[Story Mode] A part of Final Boss doesn't fit (Spoilers)

[Sathel]

Hello there. Just a few days ago, I stumbled upon the thought of

Spoiler

Dad

fight being a bit wacky. Especially on expert difficulty, but difficulty doesn't matter here. Let me explain.

I liked the idea of the game when I first discovered it, which is not having classes at all and building whatever you want. You can't be too defensive of course, but your DPS, utility and mana control might vary a lot.

In theory, you can beat all the bosses with just a wooden sword and crystal shield. A tool assisted run where the machine plays for you perfectly would end up winning every boss fight. Even as level 1.

That is a ntastic fact! Even though the game has "grind" in it, you can play without it and you are good to go as long as you play well. That fact made me play plant skill to have safe and slow fights. Along with charge-movement speed gear, talent, cheap summon and battery. Which was fun. Even though it lacks damage.

Until last bosses were released, of course. So what's my problem with Dad? The algorithm of him using skills, or the randomizer, whatever you call it, is in fact broken. I beat him on expert after a few tries, but I needed RNG gods on my side. Why?

Of course, not every boss should have a fixed loop of skill usage like The Eye. He should pick whatever he wants randomly from the pool, right? Yes, if he doesn't summon anything. Him summoning Plantaes is not okay if he can just spam it.

So I was having a good time of dodging everything and playing along. He becomes a bit too tanky on second phase so I was taking my time. He was using that skill time to time, which is annoying, but summoning is okay(since I'm doing it too). But then, at one point he went crazy. Until I kill one wave of those Plantaes, which I have to do while he is still attacking me(and I’m actively trying to), he summons more.

There is no restriction for him. He just spams it 3 times in a minute. That is a literal DPS check. If you pass the check, you can beat the boss. You don't have the desired DPS? Sorry, the whole map will explode with explosive flowers, ironically since you play plant!

That's what happened in short. Building "whatever" just doesn't work in this boss. I had some damage so it was manageable but only when RNG gods helped me out. On some runs where more than 5 Plantaes are throwing explosive flowers all around the place, I just died since it is not playable. I later tried with another character, which is 3 levels under my main one. With fireball it was a piece of cake, since I passed the check.

The other DPS check is on Zhamla. Which is on the Braazlet part. It is a lot better and playable compared to Dad so I’m not really complaining about that. It sucks I had to change my build though. Queen Plant combined with around 15 uncharged plants beating him damaged around 1/3 of Braazlet’s HP, which in the end means 3 turns. Other character, the 3 level under one can easily do it in 2 turns using Flame Thrower. I do not have any problems with the balance of those skills, it just doesn’t feel right to have a DPS check like that.

In terms of solution and suggestion: If there are already many of his summons on the map, I think he should just stop. Of course, refusing to beat those plants should be punishing, which it is by pouring flowers on the whole map, but a dodgeable amount. Even with perfect moves; at some point, which might take only a few minutes even, you are flooded with 10 summons. As I said, my damage wasn’t extremely bad and I was cleaning them up, only to see him spamming the same ability every 20 seconds. With 6 of those summons on the field it is impossible.

The idea of “even level 1 can beat” kind of dies here. If that idea wasn’t in the game in first place, I played this game for hundreds of hours and still managed to not get the idea of it. Which could be my bad and I could be wrong.

Thanks for reading. If I ever sounded offensive, sorry about it. I’m not an expert of writing these kinds of things. I’m only an expert of beating Zhamlas.

 

[Own]

I mentioned this a while ago in the discord, how the Plantae Hostilis effectively make the fight a DPS check. Kill them or more and more will spawn.

They could stand to have their HP dramatically reduced to counteract this problem.

 

[Sathel]

I do not believe the issue is stat numbers. Surely it would make the fight more manageable for low DPS builds, but the possibility of being flooded might give the vibe of a "time limit" which doesn't fit imo. Any other boss with spawns either works as waves(Queen Bee, Power Flower, Mimic) or they spawn light mobs, which could be knocked back or ignored(Giga Slime, Giant Worm, Captain Bones). Plantaes does not fit any of them.

 

[Literally Who]

I have severe doubts about that "beat even with level 1" shtick. If anything this game seems to highly encourage good building practices, especially in Arcade. Would you mind enlightening me on how you did the Shruboss fight in the western Evergrind farm without good DPS, or how you beat Furious Gigaslime without good damage or a mobility skill, or how you 100%ed the arena which is a literal by design DPS check?

As far as dad goes I would support some kind of internal timer for the plant attack, if none exists right now. I don't see a problem with the plant spawns unless they are mercilessly chained within a very short period of time. While on this topic, I would personally be happy to see some kind of reduction in leftover flame field duration of the fiery explosion attack he does with the sword, maybe the meteors too, because he sometimes just randomly enters a fire field and stays there for like half a minute at a time and it becomes plain tiresome to sit around with a thumb up my arse because I'm playing a berserker melee build and I can't afford to facetank a fire field. Especially if he leaves an old fire field to break camp in a new one right after. Then again, maybe the intended design was to always have ranged skills and I just neglected that.

Zhamla's bracelet by itself is not a DPS check, given that the bracelet's health stays the same even if Zhamla himself heals back up, so eventually you can whittle it down. What could be considered a DPS check in practice is the fact that sometimes he will weave an attack into an existing attack and then chain it together with some other nonsense and just create so many AoEs simultaneously that you are bound to lose a few chips of health in the chaos. I'm not sure if it should be changed, however, and how. Would potentially require some severe redesigns, and while tweaks and improvements are good in theory, this whole thing might end up becoming a "Trying to bolt arms onto the Venus statue" kind of ordeal. Too much tinkering and "fixing" something that ain't really broke.

I do not believe the issue is stat numbers. Surely it would make the fight more manageable for low DPS builds, but the possibility of being flooded might give the vibe of a "time limit" which doesn't fit imo. Any other boss with spawns either works as waves(Queen Bee, Power Flower, Mimic) or they spawn light mobs, which could be knocked back or ignored(Giga Slime, Giant Worm, Captain Bones). Plantaes does not fit any of them.

Weird. I thought that Power Flower spawns spinsects and mushrooms constantly. Might have been too aggressive perhaps. Does Shruboss do this too? I was willing to swear I saw it pelt me with newly grown hostilis and halloweeds before I could even reach it to deal any damage.

 

[Sathel]

Obviously, game will encourage good builds since they obviously give good returns. There is no question about it. The real idea here is "with perfect play there is no need to"

Since you said Arcade, for context, level 1 and even level 1 with all elite nightmares exist. I beat arcade mode on them. Not on 3 catalyst yet, but it is possible and it obviously is difficult for human beings. Talking about bad builds, there isn't even a build for those options. It might be hard and a boss fight might take 60 minutes, but in the end it is possible. That word alone is enough for me.

For Zhamla, I already stated Braazlet mechanic is half okay and I'm mainly complaining about Dad. Of course the idea of still being able to beat it is there, but having low DPS becomes even more punishing with that kind of a mechanic. Mathematically, having half the dps should extend the fight to double the amount. For Braazlet mechanic, that is not the case(until you beat Braazlet) and is more punishing.

You are right about Shruboss. It seems I missed it since it is not a requirement to finish the game. Yet it doesn't pop on Arcade Mode as well. It might not fit, but I have no problem with it. If it was on Arcade Mode, my extremely weak characters would struggle and I would complain about it too. I think it has a spawn cap(might not be separate caps for each type of mob, I'm not sure) but it is a bit too high and you definitely might need some resources to have a playable fight.

Moving to Red Slime, it is a difficult fight for sure since its slime slow is extremely effective. I wish I was an expert of constructing tools which would play for me. I do believe it is possible still, with perfect play. The idea is circling around perfectly and do not make it jump to a farther distance, that way he doesn't spread his slime too much and at the end of the circle some slime gets cleaned up, allowing you to move. It might not be the case for expert mode, but I do remember trying some kind of circle and testing if it is possible before, it kind of worked but obviously it is inhuman. Again, mine is just a thought and I could be wrong. Which I don't mind. I don't have problems with Red Slime.

%100'ing arena is also a side quest and not a requirement. If we are talking about beating the game 100%, obviously good builds give good results. But I do believe wacky builds can still give you 100% on arena, since the main problem of it is taking damage. Timer is an issue only if you are too slow. Which I agree would happen if you are level 1, but it is a random side quest on story mode so I do not think that counts.

Power Flower has some kind of spawn cap. I didn't check the code but it stops after a while. The thing is its spawn speed is high and that is one of its main abilities. So a cap there is a must. If you clean its mobs, more comes soon. It appears on Arcade Mode so that is a must to make it playable. Which it is.

I don't see any problem with Dad's meteor fire. He throws them at you, which you can move and decide where they land. In that case, corners should be preferred. Also if you move slowly(don't straight out run, only move when a meteor is about to land) a smaller area will be on the fire. Sword ability's fire field would rarely prevent melee, especially with 2H weapon. His movements and "breaks" in general is a bit different than any other boss, so that's the only problematic part I can imagine with a good 2H on-hit build. Which is okay, not every build should fit everything. Even if it is good. Should it be changed? I do not believe so.

 

[Literally Who]

Has anyone done 3cat lvl1 hitless on record? Or even just 3cat level1?

I don't see any reason why the game should scale linearly when it comes to the DPS-to-length formula. Perhaps the developers think otherwise.

Could be wrong about what? Perfect play level 1 possibility? You could be. It's why I mentioned it in the first place, since this seems to be the cornerstone of the argument in your suggestion.

I've no clue why we're drawing the line on the mainline content and not side content. I see no reason whatsoever for that line. I'll leave it to the developers to decide whether or not it is appropriate to draw it.

I struggle to imagine beating the power flower hitless at level 1 without clearing the enemies on 3 catalysts, given the unpredictable nature of spinsects. But I'll believe it if somebody has done it on record.

Dad's meteors are controllable, but he sometimes likes to just move into them, even if they are herded together at the edge. I've also had plenty of issues with him clustering several fire fields together (sometimes from several fire explosions chained in a very short timespan) and then camping in them. Are you implying you can control his movements too? I'd love to know the mechanical nature of that, if true. I don't want my build to fit everything, I'm just not fond of my main weakness being deathly boredom. He's just standing there and I'm just waiting for him to stop standing there.

 

[Sathel]

I said I could be wrong about developers' intentions of designing the game to not force players into high DPS strategies. Which is also why it should scale linearly. I could be wrong and maybe it is not their intentions, and I wouldn't mind it. I like the game with the way it is and my whole thought of perfect play still applies to Arcade Mode, which could be sufficient for me. The key word here is "thought" or "possibility", I'm not actually planning to do perfect runs. I obviously expect good pins, maybe some cards for maximum HP, and a few blue points.

Hitless Power Flower is obviously tough, but which one isn't if it takes so long? It is difficult to keep your focus on a 40 minutes battle, and that mostly is the main issue. I do agree spinsects are annoying and might become too fast on harder difficulties, but they always start their dash towards player, which is slow and easy to perfect guard. Mushrooms are easily knocked back and tulips stop their growth if they receive damage, even if the damage is low. In theory it still is tough to achieve as a human since it requires constant focus for a long time, but everything has an answer. On Dad fight there simply isn't if he decides to spam spawn ability. If he was on Arcade Mode, it would be unplayable on some cases. Especially on level 1 runs. That is my point. The side content on story mode isn't really important for this whole thought. I'm not a maniac who mods the game to play the level 1 nightmare on story mode.

I didn't analyze the Dad fight enough. I surely did, but not too much compared to any other boss who appears on Arcade Mode. What I know is he might decide to spam his summons, and the only controllable movement I found is: He has many ways to throw/use Brand, but for one way Brand follows you a few times, during that time he throws laser thingies with gauntlet. When he is about to do it, he moves away from you. That behavior looks stable enough, but obviously it is tough and probably not even efficient to use. Other than that, I think he moves to very left or very right for the fireball ability. Which shouldn't even be considered as controllable movement.

In the end his movements are fairly random, I don't disagree with it. My point was stating how small fire fields are. It shouldn't prevent any melee action, mostly. I only played against him as semi-melee(flame thrower) maybe twice. I strongly believe many attempts are required to truly spot abnormal facts. In the end, not everyone encounters the spawn spam. The issue is the possibility of spam. As I said I didn't try melee enough, so I could be wrong about it too. If I am, that could be considered as an issue too. When he is in a targetable state, he should also be melee'd.

 

[Literally Who]

I believe I introduced enough input to oppose the perfect run on level 1 claim. I'll leave the developers to decide the course of action.

Regarding the flame fields, they can cluster together and stay on the ground for a very long time, enough to be reinforced by more followup flames. I've done 4 melee playthroughs, 3 of them on hard/expert, and while my onehanders could occasionally afford to dive into a flame field and tank it, I've caught my berserker just walking in circles because that flame will rip me a new one if I dive into it.

I think I've introduced enough input regarding the flame fields as well. I'll once again leave it to the devs to decide where it was worth anything.