Game Design Still think pz boss is a bit overtuned

Title pretty much, I’m surprised this thing hasn’t gotten nerfed since release.

Something that demands too much perfect play from the player is really a turn-off... especially considering that we have to wait quite a while to try again or else we’ll lose hard-earned endgame gear thanks to a lack of soul points..


So some possible nerfs I thought of is to decrease the amount of traps in the arena at late boss phases (2,3) or substitute wave spell for something a bit more confined, like meteor.

My reasoning is that I’m confident that there is DEFINITELY ENOUGH attributes of the fight that instill panic in the player, and the zealot already has so much area denial in the small arena with its movement speed, spammy teleport and multiple large traps

A different nerf I would suggest is to take away teleport from the zealot, to make its movements a little more predictable so you don’t get omae wa mou’d 80% of your attempts. The panic feeling would definitely still be instilled with giant wave and an excessive amount of traps, not to mention it’s decently fast movement speed and it’s infamous health drain.

Short but sweet, thanks for hearing me out o/

 

I don't really feel the Panic Zealot is outrageously powerful, but I do think there is an issue you pointed out.
I feel the issue with the zealot is exactly the thing you pointed out in your second paragraph: the death system. Soul points as a system frankly feel extremely outdated and out-of-place. There's tons of endgame content pushing towards perfect play, skillful dodging and understanding boss patterns, rewarding a lot of practice... but you can only really try a handful of times at a time. Imagine Dark Souls, but you can only die four times, then the game turns off and you have to wait literal hours to get four more tries.

Raids handwave the issue away already, so it's probably not unreasonable to expect other difficult content to also do so. The zealot is a very approachable boss, in terms of endgame content (heck, it's the first one I've soloed, so I know it's probably easier than the Orange Wybel, which I still can't really solo), so I don't particularly think it's the difficulty of the boss that's the issue here, but how the inherent design of the death system conflicts with difficult content that expects you to fail a lot before succeeding.
Boss altars already have an inherent requirement that makes it so there's at least a few minutes of material-grinding downtime per each fight, and a second timer, in addition to that grinding requirement, is unneeded.

 

I mean you can cheese panic zealot by standing in the corner with shaman tstack and hitting the damn thing until it dies
just make sure you have no negative life steal

 

.......ty for the info =)

 

tbh yeah this is an issue. i've thought of disabling soul points for altar boss fights, but i never got around to actually implementing it. maybe it'll happen eventually? idunno

 

PZ is an optional boss, and the rewards aren't terribly amazing either. A lot of people really like this boss, and I don't think it's existence is hurting anyone since you can just choose not to do it. I'm not a big fan of revenant of skien and I don't think it's worth the time and energy it takes to unlock it, and I wouldn't really mind if the CT changed revenant of skien since I'm fairly sure not that many people like it either, but if there are people who really like that fight and would be losing their favorite boss altar if it was changed then I probably wouldn't support changing it since it's existence isn't hurting me anyways, if I don't want to waste time traveling to skien's island and doing the puzzle and killing his living form, all so I can fight a boss I don't want to fight, then I just won't.

On the other hand I definitely agree that having to regen soul points is annoying, I really like the panic zealot but I also get kind of pissed with it sometimes since dying repeatedly forces you to just go afk for a long time, which on top of the ingredient cost of the boss altar (which should probably have their drop rate buffed) feels like an unreasonably hard penalty for dying, especially in a fight that's often pretty hard for a lot of people.

 

Honestly, is there a reason they can’t just be removed entirely? I feel like there’s not really a reason for them to exist besides to force players to AFK for a few hours if they die too much, and it feels needlessly restrictive as a system. Like, in most content the risk of being sent back to the nearest town and having to retry said content already seems punishing enough to deter dying. It’s also punishing for newer players, especially if they don’t know that the system exists.

 

not my call to make to remove soul points

 

I think the biggest issue with pz is how much practise it takes, which in any normal circumstance, would be completely fine, but as said before, that soul point system really punishes you for not learning quickly. I'd like to do the boss eventually, IF i could practise without getting punished for it. Like you're either learning quickly, or just afking occasionally to A. find a build that works, and B, find a strategy that works. Great boss altar but is probably the worst in difficulty due to being punished for struggling with chaotic fights, which yeah, some of us are bad at.
Also doesn't he still have that 1 slightly hellish combo involving multiple teleports and waves?

 

To be fair, even Salted wants to remove them, but he wants a system to replace them.

It's fair to say it's a largely universally hated system, but making up alternatives is more difficult then one may expect.