Raven Guardian - Battle

[olive tulip]

I feel mostly positive about the raven guardian battle. I'm attaching a video where i felt like i was acting in an action movie. I've felt very immersed with the music and everything. the way the music does that rising when you fall down a level. There's just a couple things i want to nitpick about.
The plague smoke isn't deadly enough. i took zero damage from it despite being slow to reclaim height after being knocked down to the bottom level.
It took me a painful amount of time to figure out there's a rope to pull off of the raven guardian's wing.
Why did the raven guardian disappear when i made it back to the top? why did it wait for me?

[zenith elbow]

I enjoyed it to. But it was suuuper easy. With alot of build up

[cerulean prawn]

Super cool boss. The music fits so well and is pressuring. First thing I thought when I got to the first phase, I gotta "escape" the boss. But then I saw those ropes and levers to close the gates to trap the raven for a short time.

[olive tulip]

Figuring out what to do was the funnest part. More fun that actually doing it xD

But I do think the difficulty isn’t intense enough.

1 HP down per hit by the raven guardian?!?! No way a 2 story fall does more damage than that

At some point I was full HP and some plague stuff took 4 points away and I was left at 1

I know I have the rune perk to last longer in the red plague smoke but I took no damage from it

I think the smoke should cover every area on the floor it’s spewed upon. No need for it to be clear where levers are when the player needs to go up a floor anyway

[cerulean prawn]

After phases when the raven spreads it, it should be faster

[shy radish]

I agree with this, it did take a while for the raven to spread the red smoke

[spiral violet]

Great feedback everyone. I think I agree with most everything.

-If you go up a floor really early then it does seem like you are waiting a long time for the Raven to rotate 360 and cover that level with red death.
What should happen? We need that level to be covered.... But of course don't want player waiting around.

-we originally planned to have the Raven spew red death after it attacks a window. That way if you don't pull the lever on time then that area will get covered. So you can just stand a safe distance and wait over and over.
-Dark Heart Rune does give you insane resistance to red death. Not sure I I want to change this.
-base damage from Raven could be increased. Although I worry about casually and young gamers. Maybe we up the damage from 1 to 2.... But that means they can really only be hit once and then never again or they die. Most people will only have 4hp. Some 5.

[zenith elbow]

Offer difficulty spread options. Higher difficulty. More damage per second... i personnely would like to see the raven agro the player vs a default pattern Perhaps go down aswell as up. Blocking sections with red death? So you have to avoid thoes spots?

[olive tulip]

• “Although I worry about casually and young gamers. Maybe we up the damage from 1 to 2.... But that means they can really only be hit once and then never again or they die. Most people will only have 4hp. Some 5.”

Later on, the next battle, the damage by 1 hit is Jurassic! I can get 2 hit K/O’d in that battle with 7 Hit Points.

[spiral violet]

Unless you get the rune to prevent Thorn damage

[olive tulip]

Oh! True

This may be slightly off the topic but about player graves… it implies that time doesn’t restart after death, time continues on as usual. This means that the Boss battle(s) loop each instance without perceived time

I need to think about Runes more. I’m so used to the basic mechanics of Spirit of the North 1 that I keep forgetting about Spirit of the North 2’s new mechanics

[spiral violet]

Currently everything is built around floor progression. Boss has three phases. The phase is determined by floor. This effects music, rate of attacks, number of levers, number of holes in floor, etc.

Unfortunately the player has to go up and Raven can't go down with the way it's built.

[zenith elbow]

Fair enough. Just shootin ideas out

[spiral violet]

I think I agree with you though 🙂

[zenith elbow]

As said in yesterday's chat. Fromsoft player lolol. Im used to bosses being pure pain hahaha

[olive tulip]

Objective wise, and the music reactivity, such a phenomenal encounter in the game

[zenith elbow]

Unfortunately i played raven after music broke so ill have to wait for fix or release to hear it

[spiral violet]

Haha, ya. Part of me wants the bosses to very hard. But SOTN players are not dark souls players. 😅

Most aren't*

[olive tulip]

I remember you telling me that. It’s very good. There’s a snippet of it in the vid I attached to the top of this post

[zenith elbow]

Yeah. Games a calm exploration vibe. It wouldn't fit well.

Although a difficulty option may be an alt to deal with young viewers vs ones like myself who like a challenge

[olive tulip]

fun fact, there was a dark souls OST used in an early dev build of Endling Extinction is Forever to use as a placeholder for ambience testing 🙃

I’d imagine a post-launch update that brings a new difficulty option or something

[zenith elbow]

Ng+ perhaps

[sudden ivy]

I really enjoyed this battle. Died 5 or 6 times, but didnt' notice or feel it wasn't tuned right. It was learning mechanics related deaths, once or twice the raven glide didn't go as planned and I got dropped in a bad spot. But as far as tuning, this felt spot on.

I did see a weird rope/line going between the hooks I was pulling out and the raven itself.. not sure if that was just a graphics bug or something so I didn't report anything.

[olive tulip]

i just noticed the red death is a collection of billboards lol