41 réponses à ce sujet

[Maverick827]

Is there an active focus to provide better boss encounters in DA2?  

The bosses from DAO were rather uninspired:
- Ser Cauthrian hit hard.
- Gaxkang had a few powerful mage abilities.
- There were a large amount of Werewolves accompanying Witherfang.
- There were some traps around Jarvia.
- Howe had a few mages with him.
- Kolgrim had a few mages with him.
- Trickster Whim had a few mages with him.
- Marjolaine had a few mages with her.

None of these are very interesting, and most simply focused around the fact that mages have overpowered abilities. This is, of course, easily countered by the equally overpowered Mana Clash, though that does not make the design any more acceptable.

There is no interesting strategy required to defeat most bosses in this game.  Even the larger boss encounters (that is to say, bosses that aren't simply derived from the base classes) are centered around mere annoyance rather than difficulty.

The High Dragon is absolutely insufferable on melee characters; I'd wager one's uptime to be less than half between the knockbacks and stuns.  That's not difficult or intriguing, it's just annoying.  The same could be said of the other dragons as well as any Ogre encounter.  Losing control of a character has, historically, never equaled “difficulty,” at least never in my experiences.

Really, the best boss in DAO was probably the Spirit Apparatus before the Anvil of the Void.  A boss encounter should involve utilizing the environment, intricate positioning, and the use of abilities in new and interesting ways, not just “do what you would on any creature, only for a little longer.”

Though this will probably prompt a /**** shotgun from these forums, you should look towards MMO boss design.

Modifié par Maverick827, 03 août 2010 - 02:54 .

[The Hardest Thing In The World]

Totally agree, combat in DA is just one tedious combat after another. Any weapon or strategy I use works the same on all classes of enemies. It's nothing like the combat you'll find in the BG series.

[Kileyan]

The problem with creating interesting boss encounters, especially is a game able to pause and give orders, is that they end up not being interesting after someone learns the trick.



MMO boss designs do not translate well. MMO boss design works because it is real time and somewhat skill based. Moving at the right time to avoid AOE, casting remove magic at the right time before your party explodes upon themselves, and so on. Those are hard because you must do all the right moves, at the right time, within seconds.



In DA, none of that translates. Picture some of the hard boss fights in an MMO. Now picture them with the ability to pause the game, scroll through your spell options, move your characters during pause, and so on. Hell, even pause and alt tab to read why your guy keeps dying to a tail swipe.



Now I do agree, I hated some of the encounters that basically just said "let remove melee damage" because this is a boss.

[The Hardest Thing In The World]

There's nothing wrong with pausing.

[Kileyan]

The Hardest Thing In The World wrote...

There's nothing wrong with pausing.

Don't get defensive, it was just an illustration of why MMO boss fights seem harder and more intricate, but when pausing is introduced, they aren't really all that complicated, special or difficult. You can't use MMO style bosses to make a fight in ths game hard.

In no way do I want this game MMO'd and pausing removed. I like pausing constantly, even if just to prove to myself I can do something better and more tactically to save using a heal potion, even though I have 47 heal potions I never use:)

Trust me, the last thing I want is a dance dance revolution game of replaying battles over and over until I click all the right buttons in the right order and beat the boss. Pausing is fine:)

Modifié par Kileyan, 03 août 2010 - 03:16 .

[Maverick827]

Kileyan wrote...

Picture some of the hard boss fights in an MMO. Now picture them with the ability to pause the game, scroll through your spell options, move your characters during pause, and so on.

It wouldn't be as difficult, but even with pausing, it will still be more difficult and more fun than what we currently have.

One encounter from World of Warcraft, Sartharion, comes to mind.  In this encounter, walls of flame come from either side of the fighting area intermittently.  These walls of flame have gaps and each member of the raid must align themselves with these gaps to avoid a knockback and large damage.  A simple mechanic.

Now, in Dragon Age, all one would do is pause the game and issue his or her party to move to these locations. Though the player would have to worry about issues such as timing the movement correctly as well as the loss of the ability to heal while their healer is running, it wouldn't be a supremely difficult maneuver.

On top of more mechanics for the player to worry about in such an encounter, though, it would still be more fun than what we have now.

Modifié par Maverick827, 03 août 2010 - 03:17 .

[Lyssistr]

  I think BG/BG II boss fights are a little overated but indeed you needed a little more tactics for these. Imo, only BGII's first fight with Bodhi was really challenging, BG's Sarevok as well if you didn't haste summoned beasts.
 I don't agree that losing control of a character, doesn't add difficulty but I do want to see more boss-specific tacts, which are original per boss and don't perpetuate themselves. Complex boss fights also help to get a good feel of classes.
 A way to do that is add more resistances to fights, special features to bosses per species (e.g. like trolls need a fire arrow in AD&D) -doesn't have to included non-boss representatives of species-, more immunities. Also having phases in boss fights adds to their uniqueness. 

Modifié par Lyssistr, 03 août 2010 - 03:26 .

[Maverick827]

Yes, I forgot to mention phases. Phases are a good way to differentiate bosses between normal mobs.

[Malanek]

The Broodmother had a bit to it, tentacles couldn't attack when you stood on the rock, multiple waves of dark psawn. Caridan or Branka used the Lyrium veins which you could exhaust. The arch demon moved out of melee range which meant you might need to use (and potentially repair) the balista. There was some thought put into the boss fights.

[Kandene]

They just need to include something unique for each boss fight.

Like in Origins fighting a mirror of your team or the spider retreating after a certain amount of dmg.

Modifié par Kandene, 03 août 2010 - 03:38 .

[Fieryeel]

Sloth demon comes to mind in phase changing.



I agree that the boss fights are too plain.

[andar91]

I thought the bosses were okay, though not overwhelmingly spectacular. I think the problem is that DA:O is a game where every fight is rather tactical (more or less), both bosses and normal encounters. As a result, I don't think the bosses feel as special because you have to think for every fight at at least a basic level so the fights don't always seem significantly complex since some basic encounters are harder than boss fights.

[The Hardest Thing In The World]

Oh thanks for reminding of THAT spider, I like that battle, its one of the reason I found Orzammar so fun. Shame about the rest of the areas.

[Maverick827]

Fieryeel wrote...

Sloth demon comes to mind in phase changing.

I agree that the boss fights are too plain.

Actually, I forgot about the Sloth Demon, and it is a great step in the right direction.  The glaring problem with the Sloth Demon is that it's still just normal classes in each of its phases, but at least it does have phases.

I was unaware that the Broodmother's tentacles could not go through stone.  That is another good example of the environment being a factor in boss fights.  

Even better would have been if, in the Broodmother encounter, if it was greatly beneficial to kill tentacles in a certain vicinity.  Let's say that Broodmother tentacles deal a lot of damage to Darkspawn upon death. The player could then position characters next to spawned adds so that the tentacles spawn there as well, kill the tentacles, in turn easily killing the otherwise troublesome adds.  This would be a mechanic that incorporates the boss, the environment, and a troublesome aspect of the encounter into one.

As it stands now, however, one Blood Mage simply kills the tentacles and the darkspawn adds with Blood Wound while the rest of the party, unsurprisingly, simply attacks the Broodmother.  While not all parties will have a Blood Mage, the worst-case scenario isn't much more intriguing.

I just feel that there is a problem when the most active part of current boss encounters is pulling the rest of your party off just before it dies so that your Warden can get a cool finishing move.

Modifié par Maverick827, 03 août 2010 - 10:39 .

[Last Darkness]

I want boss encounters to be Epic minutes long fights, not gone in 60 seconds or less style.

[0rz0]

I don't think the problem is boss fights are uninteresting, more the fact that you can overcome them with the usual tactic. In my opinion they should be nearly unkillable except for some weakness or required tactic. But I can see that would put off a lot of people, so I won't say it has to be like that. Maybe some special uber hard encounters for us pc users that can have a tactical view? *hint hint*

An example would be the ol' Tactics mod for BGII - The encounter with the dwarfs in the Irenicus dungeon. If I remember right almost each of the enemies required a certain something to take care of him, be it an enchanted weapon (you had to sneak past the boss to obtain it!) or rooting him or luring or whatever.

Oh actually what the game is lacking imo is more enemy diversity, as in, how to kill them. In the original for example, every weapon worked just as fine. I din't really feel the need to switch to a maul for those extra few AP, when I'm doin 100+ dmg per hit anyway with my sword. Or use ranged attacksas secondary if I can simply run up and kill.
More Kangaxes and trolls and whatnot!

Modifié par 0rz0, 03 août 2010 - 12:21 .

[Rubbish Hero]

The only Boss I liked was the one in the mage tower, that was pretty cool. The Dragons being over-used quickly made them loose any sense of grandeur  or mystery. The final boss was far too easy, easyer than the other
dragons. I'd like to see more creativity like Halflife. Remember the  gaint tenticle monster that could only be killed by traveling to various other maps to set of a furnace blast? Remember how the ant-loins  wouldn't attack unless you stood on stand? Or how in the final level of  Episode 2 the player was basically playing basketball in a rat maze to a
timer?  These are the sort of interesting and engaging idea's that put  Valve above the rest of the crowd, Bioware should steal stuff.

Modifié par Rubbish Hero, 03 août 2010 - 01:48 .

[WilliamShatner]

If they want pointers on great bosses they should play Bayonetta.

[Anacronian Stryx]

There is nothing wrong with the dragons pushing you around and knocking you over.. they are very large creatures after, What is the problem is that it take forever for your character to get back on his/her feet after being knocked down.

[The Hardest Thing In The World]

WilliamShatner wrote...

If they want pointers on great bosses they should play Bayonetta.

I hate games that go:

x100
x100
x100
x100
x100

COMBO!!! EXCELLENT!!!

So I've never played that game, perhaps you can tell us of one such boss you encountered that might work for DA2?

[The Hardest Thing In The World]

Anacronian Stryx wrote...

There is nothing wrong with the dragons pushing you around and knocking you over.. they are very large creatures after, What is the problem is that it take forever for your character to get back on his/her feet after being knocked down.

Nothing wrong with that either.

[WilliamShatner]

The Hardest Thing In The World wrote...

WilliamShatner wrote...

If they want pointers on great bosses they should play Bayonetta.

I hate games that go:

x100
x100
x100
x100
x100

COMBO!!! EXCELLENT!!!

So I've never played that game, perhaps you can tell us of one such boss you encountered that might work for DA2?

One?  The game is full of the most visually creative and stunning boss battles in gaming! 

[jaikss]

Imo the problem with DAO boss fights wasnt that they werent complex enough,just that they were simply too easy.Even the most complex boss can become a tank&spank if you dont actually need to apply specific tactics in order to beat it.

[Lyssistr]

jaikss wrote...

Imo the problem with DAO boss fights wasnt that they werent complex enough,just that they were simply too easy.Even the most complex boss can become a tank&spank if you dont actually need to apply specific tactics in order to beat it.

well, if they're tank & spank, they're either not complex, tactically-wise, or the gear available in-game before the boss is way overpowered and trivializes the boss fight to tank & spank.
 Without out-gearing a fight, complex tactics is pretty much equivalent to non-tank-n-spank.