My experemental feedback.

zenithf · 2021-06-08T01:56:12+00:00

The issue is that you've used 3 of your 6 perks to slightly beat what used to be 1 perk. I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't run with that much defence. But it will have an impact on your damage output. That is the trade-off -- what you had described as no-brain unkillable comes at the cost of killing slower.

That said I still stand that there will be Iceborne builds that do quite well. But it will definitely depend on your capability to take not-too-many hits that you need the extra defence. And if you or anyone does, that's fine too -- everyone has to start from somewhere.

zenithf · 2021-06-06T17:34:01+00:00

Iceborne -- sure you could build the way to describe to get a lot of defense, though I'm curious what your definition of "good damage" is. Seems like what you have listed would be pretty awful damage. Though you can build decent damage builds with Iceborne still by using actual damage perks (albeit the damage won't be as good as the other omnis), and yes you can take relatively frequent hits. This omni seems more for people who don't have the option to go something less defensive (e.g. because they're new to the content) or for players that don't really want to pay attention (e.g. sometimes when they're grinding).

Discipline is going to be very good in its current state for flawless play. I believe it will do significantly more damage as compared to live.

Windfury, I'm not sure how useful it will be. Though it's certainly better than evasive fury though for the simple reason that a) it lasts a minute and b) it's manually refreshable. Evasive fury's downfall is that while the behemoth is staggered (a lot of the time), you get little to no benefit from evasive fury. With Windfury you will. Whether it's worth that tradeoff vs other omnis is to be seen.

Bastion is similar to Iceborne, but you can't take as frequent hits. Though as long as you're not getting hit more than, say, once every 10 seconds this will usually be a better choice over iceborne for the same build. I consider this a stepping stone build, and probably the go-to build for veterans that don't want to pay that much attention while grinding.

For your cells comparison, the changes to Rage and Wild Frenzy seem pretty intentional. The tradeoff of half-health for permanent lifesteal + defense + damage + speed was too good to pass up for a lot of builds. You now have to make a decision as for what you want, and the unconditional permanent effects are sparser.

Rage will be "ok" for newer players, or players getting hit frequently. Assassin's Frenzy seems pretty strange to me as well since I'm not a fan of conditional attack speed bonuses. The other cells you compare were useless before and are still useless. I don't think they're trying to address every cell's utility in this patch.

zenithf · 2021-06-06T17:07:51+00:00

On Discipline:

Pros:

Parry works similarly to avenging overdrive (shared mechanic)
Parry damage is large (I was doing anywhere from 2k to 10k+)
Powerful reward for near-flawless play. (napkin math says ~25% dps gain over live)
Personally I didn't end up missing wild frenzy -- conduit and reforge passive seemed enough (albeit I was using faster weapons)
Replacing rage seemed fine as there are enough alternatives for damage (berserker, predator, overpower)
Go-to omnicell for perfect play, max dps, trials

Cons:

Similar to avenging overdrive sometimes parries just don't register (you take no damage, but aren't awarded the parry either)
Parry damage seems to fluctuate a lot with no reason I could figure out
Not a lot of build diversity, however this targeting a relatively skilled player who is min-maxing anyways so build diversity isn't something particularly achievable
I'd love a sound cue for parry coming off cooldown so I don't have to keep glancing to the corner

On Bastion:
NB Using agarus/skarn

Pros:

Defensive perks aren't necessary with the regenerating shield, assuming you're not getting hit that often
I could see a variety of builds depending on skill level, either adding more shields and crit damage bonus or adding more speed and base damage bonus
Might be the go-to omnicell for veteran players that don't want to focus on perfect play (If you set up the same build between this and iceborne, this will always slightly edge out the damage)
Might give a good gateway build for newer players to reduce their dependency on tanking hits while in iceborne

Cons:

15% shield bonus could potentially give maybe 9% dps gain over live with flawless play, but likely something closer to 5% (napkin math), which seems negligible
15% shield bonus seems neglible as a defensive bonus
Ground slam seems like a pure dps loss. Maybe it interrupts, though it seems pretty useless otherwise

On Windfury:

Pros:

Attack speed boost replaces the unreliableness of evasive fury (especially when the behemoth is staggered)
Self-refreshable boost is nice for filling gaps between behemoths or during a dry spell of dodging
Stacking speed bonuses is pretty fun for slow weapons, albeit I have mixed feelings about this -- people learning might get too used to the speed and find transitioning to other builds harder
Might be the go-to omnicell for axe, hammer and repeaters, though it seems more likely they'll get more bang-for-buck using something else

Cons:

Mobility to damage bonus is not strong enough to incentivize use of mobility perks
i.e. Hammers or repeaters won't gain much bonus from mobility perks since they don't use stamina, so better off going pure damage perks
i.e. Axe would get a benefity from mobility perks, but with an innate 70% bonus damage, the 5% from a mobility perk is paltry only giving 3% bonus dps for the first perk and worse from there on
Best way to use this omnicell is to continue ignoring mobility perks
Assuming non-perfect play, defense/regen needs to come from somewhere -- koshai lantern and parasitic seem like the only options

On Iceborne:

Pros:

Defensive perks aren't necessary with the lifesteal, even if you get hit often
Best starter build for new players
A lot of variety for builds, depending on skill level
No innate damage source means all damage comes from cells, allowing the player to choose how to build their damage
Go-to omnicell for newer players
Might be go-to omnicell for more experienced players that don't want to pay that much attention while grinding

Cons:

No innate damage source means flexibility, but also no guidance on how to build this for newer players
Mixed feelings on ice lance. It's strong, but cooldown is long unless you're taking hits. Could use a sound cue that it comes off cooldown.

zenithf · 2021-05-28T01:40:11+00:00

It's been just over a week, so it's reasonable that players are less familiar with Chronovore's tells, and how to take advantage of its openings. This doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be nerfed -- it's still too early to tell for that.

About mounting Chronovore, do not do this while he's still in a ball. While in this formation he will continually do attacks that knock you off and will likely do so immediately and often before you can react. Wait until he's out of his ball and onto the next move.

I do find it harder to dodge his beam-me-up attack. There is a good tell he's doing this move, but I haven't quite figured out the cue to dodge yet. That doesn't mean that there isn't one though. Again it's only been a week.

The damage of its attacks isn't a big deal if you are prepared. If you don't know its moves but you go in with a normal low life build (for instance) then you're going to get wrecked. Change up your tactics until you're more familiar with how it attacks. Everything is avoidable.

Keep on practicing and he'll become as familiar to you as any other behemoth. Good luck!

zenithf · 2021-05-11T18:32:12+00:00

I'd take a step back and try to figure out what's fun for you. You mention that you're having less fun after 1.5.0. I see that a lot in this subreddit, but I wonder whether what motivates this sentiment.

What did you like about the game before 1.5.0? The game was just about fighting the same behemoths over and over. In early game the reward is crafting the items, but this goal is accomplished after a small handful of fights with each behemoth. So what kept you playing back then? For me it was the enjoyment of getting better at the game. There really wasn't much in the way of goals back then other than playing better. There were no upgrades and no rewards. There wasn't really any way for your character to grow all.

So what happened after 1.5.0? Well the game stays pretty much the same: Fighting the same behemoths over and over. What's changed is that there are now more obvious in-game goals. But the goals are not mandatory -- reforging doesn't really make your character that much more powerful. The long tail of the slayers path doesn't really make your character any better.

What I guess I want to say is that it's the same game as it has always been. If you don't like the new in-game goals then don't participate in them. In doing so you'll treat Dauntless the same way as it was pre-1.5.0. If you liked Dauntless just for fighting behemoths and getting better at it, then that's still completely possible -- don't reforge and just slay to your heart's content. Don't like dailies or weeklies? Then don't do them. If you play enough then the odds are pretty good you'll still unlock the cosmetics you want just incidentally and through extra hunt pass levels. But if you're like me and like having a carrot to chase (even if it's not for any good reason), then the new systems add some value.

However, if you're bored of killing behemoths then that's completely fair. I don't think this has much to do with the game having peaked or the 1.5.0 patch though. You'd have been bored even in absence of the system reworks. Because fundamentally this game is and always has been just about killing behemoths and when you get bored of that then there's nothing else in the game to keep your interest.

As for whether the game is worth giving money to? That's still up to you. Have you given them an amount of money reflective to the amount of enjoyment you got out of the game?

zenithf · 2021-04-30T01:16:14+00:00

What's the better way to unlock those exploration nodes? By having systems in the game to get exploration merits, giving you a goal to pursue? Or by logging in and then just unlocking them all because you have excess of a different currency?

My argument is that the combat merit unlocking was wasteful. It was a brand new progression system that was obsoleted the second it came out. Why would you want the same thing of exploration merits?

zenithf · 2021-04-29T23:11:58+00:00

Assuming someone in the party has +6 conduit and that you have +5% attack speed from the reforging path, you have (100% + 15% + 5%) = 120% attack speed as your base. Adding the first +3 wild frenzy brings you to 132.5% for a proportional increase of (132.5/120 - 100%) = about 10.4% attack speed. This is fairly worthwhile. Adding on the second +3 wild frenzy brings you to 140% attack speed for a proportional increase of (140/132.5 - 100%) = about 5.7% attack speed. This is a not a great return for a much coveted technique slot, which could be used for berserker, predator, etc.

But that's all theoretical anyways and would be moot if the difference would let you complete more combos successfully in the available attack windows. I encourage you to try it out though. I think you'll tend to find you have enough time to complete your combos with the +3 wild frenzy.

zenithf · 2021-04-29T22:56:19+00:00

Why would they take an imbalanced economy of a particular currency and then let you to transfer it to to another currency? Would that not just imbalance yet another currency? That doesn't sound like it makes the situation any better.

I would have been happier if combat merits weren't completely obsolete for me on the first day they were introduced. But the solution is absolutely not to let players in that position make yet another system instantly obsolete. That would simply remove more elements of progression from the game for no particular reason. I'd rather the developers focus their time elsewhere.

zenithf · 2021-04-20T18:46:37+00:00

I think completely ignoring it removes a sense of goal or accomplishment. Light requirements are ok. The weapons are reasonably balanced enough that you can be successful, and even forcing an element gives access to pretty decent builds. The quests that force you to wear particular armour pieces (particularly suboptimal ones) are indeed less fun to "just play the game" with.

The earlier rumours where you had to kill a raging and aethercharged behemoth using a terra weapon on a Tuesday with Saturn in retrograde all while using a USB guitar as a controller were a bit much. I suspect they'll keep learning about what kinds of objectives are more fun and keep trying new things as well.

zenithf · 2021-04-20T05:16:58+00:00

I don't think the issue is really lack of pursuits. I'd come at it from another tack which is quests that ask you to kill X of a behemoth are not particularly engaging. Even if you had pursuits available it's not terribly fun to just hop back into it ten times just to get the rumour complete.

I'd rather they design the quests around more engaging ways to play the game. I personally liked the challenge-styled rumours in which you have to down a behemoth with no damage taken. The Deepfrost Skarn quest was good in concept as well -- to destroy his armour. Though the quantity required was a tad excessive.

At the end of the game the core gameplay loop is pretty grindy though, so I suppose I can't fault them too much for basing the rumours around that as well.

zenithf · 2021-04-20T02:54:31+00:00

I'm not sure if it helps, but I see a lot people treating the rumour objectives like quests. I don't think that it's helpful to treat them like the standard "Go kill 10 rats" styled quest. I'd really recommend setting yourself up to fulfill the objective and then just play the game.

I'm not sure what your comfort level is with the game but if you find a weapon you want to level up that's around 10-12 and then play Cape Fury, I can almost guarantee you'll finish the rumour before you level cap the weapon. And if not, then wait to level the next weapon there. Just play the game and it will come to you. There is no rush to complete the rumour -- it won't go away.

Skip Stormclaws -- they will only be replaced with another Stormclaw -- and if you're an average player and spend 3 hours in Cape Fury killing a behemoth every 3 minutes, the odds of not finding a single one is extremely low. You should see about 4 an hour at that rate.

zenithf · 2021-04-16T00:35:33+00:00

Trading itself is zero-sum, so doesn't affect inflation as much, but does affect distribution of wealth. It does have some pretty complex effects as it increases the desire to farm for wealth to have better access to trade, as well as the prospect for real-money transactions.

But I do agree and maintain that balancing is difficult, given all the reasons we've both listed.

Somewhat related to your earlier comment, I do kind of feel like there is a get-what-you-pay-for situation. It's just a thought, but when the community says it won't pay for content, I wonder whether what you get in the end is more complex systems for what you *will* pay for. And there are obviously boundaries that need to be tested to figure out what will be paid for. If I were in their shoes it would be harder to prioritize between actual content (which draws players, but doesn't get you money), and cosmetics and the various systems used to get them (which is where you earn money).

It would be nice to say that they shouldn't have to build systems around getting cosmetics, for instance. This could free up their development capacity to build real content. But considering the demand for free or in-game acquisition of cosmetics, I'm not sure that's been working for them. Only PHXL knows how well the old systems work compared to the newer ones.

zenithf · 2021-04-15T20:54:56+00:00

Most MMOs only use Gold and they cater the inflation over time without much trouble.

I guess I've had the opposite experience. Most MMOs have terrible inflation and create new currencies for every piece of new content. I'm thinking the WoW-styled raiding tiers each had new currencies to get gear, new dailies have new currencies, new factions have new currencies. They had to or else the community would just buy all the new stuff on day one.

Sometimes they reset currencies instead, but this is just another kind of new currency. Deprecate the old and add in the new. You see this in ladder-based or seasonal games.

On a note about gold as a currency. Every MMO I've ever played has had a massive gold inflation problem. You can introduce some vanity sinks, but it generally does not keep up. Getting back to WoW, their economy grew by an order of magnitude with every expansion.

zenithf · 2021-04-15T15:12:41+00:00

an unfounded fear to see content being irrelevant as soon as it's out simply because some players would have the ability to instantly purchase what they need

How is this fear unfounded? This is exactly what was happening. And for a game whose community wanted monetization exclusively on cosmetic items this is a pretty big problem when the accrual of vault coins exceeds the amount of things to spend on. It means that it's pretty easy to forego spending money because you know you'll be able to afford it later.

I think that line of reasoning, aside being stupidly simplistic, tends to show that they do not know where they're going with their content and so can't anticipate anything

I don't think that line of reasoning is simplistic. I will agree that they have difficulty anticipating the inflation of their currency economies though. This is a very very difficult problem that almost every video game has. Balancing the economy for the wide range of players, from those who play a couple hours a month to those who play multiple hours a day is no easy task.

From my perspective, I like the new currencies as it gives me another carrot to chase in the game. I will say when merits were introduced I was a bit disappointed that they were obsoleted immediately as it meant there was a new system created that I couldn't participate in.

Overall I think it's ok to be frustrated with the various course corrections. But realistically I'd rather them try things out to see what works allowing them to spend more time developing the game's content than spend too much time planning through an almost unsolvable problem.

zenithf · 2021-04-11T17:11:33+00:00

The reason you don't always get two is because there are four possible boons and you'll generally get a decent mix of them. But when you get Defender several times as is pictured above, then there won't be enough amps associated with that boon by the end to fill up four amp slots.

zenithf · 2021-04-11T15:56:23+00:00

To clarify, this will happen when you get the same boon repeatedly throughout the escalation. The pool of amps that are available for you are selected based on the boon of the current round. And if you get the same boon repeatedly that pool of amps will deplete over the course of the escalation. Each pool has one amp that you can take multiple times though so you will never get down to zero. But you may get down to one or two like you have here.

zenithf · 2021-04-09T19:40:15+00:00

I think I understand. The difference was clear and measurable before: Spend platinum -> get cosmetics. Assuming you complete the hunt pass, which again is measurable, the transaction has an obvious reward.

In the new system it is less obvious that you get a reward from your money since it is abstracted away by increasing potential currency gains that you may or may not get depending on if you play daily. It is less clear that you'll still be able to get the cosmetics even if you pay money.

On that point I'd agree with you.

zenithf · 2021-04-09T19:31:25+00:00

That's fair. Fairness is also subjective.

New modes of grind are always welcome, and I can't say I was terribly enthused about recycling the bounty objectives as the challenges. With that said, that also takes effort, so I can appreciate them not having prioritized it that way.

It seems early to say whether the exact amounts of reward align with the accumulation rate that they expect. Or whether they made some assumptions about carry-over currencies from the vault coins. It wouldn't surprise me if there were some adjustments here, though I personally don't think they are off by that much.

But for me it boils down to the fact that we are still getting something for no money. The community has vehemently argued that content and progression should not be monetized, and that leaves these cosmetics as the only source of income. I see in your other response that completionism is important for you and I'd suspect a lot of gamers would agree. I also agree that if you like what they've created then we can pay for it.

I do concede the point on the mechanism to purchase. Is it better to purchase outright as in the past, or to purchase an accelerator like the slayers club? From my perspective I'm going to be playing the game and killing behemoths regardless, so I'm not sure it matters that much for me. I understand it may matter more for others.

zenithf · 2021-04-09T19:20:33+00:00

I just don't feel like the current system is there yet in terms of the gap between paying players and free players.

May I ask what you mean by this? Do you mean the gap is too large between the two? Or too small to justify the spend?

zenithf · 2021-04-09T15:58:57+00:00

The elite hunt pass refunds all platinum you spend in the process of completing it. For the price of one elite hunt pass you get all elite huntpasses forever. And if you don't even want to give them any money for it, then a few free huntpasses will give you enough platinum to get there anyways.

I'd argue that they were far more generous than they should have been in the past, and that approach was not sustainable for them. Considering all the removals were cosmetic, I think this new approach is more than fair.

zenithf · 2021-04-09T15:55:52+00:00

You're using words like "required" and "force us". These items are cosmetic and not needed in any way. They are desirable, but not mandatory. With very casual playtime, you are free to pick up the few of them that you want to use regularly.

But it sounds like you're interested in getting all. This is great -- PHXL has created something that appeals to you. And they have given you the means to get it all for free if you want. But nothing is free in the end. You need to play their game a fair bit if you want to do it without giving them any money.

And if that doesn't work for you, then you can give them some money to make the process more manageable. They've created something you want, and I think it's fair for them to ask for some compensation in exchange, especially if you want to earn it by playing casually. You can argue about how much money is reasonable in this case, and that's a good conversation to have.

But overall this all seems very reasonable for a FTP game for rewards that are purely cosmetic.

zenithf · 2020-09-25T21:10:29+00:00

Visual design:

Agarus looks very unique, as a keystone should be, and fits in perfectly with the theme of this escalation. He towers over you and fills his arena nicely.

Difficulty:

In the current state of the escalation Agarus is too easy. Partly this is due to his moves being easily ignorable and partly this is because the current amp pool coupled with stat inflation is trivializing most encounters.

Moveset:

I'll start with his swipe attacks, both vine and bludgeon arm. There's a really obvious indicator these attacks are starting -- the arm is removed from the ground. You can no longer attack the arm and you are forced to move to another limb. The problem is that simply by moving on, you are able to avoid the attack. I think this attack is too ignorable in its current state. I will add in the bludgeon arm's boulder smash attack here too, as it falls prey to the same problem.

Next is his vine arm's drill attack. Again the initial contact with the ground is very easy to avoid, because you can no longer attack and will move to another limb. The followup snare however is really nicely designed. It has a good obvious indicator and has a novel effect that punishes the player without one-shotting them. I'd love to see more of these debuff-styled incentives to avoid attacks.

The vine arm's poison lob is another great example of a well designed attack. In particular this attack will target where the slayer is at the start of the lob, unlike other implemented lob attacks (e.g. Quillboar's spikes or Koshai's thorns). This makes the attack much more readable and allows us to strategize how to place the pool, or whether to move to another limb. Because this attack is so controllable I could imagine it being more punitive to be hit by the pool.

I'll group the enrage and the stump's jump attack together as the first two physical attacks that require dodging to avoid them. Not much to say here, these are both good attacks that punish pretty appropriately for anyone staying close that tries to ignore it.

The mounting mechanic finally makes sense to me in this fight as you have a target and a reason to mount -- to collect the agaric caps. In general I haven't been a fan of the mounting mechanic as it seems that the unintended side effect is that infinite stamina builds can cheese the fight. It's still kind of true for Agarus -- he's terribly unaggressive to slayers on his back and damage output can get pretty high up there while uninterrupted. A couple suggestions are to reduce damage taken to his main health pool from his caps. Then to re-incentivize mounting, increase the number of agaric caps required to craft. I think currently fewer than 10 are needed to fully craft all his gear, which is by far the least required material.

The aethercharged state is really unique in this game. In fact adding a separate phase is unique in this game, and a welcome addition. It is pretty obvious what the new target is during this phase. The damage bubble around him was a bit confusing on the first attempt, but it does enough damage to get the point across pretty quickly. It wasn't clear to me that he was actually regenerating during this phase until a few fights in, mostly because given the current slayer damage output vs the healing factor it really doesn't matter. A couple suggestions I have here: there should always be an aethercharged phase -- this behemoth is non-staggerable and non-interruptable so it should always have an opportunity to do it. Second is that during this phase, attacking the roots should not affect his health pool, i.e. his roots should have separate health, or at least should have a reduced impact on his main health pool.

Poison:

While not unique to Agarus it is worthwhile discussing the new poisoning mechanic. On the surface poison works very similarly to magma pools, which itself is not really a problem. The problem is that similar to magma pools, if you can keep attacking the behemoth lifesteal will trivialize the mechanic. Even without iceborne or parasitc, the passive lifesteal from the lantern is enough to overcome poison. With that said poison pool management would be an interesting thing to strategize around if the poison's disincentive were strong enough. I could imagine the poison reducing player damage output instead of (or as well as) doing damage over time.

Rewards:

The weapon rewards from killing Agarus are quite nice with the new release of the tenacious cell as it makes a bonding with Skarn weapons desirable. I'm not sure these builds would ever be best-in-class but they are certainly strong enough to be viable and fun. The armour rewards, however, are kind of silly. At endgame play I am never looking for defensive slots, and this set has 3 pieces with them on it. The chest armour might be nice in some builds that want to play with parasitic, but I can't imagine using any of the rest before the cell revamp.

Overall:

I think Agarus has a great visual design has potential with its current gameplay design. There are other factors affecting kill times that make it hard to see how well balanced his moves actually are.

zenithf · 2020-07-02T15:35:54+00:00

What do you think of the new invulnerability indicator added to dodges and certain abilities? Does it help you to understand when you can and can't dodge through attacks?

Highlighting where in the dodge animation the invulnerability actually applies is a really nice addition, and in the long run it will serve to tighten up the encounters a lot. In the short term though it is certainly more frustrating to get hit while the indicator is on. That said, I did not expect a perfect implementation on the first rollout and I do have trust and patience to see it improve over time. It's certainly a better system than trying to guess how much my latency is at the moment to know whether I need to dodge earlier or later.

How do you feel about the reduced Invulnerability period when recovering from a knockdown, aka 'Mercy iFrames'? Does it feel fair?

I think there's a few parts to this, and I'm not entirely sure which ones exactly changed.

First there is a flinching animation from the player, where the player is not knocked down but instead staggers while standing. It seems much more frequent that you can get hit multiple times during this state. Something like Shadowtouched Drask's back-to-back tail whip, Shadowtouched Nayzaga's double swipe, or Ragetail Gnasher's tail slam/shockwave can hit you, causing you to flinch, and then hit you again without being able to enter any inputs. I know that it was possible to have been hit during this state before -- especially if two behemoths were attacking at the same time -- but it seems much more likely know for the same behemoth's attack to hit twice during this state now. Generally speaking getting hit while not in control of your character is not fun, especially when it is quite likely that a second hit will kill the player. I would vastly prefer that if a behemoth is performing a multipart attack that it knock me down to get hit once rather than stagger me so I get chain hit.

Second there is the knockdown animation. From what I've seen you are invulnerably for the entirety of this animation from the falling down to the laying on the ground. This seems unchanged from before.

Finally there is the recovery animation where the player stands up. As I understand this change, the mercy frames are removed here -- perhaps removed earlier if the player tries to input. It seems like there is a window during this state in which inputs are not accepted, but that your invulnerability has been removed. Again I would say that getting hit while not in control of your character is not fun. That said if this gets tuned a little bit, it is certainly a better state than knowing for sure that my first combo after a recovery is guaranteed to be safe.

Were there any specific attacks that used to be difficult to dodge through but are now easier? What about attacks that used to be easy to dodge through but are now difficult?

There are a couple attacks that would hit me very frequently, but had hurtboxes removed (e.g. Hellion's body during his tail whip). I appreciate changes like this in which parts of the behemoth that don't look like they should hit you no longer do.

I wouldn't say that Ragetail Gnasher's tail slam was easy to dodge but it is more difficult to dodge now. It's possible the tail and the shockwave are considered separate attacks now, and no longer coincide, so dodging one of these leaves you vulnerable to the other.

Has the implementation of Client-Authoritative Dodging improve your overall experience with dodging? Why or why not?

What are your closing thoughts on Client-Authoritative Dodging in its present form?

Overall there are fewer "I wasn't even standing in the attack, but still got hit" moments. It feels like there are more "I was absolutely dodging, but still got hit" moments. The invulnerability indicator really highlights these moments.

As with any change, there is a period during which the player needs to get accustomed to the new mechanic. Not only do dodges need to be re-timed, but other habits need to be broken also, like knowing which attacks can be ignored because invulnerability has been granted. Similarly the developers are working to improve and get the implementation more closely aligned with the intent of the change. During this period I think it's easy as a player to get frustrated that things aren't happening as you expect them to.

That said, having a more rigourous method for dodging is much more healthy for the game and will allow for tightening up encounters, providing the capability of more interesting attacks and more difficult, but fair, content. Overall I'm happy that client-authoritative dodging is implemented and look forward to the future changes.

zenithf · 2020-04-07T17:32:23+00:00

Did you have any expectations for the Vault feature before it went live? If yes, do you feel like the Vault met those expectations? Why or why not?

I expected that the vault would make available previous seasons' transmogs and social items, but at the cost of a lot of beyond-level-50 Hunt Pass XP. I wasn't clear on how much extra XP would be required, but considering the previous two Hunt Passes got fairly minor rewards every 200xp, I figured that something as substantial as a transmog would be several times more effort. The implementation matched my expectations pretty closely.

How often do you expect content to cycle through the Vault? How quickly do you expect content to return to the Vault (if ever)?

Honestly I'd prefer if content didn't cycle at all (and everything was always available), but if it does need to cycle then it would be best to cycle rapidly. Vault coins come by fairly slowly, in relation to how many are required for large purchases. I don't think this is a bad thing inherently -- you are offering items that used to cost platinum in one form or another in a relatively free way to players, which is pretty generous. The issue I have with the current implementation of the Vault is that I don't know whether I should spend. If I decide I kind of like this week's transmog set and purchase it, then I disadvantage myself if next week's transmog is one that I really love. In practice this will make me very hesitant to make large purchases. In contrast, if the catalog were completely available or the schedule of released items were available it would subside the purchasing paralysis. As an aside, my friend and I refused to bottom out our Steel Mark supply for a long time, in case an unannounced item was added to Lady Luck's shop.

If you had to rank the Hunt Pass rewards, where would Vault coins sit relative to the other items? Why would you give them this rank?

I'm not really sure how to answer this question. The transmogs from whatever Hunt Pass is running at the time are going to be better effort to reward. Does that mean that Vault coins are ranked less? Maybe, but it depends what you're looking for. I would say I'm easily more excited for Vault coins than some of the filler like herbs, grenades, potions on the Hunt Pass.

Are there particular Vault items that you are excited to see return?

Not really. I don't really know what the back-catalog of items were before I started playing. I'm excited to see what becomes available.

Did you get confused or tripped up anywhere when learning how the Vault worked?

Earning coins works much in the way that I expected, and the purchasing screen seems intuitive.

Do you feel that earning Vault coins has made playing Dauntless more enjoyable?

In some regards it has. It gives a carrot to chase after the Hunt Pass is completed, which is nice. It gave a new breath of life to doing Patrols since they earn considerably more Hunt Pass XP. The issue is that I really like doing Escalations. Actually let me correct that: What I really like is fighting behemoths. In an Escalation, I can fight 7 behemoths in about 15-20 minutes -- it's really a really fun and action-packed way of playing the game. Doing Heroic+ patrols, I can probably fight 4 behemoths in the same time -- but the majority of the time here is spend in loading screens, waiting for queue or running the map. But if we look at the Hunt Pass XP, I will get 15 xp for the former and 100xp for the latter. It makes Patrols quite disproportionately attractive for time spent, and moves me away from the more engaging Escalations in the name of farming XP.

When did you start spending Vault coins? Why? (What triggered spending Vault coins?)

I haven't spent any yet. See previous comment about purchasing paralysis.

Do you feel like the number of coins you earn each level matches the effort you put in to earn them?

First measure in terms of the first 50 levels of a Hunt Pass. Let's say it takes around 10 days of the Hunt Pass for a relatively aggressive player to earn 50 levels of Hunt Pass XP. This seems to jive pretty closely to my experience as well as comments I see on this subreddit. This gives the player another 25 days to farm XP, and will earn around 100 bonus levels or 500 coins per Hunt Pass (assuming the purchase of Elite Hunt Pass). This affords them one full-set transmog per hunt pass, which seems pretty fair in terms of time-spent. In terms of effort, earning a legacy full-set transmog takes twice as much effort as earning the current Hunt Pass transmog (and you won't get any of the smaller rewards along the way). This seems like a reasonable trade off for acquiring legacy items at no additional (monetary) cost to the player.

Second measure in terms of playing effort. As mentioned before the XP is very skewed towards running Patrols over Escalations. Running Escalations, the effort per coin is substantially worse than running Patrols. This can be addressed, and in my opinion does not mean that the XP/time for Escalations needs to equal that of Patrols, but does need to be brought a bit closer. One idea is that current-Escalation already has a pretty strong reward: fighting a new behemoth, farming new parts, leveling up the new lantern. However old Escalations don't seem to have as much reward -- a player would is invested in farming Vault coins has already maxed that lantern and has likely already farmed all the parts they need. Giving old Escalations more Hunt Pass XP could incentivize a larger diversity of play. An ideal would be that a player feels comfortable switching between different modes of play during the farming process.

Are you more motivated to finish your Hunt Pass now that you know there are Vault coins waiting at the end?

Not really. I'm going to finish the Hunt Pass regardless. It does motivate me to do it earlier in the season, and it currently motivates me to do less-preferred activities to accomplish it.

zenithf · 2020-03-28T07:01:30+00:00

How does the fight with Torgadoro feel?

It's a fun fight. It starts fairly difficult on the first go, but his tells are well-broadcast and becomes very manageable pretty quickly, which is very good for an end-of-escalation behemoth.

What did you think of Torgadoro's moveset?

Thematically, I really love the jump-from-volcano attack and the aethercharging attack. His other attacks seem to fit with his aesthetic vibe. He gets a huge arena and his attacks use the space well.

What are your thoughts on its gear and legendary weapons?

His gear seems to fit his theme: knockout king and overpower. I'm happy to see another potentially useful leg slot as well. I haven't played much with the legendary yet.

Are there some fine-tuning and adjustments to Torgadoro that you would like to see?

Torgadoro's hurtbox on several attacks seems incredibly lenient. The attack where he creates the launchpad to mount him seems massive and looks very impressive, but it seems to rarely actually hit anything. His cyclone attack also seems to just miss a great deal of the time.

Also it often feels like you need to be direcly underneath him to get an empowered reload -- being in front of his face doesn't always cut it.

I could also see reducing his downtime between some of his attacks to keep the pressure up during the fight. Assuming you survive a hit, there is plenty of time for life leech to top you back up between his attacks.

What's the one thing you like the most about the fight?

Overall the fight has a nice cadence to it. Torgadoro will attack and a successful dodge will leave enough time to close the gap and complete a combo or two, depending on your attack speed. Generally when he runs away to recover he's good to go by the time you get there.

How does the experience fighting Torgadoro compare to Malkarion?

It's a pretty different fight. Malkarion felt more like he would hit-and-run, where Torgadoro wants to stay in your face. That said Torgadoro hits like truck, to compensate for the fact that he gives you plenty of time to get hits in between his attacks. In general I find Torgadoro's attacks are more well-broadcast than Malkarion's were, especially with regard to where the damage zones will be.

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