Introduction

Spooktacular was a fun time but also there were a LOT of complaints and dumb people who couldn't read the most blatant and long winded warning text that flashed your entire loading screen. If you were one of those people who just clicked "I read this" and continued without actually reading and then asked dumbass questions in Discord, I hope you blindly signoff the rights to your kidney and end up participating in a death game with 455 other people in which you murder each other for prize money.

Let's get into the statistics

Favorite Class

The most popular classes according to the survey were the following:

1. Lunar Knight
2. Barbarian
3. Pyromancer, Silver Hunter, Physician, Reaper

There was a three way tie for third place. I think it was obvious that Lunar Knight would show up as the most favorite class given its major changes, interesting gameplay loop, and base popularity. Barbarian being second was also kind of unsurprising since I worked pretty hard on it (but honestly not as hard as Gladiator or Sniper).

Most Played Class

We're gonna have to use two different metrics here since I edited in this question fairly late into the survey's lifespan.

According to the survey, the most played classes were:

1. Gladiator, Lunar Knight, Silver Hunter, Pyromancer, Ice Witch
2. War Mage
3. Dark Avenger, Chaos Mage, Valkyrie, Randgrid

According to our internal data, the most popular classes were:

1. Lunar Knight
2. Gladiator
3. Reaper
4. Saint
5. Randgrid
6. Barbarian
7. Inquisitor
8. Ice Witch, Pyromancer
9. Dark Avenger
10. Shooting Star

For this one, I'd definitely say the internal data is more accurate. When comparing the two lists, it's weird to see how people in the survey answered Silver Hunter and yet it does not show up in the internal data. The rest of the classes seem to fall into place in the rankings. At least Randgrid isn't #1. You abusers.

Favorite Classes and Comments

For this section, I'll be copying some statements directly from the survey (anonymously of course) and providing some commentary. These posts will look like this:

Sampletext quoted response

For some of the other ones, I'll be summarizing some commonly shared thoughts and providing some information on that. Summarized shared sentiments will be in bolded italics.

That being said, let's jump into the responses:

Reaper (Sasuke) - probably everyone's favourite class. Maybe could be a whole new project duck exclusive class on it's own? Hmm

It was way too clunky and would need A LOT of revision to make it as an actual class. Obviously, this would never happen considering it's a rip of an original character from an anime.

Raven, i like sickles

Yeah, me too. Raven as it is right now sucks for your left-click button to play. Hopefully we can rework it sometime down the road.

Return the old rolling attack cuz the animation suck

(Destroyer) This is kinda contentious considering some people loved the new animation. Normal Rolling Attack lets you move around quickly and has a nice iframe and jump to dodge. However, the issue is that it doesn't really fit with the identity of the class to twirl around a hammer quickly spinning through the air. It is really funny to think about though. Having three charges of Rolling Attack is obscene though.

The Idea of Implementing a Hero Skill & 2nd Awakening was applied. - I like some of the classes that used the Hero Skill animations, it add the spice and "Joyment" of the classes during the event, especially to introduce what the main server adds to the skills of each class

While the grammar on this can be a little hard to understand, I get the general idea. We're not trying to be official though. We're doing our own thing and will import jade skills, hero skill, or 2nd awakening as we see fit.

Give class reputation - most players notice the reborn of an unused class or let say "DEAD" class are the most OP or let say can DEALT damage during this event which sounds mesmerizing to play it. If some class remains the skills were applied during the event this I assure you this will be engaged many peeps will play love the server due to its uniqueness.

So what you're saying is that people are playing the "dead" classes because they are broken OP and not because the gameplay is good? Just because they can deal a lot of damage doesn't make it a good class from a design standpoint. These boring and broken OP changes will never make it into any reworks under our watch. We're not going to make classes broken and OP just to make the server unique and attract players. Player count is not a main concern of the server and we don't have to keep this ridiculous system in place to maintain a playerbase. Most people will play the Project Duck to enjoy the quality content and gameplay, not to hold down a button and do a shitload of damage. If people only want to play Project Duck for this kind of gameplay, then I don't think I or any of the other developers would want them to play anyway.

Definitely another way to trigger Gravity Ball Explosions with Singularity. Good balance for rotation, i-framed for safe casting (Gravity Rush is too much risk for a high CD skill). The trigger could be faster with a left-click as well but damage should be reduced if you do.

(Chaos Mage) I think it would be cool to have another way to trigger the explosions. However, it already has two different ways to trigger the explosion. Maybe as part of a mini-rework but no promises.

Purely from a visual standpoint, I really like the Sasuke edits. I can't say they're

I can't either man. (yes this was the whole response)

Sasuke is cool and having a new set of abilities is cool

It was cool. Cool.

What Class Should be Implemented Permanently

Same goes for this one as the favorite classes and comments section.

LK should be implemented permanently. It adds a very different playstyle to LK which is very unique to Project Duck. It's nice being able to use all your skills to do a rotation as opposed to a very Moon Blade Dance focused rotation. Half Moon Slash feels especially good this patch due to the speed and flow of casting. It does feel a little jank at times though.
(SUMMARIZED)

This could very well make its way into an actual rework for Project Duck. We're a little hesitant because Lunar Knight is a staple class of Dragon Nest and it may throw people off when the "poster boy" of Dragon Nest is drastically changed. It definitely needs some fixing to make it cleaner before actually making it as an actual rework though.

Gladiator was really cool as lightning theme. However, last year's Gladiator changes were better. Also, the HP drain on bubble can be very punishing when the boss was invulnerable and you were unable to reach max bubbles to heal with Overdrive Mode.
(SUMMARIZED)

Yeah, I definitely agree with everything above. None of this would actually make it as a full rework for Gladiator though since it doesn't need one. Vergil will definitely come back next time for April Fools though! I'll be putting a lot of work into that one to make sure its even better than before!

Lunares Caelum/ Lunar knight , Raiden/Gladiator and Godslayer/barbarian deserve to stay as a permanent class as they feel like a new class that is fun and fresh rather than the old boring class that they once were. Being a person like me that enjoys playing multiple spec's to make things more diverse and fresh each time as to not get bored due to excessive playtime on one spec/class , This makes a whole new meaning to also playing this server as it's not the same as others or boring as others , with this class specialization of all 3 in mind i think it would be good to have all 3 as this would attract more people to come try the class and enjoy it including myself. these changes to those classes will keep me on this server/game for a long time if it's this way otherwise ill have no reason but to leave since the old classes were not fun anymore , i will also most likely donate in the future if i plan on staying here, And so might others.

Wow, this was quite long (but there were longer responses). Playing multiple specs is great and I'm glad you enjoyed Spooktacular. We're not going to implement all of these just because they're different. That's not the point of Spooktacular. Spooktacular is a for fun event that lets us experiment with class reworks and lets us flex our capabilities. While that may be true for some classes, other classes just got the usual projectile spam or other ridiculous things (haha...). Spooktacular is never meant to fully stay. Just because things are cracked out of their mind and ridiculous doesn't mean that its good. Uniqueness does not mean good. We're not trying to attract players with Spooktacular. We're just trying to give people a good time while using it as a playground to toy with our development tools. If you're going to leave because these changes are going away then do it. You're not the audience that we're developing a server for anyway. Are you trying to blackmail us into keeping these changes? We don't care.

Chaining Poison Strike into Toxic Spill with 0CD is a favorite of mine because it makes Physicians' 'big damage' skill more pronounced. It almost feels like a Poison Strike EX, if there was one. The slow wave of death Love Virus seems like one of those edits that would be beneficial specifically in Project Duck due to the nature of the server. It makes sense to have a long-range, fast Love Virus in the live server with their dungeons and mobs, but in a nest-centric server like PDN, this edit makes more sense to me. On the other end of the speed spectrum, the fast-casting Poison Pop is definitely another favorite...

Poison Strike going into Toxic Spill is something that will never make it into Project Duck officially. The Love Virus/Lovesick change is something that we could consider though.

To be honest, I want the Light Fury to become a more useful DPS hero than "just the sub-support with heals" as it's not really that helpful during IDN raids and it's really a dying class. I love Light Fury, I main Light Fury, and I don't regret it ever since :D MAKE LIGHT FURY GREAT AGAIN!!! XD

It's not a dying class. It is the highest DPS healer class. When its played well, it can do damage comparable to a full DPS class while healing and providing support. It's already a great class.

I would say Guardian (Praetorian) because it brought a new type tanking with a supportive aspect to party. I liked the buffs given upon blocking and parrying, it was a nice method of promoting parrying. Also, I liked how having more HP made you do more damage and the revamping of the shields helped stop my greedy dps's in my party from dying. Overall, the DPS side to the class was really fun and smooth to play.

Parry gameplay is something that is super cool to explore in Project Duck. There isn't really any other class that does it well. However, parry-oriented gameplay and class design can be really difficult to balance around. Boss attacks and mechanics are not always reliable and there may be situations where you sit around waiting for a boss to do an attack so you can properly do your rotation. If we were to implement this in the future, it would likely have to have something with good uptime and moderate to low impact to prevent any awkward moments in gameplay.

Inquisitor was really fun during the event and the new inputs and interactions made the class a lot more interesting than normal.
(SUMMARIZED)

That's good to hear. I think the class deserves a slight face-lift to fix how boring it can be to play.

Sasuke, because i always jump classes finding the right one to play and having fun with it,that class is super fun to play you made that class so unique and i love playing it makes me want to main it 😁,  and i think it is good for people like us sea player to have one more class to play that not relies to much on ping.

This class has a bunch of projectiles and other unreliable things in the kit that actually makes it VERY ping reliant. It will never make it as an actual full class though as for previously mentioned reasons.

Black Mara VDJ on Black Strike was really nice for its hitbox and consistency. Also you made it look pretty with purple effects! I hope the VDJ and some other aspects of the gameplay make it into the eventual Mara rework!
(SUMMARIZED)

I'm quite surprised at the number of people who said this. There were a lot of responses that talked about Black Mara's VDJ. I think it would be a good replacement for the current Black Strike and will likely make it in for a mini-rework that I have planned for the class. If it does make it in, I'll probably remove the "S" functionality though since you could just turn your camera better instead.

Fire Wall - Summon 4 Flash Fire in front of you.

It gives you a new way for Frontal DPS and the use of it as Filler in your Rotation is way smoother

What the heck is "Frontal DPS"? Does it matter what direction its in? Was it lacking in DPS from the front? What direction were you looking in before? What?

To be honest, i would suggest that every class stays how she is, i would decrease some particles, ranges etc to remove the lag issues, but it would change the Classes on Project Duck to even more Unique and Funny to play

You want every class to stay this way permanently? That sounds horrible. We're not going for "uniqueness" (in this manner) and definitely not "funny."

Barb, all barb skill animation look sick especially the 3 swing CS and godly fist. The problem is the Frenzy, the player don`t know what boss attack can kill the "Unable to drop under 1 HP for 30s (except for certain attacks)". So maybe list some of the attack that can kill frenzy like team wipe mech, kodiak balls, dragon spears, plumment, etc. Or just change the skill effect maybe like DMG reduction?or tick health loss like screamer?

Do you want us to list how effective every skill is for every class? That sounds a bit absurd. It also defeats the purpose of exploration and just leads people to have a lack of understanding or critical thinking if everything is just force fed to them.

Sasuke should be a spin-off class on Project Duck!
(SUMMARIZED)

No

WarMage - MOST PEEPS LOVED THE SPECTRUM SHOWER (BMJ), NINETAIL LASER (VERDURE) were applied. overall SO LIT ♥

I actually got a couple responses saying that Nine Tail Laser VDJ sucks. I kinda agree with that honestly. Not very lit.

Soul Eater - I loved more to play Soul Eater more due to the Increased summon which is more convenient and easy to create a rotation

What's so convenient about summoning 50 dogs to "AWOOOOOO" in your ears all the time? Just because it summons more dogs doesn't mean that a rotation becomes any more convenient.

Avalanche: Spooky Icy Blast would be interesting to see as an optional passive for people who don't/barely use the normal Icy Blast at all - instead of the iframe that the original provides, it would just be a high-damage skill.

Why not just implement it permanently and make it an iframe instead of making an optional passive? That just seems like too much work for no reason. Maybe we can do this change.

Impactor got some pretty cool changes! The animation changes were really cool but reducing the Intense Pulse usage to 1 would probably be really bad for the gameplay of the class. Domation changing to One Inch Punch was great but it would be nice if you could still do the aerial version with Illusive Fist. Chain Cruiser being replaced with Flip Frontal was a great change since that skill was very lackluster originally.
(SUMMARIZED)

I agree with everything here. Maybe we could make some of these changes! We can definitely make Domination do the aerial cast if you cast it after Illusive Fist or do One Inch Punch if you cast on the ground by the way. That's something that's definitely feasible.

Now I wanna talk about Brilliance (Lustre) a bit : I always thought Brilliance was a misfit , I'm not a pro DN pve player nor part of class balancing cult or even a "main" Brilliance , I'm just a 3 weeks PDN and I played her just a bit before the event but I never knew if her support/healing(or Lifesteal w/e) capabilities would be enough to suffice a full team and i'm not really qualified to speak on that so yeah imma leave this to others. Now , I don't see the reason to NOT keep the changes(besides CD/damage/bubble usage-regen , might need some tuning on that) applied to anything that's not Eternal Light Quartz/Soul/Might , Maybe Adjust Libero Blast and Countdown a bit but that's it.

The Lustre changes I made were definitely fun. I think that the class could also use a couple changes from Spooktacular to make it a little better. Of course, none of the buffs being buffwipeable would go through but the other changes could make it in. Fixing the ultimate, bringing in the 2nd awakening skill (which was on Laser Piercer for Spook), and making Libero Blast consistent and useful are things that could happen. One thing that I would DEFINITELY bring in from Spooktacular were the skill effects. The rainbow colors and recoloring from yellow to white on skill effects really gave the class a great makeover. I read another response that said the skill effects should stay as well.

Barbarian was awesome during Spook! Spooky Barb could be a high commitment class with a great risk/reward gameplay style. Honestly, the class doesn't need the health drain especially since you can heal it all up immediately with Devastating Howl. If you were to drop the cooldown of Haymaker and keep the Whirlwind changes, it could be an amazing rework. This class is almost exactly what it should be officially and I love the playstyle.
(SUMMARIZED)

Some of these changes are definitely making it into a rework. Given how popular Barbarian was during Spooktacular and how some of it could actually make it into a rework, it's definitely possible. We'll have to make some adjustments to it of course but its looking pretty good for Barbarian rework.

Chaos Mage was great during Spook. One of the best changes was the increase in AoE of the Gravity Ball Explosion. This allows a lot more flexibility to playing the class and is less punishing for new players trying to pick it up. People would always mention how difficult it was to position and setup Gravity Balls for Gravity Rush. The class already has a lot of micromanaging going on so it could really benefit from some kind of AoE increase on the Gravity Ball Explosion.
(SUMMARIZED)

This sounds pretty good. Some other people mentioned how Singularity as the ultimate skill should make it in as a mini-rework as well or the Gravity Rush changes to dropping Gravity Ball instead. I think we could have a longer conversation about any adjustments as need be.

Tempest was very nice and different for Spooktacular. Kickshot being a timing based skill that does more damage was very satisfying and fun but it could be an issue for high ping players. The invisibility effect on it made me confused on whether or not it was an iframe though. Mirage Kick was also great. Punch Smash being Tornado Loop was very weird to use with the camera movement and if you run into any collision, it places you far from the initial casting spot. This could be a good rework to the established formula for Tempest.
(SUMMARIZED)

Tempest and Windwalker are classes that I'm looking into reworking down the line. I hope something similar to the Kickshot change could make it into the rework if possible. Mirage Kick was also great but it was very obviously just a mash/chain of skills put together. Tornado Loop was silly and probably will never make it in as an actual skill just due to the number of issues it could have.

Photon Mage; I don't know if it's just me or the class. I couldn't get how exactly the class suppose to play, her big skill being the one that generate bubble, took so much time to cast and just having DR instead of iframe (unbonkerz) can't even cancel the skill and the range lul, I think instead of having it cast forward, how about she cast around herself like the awakening. Having be able to cancel the skill makes the FF rot pretty smooth if you want that 20% bubble FD bonus. In this case, all of her kit relies too much on the boss movement, if the boss moves a lot (Ricardo) she's going to lose a lot of DPS for Laser Cutter and Laser Ray. The FMJ Nine Tail hitbox is pretty weird for me (the FMJ animation for that skill looks ugly anyway), either custom or keep the old one. For the BMJ Spectrum Shower, I like the stock version from the official more, with the sound, effects and all.

Photon Mage was quite literally a rip of some ideas from the War Mage rework that I had cooking in the background for some time now. This was basically an Alpha implementation of the rework in Spooktacular to give people some kind of feel for what the class could be if it got reworked. Of course, many of the things that you mentioned in this post would have to be addressed before an actual rework ships out. I personally don't like the official version of Spectrum Shower since it was red and the class is thematically yellow. I also took out some of the sound effects because it was quite literally a ignacioscream.ogg sound file. I don't want an ugly pig bastard to scream in my ears every time I cast that skill. No thanks. We can replace it with a different sound when the rework happens though for sure.

DESTROYER: I've talked to some destroyer mains in the server over the past days before the event hit the live servers. They said they had an on and off relationship with PDDN since they were waiting for buffs/more love for destroyer. I feel like the event changes for the skills are a slight hint of in which direction the destroyers changes could go. i wouldnt implement all the skills but the changes to crash mode seem very nice! having enhanced skills do sound really nice. also having a different approach on the skill "roll attack" makes it really interesting to use.

KEEPS IMO:
Empowering Howl - duration increased and bubble strength increased to 40% of HP, bubble apply range increased

Rolling Attack - Charges reduced to 1, does hero skill instead

Maelstrom - No longer consumes bubbles, wider explosion, 20% faster casttime

Devastating Howl: iframe /the damage buff wasnt that significant in the event to use it regularly (since a lot of howls have no use anymore when i asked destro mains)

Iron Skin - 300s duration, 10s

CD Visuals on skills (even without crash mode active) Skills while in crash mode feel like DESTROYER skills when being used, i would like the visuals to stay with numbers tweaked accordingly

I would love to see the decrease of action speed for crashmode to be taken out (not completely but currently the spells DURING crash mode feel very slow and when being hit by ice/slowed the skills take a decade to come out)

One of the longest responses we got. I have no idea who you are talking to about on/off relationship with Project Duck just because of Destroyer but ok. We would never keep the Empowering Howl change. That would be bonkers OP. Rolling Attack is something that might stay. Maelstrom Howl would not stay just because it's just a strictly better version of the current one. Devastating Howl, yeah, valid comments on this one. That skill is kinda useless. I don't think we need to make it useful though.

KEEPS IMO:
Iron Skin - 300s duration, 10s

Lmao.

Warden is supposed to be a magical dps unit who has several kind of rotations but the live version on project duck (not the event one) lack a lot of intuitive gameplay. with the addition made for the spook event, warden became a more complete unit than it was ever before. her damage lacked at some points but with the mechanic to reset the ult and being able to maneuver with the new detonating arrow in the air, i was able to keep dpsing even through stomps and other mechanics which made the gameplay smooth and enjoyable again. another good change was made to harpoon - now focusing cut. wardens abilities looked very dull and not really like lvl 50  and awakening skills. visually focusing cut stands out a lot and is very pleasing to look at.

Yeah Warden definitely needs some kind of rework. Playing around the Extension Core for more of your skills is something I'd like to implement but Hawk Ballista resetting 24/7 is not really intuitive and interesting gameplay. Focusing Cut is something I'd love to bring in though. It's a cool skill and could have a place on Warden. The only problem is that it's incredibly slow to cast.

Conclusion

There were a lot of comments/responses that I didn't go over in this post, but we read all the responses thoroughly. Thanks for participating for in Spooktacular and I hope to see you around in normal Project Duck and the next crazy event during April Fools.