No, the light weapons felt better to me. Even if stagger is a bit over tuned at this point. I’m not a fan of the bigger heavy stagger weapons. Even on slayer when I ran 2 handed hammer on my second slot. I only used the light attacks to deal with CWs.
The game for sure needs some more work. It’d be interesting to get an experimental patch again. Completely remove stagger from all weapons but 2 handed heavies and shields, drop HP and damage profiles back to what it was. Then for Cata, just give the mobs a slight HP buff and a bit more stagger resistance. Keep the specials spawning like crazy, keep the elites and zerkers in hordes. Keep the reworked events. Let us test it out.
Cata’s tough, but legend is literally fine. Game hasn’t been ruined, just changed to be balanced around lvl 35. Most everyone is more powerful than before. Besides some personal gripes about 2 or 3 talents (out of 270), the only actual criticism I’ve got are beastmen acting out of sync and dealing too much chip damage before their attack animation starts and visually all blending in with each other and bots not being updated to account for any new stuff.
This is not bit overtuned, this is just broken. And people call it “better” but they mean “easier” , they were angry that it’s hard… so they are happy for anything that makes it suddenly easy… now it’s easy, to bully the crap out of everything which also adds stagger to everything so now … every fu… thing does crapload of stagger so everyone gets the bonus from stagger mechanic WE DID NOT NEED AT ALL … there was no need to break the whole core gameplay to end up with this mess which makes everything feel like 2H Hammer overheads…(But prepare to get super demolished in Cataclysm because… there is non of this umgak. That is certainly interesting, people will love it.)
Now you take S&D on elf it’s like you have double 2h hammers.
All of this mess is just because of that damned stagger mechanic they failed to remove and they still can’t see what kind of c*ncer that is. (Canc&r being blocked word… what ?)
All they are doing is adding more and more and more of avoidance systems, exactly as predicted.(I’m so sad I can’t link weeks back when I talked about how this is going to happen… because they removed the beta forums)
But to be honest I had no idea they will come up with something so … ughr … like this … that they will basically screw up the whole stagger resistance just to help avoid the system even more.
This … is just crazy.
In case someone still does not get what is going on… than I will explain briefly.
1. Add new experimental stagger mechanic
2. Holy sh… this is horrible, ok … well… let’s add implicit stagger bonuses on certain attacks (avoiding the mechanic) so those are not absolutely useless(like just having no use… literally) … so here they added first layer of the avoidance… to the whole system = you use heavy attack with Executioner and get nearly max bonus = 1.5/2 stagger stages. This is surely on most of the heavy attacks and prolly on some lights also, since some weapons felt much stronger.
3. Super terrible feedback still, because numbers were insane… ok… lets tone it down …
4. Super terrible feedback still … so … again… lets tone it down…
5. Still very bad feedback so … damn it … ok … buff up the stagger talents so it’s more appealing dmg wise or so we can avoid the mechanic even better!
6. WOM pre-launch, people are super pissed… because it feels like … sh… so what now ? Well … lets break the whole game and lower the stagger resist massively because half of the weapons do really feel like complete garbage and we don’t know what else to do… so we drop it like 50 pound ball and now everyone can stagger the hell out of everything => getting bonus all the time basically on top of implicit avoidances and buffed stagger talents …RENDERING THE WHOLE SYSTEM COMPLETELY USELESS
Oh looks exactly the crap i do now in my legend runs regardless of the weapon.
But ye i agree they dropped the ball totally and are now in the exact problem where they really have no idea wtf to balance around. Kinda wondering wtf the point was for having nearly months worth of beta then releasing it in such a broken state.
That has to be the best quote of this whole thread.
I’m actually going to try a few rounds today on legend just to see what you are talking about when you said “Bullying the crap out of them”.
Guess curiosity got the best of me. Damn myself to hell.
Also you forgot the point when they made an experimental beta within the closed beta (Beta 10) which actually didn’t feel all that bad.
However on another note. Why where I not lvl 35 when I logged into the game with the new patch? My Sienna was way over 500 levels and that doesn’t account to anything?
The way I see it, the mechanic itself isn’t that confusing or complicated, but the explanations of it certainly are. Including the Talents. I know that people want more transparency about the mechanics and numbers, but in cases like the Talent descriptions trying to give out too detailed info just obscures the whole.
I’ve made suggestion before that could solve this and a couple of other problems: an in-game intermediate manual or tutorial. There are a lot of mechanics in the game that are obscure or just not obvious to people playing, even those who have hundreds of hours. While you can find all those mechanics from tutorials and such outside the game, that’s not a good way to teach them. They shouldn’t be forced on anyone, but giving a resource in-game where one can find at least some of the deeper mechanics of the game (and not hidden in options menus or such) would help immensely in people learning the game.
Ok so I posted a ton of feedback on varying threads but I want to summarize my impressions here.
Overall I kind of like the expansion, despite the fact that there are some strange design decisions. I think it’s a move in the right direction generally and I also respect the idea’s behind the expansion, no matter the implementation. So here is my take and what I think might be interesting fixes.
Beastmen: I really like the new faction. Sure the clipping issues are not okay but I must say I didn’t have too much trouble with them. I think they really put a lot of time and effort into giving them a very distinct feel ingame by following the ideas of the tabletop game- i.e. fast, hard hitting and beefy ambushers. Clipping issues aside (which should be fixed) I also had very little problems with spears. However I run builds that really try to counter them- i.e. Polearms with either dodge or movement speed talents, as well as high single target damage ranged weapons. However what I really dislike, especially on higher difficulties is the absurd amount of skaven specials interrupting beastmen hordes. Especially on Dark omens you can the constant spawning of specials is really what makes it so annoying and difficult to deal with. I’m fine with being ambushed by beastmen but then being ambushed every 30 seconds by a specials that is hidden in the terrain is just way too much. I find that both annoying gameplay wise and immersion breaking lore wise. My idea would be to restrict the AI director in the number of specials spawning during a horde to each faction- meaning less specials during beastmen hordes (focusing them on intense melee fights for each inch of ground) and maybe more specials during skaven hordes (because, well skaven… plus as they are just weaker it’s easier to deal with specials and mixes up what would be otherwise be just a spamfest).
Dodge: I’m generally fine with that especially since shield became a bit more viable. However I’ve mainly played in such a way that I either get better dodge or I don’t really need it. Therefore I can’t really say too much about that topic other than there are IMO enough viable builds to not feel the impact.
Stagger: I like the idea but I’m still unsure whether or not I got that. I generally feel like pushes and stuff are heaving a nice impact but I can’t really say why that is. Currently my main problem is the confusing description text, which sometimes seems to give you too similar options.
Weaves: Haven’t played too much but it’s nice. My main criticism is that we now have two shitty crafting systems in one game that both basically do the same, but are not compatible.
Talents: Overall I like most of the changes mainly because you now get more stuff that directly influences you playstyle instead of getting some flat number for something. Moving the tHP stuff to the first tier is IMO a very good decision. The Lvl 35 stuff is fine with me. I get why people don’t like it and it certainly was not a good decision. However, at least for most careers, there is just new playstyle options available (Not breaking Stealth with Huntsman, …etc.), which makes me personally want to grind towards them. I feel that this allows for so many new builds and options to be worth my time (in contrast to farming for reds).
Finally, I managed to pinpoint some of the problems better. I already made a post about them in another, slightly more relevant topic, though, so I’ll just link it here.
Your Keyboard and Mouse make the same motions as though you were swinging a 2h hammer with Kruber = Same result. Bully EVERYTHING including CW, Maulers, Bestigors and SV, set everything on fire, Fire Walk out of trouble… or just do it on the spot to STAGGER everything and set it on fire, repeat until you win. No need for light attacks, limited need for dodging, no need to block.
There is almost no need to do anything other than charged attacks. Get Barrage vs monsters on a Fireball staff and the only threats are go-go gadget arms ungor spears and something spawning inside your pocket, leaping out and facetanking you or the usual assassin dropping on your from space or a hook rat in a horde. If Kaboom worked it’d be even funnier to just increase damage and stagger of the fire-walk.
Literally everything is on fire, staggered and taking damage… from basically Sienna giving them a slap.
@flisker is right, this is a little peppa-pig plaster over a dismemberment.
No? So you tell me … what is the implicit stagger bonus on dual dagger first heavy attack for example. Or what is the implicit on range weapons ? Or does stagger talents work for range weapons ? (I dont think this is stated anywhere in game) What % damage bonus are you getting in Cata 2 and Cata 3 ? I could continue. Does the stagger work on Monsters ? If so which talents do work on Monster and which do not ?
Most of the people won’t have answers, because it’s just chaos.
And average player will be confused about how even the talents actually work.
Main point isn’t about this being too complex, I don’t mind complex stuff, main issue I have is that it’s pointless, for reasons I explained. And it makes no sense to add complex pointless stuff in the game.
Different viewpoints, I guess. Digging into details of most systems brings a lot more complexity in; this case is the same in my mind. I understand that many people want as much and as accurate information as possible, but that shouldn’t usually be the default. In this case, I think there’s a needless amount of information put in too small a space regarding the stagger mechanic and its Talents (and the Talent descriptions are confusingly written to boot, especially considering the whole mechanic is repeated in all of them, including the Talent’s effects).
Putting the “technical manual” of the system separately, and getting someone who’s good at writing instructions to write it, and keeping the Talent descriptions simple (with a simple explanation of the system in, for example, the Prologue, or the intermediate guide I’ve proposed) would go a long way in giving the system clarity, I think.
It may well be that there are too many exceptions and additions in the system, and the interactions with other systems can be unclear, but those are details for me. I’m not saying that the system is perfect, or even particularly good (or necessary, for that matter), but I think its presentation is what makes it overly complex.
Well those questions are basic ones, that people need to know. It’s not asking some obscure super in depth details.
There should be no need for technical manual for basic mechanics, and even if they made very good one, people would not read it, mostly. Because they want to slay rats not study new convoluted mechanics.
And there is no simple explanation to this mess.
You probably aren’t at 2000+ hours in this game. But that is not the point. The vid was showing what is possible and how ridiculous it is, even without max level and kinda random talents, that’s not some fined tuned build in that vid. Legend wasa never broken like this before. There was broken classes before, but now kinda every class is broken class, because this is global change.
So I’m gonna close the polls for now/unpin the thread as the Expansion goes live tonight. I’ll do another set of polls later in the week to see how peoples opinions have changed. I’m sure there’s going to be hotfixes and patches rolling out all this week. Some of the poll options are already out of date due to patches. Thanks for voting and keep the feedback coming guys.
I think the base concept of “staggered enemies take more damage” isn’t confusing, though it starts to be with the various levels, and weapons having different levels they give, even if it all ends up in the same place.
But. Then we have the talents, and holy god does that get to be a confusing mess. Firstly is just how they change damage profiles. You go from default:
0%-20%-40%
But then you have Mainstay:
0%-40%-60%
And Bulwark
0%-20%(and 10%)-40%(and 10%)
to Smiter
20%-20%-40% (but only on first target!)
to Assassin
40% only on crit and headshot
And then they interact with each other. You can’t even tell what stagger state an enemy is in, other than that they ARE staggered, so if your ally staggers something, and you hit them, your bonus could vary hugely. Potentially from 20% (if you have Smiter), to 70% if you have Mainstay and they had Bulwark and happened to give them 2 stacks of stagger*. Which we don’t necessarily know - has a comprehensive list of what gives two levels of stagger even been put out? It certainly isn’t in game, and as Flisker points out, nowhere in-game is it mentioned that ranged weapons count as always having at least 1 stage of stagger, because I guess that was easier than actually balancing them around the massive and uneven health increases (from 76% to 9%). Of course, ranged weapons also don’t interact with your stagger talents, despite sort of having Smiter; though I have no idea how they actually interact with giving stagger. Is it like Smiter where they have just a default 20% bonus? Does it count for all targets hit, or just the first like Smiter? Does that mean that shooting something will instantly bump it up to second stage of stagger, or is the 1 stage bonus of theirs just “simulated”? We also don’t know how this interacts with other enemy debuffs like Shrapnel, and if bombs actually interact with your talents. If so, that means that someone with Bulwark who throws a bomb will debuff those enemies to take 70% bonus damage (90% for Bulwark) IF a bomb counts as giving two levels of stagger.
In practice, “hitting them until they die” still works, but this does heavily affect how hard you can push your skill, because you can only ever say at the very start of a fight “I need x many hits to kill this enemy”. In practice it’ll be a crapshoot that is not skill-based, and enemies will sometimes just instantly melt at your first touch, and sometimes they’ll be surprisingly durable.
*It could be anywhere in between, and you only have half the equation unless you know what talent your ally is using (and even then, in a pitched fight, telling who staggered what is going to be confusing).
I guess it again comes to a different viewpoint. I think about the Talents more in what they actually do, rather than the numbers or exact interactions with the system. Namely:
Mainstay makes the whole system stronger.
Bulwark adds slightly to anything you stagger.
Smiter partially bypasses the system.
Assassin enhances Crits/Headshots.
Extra Power leaves the system as is, but makes you generally stronger.
Assassin seems somewhat of an outlier there, as its interactions don’t seem to be directly related to the stagger system, but it’s also the most confusingly described, in my opinion. And that’s pretty much where the whole setup goes wrong, I think - as I said, I think they tried to give too much info in the small space of the Talent descriptions and went too technical (yes, going with the wishes of a significant part of the community to be more transparent with their mechanics, but in the wrong place imo).
