176 réponses à ce sujet

[The Night Mammoth]

The distinction between surviving the encounter by running away, and surviving the encounter by killing the bad guy, whilst still being given loot and rewards, is completely arbitrary, and absolutely nothing new for games.

Also, apart from the fact that it would feel out of place in a game based on scaling, and the careful managment your team and equipment so you can take on increasingly more difficult encounters, putting a monster in just to make the player feel less powerful, is stupid and achieves nothing. Games already provide plenty of challenge, and this is basically contrary to the entire point of leveling up.

Modifié par The Night Mammoth, 15 septembre 2013 - 04:32 .

[Angrywolves]

I don't think there will be any.
At the beginning of the game there will be enemies that are too strong for the player, enemies like Dragons, old gods, perhaps certain demons, Corypheus type magespawns, and oyhers.
By the end of the game you'll be able to kill them all. To kill anyone and anything .
Flemeth, Morrigan , Leliana, the leaders of Tevinter, Orlais, the Grand Cleric, your other party members.
Anyone and everyone , which should make the genocidal evil dude players happy.
They may not like the consequences .
So players should exercise caution when killing major figures in the game, or practicing mindless slaughter.
But therr won't be any limits.

[Fast Jimmy]

In Exile wrote...

It would just be lame to make the boss indestructible and it would amount to a pathfinding battle against the companion AI to run away.

I think the boss should be killable by conventional means, in some way, shape or form. But I also think there should be bosses that even the highest level players (or perhaps the highest possible level for that given area) should have serious problems beating, to the point of being impossible in all but the most well executed/lucky situations. 

I think more "losing a fight =/= instant death/reload screen" would be nice. Examples such as the Ser Cauthrien fight are perfect. As far as making running away the hard portion of the fight against an invincible boss, that sounds a little too outside of player party tactics and, like In Exile said, a battle against path finding and controls, which is beyond infuriating for the player and only looks to hurt the game. 

I think a plot/story reward (like getting the special endings of Crono Trigger by beating Lavos early on in the game) for beating these bosses is a good avenue, rather than making them truly I killable by any means neccessary. 

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
I think the boss should be killable by conventional means, in some way, shape or form. But I also think there should be bosses that even the highest level players (or perhaps the highest possible level for that given area) should have serious problems beating, to the point of being impossible in all but the most well executed/lucky situations.

I think more "losing a fight =/= instant death/reload screen" would be nice. Examples such as the Ser Cauthrien fight are perfect. As far as making running away the hard portion of the fight against an invincible boss, that sounds a little too outside of player party tactics and, like In Exile said, a battle against path finding and controls, which is beyond infuriating for the player and only looks to hurt the game. 

I'm not opposed to this in principle, the problem is that usually it's just nonsensical that they've picked this particular boss to be unkillable. 

Take the Ser Cautherin example. Design-wise, that's battle probably one of the cleverest Bioware's done since losing isn't a game over. But conceptually - how OP Cautherin is - turns out to be ridiculous. 

I think a plot/story reward (like getting the special endings of Crono Trigger by beating Lavos early on in the game) for beating these bosses is a good avenue, rather than making them truly I killable by any means neccessary. 

I agree. 

[Blackrising]

No, thank you.
Bosses that are impossible to kill are nothing but a pain as far as I'm concerned. It just makes me feel frustrated when I've been leveling up like an idiot and I KNOW I would be able to kill the damn thing if the game didn't prevent me from doing so.

Something like the Ser Cauthrien situation would be absolutely fine, and interesting, but unkillable bosses? Hell no.

[Han Shot First]

Star fury wrote...

Something not that cheap as Kai Leng would be nice.

I think Bioware made the right call in not providing a way to save Thane. Where they stumbled is in not providing an explanation as to why Shepard and his two squaddies couldn't intervene.

[Fast Jimmy]

Take the Ser Cautherin example. Design-wise, that's battle probably one of the cleverest Bioware's done since losing isn't a game over. But conceptually - how OP Cautherin is - turns out to be ridiculous. 

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people talk about this. I beat Cauthrien the first playthrough I did and it was, while not easy, not nearly as difficult as I hear people make it out to be. I honestly had more trouble with the High Dragon, who do the bite move on my party members just seconds after re-positioning itself, and pretty much ripped through that NPC.

I actually didn't know about the Fort Drakon section until my second playthrough, when I wanted to see what happened if you surrendered. I didn't even know you could die and then get sent to jail until coming here on the BSN. Then again... I played as a Mage and figured out that rolling a three Mage AW party was insanely over-powered my very first playthrough. So maybe that was he reason.


But, regardless... I wouldn't even be against a built-in way for every fight to not result in a Game Over screen. This would be contextual depending on where you are and what enemy you were fighting, but it would be very interesting, instead of sending the player to the Reload screen all the time.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 15 septembre 2013 - 04:46 .

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people talk about this. I beat Cauthrien the first playthrough I did and it was, while not easy, not nearly as difficult as I hear people make it out to be. I honestly had more trouble with the High Dragon, who do the bite move on my party members just seconds after re-positioning itself, and pretty much ripped through that NPC.  

Cautherin deals a lot of damage and soaks it up pretty well, so she's challenging to deal with compared to almost any other fight in DA:O because of how easily she can devastate large amounts of health. She's also more mobile than other bosses. The high dragon - to me - was pretty much a joke battle (like Flemeth). Took a while, but nothing really major.

I was like you - I also never lost to her and found out about Drakon using the BSN - but I found her much harder than any other enemy in game.

But, regardless... I wouldn't even be against a built-in way for every fight to not result in a Game Over screen. This would be contextual depending on where you are and what enemy you were fighting, but it would be very interesting, instead of sending the player to the Reload screen all the time.

The problem with that is that the game goes nuts on branching content. You can't make every mook fight branching. 

[Xiltas]

In Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword (the first one to be published outside of Japan), there was a chapter where there was a boss that was near to impossible for you to beat at that time. The objective was not to fight him, but merely to get to and talk to him.
If you actually fought and killed him (whether by cheating or just pure luck), then you failed the chapter.


Another interesting example from Fire Emblem would be the 9th title, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.
Throughout the course of the game, there's an enemy who is impossible to fight the first two encounters, simply because his stats outmatch any possible character at that time, also he has an armor that protects him from any damage.
On the last occasion you meet, you're forced to fight him alone with your main character, who gets a weapon with which he can damage the Black Knight. The fight is very hard, and even if you max out the protagonists stats, you're not guaranteed to win.
You have to equip him the right set of skills, and you need a bit of luck.
You get different characters to join you whether you win or lose, but that's not relevant anymore.

[werewoof]

i honestly kind of like the idea. i like my protagonists to actually feel vulnerable and maybe fights with more unique outcomes than just "hit the boss until it dies" would be an interesting occasion.

im sure bosses that you literally can never kill would rustle some jimmies in the gamer crowd but at the very least, maybe fights that are a little more optional. like that bulldozer in Alan Wake, you have the option to fight it or to dodge it to get to the gate. either way there's a high chance of getting run over and you still have to fight a bunch of other enemies but it made for an interesting scenario.

[Wulfram]

In Exile wrote...

I'm not opposed to this in principle, the problem is that usually it's just nonsensical that they've picked this particular boss to be unkillable. 

Take the Ser Cautherin example. Design-wise, that's battle probably one of the cleverest Bioware's done since losing isn't a game over. But conceptually - how OP Cautherin is - turns out to be ridiculous. 

They could have toned down Cauthrien to avoid the oddity of why she's quite so powerful and added a few more lieutenants to her escort. 

[Knight of Dane]

The only reallydifficult fights I've been in in Dragon Age was DA2 High Dragon on nightmare and the Harvester from Amgarrak.

Cauthrien just takes a good tank to manage and then use fireball and similar knockdown aoe talents to take out the archers.

The high dragons in Origins was easy, bring dog, a healer and archers. Dog is immune tho the pick up move of the Dragon and then there's just fire resistance for the rest.

I'd love some fights like the Legond of Zelda, just less of the "eyes are the weak spot"

Dragons Dogma also had armored enemies that took knocking off the armor to get to the flesh. Dragon Age, please steal this. Armored Ogres could make a sensible comeback.

Or armored Pride Demons, eh?

[ISpeakTheTruth]

No, unwinnable is a horrible story mechanic. However I'm fine with the idea of a situation that is 99% unwinnable but if you're really good at the game, you're leveled up enough then you can win... maybe.

That is a good 'unwinnable' situation.

[Degenerate Rakia Time]

I dont really see a point, personally if i see i cant win a fight i'll just cheat to win it

[Star fury]

Han Shot First wrote...
I think Bioware made the right call in not providing a way to save Thane. Where they stumbled is in not providing an explanation as to why Shepard and his two squaddies couldn't intervene.

And in dumbing down Thane, I mean going into brawl with a guy who has a sword.

[Zobo]

Defeat by design is always a terrible idea in a game that is marketed as a full of player agency make your own adventure in a way you want it experience. All that player agency goes out of the window when you impose unavoidable cut scene defeats. Totally unavoidable in-gameplay defeats so popular in jRPGs are no better.
I loved how in Cauthrien's case it was possible to fight through her instead of getting jailed, I hated how the Architect knocks you out of concious no matter what in a cut scene so we can have a linear unrealistic jail escape section right after that happens. I believe if you get your ass locked by your enemies, there should be some horrible consequences both for your dignity and resources, instead what we usually get in games is a cheap escape and a chest full of your previously confiscated equipment right around the corer. Writers just don't take the imprisonment theme seriously. I think it always should be thought up really good and should be an actual dilemma for a player to make a conscious decision about instead of being just forced. For example, one of your companions gets captured (also there should be a thought out plot to explain why exactly), then your enemies tell they would like to trade him/her for you, should you agree, something bad and actually meaningful happens to you in their hands, should you refuse the deal, something bad happens to your squad mate. See, a choice to think about and consequences. Much better from a cheap unavoidable cut scene defeat.
Yet let's come back to our sheep.
Another approach to design an unkillable enemy is to make it so even through you can't kill an enemy, you don't have to lose or run away either. Someone has mentioned Silent Hill 2 in this topic and that is how it has been done there. You hold up for a specific amount of time, then that is your enemy who runs away, not you. This approach should be carried out with caution of cause, if it feels like you just took away 99% of your enemy's health before he/she/it ran away, that would be really cheap. If it feels like you took away like 50% of your enemy's health before the retreat on the enemy's part, that would be reasonable. The way your enemy escapes also should make sense. Cut scene staged Kai Leng-like escapes are cheap and feel like railroading. A 50% damaged dragon simply flying away to the clouds where you can't get it done not in a cut scene, but simply during gameplay, would feel reasonable.
Yet another approach to design an unkillable enemy is making a resurrecting/reincarnating enemy. Good example of this would be Resident Evil 3, where a really hard to fight against boss called Nemesis would attack you on many occasions throughout the game and you can try to either escape, either to fight him. Fighting may result in two things: 1). You get killed - game over, 2). You "kill" Nemesis for a time being, yet being a zombie-based mutant he will occasionally come back from the dead to haunt you even more. Nemesis fights were really difficult and resource-heavy (taking away almost all of your ammo to succeed), yet on a bright side Nemesis would drop unique weapon parts every time you put him down.

[mupp3tz]

Yes, if a boss that is some sort of deity or power that cannot be simply defeated. I would be perfectly okay with something that the PC is incapable of outright killing or defeating. If it's something like Kai Leng, then no. That was just irritating for the sake of being irritating, especially when the actual fight with him was easy.

In general, though, I'd really appreciate having bosses scaled big when appropriate. Not level scaled, but physically. I absolutely hate cut scenes where they are made to look big and intimidating and then shift to gameplay where they're barely bigger than the PC.

[Maria Caliban]

Star fury wrote...

Something not that cheap as Kai Leng would be nice.

This would be cheaper, actually. Instead of Kai Leng being invincible despite you kicking his ass and eventually running away, he's be invincible despite you kicking his ass and for some reason you'd need to run away.

[Daerog]

Reminds me of that swimming monster thing in FFX when Tidus first enters Spira, or something, been a while since I played it. Other rpgs had very powerful bosses you couldn't beat when first encountered.

I wouldn't mind having an event where one has to run away from the giant boulder (in this case, a "boss"). It would be nice if we can come back to it and defeat it, though, just to get the feeling of, "Ya, that's right, I'm stronger now, I'm better now, I couldn't face you before, but now I can (because of friends or personal power)."

[Fast Jimmy]

Zobo wrote...

-snip-

dat text

[In Exile]

DaerogTheDhampir wrote...

Reminds me of that swimming monster thing in FFX when Tidus first enters Spira, or something, been a while since I played it. Other rpgs had very powerful bosses you couldn't beat when first encountered.

I wouldn't mind having an event where one has to run away from the giant boulder (in this case, a "boss"). It would be nice if we can come back to it and defeat it, though, just to get the feeling of, "Ya, that's right, I'm stronger now, I'm better now, I couldn't face you before, but now I can (because of friends or personal power)."

You can't kill Sin early on in FFX but you do beat it in combat. 

[Maria Caliban]

Zobo wrote...

Defeat by design is always a terrible idea in a game that is marketed as a full of player agency make your own adventure in a way you want it experience.

BioWare does not design their games this way.

[Fawx9]

krul2k wrote...

so a boss that cant be killed?

whats the point of the game then? the boss can just roflstomp everything until everyone is dead, noone can kill it so well theres no point to anything, you may aswell just make a pebble indestructible and call it Da Boss for all the difference anything would be

It depends on who and when the encounter occurs. If it's meant to show how much you need to grow from the beginning then it can work.

Megaman X has basically the perfect example of an unbeatable boss.