Novus Difficulty? The good, the bad, the ugly?

[Dylan Windwalker]

I'm sure Ki is thinking a lot about the difficulty about Novus and I think it'd be great if we can share some feedback regarding this topic! After all, if the world is too difficult, around this time would be ideal for some sort of nerf. Not to mention, I bet Ki is already on the drawing board of the following world (or Novus extension as many speculate) and the difficulty of that world is really based on the difficulty of the world before it as it should be more challenging by Novus. What do you think when you consider the difficulty of Novus for those that have quested through it?

I included a poll but feel free to elaborate!

[Torpzun26]

I mostly soloed this world, but there were two main quest battles where I needed help. The first was the fight against Copy Qhat and Quake Charmer, who despite having lowered damage, still posed a formidable threat by essentially casting two spells per turn and summoning minions who do have a large damage boost. The other was the final fight, where everything went fine until I was unpolymorphed and had drastically lower health. I still believe that the final fight is ultimately one of the easier ones, but the final fights haven't been very soloable for me for the past several worlds.

While I personally enjoyed enemies having natural resist, I can see it being a steep and sudden difficulty curve for players whose gear is suboptimal with low Pierce. But I'm not too sure how much those players have struggled with this.

This part is more about boss design which is somewhat related to difficulty but could still be a bit irrelevant. I thought that the Zheng was a brilliant boss. Its cheat is simple, just adding enchantments that increase the pip cost of cards, but it ties in to the school pip system so well. You can change what school you're getting school pips of into the schools of some of your off-school spells, like Ice for Tower Shields, and combat the cheat that way.

Basil was also an interesting boss fight, weakening the entire team every turn a charm is cast and shielding himself every turn a ward is cast. Being able to nullify you buff for buff made the boss feel like he wasn't there just to stand there and die. You had to deal with all of those defenses, whether by Cleanse Charm spam, using an off-school hit, or eschewing buffs and spamming hits.

Finally, the final fight. I think it tends to take too long to be an enjoyable fight to farm, but after having obtained everything I wanted from it and going back to help my friends get through it, it's actually a ton of fun. I feel like I'm very much in the minority here, but it showcases the Roshambo system and the synergies between certain schools. The conditionals meant that you had to pay attention to hanging effects, which made the fight incredibly engaging when regular PVE struggles immensely with having engaging, interesting combat.

The one problem I had with it was the Dog form though. That one was far too RNG-oriented for you to actually develop a strategy. You just roll for a hanging effect and then dig for whatever you have that can work with it.

All in all, Novus is an incredible world both for combats and for its story. I think the difficulty might be a tiny bit on the hard side, but is mostly correct.

[Ravino.]

Tough question to answer, Novus' difficulty is very inconsistent.

Before Novus I had found all arc 4 worlds pathetically easy and uninteresting as far as the storyline combat goes, Novus doesn't break off from this pattern most of the time, it's painfully obvious battles were designed to be won with just blade-aura-AoE and even boss battles don't require any additional effort most of the time - not even cheat bosses will push players to seek healing or a designated hitter, they're just glorified mobs really. In truth, arc 4 has simplified the gameplay so much it's failing to make Wiz feel like a RPG to me.

But there are also times where Novus completely breaks off this pattern and sends players into a nightmare battle, usually a solo such as the Puzzle Piece Monster and Tantrum... now that's difficulty that goes way past that's reasonable, they're just plain sadistic and I wouldn't have the slightest interest in playing more than a couple of times... it's a good thing there's no reason to farm them.

All in all, I'd say Novus' difficulty is terrible, it's either a cakewalk and pure torture, it never hits the sweet spot of an enjoyable challenge and instead oscillates between unpleasant extremes.

~R

[Willowdreamer]

I must say that the world has been fairly soloable for my Life wizard, so what I've done has been on the easy side. I am disappointed in the small number of side quests, but then I play for story more than challenge.

However, in instances where I do join a Team Up, I am feeling more and more irrelevant -- both as a Life Wizard and as a member of the team. My new computer is apparently still slower than the ones used by other players. Ever since Hall of Heroes, more and more maxed wizards are using Blade, Berserk and their All Enemy attack for huge damage. The first position often defeats the entire enemy side without even needing a single heal or leaving any creatures for anyone else to kill. Not all of us are in such a hurry, and I feel swept up with this whirlwind of "helpers" who leave me with nothing to do but click Pass. I don't really like "being carried" through.

There is little time to chat at all during battle and forget collecting Animus if you aren't playing solo (although there isn't any Animus to collect in Novus, yet). For all of the talk about making the game more social, I don't feel that Novus is doing that at all. The new spell I've learned is not in my deck, because I have so many other spells I like to see/use instead. We have these giant decks, and it feels like hundreds of spells, but no reason to use them. The developers said they were going to shorten spell animations, but these new spells feel even longer than the old ones that have been trimmed.

[Jonathan Greenflame]

For the most part, I found Novus to be enjoyable to quest through. The mob battles were easily managed solo but several of the boss battles I found horribly difficult. The Puzzle Piece Monster in particular I found dreadful. First off, all the flipping and turning sideways and the off camber stairs brought on a migraine (I wished the developer hadn't watched David Bowies Labyrinth). Secondly, the battle was horrible with all the dispels. The final battle was no fun and I've yet to finish it. The couple times I tried it took so long that I was called away and got disconnected. Several of the side quest battles I also found beyond reason in difficulty and I find no reason to try and go back and do them.

All in all if I were a teacher, I'd grade Novus a "C". I enjoyed the story line, it had a Twilight Zone feel. I hate the new cross school spell and won't use it. The gear is good if you can get the reagents to craft it or actually get it from battle. I found drops horrible, I don't need 100 music scrolls. Found reagents were sparse at best.

They may have put a lot of effort into this world but should have actually played through it a few times before launching it.

[Dylan Windwalker]

I finished Novus on my Balance and Life so far (with maybe my Ice finishing by the end of next month). I think I found Novus to be "just right" because I understand that the bosses and fights were supposed to be difficult and it was as I imagined it would be having gotten this far into the game. The weaknesses from Mobs and the Basil fight were annoying, but perhaps it's expected of me to get through fights regardless and it wasn't completely tragic.

I only had a couple of hiccups in one fight where I asked for help through Team Up and had to wait for decent amount of time before I got to somebody (General Benedict Brutus von Booth). I asked for team up in the Copy Quat + Quake Charmer fight, Duelist Dasein, Maxine Rockhoppierre, and the final Manticore fights but each of those were either universally challenging fights where most players would team up or a place where players would farm for their Aeon/Masterpiece Gear. Overall, in consideration of the help I got from other players, I don't think I struggled through the Main Questline.

The only quest I really did struggle with that nobody else would bother Teaming Up for and I had to ask a friend for help instead was the Abyss fight (a Side Quest in La Ville Rose) where healing was damage and boy was that a challenge for both my wizard's fights. Since it's a side quest, I wouldn't really address that overall towards the difficulty of Novus since, well, you don't have to do that fight if you don't want to. But having to time to hits (heals) at the right time with the cheats was horrible. If that was a Main Questline fight, I think that would worsen everybody's opinion of the world (I only do the quest because I do all of the quests in all of my wizards and it's going to be a trouble getting help when I do the quest on my Ice/Death/Storm). If I was a fire wizard though, unless I had healing gear which fire wizards often don't have, that fight would be impossible to solo because fire wizards don't have healing spells lol (though I would also think that fight is impossible to solo in general unless you're a couple hardcore players I know).

But Idk, difficulty is something that's tricky because it's difficult in different ways for everybody. And a lot of people are doing this world solo, which is fine, but Ki could really make fights as difficult as they want to because those players don't have to do everything solo, they could find help and quest together. I think creating that kind of gameplay is also fair, attracting players to rely on others is ultimately a good lesson. Maybe this is a topic for another thread lol

[Torpzun26]

The only quest I really did struggle with that nobody else would bother Teaming Up for and I had to ask a friend for help instead was the Abyss fight (a Side Quest in La Ville Rose) where healing was damage and boy was that a challenge for both my wizard's fights. Since it's a side quest, I wouldn't really address that overall towards the difficulty of Novus since, well, you don't have to do that fight if you don't want to. But having to time to hits (heals) at the right time with the cheats was horrible. If that was a Main Questline fight, I think that would worsen everybody's opinion of the world (I only do the quest because I do all of the quests in all of my wizards and it's going to be a trouble getting help when I do the quest on my Ice/Death/Storm). If I was a fire wizard though, unless I had healing gear which fire wizards often don't have, that fight would be impossible to solo because fire wizards don't have healing spells lol (though I would also think that fight is impossible to solo in general unless you're a couple hardcore players I know).

I didn't really mention it because it was a side boss, but the Abyss is one of the worst-designed bosses we've seen in half a decade. The idea of healing it to deal damage is interesting, but the constant barrage of healing debuffs make it nightmarish to do solo. I spent 2 hours on this before finally deciding to get help because healing it with Satyr for like 500 damage per "open" shot was not it. The next-worst bosses in the game are Rententen and General Benedict Brutus von Booth because waiting for the game to tell you when to attack is not fun or interesting in any way, and yet they are leagues better than the Abyss. Most of the other cheating bosses were at least not bad, some pretty good. I even didn't mind the Puzzle Piece Monster that much; if anything the maze was annoying but the boss was one of those where you had to be ready for it to weakness you. And even then it also knew Gravestorm. The first time I fought it, it removed its own Bad Juju with that spell. A funny interaction that I... kinda like? I want to see more enemies goofing up and making mistakes like that.

It's one of those bosses where you have to spam dispels to turn off the cheats to heal-kill it. I thought we moved on from having to spam dispels to make bosses bearable but I guess not. People didn't enjoy spamming dispels for Rattlebones Exalted and they're not going to be keen on any other heal-to-win bosses in the future because of just how awfully implemented the Abyss was.

Edit: Iron Face was also not great. Difficulty-wise he's one of those "easy with a team, hard to solo" bosses, and that's fine. But his design is just... what? 100k health, hits himself for 5k every time he attacks, until he's at half health? It's just weird.

[AlbusDoumbledore]

I found it just the right amount of difficulty. If it wasn't for all the freeze ups and glitches when Novus first came out, it would've been easier. I had to redo some dungeons because the screen went white and we had to log off & reload the game.