Just finished Resonance Archive - New healing mechanic breaks the final boss fight.

[Hyruken]

I waited a long time to enter and complete the resonance archive.  Waited until I had steel plate armor and stacks of bandages.  Ultimately, it didn't matter.  With the new healing system, I wasn't able to heal myself at all fighting the final boss.  Died 4-5 times, ran back in, picked up myself and just planted myself in front of the boss and hit as many times as I could before being killed again.

Maybe there's a way to beat the boss without using healing, and I'm just bad at finding creative ways to fight.  But, to me, the new healing mechanic breaks the final boss fight.

[Toroic]

You wouldn’t be able to heal yourself using the old healing system either, as plate armor had 100% healing reduction.

The better approach would be to wear steel chain and throw a bunch of spears at the boss, going into melee range only briefly to collect them, or use cover and keep peek shooting with a bow.

VS never rewards standing toe to toe and trading blows.

[Hyruken]

That may have been a better approach.  I'm sure I would have been killed a lot less using spears and arrows and just being bounced around the room when he hits the floor.

My point stands.  With the new healing mechanic, healing is impossible during the fight with the Resonance Archive boss.  You don't get a chance to stand still for 3-4 seconds to apply ANY healing regardless of the armor you are wearing, because you're being bounced around the room.

[LadyWYT]

7 minutes ago, Hyruken said:

You don't get a chance to stand still for 3-4 seconds to apply ANY healing regardless of the armor you are wearing, because you're being bounced around the room.

You don't need to stand still to apply bandages; you can do so while moving. What will interrupt bandaging, aside from switching slots, is falling for longer than a second. I made some notes on the new mechanic, which you can find here(the only thing I didn't/haven't covered there is armor penalties): 

That's not to say that the Resonance Archive won't need a little tuning. Judging from what I've seen lurking around Github, it seems the devs are looking into the balancing and may tweak some of the changes, but there's no promises that the mechanic will be rebalanced either.

 

45 minutes ago, Toroic said:

VS never rewards standing toe to toe and trading blows.

I wouldn't say never, so much as I would rarely. Sometimes you can go toe-to-toe, trade blows, and survive, but doing so hinges heavily on game settings, player skill, and sheer luck. Generally, it's a better idea to avoid what damage you can, and mitigate the damage you can't avoid as much as possible. Healing should really be a last resort, and with the new healing mechanics you'll probably want to apply bandages a little earlier, when they're needed, instead of waiting until the last moment.

[Toroic]

16 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

You don't need to stand still to apply bandages; you can do so while moving. What will interrupt bandaging, aside from switching slots, is falling for longer than a second. I made some notes on the new mechanic, which you can find here(the only thing I didn't/haven't covered there is armor penalties): 

That's not to say that the Resonance Archive won't need a little tuning. Judging from what I've seen lurking around Github, it seems the devs are looking into the balancing and may tweak some of the changes, but there's no promises that the mechanic will be rebalanced either.

 

I wouldn't say never, so much as I would rarely. Sometimes you can go toe-to-toe, trade blows, and survive, but doing so hinges heavily on game settings, player skill, and sheer luck. Generally, it's a better idea to avoid what damage you can, and mitigate the damage you can't avoid as much as possible. Healing should really be a last resort, and with the new healing mechanics you'll probably want to apply bandages a little earlier, when they're needed, instead of waiting until the last moment.

I wouldn't describe taking extra damage and surviving as "reward" though, so much as "fail to punish".  Yeah, you just bonk surface drifters in steel armor and be fine, but the game isn't rewarding your for that strategy so much as failing to punish it.

However, there are games with parry mechanics and higher melee dps than ranged dps where going toe-to-toe and timing parries correctly is how you can maximize the damage dealt while not taking any damage through correct parry timing.  VS really, really rewards you throwing spears or shooting anything that doesn't basically die in a hit or two.

[Tyron]

We noticed the same issue, we'll be doing some tweaks to the healing system, primarily not cancelling a heal in progress if you get thrown into the air.

[Thorfinn]

FWIW, it can still be done with day 1 gear...

[Vratislav]

I second to noticing the problem. Also I thank Tyron that he will address the issue.

I must admit that my case was not serious enough, it was rather absurd, because I was not prepared to fight Eidolon at all when I met him. I have visited RA in the long play world just to finally take all remaining loot I left there some game's year ago. I have just forgotten that Eidolon may respawn, and nothing triggered a suspicion: no bell in the Workshop, no sawblade locust in the Commons and no nightmare drifters in the mines.

So I just jumped into Eidolon's room in my late game gear (Steel scale I have found in some better ruin), however with pretty low amount of arrows (around ten). And, of course, I was caught by surprise that the damned robot is alive, so before I went from a panic mode to fight mode, I was kicked around the room two times and already half dead. I have tried healing, but two or three attempts interrupted by being thrown up even when I was hiding behind the column, I just gave up and went to the method "shoot three rounds of arrows, die and jump down again". It took three lives to remove Eidolon's health bar. The experience was absurd enough to be bearable, but also rather tedious.

Still, the new, slow mechanics of damage taking and healing feels nicer under other circumstances and I see as mistake that I did not anticipate the possibility of Eidolons' respawn. But after this experience, I'd like to have opportunity of healing in that room expanded. 

[Vratislav]

19 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

FWIW, it can still be done with day 1 gear...

I KNEW you note this!