Game Design Change The First Secret Discovery.

New discovery

For those of you who don't know, in 1.20 they added a new secret discovery in the Wynn Plains; It's intended to be the first secret discovery players come across, acting as a sort of tutorial secret discovery for new players. I already made a post about this during beta feedback a while ago, my main issue then being the difficulty of the boss fight you encounter, but since then I've seen a lot of new players interact with the content, and sadly a lot of my fears about the discovery were proven right, and there are some things I didn't foresee.

Difficulty and Combat

Notably, my original worry was the discovery boss would be too difficult for newer players, and would therefore shy them away from attempting to find secret discoveries. To some extent I was right, and in others, I was wrong. From the new players, I observed, nearly all of them did, in fact, die to the boss in their first attempt, but, what I did not predict is around 80% of players attempt the boss again. Most players would end up succeeding on their 2nd or 3rd try. However, issues with this start to arise when you look a bit deeper than that.

Association, and Disassociation

Let's start with that 80% of players who attempted the boss again. For those of you who don't know, this discovery is insanely close to the exit of the Ezan's Brothers cave, in fact, it's intended for players to find it when doing the quest, and they do, which seems to be the issue. Nearly every one of these players thought it was part of the quest, which is why they attempted it again at all. Of the nearly 80% of the players who attempted the boss again, only two of them realized it wasn't a part of the quest, the rest only did so because they thought it was necessary to beat it. What's so bad about this is none of those players even realized secret discoveries were a thing, or that this was one of them, meaning this tutorial fundamentally fails to teach players what it wanted too, and I'm not sure you need to be a genius to figure out that's a sign of a bad tutorial.

It gets worse however because I still haven't talked about that 20% of players who didn't attempt the boss again. These players were a bit different from the 80% of players who thought it was a part of the quest because they didn't find it during the quest, they all found it just before, or just after, and this is where my original fear comes true. Most of these players admitted that after the discovery, they were more scared and cautious when exploring, most would stick to the main path after, and those who didn't tended to stay away from mobs even slightly higher level than them. This a full 20% of players, one out of every five, who not only didn't learn what they were supposed to but instead were largely taught the opposite.

Note: All data observed was mainly from close friends who have not played the game previously, some (4) were observations from youtube videos of people who have not played before. In total, I observed 65 players. 38 Tried the boss again, 13 didn't, the remaining 14 either did not find it at all, or thought it was a part of a separate quest, and did not interact with it. I was tempted to make a section about these players, as in many ways it drives the point home, but I decided against it. If you attempt this, results may vary.

 

Wow dude, good job for analysing it. I had no idea most players would try it again.. (months later i realise this sounds sarcastic)

The reason I think most players try it again is because they think it's part of the Enzan's Brother quest and thus will continue trying, some quitting forever due to the difficulty

I think the boss should be made a lot easier, since I've started a couple of new playthroughs since this was added and I never want to get this discovery, despite it being intended to be the easiest in the game. I just don't want to die to that boss.

Not only that but there should be an indicator that it isn't part of Enzan's Brother, maybe there could be a very visible path leading back to Therck so that players know they can avoid that. Alternatively, the boss could be removed entirely and you are just led into a neat little cave that provides some lore

I tried it on a fresh-out-of-tutorial Archer class and was overwhelmed by the Embryos before I could even do any damage to the boss, making it unnecessarily difficult. On top of that, I had to manage the heavy flamethrower spam from the other minions and the only potion I had was obtained by sheer luck and was level 5 so i couldn't use it anyway. I had no way to heal, no way to deal a good amount of damage, no way to survive. I couldn't even escape from the area because it requires killing the boss. I died while the boss had only lost like 20 health

I'm experienced with the Archer class, so imagine how much harder it would be for a new player who found it by accident whilst doing Enzan's Brother. I get that it's supposed to be accidentally found, but it's more like a trap for newbies instead of a secret discovery tutorial. It should be changed to either be incredibly easy to defeat or just removed entirely. In my honest opinion, Corrupter of Worlds is easier at-level because by then you've had a chance to collect decent equipment and learn the game well, while this boss catches you by surprise, overwhelms you with its minions, all while you only have Tosach and a crafted weapon (maybe some pants and stuff if you're lucky)

The gear I had was:

Tosach

Crafted bow with 10-13 damage, slow attack speed

2 SP in Strength (I wanted to take the boss down quickly instead of fighting it slowly. It failed.)

Exact changes to the boss that i would suggest:

Remove/nerf the minions

Lower the boss' health since killing it takes forever

Give the egg form only 1 health so you don't waste your well-needed mana spellspamming to break it



In short, this boss is very stupidly designed and should be removed as it endangers the playing experience players have and instead reworked to be ridiculously easy to defeat

 

Definitely agree this boss needs big nerfs or removal. Your data is nice to have in this debate, it helps reinforce the point that this boss just teaches players the wrong lessons.

 

Yeah, don't think there should be a boss at all.
It's not in line with the rest of the secret discoveries, so far the whole two players that actually got it, well they ended up expecting the wrong thing from discoveries.
That being said, the best idea in my opinion is to have a cave, or structure, marked by a very, very distinguished path, that, upon entering, plays a fancy cutscene, and then rewards the player with an item.

 

Yeah, that's nice

The only other discovery with a boss is optional (phoenix prince)

 

I was actually really confused by the presence of the door for a minute, so it's not just new players who tried to figure out how it fits into Enzan's Brother. Definitely agree that it should be reworked, but I wouldn't nerf it necessarily (because of how powerful the helmet is), maybe just remove the boss or make it a little further reform Enzan's Brother.

 

Idk why this discovery has a boss at all. None of the others do (to my memory at least) so why would they give this one a boss and imply that secret discoveries have bosses at all?

 

The only other one (Like samsam said) is Pheniox Prince

 

Ah, yes.

 

This secret discovery should definitely be reworked, though the helmet it gives- Spiketop- should still be available to lower level Players. I've found that the extra health it gives is invaluable, and using it has certainly saved me from death a few times!

 

I think there may be a plan to implement hidden world bosses in addition to secret discoveries and this is a precursor to that.

 

Yeah, considering it said "mini-boss competele" but uhhh, we kinda already have those? In the form of boss alters.

Honestly it really confuses me.
My issue with the idea is its kinda, unannounced? I don't mean as a feature, i mean in the world. I imgaine alot of people are going to be caught unprepared, considering the bosses come without warning signs.

 

bump, i also totally agree

 

Does anyone have anything else to say about this?
Like, having a GM respond would be cool.

 

Little late but I predict that the Phoenix Prince will retroactively be made a world miniboss and the Matryoshka Idol will get a secret discovery + become a world miniboss

 

Actually I think the Archer class is one of the best classes for the boss, but that's only because you can stand on the ledge and shoot it from there.

 

Haha, funny cheese did yesterday.

 

Imo a good way to improve it would be lock it behind a combat level requirement. The helmet is level 9 so why not add a message when trying to open the door? Something like: "The corruption in this cave seems too strong, come back when you're level 9.

 

That probably makes it seem even more like a quest. The point of it is to tell people secret disoveries exist aswell, so locking it until level 10 basically kinda makes that point mute.