Flying drones are way worse than rolling drones

[aidancode]

In my opinion the WARBOT fight with flying drones is considerably less dynamic (and less challenging too). This is because they play a much less active role in the fight. They pretty much just occasionally make the player back away for a tiny bit of time. The rollers on the other hand encourage swapping between melee and ranged weapons and make the fight more chaotic.

 

I think that the flying drones should either be buffed or integrated in so that every fight has a split of rollers and fliers.

[GrapeVruit]

How do you get flying drones anyway? I tried catching grazers and gestalts but they just turn into rollers.

[Kacpert25]

Just now, GrapeVruit said:

How do you get flying drones anyway? I tried catching grazers and gestalts but they just turn into rollers.

Greater Gestalts

Edited May 26, 2025 by Kacpert25

[Pet Rock]

Honestly they should just scrap the customizable drone system and make the warbot spawn different drones dynamically as the fight progresses.

The phasmo-encapsulators would instead be used to construct parts of the warbot. This would also fix the issue of the warbot suddenly appearing when all of the tiles are placed for the arena

 

[viblym]

3 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

Honestly they should just scrap the customizable drone system and make the warbot spawn different drones dynamically as the fight progresses.

The phasmo-encapsulators would instead be used to construct parts of the warbot. This would also fix the issue of the warbot suddenly appearing when all of the tiles are placed for the arena

 

Why would they scrap something so cool for the fight. Why. Why !

[Kacpert25]

Flying drones could periodically activate a laser that they would shoot at the ground, creating a cage. 
During this time, the drones would maybe not move, or maybe they would continue to rotate.
Example concepts made quickly in Paint:

Spoiler

Additionally, their electric projectiles could remain on the ground for a while.

Edited May 26, 2025 by Kacpert25

[Pet Rock]

5 hours ago, viblym said:

Why would they scrap something so cool for the fight. Why. Why !

I think it actively makes the fight worse. If warbot dynamically switched drones the fight would be a lot more varied and interesting, but now players will just pick the optimal combination of drones and never experience the other ones.

Wagstaff building an arbitrary amount of random drones before the fight starts is also odd and anticlimactic. Besides, it doesn't make sense that Wagstaff would make weaker machinery with more powerful gestalts.

[reddocc]

The custom crab king fantasy that could!

[YouKnowWho142]

7 hours ago, viblym said:

Why would they scrap something so cool for the fight. Why. Why !

When you give the option to "customize your fight", in the end it just incentivizes players to choose the most optimal or easiest option while discouraging creativity, especially if there is no incentive to make the fight actively harder for yourself

the crab king/shadow piece dilemma

Edited May 27, 2025 by YouKnowWho142

[Waywarbler]

6 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

When you give the option to "customize your fight", in the end it just incentivizes players to choose the most optimal or easiest option while discouraging creativity, especially if there is no incentive to make the fight actively harder for yourself

the crab king/shadow piece dilemma

While I do agree that there being no incentive to make a fight harder just encourages you to go with the easiest, most optimal route, I think there might be an incentive planned?

There are some examine quotes for "friendly" versions of the rolling drones, so maybe the rolling drones will be recruitable at some point, or maybe we'll build our own?

[JustAPineapple]

Honestly flying drones being easier makes some sense to me. Greater gestalt's are a bit more out of the way compared to normal gestalt's, and so your trading a reduce in difficulty for inconvenience.

Not much inconvenience at all mind you, but it's a cool flavorful mechanic.

[IAmAFurrz]

18 hours ago, viblym said:

Why would they scrap something so cool for the fight. Why. Why !

the person proposes that those unique drones are not changed with player choice by catching but rather by progressing through the fight. i think itd be better too since collecting the stuff for the catchers then ALSO running into grotto then returning to pearl for the fight is very tedious (not that catching others isnt, but they're less tedious). its basically crabking jr but worse cuz its only 2 choices

10 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

When you give the option to "customize your fight", in the end it just incentivizes players to choose the most optimal or easiest option while discouraging creativity, especially if there is no incentive to make the fight actively harder for yourself

the crab king/shadow piece dilemma

you forgot to mention that the customizing ranges from agonizing pain to cake walk  

[Catapult 2.0]

  Yes, I hope the combat difficulty between the drones and rollers can be balanced in the future—ideally in a way that encourages players to find a middle ground in their numbers. Additionally, if both drones and rollers could drop usable items for players (with the quantity scaling based on how many were activated), then balancing their strength might not even be necessary.

[viblym]

On 5/27/2025 at 8:02 AM, IAmAFurrz said:

the person proposes that those unique drones are not changed with player choice by catching but rather by progressing through the fight. i think itd be better too since collecting the stuff for the catchers then ALSO running into grotto then returning to pearl for the fight is very tedious (not that catching others isnt, but they're less tedious). its basically crabking jr but worse cuz its only 2 choices

you forgot to mention that the customizing ranges from agonizing pain to cake walk  

I think people forget that bosses like Crystal Deerclops have an optional stun phase that rewards you with a massive boss downtime where you can score a bunch of free hits by intelligently counteracting the boss' attacks. I don't know why the same doesn't logic apply here- the most effective method of counteracting the rockets is known because people have told you to use thermal stones. It still requires you to be wary though, as you have to complete the boss fight before the thermal stones return to room temperature. And this only applies if you are using thermal stones. It is a "costly" method of the player utilizing game mechanics to avoid a difficult aspect of the boss fight, EX: being rewarded for your knowledge of the fight.

Being forced to swap between close combat and ranged combat with the terramites is a stretch as well, since you can attack them to disable them. Attacking the Terramites disables them- just like how distracting the Warbler's with hot objects "disables" their attack. There are ways to counteract both of the boss' summons.

Also the item collection thing is just kind of silly. WARBOT is one of the easiest lategame bosses to summon once you have reached the required progression to do so. You don't have to muck around the Moonstorms for half an hour collecting resources, it only takes as long as you take to walk.


Hey edit! I just realized that I was saying "Warblers" in place of the missiles. So everything I typed sounds basically insane. My bad!

Edited June 8, 2025 by viblym

[IAmAFurrz]

On 5/28/2025 at 4:05 AM, viblym said:

as you have to complete the boss fight before the thermal stones return to room temperature.

soawn another star

On 5/28/2025 at 4:05 AM, viblym said:

the most effective method of counteracting the rockets is known because people have told you to use thermal stones

yea and im critiquing that knowing is important, but this ENDS at only knowing. theres nothing interesting about spawning more stars mid fight, and if you dont use thermals then it makes for a miserable attack that lasts far too long

On 5/28/2025 at 4:05 AM, viblym said:

since you can attack them to disable them

and for some reason, theyre considered pure friendly (you have to control f and click attack to attack them last time i tested it) so its slow and requires weird amount of effort for something that shouldnt be as hard as it is

 

On 5/28/2025 at 4:05 AM, viblym said:

Also the item collection thing is just kind of silly. WARBOT is one of the easiest lategame bosses to summon once you have reached the required progression to do so. You don't have to muck around the Moonstorms for half an hour collecting resources, it only takes as long as you take to walk.

yea and also takes long to row, pearls island is randomly generated in the map. randomly you can just have her near mq island, fun. not to mention, i dont hate fetch quests, but the fact is that we already KILLED CC, why do we have to farm it TWICE more just for this fight's prep? once for the mats is already far more than it should take (discounting the first fight to open rift in the first place). moonstorms are not time consuming, it takes like 1 day at most and then you row to CC (and idk the 'you dont have to muck around the moonstorms' part is since you do have to do it twice for the SEVEN crown shards)

On 5/28/2025 at 4:05 AM, viblym said:

It is a "costly" method of the player utilizing game mechanics to avoid a difficult aspect of the boss fight

the no star option is also expensive, you cant dodge the missiles AND also get hits in, youd need to tank which is the antithesis of what the bosses other attacks do

costing lots of armor and you'd need multiple of a set to not die instantly when your armor breaks (missiles dont stop for you and you cant really run away)

[Echsrick]

why does the missle destroy the star? how does that even make sense? its not a phyisical thing is it? they sould fly throught it

[aidancode]

12 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

why does the missle destroy the star? how does that even make sense? its not a phyisical thing is it? they sould fly throught it

gameplay wise the reason is to pretend like the mechanic is something youre supposed to actively engage with during the fight. the first time i fought it i spammed a bunch of stars thinking i needed to but it really just tanked my sanity...

[Echsrick]

19 minutes ago, aidancode said:

gameplay wise the reason is to pretend like the mechanic is something youre supposed to actively engage with during the fight. the first time i fought it i spammed a bunch of stars thinking i needed to but it really just tanked my sanity...

but then you can just place them outside the arena with heatstones nearby and those stones dont vapourise on contact somehow

[aidancode]

52 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

but then you can just place them outside the arena with heatstones nearby and those stones dont vapourise on contact somehow

probably a bug

[Echsrick]

11 hours ago, aidancode said:

probably a bug

i dont think so, i think its a bug that the unavoidable missles destroy the star with how much it gets spammed, if the stone gets alsol destroyed then what is even the counter play anymore?