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Boss Mechanics: What's fair, what's not, what's lame, and what's cool?
keikomyst
Posts: 626 Arc User
Let's discuss boss battles, shall we?
Fighting bosses in CO is a semi-confusing experience. You either:
1. Encounter them in instances (Where they're really just bags of HP that attack you)
2. Encounter them in the open world (Cosmics)
3. Encounter them in lairs (ranging from stupid to OK)
3. Do Alerts (More bags of HP with deliberately annoying mechanics)
4. Do the custom alert or Gravitar (ranging from stupid to GENIUS)
Instance bosses can get a free boring pass, because who wants to spend half an hour fighting a boring boss isolated from the rest of the world in their own little instance?
Open world Cosmics are confusing. Their spawn times are super-slow, and when you actually get to fight them they can devastate your team pretty easy if it's your first time through. Kigatilik's dogs, Teleiosaur's spine-shooting and Grond's map-jumping for example. The mechanics should be explained through either a pop-up or a mission NPC can explain what the Cosmic does and how to counter it. First time I fought Teleiosaur (I was with a group of veterans who wouldn't explain wtf was going on) I got stomped multiple times by the spine-shot attack. Maybe if I had known what Teleiosaur was capable of before...?
Lair bosses are pretty much OK. I still take issue with the Baron and being unable to see when he's doing his reflect block since I'm ranged, but whatever. The electric floor boss at Vikorin has a mechanic and it works. Vikorin himself is kind of a mess in my opinion, but hey, at least he isn't utterly broken! Shadow Destroyer and Therakiel have the most developed lair boss mechanics and more fights should be like them, or at least have that level of polish.
Alert bosses are terrible. They're bags of HP for you to squish, and they don't do anything special aside from a select three bosses. Rakshasa has his annoying mind worms, Psimon transforms, and Medusa has her clones. Oh, and Jack Fool can one-shot unaware players.
Gravitar is terrible. She's so close to being a well thought out, good boss, but so far away. The bubbles are a great idea. The randomly targeted attacks? Not so much. I know it's called 'keeping the DPS on their toes', but seriously, it's a little much. Maybe if she called out the target's name in anger?
The custom alert bosses?
Red Winter: Fight against a bunch of bags of HP against the time limit. The tension only comes from the time limit.
Green Dragon: A by-the-numbers boss fight that's extremely basic, but passable.
Warlord: Fire patches that can eliminate a player from the battle even with revive powers. Otherwise, a bag of HP.
Hi-Pan: The dragon shooting fire is cool, because there's a way to shut that off. The yin-yang needs some work but is a cool idea. Maybe if he telegraphed the placement of the yin yang for two or three seconds, because having the black dot of death spawn on you due to bad luck is bad. Otherwise, genius.
GRAB: Only difficult because there are lots of henchmen and there are five bosses at once.
In my opinion, bosses should do cool, unique things. I was discussing with an ex-CO player what cool boss fights should be like. A hypothetical fight against one of his villain characters, Dr. Graves, a mutant clown who turns other people into clowns with tongue-based personal space invasion. Wields a knife, has Regen and a few chains added in for flavor. How could this be made into a fun boss fight?
1. Graves should be able to jump to the ceiling, becoming untargetable. He should drop down a hooked chain. If he catches you with it, you're placed into a hold and are pulled toward the ceiling. You can break free and get loose, but if you fail to break free by the time you reach the ceiling, he stabs you in the face with his knife and instantly kills you, dropping you to the floor. You should be able to see his shadow on the ground, or look up to see where he's moving.
2. He should have an arena full of bodies. Some of these bodies aren't dead, they're just in the process of mutating. Around halfway through the fight, they should get up and start fighting you. Perhaps have some that can grapple you, prompting another breakfree and instantly earning Graves' aggro. When he gets too close while you're held by the mook, he goes prison-riot-stabby-shivvy and does massive amounts of damage, which will leave you at 1 HP so you can potentially save yourself by healing up.
Two things that make a cool, interesting and potentially scary solo boss fight.
We discussed another boss fight against a nigh-invincible power armored villain carrying an anti-metahuman gatling gun, a cone no-target AoE that will shred anyone caught in the AoE. How do you avoid it?
1. Run! Get out of the way!
2. Get behind large walls scattered around the arena, but the walls will break if he shoots it enough. (three maintains of his gatling gun)
And how do you actually damage him? No weapons can hurt him, and your super-strong fists make him laugh and punt you away!
1. Nitrogen cans are scattered, and his armor is vulnerable to sudden changes in temperature.
2. Interact with the nitrogen cans to break them and send their contents toward the boss. (or, if you have SS Str, just chuck the cans at him!)
3. Hit the boss when he's frozen. If you burn through your nitrogen cans before he's down, the armor will permanently break in case you don't have the DPS to beat him before running out of cans.
What do you think? How could boss fights become more epic and memorable in CO?
Fighting bosses in CO is a semi-confusing experience. You either:
1. Encounter them in instances (Where they're really just bags of HP that attack you)
2. Encounter them in the open world (Cosmics)
3. Encounter them in lairs (ranging from stupid to OK)
3. Do Alerts (More bags of HP with deliberately annoying mechanics)
4. Do the custom alert or Gravitar (ranging from stupid to GENIUS)
Instance bosses can get a free boring pass, because who wants to spend half an hour fighting a boring boss isolated from the rest of the world in their own little instance?
Open world Cosmics are confusing. Their spawn times are super-slow, and when you actually get to fight them they can devastate your team pretty easy if it's your first time through. Kigatilik's dogs, Teleiosaur's spine-shooting and Grond's map-jumping for example. The mechanics should be explained through either a pop-up or a mission NPC can explain what the Cosmic does and how to counter it. First time I fought Teleiosaur (I was with a group of veterans who wouldn't explain wtf was going on) I got stomped multiple times by the spine-shot attack. Maybe if I had known what Teleiosaur was capable of before...?
Lair bosses are pretty much OK. I still take issue with the Baron and being unable to see when he's doing his reflect block since I'm ranged, but whatever. The electric floor boss at Vikorin has a mechanic and it works. Vikorin himself is kind of a mess in my opinion, but hey, at least he isn't utterly broken! Shadow Destroyer and Therakiel have the most developed lair boss mechanics and more fights should be like them, or at least have that level of polish.
Alert bosses are terrible. They're bags of HP for you to squish, and they don't do anything special aside from a select three bosses. Rakshasa has his annoying mind worms, Psimon transforms, and Medusa has her clones. Oh, and Jack Fool can one-shot unaware players.
Gravitar is terrible. She's so close to being a well thought out, good boss, but so far away. The bubbles are a great idea. The randomly targeted attacks? Not so much. I know it's called 'keeping the DPS on their toes', but seriously, it's a little much. Maybe if she called out the target's name in anger?
The custom alert bosses?
Red Winter: Fight against a bunch of bags of HP against the time limit. The tension only comes from the time limit.
Green Dragon: A by-the-numbers boss fight that's extremely basic, but passable.
Warlord: Fire patches that can eliminate a player from the battle even with revive powers. Otherwise, a bag of HP.
Hi-Pan: The dragon shooting fire is cool, because there's a way to shut that off. The yin-yang needs some work but is a cool idea. Maybe if he telegraphed the placement of the yin yang for two or three seconds, because having the black dot of death spawn on you due to bad luck is bad. Otherwise, genius.
GRAB: Only difficult because there are lots of henchmen and there are five bosses at once.
In my opinion, bosses should do cool, unique things. I was discussing with an ex-CO player what cool boss fights should be like. A hypothetical fight against one of his villain characters, Dr. Graves, a mutant clown who turns other people into clowns with tongue-based personal space invasion. Wields a knife, has Regen and a few chains added in for flavor. How could this be made into a fun boss fight?
1. Graves should be able to jump to the ceiling, becoming untargetable. He should drop down a hooked chain. If he catches you with it, you're placed into a hold and are pulled toward the ceiling. You can break free and get loose, but if you fail to break free by the time you reach the ceiling, he stabs you in the face with his knife and instantly kills you, dropping you to the floor. You should be able to see his shadow on the ground, or look up to see where he's moving.
2. He should have an arena full of bodies. Some of these bodies aren't dead, they're just in the process of mutating. Around halfway through the fight, they should get up and start fighting you. Perhaps have some that can grapple you, prompting another breakfree and instantly earning Graves' aggro. When he gets too close while you're held by the mook, he goes prison-riot-stabby-shivvy and does massive amounts of damage, which will leave you at 1 HP so you can potentially save yourself by healing up.
Two things that make a cool, interesting and potentially scary solo boss fight.
We discussed another boss fight against a nigh-invincible power armored villain carrying an anti-metahuman gatling gun, a cone no-target AoE that will shred anyone caught in the AoE. How do you avoid it?
1. Run! Get out of the way!
2. Get behind large walls scattered around the arena, but the walls will break if he shoots it enough. (three maintains of his gatling gun)
And how do you actually damage him? No weapons can hurt him, and your super-strong fists make him laugh and punt you away!
1. Nitrogen cans are scattered, and his armor is vulnerable to sudden changes in temperature.
2. Interact with the nitrogen cans to break them and send their contents toward the boss. (or, if you have SS Str, just chuck the cans at him!)
3. Hit the boss when he's frozen. If you burn through your nitrogen cans before he's down, the armor will permanently break in case you don't have the DPS to beat him before running out of cans.
What do you think? How could boss fights become more epic and memorable in CO?
Post edited by keikomyst on
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Comments
My entry was (of course) Dr. Kaufmann. The battle would have been on the roof top of a skyscraper (fighting through the skyscraper would have been the custom Alert), with Dr. Kaufmann having a bunch of captured heroes (random Caprice NPCS) as hostages on the roof with him. Upon arriving the first thing would have been the big reveal in the opening cutscene. Dr. Kaufmann has been hired by 'someone' to target the player characters and the hostages are just his men in disguises.
Then the battle starts and Dr. Kaufmann first fights with typical Munitions powers until his health reaches about 75 %. He drops a smoke bomb and appears on a ledge surrounding the main area behind a suddenly activating forcefield (He will repeat this at 50 % and 25% health). Now there are two mechanics:
1. Dr. Kaufmann will start to use his sniper rifle (*gasp*). A crosshair appears on the ground constantly moving. Avoid this, or Dr. Kaufmann will shoot the player character for a huge amount of damage. The crosshair is constantly moving and the shot follows almost immediately after locking in on a player character. At 50 % health he will gain the ability to use the remote-detonated charges in his bullets. Should a certain amount of shots miss, Dr. Kaufmann detonates all the bullets stuck in the floor simultanously, which is telegraphed by a tell and the location of the bullets shortly flashes. At 25 % Dr. Kaufmann has had enough of the player characters and gains the ability to ricochet his bullets from one target to another, which can make just one shot fatal for the whole team.
2. Dr. Kaufmann will constantly call for reinforcements which arrive per helicopter. Several squads, including small robot drones. Instead of fighting, these drones will hover to Kaufmann's current location and start maintaining the forcefield generator. Those drones have to be defeated before they reach the forcefield or the forcefield wont go down. After a certain amount of time without a maintenance drone arriving the forcefield goes down and Dr. Kaufmann fights regularly again.
I liked the ideas.
The Doctor on the PDB
Fahrenheit on the PDB
This fight would be fun to play too from the sound of it.
As for ideas on revamping boss fights
-I agree with giving warning on Grav's random force cascade
-Possibly reworking some lair fights to have more interesting mechanics,for instance have the environment react to the fight,kind of like how in Therakiel's temple,the whole area changes when hes down to 50% HP I think.
-If the boss creates a pet or something that stays,have a mechanic to take it out after so long has passed,for instance,warlord's napalm patch,I'm pretty sure harmon labs has to have fire sprinklers installed,maybe have them come on in a point and take the fire out,and same for other bosses that have pets,except for a few bosses whose pets are an entire part of the fight(Like Arcana in resistance).
but revamping bosses like this is a great idea
Consolidate currency!
Munitions additions
Petition to take in game report spam function out
Why not to do surveys and free offers
Part of it seems to involve a sort of Sauron eye that sticks up in the air and shoots a lethal cone laser attack. The trick is that it is also his vulnerable point so you gotta strafe/fire at it and also move like heck to keep away from the laser.
Dunno if this is a good mechanic or not but thought I'd mention it.
Haven't done the boss yet the bots/NPC's are utterly carp.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The one who can't shut up formerly known as 4rksakes
About the @handle - it's a long story.
Profound quote.. "I'm not a complete idiot - several parts are missing."
I'd love to see a three stage alert vs. Ripper. It would be set in a blocked off street, and he would progressively move down the street, flinging cars and various other bits of scenery at you. At each 1/3 health mark, he'd have some larger object to interact with and use against the team. There'd be a temporary halt and Ripper would jump to the next section of street and the fight would continue.
An elevated highway would be marvellous for something like this.
Stuffy on the old CO forums. PWE ate my username.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
This was awesome while it lasted
_______________________________________________
The OP's sentiment isn't a bad one, though. And the only stand out idea I really, strongly dislike is Gravitar calling out the player's name. That's going to be in tiny, hard to see text. And for someone who's visually disabled (like me), that's almost hatefully discriminating. I hope those kinds of mechanics will never make it into the game.
Doing something like giving the targeted character a glowing aura or similar might work, though. Something that can actually be seen, and something that won't be missed. Interesting attacks and obvious telegraphing are good ingredients for a fun time. But then, it can't get too gimmicky, because if it does...
Well, you have Freon. Everyone hated Freon. You had almost hundreds of threads on how horrible Freon was. So too gimmicky is bad. Sometimes, having a sack of hit points as a boss isn't a bad thing if you add just the right amount of non-dickish variety. For an example of dickish, again, see Freon.
So yeah, a lot of HP is a good approach, sprinkle in some varied (but fair) attacks, and telegraph them well.
This is pretty much what puts most of the newer bosses squarely in the "lame" category.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
And on this point I agree with you. One-hit insta-kills in PvP or PvE isn't the mark of "fun" gameplay in my opinion. Feel free to disagree with me if you want. Having some instant-death if you don't block or run away type things with ample warning time? Sure...
But the whole, "Look we made it harder! *Level 60 Mega D Energy Wave*" kind of stuff is well, kind of BS and not very good design.
Reward players for exploring
("Veni, vidi, vici", which btw there was no 'V' sound in Latin originally, it was pronounced like a 'W'. Put hidden lairs in the game's open zones, perks/achievements for exploring, environmental object you can interact with in lairs that can tip the battle in your favor)
Reward players for thinking up creative strategical solutions
(reward teamwork, design aura sharing & caring, focus on the benefits of being in specialized roles, allow for and encourage build diversity)
Reward players for effort & time
(guaranteed rewards + shiny carrot jackpot rewards with decent odds, little to no reward if you don't try)
Reward players for challenge appropriately
(i.e.: Shadow Colossi in Resistance, Elite mode, killing Ao'Qephoth in an alert, etc.)
Reward players for investing in the game financially
(microtransactions for thing that make the game easier or quicker, but it's important it does NOT give you something you cannot get through time & effort and that doesn't overshadow the game's mechanics, which is my issue with become devices btw)
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
You're given plenty of time to break free from the chain-hang though. Not to sound rude, but did you even read before that? :S The cynic in me thinks you Ctrl-F'd for 'instant', 'kill' and 'death'.
He hangs you. And pulls you up. And stabs you in the head if you don't break free in time. At least it isn't FIRE PATCH YOU AREN'T COMING BACK HA HA HA
Bosses, from time immemorial, are more than just bags of HP with powers. They have Mechanics, and yes, that's a capital M for how important it is. Take Bowser. Flip the switch, moat-thing-inside-castle-why-does-he-have-it retract. But you can still fight Bowser, and indeed, still need some skill later on in the game to actually GET to that switch.
We've got a bit of that here, in the Hi Pan Alert, where one has to ring the bell to stop the Dragon from sending a powerful fire thing that pretty much ENDS you.
We have that in Serpent Lantern, where periodically during the fight against Viperia, she starts floating and boasting (Floasting?), during which time you can do the banishment ritual (first time I went through, I beat her before she even did the floaty-boasty-bit, which made me confused as to what the Serpentium was for.)
So, what am I looking for in a boss?
A boss supervillain needs to be stronger and better than its mooks. Always, unless they're just some rich guy who employs a bunch of tough guys ( and some soft guys to make the tough guys look tougher! And here's how I want them arranged: tough, soft, tough, tough, soft, tough, soft, soft, tough, tough, soft, soft, tough, soft, tough, soft! ), the supervillain is always going to be better than his or her mooks. After all...
It's hard to get good help these days.
Even someone who's really there for comedy, like Foxbat, ought to be better than his minions. However, not in HP.
With Foxbat, I'd say that he'd have a lot of Holds, Snares, and so on, and also have a mechanic where you do not get Hold resistance and so on whenever you break out of whatever he's trapped you in, or at least at a reduced rate. That way, Foxbat's main tool, the ping pong gun with multiple features, becomes an actual threat. He's still laughably weak if you take him on in a team or if you manage to break out of his bubble gum blasts, but he can be a serious threat if you don't prepare for his mechanic.
For, say, Warlord, I'd give him a lot of health, since he is in a large suit, but make him move very slowly and give a timer between each of his attacks, any of them. Keep the attacks powerful, and have them all be Cylinder AoEs generally. Large suit, is capable of doing a lot of damage to a group of opponents, but has a reduced targeting area to maximise damage. That would make sense based on what I know of the character.
TRAVEL POWERS. They need them. Not many villains in the game use travel powers beyond a slight hover above the ground. Imagine if, rather than simply than stupidly fighting you once aggro'd, a villain actually ran away from you, and you had to give chase as best as you could?
That doesn't happen anywhere in the game, beyond the odd mook running off for reinforcements, which seldom if ever happens (and doesn't seem to happen at all since On Alert, in my experience), and when you put Travel Powers into the mix, it makes it rather interesting. What if a Power Armour foe started to fly back up into the air so to get out of the fight so that it could regenerate its health? Sure, ground-locked characters would be boned in that situation, but that actually legitimises the usage of flying vehicles for those characters!
Considering Warlord (and especially his napalm), I had some ideas for that fight here.
The Doctor on the PDB
Fahrenheit on the PDB
Oh, I did. It's just that- even before getting into the fact one hit kills are questionable for a wide range of reasons to begin with- the mechanics to avoid them never work right in CO. Agent's post highlights this indirectly: The Mega-D death wave and Gravitar's bubbles do give you time to react. It just doesn't work right.
In the case of Gravitar, you can be way out of the bubble and still get hit by it, and there's also problems with the fact you need certain travel powers to have even a shot at really avoiding it, if you're anywhere near the center. Gravitar is just a huge bundle of bad design in general, of course, but this particular point is arguably the biggest example of it.
In the case of the level 60 Mega-Ds (discounting for a moment just pumping numbers up is a retarded way to try and make things more difficult), animation issues that are as old as CO prevent the Mega-Ds from signaling their attacks properly. Sometimes they'd do their animation properly, sometimes you wouldn't see anything of it until they're actually using it, meaning you get instagibbed without warning.
All CO's engine seems to be able to handle is Tank and Spank, with Gravitar being the chief example of this, an encounter with mechanics that don't even matter because they don't work right. You suggest all this assuming that the shadow/chain would draw, and breakfree would work right. You suggest that his chain wouldn't snag you from 50 feet away. That wouldn't be how things can go, as even Hi-Pan's alert suffers from all sorts of issues.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
- mainly that the fight tends to degenerate into just mashing buttons and doing damage since there are rarely any particular boss mechanics involved (I cant remember any offhand apart from something like "not dying" against Kigatilik etc). Damage vs HP is rather boring.
Charged up attacks are an example of decent boss mechanics, if only they were more specific to that particular boss. I wish there were some more boss mechanics.
The big sword sweep that must be blocked or you die, even if you do you lose half your health and all pets except the luckiest die.
The eyebeam attack that is fatal over time can be deflected (assuming the benches are not still bugged and you can find the dratted light).
The spawns are a nuisance even in death.
So it's got some good stuff going for it but....
Good players regard it as too easy!
IMO this is a good fight but how to make it more difficult for better players?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The one who can't shut up formerly known as 4rksakes
About the @handle - it's a long story.
Profound quote.. "I'm not a complete idiot - several parts are missing."
I don't need super hard of such just interesting and dynamic would be nice.
I TOTALLY agree that not every boss should have hundreds or millions of HP. I think that someone like Foxbat should only have average hit points, but his defense should be good enough that he doesn't get hit very often, and when he does, his resistance should mitigate the severity of the attack. This would be more in keeping with the Superhero themes we see in comics.
Obviously Ripper should be as is, or maybe even increased a little bit, because he's SUPPOSED to be super-strong and tough as heck. But there should be other ways of fighting besides 'chip away at silly amounts of hp for a while' on many of the Supervillains. It might be harder to implement, but I think it would yield better mission repeat-ability.
I like that people have some ideas on ways to improve the boss fights, but I'm not sure about how I'd feel having one of my tank (yes, I make some CoH style tanks!) characters get mown down just like I was a support. If I have a ton of defense and a great deal of health, I expect to survive the battle, even if I lose it. Whatever type of mechanics are in play in a mission, if I don't feel powerful, I probably won't be back... that the number one draw for me.
That's why the cheap one-shots don't endear me to the alerts that have them. I can usually tell when Jack's going for a one-shot, but Gravitar's randomness is annoying. Other than that I like the Grav fight. And the king of 'I'm not doing this anymore" is Aeo's Burst fights... not gonna do it anymore.
I like a challenge, but it should seem real and organic, not forced.
They'd use AoE Mental waves of energy which stun, paralyze or confuse targets, holds, control as well as debuffing and then setting up for high scale and damage attacks.
Whilst I love PSI, in game and practice they come across more like men wearing pink tights rather than mentally advanced super criminals.
Out of all of them the three bosses seem to be sort of standard and have intresting mechanics like:
Psimon: Telekinetic Reflection Shield (Psionic Reflection Shield) - Returns I think around 50% maybe of all incoming damage to the attackers and takes reduced damage whilst shield is up during the maintain.
Psimon: PSI Titan Form - Very Intresting transformation, but I feel alot more could be done with it in alerts or he could transform into it earlier and leave out the second "armored PSI" phase. I know that when he is given opportunity he can let loose some nice damage in that form.
Medusa: Paralysis Kiss - She uses her signature PSI power, which was orginally to paralyze her enemies (before Sebastian Poe allowed her to use the psychic serum to enhance her powers).
Medusa: Astral Projections - The astral copies of herself which she produces is a very nice touch.
MindSlayer: Psychokinetic Breach - The TK Blade attack she does is, if I recall quite effective, sadly not as effective as Jack Fools Blade, but still is a nice addition.
Apart from these small perks PSI and Mentalist Villains are largely subpar when compared to other villains, they dont have anything special vs everyone which is in theme and makes sense. For example, Psimon should be able to hold down heroes with either a telekinetic grasp or using his telepathy, also his basic attacks seem to be drawn from the Might Powerset...which emphasises how poorly developed mental stuff is, hell he could even use powers already in place. Medusa and MindSlayer could follow similar routes although they seem to be more appropriate than Psimon in terms of regular attacks.
I'd assume that all three should be able to confuse heroes to attack each other or become untargetable like Rakshasa does with his mental worm distractions... I've always thought that mental attacks should have a degree of innate penetration to defense and dodge as you shouldnt really be able to dodge a mental attack, but that's for another post.
Gravitar upset me when I first started to do the alerts until a routine is learnt for winning, even then it's not that easy to predict as she can be really cruel sometimes. That is what I like about her, she is well thought out, BUT random G-cading is not fun.
Nemesis Bosses are annoying/can be. Everyone hates the LR bosses and Gadgeteering Nemesis bosses for some reason have access to PFF...which really should be on Force Nemesis Bosses..
I think the issue is, is that IF we get bosses that fight like Players...how many people are going to love it and how many people are going to enjoy super hard mechanics?
Some people in the past have suggested bosses to have access to NTTG and Crippling Challenge or to "use better AI". PvP Adavantages on bosses, to that I say HELL NO.
However to the use of better AI, I think that is a better idea, most bosses seem to work on a very rigid system of: I hit you for 10 damage you hit me for 10 damage whilst I wait etc.
Just like mobs they need to be more dynamic. Gravitar is an example of a dynamic boss. She is beatable but it takes time and brains and luck. You must work as a team, heal ppl who need healing, rez people shield them etc and attack till she is down and be aware of what she is doing if you want to survive.
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Crowd Control is banned from all boss fights.. Especially while Break Free is not a functioning mechanic. Until there is a hold review (PvE NPCs and Players) then you will have more perma holding by NPCS (see Cairgorn Stoneblood and Fatty Zombies). Making Crowd Control Resistance useful is a punishable offense.
My favorite part of the fight though is the movement and the paying attention. Gravitar actually has something that requires me to move, and move fast, and there's actually a huge benefit to paying attention to what's going on; if you pay attention, you can see the bubbles coming and be moving even before they appear. It's rare that a fight in this game requires you to do anything but spam your powers... most of the time you can just stare at your powers bar. One thing I think could have made the Gravitar fight more well-received is less frequent force cascades, but more frequent bubbles.
I like things like Jack Fool's one-shots, because if you don't pay attention you'll drop, but if you do pay attention you won't. I like the Baron's reflect-o-doom, for the same reason; pay attention, react quickly, and you live! I like AO's whole thing too, because there are ways to counteract his nastiness that turn the fight from impossible to easy, and all because you fired off a neuron or two.
Are these things fair? Yes, I think they are, because you can do something about them...or you can be stubborn, claim they're BS, and keep dying.
Anything that requires you to pay attention, move around, think and adjust, are things that will improve the combat in this game. They should leave in some "stand-n-spam/bag of hit points" content though, because clearly there are some people who only enjoy that.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.