Game Design TNA Boss Fight Feedback Thread

Ever since 2.0 released, the Hero Beta section, along with the discussion section, has become private. The loss of the section means that the window between the player base and the content team is partially cut off, and the players are more focused on playing 2.0 rather than giving their feedback on the forums. One thing that benefitted from the 2.0 beta discussion is the new raid, The Nameless Anomaly and its boss fight. However, there are still problems with the boss (in my own and some others' opinions) that I feel like could be addressed. I make this thread in hopes to get people giving their feedback again and possibly see some changes to the fight. If you have anything to say, please do reply to the thread.

Enough of that though, I have some feedback on the TNA boss fight myself. Some things that I feel are unfair in the fight are the speed-up + purple circles attack, the speed/melee damage of the boss itself, the damage aura it gains near the end of the fight, the leap attack, and the eyeballs. I also have problems with how much true damage the boss fight uses for attacks (not the %-based damage).

Spoiler: Speed-Up + Purple Circles

The speed-up + purple circles I have the most problems with. It has no telegraph, and combined with the speed buff that happened towards the end of the beta, the attack requires incredible reaction and mobility/walk speed to avoid. The melee damage buff to the boss also makes the attack quite devastating, but I will get into the melee damage and walk speed buff later.

This attack also spawns a large amount of purple circles that deal a large amount of damage very quickly. The circles deal 3000 true damage per hit, and can hit multiple times as long as you stand in them. The hitbox of the circles also extends quite far upwards. I feel like these circles are far too punishing and their hitbox extends too high. 3000 true damage is a massive amount for how quickly the circles can hit, and it would still be large if it wasn't true damage. This attack makes tanking incredibly difficult because of how insane the damage is.

My ideas for changing this attack is to either remove the speed-up, or give it a significant telegraph. The attack is incredibly deadly, even greater with how much damage the boss deals with melee now (I have been 1-shot from 16k~ HP using ETWA Weathered). I personally think the speed-up should be removed as it is very stressful for melee players (the boss already does this a huge amount with its other attacks), but if it isn't removed then it should at least get a significant telegraph in my opinion. I feel like the purple circles should no longer deal true damage, and their damage should be reduced. I really feel like the damage is just far too high on the attack, but it should still be somewhat high if the speed-up is removed or a telegraph is added. I also vouch for reducing the vertical hitbox of the attack because, as a Battle Monk, I often take damage to it despite being far above it, and it's very difficult to gauge where the hitbox actually is when you are in the air moving around so fast.

Spoiler: Speed + Melee Damage Buff

The speed and melee damage buff the boss gained towards the end of the beta just feels unneeded. It feels like a bandaid fix to the greater problem, which is how incredibly overpowered archer is. The buff just made the boss marginally more difficult for archer and much more dangerous for melee classes (which already had plenty of stress in the fight). I mentioned that I was 1-shot from 16k HP using ETWA Weathered, which is just ridiculously high damage.

In my opinion, this buff should just get reverted and there should be direct nerfs to archer. I know it is not actually of the CT's authority to change the ability tree, but the speed and melee damage buff feels like it was meant to make the boss able to keep up with archer, and balancing the boss around one very overpowered class is unhealthy for the fight. However, the boss still has problems keeping up with archers and instead just makes the boss harder for melee. The problem is with archer itself, and Frenzy + Windy/Stormy Feet giving insane boosts to the player's speed. Though, if this change wasn't directed towards archer, I don't really see why it needed to happen in the first place.

Spoiler: Damage Aura

I've noticed that the boss sometimes gains a damage aura (when it starts spewing lava particles) near the end of the fight that just damages players anywhere near the boss. I have no idea how much damage it deals, but I really wish the aura just did not exist. It makes the boss fight yet again even harder for melee as it has to deal with the boss randomly becoming unapproachable. This also plays into archer's bias in the fight as it can just avoid the aura while dealing damage. I have no other suggestions for this attack besides completely removing it.

Spoiler: Leap Attack

This attack has been directly and indirectly nerfed many times over the beta, and I think it's a lot better now. However, I still think the hitbox of the attack is just far too big as it often results in unavoidable damage if you're close to the boss. I think it would be interesting if the damage hitboxes were "delayed", and they dealt damage around 1 or 2 seconds after they spawn. This gives players time to move out of the area before they take damage from the Leap. Alternatively just reduce the hitbox of the attack.

There's also a problem with the attack sometimes stacking itself and causing multiple instances of the attack to come out at once, resulting in the boss dealing far more damage than normal. It feels pretty unfair as there's no way to prevent it and it just makes the leap deal insane amounts of damage. However, I think this might be a bug.

Spoiler: Homing Eyeballs

I think this attack is a lot better now that it has a delay between the time it spawns and the time it can deal damage. However, I once tried building corruption on an eyeball, and one of the eyeballs hit me multiple times somehow. This is likely a bug, but it felt quite unfair.

Another problem I have is with the raw true damage the attack deals. I am fine with it dealing a large amount of damage as they are pretty well-telegraphed, it's just the true damage itself I have problems with. I will get into why the amount of raw true damage in the fight is a negative after this. I would say just change the damage of the eyeballs into %-based damage or normal damage.

Spoiler: Raw True Damage

I do not like how much the fight utilizes raw true damage. I am fine with %-based damage on some of the attacks like the explosives and the dragon fireballs, I think they are a good way to make tanky and glassy players pay attention as %-based damage treats all players pretty equally.

However, raw true damage really hurts the glassier players more because it ignores the relatively small amount of damage reduction they have. Tanky players still take a lot of damage, but raw true damage still needs to go through the likely huge amount of raw HP they will have. This makes it hard for raw true damage to be meaningful to tanks if the attacks don't deal large amounts of damage. This forces a situation where the damage has to be overtuned, similar to how TCC's mobs deal incredibly large amounts of damage, so it can compete with tankier players. In the end, raw true damage becomes threatening to tanky players with high raw HP, but unfair for glassier players with lower HP. I feel this a lot with some of the attacks that do utilize raw true damage, like the eyeballs and the purple circles. Any situation where raw true damage is used I feel can just be replaced with %-based damage instead.

That's all I have to say. The TNA boss fight has improved a huge amount since the start of beta and is really enjoyable and intense at times when it is fair. However, there are times where deaths feel cheap and unwarranted. I am hoping that this can be changed before it's too late and work starts being focused on the next major update.​

 

ngl i agree with all this but i think raw true dmg hurts tanks more than glassy players where if glassy players got hit with a non true hit it would probably deal more damage than the true equivalent

 

Na the nameless is getting no more changes and all bugs will be kept as features.

for real thoe I don't have the time to make a full reply address all of the points brought up, or how I might change the boss based on the points, but I have seen this thread and will be making changes and stating them in a reply soon tm.

 

I do like an intense fight, but Greg gets stuck on one barrier block and becomes a punching bag.

 

update.

Removed the speed up
Removed damage aura
I don't believe the leap attack can do double damage, he does more damage if you are closer to the center of the attack, but I have reduced the radius of the damage
I'll keep looking into nerfing the raw true damage to be more fair

update 2, the speed up might be kept, but very reduced and with a much easier to see telegraph with a longer wait until the spell starts

 

I really hope that we get a mob pathfinding revamp in the next update, even if it’s just in limited cases like bosses, because right now it’s pretty much impossible to have unique arena terrain for this exact reason.

 

Agreed. Other bosses get around it by having adds that spawn in the middle if the room, stage hazards, teleporting, or being inside a generic box. Mob ai has been broken for a long time, I think Greg gets that point across more because it doesn't have any of these and the fight is super hard.

 

I'm pretty sure that the provoke ability of Paladin got shadow nerfed into oblivion, because it does not just affect specifically the TNA boss, it affects all of the enemies in the entire game. Archer and other classes with fast hitting attacks just get attacked immediately.

I can understand why the nerf was applied, but this does not solve the overall issue of what makes the TNA boss so trivial: The barriers. Rather it guts Paladin's ability to play its role as a whole in general outside of just the TNA boss. In a pfinder random party, it would work quite well, but in an organized party, all players have to do is stand along the wall and the same strategy would still apply on cheesing the boss effectively.

I believe that the best way to remedy of this issue would be to make the barriers be rectangular shaped in accordingly with the map, rather than what it is right now. Something similar like how EO is done in a box-like shape.

 

As if Paladin wasn't suffering enough...