Pink Bean Body Phase Changes

Yes please

Making stuff harder is far from the issue, it is the solution - not just for PB but for every boss, and in general the entire late game of ML.

The only way to make content rewarding and accessible for everyone is to increase the mechanical difficulty, otherwise just look what happened to Core Blaze : on release it was a challenging end game boss PQ with strong rewards, but it's been so optimized that established players are essentially AFK-farming it solo.
How can the EV of a boss like this be balanced? There's no way the drops can be profitable to a regular Trio, while not being completely overpowered for those who solo farm it. Eventually the server will reach an equilibrium where only players with optimized characters can farm it profitably.

Furthermore, the fantasy of building a character vertically is fading because it's just easier and far more effective to play 2 Pallies than 1 DK (an arbitrary example)

Increasing the APM requirement on content is the only way to reduce multi-clienting, provide value to building out a "main", and incentivize party play

 

The problem with yielding to the demand for more "fun and challengingTM" content is that meta strategies are only difficult to solve one time. After going over the main hurdle of solving it, it's repeated, then optimized, and then people go back to complaining that content is too predictable or not worth the effort.

While I think the novelty of it all can seem exciting, I think the end result will be the same - most end game players will probably find it not worth optimizing compared to other methods of farming.

Pink Bean already has a terribly cope median EV. It's extremely feast or famine, and unless you're running on every single run to catch lightning whenever it strikes, you're going to Gurk yourself.

 

Agreed, if something remains constant then it's only a matter of time before it's solved. But, I don't see that as a reason to not try and change things up from time to time. There are a ton of strategies employed by all kinds of games to stretch the depth of content as far as possible with minimal dev effort

ML is oldschool and naturally conservative in rate of change, but at the same time the most exciting updates have always been content or balance changes. HP Challenges were announced like a year ago, and we still need to change our undies after every teaser

 

even just making core HARDER to solo would be a step in the right direction (but i suppose we'll see what the balance changes bring us next week). just because a change isnt the perfection solution doesnt mean it's a bad one.

Of course people will keep on optimizing even after changes, yet that should not be an argument against making changes. However it brings up a good point in that whatever changes are made, we should make sure things do not go back to square one after it's all said and done (ie. core still easily clearable solo, PB still snoozefest, etc)

I agree PB body phase is boring and should be changed somewhat, but this seems like a pretty big task.

 

While I think this would be fUn, its just going to lead to low diversity, and the creation of new degenerate mules.

Muling bishops is too hard because of new mechanics? Ok, lets make beginner bishops that have ~1 - 2k more hp than normal ones. Oh, they don't have enough avoid? Lets reset all their INT into LUK so now they have high hp and high avoid and let us mule in peace.

The boss fight is more demanding now so low avoid classes keep getting stunned / statused? Lets just fire all the hero / dk / paladin / corsair / archer and replace them with shadowers, nightlords, buccs, and LUK archer SE mules.

The reality of the situation is that any change you make to make this boss fight harder is going to just lead to more inequality between classes, and in turn the groups that are able to clear.

If you are really just trying to solve "muling" in this boss fight, increase the cost of having a mule on the run by reducing the timer. I heard 30 man runs are barely using any apples these days. Seems like they would be fine with a reduced timer by just using more apples.

 

i see your point, yes harder boss mechanics would require more degenerate level of mule mutilation to make work. i agree. but isnt that kinda the point? we don't want mules to be so easy that they can just work right out of the box. few-man PB SHOULD require hard to make mules.

but i think the main point is that right now it's so easy people can just dual attack and use regular characters as mules, since it requires no effort. but I agree making the boss harder would encourage "safer" classes like NLs and shads. in that sense making shifter not work on sed note was a good idea.

 

Never done PB before, just to clarify J> pog 187 Hero can apple a lot and be hella cute

But I feel like making the fight harder just makes it even more hilariously difficult for the average late-game player to start a new PB run than it already is

Not that it should be as easy to host as a Zakum run of course, but, further discouraging people from trying to start new runs just so its more involved for the few runners that have optimized it feels eh to me, even if more involved fights are always a plus to me

 

It really depends on how that "difficulty" comes about. If it's just extra mechanics that can simply be fully circumvented with either more bodies (sed mules with high avoid) or by selecting classes that don't have to engage with the mechanic (attackers with high avoid/iframe), then it's likely to be worse than what we have now.

While there's certainly ways to promote healthier gameplay, the design space is simply too limited when the value of simply existing is as large as it is for how simple it really is. Avoid scales too hard, pets keep characters alive with little to no supervision, party buffs are a simple button press and last virtually forever. How can balance team ever hope to make a remotely engaging fight while also keeping these kind of things around?

 

Could just make the mini-beans crawl around the ground instead of fly. Sorta like when cwk warrior boss summons all the mobs. Cleave now relevant; NL/SE in shambles; sairs rejoice?

 

I think this is a really strong argument for seasons, personally.

 

Also this aged spectacularly well in such an incredibly short time.

 

Yep. It would be nice to see more extreme shifts in class tiers so that meta strategies could always remain flexible and evolve around the much more static content. I think that would offer a much more dynamic experience season to season rather than trying to add more and more obstacles into what has already been figured out. As long as it is predicated that seasonal balance isn't meant to be permanent, there shouldn't be much room for resentment when seasonal buffs are reverted to their vanilla state (and yes, there will be those that complain about getting nerfed). It also opens up the idea that there really is no right or wrong choice since one day your class will probably have its chance to shine.

That said, I still like the idea of incorporating the ToT area bosses into the main fight. It fits well thematically - with each of the area bosses featuring all of Pink Bean's boss mechanics - Dodo with banish, Lilynouch with DR, and Lyka with seduce. It'd be cool of we could also make use of more niche and often forgotten skills like Puppet, Hamstring, Seal, Doom, Double Stab, Slow, etc. to make things more interesting and reduce mule usage.

 

Seems like a tall task to make it work, but as long as every class remains playable at the least no matter the season, I think this would really spice up the game and make it way more interesting. Stagnant metas are zzzzzzz

 

I don’t think this is an issue because as it current stands, most classes are viable in at least their niche contents. Buffing other classes would not hurt the effectiveness of other classes, but it will shift the optimal/meta choice. For example, if Dark Knights were buffed significantly for a season to the point they were out damaging NLs, it would not lower the effectiveness of NLs, but there would suddenly be more access to HB.

 

IMO nerfs feel more appropriate than buffs. Content is added so rarely, it would be better to extend the lifespan of existing content by reducing power across the board rather than creeping it up

NT2 even after it's been solved to the degree it is now, still seems like an appropriate level of challenge for my DK. i.e. I can't multi-attack very efficiently on my DK, it can't pin bosses, it's hard to put out meaningful DPM in Auf, and it certainly can't solo CB with 'moderate' funding.

But, DK has to compete in the open market on prices against classes that can do all of those things for the same level of investment

 

It makes less sense logistically yo hand every other class nerfs in order to highlight one or two classes - seasonally at that. It’d make more sense to give classes experimental buffs to test and gauge feedback. Staff has always approached buffing and balance with caution because of the stagnant and slow moving meta, but if it’s expected that meta is shifting every season, they have much more room to play around. It already happens in different games with much success, so it’s not a foreign concept.

 

Which games are you referring to? A huge reason to be cautious with class rebalancing is because each character or item represents a potentially massive investment of time from its player, to the extent where they feel a significant degree of ownership. So somebody coming in, taking away your character, nerfing it, then returning it to you feels terrible. This is a well observed effect in competitive card games, for example, like Hearthstone way back. But owning a card in Hearthstone can be orders of magnitude less significant than owning a character or item in ML, so the effect is that many times more pronounced.

By contrast, most (if not all?) competitive games with seasonal balance changes do not feature any meaningful degree of ownership from the player, so completely revamping the game every now and then doesn't feel like erasing or destroying existing investments from players. The concept of seasons in MMORPGs has existed for a while, but they're completely different and are specifically designed to minimise this effect.

 

Oh yeah for sure, with a Seasonal system then the balance team could go wild because even if something is crazy OP, there's no player expectation that the content will remain that way for long.

My thoughts on nerfs/buffs were referring to the current environment where changes are really rare

Agreed. I think Snowman PQ / Demon King demonstrated interesting game mechanics that could not be circumvented by currently abused tactics. It's very difficult to multi-attack, and of course washing and avoid gave no benefit. Because of these limitations, these event bosses were able to give good EV even to less established players provided they were willing to actively sweat, which I think is the draw of bossing over farming in the first place.

I imagine there's risk of losing players due to negative reaction to nerfs, but at the same time doing nothing comes with its own risks

We don't really know how many potential players came, read the #1 DK guide, then left

I don't think it's fair or realistic to ask for perfect balance, but it is pretty troll that LUK mule is legitimately the best role the meta could find for one of the most iconic GMS classes

 

nah