“Only 4.7% of players beat the final boss” doesn’t mean that the other 95% tried the final boss and couldn’t do it. It could be that players just lost interest before reaching the final boss.
Looking at achievement stats, it doesn’t seem like there’s an obvious “difficulty cliff” where most people quit out. Instead, people get progressively fewer achievements as the game goes on - 78% get the at least one achievement, 61% destroy a nest, 54% get friendly with a faction, 31% get aligned, 24% destroy a lair, 12% destroy a citadel, 4.7% beat the game. So it’s possible that Sirens are making some people ragequit, but my guess would be that the endgame is just too long and players are getting tired.
The final mission is definitely a difficulty spike - two Scyllas at once, and the battlefield is a choke point followed by a wide-open field so all the enemies can engage at once - but at that point you’ve got a maxed-out team and you can probably tough it out. But it’s also a very long mission, and I imagine it’s easy to die from ammo or medkit starvation even if you’re winning the fight. (I had a bunch of assaults with two guns and ammo for both, and I still almost ran dry by the end.) Or to get to the end and then not have enough DPS remaining to kill the boss before its marks get out of hand. If anyone ragequits on the final boss, it’s probably not from the boss itself, but from having to do the whole mission over again.
May be true. But it seems that people don’t know that they don’t need to do all HP damage it has listed.
Two Scyllas are not a problem. Because they can’t overlap each other. So you fight first one. It dies. Then you fight second which for example may be even blocked by the carcass of the first one. For me Tritons there were more deadly than Scyllas.
In last run I went there with 9 soldiers. Each on level 7, all with strength/will/speed = 20 and with single class and some of them with single secondary perk (like Healer or Farsighted - none of which increase damage output). All with random weapons and armors assigned to them previously - I wasn’t preparing squad in any way except flying second aircraft there to take 7th, 8th and 9th soldier. And only tough about this mission was this damn Mark of the Void (not enough medkits and 1 technician) and aliens spawning between my squadees (Arthron with evolved machine gun is nuts or even one with evolved pincer when all your soldiers suffer permanent HP drain). That is why I had to reload mission 3 or 4 times to adjust tactics. Not prepared soldiers had to adapt to the situation. Most important during this mission is to save game before you enter last chamber, then try to beat the boss with what you got.
I’ve only taken a break for a couple days, but what really pushed me to take a break was the bloated (and incredibly obviously drawn out) grind at the end. As I’ve mentioned in a few other posts, I effectively completed all the game - just nee to do the last mission. I’m in a current state where random missions, haven defenses, etc. serve 0% benefit to me to incentivize me going into battle. Plenty of resources, no equipment shortage, 3 full teams spread throughout the world. The battle provides no reward I need or want, yet still risks me losing people.
I’ve been in this position since just after NJ’s Launch Codes mission… And since Launch Codes, it’s been nothing but waiting for the NJ tech tree to grind out, then waiting for them to construct the fortress, then finally doing the one mission that came from that… then grinding out more tech so I can open up the final tech and then grind that… all for the final mission.
Everything since Launch Codes hasn’t been boring because it’s repetitive, it’s become boring because there’s no purpose to the grind other than to delay ending the game. One of the three primary drivers of human behavior (conscious choices) are “personal motivators.” For me, there’s nothing currently in game to motivate me to want to go into random battles that provide no in-game benefit to my current stage of the game, but further delay the grind through the tech.
First time I tried I had to restart the mission because my team was stuck in goo and a screaming Scylla left it in a position where I just could not do anything.
After restart I spread the team wider at the start of the mission fought the way through the mission getting beaten up by the final boss after running out of ammo and med kits. This took ne a whole saturday afternoon.
Then (after a week of not playing) I added another about 20 hours playing the ancient sites and leveling a Special Team After reading that an Anu priests ability would project against the mark.
Playing with this team I beat the game - having to realize the Anu’s priests protection had been patched. But it was still hard - having the final boss wipe out half of my team AFTER his own death with the last “mark” he had placed before.
And all that in the lowest difficulty setting - while I had to learn here that another difficulty setting would not have changed ANYTHING in that Mission.
I don’t think real strategie game “Rookies” would go through that…
It would, numbers of ordinary enemies would spike, as well as their agressivity. But in general, this mission should be easier on rookie level (reducing number of chirons, even scyllas, less HP for end boss, less damage from mark), I agree.
Yes, some bigger fatter warning about long and exhausting mission (even there is disclaimer if getting beaten game ends) should be placed. Or mission divided in two parts, enabling re-equipment.
