Boss phases etc

[Darkon]

I’ve read hundreds of posts over the months regarding Boss fights and their lack of unique mechanics and boring repetitious combat.

Why haven’t we received phases on bosses yet? Or anything like that? Doesn’t have to be all of them, but where are the bosses who, at 75%, float up off-screen and carpet bomb or summon waves of minions that must be cleared before the boss can be hit again?

Where are the bosses who, at 50%, become immune to MATK or PATK and change vulnerable states every 10 seconds or so?

Where are the bosses who at 10% hit an enrage mode where they unleash hellish attacks or really step it up a notch with clones?

Where are the bosses that require specific objectives to be accomplished by teammates? (not talking about the trinity, talking more along the lines of “need one person to hit this switch” or “need two people on adds at X time” etc)

I mean sure we lost the bullet-hell mechanic that was… well… generic, but, every boss still feels like what would be labeled a mini-boss in every other game. If there were any bosses prior that actually had some nifty elements to them then I’ve long forgotten their names as it wasn’t something that required any amount of strategic play to overcome.

I still feel that the current systems I see in place (on youtube since I don’t play KToS) for bosses are as dull as they were before I even got my hands on the game.

Shouldn’t this be a top-priority by now since the game showcases so many bosses but each of them are as flavorless as the one before?

[black_light]

What makes a boss fight memorable?
Start with that question.
In single player games the spice is the story, which builds up to the point you face your final boss. Other bosses are there usually only to give a chapter or an area a closure, or heighten the pressure.
In an mmo, where you will be facing the same boss over and over again, story is less of a usable concept and there is more on mechanics, but ultimately, no boss fight ever will be carried by mechanics only.
I’ve been a gamer for more than 20 years, starting off on 286 dx and nes. I’ve played more games than i would ever be able to remember, both on and offline, but nothing about boss battles is ever really memorable outside of the story in which it fits itself.

With or without mechanics of any form or kind, a boss fight is enjoyable when its new, when you still dont know about it, when you experience it. No matter how unique a boss is in an online mmo, in the end, it will be chiseled to nothingness by the grind.
Take WoW raids as an example. I did that stuff for like 3-4 years from burning crusade to the end of wotlk, and i wont be able to tell you a single boss that made me go “wooo… holy ****”.
Simply because there is no such thing in a game built around repetitiveness of any form.

You can enhance the experience with a couple of things, but in example of you mentioning immunity cycles, i would argue that this is a good idea.
First thing you would need to do if you are on about mechanics is to find where you draw the line between annoyance and rewarding difficulty.
Something that makes you build a party in need of specific classes and requires you to do any form of organizing of the battle, can be viewed as sheer annoyance by others.

I cant really give you a definite answer on how you could enhance bosses, but point you in the direction of the most pressing issues, and elaborate on my… disbelief… of it being possible at all in an mmo.
Mechanics will pose a challenge here and there, but once you leveld past the boss or got the tactics down, it will be just grind. No matter how many minutes, days or years the dev team spent on designing it.

[Darkon]

I agree, things are only fresh the first time around.

Take vanilla WoW back in the day. I remember how long it took even the most seasoned guilds to find out ways to get Onyxia down.

Before long, though, the mechanics became more and more like motor memory. Okay, this phase, step here, do this, blah blah blah, where’s my trash loot repeat.

But for the first few times… truly amazing.

But that’s the thing about ToS. There isn’t even that. Once you see the very first boss, that’s all you get. Next boss may have different animations, or a different sized or themed AoE but that’s about it. No flavor at all and every encounter is the same.

Adding some form of mechanics or, hell, anything at all that people can come up with, would be a hundred-fold better. True, the mechanics alone won’t make a boss memorable, but it will give us a start. Something to at least make a boss feel like a boss, even if they fade from memory. If a boss doesn’t stand out or require some effort then even story bosses are blah. The only two bosses I recall fighting based on the battle itself were the slinky dude because he had a really cool aoe, and the thorn boss because you couldn’t step in some areas. Oh and the Unicorn because letting him prance around in colorful explosions was eye-candy for my soul.

Man, I recall bosses from countless games past that, even by mechanics alone, stand out. Remember the bosses of FFIV? The three sisters where they all had to be killed at relatively the same time else they’d re-spawn? Or FFVI where countless bosses had several stages after you defeated them, forcing you to re-think your approach or composition for each phase? There were bosses a-plenty that required specific damage types be done against them else they’d absorb the damage and heal or use it to charge an attack (even one of the earliest bosses in FFVI retreated to his shell). We have… nothing of the sort. Not even a vague or masked attempt at making the battles even remotely strategic. Even our world bosses boil down to “Hit boss, don’t get hit” and nothing more.

That’s all. Every other boss can be surmised by “jump, attack, skill skill skill, repeat” and I couldn’t even begin to tell you the impact the battle made on the story or how the story impacted the battle (the latter being nothing of note because the battles themselves fit the same formula as fighting beefy trash mobs).

What we are left with (and likely contributing toward the reason player retention isn’t as high as expected) is that the first few hours of play sum-up the game in its entirety. Go here, kill this mob. Go here, kill a lot of these mobs for exp. Go there next, kill this random boss. Repeat for the rest of the game.

Unique and flavorful bosses will help break up the monotony by forcing players to think for a second, even if the next play-through they won’t have to.

[julionoronha96]

I agree, bosses are way too… meh

The only boss who really made me rage (and still make) is Rexipher, damn he killed me about 15-20 times on my first run (Cleric C2, Priest C2) and still kills me one or two times. Sometimes the boss of Crystal Mine 3F too.

Why? Rexipher spam attacks like crazy, almost every attack knocks me back and deal ~60% dmg, attack him without taking damage is pretty hard (at least for me). The CM 3F, sometimes spam those lasers and run around, THAT was challenging and fun for me.

But i disagree on “invulnerability” it’s not fun, it’s not challenging, just make me rage out. “Skills up, SP full, full charge lvl 15 Multi-shot -> Invincible… FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU”

I think if these “invincible mode attacks” deal LOTS of damage (and by lots I mean about 80%, 90% and even OHKO but still be vulnerable to our attacks, would me more challenging and more fun

EVERY other boss was like “oh no, another boss, how boring”.

Seriously, even grind is more fun than repeating a “boss” fight almost every 3 quests that lots are repeated and the same mechanics:

“Skill, dodge, skill, dodge…”

[G0n_92]

I for one would just be happy if they change those red dots ALL bosses have. Replace the red dot thing with themed projectiles like fireballs or if the boss is waterish use water balls or geysers. Ice bosses shoot ice spikes adn stuff like that.

I dont mean mechanics wise, just visually.

Boss dificulty has been a very debated topic. I for one would like slightly harder bosses, the trap mechanic is no way to make it harder.

[G0n_92]

My nemesis was a boss in a forest (big guy in the story) He summoned a pillar that if not killed he would nuke the entire area and killed me everytime.
It was the 1st time i needed help witha boss! More bosses like this with tactics would be nice

[Darkon]

Yeah they got rid of the bullet-hell but haven’t added anything to take its place, from what I recall. A sprite-swap wouldn’t work for me, but, at least some themed attacks would be fitting, so long as they served a purpose.

Like when you said water balls or geysers… wouldn’t it be cool if that water boss cast a lot of puddles at some random time into the battle, or % of hp, and those puddles were hot-spots you had to avoid? If you stepped into one the boss could freeze you in place and let loose a tragic combo. Or if those puddles gradually grew and then erupted into geysers randomly like a sadistic game of reverse whacka-mole where the player has to pause from his routine of attacks and get caught up in a game of “avoid the geysers or break your mother’s back” kind of thing.

And that’s just taking a different spin. It’s not hard for us, or anyone, to think of fun and creative ways to make bosses stand apart from one another and require that the player be more involved than hopping and attacking.

[Biscuit]

No.
Bosses that required parties is why I quit Blade and Soul (I played on JP for 2 years)

In this age it’s next to impossible to get a party after the game is out for more than 1 year because all the party reqs will be: max gears, 100+ clear experience, max buffs incl. cash buffs etc.

If you die even once in party in this age you risk being perma blacklisted. You know that cash shop item that revives you on the spot? Won’t be long before its use become a requirement for most parties.

[Greensburg]

7:30

Disregard the stillness bug, it’s (probably) been fixed already.

[Darkon]

No, I’m not suggesting that bosses require parties (i.e. story bosses should not be able to prevent any one random build from not working, like being immune to specific damage types that a character has built around… those things can be designed around and would require careful planning on development’s side).

I’m saying that bosses should require some kind of effort, or strategy, outside of the generic skill combo you’ll use for every boss encounter in the game without fail.

Bosses that require team efforts like switches, or a spare tank to draw trash mobs or clones etc, those can be attributed to open-world bosses.

I’m speaking in generalities alone and not implying that the player be forced into something like that. I’m simply saying that it’s been agreed on since the first cbt (search “boss” in the forums and prepare for the mass of threads and the posts inside those threads) that bosses are dreadful and I’m pointing out that they still haven’t been addressed to make them even remotely enjoyable or stand out from one another aside from changing how they look or what projectile they use. Hell even the traps are nonsense as they don’t even always fit the boss using them.

[Darkon]

Hmm I’ve fought mine-loader a lot of times and I seem to recall that attack happening often, although if it is specifically at a certain % or time into the battle then it shows at least a little effort in the right direction.

[Greensburg]

Hmm, maybe they didn’t see it sooner because of the bug, true. I totally agree on that bosses getting tougher or changing dynamics as the fight develops makes them a lot more interesting, especially if their behaviour is unpredictable or inconsistent.

[humberto_oliveira96]

I support everything you said, give the ability to “berserk” for all the world already boss was a beginning. Like a increasing 50% damage when low life xD

I miss the times when ALL die for world boss, after assembling a group and discuss strategies to overcome it…

I believe that there is still plenty of time for IMC do this, she can go changing gradually. Please BMI hear us, this is a very important issue for PvE

Sorry for my bad english