Dragonfly rework is necessary

[Mike23Ua]

Yeah… as a huge fan of RogueLites/Likes (or just epic bosses in video games in general…) I tend to not enjoy a lot of the boss fights in DST.

Now please let me explain that I’ve been gaming for 30+ years and I’ve experienced a TON of Amazing, and also completely awful boss fights in gaming.

I once drew up some concept arts of how I personally would rework the Dragonfly Boss- It’s a “Dragon” it should have Willows Fire Mage Powers end of Debate.

The orange lines in the images below represent literal walls of fire.. & With that said for anyone who missed those concept images here they are again: 

[DegenerateFurry]

Dragonfly's the easiest raid boss if you use walls and it sucks to fight without them. I don't really consider using walls against it "cheese" - at that point, you're just calling any arena prep cheese. 

That said, I do think the rebalance someone suggested where the lavae freeze more easily would be a great way to make walls a non-requirement (they'd still be used often to save on blue gems early-game or just for simplicity's sake), and I wouldn't be opposed to Dragonfly getting to use its stomp when non-enraged as a periodic attack like the seasonal bosses and Toadstool have. It's not really changing the difficulty or the core of the fight much, just adding a little more complexity so that you don't just hold F with a ham bat and a marble suit while occasionally shoving trail mix down your gullet. 

[ChintzyGnat]

Dragonfly doesn't need a rework. The issue with dragon fly is there is no incentive to fight her after. She just drops to little scales so I'd rather just use the decon staff. 

[Ohan]

3 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

the only thing I would change would make her unable to spawn 2 lavae from the same pond in a row but that's it, dfly does not need a rework

+1. 

Not a fan of suggestions that want to give her aoe stomp in calm form because that would destroy all minion strategies (except max ) and we already have enough aoe bosses that are immune to minions. 

Lessening the pressure of lavaes by limiting it to 1 per pool and reducing their HP somewhat would be perfect. And perhaps increasing scale drops.

[DegenerateFurry]

22 minutes ago, Ohan said:

+1. 

Not a fan of suggestions that want to give her aoe stomp in calm form because that would destroy all minion strategies (except max ) and we already have enough aoe bosses that are immune to minions. 

Lessening the pressure of lavaes by limiting it to 1 per pool and reducing their HP somewhat would be perfect. And perhaps increasing scale drops.

That's a good point about the AoE stomp ruining minion strats for one of the few raid bosses they work well for. Maybe she could get a hit combo move instead? So, she backhands you after every fourth slap or whatever, and the backhand knocks you down, so you can't just face-tank. 

[Primalflower]

It kind of sucks how walls/ways to deal with enraged form are being treated like cheese. it is like saying using traps to kill spiders in a spider queen fight is cheese

[DegenerateFurry]

17 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

It kind of sucks how walls/ways to deal with enraged form are being treated like cheese. it is like saying using traps to kill spiders in a spider queen fight is cheese

I agree for sure. Walls are just a part of fighting Dragonfly for the vast majority of players, and it honestly seems like that's kind of intended? If Klei really wanted them not to be, they could just make it so lavae could walk over lava ponds, or make them attack walls. But, in all this time with them definitely being aware of the walls strategy, they've never done that and haven't even taken a small step towards it, and that tells me it's intended game design.

[arubaro]

1 hour ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Dragonfly's the easiest raid boss if you use walls and it sucks to fight without them. I don't really consider using walls against it "cheese" - at that point, you're just calling any arena prep cheese. 

You are exploiting their AI...if that isnt a cheese... 

Arena prep is a nice euphemism 

The fight sucks with walls, cant be more boring. Atleast dealing with the lavaes requires something instead of being afk 

4 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

the only thing I would change would make her unable to spawn 2 lavae from the same pond in a row but that's it, dfly does not need a rework

huh???????

Nah, is the only moment were you might need to dodge one of them.. the fight is already really bland

37 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

It kind of sucks how walls/ways to deal with enraged form are being treated like cheese. it is like saying using traps to kill spiders in a spider queen fight is cheese

Is cheese because you are exploiting AI flaws to ignore mechanics. Is their name, your reaction to that name ia your problem, but it is what it is

I dont think pan flute is cheese since is coded to work like that

Spiders are coded to walk and traps are coded to trigger if something steps on them

I think is more a problem of how you feel about something you like isntead of accepting that you can play as you wish. You shouldnt need to change the meaning of some words to enjoy what you enjoy

[AliceShiki]

I'd say anything that makes you trivialize or ignore the mechanics of a fight is a cheese. So I'd call Wall a cheese.

I don't think it's bad that Wall exists, mind you. I just think it's cheesy and makes the fight very boring.

As in, I don't think "cheese = bad". I think "cheese = trivializes/ignores mechanics of a fight". Which is what Wall and Pan Flute do to Dfly.

Anyways, regarding the main topic... I don't think Dfly needs a rework at all? There are plenty of cheese options that trivialize the fight, and if you want to fight it fairly, it's actually quite fun and engaging, so... Best of both worlds? You can have fun if you want a fun fight, and you can have easy rewards if you just want the rewards. Why would you need to change that?

29 minutes ago, arubaro said:

Nah, is the only moment were you might need to dodge one of them.. the fight is already really bland

The problem with 2 larvae spawning in a row is mainly on the last 2 larvae that Dfly spawn IMO. If the last 2 larvae spawn on the same pond, it can be pretty hard to force Enraged Mode to trigger without the help of friends or Ice Staff.

That said... I don't see how you'd only need to dodge one of the larvaes when they spawn twice from the same pool... Are you always using Ice Staves or Wolfgang or something? Because I tried the fight with Wigfrid before and I definitely didn't have enough DPS to kill each individual Larvae before more of them came from the different pools. And it's probably even worse for characters without a damage modifier at all.

I ended up having to flee from the larvaes instead of fighting them, because killing them all just wasn't realistic. I just tried killing the last one to force Enraged Mode.

[arubaro]

43 minutes ago, AliceShiki said:

I'd say anything that makes you trivialize or ignore the mechanics of a fight is a cheese. So I'd call Wall a cheese.

I don't think it's bad that Wall exists, mind you. I just think it's cheesy and makes the fight very boring.

As in, I don't think "cheese = bad". I think "cheese = trivializes/ignores mechanics of a fight". Which is what Wall and Pan Flute do to Dfly.

Anyways, regarding the main topic... I don't think Dfly needs a rework at all? There are plenty of cheese options that trivialize the fight, and if you want to fight it fairly, it's actually quite fun and engaging, so... Best of both worlds? You can have fun if you want a fun fight, and you can have easy rewards if you just want the rewards. Why would you need to change that?

The problem with 2 larvae spawning in a row is mainly on the last 2 larvae that Dfly spawn IMO. If the last 2 larvae spawn on the same pond, it can be pretty hard to force Enraged Mode to trigger without the help of friends or Ice Staff.

That said... I don't see how you'd only need to dodge one of the larvaes when they spawn twice from the same pool... Are you always using Ice Staves or Wolfgang or something? Because I tried the fight with Wigfrid before and I definitely didn't have enough DPS to kill each individual Larvae before more of them came from the different pools. And it's probably even worse for characters without a damage modifier at all.

I ended up having to flee from the larvaes instead of fighting them, because killing them all just wasn't realistic. I just tried killing the last one to force Enraged Mode.

You dont need to trigger the enrage form, simply sleep her and deal with the lavaes when she is sleeping 

I always use ice staffs if im not playing wolf or wanda, they are cheap and the most easier way to deal with them

[Primalflower]

1 hour ago, AliceShiki said:

I'd say anything that makes you trivialize or ignore the mechanics of a fight is a cheese. So I'd call Wall a cheese.

is using a thurible to negate bone cage a cheese...?

[gaymime]

3 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

is using a thurible to negate bone cage a cheese...?

yes. if you are not going into battle naked and screaming you are a dairy farmer.

[cybers2001]

14 hours ago, Anis5240 said:

RoG Dragonfly is such a menace since she burns everything in her path, even in her regular form. You can fight her via making two closely placed firepits/any other unmoveable objects but the fire damage from her was the main issue. You legit can't fight her without needing cold items, and in RoG the options are so limited.

Helmet + chilled amulet

Chilled amulet hit its peak in RoG, and just went downhill.

[lowercase skye]

I really dislike the concept of "cheese" that's so common in discussion of DST. This is a sandbox game that's been focused on emergent gameplay and creative ways to take down creatures since vanilla, it's always felt weird to me that there's this attitude that doing anything but 1v1 ham bat + football helmet kiting is considered to be invalidating the fight rather than just... playing the game how it was designed. Dragonfly is a boss that presents a problem (she spawns minions from set points in her arena, and enrages at set points in the fight) that pushes you towards finding a solution (stop those minions from getting to you, and find a way to stop or outlast that enraged state). It's really not any different than leading Deerclops to a herd of Beefalo, or taking Bearger through a forest until she gets pummeled by treeguards: You are being presented with a list of problems (this big animal is persistent and will destroy my base if left unchecked, but if I simply lead them away then I won't get their special drops), and encouraged to find a compatible list of solutions (well, what mobs can survive their attacks long enough to kill them without my help?). It is a core piece of gameplay since forever.

[NPCMaxwell]

18 minutes ago, finn from human said:

I really dislike the concept of "cheese" that's so common in discussion of DST. This is a sandbox game that's been focused on emergent gameplay and creative ways to take down creatures since vanilla, it's always felt weird to me that there's this attitude that doing anything but 1v1 ham bat + football helmet kiting is considered to be invalidating the fight rather than just... playing the game how it was designed. Dragonfly is a boss that presents a problem (she spawns minions from set points in her arena, and enrages at set points in the fight) that pushes you towards finding a solution (stop those minions from getting to you, and find a way to stop or outlast that enraged state). It's really not any different than leading Deerclops to a herd of Beefalo, or taking Bearger through a forest until she gets pummeled by treeguards: You are being presented with a list of problems (this big animal is persistent and will destroy my base if left unchecked, but if I simply lead them away then I won't get their special drops), and encouraged to find a compatible list of solutions (well, what mobs can survive their attacks long enough to kill them without my help?). It is a core piece of gameplay since forever.

Thanks for saying it. One of the FEW things that manage to piss me off when it comes to gaming is when people try telling others HOW to play a game "properly" instead of letting them find their own solutions.

(example: there was one cave level in rayman 1 that I got so annoyed by that I just started jumping over the spikes getting hurt until my 5 big power HPs were almost finished, and THIS is how I made it to a save place from which I was able to finish the level. Definitely not intended that way but it worked for my 7 year old self. So seriously, you can guess how much one would have ruined that "victory" over this level for me if someone had yelled at me: THIS IS NOT HOW YOU PLAY THAT GAME)

sorry if I got angry at a moment. Finding ways to "bypass" stuff has always been my favourite way to play a game, be it by luck or by a glitch. The most important thing is to let people have their fun. (and not accuse them of "cheesing" when they have found their way and share their luck or strategy with the world. [also cheese is something nice why is it used in such a mean context?] )

[Gashzer]

Even a small thing like dragonfly dropping a scale as she goes to spawn larve for the first time instead of needing to stun her then needing to do enough damage.

This way a solo 1x damage character can fight dfly, get to larve phase and get a scale drop then retreat to craft scale mail then refight dfly when properly equipped.

This would be a barebones qol fix to her

[CrimsonStrider]

As Guille and Grm9 say, don't fight it without walls or a panflute.

Fight it as Wonky which is actually fun to do.

Fight as Moose without walls.

Rather than rework DF give her a lunar variant or something. I also wouldn't mind if she couldn't spawn more than 1 larva from a pond.

[AliceShiki]

3 hours ago, arubaro said:

You dont need to trigger the enrage form, simply sleep her and deal with the lavaes when she is sleeping 

I always use ice staffs if im not playing wolf or wanda, they are cheap and the most easier way to deal with them

I mean, if you aren't letting her Enrage, then you might as well just use Walls? Well, I guess Walls method can take longer to kill Dfly than just Panflute and killing Larvaes.

Either way, I don't think it makes much sense to say that they shouldn't make a small tweak on the Larvae phase to remove troublesome aspects of it when fighting the fight properly when you use Panflute to avoid the mechanics of the fight. The argument doesn't seem very logical to me.

3 hours ago, Primalflower said:

is using a thurible to negate bone cage a cheese...?

I haven't fought AFW yet, so I'm not qualified to judge. All I know is that the fight has a lot of very complex mechanics, and the Bone Cage in particular is apparently kinda undodgeable unless you know its specific range that isn't shown in-game in any way and you just have to learn it from Youtube videos and the like?

So uhn... My first guess would be that the game expects you to find a way to handle Bone Cage that doesn't involve getting out of its range, but I really haven't fought the fight, so I can only guess at best. All I know is that the fight is complicated, really.

2 hours ago, finn from human said:

I really dislike the concept of "cheese" that's so common in discussion of DST. This is a sandbox game that's been focused on emergent gameplay and creative ways to take down creatures since vanilla, it's always felt weird to me that there's this attitude that doing anything but 1v1 ham bat + football helmet kiting is considered to be invalidating the fight rather than just... playing the game how it was designed. Dragonfly is a boss that presents a problem (she spawns minions from set points in her arena, and enrages at set points in the fight) that pushes you towards finding a solution (stop those minions from getting to you, and find a way to stop or outlast that enraged state). It's really not any different than leading Deerclops to a herd of Beefalo, or taking Bearger through a forest until she gets pummeled by treeguards: You are being presented with a list of problems (this big animal is persistent and will destroy my base if left unchecked, but if I simply lead them away then I won't get their special drops), and encouraged to find a compatible list of solutions (well, what mobs can survive their attacks long enough to kill them without my help?). It is a core piece of gameplay since forever.

... Do people not consider Treeguard armies to beat Deerclops/Bearger as cheese? o.0

To me that 100% qualifies as cheese.

I don't think DST being sandbox invalidates calling them cheese tactics though... I just think that cheesing bosses is part of the game in DST? Like... Yeah, you can fight the fight normally, or you can cheese it. Both methods are valid and you should go with whatever you personally prefer.

Basically, IMO, using the sandbox mechanics to trivialize a fight is cheesing... But I don't think cheesing is a bad thing that should be discouraged/patched or anything like it. I think it's absolutely part of the game.

Or rather, I think cheesing is an important part of the game... Like I said in my original post, you can fight Dragonfly properly and have a fun fight, or you can cheese it and get the rewards. It's a win-win situation where those who want the fun fight can have it and those who just want the rewards easily can have it... I think Dfly would actually be a problematic boss if there weren't cheese tactics available for it, because getting the rewards would be a pain for people who don't want to fight it properly.

Essentially, I think ideal boss design is one that leads to a fun fight when faced properly, but that also allows you to use the sandbox nature of the game to trivialize the fight in its entirety to easily reap the rewards, and I think Dfly perfectly fits that definition, so it's a wonderfully designed boss IMO.

2 hours ago, NPCMaxwell said:

Thanks for saying it. One of the FEW things that manage to piss me off when it comes to gaming is when people try telling others HOW to play a game "properly" instead of letting them find their own solutions.

I mean... Nobody here is trying to tell others to not cheese the boss? Like... Just do what is fun for you?

I dunno, I just don't think there is anything wrong with cheesing... I'm just not gonna stop calling it cheesing, because it's an easy-to-understand term that talks about trivializing the boss by not fighting it by engaging with its mechanics.

[Evelo]

1) Program Lavae to attack walls.
if solution 1 isn't enough,
2) Remove her ability to be slept or give her more sleep resist.
if the rewards aren't sufficient.
3) Give her more scale drops like how Toadstool drops 3, don't gate one extra behind a dps check that cannot be achieved by solo players (without using followers or gunpowder as that is just more farming.)

[arubaro]

4 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

mean, if you aren't letting her Enrage, then you might as well just use Walls? Well, I guess Walls method can take longer to kill Dfly than just Panflute and killing Larvaes.

Either way, I don't think it makes much sense to say that they shouldn't make a small tweak on the Larvae phase to remove troublesome aspects of it when fighting the fight properly when you use Panflute to avoid the mechanics of the fight. The argument doesn't seem very logical to me

Oh, do you fight her enrage form?

When you say troublesome you mean reducing the difficulty of the lavae phase? Because is already very bland and easy

I dont use walls because is beyond boring

[AliceShiki]

7 minutes ago, arubaro said:

Oh, do you fight her enrage form?

When you say troublesome you mean reducing the difficulty of the lavae phase? Because is already very bland and easy

I dont use walls because is beyond boring

Yeah, Enrage is like, the fun part of the fight IMO.

Because Normal Phase is a glorified Beefalo.

Larvae is kinda interesting, but unless you have an Ice Staff or Pan Flute, it becomes way too hard to actively manage in solo play (I think it can be pretty fun with friends though), so I end up mostly running around, trying to minimize the damage I take, then trying to kill the last Larvae to force the Dfly to go Enraged... Which is the fun part to me.

And well, when running around to minimize damage, I end up not attacking the larvaes for the most part, so... I essentially have to kill the last larvae very fast after the second-to-last larvae blows up in fire, and this is nigh-impossible to do if both second-to-last and last Larvae spawn from the same lava pool. So at this point I'm at the mercy of the 50/50 to see if Dfly spawns more Larvae or goes Enraged, which is kinda frustrating.

So uhn... The troublesome aspect is essentially this last part. Killing the last larvae in-time to guarantee Enraged mode trigger, instead of dealing with the 50/50 of Dfly going around to spawn more Larvaes or going Enraged.

I agree that if you Pan Flute Dfly the Larvae phase is pretty easy though. It's just not a strat I take into account when trying to think of what could be a good or bad change to the boss.

[Catuna_]

theres several painless ways to deal with lavae depending on your character outside of wall cheese, and you can farm dragonfly and knock her down repeatedly (knock down -> despawn) to get scales without having to use a deconstruction staff
i dont like it when dragonfly summons several lavae on the same pond but aside from that i think the boss is just fine, instead of an unnecessary rework they should just try buffing the scaled chest and the scalemail maybe instead to make her drops more appealing and making refighting her more appealing and give a better recurring use for scales
scaled chest could be buffed to hold 1.5x the max stack of an item, to improve pre-CC storage not called the floor because i think theres no reason for storage to be terrible for pre-CC worlds, whereas the scalemail could be buffed to have a chance to set an enemy on fire when hit or something idk
i just dont think its fair to think that a boss needs a rework because you didn't take the time to think how to beat it outside of the most popular method out there (cheesing it and invalidating a core mechanic of the fight)

[goblinball]

The fight really is just very repetitive and boring if you use the wall cheese. You just kite dfly over and over and maybe use the pan flute once or twice and that’s it. Dfly being a massive damage sponge doesn’t help, either. 
The alternative is fighting dfly without the wall cheese which like… why would you do that? I know it’s doable even solo but it’s simply too challenging and for what? 
I’d just give dfly a new attack they can occasionally use instead of their regular swipe, and i’d buff scalemail. There you go. Problem solved.

[Anis5240]

This game (DS) used to revolve around unconventional uses or things in the game to defeat mobs/enemies/bosses. First thing it had as weapons are darts. So like, being cowardly in the game, be it DS or DST it's in their nature. Using walls to block off larvae? It's just the same thing as you trying to defend the moonstone event.

[NPCMaxwell]

10 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

I mean, if you aren't letting her Enrage, then you might as well just use Walls? Well, I guess Walls method can take longer to kill Dfly than just Panflute and killing Larvaes.

Either way, I don't think it makes much sense to say that they shouldn't make a small tweak on the Larvae phase to remove troublesome aspects of it when fighting the fight properly when you use Panflute to avoid the mechanics of the fight. The argument doesn't seem very logical to me.

I haven't fought AFW yet, so I'm not qualified to judge. All I know is that the fight has a lot of very complex mechanics, and the Bone Cage in particular is apparently kinda undodgeable unless you know its specific range that isn't shown in-game in any way and you just have to learn it from Youtube videos and the like?

So uhn... My first guess would be that the game expects you to find a way to handle Bone Cage that doesn't involve getting out of its range, but I really haven't fought the fight, so I can only guess at best. All I know is that the fight is complicated, really.

... Do people not consider Treeguard armies to beat Deerclops/Bearger as cheese? o.0

To me that 100% qualifies as cheese.

I don't think DST being sandbox invalidates calling them cheese tactics though... I just think that cheesing bosses is part of the game in DST? Like... Yeah, you can fight the fight normally, or you can cheese it. Both methods are valid and you should go with whatever you personally prefer.

Basically, IMO, using the sandbox mechanics to trivialize a fight is cheesing... But I don't think cheesing is a bad thing that should be discouraged/patched or anything like it. I think it's absolutely part of the game.

Or rather, I think cheesing is an important part of the game... Like I said in my original post, you can fight Dragonfly properly and have a fun fight, or you can cheese it and get the rewards. It's a win-win situation where those who want the fun fight can have it and those who just want the rewards easily can have it... I think Dfly would actually be a problematic boss if there weren't cheese tactics available for it, because getting the rewards would be a pain for people who don't want to fight it properly.

Essentially, I think ideal boss design is one that leads to a fun fight when faced properly, but that also allows you to use the sandbox nature of the game to trivialize the fight in its entirety to easily reap the rewards, and I think Dfly perfectly fits that definition, so it's a wonderfully designed boss IMO.

I mean... Nobody here is trying to tell others to not cheese the boss? Like... Just do what is fun for you?

I dunno, I just don't think there is anything wrong with cheesing... I'm just not gonna stop calling it cheesing, because it's an easy-to-understand term that talks about trivializing the boss by not fighting it by engaging with its mechanics.

Oh ok I missunderstood then. As long as the cheese isn't meant as a "You're playing this game wrong!" or "this method has to be patched out!" term then I have no problem with that.