New Boss Difficulty Too Artificial/fake & Not Genuine Enough

[Ruzu]

I wanted to discuss this a little. I apologize if this specific topic has already been discussed.

 

Simply put, with the latest edition of the Raptor, along with changes in Vor and Krill, the difficulty of boss fights has not be increased in the slightest. Rather, these easy boss fights have only been made longer than necessary through the implementation of disappointing Artificial Difficulty. What is Artificial Difficulty? It's an attempt to make something harder by increasing the amount of time it takes to complete it. Because you have to deal with the ludicrous situation for longer, that *supposedly* makes a fight harder, but it doesn't at all, it just makes it longer without actually making it harder.

 

Just how do Raptor, Vor, and Krill have Artificial Difficulty? They have guaranteed stages of invincibility/god mode at pre-determined stages.

 

Vor:

I could kill Vor in 8 seconds flat or shorter, but because of his ~15 seconds of total invincibility, 45 seconds is wasted just to give him a chance to heal. Why do bosses have that luxury? Why don't we get that opportunity? I'd like to rest after half my health was dropped in 5 seconds flat. 

 

Vor Solution:

Force him to have to take a few seconds to activate the mode first. When he feels like he has taken too much damage, he could have some kind of skill like Banshee's Sonic Boom that pushes the players back and knocks them down, or like Mag's Pull that pulls players in and also knocks them down. That way, he has the opportunity to initiate his shield regeneration sphere and not have it auto activated for him as a "OMG, SAVE ME" panic button. The player then has the ability to attempt to break his sphere, to interrupt his regeneration cycle. It would have a high hp pool so that it wouldn't be too easy or too hard to break the sphere. Vor could have several options to temporarily stun a player to give him that chance he needs.

 

Kril:

He has stages of total invincibility just like Vor, except in Krils case, the stages actually make a little more sense. He has this suit of armor on that supposedly negates all damage. However, when you break the pod on his back and provoke an ice wave out of him, an armor of ice covers his body and he is then completely vulnerable. The mechanics behind Kril are illogical.

 

Kril Solution:

Change the pod on his back so that it causes the damage reduction property on his suit of armor to malfunction. While that orb is still intact, reduce weapon damage down to 3% or something similar(for all weapons, even the ones with special properties to make it fair). Give Kril options to keep people off his back at all times. When the orb is destroyed, he takes full damage, but he gets desperate. When he gets desperate, he's faster and stronger. His attacks have slightly more range and duration. Kril is super focused on staying alive and will do whatever it takes to take down the enemy. While all this is happening, it's a race against time to see if you can kill Krill before the pod on his back regenerates itself.

 

Raptor:

He's totally invincible when his missile port is open.

 

Raptor Solution:

Don't give him total invincibility. Increase his health/damage reduction. You'll still be able to hurt him while he's shooting missiles at you but he can kill you quickly. Or better yet, allow him to dodge and attack at the same time and reduce the missile damage. His health would increased, but his damage reduction while he's shooting missiles would be increased because the missiles are absorbing a portion of the damage.

 

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If future bosses are going to be given god mode after certain milestones in an attempt to artificially increase difficulty rather than increase AI intelligence and stat buffs to make them smarter at attacking and defending, I'm going to be a sad panda ~-~.

 

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I'm open to constructive opinion/criticism on the subject if you wish to share your own thoughts on the matter.

 

Edit: I'm aware that certain abilities give a major advantage when it comes to fighting. I propose in that case, that bosses be super special individuals who through rigorous training, gain special attributes that allow them to interrupt/break the ability cycle when they deem it is appropriate, so as to make fights more tactical.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Ruzu

[notionphil]

+ 1

 

nothing should have 100% invuln anyway. 99% invuln, or a separate regen shield, fine. but 100% is just silly.

[Alighierian]

I'm totally up for a rework. currently it just feels like a quick-time event without the button smashing

[Ariarch]

They tried to fix the bullet sponge mechanics, but just gave them invincibility. I would like them to have more attacks and offensive abilities than any of these suggestions.

[impulse42]

instead of having bullet sponge mechanics I would like to see these mechanics in place and as well I would like to see DE implement special enviroments for bosses that you take advantage of to kill the boss, something along the lines of an enviromental hazard for raptor would be say a garbage shoot ( Just go along with me on this Im making it up as I type, obviously DE could think of better ideas) that shoots out an explosive barrel that could down raptor every few seconds for you to wail on him a bit, trade off though would be that when raptor gets airborne again he would have a new weapon to attack with.

 

so you end up getting a trade off of do lots of damage to boss, but he gets more weapons to blow you up with, or a boost in stats or somthing of an advantage for him.

[Paradoxbomb]

In Kril's defense, I think it's his shield that negates your damage, not his armor, so causing him to freeze himself powers down the shield temporarily, so there's some logic to it. As for the Raptor, why the heck are you shooting at that thing when it's launching missiles at you?

 

Still, I see your point, especially for Captain Vor, they could at least make it so the bubble dissipates after you beat the minions he summons or something.

[Ruzu]

They tried to fix the bullet sponge mechanics, but just gave them invincibility. I would like them to have more attacks and offensive abilities than any of these suggestions.

 

More attacks and offensive abilities wouldn't help at all. He'd still be a bullet sponge if he doesn't get smarter at defending & dodging.

 

For example, for the brawler challenge in AC 3, there was a certain opponent where, no matter how fancy or cunning you were with your combos, even throwing a knife in desperation, the enemy would be guaranteed to dodge it unless you attacked him through a special scenario. It -was- possible to catch him off guard by running up a wall, then doing a 180 turn attack that caught him off guard however, but I was never able to reproduce it. I guess the AI learned that specific attack vector or I simply did not reproduce the original situation correctly.

 

In Kril's defense, I think it's his shield that negates your damage, not his armor, so causing him to freeze himself powers down the shield temporarily, so there's some logic to it. As for the Raptor, why the heck are you shooting at that thing when it's launching missiles at you?

 

Still, I see your point, especially for Captain Vor, they could at least make it so the bubble dissipates after you beat the minions he summons or something.

 

But is his shield covering -just- his body, or is it covering a 360 degree field around his body that the Tenno just can't see? Because I can shoot directly at his fingers, or his eyes, and he just doesn't take any damage. 

 

I tried fighting Raptor before when he was firing his missiles, until I learned that he was invincible during that stage, which meant that I was wasting my ammo. I wouldn't mind fighting raptor with missiles coming at me. It would be a challenging experience, something every boss battle lacks at the moment.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Ruzu