Boss and Area Difficulty.

[Sorcy Sid]

Certain bosses and areas are becoming next to impossible to do. The champions in the witches throne room would have wiped out our experienced party of nine if not for the fact that my sorcerer could play a major part handling them. That makes me happy that I could contribute but others are complaining about the difficulty when it should have been doable for nine less a mage.

[driller]

A change was made to make a magic user more or less required for this area. I want the end game areas to require different party compositions.

It really shouldn't be difficult if the party uses the right combination of spells and tactics.

Certain bosses and areas are becoming next to impossible to do. The champions in the witches throne room would have wiped out our experienced party of nine if not for the fact that my sorcerer could play a major part handling them. That makes me happy that I could contribute but others are complaining about the difficulty when it should have been doable for nine less a mage.

[Caylin]

In general bosses seem to the hard side on BSK. There is a huge difference between levelling which you can do fairly easily no matter your build and end game bosses that all seem to require near perfect builds, gear, tactics and a big group.

In the time I have been here all changes seem to be focused on making bosses harder ie all the countermeasures to bbod, sanc and invis coupled with minions you can´t get rid of in many cases making it feel like there is really only the tactic of tank, healer and dps and possibly disabler in certain areas.

But I guess it also depends on the design goal. Maybe sharing that would help understand what seems like excessive harshness from a player perspective.

My favourite playstyle would be so be able to solo end game if you have the perfect gear toon and tactic and being able to do all with 2-3 people even if not quite perfect. As such witch was perfect and my favourite boss. A 3 man team could do it if you built for it and didnt mess up. If you did you died though.

As it stands now most bosses require more than 3 people and that the group isn´t casual players due to the need for good gear, build and tactic. Imho that is too much in a game as old as this with a relatively low player base.

But again what is the design goal? To have all bosses require dedicated players in groups of 6+? Help us understand the goal and we can provide better feedback on whether this is realized.

Caylin

[driller]

The design is about this:

1.Is it better to walk up and click on something to get loot(easy) or engage in a fight and have to run for your live and struggle to beat it(hard)?
2.Kill a hard boss an average of 20 times and have the potential to get the best items or kill an easy boss 200 times?
3.There have been several posts about the same few builds are required for end game. I have attempted to address this.

Changing things up a bit can help things from becoming stale.

Sometimes changes don't work out as I am not all knowing or seeing.
If they aren't working out and things are to hard or to easy, then we should all discuss on how to fix it.

[Sorcy Sid]

Edit. I started this post before your last one.

I really do appreciate that you did that for the mages in the game. I always felt that the server was too focused on the hack-n-slash side at higher levels. Making certain areas that require a good party mix is a good thing, IMO.

I think that a lot of the complaint of these extremely tough bosses is that the rewards often dont make the adventure, time spent, worthwhile. Especially when some of these bosses require a well coordinated team and little margin for screwing up.

Also, a little heads up that you made and area harder and or different would alleviate some of the player complaints/concerns. It was just lucky that I signed on with my mage when I did for the witch run. Otherwise all the other changes to that area would have simply wiped out that large party, IMO.

A change was made to make a magic user more or less required for this area. I want the end game areas to require different party compositions.

It really shouldn't be difficult if the party uses the right combination of spells and tactics.

Certain bosses and areas are becoming next to impossible to do. The champions in the witches throne room would have wiped out our experienced party of nine if not for the fact that my sorcerer could play a major part handling them. That makes me happy that I could contribute but others are complaining about the difficulty when it should have been doable for nine less a mage.

[driller]

Loot is about the potential, it is not a guarantee. There are some very good items you can obtain from those bosses that you cannot get by any other means.

As for a party wipe, that's part of the risk. You have to approach these things as a puzzle to be figured out, otherwise it would be like placing a statue there with 10000 hp and just whacking until you get your loot.

Let's see how things go, if it is to hard, then I will change it.

[Yunim]

I haven't fully tested the Witch run since the change, but I did just take my cleric to have a look around the Tower. It might require some changes to tactics, but it still seems doable with an experienced and well equipped party. However it will be tougher to get new players involved on runs since there will be less room for error.

Personally I enjoy the recent increases in difficulty, particularly the gsanc dispel that most boss areas have now. Until that change it had been literally months since I saw a TPK, as long as the healer was in gsanc it was a guaranteed victory. Part of what I enjoy about high end PvM is a sense of risk, especially those moments where you recover from being one person away from a complete wipe.

As I said I haven't fully tested the run, just the first stretch, but as long as new players are still able to join experienced players on boss runs I'm okay with the changes. Although my opinion might change after actually attempting the run.

[Sway]

1.Is it better to walk up and click on something to get loot(easy) or engage in a fight and have to run for your live and struggle to beat it(hard)?
2.Kill a hard boss an average of 20 times and have the potential to get the best items or kill an easy boss 200 times?

These two questions are the part where I can respect the changes to the bosses. If we're all being honest, as PC's, and semi/well equipped players, the bosses weren't hard, in the slightest. Witch runs were very easy, with little to no risk. As long as you have a tank/healer, it may take a while but anyone with decent gear could take her on. IMO, coming from someone who's done the bosses a lot for some time now, people want to run thru the bosses quickly/efficiently without the risk of wiping. THATS THE PROBLEM. What kind of boss would it be if there wasn't definite risk? It makes it that much more fun to me, if the bosses are an actual challenge. The bosses shouldn't be that easy, I mean you have multiloggers who can 2 man certain bosses and get double the drops than the normal person. That doesn't make sense to me. Maybe there should be mini/low-end bosses with the same rare items that can be dropped, but at a way lower rate for people who want to solo/smaller parties. But right now, bosses should be exactly that, BOSSES.

I think that a lot of the complaint of these extremely tough bosses is that the rewards often dont make the adventure, time spent, worthwhile.

This is something that I slightly can agree with for certain bosses. I mean for some of the bosses, it honestly makes you not want to do the boss because of the time and money spent aren't worth it. The difficulty of the boss is fine, but it should be more worthwhile for the players to give them a reason to want to do the boss.

[Yune]

I appreciate the bosses being hard and not just glorified loot bags like the witch used to be. The difficulty curve after hitting 40 is great too IMO. Newbies can learn builds and mechanical skill on the pre-40 quests that anyone can complete solo. Bosses that are just tank and spank are no fun IMO, the shift to bosses having actual mechanics and functioning a bit like puzzles is great. I agree that there really should be a changelog though.

There are two easy bosses that are basically loot bags - the dragon and Aildrek. Keep those are they are IMO.

[Sway]

I appreciate the bosses being hard and not just glorified loot bags like the witch used to be.

Lol Lootbags... well put.

[Caylin]

I would prefer a variety of difficulties on bosses so you can go after the ones that suit your temperment and the party available. With all the new bosses added i seems to me the old could have been left as is and new things added to the new ones.

I do agree with the sentiment that increased risk should yield increased reward. Im probably just in the camp that feels that only very few bosses should require long drawn out fights with a big and good group.

Lets for arguments sake say boss x requires 6-8 people in a very specific setup and an hour game time to kill for a 5% chance at a good drop. Is this fun? Does the server have the player base to support this?

Compare to a boss that takes 20 minutes to kill (still a long fight imho) and can be done with 4 imperfect toons or 3 near perfect ones. Personally I would much prefer the latter but diversity in bosses is still good.

I might be a minority and most would prefer the former.

It also seems kind of a cheap way to make bosses hard to just remove the toys players have and say nah spells x,y and z won´t work here just because.

[driller]

What spells currently aren't working that you want to work? Please be specific.

I would prefer a variety of difficulties on bosses so you can go after the ones that suit your temperment and the party available. With all the new bosses added i seems to me the old could have been left as is and new things added to the new ones.

I do agree with the sentiment that increased risk should yield increased reward. Im probably just in the camp that feels that only very few bosses should require long drawn out fights with a big and good group.

Lets for arguments sake say boss x requires 6-8 people in a very specific setup and an hour game time to kill for a 5% chance at a good drop. Is this fun? Does the server have the player base to support this?

Compare to a boss that takes 20 minutes to kill (still a long fight imho) and can be done with 4 imperfect toons or 3 near perfect ones. Personally I would much prefer the latter but diversity in bosses is still good.

I might be a minority and most would prefer the former.

It also seems kind of a cheap way to make bosses hard to just remove the toys players have and say nah spells x,y and z won´t work here just because.

[driller]

This is why I nerfed the Dragons in The Lost City, to have something that is doable for less optimal parties.

There are two easy bosses that are basically loot bags - the dragon and Aildrek. Keep those are they are IMO.

[Yunim]

As I said I haven't fully tested the run, just the first stretch, but as long as new players are still able to join experienced players on boss runs I'm okay with the changes. Although my opinion might change after actually attempting the run.

I just finished the Witch run with a party of 1 healer, 2 dps, 2 tanks. The difficulty hasn't really changed so I'm fine with the changes. If you approach the run the same way as usual you will be in trouble, but we didn't come close to a wipe on our run.

[Sway]

Witch was still was very easy. No change as far as difficulty, could use more if we're being honest.