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

Hello everyone!
Thanks for your feedback so far. I'm glad to see that a lot of players are as passionate about MapleRoyals as I am.
As I spearheaded skill balance changes I would like to share my thought process on them in more detail. I'd like to start with the most controversial change: Buccaneers.

Where did Buccaneers originally come from?
As one of the most changed classes, 'Vanilla' Buccaneer had a lot of clunky mechanics that we have improved since the start of MapleRoyals. These are some of the things we've done since the early years:
- Allow all skills to be used in super transform except for oak barrel and double shot
- Shortened the delay on energy blast, dragon strike, barrage and energy orb
- Increased the stance rate on a full energy charge lvl 40 from 30% to 90%
- Transformations no longer get dispelled
- Increase speed infusion range
- Energy charge now gets charged per hit on a mob making it charge faster with multi lined attacks, not just once per mob per attack


What did we do for Buccaneers in 2019?
- Super Transform: from 120 second duration and 240 second cooldown (33% uptime) to (60 sec) 'no downtime' cooldown, takes Magic rock to cast instead
- Demolition: lvl 30 increased base power from 400 to 500- Barrage: lvl 30 increased base power from 230 to 330- Dragon Strike: lvl 30 increased base power from 810 to 900
The thought process behind the 2019 skill updates were all from a perspective of: 'how can we bring the damage outputs of these classes a little closer together'.

- Later in 2020 we also increased the horizontal range of Snatch, and decreased its width.

Why did we change the Buccaneer playstyle again?
For Skill Changes Phase 1 our reasoning for changing skills and classes were different than the one from 2019 which was all about damage output mediation. We set out a direction by looking into defining the core values of a class and job that makes them unique from each other and how we can steer towards that path without making it feel like a full overhaul.
The core value for both Pirates, and thus Buccaneer is 'Utility'. Buccaneers are a melee class that also carry some ranged attacks. They can buff a party, push and pull mobs, Strike up close and from afar, move around reasonably fast but also carry themselves well on terms of sturdiness with iframes and energy charge. They have a high survivability rate and differentiate themselves from warriors with their swiss-army-knife-level of skill options for various situations.
A key aspect of their Pirate counterpart, Corsair, is the limited availability of their mount and the way they have to play to preserve that as much as possible by dismounting on incoming damage and remounting after to deal their highest DPS. When the Battleship is not available they are reduced to Rapid Fire damage outputs.
We wanted Buccaneers to also return to 'limitations' with their Super Transform ability creating a sense of urgency and adjusted strategy including more of their skillset for various pieces of content, but we didn't want Super Transform to be as rough as it was before (33% up time at max level) so after consideration we opted for 75% at max level.
With this change Buccaneers will have to strategize their playstyle more making them more difficult to play and less of a one-macro-spam class. We did not want their damage output to suffer a lot, but looking at the numbers we chose I realized in a 1 target (bossing) situation a 97% damage output compared to before was reasonable and something I could revisit to make up for with other skills in Phase 2.

Other scenarios I took into account when making this change:
- Buccaneers may have trouble reaching top zakum arms / horntail hands during 60 second transformation downtime, however they can adjust their playstyle by targeting something else during the transformation downtime and only go for harder to reach targets during Super Transform.
- Buccaneers may want to be able to use Snatch at all times at LHC or VL content, however you can make sure a party or expedition for that contains two Buccaneers that make sure at least one of them is transformed at all times covering for each others cooldown, taking care of the 'Snatch duty'.
- Some Buccaneer players liked to animation cancel a Demolition with another Super Transform every 60 seconds to 'stack' that damage once in 60 seconds, however that isn't intended gameplay and not something I took into account when calculating 97% damage retention.
- Having less movement speed and a mobbing nerf for 25% of the time in Rose Garden might make it more difficult to complete, however when testing this with some practice and skill combinations getting 20 bees within the timer was still very reasonable.
- 'Floating' at Auf Haven might become more prominent, but testing this only focusing on one Buccaneer, and not multi client attacking, still made the fight very reasonable.

Where is Buccaneer headed for Skill Changes Phase 2?
There are some players wondering if this change will get reverted, the answer is no.
I do agree that Buccaneers need more changes in Skill Changes Phase 2.

One of the great things about releasing an update like this is the amount of suggestions and feedback increases by a lot and that include things I wouldn't have thought of by myself! I agree that lower level Buccaneers may be starved for SP at the moment with all these skills to put points into. My favorite suggestion for that so far is to change the curve of what these skills provide so that they start at a higher damage value on a low level, and increase in smaller amounts to the same max value they currently have.
An example would be:
currently Demolition starts at 190% at lvl 1 and reaches 500% at lvl 30. I want to explore having it start at something like 350% (a current lvl 16 value) at lvl 1 and 500% at lvl 30.
Another example could be starting at 4 mob targets on Snatch lvl 1, while the current amount is 2, and 4 targets only starts from lvl 13.

Other than that I'd like to see what else we can do with their interesting Energy system and I'm looking forward to more suggestions from the community!

Some remarks I've seen
- Does the person that decided on this even know how to play Buccaneer?
Yes. I've been a lvl 200 buccaneer for over 7 years now. I was the 15th Buccaneer to reach lvl 200. I have played recent content too (mostly Auf Haven duos)
- As a Buccaneer, am I useless for 25% of the time now?
No, start thinking outside of the meta you're used to and restructure your activities with other skills in your skillbook, other party members (like a second Buccaneer) and enjoy the full Buccaneer experience!
- Can I get an SP reset because I want to redo my skills now?
We didn't want to fully reset your book this time around, however I have proposed a temporary steep discount on SP resets from the cashshop to the rest of staff, we should have a decision on that soon.
- My cooldown is long because I only have 1 SP in Super Transform
Yeah that makes sense, you should consider putting more SP in it but I do understand your worries and I am working on making you feel less SP starved in the earlier Buccaneer levels.

Let me know if you have additional questions about specifics, I do want to share my thought process on other skill changes too over time of course!

 

2nd, 3rd and 4th job SP resets are now on sale for 60% off to help those that want to reallocate SP from skill changes: