Ballistas: Were they further nerfed?? Why??!

[morrokain10587]

This will be a little like a rant because I'm genuinely salty, but:

Just started playing again after some time. Back before Ashlands released, I had set up a defensive line of ballistas and used trophies to have them target Fulings, Beserkers and Zil and Thungr.

The "They were bros man..." raid was fairly easy back then because the ballistas took care of the enemies fairly quickly and I just had to make some repairs to the walls, etc after waiting it out.

I just had that raid occur last night for the first time since I started playing again, and since I didn't have fire resistance potion Zil and Thungr killed me in 2 fireball hits since I was wearing the Feather Cape.

That by itself is already frustrating. But on top of that, before that happened the ballistas literally did not kill a single enemy in the raid. Not. a. single. one.

For context:
I have 3 fuling ballistas, 1 berserker ballista and 3 Thungr and Zil ballistas concentrated on my main entrance gate.

Im sorry but not a single enemy killed with all of that? I even am using black metal bolts so its the highest damage output possible.

It seems like the ballistas have been deliberately made to fire even more slowly and therefore almost always miss.

So that begs the question: if they are THAT bad then why are they in the game? To trick players and create a false sense of security?

I mean seriously now it seems a tad ridiculous how garbage they are for how expensive and difficult they are to obtain.

What a let down...

Things like this truly make me question whether this game is worth it. So much effort for basically no gain. No sense of accomplishment. Just more BS mechanics designed to punish the player relentlessly.

And an aside: The whole gotcha! mechanic of literally spawning enemies in your face and behind you that was added in is another really questionable design decision.

How can we make it even harder? What if the player actually has no way of knowing that the enemy is there and is forced to take a hit and maybe die! Yeah! Thats fun! No... no it isnt. Its lazy and cheap.

Sigh... yeah I feel a little better after having typed this out lol.

[Kursor1]

Theyre the same as ever I believe. I think your problem is there were too many targets so your 3 ballistas were spreading out their fire rather than focusing on a single target. Plus fulings move around a lot and thus arent easy targets for ballistas in any case.

[Bored Peon]

I used them once in Ashlands, they started shooting me for whatever reason, way they went.

[morrokain10587]

Kursor1:
What I'm saying is that there was noticeably different behavior since the last time I've played. The ballistas were way more effective before.

Its possible that it wasnt actually changes to the ballista but changes to the way the fuling AI works. They don't seem to stop and attack doors anymore - at least they werent attacking mine. I even have stakes surrounding a workbench as a sort of lure so that they get stunned by the stakes and then get hit by the ballista.

Before this worked well. Now they ignore the stakes, run around, smack something once, then round around some more. So it just wastes ballista ammo.

And I know there werent any kills because there wasnt any loot but my corpse. The ballistas were firing for at least 20-30 seconds. There should have been at least a little loot.

Its also possible that Thungr and Zil were buffed a bit. Or I dont remember how tough Thungr is. Because with 3 ballistas constantly shooting, it would take away his shield yet not do too much damage to him before the shield was back up. Not that I had much time to test since he fireball sniped me like 40 feet away after hitting him with my bow once or twice.

Bored Peon:
They shoot you or anything else unless you use a trophy to set them to only attack a specific enemy. That's why they shoot you. If you have an ashlands trophy you could use it to do that.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by morrokain10587:

Bored Peon:
They shoot you or anything else unless you use a trophy to set them to only attack a specific enemy. That's why they shoot you. If you have an ashlands trophy you could use it to do that.

Of course, because the mob I wanted them to shoot which was the lava blobs which have no trophies....

[morrokain10587]

In that case you'd have to set them up, let them do their thing and when the enemies are clear deconstruct them before getting your loot.

Might be more trouble than its worth idk. Depends upon how many you could construct at once.

[adritheonly]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Of course, because the mob I wanted them to shoot which was the lava blobs which have no trophies....

Yes, I asked about the lava blob trophy way back when Ashlands appeared but got no answer on whether we will ever see one. For this reason my ballistas at my base in Ashlands are all set to point away from the base and when I want to pick up loot I actually have to dismantle them and rebuild after. Only the ballistas on top of my base are set to Valks and Volts.
EDIT: They even shoot the thorns if you use one in their field of view.