Focused Feedback: Giant Monster Balancing and Rewards

[akumamishima]

16 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

It was suggested I bring my comment from the main thread over here.

 

I don't think we should add another currency (Unstable Aether). In fact, I think we need to work towards reducing currencies. This is going to be another currency that sits in my inventory that I need to manage.

 

But that's just my 2 cents. I'll drop it now.

They want players to try Giant Monster raiding so there's a new incentive, they don't want the new incentive to drop too often so the rate is low, they don't want the low rate to deter initial fights so there's a consolation currency you can build up towards.  I believe this is the rationale.

[golstat2003]

43 minutes ago, akumamishima said:

They want players to try Giant Monster raiding so there's a new incentive, they don't want the new incentive to drop too often so the rate is low, they don't want the low rate to deter initial fights so there's a consolation currency you can build up towards.  I believe this is the rationale.

 

Just let stuff drop as a receipe. And have that recipe require 4-5 Orange crafting resources.

 

EDIT: Make it a guarenteed recipe each time for anyone who participated. If GMs are done regularly won't be any issue with just having it drop each time you do a percentage of damage to them. The extras folks get after they do the same GM again they can just sell on the AH. GMs now have enough merits in general that it shouldn't hurt participation. Personally I would just sell any other reward like PAs, since I have no interest in those pets or any other Aether-related reward. I'd put up the recipe on the AH each time for anyone who wants.

Edited January 23 by golstat2003

[akumamishima]

5 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

 

Just let stuff drop as a receipe.

You're in luck, this is exactly how it works.

 

But in order to prevent a high drop rate from being boring, the drop rate is kept lower.

 

And in order to prevent a low drop rate from discouraging players from attempting it at all, there are consolation tickets players can accumulate towards a GM pet recipe.

This, plus the GM changes to health, powers, etc serve the goal of attempting to make GM hunting more exciting and draw in players who have grown bored of the activity or weren't previously interested.

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, akumamishima said:

You're in luck, this is exactly how it works.

 

But in order to prevent a high drop rate from being boring, the drop rate is kept lower.

 

And in order to prevent a low drop rate from discouraging players from attempting it at all, there are consolation tickets players can accumulate towards a GM pet recipe.

This, plus the GM changes to health, powers, etc serve the goal of attempting to make GM hunting more exciting and draw in players who have grown bored of the activity or weren't previously interested.

 

EDIT: NVM we're going in a circle.

 

They've already mentioned they will be keeping an eye on making sure we don't get currency bloat. So I'm fine.

Edited January 23 by golstat2003

[Doc_Scorpion]

20 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

Do these changes apply to event Giant Monsters like Winter Lord or Halloween Eochai/Jack?  I don't see them listed but I feel like they shouldn't be excluded, especially since I recall Winter Lord being exceptionally easy.

@Cobalt Arachne stated these changes do apply...  Which brings up the question, is there any way to trigger these events during the Beta so these monsters can be tested as well?

[Bionic_Flea]

Unless the events are active, the only way to do it is Dev/GM magic powers.

[UltraAlt]

On 11/22/2023 at 11:49 AM, The Curator said:

Giant Monster Balancing Pass

 

Due to the times that I play, I will be unlikely to go on any giant monster hunts on the beta.

I'm unsure how much testing this will be able to get.

I'm assuming there will end up being a lot of tweaking once this goes live.

 

On 11/22/2023 at 11:49 AM, The Curator said:

New Vanity Pets

Giant Monster Mini Pets

 

Okay.

I'm good with this idea. Looks like fun.

I don't use vanity pets all that often, but I do use them.

 

On 11/22/2023 at 11:49 AM, The Curator said:

Unstable Aether

 

This looks like a hook/bait to get people into the whole prismatic aether thing.

 

Personally, I have only used on them on one character and that was only because I forgot that the mini-form has a bobblehead ... yeah, how about we get the mini option without the oversized head?

I mean the combat mini pets don't have bobbleheads, so why do player characters have to have bobbleheads in mini form?

 

 

 

[Krimson]

9 hours ago, Dev Unitas said:

I'd definitely encourage testing GMs where possible, both in groups and solo. Group feedback is more valuable currently, Closed Beta had solo testing fairly well covered, but more data is still a good thing 🙂

You're going to need someone good at soloing to do that. I tried Paladin with Blue, my Elec/Kin Corr with a sapper build who can handle +4/x8 Malta. I have one of the best sapping builds in the game, and the new sapping mechanic on Paladin completely ignored my abilities. Paladin is one of the squishiest GMs, and I can't get past it. So people who are better at soloing are needed. I MIGHT be able to make a build to test Paladin, but not for at least a few weeks.

 

I am curious to see what will happen when a low-level group tries to take on Babbage or Kraken because it will probably not happen.

[Bionic_Flea]

Yeah, I just tried Paladin with my Crabstermind and between his endurance drain, extra HP and Regen, and his Cheaty McCheatface [Coil Pulse] power, he's gonna be tough to solo.  I got him to around 20% a few times, but that's about when he uses Coil Pulse.

 

Edit:  I went back in and loaded up on base buffs, switched to Degenerative Core Alpha, and used a Signature Summon and a Backup Radio as well as all my pets and Lore Pets.  I thought I had him, then a Coil pulse killed most of my pets.  No biggie, they are almost recharged.  Bring them all back up and keep up the pressure . . . and he COIL PULSED AGAIN.  I think that may be on a very low recharge.  Possibly 0.00 recharge!!!

 

Proof:

Edited January 23 by Bionic_Flea

[AustinSmith]

I ran a GM team today on Brainstorm that was initially two Brutes, then a Brute/Crabbermind, then picked up a third and went Brute/Crabbermind/Corruptor.

 

In terms of difficulty, the duo brutes were able to take down Kraken, although it was a hard fight, and then when we turned to Babbage, did alright for the first half of his health, but then once Coil Pulse was online we couldn't get him down more; I was on a Savage/Fiery brute, so I couldn't resist the inverse repel and was constantly getting fully drained. Once the second Brute got traded for a Crabbermind, we were able to push through and take down Babbage; he definitely felt like the nastiest of the GMs we encountered from that point. After that we picked up our third for a 3-man team and took down Jurassik, Babbage, Eochai, Jack, Council War Walker, Adamastor, Lusca, Deathsurge, Caleb, and Ghost of Scrapyard no problem (Flyer didn't seem to be up in Grandville).

 

In terms of the reward payout, from all those defeats I got the Eochai mini recipe naturally, and enough unstable aether to craft another mini pet recipe and the 2 prismatic aether to craft each of them. All in all felt rewarding for one GM team run.

 

My two gripes not necessarily related to the changes but the GMs in general; the Arachnos Fliers in Mercy con enemy but aren't actually engageable, which is confusing; should they con ally to the villain player instead? And then Caleb is still incredibly annoying to spawn; we had to go to the wiki, and it looks like 100 nerva daemon defeats during specific hours of the day, and then you have to wait until nightfall for him to actually spawn. Can it be changed to either 100 daemons then spawn regardless of time of day, or just consistently spawn at dusk, no street sweeping gray mobs required?

[Dev Unitas]

4 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Possibly 0.00 recharge!!!

 

Proof:

 

This is a case of Detailed Info not providing the full picture - Coil Pulse is made up of three independent powers: The pull, the telegraph and the final pulse. The telegraph is what contains the recharge time, which is set to 60s. It will be increased in a future build, as well the duration of the telegraph. Appreciate the feedback from all so far, this GM was the last to be in a finished state on Closed Beta, so it didn't get a lot of complete testing. Generally I'm expecting it to land on the harder end of the GMs, as it is meant to exist as a fail state for the Paladin Construction event.

[Bionic_Flea]

Just keep in mind that Paladin is in King's Row, a level 6 - 10ish zone, and players that level are bound to run into him fairly frequently.  It might be interesting to try on a team of 8 level 10s . . . for science!

[Dev Unitas]

5 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Just keep in mind that Paladin is in King's Row, a level 6 - 10ish zone, and players that level are bound to run into him fairly frequently.  It might be interesting to try on a team of 8 level 10s . . . for science!

Beyond the telegraphed power, which will hopefully be a skill issue more than anything build-wise (once tweaked), nothing in Paladin's kit should otherwise cause an undue amount of challenge for a team of low level characters. Eager to see the test results on this, if it can be organized.

[Kaika]

Ok went after a few GMs solo on my main, a tricked out Fire/Rad Stalker, she normally eats all the GMs for breakfast.

 

Babbage: Real Glow up in the look department with the glowing eyes and the increases size. He took longer Solo then he would on live, but I was able to take him down without lore, assault hybrid, or daggers. Still though, he did hurt me a bit, and his end drain did become a slight issue for a bit, otherwise though, just a bit beefier, make sense considering he is the one most likely to be fought by lowbies.

 

Adamaster: Now this was a fun fight, Loads more HP, could actually hurt me if I got careless, and at 50% he starts making you get away from him and using a Mag: YES KB on you, knocking you far off the platform and into the ditch below. Without lore, assault, or daggers I was only able to match his regen. Still manged to kill him  with just assault and without Lore or daggers, honestly 10/10 fight

 

Jurassik: I barely damage this guy at all, at first I thought he was just super beefy, due to him suddenly having a massive 40% fire resist?! I'm not sure why he was given fire resist as he has 0% res to fire on live and none of the rock type enemies that I'm aware of do. Just seems odd to go from 0% to 40% like that, just... why? It only makes him any harder for fire based characters. Either way I was able to get him down to about 25% using everything but pet temps before I got bored and went on to fight the other ones.

 

Eochai:.... Yep 30% fire resist, least that's normal though, still not happening without the kitchen sink. The pumpkin patch really needs a ground marker or a warning or something, atm it feels a bit cheap since it just knocks you down immediately in heavy unavoidable damage, and effectively instantly kills pets. it really feels like the kinda thing that should have a warning. I can imagine this guy will be the bane of every MM's existence come next halloween. Either way I'll come back on another toon that's not fire damage

 

Scrapyard: Well he took quite a bit, but I was able to get him down. Took a long time and a ton of daggers, but I don't feel bad about it with him getting a 3000 heal every 15 seconds or so. I think it would be nice if the heal was toned down, or maybe turned into a "get away from this area" sorta thing as he is lacking anything like that and it feels like it would be punishing to groups with Res based tanks as it can be dodged. I would however love to see the Scrapyarders following him con even, as the event itself is the strike not just scrapyard. Considering he is leading the group and constantly yelling out orders, it seems odd that they do basically nothing that's not to the players benefit. Probably could stand to be a little bigger too.

 

The rest of them weren't up or I didn't wanna go through the effort of spawning them (PLEASE make Caleb less of a pain to spawn >.<). All and all I would say it's a massively welcome change. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the big res numbers, particularly on Jurassik lowered a bit and them given more HP to compensate if need be. I was never a fan of enemies having particularly large resist numbers to specific types and I'm aware that's how it is on live for some atm, it's just magnified by how much these are a DPS race. This isn't a big deal for me though as it's always been the case for some enemies, and on a team there will be plenty of buff/debuffs to mitigate that a bit, if I can come close to soloing them a team of 8 certainly can. It just never feels good to be significantly weaker due to a choice made in character creation, specially when damage is so important.

 

Edited January 24 by Riot Siren

[SaxyGuitar]

11 hours ago, Riot Siren said:

Scrapyard: Well he took quite a bit, but I was able to get him down. Took a long time and a ton of daggers, but I don't feel bad about it with him getting a 3000 heal every 15 seconds or so. I think it would be nice if the heal was toned down, or maybe turned into a "get away from this area" sorta thing as he is lacking anything like that and it feels like it would be punishing to groups with Res based tanks as it can be dodged. I would however love to see the Scrapyarders following him con even, as the event itself is the strike not just scrapyard. Considering he is leading the group and constantly yelling out orders, it seems odd that they do basically nothing that's not to the players benefit. Probably could stand to be a little bigger too.

 

This is the GM I normally beat up on in live with my MM and that heal is what's stopping my now. He also eats through my posse like they are nothing now. Which I think is a good thing. I also feel like I need to relearn pet placement on him too. 

[lemming]

Just a note on the 20 Hamidon Goo needed for building the Mini Hamidon Bud pet.   Anyone have an idea on how to get that many rare salvage when it's not seeded in the AH?  

[Tenkay Volts]

Liking the revamps so far! I do wonder about Sally however, now that she has a chance to drop her own mini pet players are going to have more reasons to hunt her beyond the two times for her badge. Since she's a one-hitter, that could very well make it a little harder for players to get said badge if every time she appears it takes just one person to quickly go and murder her for recipe drop... doubly so if said recipe starts selling for a pretty penny on the AH (which could be likely given I expect there'll be way less players involved in her kill compared to other GMs). 

 

It might end up being nothing, but maybe something to keep in mind, I'm not sure what her spawn rate is currently, I do recall it was buffed to be a little more frequent in comparison to other GMs a while back, but she may need to get pushed further.

Edited January 25 by Tenkay Volts

[StarkWhite]

24 minutes ago, Tenkay Volts said:

Liking the revamps so far! I do wonder about Sally however, now that she has a chance to drop her own mini pet players are going to have more reasons to hunt her beyond the two times for her badge. Since she's a one-hitter, that could very well make it a little harder for players to get said badge if every time she appears it takes just one person to quickly go and murder her for recipe drop... doubly so if said recipe starts selling for a pretty penny on the AH (which could be likely given I expect there'll be way less players involved in her kill compared to other GMs). 

 

It might end up being nothing, but maybe something to keep in mind, I'm not sure what her spawn rate is currently, I do recall it was buffed to be a little more frequent in comparison to other GMs a while back, but she may need to get pushed further.

Concern about this is one of the reasons the badge dropped from requiring two "defeats" to just one.

[Communistpenguin]

On 1/21/2024 at 3:10 AM, Starhammer said:

So it's not a huge deal, but the Lusca mini pet is disappointing. Coming out of an airborne globe of water just doesn't feel right. I would have vastly preferred if it was a ground based puddle 😞 I can understand the choice, since the puddle is nonsensical if summoned by a flying character, but it just doesn't look right... it's like the globe of water just highlights that there's part of the body there's no art for, rather than hiding it.

Maybe literally splitting the difference would work better? A lower hemisphere of water, flat water fx on top, with Lusca rising from it, but set at a hover height low enough that if we're at ground level, all but the upper plane is hidden... then if we elevate, it floats upward and has the bottom half of the globe to maintain the illusion that Lusca isn't rising from nothing but a flat plane.

Ok, so aside from the Lusca thing, it would be lovely if we could set these pets to start fighting each other if another is nearby. No combat mechanics, just shooting and brawling with each other.

Same with Sally. 

[Glacier Peak]

6 hours ago, lemming said:

Just a note on the 20 Hamidon Goo needed for building the Mini Hamidon Bud pet.   Anyone have an idea on how to get that many rare salvage when it's not seeded in the AH?  

Normally if there's any GMs or Devs on Beta, you can send them a tell and they'll help seed or drop the needed salvage. 

[lemming]

57 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Normally if there's any GMs or Devs on Beta, you can send them a tell and they'll help seed or drop the needed salvage. 

I solved it by soloing a Dr Aeon 4* with a different char.  Plenty of rare salvage that I threw onto the AH at a high price, then bought it with the character that had the bud recipe.

 

I like it, but I do wonder if it's going to confuse the heck out of some people during Hami raids.  (Not being targetable should get people past that)

[Lunar Ronin]

42 minutes ago, lemming said:

I solved it by soloing a Dr Aeon 4* with a different char.  Plenty of rare salvage that I threw onto the AH at a high price, then bought it with the character that had the bud recipe.

 

I like it, but I do wonder if it's going to confuse the heck out of some people during Hami raids.  (Not being targetable should get people past that)

 

Only as much as Rikti costumes do at mothership raids. 

[Frosticus]

I enjoy killing GM's. This sounds great.

 

One concern about the size increase that I haven't tested yet. Is it making self buffs like Heat Loss difficult to use?

Because getting the buff from HL on GM's like Lusca's head, or Boomtown Goliath was very tricky due to their size preventing you getting close enough to the epicenter of the buff. 

[AboveTheChemist]

On 1/24/2024 at 3:32 PM, lemming said:

Just a note on the 20 Hamidon Goo needed for building the Mini Hamidon Bud pet.   Anyone have an idea on how to get that many rare salvage when it's not seeded in the AH?  

 

The free and (relatively) easy way is to obtain free Empyrean merits from any merit, costume, or P2W/T4V vendor. Open the incarnate window and convert those Emp merits to incarnate threads. Head to an AE ticket vendor and convert those incarnate threads to MA tickets, and then buy the rare salvage you need from the AE ticket vendor. Granted, it is a bit of a convoluted path, but Emp merits can be obtained 1000 at a time so you should be able to stock up and maybe even seed the AH yourself with the quantities that can be obtained.

 

There is a section called 'Consumables' in the freebies menu that covers conversions like this for obtaining salvage and other consumables. If I think about it tonight I'll do some converting and try to seed the AH with some salvage. Also I must have terrible RNG luck because I have killed about 15 GMs so far (zapped them with QA powers) and have not seen a pet recipe drop yet.

[lemming]

3 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

 

The free and (relatively) easy way is to obtain free Empyrean merits from any merit, costume, or P2W/T4V vendor. Open the incarnate window and convert those Emp merits to incarnate threads. Head to an AE ticket vendor and convert those incarnate threads to MA tickets, and then buy the rare salvage you need from the AE ticket vendor. Granted, it is a bit of a convoluted path, but Emp merits can be obtained 1000 at a time so you should be able to stock up and maybe even seed the AH yourself with the quantities that can be obtained.

 

There is a section called 'Consumables' in the freebies menu that covers conversions like this for obtaining salvage and other consumables. If I think about it tonight I'll do some converting and try to seed the AH with some salvage. Also I must have terrible RNG luck because I have killed about 15 GMs so far (zapped them with QA powers) and have not seen a pet recipe drop yet.

Thanks! I forgot about the thread to ticket conversion.

 

So far, I haven't gotten a recipe drop from GMs except for the Hami Bud one.  And that was from clearing quite a few mitos