Crab King suggestions

[Sir Noel]

I've seen some good suggestions thrown for CK all over the place, so I wanted a place to condense it all, as well as some thoughts of mine. Of course, feel free to share suggestions as well!

Boat Phase changes:

-This is one I honestly thought was in the game at first, and is how I first fought the boss. Make it so you have to get rid of the towers in order to advance to the next phase (or, just give CK a DR if towers are alive). If you really want to go the extra mile, incentivize bumpers as a quick way of keeping your boat safe as you ram the towers, but keep the option of straight up smacking them down as well. As it is right now, the first phase can mostly be ignored and you can just row right up to CK and hit him. I believe the towers can't even cause holes in your boat unless certain gems are put in. It's a shame! Make these towers dangerous! (Maybe not too dangerous.)

-Have the claws latch onto your boat again. The claws are kinda funky in general right now and they love to either get blocked by CK himself or get far enough away from your hit range to where it's an inconvenience to go after them.

Ice Phase changes:

-This is where it gets tricky. Minion spam, especially while CK is healing, will never not incentivize pan flute/follower spam. So I think we need to re-approach the purpose of the minions in the fight. Having two things going on that punishes low DPS characters is rough, and no, just making the minions sleep immune doesn't fix anything and just highlights the problem.

-Since this phase is all about the CK putting up a barrier and going to "heal" maybe we can make the minions more involved in that healing aspect, similar to AFW. Maybe they could spawn at the edge and work their way towards the center, with the player going around and killing them to prevent the healing. If you manage to kill them all, the barrier could break and give you a chance for free damage (but maybe giving him an attack or something since if you're just focusing on minions this phase would not be hard at all).

-If you want to keep the minions purpose of attacking you while he heals, then at least tone it down. Maybe you could make it so all the minions don't instantly spawn right away, so as to give a chance to clear the field and give you a chance at hitting CK. Or maybe he can just heal less the less crabs are alive. Though again I think the minions should be changed, as they are very poorly designed.

General changes:

-From my understanding, if a tower is knocked down under a certain HP threshold he will instantly start waves. Definitely get rid of this, you lose a lot of damage and it incentivizes ignoring the towers and just spam repairing your boat.

-Some of his spells like geyser and freeze were pretty fun to avoid, and I personally would like to see those reincorporated into the fight. Really anything to make the fight more involved than it is would go a long way.

My overall complaints with CK are that there is not enough incentives to be more involved with the fight's mechanics, as well as incentivizing the wrong things (panflute on ice phase). But the groundwork is okay, and we can definitely improve as the beta continues!

[Arcwell]

I agree with a lot of stuff you wrote here, would like to highlight some points because there's some nuance to them:

26 minutes ago, Sir Noel said:

This is one I honestly thought was in the game at first, and is how I first fought the boss. Make it so you have to get rid of the towers in order to advance to the next phase (or, just give CK a DR if towers are alive). If you really want to go the extra mile, incentivize bumpers as a quick way of keeping your boat safe as you ram the towers, but keep the option of straight up smacking them down as well. As it is right now, the first phase can mostly be ignored and you can just row right up to CK and hit him. I believe the towers can't even cause holes in your boat unless certain gems are put in. It's a shame! Make these towers dangerous! (Maybe not too dangerous.)

For the first bit, both of them sound good but I would prefer the DR option. I would hope that they don't turn the fight into a slog like Toadstool, but you can definitely add a mechanic like that without having that outcome.

I do think making the towers more dangerous would be good IF and only IF they can be dodged. I wrote a post going more in-depth, but in their current state, dodging cannon shots as the player is sketchy at best and dodging cannon shots with the boat is often outright impossible due to the cannon's spread and boat's slow movement.

32 minutes ago, Sir Noel said:

Have the claws latch onto your boat again. The claws are kinda funky in general right now and they love to either get blocked by CK himself or get far enough away from your hit range to where it's an inconvenience to go after them.

This could work, but it would need to be massively toned down from what it was before given that we have 6 claws targeting us now instead of 2-3. Could also consider giving them some interaction with the phase transition. For instance, maybe if you don't kill them during the first phase, they appear on the ice platform.

[Sir Noel]

7 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

For the first bit, both of them sound good but I would prefer the DR option. I would hope that they don't turn the fight into a slog like Toadstool, but you can definitely add a mechanic like that without having that outcome.

Yeah, my thought is that with CK's lowered health and the ice phase also giving you a good chance to do damage, making the boat phase require a bit more input wouldn't hurt. Toadstool's insane health makes a mechanic like that a chore each time you do it, though his fight has other issues weighing it down.

11 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

I do think making the towers more dangerous would be good IF and only IF they can be dodged. I wrote a post going more in-depth, but in their current state, dodging cannon shots as the player is sketchy at best and dodging cannon shots with the boat is often outright impossible due to the cannon's spread and boat's slow movement.

This is what I was more iffy on due to those mechanics. I would be fine if the canons aren't made difficult, but that's more to do with how they attack like you said. Not a big priority for me unlike changing the ice phase which definitely needs to be changed the most.

13 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

This could work, but it would need to be massively toned down from what it was before given that we have 6 claws targeting us now instead of 2-3. Could also consider giving them some interaction with the phase transition. For instance, maybe if you don't kill them during the first phase, they appear on the ice platform.

I think I prefer the 2-3 claws for this reason. And oh man, I would love it if the claws transitioned with you to the ice phase. It's details like this that makes these fights feel a lot more personal and fleshed out. This is something I've always enjoyed seeing in this game, those small things really go a long way!

[Gashzer]

Crab king should be a fight that encourages us to use followers.

Not every fight should reward the same gameplay approaches. That is:

Craft this gadget > use gadget on boss > win fight easier. This has been overdone.

Lets mix it up by making crab king a fight geared around needing followers. It is fitting for this update since wurts merms are already getting boosted. Now lets make the effort to boost them worth it.

[Sir Noel]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

Crab king should be a fight that encourages us to use followers.

Not every fight should reward the same gameplay approaches. That is:

Craft this gadget > use gadget on boss > win fight easier. This has been overdone.

Lets mix it up by making crab king a fight geared around needing followers. It is fitting for this update since wurts merms are already getting boosted. Now lets make the effort to boost them worth it.

Followers are a bit weird in this game, and it's very difficult to balance a fight around them. In theory you could amass an absolute army of followers and destroy almost any boss in the game in record time. Some might even call it "cheese".

While I think a fight centered around followers could be cool (even if I think bosses shouldn't have only one "viable" strategy), I don't think CK is the fight to do that with. CK is all about boat maneuverability and management... at least, it should be.

[ChintzyGnat]

I think k the ice phase should only happen either 3 or 4 times and the crabs heal ck, so you could make a big mistake with alot of hp but it is still recoverable, unlike fuelweaver who simply overwhelms you. 

This also means the phase starts only when he reaches certain hp incentivising attacking the towers

[arubaro]

Maybe the claws could interact with the boat like pushing it to protect CK

But seeing them roam like stonner people at 6am is kinda sad

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Crab king should be a fight that encourages us to use followers.

???? It should be optional. We already have BQ for that

Isnt even fitting, you dont think about using an army of follower when sailing

I like bosses that dont totally counter followers because that is removing an option but saying that this should be a follower fight because is also fitting... and later you wonder why people say you throw baits

[Gashzer]

2 minutes ago, Sir Noel said:

Followers are a bit weird in this game, and it's very difficult to balance a fight around them. In theory you could amass an absolute army of followers and destroy almost any boss in the game in record time. Some might even call it "cheese".

While I think a fight centered around followers could be cool (even if I think bosses shouldn't have only one "viable" strategy), I don't think CK is the fight to do that with. CK is all about boat maneuverability and management... at least, it should be.

Followers can steamroll bosses but this should be the reward you get for taking the time to amass such an army. You should wreck bosses by prepping a massive army. This isnt cheese this makes complete sense.

But wayy too many bosses have AoE effects that make you need to amass a ridiculously large army to kill them or you cant use followers reasonably at all.

Followers are a big part of this game now with characters devoted to having follower armies (wurt and webber and even sorta wicker with her bees) but they lack importance and QoL in actual gameplay.

I believe Klei have stopped crab king from damaging your boat as much because a boat isnt just your boat, its your seabase. Now we can do the fight on our main seabase boat without so much risk. 

I dont 100% agree with klei's direction with crab king but might as well take the opportunity to make it a follower encouraged fight to line up with the wurt skilltree as its now an important fight for her.

[Arcwell]

1 minute ago, Gashzer said:

Followers can steamroll bosses but this should be the reward you get for taking the time to amass such an army. You should wreck bosses by prepping a massive army. This isnt cheese this makes complete sense.

But wayy too many bosses have AoE effects that make you need to amass a ridiculously large army to kill them or you cant use followers reasonably at all.

Followers are a big part of this game now with characters devoted to having follower armies (wurt and webber and even sorta wicker with her bees) but they lack importance and QoL in actual gameplay.

I believe Klei have stopped crab king from damaging your boat as much because a boat isnt just your boat, its your seabase. Now we can do the fight on our main seabase boat without so much risk. 

I dont 100% agree with klei's direction with crab king but might as well take the opportunity to make it a follower encouraged fight to line up with the wurt skilltree as its now an important fight for her.

If your goal is to make followers viable against CK (i.e. by fixing them drowning on ice), I support that. More options is better.

If your goal is to make other strategies not viable against CK so that followers are required (which I believe you've stated previously, correct me if I'm wrong), I do not support that.

[Gashzer]

1 minute ago, Arcwell said:

If your goal is to make followers viable against CK (i.e. by fixing them drowning on ice), I support that. More options is better.

If your goal is to make other strategies not viable against CK so that followers are required (which I believe you've stated previously, correct me if I'm wrong), I do not support that.

I am in the mindset that bosses should have limited but very different strategies to each other. This creates actual unique bosses with unique strategies to counter them.

From my years playing DST all the bosses are so samey when you break them down to core gameplay. Kite then attack, kite then attack. 

How do you not find this boring?

[grm9]

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Crab king should be a fight that encourages us to use followers

you can use them for most bosses already and what are wortox players supposed to do

Just now, Gashzer said:

From my years playing DST all the bosses are so samey when you break them down to core gameplay. Kite then attack, kite then attack

show a recording of kiting toadstool's trees, woven shadows, unseen hands, p2 grumbles, x0.75 damage multiplier no ice staff lavaes, CK's claws and geysers

10 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

I believe Klei have stopped crab king from damaging your boat as much because a boat isnt just your boat, its your seabase

cannons still keep dealing damage on it when you're fighting on ice

11 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

But wayy too many bosses have AoE effects that make you need to amass a ridiculously large army to kill them or you cant use followers reasonably at all

weren't you asking for bosses to not allow you to use specific solutions?

[Gashzer]

Just now, grm9 said:

you can use them for most bosses already and what are wortox players supposed to do

They are very limited in far too many boss fights. 

Yeah that is wortox's downside. But he can tank/heal his way through problems or kite to a much better level than many other characters to make up for this.

Plus we still have his skilltree coming up so dont worry about wortox too much. AoE damage soul bombs can make up for lack of followers for fights like crab king.. thats one easy solution for him right there.

[ryukamiya]

It's fine if bringing along followers is part of your strategy.
If you can't defeat an enemy without followers, I think it will lack strategy and become boring.

[grm9]

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Crab king should be a fight that encourages us to use followers.

Not every fight should reward the same gameplay approaches. That is:

Craft this gadget > use gadget on boss > win fight easier. This has been overdone

that's why you can just do fights without them if you don't like using them, go do that instead of complaining, maybe ask for old CK back since he allowed you to do that and you could've used minions for cancelling heal if you weren't going to try to cancel it on your own

4 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

They are very limited in far too many boss fights

maybe devs wanted you to have fun when figuring out strats instead of using minions for everything

[Gashzer]

1 minute ago, ryukamiya said:

It's fine if bringing along followers is part of your strategy.
If you can't defeat an enemy without followers, I think it will lack strategy and become boring.

Yeah im not saying all bosses should require followers but one or two bosses needing followers is perfectly reasonable to ask for to increase boss diversity.

 

[grm9]

Just now, Gashzer said:

Yeah im not saying all bosses should require followers but one or two bosses needing followers is perfectly reasonable to ask for to increase boss diversity

no, multiple strats working on bosses is better

[Gashzer]

8 minutes ago, grm9 said:

maybe the devs wanted you to have fun when figuring out strats instead of just brainlessly using minions for everything

Klei devs need to realize that people love having minions and followers in games. Its goes hand in hand with the base building aspect of dst

Cult of the lamb pretty much stole DST artstyle and made caring for followers such a big deal and has a better combat system. It is a more refined game than DST in ways.

DST wins out in exploration and characters but klei can still learn a thing or two from cult of the lamb

[Cruvimaster]

2 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Yeah im not saying all bosses should require followers but one or two bosses needing followers is perfectly reasonable to ask for to increase boss diversity.

 

Need followers to defeat a boss? This seems more like a desire for Wurt or Webber players. Definitely not.

[Gashzer]

Just now, Cruvimaster said:

Need followers to defeat a boss? This seems more like a desire for Wurt or Webber players. Definitely not.

Yeah ofc these characters will do better but most characters have access to pigs/bunnymen

[grm9]

1 minute ago, Gashzer said:

Klei devs need to realize that people love having minions and followers in games

people usually say that using bunnymen for BQ etc. is boring

[Cruvimaster]

Using followers in combat is one thing. Conditioning the success rate on using them is another thing.

2 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Yeah ofc these characters will do better but most characters have access to pigs/bunnymen

In one of my first worlds I used bunnymen against the Bee Queen because I couldn't fight her (noob). It was nothing special and required absolutely nothing from me (apart from time and resources to build the houses, of course).

[GreenBowers]

Im actually pretty pleased someone shared or recognized my idea for the little crabbits to be like AFW, I like the idea a lot

[grm9]

Just now, GreenBowers said:

Im actually pretty pleased someone shared or recognized my idea for the little crabbits to be like AFW, I like the idea a lot

the problem is that you're supposed to lure FW away from woven shadows for him to not heal, but CK is stationary

[GreenBowers]

Well im not saying exactly the same, but little crab guys carrying rubble over their head and waddling over to the king sounds cute

[Arcwell]

5 minutes ago, grm9 said:

the problem is that you're supposed to lure FW away from woven shadows for him to not heal, but CK is stationary

That is one method of approaching woven shadows, it is not the only method..

Though, if crabs were made to be similar to woven shadows, I would expect them to have some twist that plays on CK being stationary. For example, hitting them could knock them further away from CK (would function similar to how the player prevents shadow hands from eating campfires, but with attacks instead of movement).