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Lair of the mad dragon, opinions?
okottekoneko
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
i have been enjoying this game greatly, i did feel the boss fights where a little simple, but then i got to the dragon fight at lvl 32, and boy was i in for a shock, the 5 times i have tried this (each with 3 attempts) we all wiped at 25% (left) hp at most, the kill adds then dragon was fine was quite a challenge compared to previous fights, this was the first that required proper team work, we where doing fine till the wave that brings in the pit fiends IMHO at lvl 32 compared to previous ones this boss it way over powered, pit fiends where too much, the ground was a mess of red, it made it almost impossible to find a safe patch to stand.
because of how many DOTS where placed by enemies killing the mobs went from hard to near impossible we spent 90% of the time avoiding attacks instead of attacking, in a game where moving and casting is active that wouldnt be too bad, but when casting means almost certain death it just wasnt on.
in all of the fights i went into one or more of us ran out of pots or heal kits and needed to drop.
this fight at lvl 32 after the previous content is far to over geared.
to make it fair i think the pit fiends either need to be taken out of this fight or have their health dropped by some degree so players that arent in a epic group have more of a chance, even without the pit fiend this still makes you need teamwork and a strategy, and thats what this fight was for, making players start working as a group and using their roles.
i dont want a full nerf, just have it tweaked so its not so full on.
this was the "playtime is over" boss fight we where expecting, but the fight imo is too much.
even if they leave it as is, they should take out the force field preventing us from coming back in.
boss fights shouldnt be this overwhelming to much closer to end game.
this fight wasnt a mid game boss this was more of a entry level end game raid boss.
what do you guys think?
what should they change?
should they change it at all?
put comments below and vote on the poll.
because of how many DOTS where placed by enemies killing the mobs went from hard to near impossible we spent 90% of the time avoiding attacks instead of attacking, in a game where moving and casting is active that wouldnt be too bad, but when casting means almost certain death it just wasnt on.
in all of the fights i went into one or more of us ran out of pots or heal kits and needed to drop.
this fight at lvl 32 after the previous content is far to over geared.
to make it fair i think the pit fiends either need to be taken out of this fight or have their health dropped by some degree so players that arent in a epic group have more of a chance, even without the pit fiend this still makes you need teamwork and a strategy, and thats what this fight was for, making players start working as a group and using their roles.
i dont want a full nerf, just have it tweaked so its not so full on.
this was the "playtime is over" boss fight we where expecting, but the fight imo is too much.
even if they leave it as is, they should take out the force field preventing us from coming back in.
boss fights shouldnt be this overwhelming to much closer to end game.
this fight wasnt a mid game boss this was more of a entry level end game raid boss.
what do you guys think?
what should they change?
should they change it at all?
put comments below and vote on the poll.
Post edited by okottekoneko on
0
Comments
sorry if my post is a little thick i tried breaking it up as much as i could.
for the TLDR heres the jist.
i feel the boss fight is too much so early level, and am suggesting some tweaks to make it a little easier.
the poll options give you the idea.
Don't nerf this fight, it's fine.
PvE Enthusiast.
It makes pugging dungeons really painful for a lot of people. It's pretty awful being the only one in group who wants to bother trying the last boss of a dungeon. I know I just gave in and leveled past that place after the 4th or 5th time through the dungeon when people left right after the second boss died to spare themselves the dragon.
this seems fair, by all means dont make it easy but for the majority of groups this fight is a brick wall, some slight tweaking and this fight would be more doable even in a bag group.
slightly lowering the difficulty, this fight would still be hard as hell for mid game and certainly wont be a 2 min fight. even if you raise boss HP and scale the pit fiends down so the fights more drawn out it would be more acceptable.
the fights too hard for mid game save the brick walls for end game.
At the moment everything is pretty much a pool of zergfesting...
Since, even with soothe, all the aggro stays on me the whole time and my self heals are 40%.
The mephits that spawn constantly have me out of half a stack of injury kits and making trek after trek back to the party with a bugged pathfinder well before we even get to the dragon.
its not fine... i was persistent to get it done but noone wants to fight the dragon so i was never able to do it... have only tried the dragon one time out of maybe 15 runs (then i out lvled the dungeon)
when something is so though that 15 pugs out of 16 skips it it needs to be fixed...
Get a group of guildies or friends, and learn the fights. The problem is not the mechanics, dungeons or bosses themselves, the issue everyone is having with these fights resides between the keyboard and the chair.
Please don't nerf these fights. Personally I'd like to see everything buffed up in dungeons. Keep the hp's on everything, buff up the adds and make a few more mechanics you have to survive.
I'm begging you to not make your content a pug zerg fest.
It can become a bit of a cluster**** towards the end but once you understand what's happening it's not a very hard fight - it's just long and the only difficult part is at 25% so you're really punished for wiping.
At this point the dungeon has the stigma of not being worth it. No amount of strategy sharing on the forum is going to keep 1 person from leaving your group and wasting 4 people's time.
If that causes someone enough heartache to hate me .... well, I'll get over it, & so will they.
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
If you do the random queue at all, the odds are your group will leave before you even get to the boss.
thats another issue, the LFG manager is really bad, this fight would only really be acceptable for a tight group of players that work well together and are good at playing their classes and roles, with the aggro system not 100% and LFG not 100% this fight is really unfair on most PUG groups.
the people i have seen say they have done it wither got really lucky and the LFG gave them a great group (a rarity) or did it with friends/guild using proper voip and studied the fight as a group beforehand.
this is not a PUG friendly fight and majority of players are not in a guild and at 32 are not making full parties and are doing PUG groups.
i still say make mid game harder but to this extent.
leave the crazy for end game.
Don't be wet. The battle is awesome!
Problem with that is that's it's not the Dragon kicking your a$$. It's the adds that spew out from nowhere. I would think differently if the boss fights were somehow different each time, but they're not. It's always adds and more adds that make the fight a pain, not the mechanics or in this case, the Dragon. Dragon is fine as is because well, he's a Dragon and he's supposed to be monster fight.
the uber boss fights should be left for end game, this fight may seem trivial for some, but the fact is most players think this fight is unfair and too hard, like others have been saying majority aren't even doing it.
some may have even been turned off the game due to the fight. the difficulty jumped up too fast and the fight with all the games bugs just isnt well made. when the whole floor starts turning red on the last 25% and everyones wiping somethings wrong.
like i said this isnt a end game fight where everyone has fully geared and build and learned their class, at mid game we are just getting access to our better abilities, we are learning new play styles, we have crappy cobbled gear, with poor companions, we are still pugging rather then guilding, this isnt the time to start throwing epic boss battles our way it is the time to up the difficulty for sure but not go from puppy dogs and kitties to raging dragons handing out death on a platter, build up to it.
i would rather make my voice heard rather then roll over and take it like so many are doing.
im part of the 80% of gamers in this game who havent bothered guilding up and have next to no friends to play it with.
so stop being arsehats and realise what is going on. leave the zerg fests for level 60.
thats the issue cryptic seems to have been lazy with the boss fights, the dragons no real threat here, its all the other trash that swarms in, i would have prefered a well coded dragon fight where he is the main focus where is uses tactics and strategy, not some dumb giant lizard spinning on the spot taking pot shots while adds do the fighting, its not fun its frustrating, cryptic thinks its ok the just swarm us with adds rather then actually code a real **** fight.
I'm firmly in the camp of: "This boss needs some serious reworks"
Oh I get that the whole dungeon is practically SWARMING with spawning adds (and later bosses do the same thing) here though, it's f**king annoying.
I think part of the reason is because the dragon is so ******* huge that peeling minions off the cleric (BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY BYPASS THE TANK, THE ROUGE, THE GUY WITH THE HUGE SWORD, AND THE DUDE THROWING LIGHTNING AT THEM, AND INSTEAD GO FOR THE CLERIC!!!!!!) is a lesson in patience. As in: "How much patience do I have left before I turn the game off, get on a plane, and hunt down whoever greenlit this dungeon so I can punch them in the stomach and run away."
Oh sure, maybe it's not so bad if you're in a tight knit group, a guild or have buddies on some kind of voice chat or whatever you crazy kids are using. But who are we kidding, real gamers have no friends. So you're probably sitting around in Queue waiting for a group to show up.
Now for some suggestions.
If you wanna keep the swarm, fine. But scale them down either in:
-HP
-Damage
-Spawn numbers (I feel like I kill one imp and suddenly every member of his family, his friends, his girlfriend, and that one demon he met at Demon Joe's cookie shop are here to PARTY! I'M A PARTY AND THE WHOLE DEMON REALM IS INVITED!)
-RAISE THE MINIMUM LEVEL REQUIREMENT BECAUSE IT'S WAY TOO ******* LOW
-Or some other thing that others have suggested
Either that or give party members a way to mitigate the swarm.
Like say:
"Dragon is summoning demons, press a button/stand somewhere/do enough damage/interrupt him/distract him by saying; "HEY LOOK A DISTRACTION", etc to prevent this." This way it adds a new layer to difficulty, by adding additional tension to the battle. It forces you to stay on your toes, unless you want to get swarmed with minions. This way, it can still keep it's difficulty and now punish you when you mess up.
This also gives players some new options, which gives the battle more depth by adding to the number of ways the players can tackle a problem as opposed to the traditional hold down the mouse key and hit the skill keys until something dies.
Those are my suggestions at least.
One last thing, anyone who says this boss battle is that way by design to be a wake up call. That person is going to hell for lying because the next dungeon final boss, I managed to take care of with just THREE PEOPLE AND OUR COMPANIONS HAD COME DOWN WITH A SUDDEN CASE OF DEATH!
-Me
-Some control wizard who was three levels below me
-And a great weapon fighter who spoke a language I did not know the name for. I think he might have been from another planet because what little I could understand was entirely pop culture references half a decade late.
this!
and great post.
its the morons overlooking the issues that is ruining the industry the devs are getting lazy and we are letting them.
those who think this fight is good are probably the same type of people who thought twilight was a good idea or enjoyed the last air bender.
A nerf necessary? No. You attempted it at 32, try a couple more levels up. I hope I'm not the only one that doesn't want every MMO to be a walk in the park.
Then there are people like me, who would like to at least experience the fight as it is, before it gets nerfed.
I've never seen Twilight & pretty much loath all things vampire, & Last Airbender was the horrid mess I expect from Shayamlan.
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
A little off topic but,
I'd say the things ruining the industry in general are two things:
#1. A publisher's unwillingness to experiment, instead focusing on what was successful in the past and using focus groups to try and reach as wide of an audience as possible, and at the same time treating its customers as the enemy.
"He who tries to catch two hares..."
#2. People saying how they dislike the way the industry has been trying to recapture the "glory days" or ape what's popular at the time. And in that same instance, pay the full 60$ for the game they just insulted. Or even worse, claim how the gaming industry needs to try something new...and then go out and buy the latest Mario game.
These problems work both ways and blame can rest with both parties.
So the real question is...WHO DO I HUNT DOWN FIRST, THE PLAYERS OR THE INDUSTRY FOR PRACTICALLY CANCELING THE LAST GUARDIAN?!
[Disclaimer: Official comment is, "we're looking for the right time to release it." which translates out to, we've pretty much stopped working on it]
I'd say those who think the fight is good probably fall into a few categories (off the top of my head):
- "Guildies" These are guys who have a team to back them up and don't have to deal with pugs.
-"Challenge junkies" These are guys who LIVE for hard stuff. These are the guys who want the bosses to be TOUGHER! Sometimes, they seem like the type who must have all the fun for themselves. Some of them may have a sense of superiority and look down on players who think something is "too hard."
My first guess is that someone who falls into that category plays a lot of single player games with the difficulty ramped up to its highest setting. Therefore, everything feels easy to them so they can't find enjoyment unless they're being knocked around the room. What they may be forgetting is that this is an MMORPG, and one has to take into considering the people who aren't quite up their level. Because if you cater to the challenge junkie crowd while neglecting what the rest of the playerbase says, what you get is a lot of people turning away from the game.
-"born in the 80's" Kind of like the challenge junkies, except they grew up at a time when arcades had games that were literally designed to cheat so it could milk quarters out of you. They're probably in the same boat as the guys above. Maybe some of them can't enjoy a game unless it's as difficult as it was when they were young? I don't know, the majority of my childhood was spent reading or reading while running away from the bigger kids who wanted to stuff me in lockers.
-"Devil's advocates"
Doesn't matter what you say, they will find a way to twist your grievances around and make it somehow your fault even if they've never played the lair or had the good fortune of getting into a higbie group.
Maybe they honestly don't see anything wrong, maybe they think you're the one at fault for not trying hard enough or joining a guild, or maybe they like the devs/publisher/something so much that they're blinded to any criticism and take it as a personal attack.
-"Jokers"
Why do they defend the Lair of the Mad Dragon? There is no why. There is only nerd rage. And this is their greatest joy. They want to watch the thread burn in the searing flames of war.
-"Outliers"
I have no idea how to classify this type. The world is full of a random assortment of people with different motivations and different experiences, odds are there's someone who feels the exact opposite of me.
Lemme give an example of a big boss done right in an MMORPG (and also to prove I'm not one of those types who want everything to be a walk in the park).
One of my all time favorite games would be the Secret World. For a lot of reasons but for this, I'll just point to the raid bosses and compare it to the dragon.
One of the first final raid bosses you'll fight is...
Cthulhu.
I don't mean that you're fighting something that looks like Cthulhu or is kind of like Cthulhu but-
IT'S ****ING CTHUHLU
http://www.dealspwn.com/writer/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/secret-cthulhu-540x297.jpg
[He's actually much bigger than that.]
Now Cthulhu works as a hard boss because you're constantly on your toes. He has certain behaviors you have to learn and tricks you have to deal with. Proper communication with your team and understanding which role you're playing is VITAL to surviving. He throws AoEs down, column attacks, and there's a part where the entire screen goes blue and YOU BETTER HOPE HE DOESN'T FIND YOU! That's tense, that's multi-layered, and by the end of it you have a feeling of satisfaction because "you just beat Cthulhu". You feel like you accomplished something, and were integral to the team's success rather than just being glad its over. And the difficulty just scales up from there, all the raid bosses don't just stand in one spot and throw minions at you as a cheap cop out for a boss fight. You're constantly on your toes and it really tests everything you've learned without being cheap (some bosses do have cheap moves though, like this one boss that spawns constant AoEs that chase you and can move faster than you can sprint). This is a game that does not hold your hand, in fact it slaps your hand away, kicks you down a hole and instructs you to climb back out. The only other thing that I can recall that does difficulty correctly would be Demon's Souls.
Now compare Cthulhu to the dragon.
You get in and he just sits in the center, desecrates the ground and takes the occasional cheap shot. Then he starts spawning minions. And that's the entire boss fight with the minions strength and numbers swelling as it goes on. This isn't a boss fight, it's a zerg rush.
I really wish I had a better explanation on the difference in something being challenging vs something being hard, but it's something I'm still trying to put into words and all I have are comparisons. Unfortunately. ^-^a
Otherwise I still really like the game and I'll just level and ignore dungeons.
Grace, Tiefling Devoted Cleric
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Then leave the rest to Batman."
-Yes it is fine to have hard fights
-Yes it is fine to have the be almost impossible to pug
-No not everything should be a cakewalk
HOWEVER
Such encounters should not be coming out of the blue at the end of a mid level dungeon with 2 comparatively easy bosses beforehand. Such difficulty spikes are not only jarring but a a blatant sign that the devs are not adequately play testing their creations. The fact that every instance beforehand is also faceroll easy is also poor form, be consistent. Either have high difficulty for these prelude instances as well or smooth out the curve and save this kind of thing to endgame where it is expected and welcomed.
As others have said at level 30 you are still using very weak feats, you don't have any high tier powers and your gear is only going to have a couple of blues on it at most. Most players that only do a dungeon once or twice and have poor luck with rolls means many players may simply be incapable of doing it on a functional standpoint. Gear still accounts for a lot of performance, don't kid yourself into thinking your ability is 100% skill.
Additionally another fight where the boss is a largely nonthreatening damage sponge and the real fight is the constant spam of adds? Really? Such fights are pretty boring as they are the fact but the that almost EVERY SINGLE BOSS in the game follows this outline is just plain lazy. A lot of people are gonna be turned off from this alone even if they don't get jarred by the roller coaster difficulty curve.
Just make it more consistent compared to previous challenges at least from inside the same instance if nothing more and please, add some new gameplay elements. When people think dragon fights they don't think swimming through 50 random demons. Remove the adds altogether, make the Dragon's attacks utterly crushing and have to be dodged at all costs. Make it actually use those wings it has and make some kind of new gameplay challenge to force it back onto the ground. Make the breath be avoided by line of sight rather than a narrow path, etc etc. There are plenty of things you can do to improve the encounter.
Give us something unique and entertaining for our first dragon encounter not another copy paste fight.
Cleaned Spellplague Caverns on the first try.