past it. The boss where this annoys me the most is chao, because you need to keep him at a specific distance where he cant KB you, but you can shoot him. the change makes him walk forward, by that he eats my spacing and pin me to the map sides, KBs me more often, and kill the puppet with touch damage faster.
• For unknown reason, pap barely dispells anymore