Changes to the Ancient Fuelweaver

[ADM]

I'm posting this in the beta branch topics because recent changes and future plans are putting the Ancient Fuelweaver's state back on the menu. This is a boss we either love or fear, sometimes both, but it leaves nobody unchanged. Such hardly battles will often result in players looking out for exploits more effortfully in order to skip this part. That can be because the task is way over them or because they couldn't care less occasionally and we make other reasons.

I share a certain common or not distaste regarding exploits or general faulty behaviors of a game and it would best to not assume this is because I'm against anyone's best interest. Although I will keep these reasons for myself, either you know me, or you won't care.

Still, assuming more and more players will have to pass through the Fuelweaver fair and square, because an exploit is getting fixed or they want to get a move on... it might feel a bit unfair to some and I can understandably get behind that because this isn't a typical combat and it shouldn't be. It barely ever changed since release except for a couple bug fixes such as the avoidable bone cages on the edge which was major back then. Maybe it's time to rewrite a bit the fight, the various mechanisms surrounding it so it's better understood and dealt with. I won't do all the work so do participate but I packed a few things I think would make for a good start.

 

The Arena

The Gate place is very claustrophobic. This is fantastic to shape the fight but the area is also a little cluttered with things that could cause less of an hassle working around than they do :

• We should be able to mine the Ancient Statues and Murals too, naturally they could also be demolished if the FW walk over them, And perhaps they could respawn from the cycle reset.
   
• The pillars should have a thicker placing blocker or a smaller collision box because currently it's possible to place structures very close yet be unable to interact with them (ex: Chest, Icebox).

 

Insanity / Shadow Creatures

Bear with me on this one because this is close to a sanity rework at the start but this has specifically good applications for the FW battle :

• Shadow aggro should be revisited so that neither parts can attack each others outside of insanity.
   
  • The part where players can't attack hostile shadows they can't see is an actual plan from devs (which was made effective only for a short time years ago) as shown in this comment :

    --V2C: The above version is the correct design; we should never have
    			--     allowed targeting invisible entities.
    			--     TODO: Add/improve items for revealing shadow creatures so we
    			--           can switch to that version.

  • Let's make this happen, with the considered tweaks to still allow for altruistic plays in the following bigger points.
     
  • But I consider it would be fair if shadows also immediately ceased to attack after breaching out of insanity. Other players would best help their friends gain sanity than fight what they can't see.
     
  • As a side effect, these changes would allow for much easier target picking while using controls for attacking in teams. I can't even imagine how much of a relief this would be for controller players too.
     
• The Nightmare Amulet cost should be reduced. This is the only amulet to cost two gems for some reason.
   
  • For players that have less management skills over their inventory and struggle to move across the Atrium, it happens that they need more than one amulet for an in and out of the combat, that's a little rough on them so the durability might need an increase.
     
  • With a lower cost, maybe on gold too, it might be more useful for early game fuel farming outside of this fight too.
     
• The Night Light should be made useful to compensate the change to shadows. A few options but maybe not all of them :
   
  • Any shadows should become hostile and / or visible in range when lit based on the fuel for the radius. But it won't spawn any by itself. So it would be best effective near the gate and keep the FW clear from it.
     
  • Neutral Thermal Stones could be "heated" into a nightmare state that allows the targeting of any shadow without occupying a specific equipslot.
     
  • It could behave like a Thurible and ward off Bone Cages. Maybe it would loose fuel faster when doing so.
     
• Killing Unseen Hands should give sanity like other insanity shadows.
   
  • In multiplayer, if anyone participating has a struggle, many shadows will lash on them or the poor souls who have to clear the shield, this tend to get ridiculous at times when there are 6 shadows ever attacking a single person with full sanity and won't go.
     
  • The fight can cost an unfashionable amount of sanity regen food. You can never go wrong by bringing a lot or more prompt equipments (BQ Crowns) but a minor source of sanity in this battle could be salvation for ever so slightly unorganized players.

 

The Ancient Fuelweaver itself

This boss is unmatched in the art of catching people off-guard because of the many moves the phase 2 reserves.
The prior suggestion bits were to allow for an easier pacing of the action by being less subject to attack the wrong enemies and the ability to spend less on consumables for sanity regen and shadow visibility.

Now what remains is the boss capacities itself and not the byproducts of its presence. And I don't have too much to say but I count on you to give feedback from your personal FW experience (with maybe a look back at when you first discovered it), or regarding what I brought up so far.

There's about one thing I'm usually told and felt when I was still playing a bit of solo. If I sum it all up it's that this boss has practically no breathing room. If the player can't respond to a single of the Fuelweaver abilities because they're low or ran out of any of the tool they had for it (Mind Control, Bone Cage, Shield or Woven Shadows...), chances are this will keep on snowballing to a certain loss.

I don't necessarily dislike this, but if we want to make this important boss more approachable especially for struggling solo players, then we could see some abilities to be tweaked. Maybe it's reducing its healing capacity or cooldown. But I hope it will still remain a fun challenge in teams or alone.

Edited March 20 by ADM

[grm9]

i don't see the need for changes, you get 20 seconds to deal damage to FW inbetween woven shadiws and unseen hands summons if you sync them by killing the last unseen hand only when you're ready and around the time when most woven shadows are dead, that's plenty even when playing solo, i wouldn't want to get sanity from killing unseen hands because that could make you sane before you kill all unseen hands, all these are unnecessary simplifications, i don't mind night light doing something because i can not use it if i want the fight to be harder but it wouldn't be possible to avoid sanity increases from unseen hands, i see no need for making everything in the arena breakable because it's very easy to avoid everything there

Edited March 20 by grm9

[Cassielu]

To be honesty, lureplant change wouldn't impact AFW too much as people might first think. Those players who really understand how lureplant cheese work will naturally know how to cheese in many other ways, while those who don't understand how it work, learning other way makes no difference to them, just following the video anyway.

 

4 hours ago, ADM said:

The Ancient Fuelweaver itself

I think the best way to do this is connect Weavon Shadow and Shield (and mind control maybe, because they are all p2 skill). When one skill start the 20 seconds colddown  if the colddown of other skill is less than X seconds, then reset it to X seconds. 

It‘s similar to how skilled players create fully 20s gap time by controlling when they solve these two skills. Creates a stable minimum guarantee gap time for players who are not good at this, allowing them relax from switching equipment solve AFW's skills and deal damage to him.

More skilled players can still increase this gap time to maximum 20s the old-fashioned way.

 

Edit: 20s

Edited March 20 by Cassielu

[grm9]

41 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

30 seconds

20

41 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

if the colddown of other skill is less than X seconds, then reset it to X seconds

might be pretty bad because it'd make fighting him with less preparation a lot more forgiving because you'd pretty much always do a 2 cycle as wolfgang and 3-4 cycle as wilson even if you manage everything except keeping woven shadows away badly

Edited March 20 by grm9

[Captain_Rage]

The player will now officially have to throw Water Balloons and Meat Bulbs at the boss to defeat it.

[BalkanCockroach]

3 hours ago, ADM said:

Shadow aggro should be revisited so that neither parts can attack each others outside of insanity.

Honestly this happens so much i have no idea why this still isn't a thing.

[Juanasdf]

3 hours ago, grm9 said:

i don't see the need for changes, you get 20 seconds to deal damage to FW inbetween woven shadiws and unseen hands summons if you sync them

"If you sync them". I don't think any other bossfights have such a CRUCIAL requirement for the fight to feel good, and this is not indicated anywhere in the game. Unlike Toadstool where at least you have a visual representation of mushtrees giving him more power.

Cassielu's suggestion about synching both attack cooldowns was going to be my suggestion. Yes, it makes the fight always take x amount of phases as y given character, but why is that a problem? If you missed killing weaving shadows AFW will heal and you'll have to do one/two more phases.

Again, besides the pain that inventory management can be, synching the shadows and the hand's cooldown is, to me, the best way to make the fight more accessible to players.

Changing shadow aggro too obviously, because it feels awful to unequip shadow amulet and still get attacked.

Edited March 20 by Juanasdf

[IAmAFurrz]

3 hours ago, grm9 said:

you get 20 seconds to deal damage to FW inbetween woven shadiws and unseen hands summons if you sync them by killing the last unseen hand only when you're ready and around the time when most woven shadows are dead, that's plenty even when playing solo

syncing them up isnt as easy as they always say, with how big the boss is and how **** usually gets blocked by the stupid arena pillars/statues/murals along with the annoying portal being in the way most of the damn time, it even affects weather pains hurricanes tragetory for some reason

3 hours ago, grm9 said:

i wouldn't want to get sanity from killing unseen hands because that could make you sane before you kill all unseen hands, all these are unnecessary simplifications

most people dont ever speedrun this boss without nm amulet, and if you get sanity from those you will still be insane with the amulet on, thatd be great help and makes sense

3 hours ago, grm9 said:

i see no need for making everything in the arena breakable because it's very easy to avoid everything there

**** blocks view a lot around the arena, it gets annoying when youre fighting the arena itself instead of the nm creatures + the boss

9 minutes ago, Juanasdf said:

Changing shadow aggro too obviously, because it feels awful to unequip shadow amulet and still get attacked.

rng in this game usually doesnt piss me tf off but this **** is obnoxious and actually affects the fight so much its unbelievable

[grm9]

6 minutes ago, Juanasdf said:

Yes, it makes the fight always take x amount of phases as y given character, but why is that a problem?

because there'd be much less risk and you wouldn't get punished for messing up as much

6 minutes ago, Juanasdf said:

I don't think any other bossfights have such a CRUCIAL requirement for the fight to feel good

you can still ignore him summoning woven shadows before unseen hands by using weather pain every 5 seconds until all of them die which is what most people do, it only messes the fight up if you don't know that they have separate cds and kill unseen hands before woven shadows or aren't using AoE for woven shadows

9 minutes ago, Juanasdf said:

this is not indicated anywhere in the game

a lot of things aren't, you're supposed to experiment, it isn't as absurd as figuring out that you should summon FW in atrium which was also somewhat obvious back when the update got added ig because his head and heart were on the poster about the update during which they added atrium, it's just that people that came after that won't see it unless they randomly decide to look for it on the wiki

11 minutes ago, Juanasdf said:

Again, besides the pain that inventory management can be, synching the shadows and the hand's cooldown is, to me, the best way to make the fight more accessible to players

it'd also make it much simpler and more boring

3 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

syncing them up isnt as easy as they always say, with how big the boss is and how **** usually gets blocked by the stupid arena pillars/statues/murals along with the annoying portal being in the way most of the damn time, it even affects weather pains hurricanes tragetory for some reason

i've never had issues with stuff in the arena except pathfinding around the ancient gateway and gate not letting weather pain projectile reach FW and yes syncing isn't supposed to be easy because if it'd be easy it'd be boring

5 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

most people dont ever speedrun this boss without nm amulet, and if you get sanity from those you will still be insane with the amulet on, thatd be great help and makes sense

it would still suck to remove a fun strat considering you could skip prestihatitator and shadow manipulator even if you aren't speedrunning, you can get jelly salad or veggie dishes or something if you also got shadow manipulator

7 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

**** blocks view a lot around the arena, it gets annoying when youre fighting the arena itself instead of the nm creatures + the boss

pillars would still probably remain unbreakable and you can see FW easily even if he's behind a statue because you can rotate the camera and he's big and always walks to you if you aren't in range and he can't cast anything

[IAmAFurrz]

37 minutes ago, grm9 said:

it'd also make it much simpler and more boring

simpler doesnt mean boring, it means its more explained and not locked behind you either spending hours on end dying to the boss still not being able to understand timers, or watching a guide 

 

38 minutes ago, grm9 said:

it would still suck to remove a fun strat considering you could skip prestihatitator and shadow manipulator even if you aren't speedrunning, you can get jelly salad or veggie dishes or something if you also got shadow manipulator

if you want to not have nm amulet, you can bring green caps, thats not so far fetched considering youre suggesting jelly salad/farming, thatd take longer than a nm amulet

 

40 minutes ago, grm9 said:

pillars would still probably remain unbreakable and you can see FW easily even if he's behind a statue because you can rotate the camera and he's big and always walks to you if you aren't in range and he can't cast anything

im not asking for pillars to be breakable, it wouldnt make sense how the ground above it will still be supported, im asking for statues and murals to be breakable. and with 'seeing fw easily' yea, the boss is gigantic, hes part of why killing wovens without weather pain/wigfrid spear charge is god awful even if i wanted to try that strat. its more effort than its worth bc he blocks and i'd have to turn the camera constantly for ONE of them to not reach him 

[Tyuriee]

3 hours ago, Cassielu said:

Those players who really understand how lureplant cheese work will naturally know how to cheese in many other ways, while those who don't understand how it work, learning other way makes no difference to them, just following the video anyway.

 

To be honest, there is nothing a player like this can do, you know.

[grm9]

17 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

simpler doesnt mean boring, it means its more explained and not locked behind you either spending hours on end dying to the boss still not being able to understand timers, or watching a guide

it's fun to figure out how a boss works

17 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

if you want to not have nm amulet, you can bring green caps

you need to stay above 10% sanity to have 1 crawling horror at most instead of 2 terrorbeaks at most so if you eat 1 after your sanity gets set to 40 because of killing an unseen hand you'll need to either eat 2-3 more cooked shrooms or cope with a chance to get 2 terrorbeaks

24 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

im not asking for pillars to be breakable, it wouldnt make sense how the ground above it will still be supported, im asking for statues and murals to be breakable. and with 'seeing fw easily' yea, the boss is gigantic, hes part of why killing wovens without weather pain/wigfrid spear charge is god awful even if i wanted to try that strat. its more effort than its worth bc he blocks and i'd have to turn the camera constantly for ONE of them to not reach him 

you're supposed to walk around the edges of the arena to lure FW away from woven shadows since they spawn on the white floor around the ancient gateway and not at the edges so they'll all be coming from 1 direction and you won't need to constantly turn the camera around, at least try it first

[Cassielu]

3 hours ago, grm9 said:

might be pretty bad because it'd make fighting him with less preparation a lot more forgiving because you'd pretty much always do a 2 cycle as wolfgang and 3-4 cycle as wilson even if you manage everything except keeping woven shadows away badly

Well, when we talk about making the battle more accessible to more people it definitely makes the boss more forgivness.

Just in case there is any misunderstanding, I would like to add that my idea does not prevent the AFW from releasing multiple weavon shadows while the shield is present, or replenishing the shield for himself when the shadow is still present. Simultaneous use of multiple skills and the use of multiple skills in a short period of time still exist, only didn't use shield/woven shadow skills for X seconds after shield broken/all woven shadows killed. (btw my expected number for X is 6.6s, a small number for the remaining 10000 HP.)

 

To me, controlling the AFW's skill cycle is a too marginal but too important element compared to all the knowledge/skills/items that this combat requires of the player. Solving the AFWs magical skills is undoubtedly central point of the battle, and AFW, atrium, and ruins do provide enough clue for players to learn how to do it. However, due to the intense use of skills, many players who are able to solve skills do not get an immediate positive benefit because they need to immediately focus on solving the next one

In situations where other elements are more important, some compromise on the marginal element of controlling skill time is acceptable to me.

Edited March 20 by Cassielu

[cropo]

I think the availability of Weather Pains are the problem. 

 

Weather pains are too good to make cheaper due to being useful for destroying things and fast-mining stacks of stonefruit(if anyone even uses those anymore).  Some kind of weapon that doesn't do much damage and doesn't break structures, but functions similarly to a weather pain for collections of mobs, would make this fight and the moonstorm event far more bearable.

I blame volt goat jelly for this, I hate farming volt goats so much. I don't mind finding gems, gathering food etc...but those freaking horns man. Volt goats are just one of the worst things to farm.

[grm9]

Just now, cropo said:

I think the availability of Weather Pains are the problem. 

 

Weather pains are too good to make cheaper due to being useful for destroying things and fast-mining stacks of stonefruit(if anyone even uses those anymore).  Some kind of weapon that doesn't do much damage and doesn't break structures, but functions similarly to a weather pain for collections of mobs, would make this fight and the moonstorm event far more bearable.

I blame volt goat jelly for this, I hate farming volt goats so much. I don't mind finding gems, gathering food etc...but those freaking horns man. Volt goats are just one of the worst things to farm

if there'd be an easy and accessible way to get AoE all complexity and fun of dealing with woven shadows without AoE would become worthless 

[cropo]

1 minute ago, grm9 said:

if there'd be an easy and accessible way to get AoE all complexity and fun of dealing with woven shadows without AoE would become worthless 

Gotta pay that fee to have a decent fight with Fuelweaver, or just get so good at the targeting system you can possibly manage without it then.  Screw this stupid fight.

 

 

[grm9]

19 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

(btw my expected number for X is 6.6s, a small number for the remaining 10000 HP)

i guess that'd be fine, i was worried it'd be something around 15 second so syncing them would only make a slight difference that might not even change amount of cycles required

2 minutes ago, cropo said:

Gotta pay that fee to have a decent fight with Fuelweaver, or just get so good at the targeting system you can possibly manage without it then

you don't need to hit shadows while they're near fuelweaver, it's your fault if he gets close enough to them to lower himself to the floor to start eating 

Edited March 20 by grm9

[cropo]

8 minutes ago, grm9 said:

you don't need to hit shadows while they're near fuelweaver, it's your fault if he gets close enough to them to lower himself to the floor to start eating 

Look I just don't think it's a fun mechanic to deal with. All his other stuff is fine, but with the way the game targets things, the need to fight with your inventory, and individually pick off a bunch of critters that adds significant time to the fight, and massively decreases resources used to get him back to where you previously were for a single mistake, or spending hours to farm enough horns to build up a stockpile of a weapon in the hopes that you can kill him before they deplete, or lose all those hours of progress as one mistake can turn into two...it's just not fun man. 

 

You can give me advice on how to ''win'' at it, and you're right, but that's just so soul-draining to play with. Fighting him without a Weather Pain is like Disneyland to me, it's an amazing experience the first time, and then you realize all the lines you have to wait for, the time out of work you have to make room for, and the day long drive there and back, and you'd just rather...not do it a second time.

And Weather Pains are so soul-crushingly depressing to grind that it's just a big stain on an otherwise great boss for me, I'm really sick of this boss and having an accessible but weaker weather pain would fix that.

[grm9]

8 minutes ago, cropo said:

but that's just so soul-draining to play with

imo it's fun, you can also deal with it differently as other characters e.g. abigail as wendy (although i haven't tried that, but i assume you could if you preserve her hp before summoning starts), bramble husk as wormwood to kill all woven shadows while tanking, lunar fire as willow etc.

[Maxil20]

What I think should happen is the boss gimmicks (like the woven shadows or ability timers) should scale based on the amount of players. The more players, the harder the various boss gimmicks get with reduced cooldowns, up to how they currently are. This way the fight is still scaled properly for multiplayer, but it’s not as painful to do for one player.

To compensate for this, a world option could be added that makes it so bosses have a setting to use their maximum possible difficulty possible. That way for players that like doing the old fight still have the option to do so, while still making it more accessible for solo players who do not have nearly as much precision/skill.

[Szczuku]

Since I've seen some poeple complain that there's too much tool swaping taking palce during the fight I think a simple change could be to allow us to attack the bonecage, which would free us from it.

Give it something like 300-400 hp and there we go. Now you don't have to bring the lazy explorer to the AF fight but bringing it will let you get out of the cage faster than attacking it

[Faintly Macabre]

2 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

What I think should happen is the boss gimmicks (like the woven shadows or ability timers) should scale based on the amount of players. The more players, the harder the various boss gimmicks get with reduced cooldowns, up to how they currently are. This way the fight is still scaled properly for multiplayer, but it’s not as painful to do for one player.

To compensate for this, a world option could be added that makes it so bosses have a setting to use their maximum possible difficulty possible. That way for players that like doing the old fight still have the option to do so, while still making it more accessible for solo players who do not have nearly as much precision/skill.

I've wanted this for a long, long time. It doesn't even have to be all about making the fight easier for fewer players -- you could also have bosses scale upward from where they are now at a certain number of players, and reward those players with more drops, so you're not functionally punished for playing with a full server (as long as the upward scaling is reasonable).

[extremyt]

My biggest complain about FW is not the fight itself but actually finding the atrium. Tentapillar RNG is not fun at all and I hope they give us a way to consistently locate the right tentacle like the Astral Detector shows us lunar island and Crab King.

45 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

Since I've seen some poeple complain that there's too much tool swaping taking palce during the fight I think a simple change could be to allow us to attack the bonecage, which would free us from it.

Give it something like 300-400 hp and there we go. Now you don't have to bring the lazy explorer to the AF fight but bringing it will let you get out of the cage faster than attacking it

This. Having more counter plays to the bone cage would be very nice.

[IAmAFurrz]

4 hours ago, grm9 said:

you're supposed to walk around the edges of the arena to lure FW away from woven shadows since they spawn on the white floor around the ancient gateway and not at the edges so they'll all be coming from 1 direction and you won't need to constantly turn the camera around, at least try it first

what in the hell suggested this? its a strategy thats not really intuitive. i know how it spawns and common strategies, doesnt mean margin of error is still stupidly small, not to mention when you fight him, if you want the fight to be 'exciting' and 'not boring' like you said the changes would do, you wouldnt just want to walk him around the edges

 

4 hours ago, grm9 said:

it's fun to figure out how a boss works

not in this game where bosses have too much hp, especially the type of boss that can heal massive amounts, that is fought in a far off place away from all escape, takes forever to get there, and if you die you're not gonna escape without a life amulet on you/outside the arena with extra gear.

 

4 hours ago, grm9 said:

you need to stay above 10% sanity to have 1 crawling horror at most instead of 2 terrorbeaks at most so if you eat 1 after your sanity gets set to 40 because of killing an unseen hand you'll need to either eat 2-3 more cooked shrooms or cope with a chance to get 2 terrorbeaks

yea knowing all of this still doesnt make the fight more fun. its got the ck-ism of 1 mistake drawing the fight out for so much longer, just not as bad bc he doesnt perma freeze you. all of this knowledge for 1 single fight and you cant **** up even once. the fight isnt fun or exciting atp, so much skill required for an annoyingly low reward and reseting ruins/opening rift that doesnt have much to offer

8 minutes ago, extremyt said:

This. Having more counter plays to the bone cage would be very nice.

yea only teleportation can beat it, most characters have to lazy explorer out

4 hours ago, cropo said:

You can give me advice on how to ''win'' at it

his advice is literally 'get to pros' skill level, if you dont wanna spend hours on end remembering this stupid fight its your fault for being lazy'

[Uedo]

I can't speak for anyone else but I like to try to do it legitimately and I have a few times now, it just doesn't feel like much of an achievement to keep doing it regularly. I think cheesing it to quickly respawn the ruins is probably not intended but ultimately it's more choice. I get the exploit argument but sometimes exploits have been left or given purpose for the sake of player engagement. I'd get it if it changed, I see the point but i'd be pleased if it stayed - it just saves me hassle more than anything if I started a new world.

Will admit though, I do feel kinda cheap if I do it just for the bone helm :/