[Feedback Request] Cyclops Combat Preview Shown in May Livestream

Looks nice enough for the current stage of development. I'd say his rage dmg was a bit low and the adds (wolves) didn't seem to do much at the end.

Gonna rewatch the fight later and look out for other POVs to see if anything else stands out. But overall, if this is a somewhat basic open world boss rather than a super unique one - this is great. But if this is supposed to be a unique boss with very good drops and rare respawn - I'd definitely want him to be way harder and have more intricate mechanics.

edit: I rewatched the showcase and one of the devs said that this was a simple boss meant to mainly show the interaction of big creatures with their surroundings. I can accept this kind of encounter in that context, but this then leads me to two pieces of feedback:

1. tell us about these details in the Steven's preface, because it's easier to understand that info w/o a boss fight happening on the screen that you're trying to pay way more attention to
2. show us the pvx side of the game if you decide to show us easy pve

The first point is kinda self-explanatory. The second point mainly addresses the claims of "we'll have pve that only <10% of the playerbase will be able to clear". I'm assuming that this kind of pve will only get shown when Intrepid get to developing their AI, because w/o that there can be no hardcore pve.

Until then we'll most likely get the easy kind of encounters like this boss was. But as a pvx game, the difficulty of this easy encounter will increase, because there'll always be a threat of pvp looming over you. So what I suggest is to just tune down the boss/mobs and to split those two groups into "farmers" and "aggressors".

This way not only will you show exactly the kind of gameplay that players would expect to see in the game, but the pve content itself will be put into proper context. A ton of people have never even attempted an open world boss in an open world pvp game. PvX showcases would be perfect to show them how the game will be played on release.

Since I asked on stream but it really probably wasn't the best type of question to answer there...

"What was the point of showing this particular one?"

It was basic, as I'm sure was intended. It was zergable almost certainly, but that doesn't matter. It had incredibly simplistic mechanics and didn't really require any obvious coordination (nothing was mentioned, at least).

I can't understand what the point of this showcase was other than as a conversation starter. By contrast, for example, the old Alpha-1 pair were massively more interesting and more useful. I could give better feedback on those than this.

So... what do you actually want here? Should I just rant and theoryraid? I doubt it will be helpful because this is a feedback thread.

But I also don't feel like I can advance any other topics either. I gained nothing. I'm happy to fill that void with my own thoughts, but yeah... good job to Doug and Jason on making a basic Big Boi to impress some people, but I kinda feel empty now.

Well, in case there's no specific answer to my previous post (I understand).

How do you feel about the combat preview featuring the Cyclops? Do you like the mechanics, multi-group gameplay, and boss phases?

I feel nothing. It's the equivalent of a single standard enemy in games I actually enjoy.

What are your favorite open-world raid bosses, or world bosses? Please provide examples when applicable.

I don't like these in games generally. I can absolutely imagine them being done correctly such that I would enjoy them, but no game has ever done so without being a purely PvE game so nothing applies. Other than that, y'all know where my TheoryRaids are I guess.

Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cyclops Combat Preview?

It seems poorly designed for what Ashes is, given what we know about classes now, or even basic extrapolations of what classes and Archetypes would be like. But it's so basic that I figure any feedback I give will just be countered by 'Obviously they will make it more interesting or better!'.and derail feedback.

Overall though, it's like... it's just emptiness. I'd rather play almost anything else than bother with it, as shown. If somehow this is the type of raiding flow the game is supposed to have in general, then {Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass}.

Not even the PvP around this would be enjoyable (extrapolating here, people, if you think I'm wrong because of something that we have not seen yet then great but I'm giving feedback based on what I saw).

This is Mobile game tier. I could fight this on a Steam Deck no problem.

Azherae has given me a way to 'behave' on Forums by lensing my feedback a bit by comparing to other things.

BDO: Equally interesting as Quint or Muraka which are both super boring and yet still take longer to kill. I'd give it to BDO in a 'you must play one of these'.
FFXI: No contest, don't even wanna talk about it.
MineCraft: About as thought provoking as the Wither (which is to say not at all) and the Ender Dragon has better mechanics. I'd rather fight the Wither than this
Modded MineCraft: Better bosses in WynnCraft.
Overall: ... Disappointed.

We have not received permission from George_Black to share the quoted post.

Is this a placeholder or your feedback?

I seriously wanna know if to like the post.

I'm withholding commentary/discussion in general until/in case we get any clarification or expansion on why they showed off this one.

In my arrogance, I believe you value my input/opinion enough that you might care to know why I'm not engaging with this thread.

glhf.

Azherae wrote: »

I'm withholding commentary/discussion in general until/in case we get any clarification or expansion on why they showed off this one.

In my arrogance, I believe you value my input/opinion enough that you might care to know why I'm not engaging with this thread.

glhf.

Totally understandable and definitely hope we get some sort of clarification on the "scale" of this boss. I'd assume they showed this one off because they don't have better AI for a more complex boss, but as you said in the feedback thread - they might've as well just brushed up the Twins and showed them off again. This was definitely a very "I dunno how exactly to react" kind of stream.

And with the announcement of alpha2 sales closing soon I'm now really doubting myself whether I wanna buy in before it does or whether I just wait till the release. Things are getting complicated, especially cause I see this sales closing in a really negative light, due to my own pessimism and jadedness.

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Iirc Steven said that this is a raid boss and they could do it with 2 parties cause they're devs and know the mechanics. A raid in Ashes is 40 people.

But even outside of that. It's like I said, if this is in fact just a normal boi who's meant to be killed every day - yeah, it was kinda perfect. Just a cute backdrop for the potential pvp around him. But then we come to Azherae's question: why show this boss instead of anyone with better mechanics or a harder fight. Alpha1 already had a better boss in the Twins. People were tossed around, the ground had hazards, 2 bosses needed to be controlled.

In other words, it'd be great if Intrepid could clear up what this boss is meant to represent: one of hundreds of basic open world bosses or one of the more unique bosses with cool drops.