Nihil is the best boss fight in the entire game, and that makes me sad

[XaoGarrent]

All I'm going to say is that everything I'm hearing that people seem to like about this boss fight, is the reason I'm avoiding it so far.

Fights that take away the player's earned tools are a big nope.

[Steel_Rook]

19 hours ago, quxier said:

And honestly ninja weren't only about stealth things. They were good at foods/medicine and other stuffs as well.

Like disguise. If you're going off of historical "ninja," then their trade wasn't wall-running and tree-climbing, but rather dressing like peasants and blending in with the local population. Kind of like how modern-day spies don't drive cars that are also submarines and wear watches that shoot sleep darts, but rather try to live ordinary lives and stay under the radar. I don't figure Sergei Skripal was very good parkour in his youth :)

My point was that trying to push "movement" as THE most important aspect of Warframe is a very narrow definition of what this game "is." There are multiple other major aspects which matter just as much, if not more. Consider if the situation were reversed. What if a challenge existed where not only is your parkour disabled, but you literally can't move. Your abilities are also disabled and your weapons don't do anything. The only thing you can do is sit and eat damage until a timer runs out. Would you consider that to be a great encounter? Because it already exists - the Endurance Test on Lua. I can argue that this is a brilliant test because it tests THE game's foundation, which is "loot." Do you have the right Warframe, mods and Arcanes to tank that amount of damage? Then you win.

Removing game systems doesn't improve Warframe unless you're of the opinion that those systems shouldn't exist altogether. The game's overall draw comes not from a single aspect, but from its "combined arms" approach to gameplay, mixing mobility, weapons and - yes - stats, along with a bunch of other systems. Arguing that Warframe's boss fights are awesome when you take out the player's weapons and abilities and Warframe is damning the game with fine praise. It's like saying "this person is really attractive, if you ignore their appearance personality and beliefs and focus just on their athleticism." True, yes, but also pretty insulting to that person.

[AlouetteSK]

If anything, this boss fight shows how disjointed the core systems in Warframe has become in regards to combat design.  If the devs are having so much problem designing a boss that a "50 dmg per shot Mk-1 Braton" newbie and a "500k red crit" vet can both play without disabling the actual damage, then maybe they really, REALLY need to take a look at balancing the power gap.   Same goes for the gap between a gun-only vs a melee-only player, or even an ability-only player. 

I think nerfs are required, but in combination of reworking the systems to make gameplay more engaging.  It is not enough to whack the current meta melee weapon with a nerf hammer, but to make melee fun and deep, i.e. complex, enough that people are not trying to whine about us not having an auto-attack button. 

[quxier]

5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

My point was that trying to push "movement" as THE most important aspect of Warframe is a very narrow definition of what this game "is." There are multiple other major aspects which matter just as much, if not more.

Well... my point was that the game is not only about stealth actions. Or even stealth doesn't play some major role. DE took action, weapons & crafting from ninja while living stealth... less used.

[master_of_destiny]

So...really not in agreement with this thesis statement.  Let me lay out what is and is not earned for this boss fight.

 

First off, there is a significant grind associated.  That's at least 30 cephalite drops from enemies, assuming that you somehow managed a single attempt at each puzzle and one run on the boss.  Realistically, it's quite a bit more, given the rather goofy colors and issues with this mess.  Speaking of which, let's talk about the puzzles themselves.  It was the horrid 90's point and click adventure games all over again....and there's a reason they died.  It wasn't because people simply don't appreciate them, it was because they are fundamentally a chore to slog through.  This search was compounded by a glacial walking pace, sometimes invisible barriers, and very little indication of what was randomly placed scenery and randomly placed critical clues.

 

Now, let's discuss the lore.  This was quite possibly the crappiest delivery method I could imagine.  You have a timed platform leap, dependent upon the clues.  That's not inherently bad, but while jumping you've got the actual lore and explanations droning on while you're concentrating upon when and where the next item is going to generate.  That's an effective way to make it impossible to do both things at once, so the lore was often completely glossed over in favor of finishing a goofy jumping puzzle.  Not exactly a shining example of planning there...and definitely not a shining example of play testing if they thought this was ideal.

 

Now the boss....  Let's start by saying instant death mechanics severely suck.  Removal of platforms to work with are a challenge, but they're even worse when your mobility can often be impinged by a functionally point-blank blast that slows your movement.  Most frustratingly, when an attack telegraphs a 10 meter area of effect, but it's actually closer to 20 meter, it's not a really great and fair experience to get instantly killed.

 

 

Now that I've crapped on this, let's discuss the positives.  The invincibility is a lie, and only applies until you dispose of random floating shards.  I'm not going to lie, I still don't know which one I was supposed to break.  Break them all, and the battle continues.  Not exactly great, but not bad.  Likewise, when the boss didn't pull a cheap teleport death it wasn't a bad fight.  Unless the telegraph changed, you had time to dodge the blows.  That was true most of the time, but when it was not it felt like the cheap Lich kills all over again.  Finally, the inclusion of the throwing mechanic was interesting.  It's definitely still rough, but it was pretty nice to have a boss that required some tactic beyond waiting through invincibility phases or choosing the right cheese tactic.

 

 

 

Finishing this up, the bugs.  The ending scene didn't play for me twice.  This meant boss dead, flash of white light, end of mission on orbiter.  I've seen the cinematic that's supposed to play, but cannot get it to work.  Instant death attack, respawn on platform, instantly glasses, and another instant death before I could even get back into the arena.  Finally, many teleports right behind me to fire off a glass projectile that I couldn't possibly get to hit the floor.  It's frustrating to have that happen again and again, and just have to wait for a few more platforms to be taken away until the next pre-programmed sequence.

 

 

All in all, this is a functional rehash of the Octavia's Anthem boss.  The problem is the inclusion of instant death, long wind-up before you can retry, and the frustration mechanics pile-up.  Yes, that's artificial timers, artificial invincibility, poor telegraphy, artificially decreasing interaction area, and sometimes cheap combos.  The reason I contend the Octavia's Anthem quest is better is the predictable and consistent interactions.  The reason I say this is better is that saturated red bleeds out light blue so this is a less visually toxic event.  Neither is the best boss in the game, but both are infinitely better the invincibility phase pinatas.  Unfortunately, most of our bosses are tanks or invincibility phase messes.

[quxier]

4 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

First off, there is a significant grind associated.  That's at least 30 cephalite drops from enemies,

I don't think it's necessary to beat all 5 jump puzzles. I'm not sure if you could just beat the last one but I skipped 4th and finished (and getting the weapon) 5th puzzle.

4 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

Now the boss....  Let's start by saying instant death mechanics severely suck.  Removal of platforms to work with are a challenge, but they're even worse when your mobility can often be impinged by a functionally point-blank blast that slows your movement.  Most frustratingly, when an attack telegraphs a 10 meter area of effect, but it's actually closer to 20 meter, it's not a really great and fair experience to get instantly killed.

Ok, I took my Rolling guard and you know? Instant death suck... but is almost easily avoidable. He killed me 3 times (afair) because I have been very serious.
Sure "slowness" sucks. However 1) you can easily avoid it. 2) Even in that state you have chance to survive (not sure how big).
Teleportation were very fair. I wonder if blind person can play this. Not sure if the crystal you have to break give sounds but the Nihil sure does.

And this is for someone that is not into "hardcore" gaming.

[master_of_destiny]

1 hour ago, quxier said:

I don't think it's necessary to beat all 5 jump puzzles. I'm not sure if you could just beat the last one but I skipped 4th and finished (and getting the weapon) 5th puzzle.

Ok, I took my Rolling guard and you know? Instant death suck... but is almost easily avoidable. He killed me 3 times (afair) because I have been very serious.
Sure "slowness" sucks. However 1) you can easily avoid it. 2) Even in that state you have chance to survive (not sure how big).
Teleportation were very fair. I wonder if blind person can play this. Not sure if the crystal you have to break give sounds but the Nihil sure does.

And this is for someone that is not into "hardcore" gaming.

 

So let me ask if you read what I wrote entirely.  That's not structured as a question, because I'm not really looking for an answer.

 

My issue is that this boss seems to have significantly different attack patterns and methods, depending largely upon how you've played.  Additionally, rolling guard is not an answer.  Rolling guard is a mod designed to negate deaths, and if it's necessary to get a boss to not instantly kill you then that should maybe be highlighted before you are thrust into a confrontation with at least a couple of minutes of jumping puzzle before you can even enter the battle.

 

Let me reiterate how the boss worked for me, and suggest why this is not about hardcore or not.  I've had my share of Dark Souls, and those games are 100% fair.  If a telegraph happens there it's exactly the right attack, exactly the size it looks to be, and if you fail it isn't because the enemy teleported behind you.  Now, I stand across the level from the boss, so the angle from his head attack is most likely to hit the platform instead of flying off and never becoming usable.  Said glass projectile misses the platform once, and on the second it actually hits.  Great.  I've rolled out of the way to avoid the splash damage, and rotate back around to grab it.  In the less than two seconds I've tried to grab the glass cluster the boss has teleported.  Because I don't have a glass cluster in-hand, he shoots down another projectile.  This shatters the old one, slows me, and he indicates a horizontal slash while I'm still in the air.  I hammer the jump button, but because I'm glassed I cannot avoid the attack at point blank range.  Death.

I watch as the boss rears back with the sword, indicating an over the head slash.  Great.  I roll to the tile on my right, thinking everything is going to be fine.  For some reason, the boss instead completes the horizontal slash, and I die.  What?  The telegraph was for the wrong attack?  Yes.  Well....I guess the real solution is simply to run from everything.

I'm on my third run of the boss.  It's two tries for a primary and a third run for a secondary.  I get most of this, I can mostly reliably complete the mechanics, and have given up on the telegraph being usable.  Fantastic.  You'd think by this point I could avoid everything....but you'd be wrong.  I've got plenty of tiles to work with, and the visual area of the attack is pretty clear.  Great.  The trace lines on the horizontal attack are about 2-3 tiles from his core, so I should be able to stand 5 tiles away and not be concerned, right?  Well, no.  5 tiles from the boss is not visually indicated as instant death, but apparently it's still too close.  That's a huge mistake, when you're meant to dodge attacks that instantly kill.  If there's incorrect visual feedback the game is not acceptable.

 

 

Now, your mileage may vary.  I didn't write all of the above before because it would immediately get ignored for being a text block.  If your response is the "git gud" template then I really think you need the above to frame my frustration.  Dark Souls is a game where "get gud" applies.  Doom Eternal is a game where getting good applies.  Warframe fails to reliably telegraph, accurately telegraph, and provide accurate visual feedback.  As such, I have very little optimism for this type of fight.

 

If DE wanted to fix this, they could change the teleport animation.   They could decrease the attack range of the sword, or increase the visual indicators of its effective range.  Finally, they could have the glass projectiles create a particle effect for their effective range.  These three changes would bring the boss to parity with visual feedback and give us a fair challenge.  It would make this less about invincibility cheese (rolling guard), and more about reaction to a fixed and fair attacks system.  Unfortunately, they did not.  Maybe your experience was different, but mine indicated too many shortcomings for this to be a fair challenge. 

Take note, players of this game mode could theoretically not have a fully set of arcanes.  Knock out 2 revives, and you have the real probability that before all of the mechanics are revealed they're going to be out of the fight. 

This is a boss with no codex entry, no initial indication of attack pattern, and bad visual feedback.  Combine these things, and it's a frustrating situation.  It's like getting an Ikea table. having all of the parts present, having all of the tools, then throwing out the instructions and eyeballing the construction.  You wind up with the dowels in the wrong position, so the table works but cannot support weight on two corners without wobbling.  The thing was so close to being great...but DE just couldn't get it across the finish line.  That's profoundly disappointing, but moreso because you can see it's all there.  This isn't another Wolf of Saturn Six, who was a bullet sponge.  It isn't the Zealoid Prelate, who required multiple invincibility phases and teleportation inside of the dark to extend the boss fight.  This was a proper one on one against a huge enemy...which could have been a showing of skill.  Unfortunately, it's not.  It's just short of being about skill.  It's just short of being reasonable.  It's so close....but fails.

 

 

Let me pose another situation to you.  Krill and Vor are a combined boss battle on Ceres.  Both have invincibility phases, clear and telegraphed attack patterns, and Vor even teleports around.  Why aren't people complaining about that fight?  Well, no instant death.  You've got your weapons.  The floor doesn't disappear.  They do complain that Krill's invincibility is too long.  The same DE that managed to have 2 bosses on 3 worlds created this and learned nothing.  That's really frustrating, especially considering this is a rehash of the Hunhow data scape and Exploiter Orb, but seems to not have learned lessons about anything.  

[quxier]

5 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

Additionally, rolling guard is not an answer.  Rolling guard is a mod designed to negate deaths, and if it's necessary to get a boss to not instantly kill you then that should maybe be highlighted before you are thrust into a confrontation with at least a couple of minutes of jumping puzzle before you can even enter the battle.

Sorry for the confusion. I meant that I don't have the Rolling guard (I meant "took off").

11 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

If a telegraph happens there it's exactly the right attack, exactly the size it looks to be, and if you fail it isn't because the enemy teleported behind you. 

You see exactly where he teleport. I beat it 3rd time already. Now I tried to play it, not cheese it.

Now I was on one platform that the game creates almost all the time. 2 attacks can be dodged by simply jumping (no movement to the right, left or other directions). Third attack, a vertical attack you need to dodge to the right or left.

1 hour ago, master_of_destiny said:

Said glass projectile misses the platform once, and on the second it actually hits.  Great.  I've rolled out of the way to avoid the splash damage, and rotate back around to grab it.  In the less than two seconds I've tried to grab the glass cluster the boss has teleported.  Because I don't have a glass cluster in-hand, he shoots down another projectile.  This shatters the old one, slows me, and he indicates a horizontal slash while I'm still in the air.  I hammer the jump button, but because I'm glassed I cannot avoid the attack at point blank range.  Death.

You are wasting a lot of time there.

1 hour ago, master_of_destiny said:

no initial indication of attack pattern, and bad visual feedback. 

The attack are visible. Come on. I'm playing on slow pc so I've turned most options off and I even see it clearly.

1 hour ago, master_of_destiny said:

I watch as the boss rears back with the sword, indicating an over the head slash.  Great.  I roll to the tile on my right, thinking everything is going to be fine.  For some reason, the boss instead completes the horizontal slash, and I die.  What?  The telegraph was for the wrong attack?  Yes.  Well....I guess the real solution is simply to run from everything.

I haven't seen such things. Maybe it's a bug that you see but others don't (for example me)? Please fill a bug report if that's the case.

1 hour ago, master_of_destiny said:

They could decrease the attack range of the sword, or increase the visual indicators of its effective range. 

Unless it's a bug (like above) or something then no. There is no need. You see huge trail where he go (you even hear him afair). When he wants to attack he pick from 3 attacks that are clearly visible (even on windowed screen).

2 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

Finally, they could have the glass projectiles create a particle effect for their effective range. 

This one I could somehow agree. Shooting glass is not the best. It's more trial & error approach. It's bad because you just have to choice between "close & shoot" & "far and shoot at something else to not get slow status".

2 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

Both have invincibility phases, clear and telegraphed attack patterns, and Vor even teleports around.  Why aren't people complaining about that fight?  Well, no instant death. 

The Vor teleport wherever he wants and we don't see it clearly. The Nihil on the other hand show his "teleportation's path". They don't complain because it's easy. With the Krill you need to do something but the Vor? Shoot > wait > shoot > ....

2 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

Take note, players of this game mode could theoretically not have a fully set of arcanes.  Knock out 2 revives, and you have the real probability that before all of the mechanics are revealed they're going to be out of the fight. 

The players have 4 revives... I think it's enough to get the idea of the fight. And if they fail they (probably) need only 5 cephalites.

[master_of_destiny]

2 minutes ago, quxier said:

Sorry for the confusion. I meant that I don't have the Rolling guard (I meant "took off").

You see exactly where he teleport. I beat it 3rd time already. Now I tried to play it, not cheese it.

Now I was on one platform that the game creates almost all the time. 2 attacks can be dodged by simply jumping (no movement to the right, left or other directions). Third attack, a vertical attack you need to dodge to the right or left.

You are wasting a lot of time there.

The attack are visible. Come on. I'm playing on slow pc so I've turned most options off and I even see it clearly.

I haven't seen such things. Maybe it's a bug that you see but others don't (for example me)? Please fill a bug report if that's the case.

Unless it's a bug (like above) or something then no. There is no need. You see huge trail where he go (you even hear him afair). When he wants to attack he pick from 3 attacks that are clearly visible (even on windowed screen).

This one I could somehow agree. Shooting glass is not the best. It's more trial & error approach. It's bad because you just have to choice between "close & shoot" & "far and shoot at something else to not get slow status".

The Vor teleport wherever he wants and we don't see it clearly. The Nihil on the other hand show his "teleportation's path". They don't complain because it's easy. With the Krill you need to do something but the Vor? Shoot > wait > shoot > ....

The players have 4 revives... I think it's enough to get the idea of the fight. And if they fail they (probably) need only 5 cephalites.

 

I'm going to hazard that you read, and haven't really tried to understand.  

 

Let me offer one last retort, then allow you to have the last word here.  As you seem to not want to understand anyone else, it seems like the most sporting resolution, that won't drag this out.

 

The crappy or good computer argument is a joke.  It's not what I'm asking for.  Let me put this simply, Terraria.  Terraria is a golden example of decent boss design, good telegraphs, and when you die it's likely your fault.  Let me highlight one specific boss, so we can talk.  The Empress of Light is pretty much what this battle should have been: https://terraria.gamepedia.com/Empress_of_Light 

 

Now, let's compare and contrast.  In order to get a good summoning item, you need to fight the Empress without ever getting hit.  This is a significant challenge, as her attack patterns are nearly screen filling, and she's more than a bit aggressive.  So, you get 6 different attack patterns.  Each attack pattern is telegraphed with enough time to dodge, and you functionally cannot remain on the ground.  This forces use of wings, with a finite flight time, finite flight height, finite speed, and a falling mechanic thereafter.  Hopefully this is sounding quite similar to Nihil, because it's functionally very similar but more complex and requiring greater skill.

Now, this boss battle is immensely frustrating if you fail.  It's a once per day cycle chance, and requires finding a summoning item.  Also, very much like Nihil and cephalite in the event you missed it.

The reward for this battle is then a unique weapon, a boss item bag, and potentially a trophy.  It's almost like they've given out something befitting a skill based battle, when the rest of the mook enemies just drop resources.  It's an odd concept, but big rewards for big challenges is pretty rewarding.  Who would have though?

 

Now, let's talk about Nihil and the issues.  One, the issues that "require a bug report" are a joke.  I hope you get that....but assume not.  Why is it a joke?  Well, Nihil is a couple of weeks old.  The Corpus ship rework is almost half a year old.  I've reported the spawning of items outside of bounds, including pictures, in the bug thread for months and nothing has come about it.  Just like it took years for them to fix the issue on earth, in the void, and a variety of other places.  As such, bug reporting to DE is about as likely to lead to a fix as wadding up paper, flinging it into the grand canyon, and assuming the someday I'll entirely be able to plug it up and create enough water for the US southwest to have sufficient amounts of potable water.

Let's walk past that, and discuss the "just hop over it" comment.  It's wrong.  A standard jump doesn't get me high enough to avoid the horizontal strike with a Zephyr.  I can tell you this because while trying to understand the telegraph I tried, and discovered only bullet or double jumps prevent death.  I'll just chalk that up as a quirk, so we can move on.

Next, let's discuss the introduction to this boss.  Big sword raises up, followed by Nihil.  This tells us he's going to be swinging that sucker around.  Great, excellent cue of attacks by simply introducing the character.  Then there's a bunch of summoned crystals, floating at the outside of the arena.  What am I supposed to do here?  I stopped long enough to get a picture, and NIhil blasts me with a projectile that I cannot see if I'm looking at these floating crystals...what?  Fine.  Learning curve, I'll just try and both look at floating crystals and dodge the projectile coming from....is that a talisman strapped to his head?  What the heck?  Fine....it's not like he could be shown to use the sword in the same way we will, because showing us instead of hiding that in a tool tip is too hard.  Great....this is all happening in the first few seconds of this battle....and if you stop long enough to think he can glass you and slash away platforms which respawn...when?

Now, you've got the basics down.  You've somehow remembered stuff from 20 weeks ago, and shattered the outside carousel.  You've been able to grab a glass shard, and chuck it at the boss.  Great, this looks promising.  There's a couple of blue contrails, and he spawns behind you.  Realistically, you should be able to dodge.  This time the telegraph is clear, and you do.  Great....until he starts with the vertical slash.  Yep, there's an artificial timer.  If you don't kill, or take a cautious route you can be left standing on a single platform and officially be screwed.  Welcome to frustration.  

Now all of this leads you to one or two playthroughs, because none of it is great.  Second run through you finish it, and the ending cinematic glitches.  Not like after two whole years you'd want to feel some pride in ending nightwave...  After that, you cannot even get Nora's face in the transmissions, because this is somehow less developed than the head in torso Fortuna people.  

You do this again, maybe for a second account or maybe for someone else.  The boss fight itself is fine...and you stop caring.  I can plow through the issues, but the reward is what exactly?  You got the blue print, which was it.  A sinlge heavy blade with a fun glassing effect.  Over 170 days of this Nightwave, no defined end date, and it's a heavy blade.  No resources, being forced to go through this again to hear the lore, and on top of all of this the boss is set to be another Wolf of Saturn Six who disappears after the event.  This is Star Wars levels of missing the landing.  

Now, let's not be unreasonable.  Instead of Terraria, let's discuss the other content in this game already.  Nihil borrows a damaging stage from Hunhow's Datascape.  It borrows the throw mechanics from the Exploiter Orb.  It borrows instant death and attack patterns from Spy vaults.  None of this make it bad, but with all mechanics being borrowed this should have been a fantastic culmination of good mechanics into an experience that I want to return to.  Nope.  The most frustrating bit is right at the start, where I have to grind Cephalite (a capped resource), do a jumping puzzle, have vocal static spitting the story at me, have to wait for the talking heads to finish up to get into the fight, and after all of this do a battle with substantive issues about communication.  Please, send me back to Hunhow.  At least I like Suda and Simaris, who have more character than Nora after two years of repeating the same lines, and becoming the new Lotus.  Yeah....looking forward to not having to hear about detecting resonance, or losing stealth kill bonuses, or having the phrase "Dreamers, dreamers, dreamers...: screeched into my ear.

 

 

You seem to think differently....fine.  If I want boss battles to be a challenge I'll choose Dark Souls.  I'll choose Terraria.  Heck, I'll even choose to revisit things like Ocarina of Time for bosses with similar mechanics and infinitely better implementation.  The water temple is superior to another half hour game of hide and seek to be able to finally fight this implementation mess.  I've got no qualms with you professing appreciation for a challenge boss, but I want my challenge boss to be less of a dice roll.  Nihil is just not good enough to be "the best boss in the game."  If DE made a few tweaks it'd be quite reasonable to change that, but at this point this describes everything from the last two years. 

Fishing is a great diversion...until you discover that it's a multiple layered grind.

Fortuna is an improvement on PoE...until you discover that it's missing huge amounts of content it was sold on.

Liches are great, as they're a challenging enemy....until you discover the RNG garbage, instant kills, and need to grind through multiple levels to get the best version of the content they bring to the table.

Railjack is a great new game mode....until you discover it's a shell of the content required to actually flesh out a new game mode.

Nightwave is great....until you have nearly 200 days of an intermission.

Glassmaker is great....until you get the the final boss and discover that it's basically throwing away all of the looter shooter space ninja elements to be a bad Souls clone with rehash mechanics that somehow is less than the sum of its parts.

I like disruptions.  That said, disruptions are great....until the rewards have no sustain.  They eventually get fixed with changing the rewards pools, but the frustration on launch took a community push to get these things reviewed for rewards.

 

I guess I'm tired to the asterix, and notations required to qualify things.  Nihil's fight is great, but deeply flawed.  That doesn't warrant a "best boss in the game" level of praise.  That is, unless every boss requires an asterix, which implies failure is a way of doing things rather than an occasional thing to work through.  

[ixidron92]

En 29/10/2020 a las 20:50, SordidDreams dijo:

This is exactly what Warframe boss fights should be. The fight is based around your frame's mobility, making good use of the game's most distinctive feature, the movement system. The boss looks awesome, and all his attacks are clearly telegraphed, so the fight is very fair; it's completely on you whether you get hit or not. The fact that you have no weapons or abilities and you get one-shot by the boss gives you incentive to mod for mobility, which makes the aforementioned unique WF gameplay even better (in contrast to regular missions, where you mod for combat stats to the exclusion of everything else, so the gameplay itself never really improves as you progress through the game). Even the shards you have to throw have a proper trajectory and travel time (unlike, say, thermia canisters), so it takes a little bit of skill to hit with them. The fight feels like something out of an old-school game but brought up to date and polished. It's fantastic.

So why does it make me sad? Because it proves that DE can design a fun boss fight when they want to; when the reward is a guaranteed drop, there's no need for the boss fight to be a tedious slog that frustrates players into buying the item with real money. When I look at Nihil and then look at what the rest of the game is forced to be like due to the pay-to-skip business model, I can't help but feel a pang of sadness for what could have been.

My only suggestion for improvement is invincibility frames. If our health is irrelevant and the boss one-shots you no matter your stats, the dodge roll needs to provide invincibility rather than a (useless) damage reduction %. Yes, I know you can use Rolling Guard; that should be an option rather than a requirement for the roll to be of use.

I hope this boss remains accessible after the end of the current NW series.

This is a stupid boss that removes every aspect that makes Warframe, Warframe and turns it into a generic Super Mario bossfight. I mean, if you're masochistic or love those kinds of games, sure, you might love it. 

[Aldain]

I disagree.

It felt like a thrift store discount Zelda/Mario boss and the throw speed of the glass balls was so slow that I often found myself bullet jumping into his torso just to hit him with them because he kept teleporting after I threw them.

He also would get stuck in this A.I. loop for a bit for me and kept doing sweeping slashes and not firing projectiles for a while, might have just been bad luck for me, but that's still an issue.

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

On 2020-10-30 at 5:03 AM, Xaelroa said:

First one I can get behind to an extent, but not in warframe because DE would invariably botch it as they have with many of their unique mechanics. Number two? God no. invulnerable enemies in general are just crappy to fight against, adding a mobility requirement to making them vulnerable is just asking to make this game even more frustrating for people who have issues with the movement system. Lots of people these days seem to be suggesting making the game less and less accessible and that's just a horrible backwards way of thinking.

Should we really be balancing the game around people that don’t play games?

[GenericAngerSniper]

Nihil a good boss fight? No. Not by a long shot.

I won't even think Nihil as an actual boss to begin with, i'd like to think that he's more like those minigame "bosses" that doesn't have any correlation to the main game. But i can respect where DE is going with this fight, I think it's like baby's first step into actual fights with some depth of difficulty, a breathe of fresh air to the "cheese and shoot it until it dies" type of fights.

In a traditional sense, a boss fight should test your knowledge and equipment at the time (but since nightwave almost has no correlation to the main game i'll give Nihil a pass for now), and Warframe almost has none of that. Warframe seems to be stuck in this phase of "if it's stronger than normal enemies, then it must be a boss" kind of sense so they just make them bullet sponges, and steel path is not helping either in increasing the difficulty higher than lvl 70 because people can still cheese.

For some refference about what im talking about :

-Captain Vor : Bullet sponge with multiple phases
-Vay Hek : Bullet sponge with multiple phases
-Lt. Lech Krill : After destroying his school backpack, turns into a sponge
-The Seargent : Classic Bullet sponge (or soggy wet paper at this point with no reworks)
-Sargas Ruk : Extremely cheesable bullet sponge.
-Mutalist Alad V : Bullet sponge with invulv gimmicks
-The entire Kuva Litch Gallery : Bullet sponge

you get the idea.

(I did not put the Jackal in there because although some elements of bullet sponge is at play there, at the time most people won't be playing operator mode either since they don't have it yet and have to rely on their wits and quick thinking to survive it's windmill attack)


The closest we get to an actual boss fight in my opinion is Ambulas, especially in sorties when the modifyer dice doesn't land on rad hazard. This fight in sorties almost can't be cheesed because of the all seeing laser gun in Frohd's capital ship. It tests your maneuverability, endurance and how adept you are with hacking consoles. Although yes Nihil doesn't have these elements yet but something i do adore about it is how it's trying to break the mold. It's not a bullet sponge so you can't just shoot it to death, It's mobile and the area is so open so there is no way for you to cheese it so you would have to rely on your movement. If DE can integrate these elements to the main game then maybe it will be one of the most memorable bosses this game would have.



So is Nihil a good boss? No.

But is Nihil a good concept for a boss? Yes.

[quxier]

34 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

The crappy or good computer argument is a joke.

It's not a joke. Somehow the graphics in the jump-puzzles are not visible so I had to change some stuffs in the settings. Everything else looks ok.

 

The platform that you respawn seems to be higher than his horizontal swing.

 

My advises:

- stay on the platform that you respawn.

- look at him and try to avoid vertical strike

- when his head goes back a little prepare to jump, when you fell the glass should be near your back

- pick it up and try to shoot floating crystals; if you don't know which one is correct just pick the nearest; don't bother to move to the correct one

- when his health is red try to shoot him with a glassy thing; I try to shoot him when he is "not far"; if couldn't shoot him just throw it away - you can pick next glassy thing in short amount of time

- look for "teleportation pathes" and/or his sounds

- don't be afraid to fall (you get extra free platform)

 

I picked Xaku because his rolling animation is nice. I guess Zephyr might have little problems in the air. Limbo probably wouldn't work.

[sunderthefirmament]

I hate that it didn't matter at all which Warframe I took.  Why spend all this time acquiring these frames if they make no difference?  I wanted to float around as Wukong and enjoy some extra revives as I figured out the boss's attack patterns.  No such luck.

[DrakeWurrum]

On 2020-10-29 at 3:19 PM, Duality52 said:

I wish the Evidence Shards are apparent in which Shard you need to shatter to make Nihil vulnerable (Grey ones over the blue ones?)

It depended on the clues you found in each episode. Which is a bit much for anybody to remember, since the first episode was MONTHS ago.

Fortunately, Nihil gives us a good clue with voice lines.

[Duhno]

What makes me sad is the fact that you consider it a boss fight.

[SordidDreams]

On 2020-11-04 at 10:12 PM, DrakeWurrum said:

It depended on the clues you found in each episode. Which is a bit much for anybody to remember, since the first episode was MONTHS ago.

Fortunately, Nihil gives us a good clue with voice lines.

Huh, I didn't even realize that was the case, I just kept breaking them until I hit the right one. I'm a bit ambivalent about this, it's an interesting idea, but like you said, nobody remembers that stuff.

[DrakeWurrum]

1 hour ago, SordidDreams said:

Huh, I didn't even realize that was the case, I just kept breaking them until I hit the right one. I'm a bit ambivalent about this, it's an interesting idea, but like you said, nobody remembers that stuff.

Oh, I did the same thing. I vaguely remembered some of them, but mostly it didn't hit me until after I got the correct one, or until I heard the voice line that gives the clue and I could sort of pick it out then.

When I realized that those were from clues we'd seen before, I briefly considered going back to check them all, before deciding that was way too time-consuming.

It's an idea that would work if there was a regular pacing to these episodes. Or if this were a "Nancy Drew" type game where you could reasonably be expected to keep notes. But for Warframe? Doesn't really translate well.

[quxier]

18 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

It's an idea that would work if there was a regular pacing to these episodes. Or if this were a "Nancy Drew" type game where you could reasonably be expected to keep notes. But for Warframe? Doesn't really translate well.

I keep probably most clues in one directory and few sub-directories. However I haven't checked more than last one.

[Soy77]

I'm with most of the folks here who just throw stuff at stuff until stuff gets broken. Didn't even realize we have to aim for certain crystals.

As a new player, i appreciate how accessible nihil fight is. It would be a shame if new players gets "locked out" from important events like this because they're unfortunately discovered warframe later than others. I'm pretty sure that most veterans that have grinded for some godly weapons and mods will not have the same opinion, but I'm just informing how it's a blessing for some other fellow tennos.

The fight itself is ok. I like platformers. One of my other favorite boss fight is actually octavia, it combines two of my favorite things: platforming and rhythm games. Idk, landing in one of those small platforms with surgical precision just feels really good. I can see people who don't enjoy platforming, or rhythm, or just wants some regular bloodbath fights would hate it, but again: there'll always be two side of the coin.

What i kinda dislike about the fight is the cheap one-shot strikes. They're telegraphed okay, but nobody likes getting one-shotted. Also, once i tried to jump pass him, and graced his sword on his back (he's not even swinging, he was just standing there mumbling his threats) but i died from just touching the sword. Okay...

And lastly, wth with that ending scene?? Lmfao. Is it like a half second screen?? I had to replay the fight twice to make sure i didn't accidentally skipped a cutscene or something. I think i can guess what they're trying to do. Like a scene that supposed to have big explosions, but the audio cuts instead, and gives even more dramatic effects. Like that infamous star wars episode viii hyperdrive scene. But it's just too short, guys. It didn't give time for us to comprehend what's about to go down, nor build an expectation to make the effects work. For the finale of an event that's been going for so long, i think you can do the ending more justice.

All in all, wouldn't say that it's the best bossfight in warframe. But i can definitely appreciate the positive stuff that it's trying to do.

[SordidDreams]

On 2020-11-07 at 8:50 PM, DrakeWurrum said:

It's an idea that would work if there was a regular pacing to these episodes. Or if this were a "Nancy Drew" type game where you could reasonably be expected to keep notes.

Or just have a list of found clues somewhere in the NW menu. There's a bunch of ways it could be handled. Though on the plus side, it's definitely good design that it can be just brute-forced.