Plague Doctor in Northren Black Trenches (Bounty)

[Cybertox]

I guess most players are familiar with the bounty in the game involving the Plague Doctor in the Northren Black Trenches. Now this bounty is hands down the worst experience I had in this game and a perfect example of atrocious level design.

First and foremost its about the location where the engagement takes place, in the damn sewers (Black Trenches) on the top of some hill unto which you either have to run for like 2 mins around the level or use the damn altar which you need to activate twice, swim across and and then get elevated. Now it is also the time to mention how awful the interact button is and how unresponsively it works, the amount of time I fail to interact with chests or other things is off the charts.

The Plague Doctor engagement whose flame attack is 6 meters long and hits through the ruin walls and the steppes, not to mention his fire bombs in that very confined space is straight out garbage.

Now my problems are not only those two attacks but also the environment and the gameplay. The ruins down to the right never protect you from the fire attacks, neither the elevated rows of steppes in the middle, I cannot count how many times the doc killed me because the fire breathing attack animation just sniped me invisibly through the stairs or through those walls. The space is very limited in a bad way, I wasted so much stamina just rolling into nowhere and barely traversing any terrain. All the regular melee attacks of the plague doctor are alright and are smartly telegraphed but the awful fighting spot and in combination with the two fire attacks is just straight up bad level design and there is no excuse for that. I did not run out of food but the amount of times I had to return to the doc using that disgusting route with the abysmal interactive button I had to use each time to call the altar platform down and up to fight the doctor for yet another attempt was a brutally unpleasant experience. The checkpoint nearby doesnt help at all in this scenario, at times I spent more time traversing to the bounty than actually fighting it,

Also fix the damn performance already, I am out here stuttering and droppings frames left and right and I am running an RTX 4090 coupled with a 14900K. GPU usage sits around 90% while the CPU is barely being used at 12%. Also address the input lag on controllers, its awful even with the low latency mode set to Ultra.

[Felix]

All enemies with shields including this boss, stop blocking the moment their attack animation starts. If you have a quick enough weapon you can jab them once every time they try to attack you.
You can also backstab this boss

[Cybertox]

Originally posted by Felix:

All enemies with shields including this boss, stop blocking the moment their attack animation starts. If you have a quick enough weapon you can jab them once every time they try to attack you.
You can also backstab this boss

I have defeated the boss, I am not asking for tips. I am describing my bad experience with this particular bounty so that we do not see ♥♥♥♥ like this in the game any more.

[snowcat]

It would have been nice if they had just added shortcuts as the story progressed, like the other maps.
As for the combat, I think the unmovable camera is to blame, not the location. More than half of the game's difficulty stems not from the cleverness of the enemies and terrain, but from the inconvenient specifications, including the camera.

[Menthur]

Originally posted by Cybertox:

...
First and foremost its about the location where the engagement takes place, in the damn sewers (Black Trenches) on the top of some hill unto which you either have to run for like 2 mins around the level or use the damn altar which you need to activate twice, swim across and and then get elevated. Now it is also the time to mention how awful the interact button is and how unresponsively it works, the amount of time I fail to interact with chests or other things is off the charts.

...

There is a shortcut to the Plague Doctor tho.

https://youtu.be/QU2tUPKZLN0?si=1oG-CMn2AaGqxvOg

[Cybertox]

Originally posted by snowcat:

It would have been nice if they had just added shortcuts as the story progressed, like the other maps.
As for the combat, I think the unmovable camera is to blame, not the location. More than half of the game's difficulty stems not from the cleverness of the enemies and terrain, but from the inconvenient specifications, including the camera.

They have. You do get shortcuts as you progress through the world (ladders you can drop down) but not everywhere and this bounty in the sewers is an example of where there should have been one.

[Cybertox]

Originally posted by Menthur:

Originally posted by Cybertox:

...
First and foremost its about the location where the engagement takes place, in the damn sewers (Black Trenches) on the top of some hill unto which you either have to run for like 2 mins around the level or use the damn altar which you need to activate twice, swim across and and then get elevated. Now it is also the time to mention how awful the interact button is and how unresponsively it works, the amount of time I fail to interact with chests or other things is off the charts.

...

There is a shortcut to the Plague Doctor tho.

https://youtu.be/QU2tUPKZLN0?si=1oG-CMn2AaGqxvOg

Man please read before posting ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, alright? This is the second way I am describing in my post, this is not a shortcut.

[Menthur]

Originally posted by Cybertox:

Originally posted by Menthur:

There is a shortcut to the Plague Doctor tho.

https://youtu.be/QU2tUPKZLN0?si=1oG-CMn2AaGqxvOg

Man please read before posting ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, alright? This is the second way I am describing in my post, this is not a shortcut.

what are you talking about? you just walk up the ladder and you are already at the plague doctor. what do you expect? to teleport directly to him from town? these players nowadays ...

[Cybertox]

Originally posted by Menthur:

Originally posted by Cybertox:

Man please read before posting ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, alright? This is the second way I am describing in my post, this is not a shortcut.

what are you talking about? you just walk up the ladder and you are already at the plague doctor. what do you expect? to teleport directly to him from town? these players nowadays ...

Man you are retarded, I was spawning from the whisper nobody is talking about town or that way you showed in the video, none of those are shortcuts. I dont wanna use the altar platform, neither do I wanna run around like in the video.

[Menthur]

?? .. I think you have serious issues bro :) nobody is running around like in the video .. you enter the sewers, go climb up the ladder and go directly to the plague doctor ... this bounty is probably one of the fastest to reach .. if that is not a shortcut for you, i dont know what is ..

[Cybertox]

Originally posted by Menthur:

?? .. I think you have serious issues bro :) nobody is running around like in the video .. you enter the sewers, go climb up the ladder and go directly to the plague doctor ... this bounty is probably one of the fastest to reach .. if that is not a shortcut for you, i dont know what is ..

Are you really mentally ill? You say that nobody is running around like in the video yet describe exactly whats in the video. Man get out of this thread with your bs and go pay the doctor a visit.

[Menthur]

what i was tryin to say is that "I'm not running around the whole sewers to get to the bounty" .. because thats what you assume ... i use the shortcut by using the ladder. you reach the bounty in less than 20seconds ... there is no activating anything twice like you posted .. but obviously you dont want real help ...

[Cybertox]

Originally posted by Menthur:

what i was tryin to say is that "I'm not running around the whole sewers to get to the bounty" .. because thats what you assume ... i use the shortcut by using the ladder. you reach the bounty in less than 20seconds ... there is no activating anything twice like you posted .. but obviously you dont want real help ...

Listen Menthur the way from the video is the 2nd fastest and I am well aware of it. Used it as well multiple times and I feel its still too slow and cumbersome, detracts from actual play time in an unpleasant way.

[Bandit17]

This is one of the quicker bounties to get to. The fight is best up close. Just because you don't like being targeted at range because it hurts your feelings doesn't make it bad "level design". If you can't adapt then you should expect to be frustrated a lot. You have 3 weapon sets for a reason.

[Cybertox]

Originally posted by Bandit17:

This is one of the quicker bounties to get to. The fight is best up close. Just because you don't like being targeted at range because it hurts your feelings doesn't make it bad "level design". If you can't adapt then you should expect to be frustrated a lot. You have 3 weapon sets for a reason.

What a bunch of non-sense, this has nothing to do with me disliking being targeted at range, I have no problems with that. I have an issue when a poorly designed bounty which has atrocious level design forces you mundane and frustrating traversal which detracts you from actual gameplay and wastes your time. There was nothing for me to adapt to in this level, I won simply by dumping most of my consumables and getting him killed in a couple of hits due to buffs so I didnt have to dodge all that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in a confined space as a two handed melee character.

Comments like yours add zero value since you blame the player for the absence of skill even though bad level design has nothing to do with a player's base skill-set. This is an example of poor level design, I completed all of the other bounties pretty much effortlessly, some of them I consider them to be too easy.

[Nakaris]

Originally posted by Cybertox:

I guess most players are familiar with the bounty in the game involving the Plague Doctor in the Northren Black Trenches. Now this bounty is hands down the worst experience I had in this game and a perfect example of atrocious level design.

First and foremost its about the location where the engagement takes place, in the damn sewers (Black Trenches) on the top of some hill unto which you either have to run for like 2 mins around the level or use the damn altar which you need to activate twice, swim across and and then get elevated. Now it is also the time to mention how awful the interact button is and how unresponsively it works, the amount of time I fail to interact with chests or other things is off the charts.

The Plague Doctor engagement whose flame attack is 6 meters long and hits through the ruin walls and the steppes, not to mention his fire bombs in that very confined space is straight out garbage.

Now my problems are not only those two attacks but also the environment and the gameplay. The ruins down to the right never protect you from the fire attacks, neither the elevated rows of steppes in the middle, I cannot count how many times the doc killed me because the fire breathing attack animation just sniped me invisibly through the stairs or through those walls. The space is very limited in a bad way, I wasted so much stamina just rolling into nowhere and barely traversing any terrain. All the regular melee attacks of the plague doctor are alright and are smartly telegraphed but the awful fighting spot and in combination with the two fire attacks is just straight up bad level design and there is no excuse for that. I did not run out of food but the amount of times I had to return to the doc using that disgusting route with the abysmal interactive button I had to use each time to call the altar platform down and up to fight the doctor for yet another attempt was a brutally unpleasant experience. The checkpoint nearby doesnt help at all in this scenario, at times I spent more time traversing to the bounty than actually fighting it,

Also fix the damn performance already, I am out here stuttering and droppings frames left and right and I am running an RTX 4090 coupled with a 14900K. GPU usage sits around 90% while the CPU is barely being used at 12%. Also address the input lag on controllers, its awful even with the low latency mode set to Ultra.

ok to make it short you know you dont have to use the elevator platform ???
You can simply climb on the other side up. 2min of a way. If you always use the elevator i can understand your furstration if you f.. up at this mini boss