Feedback Upcoming Shadower updates and plans

I do still want to say and I think I did back then, that the "sudden shift" is also contributed to Davi just becoming a more skilled client developer. Back then even many years ago, sometimes similar ideas shifted around, but it was just "unrealistic" to have such changes, because it requires a lot of knowledge of the client and the ability to do binary client editing (we don't have the source code).

You may have seen us many times say back then "not possible on the v0.62 client" and the more skilled Davi became with client editing, the more actually became possible, even on the v0.62 client. This is also why the recent buff timers have been added, which is never seen before on any v0.62 server, as well as having them be draggable (I think this was never seen anywhere period, but I could be wrong...), and the same more freedom is when it comes to altering skills.

The problem also comes with the opinion I just really do not think pre-bb is very good, and the longer I have been here the more disgusting stuff comes out of it that makes me dislike it more. Maybe its also contributed by the people min-maxing and causing the "disgust" to be seen more obvious, but basically it comes down to "pre-bb may be nostalgic, but its gameplay is awful". Now of course this is subjective, but that's just how I see it, and everytime when I see servers release nowadays I see people expect at least some skill changes, and that "complete vanilla" is just no longer appreciated.

I could have left the server alone, or maybe like make a second server, but that's just unrealistic on my part. I have been here for 11 years now, and this is likely my last project, or at least when it comes to Mushroom game, so I can either just keep it stale with zero changes, nostalgic (which is subjective), or move it into a direction that I personally believe will keep the server set for longer (assuming no other reasons out of our control causes it to shut down instead...). Ultimately, it could go wrong, it could go right, and that's with every project and life.

 

Unlike Buccaneer, we believe that for Shadowers we won't need to first revert and then move forward, we can do both steps at the same time, since the single changes are less dependent on each other.


The changes of anni + anni v2 that we consider positive and would like to keep:

• Savage Blow damage rescaling
• Assaulter cast time reduction
• Band of Thieves removal of target requirement + damage buff
• Assassinate:
  • Horizontal range increase
  • Removal of platform requirement
  • Ability for first 4 hits to crit
  • Cast time reduction
  • Dash damage increase
• Smokescreen:
  • Can be cast in the air

The changes that we are planning to revert/rework:

• Assassinate Dash granting 2.5s of immunity
• Removal of passive Shifter (although still keeping it at a reduced rate from pre-anni)
• Smokescreen duration and cooldown (although potentially at different values than pre-anni)

The changes that we believe will need worked on together, because of how they interact:

• Passive Stance effect
• Values of the restored passive Shifter
• Any potential Dash avoid/immunity values
• Meso Guard cost (with more overall avoidability introduced, it might be too beneficial to keep it as post-anni)

This leaves out active Shifter (I don't think I forgot anything else, feel free to correct me), which is gonna be a point of discussion, whether it stays, it gets removed, it changes effect. Personally, I think that will just be something to consider after everything else is planned.


Now, I'd like to give my opinion on some of the points brought up in this thread.
I'll take the liberty to highlight parts of the quoted post, for ease of reading.

Please note that one of our goals is to not bring back the full pre-anniversary passive Shifter. Tentatively, a 30% rate (down from pre-anni 40%, and in line with the reduced NL Shifter rate) is what we would go for.

DISCLAIMER: I will not present new suggestions of mine in this post. I'm just addressing some of the points brought up by people. Suggestions by us will come at a later time.

The reason for Stance was that it's the only alternative to avoidability that still allows a Shadower to stand their ground when receiving a hit.
If we fully remove it, then Shadower will get displaced more often than pre-anni. I don't have the math for it ready, but, I wonder: considering a reduced avoid formula and 30% Shifter, would that displacement be too much?

Adding any active knockback resistance (even in the form of avoid) to Meso Guard was discussed internally multiple times, but the problem is that MG itself may not always be optimal cost-wise, depending on the player's HP and the damage received (I don't have the numbers, so someone else will need to chime in should this point be discussed more). By binding such an important effect to it, we would risk forcing its usage even in cases where a player would avoid it.

On a separate note, wouldn't it present a similar design issue? If Stance brings an identity problem, wouldn't avoidability on MG, which is effectively a shield made of mesos, still feel out of place?

I have bundled these suggestions together as they all refer to ability state toggle, and I'd like to address this concept as a whole.
While technically doable, I think it introduces an unwarranted complexity in the gameplay on a class with a skillset that's already big enough.
A reduction/removal of the iframes will already likely reopen the way for various counterplay options, without needing to implement a toggle effect.

I won't address the Smoke point as we already proposed a revert, but as for the Dash suggestion: the issue with that is that it's likely that the first hit, after a dash, will be the boss touch damage. Spending the newly-gained immunity on it could either nullify the benefit, or even be harmful if the player was planning to use the touch damage to dodge an upcoming strong attack.

(This was suggested multiple times, but I will only quote this one for simplicity)
Personally, I believe that different timers on different skills are better, as they require more attention than just pressing one button. But I understand that this is a point of view that can be easily argued, so I'd like to bring it more to the spotlight.
Do players believe that making timers more "uniform", thus reducing what's ultimately just a mechanical act of recasting, would be a positive change?

This too is something we were brainstorming about internally, at some point.
It can be problematic on a few levels. First of all, it negates (or reduces, depending on the cooldowns of Smoke and of the debuff) the benefit of having more than one Shadower in the same party.
But more importantly, it's difficult to apply in practice. Unless we consider everyone who is in a party with an active smoke, regardless of if / for how long they benefit from the smoke itself, to be subject to the debuff (which can be a big penalty, eg. if you join the Shad when smoke is about to run out, or if you didn't enter the cloud during its uptime), the required calculations to make it balanced (mainly flagging if/when the player enters or leaves the smoke cloud anytime they move) would be quite tough.

Yes, we're open to PB discussions. They would have to happen in a separate thread though of course, to keep this one focused on Shadower.

Despite our already-mentioned will to remove the 100% invincibility effect, I'd like to bring up the IED discussion. For context, a fully charged Assassinate (in Dark Sight) will make Shadower ignore 80% (at max Assassinate level) of the monster defense for 30 seconds.
Do players believe this should be revisited? Despite it being relatively situational (it becomes noticeable on monsters with very high defense), does it contribute too much to Shadower DPM?

I won't discuss about the iframes and the IED, as I have already talked about those, but I'd like to address the highlighted suggestions.

• Does the horizontal Assassinate range feel too long? The reasoning behind the change was obviously to improve the distance at which a player's attack would connect, without needing to be extremely close to a potentially moving target, but I wonder if the sentiment that we overcorrected is shared.
• What situations would benefit from Dash being able to cast mid-air, while the first attack isn't? I imagine the case where the player is hit and knocked back right before a dash, but are there others? This is actually just me not being able to figure that scenario in my mind, so I can't give an answer to it.

I assume this is about the SE crit being enabled on the first hits of Assassinate. There was a post with a set of DPMs with/without SE, that I can't find now, but I wonder if the crit increase on the first hits was strong enough to turn SE into a mandatory buff. It does boost the DPM of course, but I don't think it pushes it to a point where the game is not playable without.
Unless this was a point raised in conjunction with the over-buffed Dash? In which case I would agree.

Edit - I found the post I was referring to.

Indeed it seems like the dash was always affected by SE, also from the code.

I imagine these suggestions were made as potential updates to the current Smokescreen. The ability to cast Smoke during Dark Sight, and (much less so, but still) a reduced animation time, could be very strong with the proposed Smoke revert.

The option to add a buff icon is interesting, but more difficult to implement than it might appear, especially the party version of it: because Smokescreen is not linked to the character that casts it, information such as remaining time and the moment of expiration can be tricky to access, if they have to be broadcast to specific players only. It's the same reason for which it would be difficult to make a specific smoke cloud visible only to the affected players. Not to mention the fact that multiple smokes can be problematic to handle, for icon duration/removal purposes.
Regardless, it might be doable. I won't confirm whether it will come or not even if everyone agrees with it, but, what is the overall sentiment towards it? Would it be a welcomed change, would it feel unnecessary?

While that specific suggestion has been already addressed, I'd like to talk about the option to interrupt a cast with another one. It has also been brought up in other feedback threads (I believe Buccaneer?).
Unfortunately, this is not something we can currently do. The game is structured to only enable one action at a time, for most skills/attacks, save from very specific exceptions (like being able to morph during attacks, which technically is a glitchy effect). Altering that would probably require major recoding; I can't exclude that it'll happen in the future, but it won't be anytime soon.

These are all possible alternatives to the dash bonus, yes. Assuming a bonus wants to be kept.

• The active shifter cd reduction was a mechanic we explored during anni patch testing (I think the description of Assassinate still mentions it incorrectly), but we felt that it wasn't enough to offset the risks associated with dashing at a lower avoid rate.
• Granting damage reduction after a dash risks being too good, as in it would still be a (semi-)permanent buff for players who chain cast dashes. I imagine it would depend on numbers.
• Granting extra passive Shifter chance is on the same boat, in my opinion.

Please do feel free to keep discussing these or other possibilities for dash. Or alternatively, let us know if you believe that no further benefit (outside of the damage bonus) is necessary.

As for Smokescreen, we're open to other values than the proposed duration revert.

Not exactly about class balancing, but since it was brought up, yes this is something we can do.

Indeed that's because the "0.x" time is still treated as "1", to prevent buffs from showing as 0 seconds left.
We can make the charging icon be an exception though.

Mmm. I'm not sure I see an angle where vertical Assaulter would fit in.
As for the general idea of Assaulter not requiring a target, do people feel that it would be a useful/necessary tool for Shadower? I'm aware that the class mobility, with no mobs around, leaves a lot to be desired, but I imagined that was the "counterbalance" to a much greater mobility when targets are available.


Now, along with the feedback in here, other suggestion threads were linked. Namely, I will address this suggestion about Meso Explosion, and this suggestion about Pickpocket.

I will have to check how doable this is technically, but I think that improving the player's agency over knockback would be a net positive.
I'd like to encourage discussion about this on the assumption that it will be feasible.

Since improving the game smoothness with a lot of drops on the ground would be very difficult, this could be a proper solution for it.
How do the numbers feel? Would a middle ground be better, or is the issue severe enough to warrant a minimal drop chance?


As I mentioned early in this post, I tried to condense most of the feedback of this thread in here, but do feel free to bring up any unaddressed suggestions, as I may have missed some.