(Polls) How would you like end boss encounters designed?

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.

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NishUK

A simple 2nd phase is deep enough (BDO - 2nd phase of world bosses "enraged state"), the game has far better things to work on!

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.

Deba

The second poll link doesn't work for me. Also, I think 2 phases are pretty good overall, maybe like specific lore-wise villains get 3 phases.

Liniker

I like long fights, both in PvE and PvP. I hate killing players in 10 seconds and doing a world boss in just 15 minutes. I want hours-long content, as many phases as possible.

Solvryn

With decent AI

novercalis

Dont think AoC needs "Dungeon Bosses" in the traditional sense. So none. I think saying End boss doesnt really apply or shouldn't apply.

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.

Ace1234

I would like a variety that scales according to risk/reward from the lowest amount of mechanics all the way up to the maximum amount in the poll- along with very intelligent AI.

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.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w1_zmx-wU0U&t=1s

akabear

Taaku wrote: »

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.

Quality not quantity.
Quality over time.

Vaknar

Very interesting poll results. I'll check back again and hopefully see some more entries! I was especially surprised by the results of the Boss TTK poll!

Myosotys

Taaku wrote: »

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.

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.

Songcaller

On a napkin in a cocktail bar.

Taaku

I also think that lesser contested bosses should be more difficult as that is where the challenge comes from. However the more fought over open world bosses don't really need to be "difficult" per se. As the difficulty will be fighting other players over who gets the kill. So those more contested bosses could maybe focus more on making them a "fun / spectacle" type of fight.

Azherae

How long I want the boss to be time-wise depends on the cooldowns of the game/strategic requirement.

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.

DarkTides

WoW Jailer Fight....so so bad....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQlcUY5zDUk

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...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE2OJ3J4OTM

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.

Barnobestabn

I just want a crab boss

dont care how complex.

Spif

IF you want to think about complex mechanics, just head over to Lost Ark. Personally I can do without artificial red circles/lines/whatever on the ground, much less pizza slice style safe/dead zones. It's actually pretty good in Lost Ark, but that's a top-down game.

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.

RazThemun

10-15 minute encounter is plenty. do a 2 phase scenerio or shorter phases if doing 3.... but needing to spam dps for over 15 minutes to down a boss is not exciting. I would rather more mechanics in a shorter timed fight than a long drawn out fight. Also be reasonable with loot. not every boss killed should drop things... but again I don't want to be spending 45 min on a boss to then not get loot over and over and over.

Taaku

Vaknar wrote: »

Very interesting poll results. I'll check back again and hopefully see some more entries! I was especially surprised by the results of the Boss TTK poll!

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.

Veeshan

Needs to be long enough to allow for other groups to interrupt you but not to long it get boring :P im guessing 10-15min probaly best, maybe some longer ones too like naval bosses i eel should be 20-25 min encounters for example

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