Lightless Arbor Dungeon Boss Feedback

[Multiplose]

For reference, I play on hardcore masochistic difficulty.

I went into the lightless arbor without reading up on dungeons ahead of time. I only knew a few things about them.

The lightless arbor is very large. I feel there should be some indication of this beforehand.

The dungeon boss is absurd. This is the real problem. What I appreciate about Last Epoch is its balanced difficulty. The game does not murder you for no reason. Death is the result of a sequence of missteps. This dungeon boss was different. Insta-kill dungeon bosses is a direct departure from one of the game’s founding principles.

Apparently, there is some shenanigan you are supposed to pull with the environment in this encounter. This is not told and there is no reason for a player to know this ahead of time.

Maybe this is acceptable for softcore, where a dungeon should require multiple attempts, but it is completely inappropriate for hardcore. The game should be balanced for hardcore characters. Massive difficulty spikes should be avoided. I’m sure we’ve all had that feeling of playing a game, finding it too easy, and suddenly the difficulty ramps up to near impossible. That’s lazy game design attempting to make up for bad balancing.

This was completely unexpected and took me by surprise, given how solid the rest of the game has been. I submit that this needs to be addressed.

[McFluffin]

So while you’re of course welcome to play on masochist mode, I’m going to point out that the game isn’t balanced for maso and the devs have stated that they won’t be balancing it for that game mode. For the purposes of this post, that means it would be hard for them to parse your concerns from the fact that the feedback is based in an environment that they aren’t balancing for.

[Multiplose]

Thanks for your reply.

My comment is judging from the overall course of play. My characters have been unexpectedly killed in this mode before. However, every time it was clear to me what I could reasonably have done differently, and I never felt cheated. This particular encounter is out of sync with the rest of the game. Furthermore, it seems other people have noted that this boss has an instant-kill attack, even on normal. This attack has a huge area of effect in a limited space, which is unbalanced at face-value. Thus, while I recognize the legitimacy of your claim, I maintain my original concerns about this encounter.

[vapourfire]

Lots of different things involved here…

Yes, Lightless Arbour has some mechanics that instant-kill. All bosses do but they are usually telegraphed. Dungeon bosses are the hardest in the game right now and the tier levels are there specifically to allow players to chose (to some degree) how hard they want the boss to be.

Yes, the dungeons are somewhat poorly explained (and could use a little more - especially if you havent read the patch notes before playing) and if you havent done the content before it can hurt. Imho, this is part of the butt-puckering HC choice you consciously made.

Yes, there are discussions about the difficulty factor of the dungeons - especially the higher Tiers where even without playing on HC or masochist mode, most players will be one-shot by telegraphed attacks unless they know what they are doing and have a decent build or even both for T4 levels.

Yes, there are issues with some dungeon mechanics - not specifically this one that much, but its likely that the devs will tweek these more as the game dev progresses and the devs have confirmed that there will be a balance check on everything once all the content is completed - this will however be based on the normal game modes.

No, I personally dont believe that the game should be balanced for hardcore players… that would move the frustration to the majority of players and no game developer in their right mind would want to do that… Not dying is always an achievement in these kinds of games but its not usually something the average player does… at least not on their first few playthroughs while they are learning the game and bosses.

Masochist mode - honestly, if thats the mode you want to play you need to realise that it exponentially makes the game harder and the devs have said that they will never balance anything for this mode - iirc they wouldnt even change outlier issues caused by masochist mode… Just by the very nature of the increased damage/health of the mobs, its very likely that even normally tankable hits that have no telegraph will become instant-kill hits… this would make any attempt at gauging the fairness of the game mechanics virtually impossible… There is no chance on earth I would attempt a t4 dungeon on HC & masochist mode… thats just crazy… masochist mode is like voiding the warranty on your sportcar and driving at the redline permanently… you can do it, but its your responsibility and dont expect anyone to fix the blown engine…

[Multiplose]

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate the depth of feedback provided.

The ordinary player does not have access to special knowledge provided by the developers. He opens the game and sees hardcore and masochist challenges as legitimate options. He sees a dungeon labelled “level 20,” finds a key, and checks it out.

While it does seem that the boss has some questionable mechanics, a lot could be solved simply by providing more information on the game screen. Dungeons, for example, could come with a recommended level, especially given that they are outside of the main sequence of the campaign.

Should the game be balanced for hardcore? Ideally, yes. If it’s balanced for hardcore, it’s balanced for softcore. “Balanced for hardcore” does not mean you won’t die. Everyone who plays hardcore knows they will. It just means we have to and are willing to start over when that happens. Because for us, the game isn’t as much fun unless there is something to lose.

[XLVI_carpo]

@Multiplose

The ordinary player does not have access to special knowledge provided by the developers. He opens the game and sees hardcore and masochist challenges as legitimate options.

Didn’t you read the tooltip on masochist mode? I wouldn’t call it “legitimate” for new players.

I agree that there shouldn’t be unreasonable deaths. And Dungeons may be a bit unbalanced, especially the bosses.

But you also shouldn’t have ignored the warning that pops up when you choose a challenge mode that is called “masochist”

[Multiplose]

The tooltip says that it is not for beginners, which implies that it is for veterans, which proves my point. It is represented as a legitimate game mode.

Glad you agree with my essential concerns.

[Fragtal]

Hi, this is interesting feedback. Let me say that you are not the first one to debate one shots or the difficulty spike of dungeons in this forum, although I rarely see feedback for hardcore and especially masochist mode.

Have you tried the soul fire bastion dungeon? How was that for you?

[Multiplose]

No, I have not.

[Maelstromicus]

Although I play softcore, this is something I have posted about quite a lot in the forums.
I completely agree with your comments on this dungeon boss, and imho it also applies to the other dungeon bosses as well.

The fundamentals of the fights I still think are completely wrong compared to the rest of the game. LE’s mobs & mono bosses are one of the things I fell in love with from the start of playing. Each had clear and telegraphed attacks, and no real “invisible” one shots. Each fight was well programmed and seemed to have had a lot of thought put into it.

Most importantly, any deaths I had, I always KNEW WHY and how to practice to avoid it next time.

I cannot stress the above statement enough!!!

The current dungeon boss fights, especially on T4, are completely out of character with this imho. I find the thought that has gone into them half hearted, and I hate to say it, but a little lazy. I hate it when devs decided to “cop out” and introduce one shots into the mix. They DO NOT make a fight harder, they just a lazy mechanism to give the impression of it being harder. Even worse than this are untelegraphed or terrain disguised one shots. Even worse still are unavoidable one shots.

It’s lazy. There’s no need for it. To actually make a fight harder it would be better to introduce 2-shots which are hard to avoid, but with enough player skill are avoidable. This is something I think the Mono bosses do well, and the Dungeon bosses fail miserably at. A boss could have a telegraphed, undisguised attack that can kill you in 2 shots and that can be tweaked per tier easily. Lowest Tier = lower damage, slower attack. Highest Tier = higher damage but only to the level of 2-shot, but fast attack or larger AoE or less things to hide behind, etc etc.

1-shots to me just smack of desperation and a lack of ingenuity, perhaps caused by having to rush to meet deadlines?

Either way. I find myself spending 20x my playing time in Mono’s as opposed to Dungeons. I find them highly annoying for 2 reasons: 1, The Bosses are crap imho and 2, Only one “opportunity” per key at the boss and having to start again from scratch each time.

All of this I have posted before, and nothing has happened to change my mind. Sadly, this is one reason I don’t play very much once again. Mono’s alone become boring, dungeons are frustrating, so I play other games again which makes me sad.