Where is the point of walkover encounters with (nearly) unbeatable end bosses?

thestoryteller01

I have played 11+ Foundry quests during the last week. some for dailies, some because they sounded interesting.

Unfortunately more than half left me with a very sour taste, because while nearly all the encounters where walkovers the end boss(es) did cost me an average of 2 tries, 20 healing pots, 5 other pots and 1 injury kit.

My char is a lvl 40 cleric with blue gear and a meager lvl 15 man-at-arms (skellie dog not trained beyond that yet), thats not thrilling, I know - but I cannot understand why I can get through 20-40 minutes of encounters with 0-5 pots and then get nailed by the bosses.

So I am asking myself why the hell I seem not to be able to beat Foundry bosses or if I belong to a minority if I think a UGC quest shouldnt take 5 golds worth of consumables.

Btw, I abstained from reviews because
a) being an aspiring Foundry author myself I dont give 1-stars
and b) most of those quests got rave reviews from people prasing exactly the "boss" fights.

I am mostly surprised why one should create whatever interesting, funny, mysterious or beautiful quests one can imagine - and in the end try to seriously kill the player. I mean, if I get killed in the first 3 minutes, I simply leave the quest because my char is obviously not built/geared for it, but after enjoying well-crafted maps, dialogues, NPCs and an interesting story for half an hour I feel kind of cheated when suddenly it turns into a deathtrap. But maybe this is what most players want or expect, I don't know.

So apart from my own frustration (especially after leaving a quest for the first time 1 encounter before the end - with 5 injuries), I wonder if my own Foundry quests will get bad reviews because I don't plan to make the last encounter(s) much harder then the rest of the quest. Imo every encounter should be a challenge, not a chain of walkovers with some unbeatable ubermonster at the end.

So my fellow Foundry authors and players, what advice do you have for me?

anrix2

My very first foundry quest was an arena, it was published for about a day before I deleted it because it was too difficult, and the decor was rushed and cluster based. It was so novice, that is why it was so difficult. I knew very little about Neverwinter having hit 15 and jumped straight into The Foundry.

I also think people feel the need to go over the top with a final boss encounter because it is suppose to culminate the story. Having heard various feedback, I'll tell you, you are going to miss the mark with some part of your audience. You are pretty much doomed if you do or don't, so just do what you can stand behind. I try not to go over the top difficulty, and IMO I feel I don't but I still get feedback that my dungeon is too tough, I also get feedback that my dungeon is too easy...so yeah, welcome to The Foundry

myrmecoleon

I think one of the problems might be that certain classes have a much easier time solo running missions than others. Clerics appear to have it particularly hard - especially in the levels between 31 and 60. For example, I tried using an encounter where the player can choose to fight two stacked Easy encounters or elect to instead run to a particular part of the map, whereupon said encounters would despawn. I've had some players point out that the encounter was so easy that they felt no desire to run, whereas others said that the encounter was too difficult for a solo mission. It can be difficult to balance the mission to be challenging for some players without making it a pushover for others.

Similarly, the Foundry labelling for encounter difficulty is sometimes misleading. For example, the two Deathlock Wight + standard zombie encounter and the Mindflayer Thoon Hulk encounter are both labelled "hard", but they're both significantly harder than most of the other "hard" encounters listed in the Foundry as a result of the mobs' mechanics.

I also suspect my own mission might be one among those causing you frustration - I do apologise for any injury kits or potions that you might have spent! It certainly wasn't my intention for the combat to be difficult, but unfortunately, the Foundry's own tools make it fairly difficult to test anything between the levels of 31 and 60.

thestoryteller01

Thanks for the input so far, guys - the chartreuse halls was not one of those btw

But as I said, if my cleric beats encounter after encounter without breaking a sweat just to completely fail the bosses, it's more about the quest design than CC. But maybe a quest without a killer at the end is not what the playerbase wants......or needs.

eskarine

I think it's because we lack real bosses. People tend to over-compensate by making wave after wave of hard mobs, or just plain stacking them.

I have a lv60 cleric (things HAD got a bit more managable since getting lv60 purples, even the PVP ones). A foundry quest with boss that doesn't end up eating 3-5-10 pots per fight? Yeah, right. Since hitting 45+ it's been getting harder and harder. But let's face it, clerics got the short end of the stick here - all the disadventages similiar to control wizard but far, far less firepower.

On the side note, I am working on an exploration quest with hardly any battles at all *shameless advertising*

apocrs1980

My quest seems to fall in this category,

GF and DC have a significantly harder time with the final boss encounter and if it was nerfed it leaves all the dps classes saying "that was it?" "how cheap." But that is why I put in a side quest in with Bildrath at the start, to lower the difficulty for the player in a few different ways.
I don't slap the players in the face with it but I do reward them for exploring and not burning through the dialogue and quest as fast as possible.

lolsorhand

I just let the player decide what they want in the last encounter in the first part of my campaign. That way they know what they are getting into.

zahinder

It is VERY hard to tune encounters in Foundry.

nyghoma

The cleric is a horrible solo class. Once you learn to except this, then you will be able to move on. The honest truth is all classes are not equal. My 60 CW can solo 99% of foundry content made for 5 man groups. Barely any pots and no more than 2-3 deaths in rare situations. The only time I ever die is if I finish dialog on an npc and 5 hard encounters spawn right on top of me that are immune to cc. Otherwise, foundry content is easy. Same goes for my rogue.

shorlong

I like the harder bosses at the end. Realistically, why would the big bad be just as easy to defeat as the rest of the things you killed on the way there?

What happened to gamers liking challenges? Why must everything be steamrolled or it's "too tough". If you die, you die. Not like you lose too much there. And yeah, I've soloed as a higher level cleric, it's tough...but I man up and do it, it's part of the challenge. If I die a lot in one quest, I potion up and do it again, to better myself. I soloed Cragsteep Crypt until about halfway through it, and no matter what, I just couldn't make it without tons and tons of potions...once I get my purples on my CW, I'll go in and try again.

zbkolde

thestoryteller01 wrote: »

...

I am mostly surprised why one should create whatever interesting, funny, mysterious or beautiful quests one can imagine - and in the end try to seriously kill the player. I mean, if I get killed in the first 3 minutes, I simply leave the quest because my char is obviously not built/geared for it, but after enjoying well-crafted maps, dialogues, NPCs and an interesting story for half an hour I feel kind of cheated when suddenly it turns into a deathtrap. But maybe this is what most players want or expect, I don't know.

...

I feel the same way. My main character is a level 60 Cleric. I love to try out new foundries, and am easily pleased and entertained by atmosphere, stories, dialog, et cetera, all the work the authors put into it. But so so many times, as i'm admiring the scenery and enjoying the story, suddenly it comes to a point where i'm just fighting my brains out, dying, using up all of my potions. The fight gets so hard i sometimes forget what i'm fighting for, all the battling made me forget the story. And it's not always the boss fight that gets that hard, but i have, like you, invested 30+ minutes into a quest that i was thoroughly enjoying, just to be crushed to dust at the end. I also don't leave reviews of less than 3-stars, so sometimes i end up just silently walking away, especially when i'm unable to complete it anyway.

almostcool

I get a lot of complaints saying my final boss is too easy. I can't really add mobs to fight with him though because it wouldn't make sense with the story. I have had people say my quest is too hard and others say its too easy not very easy to fine-tune.

thestoryteller01

shorlong wrote: »

I like the harder bosses at the end. Realistically, why would the big bad be just as easy to defeat as the rest of the things you killed on the way there? .....

Thats not my point. My point is why there are so many quests where all encounters up to the end boss provide no challenge at all and then suddenly the difficulty springs from Kindergarten to Inferno.

Could it be Foundry authors are afraid, players might drop the quest if the encounters are to hard in the first 20 minutes? So they decide for 100% garantued easy encounters all the way and plan to make up for it with a hell of an end boss?

x0y1

thestoryteller01 wrote: »

Thats not my point. My point is why there are so many quests where all encounters up to the end boss provide no challenge at all and then suddenly the difficulty springs from Kindergarten to Inferno.

Could it be Foundry authors are afraid, players might drop the quest if the encounters are to hard in the first 20 minutes? So they decide for 100% garantued easy encounters all the way and plan to make up for it with a hell of an end boss?

Unlikely but maybe people prefer "The Secret World" design: Less trash or no trash at all but hard boss fights.




My design standpoint is very simple.


I use 2 difficulty settings.


Easy-Medium:
Non stacked encounters.
Patrolling NPC don't overlap.
Boss encounters only have one hard encounter or use a 2 stage fight so easy first, then another medium.


Medium-Hard:
Non stacked encounters for npc placement.
Patrolling NPC overlap.
Stacked NPC fights for boss encounters.
Boss fights have additonal stages or other mechanics that makes the fight harder. One example is you can fight one hard magma encounter in a corridor if you go back into the big room you will run into fire traps plus additional "bad" stuff.


First setting is for low dps classes like gwf or lvl 60 clerics. 2nd setting is for high dps classes like 60 cw or classes that are still low lvl like lvl 20 clerics.


However the are always exceptions. In one case you can despawn many encounters through dialog options or with a different play style (think hitman), if you don't do this, fights will be harder.




In the end you can't satisfy everyone...................




I still think cryptic should balance the stuff like the did in "City of Heroes". However I don't like foundry missions that don't have any kind of challenging boss fights. Yes I like the action combat and don't want to fall asleep on my keyboard.

lolsorhand

x0y1 wrote: »

Unlikely but maybe people prefer "The Secret World" design: Less trash or no trash at all but hard boss fights.




My design standpoint is very simple.


I use 2 difficulty settings.


Easy-Medium:
Non stacked encounters.
Patrolling NPC don't overlap.
Boss encounters only have one hard encounter or use a 2 stage fight so easy first, then another medium.


Medium-Hard:
Non stacked encounters for npc placement.
Patrolling NPC overlap.
Stacked NPC fights for boss encounters.
Boss fights have additonal stages or other mechanics that makes the fight harder. One example is you can fight one hard magma encounter in a corridor if you go back into the big room you will run into fire traps plus additional "bad" stuff.


First setting is for low dps classes like gwf or lvl 60 clerics. 2nd setting is for high dps classes like 60 cw or classes that are still low lvl like lvl 20 clerics.


However the are always exceptions. In one case you can despawn many encounters through dialog options or with a different play style (think hitman), if you don't do this, fights will be harder.




In the end you can't satisfy everyone...................




I still think cryptic should balance the stuff like the did in "City of Heroes". However I don't like foundry missions that don't have any kind of challenging boss fights. Yes I like the action combat and don't want to fall asleep on my keyboard.

This is true. Difficulty sliders help alot with this however, not everyone will be happy anyway. But to me encounters should build upon the story not just be something that is in the way of the players goal.

The above might be fine for hack n' slashers, and the quests that focus on hack 'n slash. But a storydriven quest, should be storydriven. Encounters can be a great tool to further explain certain things.

zahinder

The problem is that below level 30, say, a bunch of Nashers and Mindflayers may feel about the same.

Level 50, Nashers are a nice scrap-up, and Mindflayers turn you to chum.

I THINK, in many cases, people are making a mission where there's moderate encounters and then a somewhat harder encounter, but failing to test at high levels where the difference becomes easy/OMFG.

neverhof

You have to wonder why you can only preview your quests as a lvl 30 odd at max.