Boss Fight Feedback

Eoghan

With the death of Legion, all of the Underworld bosses have been defeated. It's time to open up a new thread for some feedback on the Underworld boss fights, and boss mechanics in general. If you have feedback about bosses prior to the Underworld, that's fine too.

Moving forward, as we build more areas and expand more parts of the Imperian story, we'll also be adding more boss fights with new boss mechanics. What we need from you is a general feel and some opinions on what those bosses should look like.

I have a few ideas for new bosses, but many of the mechanics are more complex than the ones we've seen to date. By and large, the feedback we've received for the Underworld bosses has been that they were too complex, or too difficult to figure out. This surprised me, because in designing them we worked to keep all of the base mechanics simple and easy to decipher.

What are your opinions of the bosses we've had in the game? What about the underlying mechanics? Is there room for more complex bosses? What do you think we should avoid, or accentuate?

Eoghan

There is some information already posted in this thread, but it targets new boss requests. This thread is more interested in feedback on existing bosses.

Ahkan

I really enjoyed the underworld bosses. I could have done with more story behind Legion, but I knew he was a big bad so w/e. I'm a huge fan of bringing in more mechanics (sort of WoWish) where you have to pay attention and just can't brute force it. There's a part of me that feels that your +5%  health per player killed is a GREAT boss fight mechanic. They need to be hard. That's what they're fun.

Keep up with the creativity and upping the stakes and the difficulty. I'm down.

Iniar

Agreed. Complexity is fine.

Khizan

I don't think that the Underworld bosses were particularly hard to figure out in and of themselves. The problem is that they were buggy as crap(hello Lira's icicle not getting a warning message), they forced you to play the Guess the Syntax(hello there mr scrub in fountain), adds didn't reset on a wipe(oh god the fireflies), etc, etc, etc. The implementation just felt very sloppy; this was especially frustrating on Legion due to the vast amount of setup time that it takes to do a Legion attempt. Finding out that Legion-Lira's wolves were impossible to grapple was amazingly awful because if you hadn't been on we'd have had to scrub that entire attempt. 

Add this to the non-Underworld things like the boss in the Necropolis that was unkillable because you guys completely forgot to add the poison vats to it and I honestly don't know how hard the bosses are to figure out because it feels like you never give us all the pieces of the puzzle to start with. 

Better testing would go a long ways towards improving the boss experience.

Khizan

That aside, I'd just like to say that too many of the bosses feel corpse-rushy to me. It's not "attempt, wipe, attempt, wipe, attempt, wipe", it's "graveyard zerg the boss". This makes a lot of the kills feel sloppy as hell. You're not mastering the mechanics of the fight, you're just overwhelming the boss with corpses.

2014/11/03 01:26:13 - Ultrix has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:26:43 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:26:54 - Shou has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:27:01 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:27:11 - Khizan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:27:14 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:27:34 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:27:36 - Khizan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:27:47 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:27:51 - Ultrix has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:28:04 - Shou has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:28:19 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:28:20 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:28:36 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:28:50 - Shou has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:29:08 - Ultrix has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:29:12 - Khizan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:29:24 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:29:25 - Ahkan has been slain by an ensorcelled statue of an armoured guard.
2014/11/03 01:29:34 - Cordilia has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:29:49 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:30:06 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:30:10 - Ultrix has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:30:19 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:30:29 - Shou has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:30:33 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:30:57 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:31:07 - Ultrix has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:31:22 - Ahkan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:31:28 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:31:31 - Alvetta has been slain by Khizan.
2014/11/03 01:31:43 - Shou has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:31:49 - Cordilia has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:32:08 - Ahkan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:32:22 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:32:25 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:32:41 - Genviere has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:32:57 - Genviere has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:33:16 - Shou has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:33:22 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:33:48 - Ultrix has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:33:49 - Ultrix has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:34:03 - Khizan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:34:09 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:34:16 - Iroth has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:34:25 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:34:38 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:34:41 - Genviere has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:34:53 - Ultrix has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:35:02 - Iroth has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:35:14 - Ahkan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:35:28 - Khizan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:35:30 - Zaine has bled to death.
2014/11/03 01:35:52 - Shou has bled to death.
2014/11/03 01:35:53 - Ultrix has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:36:05 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:36:11 - Iroth has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:36:23 - Khizan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:36:40 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:36:55 - Ahkan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:37:16 - Iroth has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:37:31 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:37:38 - Iroth has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:38:02 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:38:15 - Khizan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:38:20 - Cordilia has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:38:32 - Ahkan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:38:55 - Iroth has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:39:04 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:39:19 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:39:39 - Ahkan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:39:45 - Ultrix has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:40:05 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:40:20 - Cordilia has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:40:32 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:40:47 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:40:56 - Ultrix has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:41:05 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:41:26 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:41:39 - Khizan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:41:58 - Khizan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:42:18 - Iroth has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:42:39 - Ahkan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:42:51 - Ultrix has bled to death.
2014/11/03 01:42:52 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:43:08 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:43:23 - Ultrix has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:43:37 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:44:04 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:44:33 - Ahkan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:44:44 - Khizan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:44:53 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:45:05 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:45:21 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:45:45 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:46:48 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:47:19 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:47:27 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:47:33 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:48:03 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:48:13 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:48:16 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:48:36 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:49:05 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:49:18 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:49:19 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:49:32 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:49:54 - Ahkan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:50:04 - Zaine has been slain by a raging creeper.
2014/11/03 01:50:58 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:51:06 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:51:18 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:51:18 - Khizan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:51:45 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:51:57 - Ahkan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:52:12 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:54:16 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:54:41 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:55:16 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:55:37 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:56:03 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:56:16 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:56:30 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:56:45 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:57:08 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:57:20 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:57:42 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:57:54 - Shou has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:58:08 - Khizan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:58:22 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:58:36 - Ahkan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:58:48 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:59:01 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 01:59:15 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:00:08 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:00:58 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:01:08 - Khizan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:01:19 - Shou has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:01:28 - Kanthari has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:01:58 - Khizan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:02:01 - Cordilia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:02:08 - Khizan has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:02:21 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:02:24 - Shou has bled to death.
2014/11/03 02:02:30 - Genviere has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:02:52 - Kanthari has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:03:03 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:05:20 - Aleutia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:05:56 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:06:10 - Genviere has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:06:32 - Aleutia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:06:45 - Kanthari has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:06:59 - Khizan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:07:12 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:07:20 - Zaine has been slain by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:07:22 - Iroth has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:07:34 - Ahkan has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:07:53 - Aleutia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:08:06 - Verexa has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:08:36 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:09:04 - Aleutia has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:09:57 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:10:17 - Kanthari has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:10:46 - Verexa has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:11:12 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:11:25 - Shou has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:11:37 - Kanthari has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:11:50 - Verexa has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:12:17 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:12:47 - Kanthari has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:12:59 - Zaine has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:13:16 - Verexa has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:13:39 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:13:53 - Ultrix has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:14:34 - Verexa has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.
2014/11/03 02:15:17 - Siath has been drawn into an endless void invoked by the Legion of the Fallen.

That was ONE FIGHT with the boss. 

Eoghan

The bosses are corpse-rushy because that is how players are choosing to encounter them. The fights can be overcome by employing the correct strategy with no deaths (or at least, minimal deaths). Players realized that they could rush them, and chose to do so.

We made the decision to leave this as a possibility with the bosses in the Underworld. In the future, that option may be removed, and we may find ways to keep it from being an option on future boss fights as well. I certainly don't enjoy seeing people corpse-rushing the encounters rather than carefully coordinating them.

Cassius

Eoghan said:

...you did it wrong...

Dicene

Things I liked about underworld bosses:

-Mechanics that involve some degree of coordination and awareness out of everybody(passing void from player to player with a cooldown)
-Fights that give roles to multiple people at the same time(wolf-grappling; void passing while another group handles the special items)

-Commands that are given to you so you don't have to try and hope to get the right syntax, without the mechanics behind the command being immediately made obvious

Things I didn't like:

-Mechanics that can be pretty much handled exclusively by one person(one person on pillar duty)

-Fight-breaking bugs

Things I would suggest in the future:

-Fights that have mechanics in other rooms(Player D has to stay in another room to handle <something>) would be cool
-Fights where the whole party might have to split into two groups(kill <mob> and <mob> within <x> seconds of each other or they begin to heal themselves or each other) would be cooler
-Fights that are more difficult(mechanic-wise, not boss-health-wise) than our previous bosses, but where the mechanic is explained beforehand or during by an NPC that wants to help would probably be welcomed

-As you kind of already mentioned, more mechanics that force hard-wipes if done incorrectly. If you let us corpse-rush, we'll likely end up doing it(especially the first time). Don't let us. Kill us all at the same time or Iniar Scepter us if we fail, that way it doesn't devolve to corpse-rushing or constant rezzing. Add in world-messages for some additional shame(or bosses taunting us with shouts after a wipe), and you've got yourself a fight people are going to approach slightly more carefully.

Ahkan

Corpse rush isn't a game design thing. It's a lazy player solution to  a the actual puzzle of the boss fight. I'm pretty sure they left it in intentionally after the same thing happened with the wraith lords and undead bosses. I hope they code around it.

Ultrix

I think of the mini-Legion bosses, the only boss that was really easier just to "corpse rush" was Ilom. As I understand it, the "proper" way to fight him involved an extremely high level of coordination (to the point where I would say is pretty much "impossible" unless you have a team of maybe 4-5 people who are all really good at paying attention), and even assuming that you were fighting him "properly", there was still a 50% chance that you'd get insta-killed. 

One thing that I think has been raised in the past -- I'd like to see some mechanism that scales (better) with the number of people you have in your group. Ilom is a good example of one where the optimum number of people needed to fight him was probably somewhere in the 4-6 range (3 just isn't quite enough to keep up with the spawns), but people found it easier just to bring more bodies and corpse-rush him due to the insta-kill. But more to the point, while I don't think that every boss should be doable solo, or even necessarily in a team of two to three people, having to round up a dozen people and coordinate schedules for a mob boss is incredibly hard to do and rather frustrating.

Ahkan

Ilom just pulls the # of the guards and then assign 1 person to 1 guard. Boom. 

****When it isn't bugged****