Ancient Guardian needs a rework

[Szczuku]

So I thought I'd make this thread, given what's going on in the newest update's thread.

Alright so let's talk AG...

Klei, I know you guys are tired after last year's RwyS update and you don't want to refresh any old content yet. You'd rather call a business arrangement with Terraria devs 'new and exciting', I get it.

But I mean, come on, a big flesh rook? That's appropriately outdated considering he was designed by your singleplayer team in 2013. The poor fella never got any animated apperance or an artwork. It took you like 2 years to give him a figure sketch and an ornament.

If there is some sort of lore reason for him to be a flesh rook (but let's be honest, you guys probably forgot AG is part of the ruins anyway) then at least redesign him to be a mutated one. Then at least Maxwell's quote about nightmare fuel changing the Guardian would make some sense.

Gameplay wise.... I mean, he's a stronger rook. That's it. And he sometimes spawns in an arena that's designed to cheese him. Obviously that needs to be thrown out the window and replaced with something new. Maybe give him some sort of skillshot. Maybe from his horn, now Shootius makes more sense and players will no longer be able to stay still behind a pillar. Idk, I just don't want bring up a problem without at least trying to make a solution

What would yall want from Ancient Guardian if he was to be reworked? 

[minespatch]

1 minute ago, Szczuku said:

What would yall want from Ancient Guardian if he was to be reworked? 

If AG were to get a rework, it should be hand in hand with Rock Lobsters. I'd like lore on both and since they're cave dwelling creatures, it'd work. Not exactly be combined but a cave fauna rework?

[1bubbainpa]

AG should be able to charge into pillars and cause an earthquake to happen

[Yuuko]

While we're at it - so ez to cheese poison birtchnut with weather pain.  Needs to have 10,000 health, shoot lasers, and be immune to tornadoes /s

[Spino43]

14 minutes ago, minespatch said:

If AG were to get a rework, it should be hand in hand with Rock Lobsters. I'd like lore on both and since they're cave dwelling creatures, it'd work. Not exactly be combined but a cave fauna rework?

I doubt Klei even remembers the Rock Lobsters anymore.

[minespatch]

2 minutes ago, Spino43 said:

I doubt Klei even remembers the Rock Lobsters anymore.

I do. 

[Mike23Ua]

Since it’s technically not really a boss, and is instead more of a key you need to get to *Gasp* Yet another Boss.. (really getting sick of that design philosophy by the way.)

I can careless if they Update AG or not, Maybe even Downgrade it to a “Mini-Boss” instead of being an Actual boss.. His entire existence is literally kill, get key, summon other boss.

I wish instead Klei would focus more time and attention into desperately ridding the game of familiarity and predictability.. as in: For a game with a bunch of crazy RNG loot drop % chances, Rather or not Cookie cutters drops a shell when they’re killed shouldn’t be the ONLY random thing in the game.

I want to chop tree’s in familiar biomes and have hostile snakes or scorpions or even just mildly annoying Piko fall out of them unexpectedly, I want to start mining a rock and all of a sudden that rock breaks apart and starts attacking me as some weird pebble crab moon hybrid thing.. (similar to the annoying bugs from Hamlet) I want to pluck kelp fonds out at sea and them have a chance to be actual kelp or a some Seakelp monster in disguise. 

that’s the kind of content that would appeal to me- Boss fights are just scripted encounters that once you’ve done them ONCE you’ve pretty much done them & theres no amount of reworking boss fights that can really change that.

Disclaimer: Hey umm I don’t mean to derail your thread because that’s certainly not my intentions all I’m trying to say is: If it came down to two choices and we could pick Re-hauling Ancient Guardians boss fight or getting common mobs that will sometimes randomly pop up from the resources we pluck, chop or mine.. I’m picking the second choice obviously.

[BezKa]

Not to be off topic, but your tone is awful. Try not to be rude when you're addressing an actually important issue, would you? 

[Milordo]

2 hours ago, Spino43 said:

I doubt Klei even remembers the Rock Lobsters anymore.

This, more of this. Don't starve really needs a health operation in all the base game. 

2 hours ago, Szczuku said:

 

What would yall want from Ancient Guardian if he was to be reworked? 

The uncompromising mod did some neat ideas that i like. Then instead removing the old habit of players to stay behind some structure, they could do a neat game design idea! Using the pillars or some graves not for cheesing him, obviously you can't cheese anymore, but to protect you against a special attack, like a range one. It would be cool and incentivize  to use the arena more!

55 minutes ago, BezKa said:

Not to be off topic, but your tone is awful. Try not to be rude when you're addressing an actually important issue, would you? 

In what part the tone is awful? It seems normal for me the post

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

While we're at it - so ez to cheese poison birtchnut with weather pain.  Needs to have 10,000 health, shoot lasers, and be immune to tornadoes /s

Are you against AG having a good desing? Birchnut trees has one of the coolest desings and fight, being 1 shotted by WP is just how chopping works

[W0l0l0]

3 hours ago, Spino43 said:

I doubt Klei even remembers the Rock Lobsters anymore.

Don't worry; rock lobsters are almost always on Klei's mind whenever they design a boss to make sure that they're completely ineffective.

[DrMcGillacactus]

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

If there is some sort of lore reason for him to be a flesh rook

I always thought of rooks as a mechanized replica of the AG

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

I think if they were to rework they should just totally redesign AG from the ground up. As important of a boss as he is, and being an ancient guardian and all, I feel like he deserves more than being a big rook. I guess they’d need to keep the horn intact, or change the recipe of houndious, but they could probably play into some kind of semi-mechanized flesh hybrid mixed in with a bit of nightmare fuel (if lorewise the ancients were capable of this sort of thing). I wouldn’t think he has to be the most mechanically complex, but at the least don’t just make him a giant with extra steps.

[MondayNight]

I presume Forge and Gorge are cannon, hence I believe most people forget these 2 chaps:

To me, they're obvious candidates for how AG looked like before his NF mutation in Ruins. They would fit the part of some sentient rhino-looking being capable to be a tasked guardian and protect Ancient Key; plus Maxwell's friend long-time ago, as per his quote. And, if a rework of AG attack pattern would come, once more, would be good (and canon) to base it in part on Forge's Rhino Bros fight, with appropriate modifications to fit AG's current mutated form and Labyrinth environment.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

29 minutes ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

I presume Forge and Gorge are cannon, hence I believe most people forget these 2 chaps:

To me, they're obvious candidates for how AG looked like before his NF mutation in Ruins. They would fit the part of some sentient rhino-looking being capable to be a tasked guardian and protect Ancient Key; plus Maxwell's friend long-time ago, as per his quote. And, if a rework of AG attack pattern would come, once more, would be good (and canon) to base it in part on Forge's Rhino Bros fight, with appropriate modifications to fit AG's current mutated form and Labyrinth environment.

everything but not this

[Baark0]

8 hours ago, Szczuku said:

You'd rather call a business arrangement with Terraria devs 'new and exciting', I get it.

wait what i dont get it lmao

[MondayNight]

41 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

everything but not this

That twine (twine is it called?) pose makes me feel visual pain

[deemo_]

7 minutes ago, Baark0 said:

wait what i dont get it lmao

I don’t know the ins and outs of it but people are speculating a Terraria x DST crossover after a lot of evidence has pointed towards it. It’s something they’ve never really done before hence the “new and exciting”.

[Warpspeed10]

After what we saw with the experimental combat mechanics of The Forge, many of the bosses in the game should see some love. The most fun I had was fighting both the scorpions and the Grand Forge Borrior. I loved having to use my positioning to avoid damage.

[Flip Face]

I think changing your appearance would be something very radical.

It should have more animations, interactions with the world/Attacks.

Look at the size of the creature's mouth. He could use that big chest to attack you somehow, then he would swallow it back. Who knows how many things he could get out of that chest before he died.

[Yuuko]

7 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

Are you against AG having a good desing? Birchnut trees has one of the coolest desings and fight, being 1 shotted by WP is just how chopping works

Clipping on geometry is how the game works.

I'm not against an AG rework - but I feel the biggest reason ppl want this rework is because they hate how easy it is to lock him up on terrain and they hate that other people do these things while "we pro legit players" blah blah blah.

Yes the AG could use a rework and some fresh mechanics - but priority level?  I'd put it at a 2/10.  The boss really isn't that special.  We've got plenty of other epic boss fights with a lot of cool things to do, the AG is basically a check point most people aim to complete in the first week of the game.  Its basically a supped up tree guard...

2 hours ago, Warpspeed10 said:

After what we saw with the experimental combat mechanics of The Forge, many of the bosses in the game should see some love. The most fun I had was fighting both the scorpions and the Grand Forge Borrior. I loved having to use my positioning to avoid damage.

Keep in the mind the forge was a very small world, with a lot more control over how things happened then our open world map.  Not everything in the forge can translate over.  The forge was also a combat simulator, not a sandbox game - so while there were some fun things there, they could warp what DST is.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

3 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

'm not against an AG rework - but I feel the biggest reason ppl want this rework is because they hate how easy it is to lock him up on terrain and they hate that other people do these things while "we pro legit players" blah blah blah.

i dont care, i care fighting a giant rook (like we never fight rooks) with a desing way less cool than the rest of the bosses that has clonky animations everytime i want to reset the ruins

people can cheese FW with a hondius and you wont see me complaining

[LinknAllie]

11 hours ago, minespatch said:

If AG were to get a rework, it should be hand in hand with Rock Lobsters. I'd like lore on both and since they're cave dwelling creatures, it'd work. Not exactly be combined but a cave fauna rework?

Especially since when Maxwell examines the lobsters he says "I banished these guys for a reason"

[Maxil20]

11 hours ago, Szczuku said:

What would yall want from Ancient Guardian if he was to be reworked? 

The chest the guardian drops when it dies.

The chest is as random as it gets. You can luck out and get thulecite gear, a lazy explorer, some green gems, and 3-4 other helpful things. On the other hand, your luck can be exactly the opposite and get thulecite fragments, some red gems, and a 100% telelocator staff.

I always wish the drops were similar to quackens, as I feel like it was the best boss who dropped chest loot. Even at the worst side of the spectrum, you always got a thulecite crown, some form of body armor, and a few other misc, (but helpful!) things. The guardian being reworked to always guarantee you get something like ruins gems, either a star caller or lazy explorer, 1-2 pieces of thulecite gear, thulecite itself, and a few other misc things (like pick/axe or nightmare fuel( would make the chest feel much more rewarding, rather then a gamble to see if you got lucky or not.

[HowlVoid]

My problems with AG

His loot- Very Rng, you can get some nice stuff or 2 nightmare fuel, a purple gem and 3 thelucite. I haven't gotten a lazy explorer in forever.

His Health pool- Very bloated for what the fight is right now.

His attack pattern- To be fair, most bosses don't have very complex attacks. His bloated health pool and hard to punish attack pattern just makes the battle far more repetitive than it needs to be. 

I think that when they made DS multiplayer they wanted to make him a raid boss (given that there was only 1 at the time). They just kinda forgot about him. AG is Crabking V.1.