Why are boss fights add-centric instead of having a complex boss?

starcher · January 2014

I've only been playing a month. One aspect of the game that I have trouble grasping is how add-heavy the bosses are. In most games, there's a few adds but mainly the boss is the focus and the boss is programmed complex enough to provide a satisfying fight by itself. In Neverwinter, I feel like the actually boss itself is there for a distraction and pretty much the whole fight is spent trying to destroy the non-stop tidalwave of adds. I didn't play Turbine's DDO but is that game also like this? I want to fight bosses and not a Royal Rumble of adds. I wish the boss fights resembled basically every other MMO where the boss was not just some add-spawner with a few attacks thrown in.

This is my experience up to Mad Dragon. Do the boss fights become more boss-centric at higher levels?

krimbarbarroja · January 2014

Mmmm....not really, and I'd argue it gets way, way, way worse. Dread vault and Frozen Heart are horrible examples, and Spellplague caverns is probably the worst offender, as the boss does basically nothing but to empower adds.

However, newer bosses like Fulminorax and Valindra ARE more boss-centric. I think it is just a matter of the dev team not being able to come up with interesting mechanics, but I hope and think they are learning.

johnnywad309 · January 2014

I've been playing about two weeks now, just reached level 60 a few days ago. I've been having good luck in the tier one epic dungeons and have been getting gear at a reasonable pace. I just tonight failed in a dungeon for the very first time. We made it all the way through the Lair of the Mad Dragon to the last boss then wiped repeatedly because of the constant adds. Since I started playing a couple weeks ago I've noticed this too. During the last boss fight, I had constant aggro on the dragon boss (as a combat HR) and he was not able to do any kind of substantial damage to me. I'm not even a tank... The real problem was the massive amount of Imps and Magi that kept spawning. (Plus a DC & CW that couldn't get out of the red circles on the ground.) It's sad the massive dragon stomping around isn't really doing jack squat to the group, but the adds are owning everyone. The bosses themselves need to be made more engaging and difficult.

TL;DR Make bosses stronger, stop turning every fight into a swarm of adds. It's boring and uninteresting.

ircymim · January 2014

Even tho I've only started recently, I've noticed this as well. In other MMO the tank (here the guardian figher) can grab and keep agro of freshly spawned adds. Not in this game.. As a control wizard or great weapon fighter it seems to be my role to quickly AOE the adds and move around the arena and kite the things until the boss goes down.
I play mostly tanks in other MMOs and it's somewhat funny that even when I choose intentionally a non-tank, I end up tanking - just not regular tanking, but kite-tanking ^_^

alandoril1 · January 2014

I've stopped doing dungeons because of the ads. Even MC and VT are guilty of placing too much emphasis on mobs other than the boss. The dungeons in this game are just tedious.

kattefjaes · January 2014

starcher wrote: »

This is my experience up to Mad Dragon. Do the boss fights become more boss-centric at higher levels?

Recently, they have learned to design some better boss fights- Valindra's Tower is my favourite yet.. There are only adds if you screw up, in that fight. Moreover, everyone has to do their job, people who are used to being carried through instances get found out by their inability to manage something as simple as "run to the right place and click stuff" consistently.

The Fulminorax fight at the end of Malabog's castle is pretty decent, too.

I also really enjoy the last fight of Temple Of The Spider, in epic mode. There are tons of adds, but you don't actually have to fight them at all- they are managed by having a fighter class face tank them until the boss consumes, at which point, someone knocks them out of the red spots. It adds an interesting dynamic to the fight, as if someone doesn't do what they're supposed to, which is always hug the boss and stay out of trouble, they die. If they have trouble with the adds, it's their own fault, which is hilarious.

Anyway, encounter design is definitely getting better- MC and VT show that they're getting there. Boss-centric fights with multiple phases, where roflcoptars who expect to be carried have to at least pay minimal attention to avoid failure are a major step in the right direction!

alandoril1 wrote: »

I've stopped doing dungeons because of the ads. Even MC and VT are guilty of placing too much emphasis on mobs other than the boss. The dungeons in this game are just tedious.

Err, no they aren't. You're talking nonsense. You don't get adds on Valindra or Fulminorax at all, unless you fail to handle the fight mechanics.

mysterynotes · January 2014

starcher wrote: »

I've only been playing a month. One aspect of the game that I have trouble grasping is how add-heavy the bosses are. In most games, there's a few adds but mainly the boss is the focus and the boss is programmed complex enough to provide a satisfying fight by itself. In Neverwinter, I feel like the actually boss itself is there for a distraction and pretty much the whole fight is spent trying to destroy the non-stop tidalwave of adds. I didn't play Turbine's DDO but is that game also like this? I want to fight bosses and not a Royal Rumble of adds. I wish the boss fights resembled basically every other MMO where the boss was not just some add-spawner with a few attacks thrown in.

This is my experience up to Mad Dragon. Do the boss fights become more boss-centric at higher levels?

Veteran player of DDO here.
No, the fights in DDO are not add-centric.

In fact, almost every dungeon is more complex than the ones i've seen so far in this game.
The only dungeons i haven't done yet are VT, CN and MC though, so i don't know about those.

angrysprite · January 2014

Why are boss fights so 'add-centric'? The answer is pretty simple: Cryptic has been working on Neverwinter for what, three years before the first closed beta? They have to build a full, complete world before anyone outside the company gets to see it. They need these boss encounters to be an 'epic' challenge as compared to the rest of the dungeon/crypt/tower/whatever.

You as the level designer have 50 of these environments to design, create, build, proof, troubleshoot, and perfect within three months. What do you do? Creating "Boss Adds" is the quickest, easiest, most reliable way to do it; it just requires a simple command or two: spawn new adds when Boss health reaches X level.

Obviously I'm guessing at this point, but a little deductive reasoning can go a long way to *understanding*.

The newer boss fights that don;t rely on adds have the new mechanics because there was actually time to develop them. The "old and original" boss fights rely on adds because there wasn't time to do it any other way.

Star Trek Online has been going back and redoing a large chunk of their early content (those instances created for launch time) and rehashing and redesigning them, because they now have the time to do them. I have no doubt many, if not most are practically all the level-designer Devs in Neverwinter would like to go back and have a thorough "re-do" pass at many things, especially "boss" instances all throughout the game.

But they are working really hard to: patch bugs, create new content, tweak balancing, develop additional modules, and all kinds of stuff. They just don;t have the time and resources to go back to make another pass at all this stuff.

Someday they will. I'm really hoping Neverwinter is as successful as STO and that Cryptic finds a need to actually hire new people into the Dev teams and has the money to do it. When Neverwinter hits its stride and is zooming along at a strong clip, then they will begin to have the time and resources to revisit the older and original content.

The developers of Neverwinter badly want it to the best possible game on the planet. Never doubt that. and because of that they are working very hard to do all these things, which if it were so easy, anyone could do it. But that's not the case, is it?

Stand with me and have the faith in our very hard-working Neverwinter team. They only want the best, just as we do. So go buy something from the Neverwinter Z-Store to support them, and have a little patience as they make way toward all our goals.

Call me a fanboi of Cryptic? Okay, fair enough. I support Cryptic and I try to have some empathic understanding for what the Devs are trying to do and how difficult it is to do it.

starcher · January 2014

My words are being taken too far; I'm not personally attacking the developers, saying that it's easy to design the game, OR that I could do the job. I'm simply questioning why the game has boss encounters designed unlike any other MMO. Sure, having this setup for boss fights is unique but sometimes trying to reinvent the wheel is not the way to generate excitement for the game. I'm glad that the newer instances have a better design so I have something to look forward to encountering. If I want to fight buttloads of adds, I would skirmish or quest. However, in dungeons, I prefer to excitedly describe how cool the boss is and his patterns rather than "This is what adds it spawns and this is how to fight the adds but don't worry too much about the boss because he has two attacks and has to be stationary while doing both of them."

hiddenfate · January 2014

The simple truth is that it's easier to make a bunch of adds than it is to create complex monsters and bosses. Why are they taking the easy route? I don't know, maybe there is a justified reason but also maybe there isn't. They'd have to tell us themselves and considering they refuse to even mention their ideas for new updates before they reach the preview shard I doubt we'll hear anything regarding this anytime soon. If we're lucky they'll just update it at some point without much of an explanation :P

pitshade · January 2014

I think the answer lies in the fact that the game shifted from a cooperative online RPG to an MMO during development. Most likely, the heroic versions of the dungeons were the original and the epics were created in an attempt to make level 60 content as quickly as possible. On the whole, none of the heroic dungeons swamp you with adds. There are some in every boss fight, but no where near the level that the epics, especially the T2s and CN feature. (Note that apparently at some point there was a heroic version of CN, based on the achievements page of your journal.) The boss mechanics aren't any more complex in the heroic versions, but they were also not designed for players with the full range of powers that level 60 characters can field, nor for the wide range of GS/Stat customization available with epic gear and enchants. It's often easier to start from scratch than to scale something up to a higher difficulty level, but most likely time was an issue here. It was just faster to use existing dungeons and try to make them harder.

I would love to see the original epics rebalanced, especially the dragon fights redone with no adds, except for Karru's wyrmlings of course.

starcher · January 2014

I'm a bit confused on the terminology. Are epics the dungeons we do while leveling and heroic are the level 60 dungeons?

ryugasirius · January 2014

The adds mechanic in heroic dungeons is a decent mechanic to break the pace of tearing down the boss. 3 or 4 times per boss fight you have some adds to take care of before returning to the boss-blasting, and if you're caught unprepared they can do some serious damage.

Epic dungeons are just swarming with adds. You can't kill them off as they keep respawning (in some cases even immediatelly, so there is no point in doing so). As a GF I even struggle taunting them because, well, my main AoE taunt skill is hard-capped at 6 while adds around the map are ~20 and there are so many mobs on screen that i can't use targeted skills because the engine likes to pick the wrong target. It is obvious that epic dungeons weren't designed that way, they were hastily done to have some lv60 content.

I hope they are redone from scratch and they make epic bosses more powerful and way less adds (most of all, no infinitely respawning adds!!).

pitshade · January 2014

starcher wrote: »

I'm a bit confused on the terminology. Are epics the dungeons we do while leveling and heroic are the level 60 dungeons?

The other way. Heroic dungeons are the leveling ones that can be directly accessed from the maps. Epic dungeons are the level 60 - must queue to enter - with minimum GS requirements.

temjiu · January 2014

I see Pitshade's PoV myself. it almost feels like they had good content, then got forced to push teh bar higher at the last minute, and the add "addition" was the quickest and easiest route.

There are allot of things that I like about this game, and plenty of stuff that I wish they did better. but my first time through playing...what made me quit...was the t2 add nightmare. it was the only time in my decade and a half of playing MMO's, that I seriously felt like ragequitting. Which I actually did after trying a few more times. I got back in shortly after this recent pack, and Honestly, at this point i have no desire to run end game instances here. This is a first for me in any MMO...ever.

no matter what the reason, no matter how the dev's feel about it, the honest reaction from their players is needed. Whoever makes these decisions needs to realize that the choice to turn a great game into an add-fest has hugely negative results. If they have plans for going back and redoing old content (specifically the top tier dungeons from previous packs), then they need to prioritize it strongly IMO. Because this is one player that will NOT do end game content until it is fixed. I am a perma-crafter and alt leveler at this point. i can buy decent enough gear off the AH to do whatever I need in the game....top tier dungeons aren't even worth it at this point.

charononus · January 2014

pitshade wrote: »

I would love to see the original epics rebalanced, especially the dragon fights redone with no adds, except for Karru's wyrmlings of course.

Karru is such a disappointing fight. First time I saw it ooohhhh red dragon, but the dragon was a lightweight it was the adds that were dangerous yet again.

I will say I am much happier with the newer dungeons though. There is still room for improvement but it's going in the right direction.

pitshade · January 2014

charononus wrote: »

Karru is such a disappointing fight. First time I saw it ooohhhh red dragon, but the dragon was a lightweight it was the adds that were dangerous yet again.

Karru uses as far as I can tell, the same mechanics as the other dragons though someone told me she has less HP. I'd keep the unique mechanic of Karru flying off and fighting the wyrmlings, just buff her and the other dragons. Take the Garrundar skirmish. When I did it on my second CW and threw the trappers and mystics off the cliff before they could do much, the party killed the dragon in no time. Even the Fulmi fight is mostly challenging due to Valindra's actions.

charononus · January 2014

pitshade wrote: »

Karru uses as far as I can tell, the same mechanics as the other dragons though someone told me she has less HP. I'd keep the unique mechanic of Karru flying off and fighting the wyrmlings, just buff her and the other dragons. Take the Garrundar skirmish. When I did it on my second CW and threw the trappers and mystics off the cliff before they could do much, the party killed the dragon in no time. Even the Fulmi fight is mostly challenging due to Valindra's actions.

No real argument, just talking mostly about my first impressions from almost a year ago now.

ryugasirius · January 2014

pitshade wrote: »

Karru uses as far as I can tell, the same mechanics as the other dragons though someone told me she has less HP. I'd keep the unique mechanic of Karru flying off and fighting the wyrmlings, just buff her and the other dragons. Take the Garrundar skirmish. When I did it on my second CW and threw the trappers and mystics off the cliff before they could do much, the party killed the dragon in no time. Even the Fulmi fight is mostly challenging due to Valindra's actions.

Epic bosses definitely need some new mechanic that makes them hard without relying on mass adds.

They are usually very slow moving (unless they have some leap/charge skill), their attacks are also slow and often do limited damage against well-skilled players. Even the most powerful bosses aren't effective at killing players as they should be.

calvin1tag · January 2014

They need to nerf the adds into the ground and buff the bosses and their attacks / mechanics for the challenge IMO. We are there to have an "epic" boss battle not to have an "epic" henchman army overrun!

azahron · January 2014

It was one of the things that originally drove me away from the game, after doing all the skirmishes and dungeons I've had enough of every boss formula consisting of "Spam AoEs and spawn massive amounts of adds".
I was kinda hoping this would've improved after my extensive break from the game. =/
How's the dungeonfinder these days? Is it still game over if someone bails/disconnects? Or can you get a replacement now?

badeacelrau · January 2014

Why do people love to team up against a solo guy and don't like it when he turns the numbers in his favour? Maybe because they're bad. I think the fights with a solo boss like MC and VT are significantly easier than CN where there are several types of red on the ground and you have to figure which is which, which one you can tank and which one will one-shot you.

chemboy613 · January 2014

A: You can get a replacement, but it's hard to control who/what it is.

Even though I play my CW most often, the huge amount of adds necessitates that dungeons are more efficient with more CWs and GWFs. Thats fine at some point, but every dungeon and every profitable dungeon requires these classes to be done efficiently and effectively. Currently, the best party seems to be 4CW/GWF or maybe 3CW/2GWF or 3CW/GWF/TR, something like that.

If you do something with 1CW, in general, the clear is much slower and that CW has to work his tail off. The very few times i've done a no CW dungeon, it was very slow and the adds were everywhere...

I am looking forward to more varied mechanics. I would like to bring any other class and not think "omg, i should have brought my CW" most of the run.

chemboy613 · January 2014

and yeah bade, I think they ARE easier than draco, but back in the day when fulminorax was hard, that fight was a blast. We did a MC today, GWF had slam, CW had malestorm, and we blew up that dragon in 5 minutes. It was easy.

ryugasirius · January 2014

badeacelrau wrote: »

Why do people love to team up against a solo guy and don't like it when he turns the numbers in his favour? Maybe because they're bad. I think the fights with a solo boss like MC and VT are significantly easier than CN where there are several types of red on the ground and you have to figure which is which, which one you can tank and which one will one-shot you.

Maybe because you just killed 200 mobs to get to the boss. Maybe because even if you kill 200 more during a boss fight, they will keep spawning forever. It's not about being outnumbered, it's about having a chance to kill those adds. Possibly without a CW, as not always one is available.

xxmantaraxx · January 2014

Its the infinite spawning add that i have a problem with. Go ahead and zerg our party with adds at set points in the battle but let us kill them. Boss gets a break from damage for a sec and the party focuses on burning the trash and staying out of the red. It is SO UNREWARDING to kill an add and watch it respawn before your encounters come off cooldown. Also we know the endless spawning adds is broken and sometimes leads to the party having to purposely wipe (sometimes several times) after the boss is killed because adds dont stop spawning (FH and PK first bosses, im sure most have had to deal with this happening).

krimbarbarroja · January 2014

It also leads to the stupid situation of someone "kiting" (I quote it because it's not really kiting: I run straight through them all the time because their attacks are so slow they can't actually hit me) all the adds into boredom during 15 min because there is no actual chance of FIGHTING them. As a fat Dwarf in 100 lb armor, I feel epic-silly doing this over and over and over. (The fact that the boots in FH will not drop after 15 tries ain't helping, either).

hiddenfate · January 2014

I don't think the adds would be so poorly received if they did more than just run up to you and spam the "annoy" button on their little AI controllers. If the adds had something that made them a threat (and there were less of them at a time and they were on a respawn timer) and supplemented the boss's abilities and powers then maybe we'd be more likely to tolerate them because they'd add to the boss fight instead of just make our mouse creep ever closer to the "uninstall" button.

pitshade · January 2014

krimbarbarroja wrote: »

It also leads to the stupid situation of someone "kiting" (I quote it because it's not really kiting: I run straight through them all the time because their attacks are so slow they can't actually hit me) all the adds into boredom during 15 min because there is no actual chance of FIGHTING them. As a fat Dwarf in 100 lb armor, I feel epic-silly doing this over and over and over. (The fact that the boots in FH will not drop after 15 tries ain't helping, either).

I don't know if it was a ninja fix, but it is possible to kill the adds in the FH endboss fight and keep them under control. It's also possible now to kite and then kill them after the boss goes down, they do stop spawning.

tornnomar · January 2014

Add FH Hirmirr (whatever his name is) to that list. Ran that today and after he went down, the adds kept spawning, and spawning.

To keep it real, I wiped, and watched probably the best kiting I have ever seen. But the continuously spawning adds after the boss death was frustrating and ridiculous. I mean there were probably 15 trolls and at least 8 golems. Kill one, more spawned.

Said screw it and went and had dinner.

ryugasirius · January 2014

pitshade wrote: »

I don't know if it was a ninja fix, but it is possible to kill the adds in the FH endboss fight and keep them under control. It's also possible now to kite and then kill them after the boss goes down, they do stop spawning.

Can anyone confirm that?

I'll try FH this evening (I still need T2 boots), hope it's fixed for real!

Why are boss fights add-centric instead of having a complex boss?

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