Why doesn't Warframe have any Substantial boss fights ?

[Rysm69]

DE are clearly able to make a good boss fight, they clearly proved it with the 60 Eyes Fragmented boss, but they chose to hide it and keep it a secret and they have given it no special drops or loot. 

On the general consensus, one of the biggest flaws Warframe has is the lack of challenging and meaningful content. Most other games will put good boss fights in the front and center of their game and even in the marketing to attract players. But it seems that Warframe is doing the exact opposite, shying away from even slightly challenging content. I understand it's a casual game and i love that it is, but even casual games need to test their players from time to time.

i know too many people who quit or refuse to play Warframe because of this. it just doesn't make sense to gather all this loot and power and never have to use it properly. Challenge gives purpose. 

 

[Drachnyn]

I disagree that the 60 eyes boss was a good boss. It was a massive bullet sponge without any notworthy mechanics. 

[Chewarette]

7 minutes ago, Rysm69 said:

i know too many people who quit or refuse to play Warframe because of this.

And I know even more who are glad to not have boss fights.

The 60-eyes boss is not a good fight though, it's a bit better than some nightmares but that's it.

The problem comes down to the game balance. If they don't want to have boss with invulnerability phases or boring mechanics, they'll need to balance the whole game. Can't have zoom-zooming murder machines everywhere without having bosses be giant walking HP bags. So they prefer to keep Warframe's strength (horde-slaughtering) and here and there some bosses, imo that's the correct approach.

Keep also in mind that having a game focused on bosses also means it's a game focused on repeating the exact same thing one billion time for this shiny loot. And it's bad, as evidenced by the poor reception of the Fragmented One operation.

[Stafelund]

8 minutes ago, Drachnyn said:

I disagree that the 60 eyes boss was a good boss. It was a massive bullet sponge without any notworthy mechanics. 

It would have been good if it weren't for the adds spawning. It seems like a fun telegraphed/pattern-based boss, and the adds/trash mobs are just ruining it, requiring you to focus on them instead of the boss prolonging the fight.

Screw mutalist alad v, he's a nightmare in solo with that hard-to-see instadeath attack in higher levels like Sortie and steel path. Probably the worst boss ever IMO.

[C11H22O1]

60 eyes, looking back at it, was only good for the telegraphed attacks cause the damage attenuation was poop making it a bullet sponge and that's kinda the issue with challenge in this game, how do you make something challenging when everyone is completely overpowered.

My favorite one is still Nihil, telegraphed attacks, a bit of platforming a bit of puzzle and the fight isn't dragged out with a massive hp bar and damage resistance 

Edited September 4 by C11H22O1

[Pakaku]

Can't make good bosses when power-creep and power fantasy exist, and that means no good boss designs, just bullet sponges

[NeDesitVirtus]

1 hour ago, Chewarette said:

And I know even more who are glad to not have boss fights.

The 60-eyes boss is not a good fight though, it's a bit better than some nightmares but that's it.

The problem comes down to the game balance. If they don't want to have boss with invulnerability phases or boring mechanics, they'll need to balance the whole game. Can't have zoom-zooming murder machines everywhere without having bosses be giant walking HP bags. So they prefer to keep Warframe's strength (horde-slaughtering) and here and there some bosses, imo that's the correct approach.

Keep also in mind that having a game focused on bosses also means it's a game focused on repeating the exact same thing one billion time for this shiny loot. And it's bad, as evidenced by the poor reception of the Fragmented One operation.

That must be an outlier because we ran Operation Gargoyles Cry in our clan and nauseum. The rewards were worth. We liked and asked for more bosses like Profit Taker and Fragmented One. RV has people like that though. 

1 hour ago, Chewarette said:

And I know even more who are glad to not have boss fights.

The 60-eyes boss is not a good fight though, it's a bit better than some nightmares but that's it.

The problem comes down to the game balance. If they don't want to have boss with invulnerability phases or boring mechanics, they'll need to balance the whole game. Can't have zoom-zooming murder machines everywhere without having bosses be giant walking HP bags. So they prefer to keep Warframe's strength (horde-slaughtering) and here and there some bosses, imo that's the correct approach.

Keep also in mind that having a game focused on bosses also means it's a game focused on repeating the exact same thing one billion time for this shiny loot. And it's bad, as evidenced by the poor reception of the Fragmented One operation.

That must be an outlier because we ran Operation Gargoyles Cry in our clan and nauseum. The rewards were worth. We liked and asked for more bosses like Profit Taker and Fragmented One. RV has people like that though. 

[(PSN)IdoThea]

Because way WF is built iin it's core it doesn't really support any good way to create "challenging" boss fights.

It's build to be horde power fantasy shooter thing where you kill hordes of enemies with guns and abilities.

You are meant to take damage and cannot dodge everything only some of the damage.

You have different builds etc.

Usually either boss fight is a bulletsponge which takes forever to kill or stupid invincibility modes or both.

 

[Alpha_Tango]

If you haven't noticed yet, WF is built on laziness, moaning at the first sight of difficulty and gratitude if rewards are given on a silver platter.

DE nurtured this carefully and blanket it as "listening" to their player base. Challenge is anathema here, only power fantasy thinly veiled as mediocrity rules. 

Tridolons was hated back then because it was a bottleneck for anyone who don't care to lift a finger to improve or progress skill wise. They got it cancelled now having the access to arcanes without it.

There is no revenue on quitting players over a skill/DPS check boss fight. Not here anyway.

[dwqrf]

à l’instant, Alpha_Tango a dit :

If you haven't noticed yet, WF is built on laziness, moaning at the first sight of difficulty and gratitude if rewards are given on a silver platter.

DE nurtured this carefully and blanket it as "listening" to their player base. Challenge is anathema here, only power fantasy thinly veiled as mediocrity rules. 

Tridolons was hated back then because it was a bottleneck for anyone who don't care to lift a finger to improve or progress skill wise. They got it cancelled now having the access to arcanes without it.

There is no revenue on quitting players over a skill/DPS check boss fight. Not here anyway.

Meanwhile, a huge part of the population cannot understand the game and how it works, even if hints are given from the start. They can't understanding modding, and have to heavily rely on randoms builds found on the internet, without the ability to make they own original thought by combining the huge amount of possibilities. If the game was any harder, none of theses players could play it ; as it was before. So of course DE had to dumb it down to attract a broader audience ; but that's not because they want, it's because they need to, in order to survive by keeping new players attracted to something they can play, and where they can have fun.

Meanwhile, more experienced players struggle to find any challenged because when you master every aspect of the game, of course you are quickly able to find the most optimal tools to break the content. But not everyone can, and most will wait until the knowledge of the tools become popular to even have a chance at it.

[4thBro]

1 hour ago, Pakaku said:

Can't make good bosses when power-creep and power fantasy exist, and that means no good boss designs, just bullet sponges

Yeah but power fantasy is not a real genre.

[AtraUnam]

2 hours ago, Chewarette said:

The problem comes down to the game balance. If they don't want to have boss with invulnerability phases or boring mechanics, they'll need to balance the whole game. Can't have zoom-zooming murder machines everywhere without having bosses be giant walking HP bags. So they prefer to keep Warframe's strength (horde-slaughtering) and here and there some bosses, imo that's the correct approach.

I feel like you could do it with a damage/second cap with any damage over that being attenuated, balanced for starchart player damage levels while allowing vets to still kill it slightly faster with their damage cap numbers. On top of that you'd want a focus on staged bosses with alternating weakpoints interspersed with brief invulnerability periods in which evasion is required while the boss changes phase... basically eidolons come to think of it but scaled down and not operator specific.

[dwqrf]

il y a 1 minute, AtraUnam a dit :

I feel like you could do it with a damage/second cap with any damage over that being attenuated

Like Archons ? High multishot Shotgun broke it.
 

il y a 1 minute, AtraUnam a dit :

 On top of that you'd want a focus on staged bosses with alternating weakpoints interspersed with brief invulnerability periods in which evasion is required while the boss changes phase...

You mean Jackal ?

[zThulsaDoomz]

17 minutes ago, Alpha_Tango said:

If you haven't noticed yet, WF is built on laziness, moaning at the first sight of difficulty and gratitude if rewards are given on a silver platter.

 

I've been saying this literally for years

At this point WF just is what it is, and I'm OK with that.  This game was made for casuals, by casuals, and that's perfectly fine.

[Alpha_Tango]

5 minutes ago, zThulsaDoomz said:

I've been saying this literally for years

At this point WF just is what it is, and I'm OK with that.  This game was made for casuals, by casuals, and that's perfectly fine.

And you are exactly right, I gave up hoping for a reason to min max anything and for what. Ijust find my poison somewhere else.

[TeaHands]

Because they all eventually get nerfed into the dirt. I'm still sad they made SP Kullervo less aggressive, I loved his boss fight.

Still like New War Nira, wish I didn't have to do a whole 6 hour lockout quest just to fight her.

Edited September 4 by TeaHands

[Chollynn]

I'm very active in the forum for a year now and I see 2 kinds of people:

• One of them complaining about EDA/Archon/etc. being too hard.
• The other one complaining about the game being too easy.

What should a developer do at this point?

 

Anyway, my opinion:

I like the Jackal fight and what they did with it when they upgraded it, I wish more bosses got the the same treatment. If more bosses got the Jackal treatment then the early game bosses would be fine. But bosses are just bosses. The real problem is the early game doesn't explain a lot for new players (mods, elements, damage types, enemies), and because of this the enemy is too weak for a well modded player and too strong for a not modded one. A good explanation quest with an increased difficulty would be the way to solve it, but only after a few planets (maybe Mars?).

The late game bosses/areas are good: I like EDA, The Fragmented One, all the new game mods are actually fun to play, at least for me. My favorites are: Circuit, Duviri Exp., Void Cascade, Alchemy. I love the new Omnia Fissures (I wish it had more variables tho, like Disruption and Excavation). What I didn't like is the armor reduction a few patches ago and the fact that they nerf things sooner or later, because some doesn't know how to use mods. But overall they are going in the right direction for the endgame.

[ReddyDisco]

60 eye boss while being a spectacle wasn't all that fun due to damage attenuation, without it the boss would die in 10 seconds. You can't have challenging bosses with power fantasy and powercreep.

[(PSN)Magician_NG]

DE have never landed on a good middle ground for boss fights. We either have bosses with invincible segments because...we do too much damage. Or we have bosses with absurd health pools and status effect caps (or outright immunity)...because we do too much damage. At this point in WF's life, I assume it would be nigh impossible to balance everything out while the developers are divided among multiple projects.

[4thBro]

1 hour ago, Alpha_Tango said:

And you are exactly right, I gave up hoping for a reason to min max anything and for what. Ijust find my poison somewhere else.

Exactly.

 

There's no reason WF can't dip into both markets. But casual players seem to want to gatekeep the addition of things just because THEY might not play it.

 

Hopefully they don't actually have a voice in DE's ear.

[dwqrf]

il y a 2 minutes, 4thBro a dit :

There's no reason WF can't dip into both markets. But casual players seem to want to gatekeep the addition of things just because THEY might not play it.

Hopefully they don't actually have a voice in DE's ear.

Nobody is gatekeeping anything, it's all in your head.

Hopefully you don't actually have a voice in DE's ear.

[AngeloTheBuck]

hace 4 horas, Rysm69 dijo:

Most other games will put good boss fights in the front and center of their game and even in the marketing to attract players. But it seems that Warframe is doing the exact opposite

Are you a player from 2020-2024??? This game is 11 years old

Many bosses from the game are made in an old context. We didnt have broken stuff like we have nowadays, so they were a challenge for many of us. The gameplay was more paused, but now we have broken builds with frenetic playstyle.

The only purpose they have nowadays is for new players and I think that's enough, because it helps to them to meet new mechanics and reworking every single boss will take years and maybe this is not a great deal for DE. Balancing a boss is not an easy task if you think.

We have Eidolons and Exploiter Orb as true bosses for mid game players, but yeah, people will never stop complaining after getting all the stuff to have broken builds and say "too easy" and "boring"

The jackal received a rework, now its more fun and interactive, but players still crying because "game too easy". Thats a selfish thought from every late game and meta player

[dwqrf]

à l’instant, AngeloTheBuck a dit :

Thats a selfish thought from every late game and meta player

Which didn't make their own build and play Revenant+Torid *

[SneakyErvin]

1 hour ago, AtraUnam said:

I feel like you could do it with a damage/second cap with any damage over that being attenuated, balanced for starchart player damage levels while allowing vets to still kill it slightly faster with their damage cap numbers. On top of that you'd want a focus on staged bosses with alternating weakpoints interspersed with brief invulnerability periods in which evasion is required while the boss changes phase... basically eidolons come to think of it but scaled down and not operator specific.

I mean they've tried it and it hasnt turned out very good since it kinda rendered progression pointless. Then they changed it slightly for Archons and now they are 2 second long fights. I mean it's practically run in, drop 2 heavy attacks on them and then onto the next phase, followed by two other heavy attacks and then rip the shard from their chest and extract.

And while I like weakpoint mechanics, DE are just horrible at implementing them since they often end up with situations where the weakpoints face away from you. And that just gets annoying due to mobs being obsessed with facing you, with the exception of eidolons that more or less just lumber on and attack you no matter which way they face.

17 minutes ago, 4thBro said:

Exactly.

 

There's no reason WF can't dip into both markets. But casual players seem to want to gatekeep the addition of things just because THEY might not play it.

 

Hopefully they don't actually have a voice in DE's ear.

But what would be the "other market"? I mean WF isnt more casual than say Diablo or PoE, those games have the same exact "issues" since they are horde slaughter hack 'n slash games much like WF. You end up with the same thing, where trash dies in droves and then bosses are instantly killed. Last time I played D3 I was hooked on the Necro. It practically revoled around a build that killed trash as I ran through them, with a few generator attacks thrown in from time to time, then when it was boss time I simply cast Frozen Land (of the Dead) and dumping a corpse spender skill on him, killing it in seconds with zero threat involved. And in PoE I cant recall which the latest busted build was that I used, but it was also the same, trash being trivial and them pooping on a boss with some single target skill while being practically indestructible myself.

And it kinda ends up being the same no matter which arpg-ish game I jump into, since they are never actually ment to be tactical and hard. Heck it even happened in Outriders that was supposed to be "tactical". Since the moment you hit up the end game it turned into a horde shooter with high density, and you had access to absurd builds, like the Devastator that had burst, out of the wazoo tankyness and bonkers AoE. Like playing the baby of Hulk, The Thing and Quake on crack.

Edited September 4 by SneakyErvin

[4thBro]

Ok, well, over-analysis aside, there's a reason threads like this are the most common type.

 

This discussion never goes anywhere. At the end of the day, the most common complaint is that people seem to want MORE from this game than it's giving them.

You can sit there and say "I know how to appreciate the game for what it has," but that isn't doing DE any favors.

DE can make their choice. I don't care anymore. If they don't want to deliver, then I will be somewhere else. I don't need to care beyond that.