Sorry klei but crab king isn't very fun

[reallychina]

15 hours ago, ADM said:

My actual only issues I have during that fight are control and gameplay on boat which can turn out chaotic when you want to repair
(ex : you cannot repair boat health when hovering an area with boat patches, the hovering of leaks can be very small sometimes, there should be right click repair and patching actions)... 

This would be the biggest issue with the fight. Mechanically it is so annoying, difficult to repair and so random. In SW you could use the boat repair kit from the inventory, here you have to do all these actions and click that one tiny 1 pixel leak, and if you don't, gg, you dropped your whole batch of patches. And then you want to pick them up but since you dropped them so close to the leak, you now get the prompt to examine the leak. You may click space to pickup but maybe theres some other thing on that boat, like a meat from a claw, and you pick that one up instead.

Boat repair mechanics are a hot mess. Both patches and boards or logs or whatever should be right click (or shortcut) to repair. Some admin reacted to my suggestion a while ago but nothing came out of it.

[00petar00]

I quite like crab king fight, especially since it is so unique that you don't get attacked directly and i don't think that it should be made easier because people that don't play on PC complain that it is hard to solo on console. I haven't ever played DST on console but it probably isn't that much harder compared to pc, if you have killed him a few times/practiced.

I don't see why you need to move the boat during the fight, use ice staffs and weather pains, stand in one spot and just move back and forth on your boat when crab king uses freezing attack, it's pretty simple.

[ADM]

3 minutes ago, reallychina said:

This would be the biggest issue with the fight. Mechanically it is so annoying, difficult to repair and so random. In SW you could use the boat repair kit from the inventory, here you have to do all these actions and click that one tiny leak, and if you don't, gg, you dropped your whole batch of patches. And then you want to pick them up but since you dropped them so close to the leak, you now get the prompt to examine the leak. You may click space to pickup but maybe theres some other thing on that boat, like a meat from a claw, and you pick that one up instead.

Absolutely, one time, I just wanted to repair that tiny little bastard of a leak and I literally dropped 6 TIMES IN A ROW the stack of patches, better drop the whole fight while I'm at it ! xD

[SmallBirdHungry]

15 hours ago, Faintly Macabre said:

There has to be some way to reward group play without making solo play such a slog

Make boss health depend on number of players?

9 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

like using morning star, cheese, followers, gun powder, etc

Yes this is true, but using gunpowder and/or cheesing the boss really doesn't actually feel rewarding. It doesn't feel like you've triumphed over a monster 10x your size, but more like you exploited a mechanic in the game to instantly kill or neutralize it.

9 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

probably isn't that much harder compared to pc

Well Idk about everyone else but it seems like all console players I've spoken with so far say that the game is in general really laggy on console, so kiting and doing anything quickly (Like using an ice staff in time to do anything helpful at all) is nearly impossible. At the worst of times, you just can't move, and that's in a solo world with online disabled. 

I think it is a very cool idea that he doesn't actually attack you and rather your boat, but as some people have said on this thread, if you've built too much on your boat repairing it becomes extremely tedious as well.

I also play on PC and even when it isn't laggy it just doesn't seem like it would be fun to fight, even using your strategy. Standing on a boat and occasionally using an ice staff and moving back and forth isn't my idea of a fun, engaging fight.

But that's just my opinion based on my experience, and I respect your opinion too.

[00petar00]

36 minutes ago, SmallBirdHungry said:

Well Idk about everyone else but it seems like all console players I've spoken with so far say that the game is in general really laggy on console, so kiting and doing anything quickly (Like using an ice staff in time to do anything helpful at all) is nearly impossible. At the worst of times, you just can't move, and that's in a solo world with online disabled. 

If it lags for console player even if they play solo, at that point that game is unplayable on that console, its not DST problem or the difficulty.

36 minutes ago, SmallBirdHungry said:

I think it is a very cool idea that he doesn't actually attack you and rather your boat, but as some people have said on this thread, if you've built too much on your boat repairing it becomes extremely tedious as well.

You can just place an empty boat and put your boat close by out of the range of crab king's attacks, fighting like this is better because you don't risk your fully set up boat.

 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

9 minutes ago, SmallBirdHungry said:

Yes this is true, but using gunpowder and/or cheesing the boss really doesn't actually feel rewarding. It doesn't feel like you've triumphed over a monster 10x your size, but more like you exploited a mechanic in the game to instantly kill or neutralize it.

neither fighting iron hulk, pugalisk, quacken and company

the game offers many ways to reduce boss hp or to increase character damage when the player thinks that the boss has a lot of hp

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, SmallBirdHungry said:

Make boss health depend on number of players?

If you pick Wolfgang you have the damage of 2 people. No need for scaling.

[SmallBirdHungry]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

Wolfgang

Shhhh keep it down. If you mention a positive part of wolfgang you might get hunted down.

2 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

at that point that game is unplayable on that console

*near unplayable, works fine at rare times for a brief period of time,.

[PetulantPansy]

I'll point out a few things:

- crab king isn't an easy fight to do solo. I'm going to sound like a broken record but DST isn't a game that was built for solo playthroughs. You certainly can play solo if that's what floats your boat but the difficulty level isn't built for solo play. Doing CK with a team or 2 or 3 people is fairly easy. You can make the boss fight as interesting as you want but if you think about a lot of the boss fights (dragonfly, bee queen, toad stool, [and crab king], eye of terror, you *can* fight them all by just straight tanking. In this way, crab king is no different. 

- my problem with crab king is that there is no good reason to fight him. Heck, I don't even see many good reasons to even bother finding him unless I want to do the celestial champion quest line. I know ocean content has come a long way from where we were before but I only see 1. lunar island/CC 2. pearl quests [again exclusively for CC], 3. crab king [for CC] and 4. waterlogged for some big trees. I know sailing is fun (until your boat breaks) but if you don't do the CC quest line, you would probably raid lunar island 1 time for goodies, go to pearl 1 time for a winch, and go to waterlogged once or twice for tree nuts. There's just no reason to go sailing, less fight crab king. [edit: oops I forgot salt boxes, but those are 1 or 2 time tasks too]

- i would note that Klei floated the idea of reworking/refreshing ocean content at a later day so keep the ideas coming. They might even take some notes from here for an actual broad ocean update if you have any good to share

[EighteenXVIII]

I've been attempting this fight for the past 3 hours. Even with Webber's Sea Striders I can't beat the Crab King. First having to sail around tediously to find the great tree biome. Then slowly ramming into trees, trying to tame the Sea Striders that run off everywhere and then walk back into their nest with no chance to tame them. Then slowly sail back to land, run all the way to another boat to Crab King. Then the first attempt you don't realize you need a Star Caller's Staff to stop him from perma-freezing your spiders, because apparently that's a thing he does. Then you get caught by a Geyser because your oar runs out and you can't even craft another one and row away in time for the second attack, so you get oneshot. Nice.

When I rollback, all my spiders are gone because that's how Webber works. Time to spend 20 minutes grabbing new spiders and rowing back to Crab King.

This time fully prepared, or so I thought. I summoned my dwarf stars, sent my spiders to attack and barely survived a full hit from his geyser with 25 boat patches, because rowing is garbage and Crab King is busted. My boat was literally held together by duct tape. Fortunately I have to do nothing at this point, because I'm out of his geyser range and my spiders can do the rest. However, I see that his HP keeps recovering back to full. Not enough spiders to stunlock him and cancel his heals apparently, even though I had like 15 of them. Nice design man, just nice.

He just has too much stuff going on. Even cheesing him is tedious. Having a boat filled with Sea Striders makes it so difficult to recruit more than 15 from the biome as well because you can't properly manoeuver around the tree roots, constantly have to repair your boat, the spiders run everywhere, it's ridiculous. So I looked up how to make more, surely the switcherdoodle recipe just asks for Kelp, right? Nope. Figs. It wants Figs. That fruit that you get one of per vine that you tediously harvest in the great tree biome. And it wants TWO per sea strider. Okay, how do I get figs faster? Ah, you can just plant more trees! And what do they need? Oh. Fig jelly. Four per tree. which you need to tediously harvest one from underwater per day, drop it next to your coast, try not to crash into your previous trees while doing so, tediously slather it with jelly in four day intervals for 16 days, and then eventually you can get figs slightly faster.

I'm just gonna look up the code name for the celestial tribute at this point, I did enough. Get rid of his healing and maybe I'll try fighting him again (yeah don't count on it). This is the second worst boss design I've seen, after the Elizabeth Greene fight in Prototype.

[PetulantPansy]

Again this fight is pretty difficult solo. Like all other boss fights, you can always sail away/patch up your boat and retry.

As an fyi, sea striders aren't good spiders for combat. Go to the caves and get spitters. 

Also if you want to cheese, use some starcallers and collect 70 or 80 killer bees and drop them on him immediately after you start the fight. Just know that you'll have to kill all the leftover bees. 

[EighteenXVIII]

I actually took it out, ended up going back and bundle wrapping 32 sea striders.  You do need to tame them again, but it's enough spiders to stop his healing.

It's just dumb that you either have to cheese him with some tedious setup or be absolutely godlike at the game and make zero errors.

[Mike23Ua]

I have to seriously wonder if this fight would be easier/more fun if the player could recruit Pigmen/Merm A.I. to man the masts steer the boat etc and avoid the enemy attacks while the human player just focuses on the fight itself?

of course something like that would need to have highly intelligent computer A.I.. but I still would at least like to see someone put it to the actual test in a mod or something.

I have the feeling it would make the CrabKing fight a little more manageable, but proof can only be obtained when it’s put to test.

[twitchgabo]

I have never beaten the Crab King without the killer bees strategy because it is really very boring as you said.

However, my expectations now are really high with future updates, the reworked AC fight is AMAZING!

[Maxil20]

My main issue with CK is the fact there is almost Zero reason to fight it again. Most other bosses in the game has one reason or another to keep fighting it:

-DFly drops every gem, and ruins gems from it are especially valuable for a consistent source that doesn’t involve regenerating the ruins.

-Bee Queen drops honeycomb, a valuable resource for bundle wraps/beeboxes (and waxing crops if that’s your fancy), and a bee queen crown that can be constructed for substantially more honeycomb than normal.

-Klaus drops 4 wax paper and various loot from any other boss.

-Ancient guardian drops a substantial amount of ruins-tier loot and a horn to craft houndius for endgame farms.

-Ancient fuelweaver gives a full on ruins regen with respawning just about Anything you would care about harvesting from the ruins.

-The celestial champion drop can be deconstructed for enlightened crown shards for megabases (I’m still not really a fan of how little you get for that point in the game, but it is still a reason to consistently fight it).

The exception to this rule is toadstool, since once you get their napsack you realistically don’t need to fight it again. It can still be worthwhile if you do if you want extra shroom skin for lights and don’t have green gems, but it’s not required .

Crab king, in comparison, drops:

-Shells, which can be farmed from Pearl both from completing tasks and doing the shell trade.

-Strident trident blueprint/sketch, which you only need one per player (and the former can be gotten from klaus, albeit at a rare chance).

-The celestial tribute, which you can only get once (and you only need one throughout the world).

… and that’s essentially it. If you do the pearl CK as the first kill, you will never do the fight again unless someone else really wants the strident blueprint or sketch. The only exception to this is farming the adornments it has in winters feast, since it has 2 unique ones to get.

I feel it dropping exclusive resources that are not renewable would help a lot, especially ones like anenemies that are very valuable and cannot be renewed at the moment. That way you would at least be motivated to fight it more then once, and the fight without a Pearl is not exceedingly difficult solo (it’s still not ideal, but it’s not Impossible to achieve.)

[SmallBirdHungry]

3 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

especially ones like anenemies that are very valuable and cannot be renewed

Yes, that could be a neat way to make them renewable, like he could drop some eggs or whatever that you plant and they grow into some. Also refighting toadstool is worth it for shroom skin if you play solo and decide a 99,999 health enemy isn't worth it for a cheaper way to farm shroom skin.

On 5/19/2022 at 11:17 AM, PetulantPansy said:

You certainly can play solo if that's what floats your boat but the difficulty level isn't built for solo play. Doing CK with a team or 2 or 3 people is fairly easy.

Yes, it was designed for ,multiplayer, but considering the single player version has like a third as much content (In the base game) there's no reason to play the single player game. One thing they can do that would fix all these issues is they can make boss health scale to number of players. I've seen games with like 10 people easily beat bee queen and dragonfly on like day 12, but if you are playing solo it's completely rigged in any fight with minions or healing.

They really should stop considering this a multiplayer version of DS, considering it has so much more content playing DS after DST is ridiculous. Every thing I try to do is just, Oh, that's not in this mode. Oh gardening is still using this bad system. Oh Klaus isn't even a thing?

The single player game has no challenge compared to DST, lacking pretty much every hard fight. The only reason I see to play the solo game is hamlet and shipwrecked, which is okay, it's good there is a reason to play them.

 

Overall, Please at least make it a world setting to make boss HP scale to player amount, that way people can have it off if they like the default experience, or for solo players it can be made fairer.

[themightyone]

It truly is an awful boss fight especially playing on consoles. The only good thing is doing it once is enough per world imo.

I did the bee method but even that was a slog on ps4. 

[Well-met]

since klei remade boat physics recently, crab king is nowhere as bad as before