Upcoming Gunbad Updates + QoL Changes

[saupreusse]

Well as Natherul said: if you know C# you can help them. As it seems what's missing the most are coders with some free time to implement rvr changes.

And that's probably all there is to it. There simply is no one with enough free time and the right skills to create big pvp patches.

As Nath stated, the goal is to give people like me more access to the Lua scripting and database side in PVP so we can add things quicker. They are working on that right now along with matchmaking.

I’m glad everyone is enjoying the hardmode and the different dungeon mechanics. There are hours of work put into each boss, and we try to build it so anyone that comes after me can tweak the code with ease, whether they want to raise the difficulty or lower it.

I managed to miss that completely, but it sounds very nice.

[leftayparxoun]

Changes seem good on paper, both for toning down the newly introduced difficulty in the dungeon and regarding the rewards that come with running it (in the form of higher gold payout from bags for non-2h classes).

However, I would exercise great caution in bringing the number of GB runs back to what it was before the 22/10 rework.

Via the killboard/instances extension we can check the number of GB runs done every day.

A few days before the 22nd we were averaging 17 GB runs per day.
Checking the average over the same period during the last week we see an average of 11 GB runs per day.

Since new player progression hinges on Gunbad, it's not enough to equalize the Gold influx in the economy or just the runtime for the dungeon to what it was before.

You must keep making on changes until we are back to the same number of people willing to run the dungeon daily and help out the new players by doing so.

I expect that there will be a big lag period until the GB runs start to bounce back after the changes from this post are introduced. In general it's harder to please people than to annoy them, and after the evident loss of trust from the 22/10 update it's going to be hard to win it back and motivate them to check the dungeon again.

If you really care about the playerbase (and not about the Dungeon itself as a themepark) you should do everything you can to get the runs back to where they were before, even if takes more carrots or even if you need to go back to the older whip.

Coming back to this again, a month after the changes.
On the same days as with the previous tests (and well before Christmas so people shouldn't be away from the game too much), we are now averaging 12 Gunbad runs per day. So only +1 run per day compared to before the update went live and -6 runs per day compared to pre-rework Gunbad.

While we can't be certain already, I willing to think that the playerbase is not content with the new state of Gunbad and more changes are needed to incentivize people to run it (either in incentives or in lower difficulty). I guess we/you can re-examine the state of the dungeon's popularity in a month or so, but keep in mind that GB can be a bottleneck for new player progression and the longer it stays at this state the worse the problem will become (due to player trust loss).

[Rubius]

While we can't be certain already, I willing to think that the playerbase is not content with the new state of Gunbad and more changes are needed to incentivize people to run it (either in incentives or in lower difficulty). I guess we/you can re-examine the state of the dungeon's popularity in a month or so, but keep in mind that GB can be a bottleneck for new player progression and the longer it stays at this state the worse the problem will become (due to player trust loss).

We ran a poll recently to gauge feedback on the Dungeon, and the results were very helpful to see. I'll publish the data from the poll soon in a thread to share it with the community. (Summarized, players are generally happy with the current result.)

We won't be using the average number of runs as the statistic to base success on. While I appreciate the intent behind that argument (helping newer players), designing purely around the number of runs leads to either cut content or less mechanics, unbalanced payouts, and potentially hurts those same newer players by failing to teach them mechanics they will soon encounter as they progress to harder Dungeons.

Having watched many streamers run it and having gone through in pug groups, I'm personally quite confident about the current state of Gunbad. There will always be more we want to improve and other small changes to keep making, but I think this one has settled in a fairly comfy spot, and we appreciate everyone's feedback getting there!

[wonshot]

A little bit of Bastion Stairs feedback and general QoL thoughts:

We did Bastion Stairs for the first time yesterday, ended up needing/having a 2-2-2 comp due to alts needing wards or mains wanting a newly added Ring.
The overall dungeon was prety smooth and fine, no bugs, no issues, most of the new mechanics were easy to understand or research on the wiki, mixed with knowing the previous mechanics. (personally i didnt like the Cheering mechanic but thats a taste question)

As for being a "main" and running dungeons, I would like to give some feedback about what makes a main willing to go into Bastion/Citydungeon/Gunbad.
For a series of reasons the way I see it:

- You are going to either help guildies, friends, or randoms. Depending on you as a person or the group you are helping you might be more "tolerant"
- If the content is too hard, not selfexplanitory, have too many ****-up-wipe mechanics then going with randoms are not very appealing.
- Duration of runs matter, do I have 45min free while heating food in the oven sure i can do a dungeon run with a guidie or purely randoms if im expecting it to be smooth sailing, simply to help them out, or a chance to gain something myself.
- Maybe this is more so on me than others. But one thing that discourage me from going with randoms, is that I dont trust they will have their loot settings sorted for valuable/professions items/ or the new crafted rings in LV and BS. You can tell them all you want to greed or pass on unsusable armor pieces if you are a salvager, or seeds if you are a cultivator, or ring materials if you are building one. But the auto loot options dont encourage mains to really "mingle" with pugs if the only chance of a reward you get for your efforts, is someone just ninja looting without even knowing it. (random example a friend of mine have 4 purple seeds as he likes to go in an tank for pugs in BB on his chosen, only just 1month ago I asked why he was needing on purple seeds and he didnt even know he was. While not having any professions on that toon)

I would love to see a seperate looting system for greeding as a salvager on gear, unable to need on purple seeds unless you are a 200 cultivator. And a none automatic loot category type for ring materials in dungeons (in the "L" loot option settings)

Gunbad in teory should be a very very smooth sailing with minimal ****-up mechanics, as its a gearing dungeon that even if its sliiightly overtuned folks might just buy the pvp crest gear and skip it. our newest memeber just did as he cba sitting down and learning the mechanics so he never went in there.

[leftayparxoun]

We ran a poll recently to gauge feedback on the Dungeon, and the results were very helpful to see. I'll publish the data from the poll soon in a thread to share it with the community. (Summarized, players are generally happy with the current result.)

We won't be using the average number of runs as the statistic to base success on. While I appreciate the intent behind that argument (helping newer players), designing purely around the number of runs leads to either cut content or less mechanics, unbalanced payouts, and potentially hurts those same newer players by failing to teach them mechanics they will soon encounter as they progress to harder Dungeons.

Having watched many streamers run it and having gone through in pug groups, I'm personally quite confident about the current state of Gunbad. There will always be more we want to improve and other small changes to keep making, but I think this one has settled in a fairly comfy spot, and we appreciate everyone's feedback getting there!

Thank you for the reply. Really glad to also see that a poll was conducted.
I understand the points you are making and I would not contest them. The only major gripe I have with this approach is the following:

Gunbad for the last couple years has been the main source of +23 talismans for the game's economy. Either through scavenging the many champ+ mobs or by salvaging the equipment you get from bags.

As demonstrated in my previous comment, daily Gunbad runs seem to have consistently decreased compared to its pre-rework state. Not only that, but by offering increased gold payouts also for 1h weapons you have effectively reduced the incentives for picking up Salvaging. In essense, why pick up salvaging and level it up to 200 (most tedious and expensive profession to do so) with the goal of selling talisman materials (or talismans) when you can instead keep Cultivating while you are doing GB and sell the weapons instead? Especially since you are less likely to find a spot in run as easy as before (fewer runs happening per day).

As such, this should theoretically (and perhaps already has) lead to a massive drop in supply for +23 talismans/200 purple fragments. With the supply of +24 talismans remaining about constant (from ch22) this should theoretically lead to an initial escalation of price for +23 talis and unless there is a new influx of +23s from some other source then it will eventually translate to an increase in +24 talis price (because their price will be so close to +23s that their demand will rise but the supply will probably stay the same). This cascade will obviously hurt new players more than veterans since they are less likely to have a guild to support them or an old stockpile of talismans to use.

Maybe you have been already been monitoring the AH already but I urge you to start now if you havent since the economy may be more fragile than it seems. And especially now with the expected surge of new players (due to a well-known streamer showcasing ROR) the demand for talis is only going to get higher.

P.S: The same issue will most likely also affect +80/+100 TOU pots that were commonly farmed via spiders in middle wing.

[Emissary]

Lefty, always enjoy the comments and the advice, I know you know this but we as a team are always looking to see if the qol for our players is going to be effected. We will keep an eye out as always.

[DonCarlos]

"
Masta Mixa was overperforming, and the RNG elements of his stick mechanic could lead to big difficulty spikes, so we're toning his fight down and adjusting the mechanic:

- Masta Mixa's sticks will no longer randomly pick a Tank or Healer as their target, and will instead prioritize a DPS player, unless no DPS players can be found alive. As before, the stick(s) will only ever lock down a single player at a time.

- Reduced the HP + damage of the Dual Sticks so these get destroyed faster, and significantly reduced the HP + damage of the Triple Sticks.

- Reduced the Damage and Radius of the Fists of Gork."

May I suggest to randomize the dps-player selection by the sticks. We did a run last weekend and every single try the same marauder (our main dps) got selected - and we tried it 10 (ten) times!

[Rubius]

May I suggest to randomize the dps-player selection by the sticks. We did a run last weekend and every single try the same marauder (our main dps) got selected - and we tried it 10 (ten) times!

That is either one very unlucky Marauder, or something bugged out! It should already be fully randomized; we'll have a look.

In the meantime, please also advise the Marauder to ensure they have properly paid tribute to Tzeentch. (Sometimes the gods can be fickle!)