The *temporary fix* made Vay Hek better - GOOD and BAD boss design

[Cerikus]

There is currently a Vay Hek assassination sortie.
Being able to erase him from existence for all those years of his annoying voicelines is the best feeling I had in a long time.

This is just a simple proof that his regular mechanics are horrible. All we do in that mission is wait for him to allow us to do damage.
Please don't revert to the original version and try to improve it, since you will already have to work on it.

Boss fights with timers are bad.
Boss fights with mechanics that interupt the ability to do damage are good.

[Kaichi16]

1 hour ago, Cerikus said:

This is just a simple proof that his regular mechanics are horrible. All we do in that mission is wait for him to allow us to do damage.

1 hour ago, Cerikus said:

Boss fights with mechanics that interupt the ability to do damage are good.

so boss fights that make you wait are good? or are they bad?

i havent fought him today, what's the deal? 

as far as i remember he's part of the "bosses with lots of invulnerability phases", A.K.A. "wait bosses", like mutalyst alad v, lephantis, captain vor, kela de thaym, archons,... yeah, there are a lot of those. i guess DE isnt very creative when designing bosses. or maybe they broke the power creep so much they cant make a boss without invulnerability of tons of damage atenuation otherwise we'd one-shot them.

... not like it's not their fault to begin with.

[Drasiel]

4 minutes ago, Kaichi16 said:

so boss fights that make you wait are good? or are they bad?

i havent fought him today, what's the deal? 

as far as i remember he's part of the "bosses with lots of invulnerability phases", A.K.A. "wait bosses", like mutalyst alad v, lephantis, captain vor, kela de thaym, archons,... yeah, there are a lot of those. i guess DE isnt very creative when designing bosses. or maybe they broke the power creep so much they cant make a boss without invulnerability of tons of damage atenuation otherwise we'd one-shot them.

... not like it's not their fault to begin with.

Vay Hek is miserable because his first phase is so much longer and annoying than fighting his terra frame. He combines invulnerability phases with a tiny hit box and moving around erratically. Any combination of two of those add a certain amount of challenge but all 3 make me want to say uncouth things about the party who is responsible for Vay Hek's existence.

There is a bug right now that has been temporarily fixed by removing the necessity of hitting his weakpoint (face) during the first phase of the fight.

[Kaichi16]

31 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

Vay Hek is miserable because his first phase is so much longer and annoying than fighting his terra frame. He combines invulnerability phases with a tiny hit box and moving around erratically. Any combination of two of those add a certain amount of challenge but all 3 make me want to say uncouth things about the party who is responsible for Vay Hek's existence.

There is a bug right now that has been temporarily fixed by removing the necessity of hitting his weakpoint (face) during the first phase of the fight.

sometimes i thank DE for making warframe content so disposable i'll never have to fight vay hek again. or do another defection mission.

is there any meaning in having his first phase? does the damage go on to when we meet him in his arena? or it's just to make us waste more time?

[rapt0rman]

1 minute ago, Kaichi16 said:

sometimes i thank DE for making warframe content so disposable i'll never have to fight vay hek again. or do another defection mission.

is there any meaning in having his first phase? does the damage go on to when we meet him in his arena? or it's just to make us waste more time?

IIRC the damage you deal to him in the first phase carries over to the second phase. But you can also just run past him to the actual arena to bypass the first phase entirely and still get the whole thing done quicker (With the normal mechanics. At the moment, it is worth it to do the first phase)

[Drasiel]

30 minutes ago, rapt0rman said:

IIRC the damage you deal to him in the first phase carries over to the second phase. But you can also just run past him to the actual arena to bypass the first phase entirely and still get the whole thing done quicker (With the normal mechanics. At the moment, it is worth it to do the first phase)

Wait really? I was pretty sure that wasn't possible before.

[Loza03]

1 hour ago, Drasiel said:

Vay Hek is miserable because his first phase is so much longer and annoying than fighting his terra frame. He combines invulnerability phases with a tiny hit box and moving around erratically. Any combination of two of those add a certain amount of challenge but all 3 make me want to say uncouth things about the party who is responsible for Vay Hek's existence.

There is a bug right now that has been temporarily fixed by removing the necessity of hitting his weakpoint (face) during the first phase of the fight.

What's worse is that the Terra Frame is actually a pretty good boss fight, the fact you can usually decimate it in 0.0005 seconds not included.

It's mobile, has a wide variety of attacks, its attacks and self-heal are telegraphed for the most part, it's a big, imposing target, and it's not using frustrating invulnerability mechanics constantly. I mean, it's hardly a pinnacle of design, but I'd consider just the Terra Frame a solid B+

I just... I don't understand how they had this as the second phase and still thought the first was acceptable???

[rapt0rman]

13 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

Wait really? I was pretty sure that wasn't possible before.

If you mean the bypassing, it's standard procedure for those who know. Each tile he spawns in has like 2-3 possible tile connectors, so it just takes some quick trial and error to find the path.

Whoops, just to clarify I don't mean skipping straight to Teraframe. In my head I was sort of splitting him into three phases, which isn't really accurate.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, Drasiel said:

Vay Hek is miserable because his first phase is so much longer and annoying than fighting his terra frame. He combines invulnerability phases with a tiny hit box and moving around erratically. Any combination of two of those add a certain amount of challenge but all 3 make me want to say uncouth things about the party who is responsible for Vay Hek's existence.

There is a bug right now that has been temporarily fixed by removing the necessity of hitting his weakpoint (face) during the first phase of the fight.

It's really the proportion, I think. If he was mobile and had the weak points, but you had to hit the weak point with only one good shot to knock him into the Terra frame form for a prolonged period (remember the rule of 3, so maybe three chunky hits throughout the fight), I figure it'd be a lot more tolerable than having all the waiting at the front end. It gives a better pace and makes it feel like you're making him vulnerable, rather than just sitting around while he's magically invulnerable until his urge to spout Grineer propaganda becomes too strong and he has to yell it out.

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, Kaichi16 said:

or maybe they broke the power creep so much they cant make a boss without invulnerability of tons of damage atenuation otherwise we'd one-shot them.

there's no such thing. just make Bosses about Mechanics rather than Damage Stats. it's not a wild concept. focus far less on the 'shoot it a bunch' part, and more on interacting with the Boss. and i don't mean some QTE prompt or w/e. more indirect combat than actual dumping of Ammo.

the core of the problem, across many games, is focusing far too much on a Health Bar, versus "doing cool things".
make it like, a 'Raid-lite for one' - shooting happens as a result of the game Genre, but it isn't the thing you spend most of your time doing. most of what happens is World Building and on the fly Narrative, while you do some Rube Goldberg stuff to deal with the Boss. feels cool, and entirely removes the problems that come from Health Bars.

 

like, think of what an Adventure game would make a cool Boss encounter look like - not much "just click on it" Combat, and more, well, Adventure-ey things that you do.
the Boss fight should be the entire Mission, not one Room that you go to, click a few times with some waiting in between, and then leave. think about the Gas City Tileset thesedays - the Ropalolaloaloyst sometimes photobombs some of the Tiles. that's more like it - you should be moving with the Boss from the start to the end of the Mission, doing some Damage, probably Sabotaging some stuff, breaking through obstructions the Boss tries to shoo you away with, Et Cetera. with the finale at around the end of the Mission, where you do... some fancy stuff and finish off the Boss.
wayyyyyyy better than shoot it a bit, wait for a Timer, shoot it a bit more, wait for...........

[Kaichi16]

1 minute ago, taiiat said:

there's no such thing. just make Bosses about Mechanics rather than Damage Stats. it's not a wild concept

EXACTLY. it's just something DE is pretty much incapable of understand. all difficulty concept of warframe focuses on "numbers go bigger"

when they released something slightly challenging that made people use more than 2 brain cells (the new war archon fights), people complained. 

5 minutes ago, taiiat said:

like, think of what an Adventure game would make a cool Boss encounter look like - not much "just click on it" Combat, and more, well, Adventure-ey things that you do.
the Boss fight should be the entire Mission, not one Room that you go to, click a few times with some waiting in between, and then leave.

while i'd love to play that, i think it's a bit too far from warframe concept... not sure if it would be a good addition to the game... even more when bosses are our way to obtain frames, so we have to kill the same boss over and over and over...

as bosses are "grind material", they should be fast to kill, mostly because if you dont get the part you want, you'll have to kill it again. maybe change this system so we can have more detailed and longer boss fights?

7 minutes ago, taiiat said:

think about the Gas City Tileset thesedays - the Ropalolaloaloyst sometimes photobombs some of the Tiles

first i thought it was very interesting

then... i noticed it only attacks in very specific places and only once... just scripted events. and you cant damage it so it's not really part of the battle. it also barely does any damage.

visually, it's awesome. anything else, just meh.

BUT the ropalolyst fight is pretty fun. a big arena, different things you have to do during the battle... yeah, it's also a huge pain in the butt because you have to kill it lots of times for all the mods and wisp parts... but it's a great boss fight to do ONCE or twice.

10 minutes ago, taiiat said:

you should be moving with the Boss from the start to the end of the Mission, doing some Damage, probably Sabotaging some stuff, breaking through obstructions the Boss tries to shoo you away with, Et Cetera.

i'd love that if it was optional.

like:

• sabotaging something would give you an advantage during the boss fight.
• picking some gear inside the arena to give you a boost in stats,
• doing any activity during the mission to block boss do use an specific action that would be very troublesome...
• freeing an NPC that would fight with you against the boss

oooor you can go faster to the boss arena and fight it without any of that, if you trust your skills. 

not sure if warframe community is ready for that... using more than 2 brain cells is very tiresome, i understand D: ~just kidding~

[(PSN)IdoThea]

4 hours ago, Cerikus said:

All we do in that mission is wait for him to allow us to do damage.

Most Warframe bosses in a nutshell.

Guess it's to make it so we don't just one shot them like Sergeant, But at least Sergeant isn't frustrating.

[taiiat]

37 minutes ago, Kaichi16 said:

while i'd love to play that, i think it's a bit too far from warframe concept... not sure if it would be a good addition to the game... even more when bosses are our way to obtain frames, so we have to kill the same boss over and over and over...

as bosses are "grind material", they should be fast to kill, mostly because if you dont get the part you want, you'll have to kill it again. maybe change this system so we can have more detailed and longer boss fights?

yeah, this is a faster paced game - but who says a design like this has to be something slow and tedious? alternatively the RNG could be improved so you don't have to repeat it as much, if it does take longer to play.

38 minutes ago, Kaichi16 said:

first i thought it was very interesting
then... i noticed it only attacks in very specific places and only once... just scripted events. and you cant damage it so it's not really part of the battle. it also barely does any damage.
visually, it's awesome. anything else, just meh.

 

BUT the ropalolyst fight is pretty fun. a big arena, different things you have to do during the battle... yeah, it's also a huge pain in the butt because you have to kill it lots of times for all the mods and wisp parts... but it's a great boss fight to do ONCE or twice.

it was just an example of a glimpse of what that could be like in the game. there's a shred of what could be already there, just as a slight visual aid if i wasn't making sense.

 

i hate that Boss, myself. it does mostly not focus on Health Bars, but also what we do in that Encounter is just really, really boring. we spend most of the time being actually forced to stand in one place waiting for something to happen. meh.
getting to hit the Button to zap it is amusing, but not worth all of that other waiting.

41 minutes ago, Kaichi16 said:

i'd love that if it was optional.

like:

• sabotaging something would give you an advantage during the boss fight.
• picking some gear inside the arena to give you a boost in stats,
• doing any activity during the mission to block boss do use an specific action that would be very troublesome...
• freeing an NPC that would fight with you against the boss

oooor you can go faster to the boss arena and fight it without any of that, if you trust your skills. 

not sure if warframe community is ready for that... using more than 2 brain cells is very tiresome, i understand D: ~just kidding~

sure, i like the semi-optional aspect of Vay Hek, i wouldn't mind seeing more of that and in a more 'detailed' way.

if it still ends in a Health Bar clickfest though, it'll spoil itself. 'just click on it' is the problem, so there should be relatively little of that. the finale should still be primarily Mechanical, rather than Health based.
some shooting for Health Gates or w/e if you want, but being mainly about events than the Health Bar. like how Liches have aspects to them that's triggered by their Health Bar - that's acceptable, but go ham on that. a whole bunch of Phase transitions based on their Health Bar. breaks up the monotony of shooting with some actual stuff happening. just has to be something that really changes that engages the Player, rather than a mini Cutscene or otherwise that is something we don't actually do but just wait and watch.

[Drasiel]

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

What's worse is that the Terra Frame is actually a pretty good boss fight, the fact you can usually decimate it in 0.0005 seconds not included.

It's mobile, has a wide variety of attacks, its attacks and self-heal are telegraphed for the most part, it's a big, imposing target, and it's not using frustrating invulnerability mechanics constantly. I mean, it's hardly a pinnacle of design, but I'd consider just the Terra Frame a solid B+

I just... I don't understand how they had this as the second phase and still thought the first was acceptable???

Yes, I actually really like the Terra Frame part of the fight, if I didn't have to faff around with the first phase I'd just play him sometimes for fun. I'm trying to remember when Vay Hek was updated I feel like it was mid way through the grand boss reworkening where there was still a lot of experimentation going on with how to make the boss fights more engaging. They used to all be like the the sergeant who is the last remaining boss without a rework. I feel like vay hek and ruk must have been around the same time because they both use the stupid tiny hitboxes for weakpoints.

3 hours ago, rapt0rman said:

If you mean the bypassing, it's standard procedure for those who know. Each tile he spawns in has like 2-3 possible tile connectors, so it just takes some quick trial and error to find the path.

Whoops, just to clarify I don't mean skipping straight to Teraframe. In my head I was sort of splitting him into three phases, which isn't really accurate.

no worries, his first phase has like 4 stages to it as he leisurely flees through the map easy to assume either direction for what counts as what part.

I knew that the path to his room was always there but I didn't realize the pipe you use to access him was actually open the entire time. I swear that wasn't always the case but it has been many years since he was added and memory gets spotty at that distance.

3 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

It's really the proportion, I think. If he was mobile and had the weak points, but you had to hit the weak point with only one good shot to knock him into the Terra frame form for a prolonged period (remember the rule of 3, so maybe three chunky hits throughout the fight), I figure it'd be a lot more tolerable than having all the waiting at the front end. It gives a better pace and makes it feel like you're making him vulnerable, rather than just sitting around while he's magically invulnerable until his urge to spout Grineer propaganda becomes too strong and he has to yell it out.

The proportion is definitely a negative factor. I still remember the first time I went and fought him with despair before they fixed the accuracy bug, *middle distance stare* the memory haunts me to this day. If you only had to land one shot it would improve the pacing enormously and let you get to the actually fun boss fight with him in the terra frame so much faster.

[Marvelous_A]

The latest bosses (Archons) are quite literally more invulnerable phases and damage attenuation. DE is not going to let go of the I-phases anytime soon.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

On 2022-12-29 at 7:31 PM, Cerikus said:

There is currently a Vay Hek assassination sortie.
Being able to erase him from existence for all those years of his annoying voicelines is the best feeling I had in a long time.

This is just a simple proof that his regular mechanics are horrible. All we do in that mission is wait for him to allow us to do damage.
Please don't revert to the original version and try to improve it, since you will already have to work on it.

Boss fights with timers are bad.
Boss fights with mechanics that interupt the ability to do damage are good.

I think for the first fight its a fine experience, its like experiencing a cutscene for the first time. You want to slowdown and take everything in

Its on your 100th time where you care nothing more of cutscenes and have memorized all the mechanics that you skip all the cutscenes and those timers become a real bore.

Timers should take the form of damage reduction instead of giving the enemy invincibility. That way for newer players the beast delievers its desired experience and for players who have defeated it 1mill times they can have the power to down it quickly and move on instead of having to sit and wait to 1 shot parts.

Issue DE has is the steep difference in weapon's power level, and trying to make missions where everyone can feel included no matter the weapon they use, creating a need for invulnerability phases. They want new players to play it because money, and they dont want old players 1 shot killing it because we need content too, and the invulnerability phases and weird damage reduction modifiers were an attempt to make the updates be one fitting for all players but unfortunately it seems to create more problems than good.

Probably finally time DE considers tiering weapons

[Drasiel]

3 hours ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

I think for the first fight its a fine experience, its like experiencing a cutscene for the first time. You want to slowdown and take everything in

Its on your 100th time where you care nothing more of cutscenes and have memorized all the mechanics that you skip all the cutscenes and those timers become a real bore.

Timers should take the form of damage reduction instead of giving the enemy invincibility. That way for newer players the beast delievers its desired experience and for players who have defeated it 1mill times they can have the power to down it quickly and move on instead of having to sit and wait to 1 shot parts.

Issue DE has is the steep difference in weapon's power level, and trying to make missions where everyone can feel included no matter the weapon they use, creating a need for invulnerability phases. They want new players to play it because money, and they dont want old players 1 shot killing it because we need content too, and the invulnerability phases and weird damage reduction modifiers were an attempt to make the updates be one fitting for all players but unfortunately it seems to create more problems than good.

Probably finally time DE considers tiering weapons

I disagree strongly with this because the very first time I fought him, which was when the current vay hek was added to the game It absolutely sucked and was boring and miserable to have to stand there and wait for him to show his face so you could get to the actual boss fight with the terra frame. The first phase of the fight doesn't accomplish anything aside from extending the time it takes to run the mission. The damage you deal to him doesn't impact the actual boss fight at all as it has full health once he hops in his chicken frame.

The first phase makes vay hek look stupid. Vay hek is the creator of the ghouls, the esteemed politician, one of the rare grineer to have met the queens, the source of incredibly effective grineer propaganda and this is what we are met with in the fight:

• I am invulnerable unless I'm talking? Better shout a bunch of words so I can be killed!
• A tenno showed up? Better go face them in my boombox mode and not my combat gear!
• Oh no they can really hurt me and force me to flee? Better try that same thing again 3 more times!

The first phase of the fight does his character background dirty on top of being annoying from the get go.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

On 2023-01-01 at 6:05 PM, Drasiel said:

I disagree strongly with this because the very first time I fought him, which was when the current vay hek was added to the game It absolutely sucked and was boring and miserable to have to stand there and wait for him to show his face so you could get to the actual boss fight with the terra frame. The first phase of the fight doesn't accomplish anything aside from extending the time it takes to run the mission. The damage you deal to him doesn't impact the actual boss fight at all as it has full health once he hops in his chicken frame.

The first phase makes vay hek look stupid. Vay hek is the creator of the ghouls, the esteemed politician, one of the rare grineer to have met the queens, the source of incredibly effective grineer propaganda and this is what we are met with in the fight:

• I am invulnerable unless I'm talking? Better shout a bunch of words so I can be killed!
• A tenno showed up? Better go face them in my boombox mode and not my combat gear!
• Oh no they can really hurt me and force me to flee? Better try that same thing again 3 more times!

The first phase of the fight does his character background dirty on top of being annoying from the get go.

Well my first time was pleasant. He's another boss underestimating our potential. He never uses his big guns to not waste resources and get it damaged till he realizes he needs to. Even then he was just toying with us the whole time. Theres used be a raid he was apart of where he actually takes us seriously.

As for the talking thing i always just took it as just another mechanic, not meant to be takin seriously, just made for gameplay. I agree whole heartedly that something more immersive could have been created for it, but gameplay was still fine having ti focus on evading him while killing his grineer friends so you can regain energy and unleash pain on him when he opens his mouth again. Not much to it, fine for a new player.

To each their own

[Drasiel]

16 hours ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

Well my first time was pleasant. He's another boss underestimating our potential. He never uses his big guns to not waste resources and get it damaged till he realizes he needs to. Even then he was just toying with us the whole time. Theres used be a raid he was apart of where he actually takes us seriously.

As for the talking thing i always just took it as just another mechanic, not meant to be takin seriously, just made for gameplay. I agree whole heartedly that something more immersive could have been created for it, but gameplay was still fine having ti focus on evading him while killing his grineer friends so you can regain energy and unleash pain on him when he opens his mouth again. Not much to it, fine for a new player.

To each their own

I remember Law of Retribution it was a much better exhibition of his character as a boss. I don't agree he's not one to use big guns in order to not waste resources. This is the same dude that built the fomorians in order express grineer superiority and take out tenno relays. That's a bit like taking a nuke to wasps nest. Also he's never stopped building fomorians even though we sabotaged their original creation, sabotaged the few he managed to fully complete, destroyed the majority of the ones attacking the relays, continue to sabotage the production line of the formorian cores and repeatedly blow up every single fomorian we find in space. Clearly the Man is not worried about wasting resources.

Yeah I guess that's a point of view thing, if there's dialogue in game I take it seriously because it's in world storytelling and when they tie the dialogue to a specific mechanic that mechanic then becomes intrinsically tied to the information and ideas put forward by their interaction.

I actually wondered if the reason you had a more enjoyable experience with it might have been because of when playstation was added as a platform but that doesn't look like it's the case unless you joined warframe much later. Current Vay hek was added in April 2014 but playstation tenno were around since 2013. The change to allow vay hek to be damaged up to 25% (originally it was only 10%) of his total health before going into invincibility was a massive improvement but wasn't added until 2018.