125 réponses à ce sujet

[FalloutBoy]

Stanley Woo wrote...

cipher86 wrote...

No boss fight feels like such.  I actually find all boss encounters to be easier than random encounters and some general battles.

Like the four faced statue in the Deep Roads.  Uninspired and boring.

Please help us out by clarifying your criticisms.

what does a boss fight "feel" like? How do we make them equally difficult for everyone, and how can we measure that? What makes you the baseline measurement rather than someone who finds them too difficult?

And while the 4-faced statue is not a boss fight--most, I believe, would refer to that as a "gimmick fight"--how could we make it more inspired and less boring?

Random criticism is all well and good, but to help us make things better, you should also give us suggestions on how to improve ourselves. Which boss fights in which games are good examples of such to you? What makes them good? What makes them bad?

Ignore the troll. This game has the best boss fights of any single-player RPG.

[FalloutBoy]

F-C wrote...

sounds like some of you just want WoW raid bosses with that post.

Like the Broodmother fight? And the archdemon? And Uldred? And the Spider Queen? And that thing in Warden's Keep with the adds that heal him? Yes, please more fights like that. They are some of my favorite moments in the game.

[kokocrush]

I'm on my 3rd playthrough, but the fights do indeed get repetitive, especially when the loot does not blow your mind away. While I don't advocate a difficult for difficult's sake, ie ridiculous need for precision and complex strategies, I feel the fights get trivial after a while.



1. Mages/Scattershot too powerful. Get hit by a fireball/chain lightning and suddenly everyone is dying with a dot. Ser Cautherin is not tough - 12 archers with scattershot is. I think a fight is less fun when melee lacks counter to mages and archers. Most of the time, I active control mages and let AI do melee - they are just that less effective. The point is you can steamroll the game with a 2 spirithealer/forcefield/crushing prison combo. That is uninteresting since there is no need to consider other party tactics or use melee more effectively.



2. Fights are a potion fest - even if you suck - as long as you are conscientious enough to gulp down a potion, you most probably will win the fight. Most of the time, you die because you wanted to save potions. Now I'm don't think damage to the party should be decreased, but I think the options for healing are limited - heal/group heal and mana/stamina are depleted way too fast for any interesting protracted encounter. Melee end up with auto-attack, mages are better off since they can gulp down potions, but it's annoying to keep eating potions to be able to cast spells. It would be more interesting if fights were oriented around pulling off certain spells or techniques at the right time, in a particular sequence, ie strategy than guzzling down potions.



3. When was the last time you used a balm, poison or trap? I sometimes remember to use them, but they practically make no difference to a fight, especially with the 2 mage combo. Maybe if they lasted longer, they won't be sitting around taking inventory space. But even then, why bother if you can steam roll the encounter with 2 mages?



4. Skills and spells should counter each other. It's strategically more interesting when you have to think on your feet and execute the appropriate action. For example, melee can cast a time limited spell invulnerability with cooldown or reflect when a fireball comes crashing in. Rogues can escape overwhelm with vanish or something. Problem now is you can apply one strategy to practically everything.



5. Fatigue - who's gonna wear medium and heavy armor and suffer the sudden increase in fatigue penalty unless you are a tank in which case I go for massive armor?



6. There is no need to make boss fights super tough. That's what optional encounters are for. Like FF, the toughest boss is not the final boss. The loot should be more interesting. ie I killed Flemeth and got nothing... except for whatever you would have gotten in the house without a fight. If say I got a unique ring that allow me to change into a dragon for 5 seconds and perform a tail sweep - that's awesome without having to be overpowered. More unqiue abilities, spells or you can rely on just something with high stats.



DA:O is a great game, interaction wise, but I think the fights - well let's just say they are not a highlight.

[mscotch]

I liked most of the boss fights. The High dragon was pretty cool the first time I did it. I would hate to see them implement WoW-style raid bosses with timed one-shot aoe's and raid wiping exploding adds. Raiding in WoW is one of the most boring experiences of my life. "Hey let's kill the same boss for the 40th time so Bill can get his tier 56.5 helm." Like some other people have said, no matter how many different elements they add to a boss fight, once you learn the encounter, it becomes boring.



Concerning the combat in general, I thought the combat in Dragon Age was way better than the combat in Oblivion and NWN.



Finally, the main reason I continue to enjoy Dragon Age is the story and characters. I liked how a lot of the decisions you made during the game had an effect on the ending and the characters in your party.

[Silensfurtim]

boss fights in DAO are okay.



as long as they dont make JRPG type of boss fights in the future.

[Volourn]

Boss fights in DA are awesome. By, and large better than BG2's the game most 'assocoiated with it. Then again, DA is pretty much better than BG2 in almost every important category. *shrug*

[PatT2]

I was not just referring to this thread when I complained about all the Wow references. They're all over the forum. I just got sick of it here, I guess. I should have maybe munched some tylenol and took a nap instead of posting here.



However, if boss fights are too easy with 2 mages, maybe you ought not do 2 mages. I'm playing through as a rogue, and I'm not taking 2 mages with me. If i want it boring, I can use a different party. The game is, in part, what you make it. What I don't get is why a person would play in a fashion that they don't enjoy, and then come and complain to the devs and the rest about their lack of enjoyment? It doesn't make any sense to me.



I don't have a long background of playing fps type games. I come from a background of playing Civ type games. (not the sims.Just civ.) I enjoy the micro-managing aspect of them. I enjoy having to think about what will happen in 20 or 30 moves, if I do this now...if I go this direction, than what will happen later...

As for the bosses, that one revenant I ran into during the Elves quest, every time we all got to where it was, it transported to another corner of the room. That's not interesting? how do you fight a target that just isn't there anymore? Or maybe the desire demon in the fade that becomes 6 of herself. Have to think about that..which one is real?



I have enjoyed the battles, and I have enjoyed coming at them from completely different points of view, doing a Mage in one playthrough, and a rogue in another. Such different play styles. It's like a different game. I've made different choices in dialog (some accidental but decided to go on anyway) which changed the game dynamics for me.

There is some substantial loot from just getting (what appears to be) codex entries in one area. I was just shocked! Collecting codex entries, and viola! Loot! A very, very nice little item for anyone.

I have the key to get dragon armor, but since I play female elves a lot, and it won't draw correctly, I haven't bothered to unlock it. If you don't kill the commander at the soldier's peak base, you won't get that armor. Ever, from what I can tell. You may or may not get a meteor with the metal....

I didn't play the flash game first, so I don't have all those extras. So I'm not playing the game with tons of things that came from outside early on...I'm earning my buff equipment the old-fashioned way, through gameplay. Maybe that's why I'm finding it so much more interesting. I play my rogue with drake scale armor...I fight Flemeth early. Adds more intensity and more challenge.

and if it's still not interesting enough, maybe a little friendly fire damage would be more to the liking of some.

I just don't understand, though, if things aren't the way you want them, or enjoy them, why play this and why come here and complain? Play differently or play something else. It's your time. Nobody will be able to refund that.

[Ultrazennn]

Stanley Woo wrote...

cipher86 wrote...

No boss fight feels like such.  I actually find all boss encounters to be easier than random encounters and some general battles.

Like the four faced statue in the Deep Roads.  Uninspired and boring.

Please help us out by clarifying your criticisms.

what does a boss fight "feel" like? How do we make them equally difficult for everyone, and how can we measure that? What makes you the baseline measurement rather than someone who finds them too difficult?

And while the 4-faced statue is not a boss fight--most, I believe, would refer to that as a "gimmick fight"--how could we make it more inspired and less boring?

Random criticism is all well and good, but to help us make things better, you should also give us suggestions on how to improve ourselves. Which boss fights in which games are good examples of such to you? What makes them good? What makes them bad?

I have to say I sympathize with Biowares position on this one.  Creating a "boss" fight from thin air is no easy challenge.  Typically boss fights take one of two dirrections.

1.  The boss has way too many hit points, and does way too much damage.  A lot of fights in WoW are like this, like patchwerk for example.

2.  The boss has a gimmick, or a sequence of gimmicks that you need to learn.  Nintendo pretty much invented this method.

Honestly, my biggest complaint with Bioware and bosses in general, is loot and itemization.  There is a psychology that is being missed here.  There is nothing worse as a player, than slogging through 30000000 minions, getting to a boss or mini boss, and being rewarded with a medium health potion.  The first revanent you meet in the castle is a perfect example of this.

As a constructive suggestion, I'd say that Bioware games in general need deeper loot tables, with more randomization.  There is no incentive to keep replaying the game, as you *know* what the loot drops are going to be once you do a playthrough, and the loot in general is all pretty lackluster.

There was a study that was done a long time ago, if you give a monkey a button to push, where food comes out every time, they will quickly lose interest.  If you give a monkey a button to push where food comes out randomly, they will forsake all else and push the button obsessively.  Someone should read some BF skinner lol.

I've always felt there was a fundamental lack of understanding of the psychology of loot, and how to best implement it in Bioware games.

There is a reason why people are *still* playing Diablo 2.  A deep and randomized loot table.  It's one major point of contention for me in every single Bioware game I've ever played.

[Volourn]

Don't think revenants are meant to be bosses. I think, for the most part, DA bosses/special encounters gave solid slolot when it made sense.



And, most BIO games are solid loot wise (ME2 probably being the weakest overall in that regard).





"There is a reason why people are *still* playing Diablo 2. A deep and randomized loot table."



Good for them. Most BIO fans continue to play BIO games for a combination of story, exploration, characters, C&C, combat, *and* loot.



'deep and randomized loot tables'a re fine and dandy that is 100% dungeon crawl ala D2. btw, I don't hate the Diablo series, just there. *shrug* Enhjoy D1 for what it was never bothered with D2.

[ComTrav]

Another difficult factor, here, is scaling. I imagine it's tough to make an encounter that's interesting and challenging to a level 18 group as it is to a level 9 group. HP/Damage scales, but if this thread is about anything, its about how memorable encounters are about more then HP/Damage.



And I agree with the above that at least a semi-randomized loot table would add to replayability. Now that I know where everything is, when I roll a certain character class, I know exactly where I need to go first to get what I want. There's no point in making a single-player game entirely loot driven, but at least some unexpectedness would be nice.



Asking this on the wrong forum, but how hard is it to learn the mod tools? Been thinking about this topic, and I actually have a few encounters I'd like to try to design.

[kokocrush]

Randomized loot table probably will not work. Mobs don't respawn, but yeah, getting a pot from a high level mob is not epic.



I don't agree with the not using 2 mages comment. I play other groupings too but if a game relies on the player to invent their own rules, ie solo rogue it to make it challenging, then the game's combat is not challenging. For example, the tip on using glyph of neutralization on Gaxxkang, it just makes him trivial, or mana clash, but how is that the player's fault? It's a legitimate spell. And Gaxxkang is not difficult even if you don't use those 2 spells.

[tmp7704]

kokocrush wrote...

I don't agree with the not using 2 mages comment. I play other groupings too but if a game relies on the player to invent their own rules, ie solo rogue it to make it challenging, then the game's combat is not challenging.

The catch here is, it is impossible for a game to create challenge for every single type of player, or even for a smaller number of player types. Because for every player this will be different. On the other hand any single player can impose on themselves a set of limitations that results in game exactly as hard as they like it.

And mages in particular are easy mode because they are supposed to be very powerful in the game settings. Make them no better than rogues and warriors and suddenly there's a question why they're kept on a chantry leash and feared so much. On the other hand make the NPC mages as powerful as the player and suddenly players start to **** and moan because it turns out it's not much fun to have your tank/mage in perma force field and ignored with the rest of your characters trapped into Cone of Cold and shattered one by one... with curse of mortality and some other spells for good measure just to make sure they're completely disabled.

Modifié par tmp7704, 27 novembre 2009 - 12:28 .

[Mork_ba]

hOnOr wrote...

They are learning. They added stages to the boss fights which is a nice addition.

Because blizzard does that it means that it's the right thing to do?  Why would they have to have stages?

[Rikia35]

To be honest I found the bosses of DAO pretty challenging compared to other games. Most of the later bosses and secret bosses I needed a few tries, aswell as had to change what person to bring. Never on an offline game I had to do that so I was very impressed (almost felt like playing an mmo).

Some spells are indeed overpowered, expecially CoC which probably makes less challenging on 2nd run. Also 2 mages makes things much easier so from my 2nd play onwards I tend to bring just 1 mage. Even if I know the fight I found quite challenging on Hard+. Just my opinion.

[Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien]

tmp7704 wrote...

kokocrush wrote...

I don't agree with the not using 2 mages comment. I play other groupings too but if a game relies on the player to invent their own rules, ie solo rogue it to make it challenging, then the game's combat is not challenging.

The catch here is, it is impossible for a game to create challenge for every single type of player, or even for a smaller number of player types. Because for every player this will be different. On the other hand any single player can impose on themselves a set of limitations that results in game exactly as hard as they like it.

And mages in particular are easy mode because they are supposed to be very powerful in the game settings. Make them no better than rogues and warriors and suddenly there's a question why they're kept on a chantry leash and feared so much. On the other hand make the NPC mages as powerful as the player and suddenly players start to **** and moan because it turns out it's not much fun to have your tank/mage in perma force field and ignored with the rest of your characters trapped into Cone of Cold and shattered one by one... with curse of mortality and some other spells for good measure just to make sure they're completely disabled.

Very good post, can't really say much else. I think the issue most developers will have this day and age is actually coming up with original boss encounters. As most types have been done to death. People complaining about the Dragons, how many games in the past have you fought a Dragon, thus know what the general fight is going to be as they pretty much do the same things.

Don't get me wrong, I think most of the Dragon fights were poor, especially Flemeth. To quote Alastair "So this is the Witch of the Wilds?" 'The Templar killer', the woman whom used her daughter as bait, (sure snagged the player eh? ), I think what makes Flemeth fight more easier than the High Dragon is actually the limited space. There is that nice bit of rock that ranged can hide behind to ensure they don't get pulled in and it basically is either a full on ranged fight or tank and spank with no real consequences. I think the main issue with it is due to the game mechanics, unlike the Archdemon she hasn't had one of her wings ripped asunder so she should be able to fly. I haven't really played with the toolset but as none of the other Dragons really fly either (other than the High Dragon flying down to attack the party and the Archdemon during cut-scenes) am guessing this isn't an option. To do another Alastair quote "Swooping... is... baaaad!". Dragons are sadly let down by the game mechanics, as there could be ways to make some of these more varied and brutal if they could fly.

I liked most of the other boss fights, although agree with some that I found some of the normal fights more taxing and requiring a bit more tactics/strategy.

Someonestolemyname came up with a good example for a boss fight, I know it wouldn't be everyones ideal fight but I think it could easily be worked into the game for a future DLC (rather than the ever present 'Desire Demons' )

The main thing to remember though is that one key issue the devs face is balance, making a fight challenging yet beatable for people playing the game with whatever setup they fancy.

[Vilegrim]

Stanley Woo wrote...

cipher86 wrote...

No boss fight feels like such.  I actually find all boss encounters to be easier than random encounters and some general battles.

Like the four faced statue in the Deep Roads.  Uninspired and boring.

Please help us out by clarifying your criticisms.

what does a boss fight "feel" like? How do we make them equally difficult for everyone, and how can we measure that? What makes you the baseline measurement rather than someone who finds them too difficult?

And while the 4-faced statue is not a boss fight--most, I believe, would refer to that as a "gimmick fight"--how could we make it more inspired and less boring?

Random criticism is all well and good, but to help us make things better, you should also give us suggestions on how to improve ourselves. Which boss fights in which games are good examples of such to you? What makes them good? What makes them bad?

this plays into class balance as well, but having a mage wrecking crew makes them too easy, actually found the revenants the hardest things to kill for their pull abilities, meaning that I really had to pay attention rather than letting the mages do their thing while the ttaunts and puts out pitiful dps.  The constant knock backs on pretty much every boss where also frustrating without adding to difficulty, made the already subpar melee fighters useless while not actually doing anything about the mage debuff and gank spam, make melee fighters as devestaing as mages would really help, give them the CC, or really rein in what mages have, or remove the stamina mechanic so that the melee guys can keep going doing reliable damage.  Make the bosses have more tricks than knockback spam, hell make them go magic immune at times so that it makes sense to not run 3 mages and a tank parties, which atm is the best party by a mile, 4 mages would destroy that, but as we only get a max 3 may as well get some use out of the 4th slot.

[IndomitusRex]

I personally enjoyed the boss fights quite a bit. Maybe because I played WoW for 5 years, but I approached the fights like that. Main tank would engage the boss, while 2-hander warrior and rogue round up and kill adds. Mage debuffs, CCs, and heals. The Broodmother and Dragon fights in particular felt very WoW-inspired.

[Dark83]

WoW's boss fights are a different animal.

You have multiple players, all (supposedly) balanced to the same power level. Further, a seemingly unbeatable boss is not a problem - it means you need a full team of 80s with awesome gear, and specific tactics. This is how the MMOs function - it gets you to spend your time leveling up, getting gear, and trying strategies.

DA:O is a single player team-based game. The classes are supposed to be different, and given the disparity of power levels in groups who may encounter a boss, you can't just have the static challenges that WoW bosses provide.

In WoW, if your party is too weak, you go off to do other things and get better gear, then return with better tactics. You can't really do that in single player games - or you shouldn't have to do it a lot. In essence, trial and error is fine for an MMO because there's a ton of other things to do, but it sucks eggs in single player. You end up with something like GTA where you have to keep repeating a mission until you do it exactly as they want, with zero creativity. Which is really how WoW boss fights do - you have certain specific things you need to do.

Not the model you'd want in a single player tactical game at all, since it takes the tactics out of it, and becomes a puzzle game with random numbers.

[DragonRageGT]

Plenty nice bosses have been mentioned and I enjoyed all those fights!



The statue isn't one "boss fight" and the real epic boss fight for me besides some of the mentioned, was really Ser Cathrien before I was jailed. Nothing could kill my 330 HP warrior in ONE HIT like she did so many times before I finally stole her sword... I wanted that sword... I love big swords...



I was a bit disappointed seeing how weak she really is, after that first confrontation and to my surprise... she had the big sword again. I ended up with 2 big big swords!



(I didn't have Starfang or any DLC's at that time... release was so delayed where I live that i could finish the game with over 160 hrs total after 1 1/2 run before I got my CE)

[Elanareon]

Haha some of the posts are just ridiculous... Especially the melee chars thing... There are alot of people in these forums doesn't find anything wrong with them, did it come to your mind that your playing them wrong? I even read a post that he can spam abilities until the fight ended. I mean geez learn to play! Hehe. Well WoW doesnt distribute stats so maybe that's why... Someone even said who would use medium and heavy armor? Haha that one got me laughing! Who would indeed! And please no random loot table!!! I mean damn!!! This isnt a grind fest... Already hated when they randomized loot for gaxkang and the warden commander! I mean you fight them once! Do i have to keep reloading to get the Armor i want? And people play diablo 2 because you just have to click once then watch ur uber godlike awesomeness get to work... But i do agree that some of the boss might be reworked. Buthe example of someonestolemyname was over the top, totally reminded me of wow, kelthuzad in fact.

[cooldevo]

Wintermist wrote...
This is a good reasoning. Make enemies use all their abilities like we ourselves would. Go wild, the mob doesn't want to die. So, design a cool boss with different abilities to suit, and make him use them like you was playing him yourself. This post was quite an eye opener for me, thanks.

In order to do this you'd have to be able to script thought, human-like processing, reaction, and improvisation.  Last time I checked it isn't possible.  No matter how "random" or "human-like" you can make encounters there are always holes.  That's why offline combat games with online combat last longer in replayability.  Eventually the players just know how the bots will react and how to counteract it.  The human element cannot yet be duplicated in a game, or else all the FPS games would have incorporated it.  Go on their forums and you see people complaining the bots aren't smart enough either.  With our current technology they will not be.

It's all well and good to wish for computer controlled mobs/bots that can think, process, and react like a human.  But then again, if they could,  they would slaughter almost every party every time.  Computers can see, process and react in millionths of a second while a human takes on average two seconds to see, process, and react to external stimuli.  Pause wouldn't help at all in that part of it as you have to see what is happening in order to process what the enemy would be trying to set up.  Thus you would always be one step behind the computer because as soon as you issue your order it would see, process, and react in a a few miliseconds after you unpause.   And even if they could and did make it as good as another human, then the forums would be lit up with people saying the computer is too hard and must be forced cheating to be that good.  You'd have to introduce flaws into the AI/scripting to ensure that it makes "human" mistakes as well and not always perfect.

Nice dream, but nowhere near feasible on current technology.

[Pennoyer]

I don't really like how it is so easy to exploit bosses with force field, but other than that they are fine.

[cooldevo]

Pennoyer wrote...

I don't really like how it is so easy to exploit bosses with force field, but other than that they are fine.

True, but I just don't use force field and it takes away that problem.  Not an ideal solution, but it seems to work for me.  I have to come up with different strategies to get around not using it.  There is no requirement to use it, so try not... makes the bosses a bit tougher without that fallback.

[Axterix]

WillieStyle wrote...

Or perhaps you have a boss fight where there are moving hazards around the room (saw blades, lava, sharks with laser-beams whatever).  Ordinarily, the challenge is to move your party away from these hazards while continuing to fight the boss.  The boss of course, is smart enough not to stand in these hazards, however, if you time it right, you can have a warrior shield bash him into the hazard, or perhaps have one warrior run across the room and taunt the boss such that if he times it right, the boss runs into a hazard.

This would suck big time, at least on the X-box.  I cannot move all of my party at once effectively.  I can't bring up the menu, pick Alistiar, tell him where to go, then do the same for Leliana and Wynne.  I can only move the character I'm controlling effectively.

The AI is sort of limiting in this way.  As another example, I can't set my rogues to disarm any traps they spot.  Unless I missed that somewhere.

Anyway, some of my thoughts on boss fights and various things that annoyed me about some of them.

General things, but since boss fights tend to be tougher, relevant to them:

1.  Ranger pets should travel with you or, at the very least, the recast time needs to reset.  Annoying to travel right into a boss or other nasty fight and not have the pet available you want.

2.  Enemy mages are mega-overpowered.  Especially when you get some conversation before the boss fight starts and, as a result, your entire party starts out bunched up for easy AoE'ing.  So annoying.  Doubly so since, at the start of the fight, all the enemy warriors and rogues will use knockdowns and stuns as well, so it makes it harder to spread out and/or deal with said mage.

3.  Need the ability to give my guys a position to move to and have the AI move them there.  When fighting a dragon type mob, for example, I had to take control of each character individually and move them where I wanted them to minimize AoEs. 

4.  On a related note to #3, some of the AI settings don't work.  The ranged AI setting is supposed to make the characters back off if in melee.  Same with Cautious.  I've yet to see any of my characters move away from a mob for the express purpose of moving away from said mob.

5.  And with yet another AI movement related thing, nor can I set something of a party formation, telling my guys to stay spread out.  Don't get hit by AoEs so easily, you idiots.  Fixing #3 would be acceptable, but would be nice if the AI could handle it as well.  The main thing to making boss fights easy, stay spread out.

6.  Needs to be an AI setting to flank enemies.  If I'm going to send another melee besides the tank in, I don't want him attacking from the front, I don't want him standing next to the tank.  I don't care that that is the shortest route.  Go flank, so you hit more and get hit less.

7.  Single target heal spell does not scale well with magic stat of caster.  As a result, it doesn't not scale well with incoming damage or character hp either.

8.  Archery is rather weaksauce.  Guessing this stems from DnD origins of the Bioware games, but, come on, why is it fine for mages to blow things up with ease (and mana isn't much of an issue thanks to potions) while archery gets to suck the big one?  This isn't so much a problem for a fight against a single boss, as you get the benefit of range to avoid the AoE factor, but is annoying for fights that mix in lots of little guys.  Let magical arrows be archery's poison, give bows enchantment slots already, as well as let them be impacted by the mage weapon buffs.

Now, for boss specific things, don't have too much:

1.  Many bosses seemed to be big high hp things with an AoE and some sort of move that incapacitated my character, before pummeling him.  End result, against many of the tougher ones, I had to set all but the tank to do ranged damage, so as to reduce the healing requirements.  Melee DPS needs a role in more fights.

2.  Early in the game, healing is lacking.  Because we get companions pre-built and the single target heal sucks, those fights (as well as many of the tougher non-boss fights) are annoying.  The tower, for example, possibly gives you a mage that doesn't have the heal spell, if you even get the mage.  Having the mage is a huge boost even so, as his spells generate enough threat that you can kite the ogre around in circles.  Then you get Morrigan, who is set up more to CC and blow stuff up than provide some healing.  Because the single target heal sucks and her poor choice of skills (yeah, don't get extra tactic slots, you stupid mage), it takes 3+ levels to start turning her decent.

3.  Bit more varied damage from bosses would be nice.  There's the resist potions.  I sell all but fire.  I use the fire ones against dragons.  Never really felt the need to chug a cold resist or lightning resist one.  Mages use fire or electricity, but those are typically bad for AoE reasons and you need to kill mages fast anyway, before they stun your entire party.  But for bosses, it is fire or nothing of consequence.

What I'd have like to see is a bit of foreshadowing as to what sort of boss is coming up and using something besides fire.  A hint of a lightning elemental, for example, not blatant, but enough that if I paid attention, I know maybe I want to make sure I have the right resist potion for my tank.

4.  I liked the idea behind the Sloth Demon in the Fade.  He shifted from form to form as defeated.  Unfortunately, he was a bit of a wuss, so it didn't really matter that he changed form and there wasn't much need to change tactics.

A beefed up version of that idea, one that encourages everyone to be close for one part, then kiting him around for another, meleeing for a bit, then ranged attacks might work well.  Tied to #3, a boss that goes from heavy cold damage to heavy spirit damage, so first you use a cold resist potion, then a spirit one.

The duster crime boss in dwarf land was good as well, calling in some reinforcements in the middle of the fight.

Could also do something where the boss retreats at each "defeat".

Couple of phases to boss fights to mix it up is nice, basically.

[kaimanaMM]

kokocrush wrote...

I'm on my 3rd playthrough, but the fights do indeed get repetitive, especially when the loot does not blow your mind away. While I don't advocate a difficult for difficult's sake, ie ridiculous need for precision and complex strategies, I feel the fights get trivial after a while.

1. Mages/Scattershot too powerful. Get hit by a fireball/chain lightning and suddenly everyone is dying with a dot. Ser Cautherin is not tough - 12 archers with scattershot is. I think a fight is less fun when melee lacks counter to mages and archers. Most of the time, I active control mages and let AI do melee - they are just that less effective. The point is you can steamroll the game with a 2 spirithealer/forcefield/crushing prison combo. That is uninteresting since there is no need to consider other party tactics or use melee more effectively.

2. Fights are a potion fest - even if you suck - as long as you are conscientious enough to gulp down a potion, you most probably will win the fight. Most of the time, you die because you wanted to save potions. Now I'm don't think damage to the party should be decreased, but I think the options for healing are limited - heal/group heal and mana/stamina are depleted way too fast for any interesting protracted encounter. Melee end up with auto-attack, mages are better off since they can gulp down potions, but it's annoying to keep eating potions to be able to cast spells. It would be more interesting if fights were oriented around pulling off certain spells or techniques at the right time, in a particular sequence, ie strategy than guzzling down potions.

3. When was the last time you used a balm, poison or trap? I sometimes remember to use them, but they practically make no difference to a fight, especially with the 2 mage combo. Maybe if they lasted longer, they won't be sitting around taking inventory space. But even then, why bother if you can steam roll the encounter with 2 mages?

4. Skills and spells should counter each other. It's strategically more interesting when you have to think on your feet and execute the appropriate action. For example, melee can cast a time limited spell invulnerability with cooldown or reflect when a fireball comes crashing in. Rogues can escape overwhelm with vanish or something. Problem now is you can apply one strategy to practically everything.

5. Fatigue - who's gonna wear medium and heavy armor and suffer the sudden increase in fatigue penalty unless you are a tank in which case I go for massive armor?

6. There is no need to make boss fights super tough. That's what optional encounters are for. Like FF, the toughest boss is not the final boss. The loot should be more interesting. ie I killed Flemeth and got nothing... except for whatever you would have gotten in the house without a fight. If say I got a unique ring that allow me to change into a dragon for 5 seconds and perform a tail sweep - that's awesome without having to be overpowered. More unqiue abilities, spells or you can rely on just something with high stats.

DA:O is a great game, interaction wise, but I think the fights - well let's just say they are not a highlight.

QFT.

So far, my favorite fight is the Broodmother fight.  It took me quite a few tries to finally get through that fight (rogue / wynne / alistair / oghren) on my first playthrough.  I had to come up with a new stragety / refine my ideas / use everything I had at my disposal and in the end barely scraped by - but that's how it should have been.  I can only imagine the amount of work that goes into designing boss encounters and everything that goes with them, so my only advice is take ideas from the Broodmother / Branka / Spider Queen fights, definitely a step in the right direction there!