Boss Fights - A Boring Slugfest.

[phr0zenx]

A few things i'd like to clear up before i proceed:

1. I love this game, it's probably one of the few online games (Gunz Online) out there that provides awesome fast paced flexible movement combat system and environment to-date.

 

2. I'm well aware that this game is still in it's BETA phase, and content might change for the better.

 

3. I'm just sharing my honest opinion about one of my most favorite games out there today, in hopes it'll help turn it for the better.

 

Let's get back to what i was saying...Boss Fights. I've played this game for a month now, it may not be as long as most other veterans who've played this since close beta phase, but I've played this game long enough to clear 90% of the entire solar system available and accessible to us in the current state. I've fought most of the bosses including the variants of assassination  targets and that kickass Stalker. Sadly, none of those fights were at least interesting or rewarding. Infact, out of every boss runs i've done (probably hundreds for farming crafting materials) in warframe is always goes this way:

 

1. Slow (Frosty), Or any Debuff Skill available.

2. Keep blasting the enemy with everything you've got with little need to dodge anything (unless shield is low or down)

3. Melee the hell out of the enemy when Ammo ran out or Weapon not dealing significant damage.

4. The occasional jumps to avoid some shockwaves.

5. Rinse and repeat until Boss is dead.

 

I'm not sure how to say this, but the bosses are no different with any cannon fodder/minions scattered across the entire map. It has the same minion AI, with a few additional unique skills and a very fast recovering shield protecting a very long health bar. They are more better suited as a sub/mini boss, from the experiences I've had with other games. I don't really like to compare this game with the others, especially with other products from well established game development firms that have years of experience and funds to splash around, but when we talk to all our friends about the boss fights in Warframe, it's always the same thing. It's boring (No offense intended). I'm guessing it's just that, when compared to other existing online games we've played nowadays, Warframe's boss battle just doesn't live up to the expectations of what the general public would look forward to, after it's bar being raised up... that HIGH.

 

Here's a quick look at some of the boss fights we have in today's Free to play/Pay to play MMOAction Games

 

PSO2 - Vadar (SEGA)

 

MHF - Raviente (CAPCOM)

 

What do you think?

[holdenagincourt]

From my perspective, you're painting with too broad of a brush.

 

Some of the boss fights, like Hyena, Phorrid or Kela de Thayn, are actually quite fun and not total slogs against what is basically a bullet sponge. Then there are others that are truly bad for many of the reasons you've listed, epitomized by the Vay Hek battle, which is among my least favorite boss fights in any game I've ever played, full stop. Jackal and Lech Krill are probably somewhere in the middle, while the Nef Anyo, J3-Golem and Tyl Regor fights are a separate category of battles against very weak, joke adversaries. Never bothered playing the Pluto boss because I have Excal Prime.

 

Most of the Grineer bosses and the Jackal are tedious because they're so unbelievably tanky, although Kela de Thayn, e.g., strikes a nice balance between survivability and good offensive output and tactics (rollers).

[KogSothoth]

From what I've heard in the livestreams, the devs themselves aren't exactly happy with their bosses. They're testing things out and are definitely going to improve/change the bosses as they are.

 

One of the new bosses they teased looks to have much more variety, and DE also mentioned that it would work in a really cool way.

 

So yeah, you've just gotta wait. I fully trust DE will make them better, but all in due time. :)

[V101]

+1 on this, its what ive allways sayd, we need more epic bosses, with stages and S#&$

[VanillaRegal]

I'll admit that (Most) of the humanoid enemies are quite boring reskins of common enemies with a health bar that is far too large. The more unique enemies however, like Jackal, Ambulas, Hyena and the one Grineer crossdresser (They keep referring to it as a 'he' even though the talk model is of a Female grineer heavy) that uses a Brokk hammer are closer to what you would expect a boss to be like.

 

My ONLY complaint with bosses right now other than their simple fight patterns is that they rely too much on knockdowns and their health is just too large... Jackal was done well since it replenishes your ammo throughout the fight. I often end up being forced to melee with the squishiest warframes avalible because I could not kill them with my gun. I really want to try and use all the different kinds of guns in the game but bosses force a 'Meta Mentality' where you need to use the best gear to even complete it without spending 20 minutes whittling down a massive life bar with endless, instant-regen shields.

[Madotsuki]

I've complained about the current boss fights for a loooooong time. At least DE appears to want to do something about it, judging by what they plan to do with the Golem boss.

 

However, I doubt a complete replacement of the existing bosses is really necessary, all they need are some tweaks and new moves. I've made a thread about possible changes of current bosses here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/20276-bosses-a-redesign-for-u8/

 

Hopefully the devs will eventually stop putting all their effort into nerfing weapons/auto-banning cheaters in a PvE game with no economy/appeasing whiners crying about rush-quitters in pub games and actually focus on making the gameplay interesting.

[Xtorma]

An old idea I had that no one liked.

 

The Corpus Research Lab.

 

Lotus: "The corpus have been using scavenged Orakin technology to create new weapons systems that will upset the power balance of the system. We need you to go in, gather intel on their progress, and try and set them back by destroying any prototypes they may have developed. We do not know all the details, but we do know that the lab is a vast complex and very heavily guarded."

 

"Gather your team Tenno, and good luck."

 

Area 1.

 

This area is a gather intel and mobile defense area. The team must gather 4 modules from different rooms (fairly close together) and insert them in a central console. Corpus troops will pour from different spawn points the entire time. 75% of the AI will prioritize any Tenno carrying a module until all modules are inserted into the central console. The remaining 25% will target the console itself. If the console is destroyed the mission fails. After the last module is placed, respawns will cease, and all remaining corpus troops will prioritize destroying the console. (A counter will appear telling the team how many corpus are left)

 

Once all corpus are destroyed Lotus will let the party know:

 

“There seems to be no more resistance for the moment Tenno, we are in the process of downloading the Intel……Wait something just came up on the scanner…….Prepare Tenno there is a large unknown mass rising from below “.

 

Boss #1:

 

Lotus:

 

“We have no knowledge of this new unit Tenno, this must be one of the prototypes. Destroy it. We cannot allow it to interrupt the data transfer”

 

Mobile Defense and Fabrication Unit (MDFU 1.0)

 

Rising from a circle (elevator somewhere near the console) is a Moa 4X the size of a standard Rail gun moa. Instead of 1 rail gun at the top, it will have 4, 2 on each side of a central Box, similar to the ones used to spawn moa. The rail guns can independently target. The MDFU will ignore the console and concentrate on damaging the Tenno. (let the devs set damage). Every 15 seconds the MDFU will spawn 4 standard units at random from the following

1. Shockwave moa
2. Shield draining osprey
3. Standard moa
4. Rail gun moa.
5. Bomber osprey
6. Shield osprey

Any unit spawned from the MDFU will target the console, unless it is support.

 

MDFU AI:

 

Rail guns will target only Tenno. 1 each unless there is a death, upon the death of any Tenno the rail gun that was targeting them will shift to the console.

MDFU will prefer to stay at range.

Every 10% health lost by MDFU, shields will regenerate to full

At 50% health shields will regenerate to full and the MDFU will charge nearest Tenno and issue a series of three shockwave like abilities 2 seconds apart.

1. Standard shockwave, cannot be resisted, only jumped over
2. Incapacitate wave (works just like a disruptors arm attack, stripping shields and power) can only be jumped over.
3. Corrosive wave (-200 health + dot for 20 health a second for 10 seconds) cannot be avoided, but is blocked by shields.

 

At 25% MDFU repeats what it did at 50% and sends out a signal for reinforcements. Crewmen start spawning from initial spawn points and rush the console.

 

Consequences of console degradation:

 

Console does not regenerate health.

Every 10% console is damaged MDFU spawns raise by 5 levels, and spawns 1 extra random unit during the next MDFU spawn cycle up to a maximum of 10 spawns. All crewmen spawn at the level of the fabricated moas.

At 25, 50 and 75% console damage MDFU rail gun gets the following buffs

25%: +15% damage

50%: Rail gun stagger becomes knockdown

75%: MDFU spawns a pet cycle and rushes console concentrating all fire on console.

 

Addendum: all spawns start at 10 levels above the highest level Tenno, or weapon in the group.

Now just dream about what the drop would be: D

[LoRDxDeMoN]

I don't really understand why all these topics are coming up and claiming that bosses have a lot of health. They die way too fast.

[Xtorma]

From my perspective, you're painting with too broad of a brush.

 

Some of the boss fights, like Hyena, Phorrid or Kela de Thayn, are actually quite fun and not total slogs against what is basically a bullet sponge. Then there are others that are truly bad for many of the reasons you've listed, epitomized by the Vay Hek battle, which is among my least favorite boss fights in any game I've ever played, full stop. Jackal and Lech Krill are probably somewhere in the middle, while the Nef Anyo, J3-Golem and Tyl Regor fights are a separate category of battles against very weak, joke adversaries. Never bothered playing the Pluto boss because I have Excal Prime.

 

Most of the Grineer bosses and the Jackal are tedious because they're so unbelievably tanky, although Kela de Thayn, e.g., strikes a nice balance between survivability and good offensive output and tactics (rollers).

I soloed kela around 15 times to get my saryn bps and she was very easy.

 

Kill bothersome minions, Stand on box, move left or right to dodge rockets, shoot with lex until dead. She needs a way to close range quickly , and to knock tennos off of perches so her rolling balls of aggrivation can do thier job. Perhaps if the missles were homing rockets and had a knockback.

[Estred]

Yeah me and a buddy took out Prototype Jackal while we were level 20 and it was 27, it was just a run behind pillar, avoid bomb, shoot legs, shoot it, rinse repeat. While I liked the fight, I wish the boss maybe adapted. I though when it raised us from "Trivial" to "Pathetic" perhaps it would evolve during the fight the closer to death it got and thus the higher a "threat" we Tenno were to it.

 

I love dynamic fights where the AI reacts to how players fight. Perhaps not to the extent that Dialbo III's Elite Packs counter the player (as you have the break the game to actually play past Monster Power 5).

 

Thus far the game needs more to move the Tenno forcibly or dynamically change the fight. I am not just speaking of staggers and knockdowns.

- It would be very disorienting if a boss could, I dunno, pick someone up and throw them as a weapon at another Tenno?

- Perhaps a boss that destroys objects the Tenno are using as perches/hiding holes?

- What if instead a boss changed from a ground-based style to an arial based fight, leaving the Tenno on the ground thus removing Melee Weapons momentarilly?

- Envrionmental dangers, an Infested Boss could have toxic vents making areas of the map that are normally favored hiding/shield spots become dangerous or lethal areas?

- Fast bosses or ones with gap-closers, currently I have only faced Vol and Jackal but both were incredibly slow/easy. Vor I expected to be able to stun me, but I just ran circles around him charge-meleeing him. Jackal as I said above, was a cover-based-shooter fight.

- Perhaps a boss could be another Tenno? Like an anti-Tenno who uses similar abilities even suit specialies like Mag-Crush during the fight forcing players to know a Warframe and how to coutner it.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Estred

[Mietz]

While I agree there needs to be some more variety in the boss fights, I would want to warn DE and the community to not demand "gimmick" fights.

 

I don't really want the game to turn into Dead Space style boss battles with doge>doge>doge>doge>doge>shoot weakspot /repeat

Bossfights should also not be like in MGS/Bioshock Inf. where its "attack-pattern" based and the player has to memorize those and then shoot the boss a few times before he goes into another tantrum.

 

In gamedev circles thats called red-light-green-light design and its a really bad idea to have bosses like these, as the player is waiting at the red light (attack pattern) for it to become green again (opening). A rather strong example of this are bosses in Dynasty Warriors where the boss goes into his slashing frenzy and stops for exactly 4 attacks of yours and you whiddle it down in this monotonous start-stop manner.

 

What I think are the best bosses in games are the ones that are standard enemies with multiple powers and synergy bosses with multiple parts to be tracked at the same time.

 

I think the Corpus would be the best to have a synergy boss since they use this tactic already for normal troops (shield ospreys). I generally would like to see more synergy in the Corpus area, different shield or buff/debuff ospreys, maybe ospreys that put things like bullet attractor on players or ferry moas that drop in from the sky.

 

Grineer should have the tankiest bosses, however that doesn't mean tank and spank gameplay. A concept like ablative armor could be introduced where the Mag would be able to temporarily strip parts of a boss' armor (like with shield lancers), exposing a weakspot. You could also have something like a highly resilient and mobile Balista unit and sort of have a sniper-battle + adds with a chasm in between.

 

Infestation Bosses should provide swarm tactics, periodically spawning enemies, even from the boss itself (make them larger) and the boss would function more as a controller-type unit directing and buffing the swarm or providing CC (knocks, stuns, snares, AOEs).

 

In general Infestation should take a hint from Bulletstorm and their Burnouts enemies http://bulletstorm.wikia.com/wiki/Burnouts

 

In that game these enemies spawn with random weakpoints across their bodies and a hit on the weakspot is an instant kill. In the beginning these weakspots are many (5+) so spraying them is a valid tactic, the further you go in the game, the less weakspots they sport so it becomes harder to kill them.

I think Infestation should follow the same pattern by having multiple weakpoints on lower levels and less weakpoints at higher levels.

I'd also suggest to just completely remove bodyshot damage at all and make them immune unless shot in the weakpoint but with vastly increased damage (elemental mods would still damage them).

Edited April 29, 2013 by Mietz

[Caiman]

Probably all stuff a quick brainstorm among DE people would (or already have) come up with, but nevertheless, a few general ideas:

Minions (give CC abilities more meaning):

• Give all bosses a significant retinue of weaker enemies that support it - maybe with a few "unique" ones (recolored/upgraded heavies).
• Want to avoid a Hek-clones situation, though, so periodic reinforcements are a must.
• Might be better to tweak room layouts to make them a bit smaller with more alternative entry points, so that:
  • Boss minions can't be picked off from afar before the boss triggers, or otherwise easily drawn away and taken care of separately.
        
  • Reinforcement minions don't end up hiding behind crates at the far edges of the arena, doing nothing but occasionally interrupting shield recovery.
• Add special behavior for minions and minion reinforcements to prioritize actions that protect the VIP (rush players, surround/stay near VIP) over their usual combat behavior.
• As a bonus feature for stealth, reduced the initial minion presence to a couple of core units and reduce their reinforcement rate as a bonus for stealth / no-alert runs, pending some improvements on alert mechanics, adding motivation to do stealth runs in the future.

 

Boss stats:

• As an alternative to high HP/shield regen and massive flat resistances, add special boss-only logarithmic damage scaling so bosses don't take forever (or an instant) to kill depending on player stats, or soak up entire ammo reservoirs. With a reasonably damage-modded (2-3 rank 2-3 common damage mods?) 30-capacity weapon as the baseline for damage per "burst" (sustained AR fire / a few rounds of a shotgun / a charge attack or two) or something as the baseline. Make underpowered or supercharged/maxed weapons noticeably different, but cap off the differential at, say, lower bound of x1/2 baseline damage and upper bound of x2 baseline damage, so that variation in combat duration is limited but significant (a well statted team could still take down a boss up to twice as fast).
  • Could adjust the "baseline" depending on the number of players, so Solo runs don't have to take 4 times as long in the above example.
• Tweak elemental effects on bosses - make it possible to fire/lightning stun or frost-slow any of the bosses, but only if they receive very high amounts of elemental damage of the specific element in a short span, like a barrage of Fireballs. High enough that a maxed DOT skill's ticks alone won't fulfill the requirement without fire from significantly modded weapons, or simultaneous same-element skill usage. As of now, bosses are either completely immune or ludicrously vulnerable (Nef Anyo and Tyl Regor can be stunlocked with lightning or World on Fire, Phorid can be frozen solid with a single base-level frost mod on your weapon, everyone else pretends that elements don't exist).
• Instead of raising HP to lengthen battle duration, make bosses more mobile and give them active (but not universal) defensive capabilities, like Hyena's lightning shield or J3-Golem's poison clouds, but not like Jackal's shoot-my-legs-shield.

 

Boss behavior:

• Make the AI respond with a radial stun/knockdown attack (or some other non-damaging, evasive/get-off-me utility move like switching targets and teleporting/backflipping away) when it notices it's being strafed, or otherwise taking lots of hits without being able to land any.

Boss attacks could use variety, but probably wouldn't work unless players had more reliable means of avoiding or blocking attacks, like a functional dodge roll or melee block. Nice to hear it's being worked on.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Caiman

[ReiganCross]

You seem to have good ideas to showcase here, please give it a minute and show your opinions of more stuff other games are doing better then Warframe here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/37236-things-that-one-other-game-do-better-then-warframe/

[VeNoM0619]

 

Here's a quick look at some of the boss fights we have in today's Free to play/Pay to play MMOAction Games

 

PSO2 - Vadar (SEGA)

 

MHF - Raviente (CAPCOM)

 

What do you think?

 

The first one looked cool for the first minute, then it became the slugfest you were talking about, with little to no dodging required.

 

The 2nd one looked mostly cool, however once again it was a "slugfest" (with little dodging or other skills).

 

All boss fights will be a slugfest of some sort. Especially when you use RPGs as your comparison. It appears that warframe requires more skill in dodging (unless you simply tank the boss like you can currently, but thats what tanks are for). I believe the main problem is that you don't dodge the bosses (cause they don't do enough damage) or the team you are with is too strong as well. You have little to no fear after you fight your first few bosses (except the assassin who can 1 hit some-most warframes).

 

Boss fights need to have that high risk feel, but also be forgiving (and not pattern memorizing). Along with changing conditions/atmosphere to keep it interesting (like you are actually killing the boss as slow as you are).

[Xtorma]

The first one looked cool for the first minute, then it became the slugfest you were talking about, with little to no dodging required.

 

The 2nd one looked mostly cool, however once again it was a "slugfest" (with little dodging or other skills).

 

All boss fights will be a slugfest of some sort. Especially when you use RPGs as your comparison. It appears that warframe requires more skill in dodging (unless you simply tank the boss like you can currently, but thats what tanks are for). I believe the main problem is that you don't dodge the bosses (cause they don't do enough damage) or the team you are with is too strong as well. You have little to no fear after you fight your first few bosses (except the assassin who can 1 hit some-most warframes).

 

Boss fights need to have that high risk feel, but also be forgiving (and not pattern memorizing). Along with changing conditions/atmosphere to keep it interesting (like you are actually killing the boss as slow as you are).

If you look at my suggestion , it's not as much a slug fest (i never added health/shield levels) it's more about pressure. Constant pressure that escalates slowly as you gain the upper hand, or very quickly, if you make mistakes. It requires teamwork (split team roles, from managing spawns to tanking boss) dps (it's really a dps race) Resource management (condition of console) and Mechanics of attention ( the shockwave attacks, you must avoid the first two in order to nullify the third)

 

This is the kind of boss fight I would like to see, if they ever institute dungeon-like content.