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ItsFightMilk
May Member 2017

ItsFightMilk

Posts: 1 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
I think that the cost of using the blowpipe, as well as the requirement of using the correct arrow in the quiver slot, is enough of a toll on players to no longer say that we are "benefiting" from using the blowpipe. Yes, it made the attacker role slightly easier, but it came with a cost already. Removing it only degrades the attacker role. When playing with serious BA players from now on, the healer and defender role will finish quickly, at the same time they previously had, and now will be waiting on the attacker(s) to finish off remaining enemies. This will diminish the attacker roles in the more serious BA communities. Something else to consider is that while the defender and healer roles are more complex, once you do what you need to do to complete your job, it plays out on its own, where the attacker role is still rng based because of having to hope that you will high higher numbers on the enemies. The time it may take to finish a wave (especially higher waves) vary greatly because of this. The blowpipe, while not hitting super high, was fast and allowed players to clear faster with an attacker level of 5. I saw using the Blowpipe as more of a privilege than finding a loophole in the system. I think that still having to switch your arrows out of your quiver to the other type of arrows is enough of an obstacle for players to get over, whether or not they're actually being used in combat, they are still affecting your gameplay.

All in all, I don't believe there was enough of a case to remove the Blowpipe from Barbarian Assault and it is too much of an important tool for serious BA players. I think it would be smart to reconsider a way to fit the Blowpipe into BA.

17-Aug-2017 19:07:56

cadah
Sep Member 2022

cadah

Posts: 1 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Right now the BA pet is one of the most rare pets to achieve within the game and by removing the blowpipe you have made one of the rarest pets to get even harder to get and this is the people your affecting! So who was it to decide that the blowpipe was "broken". Maybe when you first added it into the game you did not plan for it to be used in this way but clearly it has. I never even thought of the blowpipe being a bug or "broken" it was just another weapon to use within BA and has been for 2 years before out of the blue you have changed it for no reason.

So far I have not heard a single good comment about removing the bp from BA and it also is not the same as when the serpentine helm was changed as that was so you can introduce more content since it was to overpowered. So other than a couple people who don't play BA deciding that they were going to do this is there any other reason such as future updates to BA where the blowpipe would affect what you can do?

17-Aug-2017 19:11:18

Tazner

Tazner

Posts: 9 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
It's really sad that the developers are so disconnected from such a large part of their community. I've made so many friends through BA and just recently got into the more serious side of it. This change is just straight up bad. It completely breaks the competitive BA aspect. Records can't be broken anymore. I'm guessing the people that issued this change don't know why having a powerful ranged attacker is important. In a game with so many dead minigames I really didn't think you wanted to kill of one of the most active ones.

Nobody benefits from this change. Nobody wants this change. This change isn't good for the health and longevity. It's beyond me how you could let this pass without talking to anyone in the serious BA community. It really shows how disconnected you guys are from large chunks of the community. Skillers, PKers and now minigame enthusiasts get neglected. It's really sad that you only seem to cater to the casual redditors and PvMers.

As if I needed to clarify my stance on this update; I am extremely disappointed with this update and the direction the game is taking. Something being unintentional isn't a reason to remove it. Tick manipulation is unintentional but is a core part of the game for a large part of the community.

I've been a paying customer for over a decade. Horrible updates like this will probably change that soon.

17-Aug-2017 19:18:27

Speak Now

Speak Now

Posts: 5 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The suggestion for unique BA ammo sounds like a great fix. As long as it can be used with any ranged weapon including the blowpipe, chinchompas and the crystal bow. I know a lot of BA players would agree. With the way it is currently, ranged attacking is not viable.

In the future I think the Jagex team should consult BA players before updating the minigame since we're the ones who have spent hundreds of hours BAing and we're the ones who actually enjoy playing. We know the minigame better than anyone else and we would be more than happy to discuss future updates to BA.

17-Aug-2017 19:19:50

Software QA
Jun Member 2023

Software QA

Posts: 6 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Mod Ash said :
ThorinII said :
Don't you enjoy finding ways to play better than was "intended" in the first place? Makes players think outside the box, be creative, which is part of the fun.
Emergent gameplay is great, but "hey, the ammo checks don't work with this weapon" isn't quite what we'd encourage for it.

I actually think that this bug in BA provided one of the healthiest examples of emergent gameplay in the OSRS. The ammo checks work for the blowpipe the exact same way the worked with bows - they checked the ammo slot for the right type of arrows. This meant that the role still needed to be played the same way as with bows, the same way as with melee weapons, and the same way as with every other role in Barbarian Assault - make a change every 30 seconds, or be punished.

The blowpipe has a higher attack speed than melee weapons. This meant that spending the same amount of time without swapping resulted in a higher point penalty & damage to the player. It isn't easier than melee - it's actually harder, and requires paying more attention. Chins have the same tradeoff, but much higher! Missing the call for a single attack could frequently hit you with 20+ damage. The increased attack speed (and AoE damage of chins) only has a noticeable affect to DPS after the player has leveled up their Attacker role for increased damage on each hit.

This means that the benefits of blowpipe (as well as chins, crystal bow, etc.)
a) Require additional players to pay more attention to the central mechanic of Barbarian Assault (call changes)
b) Require players spend time playing the game to level up their attacker role
c) Require players spend more money on supplies.

(1/4)

17-Aug-2017 19:41:21 - Last edited on 17-Aug-2017 20:41:09 by Software QA

Software QA
Jun Member 2023

Software QA

Posts: 6 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Mod Ash said :
ThorinII said :
You misunderstood what I meant, I didn't mean harm you specifically, how does it harm the game?
If the rules aren't there to protect the game from damage or other players what are they there for?
Rules define how a game is to be played; if they can be ignored, "winning" has rather less meaning. (Unless one's taking the extremely stark view that the only purpose of in-game content is to give people items/XP/gainz, but I don't think that's what you're saying here.)

As others have mentioned, ranged attacker is more involved, more fun, & more rewarding than melee attacker. It also compensates for the large amount of rng involved in the role, and unquestionably causes "winning" to have *more* meaning. If the purpose of rules is to provide meaning to "winning", then I believe that, after rework, the intended mechanics should be similar to those before this bug fix. In fact, I had originally believed this was an intended feature and not a bug.

Mod Ash said :
Dawn said :
Currently you take Bronze/Iron/Steel & Mithril, could something be done to make the darts you pull from the dispenser, or the ammo you take from the dispenser all similar ranged bonuses, around the addy dart area or something similar, so theres less damage discrepancies between calls.
Someone on Twitter suggested not consuming ammo at all in there, which would cover what you said about Ava too.
Consider if the items you got out of the dispensor were special Barbie Assault ammo, rather than fake arrows, and the four flavours of the ammo had equivalent stats, and worked with blowpipes or bows, and they regenerated while used so you never needed to worry about quantities.

I therefore believe that this suggestion is the best fix. I'm sad to think that this should face a poll, since so few players will understand the reason
(2/3)

17-Aug-2017 19:48:16

Software QA
Jun Member 2023

Software QA

Posts: 6 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Mod Ash said :
Dawn said :
Out of curiosity - how would this work in regards to Crystal Bow then switching to blowpipe? currently the crystal bow was used to "tag" the first fighter or ranger to get an extra hit in, would the ammo slot have to be unequipped then equipped to blowpipe?
Switching from a blowpipe to a bow & back isn't very much clicking, though ideally the ammo slot wouldn't be relevant if the weapon doesn't use the ammo in it.

I don't understand this argument. Since players had the option between using rapid or long-ranged on the crystal-bow to either tag fighters from farther away or follow up more quickly once they swap to blowpipe, it involves the same amount of effort & involves more decision making than swapping between dds/claws & whip to spec when playing melee. And for reasons mentioned before, I believe that in fact the change *would* ideally be relevant even if the weapon doesn't use the ammo in it.

I understand that you think this will make other options more viable in for ranged attacker, but it really only leaves us with MSB. People will still be doing swaps to melee for specs at the start of waves (high effort high reward), so I don't see something like the darkbow or ballista being used for spec. I think those two and twisted bow are enough slower than MSB that they won't see use. Crossbows are far too slow, & the low defense of the fighters and rangers mean you benefit little from their accuracy. Salamanders... hah...

Realistically this means that the only "viable" ranged weapon will be a 50 ranged, 884 coin magic shortbow, released in 2002. Meanwhile, melee users get to play with bludgeon, vine whip, and claws, all of which higher requirements, higher cost, greater viability, lower effort, and less interesting gameplay.

I hope you come to see that, though unintended, this was a great improvement to the game, and will find a similar intended replacement.

17-Aug-2017 20:05:48

Software QA
Jun Member 2023

Software QA

Posts: 6 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Mod Tomh said :
For what it is worth, I would like to look into the combat methods involved in Barbarian Assault to make ranged a little better, such as by making other types of ranged weapons work, but that is a larger job and one that we would look to poll before anything was changed, although I can't guarantee that it will be any time soon.

Sidenote - I would also LOVE to see maging as attacker be viable, rather than a troll option that gets you flamed. It currently suffers the same problems as arrow-consumption-only ranged attacker where damage is much more dependent on the call than melee attacker due to the varying max hits of spells, similar to the varying ranged strength of arrows. Additionally, as with ranged, much of the new content is unusable such as Trident of the Seas/Swamp, ancient spells, god spells, slayer dart, etc. It would be cool to see the Tridents usable, but they are still only tied with MSB on accurate for attack speed. Currently it's even worse, with spells being a tick slower than even that.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate that it never crossed my mind that using blowpipe was unintended. It made no sense to me for the weapon to be unusable. For the reasons I've listed I believe that being able to use the blowpipe *should* be an intended part of Barbarian Assault, and I look forward to working with JMods and the rest of our community to find a fun, balanced, and exciting way to make that happen.

I don't look forward to the indefinite wait however, and I fear that we will suffer the same curse as most Wilderness changes, where updates affecting smaller portions of the playerbase have difficulty passing polls, despite the option not to vote. It sounds like any of the proposed "fixes" would require a lot of development time that I fear many players will not want JMods to spend. BA is now the main reason I play OSRS, & I would be devastated to see our community shrink rather than grow.

(4/4)

17-Aug-2017 20:40:52 - Last edited on 17-Aug-2017 20:41:48 by Software QA

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