Dungeons with nerfed bosses for noobs

#1

Hey all. This is a certified noob post so if you’re a player who runs endgame content with ease you might not care.

I’ve been playing the game for a very long time on and off so I never really got too good, so this idea is basically about how the learning curve of certain bosses could be made easier.

I love the variety of dungeons in this game and in general, I don’t advocate for carbon copies of dungeons to be made. Still, I do think it would be beneficial if low-level dungeons were added (by low level I mean somewhere on the difficulty curve between UDL and OT, mostly Abyss is an ideal level for this IMO) where the boss of the dungeon has some phases which are re-sprited copies of, or just in general very similar to, phases from endgame bosses.

For example, having a dungeon where the boss has a knife wall phase very similar to Dammah’s would help players practice weaving between rows of slow projectile walls. I don’t think the Parasite boss or the Marble Defender before MBC is similar enough because, in both of those, the gaps are just slightly offset from the last gap and in the knife wall they can be quite far. Similarly, having a dungeon where the boss has a phase similar to Xlotol’s last phase, just with lower damage, would help noobs like me learn these phases without having to risk our best characters.

These dungeons should be easy enough so we could run on fresh 20s and even solo with a couple of maxed stats, making the risk much lower. It helps build muscle memory. Honestly, maybe a lot of people will disagree but having almost entire endgame bossfights copied and simplified with minimal change +resprites would be very beneficial but that might be going way too far in some people’s eyes. Also with that said I think some bossfights should be deliberately left with no “practice” version like Forgotten King feels wrong IMO. Also, LoD and Tomb and Nest are I think easy enough that they don’t need practice versions.

Also, I think a very important aspect of this is the re-spriting. The noob versions should look nothing like the fight they are teaching. These should be, in all other senses, unique dungeons with unique loot, lore, aesthetics, everything.

Bosses which I think should have dumbed down versions of their phases in easier dungeons IMO:
O3 and O3 minibosses
Xlolotl
MBC
The first 2 Shatters bosses
Fungal and Crystal cavern bosses
Kogbold boss

#2

From my experience, all the dungeons and bosses you mentioned except for Twilight Archmage are all doable public settings, I have seen people on USEast complete them before. (Maybe Oryxmania is not that hard)

As for learning them, your best bet is external resources such as discords and youtube. RotMG itself has a tutorial that only teaches you the controls.

#3

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Quite a few of the reworked godlands dungeons already teach these patterns to players. The Puppet Master’s Theatre has bombs that explode into projectiles similar to the Marble Colossus’ pop rocks, but with much fewer shots coming out. Shown above, one Limon’s phases has waves of slow-moving yet weak damage shots with gaps in between, similar to Chancellor Dammah’s knife wall. Plenty of dungeons also use environmental hazards which are tied to their themes that are then reused in much harder dungeons, such as the Lost Halls borrowing the ice from Ice Cave or the Cavern dungeons having small puddles of water similar to Magic Woods.

YES, finally someone says it! A good game shouldn’t need to have a watered down version of an originally hard piece of content just to satisfy the sweats who are arguing for the noobs that haven’t even reached that skill level yet. A good game should be able to teach those harder concepts in safer environments instead of having a worse version, or DECA forbid an in-game autonexus feature. This game’s difficulty makes it niche, which is admittedly a double-edged sword, but the solution is NOT to ease the difficulty curve at the detriment of the game’s core. Rather, the game’s difficult spots should be clearly communicated to new players. Don’t make the mountain easier to climb, make the climb easier to understand.

#4

I agree, a lot of the mechanics in more advanced dungeons can be seen in much easier ones, but easier. There are simple reasons for this: the same people making both endgame and midgame dungeons, and mechanics that work and which they know how to code are easy to re-use.

But I am unconvinced they help with learning a hard dungeon. The problem with learning a hard dungeon is the only way really to learn it is give it a try. I mean, it’s the challenge of maybe dying/nexusing that focusses your attention and lets you concentrate fully on it.

Something like the blue phase in Sprite World is superficially similar, and in some ways harder due to the moving ground, but it’s at the same time no challenge as with any sort of DEF + armour you can take dozens of hits, and almost always do take quite a few. It’s no sort of training as you’re not expected or easily able to dodge the shots.

The problem for me is the big gap between the easy Exalt dungeons (Nest, Cult, Fungal) and the hard ones (MBC/Void, Shatts, O3, Kobold). The former set I can do on multiple classes, and have exaltations, including some maxed on Sorc, from all. The latter set I’ve tried all of and had to nexus or have died, generally very early; I’ve never reached O3 or the Forgotten King, have always failed on one of his minions/Bridge Sentinel.

#5

You have to keep in mind that Sprite World is in the earlier stages of the midgame. Most players will have around T5-T7 armor, so while they might not be punished hard, it’s still worse to just tank through the shots, especially since they inflict Slowed. Plus, even though the phase only has a 1/4 chance of appearing, players are most likely going to grind that dungeon over and over again for the DEX pots and eventually encounter that phase. I guess a better point would be that the boss familiarizes this pattern to newer players. They don’t necessarily have to learn it, especially not initially, but players who naturally want to grind will have to actually dodge it if they want to be more efficient, plus the memory of that pattern should definitely be there.

#6

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