Analysis, Testing, and Suggestions for Lunar Sisterhood III

[Yifei_]

Analysis of the Design Concept of Lunar Abigail

I believe that Lunar Abigail provides players with a choice: Players need to combine the boss's action logic and attack patterns to determine whether Normal Abigail or Lunar Abigail is better suited to deal with the boss. This is because the two have their own strengths when facing bosses. Moreover, choosing Lunar Abigail also comes with the penalty of losing the AOE capability.

The uniqueness of Lunar Abigail lies in her ability to maintain a certain distance from the boss, and unlike Normal Abigail, she is not almost stationary when attacking the boss. This allows her to flexibly dodge some of the boss's attacks. This has provided more options and methods for dealing with bosses that were previously difficult for Wendy to handle, thereby increasing the game's entertainment value.

The following are some incorrect viewpoints and debate analyses that I believe to be true. If you have different opinions, feel free to point them out.

Spoiler

Argument 1: Lunar Abigail is suitable for beginners.

Rebuttal: To obtain Lunar Abigail, players need to defeat the Celestial Champion at least once. This requirement alone makes it almost impossible for players with Lunar Sisterhood skill points to be beginners.

Argument 2: Lunar Abigail is superior to Normal Abigail when facing bosses.

Rebuttal: When facing bosses, I would say that the two have their own strengths, and there is no claim that "Lunar Abigail makes boss fights easier or more relaxed." However, in terms of AOE, Normal Abigail can be said to outperform Lunar Abigail. I have tested almost all the bosses in the game, and the results are as follows:

 

Argument 3: Lunar Abigail requires less operation than Normal Abigail when facing bosses.

Rebuttal: This needs to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis for each boss. In the scenarios where Lunar Abigail has an advantage, she requires less operation (for example, Celestial Champion III, Klaus, Treeguard, Deerclop). In the scenarios where Normal Abigail has an advantage, Normal Abigail requires less operation (for example, Celestial Champion I & II, Bee Queen, Possessed Varg, Toadstool). In the scenarios where both have disadvantages, some of the disadvantages can be compensated for by the player's operation. Therefore, the proposition that "Lunar Abigail requires less operation than Normal Abigail" is not reasonable. The operations here mainly come from the Team Spirits series of skills.

Taking Celestial Champion I, II, and III as Examples

I conducted a similar test before. However, in that test, I did not demonstrate Celestial Champion III and Team Spirits. This test, on the other hand, makes up for these two aspect.

 

Celestial Champion III: Lunar Abigail has an advantage.

Spoiler

Lunar Abigail maintains a distance from Celestial Champion III, making it less likely for her to be damaged by its melee attacks. Additionally, when Lunar Abigail is riled up, she also keeps a distance from me, making it less likely for her to be damaged by laser attacks.

 

 

Normal Abigail can defeat Celestial Champion III with the help of Team Spirits. The specific strategy is to rile up Normal Abigail to trigger Celestial Champion III's melee attack and then use the Escape command at the right time to dodge the melee damage. This method has a low margin for error, low rewards, and high risks, and it feels less effective than unsummoning Abigail and fight at my own pace. It's also possible that this is due to my insufficient practice.

 

Celestial Champion II: Normal Abigail has an advantage.

Spoiler

With the help of Vigor Mortis, Normal Abigail closely follows the player, allowing the player to better adjust the positions of Abigail, Wendy, and Celestial Champion II to dodge its various skills.

 

Lunar Abigail, due to AI issues, cannot use the above strategy and needs to use the Team Spirits' Attack At command to adjust her position. When facing Celestial Champion II's high-damage skills, this approach is quite risky and may not be effective.

 

Celestial Champion I: Normal Abigail has an advantage.

Spoiler

The reason is similar to that of Celestial Champion II. The performance of Normal Abigail is as follows:

 

 

The performance of Lunar Abigail is as follows:

 

 

 

Suggestion: The Transformation Conditions Are Too Strict

1. In DST, the intervals between full moon and new moon are relatively long and easy to miss. A complete lunar cycle is 20 days (corresponding to nearly three hours in real time).
2. In multiplayer servers, there is no way to ensure what phase the moon will be in when players log on, making the transformation even more unstable.
3. Moon Storm and the Lunar Grimoire can interfere with the moon phases, making the transformation process more complicated.
4. In the Cave, there is no way to switch between Lunar and Normal Abigail.
5. The transformation restrictions in the late game of long-term servers are exactly the same as in the early game, with no "progression."

Moreover, choosing Lunar Abigail means giving up AOE, which is already a fairly severe "punishment." The transformation conditions are even more restrictive.

In the Bug Tracker, @Jason mentioned that the transformation conditions would be optimized. I sincerely hope that this suggestion will be adopted and that the transformation conditions will be made more practical and in line with the actual gameplay.

 

Suggestion: Some Detailed Issues with the AI Design

The AI design contradicts the concept of "letting Wendy and Abigail face bosses together."

The stun mechanism of Lunar Abigail (whether it is 1 second or 2 seconds) prevents players from timely repositioning Lunar Abigail, sometimes forcing players to ignore her existence and play Wendy like Wilson. This game design undermines the core gameplay and fun of Wendy.

The distinction between Rile-up and Smooth is not clear.

Even in Smooth mode, Lunar Abigail still has an overly strong desire to attack, which can interfere with the player's positioning and adjustment in some boss fights.

The purpose of Hiding mode is unclear.

Hiding mode does not make Lunar Abigail immune to damage, does not cancel the enemies' aggro towards her, causes her to run around and disrupt her positioning adjustment rhythm, and reduces her damage output. This mode currently feels like a punishment for Lunar Abigail's low health rather than an aid. When Lunar Abigail's health is low, I know exactly what I should do and do not need this hiding mode to tell me.

 

[Yaorin yon]

Moon Abigail is really bad as a difficult switching option, while Woodie and Winona, who also have switching mode features, only need to switch between meat statues and add an extra generator. The most important thing is that this will obviously make the playability much better, and the design difficulty of Moon Abigail will not be so difficult. Nowadays, the Moon Abigail and the regular Abigail are evenly matched (probably the side with the majority is not the Moon), not to mention the upgraded version of the Shadow Abigail. However, I don't understand why it can't be designed like a catapult? The catapults of Shadow and Moon are both enhancements made on the original basis, and they can even be used simultaneously. When it comes to Abigail, not only is it impossible to enjoy full gains at the same time, but also the Moon Abigail is a suspected reinforcement in exchange for a major weakening on the original basis. This confuses me

[lio516]

The removal of Abigail's sprint ability damage is really very stupid, could rely on the player's operation to make up for the moon Abigail hate problem, I don't know what the point of removing him is，The condition of form transformation is too severe

[Yifei_]

2 hours ago, Yaorin yon said:

Moon Abigail is really bad as a difficult switching option, while Woodie and Winona, who also have switching mode features, only need to switch between meat statues and add an extra generator. The most important thing is that this will obviously make the playability much better, and the design difficulty of Moon Abigail will not be so difficult. Nowadays, the Moon Abigail and the regular Abigail are evenly matched (probably the side with the majority is not the Moon), not to mention the upgraded version of the Shadow Abigail. However, I don't understand why it can't be designed like a catapult? The catapults of Shadow and Moon are both enhancements made on the original basis, and they can even be used simultaneously. When it comes to Abigail, not only is it impossible to enjoy full gains at the same time, but also the Moon Abigail is a suspected reinforcement in exchange for a major weakening on the original basis. This confuses me

Indeed, compared to other characters, the transformation conditions for the current Lunar Abigail are really too strict.

Moreover, compared to Shadow Sisterhood III, Shadow Sisterhood provides Abigail with absolute enhancements, both in terms of damage and defense. While Lunar Sisterhood III may have its own strengths when facing bosses, overall, Lunar Abigail is clearly weaker than Normal Abigail. The lack of AOE is just too obvious, and in the last update, the only AOE effect of Lunar Abigail was removed.

I previously tried to clear the Ruins with Lunar Abigail, and the experience was a complete nerf, with no enhancement. There was almost no change when facing Clockwork Creatures, and she lost the ability to quickly clear Shadow Monkeys. Sometimes, her performance against the Ancient Guardian and Nightmare Werepigs might even be worse than Normal Abigail. After the rift, Lunar Abigail is also unable to break Rictus's invisibility.

[SilverSpoon]

4 hours ago, Yifei_ said:

Suggestion: The Transformation Conditions Are Too Strict

I think it would be better if it was easier to transformation to Gestaby even you could do right after the game started, but I think it would be fine to keep it as difficult as it is to transformation back by New Moon. I think that being that difficult to transformation back increases the importance and strategic of Gestaby, in most late game, you can occur New Moon to defeat a CC.

4 hours ago, Yifei_ said:

The AI design contradicts the concept of "letting Wendy and Abigail face bosses together."

The stun mechanism of Lunar Abigail (whether it is 1 second or 2 seconds) prevents players from timely repositioning Lunar Abigail, sometimes forcing players to ignore her existence and play Wendy like Wilson. This game design undermines the core gameplay and fun of Wendy.

Yes, It's really needless. I think it's the not good direction to make the controls worse in order to adjust the game balance.

4 hours ago, Yifei_ said:

The distinction between Rile-up and Smooth is not clear.

Even in Smooth mode, Lunar Abigail still has an overly strong desire to attack, which can interfere with the player's positioning and adjustment in some boss fights.

Yes, rather, Gestaby's AI itself is very doozy, and it doesn't attack the opponent I want it to attack. When Smooth, "Gestaby follows the player and attacks the enemy the player is attacking as a top priority", and when Rise-up, "While Gestaby moves not get too far away from the player, and attacks the enemy close to Gestaby". I'm happy.

4 hours ago, Yifei_ said:

The purpose of Hiding mode is unclear.

Hiding mode does not make Lunar Abigail immune to damage, does not cancel the enemies' aggro towards her, causes her to run around and disrupt her positioning adjustment rhythm, and reduces her damage output. This mode currently feels like a punishment for Lunar Abigail's low health rather than an aid. When Lunar Abigail's health is low, I know exactly what I should do and do not need this hiding mode to tell me.

Personally I don't mind Hiding mode, rather I like Hiding mode. Maybe it's because I'm a bad player, this has saved Gestaby from death on many time. I think it's fine to make that good players who want DPS need to keep Gestaby's HP from falling below 25%.

[Yifei_]

On 2/2/2025 at 11:41 PM, SilverSpoon said:

Personally I don't mind Hiding mode, rather I like Hiding mode. Maybe it's because I'm a bad player, this has saved Gestaby from death on many time. I think it's fine to make that good players who want DPS need to keep Gestaby's HP from falling below 25%.

I retested the hiding mode, and it seems to have been modified. When in hiding mode, Lunar Abigail can sometimes initiate attacks, which makes this mode feel even more peculiar to me. I'm not sure when this change was made, and I don't recall seeing any information related to this in the update announcements. I also have no idea whether it's a bug or not.

Moreover, as can be seen from the video, hiding mode does not eliminate enemies' aggro towards Lunar Abigail or grant her immunity to damage like Team Spirits' Escape does. Instead, it causes Lunar Abigail to run around randomly. This "random running" might help Lunar Abigail avoid damage in some boss fights, but in boss fights that require precise positioning (like Celestial Champion II), it disrupts the positioning rhythm and makes it more difficult for me to adjust the relative positions between Wendy and Abigail.

 

 

[SilverSpoon]

9 minutes ago, Yifei_ said:

I retested the hiding mode, and it seems to have been modified. When in hiding mode, Lunar Abigail can sometimes initiate attacks, which makes this mode feel even more peculiar to me. I'm not sure when this change was made, and I don't recall seeing any information related to this in the update announcements. I also have no idea whether it's a bug or not.

Moreover, as can be seen from the video, hiding mode does not eliminate enemies' aggro towards Lunar Abigail or grant her immunity to damage like Team Spirits' Escape does. Instead, it causes Lunar Abigail to run around randomly. This "random running" might help Lunar Abigail avoid damage in some boss fights, but in boss fights that require precise positioning (like Celestial Champion II), it disrupts the positioning rhythm and makes it more difficult for me to adjust the relative positions between Wendy and Abigail.

Oh no... Well, it looks like it's a bug. Once the bug is fixed, I will support Hiding Mode again.

[Yifei_]

12 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

Oh no... Well, it looks like it's a bug. Once the bug is fixed, I will support Hiding Mode again.

I'm planning to report this to the bug tracker. Whether it's a bug or not, I'm hoping to get a response from the developers.

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