The startup fight was Player 1 (P1) vs non-boss, Player 2 (P2) vs mini-boss. This means that if P1 wins first, P1 will get an Altar. Then, P1 + P2 are fighting the mini-boss, providing another altar. If P1 is assigned to c (non-boss) and P2 is assigned to d (boss), P2 will receive only one altar in total.
Previously, all players were matched against a non-boss at the beginning. They would all receive an altar afterwards and were able to synchronize at the mini-boss, where a second altar was provided before the boss. While this is not critical, it is probably not working as expected?
Poison Sea is a special chapter. One of the dungeons in it all the enemies are the same boss in different stages…
As far as party goes, I’ve been put against the boss or the mini-boss first before. Its just kind of luck of the draw, it happens. Not really a major issue though, imo.
I know for sure that at 3/4 player parties one of the players was always matched against the mini-boss. I cannot say for sure about 2 player parties, but I believe this was the case too. I may be wrong, though.
Still, if you care about the altars (maybe looking for the gold one), whoever clicks first on the mini-boss altar will be matched against the c enemy (non-boss). So in your example there are 3 ways of making sure that P2 gets 2 altars:
P1 kills the mini-boss. Usually, while the dying animation ends, P2 will be offered the altar first. Claim it to face the c enemy and kill it before P1 kills the boss.
P2 kills the mini-boss but P1 waits for a few seconds before claiming the altar, giving time to P2 to claim it first. Again, kill the c enemy before P1 kills the boss.
P2 goes to the boss, but kills it before P1 kills the c enemy.
I have done tons of parties with 2 accounts at the same time, so I have some experience on making sure both players get the 2 altars
Thanks for the replies - I actually did not check if it was linked to Season 2.4, but I will tomorrow.
To get back to the “issue”: I usually play only in a party of 2 or 3 since the artificial lag was introduced (the other players I played with stopped a week after that patch and did not play coop anymore) - so I haven’t played in a party of 4 in a long time. But my experience is until last week, with all players usually on Android or 2x Android, 1x Steam.
Up until now, we were never matched against a mini-boss directly, because the usual order is n x normal (n = player count) + 1 x mini-boss + 1 x boss and all players are matched with the normal mobs. The only exception I know of is when a player is ready but does not enter the match (by switching out of PQ3) when the others start. Then it may happen that the first enemy is down and the first player moves to the “free” normal monster before the player finally joins.
In this case, I was reminded at the time when we had 2 stages with normal mobs (n x normal + 1 x mini + n x normal + 1 x boss), just without scaling the mobs with the number of players. Sadly, I did not have more players who wanted to join the party, so I could not test anything else
Cheers,
Thalinae
PS: Thanks @HigureTheStillWind - I remember that we used to do this when hunting for altars and wanted to play co-op, but I did not remember the rules anymore
I checked back with more fights (sadly, still only a party of 2): Dungeon 1 (non-season), Season 1, Season 2, Season 3 dungeons… all are now with the different combination in a 2 player party:
1 normal
1 mini-boss
1 normal
1 boss
This was definitely changed, because before the patch I played the non-season Dungeons and the layout was:
{1…4} normal in a party of {1…4}
1 mini-boss
1 boss
So … this might be one of two bugs:
scaling the number of normal enemies does not work as intended: in this case, it should be {1…4} normal, 1 mini-boss, {1…4} normal, 1 boss, but the two “normal” phases are not correct.
the sequence is incorrect: in this case, it should be {1…4} normal, 1 mini-boss, 1 boss.
Can someone please check the sequence of mobs in a party of 3 or 4? Sadly, I could not find people to play with.
It is interesting, because I am 100% sure that previously whenever I did party with 3 or 4 players, it had the (n-1) normal - mini-boss - normal - boss sequence. It is only with 2 players that I am not sure about.
I followed this up with the team and the structure of enemies in Party mode had been changed due to a rounding error where the mini-boss was in the lineup of battle. This became apparent once there started being more than 3 opponents in Party battles.
Older story quest battles and early seasons were placing mini-bosses in different locations compared to newer battles, so they were updated to match the newer battle structure.
Waiting to hear back from them about when Altars are intended to be triggered.
I think this might be a mistake. Reason being in a really good party people often cut you off and kill the enemies before you have a chance to attack. Getting a miniboss or boss is actually kind of a blessing in my opinion as odds are no else in the party is going to interfere with your kill. Also I’m curious if you know the answer, but when I do a wither or poison, do my teammates get that extra damage as well when they attack that enemy or just me?
