Opinion on boss fights

[Gumstain]

Boss fights have been, imo, one of the weakest aspects of the game for years. Even with the recent "boss fights" like archons and liches, there isn't anything about their mechanic that feels engaging/exciting to me. At this point in the game I feel that they should at least think of another way to design "strong individuals" other than just being a tankier enemy on the tileset. 

Sure there are fights like the Orb mothers and Eidolons where there are much more enjoyable mechanics, but there still feels something missing about them.  I think the closest thing, to what I want in a fight at least, would be the Ropalolyst. The fight incorporates both operator and waframe which is nice, and it isn't just a fat, slow target just waiting to be hit. It moves around the arena which makes it harder to hit plus you parkour around the place to force it to hit the generators.  

Sure our builds nowadays do insane amounts of damage and delete the healthbar/weak point in seconds, but if you make the process in that leads up to the damage phase more interesting or at least longer than 10 seconds then I don't care if it gets oneshotted. At least incorporate more parkour in the fights other than just getting to point A to point B like forcing us to be in the air during damage phase so we'd have to aim glide instead of just being stationary on the ground and getting an easy shot on the target. I also wish they'd force us to think more about where/and how to pakour around during the fight, since in Jackal fight we just run around in circles or go to operator and go invis. 

Regardless, this is all completely subjective, and I just wanted to share my thoughts. 

I know that boss designs aren't big topic in DE's list of priorities and will probably not be for a long time, but a man can dream. 

[(NSW)Free_Aetharus]

37 minutes ago, Gumstain said:

Boss fights have been, imo, one of the weakest aspects of the game for years.

As I said, I'll say soft and gentle, again.

Bosses do not dodge. Teleports do not count, they're the worst possible idea of a dodge and they're lazy. Animate actual evasion.

Bosses barely move. Running away from you, or towards you, barely counts, because once they get close, they altogether stop walking around. If they create enough distance, they essentially do nothing until their magazine runs out.

Bosses do not coordinate with any other bosses, a stalker, small fries, or environmental hazards that don't even exist in the boss area.

Bosses are one of the weakest aspects, because their only measure of difficulty is based on inorganic, unbelievable stat inflation, damage attenuation and how easy it is for them to brush off your damage. They do NOT make it difficult to hit them, nor do they make it difficult to HEADSHOT them, either. Their entire measure is easily rendered irrelevant when at the end of the day, they have the stats to survive, but they don't have the means to take advantage of those stats.

A boss' stats come tertiary to two major factors that actually make them difficult to fight:

The boss' ability to do damage TO you.

The boss' ability to not take damage FROM you.

I always advocate for this and this only:

OG Stalker needs to have bullet jumps and a "Approach quickly, combo, retreat quickly, reset."

Bullet Jump at you > Melee you and leave little actual opening for you to exploit this melee phase, or even damage them in their bullet jump, reliably > Bullet jump, or backflip AWAY from you, so you can't RUN from the stalker and ALSO attack them. You prioritize defense versus offense. > Give them ranged capabilities until they're ready to melee you again. It doesn't have to be "Dodge every third attack" or "Try to never take damage, period."

Bosses follow that example.

Approach > Attack/AOE > Retreat > Ultimate > Recovery/Downtime - Unleash an extremely strong post-attack that punishes careless players, but rewards players with a free hit.

I'd even say

Invulnerable from the front, attack from the back;
Attack > Combo > Retreat > Charge/Dash > Fake-out > Ultimate > Recover/Vulnerable from the front and the back.

[(XBOX)Mastermitchel89]

59 minutes ago, Gumstain said:

Sure our builds nowadays do insane amounts of damage and delete the healthbar/weak point in seconds, but if you make the process in that leads up to the damage phase more interesting or at least longer than 10 seconds then I don't care if it gets oneshotted.

If there was a reason to not oneshot the boss that one reason would be if i don't get manhandled by said boss like an empty candy wrapper

[Lilybun]

An important part about why the parkour in ropalolyst feels meaningful is that you're actively progressing the fight by doing the parkour segments. You're not just forced to wait and do parkour while waiting.

I think DE could totally implement some more dps checks to their boss fights and I don't mean damage attenuation + various means to skip it like with archon hunts. To account for various levels of player gear optimisation maybe have them tiered like granum void rewards with ramping difficulty for each tier. Something like 5m, 20m and 100m of hp to chew through as a rough example. No damage attenuation or other secret kneecapping modifiers, simply unlock the next healthbar after the previous one has been fully drained. If you really want to flesh the fight out have us parkour to the next healthbar to beat up while the dps phase timer is ticking.

[(PSN)rexis12]

I think one of the worst examples of bosses or mini-boss that I can think of is Mania.

Mania is a horribly designed mini-boss because, Mania can activate Zephyr's turbulence which cancels out range damage but not melee damage. You would think that, like any normal game, that would be gane going "Hey Bullets can't do anything rn, go for melee" like in DMC or Borderlands or whatever. Instead if you DO go into melee you're immediately punished with a non interruptable Lifted on an enemy that does not have hit stun, with stagger you if he doesn't lift you with each hit, and give you Slash procs. Effectively telling you to piss off for going for melee unless you have full CC immunity and just damage reduction up the wahoo.

It doesn't help that some of them also have like effects that you can't #*!%ing see or hear. Like why isn't Violence's silence more visible, why can the sound and visual of Malice one shotting hear proc Opticor not overpower everything considering how #*!%ing dangerous it is, why doesn't Misery's knock back Soul Punch have a wind up and visual Indicator for you to notice and react to.

Warframe's bosses suck, because they fail to be actually good bosses. J can't tell you how many times a Lich animation canceled their abilities to grapple me, at the very least it tells me that melee is just off the table when a Lich or Sister is on the field.

[(XBOX)elementXGHILLIE]

I said this yesterday, but I want more bosses built like the Wolf of Saturn Six.

[CrownOfShadows]

Yeah, I've been advocating for targeted counterplay, especially with bosses

 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

for me at least, the most enjoyable bosses were actually the Junction Specters on Steel path: it actually felt like goign up against another warframe (without it being PvP) and it was a totally different experience from the usual bosses: most assassination targets and major open world bosses like Eidolons are these big, slow lumbering things: we always have the speed and agility advantage, which makes life easier. the only boss that comes close is Tyl Regor, since he relies almost exclusively on Melee and teleport/rushing tactics, which makes him fairly enjoyable to fight IMO. the only thing that put me off his fight back then was the terrible RNG of the Equinox farm.

faster paced boss fights are much more exciting for me, mainly because it's more visually stimulating and forces you to act and think more quickly. Kullervo's fight would be great if it were warframe vs warframe, but because it's Drifter that fights him, he's gotta have a lot of slower animations so that you can counter him properly. there's no end of grand, spectacular bosses like the Orowyrm, but I feel as though there have been so many BIG bosses over the years, they start to lose their appeal after a while.

to put it another way, if I see a gigantic, terrifying beast, I'm not that impressed, because I know it's gonna move like molasses and get rinsed easily.. but when it's a human sized boss, that can move as quickly as I can, or even faster.. well.. that makes me think "damn, this might actually get intense!", and even if I get my a$$ kicked, I like it because at least it wasn't boring!

 

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

I generally tend to think its... difficult for DE to please too many people with bossfights (especially based on various polls that have been done, which can often contradict some peoples ideas and or sentiment or even other polls). Its been said before, but generally, we can often have too much power, but also... there can be extreme differences in different players power, because a lot of power can get magnified with the tools we have, so the range of differences between players... Not just players either, but spread out to include player favourites and preferences. So of course there are solutions to certain problems, but with so many different potential problems, well, more additional solutions, but those also can be received by the player base differently. Like say, you don't want bosses to die too fast, so you give them invulnerability phrases, but not all players may have killed the boss that fast anyway... so getting to the invulnerability phrase, can be a slog, and then they may have to do something difficult. Like lets say you have an invulnerability phase, but you end that by switching to Operator and... well then some people may struggle with that... 

Some people like and enjoy big epic 30 minute bossfights, others just want something around 5 mins, because they have to fight the boss like 10 times or something and then never again... 

Personally, I don't think Warframe bosses are like... amongst the best in all games, but I like most well enough. I thought the Steel Path version of Orowrym was done pretty well. I also like Profit Taker and Eidolons. I think Nihil is alright. I thought Jackal and Ropadopadoolywoolyweewoowaahlyst is great. I also enjoy Archons and Sisters/Liches. I totally get why many dislike some of the ones I mentioned though. Plus Ropa yadda yadda also got soured for me, because of a lot of bugs and issues I experienced with it the other year. I also agree with a lot of ideas others offer, some in this thread. 

[(XBOX)Hellsteeth30]

Not going to be a popular opinion but I kinda enjoyed the New War archon fights with basic as it gets Drifter 

I haven't fought the Ropadoper or whatever yet, but it seems like it involves platforming, which is not a strong suit of mine.  Or that Ambulas thingy as I apparently need nav data to fight him.

Jackal always still gets me though, in whatever iteration it's in 

[(PSN)Unstar]

I don't think it's very controversial to say that boss fights have been among Warframe's weaker points for a long time.  The main mechanic in so many Warframe boss fights is "wait until the boss can be damaged".  With respect to the devs, that's not engaging.

Generally speaking, I think the recent bosses they've put out (excluding Jackal) are moving in the right direction.  The mounted riders in Duviri are a good boss, in my opinion, but it would also be fair to say that doesn't count because it's balanced against a static Drifter rather than all the possibilities Warframes bring to the table.

But the Orowyrm fight is pretty good, except for the waiting.  Grappling to its body, leaping over obstacles to control it, burning down pillars, those are fun.  What's less fun is flying through the air for a minute or two to get close to the Orowyrm.  And then flying slowly towards the pillars and portal as the Orowyrm.  There are still pockets of dead air.  But then you get to shoot the big Orowyrm with guns as it rotates around you, and that's fun!  And then it becomes invincible and you have to fight 30 random dudes that slowly spawn in, and that's not.  But then you shoot it again, and that's fun!  And then tiny wyrms spawn, and that's okay except they're a bit janky and hard to see?  But it's fine.  And then you shoot the Orowyrm again, and that's fun!  A lot of good in that fight if they just tune out the dead air.

Similarly, Archons are in many ways great.  I love Amar's duplication mechanic.  And he only has a few adds to kill and they're not annoying, so that's fine.  Damage attenuation limiting the viable pool of weapons is dumb, but if they fixed that, I'd love Amar without any real caveats.  Boreal having Aerolysts as adds is painful.  Aerolysts are just a chore to kill; they're way less of a chore with the Catchmoon, but even then it's still a chore.

The other main thing bosses have trouble with is being immune to Warframe powers.  That's a bummer, in a game where one of the coolest things is your Warframe's powers, then you get to the big showdown and your offensive abilities largely become useless.  So still some kinks to work out of the system.

Hopefully they'll get there someday!

[TARINunit9]

On 2023-09-03 at 8:45 PM, (NSW)Free_Aetharus said:

OG Stalker needs to have bullet jumps and a "Approach quickly, combo, retreat quickly, reset."

Minus the bullet jumps, that's exactly what I remember him doing. He switches between Ranged AI (Dread and Despair) where he tries to sidestep you, and Melee (Hate) where he rushes you down. Combined with his Smokescreen so you can't see which mode he's in, and Absorb to stall you and the fact our Power Creep was so much lower back then) he was one of the most fun things in the game

Then they replaced him with Shadow Stalker, who SUCKS 😞

[Hexerin]

Of all the boss (or at least boss like) encounters in the game, the Angels on the Zariman are probably my favorite. The Zariman in general is just straight up my favorite zone, the aesthetic is absolutely incredible for me. I remember the first time I fought one of the Angels, the moment I entered its pocket dimension I was instantly hit with a massive nostalgia wave of Dark Falz from PSO:BB. Below video is spoiler'd so as to not take up a bunch of space and timestamp'd to the relevant part of the fight.

Spoiler

The music of the fight (in spoiler below) is just as haunting, before transitioning into the glorious notes of grand battle.

Spoiler

Honestly, PSO:BB's OST is just solid in general. I sometimes wonder how many of those hundreds of thousands of views on KIREEK's OST uploads are from me alone, as they're in one of my core playlists I listen to frequently (and have for well over a decade).

[(PSN)rexis12]

Bosses, in my opinion, fail simply because we as players do not have options to counterplay many of the enemies and bosses besides high damage and DR.

Bosses, and most enemies, are able to pull off their huge powerful damaging attacks with impunity, and the only way we as players can stop or counter them is to either kill them quickly to just have enough DR that you can just stand in the blast and not care.

If a boss, or enemy, decides to just do 'X' attack you cannot counter or stop them with either damage or skill. If that X attack involves it turning invincible, then enjoy the multiple invincibility phases AMAR Where you have no real control or any sense of player pacing to the fight.

So far the only exception that I can think of is:

1. That Angel spirit bomb attack, where you are given a visual Indicator and time to stop it.

And

2. The Duviri Enemy attacks, which makes sense for you to WANT to stop and isn't just a DPS race for them to stop doing the damaging attack.

[(NSW)Free_Aetharus]

41 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Minus the bullet jumps, that's exactly what I remember him doing. He switches between Ranged AI (Dread and Despair) where he tries to sidestep you, and Melee (Hate) where he rushes you down. Combined with his Smokescreen so you can't see which mode he's in, and Absorb to stall you and the fact our Power Creep was so much lower back then) he was one of the most fun things in the game

Then they replaced him with Shadow Stalker, who SUCKS 😞

I don't even remember the first stalker variant. It's sad because even on my alt, he was so irrelevant that I simply speedran through, never scanned him, so it's a scan I may never get again.

[Hexerin]

1 minute ago, (NSW)Free_Aetharus said:

I don't even remember the first stalker variant. It's sad because even on my alt, he was so irrelevant that I simply speedran through, never scanned him, so it's a scan I may never get again.

This is why they need to make all the quests replayable already. There's literally no excuse for it.

[(NSW)Free_Aetharus]

I want reaffirm my stance about bosses that dodge, dodge more, and are more mobile in a way that pertains to dodging. No eighty-foot teleports. No untrackable, unchasable warps. No long-rolls that are unruly to keep up with. Normal rolls. Normal dashes. Normal bullet jumps.

 

And this affirmation is because of Corrupted Jackal.

> No, the boss definitely doesn't dodge, but what it does in lieu of this? While the boss has invincibility phases, they're handled extremely fairly.

> Every time you destroy a limb, or have your turn on the offensive, the boss ends each phase by taking a turn of its own. Every attack does decent damage, and as far as I know, this offensiveness does NOT take exception to ANY invulnerability gimmicks. If you get hit by the shockwave, Revenant's mesmer WILL be dispelled. If you try to facetank and ot learn to actually PLAY the boss, you will struggle and you will be punished for it. It could stand to be a slightly more difficult boss at base, and a moderately harder boss on SP, and I'd say the same thing. The boss cannot be one-shot, isn't ended quickly, and gets straight to making you play the game play a game. Hit Ganon's projectiles. Win that QTE to beat Krauser in a cutscene. Kill a sequence of enemies in the correct order. Solve this puzzle.

Jackal is what bosses should've been more like. Enemies that cannot be killed right at the beginning, no matter how strong you are, and even they ARE, it's only a phase in a sequence. And Jackal succeeded by giving you a QTE every phase, where you must stab it for progress in that sequence.

> Every time a new phase begins, instead of getting straight to pummeling Jackal, you're introduced to a wave of enemies that protect it-- While the boss participates in the fight, protected by its protectors. Rather than make the boss entirely vulnerable, 100% of the time, and allow you to parazon it while its reinforcements are active, the game keeps it invulnerable as an implicit "Dude, are you seriously going to ignore the reinforcements, protecting it? You should be focused on stopping everybody from killing you, before you get close enough to stab it."

And this is played only twice. You stop everybody from stopping you, then you stop Jackal. Jackal retreats not far, you need to remove the obstacles before facing the jackal and pretending like you're 100% safe to finish it off. While not every boss needs a militia to protect them, it would make sense that the boss, for any reason at all,

Happens to have a teleport and happens to be so pissed off that they repeatedly use this ability to thrust their weapon at you, from random angles, until they tire out, or until you counter them, via shattering the boss' shield, which recovers EVERY time they teleport, as a sort of poise-- Break it to interrupt them.

Possesses bombs and, if you end each phase, they begin to force YOU to be on the defensive, or otherwise be heavily damaged, or even two-tapped without Adaptation on full stacks.

Any 'trump card' or 'desperation' post-phase, which is always the boss' opportunity to get a cheap hit or two in. Again with not making every boss easy to one-tap in every phase, the boss' desperation shouldn't be their only viable means of dealing damage. Give them energy shields you need to break. Give them defenses require a minimum amount of hits to destroy at full power, and a maximum amount of hits, if you can't do the damage. To prevent anything from being utterly one-shot, but to prevent anything from being unkillable, either.

 

Jackal follows that specific criteria interestingly.

Post-Phase is always the 'Laser gate' 

It has very fair, efficient, appreciated AOE attacks that can hit you rather easily, so it's never 'useless' before its phase ends. 

In circuit, even with my Felarx, because of the chaoticness of its moveset, it's possible I don't space myself close enough, so my damage actually falls off on the way, so while I 'can' one-shot every phase, it's more likely that Jackal requires a bit more effort to conclude an Act I-II-III in the circuit.

As I suggested about Corrupted Jackal, hell, even base jackal needing a buff, if the boss simply had better LIMB HP, no more damage, no more reinforcements, lower SP SCALING, the higher the circuit goes, then it's very possible the boss becomes 'tankier,' but not necessarily 'stronger'

Consequentially, if the boss was tankier, C-Jackal, which is EASILY the best, most interesting boss in Warframe, can suddenly, INSTANTLY become a lot better. I did suggest lowing how much it SCALES UP, right? So, if it actually had a buff in any regard, it doesn't become impossible to beat? Sure, I did, not that the level cap is practical in the first place, but, sure.

A jackal with limbs that could take a beating isn't a harder boss, it's more enjoyable because it lasts. It's not overselling it, it's not overdoing it, it's not overstepping what makes the boss good, with unnecessary bloat in places NOBODY will have ever asked for there to be bloat. So?

Make bosses LAST. Make them--

Vor gets one-shot.
Kril gets one shot.
Hyenas get one shot.
Stalk-- Not you.
Acolytes get one shot.

... Kela cannot be one shot and she's more memorable than any other boss in the game.

Facing the reality that Vor is 100% only remembered as a character because, nowadays, if you even THINK about circuit, Vor is somewhere in the distance, monologuing about his very special, indeed-indeed, key, and how he's become a god or something.

Edited September 6, 2023 by (NSW)Free_Aetharus

[CephalonCarnage]

The best boss these days is the Exploiter Orb. Perhaps the Profit Taker too, but Exploiter because youy have the parkour trying to avoid getting hit, plus the warframe attack is still there for the little spiders and the coolant spiders. But the Exploiter herself isn't killable with your weapons, so cannot be one-shot and doesn't have to rely on invulnerability phases.

Instead you have a mechanic to fight it. So you get the best of all worlds here - you get warframes, and you get a boss that cannot be cheesed.

I think this approach is what the game needs. Warframes are great and build the backbone of the game. Now imagine some (rare) enemies that need alternative means to fight, that incorporate the usual mobs that can be dealt with in the usual warframe way. That would be where the game shines. They tried to add this with eximus units, and I think it has helped but it isn't enough for bosses. I think fights such as Orphix would benefit from a change here - allow warframes to kill the mobs, and require an archgun to take down the orphixes themselves. Suddenly you have a game that is slightly more involved.

Its like Railjack, the side guns can shoot the majority but you need to use the artillery for the crewships and board to take out the bases. These 3 different but still simple combat mechanism in the same mission make the whle much more interesting.

 

An example would be a sergeant rework. He's a sniper, so give him several hideyholes to lurk in, add a load of mobs and let him snipe your health down from afar while you figure out which he's hiding and how to parkour up there to get him. That wouldn't involve much but would make the fight interesting. Bosses don't have to be bullet sponges or invulnerable phases.

[(NSW)Greybones]

Would definitely like bosses like Jordas Golem or Tyl Regor looked at. Tyl’s got something there, but the current incarnation feels weird and half-baked. I’m fine with bosses having a gradient of health and damage instead of being designed around instant death from a player who doesn’t want any sort of fight, so that should broaden the list of options available to design a boss

Edited September 6, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones

[SneakyErvin]

I think a big issue is just that we deal too much damage. When I started out and faced Jackal the first time I experienced a good boss encounter since my damage wasnt limitless and my TTL was also rather low. And with the old Jackal roaming around his room and shooting missles and miniguns at you as you tried to hide behind pillars it just felt good. But the further we get into the game the more power we gain and the more vague the bosses become aswell, not only that but their encounters feel pointless either by being flooded with adds or because they do nothing.

Jackal and PT are two really well made fights and Kela is also up there for me. Jack and PT are (or were in Jack's case) straight forward combat encounters, while Kela turns it into a fight utilizing the area environment and mobility. I do also like Lephantis, he's also one of those bosses that worked well at a lower power level and had actual boss-like mechanics. Vey Hek ends up as a decent boss while most of the rest are utterly disappointing.

[TeaHands]

DE's got a mixed bag if bosses, I honestly like current Archons and their fights in New War, Angels, Eidolons, the Orbs, new Jackal, and the Orowyrm . But some of the Planet bosses are severely lacking lacking like Sargas Ruk, Lech Kril or the undefeated Sergeant.

And when they do release a really fun boss, it generally gets nerfed, Kullervo went from regularly visiting the Salty Spatoon to permanent residence at Weenie Hut Jr after his lobotomy.

[(NSW)Greybones]

7 minutes ago, TeaHands said:

DE's got a mixed bag if bosses, I honestly like current Archons and their fights in New War, Angels, Eidolons, the Orbs, new Jackal, and the Orowyrm . But some of the Planet bosses are severely lacking lacking like Sargas Ruk, Lech Kril or the undefeated Sergeant.

And when they do release a really fun boss, it generally gets nerfed, Kullervo went from regularly visiting the Salty Spatoon to permanent residence at Weenie Hut Jr after his lobotomy.

What’d they do to Kullervo?

[TeaHands]

7 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

What’d they do to Kullervo?

Per the second update after his introduction. I liked that he went all out in his fight and I wish they at least kept him unnerfed in Steel Path, because he would just not let up with his assault.

• Decreased the frequency of ability casts and increased telegraph times slightly for several abilities so that they are easier to avoid. 
• Increased the duration of the window of opportunity after ability casts in Phase 3.
• Reduced the frequency of unparryable heavy attacks.
• Increased the usage of melee attacks, but reduced the attack speed slightly to encourage more melee engagement.
• Decreased melee attack damage slightly, and normalized some melee attack damage values. 
• Slightly decreased Kullervo's health.

[(NSW)Greybones]

1 minute ago, TeaHands said:

Per the second update after his introduction. I liked that he went all out in his fight and I wish they at least kept him unnerfed in Steel Path, because he would just not let up with his assault.

• Decreased the frequency of ability casts and increased telegraph times slightly for several abilities so that they are easier to avoid. 
• Increased the duration of the window of opportunity after ability casts in Phase 3.
• Reduced the frequency of unparryable heavy attacks.
• Increased the usage of melee attacks, but reduced the attack speed slightly to encourage more melee engagement.
• Decreased melee attack damage slightly, and normalized some melee attack damage values. 
• Slightly decreased Kullervo's health.

Most of these sound like they’re not too bad, but he does sound nerfed.

Bah. DE nerf fights to cater to players who are more comfortable hiding behind their builds than any gameplay capability, then they try and chase those same players and get them to fight through things like DA.

Just give an optional I Win button for those players already to stop them from complaining that things are too hard, then let them rot when they complain it makes the game too easy. There’s plenty of boss mechanics and systems that could be interesting but get eschewed because DE are trying to make fights engaging for players who are already doing whatever they can to avoid fighting

[TeaHands]

24 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Most of these sound like they’re not too bad, but he does sound nerfed.

I was definitely being dramatic when saying he was "lobotomized" lol, but they definitely took some of the spice out of the fight for me. Like playing a fighting game match in person versus a laggy online match. Took just enough life out of the fight to leave me disappointed.

24 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Bah. DE nerf fights to cater to players who are more comfortable hiding behind their builds than any gameplay capability, then they try and chase those same players and get them to fight through things like DA.

Just give an optional I Win button for those players already to stop them from complaining that things are too hard, then let them rot when they complain it makes the game too easy. There’s plenty of boss mechanics and systems that could be interesting but get eschewed because DE are trying to make fights engaging for players who are already doing whatever they can to avoid fighting

I try not to get all "git gud" with this game because I understand that not everybody has the time I have to trial and error bosses, especially with the way DE can pad out a mission leading up to said fight. But I agree with you overall, I would also be fine with giving players a "win button" if it meant DE got to make a boss as unforgiving/engaging as possible.

Edited September 7, 2023 by TeaHands