skeleton lord fights are the worst thing to happen to this game. their special attacks go through walls, the fights take a good 20 minutes during which there is no feeling of progress as you cant see a health bar. and the fight itself is just plain unimaginative.. especially in the fort of the damned, where a new mechanic was introduced that should rightly have applied to the boss instead of just having us fight a skeleton lord at the end with pointless mobs running around. the fort of the damned is a great fight right up until the last boss. I would have had the last wave introduce a skeleton captain that changes the colour of the flame of fate you need to damage him. that last fight makes the whole FOTD not fun. I should want to play new content because its fun not because i have a commendation that thinks i should do it 50 times.
Skeleton Lord fights need to be redesigned to be fun, and not just a massive grind.
I’ve done the lord fight in FOTD with just one other in a sloop, and many times in a brig. Had no issues with it at all. If anything being able to do the fort in 20/30 mins is possibly to easy considering there is an Athena cheat inside the vault. It should always take much longer than an Athena voyage.
Make it more difficult I say@pabio-escobar I have no problem with increased difficulty, I just want an actual structured fight instead of an enemy who's just a bullet sponge.
Yea, one wave of coloured skellies on the boss wave, with a colour-changing boss(rainbow-marrow?) would be good. With repeated mob spawns atm, we just run him to the dock and cannon him to death. No trips to the ferry, no mobs to deal with, no accidentally hurting allies, just 6 or 7 coconuts. Easy. Fighting skelly mobs just increases the duration unnecessarily.
@king-deka said in Skeleton Lord fights need to be redesigned to be fun, and not just a massive grind.:
They’re working on new Lords with new Ideas they said it in the recent Q&A!
This is correct, there's a little hint here of more to come -
@scurvyson said in Live Q + A: Adventure with Joe Neate, Mike Chapman and Ryan Stevenson - NOW FINISHED:
@king-deka Glad you’re loving the lords coming to the game, the art team had a great time designing them and exploring their backstory. Since our first lords hit the game the team have been alight with new ideas. Certainly keep you eyes peeled on the horizon.
@tubzy121 said in Skeleton Lord fights need to be redesigned to be fun, and not just a massive grind.:
@pabio-escobar I have no problem with increased difficulty, I just want an actual structured fight instead of an enemy who's just a bullet sponge.
This is what I feel exactly. I'd love a good, long, and challenging fight. But my main qualm with the skeleton lords is how they were all exactly the same, just with different character assets. While I do love the Skeleton Lords, I think they deserve more attention and it sounds like perhaps they'll be getting some more love soon.
The Graymarrow fight forces longevity - this is essential to the Fort of the Damned concept because the cloud needs to remain up long enough for everyone in the world to know of it's presence and make their move. At this point I do not think they should reduce his health at all, but rather look at ways to make the fight more interesting while maintaining the longevity.
@pabio-escobar said in Skeleton Lord fights need to be redesigned to be fun, and not just a massive grind.:
I’ve done the lord fight in FOTD with just one other in a sloop, and many times in a brig. Had no issues with it at all. If anything being able to do the fort in 20/30 mins is possibly to easy considering there is an Athena cheat inside the vault. It should always take much longer than an Athena voyage.
Make it more difficult I sayThe issue here was fun, not difficulty. Whacking at the same boss we've fought several times before in Tall Tales on a new fort doesn't exactly make for fun and interesting, and even if you toss more mobs in, or up the health pool, it doesn't exactly change much difficulty wise.
@chronodusk no it doesnt. i spent the time getting the different flames i spent the time/ money to get the ritual skull why do i have to spend more time to give people a chance to ruin it all? and last time i did it I had three ships waiting fo us to finish it to pounce on us and that was before we even got to greymarrow..so no it really doesnt.
I agree. The FOTD is fun due to the PVP around it, but the last fight is anticlimax. You spend most of the time running away until your crew are back from the Ferry.
I prefer more waves or another mechanic that having to fight a boss for 20min.
The classic forts, when a crew arrived in the boss wave, you had to take the risk to kill it and sailing away with the key or stand and fight. I miss those moments of tension. Now you don't know how much is gonna last.
@toastysmooth100 Did you even read my post? like at all? It's not hard. At no point did I complain about the difficulty of the fight. Needing to shoot the boss for like 20 mins isn't difficult, it's tedious, especially with no way to mark progress. I find specifically the boss fight itself to be a grind regardless of the commendations attached to said fight. my point is that in its current state if i do the FotD again it will be for commendations and not because i enjoy it. and again everything up to the last wave is great and i think the new mechanic is fantastic, but that last fight is just awful. There are SO MANY things they could have done for the end of that fort and we know that rare can be imaginative I just wanna see that in the skeleton lord fights.
Honestly they should just stop with that
"Blast" power and "Summon minions" power. It's getting really old.
Especially when they asked people to do Tall Tales 5 times each for all the commendations. I think I've done TT2, TT8 and TT9 around 18-20 times in total.Having Graymarrow coming back could have been cool if he had special powers tied to his ghost status and unique dialogues.
"You again ? Ah ! This time it won't be so easy, worm ! "Find yourself one or two crewmates who've already done them a couple times and it'll be a cakewalk. Most can be pulled off in 1-2 hours depending on your luck. The last two or three I haven't gone back through yet, so I'm not sure how streamlined I can get them down to.
And if you can't find crewmates, then get a guide. Almost just as good.
Unless you really don't want to bother with them. Then just skip 'em.
@blazedrake100 a dit dans Skeleton Lord fights need to be redesigned to be fun, and not just a massive grind. :
@fractal-pitch
I mean, not everyone doing the fort has done the tall tales though. I haven't because I don't have the time and I dislike the fact you can lose it all by dying once...Yeah, but the opposite is true too. Not everyone doing the fort hasn't done the Tall Tales too :)
I mean, it doesn't change the fact that this fight has nothing that stands out from the fights in Tall Tales. We don't even have a unique dialogue from this ghostly Graymarrow.
Rare created (or tweaked ) mechanics for the skeletons but not for the boss ?
And why only Graymarrow ? Why don't we have a chance to see Briggsy or even the Gold Hoarder spawning as the final boss instead of Graymarrow ? Each one of them with unique dialogues and one unique ghostly-power for the FoTD event. That would be cool. I also like the idea of the boss changing color regulary, requiring you to change the lantern.
And with those additions, I would reduce their health because using cannons on the boss is just "meh" in my opinion.@fractal-pitch I imagine "why Greymarrow?" is story related. The FoTD isn't an accident, it's part of the story, Sticher Jim and the mystery lady have something to do with it. So did those bone crates and reaper's chests. I'll be honest, I'm completely lost in terms of what's happening from a lore perspective atm, but I know Rare doesn't add stuff for no reason, if they went with Greymarrow it's because that makes sense to whomever is in charge of the SoT lore and world building.
Like even the new Megs we got are the children of the OG meg aren't they? Stirred up by us killing their momma. Skeleton ships are because of Wanda. We don't know what the deal with the mermaid gems is yet but you can bet that there's more to it than statues suddenly appearing near islands for no reason.
@boxcar-squidy Haha, if I knew any more I'd surely let you know, but sadly I'm just sifting through these hints and teases like we all are :D
@fractal-pitch sagte in Skeleton Lord fights need to be redesigned to be fun, and not just a massive grind.:
@blazedrake100 a dit dans Skeleton Lord fights need to be redesigned to be fun, and not just a massive grind. :
@fractal-pitch
I mean, not everyone doing the fort has done the tall tales though. I haven't because I don't have the time and I dislike the fact you can lose it all by dying once...Yeah, but the opposite is true too. Not everyone doing the fort hasn't done the Tall Tales too :)
I mean, it doesn't change the fact that this fight has nothing that stands out from the fights in Tall Tales. We don't even have a unique dialogue from this ghostly Graymarrow.
Rare created (or tweaked ) mechanics for the skeletons but not for the boss ?
And why only Graymarrow ? Why don't we have a chance to see Briggsy or even the Gold Hoarder spawning as the final boss instead of Graymarrow ? Each one of them with unique dialogues and one unique ghostly-power for the FoTD event. That would be cool. I also like the idea of the boss changing color regulary, requiring you to change the lantern.
And with those additions, I would reduce their health because using cannons on the boss is just "meh" in my opinion.No I disagree the Gold Hoarder must remain in the Shores of Gold! And it makes sense with Greymarrow give it a deeper look, yes the Lords actually have all the same Mechanics that’s right, but the Animation of this Mechanics is very important! Look at Briggsy she has an real teleport, the Gold Hoarder uses his Shovel to dig in the ground and dig out, Greymarrows teleport is interesting because it seems he’s diving in another dimension(the sea of the damned) so actually he’s somehow related to the sea of the damned and it makes sense to introduce him to the Fort of the Damned!
Im saying it since years Lords need diversity they need to be unique Encounters, new future Lord must be unique in terms of abilities and skillset! Like Flameheart, he must something to do with Fire! Lord Guardian with his Ashen Gems, I’m really excited for Future Lords for me this is the most Important Thing!! When future Lords are also only re-skins of Briggsy i must quit this Game! I can’t handle this!
@tubzy121 said in Skeleton Lord fights need to be redesigned to be fun, and not just a massive grind.:
@chronodusk no it doesnt. i spent the time getting the different flames i spent the time/ money to get the ritual skull why do i have to spend more time to give people a chance to ruin it all? and last time i did it I had three ships waiting fo us to finish it to pounce on us and that was before we even got to greymarrow..so no it really doesnt.
The extended period of time that the fort is up for (due to the length of the fight) gives crews all over the map an ample amount of time to get close to the fort and chose their approach. So they chose to sit and wait for you to complete the fort? That doesn't mean this is what everyone does.
Last night we were approached 5 times while trying to complete the fort. It was exciting and tense, and it would not have been possible without the the lengthy boss fight holding the cloud in the air for a longer time.
The loot is extremely profitable, and should be very difficult to obtain and keep secured from other players. The Fort is working completely as intended. High risk, high reward.
@chronodusk are you telling me that without greymarrow you would have done the whole fort unmolested? I dont buy it. players have more than enough time to show up and steal the loot from FOTD before the boss even pops up, the extra 20-30 mins at the end is entirely unnecessary. and i say this because last time i did I had 3 ships circling us before we got to the boss fight. so again NO it's not necessary, and is downright tedious. there are a dozen things they could have done to make it longer/fun and they picked the worst option.
@tubzy121 said in Skeleton Lord fights need to be redesigned to be fun, and not just a massive grind.:
@chronodusk are you telling me that without greymarrow you would have done the whole fort unmolested? I dont buy it. players have more than enough time to show up and steal the loot from FOTD before the boss even pops up, the extra 20-30 mins at the end is entirely unnecessary. and i say this because last time i did I had 3 ships circling us before we got to the boss fight. so again NO it's not necessary, and is downright tedious. there are a dozen things they could have done to make it longer/fun and they picked the worst option.
Without Graymarrow, yes, my crew could easily be in and out in 20 minutes. The initial waves can be cleared super easily. Graymarrow is the time consuming part.
Ask for it to be made easier all you want, but if that happens, then the loot should be decreased to only two of each Stronghold item. One Reaper Chest. No Athena Chest in the vault.
The length of the fort and the high risk of losing it all during that time is the only thing that justifies having all of that loot in the vault.
Perhaps instead of a health bar they could add new animations or limit certain behaviors/attacks/dialogue to health remaining? Nothing else in the game has a health bar and right now the only clue you get on health for skeletons is the banana. Have them start limping or only do special attacks when their health is low? Change the dialogue to indicate their health is depleted? I'm sure it would increase the intensity for those doing the fort as well. You know you're getting close to beating him. Hope no one is lurking nearby better check. Someone tucked on the fort could tell how close you are by the dialogue/attacks and figure out when to put their plan into motion.
I don't design games so not sure how hard that would be but I think that would be the best option to the OP health bar complaint.
