Feedback Upcoming Night Lord updates and plans

I actually think it's fine to want this, but the issue is if you want a class to be brainless and easy and afk, you shouldn't also be the absolute strongest class out there whiting every single boss. (This is why we get swaths of NLs dominating most content and outdamaging everyone with very little effort, and it actively makes for a blander community when class diversity is discouraged because NL is the undisputed king. Every class needs some drawback, and other than NLs being kinda mid cleavers, there really is none for us lol.)

 

I would be totally cool with this :3c

 

I think one thing to consider is that their downsides are generally not worth highlighting as much as usual in a multi-client server where you can make up for a huge portion of their downsides relatively simply.

 

Why can't we just revert back to the old NL + shifter and nerf the avoid that luk gives by ~20% (only affects NL and Shad) and buff the avoid that Dex gives by ~20% (buffs avoid for archers, pirates, warriors) and leave everything else alone. Yay balance. All this stuff is just adding unnecessary complexity to the game and class. Then NL/Shad will still have their regular shifter and slightly reduced avoid. The other classes get a nice little avoid boost. Overall NL/Shad will still have much higher avoid (keeps the core identity) but just tunes it down a bit without changing the gameplay, and archers/pirates/warriors will notice some extra misses which is nice too. No effect on mages either.

I don't play NL but I feel this would just put an end to this avoid debate that's been going on for a decade.

 

Which boss fights though, I'm very confused at the lack of actual names of places where they are indeed the best and by such a degree that they are deserving of nerfs.

 

Allow me to clarify; the playstyle may be brainless, but the setup is not. It takes A LOT of work to get a good NL going. But they don't necessarily dominate since they're so reliant on SE anyway. Which is why I think they were fine the way they were.

If their dependence on SE was eliminated, then they'd have to become a much harder class to play too, which would eliminate the specific type of experience that NL offered in the first place.

 

Needing SE is a very small barrier for most of us. Most parties will either have it or mule it in specifically for NLs.

For the crazy end gamers, I do agree that it takes a lot of money to get the really insane gear. Speaking from experience as NL being my first and highest level class though, I have never had an issue getting into content to make money because NLs are always wanted, and the expense for just-decent gear was pretty comparable with gear cost for other classes I play and I still outdamage people. I think once you play NL, and then play other classes, it does give a lot of perspective for how easy we have it.

 

I think some people wanted more NL skills to do something instead of being absolute useless.

so IF (a big if in my opinion) we want to keep going in the direction of certain skills adding to the avoid, why do we need to have FJ (which is already a useful skill) add avoid? we should have some other useless skill add to the avoid.

On the other hand, i think some people would...prefer if most of NLs skills were useless to have a simple playstyle. idk which camp is bigger. more useful skill? less useful skill?

 

Personally, I don't believe the Night Lord class is as strong as people claim. The class is a textbook example of "min/max" in game-design. They are really good at somethings, and really bad at others.

Of all the classes, they are the most dependent on an external buff. They are the most difficult to level, and they have the worst cleave in the game - which makes them bottom tier in quite a few scenarios.

Even when looking at their strengths, they're still not even the best bossing class.

I would make the argument that Night Lords are a top-tier class for Pink Bean, and Horntail. Very prominent bosses in the end-game meta, but in every other meaningful end-game content (Core, Auf, NT, BGA, etc), there is a different class that can out-perform Night Lords.

 

A random idea, Venomous stars and Ninja Ambush are both useless skills to have. Maybe Change it to stack poison / bleed on bossses. The more stacks to more Damage of Time it does. And to keep it at max stacks you have to reapply it. Maybe also introduce this for other classes so more classes can keep up stacks. Since its a debuff on the bosses it should not count towards your dpm meter? Also increase the range of ninja ambush since NL are not suppose to go close range on bosses.

 

I’ve been waiting for this thread.
My previous proposal was “passive 17.5% + active ss”, because I was thinking that if the idea behind the balance changes on NL was to constrain multi-NLs from being too comfortable, passive ss should never be completely removed. The active ss here also shouldn’t be associated with dmg. NLs never needed to flash jump to prove they were actively doing DPM before, so I disagree with the upcoming mechanism.
If seriously solving the problem, I will once again remind that please DO NOT affect the QoL of single-clientors, and instead focus on constraining multi-NLs. Honestly, I don’t think any of the changes ever really implemented the idea of “making it more balanced.” I must tell you those changes did, and will continue to, help a lot with shortening timers as a professional quad-attacker (NL NL NL Shad). I’m not gonna expose details on how to cripple multi-NLs here, but my plan below will do so in the dark.

My plan is: passive 17.5% shadow shifter (if you insist on 15% nvm then—the extra 2.5% is to partially compensate for the 100 AVD loss compared to the previous patch) + active ss(to evade all attacks for 15secs, CD: 100secs, no longer able to shrug off stun).
By decreasing the chance of passive ss (30% → 17.5%) + 100 AVD loss, I believe they will surely make multi-NLs more overwhelmed. Adding active ss will maintain the QoL of single-clientors, while also creating a performance ceiling specifically for multi-NLs.

 

I’m hesitant to shoot this down because it seems easy to implement and revert and not much of the power budget seems allocated here, but I genuinely can’t imagine people enjoying this feature long term. Once the initial effect the first couple weeks of “omg new feature look at all the NLs bouncing around during DR” wears off, my guess is it quickly becomes “time to smash my face into the wall 20 times during DR instead of actually taking a break” and it’ll just become more drudgery

 

I dont play NL but i think its an interesting design and more fun than ogms.

I do think that rewarding players with damage / avoid after flashjump fits the thematic really nicely, but we all know the people who want ro afk and throw stars will complain

 

I would agree. On paper, this seems like a fun mechanic. In practice, the third time that pre-heads DR, it's going to get old, and there's still 3 hours of HT left.

 

Just want to add that Shadow web + Ninja Storm is a very good usefull combo attack in bosses with mobs (Chao, Ravana, Zakum, Krex, Bergamot, Dunas 2, Nib, JC, Core Blaze) It is in most bosses not a must have skill, except for CB i think it is a must have. I think allowing night lords to use this in more bosses would be a more fun way of making NL less braindead in a passive way. For exmaple in HT webbing and pushing wyverns away from the party, Auf helping splitting / positioning the clones, BGA helping splitting the mobs, CWK, being able to split pirate and mage.

 

I think this is a fair prediction, it's totally possible this will happen. As with any kind of beneficial skill tweak, people will be intrinsically motivated to find the quickest and easiest way to spam it, even if that way is tedious and counterintuitive to the vision of the skill use. I would still like to try it out, though - after all, it's an optional feature people can simply ignore if they want to, and a benefit for people who aren't multiclienting.

 

I'd like to re-introduce my idea of a passive shifter that would negate knockback but not damage.
(Stance disguised as shifter, depending how you look at it)

This way, we dont get tossed around as much but we remain vulnerable to damage. We get our feel good to play class and you get your avoid tanking nerf. Win-win?

 

NLs are the gods of old school maplestory. They literally and figuratively rise above all the other classes in the game. That identity should be completely protected when making future changes to the class. Therefore my suggestions to maintain their identity while allowing for some balance would be the following:

1. Revert shadow shifter to pre nerf numbers.

2. Give them a passive that allows them to literally float as a representation of their godlike powers.

3. Remove foot traction due to their godlike float passive resulting in them sliding in every map as if it were in an El Nath map.

4. Nullify the effects of snow shows and spikes on shoe scrolls for Night Lords.

Conclusion: NL mains will be happy to have their avoid back & non NL mains will enjoy watching them fly across the map.

 

Dont think it was ment to be used in bosses but just a QoL for Traveling.