Mega Boss scaling
Annoying players is the whole point of a world boss.
I guess you and I want very different things from our video games. I want world bosses to be fun, engaging, challenging, and rewarding. You want them to be annoying. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Anet can implement aoe in a engaging way. As long as the aoe is avoidable, then player will able to down the boss very fast
Sorry, all known bosses are not that fun, engaging, challenging, and rewarding. The reason why is that the bosses are stagnant and follows a giant script which gets repetitive. Repetition will always be annoying.
Unfortunately, damage do not scale in any particular way. Bosses need activative damage migration.
Teleport is ok but invulnerability and removing itself from battle is not.
An AOE knock back can be implemented in a interesting way. I just dont want it do damage because like usual damage do not scale
As of right now being able to target the legs or head of dragons serves no purpose, it just makes targeting a pain. However, if there was a mechanic where attacking the legs would eventually temporarily knock down the dragon so that you could attack the head and do damage until it gets back up, it would be a way better targeting mechanic. I would love to see the fights be more dynamic than that offering multiple stages, but that would be a great start I think.
As of right now being able to target the legs or head of dragons serves no purpose, it just makes targeting a pain. However, if there was a mechanic where attacking the legs would eventually temporarily knock down the dragon so that you could attack the head and do damage until it gets back up, it would be a way better targeting mechanic. I would love to see the fights be more dynamic than that offering multiple stages, but that would be a great start I think.
Dynamic fights do not scale well.
Either we end up with a fight with alot of impossible coordination or the boss encounters are completely broken.
Always wanted to post this:
IMO, epic bosses, such a Shatterer, Claw of Jormag, Behemoth etc. are too static and scripted. They don’t reflect the changes people are making. The most it’s painful to watch on dragons, where they unleash all their power into a blank space – people just move 10 meters away, and they are safe. I wish these bosses turn around to target people, cast skills on them, not just stand still facing one direction.
Mentioning skills, it would be great to add such types, like in Volcanic Fractal on the last boss, where it throws a flame on you that hurts everyone around, so large groups of people will have to dissolve temporarily. And the opposite – skills, that do the less damage, the more people are damaged (don’t think there’s an analogy in GW2, idea taken form WoW).
Also, skill casts can be made more… readable. On the temple events, you often don’t see the target because of the illumination players produce. Maybe reduce effects in size? It hurts very much on Dwayna, with that starfall that downs you if not dodged.
Connected a bit with previous, a culling. In WvW now it works great, but in PvE I don’t see even half of the people surrounding me. It’s not that important, but more of a wish.
And the last one, participants scaling. I guess, all event that give bonus chests, should be able to scale up to like 75-80% of the map capacity (before you go to overflow). Very often there’re overflows in Queensdale and Frostgorge Sound, because of the bosses. Also, low-level bosses fall down too quickly, if they spawn at around the same time, it’s merely possible to kill several because they die in a matter of seconds. These bosses give rare loot, they shouldn’t be able to be killed at least a minute.
And I wanted to thank you for bosses Ulgoth Modniir, Golem Mark II, Claw of Jormag, Priest of Grenth – fights, where you can’t just put char on autoattack and afk, hoping you wan’t get killed. Even with current state, I fell a potential great in such tactics-full encounters.
Always wanted to post this:
IMO, epic bosses, such a Shatterer, Claw of Jormag, Behemoth etc. are too static and scripted. They don’t reflect the changes people are making.
Apparently, Anet will not make a proper computer AI. It is too expensive for their servers to handle. It might increase lag during these events.I agree that adaptive enemies will make the game more interesting.
I did the Shatterer a few hours ago and this time I tried NOT to exploit the fact that you can stand in a safe-zone on his left. I engaged him head-on and was surprised how many adds there were. I managed to dodge the minion-attacks but then I was hit by some strange attack from the Shatterer I believe. My Mesmer is quite squishy so I was instantly downed.
So there are situations (at least in the Shatterer-encounter) which are kind of difficult, but that’s not the difficult I was looking for. Don’t get me wrong, it was challenging, but what I’m missing in this encounters is some kind of tension. To see that something is going horribly wrong for the group, to feel that there is still a chance. It’s kind of hard to describe. I guess the main thing missing is really the fail-state of these events to bring that tension.
I guess. The Karka-event had no fail state, am I right. Nontheless there was a tension there. These Attacks from the beast, rolling over a whole group of players and downing them instantly… and the waypoints far far away… there were moments when only few people were standing. I think this creates a nice feeling. The battle was heavily scripted and went through half of a zone… that’s what I call epic.
How sick would it be if players would have to run through canyons in order to reach the area of the final battle. On the way the Shatterer attacks people from the air with heavy aoe. Certain events would create small safe-zones between the crumbling canyon for people to gather and ressurect fallen allies. The Shatterer would be still in the air attacking the canyon when the first few players arrive in the battle-arena. But this arena is full of hazardous plants (much more than there are at the moment) and these are slowly spreading – kind of like Zerg creep tumors from Starcraft2. The area should be cleared before the Shatterer lands in order to make the battle more managable. And now the real battle begins.
So some scripted events like the Karka-event which act as a kind of anti-zerg mechanic because waypoints are contested and a lot of people die on the way.
One may dream, I’m realistic and don’t think the existing encounters run through such fundamental changes. They probably spawn more enemies and work a bit on the scaling & culling… Hmm. I wonder how much work they can invest in those encounters. I fear not too much.
http://gw2style.com/index.php – show your look and rate others – great filters!!
One thing that might improve the mega boss events is unpredictability.
The first time I experienced the big events, it was fun, interesting and engaging. Eventually, once you have played through them over and over…they become stale. That is when players start to “auto pilot” their way through. This leads to the impression that the event is boring and needs to be improved. No amount of new boss skills or event mechanics will change that in my opinion (although some new ones would be nice).
In order to counter that, there needs to be some diversity each time. Players will learn how to deal with each skill or mechanic, but if they don’t know when that skill is coming, or in what order the mechanics will be…it might keep players more engaged.
A good example of this (on a smaller scale) is in SAB. Players have got to the point where running through most zones and dealing with the cages is second nature. Yet when it comes to King Toad, you always have to pay a bit more attention.
One thing that might improve the mega boss events is unpredictability.
It is impossible to make an encounter unpredictable unless the boss is able to adapt. You are advocating for an AI
A good example of this (on a smaller scale) is in SAB. Players have got to the point where running through most zones and dealing with the cages is second nature. Yet when it comes to King Toad, you always have to pay a bit more attention.
there is nothing unpredicatable about a King Toad.
You are strengthening my logic for an low to no damage uncap dodgeable knockback aoe.
That what King toad does. Aoe knockback you to the poison pits
It is impossible to make an encounter unpredictable unless the boss is able to adapt. You are advocating for an AI
nah all you need is a bit of randomness. King Toads attacks are kind of unpredictable because his attacks hit on random sides and you can’t stand in one spot and do autoattack. I love the fact that you have to be aware at his eyes, so you have to observe his clearly visible behaviour in order to know where he hits next.
if the boss had more different attacks (only add 2 for example) and put those together with the existing attack on a random loop, the battle would be even better and far away from boring.
I’m quite confident that Anet gets the dragonencounters right since they already have shown that it IS possible in GW2. (Karka Queen, King Toad)
http://gw2style.com/index.php – show your look and rate others – great filters!!
Apparently, Anet will not make a proper computer AI. It is too expensive for their servers to handle. It might increase lag during these events.I agree that adaptive enemies will make the game more interesting.
Can’t agree with you. They can implement different AI for epic bosses (I’m pretty sure, they already have not much in common with other mobs), leaving mobs and pets on existing one. Although, pets/minions/summoned weapons need some work too. But the point is, I don’t think that complicated AI, called once in 0.5-3 hours, will produce such high load, A.Net servers will not be able to withstand. Remember, they survived Halloween and The Lost Shores events, as well as everyday WvW.
The one big thing I don’t like about GW2 is that the monsters are set in stone. You could pretty much make a strategy guide of where the monsters will be at what kind of monster will be there how many will be there. Bosses spawn exactly here and so on.
I’m not sure if any of you are familiar with Everquest, but in that game the monsters are all over the place, they roam across the entire map, lions wont spawn in 1 exact spot, they spawn randomly all over. Bosses roam.
I think GW2 needs roaming type mega bosses like the sleeper in EQ. Although it will go down fast because one thing I learn about this game is people will zerg anything they see in this game, with however many people they can get before you get message that your in an instanced version of that zone.
Edited to add: This is a great place to throw out your ideas of what you’d like to see any of them do encounter wise to make them more exciting.
Hey Colin!
I know your programmers & animators are gonna hate hearing this but there is no way around this:
The Dragons need to dynamically walk around, attack specific groups of people, have fully animated turning & directional movement & have environmentally important, not scripted, varied tactics. I know you don’t have an animated turning system & only things like the Karkas really are big & walk around, but it has to change. There is no short cut.
Every other option boils down to it being extremely obvious that the dragon is a glorified turret. (sometimes a turret that can’t even rotate) It HAS TO WALK AROUND. And the current “spin in place” animation doesn’t cut it. A lot of us were saying this before & during beta: look at Tera BAMs. They have the proper animation, movement, targeting & attacks, they just lack the interesting mechanics of raid bosses.
I would prefer that they also effect/can attack the whole zone, but just moving & attacking things DYNAMICALLY not in a script, is the main problem. Also, there should be MULTIPLE outcomes to fighting the dragons. several win types & several loss types.
Currently the animation & models are cool, but they are absolutely NOT fun to fight.
Edited to add: This is a great place to throw out your ideas of what you’d like to see any of them do encounter wise to make them more exciting.
Hey Colin!
I know your programmers & animators are gonna hate hearing this but there is no way around this:
The Dragons need to dynamically walk around, attack specific groups of people, have fully animated turning & directional movement & have environmentally important, not scripted, varied tactics. I know you don’t have an animated turning system & only things like the Karkas really are big & walk around, but it has to change. There is no short cut.Every other option boils down to it being extremely obvious that the dragon is a glorified turret. (sometimes a turret that can’t even rotate) It HAS TO WALK AROUND. And the current “spin in place” animation doesn’t cut it. A lot of us were saying this before & during beta: look at Tera BAMs. They have the proper animation, movement, targeting & attacks, they just lack the interesting mechanics of raid bosses.
I would prefer that they also effect/can attack the whole zone, but just moving & attacking things DYNAMICALLY not in a script, is the main problem. Also, there should be MULTIPLE outcomes to fighting the dragons. several win types & several loss types.
Currently the animation & models are cool, but they are absolutely NOT fun to fight.
as much as I would LOVE to see this happening, I heard one of the developers in an earlier interview speaking of the fact that the engine can’t support those big bosses to be mobile. I guess they would have to rework the complete engine to make this happen… which we’ll probably see in GW3 at the earliest.
Think of it, there are a lot of ways to make those bosses still interesting encounters.
e.g. Heigan the Unclean http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuVX8x5dq3g
Multiple Outcomes would be great.
http://gw2style.com/index.php – show your look and rate others – great filters!!
Make mega boss fight less of a Zerg fest…. where everyone just beats on the boss… and hopes not to get randomly targeted and one shot…
Make the boss fights melee friendly so there arent 3 melee actually “being melee” while the rest of the “melee” classes are using long ranged to stay safe…
as much as I would LOVE to see this happening, I heard one of the developers in an earlier interview speaking of the fact that the engine can’t support those big bosses to be mobile. I guess they would have to rework the complete engine to make this happen… which we’ll probably see in GW3 at the earliest.
Think of it, there are a lot of ways to make those bosses still interesting encounters.
e.g. Heigan the Unclean http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuVX8x5dq3gMultiple Outcomes would be great.
That fight looks boring, but mostly because it’s WoW style of combat.
If it’s true that they CANNOT (usually that means it would take too long, not that it’s impossible) make the bosses mobile, they need to either do a TON of work to fake them acting mobile & dynamic or resign themselves to the fact that these fights are essentially a failure. They look neat, but man.. they are actually quite bad fun-wise.
Might I suggest instantly downing everyone when a dragon lands unless a dodge roll is executing? I want to see punishing mechanics!
Well, I don’t know about downed state, but a 3 second knockdown and losing half your health might be sensible.
I say make the world bosses harder and more time consuming to kill and increase their spawn timer up to 5 hours or something like that. Make more world bosses. Make Mega Events with mobs/bosses raiding the main cities (Black Citadel, Hoelbrak, Divinity’s Reach, The Grove, Rata Sum) all normal citizens, shop NPC’s and kids should run and hide inside their homes during the attack while the city guards and city leaders help players to defeat/push back the enemy.
Part of it is also the scaling for the zone. I’ve noticed that something changes in the mobs at level 60+ If some of these bosses are in prelevel 60 zones they simply don’t have whatever defenses the upper level mobs seem to have that makes them harder to kill.
It’s quite noticeable as an engineer. Mobs that take 10 hits in level 75-80 zones take 3 hits in level 50 zones so there’s a definite difference there and it’s not just a scaling issue.
I do like the multiple health bars thing tho five is prolly a bit much. I think adds are in order as well, no boss is without minions. And I do like the more loot option, the more you participate the more loot you receive is a great idea.
I also think that there should be prestige with these boss fights. That a currency, preferably one that doesn’t take a whole year to build up like laurels, should be made to let those of us who do only open world stuff get some cosmetics associated with certain boss fights so that we can get some great looking gear from these fights. If this game is truly about choices leading to the same end result, this should definitely be put in there. We should definitely get something especially for having to wait an entire hour after the boss is supposed to show like with dragons.
Also, about that dragon timer thing. Can we shorten the spawn window to 20 minutes? That would give most people enough time to get there and it wouldn’t make the wait time grueling.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
We’ll be going through most of these in 2013 and looking at making them more fun and exciting encounters that better scale to support the huge armies of people who mob them.
And of course, we’re also looking into ways to make it so you can see more of those huge mobs of people as well.
Edited to add: This is a great place to throw out your ideas of what you’d like to see any of them do encounter wise to make them more exciting.
We saw your skills in the molten facility. I expect same creativity in general:P
I’d suggest to allow some (limited) amount of players to help mega bosses. This could add so much needed AI in encounters. But this require change in logic – it may be possible to fail the event. And if that happen the players on boss side should be rewarded.
I feel the World Bosses have the potential to be the massive PvE content people want out of an MMO (i.e. Raids)
I suggest you use the story behind those fights to build up the chain of events and give multiple objectives rather than “rush in to hit a claw”.
Also, I feel it is important that there is a chance to FAIL those events. However, it should come with a way for the players to “restart” the event rather than wait for it again; just like the Sink the Ash Horizon event where you can take the beach back from the Risen and resume sinking the ship.
Here’s some examples:
Claw of Jormag
The story behind the event: The Pact has set up a camp and several cannon batteries in Frostgorge sound in order to shoot down the Claws of Jormag out of the sky. When they finally get the attention of one of them, it retaliates by dropping corrupted crystals near the camp and cannons.
Here, the cannons are the threat to the Claw of Jormag and should be central to succeeding the event.
The Crystals should spawn waves of mobs to attack the camp and cannons and, those should be objectives the players need to defend; if the camp is overrun, it can’t resupply the cannons and if the cannons are down, the Pact can’t shoot the dragon out of the sky. Also, the area becomes overrun with Icebrood.
Once the Crystals are destroyed and the dragon lands to personally take care of business, the cannons – that are needed to get the fight to the second part – should be defense objectives. I suspect this was actually planned as the Pact commander yells to “Defend the cannons!” when mobs spawn near them. To make things more interesting, allow the players to repair the cannons (add “fixer” wrenches near them). If you stick to the ice wall, make the bombs a lot more effective against it and have the cannons shot it and damage it to allow the players to engage the mobs instead of attacking a wall. Should the cannons be destroyed, the Claw leaves and drops mobs behind; the players need to defend/repair the cannons to resume the fight.
For the second part of the fight, if I were the Claw, I’d be doing something to save my hide and not just hope I could kill everybody. For this, I suggest that, if it does not get interrupted by the bomb golems, it could – with time – regenerate it’s wings and return to part 1 to try and take out the Pact cannons as they are the threat to the Claw: as long as they are there, it can’t make use of it’s aerial superiority.
No matter what you do to this event, the bomb golem explosions need to be more obvious and they need to have a different cue when they actually hit.
Tequatl the Sunless
The story behind the event: What story? All we know is that it comes out of the water and attacks the coast. The events that make up the meta-event of the coast don’t connect much to each other; they can even run at the same time!
Tequatl’s fight is actually – in my opinion – one of the most dynamic dragon fights; there’s no obvious safe spot, you have to move a lot. But, building a stronger narrative around it would make some secondary objectives more obvious.
First: what is Tequatl doing there? What are the consequences of letting it run rampant? He is an agent of Zaithan and spreads his corruption; as a play on his name, it could be a darkness that covers the coast gradually while he is there. Should the players “lose” by letting the corruption take hold, the coast could become dark and filled with more dangerous undead, like abominations. Tequatl could take a perch on the island he usually crashes into to admire it’s work. Killing or destroying some targets in the area would restore it and resume the fight with the dragon.
The fight would be a timed one and doing it with pure strength of arms (direct damage from players) would be possible but it would take several attempts (see the Ash Horizon example above). Doing it in one attempt would require the cannon to fire correctly – if it gets destroyed before then, it’s event would switch to repair the cannon (a gather or control point type of event maybe?).
Also, the other events in the meta chain could me more closely related to the fight: the quaggans could be bringing a pearl as a focus for the cannon instead of “plant material” and the lab could be what’s powering it and the asuran turrets, leaving them disabled if the krait succeed in raiding the place.
For all world bosses
I know it’s impossible to make them completely unscripted and let them run rampant so, at the very least, use player actions as a variable for the boss behaviour.
For instance, the Shatterer is getting hit with a lot of DPS on it’s right claw? Slam it down with a massive AoE. Damage is split evenly? Take flight and, possibly, stay there until hit with a mortar.
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