[Story Spoilers!] 'Ch2 Boss Location' - What does everyone think of its current form?

[ifoz]

I've been seeing quite a bit of Devastation critiquing thrown around lately, and was really curious about the numbers, so here's a poll!

Also, feel free to write here what you think could be improved about it if anything. I know other threads have no doubt done this in the past, but this one is intended to be good-faith constructive discussion/criticism. x)

Personally I enjoyed the Devastation and the basement area, though felt the parkour was a tonal shift that didn't quite match VS' usual gameplay and skillset the ways the other story locations did. Some sidequest allowing players to repair the elevator early and optionally skip the parkour is something that I think would be a welcome addition.

[EDIT: Title changed to avoid spoilers from using the word Devastation].

Edited September 30 by ifoz

[LadyWYT]

I like the parkour since it's a really cool way to utilize the time-switch mechanic. Either one alone would be pretty underwhelming. That being said, I think it would be nice if monsters didn't spawn around the tower base--bowtorn especially. The player already needs to worry about the Crow and falling, so the monsters are a pressure that could be plausibly removed.

27 minutes ago, ifoz said:

Some sidequest allowing players to repair the elevator early and optionally skip the parkour is something that I think would be a welcome addition.

This wouldn't be a bad side quest for those who really hate parkour. The parkour could be the fastest way up, while the side quest could send the player off into other parts of the Devastation, fighting their way through monsters in order to acquire parts to override the elevator controls. I say override, because the elevator isn't actually broken, as much as it is just locking the player out of the upper levels until they actually climb to those levels.

One thing I do not miss at all though...the shivers spawning on the Lens platform. That was a bit much! 

[Zane Mordien]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

This wouldn't be a bad side quest for those who really hate parkour.

ME! I really need to do the Tower again. I still haven't gotten the motivation to go back since the early days. I found the parkour so miserable. A little parkour would have been cool, but it just keeps going and going. It feels like ground hog day.

[Vratislav]

I went trough Devastation three times up today, comparing to about ten times of Resonance archives. The first and second experience were in early pre-release and in early stable, so without dungeon at all. In fact, I went through dungeon only once (quite recently), and after doing tower twice, it was somewhat tedious. First, I thought "OK, so let's jump down to open these doors and go up, as that is the real challenge," but the dungeon was at least three times longer than I anticipated. Even for learning curve of managing time skip, it was just too long, as first floors of the tower did the job well previously. 

For the tower, I think the parkour was not as bad. After you figure out the particular level, then it is not too difficult to perform required jumps. What the tower does well, is, that it rewards coming prepared and to think a little before jumping into the void. I quite liked as the clearing particular floors has learning curve and is more and more a puzzle than a parkour, when it finally requires several time switching mid-jump.

I know, that it was not easy to anticipate, but if player comes with the glider, it helps a lot not to die when messing up. Maybe, there should be a hint for the taking the glider, like dialogue with Treasure hunter trader when getting the elk ("If you go to the journey into the unknown, you may be not sure if you will need to ride, swim, or fly."). The next thing is that you may put off your armor to jump farther, that can be advantageous in several crucial moments. And finally, that you may use time switch simply to avoid being hit from the Crow, if you are clever enough (I was not, had to see it on YouTube first  ).

In fact, I was not as prepared in the first playthrough. It was also even before the lift worked correctly, so I had to climb whole parkour again, when I fallen, and I bypassed one level I did not solve in Creative (it was pre-release, and I cleared it with my conscience). In the last playthrough, I was equipped with the glider, removed the chain armor to jump, used the lift when necessary, and was surprised how easy was the Crow if you cheese it using time-switch. The only spot I got stuck for a while, was I think 2nd level from the top, where I already did not remember the trick and took me about a hour to solve the puzzle again.

So, as the conclusion, I consider the Devastation to be absolutely OK, as it is not especially punishing when you come prepared. Even if your are not the king of parkour (I am definitly not ). On the other side, it is not as big pleasure that would play the game just to rush the story to the Devastation as fast as possible, once per stable version is enough for me. So people who consider it tedious and unenjoyable have their point too.

Edited September 29 by Vratislav
added last two sentences

[MKMoose]

The enjoyment of the whole Devastation area when I first visited it was heavily brought down by several factors:

1. I wasted a huge amount of time and resources on a couple of the floating islands. I've tested that they seem to all be technically accessible for all classes, but being regularly attacked by shivers and bowtorn on a parkour section which may require you to take off your armor to maximize movement speed is a miserable combination.
2. I tried using the glider, but found it detrimental and frustrating if not borderline unusable for parkour because of #8198. After wrestling with it for a while on the small parkour sections I just ended up putting it away, and I effectively also had one less backpack as a result.
3. I wasted a lot of time and resources in a couple places within the tower itself but especially on the parkour section, because the correct path felt very unintuitive to me in a couple places. It was actually quite good for the most part, but the few misleading or contrived parts contributed very negatively to the overall experience.
4. The elevator is implemented in a somewhat odd way and requires to unlock each next floor manually with seemingly no indication whatsoever for whether a floor is unlocked or not, causing me to spend an unnecessarily high amount of time trying to figure out how it works.
5. The huge distance to the tower combined with how much time the area itself took meant that I was running out of supplies, which meant that I had to hurry if I wanted to finish it and not have to come back later. Add to that two deaths exclusively caused by fall damage, add to that all the previous issues, and the place quickly turned from an interesting challenge into a frustrating slog.

And at the pinnacle and culmination of all this effort was probably the easiest and most boring boss I've fought in any game for a long time. Granted, it was easy because I had tier 3 plate armor, so I lost at most maybe half my health while barely trying to dodge anything, but in lighter armor the fight can be pretty miserable if you don't cheese it. This is ultimately a fault of the combat system as a whole more than the boss specifically, though making the boss itself less janky and more reasonably balanced wouldn't hurt either.

On subsequent attempts, I find it easy. But the first experience I had with it was anything but smooth, and that was after all of the relevant changes and improvements, so given the amount of time I spent initially on preparation I can't imagine most players find it much better than I did.

Edited September 29 by MKMoose

[ifoz]

10 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

On subsequent attempts, I find it easy. But the first experience I had with it was anything but smooth, and that was after all of the relevant changes and improvements.

This is about how I find it as well. Nowadays with two or three tower climbs under my belt it's not all that difficult, but I think my opinions on the location are still somewhat marred from my first ever experience with it, back in the release candidates for 1.20.

The distance there was far longer, and by the time I reached the tower I was already tired of the journey. The parkour was also a lot less telegraphed than it currently is, and Erel used to be able to (intended or not) swoop you while you were climbing, unceremoniously killing you instantly or knocking you to your death. 

[Archer472]

The only thing that has stuck with me about my experience of the devastation was getting upset with the tower parkour back in its release in 1.20 and it was in multi-player with friends. Me and 3 others could not figure out one of the levels of the tower and gave up after 15 minutes of frustration and I dont know if that was a skill issue or a lack of patience and critical thinking from being travel weary (our devastation was very far north, we didn't have elks or gliders, and were constantly attacked by polar bears, and by this point 2 of us had plummeted to our demise trying to make a jump that we had assumed to be the way forward. At which point everyone got creative mode, skipped the level, and things proceeded as normal)

Haven't been back there since, so I don't know if the tower parkour has changed at all, but it left a bad taste in my mouth that marred my first impression of the location.

[Vratislav]

4 hours ago, MKMoose said:

the correct path felt very unintuitive to me in a couple places.

Well, yes. During the first run, in the middle part of the tower, I went to a desperate measure as I couldn't find the way (also, end of February was not the best season for long darkness). So I generated the tower in creative, found the correct path from the outside, tested to jump in the mock world, and then repeated in survival game.

[Zaph42nd]

Personally loved the concept of the devastation but the boss feels like it needs a lot of work (feels great as hunter, abysmal to fight as black guard or any class with changes to ranged attacks). I also found the time-shifting mechanic cool for the parkour sections of the tower, but definitely took a bit of time to learn and I feel like could've been introduced a little earlier (maybe an additional puzzle to resonance archives?) at lower-stakes?

Edited September 29 by Zaph42nd

[Teh Pizza Lady]

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I wasted a huge amount of time and resources on a couple of the floating islands. I've tested that they seem to all be technically accessible for all classes, but being regularly attacked by shivers and bowtorn on a parkour section which may require you to take off your armor to maximize movement speed is a miserable combination.

TIL there are floating islands... I need to go back.

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

And at the pinnacle and culmination of all this effort was probably the easiest and most boring boss I've fought in any game for a long time. Granted, it was easy because I had tier 3 plate armor and Erel seems to have damage tier 0 for some reason, so I lost at most maybe half my health while barely trying to dodge anything, but in lighter armor the fight can be pretty miserable if you don't cheese it. This is ultimately a fault of the combat system as a whole more than the boss specifically, though making the boss itself less janky and more reasonably balanced wouldn't hurt either.

When did you fight the Crow? Was it still in the rc testing, or after the fight got reworked? The original fight was a lot harder and more chaotic, which in many ways I do miss, but I do understand why they changed the fight as they did. The slower attack patterns mean that the player can actually use the time-switch to dodge the dive attack easily, as well as have time to actually shoot at the Crow before needing to dodge other attacks or get interrupted by the feather barrage. The Crow originally only needed 1/3 of its health to be damaged before it would fly away and the flight would be considered complete, however, that turned out to be too confusing. Needing to drain the entire health bar means the fight takes much longer, but the player is less likely to be confused about the win condition.

There's also the design of the tower apex itself. There used to be a stairwell that you could use to reach the top, rather than the ladder that exists currently, and said stairwell was a cheese machine. You could camp there and basically fire with impunity at the Crow, without having to be concerned about getting knocked off the tower, time-switching, or even taking damage for the most part.

48 minutes ago, Zaph42nd said:

abysmal to fight as black guard

It's really not that bad as Blackguard, and it seems a fair turn-around given that the Archive fight favors Blackguard more heavily.

[Zaph42nd]

2 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

It's really not that bad as Blackguard, and it seems a fair turn-around given that the Archive fight favors Blackguard more heavily

Fair, for me the difficulty was switching up from playing more close-ranged on the whole to ranged, blackguard definitely pairs with eidolon, crow with hunter. I do wish it was a bit more telegraphed/communicated that ranged weapons would be needed for the crow fight (yes, you don't need to bring a bow technically, but it does make the fight a lot less annoying if you bring bow + plenty of arrows). I admit though that last time I played through to the devastation was back in 1.20 rc-2 (pre-nerf?) so been a while and a lot has likely changed since then

[LadyWYT]

3 minutes ago, Zaph42nd said:

I do wish it was a bit more telegraphed/communicated that ranged weapons would be needed for the crow fight (yes, you don't need to bring a bow technically, but it does make the fight a lot less annoying if you bring bow + plenty of arrows).

It is, if you talk to Tobias first. He warns you to be on the lookout for his "dear winged beast". It seems like the village hunter may have mentioned a flying monster as well, though I don't recall for sure.

In any case, when it comes to adventuring in general, I always try to bring a bow and arrows with me. It's a very useful weapon to have, even as a Blackguard, and while it may not be used in every circumstance, it's not so niche that it feels like a waste of inventory to carry those items around.

[MKMoose]

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

When did you fight the Crow? Was it still in the rc testing, or after the fight got reworked?

I did all of the story on 1.21.7 for the first time, if I recall correctly.

Hearing about the shenanigans from the original Chapter 2 release kind of makes me glad that I didn't experience it back then. Personally, I wasn't impressed even with the current state, and I somewhat wonder how much of the broad community sentiment about the Tower is influenced by a kind of "at least it's not as bad as it used to be". At the same time, since we have little other story or bosses in the game, almost no mods attempting anything of this kind, and there's not too many games similar to VS, it is easy to make assumptions and tricky to find relevant references to compare with.

I feel like a large part of why this can be difficult to judge and somewhat divisive at times is that the Devastation does a large number of things at the same time, some of them very new and unusual - long travel, hostile region, somewhat puzzle-like or maze-like sequence, platforming section with a focus on a new ability, and a boss fight with a flying enemy. If its scope was more constrained then it would be easier to polish to a high quality and easier to judge in isolation. Technically, the RA kind of does this as well, but the RA is a pretty conventional dungeon which retains more similarity with regular gameplay, whereas Chapter 2 takes a lot more liberties.

 

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The Crow originally only needed 1/3 of its health to be damaged before it would fly away and the flight would be considered complete, however, that turned out to be too confusing. Needing to drain the entire health bar means the fight takes much longer, but the player is less likely to be confused about the win condition.

As far as I can tell, Erel used to have 1000 health, or 400 effective health because only part of it needed to be taken off, now it's 200 (or 196, technically) - less, because the total health was nuked. For reference, a nightmare drifter has 40, a bell has 100, and the immobilized eidolon has 500.

 

5 hours ago, Zaph42nd said:

Fair, for me the difficulty was switching up from playing more close-ranged on the whole to ranged, blackguard definitely pairs with eidolon, crow with hunter. I do wish it was a bit more telegraphed/communicated that ranged weapons would be needed for the crow fight (yes, you don't need to bring a bow technically, but it does make the fight a lot less annoying if you bring bow + plenty of arrows). I admit though that last time I played through to the devastation was back in 1.20 rc-2 (pre-nerf?) so been a while and a lot has likely changed since then

Here's a funny thing: if you have high-tier plate armor, then Erel deals something like 0.5 damage per melee attack on standard settings, and the ranged barrage becomes almost negligible. It's entirely viable to just sit still waiting for the dive attack, get four or five melee hits in while the Crow is sitting there, and repeat until done. Without ever using any ranged weapons or the time switch ability.

Now that we have the quenching and sharpening, you can easily increase the average damage of your falx by ~50%, letting you kill the Crow within 6, maybe even 5 dive attacks.

Edited September 29 by MKMoose

[LadyWYT]

23 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

Here's a funny thing: if you have high-tier plate armor, then Erel deals something like 0.5 damage per melee attack on standard settings, and the ranged barrage becomes almost negligible. It's entirely viable to just sit still waiting for the dive attack, get four or five melee hits in while the Crow is sitting there, and repeat until done. Without ever using any ranged weapons or the time switch ability.

Now that we have the quenching and sharpening, you can easily increase the average damage of your falx by ~50%, letting you kill the Crow within 6, maybe even 5 dive attacks.

Definitely gonna try this at some point, provided I don't get catapulted off the tower's apex, that is. 

 

23 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

I feel like a large part of why this can be difficult to judge and somewhat divisive at times is that the Devastation does a large number of things at the same time, some of them very new and unusual - long travel, hostile region, somewhat puzzle-like or maze-like sequence, platforming section with a focus on a new ability, and a boss fight with a flying enemy. If its scope was more constrained then it would be easier to polish to a high quality and easier to judge in isolation. Technically, the RA kind of does this as well, but the RA is a pretty conventional dungeon which retains more similarity with regular gameplay, whereas Chapter 2 takes a lot more liberties.

I feel like this is a pretty fair summary of Chapter Two, though I would also add that the content is so divisive in some ways is that it's very much the kind of content that you either enjoy or you don't. Like the parkour and traveling. If you like jumping puzzles, or enjoy long travels for quests, Chapter Two will likely be rather enjoyable. If you don't like jumping puzzles though, the tower section probably isn't going to be very fun, and if you just want to cut to the action or otherwise get through the content rather quickly, the traveling probably isn't going to be fun either. Chapter One has similar problems, given that I've seen a handful of players complain about its design, but I don't think it's quite at the same level since its design is simpler in comparison and the puzzles are the type that's liked by a wider variety of players.

That's not to say there couldn't be improvements--there definitely could be, but I'm not sure this is the place to discuss them again. But I do think that's why Chapter Two can be so hit-or-miss when it comes to content.

[Hanril]

I needed some help with some segments, but overall it was fun. The elevator mechanic, the unlockable saferoom.

Didn't bring my glider, because it's not signalled very well that it is useful there, and I'm not really eager to ride back to my base. Most people apparently just chuck it aside as a difficult novelty.

Also I defeated the bird before climbing to the top, but I don't think I killed it. It didn't come back for the last few strikes and I don't know if it was scripted like that, or was it a bug. 

[ifoz]

10 hours ago, Zaph42nd said:

I also found the time-shifting mechanic cool for the parkour sections of the tower, but definitely took a bit of time to learn and I feel like could've been introduced a little earlier (maybe an additional puzzle to resonance archives?) at lower-stakes?

Something related to this that I thought was kind of strange was that when they added the basement to the tower, they kept the 'tutorial' part of the tower's interior despite the fact you have to go through the basement to get there and by then you already understand timeswitching.
It's not a huge deal or even really a problem, but it's kind of just funny how the basement now acts as its own timeswitching tutorial, and then you finally get into the tower and rather than continuing to slowly ramp up, the timeswitching puzzles go back to basics again because originally they were the first time you got to play with the mechanic.

[Jacsmac]

I really like the past-present puzzle, and the music is superb. There is also plenty of good loot to gather. However, the parkour is not as straightforward as it should be. A clear route to the top is not always visible, and the player may recognize the time-jump part of the parkour but still struggle to get the timing correct.
 

ALSO, please consider editing the title of this post in case the name of the story location was a spoiler to anyone. 

[ifoz]

3 minutes ago, Jacsmac said:

ALSO, please consider editing the title of this post in case the name of the story location was a spoiler to anyone. 

What would you recommend putting in as the title? I was debating over this myself, since as far as I'm aware you can't spoiler tag a post's title and naming it anything else (eg; story location 3) might have people think I'm talking about the wrong location since the ch2 locations can technically be visited in any order aside from the Lazaret.

[Jacsmac]

3 minutes ago, ifoz said:

What would you recommend putting in as the title? I was debating over this myself, since as far as I'm aware you can't spoiler tag a post's title and naming it anything else (eg; story location 3) might have people think I'm talking about the wrong location since the ch2 locations can technically be visited in any order aside from the Lazaret.

Maybe something like "Chapter 2 boss location" or "Chapter 2 fall damage zone" would work to obfuscate the name of the location but not the critical details.