Dev Discussion Episode 41: Early End Game

Discussion in 'Concluded' started by Quixotic, Aug 25, 2021.

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  1. 9001BPM Steadfast Player

    Brine Hulk is an 8-player enemy again.
  2. Canadian Justice Committed Player

    As of late yesterday, the interior sections of the Patrol Catastrophe solo operation (from the Gotham Under Siege area) are not clamping.

    Atlantis: The Throne. The final fight against Corum is just tedious. Is there any way it could be sped up a little? Getting through his increasing defense phase faster would allow a smoother fight and would still require the proper execution of the final 3 player mechanic. In a bad group, it drags on and on. And even in a good group it just feels artificially long.
    • Like x 3
  3. BumblingB I got better.

    In the Gotham Sewer solo, Edward & Eddy no longer provide loot, when they used to. Only Scarecrow does now.

    Instances like Metal solo with the flash batman has some overtuning going on with it. If I see it pop, I just don't go in and requeue.

    Instances that are LPVE... Yeah, they aren't hard, just annoying. I also just avoid them and requeue.

    Also, how does the algorithm work for what you get when your random queue for Omnibus? I seem to get the same 4-5 solos almost every time I queue.

    The metal speedster one.
    Test Subject
    The Hunt
    Manheim
    Circe's

    That's it. I will requeue many time and cycle through those until finally I get a one off that is new. (I prefer doing different ones over the same ones.)
  4. 9001BPM Steadfast Player

    Seriously, I think Brine Hulk got messed up again.
  5. TheSapphire Well-Known Player

    Ran the Brothers In Arms operation last night. The bosses seemed too easy and the portal at the end sends you back to Watchtower. This is long operation to complete even though the enemies were not difficult.
  6. lllStrichcodelll ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Khandaq seem to be a little too hard. At least the 1st part where we have to defend the stones.
    We were 2 top dmg endgame dps and couldnt carry the group at all. With no one being able to carry this, it is impossible right now. The adds that shoot on the stones should have their health reduces by 30-50%.

    Other than that had no issues.
    • Like x 1
  7. BumblingB I got better.

    So spent time through some of the bounties.

    Metal Gotham:
    Large Metal Bat is over tuned. Dying is easy, living is hard.
    Beast Boy is okay.

    Deluge:
    Starro is good.

    Titans Tower:
    Big Bot is over tuned. Too much health and attacks hit hard.
    Mammoth might have a tad too much health.

    Patchwork:
    No real difference than before the clamp. So good.

    31st:
    Same as Patchwork:

    JLD Gotham:
    Pods about right.
    I don't remember the name, but the bounty that has to spawn with the platforms, okay.
    Big guy by spawn area, WAAAAAAAYYYY over tuned. Too much health and 1 shots galore. If you aren't a tank, die a lot.

    Atlantis:
    Swarm Mother is about right.
    Big chicken of the sea is really over tuned. Very easy to die from his bubble attack and has way too much health.

    I did not get a chance to hit the other bosses, finding people to help is not so easy to do. Most are farming the ones that drops a feat trinket.

    In the end, the open world bounties should be subject to the same stat balancing as instances.
    • Like x 1
  8. SethZoulMonEl 10000 Post Club

    I can second Kahndaq being more difficult than the other classic raids. I hope they investigate it. The health of enemies definitely seems off compared to other 8-player content I have run since stat scaling was implemented.
    • Like x 1
  9. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Thanks for the feedback. To be clear, each and every bounty you mentioned DID get adjusted. Most of these were RAID bosses that have a lot more health than what they were turned into which is GROUP bosses so they were certainly subject to balancing, much more than what you see in an instance (those rank types didn't change, just level adjustments - which, also happened to the open world guys).

    Some of your examples have the exact same stat profile but you find one fine and the other not - Starro/Metal Manbat/Shadow Golem for example. Metal Beast Boy and Chicken of the Sea as another.

    There are different ranks of stat adjustments based on the type of encounter they were. Those that came out with an episode launch as part of a weekly share the same stats. Those that came out as bonus content with a larger kill count have their own set of stats. Not many of these are intended for solo fighting. Starro, Shadow Golem, Metal Manbat - those will be tougher than Giant Chicken of the Sea or the Titan Robot.

    All that said, I've made adjustments across the board for them to have less health, defense, and damage. Outliers may exist still after but this is another big pass that should make them more manageable.
    • Like x 4
  10. 9001BPM Steadfast Player

    Brine Hulk still has a raid enemy health bar.
  11. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Yes, well - that one in particular had delusions of grandeur. The NPC was set to group boss as it should have been but the encounter data lied to it and said it should be raid. Got a fix in for that as well.
    • Like x 4
  12. BumblingB I got better.

    Hmm, maybe it's not the boss itself that is the problem but the encounter, like say, with Manbat, the compounding elements to the encounter may make it feel different than Starro's. As really, Starro is enjoyable and there are ways to make it more so, by using the tools that are provided by the game, like the use of quicklime and the fact he doesn't move from the pad. Where Manbat has a ton of spores that result in adds, adding on stuns, panics, and AOE's to you.

    In the case of the Titan Robot, it just seemed his health was too much and his damage will do quite a bit to who he targets.

    Shadow Golem on the other hand, really really not tuned very well. He turns and you die. Blocking isn't useful. I don't know if his mechanics are too much for general play or what, but this one needs a look at.
  13. 9001BPM Steadfast Player

    Shadow Golem has the same attack as Shadow of Trigon in CoU. You know the one. :p But Shadow Golem’s doesn’t have a tell (Neither did Trigon’s at first) I suggested that the attack should be looked into at the time but you know what happens when I say something like that. :(
  14. Magnificent Loyal Player

    You should re-think that. Those NPCs were put in with "x Number of Defeats" feats tied to them when the content was in its relevancy phase. Once it passed beyond that players who had geared up could just wait it out then do them solo once they had passed the content by a significant enough amount.

    The problem with those were they were designed to be these grand, major battles between that one NPC and many players. The reality has been that if you don't get in on the zerg-fest spamathon which happens the first week or two of the new boss being released, you're going to be lucky to find a group to join in on beating it once (much less the many needed for the feats).

    The new clamping nor Omnibus will bring players back en masse to these open world zones, at least not in the numbers routinely needed to take these bosses down. With all that in mind, once the content passes completely out of relevancy (the 3-DLC rule) these encounters should be scaled back to be group bosses just like the others are (Brine Hulk, etc).

    To speak specifically on Metal Manbat, were the health, defense and damage adjusted on his adds (and his adds' adds) as well?
    • Like x 1
  15. Charon Lead Content Designer

    That already was my original thought, so we're already on the same page. I plan to adjust Wonderverse as well when it converts. The ratio of their intended difficulty with each other (a giant world boss vs a weekly boss) when at End Game will still have some sort of parity when converted into EEG but the values were be greatly reduced from what they were when initially released.

    So now, Starro is easier to kill across the board but will still need some number of people. Sure, it won't go as fast as it did with 40 players were doing it at once but it's doable by a much smaller group of players. With the additional pass I just made today, internally, they'll be even easier than they are right now on live.

    The other outliers to them could be adds, damage values, mechanics and those will get touched as needed. I've attempted to make sure the adds and the like also got adjusted but certainly some could get missed. Some of the mechanics and damage values there can get adjusted (and I did just that today with the brine hulk). I'll take another gander at Shadow Golem and Metal Manbat as well.
    • Like x 5
  16. BumblingB I got better.

    Thank you!
  17. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    The one I'd say is still 'wrong' as of Friday at least is the Brine hulk. A group of 6 of us were doing all the bounties. All of them died (so did we a few times) but the Brine hulk took WAAAAY longer to kill than any other, besides maybe Metal Manbat. For a boss with no healing factor (like shadow golem) it seemed to take way longer...and we had a few other people jump in on that one so we were more like 8 or 9 vs the 5 or 6 we had on almost every other boss.

    The other thing maybe to look at is to make Metal Manbat's idle time take a min longer. If the group all dies, there is 0 chance he's not back to full health by the time you respawn and hurry back. Meta is like this too except he will disappear. The spawn is too far to have it react that fast. Group wipes are a thing. Unless the plan is that a group wipe means starting back at 0....then it's working as intended.
    • Like x 1
  18. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Yeah, see above. The data at one area had her at group boss, the data in another area had her at raid boss. The latter data point won.

    I don't recall if Manbat resets like instance bosses or not. I know some do and some don't. Will look. They're all set to not regen health out of combat these days (with 41 if they weren't already before) so that encounter may just be set up differently.
    • Like x 1
  19. Magnificent Loyal Player


    [IMG]
    • Like x 2
  20. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Early End Game
    *Adjusted stats for most of the group level open world bosses and bounties to have less defense and health.
    *Fixed an issue with the Giant Brine Hulk spawning as a raid boss when it should spawn as a group boss.
    *Adds in the Giant Metal Manbat fight have been reduced in stats.
    *The Giant Shadow Golem summons less adds now.
    *The Giant Shadow Golem selects up to a max of 6 targets instead of 10 for his AoE shadow orbital attack.
    *The Giant Shadow Golem heals for 50 percent less in his Soul Leech attack.
    *The majority of the Giant Shadow Golem attacks now do less damage if blocked.

    More as needed but a second pass.
    • Like x 7
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