Awaiting Feedback update 95.1 ruined bossing (and mobbing)

If anything, before it required skill to maneuver the spawns in such a way that you'll still be able to attack Ephenia. It's not like it was a one and done thing, she moved, teleported and spawned more mobs and it required some skill to be able to efficiently move them around to still be able to attack her. It was a way for a weaker player to still be able to solo her. Now it's just a DPS check, I don't see the skill and challenge in that.

 

I stopped doing my daily Chaos/Ephenia/Pap runs after the update, it's just a pain now compared to as it was before. For what it's worth, I don't like this change.

 

I second this so much. Before I had to carefully position myself, now it feels like I'm just waiting for my dmg to finish off the mobs as quickly as possible so I can hit the boss.

 

+1 to this entire thread and bumping for visibility
Can we basically get a copy/paste version of this in the Feedback section of the forums? Would like this voice to continue to be heard for those who agree with it if admins are adamant about not reverting these changes.

 

Shaolin : i was Soloing, guess no more soloing for me
it makes life real tough on NL's please consider bringing it back to normal!

 

I stopped playing the game since the change, no point doing dailies if I can't do them

 

As a warrior-exclusive player, a big part of the fun comes from the crowd-control abilities. However, as mentioned before, that aspect now feels janky across the board. It definitely doesn't feel like the game requires "more skill"—quite the opposite, actually, as everything just feels more random now.

I'm more concerned for my ranged friends, though. Even before this update, playing ranged characters didn’t seem to offer many advantages over melee—requiring much more HP washing and being harder to level overall, especially at LHC. This change makes the game feel less satisfying for me as a melee player, and it seems to have significantly nerfed ranged characters, which I don’t think was necessary or intended

 

Not sure if its been mentioned in the thread. But Range LHC Gollems is officially f*cked hard. Gollems walk around all over the place not caring about aggro for shit. Walking to close not caring about the attack range for shit. Aint wasting my apples again for that.

Back to Horntailing for leveling NLs bois (rip totems for belt)!

EDIT: I see now that Donn1e mentioned this briefly in her first post.

 

since its close to 3 am, i'll keep this pretty short.

about von leon - it's practically the same, and hearing the host call out for something only for it to, uh, not be out, is confusing.

timers are still a bit tricky.

I don't think i need to add much more, Donn1e's comment from 25th of april was very detailed already, so i'll just second that.

about CWK - i can feel that the job of pinning the bosses to the corner (bottom bosses, ofc) has become easier - BUT! keeping them pinned is hell.

I've never pressed rush so many times in such a short amount of time - IN MY LIFE.

the rush is still wonky, or at least the way they react to it, cause they seem to be bugged in place.

I rush >> they move 0.01 inches >> they "teleport" back to the same place >>> repeat around 3 to 6 times until they're finally getting rushed (it's only me aggroing them and pushing them, no one else) >>>> move away 10 to 30 seconds later (depends on their feelings, i guess?) >>>> repeat the whole process.

Rushing in LHC hass been pretty bad too, Rose Garden as well.. basically every boss or content that you need to pin something to somewhere - it's like 60% more annoying to do.

I truly think that the 95.1 change messed up bosses big time. honestly. i can only say that the dispell timing is better and more "friendly" but that's pretty much it.

If i, as a drk melee player, suffer from this - i cannot even imagine the suffering of ranged players that cannot deal with this.

Thank you for your continous work for the game and the attempt to balance, and fix, as much as u can. really.

Sometimes things don't work out. it's also ok to go back to where we were before 95.1, instead of re-learning all the timings of all bosses.

 

I am sorry Guys this update ruined bossing for me (as NL)
i used to Solo Shao (for example) i was Pushiing Left clones and let em hit me and that was just fine.
since the Patch , the clones moving thro me and making Shao almost impossible for mid+ NLs to solo
he update really made my NL life bossing much much much more difficult.
ty
and sorry ik you guys trying your best. <3

 

I recently ran a CWKPQ. I noticed one of the bosses was impossible to rush, turns out it aggro'd my bishop mule and wouldn't budge. I moved my bishop out of range and towards the direction i wanted to rush the boss, but yeah it was wonky and unintuitive. I like the randomness with skills after cooldown, it makes content a little less braindead, but the aggro is pretty wack post 95.1.

 

If this is the direction royals is going, I'd like to suggest some skill changes.

In Shao for NL for example, shadow web is 80% success and hold for 8 seconds, and is the one of the better answers for clones. It's really frustrating to reapply shadow web every 8 seconds. Shadow web is already a niche ability that doesn't see much use. I'm ok with getting to use more of my NLs kit, but I would like if it held for longer, and perhaps succeeded like 90%.

Ranged LHC also frustrating with the changes, where it was already more difficult to find groups compared to melee. Maybe if golems could be webbed, or knocked around easier? NL at least can FJ to reposition, but other ranged don't have options. Not to mention non-NLs get hit and knocked around far more often. So positioning for them is already extra difficult.

 

The same problems are still there.
When checking for VL behavior, it's best to observe an actual run instead of testing it with a low hp b3 on a test server.
VL acts differently when being attacked by players.
I put in some more work to demonstrate that nothing was really changed and all the problems still exist.
I do not have the time to do it like last time with clips for each incident, so I will link 2 runs below (one from may 7th and the other from may 10th, way after the update).
If you want to get the exact timings, watch for yourself:



Delayed animations:
Without going too much into detail, they're all still there, some of the timings observed in these 2 vods:
- A few really long tps, ranging between 2 mins and 3 mins.
- Delayed mob summons, such as the first golem wave in the 2nd vod (could summon at 42:28, actually summoned at 41:44), together with many other examples if you time mobs in those runs.
- Delayed first teleport with a new body.
- Delayed golems consume (not as significant as before, though still gamebreaking)
- Everything else that was explained in my first post.

Bucc exclusive problems:
I didn't record my own POV, but I'm sure it's easy to prove if you try and test yourself with Bucc.
Buccs get a ton of fake animations now, such as:
- Fake mob summon animation (sometimes multiple times before it actually summons).
- Fake jail animation (does jail animation, nothing happens and then real jail animation later).
It looks like Buccs will get the animation when the skill goes off cooldown, and then will get it again when it actually is casted.
Also, new bug unlocked:
VL still tps out of map, but now it can also walk after lol.


Rubberbanding, sliding and other problems:
Just as explained in my first post, its just so unsatisfying to run with this version of the boss.

The experience is horrible, the boss is much easier and more forgiving than before (but buggy at the same time).
Read my post in the previous page, I went over it again and everything I said there is still relevant.

I truly understand the need to have mobs display their "natural" behavior, this looks more right to you and I know that consistency is something you value.
However, sometimes we need to accept that the original, or "natural" version was just flawed.
With the introduction of new exclusive content, changes such as the initial aggro change must happen, it just makes the game smoother.
Did a single player complain about unnatural mob behavior before, does a single player enjoy update 95.1....?
Please revert, no harm will come from this.

 

To be fair, after viewing Matt's primitive boar video, I do agree that normal mobs should behave as the original version does (a bit of moving around, spreading, and unsynced attacks)
But I still think bosses should behave as the 2022-2025 version does (more aggressive attacks, and predictable/timetable skill casting)

Is it possible to have 2 different aggro systems, with the old version applying to normal-tagged mobs, and the 2022-2025 version applying to boss-tagged mobs?
Maybe that can be a good middle ground to settle with for now. Then later implement the boss-tagged system more to fix those weird behaviors such pap facing the wrong direction as shown in Matt's pap video.

If that's not possible, then maybe consider changing the whole aggro system back to the 2022-2025 version until there's a better solution.

 

As a ranged class myself, the aggro mechanics update is nothing short of cancerous. If we are staying on course to having monsters walking into my character, then I would at least love to see dragon breath being usable in LHC and other contents. This would at least keep range parties much more manageable and allow bm to be more relevant (yes, there are still BM mains out there), instead of encouraging us to turn our BMs into simply a SE mule.

 

Just had another VL run and when i say animation timing is bad.. HOLY.

So, usually it takes a bit of time from VL spawning golems >>> VL eating golems.

This time for sure it was one of the wonkiest timings i ever experienced.

One time, it takes VL 20 seconds to eat golems.

Second time, it takes VL 1 minute 30 seconds to eat golems.

Third time, it takes VL 15 seconds (????) to eat golems.

Fourth time, it takes VL 2 minutes to eat golems.

There is some insane inconsistensy in this timing and we had to gelt our 12man run because of it, as VL ate 10% hp worth of golems because we barely had any time to clear it.

If im not mistaken, it usually takes VL around 30 seconds to cast the animation of himself eating golems.

It shouldn't range between 15 seconds to 2 minutes. it's insanely inconsistent and i personally had to semi-pray that von leon won't eat golems too fast.

Animations are still being canceled - can say that this time i've only seen mob spawn animations being canceled with lightning / rocks / lazers.

VL had his 2 to 4 seconds of not doing anything and i kid you not - i rushed von leon. yes. i used rush, and von leon was affected and he got rushed to the side i was rushing.

He even animated being rushed. it never happened to me.

I'm not sure why there is no revert to this change until you guys can come up with a solution that is more suitable.

VL Hosts (based on my runs at least) just gave up on calling for animations because they are so inconsistent. it's really problematic not knowing what will happen, and when it will happen.

And while you're at it - dont forget to buff drk and remove Hero's for the game.

I will give you guys credit when credit is due - dispell animation timing has been improved a lot, and we (the ppl on the VL run) agreed on that as a couple of us mentioned how convenient it is now.

thank you!

 

Like most people alluded to, having push skills not work because the monster is aggro'd to another player is just plain buggy. It's a push skill. It's supposed to push. The fact that these skills fail because of some millisecond delay between one person's client and another's client is not a part of design of the skill.

Monsters behaving more unpredictably for more interactive play? Fine, but then make push skills work consistently. A 18x+ NL/SE duo shouldn't be failing shao because the clones refuse to budge for several minutes in total time. If this bug unfixable, then revert the aggro changes. *Something* should work to make bossing not feel like a coin flip.

I'm not exactly sure why we're making bossing even more unreliable as more and more people turn to mage farming...

 

Just my two cents but if bosses clearly felt like they were not working properly or like players were taking advantage of or abusing behavior, this change would seem more natural.
Instead, it feels like the opposite. Even if you say this is more 'natural behavior' or is an 'additional challenge' it does not come off that way and is an especially bizarre stance to take on bosses that people have already been killing for so long.
For many bosses that players generally kill daily (Chao, Eph, BF), it does not really add 'challenge' as much as tedium. If anything, it takes away from strategy and just makes the fights erratic and frustrating to have to repeat so many times. BF could still easily kill a player that was not paying attention and unless you were actively managing distance, the fight would take much longer. Now, it's not necessarily more difficult as much as it's just annoying to have to worry about him arbitrarily spazzing out.
Again, if these bosses clearly felt like they were not working probably or being exploited, this argument would seem more credible. Instead, the bosses come off as more broken now even if theoretically 'working as intended'
I do get that these changes and fixes take a lot of work and time (that is already spent managing an entire server, having RLs, and making a living) but this does come off more as a "this wasn't really intended but we'll spin it that way and hope people soften up to it."

And yes, I do play NL.

 

+1 for the above after Matt's comments. We do appreciate you trying to fix things to "Normal Behaviour" but it definitely feels the opposite. Spending a ton of time and resources to level up a NL (we're an expensive class to wash and equip) only to be nerfed directly by mob behaviour makes our class even more difficult to level.

- LHC is an easy find for melee classes, you almost see no LHC Ranged parties anymore.
- I used to solo bosses like Shao but now, more than half my time is to lure, push them away, and then shadow web (if it's successful), vs. a simple rush ability that melee players have. Even if I invested heavily in equips, my damage is nerfed astronomically

Hope the staff will reconsider the change & appreciate the attention you guys are putting in this.