Nurgloth fight is still the worst design-wise

[Philip]

I think people are getting caught in the web of “Is this boss hard”.

But the real question is “Is this boss as hard as the rest of the game”.

My friends and I reliably kick ass on legend. We’re alright players. We can do solo bot runs on basically any level. We breeze through Nurgloth’s castle. We get to the boss arena with full health, and we die at a significantly higher rate against him than against any other boss.

From that you could argue we shouldn’t be playing on legend because we’re obviously not ready for it.
And if that’s the case I say, okay, well then please make the other 95% of legend harder so we have similar fail rates on every other mission in the game. Let us go back to champ and still be challenged.

Otherwise I think it’s fair to concede that Nurgloth is in a weird incongruous state with the rest of the game and should be adjusted somehow. Probably doesn’t even need to be a straight nerf or anything just alter the mechanics a little. I liked the idea of the center being off limits and the edges being the safe zone.

[Rebel]

@Philip

But the real question is “Is this boss as hard as the rest of the game”.

@Philip

we die at a significantly higher rate against him than against any other boss.

Yes, no other lord/monster is like Nurgloth. That’s good.

Burblespue is similarly tanky, but has no real offensive power. He is not threatening.
Cheekspreader gets bullied by stagger and monster killers.
Gatekeeper is weaker than a Chaos Spawn
Deathrattler is cool, but Rasknitt himself is so incredibly annoying to kill, takes an eternity. It’s just adds, the lord itself poses no threat.
Skarrik is
And monsters get blitzed by monster killers.

So yeah, I’m glad he’s not like any of them.

[Rat_Effer]

Maybe drop it down a difficulty or two if you’re having issues with him.

@Philip

make the other 95% of legend harder

Yes.

[Philip]

@Rat_Effer

Maybe drop it down a difficulty or two if you’re having issues with him.

Then every other mission is brain-off easy and incredibly boring. On quick play this is not an option. I’m not going to queue on champ for 95% snooze fests just on the off chance I get queued against nurgloth. And even then, the whole castle leading up to the boss fight would be boring.

Totally not a solution.

If fatshark brought all of legend up to match Nurgloth that’d be fine but it seems like a hell of a lot more work than the alternative.

[Rat_Effer]

This is the main point im been making. He is the ONLY challenging boss in the game.
You cant really “turn your brain off” when you step in the arena because if you’re not paying attention you’ll most likely die. We have 1 level, out of 22, that actually poses a challenge to beat.

@Philip

If fatshark brought all of legend up to match Nurgloth that’d be fine but it seems like a hell of a lot more work than the alternative.

So lets nerf it until you can play with your brain off and then we wont have anything to worry about.
Yeesh.

[Philip]

@Rat_Effer

We have 1 level, out of 22, that actually poses a challenge to beat.

It sounds like you’re playing on the wrong difficulty, not me.

[Sleezy]

@Frostysir

I am pointing out that vast majority of careers do not have 40% dodge distance and 6 dodge charges. And again, velsix who has an extremely high skill level tries and fails to dodge that swing the vast majority of times.

If you do not see the problem of a boss like this existing in the QP rotation then let me return that statement to you, you are determined to not see anything.

I’ve explained this no less than 3 times. I don’t know how to tell you differently. The running attack isn’t dodgeable. But if you kite properly he never does the running attack. If he doesn’t running attack, it’s easy to dodge. You can dodge the standing sweep with any weapon. Literally the 3rd or 4th time I’ve said that. Watch the video you posted. You can see him do a running sweep and then watch velsix easily dodge the standing sweep.

[Romucha]

@Rat_Effer

@Philip

make the other 95% of legend harder

Yes.

A little off topic.
Could you, please, explain why Legend should be harder than it is right now?
There are things like Cataclysm, Weaves, a lot of mods in the game that provide more than enough challenge.
I’m not being sassy or a troll, I just don’t understand this point of view.
It would be really nice if you or someone else could provide an explanation.

[Philip]

@Romucha

@Rat_Effer

@Philip

make the other 95% of legend harder

Yes.

A little off topic.
Could you, please, explain why Legend should be harder than it is right now?

Yeah sorry it was a bit of a long shot. Really I’m trying to make the point that if one fight is drasticalyl different that all of the other content in a difficulty, the fight should be adjusted or the rest of the difficulty should be brought up.

I actually think recruit, vet, champ, and legend are fine. Was really just trying to frame the discussion in a way that was easier to understand for all the people who basically can’t understand the idea of consistent difficulty due to their perception of the overall game difficulty.

I think the learning curve from rec → vet → champ → leg was also good. If they want to add more difficulties that are higher that’s fine with me, but the spacing on the existing base game difficulties seem good from a progression standpoint.

[Harridas]

Man I love the Nurgloth fight, I honestly think every other lord fight should be brought to its level.
(When it comes to unique mechanics that players are forced to engage with for more than 30 seconds and a learned strategy)

Nurgloth isn’t just a DPS check, it becomes a fight about endurance, teamwork and positioning if the team can’t burst him.

But that undodgeable launcher swing that Nurgloth throws out can easily have the launch distance or angle adjusted so the move still remains threatening, it’s a pretty BS move that kinda deserves a nerf.

[Adelion]

@Frostysir

Yeah he did survive those knockbacks despite enemies about, even if with only 2-3 health, but he could just as well just have died in a way that is just that unfair. He didnt do anything wrong but almost died, several times, just because.

He did several mistakes caused by him playing alone and still survived. Normally, you play with three other players/bots which makes avoiding these mistakes easier. You don’t have to be on an excellent player level for this. The “unfairness” in that video is merely an illusion created by him playing against the basic game design: being a co-op game

@Frostysir

And if someone dies then its bloody likely nurgloth will kill someone else too, at which point the run is basically over vast majority of times.

At least in public Cataclysm games the run does not vaporize the moment someone dies. People rearrange and revive and on it goes.

Again, the fight is not unfair. For all I care, Nurgloth could have a sure death kill grab for one player each 5 minutes and I would still not call it unfair (unless you play with three bots). The game is designed around four characters and as such you have to play out and shift your temporary roles and all “unavoidable” damage magically disappears. The fight is not unfair.

@Philip

But the real question is “Is this boss as hard as the rest of the game”.

I disagree with the direction this argument wants to take on a religious base. There is no rule that everything in the game has to be on a “consistence” difficulty level. It is completely fine if there a single huge spikes in the game (which we currently don’t even have). This can be avoided if one take’s the lobby browser and if I chose quickplay then I take the “risk” of not knowing which map I get. I am not sure why some people are so fixated on the idea that everything has to be consistence all the time. Instead we should broaden the difficulty band of the different difficulty levels to create a more organic difficulty increase which helps people to get better step by step.

Difficulty spikes ONLY become a problem if they are more difficult than the average run of the next higher difficulty. Legend Nurgloth is not more difficult than the average Cataclysm run. So there is no problem here.

Also Nurgloth has been nerfed once or twice already. Give the guy some rest. As other people said, it would be more enjoyable if the remaining Lords get some make-over. I mean Rasknitt falls like a fly and Bodvarr tumbles through his arena as if he was drunk-dead (followed by dead-dead). Three maps built-up for a Lord fight which is sometimes far below the chosen difficulty. That feels anti-climatic and boring.

[Frostysir]

@Adelion

Again, the fight is not unfair. For all I care, Nurgloth could have a sure death kill grab for one player each 5 minutes and I would still not call it unfair

And here our definitions are completely opposed, i view any kind of mechanic that punishes players for nothing even as they are doing well to be utter BS.

As long as he does this i will never stop advocating for him being hit with a titanium nerfbat.

…

If they made that fight a bullet hell with random and fairly quick AOE blasts plus him flying around attacking leading the situation into making people do mistakes due to pressure i´d call that fine. But a slow unblockable and undodgeable hit that might just kill people with any degree of bad luck even if they are doing well just because is never going to be cool by my standards.

Right now it´s just an extremely stale and artificial difficulty that has no fun factor whatsoever.

[Lenny]

@Frostysir

And here our definitions are completely opposed, i view any kind of mechanic that punishes players for nothing to be utter BS.

Beat me to it.
By his very own definition, he thinks bugs in the maps that randomly instantly kills players are a fine game mechanic, because it’s a co-op game after all. I just really have a hard time understanding why people so adamantly defend bad design. Boggles the mind.

And “inb4 u bad”. I have no difficulties doing this fight in either difficulty, and I quite frankly enjoy it the most out of the lord fights, but I am not blind to bad design.

[spatnack]

@Adelion

There is no rule that everything in the game has to be on a “consistence” difficulty level.

But Fatshark and the community at large don’t seem to agree based on the Convocation poll and nerf

What about just removing the stupid fire ring on final phase

[hgjw]

@spatnack

What about just removing the stupid fire ring on final phase

You would remove any of the challenge then. Even a bot can handle few waves of enemies and if the boss can’t realistically kill you then there really is nothing to be concerned about.
Its just smashing overly sized blob for 2 minutes while rotating between trash enemies and boss dps. Positioning would become pretty much meaningless.

[Adelion]

@Lenny

By his very own definition, he thinks bugs in the maps that randomly instantly kills players are a fine game mechanic, because it’s a co-op game after all. I just really have a hard time understanding why people so adamantly defend bad design. Boggles the mind.

Wow, that is soooo what I did NOT say. But if that is the kind of “logic” you want to argue with then congratulations, I have no chance against this.

@Lenny

“inb4 u bad”. I have no difficulties doing this fight in either difficulty, and I quite frankly enjoy it the most out of the lord fights, but I am not blind to bad design.

What has this to do with being good or bad? I am horribly bad at this game and die regularly. But I know where I made my mistakes and am not hiding behind “bad design”. I am not defending bad design, I am telling people that it isn’t bad design.

@spatnack

But Fatshark and the community at large don’t seem to agree based on the Convocation poll and nerf

That poll was bound to reach this result from the beginning as it would only call in the most polarizing opinions. I also don’t agree with Fatshark following this consistency trope. Maps would vary much less then in difficulty.

[spatnack]

I suppose that’s true

I actually think the first two phases are not very well designed either

The rings are incredibly simple to dodge and it’s just a straight-up DPS check

[Lenny]

@Adelion

Wow, that is soooo what I did NOT say. But if that is the kind of “logic” you want to argue with then congratulations, I have no chance against this.

@Adelion

Again, the fight is not unfair. For all I care, Nurgloth could have a sure death kill grab for one player each 5 minutes and I would still not call it unfair

ehhhh…

@Adelion

What has this to do with being good or bad? I am horribly bad at this game and die regularly.

It has nothing to do with being good or bad, hence the “inb4”, because a lot of people are quick to disregard posts because “u bad”. I thought that much was obvious.

@Adelion

But I know where I made my mistakes and am not hiding behind “bad design”. I am not defending bad design, I am telling people that it isn’t bad design.

I also know where I make mistakes as well, so stop with the implication (ironic, considering the sentence before lol). As Frostysir has been saying, there is no player mistake having a boss wailing at you with completely unavoidable attacks with almost no room for counterplay, with each barrage essentially having a “random” chance of killing you from things more or less out of your control.

This is the “bad design” part. This is what people hate. Much in the same way that people hate it when sounds fail to play, or assassins teleport in your face.

[hgjw]

@spatnack

I suppose that’s true

I actually think the first two phases are not very well designed either

The rings are incredibly simple to dodge and it’s just a straight-up DPS check

I suppose not but at least the enemy compositions are more dangerous with chaos warriors, maulers and zerkers, so you at least have potential composition to die to. Tough I agree any seasoned player will probably not have problems with the early nurgloth phases.

[Saryk]

@Philip

I think people are getting caught in the web of “Is this boss hard”.

But the real question is “Is this boss as hard as the rest of the game”.

No, I don’t agree here. This is convo talk, which I don’t think applies to Nurgloth.
Nurgloth isn’t hard. His difficulty is actually well balanced, between ads and damage, and even his HP. If you have a reasonable team, that is. If you have a boss-killing team, he becomes trivially easy, but if you have an actually bad team, he’s a friggin pain. Still not hard per se, but the inability to deal damage to him turns this into an attrition fight you are going to lose.

The thing I’m basically complaining about here has more to do with this :

@Rat_Effer

if you’re not paying attention you’ll most likely die.

It’s not that much an issue of attention than one of randomness, specially in QP, hugely aggravated by team comp. If you’re the one he’s got his attention on, you’re going to learn to fly ; and chances are you’re not going to land nicely.
There is lots of unavoidable damage - granted, in theory you “just have to dodge the yeetswipe”, “just have to not be in the circles”, and “just clear the ads and hit the boss”, but in practice it’s definitely not that easy.

@Adelion

The game is designed around four characters and as such you have to play out and shift your temporary roles and all “unavoidable” damage magically disappears.

I’m curious to know how you avoid the scythe yeetswipe into boomcircle wombo-combo, whether there is 1, 4 or 137 players in the arena. Again, this is the one, single complaint I have about this fight. It is a frustrating moment to be thrown around and not being in control, specially in a game that absolutely masters the responsiveness to player inputs, and by extension decision making.

@Sleezy

The running attack isn’t dodgeable. But if you kite properly he never does the running attack. If he doesn’t running attack, it’s easy to dodge.

I just played it with a group of friends who are starting out, so it was in Champion.
It gave me an opportunity to try this out, and for the life of me I couldn’t make it work.
Even when he was stationary, I did seemingly dodge out of it but in actuality his scythe’s hitbox extended far beyond what it visually looked like and I still got yeeted. I was playing HM with S&D and extra dodge range.
My problem is that I do not know what I am doing wrong in that fight. How can I avoid being thrown around and blowing up, which amounts to instant death or at least near instant death ?
My survival depends on whether or not the circle will explode when I get yeeted into it (which is pretty much random), or whether there will be mobs waiting for me where I land (which to a lesser degree, but still, is random).

Also he could perhaps stop a second to cast his fire ring, I don’t know how big of a change that would be…

---

Other lords definitely, definitely need some love. If only all lord fights could have this level of implication from the players, rather than dully hitting them like another Stormvermin or Chaos Warrior…
Burblespue isn’t that bad mechanically, actually, though it does lack some… grandeur.