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

Ah, so that's the reasoning behind it.
On the 2-line point, I can understand — visual effects are an important part of the game.
If I suggest the equivalent of "7s + 2-line" as "7s + 400k cap," would that be acceptable?
Or under the original OSMS 5s, "5s + 300k cap"?
Or keeping the 2019 version's 4s, "4s + 250k cap"?

However, I don't agree with the standard of "non-useless skills should fulfill the same role they used to in old-school" — because there are many counterexamples:

• Pally, as I remember, CR is a Pally-exclusive skill, not a party buff.
• Piercing Arrow, as I recall, couldn't be fired while jumping — because crossbows being able to fire mid-jump felt strange.
• Rage, as I remember, used to overwrite Appo (in an environment where Appo cost 100m each, it was considered a non-useless skill).
• Air Strike/Octopi/Gaviota, as I recall, couldn't be used on the ship — and the animations didn't even match the on-ship state.
• I remember that pet auto-HP could only trigger once.
• I remember DK's Power Crash didn't originally have the Defence Crash effect.
• I remember Archer's Puppet wasn't nearly as strong as it is now.
• I remember there used to be a cooldown between Bucc's transformation stages.

As long as a change increases gameplay depth, cooperation, or corrects something unreasonable, I think it's worth discussing — rather than abandoning any possibility of change just to match someone's image of old-school.

Furthermore, the terms "non-useless skill" and "fulfill the same role" are far too vague:

(Non-useless skill)
The biggest issue is that all skills derive their value from the game environment — how do you even judge?

• In a place flooded with Appo, Rage is useless; in an environment where even +10 WA potions are hard to find, Rage is extremely valuable.
• Piercing Arrow is useless when the endgame bosses are only HT/Zak/AUF, but extremely useful when LHC/VL exist.

(Fulfill the same role)
Even original skills get adjusted for the sake of consistency and balance (though the quality of the original developers' changes is a separate matter). Using only "player memory" as the definition leads to everyone talking past each other — and could even result in situations like: "My friend's creative suggestion — I'll say 'it fulfills the same role'"; "Someone I don't like's creative suggestion — I'll say 'it doesn't fulfill the same role.'"

That said, I'm not claiming your point is entirely unreasonable. Taking Bucc as an example:

• If Bucc has always been a class that alternates between ST/non-ST states, swapping DS and Snatch would be a fairly significant shift, causing players pain during the adaptation period — creating the problem of "skills that used to work in a certain state no longer do."
• But the reality is that full-time ST has been the norm for 7 years — the issue of "skills usable pre-transformation suddenly becoming unavailable" has barely existed, since all skills were always available. Taking advantage of this window where everyone is already being forced to adapt to ST/non-ST rotation, doing the "DS/Snatch swap" + "Shockwave modification as DS's non-ST substitute" at the same time — I don't think the adaptation difficulty for Bucc players would be significantly different from "not swapping DS/Snatch" either way. (Both are hard — hard enough that the majority of voters in the poll are asking to revert the change entirely.)

 

@Saledor You've made very good points regarding CWKPQ.
The reason the archer takes the pirate boss, IS because he is utility class. Because he has the puppet utility that controls him and disable his annoying sharks, the fact that he has more HP plays no factor. He pins the pirate, meanwhile the NL focus down the mage, while the multi target shoot the bottom. On paper, no one should impose damage demands on archers he is taken for his utility. In ~2017 before the new client patch, old HT, I remember people impose demand on NL range, but none on SE. It was bring the SE and don't DC (SE DC was a meme, the moment he is gone the run is gone).
Buffing SE damage is OKAY I was warning about power creep because I see the intention of reworking it further. So quiver buff is OKAY, but it might be too much if he is going to receive more buffs.
Now let's talk utility. In EPQ he is stunning/freezing boars, in CWKPQ he is taking the the pirate cuz his puppet can hold him down. Even in CPQ he has stun for the enemies (though warriors excel in it, archer can still play it very well). It can stoppers farm with his birds. I don't think putting him on higher damage end is the way to go... Single target he shouldn't fall from the warriors or buccs, but he shouldn't overtake the A tier class. He should be low A tier - B tier damage, because of his massive utility.

 

CR is remembered as a skill that counters physical attack cancel. It still fulfills that role.

Failing while jumping is not important to Piercing Arrow's role, and it's not remembered fondly for doing that.

"Overriding apple" is not a role.

Unlike Super Transformation, there is no balance reason as to why these skills shouldn't be usable on ship, and being usable on ship doesn't make them that much better.

I think what I mean to say is "skills should fulfill the role that it looks like they were designed to do, and should not interfere negatively with people's memories of what they actually did"

 

This is irrellevant to this thread but mages cannot currently partake in BPQ. The dispel should not dispel Magic Guard, it just makes any make unable to attack as they have to only ever spam MG or they die. I always feel sad having to tell a mage to make another character to fight Balrog or buy an expensive service. It shouldn't be that way.

 

I feel like Doctor Doom meeting their future self who tells them how stupid they are for making a BM.

Jokes aside, I want to copy and paste this reply everywhere. It deserves so much recognition, your words are incredible. You singlehandedly put forth all my fears for my future BM adventures, all the problems with the class and the executions of our kit, whereas I don't feel like any part of it is executed well and nobody is in agreement as to what how anything should be executed. BM and how players and GMs alike talk about it feels like a topic in a board meeting where nobody cares enough to actually tackle the issues with it and spend the whole meeting going back and forth asking "what is a BM?". All only to never try either direction (DPS vs Utility/support) and just wind up neglecting it.

While doing almost comparable DPS to NL/Sair with similar funding would be nice, the utility letting me solo content and do things differently than any other class can is what made me want to play BM. I want to solo papulatus, Krex, The Boss and even Zakum without a billion mules. It might take forever, but I want to be able to -- IF I manage to master my utilities and the skills I'm given across my career (Bomb Arrow and Focus, for instance).

Seeing ChronoStory's Arrow Rain and how it reaches so far and makes grinding look cool and fun made my ghasts thoroughly flabbered. It doesn't have to be THAT strong, but it was cool to see how it reached above a platform more tall than the tip of my hat reaches. Knowing I can't mob and also can't properly utilise any skills other than SE and Hurricane during bossing doesn't make me excited for late game. I don't want to quit, but if I start doing lategame content and my class is this bad I might just have to, since I know I'd be wasting my time.

 

May I ask a question?
By your definition, DrK/Hero, as a multi target support class that deals about 80% of NL’s damage, then as a single target support class, what percentage of NL's damage should BM deal?

 

Make a new tier of boss, the mini bosses.

So there is

• Large bosses with HP bar in the sky,
• Mini boss without any HP bar (LHC mobs, VL summons, Ephenia summons)
• Regular mob with HP above head.

Dragon rush, bucc's rushes, warrior rushes/magnet works on Mini boss and Regular mobs, and then remove rushing from all big bosses, so the only way to move them is with high dmg.

 

I wonder if you've noticed — the moment you start responding point by point, each individual response already implies that these changes can be discussed one by one, rather than being grouped under some overarching "original purpose that determines what can or can't be changed."

For example, when you say "Unlike Super Transformation, there is no balance reason as to why these skills shouldn't be usable on ship" — then why simultaneously oppose 2-line Snipe? That's also just a case of the animation not matching, rather than having any negative effect compared to the original Snipe. It's even a slight buff.

The two points you raised:

• Skills should fulfill the role that it looks like they were designed to do
• Skills should not interfere negatively with people's memories of what they actually did

The first point is already a bit odd — wasn't Rage/Enrage originally designed as a support skill to substitute for WA potions? It's just been "repositioned" so that it now stacks with WA potions. Moreover, how can we be certain that your interpretation — or mine — is the correct one? (I can only infer the original design intent from the skill design itself, without being able to state it with the same certainty you seem to.)

The second point is even stranger — why is it acceptable to apply a positive interference for balance or gameplay reasons, but not a negative one for the same reasons? And as I mentioned earlier, using "people's memories" as the criterion for whether a skill can or can't be changed is far too subjective. You could easily decide whether you support or oppose something based on gut feeling first, and then find reasons afterward.

For example, with Pally's CR — if you want to oppose it, you could argue: "the only class that counters physical resistance, so other classes should handle other boss parts first." If you want to support it, you could say: "a vital class role that gives the party the ability to counter physical resistance."
Or with Shad's Smoke — oppose: "Smoke was originally meant to give a brief window of complete evasion, not prolonged invincibility." Support: "Smoke was always designed to give party members extended invincibility."

This approach of "deciding yes or no by feel first, then finding justifications" turns the discussion into a pure battle of positions rather than anything meaningful.

And this kind of framing is also one of the reasons the Mage Farming problem is so hard to resolve. The flawed design of three massive AoEs from the game's early days means any change that negatively interferes with AoE gets immediately dismissed with "this isn't OSMS" — most people never even reached 4th job as kids, so to them, whether Genesis has a CD simply doesn't exist in their memory — which actually makes it a potential breakthrough point for improving gameplay. "this isn't OSMS" simultaneously becomes a key argument for "mages were never meant to join bossing parties."
Of course, such a change would need to be made at the very beginning of a server's life so that subsequent changes can allow mages to participate in bossing. Once a server's ecosystem has already stabilized (e.g. multi-mage farming, multi-att bossing), every change has to be carefully considered. But bossing mage is a whole other topic, so I won't go into it further here.

Meaningful discussion about skill changes should be grounded in larger principles — like the ones I've consistently advocated:

• Does it increase the game's challenge, rather than letting a single button clear an entire dungeon?
• Does it increase party diversity, rather than letting a tiny handful of meta classes handle all content?

Any direction of change that achieves these goals is a good one — regardless of whether it introduces negative interference or conflicts with people's memories. Of course, you're free to say "this just isn't OSMS anymore" — but that subjective take is really just "a thousand readers, a thousand Hamlets." Or are you subjectively defining what OSMS means in everyone's mind?

To bring it back to a concrete point: I had previously tried to suggest — while Hero was still one of the weakest classes — buffing it through Coma/Panic complexity increases rather than a blunt DPS buff. But considering that not all players seek complex rotations, the direction of this Hero change is good. Whether to add operational complexity is a choice (for both the GM and players). The downside is that Hero received a good change, but DK/BM/MM weren't adjusted enough at the same time — though since a second patch is still coming, there's still room for hope.

 

The animation not matching is the reason. It's not a balance reason, but that doesn't make it less valid.

We can't be certain that either interpretation is the correct one, so this is a case where you could go either way.

We can go over each point one by one if you like. I don't think it will be unproductive, and I wouldn't say that I agree with every custom balance change in this server. My previous statement praising Royals for its faithfulness towards old school design may very well be incorrect.

Tell a new player that a certain skill is buffed in this server and they'll be like, "ok, neat". Tell them that a certain skill is nerfed in this server and they'll be like "what? why??" There is nothing strange about this. People don't react to buffs and nerfs the same way. There's a reason why the majority of the discussion over the past week has been about nerfs, and I don't see any thread in this forum called "NL buff protest". It's also the reason why a bad buff (perma ST) persisted for so long in the first place, because nobody seemed willing to call it out for being unhealthy.

I wouldn't mind a Genesis CD for the record, even if that's not on the table. I will say that mages WERE meant to join bossing parties, otherwise what's the point of them casting magic cancel? Designing Zakum and Horntail to have multiple parts was probably also done with the intent to give mages something to use their AoE attacks on. They just botched the execution so badly that we still ended up with a meta where mages weren't welcomed in bosses at all. I can't prove it, but it's true.

 

Suggestion for MM - Make Snipe autocast-able (toggleable/non-toggleable)