Looks interesting but how do you add some randomness to encounters?
I wouldn't.
Randomness does not favor the players, it favors the Enemies. Combat is balanced between the player and the enemy. Each article of randomness within that equation will weaken the player's position in most cases due to the player's primary strength being mitigated.
A player's primary strength is Tactics. Any randomness offsets that strength by changing the situation and the tactics required in an unpredictable manner.
-Rachel-
Great Weapon Fighter tanks? Who are you kidding? Cleric tanks. They draw -all- the aggro.
So. To sum up my position on the matter: I think the add-cycles on most boss fights currently in the game should be kept the same or increased. The HP of the adds within those cycles should be decreased. And further boss encounters added to the game should have more variety of combat. Such as unreachable enemy phases, moving red circles and lines, and things of that nature.
How about a GWF boss who uses Avalanche of Steel to dive-bomb the tank and anyone near him? During that attack you cannot fight the boss while it is in the air, whatsoever, and must flee the shrinking circle of doom before impact.
Or a boss with a lower overall health pool that retreats from combat to recover 1/6th of their health bar the first time they reach 75%, 50%, and 25% leaving the party to deal with their minions and lieutenants for a short while.
Or a boss which has only slow constant DPS applied to the entire party with EXTREME burst DPS phases that can wipe an unwary Defender. Something like Tonberry from Final Fantasy.
Or a New Boss which routinely destroys sections of the battlefield making it a smaller and smaller field of play to dodge and avoid red circles within (That one sounds like a nailbiter!)
Adding new bosses with new mechanics rather than changing the mechanics already extant.
I suggested we keep the ones we have (lowering the HP of the adds in them) and then add new bosses WITHOUT ADDS doing new and interesting things. Well... One of them has adds. But that one is adds around a new mechanic which removes the boss from the fight, temporarily, to free up the tank and ST striker and leader for the adds.
-Rachel-
Great Weapon Fighter tanks? Who are you kidding? Cleric tanks. They draw -all- the aggro.
I suggested we keep the ones we have (lowering the HP of the adds in them) and then add new bosses WITHOUT ADDS doing new and interesting things. Well... One of them has adds. But that one is adds around a new mechanic which removes the boss from the fight, temporarily, to free up the tank and ST striker and leader for the adds.
-Rachel-
Then I missed the part where you said new ones without adds
Adds (specifically, scripted waves of adds during a boss encounter) are not bad per se, but I (and a few others it seems) want more variety.
Let me just "add" I'm getting tired of kiting adds on my cleric.
Randomness does not favor the players, it favors the Enemies. Combat is balanced between the player and the enemy. Each article of randomness within that equation will weaken the player's position in most cases due to the player's primary strength being mitigated.
A player's primary strength is Tactics. Any randomness offsets that strength by changing the situation and the tactics required in an unpredictable manner.
-Rachel-
And tactics makes the content looking old very quickly.
There is something to be said for different tactical challenges being brought up into a fight. However making them random within the same fight can lead to incredible difficulty and delays in preparatory phases.
For example: Imagine you're going into a boss fight on a Raid style in WoW and your party's tank or Healer on Ventrilo has to go through 30 different variations of phase 2, describing the different tactics needed to make it through those phases and describing the markers which indicate which of those 30 different phase 2 options will be occurring.
-Rachel-
Great Weapon Fighter tanks? Who are you kidding? Cleric tanks. They draw -all- the aggro.
There is something to be said for different tactical challenges being brought up into a fight. However making them random within the same fight can lead to incredible difficulty and delays in preparatory phases.
For example: Imagine you're going into a boss fight on a Raid style in WoW and your party's tank or Healer on Ventrilo has to go through 30 different variations of phase 2, describing the different tactics needed to make it through those phases and describing the markers which indicate which of those 30 different phase 2 options will be occurring.
-Rachel-
WoW has DBM.
Also there are bosses in Raids that have different iterations of said fight. Take the first boss fight in MSV, Stone Guard. There are 4 Stone 'bosses' but 3 are active at a time. Each week the 1 of the 4 are not available. Tactics change for the fight based on which 3 are up.
I'd rather have to go through different versions of 1 boss fight then know "it'll have adds, stay out of red". This is from a player perspective. I can care less how a developer would think of the encounter. I want to have a challenge fighting a boss (ok, maybe 2 bosses). The adds have to be removed for some boss fights. I know the members of my group are getting tired of fighting adds.
Open the Launcher. Click Options near the top. Check Disable on-demand patching. This will download another couple of gigs.
Scripted encounters are fine. You can also introduce randomness into the scripts. This is not exactly inventing the wheel. It's sad that every boss fight in this game feels the same and plays essentially the same way.
Agreed, every boss being about adds is just lazy. Even 5man content can have variation even if it isn't as complicated as raids are. But I do also sympathize with the plight of control wizards. I am personally very hesitant to roll a controlling class because control by design is only mandatory if the difficulty of the content requires it. Over time dungeon runs become less and less about survival and more about speed, and when it comes to speed, it is better to nuke than it is to CC. So if you remove their role from bosses (even if it's not all of them), it might become very tempting to not bring one along at all.
The Exile gambit
As players fight the boss he will exile one of them to a random predetermined position from where they will have to make their way back to the group. There could be adds on the way. Distance back to the group is random so in some cases the fight turns into a survival exercise until the other members get back.
The Exorcist
Initially the boss does not fight back but mocks the characters. A half health he disappears and one of the characters gets full health and grows to the size of the boss. The game AI takes over the character until their party mates get them to half life. Then another party member is chosen and taken over until all characters have been possessed forcing the boss back out where he is now fighting back.
The Planeswalker
The fight with the boss is pretty standard but the scenery and terrain changes as the boss drags them through planes of existence offering the opportunity for different kinds of adds as they go as well as environmental hazards.
The Mavis Beacon monster
Two bosses, the singer, untargetable and standing in a single place, the monster rampaging around. The singer either says certain nonsense words one character at a time or lights up some symbols corresponding to numbers on the keyboard and buffs the monster outrageously. A party member has to stand in an opposing position to the singer and either mimics her words in chat or triggers the same symbols at the same time to nullify them allowing the party to fight the monster unbuffed.
Catch the bouquet
The boss does massive damage but there is an artifact that will reduce the damage it does to very little. However the boss can knock it from the hands of its holder and it flies out to land on the floor. Anyone can pick it up and become the defacto tank.
There are hundreds of examples of boss fights from other MMOs they can just shamelessly copy. Having boss fights this bad in an MMO these days isn't forgivable. Someone else has already done all the creative work for you.
fullmetalpopeBanned Users, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
I am truly disappointed in the max level heroic content this game has to offer. We have many choices which look great but unfortunately adds are killing the dynamics of the content. It is plain boring, and not to seem mean by saying this
, but truly unimaginative and lazy. I would of rather had three or four heroic dungeons with real strats then the current thirteen heroics that are 100% the same excluding just a very few fights. And those fights have adds as well.
I really think that the reason why we were not allowed to test content from 51 to 60 in the closed betas was because of the way the heroic content is set up. I think if the player base would of seen how the current content was, there would of been a mass exodus and refund situation that would of really hurt PWE.
I am not giving up on this game yet. I really enjoy it and think it is a great game do not get me wrong. But massive changes need to be made to the Guardian to fix all of these non working skills and threat issues. Something also needs to be done as well with all of these heroics as well. I really do not see it happening to be honest with all of you, but we can still hope.
Things you could add to epic dungeons to increase difficulty or force certain dynamics on the boss fights:
1) you don't have to make the boss harder or increase the adds to increase difficulty, you can alter the path to get there to force party diversity.
a) make it so you have to have an inherent, not kit, "skill" aka, religion, or arcane, or trap detection to even get past certain points
b) have some areas that can only be reached by ranged attacks to kill the creatures
c) require NPC interactions that will only get the favor of that NPC by being a certain race or class
d) require a collection of certain unique items from other dungeons to unlock higher dungeons each time you enter
e) have boss fights that include environmental challenges like darkness, getting stuck, weakness, fear.
f) have bosses on random weaknesses to certain elemental types from instance to instance
g) have bosses on random resistances to certain elemental types from instance to instance
h) use the old blunt/pierce/slash weakness/resistance scale for certain bosses
i) actually include an rare equipable jewelry item that may gain certain bonuses or resistances to said bosses for the fight if equipped, from quests or dungeon drops.
j) include the completion of side quests, or optional mini boss kills that reduce or eliminate the "called upon" adds the bosses have available
k) include the completion of side quests, or optional npc favor that allows you to gain assistance during the boss fight
a) npc being present for the fight could cast a special spell to weaken the boss
b) npc being present could distract the boss, aka arch nemisis type relationship with npc
c) npc being present could assist the party and be required to survive to gain assistance during the fight
I mean come on... all of the above are ways to lengthen, increase the challenge, and develop more of a story around the encounters, aka more like what you would expect from an AD&D paper and pencil type boss fight or adventure.
Dungeon A:
Dev1: How should we make this boss fight difficult?
Dev2: Big adds?
Dev1: We did big adds last time... any other suggestions?
Dev3: Lots of small adds!
Dev 1: Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
Dungeon B:
Dev1: How should we make this boss fight difficult? We already big adds, and lots of small adds.
Dev2: How about spider adds? Cause last time, there were wolf adds.
Dev1: Yes, that will work.
Dev3: Guys off topic here, I've been thinking about big red lines sometimes, instead of circles...
Dungeon C:
Dev1: Now guys, most games that use adds intend for you to kill them and go back to the boss. I want to mix it up a bit. How about, unkillable adds?
Dev2: Unkillable? What about infinite spawn?
Dev1: Lets do both...
ETC. Some variation of
Timed adds
% based adds
big adds
small adds
inanimate objects that shoot at you adds
melee adds
magic adds
archer adds
Dev1; Anyone got any ideas besides adds?
<room silence>
You summed it up, that is pretty much what its like.
a) make it so you have to have an inherent, not kit, "skill" aka, religion, or arcane, or trap detection to even get past certain points
b) have some areas that can only be reached by ranged attacks to kill the creatures
Whoops, we don't have the class to get past that part, group drops after a long time in. (will get worse or better when more classes come in, imagine everyone only having nature or religion, but need arcane)
c) require NPC interactions that will only get the favor of that NPC by being a certain race or class
Ugh. More "Bring a certain class to do the dungeon", terrible idea. If you aren't of that class/race, you aren't ever going to get a group.
d) require a collection of certain unique items from other dungeons to unlock higher dungeons each time you enter
So attunements like WoW used to have? Meh, forced gating.
e) have boss fights that include environmental challenges like darkness, getting stuck, weakness, fear.
Okay with this one, as long as it's fun and not, "Well, here we go again, no control of my character."
f) have bosses on random weaknesses to certain elemental types from instance to instance
g) have bosses on random resistances to certain elemental types from instance to instance
Ask DDO players how they feel about that. They hate it by the way, because it feels cheap.
h) use the old blunt/pierce/slash weakness/resistance scale for certain bosses
See above, but add in people then complaining about "OMG i need more bag space i have to pay for to carry X sets for runs!!"
i) actually include an rare equipable jewelry item that may gain certain bonuses or resistances to said bosses for the fight if equipped, from quests or dungeon drops.
So the Onixia (spelling?) cloak idea?
j) include the completion of side quests, or optional mini boss kills that reduce or eliminate the "called upon" adds the bosses have available
I actually like this idea. It would get people to do more of the dungeon, and not try and zerg to the end, (well, hopefuly) and if they were in random side areas, you couldn't just zerg them too.
k) include the completion of side quests, or optional npc favor that allows you to gain assistance during the boss fight
a) npc being present for the fight could cast a special spell to weaken the boss
b) npc being present could distract the boss, aka arch nemisis type relationship with npc
c) npc being present could assist the party and be required to survive to gain assistance during the fight
Same as above, good idea. I played a foundry quest that if i gained the favor of someone somehow, they would send help during a fight, if not, i was on my own.
Boss fights are complicated to make actually hard. Extra mechanics like WoW, they just end up being a simon says thing, especially with DBM like mods. The extra adds i normally don't mind as it makes people have to be aware of what is going on and hopefully stop going at the boss, but most people ignore adds and try to burn the boss down while adds go nuts. it's also odd how i've had so much more trouble in non-epic dungeons with them than i've had in epics. I think a bunch could be toned down, not to the point where they can ignored, but toned down for sure. I'd also like to see them be less of a hp sponge, especially with the adds.
I know we don't have the AI yet, but i'd love to see bosses be less about patterns and aggro and more intelligent, like they were being played by a DM. Like have it's skills like in a monster manual, but behaving like the monster would. I'm also not a huge fan of how all rpgs have "boss fights", so rarely did we have them in pen and paper, except near the end of campaigns.
"Ugh. More "Bring a certain class to do the dungeon", terrible idea. If you aren't of that class/race, you aren't ever going to get a group."
Obviously you could have multiple different NPC's not just 1 but it could be limited. And frankly this is the way things used to work... not everytime were you able to complete a dungeon without a specific skillset. The key is having a couple of options but not EVERY option. The idea behind "skill" advantages or skill is to keep the party diversified. Not 2 clerics and 3 rogues.
Frankly if you combine this part with the NPC advantage you could end up with a variety of different help. Rogues can get specific help, Guardian Fighters other type of help. So forth and so on... perhaps in the end you end up with enough help that you have a small party of NPC's assist you, each with specific advantages but none not useful.
Don't just assume a single "angle" on ideas expand out and be creative...
0
Options
vdudeMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 4Arc User
There are hundreds of examples of boss fights from other MMOs they can just shamelessly copy. Having boss fights this bad in an MMO these days isn't forgivable. Someone else has already done all the creative work for you.
pretty much this.
bosses have 2/3 nukes(pbae, targetted aoe, cone/line in front - all with a hefty delay) and all bosses spawn adds.
I have to say this is exactly the reason I am packing it in at level 38. massive spawns and respawns. Plus control wizards are way underpowered for my taste. (I said my taste, some of you may think there fine but I think they're gimp). I enjoyed it but the economy is already tanking and I don't like where everything is heading getting out while I haven't spent to much.
the problem is when 1 or more classes can be negated to completed a boss encounter. There are some T2 bosses that are better done w/o a Defender. Some fights can be done w/o a Cleric. It is possible to have boss encounters that dont involved adds for each one.
And that's how you get people complaining... cause now the GWF wants to do as much single target damage as a TR because on "XYZ" fight he doesn't have a job.
There is a good reason every fight has adds. It's so the Control Wizard and GWF have jobs.
That's not to say that they can't add more complex mechanics for the bosses themselves though.
I actually prefer not to have super bosses.
Why would a boss not fight with all the minions he has ? Anything else would be implausible.
And a D&D character is supposed to be epic. Are we fighting gods as bosses that they are so much stronger than we are ?
PS.
I like epic player characters.
That some road thief can kill the hero and world saver, annoyes me to no end in almost every RPG.
I actually prefer not to have super bosses.
Why would a boss not fight with all the minions he has ? Anything else would be implausible.
And a D&D character is supposed to be epic. Are we fighting gods as bosses that they are so much stronger than we are ?
PS.
I like epic player characters.
That some road thief can kill the hero and world saver, annoyes me to no end in almost every RPG.
You're playing D&D and you are worried about what is implausible? How about shooting ice from your fingers? Teleporting across the room? No?
There are a number of reasons a boss wouldn't have adds. The two simplest are that they are honorable or arrogant, or that you already killed all the minions.
Shooting ice from fingers is part of the fantasy world.
But that does not prevent bosses from behaving with some common sense and call for any help they can get.
I agree though, undless minions are stupid.
After a certain time, either you should be dead or all the minions and than the boss.
You're playing D&D and you are worried about what is implausible? How about shooting ice from your fingers? Teleporting across the room? No?
There are a number of reasons a boss wouldn't have adds. The two simplest are that they are honorable or arrogant, or that you already killed all the minions.
With regard to fights without minions.
Either you are fighting gods. And even they would use minions in a battle of life and death.
Or it should be a very short encounter for any higher level group of heroes. And not worth being called a special boss fight.
Comments
I wouldn't.
Randomness does not favor the players, it favors the Enemies. Combat is balanced between the player and the enemy. Each article of randomness within that equation will weaken the player's position in most cases due to the player's primary strength being mitigated.
A player's primary strength is Tactics. Any randomness offsets that strength by changing the situation and the tactics required in an unpredictable manner.
-Rachel-
About half the time.
-Rachel-
So, my summation of your summation:
I suggested we keep the ones we have (lowering the HP of the adds in them) and then add new bosses WITHOUT ADDS doing new and interesting things. Well... One of them has adds. But that one is adds around a new mechanic which removes the boss from the fight, temporarily, to free up the tank and ST striker and leader for the adds.
-Rachel-
Then I missed the part where you said new ones without adds
Adds (specifically, scripted waves of adds during a boss encounter) are not bad per se, but I (and a few others it seems) want more variety.
Let me just "add" I'm getting tired of kiting adds on my cleric.
And tactics makes the content looking old very quickly.
For example: Imagine you're going into a boss fight on a Raid style in WoW and your party's tank or Healer on Ventrilo has to go through 30 different variations of phase 2, describing the different tactics needed to make it through those phases and describing the markers which indicate which of those 30 different phase 2 options will be occurring.
-Rachel-
WoW has DBM.
Also there are bosses in Raids that have different iterations of said fight. Take the first boss fight in MSV, Stone Guard. There are 4 Stone 'bosses' but 3 are active at a time. Each week the 1 of the 4 are not available. Tactics change for the fight based on which 3 are up.
I'd rather have to go through different versions of 1 boss fight then know "it'll have adds, stay out of red". This is from a player perspective. I can care less how a developer would think of the encounter. I want to have a challenge fighting a boss (ok, maybe 2 bosses). The adds have to be removed for some boss fights. I know the members of my group are getting tired of fighting adds.
Ability Scores || All Attribute Roll Combinations || My Cleric Stream \o/
As players fight the boss he will exile one of them to a random predetermined position from where they will have to make their way back to the group. There could be adds on the way. Distance back to the group is random so in some cases the fight turns into a survival exercise until the other members get back.
The Exorcist
Initially the boss does not fight back but mocks the characters. A half health he disappears and one of the characters gets full health and grows to the size of the boss. The game AI takes over the character until their party mates get them to half life. Then another party member is chosen and taken over until all characters have been possessed forcing the boss back out where he is now fighting back.
The Planeswalker
The fight with the boss is pretty standard but the scenery and terrain changes as the boss drags them through planes of existence offering the opportunity for different kinds of adds as they go as well as environmental hazards.
The Mavis Beacon monster
Two bosses, the singer, untargetable and standing in a single place, the monster rampaging around. The singer either says certain nonsense words one character at a time or lights up some symbols corresponding to numbers on the keyboard and buffs the monster outrageously. A party member has to stand in an opposing position to the singer and either mimics her words in chat or triggers the same symbols at the same time to nullify them allowing the party to fight the monster unbuffed.
Catch the bouquet
The boss does massive damage but there is an artifact that will reduce the damage it does to very little. However the boss can knock it from the hands of its holder and it flies out to land on the floor. Anyone can pick it up and become the defacto tank.
Epic fail right there.
, but truly unimaginative and lazy. I would of rather had three or four heroic dungeons with real strats then the current thirteen heroics that are 100% the same excluding just a very few fights. And those fights have adds as well.
I really think that the reason why we were not allowed to test content from 51 to 60 in the closed betas was because of the way the heroic content is set up. I think if the player base would of seen how the current content was, there would of been a mass exodus and refund situation that would of really hurt PWE.
I am not giving up on this game yet. I really enjoy it and think it is a great game do not get me wrong. But massive changes need to be made to the Guardian to fix all of these non working skills and threat issues. Something also needs to be done as well with all of these heroics as well. I really do not see it happening to be honest with all of you, but we can still hope.
Pope
1) you don't have to make the boss harder or increase the adds to increase difficulty, you can alter the path to get there to force party diversity.
a) make it so you have to have an inherent, not kit, "skill" aka, religion, or arcane, or trap detection to even get past certain points
b) have some areas that can only be reached by ranged attacks to kill the creatures
c) require NPC interactions that will only get the favor of that NPC by being a certain race or class
d) require a collection of certain unique items from other dungeons to unlock higher dungeons each time you enter
e) have boss fights that include environmental challenges like darkness, getting stuck, weakness, fear.
f) have bosses on random weaknesses to certain elemental types from instance to instance
g) have bosses on random resistances to certain elemental types from instance to instance
h) use the old blunt/pierce/slash weakness/resistance scale for certain bosses
i) actually include an rare equipable jewelry item that may gain certain bonuses or resistances to said bosses for the fight if equipped, from quests or dungeon drops.
j) include the completion of side quests, or optional mini boss kills that reduce or eliminate the "called upon" adds the bosses have available
k) include the completion of side quests, or optional npc favor that allows you to gain assistance during the boss fight
a) npc being present for the fight could cast a special spell to weaken the boss
b) npc being present could distract the boss, aka arch nemisis type relationship with npc
c) npc being present could assist the party and be required to survive to gain assistance during the fight
I mean come on... all of the above are ways to lengthen, increase the challenge, and develop more of a story around the encounters, aka more like what you would expect from an AD&D paper and pencil type boss fight or adventure.
Whoops, we don't have the class to get past that part, group drops after a long time in. (will get worse or better when more classes come in, imagine everyone only having nature or religion, but need arcane)
Ugh. More "Bring a certain class to do the dungeon", terrible idea. If you aren't of that class/race, you aren't ever going to get a group.
So attunements like WoW used to have? Meh, forced gating.
Okay with this one, as long as it's fun and not, "Well, here we go again, no control of my character."
Ask DDO players how they feel about that. They hate it by the way, because it feels cheap.
See above, but add in people then complaining about "OMG i need more bag space i have to pay for to carry X sets for runs!!"
So the Onixia (spelling?) cloak idea?
I actually like this idea. It would get people to do more of the dungeon, and not try and zerg to the end, (well, hopefuly) and if they were in random side areas, you couldn't just zerg them too.
Same as above, good idea. I played a foundry quest that if i gained the favor of someone somehow, they would send help during a fight, if not, i was on my own.
Boss fights are complicated to make actually hard. Extra mechanics like WoW, they just end up being a simon says thing, especially with DBM like mods. The extra adds i normally don't mind as it makes people have to be aware of what is going on and hopefully stop going at the boss, but most people ignore adds and try to burn the boss down while adds go nuts. it's also odd how i've had so much more trouble in non-epic dungeons with them than i've had in epics. I think a bunch could be toned down, not to the point where they can ignored, but toned down for sure. I'd also like to see them be less of a hp sponge, especially with the adds.
I know we don't have the AI yet, but i'd love to see bosses be less about patterns and aggro and more intelligent, like they were being played by a DM. Like have it's skills like in a monster manual, but behaving like the monster would. I'm also not a huge fan of how all rpgs have "boss fights", so rarely did we have them in pen and paper, except near the end of campaigns.
Obviously you could have multiple different NPC's not just 1 but it could be limited. And frankly this is the way things used to work... not everytime were you able to complete a dungeon without a specific skillset. The key is having a couple of options but not EVERY option. The idea behind "skill" advantages or skill is to keep the party diversified. Not 2 clerics and 3 rogues.
Frankly if you combine this part with the NPC advantage you could end up with a variety of different help. Rogues can get specific help, Guardian Fighters other type of help. So forth and so on... perhaps in the end you end up with enough help that you have a small party of NPC's assist you, each with specific advantages but none not useful.
Don't just assume a single "angle" on ideas expand out and be creative...
pretty much this.
bosses have 2/3 nukes(pbae, targetted aoe, cone/line in front - all with a hefty delay) and all bosses spawn adds.
boring gameplay
Enjoy all see you in the next best thing.
Liberated Borg -Captain USS Solstice
Member of Starfleet Borg Task Force - Tactical Unit
That just made my night Abradax!!
LOL
And that's how you get people complaining... cause now the GWF wants to do as much single target damage as a TR because on "XYZ" fight he doesn't have a job.
There is a good reason every fight has adds. It's so the Control Wizard and GWF have jobs.
That's not to say that they can't add more complex mechanics for the bosses themselves though.
Why would a boss not fight with all the minions he has ? Anything else would be implausible.
And a D&D character is supposed to be epic. Are we fighting gods as bosses that they are so much stronger than we are ?
PS.
I like epic player characters.
That some road thief can kill the hero and world saver, annoyes me to no end in almost every RPG.
There are a number of reasons a boss wouldn't have adds. The two simplest are that they are honorable or arrogant, or that you already killed all the minions.
But that does not prevent bosses from behaving with some common sense and call for any help they can get.
I agree though, undless minions are stupid.
After a certain time, either you should be dead or all the minions and than the boss.
Either you are fighting gods. And even they would use minions in a battle of life and death.
Or it should be a very short encounter for any higher level group of heroes. And not worth being called a special boss fight.