Shackled Island

[Atomoso]

Dear Devs,

 

     Please do not ever take this away. It is the most fun random pvp ever. Especially the last 10 ppl in a small ass circle :D

[tock]

It's GREAT FUN, I bet if they got some youtube and twitch vids out there, more ppl would come play too. 

[Boops]

29 minutes ago, Atomoso said:

Dear Devs,

 

     Please do not ever take this away. It is the most fun random pvp ever. Especially the last 10 ppl in a small ass circle :D

I agree!  This is the most fun I have had in a while in the game!

[Eckogen]

 

[Kasumi Rose]

(Gonna copy/past what I originally wrote in "Shackled Isles Feedback" in general discussion here because it seems appropriate and it's more in the correct location. o.o Hoping devs will see:)

 

Here's what I've determined while playing BR (I've played a lot btw: Top ~32):

 

The powerups should not be determiners of the outcome of a fight; rather, they should ASSIST in the outcome of a fight. There are several things fundamentally unbalanced about some of the powerups. I believe some of them (like the paw hammer) should be entirely reworked, but if that's not an option, then I think some of the behaviors and stats of abilities should be adjusted. Here are some examples of the unbalanced abilities in BR and how they might be fixed:

 

- Paw hammer:

- It feels extremely bad when somebody just presses 7 in a small circle and activates the very quick hammer move that launches you hopelessly far out of bounds and guarantees a kill. Hammer can also be activated while falling, so somebody can come from off-screen and hit you within milliseconds, practically guaranteeing the hit. This isn't a matter of "Every player has access to the hammer; You can do it, too!" This is a matter of a plainly unfun ability that doesn't promote fun gameplay or skill when abused in small/final circles.

- A suggestion to fix the hammer is to adjust the start-up animation of it to make it more readable and counter-able. Alternative adjustments can, of course, be made. These are all just suggestions.

- Energy Sap (green bomb):

- It is bad for gameplay when somebody can stand out of sight, watch 2+ people fight, and then hold six to activate an energy sap bomb and instantly get multiple kills upon full charge without even being detected. (It should also be fixed that the animation of energy sap can be canceled/doesn't show sometimes. Not sure exactly what causes this though. I think it might have to do with going in and out of stealth.)

- One-hit kill (or one-combo kill) mechanics should be avoided as much as possible in PvP games, especially if they: don't require skill to pull off; have a quick startup (not saying energy sap has a quick startup); and/or is often very difficult or impossible to avoid (just use it while you're out of line of sight or while the opponent is in the air (summoners can abuse this quite well)). 

- Energy sap has a good, lengthy start-up animation, but it's just the nature of battle royale modes (people can be anywhere, sneaking up from behind a busy fight or coming in from the sky) that doesn't really allow for such a powerful one-hit mechanic. There are also rare times where you're in a big fight, so you're just out of mobility, CC, or I-frames, and you have to let your opponent slowly charge up your demise if you can't kill them in time, which again, feels bad.

Spoiler

("Feels bad" btw is a valid complaint in games. Blizzard changed one of their characters in Overwatch simply because of players complaining that a move "felt bad" to go up against... Games should feel fun and fair.)

 

- A suggestion to fix energy sap would be to just simply take a lot of that damage away, but perhaps keep (and maybe even lengthen and strengthen) the negative effects that it gives players (I  believe it gives lower regen, AP, etc. for a few seconds? I don't actually use the bomb myself anymore because I know it's op and bad for gameplay, but I see it used all the time, so I know what it does in general (~75k damage on a full charge and some negative effects), and I've read its description before.)) And again, this isn't an "it's in the game, so why not use it?" kind of situation. It's an ability that takes what could be a fun, skill-based fight, and just abruptly ends it with little to no effort required from the user of the bomb. It's very boring and disappointing, frankly speaking.

- Catclaw:

- Simply increase the cooldown on it. Right now, it's far too spammable for free CC coupled with the fact that it does a fair amount of damage, and classes (some better than others) can abuse that for effortless wins.

- Shield (For 5 seconds it gives 50k health):

- DISCLAIMER: The buff I'm going to suggest for this is made with the assumption that none of the above nerfs will be made (but do note that this change might work post-nerfs, too), so, in BR's current state with the op offensive abilities:

- 5 seconds is not long enough to increase survivability by much, if any, in these fights. A simple air combo from most classes eats up that time and even causes it to expire just in time for you to still receive damage in most cases. Remember - this just increases health; it doesn't even resist CC!

- I suggest you simply increase the amount of time you have the health buff for. Even one second would help a lot.

- Cooldown reset:

- This hasn't been much of an issue yet, but I know certain classes can go infinite with stun-lock by using CD reset (I've seen Destroyers do it).

- I'm not sure how this ability can be fixed without making the ability too weak or too unorthodox for the game.

 

If these things were changed, I think the remaining abilities (like the toxin ability that creates a small, damaging AOE around the user) would fall in line and become more balanced. Right now the toxin AOE is ever so slightly on the too powerful side when coupled with catclaw because catclaw can be spammed to pull people in and paralyze people too often. But with catclaw on a longer cooldown, that would be fixed. And the other changes I suggested would fix other things, too (like the shield being on the too weak side).

 

Feel free to leave your own suggestions or dispute these, but do it in a civil manner. And please read everything closely in every paragraph before replying just in case you misunderstand something by not carefully reading.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Kasumi Rose
Clarification/syntax, formatting changes.

[Arohk]

The Energy Sap is way too strong i agree, i myself killed two people with it, i saw them fighting and just walked towards them, the probably didnt see me because i was standing next to them, charged it up to 70k and both died, it feels so cheap getting aired and oneshot by the bomb.

 

The Hammer could be easily fixed by reducing the damage of the Outer ring, i think it deals way too much damage right now, a BD or FM just grabs you and throws you out of the ring.

It should maybe deal only 2-5% damage per tick maximum so you get a chance to run back in, now it is like 20% or 30% .

Look at Apex Legends for example, you can stand outside the save zone for a long time before it kills you, only at the very end it deals about 5% per tick so you can't stay outside for too long.

Running outside the safe zone for a while could be a viable strategy, but instant death is stupid.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Arohk

[Kasumi Rose]

The high damage on the outside area is likely so people can't hop outside the zone and go kill the NPC bosses to get Master Hong super easily. Even so, though, the final couple of rings probably still do a bit too much damage.

 

About FMs/BDs/Destros, it's not impossible to avoid their grabs for most of a fight, but that hammer is what pushes it over the edge. It's just another ring-out utility that doesn't really need to be there, and it launches characters WAY too far and starts up way too quick. Like I mentioned though, that's honestly one of the abilities I think needs to be entirely reworked/swapped for something else.

 

If they really wanted to fix it they could lower the knock-back distance a LOT (although that takes away the purpose of it, which is to get people off of you if they're about to kill you) AND lower the start-up time. That way, if you get knocked out of the ring by it, you'd be close enough to pull them outside the ring with the claw then move back into the ring and try to keep them outside... It'd sort of create a counter/risk to using hammer (and there are already counters and risks to other abilities such as the big leap ability, which can be countered by the blue pull-down ability).

Edited April 10, 2019 by Kasumi Rose