TLDR - what is the design choice of only 1 ice thorn being able to hit a target. It doesnt feel good to visually see 8 ice thorns home in on an enemy and only 1 does damage.
Im leveling a primalist finally which is my last class to try and ice thorns has already got me worried. When i leveled my lich i really really really disliked the idea of my hungering souls homing into the same target but only one of them could possess it… not only did it just not feel very good to push it seemed like a poor interaction. In an ideal scenario i would push hungering souls and they would all target a different enemy but thats not how it works in game. You would push it and 80% of the souls would all home in on the closest enemy and then do nothing. I thought maybe they just didnt want multiple possessions to stack ( seems silly but its a common theme im seeing with their game design like they are intentionally limiting fun interactions ) but now im on my second character that has a homing ability and its even worse. The targetting seems light years better as they all seem to target their own target if there is alot of targets around… but what is the design choice of only 1 ice thorn being able to hit a target. It doesnt feel good to visually see 8 ice thorns home in on an enemy and only 1 does damage.
It’s for balance so that a skill does not just gain 4-10x damage on single target. I do agree that purpose aside, homing and the skill hit only once mechanic just feels bad/redundant in LE.
Not really homing, but add shuriken ricochet to the mix of skill only hitting once on enemies too. I have no idea in what situation, this node is preferred over pierce nose.
I think a better balancing method would be each subsequent hit deals less damage to same enemies (50% maybe)
Doesnt that just seem like lazy balancing though? Maybe make the skill weak against multiple enemies on purpose so having them all hit a single target feels great and is the intended purpose.
It would deff be harder to balance but i dont like the less damage on subsequent hits either which is what 90% of other games do and also feels meh. When i first started pushing ice thorn i thought OH WOW this skill is amazing and so fun… it deals ok damage until you trim the pack and increasing amounts of damage to lower numbers of enemies… 3 packs later i realize only 1 hit each target and i immediatly dont want to play the class at all anymore let alone the skill.
Edit - i dont like harping on their company cus i dont know how many people they have actually working on this stuff but it seems like they go to GREAT LENGTHS to limit engaging and fun interactions. Their skill tree system always has ridiculous negatives attached to anything fun… i get tthey want the player to have to make tough choices but when the negatives are so insane like… shield rush now brings you back to its original casting position… or erasing strike now always sends atleast 1,2,or 3 echoes BUT each echo costs 60 more mana AND there is a massive 1 second wait in between every echo. At some point you need to prioritize fun game play over punishing gameplay even if your main design is for it to lean towards the more punishing side.
I understand the need for balance but Mosey is hitting the button on the nose here, going by skill descriptions and node text you get really excited for an ability, then find it’s completely useless (the skills he mentioned being perfect examples). Others are Wandering Spirits (since the anti-climactic “rework” to make it more interactive by making it not worth using), Spirit Plague (by taking away the only good part of it without a good rework), Multistrike (by limiting it against bosses as “not a multi-strike”).
I know it’s a WIP and balance is a thing, but there’s 0 point in “balancing” a skill until it’s not fun.
Multistrike… when i first saw it teased i must have been one of the only people that assumed it would be weaker against a pack of enemies and strong against bosses…even told my friends who said " this looks like it sucks " that it was going to be a an insane boss killer. Not only was i wrong it actually does nothing against bosses and secondary procs dont even work on your main target… WHY lol its almost laughable at this point
Making it weaker against multiple enemies and stronger on single target should work too. Multishot skill work this way by reducing the attack by 80% and enemy can be hit by more than 1 arrow. Much stronger on pointblank. Weaker on further enemy.
I was thinking more to retain icethorn property as area clear skill rather than single target skill so I mention reduction of attack on subsequent hit. Either ways would be better than the current enemy only get hit once balance.
It all comes down to the point of view as it seems :D. i even played a Primalist and specced into my Ice Thorn spread so I hit as much enemys possible as I can. Multistrike is a filler skill to procc or buff other skills.
Well that’s how I see things but oppinions can be different.
