Archons Are Too Easy Now

[CrownOfShadows]

So this probably won't be a popular take because people love everything EZ, but after the change archons feel too much like paper to me.

I DO think they are better for people with lower MR and equipment that isn't top tier, for sure. Those struggles were real, I witnessed and even participated in them. So in that way I think it was perhaps a success. But for an average archon run, it's over in the blink of an eye.

Here's the thing: its almost exactly as fast as killing Phorid. And that's a pretty sad state for one of the (if not THE) most elite boss WF has ever tried to produce.

There have been many good suggestions for how to improve the archon fights, some I've offered myself, but I'm pretty sure at this point that if it's not on reddit DE doesn't see it so....

anyways, that's where it's at.

[The_Royal_Elf_Mika]

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

So this probably won't be a popular take because people love everything EZ, but after the change archons feel too much like paper to me.

I DO think they are better for people with lower MR and equipment that isn't top tier, for sure. Those struggles were real, I witnessed and even participated in them. So in that way I think it was perhaps a success. But for an average archon run, it's over in the blink of an eye.

Here's the thing: its almost exactly as fast as killing Phorid. And that's a pretty sad state for one of the (if not THE) most elite boss WF has ever tried to produce.

There have been many good suggestions for how to improve the archon fights, some I've offered myself, but I'm pretty sure at this point that if it's not on reddit DE doesn't see it so....

anyways, that's where it's at.

Just dont bring meta weapons/frames.

I think its in a fine state atm.

Edit: Before the archon change, a non meta build could literally take you like a hour+ to kill it.

yay, i no longer need to abuse the Laetum or the Kuva Hek to kill it and i can use other weapons that i like.

Edited December 4, 2023 by (NSW)Royal_Elf_Mika

[taiiat]

it was over much faster before, since your two choices was one of like 3-4 Weapons and shooting 2-3 times and the Mission basically being as long as a Capture Mission, or spending 10-20 Minutes shooting all of your Ammo and nothing happens.
so now you'll spend 2 or maybe 3 Minutes engaging with the Archons' attacks, instead of the fight with the Archon being all of like 4 Seconds.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

No they Aren't

Used to be able to OHK archons with a Felarx/Hek specific build

Now you can't OHK, and have to pick at them for 2-3 minutes

 

the fights take longer now

 

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

I mean yes, but they are more accessible now, to a broader range of weapons. Personally I was fine with it before, and even probably enjoyed it more, but not necessarily because they felt harder, but because I had to create a more specialised build. The type that was distinct from most of the other game, and highlighted different strengths/weaknesses in weapons (in my mind, much the same way Eidolons do sniper rifles). 

Many people still aren't aware of this, but you can still actually one shot Archons still, just with different weapons. Also, many of the one shot Archon builds that were used, weren't always 100% consistent with one shot kills. Well, depending on certain variables. A lot of such builds weren't just good because they could one shot, but because they could do enough damage within intervals that the fight would take dramatically shorter, and two or three shots over the course of 20 seconds, if you didn't get the one shot. 

Now, you can still one shot, a similar way, but many more weapons can now beat the Archon within that 20 second window more comfortably without having to build so specifically just for the Archon. Again, in a vacuum, I do prefer the older Archons, but... I am still personally happy with them now, a lot more people seem happy with them, so net positive probably. 

Also DE sees stuff here, but a lot of Warframe players here and everywhere else, including Reddit are really weird, get parasocial and far too personal in awkward ways, and speculate about workers in bizarre ways. Many are chill, calm, rational, but thats not really how human dynamics work as far as the types of interactions possible. Difference between the sites, is Warframe website is official. In a weird way this is like an extension of their workplace, so probably, a lot of them might feel more comfortable seeming more vocal or present elsewhere, ditto certain social media. Compare meeting an official employee at their offices, versus meeting them off hours at cafe somewhere out in public. Here, if someone is being passive aggressive and rude, but within website rules, they still have to maintain a friendly accommodating customer service attitude. Elsewhere they are less restricted (relatively speaking), if people are acting weird at Reddit or Twitter they could probably actually use tools of that website to block them. This isn't really a DE thing, this is a type of thing that happens at a lot of places worldwide, depending in some variables. Basically as users, unless we break site rules, we can be relaxed, weird and lazy with our communication. Anyone with a DE in their name, knows their posts can be put under microscopes, end up in Youtube videos or other websites, taking out of context and over analysed, quoted multiple times and replied at with accusations that often have way too much personal emphasis. In many such cases, its better to just be silent observers/lurkers, than participate more directly (I mean this in a more general way, can be many other broad reasons to account for). 

[CrownOfShadows]

I'm just saying the fight is over in 5 seconds.

Yes, it could be over that quick before. Which was a shame even then, but it required knowledge and a specific loadout, so at least it had that going for it.

Now they just instamelt with your average SP weapon (if your team is decent. Yes, jumping in with a bunch of MR14s will still take awhile).

I'm looking around like "what boss?"

I'm not exaggerating when I say it's the same as Phorid.

[CrownOfShadows]

59 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

Also DE sees stuff here, but a lot of Warframe players here and everywhere else, including Reddit are really weird, get parasocial and far too personal in awkward ways, and speculate about workers in bizarre ways. Many are chill, calm, rational, but thats not really how human dynamics work as far as the types of interactions possible. Difference between the sites, is Warframe website is official. In a weird way this is like an extension of their workplace, so probably, a lot of them might feel more comfortable seeming more vocal or present elsewhere, ditto certain social media. Compare meeting an official employee at their offices, versus meeting them off hours at cafe somewhere out in public. Here, if someone is being passive aggressive and rude, but within website rules, they still have to maintain a friendly accommodating customer service attitude. Elsewhere they are less restricted (relatively speaking), if people are acting weird at Reddit or Twitter they could probably actually use tools of that website to block them. This isn't really a DE thing, this is a type of thing that happens at a lot of places worldwide, depending in some variables. Basically as users, unless we break site rules, we can be relaxed, weird and lazy with our communication. Anyone with a DE in their name, knows their posts can be put under microscopes, end up in Youtube videos or other websites, taking out of context and over analysed, quoted multiple times and replied at with accusations that often have way too much personal emphasis. In many such cases, its better to just be silent observers/lurkers, than participate more directly (I mean this in a more general way, can be many other broad reasons to account for). 

Hmm, those are fair points, but they could easily just have a DE [bot] that they could use to provide anonymous feedback with. The reason I bring this is up is because Reddit and other social media get RESULTS, whereas the forums have many great suggestions that never seem to reach anyone. If anyone lurks and reports those reports never seem to reach anyone.

It might be a volume thing too, that's fair to say. There's a high volume of feedback on the forums. But still, if nobody ever reads them, or if they never reach the people that matter - what good are they? It just feels like the forums are not the way to provide real feedback anymore, idk.

[Pizzarugi]

Being colossal health sponges doesn't equate to difficulty. That's effectively what they were before the update which made them easier to kill.

You bring an incarnon weapon and you have infinite ammo so long as you remember to land headshots to keep it charged. They weren't ever dangerous as far as their damage is concerned either, but you could've also taken Revenant or an invisibility frame if you wanted to shut down their ability to be a direct threat to you. That meant the only thing that made them "challenging" was their ridiculous damage attenuation where you spent a grossly unnecessary amount of time just shooting it in the face while you chip away its HP.

Unless, of course, you take one of the real meta weapons which just let you 1shot the stupid things right at the start of the encounter.

Honestly I'm glad Archon fights were changed to the way they are now. I'm no longer incentivized to take a meta shotgun weapon to 1shot them and can instead use my Phenmor or Incarnon Furis without fights taking 10-20+ minutes holding the mouse button down and doing not much else.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Pizzarugi

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

39 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Hmm, those are fair points, but they could easily just have a DE [bot] that they could use to provide anonymous feedback with. The reason I bring this is up is because Reddit and other social media get RESULTS, whereas the forums have many great suggestions that never seem to reach anyone. If anyone lurks and reports those reports never seem to reach anyone.

It might be a volume thing too, that's fair to say. There's a high volume of feedback on the forums. But still, if nobody ever reads them, or if they never reach the people that matter - what good are they? It just feels like the forums are not the way to provide real feedback anymore, idk.

 

Potentially, but that still causes issues. Look at how some people react to Red Text. We occasionally get entire discussions and threads about how Red Text has caused people to "quit" for "lewd" and "inappropriate" sexual comments. I even recall one thread where someone equated Red Texts messages to sexual assault. People who want to know who Red Text is, just people who take it way too seriously. Thats also still an employee who has to put time and energy into a role. Even when you have DE having to respond to controversy like Heirloom skins, you can see how well crafted and prepared the responses have to try and be, to pacify and cause less controversy and even when time is spent trying to do that, it often just fails and in some cases even pisses more people off. 

Also are you sure its not just your perception that other social media gets results? Like how would you even go about objectively measuring and verifying such a statement? Using framing like "seems" is fine, but its a world of difference to being objective, collecting data points, with consistency and regularity, establishing parameters, making a hypothesis, and using all that data to make an assertion backed by said data. Its really easy for all of us, myself included, to just say stuff "seems" like it, without actually having to demonstrate it, but in the mean time, we can fall back on stuff like Occam's razor. Like not to get into too much personal info, but if anyone has ever worked in a career or job, where they have to act and behave a certain way within that job, but outside of that job, they are free to act however they want or at least more freely. We know we can see more transparent and communicative in different situations. 

Or to put it another way, most feedback generally tends to be the same similar anyway. Warframe players are quite repetitive, how would someone be able to identify if DE is listening to one exclusively instead of both? Then you have to consider many people themselves are extremely bad at being objective, greatly overestimate how objective, neutral and fair they are, how good their ideas and solutions are, and how much of a priority they should have, and often minimise others (unless they are shared). I mean generally too, because for example, and I have said this before, I personally think your threads and suggestions in the past, are on average better than most in such regards. Still even then, there are factors that many people often struggle to consider and add to the equation. For one, there are probably a lot of DE employers with feedback yet to be implemented, even those in high creative control positions because... implementing ideas, takes time. Its not like they aren't being listened to... they are the people in literal control, but different ideas, can take different amounts of time and effort to implement. So less about being ignored and more just about time constraints and other such boring practical issues. Of course there are other reasons too to consider.

There was another thread a few weeks ago, where someone wanted to quit making bug reports, because they felt they weren't being listened to, and I sympathise with that person, but like... often, ultimately and unfortunately, such situations can happen, because peoples expectations aren't accurate to what others, meaning DE can provide them. Bug reporting and bug fixing are two very different things. Providing feedback and feedback being implemented are two very different things, personally I would never want a person to feel ignored, but I also don't want people to put themselves in that position. Hope that makes sense. 

Also, to be clear, I don't necessarily disagree with you, I just personally don't know either. If I had to guess, I'd probably assume content creators generally get listened to the most, so for example, Brozime having a video critical and complaining about the Nightwave changes, probably has more influence than the 2 or 3 pages on one of the threads on it, at this website (though there are a few different threads about it.) I also probably assume its less about the location and more about numbers. Regal Aya? Universally disliked, changed. Smaller controversies and polarising topics? More complicated with varied outcomes. 

[Traumtulpe]

What would you have DE do?

• Have the boss be invincible for 98% of the fight? They did this, we didn't like it.
• Have the boss be an absolute bullet sponge by reducing your damage to literal single digits? Same as above.
• Make a dynamic fight where it's about mechanics and movement instead of a healthbar? Not worth the effort (to DE).
• Have the boss and our damage be in an equilibrium to make the fight balanced? DE is incapable of this.

[CrownOfShadows]

8 hours ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

 

Potentially, but that still causes issues. Look at how some people react to Red Text. We occasionally get entire discussions and threads about how Red Text has caused people to "quit" for "lewd" and "inappropriate" sexual comments. I even recall one thread where someone equated Red Texts messages to sexual assault. People who want to know who Red Text is, just people who take it way too seriously. Thats also still an employee who has to put time and energy into a role. Even when you have DE having to respond to controversy like Heirloom skins, you can see how well crafted and prepared the responses have to try and be, to pacify and cause less controversy and even when time is spent trying to do that, it often just fails and in some cases even pisses more people off. 

Also are you sure its not just your perception that other social media gets results? Like how would you even go about objectively measuring and verifying such a statement? Using framing like "seems" is fine, but its a world of difference to being objective, collecting data points, with consistency and regularity, establishing parameters, making a hypothesis, and using all that data to make an assertion backed by said data. Its really easy for all of us, myself included, to just say stuff "seems" like it, without actually having to demonstrate it, but in the mean time, we can fall back on stuff like Occam's razor. Like not to get into too much personal info, but if anyone has ever worked in a career or job, where they have to act and behave a certain way within that job, but outside of that job, they are free to act however they want or at least more freely. We know we can see more transparent and communicative in different situations. 

Or to put it another way, most feedback generally tends to be the same similar anyway. Warframe players are quite repetitive, how would someone be able to identify if DE is listening to one exclusively instead of both? Then you have to consider many people themselves are extremely bad at being objective, greatly overestimate how objective, neutral and fair they are, how good their ideas and solutions are, and how much of a priority they should have, and often minimise others (unless they are shared). I mean generally too, because for example, and I have said this before, I personally think your threads and suggestions in the past, are on average better than most in such regards. Still even then, there are factors that many people often struggle to consider and add to the equation. For one, there are probably a lot of DE employers with feedback yet to be implemented, even those in high creative control positions because... implementing ideas, takes time. Its not like they aren't being listened to... they are the people in literal control, but different ideas, can take different amounts of time and effort to implement. So less about being ignored and more just about time constraints and other such boring practical issues. Of course there are other reasons too to consider.

There was another thread a few weeks ago, where someone wanted to quit making bug reports, because they felt they weren't being listened to, and I sympathise with that person, but like... often, ultimately and unfortunately, such situations can happen, because peoples expectations aren't accurate to what others, meaning DE can provide them. Bug reporting and bug fixing are two very different things. Providing feedback and feedback being implemented are two very different things, personally I would never want a person to feel ignored, but I also don't want people to put themselves in that position. Hope that makes sense. 

Also, to be clear, I don't necessarily disagree with you, I just personally don't know either. If I had to guess, I'd probably assume content creators generally get listened to the most, so for example, Brozime having a video critical and complaining about the Nightwave changes, probably has more influence than the 2 or 3 pages on one of the threads on it, at this website (though there are a few different threads about it.) I also probably assume its less about the location and more about numbers. Regal Aya? Universally disliked, changed. Smaller controversies and polarising topics? More complicated with varied outcomes. 

Yeah that whole red text thing was a little ridiculous in how far it went.

As far as perception - well it's extremely easy to connect the dots on something like Reddit where someone just asks Pablo something directly and he answers. It's much harder to quantify the value of forum feedback because there is no visible reaction to it. So I can look at something like the augment slot argument, which raged on the forums for a long time (and still rages sometimes), then one day someone just straight up asked Pablo and he said no. So it's super straightforward to say Pablo interacted directly there 1-1, question with an answer, interaction, result, but did he (or anyone) ever read a single forum post about it? Nobody knows.

I agree content creators probably have the most sway, followed by social media, and somewhere in the badlands are the forums. I don't even think that's an improper hierarchy, I just don't know if the forums are in reality even on that list. If forum threads had like an eye icon on them or something that indicated a [DE] had at least seen it at some point would provide a way for people to at least be assured that their feedback is heard, that might be worthwhile (just spitballing, there might be downsides to that too idk didn't really think about it deeply). It just feels like we're yelling into the wind on here sometimes.

I do understand why DE might mostly ignore the forums, the feedback on them tends to get muddled by argument, but still there are some great ideas and legitimate concerns that don't really have another outlet.

[CrownOfShadows]

18 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

What would you have DE do?

• Have the boss be invincible for 98% of the fight? They did this, we didn't like it.
• Have the boss be an absolute bullet sponge by reducing your damage to literal single digits? Same as above.
• Make a dynamic fight where it's about mechanics and movement instead of a healthbar? Not worth the effort (to DE).
• Have the boss and our damage be in an equilibrium to make the fight balanced? DE is incapable of this.

I'm not saying I have a solution necessarily I'm just saying it sucks that these elite bosses are an eye blink, and now with just about any weapon.

Rather than fixing the problems with archons they just made them easier.

I'm not mad that there's more room for more weapons, that's great. But I am disappointed and irritated that the current end-game boss is just Phorid for high MR.

There have been many fantastic ideas in many posts about improving warframe bosses and I'm not really here to start another one, but we can if you want - I'm just here to say that archons deserve better.

One of the best and simplest suggestions I saw was to use a health bar system - this simple technique as old as gaming history would be an improvement to them I think without question. Invincibility is a bad mechanic and should be deleted from all WF bosses (and from warframes themselves for that matter). Bosses need some beef to them there's no denying that, and I don't even hate DR on bosses but I do believe attenuation to be a deep mistake.

I did contribute a sergeant rework thought experiment awhile back that used healthbars of different types combined with warframe counters - not sure if that's a good way to go about tbh it but it's an idea:

 

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

9 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Yeah that whole red text thing was a little ridiculous in how far it went.

As far as perception - well it's extremely easy to connect the dots on something like Reddit where someone just asks Pablo something directly and he answers. It's much harder to quantify the value of forum feedback because there is no visible reaction to it. So I can look at something like the augment slot argument, which raged on the forums for a long time (and still rages sometimes), then one day someone just straight up asked Pablo and he said no. So it's super straightforward to say Pablo interacted directly there 1-1, question with an answer, interaction, result, but did he (or anyone) ever read a single forum post about it? Nobody knows.

I agree content creators probably have the most sway, followed by social media, and somewhere in the badlands are the forums. I don't even think that's an improper hierarchy, I just don't know if the forums are in reality even on that list. If forum threads had like an eye icon on them or something that indicated a [DE] had at least seen it at some point would provide a way for people to at least be assured that their feedback is heard, that might be worthwhile (just spitballing, there might be downsides to that too idk didn't really think about it deeply). It just feels like we're yelling into the wind on here sometimes.

I do understand why DE might mostly ignore the forums, the feedback on them tends to get muddled by argument, but still there are some great ideas and legitimate concerns that don't really have another outlet.

 

Yeah I agree. 

Thats definitely decent evidence, but its still a bit premature in the sense, answering a question, equals feedback being listened to and given more thought, consideration or persuasion power. To the draw the sort of conclusion made earlier, much more data and examples would be needed, included where suggestions were made at one site, then later, some time later, made at another site, then suddenly addressed and implemented. From what I know, Pablo specifically, is far more active at Twitter, which affords even greater personal agency, control, in a relative sense. 

I personally also wouldn't be surprised if many higher up DE members avoid a lot of Forum, and Reddit topics unless it catches their eye. The Forums and Reddit have a lot of repetitive, fluff. Like do we really need Pablo or Reb reading the thread where someone insists that Warframe will fail unless they start making more sexy Kavat armours? Like, they can hire people to sift and sort through a lot of such opinions, gather numbers and bring them suggestions on hot button topics or popular community thoughts and sentiment. Thats the other thing about suggestions, popular, as in popular in the eyes of the community, are also more likely to be addressed by DE, but that also means we as players are subject to others attention spans and discretion too. Its not necessarily about making the best or most reasonable suggestion, but suggestions that strongly resonate and are agreed to by many other fans. We often also ignore each other and we can also drown each other out as well. Again, DE should and probably has measures to try and account for that. 

Also, and I forget to mention this earlier, but its... It shouldn't be lost on us, we are talking about this on a thread about how Archons are too easy now... There have been a lot of threads about Archons on this website for many many months. I know this because I participated in many... often as one of the sole viewpoints of someone who liked and enjoyed Archons as they were and the damage attenuation. Sometimes there were others too, but we were often a minority. Many, many more people disliked the DA, disliked that Kuva Hek and Incarnons got to make the fight faster, other weapons took way too long, and various other issues. I also never argued with people either, I was fine with being a minority, at least on the forums, would just give my own sincere input and preference. Then after many months of such threads and majority of peoples feedback wanting change... DE implemented it. So I can't really so easily buy into the idea DE ignores the forums, they just don't make much efforts to make sure that users absolutely know they read everything. Whilst I think some forum users and some threads may deserve it, I think there are too many low quality, unrealistic and dupe suggestions to warrant that sort of attention, and the sort of effort that would be required. I mean, if I ran the website, I'd probably hire people to do that, but I'd probably make it so users needed to do stuff to be able to post certain type of suggestion, to avoid low quality, duplicate/repetitive low quality suggestions, extremely unrealistic/hostile suggestions, etc Which many probably wouldn't like either, but to encourage those that are more thoughtful. 

[CrownOfShadows]

6 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

Whilst I think some forum users and some threads may deserve it, I think there are too many low quality, unrealistic and dupe suggestions to warrant that sort of attention, and the sort of effort that would be required. I mean, if I ran the website, I'd probably hire people to do that, but I'd probably make it so users needed to do stuff to be able to post certain type of suggestion, to avoid low quality, duplicate/repetitive low quality suggestions, extremely unrealistic/hostile suggestions, etc Which many probably wouldn't like either, but to encourage those that are more thoughtful. 

Yeah the volume / quality / repetition problems on the forum are real. IDK how that might be fixed or if it even should be, the game evolves and the feedback evolves. Yeah I agree if I was DE I'd have someone assigned to scrape the forums daily and give a comprehensive report every week, and based on that choose what is practical and good. They might even already have that. I have no idea. I just wish there was some kind of nod of the head in this direction to assure us we're not wasting our time on here.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

3 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Yeah the volume / quality / repetition problems on the forum are real. IDK how that might be fixed or if it even should be, the game evolves and the feedback evolves. Yeah I agree if I was DE I'd have someone assigned to scrape the forums daily and give a comprehensive report every week, and based on that choose what is practical and good. They might even already have that. I have no idea. I just wish there was some kind of nod of the head in this direction to assure us we're not wasting our time on here.

 

Well for what its worth, like i implied earlier, I think your suggestions are often of higher quality than most, and I can tell you put a lot of thought and effort in them. I imagine many who come by them think so as well. The other issue though, is that like bug fixing, its... offering suggestions, will always likely be a thankless task. Like you will be bound for disappointment probably, if you start to think the time and effort you put into suggestions will mean they will have more value. Maybe, but ehhh... Like if you consider yourself a thoughtful, creative person with good ideas, IMO, better places to have as an outlet than Warframe, unless you acknowledge from the beginning, the fun part is more in the expression, than the idea that people at DE will observe it and value it. 

If that makes sense? Since thats the thing, many of us are in many ways, wasting our time, unless we understand and acknowledge that some of us also find value in the act of expression itself, without any guarantee that other people, DE included will listen, care or implement it. 

I sometimes do rough sketches of some Warframe ideas I have. I already know they'll never actually be Warframes in the game, but I personally still enjoy creating them, as expressions of creativity.

[CrownOfShadows]

10 hours ago, Pizzarugi said:

Honestly I'm glad Archon fights were changed to the way they are now. I'm no longer incentivized to take a meta shotgun weapon to 1shot them and can instead use my Phenmor or Incarnon Furis without fights taking 10-20+ minutes holding the mouse button down and doing not much else.

Don't get me wrong, I think it was a good change. Moving away from the attenuation exploit is a good thing (and should've been instantly corrected imo but w/e, i guess they wanted to play it out)

The issue is this inadvertently just made the fundamental problems with the archons worse.

I don't like it, but the attenuation exploit was like THE mechanic for these bosses (which is kinda funny/sad when you think about it). Now that it's mostly gone, well what are they but a glorified Phorid? The team just shows up, shoots, walks away. It's lame.

[CrownOfShadows]

4 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

Well for what its worth, like i implied earlier, I think your suggestions are often of higher quality than most, and I can tell you put a lot of thought and effort in them. I imagine many who come by them think so as well.

Thanks man, I do try <3

6 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

If that makes sense? Since thats the thing, many of us are in many ways, wasting our time, unless we understand and acknowledge that some of us also find value in the act of expression itself, without any guarantee that other people, DE included will listen, care or implement it.

Fair enough. I can channel my efforts elsewhere easily enough, but I do love warframe and would like to see it improve.

5 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

I sometimes do rough sketches of some Warframe ideas I have. I already know they'll never actually be Warframes in the game, but I personally still enjoy creating them, as expressions of creativity.

Yeah I had a lot of fun reworking frames in the Fan Concepts section... unfortunately I think that gets trafficked even less than the feedback / general, and I felt like it was a waste of my time even more there so I gave it up, but there's a certain undeniable joy to being creative.

[quxier]

On 2023-12-04 at 7:17 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

On 2023-12-04 at 8:28 AM, Pizzarugi said:

Honestly I'm glad Archon fights were changed to the way they are now. I'm no longer incentivized to take a meta shotgun weapon to 1shot them and can instead use my Phenmor or Incarnon Furis without fights taking 10-20+ minutes holding the mouse button down and doing not much else.

Don't get me wrong, I think it was a good change. Moving away from the attenuation exploit is a good thing (and should've been instantly corrected imo but w/e, i guess they wanted to play it out)

The issue is this inadvertently just made the fundamental problems with the archons worse.

I don't like it, but the attenuation exploit was like THE mechanic for these bosses (which is kinda funny/sad when you think about it). Now that it's mostly gone, well what are they but a glorified Phorid? The team just shows up, shoots, walks away. It's lame.

Archons were bad. Attenuations or another flavor of bullet sponge is made to make fight longer (that's the definition of bullet sponge). Changing few things won't change that they are bad.

[CrownOfShadows]

2 hours ago, quxier said:

Archons were bad. Attenuations or another flavor of bullet sponge is made to make fight longer (that's the definition of bullet sponge). Changing few things won't change that they are bad.

Well yes but change is... change is how things get changed. They can be bad forever or ... they can get changed. Changing something that is bad is a good thing, even if it has to be incremental for... for... for reasons™.

Why in particular do you believe they are bad if I might ask? Is it because of the attenuation or something else? (I mean don't get me wrong, they ARE bad, but I want to know why you think they are bad so I can compare it to why I think they are bad)

Bullet sponge isn't necessarily a bad thing imo - bosses DO have to have some beefiness to them after all, unless you want your bosses to be the same EHP as the mobs.

If we're looking at all the WF bosses I don't think archons are even in the bottom half as far as quality goes, bosses seem to be a major weakness of WF, so many of them are so very bad, but for where they are in the progression they should definitely be better than they are.

[(PSN)rexis12]

So just to be clear, you preferred that the only viable way to beat them in away reasonable time frame is about 2 weapons and 2 Frame combinations is that right? 

[CrownOfShadows]

32 minutes ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

So just to be clear, you preferred that the only viable way to beat them in away reasonable time frame is about 2 weapons and 2 Frame combinations is that right? 

No.

Please read before you post.

[quxier]

6 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

8 hours ago, quxier said:

Archons were bad. Attenuations or another flavor of bullet sponge is made to make fight longer (that's the definition of bullet sponge). Changing few things won't change that they are bad.

Well yes but change is... change is how things get changed. They can be bad forever or ... they can get changed. Changing something that is bad is a good thing, even if it has to be incremental for... for... for reasons™.

Why in particular do you believe they are bad if I might ask? Is it because of the attenuation or something else? (I mean don't get me wrong, they ARE bad, but I want to know why you think they are bad so I can compare it to why I think they are bad)

Bullet sponge isn't necessarily a bad thing imo - bosses DO have to have some beefiness to them after all, unless you want your bosses to be the same EHP as the mobs.

 

Bullet sponge is not "beefiness". Bullet sponge is when boss' difficulty is only/mostly their big HP.

 

Whole ARchon hunts (not only boss fight) has just artificially increased difficulty.

1) There is "death = failure". It prevents from efficient experimentation.

2) We have bullet sponges. You don't bring "huge weapon" then you are just doing fights for very long time.

3) Huge damage. If I'm not cheating with some (near) immortality then have hard time... or rather failure (read 1st).

4) They are not hard to shoot. Shoot: head, triangle thing, some guys that make mini-boss 100% immune to damage etc.

6 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

If we're looking at all the WF bosses I don't think archons are even in the bottom half as far as quality goes, bosses seem to be a major weakness of WF, so many of them are so very bad, but for where they are in the progression they should definitely be better than they are.

Yeah, some are bad (but it's good to have SErgant for Nighwave and it's interesting Persona lore-wise if you think about). There are some good. They are capable to do interesting challenges without doing bullet sponge and damage showers. Angels are good example of it. They are not hard. You need to learn how to react. Only at higher level they require some better gear (for void mode).

[(PSN)rexis12]

9 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

No.

Please read before you post.

You're complaining that they now 'Feel Like paper', when before the changes any weapon that wasn't Felarx or Kuva Hek was an exercise of seeing if the Yellow Bar decreased faster than if the Numbers on the bottom right of the screen did. 

A 1000% Fury Chroma with a Knell built for max Radiation and Crit, still took over 20 minutes of nonstop firing to do what the Kuva Hek and Felarx could do in 2 shots. 

And you'd prefer it that way? 

If the complaint was 'Archons are now too easy' they were never hard. If you weren't using the one shot metal weapons, you had to contend with their damage which meant the same DR because if you decide to use Stealth, you either had to deal with huge AoE damage that could one shot you or Amar who would teleport at you and dispel your buffs and then one shot you. 

Like they aren't hard, any more than the Haemocyte was hard. 

[CrownOfShadows]

5 hours ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

Like they aren't hard, any more than the Haemocyte was hard. 

My entire point is that they are not hard, that they have never been, and now they are just less hard. That's my entire point.

5 hours ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

A 1000% Fury Chroma with a Knell built for max Radiation and Crit, still took over 20 minutes of nonstop firing to do what the Kuva Hek and Felarx could do in 2 shots. 

And you'd prefer it that way?

No. You didn't read.

On 2023-12-04 at 11:33 AM, CrownOfShadows said:

I'm not mad that there's more room for more weapons, that's great. But I am disappointed and irritated that the current end-game boss is just Phorid for high MR.

On 2023-12-04 at 12:17 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

Don't get me wrong, I think it was a good change. Moving away from the attenuation exploit is a good thing (and should've been instantly corrected imo but w/e, i guess they wanted to play it out)

On 2023-12-03 at 6:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

I DO think they are better for people with lower MR and equipment that isn't top tier, for sure. Those struggles were real, I witnessed and even participated in them. So in that way I think it was perhaps a success.

 

[CrownOfShadows]

10 hours ago, quxier said:

Bullet sponge is not "beefiness". Bullet sponge is when boss' difficulty is only/mostly their big HP.

 

Whole ARchon hunts (not only boss fight) has just artificially increased difficulty.

1) There is "death = failure". It prevents from efficient experimentation.

2) We have bullet sponges. You don't bring "huge weapon" then you are just doing fights for very long time.

3) Huge damage. If I'm not cheating with some (near) immortality then have hard time... or rather failure (read 1st).

4) They are not hard to shoot. Shoot: head, triangle thing, some guys that make mini-boss 100% immune to damage etc.

Yeah, some are bad (but it's good to have SErgant for Nighwave and it's interesting Persona lore-wise if you think about). There are some good. They are capable to do interesting challenges without doing bullet sponge and damage showers. Angels are good example of it. They are not hard. You need to learn how to react. Only at higher level they require some better gear (for void mode).

By your definition of bullet sponge I agree. If that's the entire 'difficulty' of the boss, it's bad, yes. But it seems like we agree that bosses should have substantially better EHP than an average enemy.

I disagree with death = failure being a negative however, I see this as a positive and it's one of the attractions of the hunt for me. It might limit experimentation, that's true, but it also means there's a standard, which is healthy imo, especially for bosses of this, ahem, intended caliber. You don't have to cheat to survive in archon hunts, I also disagree with this, you just need to build well. It's not anything like going to level cap or something, where cheating is the only way. I see a tremendous variety of warframes during hunts, and I feel pretty comfortable taking almost anything myself.

As for being not hard to shoot, idk, I think the archons are mostly fine in that way, they seem to strike a good balance overall. You don't want to make bosses so difficult to shoot that it's beyond frustrating, several bosses are already like that and it sucks (Mars,Saturn). The thumpers are just on the edge of being too annoying to shoot. I don't mind weakpoints as a mechanic, it's generally a good mechanic, but I don't like it when that's the only way to take something down either, because obviously the boss can't keep it exposed the whole time and needs to protect it - hence invulnerability timers.

Almost all the bosses in WF rely on invulnerability as a difficulty mechanic and that is awful. It's such a lazy, low-effort mechanic. The angels are pretty good I agree. Stuff like Phorid and Sergeant are just jokes. Profit Taker and Eidolons are probably the best WF bosses but even they dip into the invulnerability pool. The orowyrm fights are decent too, at least they ditched the archon attenuation for them - they don't feel dangerous really though, but they're decently fun to fight even though there are long periods where you can't damage them at all.

Overall I agree with your sentiment that the archon fights use poor methods to achieve difficulty. There are much better ways to create engaging, difficult fights - DE doesn't seem to grasp how to do this, despite us trying to help them.

If I had my way something like 80-90% of WF bosses would be completely overhauled, but I'd start with the archons.

Edited December 6, 2023 by CrownOfShadows