Greetings all! PVE end solo player here since 2018 (Xbox One). I’ve created an account just to contribute with the thrall nerf debate. Here are my opinions and some suggestions.
- Why the nerf is needed. Picture this: Assoros, the Nemedian, survived the horrors of the cross (for crimes he may or may have not committed). Without any choice other than survive, he becomes a brutal savage, otherwise the cannibals, hyena freaks or lunatic cutthroat pirates would have taken his skin for decoration in the blink of an eye. Later he enters a fortified Cimmerian camp, and single handled slays dozens of some of the most fearsome warriors of the Hyborian Age. He bonks the leader of these warriors senseless and brings him to the wheel of pain, where his options are a life of servitude, or death. The Cimmerian choses the first, and he follows his master blindly to fight a red dragon. The master joins the fight, and after near dying because of a tail swipe, he stands back and watches the Cimmerian tear apart the dragon. Now, by Crom, why the hell is this Cimmerian following such a weakling? That’s why thralls should be nerfed. But that should only be done if the player can become the protagonist, especially on boss fights.
- Regarding combat mechanics. Leveling seems fine to me, even if not perfect, because of the recurrent bugs. Trash mobs seems just fine too. Even a 60 lvl character can get into trouble if overrun by mobs in the bigger camps. Otherwise you shouldn’t have difficulties, because you are at maximum level and fully geared. So, now you have bosses to occupy your combat needs and keep playing and collecting cool gear. Traditionally (and to keep things simples, since I’m not a developer), you can have tree roles when fighting a boss in a videogame. You can tank, you can dps or you can support. As it stands, we can’t tank, our dps is inferior to the thrall and we don’t have to support with anything (I have never used the famous healing arrows and have cleared all dungeons, save for the Wine Cellar).
- My suggestion is: implement battle stances. A balanced stance (something like we have now, maybe a little buffed), a defensive stance (if you wanna tank) and a beserker stance (if you wanna simply deal the damage). These could be applied to the nerfed thralls too, and would add variety to the overall gameplay, including PVP, I guess. Apply restrictions – cooldowns, stamina drain, etc - for the changing from one stance to another and let the player control the fights. Balance the pros and contras in all the stances, to add risks (deal more damage but receive more damage, for example).
- And finally, nothing will work if Funcom doesn’t fix some game breaking issues regarding combat in general. Please implement coherent hit boxes. I’d rather hit the air around a dragon’s snout than enter under his glitched belly every time I perform a combo (rhinos, elephants, crocodiles, rocknose boss, and many other creatures have the same problem). Shields should be up the moment I press the button, save the moment I’m rolling or jumping (for some reason I think it was like this in the beginning, but I can be mistaken), otherwise they are not reliable as game mechanics. Maybe a console issue? Shield should block weak attacks, dodge should avoid strong attacks. And finally, if I can’t target lock a giant creature and study its movements, so I can react accordingly, the fight is not fair. Again, it can be a console problem, because we can’t adjust the camera after target locking, making impossible to read the opponents movements. Anyway, in my opinion boss fights should be a swashbuckling tense chess game. Doable as a solo player (easier in groups, as it should be), but challenging, balanced and fair.
That’s it! Thank you for reading this, and apologies for the long text. In the meantime, let’s keep enjoying this fantastic game!
Peace!
