Why doesn't Warframe have any Substantial boss fights ?

[Tsukinoki]

35 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

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.

That's something I don't understand from the people bringing up Diablo and PoE and their "endgame" like it's absolutely amazing and has gameplay and endgames that should be copied in warframe.  It boils down to exactly what you said here: Instantly wiping screen after screen after screen after screen with pretty much no interaction, boss pops up and lasts for maybe half a second before it just disappears under more skill effects and then you repeat that process over and over and over again.

Which sounds pretty much like what warframe is doing: Instantly wiping room after room after room of enemies with little to no interaction, bosses appear and are wiped out in half a second, and then you repeat the process.

The only "danger" in those games coming from near one-shots by some late map/dungeon/rift/whatever you want to call it boss, or enemies that have a reflect damage effect that if you aren't kitted out to ignore causes you to pause for a second or two, and if you are kitted out then they just vanish like everything else on screen.

43 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

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.

Exactly.

Once you hit "end-game" in most of the games they bring up as something that warframe should aspire to you get into the exact same gameplay that warframe has.  Everything that isn't a boss dies the second you look at it and bosses aren't that much further behind.

The only times you have to slow down and actually think and react tactically in those games are when you're not using an optimized build that deletes entire maps in seconds....which sounds awfully familiar to warframe.

[(PSN)Magician_NG]

11 years and onward, we all know fashionframe is WF's true endgame.

Rhino's heirloom skin can't come soon enough.

 

[dwqrf]

il y a 3 minutes, Tsukinoki a dit :

The only times you have to slow down and actually think and react tactically in those games are when you're not using an optimized build that deletes entire maps in seconds....which sounds awfully familiar to warframe.

That's the thing. People will play optimised gear only because they are fighting time with comfort, not hordes and bosses. They play for the quick rewards, to upgrade their gear, their arsenal variety, to get currency, or to trade. They don't play the combat game anymore, they play the farm game. And they cannot do that with any gear, but only the most efficient gear for this particular task.

That doesn't mean the game is bad. Its just people that stopped playing it at some point in their progression once they realized they had some easier way to reach their goals.

[AngeloTheBuck]

hace 30 minutos, dwqrf dijo:

That's the thing. People will play optimised gear only because they are fighting time with comfort, not hordes and bosses. They play for the quick rewards, to upgrade their gear, their arsenal variety, to get currency, or to trade. They don't play the combat game anymore, they play the farm game. And they cannot do that with any gear, but only the most efficient gear for this particular task.

That doesn't mean the game is bad. Its just people that stopped playing it at some point in their progression once they realized they had some easier way to reach their goals.

That's a really good point, take my like

[Alpha_Tango]

1 hour ago, 4thBro said:

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.

It is ridiculous to care or even think that they care. It is business as usual, casual play pay their bills and that's it. No one is holding us back to go and play something else and support it instead. WF is just a watch-your-movie while playing kind of online game and I accepted that a long time ago.

[PrideB4TheFall]

DE just needs to hire a dedicated Boss Fight designer with a proven track record.

Been FT playing since 2017 and I have yet to see one halfway decent boss encounter. To say the Effervo fight was/is good is passing the buck. That said, with warframe's ever increasing power-creep, I can't imagine this an easy task either.

Historically warframe lack of gameplay communication to the player has been a major weak point, and relying and on the wiki and the YT player-base to absolve themselves of that responsibility is one of the major faults I find with the company. (No company is perfect.)

It might be well worth their time to go retro and start looking at classic boss design like Zelda, strip away the obscure and go with clear signaling and obvious targets. (that may be harder to execute on.) There is nothing shameful about being glaringly obvious on what to do!

Some forum posters have mentioned the Jackal fight is one of the better encounters... (Again, I say this is passing the buck.) instead of the Lotus saying use your parazon... SHOW THE PLAYERS THE PARAZON ICON OVER THE JACKALS HEAD! and rather than some vague abstract strike zone that isn't visually defined make it a specific Highlighted target (FLASHING BRIGHTLY). 

Edited September 4 by PrideB4TheFall

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

10 hours ago, Rysm69 said:

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. 

 

I can think of a few reasons.

 

1) not everyone agrees on what "challenging" is. 

2) not everyone agrees that "challenging" is an endeavor worth putting on a pedestal. What's fun because it's "challenging" to some is just gonna be annoying to others.

3) there are so many possible interactions between abilities and frames and weapons that it's hard for the devs to make an encounter that can stand up to what the top tier of players can dish out without being punishing and completely inaccessible to alot of people. 

4) it's worth noting that in the 60 eyes fight most of the go-to cheese methods won't work because the boss straight up ignores things like CC and can straight up turn abilities off. And frames with high innate tankiness (inaros) get one shot anyway but even then it can be cheesed. 

 

Rolling guard protea spamming shield nades for example. 

 

10 hours ago, Rysm69 said:

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. 

 

Oh and I think it's kinda funny how despite 60 eyes being "the one good boss fight" certain people will still crap all over it for whatever reason. Which makes me think they won't be happy no matter what they do.

[vFlitz]

5 hours ago, Tsukinoki said:

That's something I don't understand from the people bringing up Diablo and PoE and their "endgame" like it's absolutely amazing and has gameplay and endgames that should be copied in warframe.  It boils down to exactly what you said here: Instantly wiping screen after screen after screen after screen with pretty much no interaction, boss pops up and lasts for maybe half a second before it just disappears under more skill effects and then you repeat that process over and over and over again.

Which sounds pretty much like what warframe is doing: Instantly wiping room after room after room of enemies with little to no interaction, bosses appear and are wiped out in half a second, and then you repeat the process.

The only "danger" in those games coming from near one-shots by some late map/dungeon/rift/whatever you want to call it boss, or enemies that have a reflect damage effect that if you aren't kitted out to ignore causes you to pause for a second or two, and if you are kitted out then they just vanish like everything else on screen.

In PoE it takes plenty of time and resources to have a build that can delete the hardest bosses instantly, and considerably more to have one that does so without sacrificing defenses and map clear speed. Vast majority of the playerbase doesn't ever get to that point. For those people ubers are difficult, drawn out fights.. or outright impossible. Even so, it's fine because ubers are content not everyone is expected to do.

But it's one thing to simultaneously have power fantasy and challenging bosses in a seasonal game like PoE, and something entirely different to pull it off in Warframe where peak power is much easier to attain and also permanent.

And there's little incentive for DE to make content that only dedicated players with best gear will do, because such players don't even buy plat unless they really want prime accessories. They already have all the plat they could ever need from trading.

[Pakaku]

11 hours ago, 4thBro said:

Yeah but power fantasy is not a real genre.

It's more of the "goal" of the game, to see how far you can take your builds. That's alright for the main game, but it erodes any chance of a meaningful boss fight since unchecked power leads to curbstomping any meaningful challenge

[4thBro]

8 minutes ago, Pakaku said:

It's more of the "goal" of the game, to see how far you can take your builds. That's alright for the main game, but it erodes any chance of a meaningful boss fight since unchecked power leads to curbstomping any meaningful challenge

Indeed! Wanting to see how far we can take our builds.

 

And right now, there isn't... really a place to take them for testing.

[MrDugan]

A good, proper boss fight that is engaging would take a lot of time to run.  Taking a lot of time to run automatically means the fight starts to suck, no matter how good it was the first time, because you have to run it over and over to get the drops you need.  The repetitive grind of rerunning the same mission over and over means the more complex the mechanics of a mission, the more likely players are to dislike it in the long run, even if they liked it at first.

[JadeFromWarframe]

I've been bullying Sargas for potatoes a lot recently, and I have found that, bad ai notwithstanding, he's not very fun to fight. This boss--the only kind that can really survive a late game build long enough to be considered a boss--has long invulnerability phases that render him a test of patience rather than skill. He has a specific moveset that loses much of its intrigue when you figure out how he works, thereby making him not a threat and taking away the magic. He's not an exciting highlight of the game, merely another prerequisite to building primes.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you've got Salad, another target of my bullying whenever I need neural sensors. You spend more time getting him than actually fighting him; in fact, he may die within a second. He has no precautions like Sargas, so he's just a trash mob with a cutscene and better drops.

I speak, of course, as someone nearing 400 hours with the game, someone at a point where she doesn't know what to do at this point except collect unowned frames and push her favorites to their limit. But the thing is, an arpg like this is built around the idea of just turning your brain off and throwing yourself at challenges over and over to get more and better tools, so this is ultimately part of the core experience. Challenging, well-designed bosses actually run counter to that approach. The main attraction is finding ways to plow through hordes, it's basically the conceptual opposite of Monster Hunter. And I want to focus on that analogy to make a point because we have an example of an online game that wants to be a farmathon like WF and focus on bosses too, but struggles to balance these extremes.

Dauntless sounds really cool on paper. It's a Monster Hunter-inspired online game where you carve up big beasties and use their corpses to forge ever-better gear. It's relevant to this thread because it's nothing BUT bosses, and those bosses fill the role trash mobs play in WF: kill em over and over to get better at killing em. But, while it has many issues, I think one is just that that's such an involved task compared to what we have here. You have to memorize attack animations and patterns, at least until you're strong enough to just stun the bosses and kill them in 10 seconds, at which point...it kinda loses its charm. The game just hasn't taken off, and I think the core formula of trying to be a live service game that's hard to justify playing indefinitely is partly to blame.

What all this means is, WF just isn't the kind of game that can support elaborate bosses a whole lot. That takes a different kind of game than we have on our hands.

Edited September 5 by JadeFromWarframe

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

For context and transparency sake, I don't actually play many games that are similar to Warframe. Like I am loosely aware of some games that others consider similar, for whatever reasons, just that I am not personally experienced with them. So I don't really have many good reference points for what others consider "substantial" or "good boss" fights. 

When I think of great boss fights? In other games? I can think of a lot, but in genres quite different from Warframe. Slower games, slower pace, with more balance and fine tuning. Well, again, depends. Like some games, the characters can be quite fast, agile, and powerful, especially relative to enemies, but it might be a side scroller, and weapons are swords and spells, so not quite the same... I don't have experience with say Destiny, TFD, Outriders?!? Closest I can think of, maybe, might be Mass Effect MP, which was a PVE, team of 4 co op, against hordes of enemies, which also didn't really have bosses. 

So then a lot of my experience will just be Warframe bosses themselves. I don't necessarily really think any are super incredible, but I enjoy a few. For different reasons, and mind you, different contexts too. Like I personally also thought 60 Eyes was a fun and good boss, but... only like the first 4 times and then the regular version, I think is fun, and alright, generally... but I only do them now, if they pop up in EDA, and I am actually kind of glad they are relatively rare. I liked them, because they had a way of turning off certain Warframe abilities, and that it required good movement tech to avoid the lasers, their offence, etc. Still felt a bit clunky though. I think it shows potential though. 

I do also like Profit Taker, Eidolons, Orowyrm, bosses too. Different reasons. They can test different aspects of the game I do enjoy. Also don't necessarily think they are outstanding. In my eyes though, Warframe has a lot of relatively unique challenges as far as creating the kinds of bosses, to match up with other games. Like around the tools at our disposal, precision, hit boxes, movement tech, our HP relative to enemies, what can endanger us, and when and why, and how... Our offence, general, but also maximised... There are so many diverse tools, trying to account for all of them... Thats before you even start to involve subjective player preferences and desires (the player who rather have access to all their abilities, versus the player thats okay with say some being nullified). 

Mostly though, since I personally find a lot of joy in Warframe without needing spectacular bosses, its... I would be happy if they continue to fine tune and give us new experiences, especially with each update, but I don't hold super high expectations. Plus I often prefer how they give us mini bosses here and there, like Void Angels, Acolytes, Demos, Liches, sort of like Elite/Tough enemies that aren't really bosses. the 1999 Tank boss looks interesting though too, will be interesting to see what else they offer. 

[RyllusPurple]

Kullervo:

[(PSN)IdoThea]

20 hours ago, 4thBro said:

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.

It depends on which is majority. If players who enjoy power fantasy are majority then it would be fool to distance those fans from the game and try to garner another audience that might be minority of players.

[SneakyErvin]

23 hours ago, Tsukinoki said:

That's something I don't understand from the people bringing up Diablo and PoE and their "endgame" like it's absolutely amazing and has gameplay and endgames that should be copied in warframe.  It boils down to exactly what you said here: Instantly wiping screen after screen after screen after screen with pretty much no interaction, boss pops up and lasts for maybe half a second before it just disappears under more skill effects and then you repeat that process over and over and over again.

Which sounds pretty much like what warframe is doing: Instantly wiping room after room after room of enemies with little to no interaction, bosses appear and are wiped out in half a second, and then you repeat the process.

The only "danger" in those games coming from near one-shots by some late map/dungeon/rift/whatever you want to call it boss, or enemies that have a reflect damage effect that if you aren't kitted out to ignore causes you to pause for a second or two, and if you are kitted out then they just vanish like everything else on screen.

Exactly.

Once you hit "end-game" in most of the games they bring up as something that warframe should aspire to you get into the exact same gameplay that warframe has.  Everything that isn't a boss dies the second you look at it and bosses aren't that much further behind.

The only times you have to slow down and actually think and react tactically in those games are when you're not using an optimized build that deletes entire maps in seconds....which sounds awfully familiar to warframe.

Yup exactly. Though I wouldnt mind some systems from Diablo, PoE or Marvel Heroes, or even the expedition setup from Outriders in WF, since they are good systems that give you a different way to approach the old parts of the game, by incentivicing revisits with a twist. Map and Danger Room modifications from PoE and Marvel Heroes would be golden, and Grifts instead of SP would be far more appealing since you can start it at a comfortable difficulty level for you while also having a reason to do it for increased loot. So you can find your own personal sweet spot. And expeditions were just genuinly fun since it was a good dungeon setup with different cool steps before duiking it out with a boss or bosses. Only downside was the initial release of it where the amount of rewards were tied to a timer, which alienated certain builds that already regulated time vs reward by simply being slower at clearing things.

Crusades from Martyr, or even possibly Intel missions from that game could be good in WF, maybe even the Tarot modifications.

Those things could give players what they want. Wanna go slow but still be rewarded? Pick up modifications that restricts your AoE or certain damage types while it increases your total loot for completing it. Would be an opportunity to add what many ask for, a way to crack several relics at once. Since that could be a modification as part of the system.

[4thBro]

4 hours ago, (PSN)IdoThea said:

It depends on which is majority. If players who enjoy power fantasy are majority then it would be fool to distance those fans from the game and try to garner another audience that might be minority of players.

But you don't have to distance them. It's a false assumption.

20 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

Yup exactly. Though I wouldnt mind some systems from Diablo, PoE or Marvel Heroes, or even the expedition setup from Outriders in WF, since they are good systems that give you a different way to approach the old parts of the game, by incentivicing revisits with a twist. Map and Danger Room modifications from PoE and Marvel Heroes would be golden, and Grifts instead of SP would be far more appealing since you can start it at a comfortable difficulty level for you while also having a reason to do it for increased loot. So you can find your own personal sweet spot. And expeditions were just genuinly fun since it was a good dungeon setup with different cool steps before duiking it out with a boss or bosses. Only downside was the initial release of it where the amount of rewards were tied to a timer, which alienated certain builds that already regulated time vs reward by simply being slower at clearing things.

Crusades from Martyr, or even possibly Intel missions from that game could be good in WF, maybe even the Tarot modifications.

Those things could give players what they want. Wanna go slow but still be rewarded? Pick up modifications that restricts your AoE or certain damage types while it increases your total loot for completing it. Would be an opportunity to add what many ask for, a way to crack several relics at once. Since that could be a modification as part of the system.

Good post.

But more importantly... moment of silence for Marvel Heroes. One of the best games ever made.

[SneakyErvin]

9 minutes ago, 4thBro said:

But more importantly... moment of silence for Marvel Heroes. One of the best games ever made.

Yep, indeed one of the best. Just that they managed to pull off great arpg gameplay that felt like a true successor to D2 and smooth at the same time, along with having such an insanely wide roster of heroes that all felt unique to play is hard to wrap your head around.

I will forever miss Rocket, Angela, Carnage, Deadpool, Black Cat, Dr. Doom, Elektra and post-rework Loki, Wanda and The Hulk. Too much fun with all of those heroes.

Also, I will never forget Hulks comment to The Blob "Eating a truckload of donuts aint exactly a superpower... Fatso!" or Deadpool going "Hey Frank, hows the family?" to Punisher.