New Bossfight Feedback

[aidancode]

After playing the boss I do have some feedback, though I think I'm just going to treat it as if what we currently have is the final version. Yes, we know there will be another phase and some things are probably going to change.

 

First, I really like how this boss encourages the usage of advanced combat items. Lazy explorers and ranged weapons are really strong in this fight which is a hugely welcome change. I was really worried with the ranged rift weapons that they would trivialize boss combat, especially after they performed so well against some of the previous combat encounters added post-rift, but this boss really is well designed around a mixture of both melee and ranged weapons. It feels like fuelweaver in the sense that you need to juggle a ton of things at once but it's way less of "you have to bring this tool for this situation" and more of a "here's all the items that help". This is a very dynamic bossfight and I really like that. It is absolutely deserving of the title of being the post-champion boss.

 

That being said, the prep for this boss is... strange to say the least. The missiles are really weird in how they behave. It just seems like a way to force a bit of extra prep but it doesn't really encourage new plays. I think the best way to handle this would be to make it so you can dodge them with well timed lazy explorer usage. I also think the missile attack just takes too long. I also think that the fight is arguably a little on the easy side. It's not particularly climactic on the difficulty side of things. I think it might be better if the arena was a bit smaller.

 

The celestial champion phase 1 extra kill honestly feels really bad. People are critiquing it a lot and we're all testing it after cheating in items and progression. I imagine it'd feel like a spit in the face to have to kill Celestial Champion like 2 or 3 times just to have to do phase 1 an additional time.

 

The buildup for the fight is really weird. I don't really care much about evicting pearl since I don't care much for decorating there, but in my eyes there is zero reason to make the fight take place on Pearl instead of a brand new island. I mean, it's not like we're even using the island shape, it really does feel like a random place was just chosen and it didn't even fit right. You're fitting a pearl's island-shaped block inside a rounded square-shaped hole, just for the sake of it. IMO make it so the thing that points to the celestial alter pieces and crab king points to a WARBOT arena afterwards.

 

It's also super weird that we HAVE to build the arena before we collect gestalts. Once I build the arena I want to fight the boss, not do some random side quest where the hardest part is crafting the thing, not catching gestalts!

 

Finally, I never tried respawning the boss (I don't know if that's a thing yet) but if we have to kill Celestial Champion ANOTHER 2 TIMES for every time we fight this boss that'd be pretty annoying.

[IAmAFurrz]

13 minutes ago, aidancode said:

The missiles are really weird in how they behave. It just seems like a way to force a bit of extra prep but it doesn't really encourage new plays

exactly what i thought. its such a key-and-lock design for the fight, its like 'have this 1 thing or waste a lot extra time (also you cant dodge it)' a friend said you can lower ur own temp to do it but 1 polar light and thats done.

 

14 minutes ago, aidancode said:

The celestial champion phase 1 extra kill honestly feels really bad

it really is pathetic. its the easiest phase of cc its just a ball with extremely slow attacks that youd have to have the reaction time of a grandma to not be able to dodge

 

16 minutes ago, aidancode said:

it'd feel like a spit in the face to have to kill Celestial Champion like 2 or 3 times just to have to do phase 1 an additional time

it does. not only is it tedious its also really costly cuz you have to revisit the scrapyard a bunch of times to destroy the fences that respawn outside of the shards that those things cost :\

[WendyHater9000]

Quote

I also think that the fight is arguably a little on the easy side. It's not particularly climactic on the difficulty side of things. I think it might be better if the arena was a bit smaller.

Just want to quote this. Don't forget this is only phase two. And we have at least 1-2 phase left, since there's a boss in code called "altarguardian_lunarrift_phase4". The boss fight rn is hard enough for a mid phase ngl, it's not a easy fight with 1x damage character.\

And also I hate phase 1, cause fighting cc phase 1 again with planar defense is kinda boring ngl, atleast add some more pattern

[IAmAFurrz]

17 minutes ago, aidancode said:

there is zero reason to make the fight take place on Pearl instead of a brand new island. I mean, it's not like we're even using the island shape, it really does feel like a random place was just chosen and it didn't even fit right

its really strange why you have to remove her, then to make her island a random spot for the fight when you can do this anywhere else. if they wanted to show wagstaffs dickishness then at least make it so its what he wants that doesnt actually require more effort, since pearl is often far away from mainland and he already has a scrapyard elsewhere so why would he just randomly go to pearl?

small side note i wish other than lazy explorer, you can still choose to max out speed with road, cane and mag to dodge the (currently) undodgable. its more prep but if it can work itd be nicer than 1 option

[aidancode]

2 minutes ago, kevindaze said:

Don't forget this is only phase two

like I said, I wanted to treat this feedback as if what we have is the final version just because that's the only way I can properly give meaningful feedback. Obviously things will change later and we have confirmation there's more but I'm just basing this off of what I can see.

[IAmAFurrz]

22 minutes ago, aidancode said:

not do some random side quest where the hardest part is crafting the thing, not catching gestalts!

not to mention its such a time waste, you have to collect so much, then you have to go to either rift/moon to get them. klei loves their fetch quests that require you to take at least 2 days to finish and composes of walking around

[WendyHater9000]

2 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

its really strange why you have to remove her, then to make her island a random spot for the fight when you can do this anywhere else. if they wanted to show wagstaffs dickishness then at least make it so its what he wants that doesnt actually require more effort, since pearl is often far away from mainland and he already has a scrapyard elsewhere so why would he just randomly go to pearl?

Welp, if u examine the shell near to her house, character will tell u that there's a lot of energy get plugged under the island, and that's why wagstaff wanna take this island.

But yah, it's kinda sad that we tricked her out from her island by drawing a fake map after she believe in us.

[IAmAFurrz]

10 minutes ago, kevindaze said:

Welp, if u examine the shell near to her house, character will tell u that there's a lot of energy get plugged under the island, and that's why wagstaff wanna take this island.

oh that wasnt very clear but i guess that makes sense. but what makes it different from main lunar island?

[Maxil20]

Maybe I’m like the only one, but I personally didn’t mind the fakeout P1 CC whatsoever. I actually kinda found it funny it tried to take vengeance in a damaged state, and you end up taking it’s essence to fight the actual boss. Reminds me of how in TBOI hush/ultra greed have a boss directly prior to the one you fight that is laughably weak before you move in to the actually hard boss, and I feel that’s the point.

In terms of difficulty, I certainly found it a step up from the mutants and a good chunk of the raid bosses. I did fight it with 3 lesser/3 greater gestalts, which did seem to give quite a chaotic balance that didn’t feel unbelievably overwhelming. I personally liked the fight quite a bit, though its one of those fights that would have felt way worse if I didn’t know about particular gimmicks, especially anything about the missiles. I think it’s in an alright spot, especially if the phase after is harder than this one.

I don’t have much to say on Pearl, so /shrug

If the reward is along the lines of the empowered crown + other goodies, I do not mind the additional prerequisite of extra CC kills to fight the boss in exchange for the rewards being very powerful. I wouldn’t oppose changes to the recipes to make it easier, but I also don’t think I would mind especially now that grinding moonstorms when they fix the quirks where that is currently Impossible in the beta is way faster than it used to be in older versions.