Boss Difficulty Discussion (Full Version)

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shadow1531 -> Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/16/2013 17:43:29)

Several of the recent bosses have been considered difficult by players and namely those without access to DoomKnight or DC classes: ManaCrest, Mysterious G, Baron Jaysun Valtrith, etc, due to their powerful abilities (i.e. Mysterious G's mana drain). Are the bosses too hard for regular players? Discuss.

Edited the thread name and title post to better capture the topic.~Elryn


FAQed to keep this around. ~geo



xxDantExx -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/16/2013 18:02:09)

well, it's a matter of strategy...
i beat them both w/ riftwalker, and dont forget to use a meatshield if it's really needed... :)



Sebring9 -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/16/2013 18:06:01)

Not really that hard TBH.....beat them all using CCA and not so tiny bubbles without much trouble



DJ9K -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/16/2013 20:07:29)

o.o I've beaten them all with Ranger and no pet....... >.> soo uhhh..



Xanaomin -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/16/2013 20:20:32)

Strategy. Book 3 makes you learn it. I, for one, applaud the difficulties of these bosses.



Dragonlord Blurok -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/16/2013 20:28:03)

The ManaCrest was a lot easier for Rogues. Especially Rogues armed with the Escelense Daggers from Wrath of Wargoth.
I beat Mysterious Gnome on my first try. All I needed was the SoulWeaver class, and some guy called Aegis.

Yeah they may be bit too hard for players like me to use classes like Ranger, but I enjoy the challenge.



DJ9K -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/16/2013 20:37:48)

^ Yeah, I am capped out xD so that does probably help me. But with rangers slew of nerfs and blinds and whatnot, it helps with high hitters.



Ramix The Red Ace -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/16/2013 20:42:45)

The new bosses are pretty difficult by DF standards, but I swear to GOD that Jaysun has a messed up RNG value.

*grumbles* ten stuns in a row *grumble*



Elryn -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/16/2013 21:16:38)

This thread has potential to be useful for Staff and in general to find something for everyone in boss battles. I will give this thread a chance to provide some constructive feedback and discussion on the issue.

Before things continue, keep a few things in mind:

  • Different players have different levels of mastery of the game: Not all players are alike. For several reasons, including armours, some players will be better than others in Boss battles. A simple and mayhap evident one, but worth reminding. Keep in mind during this that the boss that might be easy to you may not be to another and vice-versa. In the end, no one option will suit everyone.

  • Equipment: As has already been stated a few times, various players have different means: DoomKnight and DC classes for some, DA for others or Free Players. More than just classes however, not every player has the best equipment there is. Not everyone comes on the forums to have their equipment compared and not everyone is knowledgeable about item stats. Consider possibly how a Free Player with sub-par equipment would manage.

  • Strategy: Rather than try a boss once, fail and assume a boss is too hard, try many times using the fullest extent of strategy a class has to offer. There are option out there.



    • The ErosionSeeker -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/16/2013 21:51:58)

    One thing that I feel should be brought to mind is artificial difficulty inflation.

    What is ADI?

    ADI occurs when an enemy (even an important boss) has a very powerful skill, but can either spam it or use it with little to no cost.
    Examples of this phenomenon occur in the forms of Mysterious G, Extreme Hard Pallor, Extreme Hard Jaysun, and any boss with a powerful regen skill.
    So, why is this hard to play against? For bosses like Pallor and Jaysun, they regenerate a large percent of their HP (initial spading suggests that Jaysun regenerates 20% of his maximum HP when using his shadow shield) at no mana cost.

    Enemies like this, although blatantly supposed to be very difficult, suggest that the MP system for enemies has to be reworked. Even though Classes and Guests may offer balanced cost-output ratios, bosses that are able to lock you up, or otherwise arbitrarily extend the duration of the fight by an unreasonable amount of time.

    Speaking of locks, stun-locking is also an issue that's prevalent in any enemy with a stun that lasts for longer than a turn.
    Although unintended, the ability to whittle a guy down by repeatedly rolling a 1d3 is downright unfair. To add insult to injury, many of these bosses also feature immobility resistances that make it difficult to retaliate in the same way.

    Lastly, the third issue I feel with boss difficulty dissonance occurs because of whether or not a class is a have or a have-not. Even have-not classes typically have a stun and a block, but what do 'have' classes have that put them above the rest?
    Meaningful %DOTs or blind skills.

    Even now, BTH (bonus to hit) is such a major force, skills like Blind that cause an enemy to fail half their attacks for 5 turns is insane. Even skilled players complaining about the difficulty of Mysterious G and Jaysun are surprised to find that all current bosses suffer from laughably low hit%, to the point where a -50% skill is enough to act like 5 free turns against the enemy.



    shadow1531 -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/16/2013 22:57:15)

    True, these bosses need to have their special abilities somewhat limited to their mana. Those abilities should have a drain on the mana.



    ergotth -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/17/2013 0:13:31)

    I agreed, the biggest problem with G and Baron is the fact they just spam their stuns, G does that everytime we have mana, while Baron goes randomly as he pleases. At no cost and without reliability that he won't do it again in the next turn. I think these bosses should have a smaller chance of using their stun and locks, decreasing their mana or not.



    Sentimental Melody -> RE: Ridiculously hard bosses (9/17/2013 0:25:27)

    An alternate possibility is if those moves had at least a 1-turn cooldown, to keep it from cycling quite so much.

    I think the main problem I had with Jaysun was that he could heal and shield at the same time. If you split it into two different moves he would be far more tolerable. Unless that made it too easy. I play mostly for the story, but I do like having to sometimes think about strategy, especially long-term as in a boss fight.

    However, I think the ES there had an excellent point about the importance of blind abilities. I have a huge bias towards classes that have such a skill, and value it over a shield overall. Even though it's not perfect, it buys you a little breathing space to set something up or whatever without worrying as much about how much damage you'll take doing it. One of the chief reasons my warrior isn't my main character is that they and their riftwalker upgrade haven't got one. Instead they have a strength reduction, which seems almost silly given how few enemies actually have stats at all.

    And I've always wanted enemies to use some MP for "special" moves, so that mana-attacking skills have a decent purpose being in your arsenal.



    Mechbuster1 -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 0:25:39)

    I did all with base classes plus guest and baby dragon and they were tough. I used Aegis for Manacrest, and Konnan/Apprentice for Mysterious G and the Baron. Manacrest was nearly impossible for my wizard and warrior because of the pierce-only shield. Conversely, the Baron was nearly impossible for my rogue (I won on my third try with 5 hp left). He stunned repeatedly, AND healed a massive amount, AND had a +180 shield AND occasionally hit hard, which felt like too much. For some reason it was easier for my wizard and warrior (+ guest).

    We get one stun every 15 turns or so. If a boss can stun for three turns then it should not be stunning often. They have stun resist, we do not. It would help if they had to spend mana like we do as well. Manacrest's shield should be lower so 2/3 of the character classes can fight her. Mysterious G's siphon ALL mana attack is excessive. How many classes besides DoomKnight rely on spamming 'Attack'? The Baron had too many stacked abilities that hit too often. All three of these battles boiled down to hoping a powerful guest could kill my opponent before I die while my character is shut down due to stuns, massive shields or no mana. These battles ended up being frustrating not impossible, but if the trend continues future bosses could become impossible, so please remember to leave a winning strategy open.



    DJ9K -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 1:40:32)

    Amongst these recent bosses I find that while their skills are a bit over-bearing, they're not unfair. They have been given the type of add-on abilities, heals, stuns, and potential to fight back that has become a necessity to even hope to challenge most high-end players. There are however 3 fatal flaws in all of these, and a single stoic that hinders this completely.

    1: No mana cost with spammablity. - Skills, such as Jayson's heal+shield were far too great an aid for him for no cost whatsoever. Other bosses have had things like this that, rather be it a drain, stun, or other, quickly become both annoying and cheap. If these were to instead cost an amount of Mana for the boss to use, than we could actually put things like mana attacking skills to use - not only would we cure the useless skill issue slightly with this by adding a usefulness to mana-attacks, but we would also cure the primary issue at hand.

    2: Timing. - When a boss can use a specific skill at will, it's more than just a threat. It's cheap. Just like our "final" attacks have cool downs, there should be a set number turns a boss has to take before using a skill. Take ManaCrest's nuke for instance. I managed her easily since she only used it once every 7-10 turns, allowing me save up my defensive techniques, such as blinds and shields, to prevent taking any damage. But if she were to wait only 2 turns, I'd most likely would have taken too much damage to handle it easily. So by giving certain skills a cool-down or set number of turns to use again, rather it be switched up over the long run as to throw us off, or consistent so we can make a strategy for it.

    3: Scaling. - We have an extreme mode, but it really only acts like button made hard mode. If we were to instead make it so that the boss only used certain skills on hard mode, or meltface mode, than it would scale easier for weaker players. Let's take Jayson for example once again. If he instead could only use his stun on extreme mode, than that would be 1 less thing weaker players would have to worry about. Or even make it so the special attacks they use are stronger on extreme, and much weaker on normal, rather than it just being HP, MP, and damage that is changed. This would balance it out were if extreme was not possible, they could simply beat him on normal until they got a bit stronger to try again.


    Since these 3 things aren't implemented at all, we get current bosses that some can't beat, and that get simply time-consuming, bothersome, annoying, and make us not want to fight them repeatedly.



    kamikampi -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 2:00:29)

    @DJ9K
    I'm liking those ideas.

    What I think is the problem is the different balance levels in different classes, especially for many non-DA since they only can use half the skills.
    We want had bosses but some might actually be pretty impossible for some and easy like pie for others. I have no idea how to actually solve this or any real idea how big problem it is since I only have my own characters but it's something I noticed.

    Cooldown on the bosses skills are as said needed or at least something to make it a little more balanced (Maybe reducing our cooldowns). I can't see why it's not possible as it works fine in PvP from my experience.
    If this is not possible it might be worth to balance their skill after it and not making the stun last 2-3 turn and only 1 instead. Make the mana drain drain 15-30% of our mana pool but not ALL of it.



    xxDantExx -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 7:28:27)

    i like really like the idea that bosses should also have the skill cooldowns and mana costs,, just to have a little bit of balance... even if HP wise they have the higher edge.. coz it's
    useless if they put skills in our base classes that attacks mana instead of HP and still monsters especially bosses still can use their skills w/o even a single cost of mana...
    this can also give our free players especially the low levels w/ sub-par equipments a chance to fight toe to toe...



    Starflame13 -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 7:56:11)

    Personally, I've liked the past few bosses because it actually took thinking to beat them, but then, I have Pyro, so I know in the long run I can find a way to beat them. For lower-level players, and even for some that aren't, I agree with the general suggestion of adding mana cost to each of the extreme power attacks.

    However, I'm not opposed to some level of difficulty from the boss monsters. After all, they're called "bosses" for a reason, meaning that it shouldn't be unusual if it takes even high-level players 2 or 3 tries to beat them. But once it gets to the point where it's hard enough that it takes 9, 10, or more tries on normal mode, then it does get pretty frustrating. I think adding in mana, and possibly cool down, on at least normal mode, would help out the lower level players while still keeping it a semi-challenging fight for higher-levels. As for still be challenging for DmK... my advice is to just let continue them destroy everything on extreme. [;)]



    Miran -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 9:30:27)

    There are some excellent points and suggestions made here. [:)]
    I'm especially in favor for enemy skill CD's, which would help with most unlucky locks better than generally lowering the chance of such skills being used.
    The idea that different difficulty modes open or restrict the use of certain skills is a very interesting one that would solve a lot of problems. The only downside I can see might be the difficulty and workload needed to implement it.

    One little tidbit I'd like to add is a question about how the new bosses fit into the flow of the game for new players? I've been reminded, and rightly so, that some bosses just aren't meant to be tackled before mid-to-high levels and with the powerful equipment that's only available at those levels. Then I remembered that you have the option to start a new character in Book 3 instead of Book 1 and went "Oops."
    While it's readily apparent to us that "book hopping" is encouraged, necessary and fun, it might not be as clear to a new player. Imagine someone starting in Book 3, following the main storyline, and running into that kind of boss repeatedly. Of course, the wise and painless answer is "Take a vacation from Book 3, play through the orb quests, unlock Soulweaver and other goodies and then come back." But if that's the intended, the neccessary thing, maybe there's a way to gently guide a player to do exactly that, ingame? (While our forums are awesomely helpful, preventing frustration in-game first is even better than clarifying things here IMO.)

    Some areas of Lore have a level suggestion on the travel map, to keep less experienced players with low-levelled characters from getting frustrated, whereas Book 3 is presented as a very good place to start (and story-wise it absolutely is), but its bosses in their current iterations aren't exactly the kind you'd want to run into in your first week(s) of playing DF. So I wonder if a "Proceed at your own risk" sign somewhere wouldn't be good at the moment.



    Sora To Hoshi -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 9:55:22)

    I truly don't mind hard bosses. Are they frustrating, yes, theyre bosses for a reason. One of the first things that brought me to the DF forums way back when was when Xan's Golem was in Falconreach. I was a lowly lvl like 17 at the time and couldnt beat it for the life of me (even with a DA). I found the Strategy guide under Game Support and was so happy to find that 1) others were having this problem but more so 2) there were suggestions on how to beat bosses/monsters and quests. I used that info a lot espc during Titan fights like Drakonnan, Chickencow (and don't even get me started on Wargoth...).

    As for new non DA players who start book 3 since it's an option then these new bosses might pose a problem.




    Voigan -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 10:19:32)

    I think it would be best if there were two different versions of each boss. The normal version would either have no skills or cooldowns/high mana costs for the skills while the extreme version would have lower or no costs on his/her abilities. I don’t know if the staff would have time to code two separate versions of each boss but I don’t see how free players can beat tough enemies like Jaysun or Mysterious G. Heck, with Jaysun I had to break out Doom Knight for two of characters. My secondary beat him with Cryptic and a bit of luck but he stomped all over my primary and tertiary characters who were using Riftwalker and Ascendant respectively.



    Ash -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 10:33:03)

    The bosses increase in difficulty due to the normal increase in power that happens. In books 1 and 2 the hero, and those he/she allied with, took out most of the weaker boss as well as a lot of the stronger ones. Everyone has increased in power level over the course of the time skip as well. Ash alone went from a weak and scared adventurer to a full fledged hero with control over a blade linked to the daughter of the lord of light. As time passes and more people grow and develop they no longer need the hero to take care of weaker bosses since they can now do it themselves. What do you think happened during the mogloween's, Frostval's, and other holiday's while we were gone? Falconreach didn't just put up a sign, "sorry, hero frozen in ice. Try again next year." and the monsters all hung their heads and retreated till next year to try again. Other adventurers had to step up and take control and do what we did.

    Not only that but the Rose has gone through and taken control while we were frozen. They most likely cleared out plenty of low powered mooks trying to make a name as a villain and only left the strongest that they couldn't deal with at the moment. Coupled with the Dragonlord's who do patrol and try to keep order, the various small groups of adventurers that roam the land and pitch in when needed, and any help from beyond that just happened to show up when needed, all the weak guys are gone.

    Boss difficulty has scaled due to this. You're the "hero", the one who steps in when needed and cleans up after things go wrong. You're expected to get stronger and every time you take out a bad guy a stronger one takes his or her place. Defeating Sepulchure and the Stranger left a power vacuum that allowed for anyone to take advantage of. There are things that go bump in the night, that haunt the very edges of the map, that were only held at bay by the fact that it's easier to go prowling elsewhere for prey rather and build up their strength for the moment that the evil currently in power is beaten. You're now getting to face some of those, some of the magic being unbound and let loose to balance out the amount being strangled by the rose, and seeing the evil that grew in the shadow of Sepulchure and is now loose and running around.



    The real life side of the coin is this. You all would rampage through bosses in books 1 and 2 without much difficulty. Yes there were a few with a tricky mechanic that would take a bit of strategy. For the most part through they were pushovers. As long as you were in a class like Warrior or DeathKnight or Soulweaver you wouldn't lose. Even non-DA players never really had to struggle a lot to win simply because bosses were meant to be beaten. Now as we're progressing and people complained that, "that was soooooo easy" the difficulty is ramping up a bit to go along with the in game reasoning I provided above. You are starting to face some of those evils that should have stayed locked away. The kinds of things that eat most people for breakfast. That difficulty is reflected in game with their mechanics.

    Evil will do tricky and, well, evil things. Who says they wouldn't have come up with a way to drain your health and shield at the same time? Or even to stun you and keep you stunned? These are evil, bad, nasty things that don't always play by the rules and would cheat if they could just to win. Some are just so strong they defy most things that would restrain a normal person. Since our character is mortal and some of the things we face aren't it stands to reason that their abilities would be crazy in some cases. They are tempered by the fact that it's a game and you're supposed to win, but you're facing unmentionable evil...they don't play fair.

    Trust me, they could be a LOT worse. I know I've come up with some crazy ideas for effects that would make it nigh unbeatable but held those back from suggesting them simply because you are supposed to win. You all did say the game was easy for quite a long time...now it's not getting so easy. There will be adjustments to make sure it's beatable for everyone though since the point is to make it hard, not un-winnable. It's a fine line to walk and so far it's been kept, it just means you all are going to have to start planning a bit ahead and adapting a little bit. =P



    Chaosweaver Amon -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 11:17:05)

    I think, that perhaps there could be different weapon types, that do the same things as like, the DragonKnight weapons, and the Escelence ones? Specifically designed for bosses that might just be too intense for the average player.


    But strictly about the boss intesnity, I LOVE it. I thought bosses should be tough, like "My minions have weakened you, but can you get through me?" type of thing. Some of the old bosses simply had normal damage, but more health. I like it this way. Really adds a push to the game I feel.



    samdalrymple123 -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 11:20:21)

    I love the new bosses, my only complaint is the fact that to get to a boss, one has to pass a quest. I am probably alone in saying that I wish the two were seperate, as every time i wish to change class and fight the boss again, instead I have to fight through all the footsoldiers first.



    xxDantExx -> RE: Boss Difficulty Discussion (9/17/2013 13:22:08)

    quote:

    as every time i wish to change class and fight the boss again, instead I have to fight through all the footsoldiers first.


    well.. that's the challenge [;)]... since he is the boss u have to pass his minions first to test if you are a worthy opponent to him...( something like an indian pass, before u are
    considered as being part of the elite warriors of the tribe.. a "baptism of fire" )
    in war scenario... u have to defeat the required number of waves before u can unlock him, right?...



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