Dec 20 patch didn't just remove the musket bugs

[Dezvul]

Just want to get this information out there, it is something I’ve been feeling keenly over the past few days. The December 20th downtime didn’t just remove the recent bugs it did 2 other things to the musket as well, it slightly affected both the tactical reload skill and the sticky bomb.

Regarding tactical reload, this skill point allows you to reload the musket when you dodge. Before December 20th, if you had tactical reload up, when you took a shot then dodged you would be running immediately upon exiting the dodge animation; this is how it worked since the betas. Now, when you have tactical reload up, when you take a shot and dodge you’re walking at the speed you walk at when you’re reloading the musket for 2 seconds. This particular change hurts the musket a bit as a close to mid-range skirmisher weapon which is how I like to use it.

The second change that occurred to the musket from something that existed since the betas is that you can no longer animation cancel the musket shot with the sticky bomb ability. Previously the frame after your musket fires you could pull out the sticky bomb and transition immediately into a dodge or a weapon switch. Moreover you were able to start running immediately out of that dodge if you swapped weapon simultaneously.

Without sticky bomb for animation canceling you have 2 options for trying to weapon swap after firing a shot, the first option is to either dodge and weapon swap, or wait for about a quarter of a second for the musket to drop then weapon swap, in both cases you’re walking as if you’re reloading the musket until the time passes where you would have reloaded your musket had you just sat there and reloaded it. No immediate running after a shot. This means that compared to the sticky bomb animation cancel you have to lose about a quarter of a second waiting for the “end animation” of the musket shot.

You’re second option is that you can input a weapon switch before the time it normally takes to lower the musket after the shot, if you do this it takes longer before you can do anything after the shot, it takes about a full second, so you lose about 3 quarters of a second, the plus side is that you are immediately running after the swap. Instead of having to wait about 2 seconds after the shot to start running.

These are nerfs to what the musket has been at close range since the betas that are undocumented in patch notes. They feel significant to me, as I stated I always try to get into melee/mid ranged fights with my musket. I’m fine with the nerfs, but wish that if these changes were coming to the musket they would be clearly intentional, and found in patch notes to document the changes. These features, if that’s what you’ll call them, existed before the bugs ever came into being, it is funny to me that these features were removed as their way of removing the bugs, if that is what happened.

TL;DR: There are a few tech options that existed since the betas that were removed from the musket on December 20 that aren’t documented in the downtime patch notes.

Edit, a better Tl;DR exists from the very first comment in the thread by Dorizzdt.

[Dorizzdt]

So to summ this all up:

There were two changes made to the musket weapon in the December 20th update that were not documented in the patch notes. The first change is that the tactical reload skill now causes the player to walk at the same speed as when reloading the musket for two seconds after dodging, rather than immediately running as before. The second change is that it is no longer possible to cancel the musket shot animation with the sticky bomb ability. This means that it takes longer to switch weapons or start running after firing a shot with the musket.

These changes have affected the musket’s effectiveness as a close to mid-range skirmisher weapon. Some players are unhappy about these changes because they feel significant and were not clearly intentional or documented in the patch notes.

[Dezvul]

Good summarization Do’Urden. I’d add that it also takes longer to dodge after the musket shot (for those that used sticky bomb).

[Pointe]

@Dezvul

you can no longer animation cancel the musket shot with the sticky bomb ability.

Good

[Dezvul]

It’s a fine change. Honestly had me considering sticky bomb an irreplaceable ability on behalf of how much faster you could dodge or make a rapier attack after taking a shot. Gave melee musket users a significant increase in power.

I just wish this was documented in patch notes, the fact that they possibly changed both these things that existed since the beta in an attempt to remove a few bugs that only cropped up in the past month makes me feel like we’re seeing spaghetti coding. I lose a bit of confidence in the team squashing bugs if other changes come about that don’t get documented.

[Pointe]

Another animation cancel thats macro’d by most of the people who use it out the door.
Tbh It probably wasn’t listed in the patch notes because they legitimately didn’t know about it.

I’d bet money that they didn’t purposely code pretty much any of the animation cancels used in the game. In the game since beta or not.

[Dezvul]

Yeah I doubt they purposely coded animation cancels, except for most abilities being able to animation cancel the end animation of light and heavy attacks; this seems intentional as a way to prolong the attack chain to me.

However, when looking for how to get rid of a newly introduced bug you’d normally comb through the changes that you made to the code. The fact that they changed a function that existed before the changes in their code that introduced the bug is somewhat suggestive that they didn’t figure out a way to fix the bug by fixing parts of newly introduced code, but instead by fixing code that already existed. It is kind of suggestive that they’re working with spaghetti coding which is sad.

[Murranji]

If musket was accidentally nerfed then good.

[Dezvul]

Frankly I’d like if they reverted the changes to tactical reload and sticky bomb, and instead nerfed hit your mark to only work on headshots again, made it so elemental conversion damage was affected by drop off, and nerfed mortal empowerment in some way. I think most melee people would prefer this too.

Give me my close range musket capabilities back and nerf long range musket. I’m really feeling these changes. Think I’ve gotta start sniping and avoiding melees now guys, gonna go buy a mortal empowerment ring cuz I guess that’s how musket should be played right now.

I’ll probably just switch to bow instead.

[GypsyMDFK]

So everybody complains about muskets range and AGS ninja nerfed the only skill used by muskets on mid/Close range. Seens logical when you realize they are trying to kill their own Game.