How long should final Boss battles last?

[Lesifoere]

I haven't played WoW, but I've watched a few boss battles (the fight against Illidan, recently) and they struck me as rather repetitive. The players keep doing the same things over and over again, following pre-determined tactics that leave no room for innovation and quick-thinking.

They aren't really that long (the Illidan fight I've watched lasted a bit more than 15 minutes) but are they actually entertaining ?

They're entertaining if you're raiding with people you like and who are at the same level of competence as you. It's a lot less fun if you're in it just for the loot, and your guild is at all times tense with drama. I was in something like that once, in a guild on the verge of dissolving and when every little mistake prompts a fit of shrieking on vent.

The people who beat the encounters first/came up with the strategies did have to do a lot of quick thinking and innovation. If you're reading guides on wowwiki or bosskiller, sure, it doesn't require much quick thinking. But even then, it does require some coordination and ability to follow instructions. Which may sound like little, but which unfortunately not everyone has ("CLICK THE GODDAMN CUBE", "RUN OUT FROM DEATH AND DECAY OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU STANDING STILL").

 

[Radisshu]

LLEEEEEROOY.. nevermind, sorry

 

[Lesifoere]

The next expansion pack is making "LEEROY JENKINS" an achievement.

 

[Radisshu]

Seriously?

 

[Lesifoere]

Seriously. I saw it on the test realm. You've to kill fifty dragon whelps within... what, fifteen seconds?

 

[Radisshu]

I wonder how many carefully planned strategies that's gonna fuck up.

 

[Lesifoere]

Since the whelps in question inhabit a dungeon that's now obsolete/trivial to level 70 players--and since you can get to level 80 in Wrath--I imagine not very many. =p

 

[Radisshu]

Oh. I don't know that much about WoW.

 

[Jabbapop]

at least twice as long as the final dungeon. by this point in time your character/party should be so uber that the only challenge should be enduring it without getting up. an no pausing. lool.

 

[eggsackly]

The time is irrelevant if the difficulty is not at least thought provoking. That is to say, there needs to be some type of strategy, or AI, that must be overcome, similar to a game of chess, which boils down to character development and the player's ability to utilize the developed skills, gear, traits, and experience of the character, to achieve victory.

true. some time ago i finished wizardry 8 and compared to some of the fights you encounter at level 5 to 15 the dark savant is a joke. a mob of seven of this spiked whatever dudes made several reloads and the usage of all my potions etc. necessary while the villain (or is he?) of no less than three games + minions were hardly a threat at all. maybe that's all part of the plan but i found it quite underwhelming.

on the other hand there are such chores as the "weapons" in ff7 with at least a million hit points which you can only beat if you explored every nook and cranny of the map and then some.

a good boss fight was the one at the end of throne of baal (with game experience altering mods). not too random or long but requiring good planning even with these high level resting spells. 15 minutes at best but still varied enough. too bad i don't remember the name of the mod. some of the dragons were nice, too. and the kangaxx lich or whatever he was called.

 

[Erebus]

But even then, it does require some coordination and ability to follow instructions.

And patience, I believe. I remember watching my cousin fight a boss with his team (at least 10 people) and it went basically like this :

"Hello, I'm a healer and my only function in this battle is to insure this warrior teammate stays alive ! Here we go ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! The boss is using his special attack ! Run away ! Run away ! Okay, interlude's over, back to de-kicking ass ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal !..."

If it had been me, after five minutes of this, I think I would have yelled "LEEROOOOOY JENKINS !!!" and charged randomly.


@eggsackly : Are you referring to the Ascension mod ? It makes you fight the five bosses you've already killed again plus the not-so-secret boss.

BG2 and ToB had some nice battles. I especially liked the ones in which you had to fight very diverse opponents (the Twisted Rune, the parties of evil adventurers, etc.).
On the other hand, the Kangaxx battle wasn't too good. Either you were protected against his Imprisonment power and it was a piece of cake or you weren't and you stood almost no chance of winning.

 

[Lesifoere]

It is true, being a healer is quite tedious, and when things go wrong, people tend to blame you. That's why I stick to damage-dealing, where at least I have the pleasure of seeing big numbers from critical hits.

 

[Gragt]

Ascension in ToB was pretty fun and challenging from what I can remember. Then again I only fiished ToB once with that mod.

 

[mondblut]

"Hello, I'm a healer and my only function in this battle is to insure this warrior teammate stays alive ! Here we go ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! The boss is using his special attack ! Run away ! Run away ! Okay, interlude's over, back to de-kicking ass ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal !..."

Ugh...

People actually play and enjoy THAT?

:declineofhumanity:

 

[JarlFrank]

Well, if you're a healer, you'll almost certainly find a party because healers are always needed.

But they're work instead of fun to play.

 

[St. Toxic]

work instead of fun

The core feature of any mmo.

(apart from those with early stat/skills caps like uo obviously lul :hypocrite

 

[mondblut]

When AOL shut down the original Neverwinter Nights, I thought no other online game can ever compare to it.

Now, eleven years later, I am fucking certain of it.

 

[sportforredneck]

As long as it's not button mashing and instead more like a puzzle, I said that a final boss fight should be between 30 minutes and an hour. Who wouldn't want a boss fight that played out sort of like a large puzzle that you'd actually need intelligence to solve, rather than spamming fire attacks or some shit just to win. Plus there could multiple ways to get through the boss fight, rather than have it one set way which happens when you're just shooting the whole time.

 

[made]

"Hello, I'm a healer and my only function in this battle is to insure this warrior teammate stays alive ! Here we go ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! The boss is using his special attack ! Run away ! Run away ! Okay, interlude's over, back to de-kicking ass ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal ! Heal !..."

Well, if you want to put it that way, the same applies to DPS, and to a lesser extent, tanking. There aren't many "classic" tank/heal/dps fights left in WoW, however. The shift has been towards more gimmicky encounters, giving people other stuff to do than their basic roles. Though I guess you could sum it up with "don't stand in the fire".

 

[eggsackly]

@eggsackly : Are you referring to the Ascension mod ? It makes you fight the five bosses you've already killed again plus the not-so-secret boss.

mmmmmmaybe. as in most likely. but i had some other mods going which made battles in general a bit harder and i don't know if those had an influence on the final fight. but this was years ago and my memory isn't what it used to be (hey, i'm almost thirty).

(btw are there any wizardry 8 mods (beside the speed tweak), especially regarding the boss- and subbossfights? i really want to take the masochistic route and do it with a single character but i think the ordinary battles are white knuckle enough to be entertaining. i only completed it once but somehow it sneaked into my top 10 list without even trying. imho the best voice acting evar. the JA experience of the designers really paid off here. mmh, i guess my third post on the codex will be some unapologetic obeisance (that's an actual word?) to those guys. the new york/new jersey wiseguy speak of the rattkins alone has enough soul to carry its own franchise)

 

[Ebonsword]

Mondblut is right as always. Bosses always feel rather forced. Boss fights are a weak and outdated trend, and they never really add to the game.

Hmm, an interesting opinion.

It seems to me, though, that boss fights are a pretty integral part of RPGs, in that they mirror the final confrontation between good & evil that occurs in a lot of the genre fiction that served as the original inspiration for RPGs.

What do you recommend for a game's climax in lieu of a final boss fight?


Oh, and apparently, the boss that I fought in Persona 3 isn't the "true" final boss. It was just the "normal" final boss. It seems that there's not one, but two "hidden" bosses that you can fight who are even tougher (!). One supposedly uses a spell that bypasses all resistances and insta-kills your party if you try to run certain protective magics.

The Japanese appear to be a very sadistic race...