Crucible has too many floors until boss

Wicked Feedback
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1

So I’ve been grinding at crucible lately, and only recently discovered that there’s actually a boss at the end of it. I didn’t know this before because of how many freaking floors you have to go through to actually reach it - I haven’t gotten an actual count, but its definitely at least 7 or 8, which is too damn many.

Why is it too many? Because the boss is freaking hard.

I’m totally fine with the game having hard bosses, and I’m willing to accept a boss you can only reach after fighting your way through a bunch of enemies, but getting to the point where you can actually make another attempt at the boss takes a minimum of fifteen minutes, which is frankly ridiculous.

I feel like the crucible should be five floors deep at the maximum - four floors of baddies to beat your way through, and a fifth which contains the boss. Maybe higher tier crucible things could have more floors, but if there’s already a tier system for crucible, I don’t know that because I’ve been unable to beat the first tier. And if we do have different crucible tiers, the first tier should only have three floors, to get you introduced to the mechanics.

tldr; Crucible has way too many floors between you and the boss, pls reduce to a max of 5

2

Right now when you die inside the crucible it takes you back to the surface and you have to make another offering to start over. If you die in the boss fight which is very likely to happen, you’ll have to get through all 8 levels again. It’s not funny going through everything over and over again.

I know it’s a skill issue but the penalty is just too high in my opinion. I would like to see a respawn location saved after you beat each level or just even one before the boss fight. You can have players make another offering but let them spawn in the level they died in. Other people also had some suggestions like reducing the total number of floors, etc.

3

Agreed! It has killed my hype for playing as its the last piece of content i need to complete. After 20+ runs I’m fed up with spending 15-20min just getting to the damn boss. Not to mention the crucible itself poses little to no challenge once you have maxed your gear out.

4

Yup. Slogging your way through all one billion floors of crucible to reach the boss is just unfun once you’re geared up. The enemies die quickly, and when they don’t die quickly its probably because its a bloody difficult group fight that has the potential to stunlock you to death, resetting you back to the top of the crucible, potentially losing 10+ minutes of progress.

Like I mentioned before, reducing the amount of floors in crucible would solve this, but what would also solve the problem is having any kind of checkpoint system where you can start from floors deeper down - preferably right at the boss.

5

+1 This is definitely annoying to have to restart trash mobs every time. I want to practice the boss, not the mob I killed 1000 times.

6

well this is meant to be THE endgame and optional it’s supposed to be a place to test your skill and your build to survive the gauntlet of enemies.

having a checkpoint each level would make it no different to just fighting in the open world and would completely beat the purpose of a endgame.

7

Disagree, each floor is small and some only have 3-4 enemies sometimes, the only issue is not being able to reliably practice the boss - Rest is fine

8

I agree after just dying to the boss because the targeting system randomly untargeted it and made me dodge into a ground Pestilence instead of away, it is frustrating to have to spend ten minutes running through the crucible mobs I one shot with fireball just to get to the boss again. They need to zoom out the screen a bit on that boss fight at least so the system doesn’t randomly lose the target.

Also they could just make it so you could restart at the boss until you beat it or leave, then if you do either, you have to start the crucible over.

Really need to work on that targeting system for larger rooms where the boss goes below screen randomly, then shoots from off screen or you just lose target randomly.
Hard lock the boss in boss fights at least unless I manually unlock it.

9

It’s literally the current end game, being challenging is the entire point.

They make it any easier, people will beat it in no time and whine there’s no enough to do.

10

I know it’s END END game, but there should be somewhat of a pity mechanism. Like going from 8 → 7 → 6 up until something like 3 maybe every time you die and then it should just stay at 3 forever.

Edit: I agree with Crucible being a nice farm, even though I am unlucky xD. So maybe have the pity mechanism only as long as you keep dying to the boss. When killed it should reset. This way there is no PRO to farming until the boss and then die and the original idea stays intact.

11

Each stage takes like 3 minutes. I waste more time when I go to town to restock and vendor trash items.

Moreover, those stages are the best farming in the game, enjoy them. Build wealth for the next phase of early access, or max roll your items.

12

I’d like to see more variety in the levels to keep players on their toes, but less levels required to reach the boss. Maybe 1 or 2 less.

13

I’m not gonna say “skill issue” or “get good” or anything of the sort.

I will say I appreciate the challenge and have no real problem with the current design of the crucible. It can be grueling and it does mean I’m gonna have to really pick up my farming for heals and other consumables so i can make it to the boss.

While I have no problems with the current design, I have one idea to throw out.

Allow players to spawn to previously completed floors, however increase the Ember cost to spawn there.

I like to keep the element of risk/reward. Skipping out on any of the levels actually hurts you because you miss out on potential high tier loot (which always has a chance of surpassing what the boss gives). If you’re willing to take that trade off to just “see the end” then a higher cost should be required imo.

I’d even throw gold and silver into the costs. If you want to skip the first 3 floors because you fell off the cliff on level 4, then the cost should be 3 Embers and 15-40 silver. Or something along those lines.

14

I feel the same, it feels long when you are under leveled and still getting good.

15

I agree

Right now im endgame, have a couple builds that just walks through the floors with ease and its annoying when farming boss to slip up, have the lock on fail and have to head back to farm the pointless floors.

They need to have multiple seperate crucible challenges

  • single boss Crucibles
  • Mutli-floor increasing difficulty Crucibles

In its current state a possible temporary fix could be the option to utilise 5 Embers as 5 lives withing your run.

You res on the floor you died (not that this ever happens anymore) or at the boss if you’re fighting him

16

So far I have 44 hrs in the game, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. There is heaps of potential and I genuinely can’t wait until we get the rest of the story and full release.

For the last few days I have been bashing my head against the crucible, trying to defeat the Echo Knight. While I could Alt+F4 to get back to back attempts it was fine, I enjoyed trying to learn the fight when there was no time consequence to a failure. I even got the bug once where if I died and re-entered (after clearing the rooms), it took me straight back to the Echo Knight, that felt great. Now that’s been patched out, I get it, it wasn’t intended. Being able to rush the boss isn’t intended. Fair enough, Early Access whatever.

It feels shit, and sure, maybe I’m just bad. Having to spend 10-15 minutes killing trash, to get one attempt that could last anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. Maybe I am rushing, and not taking my time to dodge or parry or block. Maybe I’m fixating on killing it so much that I’m not “playing properly”, maybe my build is shit, I don’t know. Having to fight and run through all that stuff, to get one attempt, is genuinely taking the fun out of it for me.

All of the other bosses had a whisper before them, so I didn’t feel extra “pressure” while I was learning the fight, I could actually take my time, make mistakes, learn the animations, when to dodge etc. Against the Echo Knight, I feel like I can’t do that, because if I make a mistake and die, I have to spend another 15 minutes getting back to him.

I don’t even mind the rooms, less rooms would feel better. I haven’t counted how many there are but 3 rooms would feel better than 6, at least then it wouldn’t feel like so much of a chore. I don’t know how many runs I’ve done of this thing in the last couple days, at least 10, probably more. Every attempt, every failure, has felt progressively more frustrating.

Personally, I would much prefer clearing the floors once, to get repeated attempts per session. A checkpoint before the boss. That way it wouldn’t feel so fraught, less pressure and less time consuming, more enjoyable. I doubt this will happen, but I can hope.

TY for reading my rant, flame away. (Get good, etc.)

17

true! please give me a whisper before Echo Knight.

By the way, according to the current mode, I can only use the safest way of playing, as the cost of a single failure is too high. This limits the diversity of gameplay

18

As someone who has beat the guy eight times, and failed against him many, many more…I feel ya. I don’t mind some rooms, but it’s too many. Spending 4 hours in my day to get a few goes at the actual guy I want to fight is a bit much. I don’t think they should have a checkpoint right before him, but there should be less rooms or some way to make things faster.

As for your run, I highly, highly recommend blink it’s really helpful to avoid the horse stage as often times what gets me is ragdolling with the horse and getting hit 4 times in one move. Don’t use it too much with the second stage though as his aoes will hit you through the blink.

My best runs with him have been heavy stagger ones. Knockout arrow, anything with ice, a really big hammer. Whatever can knock him on his ass. Some CCs will just straight up cancel his move and make him do something else so you can save them for moves you hate if you don’t have high focus gain.

19

Yes I agree, even is the boss would be easier is a lot of time spending in the SAME rooms over and over to reach the boss.

Considering right now room order is random and difficulty of the rooms is kind of the same I think this could be reworked on the following way:

Each crucible challenge has 9 rooms + boss room. Each room is more difficult than the previous one and has better drops (so order wouldn’t be random).

Each 3 rooms you have a checkpoint, so you need to comple 1 to 3 to have a checkpoint if you die in number 2 you start over, but if you pass number 3 you can go to the city, sell, repair, etc. and start from room 4 since that moment to the future for that character.

There could be also particular loot on the sections, so in case you want to farm X material you kill the mobs on levels 1-3 or 4-6. This way you have also target farming which is very lacking on this game.

Before the boss also a checkpoint.

I think this way gives more feeling of accomplishments, its less punishment and more fun.

20

If they do a checkpoint before boss it needs to go away if you win. Otherwise you’d just farm the best gear over and over on loop.