=DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (Full Version)

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Jay -> =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/7/2020 23:08:30)

quote:

[image]https://www.dragonfable.com/images/mini/Verlyrus.png[/image]
Verlyrus
Hopeful Cat

The Corrupted Seven: Finale!

Hey there, heroes!

This week, we have the epic finale of the Corrupted Seven challenge board!

The grand locked chest in the center of The Corrupted Seven challenge board is finally ready to be opened. If you've unlocked all of the locks by defeating all of the previous Corrupted Seven... it's time to dive in!

[image]https://cms.dragonfable.com/df/images/PANDORAdn.png[/image]

Completing this finale will earn you two new chibi capes. Completing it three times will earn you a very special cape, and finally, completing it under its challenge restrictions will reward you with a spectacular new weapon!

To take on this grand finale, head over to the Inn at the Edge of Time and take on The Corrupted Seven!

Also this week, Dracelix has prepared a new monthly Dragon Coin special. Check out the Heart's Whisper "scythe" and the Heartseeker's Helm!

[image]https://cms.dragonfable.com/df/images/FEB2020.png[/image]

Make sure to get them from the Book of Lore while you can!



Have feedback about today's release, or the game? Having trouble with any fights? Want to discuss all things DragonFable?

Join the discussion on the official forums!

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Tags: Verlyrus




Kurtz96 -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 2:20:51)

Beat the challenge gauntlet with DmK which makes all the individual fights pretty easy. The biggest problem is MP management. Needed 5 mp potions.
And the first time I went through I was surprised by Pandora and lost. She doesn't seem that hard.

Reward is Pandora scythe which is evil 96-96 damage. However its stats are worse than the Exalted Apotheosis which compresses a good and evil weapon into one. A bit underwhelming as thee challenge reward. I'm not sure what is would be for.

Maybe the weapon could be buffed/given a useful effect?

EDIT: also the capes are only cosmetic and have nothing to do with the previous chibi capes, which thought would be merged together.
EDIT: the trinket on the other hand is the best one other than elemental unity. +4 all. Although its offensive stats are lacking.




TFS -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 3:01:38)

That was... frustrating. I'll come back and edit this post with more thoughts tomorrow morning.

There are a couple observations worth sharing: First, I managed to get the trinket to drop after completing the challenge - I thought this was because I didn't heal during the gauntlet, but someone else who completed without healing only got a fragment instead of the trinket. Second, there wasn't a limit to how many of the Pandora scythe I could have, like there is for Dreaming Togslayer, so I grabbed 35 of them from one completed run. Third, Pandora's art and animations are really, really cool.

Mehanical observations: When you get to Sloth that's a good time to use your healing skills or weapons, as he won't attack you if you don't attack first. Pandora doesn't have an anti-Chaoseaver trigger like many would expect her to, so that's going to be the best class for this gauntlet. Pandora is weaker than most of her children, so if you can beat Pride, Wrath, Gluttony, and Lust with the same setup you should be fine.

Also, the rewards are either cosmetic, weak, or outclassed by an inn weapon that just came out a couple months ago, so there's nothing to panic about if you're not up to the grind.

Good luck, everyone.




Kurtz96 -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 3:54:22)

Not that I want her to be tougher, but shouldn't Pandora, as the final boss, be stronger than her children? Both lore wise, and from a game play design standpoint?

It would be like fighting through the Empire's force, beating stormtroopers, deathtroopers, inquisitors, Darth Vader, to finally face the emperor...who is weaker than an inquisitor.




ProbablyCallum -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 4:00:25)

To me at least this is honestly the worst release the inn has ever seen, it took everything that was wrong with the previous corrupted seven releases as well as other recent stuff like the challenger gauntlet and exponentially multiplied it. I've got nothing positive to say about it at all other than the fact pandora looks nice. The only solace I find in the rewards requiring doing all 8 spirits 13 times is that the rewards are all utterly useless, meanwhile in the same release a sidegrade to the BIS helm was released as a monthly dc rare. I was really hoping the last release could redeem how unfun the corrupted 7 was, maybe with extreme versions of the fights that actually made the mechanics of them matter similar to how exraveler got one rather than the mechanics being something you look into after you faceroll it with chaosweaver for documentation purposes, instead we get 7 poorly designed tedious fights in a row and we have to do it 13 times. Having pride at the end off the 7 feels like a colossal middle finger to the players as well with her being able to randomly decide to end the player's run with something like turn one superiority after spending around 15 to 20 minutes carefully getting to that point.

Grinding is not fun, especially for a challenge location like the inn where we're supposed to think out strategy using everything we have at our disposal and making use of different classes depending on the challenge. Instead Inn has become "equip chaosweaver or other burst class and faceroll except you have to do it a trillion more times to get the reward lol" for an entire year now and this is the worst example yet.
I really cant express how dissapointed I am with this release and everyone i've talked to abt it feels the same way.




Dratomos -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 4:36:49)

That was hard. But rewarding. I do want that trinket, seems to be BIS -material.

Pandora looked amazing and her animations were great.

But I have to agree with Callum on some capacity. Fighting against 7 corrupted spirits (even with ability to heal in the middle) at one go is hard, especially for free players/(DA-)users who don't buy DC. Classes like DmK or Epoch with multiple artifacts can do it, yes, but other classes? That won't be easy, even with food/5 potions. And the Helm, while looks nice, is too much BIS -material, but we haven't got any good helms from inn (DDV is purely offensive, doesn't make it BIS IMO). That seems also unfair to free players.

While it is possible, yes but grinding it 13 times seems excessive. Even if it is for good trinket. Another idea maybe would be having 3 random spirits and Pandora? I don't know. There isn't that one class (except DmK) that can defeat all spirits without having luck. Pandora herself isn't that hard, which surprised me. I would personally take buffed Pandora, than 7 weaker versions of spirits and her.

Another choice could be that her weapon would only drop from the Gauntlet, but you could get her Fragments from one boss fight against buffed version of her. Or that boss fight of her would be accessible aftert you defeat the gauntlet once.

I don't mind that Pandora's Scythe III is weaker than Exalted Apotheosis. I would be more annoyed that a weapon from one go of Pandora's Gauntlet would be better than the one we got from having to go multiple times of different floors in Exaltia Tower.




xelessarx -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 5:18:46)

Yapp, grinding is not fun. Especially when you know that some people with ChW/DmK can breeze through it both in terms of speed and difficulty and you have to work towards it with Technomancer or whatever knowing that you'll probably fail already after spending the time ChW/DmK owners took to complete the challenge 13 times already.

Might be a little bit exaggerated but you get the gist of it.




Raphael 777 -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 5:42:04)

If the seven are the same as they are on their respective challenges, I'm gonna pass. I particularly hated the fights against Lust, Wrath and Pride (though I really enjoyed the fight with Sloth), so there's no way I going through that nightmare again, grind or not. Part of me expected a merge for the capes and another part expected a fight against Pandora, but not a gauntlet against all 7 corrupted spirits before a fight with her. So, even though it's doable, no way I'm stressing myself out for this. It's not like I'm gonna lose my mind if I don't get the rewards.




Plutonium -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 7:32:54)

So, I've tried this Gauntlet like 3 or 4 times now (both with Chaosweaver & DmK v2) and I'm an inch away from screaming or throwing something. So, I think I'll give this a pass for now.




BluuHorseOfficial -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 8:27:11)

I feel like the essence of the Inn since its creation was doing a hard, challenging fight for a strong reward, but as of late, it seems to be built around grinding easy, or mediocre at best, challenges several times for weak rewards and this really doesn't sit well with me. I do enjoy grinding and use it to pass a lot of my free time but I feel like it should largely be kept out of an area built specifically for challenges. The Timetorn Matrix and Dreamspace Togpocalypse Invasion were a change in the then usual pattern of hard challenges and it was refreshing to once in a while have something that was different in its own way, and while I particularly adored the Exaltia Tower, it seems that grinding has pretty much become a norm in the Inn.

The Corrupted Seven glorify hyper offensive classes and pretty much force you to use them as anything else would be quite impractical. This argument has been made by several people in the Pride thread, so I'm not going to get into that. This limits creativity and experimentation. To add to that, Gauntlets also vilify experimentation, especially when they're to be farmed, as you pretty much have to use the strongest offensive class and build you can get your hands on, as no other type of class or build is feasible.

There's also the issue that a lot of the fights just don't fit in a Gauntlet style challenge. Wrath forces you to run an anti-crit class/build and that's fine as a standalone challenge, but in a Gauntlet, it feels like you just have to drag yourself through it with a suboptimal build and hope for the best. Sloth simply just heals if you don't do anything to it on the first few turns, which is also not much of an issue in a standalone fight, meaning that once you're in a battle with it you can just heal back to full with no consequences (even though this is advantageous since it's right after Wrath).

But by far, the worst part of the Gauntlet is the abomination that is Pride. First of all, it has a 3 turn stun in a DPS race of a fight, which is all sorts of disgusting. Furthermore, all strong offensive classes require some buffs to be able to deal damage, and you can't actually play normally until a few turns in, which is worsened if it activates Superior Superiority. Once you can actually start attacking it, if you're unlucky, it could potentially have a stronger barrier, better reflexes, or greater resistance. Since she's way at the end of the Gauntlet. after getting to her with sheer determination, you could have your entire run ruined because of terrible luck. Pride on its own is already a terrible fight but it's way worse when it's at the end of the gauntlet.

Lastly, you have to grind this fight 13 times for the rewards. I don't think I need to elaborate on that lol

I beat Pride and I got to Pandora after several attempts, but I didn't manage to beat her because I didn't heal after Pride (I wanted to get a perfect run), so I can't comment on Pandora aside from the fact that she looks amazing and her animations I did get a glimpse of were marvelous. I can't wait to actually get the rewards, her Scythe would look so good with Epoch and perhaps some of the Exalted Wings, and while the fight is tedious, the pictures I saw of all its rewards (the Chibi Pandoras and Elpis) motivate me to pull through and actually do it. They're kinda disappointing statwise but I have most of the best gear anyway so I'm not gonna complain about that. I wish the capes could just mimic the stats of the Unraveler Wings or some other strong cape though, so if I wanted to use them for fashion I wouldn't have to spare two separate bag slots for it >~<

I really hope the next Inn Release will pick up where Ancient Duo left off, though. From what I heard, Pandora is easier than Pride...




DemonicDarkwraith -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 9:25:43)

So I agree with the above statements. As a player that have been playing DF for over 10 years and have seen how the Inn challenges evolved since its inception, the amount of grinding in the recent Inn challenges is unacceptable as to get all the rewards, you need a maximum of 13 victories (read: The trinket's drop rate is uncommon) against this gauntlet. As of now, I have gotten 4 of possibly 13 victories against this challenge and have beaten it with no healing.

It also doesn't help that this gauntlet is ridiculous as it glories classes that are very offensive and have autostuns, which already limits experimentation of using other classes. And not to mention that some of the Corrupted 7 fights like Lust, Wrath and Pride are obnoxious due to their mechanics like no crits as Wrath heals from it, including glancing Crits and that your status effects must be lower than Pride's Superiority. Did I mention that Pride has a chance to roll Superior Superiority on Turn 1, which makes the gauntlet more frustrating?

As for Pandora, I love the animations and design of this monster and her mechanics is very interesting as she is the amalgamation of the Corrupted 7.

As for the rewards, the capes are really cute and very well animated. As for the weapon, I wish that it does not cover Evil element as Apotheosis and Uragiri/Verraad covered that specific niche. At least that the weapon is cool aesthetic wise. And for the trinket, the animation is super cool and its stats is a budget version of Elemental Unity, too bad that the Boost from it is kinda eh. Cannot wait to get the trinket though.

Overall, I really hope that the next parts of Displaced Fates and future traditional Inn challenge boards goes back to get the maximum reward, you need to complete a set of challenges once as it has been a year since we have that as well as bringing back the difficulty that I was thrilled by Dominion and Ancient Duo long time ago.




The Betrayer123 -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 9:39:18)

While I am delighted that we get to fight Pandora as a fitting conclusion to these challenges I am pretty annoyed at having to face the Pride fight again in order to reach her, especially after already making it through the remaining corrupted spirits. I agree with what most the others have said in that these bosses just aren't suited for a gauntlet scenario as they all require such different strategies. I would have preferred a singular very tough Pandora fight to cap it all off, with the trinket requiring fragments from all the other spirits to merge.

I also agree we have a lot of evil weapons at present, but can't really think of an alternative element for the final scythe given that Pandora is essentially the embodiment of sin. Perhaps it could have a small special added to it to make it stand out, or maybe even a randomising element feature, although I do not know how difficult the latter would be to code.

Going to keep rethinking my strategy to get past Pride. Never managed to beat it with chaosweaver, can't quite figure it out. Once I do hopefully I get to experience the final boss.




shrike -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 10:03:11)

A lot of my major criticisms have already been covered in previous replies, but something I want to note is that the gauntlet isn't actually fun. The way the gauntlet is set up, you're encouraged to blitz through 8 endgame bosses in a row, all with mechanics and damage still intact. While I'm sure that this is possible in a short amount of time, I don't think anyone comes to the Inn to do the same bosses over and over and over, to the point where a single run can easily take half an hour depending on luck. Fighting the individual spirits can be interesting and possible with different classes with room for experimentation and testing, but Pandora's Gauntlet is designed in such a way that you're not likely to be able to try the special fight at the end with just any class. Classes will always be good at different things, but not even Exaltia has this level of mind-numbing tedium and continuous boss rush. It's easy to spend 20 minutes going through the bosses only to lose out of RNG.

This brings me to my next point: Pride's design. A month ago, I had my doubts on her RNG factor, which was thankfully alleviated by the added cooldowns to her buffs. In the Gauntlet, though, these cracks in her design show through once again. As a solo fight, it's possible to restart and try a different, more suited class for her challenge in a bad run. In the Gauntlet, though, you have to fight through 6 previous bosses with the chance that you roll superiority and resistance multiple times in the initial opener, being completely unable to damage her outside of DoTs for 15+ turns before she ramps into an unwinnable state. Pride is the run killer, and not out of difficulty, but because of a coinflip. I've lost multiple runs against Pride due to early superiority rolls, and not out of misplays.

Pandora's Gauntlet unfortunately seems to be the single worst designed and single most frustrating challenge in the entire Inn, which is a shame after looking forward to the finale for so long. The individual fights have a few genuinely interesting mechanics, like Gluttony's buff mechanics and Pandora's own attacks, but the latter is locked after a hair-pulling slog, to the point where it's difficult to actually acknowledge how stunning she is visually and how her fight is interesting. I'm glad this era of teduous fights will be over, after a full year of grinding, but the Pandora fight was both unsurprising in its execution and terrible to play as a player of the game.




Chewy905 -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 11:29:46)

I'm someone who's been loving the CS challenges an absolute ton for the chance to see the evolved spirits, and how you guys incorporate their sins into their mechanics. It's been super cool!

But to me, taking the time to beat all the Corrupted Spirits, even if they are meant to be easier so they can be grinded for the chibis, should NOT have a reward that is "Beat them again."

That's incredibly underwhelming in my eyes. I was extremely excited for this release this week because I thought we'd get to fight THE Pandora, and it would be a really difficult fight with great rewards, be it cosmetic OR stat based.

To just get "Do the fights you already did, but if you make any mistakes you have to start over" is really disappointing to me. I want to see PANDORA. The Mother of the Corrupted Spirits! I've already done all the spirits before her so it's annoying to have to slog through them over and over again just to get to the fight, which in my eyes is the actual reward.

Though I do still like the gauntlet, I think it's neat and a natural addition, I don't agree with locking Pandora behind it. Someone on the discord had the idea of making the gauntlet and the Pandora fights separate, ramping up the difficulty of Pandora, and splitting the rewards between the two challenges. I agree with that idea.




Vikken101 -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 11:53:07)

Yeah i agree with a lot of the sentiment here and elsewhere, in my eyes the Gauntlet should have been the optional part, and Pandora should have been the star of the release, fighting the boss from the start would have made Pandora a much more challenging Boss fight then she currently is, which is a result of the Gauntlet before her, so they needed to make her weaker.

In my opinion i would rather grind the entire Exaltia Tower for Apotheosis, then go through he Gauntlet for the Scythe, at least there I could respond to the bosses mechanics in a more deliberate way, you seem to need an incredibly versatile or a class that either bypasses their mechanics by bursting the bosses down to do the gauntlet at all. Aka the widely different mechanics don’t really contribute to an enjoyable gauntlet imo. It feels more annoying then difficult, especially when Pride has the chance to ruin your entire run with rng that was already annoying when you could access her from the start.

But regardless of that, i would honestly wish the scythe was not evil element, its feels like we have a lot of those already, isn’t Pandora's element Light? Those i suppose that would make the scythe for useful the Ultimate Destiny so idk.

Since the Gauntlet already exists, i would honestly suggest an Extreme Mode Fight for Pandora, so we have a chance to experience what she really can do alone. I dont even want a reward from it or anything, i would rather play around a much stronger versions of her mechanics, instead of the myriad of mechanistic that come from the Gauntlet before her. And a common theme people is that they love Pandora in this fight, her art and animations are great, and her mechanics seems fair, but could be even more challenging. Which is why I wish for a solo fight with a more difficult Pandora, instead of the Gauntlet.




Marthe -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 11:55:23)

Well, its the finale of the Corrupted Seven board, and while I can say that I'm disappointed, I can't say that I'm not surprised. When I first saw that there were going to be challenge restrictions, I was hoping for restrictions on the things that cheese Inn fights massively, such as guests or attack button specials like VIK, or maybe even food. I suppose I got my wish for the guests ban...? (Even though it's bugged to allow them right now.) Instead, I got a challenge that necessitates as much cheese as you can pull off to even have a fighting chance.

My criticisms have largely been covered by other posts in this thread already. I dislike the gauntlet format, I dislike grinding a challenge ad infinitum for rewards, I dislike that Pandora herself has little difficulty. I especially dislike the impossibility of class variation for this challenge. I like Chaosweaver, but I don't love it, and I'm not great at it. I don't want to spend hours upon hours playing it (which I already have for other recent challenges), and I'm quickly approaching burnout on the class. I don't own DmK v2, so this is my only truly viable option. I considered playing UWE, but that would result in 30 minutes for a single run that likely loses to Pride anyway. This challenge being another gauntlet is also particularly painful to me personally, because I main Archivist and greatly enjoy playing it, but its global CDs mean it's automatically effectively banned from this. The fun of the Inn is variety of strategy against different difficult, interesting fights. I would like to leave 4-hour grinding sessions to wars. At the very least, in wars, progress can't be deleted by a roll of bad Pride RNG.

I think Pandora looks visually stunning and she has fairly interesting mechanics, but I've barely gotten to see them, so I can't be sure. As I and others have already mentioned, Pandora herself is not difficult. It's understandable that she can't be immensely difficult by necessity, being at the end of a gauntlet, but this is just another mark against the gauntlet. She's the ultimate challenge of this board. I was hoping despite myself for a difficult solo fight with interesting mechanics and a good reward, that (most importantly) you only have to beat once, like Unraveler Ex. As it is, I'm spending a lot of time and getting very frustrated grinding out challenges I don't like with a class I'm enjoying less and less, all for lore I don't care for and rewards I'll never use.




shrike -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 12:07:17)

Marthe brings up a very good point. One of the biggest problems with this gauntlet is that it simply isn't feasible to do it with most classes. Does your class rely on crit damage? You lose to Wrath. Does your class require you to stack up many statuses? You lose to Pride. Does your class not have enough built-in statuses? You lose to Gluttony.

The individual challenges are interesting on their own with different mechanics that favour different classes, but put together, most classes in the game are effectively banned from ever seeing Pandora. Part of what I like the most about the Inn is that it's where classes can shine to their fullest potential, and even while you might not be able to easily do every challenge, you can at least try. For Pandora, most classes can't try her at all. While I think it's fine that some challenges aren't intended for every class, how many classes can viably reach Pandora at all? Guests aren't supposed to be allowed in, so only the very best classes that can do everything or ignore every mechanic are allowed even the privilege of seeing Pandora's actual art, the best part of the challenge at all.

Pride is the run killer. She destroys runs on pure RNG, even if you did survive through 6 endgame bosses in a row. With early superiority rolls, she becomes outright unhittable for 15+ turns. Even if you're playing one of the classes that can do everything, even if you're clicking the heal button and bringing as many resources as possible, there's a very real chance you have to scrap your entire run because of losing the die roll. While it was at least something you could try again with in the solo fight, it's intolerable at the end of an already restrictive gauntlet. Superiority shiuld be outright removed from Pride or given a heavy rework, since it's a mechanic that doesn't diversify playstyles, doesn't allow for you to try something different to get around it, only serves to drag out the challenge.

Someone's mentioned this before, but one of the ideas I pitched over Discord was having a solo Pandora fight that dropped a Fragment of Woe each run to merge into all the available drops, as well as the full gauntlet that would drop completed items, letting classes at least try their luck against Pandora. I'm not saying this is the optimal solution, since it doesn't change the fact that the gauntlet is unrealistic for most classes in the game or that many peoplenare tired of grinding period, but I do think that in its current iteration, Pandora's Gauntlet is anti-fun and restricts player agency. I appreciate the idea of having different types of inn challenges, but after the previous Challenger Gauntlet felt so bad to play, I didn't want to see one that's worse in many ways.




Mooselim -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 12:27:24)

One of my favorite parts of inn releases is when it releases and everyone's trying to figure out the bosses new mechanic. In Discord, it gets pretty chaotic and it's fun to see all the suggestions that are thrown out wildly and then one just happens to be correct. With this new challenge though, I didn't get to experience that, because we were stuck fighting the same bosses as we have before in order to experience a new one.

I'm not a fan of gauntlets. The Challenger gauntlet was annoying to curbstomp with CHW, and then it had to be grinded ontop of that. I can't imagine doing it without CHW. This gauntlet also feels like I'm being forced into either CHW or V2, neither of which I'd like to play. Like others have said, being able to use every class in the inn is part of its appeal. Yet for this update and the past few updates that feels like it's been fading. I do like the idea of challenge restrictions, and I feel like a lot more could be done with them in the future. But I don't like how you either have to grind this challenge ten times or get lucky for the trinket drop.




tigerww -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 12:37:29)

It has been years since i last used the fourms, but this release warrants it. as stated by Shrike, Marthe, TFS, and others. the grind and class restrictions on the gauntlet are just ridiculous.

all the different mechanics of the corrupted 7 remain unchanged from their standalone versions. so even with the reduced HP they still hard-counter many classes, with gluttony, wrath and pride being the biggest offenders. So mechanics nerfs to all of the gauntlet versions are NEEDED, Greed should only steal Portions of the player's buffs not flat out copy them, envy's jealousy should stack slower and cap lower, the amount of turns between every time gluttony devours buffs should be increased and/or should not steal potions, lust and her desirelings should also be reduced in HP further or for the damage reflection to be reduced to oratath levels, wrath should instead of hard countering and healing off crits should receive reduced damage from crits instead, with Sloth and Pride reciving similar levels of mechanics nerfs to their Gauntlet versions. They are all fairly designed as STANDALONE fights but their mechanics in a gauntlet are just painful.

And not to mention that pandora's fight on her own is underwhelming and locked behind having to complete the gauntlet each time before fighting her. so instead having a standalone pandora fight balanced as a standalone boss should also be an option. with pandora dropping merge resources and the gauntlet dropping the complete items.




Ultima29 -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 12:59:02)

I agree with the above. The concept of a gauntlet is ok and is used properly in many other games so it's not bad that it's used here. Nerfing the spirits and buffing pandora would make her the star of the release and that's what I personally would like to see.




Kiyofriend -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 13:00:03)

Much, if not all of the criticism given to this particular challenge has been already said by everyone above me, one way or the other. This is the first time since forever I've actually used the forums, and the idea of coming here to complain about how bad this "challenge board" was overall is something* that pains me at some degree, especially given the initial high hopes I got for it.

First, let us begin with the fights on itself. Inn challenges fights are funny to do, and the only actual piece of content in DF that presents a «challenge» that forces the player to think, adapt and overcome the given mechanics of a boss, no boss is the same, so is up to the player to take the best aproach in how to defeat it. That doesn't happen with the Corrupted Seven at all, as much of the fights are watered down for the porpuses of being "farmable multiple times" which on itself, is something that nobody asked for. Envy has a cool mechanic but nobody actually cares about it because you faceroll it before the mechanic actually does something. And even so, there are fights like Pride disgusting RNG fests that is a pain to farm multiple times. Especially for *cosmetic* rewards that don't do anything.

The gauntlet format, is something that with Verly's displaced fate challenge is kind of understandble, as it was an emergency one given Dove was sick. But Pandora's gauntlet has no such excuse, and instead gives out one of the most frustrating, unfunny and RNG challenge to ever exist in the Inn. What's worse than 7 poorly designed fights? Well, to fight them in a boss rush *13* times of course! Well, one can say at least that the rewards are going to make it worth it, right? ...You're in for a suprise!

The rewards are all terrible. Excluding the cosmetic capes that are kind of nice, the Schyte of *Evil* Element is useless when Uragi exist as the default Evil offensive weapon and Apotheosis as the Evil overall weapon. It could have been literally any other element and it would be better, but, nope, Evil again. The trinket? is just a nerfed EUD. No BiS after that hell, no nothing. And the Cosmetic while nice, don't pay the horrible, horrible experience that is doing this "challenge". Added to the fact that there's now a watered down +10 All helm in the DC monthly rare when the Inn hasn't yet given any useful overall helm is just more burn applied* to an already poorly designed board.

Inn challenges main appeal was "Do really dificult fights, get BiS for being able to defeat them" the fact that there are everytime less and less BiS coming from the Inn, and that the overall quality of the fights has fallen greatly, the very core idea of the Inn is getting diluded. I don't expect anything anymore, but if there's a little left of hope, is that the next month Inn can return to do things like Ancient Duo again, but with actual good rewards instead of a nerfed BoA.




Verlyrus -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 13:22:45)

https://www.dragonfable.com/gamedesignnotes/corrupted-seven-post-mortem-7771

Thank you all for the feedback!




BluuHorseOfficial -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 13:32:38)

I agree with all of the above posts. In my opinion, the Inn has definitely seen much better boards than this one. The solo challenges are underwhelming, but they're still very diverse bosses that require different playstyles. So far, only DoomKnight v2, ChaosWeaver, and SnugglePanda managed to beat the Gauntlet through multiple failed attempts, and all of those are paid classes, SnugglePanda being rare.

A point that I hadn't spoken about earlier is that that a Corrupted Seven Gauntlet is fabulous as a concept, but its execution could have been done better. I really like the idea of fighting the seven deadly sins back to back, except for the fact that the way in which they have already been designed makes them incompatible for Gauntlet format. I have a few suggestions to remedy this:

Firstly, I'd suggest removing Challenge Mode in which you can't heal (using the button) between select fights. This makes the Gauntlet much harder and pretty much mandates the usage of food and extra potions, instead of keeping them as something to fall back on if you mess up. So that counters the problem of classes that can't survive pairs of challenges due to lack of defensiveness, but then you'd also have to remove Pandora's Scythe along with challenge mode. This is where my next suggestion comes in.

Have Pandora as a standalone challenge fight at the same level of difficulty as Exraveler or Ancient Duo, that you have to beat once for the Scythe. Maybe even buff the Scythe to give 13 All -16 Health lol but slightly less in other stats, so it's not a complete downgrade to Exalted Apotheosis (but a slight upgrade to Ultra OmniKnight), as that'll give the incentive to get it, too (though anyone looking for a challenge will fight it anyway). Maybe even give it a special (Scythe of the Unhallowed's or an element switch would be pretty nice so you can effectively have multiple SoulForgeds for doing a hard challenge ig). This would satisfy everyone looking for hard challenges you only have to beat once with strong rewards.

Dilute the enemies' effects. Wrath's anti-crit mechanic screws over several classes, maybe having her heal only 25% or 50% of Crit Damage dealt to her would be a more reasonable mechanic for the fight. Make Gluttony only devour statuses one time per rotation and replace the second devour with an attack. Every class has at least one useless buff or Dragon Scout that they can feed Gluttony so it now becomes a case of maximising your damage output before your buffs are stolen again and not throwing away a useful buff just to save your potions. This may not be necessary if the first suggestion is implemented though since Healing also refills your Potions and you heal right after Gluttony.
Rework Pride. Lots of people have elaborated on why Pride is disgusting here and it's more than necessary that it should be changed. In my opinion, Superior Superiority is a disgusting mechanic in a Gauntlet and should be removed; maybe half all of Pride's other effects, make her start at 1 Superiority stack, or reduce her total health to like 4000 or so, as she can only be damaged regularly after several turns anyway, whatever seems the most feasible.

That's all I've got. Of course, I'm not demanding that these suggestions be implemented, and I'm sorry if I accidentally got carried away and came off like that, I'm just putting them out there to see if people agree or in case they're suitable changes and whatnot.

I also want to say to not take our criticisms too harshly, Verly, since we all mean them in good spirit, and we highly appreciate how we're given the privilege of a medium by which we can state our approval or disapproval of the game's releases. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we highly appreciate the tremendous, superhuman effort you guys put in to make this game enjoyable for us and we don't want our criticisms of this release to put you down or anything. Thanks for everything!




Oof, Ninja'd by an update. [&:]




The_element -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 13:42:20)

Here are my initial opinions about the release. Overall, I liked this release and enjoyed the concept of fighting corrupted Pandora. However, I think some improvements could have been made by nerfing the corrupted spirits and watering down their respective effects in order to make the gauntlet less RNG based and less of a hard counter to some classes, as well as, seeing a sizeable buff to Pandora to make her comparable to Unraveler Ex.

I would largely agree with the following post by Tigerww

quote:

all the different mechanics of the corrupted 7 remain unchanged from their standalone versions. so even with the reduced HP they still hard-counter many classes, with gluttony, wrath and pride being the biggest offenders. So mechanics nerfs to all of the gauntlet versions are NEEDED, Greed should only steal Portions of the player's buffs not flat out copy them, envy's jealousy should stack slower and cap lower, the amount of turns between every time gluttony devours buffs should be increased and/or should not steal potions, lust and her desirelings should also be reduced in HP further or for the damage reflection to be reduced to oratath levels, wrath should instead of hard countering and healing off crits should receive reduced damage from crits instead, with Sloth and Pride reciving similar levels of mechanics nerfs to their Gauntlet versions. They are all fairly designed as STANDALONE fights but their mechanics in a gauntlet are just painful.


In terms of the grinding and the rewards; I think that as the gauntlet is currently quite RNG based, especially when you get to Pride, the requirement to grind the quest 13 times is quite frustrating. I liked the trinket, it's essentially a weaker, free EUD with 34 hits, but I think it can be improved by either giving you a bigger buff on use or doing more damage. I think the trinket should do more damage and have an enhanced effect when used with the scythe. Overall, I enjoyed the release.


Edit: I've just seen the DN's, so does this imply we're going to have 3 different challenges:

1) The Gauntlet ---> Unlocks Chibi and Merge Shop
2) Pandora 1v1 (Normal) ---> Unlocks Chibi and Merge Shop
3) Pandora 1v1 (Extreme) ---> Unlocks Challenger Shop

It does seem a bit excessive to have 3 different challenges :-/




TFS -> RE: =DF= February 7th Design Notes: The Corrupted Seven: Finale! (2/8/2020 15:55:50)

So, uh, my thoughts.

Right off the bat, I don't think grinding is inherently bad for a challenge. I think the reasons it didn't work so well here are that A) Completing just a single run is frustrating because of how the RNG-loaded enemies are at the end of the gauntlet B) Thirteen clears is going to take a LOT of time, and it's the same experience every time C) You realistically only have one or two different playstyle options for gauntlets like this, so you can't even attempt to inject your own variety into the situation, and D) These are all enemies we've seen and mapped out before - there's not a lot of new stuff here. Also, as has been said before, Pandora is supposed to be the star of the show here but you spend like an hour getting to her and then just blitz her in under a minute with your gauntlet class. As far as the rewards go, I think I was overly dismissive last night but I really don't think yet another Evil scythe is really what we need right now lol.

As far as changes go, I think buffing Pandora and then giving her more of a chance to shine is probably the way to go - the DNs mentioned an Extreme Pandora and I'd definitely look forward to something like that. If I could change it I would do something like:
1 Gauntlet clear -> cosmetic Pandora chibis
3 Gauntlet clears -> cosmetic Elpis cape
1 Gauntlet clear without healing -> Corrupted 7 trinket
Pandora Extreme clear -> Pandora Scythe
Or something along those lines. More of a push towards doing something hard and away from doing something over and over. Hate to phrase this like a suggestion but I'm still half asleep.

I'd also like to say that I don't think a gauntlet for the Corrupted Seven finale was an inherently bad idea and that it dismays me to see so much backlash against something that clearly had a lot of developer time and effort poured into it - but the timing on this was really really bad lol. I can see why people are upset as well. As always I'm really thankful for the incredible release Verly and Dove put together even if it is slightly incongruent to what people want right now, and I'd love to see their hard work slightly rearranged so that it can get the love it deserves!




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