Guild Wars 2

I dont want to talk about rewards in this topic. Please leave that sort of discussion elsewhere. The fact is, Anet wants the dungeons to be challenging. This is fine. People will do challenging things for 2 reasons. 1. rewards (of which we are ignoring, so put it out of your mind) or 2. Fun. Fun includes “liking a challenge” but also simply “man that boss fight was great” Fun can include both casual and hardcore tastes.

So lets talk about what makes a dungeon fun, and what doesnt. While also discussing challenge throughout it and how it impacts the fun level.

As near as I can tell there are several discrete methods of making bosses fun.
1. Making them unique
2. Making their mechanics interesting (or actually just having a mechanic in the first place)
3. Enabling players to come up with a strategy that works well for a boss. (this one needs a bit more explanation which will come later)

lets start with the first. A unique boss is pretty easy to point out.
WARNING. HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU HAVE NOT DONE STORY OR EXPLORABLES FOR ANY OF THESE DUNGEONS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED – CoF, HoTW, CM, AC, SE, Arah

Take the Baelfire fight in CoF story mode. That fight was incredibly fun. It was unique, interesting, climatic, everything was done right. Or the forgeman fight in SE story. He was unique (well, unique for gw2) he had an interesting way to fight him, and so on. We’ll probably talk about him later as well.

An example of a non interesting fight? Jeez take your pick. About 70% of the bosses ive faced were simply non interesting. Either they were cut and paste designed (the foremen from slavery SE) or they were boring to look at (The end boss of inquest SE) Or they were simply something I had literally already done before (the golems in inquest SE) [im going to be picking on SE a lot, because doing those 40 or so runs has given me lots to talk about]

Now I dont think anyone expects you to have every boss being fun an unique in this kind of manner. You cant have epic encounters with giant fiery projections that hurl meteors, when the final boss is a small asura. We get that. Which is why they need to be fun in other ways.

Cont

So the next thing on the list is mechanics, what is and isnt a fun mechanic? A fun mechanic needs to be pervasive throughout the encounter, require some level of forethought, and also not to be hilariously broken.

Good mechanic: The living lightning on the first Kudu golem in SE Story. The buff is noticeable, readable, and then plannable around. You need communication, understanding, and response from your team to deal with it.
Bad mechanic: Dont stand in the red circles as the only mechanic a boss has (SE inquest path final boss)
Alright mechanic, but could use more depth – Butcher fight in HoTW. The dragon totems are not really worth the time to fight. Especially as they come back too fast.

What can be done? Try giving bosses unique mechanics. This is where I think ANET needs to do the most work. For example on the butcher, you could make him target a specific player for the slaughter. That player would take more damage, and the butcher would single them out specifically, in return, if that player destroys a statue, it stays dead for longer. Also you could then make the statues stronger, perhaps to the point where damaging the boss is hard unless one statue is gone. This mechanic would be unique and interesting.

This moves nicely into strategy which is cont next post

Strategy is the next big thing that often feels missing.
Bosses used to be tank and spanks, now they’re just dodge and spanks.

The best examples I can give of a boss that had strategy for them is the wurm in TA explorable. The first time we did this fight my team got creamed. We literally gave up after zerging him down because we didnt want to put up with the dungeon. A few days later I read that if you stand next to him, he doesnt goop you. Bam, strategy obtained. Did it again with a PuG, told them of the strategy, and suddenly the fight was a lot more fun. And it was a GOOD feeling to find a strategy that works.

This is very lacking for most bosses, the strategy is usually just "dodge, dodge some more, dont ever get hit, and deal with the “mechanic” if the boss has one.

Strategy goes hand in hand with mechanics. If there are unique mechanics, bosses will have unique strategies.

But thats not the only way to do it. Environmental factors can be a big part of the fun. Take the destroyer of worlds boss in SE military. This boss has mechanics youve seen before. 1. Spawns adds (we’ll discuss this in a bit too) 2. hits you in the face for damages and 3. pulls you in. Not exactly the most interesting. But the way you can fight him is incredible. Our strategy? Parkour. That was literally our strategy, jump around the ruins next to him, striking him, and evading his adds for the entire fight. It was one of the most fun bosses we’ve done, despite his recycled mechanics.

Speaking of recycled mechanics. If you do recycle them. Make them actually worth it. Go look at a typical MMO where the boss spawns adds. Or hell, look at the second boss in CoF story mode, who spawns adds. Notice what they have in common? The adds are typically low health. This is the exact opposite of what the destroyer did. All his adds are silver ringed tanks who literally werent ever worth fighting. Now, the fight is still fun as you can avoid them with ease, and avoiding them is fun, but on other bosses it can be tedious and annoying.

Now the one thing that limits strategy is imo, this:
Not being able to see bosses skills.
This right here ruins most strategy for me. Bosses are clearly using skills, but they have no cast thing under them that lets me plan for it! Ive fought nokk well over 30 times, but I still have no inkling of when he gravities you. I just stay out of the red circle that he puts down in the middle, which often seems to have no effect anyway.

Giving bosses casting bars is the easiest way to let players develop strategy. Why? Because it A. usually has information on the skill. and B. lets players match effects to telegraphs.

cont

Overall I think bosses need a major rework. My suggestion to Anet would be to play a game like monster hunter. Almost every boss in monster hunter feels unique, has strategy you can use, environment you can use, proper telegraphs, and so on. While still remaining challenging and punishing.

If I were to try and bottom line all of this

make bosses more like: Baelfire, Forgeman, Destroyer of Worlds, The Wurm in TA, The spider in the up path of TA, the taskmaster in slavery SE, and the golem in CM story, the boss that summons adds in CoF (both of them).

Avoid making bosses more like: The asura in inquest SE (both of them), the ice troll in HoTW butcher path, any of the kudu golems and indeed kudu, most of the bosses in AC (especially the lovers), Zhaitan (I didnt bring this up… but, we know what you did, and it sucked) Forge whatever in CoF.

Try to revamp bosses like this: Butcher, the ice troll in HoTW, The first golem in inquest SE, basically any boss that is literally just dodge and spank. With no really interesting mechanic besides “is a boss”

That’s really all I want out of the dungeons. Fun, interesting boss fights, that I can actually attempt to plan around.
Oh and maybe cut down on trash monster hp a bit. They’re not hard, simply tedious and anti-fun.