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The bosses feel buggy and annoying

10 replies [Last post]
Wed, 02/06/2019 - 09:31
Sir-Pandabear's picture
Sir-Pandabear

As a preface, and I should hope this is unecessary given my track record, I'm not saying the bosses are too hard, but that most of the aspects that make them hard are for the wrong reason. Let's go over them. Try to imagine all of these bosses from the perspective of someone who is using the default gear that the game never tells you not to use and actively encourages you to craft. No Blitz Needles, no Magnuses, not even Brandishes. Leviathan Blade, Valiance, and Nitronome.

Snarbolax
I'm skipping that one sprite boss because whatever who cares.

Snarbolax doesnt have a single fun element to him. You pray to RNGesus that he's close to the bell and the lag isn't messing with you so badly that he'll be close enough to the bell to be affected when you hit him. What can you do when he buries under the ground? Nothing. How many times will he bury under the ground? As many times as the RNG says he will. If it wasn't for his gear, the game would be better off without him.

How it can be fixed
First off, the RNG should be removed. After 1-2 digs Snarbolax should be guaranteed to start biting. Furthermore, the bell should be more effective. When struck, the area should last for as long as its sound effect, so Snarbolax can enter the radius and get stunned a little after the strike itself.

Furthermore, the dig should be skippable entirely by hitting Snarbolax during the dig. This would be most easily achievable with bombs and large swords. Gun projectiles wouldn't register, but something like the explosion at the end of blaster's charge would hit, same as breaking ice used to work.

It should be possible to stack catalyzer shots on Snarbolax while he's invulnerable.

Royal Jelly (What? Who?)
Currently the least broken boss. If poison prevented lichens from merging, the preceding level would act as a good tutorial on how to defeat him.

It should be possible to stack catalyzer shots on Royal Jelly while he's invulnerable.

Roarmulus Twins
The first phase is fine. If you don't bring meta gear and time the first phase exactly right so you can hit both twins in one go, you enter the awful phase where you're at the mercy of RNGesus again. The moving head can decided to fire only at the top and bottom for as many times as it wants. After you beat this phase it's usually a bit more lenient and if you're diligent you can maximise chances of one head strafing into a rocket.

It's impossible to harm roarmulus twins with shard bombs. I don't mean that as hyperbole, they literally cannot be damaged by any aspect of them.

How it can be fixed
Both heads should share a health pool and neither head should ever turn truly invincible.

Hitbox should be extended to a bit inside the platform so that shard bombs can hit them.

It should be possible to stack catalyzer shots on Roarmulus twins while they're invulnerable.

Lord Vanaduke
The opening cutscene is a frivolous waste of player time on repeated runs. Any strategy that doesn't involve as many blitz needles as possible is severely gimping yourself and considered a challenge run that will take 10-15 minutes rather than 3-5. Watering is moot, as blitz needles pierce straight through, and if you seriously consider entering melee range you have to maintain the status of 8 fireballs in your head and when they're going to instantly reappear and kill you. Vanaduke can trap you in a corner with no escape, and so can fire tiles and deadnaughts. The mask is incredibly bugged, and if you water it while it's already watered you'll screw your party over. What should be a brief break in the main fight is a much tougher challenge than the boss itself.

How it can be fixed
The cutscene can be removed; nobody cares, ever cared, or ever will care. But if you must keep it, implement a cutscene-skipping mechanic where cutscenes are bypassed if all party members vote for it.

Fireballs should spend at least 5 seconds blinking progressively into existence before being harmful. Each removed fireball would temporarily nerf Vanaduke's normal defense specifically by somewhere around 30.

His piercing and shadow defense should be increased while his health is lowered. Vanaduke should be officially classified undead, and vs undead bonuses would have effect on him.

The complete immunity to shadow in the last phase should be removed.

Fire tiles should spend at least 5 seconds blinking into existence. They would disappear upon hitting a knight.

It should be possible to re-water a watered mask. Just getting the first water in should be good enough. For darkfire Vana, re-watering would not work, but would still not re-trigger the timer.

It should be possible to stack catalyzer shots on Vanaduke and his mask while they're invulnerable.

Battlepods
It's almost impossible to land hits on the battlepods with shards. Especially the ones Seerus have. Most battlepods you can't control when they shield and just have to wait for a really long time before getting a short window to do damage. Waiting is not a good game mechanic.

How it can be fixed
Hitbox for battlepods should be considerably more lenient. Downtime for the shield should be longer to accomodate bombs and other weapons that aren't blitz needle, but would be damage-gated and spring back up after too much damage. Health should be lowered.

It should be possible to stack catalyzer shots on battlepods while they're invulnerable.

Wed, 02/06/2019 - 11:32
#1
Crazee-Pi-Forum's picture
Crazee-Pi-Forum
Remember, don't shoot food.

I would rather see that Snarbolax be changed so that they never bite on their own accord but instead get pissed off and start biting if a Knight attacks them enough, that way Knights are encouraged to do something other than shield by the bell all day. Other than that, yes, absolutely yes.

Also, something something belongs in suggestions something.

Wed, 02/06/2019 - 19:54
#2
Holy-Nightmare's picture
Holy-Nightmare
....

Actually..... the charge attack from a blaster can hit the Snarb when he's underground causing knockback.... used in the right spot you can force him to pop up next to the bell.....

Roar Twins are easy.... the only real hard part is when the first one starts moving and decides repeatedly to not go to mid.... aside from that the battle takes foresight, timing, and prediction...
(Shard bomb thing needs to be fixed... it should be possible to beat any boss with any type of weapon)

Vanaduke is ok for a final boss... same problem as Roar twins is the shadow immunity though.... cut that out and it's improved
Perhaps instead he should have a lower HP pool but a resistance to Autoguns

Battlepods are a tricky issue.... one thing I'd love to see is their shields turned into a damage resist rather than a damage immunity.... that way you can still hurt them but you'd do better to wait for the right moment.... add this and boost their HP a little....

On one note I'd also like to say that the Battlepod in "Ghosts in the machine" is one of the singly worst fights I have EVER played.... pure cancer..... the only way you can actually beat it is to abuse a bug in enemy AI and get them caught in the wires up top... having to abuse a bug as the only way to beat a boss SCREAMS "poor design"

Thu, 02/07/2019 - 01:15
#3
Zero-Chill's picture
Zero-Chill
meow

@Holy-Nightmare
Grinchlin Assault says hi. Seriously, how do you beat that thing??? It's the only level aside from SL's that I never even bothered to buy a key for that I can't solo. You have a very long wait for a very tiny window to do damage to a very tanky boss and while youre doing it two homing rockets are constantly chasing you, some thwakers and invisible enemies and when you do survive and do the damage to the battlepod IT GETS HEALED BY THE DAMN MENDER. I tried getting both rocket puppies to look away by cloaking and dashing but even then I kept getting killed by them cause thwakers and menders push me to the rocket puppies again getting their attention.

Thu, 02/07/2019 - 03:07
#4
Sir-Pandabear's picture
Sir-Pandabear
@Holy-Nightmare

Roar Twins are easy.... the only real hard part is when the first one starts moving and decides repeatedly to not go to mid.... aside from that the battle takes foresight, timing, and prediction...

I agree! That's why I said the same things.

@Zero-Chill
Grinchlin Assault is notably absent from my collection of bomber videos. You've pretty much outlined why.

Thu, 02/07/2019 - 09:40
#5
Horseclaw's picture
Horseclaw
Vana the Mana.

"His piercing and shadow damage should be increased while his health is lowered. Vanaduke should be officially classified undead, and vs undead bonuses would have effect on him."

You mean piercing and shadow defence?
Also, the game says he's a Fiend (though Fiend bonuses have no effect on him), but I absolutely would not mind if his defences were altered to make sense for an Undead and if he was typed as one. The most predominate enemy in his lair are Slagwalkers anyway.

I also feel like Vana should be generally less bulky. It shouldn't take some 5-10 minutes to defeat him with something other than a Blitz Needle (or similar).

Otherwise I agree with all your suggestions for bosses. Roarmulus Twins sharing health would be a serious help in saving time against them, and it would mean the 3rd phase would take just as much damage to complete as the previous two (opposed to half as much).

Thu, 02/07/2019 - 12:24
#6
Sir-Pandabear's picture
Sir-Pandabear

You're correct on all counts, Horseclaw. Will edit the OP.

The reason I say Undead rather than Fiend is just to do something about the Blitz Needle meta, and construct wouldn't make sense.

Thu, 02/07/2019 - 13:37
#7
Fehzors-Forum-Alt's picture
Fehzors-Forum-Alt

I think the Royal Jelly could use some criticism.

He heals when he encounters enemies, but there's nothing to suggest that this is a mechanic on the previous levels and higher leveled knights just come in with crazy gear and tear him to pieces.

Since the levels before the Royal Jelly are incredibly fun oldschool levels that we probably shouldn't touch it would make sense to alter the Royal Jelly rather than the levels prior. So what mechanics can we use that are presented in those levels?

1.) Ground spikes should be given to the Royal Jelly, since those are heavily featured in the level prior on both jelly cubes and lichen colonies.

2.) Silkwings should be Royal Jelly's source of healing, since the player is also made familiar with those

3.) Royal minis should be spawned in mass amounts from the royal jelly, as the player is familiar with those and they block attacks from hitting the Royal Jelly.

4.) Replacing the royal polyps with lumbers would be a nice touch as well.

With these changes, the player would be able to use what they learned during the previous two levels to assist when fighting the Royal Jelly.

Fri, 02/08/2019 - 02:04
#8
Midnight-Dj's picture
Midnight-Dj
@Fehzor

Silkwings should be Royal Jelly's source of healing, since the player is also made familiar with those

Royal minis should be spawned in mass amounts from the royal jelly, as the player is familiar with those and they block attacks from hitting the Royal Jelly.

I don't know about you, but a newb knight with a night blade and maybe a gun is going to struggle against a lineup like that. The night blade suck against the silk wing and all of his ranged shots will be blocked by the minis. And said minis will also be healed by the silkwing's AoE healing.

You could have just easily placed a recon note outside the palace that says 'RJ heals with minis, remember to bring poison ;D' and call it a day.

Fri, 02/08/2019 - 11:00
#9
Nitronicx
Royal Jelly

I remember that when I was Knight I couldn't solo this boss. I couldn't outdamage the healing from minis with my gun. I wasn't using my sword because the Royal Jelly has that invisible AoE attack I couldn't predict and consequentially couldn't avoid. So I tried the other tactic: kill the Royal Polyps so there aren't any Royal Minis so the Royal Jelly can't heal. This worked for the first 2 phases, but in phase 3 the Polyps respawn and I couldn't kill all of them before they started respawning. Combined with the fact that I didn't dare to come close to the boss and start losing health randomly, I eventually died. Later I learnt to collect fire, poison and curse vials for the fight and that the best strategy is to hit the boss as hard as you can regardless of the damage you take.

Where am I going with this? I only want to list my biggest issues with the fight that weren't mentioned yet:
1) Royal Jelly has an attack which is casted without warning and is very hard to shield against.
2) There is a strategy that can get you through most of the fight but is suddenly inefficient in the last phase.

Sorry for not discussing your solutions.

Fri, 02/08/2019 - 11:48
#10
Sir-Pandabear's picture
Sir-Pandabear
@Nitronicx

They're good points. Thank you for bringing them up.

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