The sandworm

[Ratirefure]

This has been one of the most miserable experiences I have had playing a shooter. The idea of a moving boss is cool, and it getting its own arena worked well for it. But WOW was it miserable.

Firstly, I have been playing this game at 150-200fps, silky smooth. When entering the sandworm arena, my framerate would routinely dip and seemingly cap at 40, even when turning off all the high-visual-impact settings. This made things way harder than they should have been, since it is so much harder to aim at sub-60 fps. Once the worm was fully despawned after killing it, my framerate magically went back up to 200.

When I first saw the sandworm, it was heading toward me, mouth-first. Awesome. This is probably the best way to approach the sandworm, since every other angle has a metric assload of turrets covering it, making the front the only viable approach without prayers to RNGesus that the turrets miss. Very rarely, after dying, was the sandworm in this advantageous (for me) position, forcing me to take a very long time between attempts to get myself to the front of the worm. Why do I reset, but this worm gets to keep moving as if nothing happened? It's not like it doesn't also reset in some way; all its weakpoints are restored when I die.

The worm has a ridiculous amount of enemies on it, both bad guys and turrets. It's incredibly hard to hit guys since, when they're far enough away from you, they seemingly stop being able to be hit (probably due to both me and the enemies being on a constantly-moving object and the game having the slowest bullets I've ever seen -- am I firing a gun or a crossbow?). The bad guys also seemingly infinitely respawn, even spawning BEHIND YOU. Good lord, it feels like the game is trolling me sometimes.

The worm's path is made up of a circular ravine with lava at the bottom. Cool, I like this. But multiple times I've tried to wallride against an edge of this ravine, only for the game to seemingly teleport me... somewhere else. At least I didn't die, but getting my bearings after this often cost me time and health.

The resupply caches dotted around the arena are a good idea, but a couple times I came to a supply cache only to find nothing; apparently, I had used that cache before on this try, not that there was any indication of such. It's weird that the supplies don't respawn, but the big beacon lights could maybe turn off if they're empty or something. I can hardly be expected to keep track of how the worm is moving when I'm inside it.

Also, it's just janky. Enemies are constantly moving through the walls of the worm, and at one point I went through two of the pillars while trying to climb up one to get to a weakpoint. This combined with the teleporting issue above make for a broken-feeling boss fight that isn't fair.

TL;DR: The sandworm is such a cool idea, but it was terrible to actually play.

[Taehl]

If the turrets are hitting you, you just aren't moving fast enough. The worm is definitely able to be attacked successfully from the rear, it's just more bullets to evade. If you're standing around watching enemies respawn, you're almost certainly not moving fast enough. Slowing down to kill the enemies isn't even necessary, just focus on hitting the weakpoints as fast as you can. Making the boss fight easier/immobile wouldn't be an improvement.

Having beacon lights on supplies in boss battles to let you know where they are / when they've respawned is a good idea, though.

[Ratirefure]

Originally posted by Taehl:

If the turrets are hitting you, you just aren't moving fast enough. The worm is definitely able to be attacked successfully from the rear, it's just more bullets to evade. If you're standing around watching enemies respawn, you're almost certainly not moving fast enough. Slowing down to kill the enemies isn't even necessary, just focus on hitting the weakpoints as fast as you can. Making the boss fight easier/immobile wouldn't be an improvement.

Having beacon lights on supplies in boss battles to let you know where they are / when they've respawned is a good idea, though.

When did I say I was "standing around watching enemies respawn?" Yes I slow down to reliably hit my shots, then try to speed back up. That doesn't make enemies magically not respawn. Even when cruising top speed on my hoverboard, enemies still find ways to hit me down to 1 health even when I'm just focusing on hitting the weakpoints.

I also never said I want the boss to be easier, or even immobile (though maybe it would've been better to "fake" the movement or find a way to make it less janky, but I'm not a developer, just a player). It just didn't feel like challenge, it felt like BS. (Edit) To put it more eloquently, it didn't feel like it was challenging my ability to play the game as it has been up to this point, but rather challenging my patience. And the strategy I ended up prevailing with wasn't just zooming around only targeting weakpoints; it was stopping and shotgunning every turret I could see and bulldozing bad guys with the hoverboard to regain my health, THEN focusing on the weakpoints. So if your strategy is truly the "right way" to play the game, then it really wasn't a challenge on how well I understand the game in the first place.

[Taehl]

I never said there was a "right way", I said if you move faster you won't get hit.

Doing it my way was a blast, yours sounds frustrating. You're free to do it any way you want, though.

[BabyLugi]

You probably need to get used to the movement and aiming more. If you are constantly at max speed and hitting shots it should be no problem at all. I get that I'm basically saying "git gud" but this is a game where your mechanics are essentially the only thing that matters.

[Ratirefure]

Just fought the dragonfly, was very fun, genuinely no complaints :)

I honestly think my main problem with the sandworm was the framerate issues I was experiencing, no matter how "gud" I "git" the framerate being that catastrophically low is something near-impossible to cope with.

[Szudof]

didnt read a word just git gut really

[ruffzy]

Same happened to me, sandworm was annoying mainly cause of framerate issues, all other bosses didn't have fps drops and were fun to take down

[Galm 1]

this guy isn't up playing with his worm

[Silellak]

Yeah, performance drop during this fight is really a nightmare, turning what should be a cool set piece into a frustrating mess.

[-Ordinique-]

didnt notice a thing with my 4070ti

[-Ordinique-]

just attacked the worm from the side, the turrets have a large spray, won first try

[-Ordinique-]

I now tried the bossfight again and beat it without issues or framedrops. Took me 2-3mins. I first focused the turrets, because they are the most lethal, and are ez to destroy. Then i attacked the cores. - The only thing that i can confirm is that you get teleported, if you ride the walls of the ravine. This sucks. But i didnt notice it, because i found it really easy to stay on the worm.