Dev Discussion Starro: The Threat Below Raid Feedback

The one shots from Aquaman can be avoided. It's most likely that the Tank isn't lunging him. Got the feat multiple times with the league and even with pugs with no communication if I'm tanking or have a trustworthy friend tanking.

We tried for not dying on Aquaman for the first time tonight and got it with no problems at all. Even had a couple pugs with us. Just made sure to get all the Starros that spawned and killed them off fast. It took a bit of time, but we got it. The Starro fight at the end is a totally different beast though.

Pugging this is futile. This is not a Members Only Raid. It is an Elite Raid.
So many 190's can't even do damage.
It is ridiculous what this game has come to.

Well, I've been running the Members version of the Raid for fun now and to help the league out as I've completely finished the Major Event and all of the vendor stuff, and since the hotfix nerfs, I have to say it just feels too easy and I'm now disappointed. The raid that I once enjoyed is now a joke.

Feedback: Aquaman Fight

The Aquaman boss fight feels like it's the Clamped version but just longer. Standing near the tentacles? They hit for like 20-30% of my health and the healer heals it straight back. Adds? What adds? You kill them once and it takes ages for them to respawn. I honestly could go in there and play it like the Clamped and not get punished which just shouldn't be the case. At least we had a weekend of fun and a very slight challenge, but now the Member version of that fight feels like a longer version of the Clamped fight.

So, what should be done? I understand that the devs are seeing that groups are failing and want to make it easier. I honestly don't see how it was too hard before these nerfs but I'll go along with it. They should make a certain aspect of it easier but still make it more challenging than the Clamped version. I would propose rebuffing the Tentacles. It requires players to at least have correct positioning, and if that's too hard, well, you shouldn't be in there? Keep the add spawns as it is because that seemed to be the main problem for the groups that were failing. Then, how about we adjust Aquaman in the Member version so he spawns more than just one floor AoE? It's incredibly tiny and he just summons one. It hits hard and if he spawns multiple around the room, it could make it much more interesting.

Feedback: Sparro Fight

Flattened. The move that was one-shotting groups has now been nerfed so much that I could sit there out of block and laugh at the boss. I understand why you wanted it to be nerfed, but come on, this is just too much. The move is locked behind an interesting mechanic of it only triggering when the boss detects a player is standing behind him. Why would you not want people to be aware of such a cool mechanic? It was literally hitting me for like 3% of my health bar as a 192 Tank and we tested it and other group members ranging from 187-191 in other roles couldn't even feel it. You proposed the idea of it hitting like a field AoE, well, this is hitting like a level 10 NPC in Metropolis. It needs to be buffed so each tick of his Flatten is hitting for about 30% of a Tank's health and higher for other roles. That makes it a dangerous mechanic but one that is fair and isn't one shotting. It also makes sure it actually exists and that people are rewarded for playing around the mechanic by ensuring they are in front of the boss to avoid the move instead of not caring.

Dunno if I'm describing the right thing, but that beam is still one shotting. A LOT. Lol. I had hoped this hot fix would fix that since you guys have said pretty clearly you didn't want one shots.

It's funny that in the 3 comments above it sounds like they each had 3 very different experiences. I look forward to running it tomorrow to see firsthand.

Im so glad that I got the deathproof feat last night, feels much better because it seems like the raid got nerfed to the point where its not challenging to attempt the feat.

That's great.

I'm in an amazing league, and we still have trouble getting this feat. This is a league where the average SP is 260+.

And I'm sure you've done this with PUGs. But this is horrible with PUGs. So I'm sorry you're so disappointed. I still think it needs work if this is to be an event in the way they seemingly wanna go.

Remember these feats go away. I hate being on a time restraint. It can't be the elite raid you want it to be because it's a rotating event. Think more like a seasonal, how could they have feats that are so difficult to get and then expected to rotate back? I just really have to disagree.

When a pug 189 Tank comes in with 1/2 of his armor DPS, yes there's a problem.
DCUO has so many low end high CR players; it's sad.

I think these nerfs were pretty unnecessary, if i was to change some things it would have been not to have aqua man constantly jump so far back that if your standing out of range of the tentacles you couldn't reach him. That was my only gripe with that fight.

As for the last boss the nerf to flatten was uncalled for. If people don't understand such a easy mechanic as not standing behind a boss they deserve to die. If i was to change something about that fight i would have just made the ranged lunge attack or whatever it is he does not one shot a blocking player. A time or 2 we caught a death like that and i wan't a fan of it.

I actually understand the reasoning for the Aquaman movement. The only problem is that it doesn't solve the problem with a boss fight made that way. In one of my earlier posts, I talked about how the tentacles can be completely avoided by sitting in one the room's corners or hugging the front and back walls. This should have never be the case and the tentacles should have been evenly spread out across the whole of room to ensure that players should make their own space by working on what tentacles to destroy instead of just bunching up somewhere and completely forgetting about them. Having Aquaman jump back into the middle makes greedy groups move closer and closer back into range of the tentacles, but eh, it doesn't really work too well and just becomes annoying. His jump back into the middle can be blocked though as that's what I've been doing when tanking him in my runs.

I hate how they completely ruined Flatten. I didn't mind them changing it from a one-shot to something else, but I thought that something else would have been something that would actually still potentially kill players if they decided to take the hits (especially non-tanks), but sadly it looks like that wasn't the case. Players should be rewarded for playing around a mechanic, and when that reward is you don't get hit by a fly, it's not rewarding enough. In my eyes, players should be completely punished for letting Flatten go off by a one-shot happening, but it seems like very few want that, so the next best thing should be that it actually deals a sizeable amount of damage that doesn't one-shot but does hurt.

Thats the attack which is screwed all my "Conquered the Conquerer" attempts on last boss. No matter what it kills non tank players even while blocking(not everytime but it happened me after 12th april hotfix).
There is no reaction time for this. Completely random, no skull, basicly you need pure luck to avoid this. Melee or range, Starro does that attack from any point.

I surprised when I didnt see any notes about that problem yesterday...

Ah yes, forgot to move onto that when replying to Crappy. I'm also seeing it one hitting people with a very minimal amount of reaction offered to avoid the attack. It's killing non-tanks in block for their whole health bar. It needs a way to be properly controlled so it can be moved onto someone that can take the hit (such as a second Tank) and/or allow for more reaction time through a skull and let players block the hit.

The devs need to stop nerfing everything just cause people cry about it. Its ok for people to struggle a bit and have to learn things.

When thing get nerfed like they just did it doesn't teach anyone how to get better or force people to learn so no one will ever get better by doing things like this and players will just continue to fail and cry for more nerfs. The devs need to take a stand and just tell people get good already. By constantly nerfing everything and making content so easy the devs have done more harm to the player base then good.

I fully agree.

I've been tanking in the middle and been able to eat most of those attacks but they still happen to others once in a while. Still confused how this was over looked but a attack like flatten that was totally avoidable was touched.

Indeed. I'm sure TLantern will sort it out to ensure it's not a one-shot as that seems to be what he and the community wants. However, that doesn't help us move forward to solving the main problem of there being a lack of controlled one-shots. As players, we need punishments in a Raid environment. If we fail a mechanic, we should be punished. If we don't play the Raid correctly, we should be punished. Flatten was originally that. Due to the nature of the boss' movement, he would constantly try to get people behind him to trigger the Flatten attack. It was an interesting mechanic and with focus, it could be prevented. If not looked out for and completely avoided, the boss would initiate Flatten and completely destroy players in range. This wouldn't always lead to wipes and the inability to finish the Raid, but would just punish players. The old Flatten was perfectly fine, and a slightly adjusted one which doesn't one-shot but would hurt is not as fine but would still work. How it is now just can't be acceptable by us, the players, and them, the creators of the mechanics. I don't see why we should want there to be mechanics that can be completely missed and I don't see why the creators of those mechanics would spend development time on them and make them interesting just for it to go completely unnoticed as the punishment for failure is minimal.

All of this and what is in red especially, why spend development time on something and then just nerf it cause of a few complainers that don't understand things.

I haven't forgotten about you guys, I'm still reading the feedback.

For everyone here, on a scale of 1-10, how much easier is the raid now? 1 being just a little bit easier and 10 being "I can play this with my eyes closed"

Or do you think I'm crazy and the raid feels fine?


Difficulty and damage balance is an ongoing thing, and we're trying to be forward thinking for when Stats Revamp comes online. The Revamp is going to change difficulty, and we don't want to skew numbers too far in any direction.
The goal for the Member raid is that it should be tough, but not Elite Raid tough. If it is indeed so easy you can play it with your eyes closed, then I will make it a little harder. So, for now, I'll make some small tweaks to damage including Flatten, but it's not going to be the death dealer it once was.

The Aquaman fight I'd give an 8 for how much easier it is. I honestly can't tell the difference between that and the Clamped version now except for the duration of the fight. Member versions of Raids shouldn't just be longer, but actually harder. As I proposed earlier, increase Tentacle damage again and maybe change the amount of water AoEs he spawns from 1 to 3 to make it a bit more exciting and special.

However, the Sparro fight feels harder for the No Death feat but easier for normal runs. Lunge Strike is now a random one-hit which can't be blocked and is incredibly hard to avoid. This make the No Death feat much harder but for normal runs, it's only occasionally killing one person at a time. Flatten is now ridiculous and you'd actually want him to trigger it compared to other moves due to how useless the move is. Once an interesting mechanic you could play around and be rewarded for, you now actually want to fail the mechanic so he's locked in the Flatten animation and not doing Lunge Strike or other moves. Lunge Strike really needs to be adjusted. Change the damage so it can be survived and possibly add a Skull to allow people to react. It's good to hear that you'll be slightly buffing Flatten again. It doesn't need to be a one-shot, even though I'd prefer it that way, but at least make it hurt so you get rewarded for playing and succeeding the mechanic.