Ghost Blade

[Lunch Lvl 150 USEastPolar BearPosts: 36]

So all the higher levels are fine with this mob using disorient with no cooldown? This is the same idea with Lich using teleport whenever he wants and same difference when it comes to mages shooting fireballs over the same walls we can’t shoot arrows.

I highly don’t like these mobs nor changes nor have I’ve seen any post about it so I will.

Last time I played was about a week or so ago due to the fact that I died to a ghost blade non stop spamming disorient which we can’t do. I haven’t played any game where mechanics can be abused by a mob but not by a player or vice versa. Why is this ok?

2 weeks ago I died to a random black screen glitch and lost half my inventory when I went to repair it and died to it.

I guess on top of ranting I have a concern as far as mobs not being tested or being able to do things without any cool down or any sort skill rotation. I love this game but have lost the desire to play due to this and maybe it’s just me and no one cares but there aren’t many who venture in UW as deep so there isn’t as much feedback.

[WolfPosts: 22]

Ghost blade, although a ridiculously overpowered and imbalanced mob, the recent Mind Flayer is on a different level of imbalanced, for obvious reasons. The new UW updates has made venturing deep into UW suicide, making the main source of myst for most players out of reach.

In order to balance out these new mobs, I think the disorient on Ghost Blade should have a cooldown, just like players do; being able to dish out 1k dmg in less than a second is stupid. As for the Mind Flayer, there should be a cap to how much def it can drain (it shouldn’t be able to give us -300 def), its attack speed should be reduced and its range should be reduced.

One more thing I would like to address is the HP of the new mobs. I feel like 3k hp mobs is too much, it feels like admin isnt even trying to make UW more balanced and difficult for players. Ghost Blade, with the most dps of any mob and can 1 shot you? lets give it 3k hp as well! Mind Flayer which continuously drains your def? Let’s make him tanky as fuck and impossible to kill with a shroomie so you can’t stop the def drain!

[Seryn Lvl 300 USEast2SkeletonPosts: 166]

I’ve been waiting to say anything until I got an idea of how much arp ghost blades have, since I haven’t met one yet.

But looking through the last couple mob packs we’ve gotten, dust devils and tentacles followed a clear philosophy of adding mechanics to a diverse mob pack: dust devils added a snare, and tentacles were an armor check. Plus tentacle’s range, their combo was an effective progression checkpoint (although since the armor patch dust devils do more damage to me with 100 heavy armor than when I’m naked, which feels just a little broken).

Shroomies also followed this ideal by simply making existing mob packs harder to kill, although they still need a range reduction (mobs might also need an ICD on how frequently they can be healed by multiple shroomies). Summoners have a similar role of buffing mob packs by adding more diversity on the fly. Hive soldiers (and to a lesser extent dire wolves) are simple dicks, but are arguably worthwhile situational awareness checks.

Ice elementals and liches pushed the envelope: we don’t have an effective counter to slows and liches spam 65-75dmg hits regardless of armor due to 50% arp, so both are endurance checks. You simply have to have the health to survive a situation with no mobility and massive damage, combined with whatever else might be after you in the area. Shield block and dodge were key as well, however both have been nerfed in the same patch that added…

… Ghost blades and mind flayers, which appear to be intended hard ceiling (floor?) on UW progression. I simply don’t see how they can be dealt with, or how they are supposed to dynamically interact as part of a group of mobs you encounter. Both are apparent hard counters to melee-only builds when, in the case of mind flayers, they’ll most likely be spamming you from off screen across walls you can’t shoot them over anyway.

IMO:

Stop mobs from being able to attack or abilities across walls. All mobs, all abilities: mages, archmages, dragons, shroomies, dust devils, tentacles, ice elementals, liches, and mind flayers. Make it so that we can use the terrain to survive, and fight room to room. Reduce the range on shroomie heals to the range we can see. Make the mind flayer -def ability a random melee attack, not ranged. And stop ghost blades from spamming disorient.

This should maintain the synergies each monster adds to a room of diverse mobs; synergistic difficulty is a really cool thing this game has going for it in terms of mob design, but presently it feels unbalanced. Players with deeper UW experience than me can tailor suggestions better than I can though, as I’ve been sticking to safer floors since liches and definitely will continue to do the same after ghost blades and mind flayers…

It’d just be nice to think “neat, I see how to counter those new mobs and I can work up to it” versus “well I guess I’ll never go past uw55 ever ever ever ever ever.”

And also since latency with ML isn’t great, I kind of believe that any fine-tuning in terms of difficulty should at least be a little biased in the player’s favor.

Since we can’t really tightly control anything.

[Lunch Lvl 150 USEastPolar BearPosts: 36]

Fluffy I’ve seen discord and seen that mind flayers can make regular skeletons attack you for 60 dmg after debuffing you for so long. I love stranger things and the mind flayer but with that maybe make a way to counter it (new potion, new spice, invulnerable to def loss or mind attacks etc without being terrible to farm for?)

Seryn their attacks have no arp from what I know of but their disorient is a whole different story. I vaguely remember being hit for 176, 201, 117 and dying. I was using a bow on them for the longest and fought a few before one of them decided all it knew how to do was use disorient nonstop so I wouldnt advise testing it.

[Kaios Lvl 233 USTexasSkeletonPosts: 173]

Question about Ghost Blade, is the disorient just randomly used (spammed) when in melee range or is it triggered by something like each time you attack it?

If it’s just random then I think it would serve a much better purpose if attacking the ghost blade was the trigger to cause it to disorient as this would ensure you still need a ranged attack to beat them but also creates the interesting dynamic that you can effectively control their disorient and use it to your advantage if needed in exchange for taking the damage it causes.

[GoblinPosts: 56]

So, I’m in much the same boat as Seryn on this issue. Ever since Ghost Blades were added I’ve outright stopped going into the UW, this was BEFORE the armor and shield nerf which made me not want to go even more. Adding Ghost Blades seemed OKAY at first, they were only floor 60 and you’d only ever see them if you went down there. Sure. This was of course before I was made aware that they can spam Disorient until you die whenever they want. That’s when it became not okay, and when I decided to not go to the UW at all anymore until I can work up the willpower to get a recall tile above summoner range.

Now with the recent armor nerfs, and as Seryn mentioned Dust Devils being able to do MORE damage without armor than with armor, coupled with Mind Flayers I’ve just decided never to go to the UW again. At-least not that deep, again until I can get a B40 or so Recall Tile.

Something like this shouldn’t be a thing. I wanted to try and at-least fight the new mobs, but after hearing how players MUCH stronger than myself are getting screwed over by them I just know I have no hope whatsoever to do so. I was rather excited once I completed my end-game set that I could efficiently run the deeper UW floors. I was finally strong enough to do it and such. Then the new updates come and effectively shatter those dreams entirely.

None of these updates improved the game at all. You can say adapt to them and such, that all you have to do is change armors and play more carefully. That’s all well and good for things like dust devils and the other benign mobs. However, that won’t help you against Mind Flayers or Ghost Blades. No matter your armor, skills, potions, anything. If you meet one of them you’re probably done for depending on how the game likes you. God help you if one appears while you’re clearing a room with a lich or something.

Speaking simply as someone that has experience playing RPG’s and such these weren’t properly thought out as a mob hurdle. They were tossed in as a new addition without testing or the items needed to be able to actually beat them efficiently and properly being added into the game. All it takes at this point is for one Ghost Blade to rock up to you and spam Disorient no matter what crazy stats you have. Or at-least, for the vast majority of us.

Tentacles and Dust Devils as said were one of the ‘hurdle mobs’, something to work towards beating without too high of a risk of dying. Liches were the next tier. Now this was added, and I personally don’t really see a way of consistently beating it outside of sheer luck. Seryn covered what could be done to change it pretty well without simply screaming ‘OMG NERF!!11!’. Everything was viable, especially the shroomie healing and HP nerf. Something so stupidly powerful that appears so early in the deeper UW floors doesn’t need that much HP. They wouldn’t be nearly as bad if they had like 100-200 HP and were built as a kamikaze type mob, though at this point they’re just entirely too powerful.

[Kazul Lvl 248 USEastGoblinPosts: 78]

From my personal experience with all the mobs quite a few things need changed in my opinion.

1. Monsters shouldn’t be able to attack you through the walls with no way to counter it.

2. Shroomies should not be able to heal things from so far away or through walls.

3. Lich ranged attack is inconsistent maybe even bugged? Sometimes it shoots 3-4 times at once ignoring any kind of cooldown if there is even supposed to be one.

4. Ghost Blades Their ability to spam disorient is broken definitely needs some kind of cooldown because it can lock you in place if it keeps using it and you can’t attack back.

5.Mind Flayers This thing is the most imbalanced of them all. It drains your defense way too quickly. -1 def per hit would have been more reasonable.. but 10 per hit is overkill. Combined with its extra ranged and ability to shoot through walls and massive health pool it’s just ridiculous. Most people will avoid going past floor 64 just because this thing exists now with no way to counter it.

There’s not enough places in the overworld to farm myst. The underworld is extremely risky now and not very rewarding for how annoying it can be, having to deal with crap listed above.

[keebo Lvl 7 USWestGoblinPosts: 87]

^^^ Fix this admin.

[SkeletonPosts: 181]

Have we considered planning out trips into the UW?
Dedicated teams / roles for healers, tanks, ranged and melee would solve the majority of gripes here.

This seems less unthought of addition and more reflex rejection.

That said the disorient spam definitely needs a fix. Less damage out of armour may need a tweak but could be fluffed to make sense.

Def drain could be dropped or replaced with a random range per hit – perhaps 0 to 3.

The through walls thing is irksome. As are shroomies from offscreen. But they aren’t insurmountable. A longer delay / greater AI for whom and when they heal could be a better improvement.

[SkeletonPosts: 103]

I guess on top of ranting I have a concern as far as mobs not being tested or being able to do things without any cool down or any sort skill rotation. I love this game but have lost the desire to play due to this and maybe it’s just me and no one cares but there aren’t many who venture in UW as deep so there isn’t as much feedback.

One thing we must realize. We are the ones doing the testing.

It’s easier for the dev to have players find the flaws in the game while he can continue working on the game.

Thats why the Dev thanked us for testing/playing.

[Lunch Lvl 150 USEastPolar BearPosts: 36]

There’s one thing to test a game for flaws in the dev’s coding there is another to put something out “programmed” to have no cool down as you quoted.

[SkeletonPosts: 181]

Balance is struck by finding the pivot.
If this is more than you can handle then seek for it to be adjusted.

Unless the disorient skips the range limits for you though currently it’s just another mob best handled at range.

Nothing that new there.

[Lunch Lvl 150 USEastPolar BearPosts: 36]

If you haven’t fought one I’m sure your input isn’t very useful. I fought a handful and one decided it would non stop disorient. Also in deeper UW sure you can use range, maybe spear? Not bow, unless you want to take full damage from a lich and now a mind flayer. Maybe the game lags a bit? Now if you get surrounded you’re dead. If you use spear and you’re against a wall or once again surrounded then? Right, you’re dead.

Whether or not you think im complaining about a mob I guess you’re not taking into account all the mechanics and possible situations you may encounter in the UW. Before you could safely shoot over walls with a bow and now you can’t, no biggie max shield block and heavy and have over 6 million myst in upgrades then fight 1 mob who stun locks you and kills you in less than 5 seconds? So, a few months of grinding skills and other stuff due to a broken mob that you say just “handle at range”.

This isn’t your typical RPG where there are roles for this type of situation.

[SkeletonPosts: 181]

Or you’re not actually fully taking account of them yourself.

We get disorient. We can strafe. We can lure. We can build. There are lots of things we can do to manipulate the terrain and the monsters we encounter. And that’s before even considering recruiting people to work in a team.

And this is pretty much exactly the typical RPG where there are roles for this – you can to the precise skill specialise in what you want.

Healing, shield block, armour, exploraiton, and gear yourself to buff these through gems and armour rates.

You’ve chosen to hit this wall and stop rather than scale it.

[Lunch Lvl 150 USEastPolar BearPosts: 36]

Or you’re not actually fully taking account of them yourself.

Have you fought one?

We get disorient. We can strafe. We can lure. We can build. There are lots of things we can do to manipulate the terrain and the monsters we encounter. And that’s before even considering recruiting people to work in a team.

We sure do get skills! You build while fighting one of the strongest monsters in game? Manipulate terrain how so? Dig? Build a wall in front of us? We can’t shoot over the walls like mages so your point? Sure take a team of other players who might lag or go down a 1 lane wall in UW as a Lich or a Dust Devil or Tentacle spawns while you guys all use range to shoot arrows over walls in a tiny room while evading mobs that negate obstacles while you all die.

And this is pretty much exactly the typical RPG where there are roles for this – you can to the precise skill specialise in what you want.

What roles? There is no class system, you mean play with farm animals? Cook Food? Till all the grass in Galebrook?

Healing, shield block, armour, exploraiton, and gear yourself to buff these through gems and armour rates.

Shield block and heavy armor at 100 with high def but yet get hit for 200 in one hit? Have you ever had 100 shield block or 100 heavy armor or had the gems needed to even explore past UW 30 by yourself?

You’ve chosen to hit this wall and stop rather than scale it.

Says the expert.

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