Bosses: let's make them fun

[Ragenvaald]

Hey all,

I didn't see anything like this on the forums (even though I might have missed it), so here goes an idea that might be of interest.
As the title suggests, it has to do with the bosses in Warframe.

 

The current state of the game

First of all, is there a problem, and if yes, what is it ?
The answer is yes, obviously, and it is quite the same all around the board.
Bosses in Warframe represent (almost always) almost invulnerable practice dummies that we have to wait for revealing a weakpoint to shoot at.

It is a known issue, I'm not saying anything new here, but please bear with me.
We can all agree those boss fights are kind of underwhelming, and it is like that because we have to WAIT.
And we don't like that, not one bit.

 

Bosses and mobility

The vast majority of players flash around the missions, zooming around like madmen.
The whole Warframe experience relies on mobility, and one of the things you hear the most when you start playing is "stop moving and you're dead".

And this is great, it keeps you in the flow of the game, always multitasking between you going full aim-gliding and bullet jumping while popping your abilities or shooting baddies.

Then comes a boss.
(And you can kinda see where I want to go).

Because here's the main issue: bosses are not mobile enough, so they are easy targets.
So to avoid us Opticor-ing them in the teeth, they have invulnerabilty periods.

What I have in mind for Warframe bosses would look a bit more like Furi bosses.
A fight where you are on edge, and you are in the flow of the game.
You have the same feeling with the bosses of the Souls-borne series: they sublime the gameplay of the game into an intense confrontation that pushes you to reach into the skills you developed to get there in the first place.

My point (and my suggestion) is: let's do bosses that challenge our Warframe skills.

Let's do bosses that have us parkour all around with no invulnerability phases.
Let's have quick moving bosses, to adpat to our pace.

A good counter example would be the Tyl Regor fight (a fight I do actually enjoy more than the others).
Tyl Regor is fast (not fast enough yet mind you), you get to use a bit of parkour during the fight (not enough once again) and the invulnerability phases are not as frustrating because you don't have the boss staring at you for 2 minutes while you can't shoot him.

But that's just one of our warframe abilities.

 

About stealth

I read a few comments here and there of players saying that they can't do any boss fight in stealth without it feeling like a total cheese.

So let's put an alternative way in the assasination mission, where you have a kind of massive spy vault to crack.
That bombastic console would be cypher-proof (for obvious reasons) and would allow you to access the boss from behind, and get a finisher opening if you remain undetected.
Like a proper space ninja, you took down a VIP.

That way you can make a good challenge, actually reward stealth and give the players a choice.

 

Shifting the balance of power

Let's go back to the parkour possibilities: why not implementing falling platforms like in the MR tests ?
That way you always have to jump around, but the same would be the case for the boss.

So here's what that kind of boss room would be like: you go in, and the boss jumps in as well.
At that point, the platform you are standing on starts crumbling BUT it's the same for the one the boss is standing on.

So now you get to bullet jump from platform to platform, all the while shooting the boss to make him fall off or just die from your massive Opticor burst.
But you can only do that if you can catch up with him, and actually get your crosshair on the boss the moment it shoots.
And if you stop moving, you fall, you're dead.
Plus, you have to pay attention to the boss behaviour to avoid landing on a crumbling platform.

Or, you can try to trick the boss into landing on a crumbling platform.

After all, why not ?

 

Reward diversity

This a Dishonoured kind of approach: sure, you can run head on into a boss and take it down by sheer force.
Or, you can be aware of your toolkit and your environment to take him down as effectively as possible.
The choice is yours.

 

There are other tools that we have, and even if I can't see them right now I know you will point them out in the answers

I know this all a bit confused, and probably not as great as it sounds in my head so please, just take these few paragraph as they are: an invitation.
An invitation to talk and think about this issue, and how we can tackle it.

An invitation to design vicious bosses that we would actually enjoy grinding-just because they're fun !

Thanks a lot for your attention, and please do suggest more ideas.

[Errodin]

My beef with bosses mainly strings from their inability to get more difficult as the stages of the fight progress ... i mean they DO have stages and the difficulty does increase but in such small increments, these need to be more extreme, especially in the case of sorties which can still be child's play to experienced players, but at the same time there is nothing that differentiates a new player from a experienced one ... other than knowledge and gear so straight changes aren't best unless you can tell the two apart.

[Ragenvaald]

il y a 1 minute, Errodin a dit :

My beef with bosses mainly strings from their inability to get more difficult as the stages of the fight progress ... i mean they DO have stages and the difficulty does increase but in such small increments, these need to be more extreme, especially in the case of sorties which can still be child's play to experienced players, but at the same time there is nothing that differentiates a new player from a experienced one ... other than knowledge and gear so straight changes aren't best unless you can tell the two apart.

 

That's a really good point, and I would certainly appreciate having some kind of learning curve with these "revisited" bosses:

the first few times you do them, you're going to spend some time trying to just survive and damage the boss, but every time you run it you find new weakpoints, new ways to make the fight easier.

Even the arena should be something you have to learn, to turn it from an obstacle into a tool.

 

Hell, I would be happy to feel that kind of progression, and just rerun a boss to learn it.

[Urlan]

I personally don't care for bosses with invulnerability stages, particularly if they only become vulnerable through their own silliness. Lt Kril and Sargus Ruk have both decided to show us what would happen if they just use their normal attacks and not leave themselves vulnerable. Instead, perhaps using the area might work better for bosses that are so unrealistic that we have no rationale manner of beating them. Like using ship cannons or jet exhaust to melt off their small arms proof armor, or weapons that specifically punch through such protections ala the idea with the Eidolons.

[Femuru]

i agree it would be nice if they added more personality to some boss fights such as the map changing with actual stage progression (not running to the end like vey heks), some kind of requirement of stage progression, possibly some mathematical implementation that prevent bosses from getting one shot, and as u said some way to actually add more parkour to the boss environments. alot of warframe bosses can be very dull, so i wish they would add alot more personality behind them as well as the stages they are fought on to leave more of a heavy impact and only very few stick out to me so far which are the ambulas, lephantis, and kela de thaym where even then i think i kno they can add just alittle more sprinkle to em. i also want to add in in my honest opinion but i think about every 3rd sortie should be a boss fight sortie cuz tbh there are plenty of times i finish the 3rd sortie way too easy on regular missions and other times i just get those long annoying ones like defending that damn operative as dumb as old halo marines. what makes me sad tho is that DE is very very very unlikely to do this since well they almost never go back to work on something old and just go on to make something else to hype players that is probly just gonna die out like lunaro, or sanctuary onslaught, or frame fighter which kinda just leaves things to be alot of a waste.

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

Make the bosses more vulnerable, but buff their health and deadliness?

[(PSN)NachoZissou]

I was recently struggling against Laurence in the Bloodborne DLC and at one point after dying yet again I thought how much I'd love to be able to get my Rhino and Tigris and shotgun him in the face. 

Which made me think about how it'd work in Warframe if we went up against bosses that required timing and clever movement to defeat, rather than just staying alive and waiting for invulnerability phases to be over, like bosses in pretty much every other game. Make them bullet sponges by all means but make our mobility a key part of the fight, it's a key part of the game in general after all. 

Some Warframe bosses have elements of that like Lephantis' Grineer head which telegraphs physical attacks that you'd be wise to avoid but I'd like a lot more along those lines. 

[Ada_Wong_SG]

I suppose the current state of boss fight can be made more challenging, not like Kela De Thaym 
insane russian roulette with artillary strike.

But consider we are attacking the bosses in order to assassinate them, 
some boss fight could have a time limit where the boss's guards would arrive and
make the fight harder/ boss escape which we will lose the reward or fail the mission.

That makes the fight slightly challenging because not only we need to kill the boss, but have to do it fast.

Bosses like Tyl Regor, Kela De Thaym could have Executioners (from Arena) as their body guard, 
failing to kill them within time limit will spawn harder enemies like Nox, Executioners in groups (on top of maniacs)
that will attempt to overwhelm you, instead of some lame artillery strike/ water flow to stall the fight.

The thing is don't make bosses bullet sponge that can tank insane amount of damage with invulnerability cap, 
but raise their attack and damage to the level it become challenging.


Multi-stage boss battle
I kind of liked how lephantis is planned out, stretch it a bit further, we need to take down the gate-keepers 
who are special enemies 
http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Executioners

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Bosses#Field_Bosses

I suppose we could have a new breed of enemies dedicated as guardian/ gate keepers.
just so fighting our way to a boss's room is not just walking in directly.
Those guardians will hold keys to the passage way/ room so defeating them in a must.
 

 

[Ragenvaald]

Il y a 5 heures, Ada_Wong_SG a dit :

But consider we are attacking the bosses in order to assassinate them, 
some boss fight could have a time limit where the boss's guards would arrive and
make the fight harder/ boss escape which we will lose the reward or fail the mission.

That makes the fight slightly challenging because not only we need to kill the boss, but have to do it fast.

 

This could be a really good idea for a challenge to a frontal approcah.

That idea of going fast is really what drives the game when you think about it: parkour faster, kill faster (Hey Simaris), capture faster, etc

Hell we even have a Nova build to make ennemies faster !

 

Il y a 5 heures, Ada_Wong_SG a dit :

I suppose we could have a new breed of enemies dedicated as guardian/ gate keepers.
just so fighting our way to a boss's room is not just walking in directly.
Those guardians will hold keys to the passage way/ room so defeating them in a must.

 

That is also a brilliant idea, a build-up through the fight would be nice.

As you pointed out, The War Within already implemented that kind of mechanics-and it's a shame they're not used anywhere else in the game !

 

This is yet another way to see what we pointed out: bosses on Warframe do not rely enough on our playstyle.

The characters are cool, but I mean come on, to kill Alad V mutalist, all I did was jump on the mission with Valkyr, pop Hysteria and the boss just evaporated.

 

The mission just felt like a touch and go to the boss room.

And this is a shame, because the concept of possessing/enthralling other frames is nice.

But Alad is just not fast enough, not mobile enough to represent a decent threat by himself.

 

This was tackled by the presence of Zannuka on Jupiter, where you have that ennemy jumping around, distracting you from Alad and protecting him.

(This is not a perfect boss fight, but it is way better in my opinion than Alad V Mutalist).

 

So yeah, implementing some sort of guardians on our way to the boss -or even in the boss room- would allow for a build up to the fight.

[Ragenvaald]

Il y a 11 heures, ShenRyujin a dit :

 what makes me sad tho is that DE is very very very unlikely to do this since well they almost never go back to work on something old and just go on to make something else to hype players that is probly just gonna die out like lunaro, or sanctuary onslaught, or frame fighter which kinda just leaves things to be alot of a waste.

I mean, yeah, this is certainly not priority number one, and probably not the thing that would hype people the most.

But you certainly can make it sound sexy, and DE already showed that they are more than willing to improve core content of the game (I'm talking about Earth and Jupiter tilesets).

They are revisiting completely the melee system, and I would not be surprised if they decided to go on and try to revisit a boss.

 

It only has to begin with one, really, because if players like it they will say it.

This is also a good source of content that would (maybe ?) keep players around and bring back those that left.

[Ada_Wong_SG]

3 hours ago, Ragenvaald said:

This was tackled by the presence of Zannuka on Jupiter, where you have that ennemy jumping around, distracting you from Alad and protecting him.

(This is not a perfect boss fight, but it is way better in my opinion than Alad V Mutalist).

 

I suppose with the Grineer hierarchy and Corpus organization, something like a ladder match could be made 

much like watching Bleach and seeing Ichigo taking down seated officers, vice captains, captains.
or even going into hueco mundo,taking down arrancars before espadas what seems like serious fights early on can pave for story of later
stronger and more powerful enemies.

It could be a sub-boss battle before the final boss, or another node which guards the boss.

Since the main boss is kind of boring currently, it is possible that they are just "henchmen" of higher ranking enemies, 
which can possess warframe-like speed and agility, while keeping multiple bosses on a planet is possible.

The more shocking part is like... all the enemies you fought up until now are fodder tiers,
there exist higher tier bosses that... lucrative loots and drop, tougher battles.

But it is not even Eidolons, since they kind of reminds me of the Gillian (Menos Grande) from Bleach that is a gigantic bulky enemy, 
that is very powerful, but there exists 2 more higher classes of Menos Grande that is Adjuchas and Vasto Lorde

Adjuchas would be something like the sortie level planet bosses.

Vasto Lorde would be something like an eidolon concentrated into a Maniac/ Stalker/ Excalibur Umbra (Speed & Agility enemy)

That could cut through Rhino's Iron Skin at ease and trivialize the player's endgame builds.

[True_Naeblis]

Main issues with boss fights in this game:

• Invulnerability phases
• Bad movement design, such as insane amounts of teleportation and rapid position changes that act as cheese rather than a challenge
• Laser light shows that go beyond anything that would be remotely eye catching and interesting into eye gouging garishness

The underlying premise behind some bosses is good, but everything always ends up overtuned. Just like the final fight to get Octavia. That goes from fun, to still interested but okay, then to "What?", then to "When will this be over?" I feel like there's never been a real examination of what players do and don't like about boss fights in general or most of the feedback given on what we have, and the result is more of the same potentially good design never taken in the right direction.

[Ada_Wong_SG]

I suppose agility and making it harder to track and aim with guns will make it more legit, even while the boss is it invulnerability phase,
just make them run and dodge animation instead of standing around and taking 0 damage, we could just simple put that as "MISS" for bosses.


Might be cooler if some sort of "auto defense" during invulnerability phase like cutting down bullets and matrix style dodging would make a boss looks more badass.


Also, during boss fights, promote weak spots on fast moving enemies instead of allowing ability to cheese bosses, 
and limit the time frame for ability usage. Like after shooting a weak spot will make boss vulnerable for 1 - 2 seconds 
which you can spam ability,

but using ability at the wrong time will buff boss/ trigger defense mechanism that makes boss attack players
more aggressively.

Here is some bosses with agility.

 

For the invulnerability of bosses, and the agility style.

 

most likely related to this is some way.

This thing, kind of like granting bosses "Reflex Guard  at 100% blocking" during invulnerability phase.

 

Edited October 6, 2018 by Ada_Wong_SG

[GibsonPrime]

Resurrecting a somewhat old thread (and no doubt an idea older than this thread is), but I was thinking about this today. 

Why?  I decided to make a kitgun and thought I wanted Ruinous Extension, so I went back to fight Jackal.  It was stupid easy and the drop chance for the mod is really low.  This got me thinking about elite mode bosses, akin to making a radiant relic.  Make the fight harder, but alter the drop table to prefer the rarer rewards.

The idea of "elite mode" is to not change what's there.  I'm not saying that should never happen, but it avoids risk in drastically altering the new player experience.  It also avoids adding any benefit, but I suppose some of it could be rolled back once the system(s) are better polished/balanced.

From a rewards perspective the "radiant" drop tables might not be enough for some/most, so perhaps there is a need to add some other rewards in there.  Maybe give them one of those really low drop chances for primed mods?  Again, not enticing for the 5-year vet who doubtlessly has them all, but something for those who are newer and are still waiting for Baro to do his thing.  I can't think of a good reward for such a player.  Cosmetics?  A trophy for each boss bought with farmable tokens?  I guess arbitrations did the trophy thing...I dunno.

Anyway, all this also got me thinking how to make the bosses harder.  Sortie bosses are harder, sure, but in a largely boring way.  More interesting might be to add new abilities which force proper movement or coordination.  The knockdown "rings" are a good example.  Telegraphed "don't stand here" attacks (e.g. Kela de Thaym missiles) don't work very well as they tend to encourage "run in a circle until it's over", but are another option.  Maybe a "floor is lava" attack?  Force the players to use wall grabs and glides to stay somewhat airborne for a period (maybe a also good reason to bring a Titania or Zephyr)? 

Might also consider some mechanics which encourage certain frames.

My first thought is occasionally spawn a horde of mobs which will repair or buff a robotic boss.  Players would need to prevent them from reaching the boss, the point being to encourage CC frames (Vauban bastille, Limbo's stasis, Gara's wall).  I can see a nuke frame meta creeping into this plan so would need to consider that so it is a "just as good" option, rather than the "why do anything else" option (easier said than done I'll admit). 

Another idea might be a mob which a tank (Rhino iron skin, Inaros) needs to "distract" while other players take another action.  I'm not sure how agro works in Warframe, but I guess I'm envisaging an unkillable and deadly to most mob which requires a tanky frame to deal with.

Maybe another fight could have a severe DoT, which would require a Trinity or Oberon healer?

Just throwing around some ideas, but in general more raid-like organised boss fights.  The "elite" mode just came about to make it something for older players to go back to for unique drops which were missed, a coordinated challenge or...uh...whatever.