Gameplay should make our brain sweat

[MyHeroPatrickSwayze]

This game lets us be superfast hardcore parkour space ninjas. That's awesome. BUT, I think this game needs, like, Capcom-style difficulty when it comes to the enemies themselves. Right now, difficulty scaling simply means throwing more of the same enemies with higher HP/armor etc. Ditto with bosses. Defeating both grunts and bosses doesn't require any advanced technique or pattern recognition. It's as easy as grinding them down with high dps weapons and spamming air melee strikes to keep the man down. Sure, there's some thought that you need to put in - ie shoot the shield ospreys and grinders first, then engage the main body, but after that, it's pretty simple.

How about enemies that force us to dash and use stunts to get out of the way of an attack? How about an enemy that's completely isolated from melee attacks and attacks us by relentlessly trying to slap the ground we stand on. How about a corpus robot with huge hitscan laser guns that track us as fast as we run and only sprinting and sliding will help us dodge.. OH, here's one - how about a huge enemy that can only be damaged by itself. Its hit points are part of the stage/environment and it has huge stabby arms and players have to bait it into stabbing itself in its own vulnerable spots by platforming and ninja parkour.

I don't have a really good grasp on conveying what I mean, but a good example of what I'm trying to get at would be every Megaman X boss, or perhaps Vanquish, another great game. Basically what I'm trying to get at is that there should be at least some enemies that force us to use our brain in terms of pattern recognition.

1000 hours in photoshop:

[neKroMancer]

I enjoy your photoshop.

The only boss that require me to pump some glucose and a bit of oxygen into cerebral cortex is the Jackal. And it took me roughly 1 minute to recognize the pattern and my brain went back to baseline performance afterward.

The rest of the bosses are merely bulletsponge. Not much challenge probably due to the fact that they're placeholders.

[Tauxi]

I'm liking these ideas as well as these examples. I would love to see bosses that are actually hard (other than shotgun spread-esque grenades & stun lock) to beat and are barely solo-able.

Limited platforms. *thumbs up*

Hitscan lasers you have to run from. *vol opt give 10 thumbs up*

Attack indicators on slamming boss thing. *thumbs up*

Use of agility and quick thinking. *thumbs up*

Only one damage space. *thumbs up*

MGS reference. *thumbs up*

[Tangerine]

Aw shyte, Metal Gear Rex boss fight? Yes please. DE pls add, complete with a Grineer who yells "TEENNNNOOOOOOO".

[Archade]

And i would like to see a group of people slowly and methodically creeping along having to make sure all directions are covered as things run at them out of nowhere like killing floor.

[Redler]

What is this moving superfast my Rhino and Frost keep hearing about?:

Very good idea for a unique fight.

But superfast?

Edited February 6, 2013 by Redler

[CY13ERPUNK]

+1 OP

plus one

[neKroMancer]

Hurt me, hurt me MOREEE.

[Volume]

Almost anything is better than what we have now. I would like challenge.

Obviously anything that gives me an excuse to wallrun has my vote.

[Tauxi]

I think I've some decent ideas of time-window vulnerability times (like Jackal)

For the big limited platform boss; you can keep shooting at the mouth, after a the mouth is hurt enough the boss will bend over (hur hur) and rest it's head on the platforms in front of it. After it lays down to rest its' widdle head. When this happens the players can jump onto it where its' weakspot (that actually affects the boss' HP) is easily accessible - a spike on its' back, perhaps?

And maybe having the spike (or whatever) on its' back is able to be hit from behind where the platform space is limited. And just to add extra risk to trying to hit it from behind you can smack some lasers launchers on its' back.... Just for added explosions. Because I imagine this boss will be boring without explosions. :/ (lol jk)

For the MGR-esque boss:

-Weak spots are the legs.

-After both legs have been damaged (they have no HP recovery?) it will be disabled - like the Jackal.

-The boss will lose its' balance and try to vent excess energy/heat from the top of the head. It will almost bow its' head down revealing the ventilation-ings parts where you can shoot it.

-After shooting it a while it will go boom boom and some Liquid will come out of it. (hehe, see what I did there?)

EDIT:

Time in class well spent! :D

(writing this up)

Edited February 8, 2013 by Tauxi

[Cavafy]

I hope that at least one massive boss will be in the game by launch, like Shadow of the Colossus big.

[joza]

how about a huge boss that you have to climb up on to hit him on a weak spot, but first make him kneel or something by damaging his leg to do so... let's be realistic you can't have a boss which weak spot is out of melee range 'cos if you spend all your ammo what then...

[Disthe]

Agree, Boss fight should be more brain challenaging! Not how much damage can the boss deal to player but the way to perform tension of Boss fight.