Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
(Polls) How would you like end boss encounters designed?
Taaku
Member
Number of phases / mechanics you like in your boss fights:
How long do you like yer boss fights to last?
Just trying to get some feedback and statistics for the devs to look at. Tell them what you like!
EDIT: 2nd link is working now.
How long do you like yer boss fights to last?
Just trying to get some feedback and statistics for the devs to look at. Tell them what you like!
EDIT: 2nd link is working now.
2
Comments
This is a proper mmorpg, not an instanced based one. If anyone wants a super interesting PvE encounter they make some effort and find friends to play d&d campaigns with.
Now Raid level targets and World Boss should have 2 phases with creative environmental mechanics. After all it's gonna be a DPS race + PvP mix already.
Regarding the mechanics, I hope they revolve around counterplay with the players skills, rather than having the special/unique mechanics that focus on completely invalidating player skills. I think its more fun to be able to actually stategize around and use different skills, rather than being pidgeon holed into a very specific way to beat that encounter. The "variety"/uniqueness in the gameplay encounters can come through an emphasis on which skills are needed, but there should still be many possible viable strategies. This is the difference between creating an encounter that is about "problem" solving instead of "puzzle" solving as explained in this interesting video.
Quality not quantity.
Quality over time.
I prefer a 5 - 15 min boss but very difficult which required skills rather than a mob full of PV which take 30 min to kill without needeed skills.
But in PvP World I think the bosses must be long to kill. I imagine some signs/messages which inform other players that someone is fghting a boss (like weather change, dark sky, or anything). Other players must have time to reach the boss and contest it.
So in conclusion I would tell 30 min+ only if it's a reason to increase PvP and contest.
Regading phases on mechanics, I don't think it is that important as it depends of how difficult they are.
I end up thinking of bosses in terms of how many real interactions/choices are made when fighting them, and that's the 'number' I care about.
Therefore half an hour works well for me given the design of most games, but if every single activated ability was a meaningful choice (not just a reaction to something happening or a source of damage) 15m could work even with Ashes' longer cooldowns.
For me, visual indicators of affected areas for an upcoming attack really need to be removed...it kills immersion and looks corny.. aside from the graphics being horrendous in WoW, the visual indicators of circles that are about to explode looks like a childs game...
As for Ashes...
Dragons look great, but the dragon abilities really need to be reworked.
When a Dragons ability makes a cross-stitch pattern on the ground as a visual cue for players to identify where to stand and where not to...I begin to wonder, what kind of attack from a dragon would ever do this? Its only done for the sake of adding some mechanic to the fight, to make it unique, that ultimately just puts you on the arcade visual treadmill of ridiculousness.
If you want to force good positioning, poison puddles, small volcanoes, small green glowing bushes (safe zone) etc are a much better way to guide people than red circles. Boss animations that indicate a tail swipe, frontal swipe, roll left/right, leap to target, damage reflect, etc are all good classics mechanics that force people to pay attention.
I do want a lot of mechanics on bosses. Because if there are not enough mechanics, ranged becomes too good while also being boring.
Lastly, train the players on the mechanics during leveling. Example: A L15 boss is the first time you see a lizard man. Tail swipe (get out of the way), poison spit (ranged must dodge roll), random target charge attack. At L20 you see the lizard man with the same mechanics more often as the hardest mob in a group of 3 but not a boss anymore, and missing a mechanic of a non-boss is less punishing, but still eats a chunk of health. At L25 there a new boss that's a lizard man king. He uses 2 of the base lizard man mechanics and adds 2 others that are new and wide area. At level 30, new boss: lizard man shaman. Same idea as king, but 2 other mechanics added to the base lizard man attacks.
Unfortunately the polls didn't gain as much traction as I was hoping for. I highly doubt you guys want to make design choices based on just a few dozen votes. But hopefully this can start an internal discussion on boss design.