Suggestion Curropted King needs a massive nerf

[Watermelon_01]

I don't know, and I wish I did. The wiki certainly does say that the chests pop after the timer finishes and drops your items on the ground.

I'd appreciate confirmation from players that this is actually happening - anyone care to comment?

I opened my chest one time when I was in what I think was a town and got my hotbar items back but none of my main inventory which was 4 enchanted leather items. Notes: Boss killed me and I have no backpacks for which to bug out with.

 

[iAlchemist]

I know such Dawn, the issue is, none of the 5 death chests dropped any loot when they timed out. All but one was in water, but they spawned just fine, they simply didn't drop their loot.

Also when hitting him I took damage myself, I was indeed shooting him from a range (though this did not help as he did not die through a whole 1/4 of my XI reinforced bow). And how do you do 4.5k dmg in 10-20 shots... You'd have to do a minimum of 225 dmg every single hit.

The issue I'm discussing and had with him were the following:
He can spawn anywhere, which means certain doom to anyone not well geared or prepared
He does not move on his own, so unless you can beat him, if you die all of your stuff is not coming back
He has so much health that it took 1/4 of my XI reinforced bow and still did not die

(Teleporting and expected fighting conditions were already discussed)

So the issue I think is that there is so many boss types, and they don't despawn. So each boss individually has a tiny spawn rate, but when you lump all the bosses in wit each other, the chance of one spawning is much higher, and it compounds with the fact that they never despawn, so they build up until you have a room full of 4k mobs. What the mob designers so sorely forgot to think about was that no one wants to team up. It's a habit in the server now, and you can't drop this stuff on new and old players alike and expect them to learn a new way to survive. It's literally a warzome with these mobs.

With that said, when you have a large group of people, the boss attacks are super fun encounters. Yesterday Pemben was sieged by like 4 bosses on the surface, and the town teamed up to kill them. It was a blast, and the bosses were beatable. But you can't solo them.

 

[just_jeff94]

So the issue I think is that there is so many boss types, and they don't despawn. So each boss individually has a tiny spawn rate, but when you lump all the bosses in wit each other, the chance of one spawning is much higher, and it compounds with the fact that they never despawn, so they build up until you have a room full of 4k mobs. What the mob designers so sorely forgot to think about was that no one wants to team up. It's a habit in the server now, and you can't drop this stuff on new and old players alike and expect them to learn a new way to survive. It's literally a warzome with these mobs.

With that said, when you have a large group of people, the boss attacks are super fun encounters. Yesterday Pemben was sieged by like 4 bosses on the surface, and the town teamed up to kill them. It was a blast, and the bosses were beatable. But you can't solo them.

So We have set the bosses to despawn and the amount of bosses doesn't affect the chances. So let me explain this for you, there is a 0.001% for 1 boss to spawn when a mob is attempting to spawn. Now the boss that spawns is determined by a "roll" so we have 7 mini bosses and the one that gets the highest roll is the one that spawns. So the amount of bosses does not affect their spawns, it just adds a variety to what type of boss can spawn. Also i don't get why people keep saying they can't be solo'd cause they were never meant to be solo'd cause then it would mean easy loot etc. and that is not what we wanted. Now a very skilled player who is well prepared for a boss could solo one, it would be far from easy, but it is quiet possible. Lastly, we have been tweaking the bosses and I believe they are at a good spot now, there may be other tweaks here and there.

 

[EveTater]

I do believe the nether suggestion would be ideal, but it seems like you guys have put in enough effort to judge if it should be at a fair place now, and the despawning thing is a very good step. I've yet to encounter another boss face to face, but I'll take your word for it and am happy with the changes.

 

[Watermelon_01]

The thing they don't want happening (which is also the reason the probably won't restrict it to the nether) is for the boss to be an optional late game mob where it can be expected to be at a certain location. They want to encourage teamwork and boss fights and force pve players to basically have some form of danger to them disregarding war (at least this is what I think).

 

[iAlchemist]

The thing they don't want happening (which is also the reason the probably won't restrict it to the nether) is for the boss to be an optional late game mob where it can be expected to be at a certain location. They want to encourage teamwork and boss fights and force pve players to basically have some form of danger to them disregarding war (at least this is what I think).

I agree with what you mean, but my issue with the new boss system is that these mobs make PvE more than what is should be, in my opinion. To me PvE is like the breeding ground, and when you finally feel like you have developed enough skill, you move away from PvE and into the PvP world. To me, PvP is the endgame goal, master a class, pvp with it, rinse and repeat. The bosses make this breeding ground rough, and players are more likely to remain in PvE to fight bossss for loot, instead of PvP. I understand the purpose of PvE, but it needs more limiting than extensions to it.

I'm sure many PvE players will disagree, and you're entitled to your opinions, but I think that PvP is the endgame, not these mobs.

 

[EveTater]

I agree with thaum, however in respect to water: That's why they could keep the random spawn in. The nether's a dangerous place, and if you have to stick around it to simply find the boss you're trying to fight it makes it more interesting. (This also protects new players, while preventing camping of the boss)

 

[Belisarius1991]

From my experience, if a player wishes to go to pvp, they will. If they don't like pvp then the chance they will move on from pve to pvp is slim to none. People play what they want, which is fine with me I suppose. But with this in mind, it is my opinion that the bosses (despite the fact that they continually spawn in our town on a regular basis lol) should not be nerfed anymore than they have because, as has been somewhat stated, the idea behind Herocraft is that this is a hardcore server. There should be some sense of fear in all of us that at any moment, we could run into some big, bad mob intent on acquiring a new head for its private collection.

Don't misunderstand me. I am decent at pvp, but it is not my primary goal in herocraft. I spend much of my time maintaining my town. Honestly though, I haven't been fearful in quite a while. These bosses have brought back some of the fear I had when I first started playing herocraft some 6 months ago. I am not a noob hunter/hater. I am not one to pick on new players. I try to be helpful and kind and I think we should take new players into consideration. However, this is not candyland. And I know no one is suggesting it is. But I make the contrast because sometimes we as players get to the point that we forget this server was intended to be a frightful place (which is why it is somewhat based off the Darksouls game series).

If I had to lump myself into a category, I would consider myself a builder/leader/manager type of player. I like building and I enjoy running a town. I occasionally pvp and I occasionally hunt mobs. So don't think I am simply one of those guys that wants to ruin everyone's time and make the server an impossible place that only I can succeed in because I am super awesome. Because I'm not lol. All I am suggesting is that too often I see people wanting everything nerfed until it can be safely farmed or avoided. As a hardcore rpg server, it shouldn't be easy to farm bosses. It should be freaking hard and scary. That is why people farm carrots. Because carrots aren't scary. Bosses shouldn't be something we casually stroll about and farm like carrots. And the inability to fully avoid them, makes us continually wary. Yeah, it'd be nice if I didn't have to be careful inside the safety of my own town walls, but that is what keeps things interesting.

The current nerfs, mainly the despawn timer and the reduction in minions spawning, should be sufficient to make the bosses bearable. At first, I was a little unhappy with all the new bosses spawning everywhere, because it took away from my feeling of safety. But now I find that I am ok with that, because after all, this is survival and this is HEROCRAFT, where we aren't supposed to feel safe, even in our homes and towns (Have you played darksouls? I have and it's tough, same concept should apply here)

 

[Carbash]

I am suggesting to put them in the nether because the danger the bosses would create would make nether blocks more valuable and make necros/runesmiths more saught after. I am not suggesting they spawn in a set location there, but randomly. The idea being that if you go to the nether you will need a party which is more realistic to expect than having people who are trying to solo level to find a party to do so and lets face it during the offtime there is usually no more than 20 people online which makes it hard to team up.

 

[Trazil]

I am suggesting to put them in the nether because the danger the bosses would create would make nether blocks more valuable and make necros/runesmiths more saught after. I am not suggesting they spawn in a set location there, but randomly. The idea being that if you go to the nether you will need a party which is more realistic to expect than having people who are trying to solo level to find a party to do so and lets face it during the offtime there is usually no more than 20 people online which makes it hard to team up.

The nether blocks will never be worth anything due to chests and towns making glowstone and Quartz, nether rack is in low demand and always will be.

 

[Nashah]

I am suggesting to put them in the nether because the danger the bosses would create would make nether blocks more valuable and make necros/runesmiths more saught after. I am not suggesting they spawn in a set location there, but randomly. The idea being that if you go to the nether you will need a party which is more realistic to expect than having people who are trying to solo level to find a party to do so and lets face it during the offtime there is usually no more than 20 people online which makes it hard to team up.

Orrrr you can do it the other way around. I've been going to the nether for a safer place to level (that and pig zombies give a nice amount of exp). Other then the occasional ghast it's actually quite a lovely place. Of course it has a risk all of it's own, all pvp all the time.

Perhaps make it so these bosses don't randomly spawn within dungeons on the pvp continent? Make it so there is some incentive to go level there. Pve will be less challenging so it'll be easier to level, but there will be the risk of being ganked.

 

[xexorian]

Personally, my immediate answer to most of this is:

1) Herocraft maintains a pretty steady trajectory and always has and always will. We try new things sometimes but more than often something is broken or IF it takes away from gameplay mechanics THAT we did not intend THEN it either gets nerfed, or ripped out of the world. Usually, gameplay testing and breaking things/things breaking is why we change them. That said, we are ALWAYS trying to introduce new, fun, and exciting things to you guys, while maintaining our hardcore iterative.

2) Nether Bosses is a good idea, but I'm not willing to take away our random mini-bosses. They're too fun and keep people on their toes. It is something I, and people I've played with as part of this community, have desired for a very long time. No longer are people only on edge if other people are nearby, but now we finally have mechanics in place that make PvE more interesting than a saltless grind to max level. I want Heroes who had to work their way to 60 and master their class(es). I want people who congregate to survive to be presented with unique challenges throughout the day other than just PVP, farming, or SWAMP leveling.

3) My job is to make things interesting, whether that is killing you all with fire and brimstone until you scream "mommy!", or rolling you over and feeding you PHAT loot. I try to keep those two things balanced on a fine line.

4) New Player Experience is just that. Getting wrecked by things you don't know about is part of the learning experience. We are a hardcore survival server, not prancing around on lily's and playing with flowers and butterflies. I encourage that though. A lot.

And lastly, I really do appreciate all the feedback but some of these ideas won't be happening because of our intentions with PVE in general on Survival.

Also, Belisarius1991 nailed that response in terms of what we were looking to do (for the most part). Good job!

 

[WitchOnaRampage]

... It is something I, and people I've played with as part of this community, have desired for a very long time.

Erm... I wonder dare I ask the obvious...

Are you actually playing the server and experiencing these mobs as the community are?

 

[EveTater]

Erm... I wonder dare I ask the obvious...

Are you actually playing the server and experiencing these mobs as the community are?

As a mod I would assume so, but considering the mobs have already been changed past what he's talking about, maybe not.

 

[Carbash]

I am all for mobs that change up the leveling experience. What i didnt agree with was the inescapability of these mobs in the dungeon environment. Its one thing to say you need a group to kill these things (which i get) its another thing altogether to expect someone to need a group just to escape/avoid them. At the time of my earlier suggestion this was the case. Something that kills you withno way of avoiding/escaping does not belong in the areas that people have to go to level. Solo leveling should always be an option. I suggested the nether because (to me) it just made more sense.

 

[xexorian]

Erm... I wonder dare I ask the obvious...

Are you actually playing the server and experiencing these mobs as the community are?

To be frank everything you're experiencing was for the most part copy pasted by Jeff from my own work, which i have extensively play tested but realized there are some issues yet to be determined.

My goal is to make the mobs with a few things in mind, since we did have a sort of Design Theory behind them all:

1) They should be taking no cactus damage, and half of normal lightning, poison, and fire dot damage. They should also be taking around 10% of explosion types of damage.

2) We realized early on that if we do not set their combat distance to be their AI distance that anything with ranged can easily solo all the mobs. Further into this we realized that its still possible to just jump up two blocks or whatever distance required and still cheese the mobs. We decided to give bosses a "combat distance' wide aoe force teleport to prevent cheese mechanics. We initially set the CD of that teleport pretty high to keep it chaotic for the players. People who keep their cool will realize it's not too big a deal as the mobs usually also have (on cooldown) abilitys that easily avoidable.

3) We wanted to make some of their ability if not most of their abilities avoidable. By this, I mean things that are going to utterly kill you. Minions, which are mobs that are summoned, usually have a decent health but should be taking twice the damage as a regular mob. So, if you focus them, they should die pretty quickly, and lower the risk factor. We also decided to take the time to make these mobs have either ranged or melee attacks depending on how the boss feels to balance out it's damage range.

4) We wanted to introduce basic faction-like mobs and then have bosses that summon minions, and use magic or spells and have cool particle attacks and be really hard if you simply didn't understand that they're designed very much in reference to common MMORPG dungeon bosses. As I've said, most should have avoidable high damage attacks. The bosses regular damage should be tankable by any warrior path or maybe even a healer.

5) Threat tables are wacky right now, but I can't fix it. Threat = whoever has registered the most 'hits' on the target mob recently. I have yet to determine what 'recently' is defined as, but this seems to be the rule of thumb. If you have a class that has a lot of 'ticks' of damage, this will generate a lot of threat on our mobs atm. With this in mind, DK's or things with lots of dots and direct damage swings could probably suffice as a tank with proper heals.

6) We also wanted to experiment with charge/leap/throw among other skills, like consuming other minions for HP and things like that, to present different challenges. In theory, however, if anyone has read any 'raid guides' there's a general strategy that works for almost all of them. Stay out of the poop.Whelps, left side. and the classic.. MOAR DOTS!!

Haha, I hope this clears up some things as I am in charge of designing, maintaining, and helping balance mobs, which is why I'm open to suggestions, but please let this be a reminder to the community that I am not here to make things EASY. We very much want things to be quite difficult. Ideally, balancing the line between fun/rage quitting. That's just being honest. That said, our line for that is pretty reasonable seeing as how people rage quit pretty easily. As belisarius has stated above, our biggest goal was to provide a challenge (not impossible barriers) to people who play in their towns or what they think was safe. The randomized (mini) boss spawns are absolutely great for this. But, because they're randomized they will not have great loot or be as hard as a normal boss found in dungeons, and we will make them despawn after time so they don't just camp places. So, now we will set them to either 1) despawn when out of range, or 2) have a hard-set 20min timer to remove the mob out of existence.

I'll keep staff posted on updates to this in the development area of the forums. I am open to dev suggestions there as well (I have openly tagged and posted there asking for feedback), since the other staff can playtest on live. Also, I have been randomly selecting players to whitelist on the alpha server and summoning them to arenas we've built to playtest the bosses and/or new mechanics as max level/fully geared (but not enchanted) heroes.

 

[Kainzo]

We're going to make these minibosses spawn in more convenient locations and less "randomized"

However, it does add a certain spice to Herocraft to encounter these, well, randomly.
The goal is to have them spawning acorss a few dungeons and ultimately have a "biome-specific" miniboss that would only spawn in say, a Jungle.

It's our goal to balance the bosses, minibosses will be soloable but much harder than a normal mob and despawn when no players are around. Normal bosses will take 3-5 people. Large bosses will require 5-10 people and "raid" bosses will be 20+

I value all the feedback and input that players are giving on this system, it is appreciated!

 

[xexorian]

I am all for mobs that change up the leveling experience. What i didnt agree with was the inescapability of these mobs in the dungeon environment. Its one thing to say you need a group to kill these things (which i get) its another thing altogether to expect someone to need a group just to escape/avoid them. At the time of my earlier suggestion this was the case. Something that kills you withno way of avoiding/escaping does not belong in the areas that people have to go to level. Solo leveling should always be an option. I suggested the nether because (to me) it just made more sense.

This was poor dungeon design because of mechanics we did not have in place. Essentially what I want to see is a longer area where the boss room is away from the other rooms and can only really teleport players from that area to him. (not from floors above or below him or whatever.) It is something I will probably get around to fixing in due time. The escapability was intentional right now, but will probably be changed to a 15 or 30 second timer for the force pulls, so rangers can still run away and get up high, shoot some shots off, and then get teleported again and have risk at getting hit/taking damage. I just don't want it to be too easy.

Edit: By "rangers" I really mean all ranged classes here. Since we're playing RPG with many different ways to attack or deal damage at distances and up close.

We're going to make these minibosses spawn in more convenient locations and less "randomized"

However, it does add a certain spice to Herocraft to encounter these, well, randomly.
The goal is to have them spawning acorss a few dungeons and ultimately have a "biome-specific" miniboss that would only spawn in say, a Jungle.

It's our goal to balance the bosses, minibosses will be soloable but much harder than a normal mob and despawn when no players are around. Normal bosses will take 3-5 people. Large bosses will require 5-10 people and "raid" bosses will be 20+

I value all the feedback and input that players are giving on this system, it is appreciated!

What he said, he's the boss man!

In any case, I hope we are being transparent enough with players as we introduce these new mechanics that people will come to enjoy some of the work we're putting into giving you guys a hardcore experience!

 

[Carbash]

This was poor dungeon design because of mechanics we did not have in place. Essentially what I want to see is a longer area where the boss room is away from the other rooms and can only really teleport players from that area to him. (not from floors above or below him or whatever.) It is something I will probably get around to fixing in due time. The escapability was intentional right now, but will probably be changed to a 15 or 30 second timer for the force pulls, so rangers can still run away and get up high, shoot some shots off, and then get teleported again and have risk at getting hit/taking damage. I just don't want it to be too easy.

Edit: By "rangers" I really mean all ranged classes here. Since we're playing RPG with many different ways to attack or deal damage at distances and up close.



What he said, he's the boss man!

In any case, I hope we are being transparent enough with players as we introduce these new mechanics that people will come to enjoy some of the work we're putting into giving you guys a hardcore experience!

This. Im definately for bosses, it was just frustrating at first because they basically curb stomped your face in when you entered a dungeon. Doesnt seem to be the case anymore and for that i thank you.

 

[Beau_Nearh]

I don't even know what this is but don't nerf it. If it is indeed a boss, you shouldn't even have a chance in solo'ing it right?