[suggestion] the boss system could benefit from a rework

[Arcturus125]

 

 

i've recently started playing a different game due to a little case of the waframe burnout. upon playing this game and struggling to fight a boss, i realised something that kind of diminishes the feeling of fighting the bosses in warframe. in an MMORPG the bosses are huge, have massive health pools and even have multiple health bars. fighting these takes around 5 minutes.

then compare that to the bosses in warframe (not counting the eidolons - they seen fine as they are) the boss fights do take around 5 minutes the first time you try them - assuming you dont know anything about them going into the battle. some of them even have interesting mechanics such as dropping cores into pits. but none of the bosses in the game have that same feeling an MMORPG's bosses might. this is because most of the bosses have nonsense invulnerability phases, weakspots (where hitting anywhere else will do no damage) and timed phases of invulberablility

DE, if you happen to read this, let me ask you a few (admittedly very rhetorical) questions to portray my point:

why can't we just have bosses that have really high health pools?
why can't you make bosses that don't have weak spots that close or that are invulnerable?
why are the bosses so easily killed, often being killed with one S#&$ of a powerful weapon?
why don't the bosses drop any notable loot (not counting warframe parts)?

here is my solution to the problem

i think that there should be a boss in the game, that instead of being invulnerable, or having weak spots which one has to hit in order to do any damage, or weak spots that close leaving us no way to damage them. but instead have a ridiculously high health pool that would require multiple players a couple of minutes to grind through.

on top of that, make it so that whoever does the most damage to the boss gets the aggro of the boss, and the boss will only have forward facing attacks, meaning that rolling and bullet jumping out of the way can be used to avoid attacks (or just simply stand behind the enemy)

make it so that the boss has a 1% chance to drop a cosmetic item so that people can grind for the set if they want. make the boss drop lots of endo and rare items for that planet so that fighting them a second time is actually worthwile.

make it so that certain warframes can affect the boss in different ways, for example valkyr could use her 1 to tether the boss to the ground and not allow them to move for a short while or allow certain abilities to draw the aggro of the boss or reveal weak spots that provide a damage boost (instead of having the weak spots be the only way to do any damage)

make the boss be extremely powerful and tanky, and yet predictable so people can strategize and know how to beat the boss best without having to research it on the wiki

and since with the recent rework, higher MR weapons are generically better, make the boss' health pool scale with the average MR of all the squad

The counterargument(s) to my solution

Q; if the boss had a lot of health, a bit of shields and a lot of armor you could argue that some weapons would be extremely overpowered and be able to defeat the boss quickly (like the Tigris prime for example).
A: if there was a boss that just had a really high health pool. it would highlight the perhaps too powerful weapons even more than they do already so that DE could nerf them if they are too powerful. (consider it a better way to find over powered weapons). 

Q:also if the boss scales on the average MR of the squad, what if an MR 3 tenno is matched with 3 MR 20+
A: no problem, the MR20+'s should be able to deal with it, and the MR 3 will lower the average to make it easier for them

Disclaimer:
i'm not saying that my solution is the best, and i'm not saying it wouldn't come with it's own issues, i am however saying that it is a suggestion as the title says, and that in my opinion it would be fun having to fight bosses that are a lot stronger and not unkillable for duration of time. it is my opinion, your opinion may differ, no need to argue over it though. let's discuss it like gentlemen
 

[Marine027]

MMO is often different i say to a third person shooter multiplayer, i am all in for actual phases and mechanics on bosses, but those can get repetetive like in MMO aswell.

The problem is finding actuall balance, some bosses still get one shoted even with invulnerable phases like Sargas Ruk.

It is a big problme and they are in need of a rework, higher HP are not the best solution since big bulletsponges are not good bosses in my eyes and also boring, Eidolons are kinda like that already.

Best exampel of a boss for a good fight thou i say Arkham Citys Mister Freeze, he adapts to your attacks, something we need for the bosses here aswell.

Not just sentient shadow stalker damage resitance after awhile but actualy strategy to what we trow at them.

Imagine Alada V using his collar making Zanuka target a frame who seems the most dangerous or him callign Moas to pin them down simlair to the Gustrak Trios energy cage when you are downed, Sargas Ruk calling in reinforcments and making a fire wall in your way you have ot get rid of, Captain Vor grabbing you and trys ot stab oyu and oyu have ot struggle free maybe in a Quick time Event, etc.

Just things with alot of mechanic but also variety.

[(PSN)CrimsonAxure]

The Sergeant fight in a nutshell

Lotus: Kill the sergeant. finally i can have time alone, away from this edgy cringe god

Player: Sounds spooky

(running through level)

(gets to boss room)

(bullet jumps up)

(aims and shoots bow while in the air, 1 shots sergeant with headshot)

Player: lol bye

This is something that actually happened to me, while farming pigment. Some boss fights need to be more interesting

Edited March 11, 2018 by (PS4)PS_90210

[(PSN)teacup775]

The down side to health mountains is boring fight.  I’m thinking Destiny bosses with dumb amounts of health. 20 minutes of shooting some dumb cabal in the face while dodging random rockets is tedious as well.

In both cases there’s no mechanic to have fun with.

 

theres no terrain that you can use to trap or incapacitate. No mobs to agro into harassing boss, or manage while fighting a boss other than trash mobs. 

 

[Raspberry]

Very high health pools can be implemented into Warframe but still not break the balance of the game. The reason is simple: enemies make use of levels that scale their health, armor, shields, and damage. 

12 hours ago, Arcturus125 said:

if there was a boss that just had a really high health pool. it would highlight the perhaps too powerful weapons even more than they do already so that DE could nerf them if they are too powerful. (consider it a better way to find over powered weapons). 

There are no more overpowered guns, since DE just did a massive balance pass. Melee weapons are another story, but guns are absolutely balanced. Some are by design stronger than others, quite simply because of their Mastery Rank requirement to use them, which brings us back to properly scaling boss levels.

Just take each player's weapon with the highest Mastery Rank requirement (deemed as the player's strongest weapon), add up the number of polarities present on that weapon, then add up the number of polarities on every warframe and companion present. More polarities = more Forma used, so it shouldn't be hard to make a proper level-scaling formula out of this. Add a maximum level limit for every boss so that the inner planet ones are always weaker than the outer planet ones, and we're golden.