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What about reverting but reducing the range of NLs? Why are throwing stars anywhere near the range of bow and arrow/pistols?

 

I mean I'm seeing discussion about "is NL even really as OP as balance team suggests" and there are valid arguments from both sides. It sounds like people think NL needs a nerf because A) It's too easy to play, which causes B) it's too easy to do damage (especially on apple). There are also equally good arguments about NL being strong in only a handful of content. If NL can't be objectively ruled as deserving of a nerf, then the only reason left seems to be C) because it's too easily scalable into a multi attack setup.

I didn't mean to make a disingenuous slippery slope argument, but I really do feel like multiclienting is the source of nearly all issues and the never-ending target of many balance changes. Lastly I just want to say I resonated a lot with Disney 's sentiment

 

I love the *concept* of building up stacks, to release them for extra damage. The issue here I see is that 1. the idea of stack + release doesn't feel inline with the Night Lords' identity, and 2. in practice, Night Lords would find whichever wall is closest and flash jump into it 5x times before resuming their damage.

Sounds cool in concept, I just worry the mechanic would get old very, very fast - especially in the longer boss fights.

 

I wasn't talking about multi-attacking or anything like that at all. I'm talking about making ANY balance changes at all. I don't know why multi-attacking would even be apart of this conversation or how it got brought up. It should be irrelevant.

Editing to address the class distributions -- this is not very useful data on its own, just popularity?

 

I wasn't around for the rumors, so I don't know much about that, and I do believe you when you say/wrote it's not a problem that anyone can fully prevent. My disagreement on this topic is more to do with the choice of making multiclient fully available to all users. I believe it is NOT worth the various downsides it creates across so many different aspects of the Maplestory experience. That's a whole conversation to have though and I'm sure you have a lot more you could say on the topic too.

 

Yeah I for sure don't disagree with the idea of people not wanting it to be more interactive and that being okay. I do think the concern is if you want AFK play, it should come with AFK play results. A lot of classes find it unfair to benefit from having such high damage while only half paying attention because you can hold down a button and ignore danger. (To be fair, pallies also have this issue at the moment.) A lot of people also seem okay with nerfing damage if playing in an AFK way as the exchange there. Others are less okay with that concept, preferring the big damage, but having it both ways is what is being clocked as damaging to the server. For those who are clinging white-knuckled to the idea that they should have the best of both worlds, I don't think there's much of a discussion to be had with them as they will never be satisfied with anything except having the most optimal play experience over other classes.

As for wanting preserve the old school feel - big proponent of that! What that means does seem to differ from player to player, many of us did not get so high level in GMS to even be able to entertain the nuances of the class to this degree, so I'm not sure it's about nostalgia on that front. I certainly never got to enjoy shifter in the old days, the highest I ever got to was 91. (I think on that front BT also has to unfortunately deal with complaints about things being too different/non-classical with virtually every change that they make, so it might be difficult for them to parse apart whether or not it's a knee-jerk reaction or a legitimate concern for preserving that feeling.)

 

Why do the balance teams always try to nerf the popular classes?
If a class is popular because it’s more efficient and rewarding than others,
wouldn’t it make more sense to buff the other classes with their own unique strengths and merits instead?

 

It takes time to find a wall, and time to jump into it - time when you're not otherwise attacking.
I think there exists some numbers to be set so that its not beneficial to intentionally get stacks. Maybe get 1 or 2 extra stacks if you notice you're close, but not all of them.

Rather its more for, if you get knocked back (dunas lightning) and you're jumping back anyway, you want to avoid certain optional attacks (nib missiles), or there is downtime (weapon cancel), where a little setup can boost damage to cover the time spent doing other actions.
The other thief class has Assassinate which also setups for extra damage.

 

Well, while we're opening the floor for wacky ideas...
1) Give some passive shifter back, even at the cost of avoid scaling. The fans like smiling at their wood.
2) There has to be some change to seduce. Whether thats cutting/capping avoid, or negating benefit of passive shifter, this is the single mechanic that makes thieves the "tanks" of ML.
3) Let thieves attack/pot in dark sight, basically allowing them to choose to be passively immune to touch damage if they want it. This lets both thieves no longer fear fj/nate dashing into unwanted touch damage, and opens the door for thieves to do some really interesting things for uptime and survival/aoe dodging. Take up fears of multiclient farming with the Department of Agriculture (the root causes go much deeper than thief getting a bit less touch kb).
4) Lets solve the issue of shads getting kbed off platforms and NLs needing to reset position by making Ninja Ambush a ranged teleport to a player decided waypoint; duck and press the skill to drop a shadow figure visible to yourself, and press again to appear at that location. Bonus points if it stuns nearby mobs on vanish (nl) or entry (shad). A literal Ninja Ambush. More skillpoints can allow better stun and/or longer range tp.

Thieves can and shouod have high effective damage, but it really should come from easy to understand tools to maximize their damage uptime, and not just blanket invulnerability. Even active shifter seems like not a good fit, and often comes off more warrior-like in terms of responsiveness than a thief-like utility for a situation that they were "prepared for".

 

TIL dual nl is apparently easy in PB

 

Revert to original passive shifter but night lords have to solve a captcha every 10 times passive shifter is activated

 

Some players (including myself) picked NL because of how it's comfy to play in AFK mode, while some players picked NL because of their top DPM ability, Recently we started to think single class having both things in same time - great stability with peak dpm - is something breaking game.

If we stick on stability nerfing dpm, some players would be frustrated, if their pick reason was dpm.
If we stick on dpm , some players would be frustrated, if their pick reason was afk play.

I think I saw a wacky solution from modern MS thief skill - Ready to die.
This buff skill tradeoffs stability with your peak dpm. You can choice your play whether you stick on dpm, or, stability.

So yes, revert passive shifter 30%, nerf dpm 20%'ish, and remake make ninja ambush into such toggleable buff
ex)_ once ninja ambush is activated, passive shifter chances goes into 0%, and get extra dpm by whatever. (raw raising numbers, additional lines, whatever, in fun ways).

With this way, we can satisfy both sides players who wants AFK gameplay, and who wants peak DPM, unless player wants both in greed.

You should not F2 by shifter when you're serious in DPM mode

 

At the end of the day I don't think the identity of being one of the most comfortable / brain dead classes is less true after active shifter. Sure, it's more active than before but even then it's still relatively brain dead. While this change sounds interesting, I somehow believe if we go for this change multi client Nls might simply opt to use the damage buff and have to pay more attention since even without passive shifter, the avoid should be enough to keep the gameplay comfortable to multi client. This in turn will probably make NLs even better than they were before which might translate into an overpowered NL

 

Yes, detailed features can be changed, to make 'focusing single NL be rewarded enough with good DPM' and still 'multi braindead NL doesn't overwhelm anymore'. I exampled as 'making shifter into 0% for activating dpm buff', but there are many features can be tweaked from it.

How far we nerf NL dpm on passive mode? 10%? 20%? 30%?
How far we buff NL dpm on active mode? 10%? 20%? 30%?
What changes will happen in active mode? shifter nullify only? reducing avoid? damage taken more?

I just wanted to give option to both side players - DPM holics, and AFK holics. Not both in same time anymore.

 

I've posted this before, but on a different thread. Will paste it back here since this is the correct place to post it.

For my NL (182)

I’m currently playing my NL daily.

• It is annoying to play him now due to the repositioning.
  
• Not impossible nor is it horrible to play, just now it does require more attention. It’s not afk like it was before.
  
• Active shifter is decent. Ofc I prefer the original shifter (because of how good it was), but with active shifter, I find myself mainly saving it for magic cancels or seds
• In terms of single client attacking on him overall, it’s not bad.
  
• More annoying when attacking in multiple clients.

The active shifter does seem interesting and adds a new flair to the playstyle.

MY UPDATED THOUGHTS SINCE THE ORIGINAL POST

Honestly, I've been playing the NL a lot more and its really not that bad imo.

I've gotten used to using the active shifter in its current state and its engaging enough.

Damage on my NL is now starting to scale where it should be.

For reference, I do not multi attack hardcore like others.
- My opinion comes from a single client NL perspective, but overall, I like the current state that NL is in.

It's a lot less repositioning than my BM and still feels good to play.

 

I do agree that NL and SAIR deserves top tier single DPM, thinking of their cons (buff dependancy, HP issue, awful in non-single target situations), just like Krythan said. Just it shouldn't be given that easily like how it's been.

But still there are players who doesn't stick on peak DPM but sticked on stability of NL and easy gameplay (yes, I am). To make their effort not be doomed, that was my opinion came out as solution.

 

We gotta remember that this isn't just about tackling multiclienting - it's about balancing the class, first and foremost, for (active) NLs. If we are deciding what the trade-off should be to balance them better, that's all well and good, but everyone has different opinions as to what that tradeoff should be and there's no one solution everyone seems to be getting behind.

But in HV's example (and I think this was BT's suggestion too), first and foremost would be both a return to passive shifter alongside a damage reduction. That's the baseline - AFK style, the style many love, done a bit more fairly - and then the skill would be able to have them toggle the pro and con of AFK versus Active, choosing avoidance or damage as the priority.

Actually the more I think about it, the more I think it's a cool inventive solution honestly - you could even strategize with it! Like toggle avoid priority during WC to save on pots/before sed, and then toggle damage priority during magic cancel. Great versatility. And it doesn't stop AFK style players who wanna Netflix and ML at all, so it's nice for them too.

 

I can't really say I play night lord but honestly I feel like if people truly were a bit more optimistic about the class in general they'd probably still find the appeal. At least in my opinion I've always felt that it's odd that most people praise and love NL for their ability to be optimal without having to put any effort at all. It kind of makes sense I guess, old school maple is a very good 2nd monitor game while you do anything else but to the extent of ease passive shifter NLs brought and how rewarding it was I always thought it was borderline. I'm personally not opposed to NL being single target beasts as intended but imo the approach for the class should be to expand over active shifter. Give more benefits, longer duration, some kind of mechanic that lowers cooldown to make it better and more engaging. For example every time you hit 3 lines of critical lower the cooldown by 2 seconds.

Anyhow I think expanding on the active shifter mechanics is probably the way to go.

 

You know something is very wrong when the player base is bargaining with BT like it's a hostage situation. Why does BT have such an actively antagonistic relationship with the players?

 

It's not bargaining situation. They aren't making deal with us, for giving/taking features. It's gathering opinions up, so-called 'brainstorming', so we can give some idea to BT for how we think, what they're missing, to make better conclusion, and future.

Or, am I only one thinking so?