PLEASE CHANGE FUELWEAVER

[finn from human]

I'd just like to throw my two cents in here because of the opposite opinion being super vocal. I've been playing since 2015 and while I've come to appreciate and enjoy almost every single piece of content in the game, from the ocean to the caves to the ruins, I find myself consistently frustrated and not enjoying myself whenever it comes time to fight the Fuelweaver. The unbelievably specific preparation and execution required makes it feel like I've closed my sandbox survival game in favor of opening up Super Meat Boy and doing the exact precise and janky inputs to clear a level under the par time.

All the individual components are fine:
- Careful sanity management.
- Specific items being necessary.
- Strict time management.
Other bosses have done all these things perfectly well (sanity management is important for the Nightmare Werepig, Klaus very specifically needs a thermal stone and the Malbatross an anchor, etc) but the way they come together is just... frustrating. It's a hell of swapping equipment, rapid-fire sanity changes, and perfect no-mistakes-allowed gameplay for what feels like 20 minutes of straight gameplay. The components aren't inherently rotten, but they come together in a way that feels frustrating and frankly just not very fun. I'd really love if the fight got the Ancient Guardian treatment, where the essence of the fight is kept while the actual gameplay gets a touch-up.

I do not intend to argue or defend this stance in replies, I simply would like Klei to hopefully see this opinion and know that not every long-time player loves the Fuelweaver as much as is being stated on the forum currently. Thank you for your time.

[hoxi]

I think this sums up pretty much why I like and dislike the fight. I like what it tries to do and its elements individually, but it kinda falls apart with the way all those elements are combined.

[Szczuku]

I hope Klei's solution to the AF 'problem' isn't giving him a stagger mechanic like Ancient Guardian's or Daywalker's

[arubaro]

I dont think they should nerf a optional fight. Is a sand box, you dont need to defeat him

Also we have plenty of tools to make the fight accessible and to practise it

Is the only true hard fight in the game 

[hoxi]

10 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

I hope Klei's solution to the AF 'problem' isn't giving him a stagger mechanic like Ancient Guardian's or Daywalker's

Yeah I'm hoping this isn't the case, but there's a few improvements that could be made to the fight. Shadow Creatures interactions with sane players being one. Something to help with targeting. The shield not pushing the player when hit by weather pain tornados or similar, as it can get spammed fast and stunlock the player completely if inside a bone cage, preventing them from doing other things.

Outside of that, I feel like telegraphing the bone cage AoE a bit more to let the player know that it can be dodged could help. Even if dodging it isn't the most doable or efficient thing in the first place, at least hinting that it's possible instead of it feeling like it can reach you anywhere (unless you happen to accidentally dodge it and notice) would be an improvement without changing the mechanic.

[grm9]

8 hours ago, finn from human said:

The unbelievably specific preparation and execution

bramble husk/abigail/weather pain/lunar fire/catapults/luring FW away from woven shadows with no cost, lazy explorer/soul hopping/backstep clock/dodging bone cage with no cost, nightmare amulet/insanity food, BQ crown/sanity food/both? plenty of choices

1 minute ago, hoxi said:

it can get spammed fast and stunlock the player completely if inside a bone cage, preventing them from doing other things

that makes sense, forces you to do it before he casts bone cage or to teleport out first and encourages you to use other strats instead, e.g. luring FW away from woven shadows with no cost

2 minutes ago, hoxi said:

Outside of that, I feel like telegraphing the bone cage AoE a bit more to let the player know that it can be dodged could help

the only change he really needs imo

8 hours ago, finn from human said:

I'd really love if the fight got the Ancient Guardian treatment

imo new AG sucks, i wouldn't want them to turn FW into something similar

8 hours ago, finn from human said:

It's a hell of swapping equipment, rapid-fire sanity changes, and perfect no-mistakes-allowed gameplay for what feels like 20 minutes of straight gameplay

that's the point, except swapping stuff isn't really necessary

[Cassielu]

I don't believe in the designer's ability to do it well.

All bosses scine 2020 didn't contain any of these elements at all, and the last boss have them, Crab King, is an garbage  that has none of the advantages of AFW and all the disadvantages that it has and amplifies infinitely.

[BalkanCockroach]

4 hours ago, arubaro said:

I dont think they should nerf a optional fight. Is a sand box, you dont need to defeat him

It's not really optional because it's a part of shadow questline. Some people say that and i'm saying everything is optional if you look at it that way. When i think optional i think more like D-fly, Klaus, Toad, BQ, etc. 

[GenomeSquirrel]

Healing bosses, especially with an invisible health meter, is something I don't agree with; but my overall regard on DSTs bossfights is so low, that touchups probably wouldn't make a difference.

 

[arubaro]

2 hours ago, BalkanCockroach said:

It's not really optional because it's a part of shadow questline. Some people say that and i'm saying everything is optional if you look at it that way. When i think optional i think more like D-fly, Klaus, Toad, BQ, etc. 

Which ends on a "hardmode" so i dont see why it should be activated by being afk...

[Cruvimaster]

I don't think the boss mechanics should be substantially changed. Maybe increase the cooldown from 20 to 30 seconds and some shadow creature attack bugs.

What I think is there should be an improved version of gunpowder costing a more expensive resource (example: Dreadstone + Slurtle Slime) that people could use to eliminate the boss.

This would preserve the boss mechanics, let people who don't like fighting use super gunpowder and eliminate the desire to use exploids. It's the perfect scenario for me.

[BalkanCockroach]

1 hour ago, arubaro said:

Which ends on a "hardmode" so i dont see why it should be activated by being afk...

No one said the fight should be that. I'm just saying they can curb some of the edges that make the fight frustrating. Like when you regain your sanity during the fight and the terrorbeak doesn't despawn for a century it breaks the flow of the fight  and you have something else to deal with in a fight that already has your hands full.

[finn from human]

14 hours ago, arubaro said:

I dont think they should nerf a optional fight. Is a sand box, you dont need to defeat him

Calling the Fuelweaver optional is really really silly. FW isn't something like Toadstool that you kill for an optional convenience, he's required to open shadow rifts and unlock half the content Klei has been adding, and to even survive the other half (lunar hail takes out like half your health unless you stop what you're doing to stand under a tree for 2 minutes, you really need an umbralla). Technically, in a literal sense, Fuelweaver is optional, but only in the same way that all rift content is technically optional. If Fuelweaver is the Wall of Flesh from Terraria, then sorting all of hardmode as optional would be quite silly.

[hoxi]

Something that would be interesting to see is the bone circle attack being used outside of phase 1. Woven Shadows would still block it so you'd have to kill them all, but it's interesting that no one points out that Fuelweaver has an entirely unique attack that's only ever used for like 5% of the fight. What if they made that a thing?

[grm9]

7 minutes ago, hoxi said:

Something that would be interesting to see is the bone circle attack being used outside of phase 1. Woven Shadows would still block it so you'd have to kill them all, but it's interesting that no one points out that Fuelweaver has an entirely unique attack that's only ever used for like 5% of the fight. What if they made that a thing?

it's easy to avoid and spikes deal practically chip damage and that'd make it so he'd cast bone cage less often because using spikes/bone cage/mind control resets cd of whatever he used and increases cd of the other 2 spells so the fight would become easier and you're probably going to keep him away from the ancient gateway during p2 anyway so he wouldn't be able to cast it 

29 minutes ago, finn from human said:

(lunar hail takes out like half your health unless you stop what you're doing to stand under a tree for 2 minutes, you really need an umbralla)

or you could just dodge it like earthquakes 

[arubaro]

33 minutes ago, finn from human said:

Calling the Fuelweaver optional is really really silly. FW isn't something like Toadstool that you kill for an optional convenience, he's required to open shadow rifts and unlock half the content Klei has been adding, and to even survive the other half (lunar hail takes out like half your health unless you stop what you're doing to stand under a tree for 2 minutes, you really need an umbralla). Technically, in a literal sense, Fuelweaver is optional, but only in the same way that all rift content is technically optional. If Fuelweaver is the Wall of Flesh from Terraria, then sorting all of hardmode as optional would be quite silly.

Rifts are suppose to be a hard mode, you shouldnt be able to activate such mode if you arent able to defeat the key to access that mode

Rift content is already pretty tamed, if klei listen to the users wanting to nerf FW we can expect a sh*tty easy "hard mode"...

Edited March 21 by arubaro

[finn from human]

4 minutes ago, arubaro said:

Rifts are suppose to be a hard mode, you shouldnt be able to activate such mode if you arent able to defeat the key to access that mode

I am fully able to kill Fuelweaver and I simply don't enjoy it.

4 minutes ago, arubaro said:

Rift content is already pretty tamed, if klei listen to the users wanting to nerf FW we can expect a sh*tty easy "hard mode"...

I don't want the Fuelweaver nerfed I want the fight to be fun.

Edited March 21 by finn from human

[arubaro]

23 hours ago, finn from human said:

I'd really love if the fight got the Ancient Guardian treatment, where the essence of the fight is kept while the actual gameplay gets a touch-up.

See? I dont want that treatment. AG rework only feels good because the previous fight was really bad and now we got a really easy fight with insane loot

Just now, finn from human said:

I am fully able to kill Fuelweaver and I simply don't enjoy it.

But you are asking for nerfs instead of suggesting to add fun mechanics like proper atacks that require skill to be dodged

[WhackE]

17 hours ago, Szczuku said:

I hope Klei's solution to the AF 'problem' isn't giving him a stagger mechanic like Ancient Guardian's or Daywalker's

SO TRUE or Dragon fly for that matter.

[hoxi]

3 hours ago, grm9 said:

it's easy to avoid and spikes deal practically chip damage and that'd make it so he'd cast bone cage less often because using spikes/bone cage/mind control resets cd of whatever he used and increases cd of the other 2 spells so the fight would become easier and you're probably going to keep him away from the ancient gateway during p2 anyway so he wouldn't be able to cast it 

The bone circle can't be cast if there's woven shadows around so it's not going to completely prevent the bone snare/cage attack from being used. I tried removing the phase 1 check to see how it would go and gave it a try. It made the fight be less:

bone snare -> melee -> melee -> melee -> bone snare -> repeat forever outside of summoning hands or woven shadows

And allowing just so ever slightly some breathing room and a way to not be in a bone cage for 90% of the fight or dealing with the same pattern for most of it, but rather maybe 60% or so.

3 hours ago, arubaro said:

Rift content is already pretty tamed, if klei listen to the users wanting to nerf FW we can expect a sh*tty easy "hard mode"...

Most people are suggesting or asking to tweak the fight and not necessarily nerf it, no need to be so crass about it.

3 hours ago, arubaro said:

See? I dont want that treatment. AG rework only feels good because the previous fight was really bad and now we got a really easy fight with insane loot

But you are asking for nerfs instead of suggesting to add fun mechanics like proper atacks that require skill to be dodged

And it can be argued that some aspects of the Fuelweaver fight can be problematic and frustrating, and have them be addressed. Ancient Guardian being an easy fight is not a bad thing either (although I guess I might as well mention it, it's intended to be slightly harder than it is, but there's one bug with it, the shadow tentacles have insanity auras but can't be detected, like a bunch of other entities with the same issue). It was never hard to begin with, it was cheap.

Also kinda funny you mention "proper attacks that require skill to be dodged", while Fuelweaver has the bone snare attack, an attack that can't be dodged at all most of the time and forces you to take damage afterwards unless you can specifically teleport out of it or hit-stun Fuelweaver while he's not close. Almost every time I did the Fuelweaver fight it felt more like a gear check (either for tanking when snared or teleporting out, or just in general with pretty much everything you need to cover for the fight) and "how good are you at dealing with inventory clunkyness and targeting management" more than anything else.

[Sir Noel]

4 hours ago, arubaro said:

See? I dont want that treatment. AG rework only feels good because the previous fight was really bad and now we got a really easy fight with insane loot

To me AG isn't really meant to be "hard", at least for players who have knowledge on the mechanics of it. With 10k HP he's already taking less resources than a typical boss and I see him more as a threat to unsuspecting/unprepared players venturing into the ruins. AG is simply good enough for now and I feel like there are more important things that should take priority.

The quality of the loot can be argued but stuff like thulecite/gem gear aren't really hard to obtain normally either. The ruins themselves are a whole different story. 

[grm9]

4 hours ago, hoxi said:

And it can be argued that some aspects of the Fuelweaver fight can be problematic and frustrating, and have them be addressed. Ancient Guardian being an easy fight is not a bad thing either (although I guess I might as well mention it, it's intended to be slightly harder than it is, but there's one bug with it, the shadow tentacles have insanity auras but can't be detected, like a bunch of other entities with the same issue). It was never hard to begin with, it was cheap.

Also kinda funny you mention "proper attacks that require skill to be dodged", while Fuelweaver has the bone snare attack, an attack that can't be dodged at all most of the time and forces you to take damage afterwards unless you can specifically teleport out of it or hit-stun Fuelweaver while he's not close. Almost every time I did the Fuelweaver fight it felt more like a gear check (either for tanking when snared or teleporting out, or just in general with pretty much everything you need to cover for the fight) and "how good are you at dealing with inventory clunkyness and targeting management" more than anything else.

you can consistently always dodge bone cage, it's just that if you won't tank it after all unseen hands die, you might need to do more cycles because of wasting time during the window during which you're supposed to attack him, you don't need to have woven shadows close enough to FW for him to get targetted by you pressing F and you don't need any items except armor, weapon, healing, insanity food and sanity food, you're just doing the fight the easy way that requires a lot of preparation and blaming the game

[Retepeter]

I very much think the main problem is how often he uses wovens and unseens and how impactful it is if you mess up once.
Now im aware this is a very important thing in the fight but I feel that most people would enjoy if their cooldown was reduced or they were made easier in some way but in exchange the boss himself got a new attack or two, maybe in the second phase the bone cage and bone spiral attacks get harder somehow or something JUST NOT MAKING THE BOSS INVINCIBLE FOR SO LONG PLEASE

[Nettalie]

I personally consider fuelweaver to be one of the most fun bosses to fight, at least for myself. My top 3 actually.

That being said, I'd be lying if I made the fight out to be perfectly designed. A lot of the attacks can feel like they just require one specific item, either because they're really difficult or wonky to dodge otherwise (snare, bone cage) or because the "alternatives" to the most commonly used item are more finnicky (bq crown and amulet vs sanity food) if not just outright character exclusive (backtrek watch, soulhop, the new Wigfrid spear, all of which came out AFTER fuelweaver vs lazy explorer).

Now, these things wouldn't usually be that big of an issue, if it wouldn't be for the absolute barrage of attacks you're going through for the entire fight. Don't get me wrong here, I like having to consider multiple tasks at once that I'll need to keep track of, it's part of the whole reason I love this fight personally. What I'm trying to say however is that the fight can be very overwhelming with all the tasks that need to be juggled at once, with potentially half an inventory's worth of required items, and if you mess up once and let some woven shadows pass by, a good chunk of the progress will just be undone. All these things at such a rapid pace are absolutely fine within the context of multiplayer (2 is pushing it, but 3 or above makes it way more manageable), but can absolutely be overwhelming and frustrating for solo players, which is especially funny coming from me considering I both tend to play solo whenever I play and still love fw when I play on my own.

But that's kind of the thing, I fought fw so often and have gotten so adept at it that I can deal with all this and have fun consistently. Even though I personally like the pace of the fight, ESPECIALLY when playing alone, I also know that for most other people the fight's really particular and difficult in a way that can feel really cheap, and this is without even factoring in console players who are stuck with controller on a modless version of the game (i know theyre making adjustments for controllers to work more smoothly, but that is only gonna do so much).

So with all that said, I'd personally love to at the very least see tweaks made to the fight. I'm not aching for a full blown rework of it like with AG since this fight's already pretty complex and I ESPECIALLY don't want the fight to be made strictly easier, but small tweaks like partially scaling attack frequency to players present for things like the bone cage, unseen hands and woven shadows or only letting two of these attacks be active at the same time, would at least to me help address the more particular parts of the fight, without directly nerfing it to the point it loses everything that makes it fun.

[Mike23Ua]

On 3/21/2024 at 2:10 AM, arubaro said:

I dont think they should nerf a optional fight. Is a sand box, you dont need to defeat him

Also we have plenty of tools to make the fight accessible and to practise it

Is the only true hard fight in the game 

Oh but you are so wrong.. you NEED to defeat him to unlock more survival Sandbox content AND your character Affinity skills.

Sure I can always toggle rifts on from Day 1 and just enjoy the new After AFW sandbox survival stuff.. but I’ll be critically judged by these forums until I do it the “legit, intended way” and even WHEN I do that.. I doubt it’ll be enough to validate any credibility I should have.

my opinion is that when AFW was the actual final thing you do in the game (Final Boss) then it made sense for it to be this tough enduring fight.. as it was the big end game challenge. But the further away Klei moves the goal post… the easier old content needs to get.

To summarize this so anyone can easily understand- It’s like trying to kick a field goal on Football, you wouldn’t do it from the other side of the field now would you?

Edited March 22 by Mike23Ua