adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
I recommend aiming for making this a solid "second-best" choice, both for support and for personal DPS. That should be enough to make a lot of people want it - and encourage key sales.
If it would get changed to a "dps-only" or "debuff-only" mount (by removing either the buff or the debuff), it will become a lot less interesting, as you already have "equal or better" mounts. so, yea a 10% buff/debuff might be a bit too much, but 5% buff/debuff is maybe not enough. 7.5% buff/debuff is what I would recommend - it would make the swarm not "must-have, absolutely BiS", but a very solid second choice for any particular purpose, and better rounded overall.
I have a Tenser's myself, but a 7.5% buff/debuff mount would force me to stop and think which one to use.
But the nerf hammer hits hard - even though this wasn't officially released yet. But it looks like it will be semi-dead in the water, just like Atropal.
Cool with me. That means I might finally be able to afford a legendary mount in the near future. Plus, I only wanted it for its looks. If it had a cool combat power, that's a bonus. I mean, I already don't have a combat power and I'm getting by for now, which just means I don't take combat power much into account. The life steal severity will be nice for my SW when he's running in Temptation, though.
Buy a carpet. It will definitely be cheaper than the Swarm in any case. There ya go. A legendary. What else do you want? I'd rather have something useful cost 10 mil with the looks as a bonus, rather than just looking good and not being very useful.
I was hoping this might be cheaper than a carpet. LOL. I'm nowhere near 5m AD, yet. Hopefully soon, though!
But the nerf hammer hits hard - even though this wasn't officially released yet. But it looks like it will be semi-dead in the water, just like Atropal.
Cool with me. That means I might finally be able to afford a legendary mount in the near future. Plus, I only wanted it for its looks. If it had a cool combat power, that's a bonus. I mean, I already don't have a combat power and I'm getting by for now, which just means I don't take combat power much into account. The life steal severity will be nice for my SW when he's running in Temptation, though.
Buy a carpet. It will definitely be cheaper than the Swarm in any case. There ya go. A legendary. What else do you want? I'd rather have something useful cost 10 mil with the looks as a bonus, rather than just looking good and not being very useful.
I was hoping this might be cheaper than a carpet. LOL. I'm nowhere near 5m AD, yet. Hopefully soon, though!
Definitely not. It heavily depends on the mount power, and even a remotely decent one would make it cost way over 9 mil. So Celestial stag and Carpet are the kinds of mounts that go for 4.5-5m depending on how many people are opening the lockboxes.
But the nerf hammer hits hard - even though this wasn't officially released yet. But it looks like it will be semi-dead in the water, just like Atropal.
Cool with me. That means I might finally be able to afford a legendary mount in the near future. Plus, I only wanted it for its looks. If it had a cool combat power, that's a bonus. I mean, I already don't have a combat power and I'm getting by for now, which just means I don't take combat power much into account. The life steal severity will be nice for my SW when he's running in Temptation, though.
Buy a carpet. It will definitely be cheaper than the Swarm in any case. There ya go. A legendary. What else do you want? I'd rather have something useful cost 10 mil with the looks as a bonus, rather than just looking good and not being very useful.
I was hoping this might be cheaper than a carpet. LOL. I'm nowhere near 5m AD, yet. Hopefully soon, though!
I have yet to see a single legendary mount posted for below 4.5mil AD on the AH and I check the AH quite often. The legendary mounts with the most useless stat/combat powers usually stay around 5mil-6mil AD, sometimes they go into the 7mil range. Even if the swarm's powers were as useless as the carpet's, they would likely sell for the same price the carpet does. I suppose you could try to find a quickseller willing to sell you a legendary for cheeper than their value.
-- PVP Rogue, --[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]-- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin) Ingame Handle: trgluestickz Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563 Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud Platform: PC
I tried out the Mist Form mount in the preview. I did not see any problems with the mount movement across various terrain in the new area and in PE. The ethereal form while standing still is a nice touch. It is a fun mount, I hope to get one on the standard server. It is a shame that the mount doesn't make you invisible to the mobs, would be a nice thing to avoid trash mobs while heading to quest markers.
I tried out the Mist Form mount in the preview. I did not see any problems with the mount movement across various terrain in the new area and in PE. The ethereal form while standing still is a nice touch. It is a fun mount, I hope to get one on the standard server. It is a shame that the mount doesn't make you invisible to the mobs, would be a nice thing to avoid trash mobs while heading to quest markers.
I plan on getting that mount for several of my characters....it is pretty sweet.
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forumnamesuxsMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 490Arc User
Interesting. But my DC is still looking for his MULE after 2 long years. Exotic mounts are nice and all, but some ordinary mounts would be good as well.
Not too sure about this looking too good in NW, though. Perhaps for next Gond?
Just to double check @noworries#8859 , we can get the new mounts / enchants from a dev in preview right? 'Cause haven't seen anyone in game who has been handing them out yet. Maybe it is timezone differences. What time are you guys usually on preview?
Devs will be on at different times, but if you are having difficulty finding a dev online, you may private message me your character name on preview and your account handle that you would like to test the mounts on. I cannot promise I will be able to mail you the mounts quickly, but when I get a chance I will distribute the mounts out to everyone who messages me.
Devs will be on at different times, but if you are having difficulty finding a dev online, you may private message me your character name on preview and your account handle that you would like to test the mounts on. I cannot promise I will be able to mail you the mounts quickly, but when I get a chance I will distribute the mounts out to everyone who messages me.
@thecourtfool's inbox explodes due to the sudden influx of PMs >:)
Devs will be on at different times, but if you are having difficulty finding a dev online, you may private message me your character name on preview and your account handle that you would like to test the mounts on. I cannot promise I will be able to mail you the mounts quickly, but when I get a chance I will distribute the mounts out to everyone who messages me.
@thecourtfool's inbox explodes due to the sudden influx of PMs >:)
I am at your mercy! It is the least I can do to allow all of you to try the new content as long as you keep the great feedback coming!
I received the Swarm legendary mount awhile ago. Here are my opinions and feedback.
Looks: Wow. The mount looks nice. The combat power animation is cool looking. Overall visually nice. When I get on it, I do not like the screen darkening, however, when it goes back to normal it is fine. There is no sound when equipped, probably still a work in progress. Please, I can already tell it will be a screech, don't make it obnoxious. The looks and feel of the mount is great
Mount Equip Bonus: 4K Life steal severity is kind of meh, I would probably have liked to see Life steal chance instead. Or a 2k Life Steal chance 2k Life Steal Severity. I dont see any class using the severity bonus.
Mount Combat Power: Thank you. Finally a good item that will help scale with the difficulty of endgame content rising. The 10% damage buff is great for PVE, the rest is just icing on the cake. I was hoping after the T-Rex we would see a buff mount this mod. Now Support classes can run the Rex and Debuff, and DPS can run Swarm for buff. Excellent Combo. Now obviously this brings thoughts of a balance.
BALANCE: Ok, the day I saw this I knew the issue would arise of PVP concerns and PVE concerns. Obviously as a developer you do not want to create something in game, that will be a 100% better option than anything in game. That would destroy in game economy, and make those who spent money, and hours grinding for other mounts disappointed. Lets start with PVP. Absolutely adjust. This is insanely over powered and will make the PVP community even more so a P2W feel. All of what this mount does is incredibly overpowered in a PVP setting. Half the values across the board. The mount should be a small buff in PVP for slight advantage, not an all in one package. Now to PVE. I am torn, this mount is finally an answer to the lack of a good items, to scale with the progression of difficulty in end game content for DPS. Tenser is an okay amount of damage, and Rex is a Debuff, finally we have a match to the Rex as a buff for damage. Now, the additional abilities, make this mount a little unbalanced as stated before. We dont need to replace the rex. We need to have an equal. My SUGGESTION is, Summon a swarm of bats, Increase damage to the target by 10% and reduce target outgoing damage by 5% for 10 seconds. Additionally activation of this ability will release the player from most control effects, and slows the target by 5% for 5 seconds. These values are halved in PVP. Remove the damage taken debuff, action point slow and the crit chance reduction.
It is in my opinion that this mount is well made. I believe balancing is needed on the mount, but the rumor of halving the value entirely is not ideal. The balancing that I have suggested, I feel is much better. I hope you all take this into consideration to the list of balancing ideas you have. I believe an equivalent 10% buff is a much needed and desired mount bonus. But we don't need "the whole can of worms". Keeping the buff with a damage reduction, and a release from control effects with the slight slow, to me, sounds like a well balanced incentive to purchase keys, and keep VIP active. Win/Win
-End Note: I do feel like this mount is what we need. The rumors of halving all the values makes this mount mediocre. Legendary mounts should not be mediocre. The suggestion I have made will still make the mount "Ledendary" but not insanely overpowered in PVP and unbalanced overall BIS in PVE.
Thank you
G~Herrm - Chronic Legion
Edit- After writing this. I just logged into preview and saw the change. I hope this is still a work in progress. Guess its time to test. Will come back with an update with further testing.
Sound Update:The sound is nice, subtle screech. Would maybe like the Screech to be turned down a little while riding. But it is not obnoxious and wont cause me to mute the game entirely.
The five percent values across the board have made the mount mediocre. I believe further testing will show the REX and TENSER will remain your better options. No matter what class you are. Was really hoping for a viable dmg buff mount...Not interested in pursuing...
I received the Swarm legendary mount awhile ago. Here are my opinions and feedback.
Looks: Wow. The mount looks nice. The combat power animation is cool looking. Overall visually nice. When I get on it, I do not like the screen darkening, however, when it goes back to normal it is fine. There is no sound when equipped, probably still a work in progress. Please, I can already tell it will be a screech, don't make it obnoxious. The looks and feel of the mount is great
Mount Equip Bonus: 4K Life steal severity is kind of meh, I would probably have liked to see Life steal chance instead. Or a 2k Life Steal chance 2k Life Steal Severity. I dont see any class using the severity bonus.
Mount Combat Power: Thank you. Finally a good item that will help scale with the difficulty of endgame content rising. The 10% damage buff is great for PVE, the rest is just icing on the cake. I was hoping after the T-Rex we would see a buff mount this mod. Now Support classes can run the Rex and Debuff, and DPS can run Swarm for buff. Excellent Combo. Now obviously this brings thoughts of a balance.
BALANCE: Ok, the day I saw this I knew the issue would arise of PVP concerns and PVE concerns. Obviously as a developer you do not want to create something in game, that will be a 100% better option than anything in game. That would destroy in game economy, and make those who spent money, and hours grinding for other mounts disappointed. Lets start with PVP. Absolutely adjust. This is insanely over powered and will make the PVP community even more so a P2W feel. All of what this mount does is incredibly overpowered in a PVP setting. Half the values across the board. The mount should be a small buff in PVP for slight advantage, not an all in one package. Now to PVE. I am torn, this mount is finally an answer to the lack of a good items, to scale with the progression of difficulty in end game content for DPS. Tenser is an okay amount of damage, and Rex is a Debuff, finally we have a match to the Rex as a buff for damage. Now, the additional abilities, make this mount a little unbalanced as stated before. We dont need to replace the rex. We need to have an equal. My SUGGESTION is, Summon a swarm of bats, Increase damage to the target by 10% and reduce target outgoing damage by 5% for 10 seconds. Additionally activation of this ability will release the player from most control effects, and slows the target by 5% for 5 seconds. These values are halved in PVP. Remove the damage taken debuff, action point slow and the crit chance reduction.
It is in my opinion that this mount is well made. I believe balancing is needed on the mount, but the rumor of halving the value entirely is not ideal. The balancing that I have suggested, I feel is much better. I hope you all take this into consideration to the list of balancing ideas you have. I believe an equivalent 10% buff is a much needed and desired mount bonus. But we don't need "the whole can of worms". Keeping the buff with a damage reduction, and a release from control effects with the slight slow, to me, sounds like a well balanced incentive to purchase keys, and keep VIP active. Win/Win
-End Note: I do feel like this mount is what we need. The rumors of halving all the values makes this mount mediocre. Legendary mounts should not be mediocre. The suggestion I have made will still make the mount "Ledendary" but not insanely overpowered in PVP and unbalanced overall BIS in PVE.
Thank you
G~Herrm - Chronic Legion
Edit- After writing this. I just logged into preview and saw the change. I hope this is still a work in progress. Guess its time to test. Will come back with an update with further testing.
Sound Update:The sound is nice, subtle screech. Would maybe like the Screech to be turned down a little while riding. But it is not obnoxious and wont cause me to mute the game entirely.
The five percent values across the board have made the mount mediocre. I believe further testing will show the REX and TENSER will remain your better options. No matter what class you are. Was really hoping for a viable dmg buff mount...Not interested in pursuing...
Dev already stated that they were going fowards with the idea of changing all 10% values listed for the combat power to 5% values. I doubt they will change it again but I suppose you can try. The 5% values I also thought would turn out medocre when I first saw them but some other knowledgable people I know are saying that the 5% values will be stronger than first anticipated and will likely be able to compete with the tenser's disk and tyrannosaur after all. For the tenser's disk power, adding additional power to endgame players who already have tons of power does not grant as much additional damage as you might expect. For the tyrannosaur mount, the more debuffs are present, the higher the diminishing returns will be so in many situations, the tyrannosaur debuff will also grant players less damage than you might expect.
As for PVP, all of those values at 10% and the duration at 5 seconds is not enough to make the swarm BIS in PVP, though it would still be one of the stronger options avalable for mount combat powers. Now that all of the PVP values are also getting slashed to 5%, it will be even less scary. I'm also not sure why you seemed worried about the crit debuff in PVP, crit has much less importance in PVP than it does in PVE and not many players are going to feel that 10% debuff, let alone a 5% one. Though I'd still be in favor of getting rid of it just to make the tooltip smaller.
-- PVP Rogue, --[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]-- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin) Ingame Handle: trgluestickz Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563 Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud Platform: PC
I received the Swarm legendary mount awhile ago. Here are my opinions and feedback.
Looks: Wow. The mount looks nice. The combat power animation is cool looking. Overall visually nice. When I get on it, I do not like the screen darkening, however, when it goes back to normal it is fine. There is no sound when equipped, probably still a work in progress. Please, I can already tell it will be a screech, don't make it obnoxious. The looks and feel of the mount is great
Mount Equip Bonus: 4K Life steal severity is kind of meh, I would probably have liked to see Life steal chance instead. Or a 2k Life Steal chance 2k Life Steal Severity. I dont see any class using the severity bonus.
Mount Combat Power: Thank you. Finally a good item that will help scale with the difficulty of endgame content rising. The 10% damage buff is great for PVE, the rest is just icing on the cake. I was hoping after the T-Rex we would see a buff mount this mod. Now Support classes can run the Rex and Debuff, and DPS can run Swarm for buff. Excellent Combo. Now obviously this brings thoughts of a balance.
BALANCE: Ok, the day I saw this I knew the issue would arise of PVP concerns and PVE concerns. Obviously as a developer you do not want to create something in game, that will be a 100% better option than anything in game. That would destroy in game economy, and make those who spent money, and hours grinding for other mounts disappointed. Lets start with PVP. Absolutely adjust. This is insanely over powered and will make the PVP community even more so a P2W feel. All of what this mount does is incredibly overpowered in a PVP setting. Half the values across the board. The mount should be a small buff in PVP for slight advantage, not an all in one package. Now to PVE. I am torn, this mount is finally an answer to the lack of a good items, to scale with the progression of difficulty in end game content for DPS. Tenser is an okay amount of damage, and Rex is a Debuff, finally we have a match to the Rex as a buff for damage. Now, the additional abilities, make this mount a little unbalanced as stated before. We dont need to replace the rex. We need to have an equal. My SUGGESTION is, Summon a swarm of bats, Increase damage to the target by 10% and reduce target outgoing damage by 5% for 10 seconds. Additionally activation of this ability will release the player from most control effects, and slows the target by 5% for 5 seconds. These values are halved in PVP. Remove the damage taken debuff, action point slow and the crit chance reduction.
It is in my opinion that this mount is well made. I believe balancing is needed on the mount, but the rumor of halving the value entirely is not ideal. The balancing that I have suggested, I feel is much better. I hope you all take this into consideration to the list of balancing ideas you have. I believe an equivalent 10% buff is a much needed and desired mount bonus. But we don't need "the whole can of worms". Keeping the buff with a damage reduction, and a release from control effects with the slight slow, to me, sounds like a well balanced incentive to purchase keys, and keep VIP active. Win/Win
-End Note: I do feel like this mount is what we need. The rumors of halving all the values makes this mount mediocre. Legendary mounts should not be mediocre. The suggestion I have made will still make the mount "Ledendary" but not insanely overpowered in PVP and unbalanced overall BIS in PVE.
Thank you
G~Herrm - Chronic Legion
Edit- After writing this. I just logged into preview and saw the change. I hope this is still a work in progress. Guess its time to test. Will come back with an update with further testing.
Sound Update:The sound is nice, subtle screech. Would maybe like the Screech to be turned down a little while riding. But it is not obnoxious and wont cause me to mute the game entirely.
The five percent values across the board have made the mount mediocre. I believe further testing will show the REX and TENSER will remain your better options. No matter what class you are. Was really hoping for a viable dmg buff mount...Not interested in pursuing...
Dev already stated that they were going fowards with the idea of changing all 10% values listed for the combat power to 5% values. I doubt they will change it again but I suppose you can try. The 5% values I also thought would turn out medocre when I first saw them but some other knowledgable people I know are saying that the 5% values will be stronger than first anticipated and will likely be able to compete with the tenser's disk and tyrannosaur after all. For the tenser's disk power, adding additional power to endgame players who already have tons of power does not grant as much additional damage as you might expect. For the tyrannosaur mount, the more debuffs are present, the higher the diminishing returns will be so in many situations, the tyrannosaur debuff will also grant players less damage than you might expect.
As for PVP, all of those values at 10% and the duration at 5 seconds is not enough to make the swarm BIS in PVP, though it would still be one of the stronger options avalable for mount combat powers. Now that all of the PVP values are also getting slashed to 5%, it will be even less scary. I'm also not sure why you seemed worried about the crit debuff in PVP, crit has much less importance in PVP than it does in PVE and not many players are going to feel that 10% debuff, let alone a 5% one. Though I'd still be in favor of getting rid of it just to make the tooltip smaller.
Ya, reading through the discussion after typing this out and posting has proved to be useless. But I spent time typing it so, it is fine. As for debuffs, diminishing returns don't start until around 300%, not very many groups are getting to that point. Was not worried about the crit debuff or AP gain debuff, its just unnecessary. My testing is showing that the swarm is not providing as big of a buff as the rex debuff. But we will see how it compares in a group. But the way it works in my head is, stacking the 50% debuff to get close or just over that 300% will be better than stacking 45% (assuming the swarm is stacking properly) and having a 5% buff. Tenser's, in total averages about a 7.5% avg dmg buff (janne). Im not saying the bat will be bad. But it will be more expensive for awhile, I do not know why anyone would pursue the bats, when the Rex and Tenser's will more than likely be cheaper, and arguably better. The 10% buff, and 5% dmg dealt debuff I suggested, would have been more appealing. Slightly better than Tenser's and an equivalent to the Rex. More testing needs to be done obviously. And I am just a dude that enjoys math so, maybe one of the guru testers will show me why I am wrong. But as of right now. The bats are just another mediocre addition to the rest of the mediocre items from this mod (Excluding the Prominence weapon enchant, which as I type this is probably being "balanced" too).
Lion would still be considered BIS for most. But if the bats were left untouched. That would leave room for some nasty combos that the bats could make even deadlier. Only 2 players on a built PVP team need the lion. The rest running Bats. You cant even tell me you don't see how unbalanced that was.
Devs will be on at different times, but if you are having difficulty finding a dev online, you may private message me your character name on preview and your account handle that you would like to test the mounts on. I cannot promise I will be able to mail you the mounts quickly, but when I get a chance I will distribute the mounts out to everyone who messages me.
@thecourtfool's inbox explodes due to the sudden influx of PMs >:)
I am at your mercy! It is the least I can do to allow all of you to try the new content as long as you keep the great feedback coming!
So trialled a few of the mounts (thank you for mailing them @thecourtfool#5656!). Some feedback:
Enchanted Broom
Feels like I am flying too low on the ground. Also when I am flying up a hill, the front end of the broom seems like it is digging into the ground and i'm dragging my feet, especially when you 'speed up' after 2 seconds. The flourish looks great, and is quite fun to fly around in one.
The size of the mist form when stationary looks a little small and low on the ground, like I am a halfling sized mist, but maybe that was the effect you were going for? If it could be made taller and thinner for a human that would be awesome. I like the flourish on this one too - will be getting a few for the frighten >:) .
The height at which the mount travels is good, compared to the mist form and broom, it actually feels like I am flying. I like the darkening at the beginning of the animation and the flourish is cool! I also like how the bats swarm around the mob when you target it with the Bat Swarm power. It is a good visual indicator that the power is taking effect. Very nicely done!
I just got the new mounts as well (thanks) and took them for a spin.
Enchanted Broom is more fun than I thought it would be. I love how after a couple seconds it "kicks in", but it seems to drop down too low. I'm dragging the ground. I think it would be better if it only dropped down about half as far. The equip power (Power) is also great! I know what I'm gonna be farming for all my characters this Halloween!
Mist Form is about what I expected (thought the cloud might could be slightly bigger though), but the Life Steal Severity stat is pretty lame. It's only about an 8% gain to LS Severity.
Bat Swarm is great! I loved the mounting color effects making everything look infrared for a couple seconds. It felt really vampy! The Life Steal Severity stat is terrible though!! Going from 2000 to 4000 improves LS Severity by a whopping 0.7%!!
Bat Swarm bug: In the "Change Mount"/"Choose Appearance" list, the Bat Swarm mount is just named "Swarm". It says the same when chosen and the same when hovering over the mount belt slot.
Also, in the "Mount Preview" window, the Bat Swarm is way too high, you can only see the bottom bit of it without dragging it down into view.
Life Steal Severity stat: This stat is just... no. I mean, the 2000 stat makes a mathematically measurable improvement (8%), but to a stat no one needs and will never even notice. Even worse, the 4000 version provides virtually no additional benefit over the 2000 version (a 0.7% improvement?!!). As it is, you're getting a de facto Epic equip power for the price of a Legendary.
I really think both should be changed to a different stat. The regular Life Steal stat is the obvious choice. If that's just off the table for some reason, at least split the bonuses between Life Steal and Life Steal Severity so it's not a total waste.
When not riding the broom mount, it would be a nice touch to have it remain summoned and walk beside me... as a subtle nod to some other walking brooms we all love...
When not riding the broom mount, it would be a nice touch to have it remain summoned and walk beside me... as a subtle nod to some other walking brooms we all love...
Some feeback of the new mounts after a few test times (thanks to @thecourtfool#5656 for mailing them so fast).
Click on the pics to maximise them.
Mist Form
It looks pretty nice – great idea. Size and effects are well done. Visited different maps and can´t find any graphical issues. I ride along the Barovia river to see how it look in the water. The transition between water and surface could be a little bit smoother.
Entchanted Broom
I love this mount. The speed up animation and space bar effect are both fantastic.
When I sit on the broom I miss some material on my backside. Same with space bar effect when the character fly in the air. I´ve tried few other armors but only found the 2 from the pic that doesn´t work correctly.
The get-on-the-broom effect works not fine. After sitting on it the character mounts off a second time. From my own view this takes a sec – from another players view it takes a few msec.
This mount is awesome!! Bat swarm animation is great. When I sit on the mount and have max volume the bat sound is disruptive after a while (personal feeling). The mounting color effect was a nice idea. I visited different maps again and tried the color effect. Found no graphical issues with that except Bryn Shander. In the water is the same transition problem like the Mist Form have. But here it´s much more noticeable.
In Bryn Shander the mounting color effect is too much dazzling.
For comparsion I tested it on another pc with a different graphic card
I think it would be better to modify the damage buff down to 3% rather than remove it. Than the debuff I would have kept it in play. This way, the mount would be sought after by DPS and unlike Tensor this mount would at least debuff the target making it better than Tensor for group content. It would also be good for support classes due to the debuff, unlike the TRex it would be single target but still worth the investment. This would make the mount viable for both support and DPS without it being over powered.
So I got my set of mounts on preview and I've been playing with them.
The bat swarm: Looks AMAZING and the world discolouration after summoning it is a very nice touch. My only complaint, and I have *no* idea if there's anything you can do about this, is when you dismount you just drop out of the swarm, wholly. If would be really neat if there was an animation of reforming, although I'm pretty sure that's just not something the game can handle and if it interfered with acting after dismounting that would be bad.
Mist Form: This is pretty. Definitely way cool. And if you follow someone closely, it looks like their mount is trailing smoke.... or farting.
Broom: Seems fine. Generic mount, whatever - but the flourish animation? THAT is super-cool.
I like all three, and didn't encounter any bugs while testing the movements and animations.
Devs will be on at different times, but if you are having difficulty finding a dev online, you may private message me your character name on preview and your account handle that you would like to test the mounts on. I cannot promise I will be able to mail you the mounts quickly, but when I get a chance I will distribute the mounts out to everyone who messages me.
@thecourtfool's inbox explodes due to the sudden influx of PMs >:)
I am at your mercy! It is the least I can do to allow all of you to try the new content as long as you keep the great feedback coming!
many thanks to @thecourtfool#5656 for providing me with a set of these mounts to play with on the Preview server.
Initial observations.
All three worked perfectly, as far as I can tell. My only intial problem was down to my graphics card not the mounts.
The bat swarm was just a bit too much for my graphics card to cope with until I turned off AA. When riding along, the screen would freeze up for a second every now and again. In a fight, when I summoned the swarm this became much more pronounced. In the HE with the werewolves I hardly got to see any of the fight between freeze frames but with AA off it was fine
One observation with the swarm would be if you could maybe shrink it a little when being displayed in the mount panel on the character screen. No matter how a I played with the zoom feature, part of it was always missing from the top. But again, this could be a problem caused by my graphics setup. I am running the HUD at 150% scaling on a 3840 x 2160 resolution screen which could be affecting how the swarm is being shown.
Loved the broom but not too sure I like the way it drops down really low after a few seconds. I'd prefer a little more ground clearance.
The mist form was just great. Love the effect and transitions when you start and stop moving. Just one request,it would be nice if the mist form figure could either resemble the upper section of my character (similar to the Paranoid Delusion) or a more distinctly scary form, e.g. a skeleton, a traditional spook or a hooded figure. At present, I can't help thinking of the Iron Giant from the animated movie of the same name.
The bat swarm was just a bit too much for my graphics card to cope with until I turned off AA. When riding along, the screen would freeze up for a second every now and again. In a fight, when I summoned the swarm this became much more pronounced. In the HE with the werewolves I hardly got to see any of the fight between freeze frames but with AA off it was fine
The swarm mount also freezes for me momentarily when I first summon it - you can see it in the little video I posted up above (at 0:15).
adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
edited May 2018
I have been playing with the new mounts (thank you @thecourtfool#5656), and overall I am fairly impressed - however, there are some minor issues The broom looks just plain silly when you are in the river. I mean - I look like a torpedo, racing underwater. OK, a flying broom may not be realistic as such, but an underwater broom is just ... well, odd. It would look much cooler if you were skimming over the surface, instead of being submerged.
The mist is fine, no issues with that whatsoever.
The bat swarm. A few things. I really like the combat power - would certainly use that if I had the mount on Live. The visuals - ugh, not a big fan, but thematically it is just great - really fits well in Ravenloft. My issue is with the Life Steal Severity bonus, as that is without doubt the most useless stat bonus (well, maybe along with +4000 Regeneration bonus of the Armored Giant Strider). Quite frankly, I cannot imagine any scenario where anyone would want to use this bonus. What this means in practice is that the swarm is fine as a second legendary mount - if you already have a mount with some useful legendary bonus, but if this is your only legendary mount - ugh - you would select some +2000 epic bonus from an epic mount instead of this one. Maybe a +2000 Life Steal Severity and +2000 (anything else) would make this at least usable.
As mentioned before, the mount is really cool, I might get one for the effect (although I still love my rex, and she might get jealous)
But the +4000 Life steal severity is just plain odd. Not just because it's a bad equip power, those happens, we can't expect things to be decent in all aspect. But 4k LSS point is hard to get my head around, it feels vague and hard to see what it actually means.
It has various problems, starting from the fact that it gives defensive and secondary stats. So, not just that 2k stat is effectively wasted on it, because the cap, but counteracts with the life steal insignias and personally, it does not even tells the buyer what to expect, because LSS is a overall, a percentage and all the campaign boons or sources gives a percentage of LSS, not a point number (except the mentioned insignias).
So, in my opinion, making it 10-15% Life steal severity does not really change anything (as I tried to find out, and I'm assuming it gives approx 11%, so a 10% would be a little bit of a takeaway, 15% would be a slight buff), except the positive side of the bonus working together with the Life steal severity insignias and better understanding what it gives to you.
On mounts in the future, I'm on @adinosii's side, making it +2k secondary stat and +2k primary would feel much better.
My issue is with the Life Steal Severity bonus, as that is without doubt the most useless stat bonus (well, maybe along with +4000 Regeneration bonus of the Armored Giant Strider). Quite frankly, I cannot imagine any scenario where anyone would want to use this bonus. What this means in practice is that the swarm is fine as a second legendary mount - if you already have a mount with some useful legendary bonus, but if this is your only legendary mount - ugh - you would select some +2000 epic bonus from an epic mount instead of this one. Maybe a +2000 Life Steal Severity and +2000 (anything else) would make this at least usable.
The armored strider does not grant 4k regeneration. It grants 4k movement. For a PVE player, the strider bonus is near the back of the line in terms of usefulness but it is fun to play with. For PVP, the strider movement bonus isn't BIS exactly but it is criminally underrated and suprizingly good in PVP. I am a mount collector with access to all of the really good passive legendary bonuses and I still find myself switching to the strider bonus quite often in PVP.
I agree with the other players here that the 4k life steal severity offered by the batswarm needs adjusting. The lifesteal severity is somewhat useful as a 2k bonus but the diminishing returns for this stat prohibit the legendary 4k version from offering any noticable stat benifit over the epic 2k version.
I think the devs should change the legendary mount passive bonus to one of the 5 following ideas, some of these are more useful than others and none are best in slot. All of these are better options than straight 4k lifesteal severity though and all of them are good vampire themed bonuses:
4k lifesteal chance - the most popular choice looking at the feedback so far.
2k lifesteal chance and 2k lifesteal severity - also a good option as it grants lifesteal sev up to a little above its diminishing returns cap without the other 2k being useless
2k lifesteal severity and 2k combat advantage damage bonus - grants 2 somewhat useful secondary stats up to a little above their diminishing returns cap.
4k regeneration - grants a large amount of a less sought after primary stat. It would be more useful than the 2k and 1k regeneration mounts already avalible since regen doesn't have the same brutal diminishing returns as the secondary stats. If I remember right, regen buffs your other sources of self healing in a similar manner to incomming healing bonus. 4k regen would also mean that you regenerate your HP in very large ticks outside of combat and would be situationally useful in some locations.
Another option is to do something similar to what certain boons, armor enchantments, and companions already do and grant secondary stats in percentage form instead of in stat form, these tend to bypass the diminshing returns that raw stats are subject to.
Post edited by trgluestickz on
-- PVP Rogue, --[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]-- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin) Ingame Handle: trgluestickz Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563 Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud Platform: PC
Comments
If it would get changed to a "dps-only" or "debuff-only" mount (by removing either the buff or the debuff), it will become a lot less interesting, as you already have "equal or better" mounts. so, yea a 10% buff/debuff might be a bit too much, but 5% buff/debuff is maybe not enough. 7.5% buff/debuff is what I would recommend - it would make the swarm not "must-have, absolutely BiS", but a very solid second choice for any particular purpose, and better rounded overall.
I have a Tenser's myself, but a 7.5% buff/debuff mount would force me to stop and think which one to use.
We are going to go forward with leaving the damage buff in but make everything a %5 buff/debuff instead of a 10%.
PVP Rogue,
--[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin)
Ingame Handle: trgluestickz
Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563
Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression
Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud
Platform: PC
'Cause haven't seen anyone in game who has been handing them out yet. Maybe it is timezone differences. What time are you guys usually on preview?
Looks: Wow. The mount looks nice. The combat power animation is cool looking. Overall visually nice. When I get on it, I do not like the screen darkening, however, when it goes back to normal it is fine. There is no sound when equipped, probably still a work in progress. Please, I can already tell it will be a screech, don't make it obnoxious. The looks and feel of the mount is great
Mount Equip Bonus: 4K Life steal severity is kind of meh, I would probably have liked to see Life steal chance instead. Or a 2k Life Steal chance 2k Life Steal Severity. I dont see any class using the severity bonus.
Mount Combat Power: Thank you. Finally a good item that will help scale with the difficulty of endgame content rising. The 10% damage buff is great for PVE, the rest is just icing on the cake. I was hoping after the T-Rex we would see a buff mount this mod. Now Support classes can run the Rex and Debuff, and DPS can run Swarm for buff. Excellent Combo. Now obviously this brings thoughts of a balance.
BALANCE: Ok, the day I saw this I knew the issue would arise of PVP concerns and PVE concerns. Obviously as a developer you do not want to create something in game, that will be a 100% better option than anything in game. That would destroy in game economy, and make those who spent money, and hours grinding for other mounts disappointed. Lets start with PVP. Absolutely adjust. This is insanely over powered and will make the PVP community even more so a P2W feel. All of what this mount does is incredibly overpowered in a PVP setting. Half the values across the board. The mount should be a small buff in PVP for slight advantage, not an all in one package. Now to PVE. I am torn, this mount is finally an answer to the lack of a good items, to scale with the progression of difficulty in end game content for DPS. Tenser is an okay amount of damage, and Rex is a Debuff, finally we have a match to the Rex as a buff for damage. Now, the additional abilities, make this mount a little unbalanced as stated before. We dont need to replace the rex. We need to have an equal. My SUGGESTION is, Summon a swarm of bats, Increase damage to the target by 10% and reduce target outgoing damage by 5% for 10 seconds. Additionally activation of this ability will release the player from most control effects, and slows the target by 5% for 5 seconds. These values are halved in PVP. Remove the damage taken debuff, action point slow and the crit chance reduction.
It is in my opinion that this mount is well made. I believe balancing is needed on the mount, but the rumor of halving the value entirely is not ideal. The balancing that I have suggested, I feel is much better. I hope you all take this into consideration to the list of balancing ideas you have. I believe an equivalent 10% buff is a much needed and desired mount bonus. But we don't need "the whole can of worms". Keeping the buff with a damage reduction, and a release from control effects with the slight slow, to me, sounds like a well balanced incentive to purchase keys, and keep VIP active. Win/Win
-End Note: I do feel like this mount is what we need. The rumors of halving all the values makes this mount mediocre. Legendary mounts should not be mediocre. The suggestion I have made will still make the mount "Ledendary" but not insanely overpowered in PVP and unbalanced overall BIS in PVE.
Thank you
G~Herrm - Chronic Legion
Edit- After writing this. I just logged into preview and saw the change. I hope this is still a work in progress. Guess its time to test. Will come back with an update with further testing.
Sound Update:The sound is nice, subtle screech. Would maybe like the Screech to be turned down a little while riding. But it is not obnoxious and wont cause me to mute the game entirely.
The five percent values across the board have made the mount mediocre. I believe further testing will show the REX and TENSER will remain your better options. No matter what class you are. Was really hoping for a viable dmg buff mount...Not interested in pursuing...
As for PVP, all of those values at 10% and the duration at 5 seconds is not enough to make the swarm BIS in PVP, though it would still be one of the stronger options avalable for mount combat powers. Now that all of the PVP values are also getting slashed to 5%, it will be even less scary. I'm also not sure why you seemed worried about the crit debuff in PVP, crit has much less importance in PVP than it does in PVE and not many players are going to feel that 10% debuff, let alone a 5% one. Though I'd still be in favor of getting rid of it just to make the tooltip smaller.
PVP Rogue,
--[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin)
Ingame Handle: trgluestickz
Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563
Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression
Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud
Platform: PC
Lion would still be considered BIS for most. But if the bats were left untouched. That would leave room for some nasty combos that the bats could make even deadlier. Only 2 players on a built PVP team need the lion. The rest running Bats. You cant even tell me you don't see how unbalanced that was.
Enchanted Broom
Feels like I am flying too low on the ground. Also when I am flying up a hill, the front end of the broom seems like it is digging into the ground and i'm dragging my feet, especially when you 'speed up' after 2 seconds.
The flourish looks great, and is quite fun to fly around in one.
Mist Form
The size of the mist form when stationary looks a little small and low on the ground, like I am a halfling sized mist, but maybe that was the effect you were going for? If it could be made taller and thinner for a human that would be awesome. I like the flourish on this one too - will be getting a few for the frighten >:) .
Swarm
The height at which the mount travels is good, compared to the mist form and broom, it actually feels like I am flying. I like the darkening at the beginning of the animation and the flourish is cool!
I also like how the bats swarm around the mob when you target it with the Bat Swarm power. It is a good visual indicator that the power is taking effect. Very nicely done!
Enchanted Broom is more fun than I thought it would be. I love how after a couple seconds it "kicks in", but it seems to drop down too low. I'm dragging the ground. I think it would be better if it only dropped down about half as far. The equip power (Power) is also great! I know what I'm gonna be farming for all my characters this Halloween!
Mist Form is about what I expected (thought the cloud might could be slightly bigger though), but the Life Steal Severity stat is pretty lame. It's only about an 8% gain to LS Severity.
Bat Swarm is great! I loved the mounting color effects making everything look infrared for a couple seconds. It felt really vampy! The Life Steal Severity stat is terrible though!! Going from 2000 to 4000 improves LS Severity by a whopping 0.7%!!
Bat Swarm bug: In the "Change Mount"/"Choose Appearance" list, the Bat Swarm mount is just named "Swarm". It says the same when chosen and the same when hovering over the mount belt slot.
Also, in the "Mount Preview" window, the Bat Swarm is way too high, you can only see the bottom bit of it without dragging it down into view.
Life Steal Severity stat:
This stat is just... no. I mean, the 2000 stat makes a mathematically measurable improvement (8%), but to a stat no one needs and will never even notice. Even worse, the 4000 version provides virtually no additional benefit over the 2000 version (a 0.7% improvement?!!). As it is, you're getting a de facto Epic equip power for the price of a Legendary.
I really think both should be changed to a different stat. The regular Life Steal stat is the obvious choice. If that's just off the table for some reason, at least split the bonuses between Life Steal and Life Steal Severity so it's not a total waste.
When not riding the broom mount, it would be a nice touch to have it remain summoned and walk beside me... as a subtle nod to some other walking brooms we all love...
Click on the pics to maximise them.
Mist Form
It looks pretty nice – great idea. Size and effects are well done. Visited different maps and can´t find any graphical issues.
I ride along the Barovia river to see how it look in the water. The transition between water and surface could be a little bit smoother.
Entchanted Broom
I love this mount. The speed up animation and space bar effect are both fantastic.
When I sit on the broom I miss some material on my backside. Same with space bar effect when the character fly in the air. I´ve tried few other armors but only found the 2 from the pic that doesn´t work correctly.
The get-on-the-broom effect works not fine. After sitting on it the character mounts off a second time. From my own view this takes a sec – from another players view it takes a few msec.
Swarm
This mount is awesome!! Bat swarm animation is great. When I sit on the mount and have max volume the bat sound is disruptive after a while (personal feeling). The mounting color effect was a nice idea. I visited different maps again and tried the color effect. Found no graphical issues with that except Bryn Shander. In the water is the same transition problem like the Mist Form have. But here it´s much more noticeable.
In Bryn Shander the mounting color effect is too much dazzling.
For comparsion I tested it on another pc with a different graphic card
The bat swarm: Looks AMAZING and the world discolouration after summoning it is a very nice touch. My only complaint, and I have *no* idea if there's anything you can do about this, is when you dismount you just drop out of the swarm, wholly. If would be really neat if there was an animation of reforming, although I'm pretty sure that's just not something the game can handle and if it interfered with acting after dismounting that would be bad.
Mist Form: This is pretty. Definitely way cool. And if you follow someone closely, it looks like their mount is trailing smoke.... or farting.
Broom: Seems fine. Generic mount, whatever - but the flourish animation? THAT is super-cool.
I like all three, and didn't encounter any bugs while testing the movements and animations.
Initial observations.
All three worked perfectly, as far as I can tell. My only intial problem was down to my graphics card not the mounts.
The bat swarm was just a bit too much for my graphics card to cope with until I turned off AA. When riding along, the screen would freeze up for a second every now and again. In a fight, when I summoned the swarm this became much more pronounced. In the HE with the werewolves I hardly got to see any of the fight between freeze frames but with AA off it was fine
One observation with the swarm would be if you could maybe shrink it a little when being displayed in the mount panel on the character screen. No matter how a I played with the zoom feature, part of it was always missing from the top. But again, this could be a problem caused by my graphics setup. I am running the HUD at 150% scaling on a 3840 x 2160 resolution screen which could be affecting how the swarm is being shown.
Loved the broom but not too sure I like the way it drops down really low after a few seconds. I'd prefer a little more ground clearance.
The mist form was just great. Love the effect and transitions when you start and stop moving. Just one request,it would be nice if the mist form figure could either resemble the upper section of my character (similar to the Paranoid Delusion) or a more distinctly scary form, e.g. a skeleton, a traditional spook or a hooded figure. At present, I can't help thinking of the Iron Giant from the animated movie of the same name.
More testing tomorrow
The broom looks just plain silly when you are in the river. I mean - I look like a torpedo, racing underwater. OK, a flying broom may not be realistic as such, but an underwater broom is just ... well, odd. It would look much cooler if you were skimming over the surface, instead of being submerged.
The mist is fine, no issues with that whatsoever.
The bat swarm. A few things. I really like the combat power - would certainly use that if I had the mount on Live. The visuals - ugh, not a big fan, but thematically it is just great - really fits well in Ravenloft. My issue is with the Life Steal Severity bonus, as that is without doubt the most useless stat bonus (well, maybe along with +4000 Regeneration bonus of the Armored Giant Strider). Quite frankly, I cannot imagine any scenario where anyone would want to use this bonus. What this means in practice is that the swarm is fine as a second legendary mount - if you already have a mount with some useful legendary bonus, but if this is your only legendary mount - ugh - you would select some +2000 epic bonus from an epic mount instead of this one. Maybe a +2000 Life Steal Severity and +2000 (anything else) would make this at least usable.
But the +4000 Life steal severity is just plain odd. Not just because it's a bad equip power, those happens, we can't expect things to be decent in all aspect. But 4k LSS point is hard to get my head around, it feels vague and hard to see what it actually means.
It has various problems, starting from the fact that it gives defensive and secondary stats. So, not just that 2k stat is effectively wasted on it, because the cap, but counteracts with the life steal insignias and personally, it does not even tells the buyer what to expect, because LSS is a overall, a percentage and all the campaign boons or sources gives a percentage of LSS, not a point number (except the mentioned insignias).
So, in my opinion, making it 10-15% Life steal severity does not really change anything (as I tried to find out, and I'm assuming it gives approx 11%, so a 10% would be a little bit of a takeaway, 15% would be a slight buff), except the positive side of the bonus working together with the Life steal severity insignias and better understanding what it gives to you.
On mounts in the future, I'm on @adinosii's side, making it +2k secondary stat and +2k primary would feel much better.
For a PVE player, the strider bonus is near the back of the line in terms of usefulness but it is fun to play with.
For PVP, the strider movement bonus isn't BIS exactly but it is criminally underrated and suprizingly good in PVP. I am a mount collector with access to all of the really good passive legendary bonuses and I still find myself switching to the strider bonus quite often in PVP.
@thecourtfool#5656
I agree with the other players here that the 4k life steal severity offered by the batswarm needs adjusting. The lifesteal severity is somewhat useful as a 2k bonus but the diminishing returns for this stat prohibit the legendary 4k version from offering any noticable stat benifit over the epic 2k version.
I think the devs should change the legendary mount passive bonus to one of the 5 following ideas, some of these are more useful than others and none are best in slot. All of these are better options than straight 4k lifesteal severity though and all of them are good vampire themed bonuses:
4k lifesteal chance - the most popular choice looking at the feedback so far.
2k lifesteal chance and 2k lifesteal severity - also a good option as it grants lifesteal sev up to a little above its diminishing returns cap without the other 2k being useless
2k lifesteal severity and 2k combat advantage damage bonus - grants 2 somewhat useful secondary stats up to a little above their diminishing returns cap.
4k regeneration - grants a large amount of a less sought after primary stat. It would be more useful than the 2k and 1k regeneration mounts already avalible since regen doesn't have the same brutal diminishing returns as the secondary stats. If I remember right, regen buffs your other sources of self healing in a similar manner to incomming healing bonus. 4k regen would also mean that you regenerate your HP in very large ticks outside of combat and would be situationally useful in some locations.
Another option is to do something similar to what certain boons, armor enchantments, and companions already do and grant secondary stats in percentage form instead of in stat form, these tend to bypass the diminshing returns that raw stats are subject to.
PVP Rogue,
--[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin)
Ingame Handle: trgluestickz
Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563
Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression
Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud
Platform: PC