295 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Saren worked as a battle because there weren't any special mechanics in play. In fact, he was one of the easier encounters in the entire game. As such, I wouldn't classify him as a boss. As soon as you cornered him, he was easy to kill.

The thing that's wrong with boss fights is that they break the rules of the game setting. Bosses should not have so much health that you can't understand how they exist (Arishok). Bosses shouldn't have attacks that follow completely different physical laws than anyone else's attacks do (Ancient Rock Wraith). Bosses should not engage in behaviour that makes no sense for them, but exists only to offer a specific challenge to the player (Corypheus).

[Sylvius the Mad]

Dabrikishaw wrote...

Saying something is too video gamey in a video game is incredibly stupid. That mindset is half the problem with modern video games.

I have long argued that roleplaying games shouldn't be classified as games at all.

[Nefla]

I love boss fights. They should be difficult, rewarding, and often use some special way to win. I hate wave after wave of weak time wasting enemies, if I had the choice I'd skip most of the weak enemies and go right for the bosses. I did this in old school jrpgs every chance I got and even though it left me under leveled, it was even more fun for me to come up with an awesome strategy to make up the difference. Games with just weak enemies and no bosses (like ME3) are not fun for me. DA2's "boss" battles were boring, simple, and not memorable and like it has been said before there is no sense of accomplishment.

[The Teyrn of Whatever]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

The Teryn of Whatever wrote...

Too videogamey? Seriously? Dragon Age is a video game series. God the BSN is full of weird, sad people.

It is a quote that Casey Hudson, Producer of the Mass Effect series, said about why there was no boss fight at the end of ME3. 

I heard they were originally planning to have a boss fight against the Illusive Man, but thought it was silly and didn't work so they scrapped it. I've got nothing against final bosses in a game, so long as it fits the feel of the game in question. Boss fights in Deus Ex: HR were generally annoying and felt out of place, with the exception of the one in the Missing Link DLC, which I actually enjoyed since the main challenge came from the boss' support units and their placement rather than on the boss being ridiculously overpowered.

I hope DA3 has a boss fight at the end and I hope it's nice and challenging.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The thing that's wrong with boss fights is that they break the rules of the game setting. Bosses should not have so much health that you can't understand how they exist (Arishok). Bosses shouldn't have attacks that follow completely different physical laws than anyone else's attacks do (Ancient Rock Wraith). Bosses should not engage in behaviour that makes no sense for them, but exists only to offer a specific challenge to the player (Corypheus).

To tackle this from the gameplay POV as well (you did a great job articulating the world coherence issues!) - the boss fights should not force the player to fight the mechanics. 

Corypheus and the Wraith required to struggle against the horrible, horrible pathfinding. The fight wasn't about any kind of skill - it was making sure that each party member actually moved fast enough to react to the ridiculous damage that was being influced per unit time. On easy difficulties this was, of course, trivial. 

But on nightmare the game turned into fighting the camera and crappy AI pathfinding, because you needed very fine movements that the game just was not designed to deal with. 

[terdferguson123]

I liked how boss fights were done in BG2. The bosses weren't overpowering in the sense that you just beat on them over and over until they died, instead you had to figure out their weaknesses (ex: mage bosses you need to strip their spell protections using breech spells first) Once you are able to find out the weakness they go down pretty quickly. Some of DA2 boss fights were okay with the current setup though, Corypheus comes to mind.

[Dabrikishaw]

Enigmatick wrote...

Are people still mad that there wasn't an Illusive Man boss fight so they take the "Boss fights are too videogamey" line take it of contest and create ****ty threads like these? Jesus Christ BSN is immature.

I would have loved the hell out of an Illusive Man Boss fight. When I saw the design of it I though "Damn that would have be fun".

[Chiramu]

A way to make the boss battles more interesting is to have the damage we deal to the monster to hit for the damage we deal instead of it being based on ROLLS. I hate that dice roll, I have the worst luck so battles are always super unlucky for me :<.

I would rather the bosses get a boost to their health and defenses and have us deal the correct amount of damage for the gear and stats we have.

[Fast Jimmy]

In Exile wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The thing that's wrong with boss fights is that they break the rules of the game setting. Bosses should not have so much health that you can't understand how they exist (Arishok). Bosses shouldn't have attacks that follow completely different physical laws than anyone else's attacks do (Ancient Rock Wraith). Bosses should not engage in behaviour that makes no sense for them, but exists only to offer a specific challenge to the player (Corypheus).

To tackle this from the gameplay POV as well (you did a great job articulating the world coherence issues!) - the boss fights should not force the player to fight the mechanics. 

Corypheus and the Wraith required to struggle against the horrible, horrible pathfinding. The fight wasn't about any kind of skill - it was making sure that each party member actually moved fast enough to react to the ridiculous damage that was being influced per unit time. On easy difficulties this was, of course, trivial. 

But on nightmare the game turned into fighting the camera and crappy AI pathfinding, because you needed very fine movements that the game just was not designed to deal with. 

Arguably, you can lump the Arishok battle into this as well, since the one-on-one duel gave absolutely zero way to defeat him unless you either A) had a specifc build - Rock Armor and cold spells for a mage, archery and using decoys for a rogue and the Reaver spec with a warrior... and also using poisons or other specialized potions, somethign that is never needed for any of the other gameplay segments, nor hinted at during any of the gameplay.

That is another huge fallacy of the DA2 bosses (and their combat in general). It relies entirely too much on twitch mechanics and recycling the same tactics over and over that it comes as a HUGE "out of nowhere" feel when a boss shows up where these tactics are not effective at all. This is the same problem (IMO) of the DE:HR boss battles, but for a slightly different reason. That game let you play as a non-combat build the entire game, until the punishingly combat-focused boss battles came into play. With those, there was zero learning curve in developing combat tactics or thinking "hey, I might need to put some points into health or fighting" until it was, quite literally, too late. 

DA2 falls into that same category. Worrying about resistances, or enemy special attacks, or how versatile your build is, or the usage of special items/potions were never even part of the normal experience. It was only when they threw you into the specific boss battle, where you standard tactics barely do anything except whittle down the main boss, that you even begin to suspect that you may have done something wrong. And even then, you aren't given much to work off of in terms of why it is ineffective, or what steps you can do to improve the build you have.

That's not hard combat. That's just poor combat, contrived and conjured in a way to make things more difficult "just cause."

[Roronoryu]

So what next? Shall they also remove leveling, crafting new gear, enchantment (Sandal is looking at look angry), just because they are too... videogamey, in a videogame, made from a videogaming studio, for videogamers? I say you should stop playing videogames. Boss fight are nice and epic, especially when they are well made.

[jkflipflopDAO]

The Teryn of Whatever wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

The Teryn of Whatever wrote...

Too videogamey? Seriously? Dragon Age is a video game series. God the BSN is full of weird, sad people.

It is a quote that Casey Hudson, Producer of the Mass Effect series, said about why there was no boss fight at the end of ME3. 

I heard they were originally planning to have a boss fight against the Illusive Man, but thought it was silly and didn't work so they scrapped it. I've got nothing against final bosses in a game, so long as it fits the feel of the game in question. Boss fights in Deus Ex: HR were generally annoying and felt out of place, with the exception of the one in the Missing Link DLC, which I actually enjoyed since the main challenge came from the boss' support units and their placement rather than on the boss being ridiculously overpowered.

I hope DA3 has a boss fight at the end and I hope it's nice and challenging.

. . . that's because fighting TIM would have been lame. It would have felt like Saren 2.0. 

You know what would have been cool? Shep orders Joker to get the Normandy close to Harbinger so the squad can board. Right as Shep and Co. get onboard, Harbinger turns around and destroys the Normandy along with the rest of your crew. Now you fight through Harbinger's insides while he's thrashing around, throwing indoctrination mental attacks and sending some husks at you. Eventually you fight your way to his giant Eezo "heart" and take him out from the insides like the reaper corpse in ME2. Shep and the squad die in the resulting explosion, but they're remembered forever as heroes. 

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
That is another huge fallacy of the DA2 bosses (and their combat in general). It relies entirely too much on twitch mechanics and recycling the same tactics over and over that it comes as a HUGE "out of nowhere" feel when a boss shows up where these tactics are not effective at all. This is the same problem (IMO) of the DE:HR boss battles, but for a slightly different reason. That game let you play as a non-combat build the entire game, until the punishingly combat-focused boss battles came into play. With those, there was zero learning curve in developing combat tactics or thinking "hey, I might need to put some points into health or fighting" until it was, quite literally, too late.

DE:HR still wasn't as annoying as DA:O, because even with 0 actual combat points, you're still playing an FPS. So your FPS skills can come very much in handy.

DA2 falls into that same category. Worrying about resistances, or enemy special attacks, or how versatile your build is, or the usage of special items/potions were never even part of the normal experience. It was only when they threw you into the specific boss battle, where you standard tactics barely do anything except whittle down the main boss, that you even begin to suspect that you may have done something wrong. And even then, you aren't given much to work off of in terms of why it is ineffective, or what steps you can do to improve the build you have.

See, I don't agree with part of what you say here - resistance (on nigthmare) come up all the time, and enemise do have special attacks (e.g. mages and rogues) that can 1-hit KO your entire party. And certainly you can't play nightmare if your builds aren't optimal.

What happens, though, is that DA2 is not a mobile game - you actually cheat the game when you use any kind of mobility, and most fights are (designed) to have you use aggro mechanics to basically whittle down characters. But of course this doesn't work so well in the boss fights, because the boss fights force you to move around in nonsensical and atypical ways.

The other really big issue is the mobility. DA2 doesn't actually force you into very narrow boxes where the fight devolves into you running around in a circle. But that's what boss fights are. Like, literally sometimes - with Legacy you're just running around in a circle for like 40% of the fight.

[Fast Jimmy]

^

I don't disagree with that. Kiting wasn't just exploitable... it was d@mn near necessary for much of the game. That is not good encounter design.

EDIT: And yes, on Nightmare, resistances came up much more often, but they were often arbitrary as hell.

Undead are immune to nature? Mercernaries are immune to cold? Quanri are immune to electricity? How does any of THAT make sense? 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 19 avril 2013 - 12:21 .

[Enigmatick]

^Enchanment!

[ShaggyWolf]

Last time I checked we ARE playing video games...

It's been said already. DA2 had bad boss fights. My preference would be that they make better boss fights in the future, instead of not doing them at all.

Or else what's next? DA2 had repetitive (bad) level design. So let's get rid of game levels in DA3, as well. Silly argument, I know, but I make it to present the idea that yeah, sometimes video-game makers get some things "wrong," when designing games, but it's all wasted if they throw those concepts away instead of learning from and improving on them.

And lastly, I just like boss fights. Not all games should have them, of course, but Dragon Age, being a very combat-heavy setting/game would feel wierd to me if I didn't get to beat up some big-bad every now and then. And even though the only DA2 boss fight I liked was in MOTA, I wouldn't want to imagine the game without them.

[Allan Schumacher]

Wulfram wrote...

What I miss are when you're fighting a whole party of enemies who are about as tough as your guys. Dragon Age doesn't seem to do that very often - the boss fights always seem to be Huge Bag of Hitpoints + mook adds.

Agreed!

[Allan Schumacher]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I thought the Saren boss fight made perfect sense. Didn't really make sense how killing Saren deactivated Sovereign's shields, exactly... but the fight itself made a lot of sense.

I disliked that, after talking Saren down and having Saren shoot himself (which felt amazingly super awesome and badass), I still had some weird "round 2... fight!"

I have little issue with fighting Saren if you're not able to persuade/intimidate him, but I didn't like that I epically talked him down only for the game to then come back and go "NOPE!"

Two of my favourite RPGs ever are games where I successfully defeated the "final boss" by "winning the conversation" rather than winning in combat.

(And yes, I think DA would be better served if you can "lose" the odd conversation here and there - as by counterpoint it allows you to win it).

Arguably, you can lump the Arishok battle into this as well, since the
one-on-one duel gave absolutely zero way to defeat him unless you either
A) had a specifc build - Rock Armor and cold spells for a mage, archery
and using decoys for a rogue and the Reaver spec with a warrior... and
also using poisons or other specialized potions, somethign that is never
needed for any of the other gameplay segments, nor hinted at during any
of the gameplay.

Sadly, I found out that you can, in fact, beat him with a standard two-handed weapon warrior....
(During certification, I was doing a playthrough on the PS3 which was having some odd crash issues, and decided to fight the Arishok solo in a duel.  I *really* wish I had known this existed before hand, as that fight was mega tedious.  Slowly wearing him down was fine, until he decided to pop the odd healing potion.  Fortunately he did eventually run out......)

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 19 avril 2013 - 03:16 .

[kathic]

I liked the rock wraith boss in DA2 because it reminded me more of WoW. A boss that requires movement and coordination rather than just healing and dealing damage and tanking.

[Nashimura]

Pretty much all the powers and abilties in dragon age are "videogamey" which im not even sure if thats a bad thing.

[Iakus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Sadly, I found out that you can, in fact, beat him with a standard two-handed weapon warrior....
(During certification, I was doing a playthrough on the PS3 which was having some odd crash issues, and decided to fight the Arishok solo in a duel.  I *really* wish I had known this existed before hand, as that fight was mega tedious.  Slowly wearing him down was fine, until he decided to pop the odd healing potion.  Fortunately he did eventually run out......)

For the record, i have been able to defeat the Arishok as a dagger rogue without decoy (though having decaoy does in fact make the fight a lot easier)

And I've beaten him as a sword and board warrior.  Though that fight took for-frakking-ever! 

[Allan Schumacher]

In the words of Ash: "You have my sympathies"

[metatheurgist]

Boss fights with repeating moves are a staple of Action games. Maybe we could start moving away from action game mechanics in our RPGs and start going back towards RPG mechanics in RPGs?

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

I want Vizzini-style boss fight.

It'd make a nice change.