Balance changes and how they're perceived

[trim osprey]

Yes, this is about blizzard blaster, but this is also about all sorts of previous changes from item rebalancing to atree changes.

A trend i've noticed with how the wynn team handles balancing changes is sometimes, we receive a (justified) nerf, with planned changes, but the community then has to wait an unknown amount of time before the changes are implemented.

To put this in the context of blizzard blaster, since it is what most people reading this will be familiar with: Yes, blizzard blaster's movement should not be the crutch that warrior and other classes rely on, and yes having equivalent capabilities in the atree kit itself would be great. But nerfing blizzard blaster far before we can expect to get any changes to the atree makes no sense. Why are players, whose emergent gameplay is clear indication of a problem in the movement kit of these classes, having their self-sourced "fix" taken away from them without any alternative?

A change like this is clearly a pre-emptive change. Salted quoted not wanting "gadget creep", and others mentioned that classes should not need to rely on movement gadgets. but this so called gadget creep has not yet happened, and the changes to allow these classes to not need to rely on movement gadgets have not yet been implemented, so why was it so critical to change blizzard blaster now?
If something like this can be changed at the drop of a hat (as it clearly has been), it could just as easily been delayed to be paired with the accompanying changes that justify it, which 1. makes more sense from a player's perspective and 2. makes the ct's changes seem less arbitrary, since the change and reason can both be seen in the same patch notes, without needing a feedback post and ct response to be made that only some players will see

TLDR. CT clearly have their reasons for nerfs to things the community use, but often the nerfs come long before the changes that justify or replace them. If these changes were delayed to be synced, players would more easily understand the reasoning, would not feel unfairly nerfed during the (sometimes long) transition periods, and ct would not have to deal with community management for what otherwise would have been a perfectly reasonable change

[still turtle]

They should add jump boost weaponsmithing ing now

Fixes everything

[true pilot]

this is true

[still turtle]

It better be like +2 otherwise xystus will be better

[lone dew]

I'm gonna pick out a particular line from this- "Salted quoted not wanting "gadget creep"... ...but this so called gadget creep has not yet happened, ..."

I just wanna point out...that statement speaks to preventative measures. Creep is something that to prevent, you have to monitor closely and stop before it starts. Saying things like "Creep isn't here yet, so why are they doing this?" is kinda like asking "Well, the house isn't on fire yet, so why are you taking away the matchbox and cleaning up the gasoline?" That's obvs a very extreme metaphor, and I don't mean it to be indicative of the scale of the problem, but it was the first thing to come to mind.

[still turtle]

What do you think about jh ing?

[twin copper]

well written and concise take in cf? holy moly

to contribute, this is a very good analysis of the situation and represents what ive been feeling myself honestly.

[still turtle]

I agree that if CT sees signs of creep then they can take action tho

[twin copper]

also side note, i think that creep is already here. so many warrior players use the item for so many different things, and it was clearly not the fix ct have in mind for warrior's mobility

[still turtle]

But why bblaster, bblaster is far more balanced than well, sigil, or totem 💀

Only helps warrior mostly

[twin copper]

those are likely next for either reworks, nerfs, or vanitization

[still turtle]

While the others are just global stat buffs

[lyric wharf]

It helped archer somewhat as well

[twin copper]

mhm yeah archer as well

[still turtle]

Fair

[twin copper]

also the other trinkets are covered here #1452079719091666974 message

[trim osprey]

i agree that preventing creep requires preventative measures, however if you delayed these changes to when more movement gadgets were added, you would have faced less backlash and could have quoted gadget creep as a reason in the patchnotes

[still turtle]

So while i agree that CT can take action, the problem is that they do not clearly mention the reasons for doing so in changelog, and then get surprised when people complain.

[trim osprey]

i also dont really understand why gadget creep is an issue when gadgets share cooldowns anyway. if we are worried about carrying hotbars full of gadgets, surely it is the gadgets' cooldowns that should be changed?

[still turtle]

Jinx lol

[trim osprey]

if these changes could be made at the busiest time of the year, during a festival, while the the team is already busy with fruma, i dont see why they cannot be done whenever new movement gadgets are added

[lyric wharf]

I have noticed this philosophy with things other than the blaster, where things are nerfed in preperation for content that is being added at an unknown date. Trance is my favorite example of this. I dont know how I feel about it tbh, I dont want to get attached to a playstyle thats I know is going to be removed soon. Idk

[twin copper]

it goes back to something i see a lot of in games. often times, they will nerf broken things quickly in order to not set expectations to something they dont want. the problem arises when the fix or solution is delayed far past the point when the original change is made. thats the case with wynn right now, due in large part (im guessing) to fruma being developed

[lone dew]

That...wouldn't actually fix the problem though? If the problem is there's a too-strong gadget/trinket that should be nerfed, waiting until other gadgets or trinkets be added to actually deal with it...the most that that can be is like. Optics. That's a thing that people really don't seem to get- not every nerf needs to come with an equal and opposite buff- same with adding more.

I understand that gives us like, cover or an excuse, but...waiting until the problem gets worse to fix it isn't a particularly elegant solution.

[still turtle]

Fruma doesn't make changes hard to do

[twin copper]

thats true. i had seen messages in the original thread about how it (usage of bb) was a result of lacking options for warrior movement (mainly). which implies that the ideal is a world in which warrior (and to a lesser extent archer) can achieve similar movement to what they had with bb, which is why I at least am talking about a somewhat equal and opposite buff

[trim osprey]

if the issue is that the singular gadget is too strong, that is fine, but that is not what i saw being claimed. "gadget creep" implies future gadgets get stronger than previous ones and the new ones are the problem, or that the new gadgets cumulatively combo with old ones into something stronger than intended. being a bandaid to warrior movement implies an issue with warrior movement is acknowledged and planned, in which case, why rip the bandaid off early when you havent reached the doctor's office?

[still turtle]

It takes like 1 hour to add a new item

[twin copper]

yeah, but its dev time. ct team is 100% volunteers

[lyric wharf]

I think a major id would take longer

[still turtle]

Jh ing anyone?

[twin copper]

id be down

[still turtle]

+2jh, +15 agil min, -80dura

[lyric wharf]

like yea items themselves are just as easy as youd think but the major id is like many times harder

[still turtle]

See i did it

[lone dew]

Gadget creep is an umbrella term that encapsulates adding more trinkets with uses, and adding stronger trinkets than previous ones, AND pre-existing trinkets being already too strong. It's very, very much all of them rather than one or the other- focusing in on one definition doesn't mean the other stop existing.

[twin copper]

okay so basically, bb is the first on the chopping block

[trim osprey]

if the definition the ct and salted are choosing to use is so broad, i think we would benefit for some more precision in the phrasing to differentiate between them

regardless, i think my criticism still holds for other past changes

[gray horizon]

The most major reason everyone is upset is becasue the update took away what was really the only option to make a lot of endgame builds and playstyles viable, and it has effective erased all ability for those things to be playable in things like COTL or SE lootruns, on top of general exploration and gameplay. Fallen now has another reason not to play as well

[still turtle]

Cotl is still easy for warrior even on fallen

[twin copper]

i fear this thread will devolve

[lyric wharf]

ok thats being hyperbolic I understand it as good qol but not essential to a playstyle, no?

[still turtle]

Just memorise wind launcher locations

[gray horizon]

so i think an effective solution would be to add the bb ability back, work on something else, then remove when its done

[still turtle]

Ya that's the point a lot of people are making

If never needed a nerf

[gray horizon]

as a 450hr fallen player, i used that thing for like literally everything, especially in quests and general playing

[lyric wharf]

shocked bb was on the chopping block and not runes tho sob

[gray horizon]

I mean its still okay but its become a lot more annoying with all the little bumps and walls

[still turtle]

Ya it's nice and great to use, but it doesn't make warrior op or anything

[twin copper]

this i dont get either

[still turtle]

It just was a nice qol item to move warrior into the same mobility as the others

[twin copper]

i think its because a single ct has been putting effort into blizzard brawl, the same one who created the item, and changes to the minigame brought blizzard blaster into focus

[lyric wharf]

plus I'd be floored if the eventual replacement didn't have a huge agi min lmao

[still turtle]

It doesn't let warrior infinite fly or anything, mage is still way better at that

[gray horizon]

Honestly i'm considering just getting a build and maining idol even though it's bad dps. literally only for vert mobility

[trim osprey]

i'd also like to pick your statement about combating gadget creep being a preventative thing. if this is the case, surely the blizzard blaster is a case of ct having failed to perform this preventative measures, if you are saying it is already too powerful as it is? this statement seems confused about your own definition of gadget creep

[gray horizon]

yall if we target ct for failure this threads gonna get nuked like all the others

[still turtle]

Just get xystus and jh gear maybe

[trim osprey]

yeah i'd appreciate it if we keep to the focus of the timing and pr of these changes rather than the change itself

[gray horizon]

keep it elsewhere so this can stay relevant and usable

[lone dew]

I did specify that it also includes nerfing what's already too strong though.

[still turtle]

There are so many changes CT can do

Without wasting valuable dev time

[lyric wharf]

I think it would be a hard sell honestly

like what would fix the problem but not cause any others?

[trim osprey]

you did later on, but in that first message you specified preventative measures, which surely cannot be applied to something that according to you has already become a problem?

[gray horizon]

alr ima dip but to cap off argument and give some evidence to yall, I have 507+ hrs on warrior, and I can say that Blizzard Blaster was the best item I had, and has no real usable alternative in the non-bmonk tree, which makes other archetypes not fun to play.

[lone dew]

This is you just quibbling rather than making any kind of real point, at this juncture

[still turtle]

Jh ing for weaponsmithing, adding some simple node to atree, adding a new jh item, adding a very simple mID to go higher

[lyric wharf]

do you want to make a crafted spear that out jumps oly? I feel like thats just short sighted design

[still turtle]

No, that's not how crafting works

There would be some massive agil min to do with the ing

So it would make it balanced

[trim osprey]

i'm not trying to dispute the extent of the issue, clearly you guys see something in bb that prompted the change, but i'm trying to show how this kind of uncertainty in phrasing is a problem when trying to discuss how a change like bb nerf could have been portrayed or explained better to the community

[still turtle]

Very basic suggestion, they can tweak numbers

[lone dew]

Like, yeah. I wasn't fully explaining every aspect of the definition. So it goes- I'm human. Trains of thoughts go places. I did address that point even before you brought that up. If I were to metaphor this, it feels a bit like saying that because I've said 1+1+1=3, I've invalidated the fact that I said 1+1=2.

[lyric wharf]

flip that and now you have a massive agi discount on your ws spear with only jump height as a negative

[still turtle]

Ya that makes you not be able to jump??

[lyric wharf]

Ok

and if they agi min is too low as per your suggestion you end up with a spear that out jumps oly

I just feel like its a hard problem that doesnt have a simple band aid fix

[still turtle]

That would make your build have to bend to agil, and like i said numbers can be tweaked

[lyric wharf]

oly builds also build agi

[still turtle]

It could be like+25 agil min

CT is good at balancing, that's not the point you should focus on

Fighting on stats is not what you should do

[lyric wharf]

Implying its really simple isnt something you should do

[trim osprey]

ok, to lay it out better heres a more wide angle view of the various statements.

1. BB was nerfed to prevent gadget creep (your first statement)
2. BB was nerfed because it itself is already gadget creep (your amended statement)
3. BB was nerfed because classes should not need movement trinkets as bandaids (statement from other thread)

point 3 implies an intended change to improve movement for the problem classes. If point 3 is true, then, IMO, BB has been nerfed prematurely as the atree changes have not yet been made.
If point 3 is not true, then i agree that BB being nerfed now is fine, but i think it should have been more clearly explained in patch notes that BB itself was seen as a problem

[lyric wharf]

ok im out now 1.3 seconds this is gonna devlove cya

[trim osprey]

i find issue with the correction at point 2 only coming so late and in salted using what we players have only now found out is such a vague term, but that is a separate issue that i wont go into since its not the focus of this thread

[trim osprey]

ultimately, players want to understand and share in the vision of the wynn team, which is why players get so frustrated when changes like this appear without a consistent or clear explanation

[proud atlas]

i mean relatively this is kinda not needed for commentary. it is an incredibly broken trinket thats super cheap to get. if it got to a point where a limited time (seasonal) trinket was used as a crutch for mobility for a class thats just. not good. at all. blizzard blaster was probably the most broken trinket in the game and it costed like 1 game to get.

[trim osprey]

kinda missing the point of the thread, i'm not here to criticise the blizzard blaster change, moreso the execution and how it could have been timed or communicated better depending on what the ct's actual intention was

[proud atlas]

i mean yeah fair enough my bad. theres just been such an uproar which i really dont understand from the community

[devout pecan]

because 2 classes mobility almost rely on the gadget existing or are much worse without it

it is a mobility issue witht he classes but blizzard blaster served as a fix in the meantime

[jade barn]

Appreciate the patient reply, but I do feel like it fails to address the main concern of "these classes in particular rely on it to compensate for their shortcomings, why take it away now and not later after there's been some sort of tradeoff?"

[lone dew]

Well, I didn't have anything productive to say to that. I picked out that line cause I don't feel like I can comment on the rest

[devout pecan]

the main problem isnt the fact that blizard blaster is too strong

its that archer and warriors vertical/small movement is too weak

[jade barn]

Gotcha! Appreciate you commenting on the things you're able to speak on anyways :)

[devout pecan]

mage doesnt use blizzard blaster because it doesnt need it to have good movement, but warrior and archer almost rely on this

[jade barn]

If blaster was too strong every class would be using it. But no, it's just the two that have a particular shortcoming that this alleviates

That being said, doesn't Archer work just fine on height?

Escape spell goes pretty damn high

[devout pecan]

yea i specified vertical/small

vertical for warrior and small adjustments for archer

but yea i feel like the main concern with removing it before a buff to something else is not that the thing needed removed and so the buff can come later, its that we need the buff so the crutch should be removed simultaniously with the buff

[jade barn]

Maybe there's an argument to be had that these classes are supposed to struggle with this kind of thing, and it's unfair to everyone who didn't participate in the events to have a tool that completely invalidates a shortcoming while they have to continue to deal with it

[devout pecan]

removing a crutch from a person without a leg and going "oh well we will get you a prosthetic leg sometime in the future" doesnt really work, and i know that its an extreme analogy but i feel it sums up what alot of us feel

[devout pecan]

yea ofc there should be differences in movement but with warrior your left spamming whilst looking down to awkwardly and slowly move up

and archer u get flung really far from escape and leaps cd means u cant really adjust well

i mean u can fix both of these issues relatively simply, archer could have 2 chargeable double jumps so there is more useable adjusteable movement, and warrior could have the uppercut vertical boost be useable mid air

ima make a suggestion thread actually on that

[pulsar radish]

This is how a lot of newer and returning players feel. They are just seeing stuff slashed in real time promising a better future, but that’s it. We don’t know how long it’ll be before we see improvements and it just feels bad. People liked using this item and no one was going around complaining that blizzard blaster was too prevalent. If they wanna rework the utility into all of the classes or a non event mechanic, fine. But let’s do that before we remove the option that’s currently available.

Personally I feel like the last 6 months of changelogs have just been reducing the amount of stuff we have to play and experiment with. Item nerf, atree locks, item removal. It makes it hard to want to experiment and try new things if anything you touch gets reworked, nerfed, or removed the next patch

[still turtle]

Why cant we add something like suspended soliloquy mID to warrior and mage?

Just basic levitation

Why the hell does mage, the class with perfect vertical movement, get this mID?

[little tulip]

my question is who tf decided to give a wand hmelee stats

[jade barn]

On an agility wand...

[wanton vector]

that wand has caused so many problems with boss aggro
please no

[still turtle]

Ya this is a joke weapon apparently

[still turtle]

Wait actually?

[wanton vector]

on release levitation was treated like vanish

that got patched quite fast

[still turtle]

???

Greatest coding error of all time

[wanton vector]

then mobs targeted where you started levitating instead of where you were

[still turtle]

Ah ic, that makes a bit more sense ig

[bleak wing]

CotL and SE have clouds and bounce pads everywhere. I run both on pbomber which has significantly worse vertical movement compared to Warrior and they're still smooth, Warrior is absolutely chilling. (I would like if both worked without bounce pads but it's not really an issue)

[still turtle]

Wait SE has bounce pads? Holy

Void holes don't count tho, i can't use them without memorising

[bleak wing]

yeah, it's been a while but there's at least one really nice one straight north of Lutho to get up, I don't remember the other locations off hand

[still turtle]

The nicest one in cotl is the one just right outside burning delve

Always put waypoint there when i lr

[bleak wing]

oh no I need to memorize like two locations instead of being able to walk in a straight line everywhere

[still turtle]

But i want to lr without my brain!

[bleak wing]

raids:

https://tenor.com/view/mercy-overwatch-come-here-gif-14280244

[cursive yew]

did any CT say that blizzard blaster removal was because of a future planned AT change? i keep seeing this as an argument as like "why did you do it now instead of when you have the fix ready" i really dont understand

every class doesnt inherently need the exact same mobility capabilities as eachother, just like they dont all need the same range or AoE

[glad lily]

Why even make trinkets in the first place if they were never meant to be used?

[rough bloom]

this feels like something that needs to be on archers instead of mages
and I say this as a warrior main

[mint marsh]

kind of #1452063907677077576 message

it wasnt explicitly said but that very much implies it

[cursive yew]

ah, yeah maybe that wasnt worded the best. idk what future AT stuff is but blaster def wasnt changed because its gonna get "made up for" with a future change

[near pine]

They are meant to be used and enjoyed but they aren't meant to have any meaningful impact on item or ability tree balancing decisions

[cursive yew]

trinkets are typically just little silly things that are just there for some flavor or funny moments with friends, like the bag of tricks or the vial thing that makes a bunch of particles and noise, or the frying pan. having a trinket that is a legitimate comp use isnt intentional and isnt good for balance (+ all the other gadget meta stuff thats been discussed)

[near pine]

And as salted said we don't want to create any kind of meta where you need a certain set of gadgets that fill your hotbar and players feel the need to have them to be effective

[glad lily]

Idk i don’t like the idea of them being one-time gimmicks. Wouldn’t it be better then to make consumable/cosmetic items rather than those?

[mint marsh]

Personally I just think that the focus is in the wrong place - blizzard blaster was one of the only useful offhands warrior had (the only others i can think of would be rots/cata for healing even tho it got nerfed, or an lb/lq spear in lootruns) whereas mage has such a copious amount of offhands that thats what feels overwhelming

[glad lily]

Bc as it stands like 90% of trinkets are just collecting dust in my misc bucket.

[mint marsh]

I also really like the idea of trinkets being something thats actually useful rather than just some silly cosmetics

[cursive yew]

🤷‍♂️ i guess just a difference in design philosophy

[mint marsh]

it increases the skill ceiling in this game, and as the state of endgame right now is getting quite stale (subjective, but many players would agree) removing skill expression / lowering the ceiling might not be in the community's best interest (as i think is shown by the outcry against the change?)

[cursive yew]

well frankly i think the outcry is because people liked having more mobility than usual / it was strong, not exclusively because it was a way to express skill that people appreciated. as for skill expression, i think it'd be better for there to be more widely available avenues to flex skill, rather than a bunch of random trinkets

the best thing for the endgame getting stale is for us to release fruma

[earnest cradle]

This must be a new philosophy, at least one newer than all of the trinkets that are very clearly intended to be strong buffs (runes, well, sigil)

[cursive yew]

pretty sure its always been a thing, just has maybe been slipped a few times

[glad lily]

Calling them strong buffs is kind of a stretch but i agree that it feels like a sudden change

[rough bloom]

then it's a clear indication to what look into

needing to be around lvl 100 (for whirlwind strike) for warrior to have any kind of vertical mobility is not really good in my opinion

[near pine]

When did you ever need to be level 100 for whirlwind strike

[near pine]

I think lex responded this this already saying that typically these things have long cooldowns or we just disagree that some of these are too strong

[pulsar radish]

I'm sorry but they do not have long cooldowns for how they are used. All of these trinkets can be used in every raid boss or war

Runes last 3 minutes with 60% uptime and give vanilla speed effects only obtainable on archer now.

Well is 15mr for everyone nearby which is more that some meta intelligence items

Sigil is free rage activation, and allows builds to stay back and take damage unnaturally, and then achieve max dps.

All 3 of these have significantly more utility in use in combat compared to a 6 block recoil weapon, which makes you lose powder special charge, and any uptime-based abilities (orbs, gangles, etc.)

You guys are severly overestimating how "overtuned" blizzard blaster was. I am still asking for proof of where this item was so unhealthy, that it had to not be nerfed, but removed from the game entirely. There is no "meta builds" that require blizzard blaster, most people just found it fun as an offhand to jump around with. If it is truly removed only for trinket's becoming too used, then these other trinkets need to go too.

[near pine]

I think enough people have explained reasoning and logic now, I don't think it's too useful to get into a back and forth of repeating stuff to each other. We said what we believe and why

[tight tangle]

i've commented on sigil and well in another thread

sigil is problematic due to its design (the intended "downside" is what it's being used for)
well could use some numbers tweaks for sure

i can't imagine the runes are that incredibly strong, though. they only give you speed 1, which is entirely made obsolete if you have an archer on your team (which i would think is fairly likely...?)

there are some larger overall trinket system changes i've been meaning to get to that would make the use of the runes more of a tradeoff as well

combining utility & mobility into one category and locking you into one trinket for longer than just its regular cooldown

[drifting cedar]

I don't normally like to dog pile in a thread, but I gotta respond to some of the "blizzard blaster is broken" slander. Blizzard Blaster is far from broken and I don't think haters understand how people actually use it. I've tried every single one of the following examples, and I can go into explicit detail if people really want to grill me on it.

For warrior, it removes mantles, it removes corrupted mode, and it turns off just about all battle monk passives (though monk doesn't use it much anyways); as such, you can't use it as often as you think. For assassin, acrobat doesn't use it, all of trickster's clones disappear when you use it (and trickster has shadow clone too), and shadestepper basically dies whenever blaster is used (because it removes vanish, smoke bomb buildup, and knives). In wars, it's useless for dodging aura because it'll remove all your damagers and you'd have to build up again, and in raids, the ground-based hits are easy to just jump over, to where no one actually uses blaster. In lootruns, its only use is scaling mountains, though using blaster is significantly slower than trying to find jump pads or void holes, or just going around the mountain. The only "meta" potential use-case left is transportation, and even then, it can only be used twice in the air before "jamming" (I think it's a bug, but basically blizzard blaster freezes entirely if you use it twice in the air, and you have to relog to get it to work again).

If the worry is abuse of a low-tier trinket, make it more expensive rather than useless. As-is, the most frequent use-case of blaster is for hopping on top of the identifier's crystal in Detlas. It's not used in serious meta situations.

[ruby halo]

Another part that people here aren't really talking about: blizzard blaster is just plain fun. Nothing beats leaping over a chasm, barely missing the ledge, then using the blizzard blaster to get the last extra distance you need. When you're leveling a low-level character and don't have good mobility yet, blizzard blaster makes traversing much more interesting.

[drifting cedar]

agreed, I remember last year I played brawl for quite a while so I could give blasters to all my guild friends to jump around the guild island with

[pulsar radish]

Yeah but they don't really seem to understand that people enjoyed playing with utility trinkets.

They doubled down above us, it's not how they see it and they will not budge or debate it. We are stuck to how they see it. It's a losing battle, but at least I know I voiced my opinion and many others have as well, but nothing will change probably :l

[drifting cedar]

bro doubled down and said they're gonna roll mobility and utility into one class so you get even fewer trinkets

[pulsar radish]

And this is why almost every patch and changelog is perceived negatively. Each line is like a landmine about to go off removing content/playstyles/fun in general. I get things gotta be tuned sometimes but how much more slop do we have to get before we get something new to try out

[drifting cedar]

well this kinda goes back to the original purpose of this thread, before it devolved into talking solely about blizzard blaster... something similar happened with the trickster revamp, where people didn't really know beforehand that trickster wasn't being played how wynncraft wanted it to be played, then the rework came around and people were going crazy because they thought trickster was working just fine

[tight tangle]

i can explain my reasoning if you'd like! the reason for it is, ideally, you pick one trinket to use alongside your main build, and you stick with it. this was always the design goal for trinkets. the category split of utility and mobility was to allow for potentially mixing a combat and a movement trinket in one encounter, but over the years very few mobility trinkets have been added, and most of the ones that do exist are along the lines of the runes- which i don't feel fit that idealized category

[drifting cedar]

This is much appreciated - and yeah now I see a bit more of the vision behind trinkets. Honestly, while I'm not in charge of Wynncraft's PR, you should probably pitch a public message talking about this...

[tight tangle]

when the change does happen i'll add a segment explaining it

[pulsar radish]

so does this mean that we are going to kinda be locked into 1 trinket in the future, and since rune will likely get touched soon and blizzard is just gone, is the vision just combat based trinkets?

[tight tangle]

no, it just means you'll need to choose between a combat based trinket and a mobility based trinket

[drifting cedar]

I meant like a preemptive message about it, telling people to expect some changes so don't get too attached. Softens the blow and also addresses that problem I mentioned just now about players being blindsided

[tight tangle]

not have both at once

[drifting cedar]

sorry to drag you back into the debate, but is blizzard blaster really a combat trinket though? I went through use-cases of it and use in combat is extremely limited, and is suboptimal more often than not

[pulsar radish]

I guess that just leaves me even more confused, if theres a full trinket rework in the works, but we are removing the few that we have before said rework was in place. That means blaster was so disruptive that it needed to be taken care of before this rework could come out, which I just can't really understand. It was terrible in combat and at best saved a second in lr chals and that's it

[near pine]

"when you're leveling a low level character and don't have good mobility yet"

This is a prime reason to remove it! You don't have good mobility yet. This shouldn't be something you can completely skip with a trinket! I've seen a lot of people say this about blizz blaster low level and not enough people see why that was a good reason for it's removal

[drifting cedar]

because it's not a good reason??? Let me ask you this - what's the purpose of blizzard blaster? Before the nerfs, the point was "haha funny knockback gun" and it let you get over chasms; it was a reward for participating in the limited time event, which I'd think the wynncraft team would like. Now, it's something that'll take up space and is a waste of a game's worth of shards

[glad lily]

So because low levels shouldn’t have that kind of mobility the item gets killed instead of just slapping a lvl req on it?

[drifting cedar]

Additionally, your whatabout-isms are not helping because again, there are ways to solve your perceived issue rather than removal, but instead of listening to the suggestions or even just pretending to listen, you just tell players "screw off, you just don't understand."

Really not fixing the perception issue, which, credit where credit is due, lexnt was trying to solve with an explanation more thorough than "quit whining, you aren't playing the game right if you use these items we put in"

[ruby halo]

Take a look around ragni, nemract, almuj, etc, and count how many people are using blizzard blaster to "break" low-level movement. The vast, vast majority of players are playing level 0-80 content as intended. Since it's a seasonal item you have to put effort in to get, most players won't get it on their first playthrough until they're already at the endgame. So for those players who decide to level another class, blizzard blaster is a great way to make another playthrough more interesting. After all, you've already proved you can do the content, why not let people play around?

[earnest cradle]

So is it "Trinkets are meant to be used and enjoyed but not impact item/tree balancing" #1452176425187803176 message or "you pick one trinket to use alongside your main build, and you stick with it" #1452176425187803176 message 😭

[glad lily]

Ngl speed leveling breaks the immersion way more than blizzard blaster did. They should remove dxp and mob totems /s

[drifting cedar]

On top of this, no one is considering the easiest solution by far - make it cost more shards

[mint marsh]

Either CT needs to re-think this change or need to get their stories straight

[drifting cedar]

it's the perception issue again... even one singular high school intern for PR would be better than what we have now

[mint marsh]

it is disgustingly cheap for some reason, i reckon about 1 in every 4 games i get more than 16 shards

[earnest cradle]

the fact we are getting inconsistent answers from a ct manager and a dev makes me think that this philosophy is new, which i suppose makes sense if it was old then this shit wouldve been removed ages ago

[mint marsh]

i currently have 41 fragments of the storm since im going for the mythic - that translates to 82 blizzard blasters

[near pine]

Kinda hard to have any discussion if things are gonna be mixed together or taken out of context or misrepresented

• I said it's a reason, not the reason
• lex talked about her potential future plans for trinkets and their original design intent
• they still shouldn't have a major impact on how we balance completely separate gameplay systems because they are inherently meant to be supplementary, and quite silly in nature

[earnest cradle]

if the potential future plan involves making trinkets that can impact gameplay then this is just a ticking time bomb for this to repeat itself? 😭 i don't really have anything more to say on the matter other than i hope that there can be discussion before these kinds of things happen but it seems that won't happen either

[drifting cedar]

Lemme get your message straight so I don't take you out of context or misrepresent you, buddy.

1. There are more reasons than just "oh low level mobility is bad."
2. Lex said trinkets are supposed to be supplemental items for builds.
3. You say trinkets shouldn't affect builds, despite just saying that Lex said they're meant to be supplemental to builds.

If I got something wrong, let me know.

[near pine]

Again: I didn't say they can't impact gameplay, I said they shouldn't have a major impact on the work that item makers and ability designers do in balancing their respective systems

[near pine]

1. Yep! More reasons have been stated

2. Read her message, she explained her idea for trinkets

3. Above message

[drifting cedar]

If I understood you correctly, you would agree trinkets are supplemental... and as such some trinkets are obviously going to be better for some classes rather than others. So what are you going to do, rework trinkets until they all affect all classes equally? That seems silly, because you should be starting with Third Clarion in that case

Third Clarion negates fire damage, despite mage and warrior already being able to get rid of that. That seems a lot more impactful than something that lets warrior spam 4 fewer charge spells

Additionally, what about the Bonfire Lily? That buffs fire damage by 20%, obviously not great for any builds that don't use fire... are you going to add more flowers that buff all damage types, so fire builds aren't disproportionately affected by trinkets?

Just stick to Lex's statement, that trinkets are being reworked in general. Trying to say all trinkets should be balanced perfectly with each other is silly and negates Lex's very understandable comment. I could fill this channel with examples of more trinkets that are better for some builds than others, contradicting your claim that trinkets aren't supposed to affect the work that ability designers and item makers do.

[pulsar radish]

It will probably just be removed let’s be realistic. I just wish there was a consistent answer and rework present before removing what we currently have. A trinket rework makes sense and is a cool idea, but don’t just remove current trinkets before releasing the trinket rework cuz now there’s less cool things to play with in the meantime

[drifting cedar]

Honestly, I'd be fine with it being removed if, again, Lex's statement was made more clear. Trinkets getting a bigger role would honestly make people pretty hyped, even if one popular trinket has to get shafted in preparation. This terminated guy isn't helping by trying to make up other stuff to justify what could easily be called a work-in-progress update.

[pulsar radish]

I’m fine with it going too but I just don’t really get why it was removed so far in advance because it was not opressive or disruptive to gameplay in its previous state. When the rework is out sure remove it, but why so sudden

[drifting cedar]

Agreed, especially when such trinkets as the Hover Booster exist as well

[trim osprey]

if keeping low level stuff limited to low level player capabilities is so important, i fail to see why blizzard blaster is a problem if loaned ability points is not

[twin copper]

oh boy

[trim osprey]

i'm grateful that ct have been responding at all, but honestly with how varied and conflicting some of these responses are, it feels more like people are coming up with reasons as the questions come up, rather than already having made this change with 1 singular reason
which, to bring us back to the thread's original purpose, really does not help the optics of this kind of change

[dusky fiber]

the devs r litterally in charge of adding any gadgets that would cause the gadget creep. like it would litterally be all their fault LOL, so maybe just dont add any gadgets to the game for a while???? like gadgets r cool, just as long as u dont add them all the time. like, every couple years is fine lmao.

[dawn jungle]

the mID is the least egregious aspect of the item

it pisses me off sm

but I use it because its funny

[still turtle]

Ya you can make it more expensive so only endgame players/people who grind blizzard brawl would feasibly have it, and moving it to a different lower levelled class doesn't ruin anything, as people who generally create new classes want to skip some more tedious stuff anyways.

My point being that nuking a mobility trinket, affecting all players of a certain class instead of fixing the relevant problems directly. There are so many ways you can prevent early game players from using it if that is your concern.

[still turtle]

Ok, there are many reasons that this change was done. My general impression is that

1.CT wants to give archetypes more identity by limiting movement on the archetypes that should have less movement,

2. CT doesn't want trinkets to have a strong impact on combat and other parts of the game, mostly just for qol and minor stats.

3. CT doesn't want trinkets to power creep each other

4. CT doesn't want some groups of players(like lower level players) to have unfair advantages not meant for them

The main reasons players are angry are:

1. Changes were done without any reasons explained in changelog(since fixed by the many responses, however this is the spark of the fire)

2. The nerf was done without a corresponding buff to the classes that benefitted from it, no changes were done to balance this nerf

3. The nerf was done while ignoring the other trinkets which felt more powerful in some players opinion

4. The general suppression of the freedom of some players who liked using the item

5. The reasons for the change do not outweigh the cost and damage of the change in most players opinion

See, i made It easy, all in front of you, can you address it all, instead of addressing single arguments and ignoring others?

Oh yeah i forgot
6. The nerf was not needed in most players eyes, no one complained before the nerf

[still turtle]

Now i have just provided a lot of problems without solutions, so I'm going to give my perspective on the solutions:

1. Giving warrior and archer more vertical movement options
   i) Adding a jump boost ing to weaponsmithing/woodworking with agility minimum increase so it can't be abused

ii) Implementing a new accessible weapon major ID that allows these classes to be more free in their movement

iii) Adding an accessible ability node that allows easier movement, (e.g whirlwind strike height upgrade, allowing it to be used mid air)

[still turtle]

2. Fixing the main problems with blizzard blaster instead of removing its functionality

i) Bring back the old blizzard blaster as an upgrade to the currently vanity-only one, at a massive cost(like in the region of 8 fragment of the storm cost). This fixes the problem of this powerful trinket being too accessible

(numbers can be tweaked)

ii) Bring back the old blizzard blaster, but limit its usage in some way. Examples include giving it charges like teleport scrolls that recharge after maybe 20 seconds each with an individual charge cooldown, making other utility trinkets cooldown also affect it, and more.(this fixes the problem of the blizzard blaster being too easy to use and no strategic usage)

(numbers can be tweaked)

[still turtle]

These are changes others have proposed ya

[trim osprey]

can we not turn this into another blizzard blaster complaint thread please

[still turtle]

Oh sorry i got carried away, maybe i can move this to another thread

[trim osprey]

the point of this thread is to understand the reasoning for the changes and figure out how they could have been better timed or better communicated so i'd appreciate if we can stick to that yeah

[near pine]

I have tried my best to respond to everything with an all encompassing message, but it has been repeatedly misread, or misunderstood. This will be my last attempt.

1. Yes archetype and class identity is important and that identity doesn't exist without differences between them. These differences may include mobility or even vertical mobility specifically but are certainly not limited to it. You will find these kinds of trade offs on most archetypes and it is something that we want people to play around.

2. This point seems to literally never get through no matter how much I emphasise it: We don't want trinkets to have a major impact on how we approach ability tree or item balancing or creating. The reason for this is so that trinkets, which are made quite often, seasonally available and often quite wacky in their usage (to create fun gameplay with a given festival), are not something that these teams need to consider when creating new abilities, items or major IDs. It would add unnecessary complexity to their work if gadgets had overbearing power.

3. We don't want a "gadget creep" where over time we make more and more powerful trinkets that were always meant to be more fun related and less (but not necessarily zero) impactful to certain areas of gameplay. If this happened, we could create a "gadget meta" where everyone has their hotbar filled with different gadgets and they need to micro manage 5 different cooldowns and extra items to be effective. I've seen some players say "good! That's called skill expression". We disagree because it creates a high barrier to entry for newcomers and we don't think it's a healthy direction for the game to go in. You are obviously free to disagree with that but the bottom line is that we don't want this kind of impact for trinkets

4. We don't want notable disadvantages at any point of the game to be nullified by a seasonal trinket. The blizzard blaster wasn't made to "fix" anyones movement, it was made for fun.

Reasons for being angry:

1. I understand that no reasoning was provided in the changelog and it is our normal procedure to give longer explanations with changes that either we view as important or changes we know are important to our community. This didn't happen with this change and I fully respect that it probably should have. Do I think this would have prevented the same conversations we are having right now? Not really, I've had too much experience of writing detailed explanations for changes to have people not read them, misunderstand them or deliberately misrepresent them to other players to make them annoyed. We should have given reasoning anyway though.

2. Not every nerf needs a corresponding buff. I know this sentiment is often discussed but we don't make nerfs to things just for fun, it's for good reasons and if we were to buff things oppositely then the nerf would serve no purpose. As I said in my previous paragraph too, one (but not all) of the reasons for the nerf was precisely because we disagree that you should be able to remove a designed and intentional downside from something with a trinket (see above paragraph with more explanation.

3. (I am not very knowledgeable about trinkets so I will refer to lex). As lex has pointed out a number of times now, there may be some other problematic trinkets for their design goals, but we don't seem to be in agreement on exactly which ones. It's fine for us to disagree about which things fulfill their purpose and which don't, feedback is obviously useful to make these decisions but just by reading the forum surrounding this issue, it seems quite likely that people who are unhappy about blizzard blaster are making deliberate attempts to get us to nerf other things. (I am not saying that anyone in particular is guilty of this, but seeing threads that say "ok remove x, y and z too!" With some of the responses on those seems like pretty obvious bait to stir more anger and division.

4. Nerfs or removal of something you used will always suck. But "I found this fun" is not always a good argument for keeping something. The will of the people can be very compelling, and we make changes every single patch based on this, but other elements are just as important like our own design goals and whether how something is being used matches with those.

5. I believe, just like the above point, that this is a bit of an impossible point to rebut. Nerfs will always be perceived badly by some and quite often by a large group. But this doesn't take away their validity as changes or their necessity. I can't really phrase this any other way. I understand that getting weaker in some way won't ever feel good, but we don't seek to make people feel bad without good reason and have stated our reasons for the change. It's ok to disagree with us about any or all of our reasons obviously, but we think it was necessary.

6. This is pretty similar to points 3, 4 and 5 but something that is valuable to touch on is another sentiment I see often. "Nobody complained about this before, so why did you change it". This doesn't really make sense as a statement. Quite a lot of are changes are directly based on information we have gathered from players, but we also make changes from our own thoughts too. We have a large team with huge combined experience of not only Wynncraft, but general game design too. Some of our team have been designing new things for Wynncraft for 10 years or more, and in that time there have been many hundreds of things that "nobody asked for" and yet are completely beloved to this day. The other part to this sentiment is that people have a tendency to complain vehemently when things are weak, but take them for granted when they are strong.
   This is a well known effect and similar to that of most people don't leave a positive product review for everything that they buy that works perfectly, but if they get something that's broken it's almost certain that they will leave a negative review immediately!

I hope this clears up not only why the change was made (mostly as a compilation of things already said) but also some of the approach to balancing many interlocking systems simultaneously. I don't particularly want to get into a large back and forth argument about any of this because I believe I've covered everything you've asked for and tried to explain it to the best of my ability.

[still turtle]

Oh 🔥 response

[still turtle]

😭 Ig Warrior was intentionally made to be bad at vertical movement, this just opened the floodgates of complains

[trim osprey]

to bring it back heres a summary of the various reasons given in this thread and why i think this could have been communicated much better:

• Salted: bb nerf is to prevent gadget creep
• Samsam: solution to warrior movement is not a trinket, its changes to moveset (implies but now clarified by Tealy to not mean planned kit changes)
• Selvut: preventing gadget creep requires preventive action
• Selvut (followup): bb was overtuned and that is what they meant by gadget creep (as a mega umbrella term for any gadget balancing issue, singular or combo related)
• Tealy: bb was not nerfed with any intended followup change to warrior kit (their clarifiction to samsam's statement)
• Terminated: trinkets should not have any major use that could influence atree or item balancing
• Tealy: trinkets should not have any practical use aside from being a silly thing to mess around with
• Terminated: reiterates that salted and the team do not want players to play with multiple trinkets in hotbar (presumably this is what salted meant by gadget creep?)
• Lexnt (as quoted by terminated): trinkets with buff effects have long cooldowns so aren't overturned (why not just give bb a longer cooldown?)
• Lexnt: acknowledges strength of buffing trinkets and states bb change is part of a bigger overaching change to trinket system
• Lexnt: states that players should ideally pick 1 trinket for a build and stick with it (meaning trinkets are intended to have practical usefulness?)
• Terminated: bb nerf prevents low level players from bypassing their level's movement limitations (what about loaned ability points?)

my main gripes are:

• is the gadget creep issue a matter of bb itself being overtuned, or a matter of lowering the existing "power ceiling" so that future trinkets do not raise the trinket power level too much? theres doesnt seen to be a consistent definition being used here
• is the bb change part of a bigger overarching change or no? if it is, why couldnt it be changed at the time of the rest of the change, where players would have been able to better understand the bigger picture?
• why are so many of the stated reasons different? varying the explanation like this will cause (and as we can see has caused) quite some conclusion over the actual intention of the change

[still turtle]

I respect that CT makes changes they know would offend the community (aka nerfs) and cause backlash, but drive the game towards a better direction

I do think they should not keep offending the community tho, they should focus a bit on preventing that (if possible) in any way possible

[rain spire]

we need to gut more movement options for the game to head in a better direction

players have way too much freedom rn

[still turtle]

It's all in preparation for the 2032 battle monk rework that makes pressure charge go 100 blocks in any direction including upwards 🔥

[trim osprey]

nerfs are absolutely necessary in any game so i'm not even questioning whether it was warranted. i'm sure it is, else they wouldnt have made the change.

what i am questioning is if this was really the best way to present this first balancing change with the trinkets, and why the CT response is so confused as to the actual purpose of the change

[rain spire]

how is this the worst spin exactly

most content can just be completely avoided from movement spells alone

removing interaction altogether

[lone dew]

oh you meant that seriously

when people make statements like that, 99% of the time it's meant to be inflammatory and sarcastic

apologies for assuming

[rain spire]

how is this sarcastic

[still turtle]

Yay more CT is reading this post, add jh spear ing pls

[lone dew]

like I said, vast majority of the time people make statements like that they're exaggerating for effect to try and bait engagement and piss people off instead of being sincere, as if they're speaking from the point of view of the developers in a mocking way. given the timing it seemed like it was one of those- that's why I apologized for assuming it was sarcastic from past experiences

yknow, like. people complain about X weapon getting its damage hit so they say "to improve the direction of the game we the CT must reduce the damage to 1-2 and give it -300% spell damage. this will truly elevate the game to new heights"

it just read like one of those at first blush

especially since in other threads people were saying things like that in a mocking tone

[still turtle]

After the tp vertical nerf in 2.0 they reverted it afterwards tho

Are they considering bringing it back?

Did CT do it because of solely backlash?

[trim osprey]

honestly i kind of agree but movement speed ids and the larger boss arenas will need to change as well to match the new slower movement expectations

[still turtle]

What was the reason for the tp change

[rain spire]

no im actually saying like kill it altogether

[still turtle]

Ik

Asking CT the reason for the change

[rain spire]

either heavy cooldown or make movement spells go like 3 blocks per spell

walkspeed is also egregious

[still turtle]

Ws is fine on agility builds, just reduce ws on other elemental items

[rain spire]

no like the max ws that can be achieved

[still turtle]

I don't really understand, do you mean ws abilities or like crafted ws gear?

[rain spire]

both

the max needs to be capped harder

[still turtle]

Getting max ws is pretty difficult if not archer, just nerf frenzy or smth

[rain spire]

theres no nuance to dodging when u can just 10 cps yourself 50 blocks away or stack ws

[still turtle]

It usually reduces your damage or something

To wear ws gear

[rain spire]

the builds that dont intend on dodging are either hyper glass one shot or damage immune tanks

most medium damage output builds have enough cost to be able to transport the player away to the other side of the arena under 5 seconds in a panic

[still turtle]

I can't really argue with any of these, I mostly run defense or agility builds, so walk speed is either a given or not needed for me

[strong prawn]

Except for the fact that content nowadays is designed around that. Also, a lot of areas will not allow you to use spells at all.

This would only do more harm

TNA would be significantly more annoying to do and lootruns would get unreasonably longer.

[rain spire]

yea this is one of the reasons why the blizzard blaster nerf got pushback

it just got optimized way too hard for it to keep on existing since content is so heavily movement focused

and its definitely time wasted

[near pine]

Some of this comes from the age old curse of having a blue name = everything that comes out of your mouth gets taken seriously! I can understand how things get taken as "CT perspective" but some of these comments are truly just people's personal opinion

[trim osprey]

that i do understand, but considering many of them were from this specific thread (which concerns the reasoning and portrayal of the changes) i had hoped they would be more accurate to the actual intent of the changes

[near pine]

I can confirm that the amount of walk speed available through ability tree and items is constantly a difficulty for mob designers. Everyone knows that it's quite trivial to avoid every boss attack on some classes/archetypes and it's my personal opinion that it is a bit overturned.

Despite that, walk speed is extremely fun and that's one of the reasons why we avoid making large changes to it unless we have to because mobility is fun. Kinda proves that we don't just make every change based on our own thoughts and ignoring what is fun or the community likes

[rain spire]

blizzard blaster was just too over the top

had to dial it back a little

[trim osprey]

ofc this isnt to say that ct need to be careful and precise about everything they say, but i think a bit more cohesion in the responses for this particular situation with blizzard blaster, or at least some indication of when statements are opinions vs the actual reason for the change, would have been beneficial. its just a difference of using "we" vs "i", really

[dawn jungle]

hell no man

movement is like the most fun part of the game why limit everyone to walking everywhere

the game should keep up with the player, not slow them down

i can see why youd want to limit movement in specific content like quests to prevent skips, but gutting the movement itself is not the answer

[near pine]

We do need to be more careful! It just comes with the job. It's obviously just in our nature to give our opinion on a given topic (just like the rest of you :p)

[near pine]

Well there's a gigantic void between between reducing a movement option and "limiting everyone to walking everywhere". Let's not exaggerate

[dawn jungle]

"gutting movement options" is
a pretty extreme implication imo

[trim osprey]

thats fair

[still turtle]

Why did CT decide to revert the nerf to tp vertical movement?

[rain spire]

they should keep normal movement in the overworld

but somehow balance the movement options during specific combat like bosses

[trim osprey]

probably coz of community backlash?

[still turtle]

Tp clearly breaks every quest and is imbalanced compared to other classes who have to do stuff

[still turtle]

They don't really care about that?

[trim osprey]

they do, they just also care alot about the game

[still turtle]

The reason is never community backlash, that just supports it abit

Otherwise the game would look a lot different, maybe in a state closer to battle cats

Where every unit is power creeping each other and PONOS will never ever nerf any of the op stuff

[rain spire]

if the boss in tna can get outside of the actual max server render distance then theres something flawed with the way things work

[still turtle]

The thing is people still really like battle cats despite the extremely cursed state balance is in

[near pine]

I couldn't tell you, way before my time lmao

We do often make further changes to things based on community feedback though. We can obviously make mistakes and adjust based on realising that

[rain spire]

this is such a good point btw that showcases how disconnected the thought processes are

bcuz things that have never been an issue suddenly matter when new ideas get introduced

which seemingly ruins things for no reason when it does have a reason

u dont just nerf a movement option for no reason

movement options are like the most harmless thing in a pve game

since teleporting everywhere seems to be an integral part of the game design

[still turtle]

I think their logic is that some archetypes, and by extension classes are just meant to have better movement than others

Terminated said that movement downsides are designed and intentional

So basically they think mages should move better than assassins 👍

[trim osprey]

that said, we do seem fine with bypassing those designs in the form of major id offhands (ie shaman)

[still turtle]

Ya i definitely don't agree with him, go fight with him not me

[near pine]

So do you think all classes should have similar mobility?

Does it not add greatly to archetype identity, diversity and fun that boltslinger has lots of speed upgrades and sharpshooter has more defensive upgrades

As a minor example

[still turtle]

Not really, however some archetypes have just different opportunities compared to other ones, making them feel slow

Especially the problem of vertical movement

So let's say 5 players, each of different classes are scaling a mountain

On the top of the mountain, there is a great boss, that requires powerful abilities to beat solo

The mage can scale the mountain easily with any of its archetypes, so he can defeat the boss with the archetype he likes most/is most experienced with

The mage does not need to restrict his playstyle, as he knows that whatever can beat the boss can also easily climb the mountain

The archer finds that scaling the mountain requires a lot of speed to allow for going up the paths quickly, due to how steep the mountain side is

Therefore, the archer is incentivized to choose the bolt archetype, because it can both climb the mountain easily and also beat the boss

However, when the assassin climbs the mountain, he has to use the acrobat archetype to keep up with the rest of the classes

Due to the lackluster movement options the other classes provide, acrobat makes sense as he can climb the steep mountain with it

But what if the player is inexperienced with being/doesn't want to play as an acrobat? The player now has a disadvantage at fighting the boss, and you might say that said player can just use a different archetype, but now it will take too long to climb the mountain

Or maybe, say that the acrobat can't even go up high enough to climb the mountain, so he has to take 20 times as long as the mage to get to the same ending

Both scenarios end in said player being incredibly frustrated

Especially because they can very clearly see how easily the mage is climbing the mountain with any archetype he wants

Holy this example is too long

The point being, if a class has better movement they should have to make compromises to get said movement

And if a class has worse movement they should have good movement available to them at a cost that is not more than what the other class is losing for their better movement

[lone dew]

In your example, the boss would be accessible without needing those abilities to reach it, however, precisely BECAUSE not every class can just zip up

that, and it'd be a lot more likely that the mountain is not part of the boss.

but instead, just part of the walkup.

like...we DO design stuff based around the capabilities of the enemies, and typically we don't have a lot of setups that put enemies that far out of your reach that you'd need to get right up in their face to defeat, but instead that you could knock out with ranged techniques

like...the example you're providing WOULD be a valid one, if wynn was at all designed like that where certain archetypes are required to even get to the boss in the first place

but...it isn't.

in that instance the solution is just to not have the mountain designed in a way where any particular archetype couldn't scale it

which is what wynn typically does

while some might have advantages in different combat scenarios, necessity is a very different thing

and some archetypes being better at some things than others is completely fine

[near pine]

I think even in this situation, mage has this incredible movement compared to warrior but is generally a little weaker in combat

[lone dew]

like...vertical movement especially is extremely troublesome to balance around. that especially isn't something that combat scenarios tend to feature significantly precisely because there's a lot less archetypes with the movement necessary to make vertical combat necessary

so some classes having vertical power is...absolutely not something that should be spread around in the way you're implying should be done

whirlwind does throw you into the air, but it's a lot more a tool to encourage horizontal movement with charge and do spot-dodges rather than flying about. you CAN keep your feet from touching the ground for a while but I wouldn't exactly call it flight

and warrior doesn't really need more verticality than it has. what it has is in service of maintaining momentum, rather than soaring miles above the enemy like acrobat or flying bolt

[still turtle]

It's lootrunning.

My example is a very nice way of saying, a guy starts wynn, creates a new class, chooses assassin, makes it to endgame, and realises that his class fundamentally sucks at lootrunning, an important endgame activity, gets frustrated, and quits forever

[still turtle]

Yes, i agree with this

Not all classes should definitely have as good movement as mage currently has

[still turtle]

Generally, people actually don't really care about vertical movement while in combat

Vertical movement is just really nice to traverse terrain, and as the wynn map has many areas of different altitudes, it's quite nice to go through these levels really fast

[still turtle]

The thing is, mage could have this incredible movement on all three of its archetypes

While players from other classes who want to use movement abilities from different archetypes(i.e a trapper wanting to get leap) often have to go out of their way to get a fraction of the movement strength

[still turtle]

Movement is always useful, even when the player isn't facing a challenge(like lrs)

It's extremely difficult to make every bit of terrain easy to traverse to all classes

For example, when going through sky islands, if you fall into the void as archer, you are dead

But if you fall into the void as mage, you can just tp out

This gets back to the point that not all classes were created equal in movement

Which is definitely desired by CT, however there are problems like i mentioned

[near pine]

I still don't get why people like to say that assassin "sucks" at lootrunning. It's perfectly passable, especially as acrobat.

You don't have to be using the best or most optimal strategy 100% of the time to enjoy playing the game or even better effective at playing the game

Not all classes are created equal in any metric and like you said it's totally by design because having advantages and drawbacks compared to each other is the exact thing that makes a game feature rich, interesting to play and diverse

[still turtle]

Ya exactly what my example is trying to say, it works, but when they see how much faster mage gets(especially if they don't want to play acrobat) it makes them regret their decisions, so they get frustrated

[strong prawn]

How slow is acrobat actually? If you use DaTS and Daredevil

[still turtle]

Dunno, but some players don't want to climb the mountain with acrobat

I agree that using the optimal strategy isn't needed, however moving somewhere quickly is just fun

That's literally it, not exactly about strategy, but reaching somewhere quickly

[still turtle]

That's fair ig, the only problem is people who only have one class and people who only want to play/prefer using one class

[near pine]

Well unfortunately we created 5 classes and 3 archetypes per class exactly to encourage people to play with more than one or adjust things based on what they like to do. I don't think being locked to one class and archetype is a very reasonable restriction

And lootruns are obviously a compilation of many different activities and you are expected to choose the challenges and beacons you take based on your strengths and weaknesses and preferences also

I personally avoid ovine spire on sky island LR because I find it more difficult than other challenges. You may choose to avoid cotl LR because you enjoy warrior and have less mobility

[glad lily]

Ngl i like cotl with warrior

The boost pads are pretty well placed

[near pine]

Yeah maybe some will, just a silly example really

[jade barn]

can a mod pin this message in this chat

[jade barn]

good for movement, sucks for combat because no momentum imo

[jade barn]

The only two examples I can think of that are in Silent Expanse and Rodoroc, and both locations have teleports/geysers at the bottom btw

[jade barn]

"mage is so perfect at lootrunning" while ignoring the abysmal state that lightbender is in for AOE 💀 having a good teleport is not a catch-all solution to every combat scenario ever lol

[near pine]

Yeah it's true too! Teleport is really good for movement but in combat scenarios is less optimal

And haul is basically the opposite! Pretty good in combat and pretty bad for long distance travel

[jade barn]

Whirlwind strike + aerodynamics is infinitely stronger in combat, even if it's worse for actual vertical traversal. Also way less mana intensive with Battlemonk specifically. Teleport doesn't maintain it's momentum after you cast it, but you can charge once and get a ton of mileage out of it

-# also their example of assassin not being able to doesn't make sense because assassin literally jumps like 20 blocks in a single vertical dash spell, and trapper/sharpshooter have access to grappling hook

[still turtle]

This is actually really valid, the things that one class can do should be done worse by another class, and we shouldn't only use a single class

[still turtle]

Not really, some of the time the challenges that you know you can complete easily, e.g. slay challenges in molten heights don't have the beacons you want, while maybe a cave like shadow altar that requires you to do a lot of parkour has an important beacon for the challenge, like rainbow for example

[still turtle]

What me and a lot of others are complaining about isn't the combat functionality of any class at all, it's mainly solely about the terrain traversal capabilities of different classes, and how blizzard blaster helped to traverse the terrain

#1452176425187803176 message

It's always good even when there's no challenge

[near pine]

And in plenty of my lootruns I've not been able to get the beacon I wanted because it was in a location that I knew I didn't have the boons for or the damage for or whatever. You plan around these things

[still turtle]

Can you address how movement helps outside of combat or challenges?

It's not really about the most optimal strategy, just about how fast you can get to the next area/your destination

[little tulip]

Haul is horrendous in a lot of combat scenarios

It's completely outclassed by every movement ability with the exception of archer being a bit less convenient/aim-able and EC+blood conn+haul just being mage tp

Throwing a totem and hauling to it for a movement ability is pretty terrible, it's basically the slowest movement ability while being the hardest (and blood conn without ec makes it stupidly slow), and in a combat scenario having to recast totem to move to where you want is terrible, especially with summoner needing to cast 3 totems and acolyte another

And that's while ignoring the existence of shatter with the tremorcaller MId, (totemic shatter spam and puppet bomber playstyles) which makes haul borderline unusable, especially in a combat scenario where you need to react fast but most of the time by the time haul goes through your totem already landed and you can't haul to it anymore

[dawn jungle]

you're supposed to set up your totems smartly and haul between them

for single totem i agree it's worse

[little tulip]

Which not a single archetype can do, summoner wants to be in the range of all 4 totems for the mana return on aura and acolyte really wants to be in the range of totems for blood pool

And most of the time hauling back and forth between 2 totems will just make the boss go between them and hit you

The only time I can think of that you might be able to set up totems in strategic locations (don't forget they reset after 30s/1m (with aspect or MId)) is melee builds that there is a whole one of being sunstar

And even you'd probably still want to be within totem range if those builds take vengeful (idk haven't seen a sunstar build ever because NOBODY RUNS IT)

[little tulip]

To further expand on this, haul alone is the reason why I'll never recommend shaman to a new player, it's just such a bad movement ability and it doesn't even get the benefit of being fast, warrior's charge is haul but you trade half your vertical velocity for twice the horizontal velocity and not needing 2 separate spells for movement which also cost way more mana

[little tulip]

Ik this entire rant is off topic from the thread but saying haul is a combat oriented movement ability (or something along that line) while teleport isn't, is like Uno's rules saying you can't put a +2 on a +2

[dawn jungle]

ok i will say its not ideal in a lot of scenarios but i feel like it is the most versatile and has the highest skill ceiling of movement spells if yk what you're doing

not counting teleport ofc

i have a lot of fun with haul though

[still turtle]

Guys i think we should stop treating CT as a hive mind, just because a guy is in CT doesn't mean his opinions are automatically the same as every other CT member

[near pine]

Lmao I never said what your claiming though. Please re read. I was literally giving completely arbitrary examples of how classes and archetypes have strengths and weaknesses in certain scenarios. You just proved my point by ranting about more such differences. It was never about the specific example and I even said that before

All of this will also be totally subjective and not really something that's possible to argue about anyway. Some people probably love teleport in combat

[still turtle]

Termi do you recognize that movement helps even outside of combat?

[near pine]

Of course

[little tulip]

i did, and i still see in the same way, tp probably the best combat spell because you can pass through enemies, and haul just isnt that in any way

[still turtle]

I think they could ban blizzard blaster in raids if it is the problem?

[little tulip]

that's fair ig

[near pine]

We aren't going to introduce confusing context specific bans or things like that. It's too messy to maintain, not very intuitive at first glance and the decision of which things get blocked in which activities is too hard to make

[still turtle]

I feel like blizzard blaster is different from the other stat based trinkets, people mostly use it to just get around quickly

No optimisation or anything

[near pine]

Mobility is just as useful as dealing damage. It's your main way of avoiding taking damage after all

[little tulip]

i'm like 99% sure that was already adressed like 5 times

[still turtle]

So the problem is its usage in combat?

[near pine]

Not what I said, it's an example of how movement can be just as unbalanced as other stats

[still turtle]

It's nice for avoiding attacks but if that is the case just increase its cooldown so u cant use it to dodge every boss attack

Maybe some people used it to dodge notg shockwave attack ig

If we just ban all trinkets in raids that will solve most of the issues i think

[lone dew]

as seen with horses

[near pine]

I think I've said enough other reasons than just combat, not much reason to focus only on that

[still turtle]

Hmm fair, but i think trinkets are a fairly small part of the game

[still turtle]

Ok but is it imbalanced outside of combat?

[near pine]

Yeah they are and we want them to stay relatively niche. Never being something that players say is a requirement to get many of and use them all to play optimally

[still turtle]

Allowing players to move around quickly will always be more fun of course

Not a requirement, not optimal gameplay

[still turtle]

It is never a requirement, people were probably just angry when they lost an important part of their movement toolkit tbh

CT is quite right about it needing to be niche, people have been gradually misunderstanding trinkets as cool parts of their kit, while in reality does CT just think of trinkets as fun little items that don't change gameplay significantly?

[near pine]

Again, I didn't say this was the case, but we don't want it to be the case

[lilac panther]

People do the parkour for shadow altar? If you jump in the geyser below it launches you straight to the top

[still turtle]

Oof did they recently add that or am I just dumb

Haven't lr in a while but most geysers just didn't work for me

[lilac panther]

I dont think it's a recent addition

[still turtle]

Like I walk into them and nothing happens

[lilac panther]

It takes like 2s before launch

[still turtle]

Only some work like the nest and bones one

[still turtle]

Oh maybe I was just impatient then

[scarlet lake]

Blizzard blaster is relied on by primarily warrior and shaman to move vertically quickly without resorting to battle monk for warrior. (That was how I was using it) The fact that it no longer works like that makes vertical movement extremely hard for non monk warrior. I genuinely have only used it to dodge grootslang shockwave and orphion black hole before, as those two are a lot harder to dodge normally, and I lose all my corrupted and holy power for it. The fact that it can dodge most attacks is irrelevant as it resets your powder special, any effects like corrupted, and probably more random stuff sort of balances it. Honestly, even if some people did have a slight advantage, removing the effect caused movement QOL for basically every class to drop significantly. The trinket is usually used when you run out of mana to get like 5 extra blocks or move upwards 5 blocks, so it really is just a QOL.

[glad lily]

You can just jump over grootslang wave

[scarlet lake]

The point is that it improves QOL. I know I can jump the shockwave, as the blizzard blaster still has a cooldown, even if that cooldown is rather short.

[little tulip]

this was explained and several times but the tldr is that they don't want class mobility to rely on a trinket, let alone a seasonal one

every class has it's own movement ability so they feel different, if you don't like one class you can switch to another