Unclear map 2 boss mechanic

[boreal trench]

Edit:
Since making this post, I’ve learned that:

1. The purple meatballs have a triggered explosion after you touch them
2. The cleric’s weapon damage gets divided across all mobs hit by it.

I think there’s 2 issues underlying the bad (although exciting) experience I had, which are related to these 2 points:

1. There is no clear way to learn that you should touch the purple balls. Even worse: if you are very successful at avoiding them (the mechanic the game teaches you), you will only start touching them only when there is no way to see their explosion-timer-indicators because it’s covered with so many other purple meatballs. So please, add some way to either
   -make the mechanic more clear
   -adjust the mechanic slightly (eg the explosion timer starts when you’re near them, instead of touching them)
   2: I’m not sure if the cleric’s main hand damage also gets spread across the meatballs, but if that is the case I suggest this gets removed (since they take zero damage why would the boss not take all the damage?)

Original:
Hi team,
I am really loving your game but one thing is sticking out like a sore thumb: the boss of the second map has so much life, that no matter how well you navigate etc, if you don’t have very long range you just can’t kill him before you somehow get overrun.

I’ve attached a screenshot. At this point I’ve already been trying to kill him for 35 minutes, longer than the entire level!… and after 40 minutes I got locked in between purples from all sides, and I died.

I’m fine with the “if you don’t kill him fast enough you’ll get overrun” but at least make it possible to kill him..
Whether you decrease his health, give him more movement speed, make him immune to slow (if he isn’t already), I don’t care but this is unnecessarily frustrating (in a bad way).

Finishing off with what I started with: I’m really loving the game, but please address this one item asap 👍

[low slate]

Looks like you spent nearly half on hour on the boss. You can pop the orbs by walking near them, then walking away, triggering them without taking any damage.
That lord doesn't have an abnormal amount of health. Work on getting abilities that are good for single target damage. It shouldn't have taken you this long to kill.

[karmic wind]

Im always amaze when someone reach that point ( dont worry it happen a lot it seem ) that you dont realize by default that walking into them pop them, and with barely enough movespeed, it became so much easier to do the boss by popping them and letting your skill do damage while you dance around poping them. 🤷‍♂️

[frigid remnant]

It can get easier the more you progress base stats, but I think that isn’t a good answer for the boss design.

A player should be able to go in with a “fragile” status and basically still have a reasonable time beating the boss. Lots of gamers enjoy taking off better loot or gear and modifying the challenge. It’s not relevant to everything in the game, many things feel good. Some things just feel setup in a way that makes you interact less in situations—back peddling until you die or the minion wave changes, the clock hits 0:00 or having so much damage you didn’t really have to fight much to begin with.

I think in general most bosses are slow and could have dynamic curves to their attack patterns. Slow windup at first, leading into a much quicker attack, and then using one of their mobility spells.

The sinusoidal patterns are interesting, but also slow and short lasting. Leaving ground effects could compensate for the type of area denial that boss two thematically has. The boss would slowly cover the map in longer burning areas that still need to be navigated.

There are some affects like the viaduct pony that calls down arrows, a similar one as well on world two. Instead of arrows, those impacts could also eject those sinusoidal waves. But they should be faster.

The boss could even combine moves if there were animations for them, I didn’t pay attention if moves have telecasted animations. Could function like an enraged mechanic. I want to fight the boss not their balls 🤣

[plain jolt]

@boreal trench You're not alone in feeling like this. The "correct" way to handle the fight, as other people point out here and elsewhere, is to walk into the bubbles, which pops them.

But the issue is that this is counter-intuitive, because in this game you're supposed to dodge enemies, not walk into them.

And the game doesn't give you this info, so a great deal of players (you and myself included), struggle with this boss and feel like it's broken as we get overrun with bubbles that we don't know we're supposed to pop

[boreal trench]

Omg… thanks for explaining, and I agree with your point: this makes NO sense whatsoever.
The entire game we learn to get pixel perfect in dodging them, so I was already really proud to be dodging them successfully for such a long time! 😥

In that case: please let them start their explosion animation when you get very close to them, so the player learns to “get close+move away” to trigger them and dodge the damage.

I can’t stress enough how dumb this feels, to me, both while it was happening and also now that I have learned what the idea here is.

Again, loving the game but please adjust this 👍

Ps I see some people saying “do more damage”, but I was one-shotting everything towards the 30 minute mark, so I don’t think my damage was an issue.

So while I probably won’t have have a problem now that I’ve learned the mechanic (that’s opposite to everything this game teaches you), I still think it’s nuts how little damage this guy takes.

[solid copper]

in 3rd try i defeated him with sorcerer when i had enough movement trait to walk into the bubbles and escape quick their explosives. that helps to reduce bubbles number

[limber escarp]

Well I didn't had this problem on this boss. I thing you noticed wayyy too late that balls actually bait the lightning skill and also make the skill of cleric divide its damage :/

But I also got trolled when I took lightning for my 2nd kill and I saw the lighning only get balls.

[boreal trench]

I see your point but no, my only issue was the purple ball mechanic. I didn’t know you could trigger them into exploding.

In the meantime I’ve killed the boss (literally on the next try).
Even though I’ve now killed him, I think the mechanic is simply bad in the current state. A super tiny change that would make a big difference is triggering their explosion when you get close to them. This does not go against the main game element “do not touch any enemies”

[limber escarp]

Well I do agree that balls baiting/cancelling skills that well is troublesome. Unless you're fast/tanky enough to explode balls.

[barren fractal]

tbh this is the first boss I defeated. The level 1 boss is waaaay more difficult IMO.

[barren fractal]

My first run too. Had no idea what I was doing, but was able to defeat him first try.

[analog walrus]

There is a sort of indicator, from my experience so far purple circles are a warning then the red circles are actual damage, I don’t think it would hurt to add a hint system for that

And they’re are multiple defensive items, so I don’t feel the premise of this game is “don’t touch enemies”

I mean no one wants to take damage but depending on the character you use, you can just be solid and walk through the waves of enemies like a chad

[boreal trench]

The archer afaik doesn’t have damage fall off per enemy hit. I was playing Cleric and the weapon damage gets divided by the amount of enemies hit (including the meatballs afaik) so I imagine that’s the main difference we had.

Perhaps a message/hint when there’s more than x meatballs (whatever the count is when they are ~30% of the screen), although that could be pretty ugly when there otherwise are no messages.

Have updated the original post given I now wouldn’t call it “unfair” anymore, just “unclearly designed”

[boreal trench]

Unclear map 2 boss mechanic

[jaunty skiff]

no, i dont think its necessary, you're in the depths of hell, there are no 'timeouts' where a guy runs over off field with some gatorade and salted peanuts for you and says "hey by the way, you can run fast into these balls and they explode and wont hurt you, goodluck champ!" and then you keep playing with newfound knowlege and recharged electrolyes. -- the title of the game is 'Halls of Torment"

[sand blaze]

The issue here with the orbs, like on the 3rd boss phantom summon, is that they are targetable and take all the pierce before the boss is even touched and autoaim aim for them

I asked about this a while ago and someone told me next update should render orbs untargetable

Only thing I do in Map 2 is take 100% of the time Dragon Breath with Knockback since it push them back

[hollow flax]

the boss itself is very lame with the orbs, needs a proper redesign