Game Design Crystallization... Seriously???

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You see when they said 2.1 new bosses reworked raids cool stuff I thought they would get rid of this mechanic.
Somehow whoever did this made it worse. Not just worse on a conceptual level, but it's a horrible feeling whenever the choice is have orphion go back to full hp or die (you lose either way).
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
anyway
pre 2.1 crystallization:
random chance to get crystallized
helpless
unstoppable
requires damage to get rid of

2.1 crystallization:
random chance to get crystallized
only happens when crystallines are killed
crystallines heal orphion (WHAT)
helpless
stoppable
requires damage to get rid of

literally what
you have a game mechanic THAT ACTIVELY PUNISHES YOU FOR TRYING TO KILL A HEALER??? WHAT??? WHY??? WHO THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA??

i mean before it was just bad luck
but now
there are two concepts mashed into one:
the concept of a healer (high-threat, kill immediately)
the concept of a don't kill me (avoid killing at all costs)
wait
don't those oppose each other DIRECTLY??
and crystallization starts slowing you which makes it HARDER to actually kill the crystallines

and then there's the base mechanic at play here (it's flawed):
crystallization
it freezes you
makes you helpless
only OTHER PEOPLE can free you
oh
and now the bossfight is so cluttered you can't see crystallizations and probably won't until someone calls out for help

it takes away your ability to defend yourself in every way and is usually a death sentence, and ALWAYS a death sentence once all your friends are dead. Which means that it just makes soloing a boss HARDER for the support/tank left alive

this mechanic is stinky
please apply an air freshener

 

huge disagree. It doesn't punish you for killing the healers, it rewards you for it. It gives players an objective other than wailing on Orphion. You can clear all the crystallines in one cycle with enough skill without the concern of crystallization. Crystallization in 2.1 is something you can control. You can decide to not risk the chance of it happening, it's entirely in your hands if you want to take that risk.

Also pre 2.1 there were other mobs like Crawling Curer that also healed Orphion lmfao

 

(i'm fine with healers that don't actively punish the player for killing them)
the problem is that there are times when you don't (there is still mob-crowding, orphion's light show is extremely distracting, and it's hard to see if people crystallize because the chat warning isn't consistent. It's also completely a death sentence to a tank/support player left as the last person alive.) Also, have you never killed a mob by accident?

To add to my point in the original post, it also doesn't say anywhere on the You Are Being Crystallized screen how to actually deal with the crystals. Raid mechanics being re-used in a bossfight without explanation is fine for me, but crystallization isn't explained. Anywhere. It doesn't say, kill the crystallines to prevent full crystallization.

And how exactly does making the other healers harder to kill via slowness REWARD the player for killing one.

My raiding experiences are probably vastly different than other people on this forum (i've used pfinder for every raid in my wynncraft time). The people I play with usually aren't using whatever the strongest builds for each archetype, and let me tell you, there are lots of times when players get crystallized (for acceptable reasons i've mentioned). The other problem is that crystallines remove the slim chance of a tank or support being able to finish the boss alone. (Because they don't have the DPS and/or speed for it.)

And it being "entirely in your hands" is a complete lie, especially when crystallization (intentional or not) can hit any player, not just the person who actually killed the crystalline. Not to mention, they are healers, and if your party (or just you) don't have the ability to outdamage the crystalline healers, you have no choice. It's not "in your hands" because its chance it with the crystallines or run out of time.

 

if youre the last one alive crystalize will only freeze you for a couple seconds.

 

It actually does state when somebody is crystallized that you can either destroy the one imprisoning them or destroy the remaining ones to free them

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And when all crystallines die it says that the crystalline remains fade away as well

 

(this has not been my experience)
(still, a few seconds helpless surrounded by monsters is enough to get mauled to death)

(okay)
(these messages appear semi-consistently)
(and it's still a mechanic you have to learn in what is the fastest and most chaotic bossfight in the whole game)
my point does still stand

also crystals don't smell nice please get your noses checked

 

I'm ngl the part where you have to kill the rest of the crystallines to stop crystallization isn't intuitive. Ik you get instructions on how you can get rid of crystallization while fighting, but that's a time for fighting, not reading and metabolizing instructions. I didn't even know how it worked until I read this thread (and that there was instructions for it mid-fight).

For context, I tried all the raids without reading/watching anything about them beforehand. I found all the bossfight mechanics to be very fun and intuitive, and at the very least I learned them while spectating my teammates on death. But I never learned how crystallization works while in a nol raid.

 

Ok I want to elaborate on this. Killing a crystalline starts crystallization. Once a player makes that connection, it'd be counterintuitive to think that killing more would somehow fix it.

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I've also watched an Orphy clip so I can observe how the mechanic is communicated cuz I never noticed it, and it's short and sweet which is good. Upon killing a crystalline, a message is sent that you are being crystallized. Once all the crystallines are killed, you are sent a message that the crystalline are defeated and thus "the Crystallizing Remains fell away."

However, this is a weird way of communicating a mechanic. The biggest issue here is the fact that it is not initially communicated that you can stop crystallization by defeating all crystallines, which is already counterintuitive. This is especially problematic due to the players' knowledge of crystallization: as far as we know, it can't be stopped, and this is only reinforced by the alert message that didn't come with anything else. It's almost like you can only learn the "killing all crystallines stops crystallization" mechanic on accident, in a moment when the crystallines are killed by aoe attacks at around the same time (if the notion of killing crystallines starting an unstoppable crystallization isn't reinforced yet). This would not be effective at reinforcing behavior at all, and the short congratulatory message requires a further slightest bit of deciphering with "the crystallizing remains fading away." Why not just state that the crystallization has stopped?

Compared to how clear the mechanics of the rest of the fight is, or even with the rest of the raid bosses, I believe that y'all can do better in making the new crystallization mechanic more intuitive to learn during the fighting experience. Here's a springboard idea:

Once crystallines spawn, it selects a player to crystallize. Once a crystalline is killed, the crystallization of its target player is prevented. Otherwise, the target is crystallized until they are freed (or until a set amount of time if you're the only player left, like with the current crystallization). After a short cooldown, the rest of the crystallines will begin crystallization again.

This has a more straightforward cause and effect, and is much more observable for combatants and spectators alike, since connecting crystallization to the mere presence of the crystallines is much simpler than, say, connecting it to killing one of them but also killing all of them somehow makes it stop. This also goes with healers being high-priority targets that need to be killed as quickly as possible (if crystallines are communicated to be healers by making them glow, which I've learned is a thing), and it also keeps the mechanic of all the crystallines needing to be killed to prevent crystallization.

 

yes
amazing
chriswildfire certified awesome ideas tm once again
not only is this intuitive and sensical, it encourages killing the healers (instead of punishing you for it)
and
it also kind of feels like the sanitizing void (removed atm), which would help returning players understand the mechanic even better

 

bumping this because i learned about the shake mechanic in Theorick's bossfight: YOU CAN MAKE AN IMMOBILIZATION MECHANIC FAIRLY! THIS IS A THING YOU CAN DO! WHY?

 

bc it would remove the teamwork aspect of crystallization

 

The bossfight would be peak if
- crystallines were reworked (pfinder players dont kill them EVER)
- the shout he does wasnt a basically invisible hitbox when standing inside it. You have players dying and asking what even happened, and it was orphion doing the roar across the arena and they didnt even notice they were in it

 

(lie) (i kill them. other people kill them)

I see it, and there's a really big sound effect. It's pretty visual, and a good example of Times 2.1 Actually Made a Powerful Ability Have a Telegraph. Apart from Crystallization, everything is skill/build based.

you mean the teamwork aspect where i get crystallized, no one notices, i get swarmed, and i die.
or the part where a teammate of mine gets crystallized, i notice, search the entire arena only for their death message to appear
or maybe the teamwork aspect of you killing a crystalline, and your entire team focusing orphion when they cannot outdamage the crystallines
or maybe the teamwork aspect of everyone else is dead, and you died because two seconds in the crystal were too much

you're entirely correct
making it theorick's boss mechanic that would save you from swarms by being in the air and being able to actually take a course of action to free yourself would totally destroy the entirely already present aspect of teamwork in this mechanic.
(i'm only joking, there is no teamwork in crystallization.)

i don't need it removed anymore, it's certainly not the best but it works. What stinks is when you get crystallized and you can't do anything about. It's get swarmed. If they implemented so that it lifted you above the ground, you wouldn't get swarmed. If you could free yourself, well, there wouldn't be a Crystallization... Seriously??? thread.
so those are my opinions

 

I play without any sounds so I cant hear the telegraph but thats on me