[Bosses] Cheap mechanics.

[Vardog]

I'm sorry but there's no other way to say it, the Boss mechanics in Warframe are garbage. I know DE tries to go for the "fast-paced space ninja action" but it only makes the fights cheap, frustrating and unfair. If you already do not know EXACTLY what to do during a Boss fight you'll most likely fail because the Bosses don't give you the opportunity to learn during the fight. They barely telegraph their attacks,  they spam AoE attacks that one shot you and they swarm you with overpowered minions.

Of course I'm not talking about all Bosses across all difficulties, if you're overleveled/geared enough they're easy but during Sorties all the design flaws become apparent when you get 1-shot by an attack you didn't even see or had a chance to react to.

DE needs do some research on how to make challening but fair Boss fights because this is just embarrassing. I suggest looking up Dark Souls or Vindictus for good examples of well made Boss battles.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Vardog

[Naftal]

They also need to do some research on how to make better ability mechanics.

It's pretty cheap that we don't have to do anything but press a button to break the game. There should be skill based aiming and timing included.

No point bringing up other games that do bosses better when those games also do the player abilities much better.

[Chroia]

Yes and yes.

Warframe is very not good at teaching the player what to do / what they did wrong / how to do better.

On 8/24/2016 at 7:52 AM, Chroia said:

I've been playing TERA for literally the last few days. Not even a week.
Did my first half-dozen high-to-max level dungeons today, blind. With the exception of a single phase on a single boss, I could pick out pretty much everything that needed to be done/avoided through previous experience or on-screen prompts.

Warframe, while completely not an MMORPG, doesn't have that.

 

The recentish addition of laser scopes to Grineer Ballistas is a step in the right direction.
Now we need more.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Chroia

[AcceptYourDeath]

I agree with everything said. I usally don`t find it that hard to fight Sortie scaled bosses, then again I realize the fight is only possible with some cheese most of the time. 

Most likely Nova or something similar - you can`t really do the fight in the sense of fighting it, bypassing seems always the solution. A similar problem their Raids have. 

Bossfights are either extreeeeemly boring with immunity timer just standing there and wait. Or they are very unfair for the reasons you brought up. Foremost the inability to telegraph their attacks and the possibility to avoid them.  

Oneshoot on Sortie scaling and impossible with many Warframes or boring spectator fights. There is no middle ground for a proper bossfight it seems. I don`t think I ever enjoyed any bossfight in this game. Lephantis is the only example for a good and working design in my opinion. Other fights might have a decent idea they can`t deliver at the end.

-edit-

We need to be realistic here if we talk about other games. Warframes engine has obvious limitations compared to a game like Dark Souls for example. And let`s keep the history of this game in mind. It was a small project with a short livespan in mind which is falling back on them in many ways now. Very apparent in raid and boss design.

They would need to start from scratch, and that is kinda too late by now.  

 

 

Edited September 5, 2016 by AcceptYourDeath

[DeMeritus]

55 minutes ago, AcceptYourDeath said:

Bossfights are either extreeeeemly boring with immunity timer just standing there and wait. Or they are very unfair for the reasons you brought up. Foremost the inability to telegraph their attacks and the possibility to avoid them.  

Oneshoot on Sortie scaling and impossible with many Warframes or boring spectator fights. There is no middle ground for a proper bossfight it seems. I don`t think I ever enjoyed any bossfight in this game. Lephantis is the only example for a good and working design in my opinion. Other fights might have a decent idea they can`t deliver at the end.

Bosses and enemies often telegraph their attacks!

Why, just the other day I was running the sortie with the new raptor boss, surrounded by large numbers of enemies.

I knew exactly when the enemies attacked, because I was instantly downed.

Sometimes with large glowy circles appearing a second or two after I took ludricrous amounts of damage.

See?  I knew exactly where they attacked after they attacked.

Oh... wait... you mean signaling BEFORE they attack?

But... but... 'balance' and 'meta' and 'moar challange' and 'OP plz nerf' and all that!

One hit kills from out of nowhere without warning is as integral to the Warframe experience as your kubrow getting stuck to one spot, enemies and bosses getting stuck permanently in scripted invulnerability phases, the map waypoint and navmesh system leading you in circles, various 'parkour' elements leading you to a hard landing that leaves you stuck and vulnerable, nullifiers ignoring attacks, bombard rockets to the face, doors pushing you into or through map geometry, some of your mods not loading when you enter a mission, matchmaking UI looping when a party leader leaves and leads to the UI breaking, Lotus covering excavator info with her face during chatter, etc.

INTREGAL PARTS OF THE WARFRAME EXPERIENCE!

Edited September 5, 2016 by DeMeritus
corrected spelling

[Vardog]

1 hour ago, AcceptYourDeath said:

They would need to start from scratch, and that is kinda too late by now. 

Not necessarily, I can think of at least two changes that shouldn't be too difficult to implement but would make Boss battles far more fair.

- AoE attacks now deal % damage based on your MAX Health. (flat damage doesn't and will never work with Bosses, it too quickly scales to ridiculous amounts that one-shot you)

- When a Boss is about to unleash a powerful attack a text message appears on the screen to warn the players (or it could be a Lotus warning, either way, many games do this kind of thing to give players a chance to react)

 

EDIT:

A third possibility would be to add cooldowns to Boss' attacks so that a) they can't spam the same attack over and and over and b) players get a chance to figure out the Boss patterns.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Vardog

[AcceptYourDeath]

27 minutes ago, DeMeritus said:

Oh... wait... you mean signaling BEFORE they attack?

LOL good one. Yeah seeing the sh"$ a drone drops on your head before you die would be a nice change. But that`s not Warframe :D 

[BlackCoMerc]

Warframe features some of the worst boss fights in modern gaming.

This isnt salt. I'm not trying to be either condescending or salty. I honestly mean no insult. 

The devs are feeling their way with Bosses. And desperately trying to challenge players who are overpowered beyond all common sense or reason, without nerfing those players (though that's inevitable, in the end). 

Unfortunately, this strategy has resulted in gimmicky bosses with inflated time to kill due to forced invulnerable phases and other puzzle gimmicks. Personally - and I think many share this sentiment, but I wont presume - I dont find a single one of the reworked bosses enjoyable. They are all, as far as I am concerned, annoying, gimmicky and poorly designed. 

Bosses should have damage resistance, a very significant amount of effective HP, feature a large, multi tier room with verticality, and have power resistance with diminishing returns on casting. I should be able to fight them my way, at my own pace, and use movement and avoidance to my advantage.

Instead, I am forced into gimmicky fights, wait walls during the fights and meaningless hordes of the same forgettable enemies to beat up on while I fight. Its not challenge its tedium. Its not creative or fitting for the setting. Its tired, been there, done that design that was not fun 10 years ago and isnt fun now.

Edited September 5, 2016 by BlackCoMerc

[_Azeizel]

Like is it that hard to make the Bosses actual bosses that require teamwork and adaptation that isn't the same thing everytime? The closest to this is probably Lephantis and I think that, that is the "best" boss in the game right now and it's a shame when your bosses are so laughable that you can one shot them.

[(PSN)DesecratedFlame]

It's not limited to bosses:

 

[(PSN)B0XMAN517]

I couldn't agree more and it's been a real disappointment for me. Bosses have always been my favorite part of just about every game I've played and DE has really dropped the ball in this regard. You brought up Dark Souls. Those are boss fights. You have to learn their attacks, how to dodge them, when to attack, and when to retreat. They do this so well that I'll fight the same boss 20 times, (Praise The Sun!) and I enjoy the fight every time. I'm not even farming the boss for anything, once they're dead they're dead, I'm just enjoying the experience and challenge. With the way I look at bosses, I should want to fight a Warframe boss many times to get the frame they drop. Instead I find most assassinations to be a chore.

DE didn't drop ball on every boss. The Jackal, Hyena Pack, Lephantis, Phorid, and Alad V (to an extent) are great examples of bosses and ones I enjoyed farming. I loved farming Nekros so much that I keep helping people farm Nekros because that fight is a lot of fun for me. Lephantis is my idea of a good boss. He's huge, his attacks are strong and come from three different sources/heads, and you can only damage them during their attacks. That last part is an example of how you do invulnerability phases in an engaging and fun way. It lasts for right amount of time, they're straightforward as to how they work, they make sense, and are an interesting dynamic that play an integral role in influencing your tactics. 

The Hyena Pack has 4 different Hyenas. Some attacks are so dangerous that it strongly encourages VIP targeting, while 4 targets jump all over the place. This fight is hard, fun, and fair.

You could argue that many of the aforementioned bosses are very easy to take down (due to your skill level), but it's their mechanics that make them fun to fight.

[AltusLive]

It hasn't been mentioned yet in here, but DE could very easily learn from almost every boss in Borderlands. Borderlands 2 had their Serephs which where huge, required learning of their patterns, weren't put down easy regardless of your gear, and could take you out pretty easy if you weren't working together and paying attention. Or BNK3R (Bunker) is another example of how to do a great flying boss. Instead though we get the bullS#&$ that is Vey Hek the flying head. The Warrior from BL2's main campaign ending could in itself be an infested boss with a reskin. There's so much they could do if they'd just learn from other games!

Also I don't agree with many people in here. We don't need to add in invulnerability timing to all bosses. Rather we should be giving them crit zones with a huge HP pool, that stacks based on player present. Again, referencing back to Borderlands: part of the fun of the bosses is running around while shooting them; even for the small damage you may be doing. Running around waiting for a crit point to open so you can actually do damage though is just a cheap mechanic to draw out the game play. It's fine on one or two bosses, but should never be a core game play element.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Ice232