(Raid) Bosses - would this work?

For Diablo 4, it looks like stun effects continuously applied by multiple players build up and can eventually stun bosses.

Do you think this kind of mechanic could work well for MMO bosses? Thoughts?

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Noaani

I don't see any reason why this kind of thing couldn't work.

Damokles

There are many mmorpgs where a boss has a stun bar, and i like most of them.

Ferryman

Ravudha wrote: »

For Diablo 4, it looks like stun effects continuously applied by multiple players build up and can eventually stun bosses.

Do you think this kind of mechanic could work well for MMO bosses? Thoughts?

This sounds kind of nice feature. It also adds some strategy to time the stun in right place.

Mesis

It works in Guild Wars 2 and is a core mechanic of many fights

Ferryman

Actually this kind of mechanic could be used with other CCs aswell and not just with stuns, like roots, slows, silence and such.

Nagash

Mesis wrote: »

It works in Guild Wars 2 and is a core mechanic of many fights

I was thinking the same thing

Wandering Mist

Mesis wrote: »

It works in Guild Wars 2 and is a core mechanic of many fights

It does indeed, however it's important to note that the raid boss encounters are designed around that CC bar, and often success in the fights relies on depleting the bar at just the right moment.

That's the thing about many of the suggestions I see on this forum. It's not just a matter of shoving stuff in and hoping for the best. If you are going to add in a feature from another game it needs to be integrated properly and the developers need to understand WHY the feature works in the first place.

unknown

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Caeryl

Tsukasa wrote: »

Not a fan of the idea of bosses getting CC'd from skills.
Does that mean I want CC-focused classes to be useless? No. CC classes should be viable for damage multiplication debuffs or slowing down minions.

Suggestion from Dragon Nest:
Freeze debuff increases damage taken on the frozen target and it can stack twice. This mechanic put Ice Witch class in the supportive role. It's very original, fun and efficient. Bosses can move while frozen.

Am I brainwashed by this game? No. I recently played Dauntless(another action combat) for few months and was annoyed by the staggering mechanics. It made the game too easy. No, no no to CC on bosses.

Bosses NOT being susceptible to CC is idiotic. It removes half of the role of support classes when bosses are unstoppable monstrosities for literally no reason other than being a boss. A conjoined effort from multiple players should be able to CC anything in some way.

A CC bar doesn’t seem particularly effective for intuitive gameplay, but a large amount of cc spells hitting a boss within a short time frame should work on to some degree.

A humanoid boss should be susceptible to everything a player character is susceptible to.

Monstrous bosses should have unique susceptibilities based on what they are.

For example, a massive dragon could be susceptible to blinds and temporarily crippled limbs due to its size, while being highly resistant to slows and immune to stuns for the same reason.

A large spider should be susceptible to slows and stuns being easily tripped up on its many legs, but resistant to blinds and crippled limbs due to having extra eyes and limbs.

Nothing feels worse than seeing “This target is immune” when a stun or cc effect is necessary to save a teammate or yourself, especially when there’s nothing about the boss to suggest why it should be immune.

Wandering Mist

Caeryl wrote: »

Tsukasa wrote: »

Not a fan of the idea of bosses getting CC'd from skills.
Does that mean I want CC-focused classes to be useless? No. CC classes should be viable for damage multiplication debuffs or slowing down minions.

Suggestion from Dragon Nest:
Freeze debuff increases damage taken on the frozen target and it can stack twice. This mechanic put Ice Witch class in the supportive role. It's very original, fun and efficient. Bosses can move while frozen.

Am I brainwashed by this game? No. I recently played Dauntless(another action combat) for few months and was annoyed by the staggering mechanics. It made the game too easy. No, no no to CC on bosses.

Bosses NOT being susceptible to CC is idiotic. It removes half of the role of support classes when bosses are unstoppable monstrosities for literally no reason other than being a boss. A conjoined effort from multiple players should be able to CC anything in some way.

A CC bar doesn’t seem particularly effective for intuitive gameplay, but a large amount of cc spells hitting a boss within a short time frame should work on to some degree.

A humanoid boss should be susceptible to everything a player character is susceptible to.

Monstrous bosses should have unique susceptibilities based on what they are.

For example, a massive dragon could be susceptible to blinds and temporarily crippled limbs due to its size, while being highly resistant to slows and immune to stuns for the same reason.

A large spider should be susceptible to slows and stuns being easily tripped up on its many legs, but resistant to blinds and crippled limbs due to having extra eyes and limbs.

Nothing feels worse than seeing “This target is immune” when a stun or cc effect is necessary to save a teammate or yourself, especially when there’s nothing about the boss to suggest why it should be immune.

The reason why most bosses can't be CCed is that it would defeat the point of having a tank. Why have someone intentionally take hits from the boss when you can just CC it whenever it does a big attack?

If you want CC to be used in boss fights you have 2 options:

1. CC-able adds that need to be managed throughout the fight.
2. Making the boss susceptible but only at very specific points in the fight (through the use of a CC bar).

unknown

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Caeryl

Tsukasa wrote: »

Tsukasa wrote: »

or slowing down minions while the tank is keeping the boss occupied.

^ yeah I was thinking about tanks, too, for this scenario. Edited the post to make it clear.

Here too,

Tsukasa wrote: »

getting CC'd from skills. [/b]

notice I said "from skills". There could be a mechanic for some bosses to get staggered, like focusing their head during a certain occasion(not doable all the time, otherwise too boring and easy).

Caeryl wrote: »

Nothing feels worse than seeing “This target is immune” when a stun or cc effect is necessary to save a teammate or yourself, especially when there’s nothing about the boss to suggest why it should be immune.

If the fight is easy enough to do it 2-man party, it's unfair for the boss for your teammate to be revived. I don't see a problem here. Easy fights are boring, just get better. It's so much fun to learn the boss mechanics rather than win with a repetitive strategy that works on every other boss.

Where did you find the path onto that wild and off-topic tangent?

No where did I ever say fights should be designed for two people to complete it easily, I said if multiple players (aka 4-6) are casting cc abilities all together, they should be affecting a boss. It doesn’t need to be able to permanently disable the boss, but it shouldn’t be made worthless when directed at a boss simply because it has the title of “boss”.

Four mages casting a snare field in the same area should slow anything on it, trash mobs more than a boss, but the boss SHOULD be affected.

It’s a cop out to make bosses immune to all CC affects, or only subject to a lull phase by what basically amounts to a quick time event.

CC immunity timers to prevent stacking CC endlessly is fair. Certain bosses having full immunity to certain effect based on the sort of monster they are (such as ghosts being immune to all physical disablements) is fair. Requiring a large amount of players use CC simultaneously when the targets are more robust is fair.

Having Bandit Boss be an unstoppable force for literally no reason is not fair. It’s ridiculous and nonsensical.

Caeryl

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Tsukasa wrote: »

Not a fan of the idea of bosses getting CC'd from skills.
Does that mean I want CC-focused classes to be useless? No. CC classes should be viable for damage multiplication debuffs or slowing down minions.

Suggestion from Dragon Nest:
Freeze debuff increases damage taken on the frozen target and it can stack twice. This mechanic put Ice Witch class in the supportive role. It's very original, fun and efficient. Bosses can move while frozen.

Am I brainwashed by this game? No. I recently played Dauntless(another action combat) for few months and was annoyed by the staggering mechanics. It made the game too easy. No, no no to CC on bosses.

Bosses NOT being susceptible to CC is idiotic. It removes half of the role of support classes when bosses are unstoppable monstrosities for literally no reason other than being a boss. A conjoined effort from multiple players should be able to CC anything in some way.

A CC bar doesn’t seem particularly effective for intuitive gameplay, but a large amount of cc spells hitting a boss within a short time frame should work on to some degree.

A humanoid boss should be susceptible to everything a player character is susceptible to.

Monstrous bosses should have unique susceptibilities based on what they are.

For example, a massive dragon could be susceptible to blinds and temporarily crippled limbs due to its size, while being highly resistant to slows and immune to stuns for the same reason.

A large spider should be susceptible to slows and stuns being easily tripped up on its many legs, but resistant to blinds and crippled limbs due to having extra eyes and limbs.

Nothing feels worse than seeing “This target is immune” when a stun or cc effect is necessary to save a teammate or yourself, especially when there’s nothing about the boss to suggest why it should be immune.

The reason why most bosses can't be CCed is that it would defeat the point of having a tank. Why have someone intentionally take hits from the boss when you can just CC it whenever it does a big attack?

If you want CC to be used in boss fights you have 2 options:

1. CC-able adds that need to be managed throughout the fight.
2. Making the boss susceptible but only at very specific points in the fight (through the use of a CC bar).

If the fight is designed properly, logical CC options are perfectly feasible. Requiring some adds be subdued before the boss can be affected by CC is perfectly doable (ex. mages buff the boss, casting protective spells). The bosses wouldn’t always be CC’d. All it takes is an immunity timer between CCs or during key phases and attacks to deal with that.

A tank would always be useful for positioning and soaking the damage while grouping adds. A tank could be subject to ramping damage while under solo threat, giving groups options to bring an off-tank and juggle aggro, try to outheal the damage, or CC bomb to reset to damage amp. A tank could be the one responsible for blocking (literal blocking) projectiles that would otherwise hit the group. A tank is still subject to the same mechanics as the group, plenty of situations which would be much easier to handle if they could reposition with a brief pause in boss damage.

Making all bosses immune to CC is the easy option to take for design. But Ashes is trying to make things more complex than the path of least resistance, so I can only hope they put more thought into boss fights than throwing out any idea of CC options for support classes.

Fathym

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Tsukasa wrote: »

Not a fan of the idea of bosses getting CC'd from skills.
Does that mean I want CC-focused classes to be useless? No. CC classes should be viable for damage multiplication debuffs or slowing down minions.

Suggestion from Dragon Nest:
Freeze debuff increases damage taken on the frozen target and it can stack twice. This mechanic put Ice Witch class in the supportive role. It's very original, fun and efficient. Bosses can move while frozen.

Am I brainwashed by this game? No. I recently played Dauntless(another action combat) for few months and was annoyed by the staggering mechanics. It made the game too easy. No, no no to CC on bosses.

Bosses NOT being susceptible to CC is idiotic. It removes half of the role of support classes when bosses are unstoppable monstrosities for literally no reason other than being a boss. A conjoined effort from multiple players should be able to CC anything in some way.

A CC bar doesn’t seem particularly effective for intuitive gameplay, but a large amount of cc spells hitting a boss within a short time frame should work on to some degree.

A humanoid boss should be susceptible to everything a player character is susceptible to.

Monstrous bosses should have unique susceptibilities based on what they are.

For example, a massive dragon could be susceptible to blinds and temporarily crippled limbs due to its size, while being highly resistant to slows and immune to stuns for the same reason.

A large spider should be susceptible to slows and stuns being easily tripped up on its many legs, but resistant to blinds and crippled limbs due to having extra eyes and limbs.

Nothing feels worse than seeing “This target is immune” when a stun or cc effect is necessary to save a teammate or yourself, especially when there’s nothing about the boss to suggest why it should be immune.

The reason why most bosses can't be CCed is that it would defeat the point of having a tank. Why have someone intentionally take hits from the boss when you can just CC it whenever it does a big attack?

If you want CC to be used in boss fights you have 2 options:

1. CC-able adds that need to be managed throughout the fight.
2. Making the boss susceptible but only at very specific points in the fight (through the use of a CC bar).

This is only really an issue under the assumption that CC abilities are widespread and have quite low cool downs which i believe would be a terrible design decision to make anyways. Having a massive amounts of easily accessible stun mechanics is the easiest way to destroy the pvp aspect of any mmo game. However, if stun mechanics are scarce with long cool downs and require multiple simultaneous activations from different members of the group, this adds an extra layer of depth to boss fights mechanics, ultimately making the experience more interesting and the skill ceiling higher. The devs could even make certain mechanics on boss require party coordinated CC to prevent wipes on specific 1 hit mechanics.

Also, as you said, its very easy to just make some boss attacks or mechanics uninterruptible if the devs feel that CC would cheese the experience. In those instances they could just add an aura or some other notification on the boss that represents to the players that CC will not be effective for a certain amount of time.

unknown

This content has been removed.

Caeryl

Tsukasa wrote: »

@Caeryl
You were talking about saving a teammate(I assumed CC then revive/heal/too much kiting). If not 2-man party then the other members should be able to keep the boss busy long enough.

I don't really disagree with the rest, so nothing to say until we see by ourselves(alpha1?).

For melee classes, hard CC a boss usually means a chance for an all-out spam when they won't fear animation locks and such things. It narrows the gap between good and bad players. I hate this.

You assumed wrong. I don't play to recover a near wipe, I play to avoid deaths at all, like most people do.

It actually allows for a larger difference between average and skilled players when fights are designed around CC being able to affect a boss. A team can play it standard and simply face-tank the boss while doing mechanics, soaking more damage and pushing for more heals. Or the group can coordinate and with proper timing of their CC abilities, take pressure off the healers so you can run more buff-cc supports over pure healing supports. A tank can focus more for their own sustain or more corralling of adds because they can trust the group to lay CC spells and give them decent time to leave to boss on its on while they focus on other aspects of the fight, rather than leaving that all to an offtank.

And a melee DPS having a few seconds to actually do their job is the exact opposite of a problem. There shouldn't be animation locks in the first place, it makes combat clunky and punishing for a melee player for no good reason. Cancel the damage with the animation if they really feel the need to, but locking players in animations with no ability to cancel out to dodge or block is awful.

DrEpoch

I like stun bar.

Nagash

Fooshyy wrote: »

I like stun bar.

I like to stun with a bar

Damokles

Nagash wrote: »

Fooshyy wrote: »

I like stun bar.

I like to stun with a bar

I like bar, owned by stun.

Wandering Mist

Healawin wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Tsukasa wrote: »

Not a fan of the idea of bosses getting CC'd from skills.
Does that mean I want CC-focused classes to be useless? No. CC classes should be viable for damage multiplication debuffs or slowing down minions.

Suggestion from Dragon Nest:
Freeze debuff increases damage taken on the frozen target and it can stack twice. This mechanic put Ice Witch class in the supportive role. It's very original, fun and efficient. Bosses can move while frozen.

Am I brainwashed by this game? No. I recently played Dauntless(another action combat) for few months and was annoyed by the staggering mechanics. It made the game too easy. No, no no to CC on bosses.

Bosses NOT being susceptible to CC is idiotic. It removes half of the role of support classes when bosses are unstoppable monstrosities for literally no reason other than being a boss. A conjoined effort from multiple players should be able to CC anything in some way.

A CC bar doesn’t seem particularly effective for intuitive gameplay, but a large amount of cc spells hitting a boss within a short time frame should work on to some degree.

A humanoid boss should be susceptible to everything a player character is susceptible to.

Monstrous bosses should have unique susceptibilities based on what they are.

For example, a massive dragon could be susceptible to blinds and temporarily crippled limbs due to its size, while being highly resistant to slows and immune to stuns for the same reason.

A large spider should be susceptible to slows and stuns being easily tripped up on its many legs, but resistant to blinds and crippled limbs due to having extra eyes and limbs.

Nothing feels worse than seeing “This target is immune” when a stun or cc effect is necessary to save a teammate or yourself, especially when there’s nothing about the boss to suggest why it should be immune.

The reason why most bosses can't be CCed is that it would defeat the point of having a tank. Why have someone intentionally take hits from the boss when you can just CC it whenever it does a big attack?

If you want CC to be used in boss fights you have 2 options:

1. CC-able adds that need to be managed throughout the fight.
2. Making the boss susceptible but only at very specific points in the fight (through the use of a CC bar).

This is only really an issue under the assumption that CC abilities are widespread and have quite low cool downs which i believe would be a terrible design decision to make anyways. Having a massive amounts of easily accessible stun mechanics is the easiest way to destroy the pvp aspect of any mmo game. However, if stun mechanics are scarce with long cool downs and require multiple simultaneous activations from different members of the group, this adds an extra layer of depth to boss fights mechanics, ultimately making the experience more interesting and the skill ceiling higher. The devs could even make certain mechanics on boss require party coordinated CC to prevent wipes on specific 1 hit mechanics.

Also, as you said, its very easy to just make some boss attacks or mechanics uninterruptible if the devs feel that CC would cheese the experience. In those instances they could just add an aura or some other notification on the boss that represents to the players that CC will not be effective for a certain amount of time.

If that's the angle they are going for with the boss fights then I am perfectly fine with that. I have absolutely no problem with having CC-able bosses as long as the fight is well thought out and the decisions make sense. What I hate seeing is a games developer putting features and mechanics in their games just because they were successful in other games.

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