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@Cryptic - Boss Changes to go along with loot change
soppafin
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 5 Arc User
TL;DR: Now that the loot rolling issue is being adressed, there ought to be changes to the boss mechanics to go along with the rolling change.
The boss mechanics now is to spawn adds and use a couple of different attacks, some of which are shared between creature types and used by adds and/or other dungeon bosses across all the epic dungeons. This is CLEARLY lacking imagination and variety and makes the bosses feel like just another mob to smash at until it drops the purple stuff...
There is no reason for this other than laziness: other companies and game developers have been doing PROPER boss fight mechanics for nearly a decade now (for example: unnamed Warcraft -universe game)
A dragon in Dungeons & DRAGONS is as iconic of an enemy as they get. We are talking about a Pen and Paper game that set the standard for dragons in all of the other RPGs to come.
What do we have in Neverwinter MMO? We have dragons that LOOK like dragons, SOUND like dragons, ACT like dragons and fight like little b****es. Karrundax uses his flame breath, flaps his wings and sometimes flies off? SERIOUSLY?? In the PnP campaings of Dungeons and Dragons I've played with my friends (where I am the Dungeon Master), we've had so epic dragon fights.
PWE is advertising Neverwinter as a D&D MMO port. It isn't, not at the moment. I know I'm unfair, picking on poor Karr, but it's not my fault he is the most iconic end-game enemy D&D has had since the beginning. To point out the difference in overall feeling of the fight and mechanics of a dragon fight:
Concerning Red Dragons
"They regard all other Chromatic dragons as inferiors, with the exact amount of disdain being proportional to the variety's general power level. When a Red Dragon and a White cross paths, the Red generally allows the white to sulk out of sight and out of mind, as they do not consider them as worth the effort to kill; other Chromatic dragons are either killed outright, driven away, or bullied into servitude depending on the Red's mood and personality." (Wikipedia, Red Dragon)
I UNDERSTAND that the Red Dragon would have some henchmen working for him, kobolds and elementals maybe. Giants, why not?
THIS DOESNT JUSTIFY THE WEAKNESS ON THE DRAGONS PART!
It's unseemly that such a weak creature, such as poor old Karr, would have gained so much support and servants, treasure and control over an area.
PWE is making money off of the game, obviously. So are all the other developers, that's no secret and it's not wrong of them to do so. It still doesn't justify laziness. Blizzard has made TONS and TONS of money on World of Warcraft alone and has put a lot of effort into the game as well. Even the smaller bossfight in WoW felt epic. And I'm talking about the first boss of a 10-man raid.
The LAST BOSS of the current endgame content should be something you strive to defeat. You sweat, cry and bleed just to get to the level where you can enter the boss's lair. Then you have to carve a path of blood through all the minions, lesser servants and the officers. Spend time and effort to get to the final door. After that door you should find a challenge rivaling all that you've faced thus far. Something that tests your personal skill and equipment and makes you go beyond your skill as a Rogue/Fighter/Cleric/Wizard. A boss so overwhelming it takes all of the practise you've had with your group and all the teamwork you can to kill him/her/it.
My most fond memories out of all the bosses in MMOs is from WoW Ulduar endboss Yogg-Saron 25-man. The fight had 3 STAGES. In the last stage alone Yogg-Saron had more skills at it's disposal than Karrundax has in the whole fight. He summoned adds too, but not some HAMSTER-poor Kobolds who die when you look at them. We spent almost 30minutes before the fight, each time, going through the tactics of the fight. Assigning positions. Assigning portals through which your dps entered the beast's BRAIN to take it out. The players had to watch out for clouds, which functioned very much like the red zones in Neverwinter with the exception that a few more mistakes meant the difference between life and death. Not like now when we can stand or tank the red zones if we want/have to. If you doubt this, go check out Tankspot's guide to Yogg-Saron 25-man on Youtube and tell me that isn't a challenging fight.
Saddest thing of all? That whole fight, it was just the NORMAL mode fight. The boss had 2 harder modes, if I remember correctly, to take on if you had the balls for it. I know I'm romanticizing World of Warcraft a lot here, but it's only because I
Dungeons & Dragons and would love to see it be a challenge through and through.
The boss mechanics now is to spawn adds and use a couple of different attacks, some of which are shared between creature types and used by adds and/or other dungeon bosses across all the epic dungeons. This is CLEARLY lacking imagination and variety and makes the bosses feel like just another mob to smash at until it drops the purple stuff...
There is no reason for this other than laziness: other companies and game developers have been doing PROPER boss fight mechanics for nearly a decade now (for example: unnamed Warcraft -universe game)
A dragon in Dungeons & DRAGONS is as iconic of an enemy as they get. We are talking about a Pen and Paper game that set the standard for dragons in all of the other RPGs to come.
What do we have in Neverwinter MMO? We have dragons that LOOK like dragons, SOUND like dragons, ACT like dragons and fight like little b****es. Karrundax uses his flame breath, flaps his wings and sometimes flies off? SERIOUSLY?? In the PnP campaings of Dungeons and Dragons I've played with my friends (where I am the Dungeon Master), we've had so epic dragon fights.
PWE is advertising Neverwinter as a D&D MMO port. It isn't, not at the moment. I know I'm unfair, picking on poor Karr, but it's not my fault he is the most iconic end-game enemy D&D has had since the beginning. To point out the difference in overall feeling of the fight and mechanics of a dragon fight:
Concerning Red Dragons
"They regard all other Chromatic dragons as inferiors, with the exact amount of disdain being proportional to the variety's general power level. When a Red Dragon and a White cross paths, the Red generally allows the white to sulk out of sight and out of mind, as they do not consider them as worth the effort to kill; other Chromatic dragons are either killed outright, driven away, or bullied into servitude depending on the Red's mood and personality." (Wikipedia, Red Dragon)
I UNDERSTAND that the Red Dragon would have some henchmen working for him, kobolds and elementals maybe. Giants, why not?
THIS DOESNT JUSTIFY THE WEAKNESS ON THE DRAGONS PART!
It's unseemly that such a weak creature, such as poor old Karr, would have gained so much support and servants, treasure and control over an area.
PWE is making money off of the game, obviously. So are all the other developers, that's no secret and it's not wrong of them to do so. It still doesn't justify laziness. Blizzard has made TONS and TONS of money on World of Warcraft alone and has put a lot of effort into the game as well. Even the smaller bossfight in WoW felt epic. And I'm talking about the first boss of a 10-man raid.
The LAST BOSS of the current endgame content should be something you strive to defeat. You sweat, cry and bleed just to get to the level where you can enter the boss's lair. Then you have to carve a path of blood through all the minions, lesser servants and the officers. Spend time and effort to get to the final door. After that door you should find a challenge rivaling all that you've faced thus far. Something that tests your personal skill and equipment and makes you go beyond your skill as a Rogue/Fighter/Cleric/Wizard. A boss so overwhelming it takes all of the practise you've had with your group and all the teamwork you can to kill him/her/it.
My most fond memories out of all the bosses in MMOs is from WoW Ulduar endboss Yogg-Saron 25-man. The fight had 3 STAGES. In the last stage alone Yogg-Saron had more skills at it's disposal than Karrundax has in the whole fight. He summoned adds too, but not some HAMSTER-poor Kobolds who die when you look at them. We spent almost 30minutes before the fight, each time, going through the tactics of the fight. Assigning positions. Assigning portals through which your dps entered the beast's BRAIN to take it out. The players had to watch out for clouds, which functioned very much like the red zones in Neverwinter with the exception that a few more mistakes meant the difference between life and death. Not like now when we can stand or tank the red zones if we want/have to. If you doubt this, go check out Tankspot's guide to Yogg-Saron 25-man on Youtube and tell me that isn't a challenging fight.
Saddest thing of all? That whole fight, it was just the NORMAL mode fight. The boss had 2 harder modes, if I remember correctly, to take on if you had the balls for it. I know I'm romanticizing World of Warcraft a lot here, but it's only because I
Dungeons & Dragons and would love to see it be a challenge through and through. Post edited by soppafin on
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Just keep coming to the forums because you can right? :rolleyes:
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Like the guy above me said, why are you here then replying to these? Like I said, I love D&D and I love this game and the playstyle it represents. That's why I want to see a change for the better in the way bosses are handled, now and in the future.
I don't have any delusions that current bosses would be changed, I just hope they wont make the same mistakes in the future
Yes it does, ALONG with a sizable array of their own skills and spells and raw power to fight the adventurers with. I don't want an arena to fight 1v5 with the bosses, I want the bosses to feel like bosses and not like a larger add with more hp.
How did the overlord get such a large army of minions to support him if he isn't powerful himself?
Zen store
But yeah I know what you mean. I think the barrier to making the bosses more complex and stronger is that some people find the bosses hard already. I do not mean using perches to abuse monster AI here, I mean doing the fight proper.
As has already been stated - yes it does make sense that a Red Dragon would have a lot of minions. What doesn't make sense is that the Red Dragon itself is a wimp.
Red Dragons are meant to be capable of wiping out parties by themselves (preferring hand to hand combat as they are the most physically imposing of all the Dragons). A good example of such a fight in another video game is Lord Firkraag in Baldurs Gate II. Try taking on that Dragon with a Level 12-13 party in a straight up fight (when I would consistently run into him). He'd shred you with his melee attacks let alone the fire-breath and wing-buffet. In addition, he was tough as nails. You needed to breach his considerable resistances and de-buff his strength in order for your tank to be able to hold his ground (and the dragon's attention) long enough to drop him. Also, I'd usually have at least one party member dead by the end of the fight, most of the others were near-death and most of the casters had used everything and the kitchen sink in the process to kill him.
Granted, you could cheese the hell out of most of the BGII fights and win fairly easily (or over-level) but if you treated the fight as if your group had just run into this guy and decided to take him out, it was a close-run thing. It felt like you were taking on one powerful creature whose prowess needed to be taken seriously if you wanted to have a chance of walking away alive.
Fights in this game don't feel like that at all. The adds are what make a fight challenging, and if they are properly controlled, the fights become fairly straight forward in terms of mechanics.
No technology? It's been in use for over a decade... The elephant in the room has turned into reskinning the same fights only recently, if you go back to the early days it was a lot different.
@imanrshol, Kudos man, well said and I loved the BGII reference. It perfectly shows what D&D game should be like
*cough* why are you still here on the forums? ...