Decline On why boss combat is shit (and why your favorite Soulslike sucks).

[anvi]

Level scaling ftw

 

[mondblut]

That's why "broken" systems where you can off a "boss" with a single lucky disintegrate, leaving the developers in tears, are the best.

 

[jaekl]

I play rambo style in dark souls type games, never fighting fair or standing toe to toe if I can help it. So, I find it very insulting to my intelligence when I get forced inside an inescapable arena to fight some giant monster who I could easily trick into getting stuck in a doorway and poison them to death if not for the railroading into a situation that I would never allow myself to get into in the first place.

It also gives me conniptions when there's a cutscene in the middle of the boss where I must stand there gawking and allow him to spend 8 minutes transforming into another form instead of rectally administering the entire length of my halberd.

 

[JarlFrank]

The bosses were the worst part of Dark Souls.

I love both soulslikes and metroidvanias for their exploration but a large part of the fanbase is obsessed with boss fights and plays those games just for the bosses.
This whole boss obsession is ruining genres that have great other aspects.

 

[mondblut]

The bosses were the worst part of Dark Souls.

I love both soulslikes and metroidvanias for their exploration but a large part of the fanbase is obsessed with boss fights and plays those games just for the bosses.
This whole boss obsession is ruining genres that have great other aspects.

I rarely agree with dorky on anything, but this stupid coin-op mentality cannot die and be buried with extreme prejudice soon enough. Especially in any game that claims to be an RPG in any shape or form. "Pattern memorization" my ass. 1980s called, they want their brand of microtransactions back. In an RPG, your job is to build the kind of party the "bosses" will bounce off and die on their own, not to "memorize patterns".

 

[luj1]

Max Payne, MDK, Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain - there were the real third-person action games

I really love Max Payne 1-2, but they have bossfghts, the first game even have a really shitty HP-bloated one. I like the oroginal Tomb Raider for the levels, puzzles and platforming, but the shooting gameplay isn't good

No one said these games don't have flaws. But they were the third-person action games of their day and each had unique gameplay, unlike DS and its ilk, which are formulaic. Which was the whole point of this thread.

 

[JarlFrank]

RPGs have already had "bosses" since D&D first edition: enemies with abilities that operate within the same consistent ruleset as the player characters. Liches with access to high level spells, for example, but whose spellcasting abilities operate under the same limitations as the player's.

 

[jaekl]

That reminds me, remember when they took away our poise but still gave it to our foes to taunt us with? I'm getting mad just thinking about it.

 

[orcinator]

The bosses were the worst part of Dark Souls.

I love both soulslikes and metroidvanias for their exploration but a large part of the fanbase is obsessed with boss fights and plays those games just for the bosses.
This whole boss obsession is ruining genres that have great other aspects.

I rarely agree with dorky on anything, but this stupid coin-op mentality cannot die and be buried with extreme prejudice soon enough. Especially in any game that claims to be an RPG in any shape or form. "Pattern memorization" my ass. 1980s called, they want their brand of microtransactions back. In an RPG, your job is to build the kind of party the "bosses" will bounce off and die on their own, not to "memorize patterns".

Shut the fuck up fake Grog, Real RPGs as Gary Gygax envisioned them don't even have builds.

 

[JarlFrank]

Real RPGs are wargames.

 

[mondblut]

Shut the fuck up fake Grog, Real RPGs as Gary Gygax envisioned them don't even have builds.

I said "build the party", idiot. I said nothing of stacking paladin and warlock levels to qualify for that Anointed Hellpenis prestige class. I reckon real RPGs as Gary Gygax envisioned them had spells, levels and magic items, innit?

 

[mondblut]

Real RPGs are wargames.

Nah. Wargames don't have a "nah, I think we'll go another way" element. Set piece battles and mission briefings are NOT rpg, period.

 

[Falksi]

Fucking love a good boss fight, but they have to be done well.

I get and agree with the argument that a lot of modern games drop the ball with them, but I don't think there's an intrinsic problem with them in themselves. Whether RPGs should have less to allow for more actual roleplaying etc. is definitely a POV I can get too, but for gaming in general I'm way more for them than against them.

Every game designer needs to play through Contra Hard Corps until they can 1CC both Jap & Western versions of the game, then they'll understand what makes amazing boss fights.

We also shouldn't be pandering to weaker, skill issue gamers such as PorkyThePaladin , just because they play like blind retards with no thumbs.

 

[Socrates]

There is a whole cult of gamers who think Dark Souls, Sekiro, Elden Ring, and similar games like Nioh represent the height of video game combat or action RPG combat. I will now proceed to explain to you why they are wrong.

I think you are wrong.

1. It is a legacy of video game history. Arcade games were some of the earliest popular offerings in the industry, so it seems natural for other games to borrow some of their elements, including a procession of bosses increasing in difficulty.

So what? Video games are iterative.

2. It is one of the easiest and laziest ways to structure a video game or an RPG: at key points of the game progression, have the player face some "boss" with arbitrarily more powerful abilities/stats, make them beat it to progress, test their skills, etc. Almost any other way to structure a game into segments would involve more effort: e.g. you would have to design a world with multiple segments thematically/structurally/narratively... Much easier to just take some NPC, increase their model size, change hitpoint variable by a thousand times, and give them a few OP abilities.

Since you specifically mentioned Dark Souls, Sekiro, and Elden Ring I will use these as context. I haven't played Nioh so I can't speak to it.

You are being incredibly reductionist in your analysis. The souls series typically has a vast tapestry of mythology and backstory to the main bosses the player will face interwoven into the fight itself. Take the twin princes of DS3. This model is unique and not, "copy and pasted" or just recklessly upscaled to fit into a cheap fight.

Two brothers cursed by the flame in which one exchanged their vitality with the other in order so that they may live until the last of the first flame is extinguished. It's a two-phase fight and if the eldest dies the younger will attempt to revive him. It's both mechanically and thematically consistent and thoughtful. For the player who is paying attention there a lot to gleam from this one singular boss fight.

The problem with boss combat is that it is guaranteed to be shit.

You are just asserting this with no real evidence.

Given the massive disparity in health, damage, abilities and so on, no combat system can be devised for one of these to fight the other, so they have to fall back on some cheesy shit. That cheese shit might work once in a movie, but in a video where you have to do it many times, it quickly becomes a waste of time.

This is factually incorrect and demonstrates to me you either have no idea how to play a soulslike game or have never played one in the first place. Souls bosses typically fall into 4 categories. Standard bosses, puzzle bosses, timed bosses, and gimmick bosses. Every main boss in a soulsgame has a correct and incorrect way of approaching the fight. The difficulty spike is dependent on how the bosses are programmed with their moveset to punish the player for mistakes and or being too greedy on the offense.

Instead, they have all the initiative, and the only thing you can do is "figure them out". Mostly, boss combat reminds me of you (the player) jumping through hoops for developers, like a nice dog. Which should be the opposite of fun for most normal people.

Yes. You are supposed to pay attention and strategize. This is a crucial element to a good antagonist. Brainlessly beating everything to death gets boring fast.

Games with combat based on general principles, on the other hand, can be absolutely fantastic (for example Kingdom Come: Deliverance, once you remove master strike, or Mount & Blade games). There are no bosses in these games, they have characters who are stronger and more important antagonists in the story, but they are sure as hell aren't "bosses", and play by the same rules as you do.

It's time for developers to stop using the shitty boss trope, and instead introduce general principle combat, ideally based on RL fighting arts to some degree.

This is such a bizarre thing to say. You are comparing two completely different settings where one is going for a moderate dose of historical realism and the other, a world built around mythology and archetypes. How can you even compare these two? Souls games have never even attempted to approach realism because they are not supposed to be. They are mythological. You critiquing soulsgames for this is like someone criticizing Greek mythology because regular people can't hurl bolts of lighting like Zeus can.

 

[orcinator]

Shut the fuck up fake Grog, Real RPGs as Gary Gygax envisioned them don't even have builds.

I said "build the party", idiot.

Semi-random based on stat rolls.

I reckon real RPGs as Gary Gygax envisioned them had spells, levels and magic items, innit?

Possibly random depending on ref's call, gained through achieving the goal of the game but offering no actual choice save picking spells(depends on ref's call), random or ref's call
As a player you had almost no control over this stuff so the challenge was to face/avoid the hazards in the dungeon using your brain meats(and luck, let's be real here) instead of winning during character gen then watching numbers go up for 10-40~ hours.

 

[FA7]

One of the finest features of ds was coop. When playing for the first time difference between beating gargoyles with and without ally was huge. Bosses were put there only as a tool, a way of understanding how to praise the sun and how one can become so grossly incandescent. OP missed the whole point and fails to seek his very own sun.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

It should be pretty obvious that no kind of elegant or interesting combat is possible when one combatant is a human (or close to it), and another is Godzilla or King Kong or Superman.

Entirely dependant on the game's mechanics

What are you, turning your brain off or something? Stop thinking in terms of shitty video game tropes for a second, and describe to me a set of mechanics that allows a regular human to fight Godzilla that are NOT completely gimmicky or retarded?

In movies, it can work as a gimmicky thing one time (ie a hero takes over some submarine, then uses it to strap a nuclear bomb to Godzilla's arsehole, etc), but imagine this as a combat system in a game. This shit just doesn't work. You can have a couple of "extra" combats in a game against dragons, as a change of pace thing, but making it a regular thing GUARANTEES for that combat system to be retarded.

Instead, they have all the initiative, and the only thing you can do is "figure them out". Learn their patterns, and then respond to them.

One paragraph earlier:

A boxer keeps throwing out feints, watching his opponent react, then on the basis of this reaction, anticipates where to throw his next punch in advance of the opponent's movement.

These are not contradictory in any way. A boxer knows the basics of boxing (combat system built on general principles). He knows how to throw punches, how to bob and weave and defend against enemy punches. So he is prepared for his opponent, and knows what to do, but so does his opponent (assuming they are both trained boxers). So they can fight at a relatively equal level, and WHILE they are doing that, they can read each other and react. This is how good combat works.

Meanwhile in boss combat, you generally have no fucking idea what this particular boss will do, because they are all designed to have dumbass abilities that have nothing to do with reality or general principles. So you go in expecting to die a few times (at best), while learning what it is they are fucking doing.

This difference is what separates good, fun combat from the shit that is boss combat.

Games with combat based on general principles, on the other hand, can be absolutely fantastic (for example Kingdom Come: Deliverance, once you remove master strike, or Mount & Blade games). There are no bosses in these games, they have characters who are stronger and more important antagonists in the story, but they are sure as hell aren't "bosses", and play by the same rules as you do.

You can't make good enough AI for "fair" combat. So it's either PvP or games with well designed bosses.

Sure you can. Check out games like M&B: Warband, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Battle Brothers, etc.

2. It is one of the easiest and laziest ways to structure a video game or an RPG: at key points of the game progression, have the player face some "boss" with arbitrarily more powerful abilities/stats, make them beat it to progress, test their skills, etc. Almost any other way to structure a game into segments would involve more effort: e.g. you would have to design a world with multiple segments thematically/structurally/narratively... Much easier to just take some NPC, increase their model size, change hitpoint variable by a thousand times, and give them a few OP abilities.

Since you specifically mentioned Dark Souls, Sekiro, and Elden Ring I will use these as context. I haven't played Nioh so I can't speak to it.

You are being incredibly reductionist in your analysis. The souls series typically has a vast tapestry of mythology and backstory to the main bosses the player will face interwoven into the fight itself. Take the twin princes of DS3. This model is unique and not, "copy and pasted" or just recklessly upscaled to fit into a cheap fight.

How does any of this matter to the argument at hand? You can make a non-boss enemy who fits into mythology just as easily. Stop side-tracking.

The problem with boss combat is that it is guaranteed to be shit.

You are just asserting this with no real evidence.

You know, for a guy named after Socrates, this above is a really shitty statement. Since you proceed to argue with my evidence below. So how can you assert the above before doing so?

Given the massive disparity in health, damage, abilities and so on, no combat system can be devised for one of these to fight the other, so they have to fall back on some cheesy shit. That cheese shit might work once in a movie, but in a video where you have to do it many times, it quickly becomes a waste of time.

This is factually incorrect and demonstrates to me you either have no idea how to play a soulslike game or have never played one in the first place. Souls bosses typically fall into 4 categories. Standard bosses, puzzle bosses, timed bosses, and gimmick bosses. Every main boss in a soulsgame has a correct and incorrect way of approaching the fight. The difficulty spike is dependent on how the bosses are programmed with their moveset to punish the player for mistakes and or being too greedy on the offense.

Now you are just spewing some Soulslike logic nonsense. Let me break it down for you: those 4 types you mention are actually one: they are all puzzle bosses, with the only difference being, what the puzzle is. Do you figure out the gimmick of how to defeat them, or the timing, or some other "puzzle", or standard, which is basically figuring out their moveset/timing anyway. In other words, it's not even an interesting puzzle, you just die a bunch of times to figure out what the correct way to beat them is. And none of this in any way disputes what I said above: this is all cheese compared to realistic combat.

In other words, yet again, for the reading comprehension challenged:

1. Good combat - you learn some general principles, when to parry, when to dodge, when to block, when to attack, when to use different combos, etc. Maybe practice it until you get the muscle memory down. Then you can apply it in any situation, while adopting it somewhat for your particular enemy (while still staying within the general principles). Example: KCD, Warband, Battle Brothers.

2. Bad combat - you face every new tough enemy and immediately die because they have 20 new special attacks you haven't seen before, and 2,000,000 hitpoints, and play by a completely different ruleset than you. Then you spend hours trying to "figure them out".

 

[DJOGamer PT]

What are you, turning your brain off or something?

No, but I suspect you are
It's a pretty straigthfoward fact that the way a game plays is what determines what challenges it can efficiently support

You talk talk about games where a "regular" human takes on unbelievably powerful beings, but you ignore the fact in those games your human protagonist most of the times also possess some unbelievable capabilities thanks to nonsense like DnD magic or cartoon super science
Meaning those games have mechanics to plausibely accomadote such scenario

These are not contradictory in any way.

Eh... you didn't get the jab (ba-dum-tsss)
You complained that in melee combat games the player had to learn the enemies patterns, but one paragraph earlier you literally described how understading the opponents behaviour and patterns was a big part of boxing and how it's like a mental chess game

Meanwhile in boss combat, you generally have no fucking idea what this particular boss will do, because they are all designed to have dumbass abilities that have nothing to do with reality or general principles. So you go in expecting to die a few times (at best), while learning what it is they are fucking doing.

This difference is what separates good, fun combat from the shit that is boss combat.

And I agree - except the "reality" part, because gameplay doesn't need to conform with reality to be good
And all good Figthing games, Hack 'n' Slashes, Beat 'em Ups and really, all good games in general do this
They might have some irregularities in minor design elements and challenges, but they all have some general principles that most of the game conforms to
The fact you don't seem to think there are games with boss that do this, just reveals ignorance on this matter from your part

How does any of this matter to the argument at hand?

You made an argument that bosses are a bad way to structure a game, even for a narrative standpoint
He gave you a counter-example

DS3 is a game about killing fallen gods/demi-gods ; one such god are the twin princes which are important in the game's worldbuild and also one of the few beings that get hyped to player by other NPCs ; they also are locted in one the last and best levels in game ; also also, they are also one of the few gods that haven't lost their humanity.
So all things considered, not fighting these guys, would've made no sense for the game

I'll give you another counter-example, Letho in The Witcher 2
The entire conflict begins because of Letho's killings and Letho himself is caracterised as both a foil to Geralt, as well as someone from Gerealt (yet nebulous) past
It would've made no narrative sense if the plot didn't end with a confrontation with Letho

Want another?
Wizardry 6, 7 and 8
Three games about the Dark Savant
Do tell how exactly Wiz 8 would've been better with no final showdown against the autistic wizardry at the end.

You know, for a guy named after Socrates, this above is a really shitty statement. Since you proceed to argue with my evidence below. So how can you assert the above before doing so?

Nigga you made the claim
It's (YOU), who has to prove it first

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

What are you, turning your brain off or something?

No, but I suspect you are

... have mechanics to plausibely accomadote such scenario ...

You talk talk about games where a "regular" human takes on unbelievably powerful beings, but you ignore the fact in those games your human protagonist most of the times also possess some unbelievable capabilities thanks to nonsense like DnD magic or cartoon super science
Meaning those games have mechanics to plausibely accomadote such scenario

You are supporting my argument in a round-about way. The fact that facing Godzilla/King Kong/Superman would require your hero to have more and more unrealistic "powers" and abilities is exactly why any such combat system is guaranteed to be shit. Good combat is based on general principles of physics/anatomy/biology/etc. Once you have to dip into "fart out of my ass for 40,000,000 hitpoints" shit, it's over.

These are not contradictory in any way.

Eh... you didn't get the jab (ba-dum-tsss)
You complained that in melee combat games the player had to learn the enemies patterns, but one paragraph earlier you literally described how understading the opponents behaviour and patterns was a big part of boxing and how it's like a mental chess game

You are the one who is not getting it. So I will have to repeat again, I guess: studying your opponent while both of you are playing by the same rules is completely different from dying 20 times to study whatever bullshit abilities your new opponent has.

I'll give you another counter-example, Letho in The Witcher 2
The entire conflict begins because of Letho's killings and Letho himself is caracterised as both a foil to Geralt, as well as someone from Gerealt (yet nebulous) past
It would've made no narrative sense if the plot didn't end with a confrontation with Letho

Witcher games are a terrible example for your side of the argument, because they are relatively light on the kind of bosses we are talking about in this thread. The bosses in Witcher series are often just slightly more powerful humans/humanoids (e.g. Professor, Azar Javed, Letho, etc) who might have a trick or two up their sleeve but play pretty close to the "rules" and can be mostly fought using the same general approaches as you use against regular enemies. Which, if anything, actually shows why you don't need some retarded bosses for narrative purposes.

You know, for a guy named after Socrates, this above is a really shitty statement. Since you proceed to argue with my evidence below. So how can you assert the above before doing so?

Nigga you made the claim
It's (YOU), who has to prove it first

I did prove it, my point is, he can't say my evidence sucks BEFORE addressing the said evidence. That's just bad logic.

 

[Zoo]

Max Payne, MDK, Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain - there were the real third-person action games

I really love Max Payne 1-2, but they have bossfghts, the first game even have a really shitty HP-bloated one. I like the oroginal Tomb Raider for the levels, puzzles and platforming, but the shooting gameplay isn't good

No one said these games don't have flaws. But they were the third-person action games of their day and each had unique gameplay, unlike DS and its ilk, which are formulaic. Which was the whole point of this thread.

What I meant that these are fine examples of great games, but some of them are bad examples, if you are looking for good combat (TR hasn't got it) or bossfights (MP has bad bossfights).

 

[DJOGamer PT]

The fact that facing Godzilla/King Kong/Superman would require your hero to have more and more unrealistic "powers" and abilities is exactly why any such combat system is guaranteed to be shit.

So you're actually arguing from the point of view that realism = good game design
Good to know you're one of those mongloids

You are the one who is not getting it. So I will have to repeat again, I guess: studying your opponent while both of you are playing by the same rules is completely different from dying 20 times to study whatever bullshit abilities your new opponent has.

No
You, are the one who's not getting it
Every good game establishes early on mechanical principles for which all other gameplay considerations must not contradict
In the case of good figthing games, these rules apply even to NPCs, so that the player can also exert equal influence as they can exert on his PC
You, think otherwise, because you, are ignorant, because you barely played anything in these subgenres, and judging by your comment on Nioh, even from what you played, you didn't get it

Witcher games are a terrible example for your side of the argument, because they are relatively light on the kind of bosses we are talking about in this thread.

1. in the argument I quoted you on this point, you were specifically discussing with Socrates that bosses have are unnecessary in a game's narrative and structure - we were not discussing their design quality
2. I gave a few examples of games whose campgain needed bosses
3. you never specified which kind of bosses we are talking about in this thread, in fact your OP implies that we talking about the concept of "Bosses" in general

I did prove it

You made an attempt

 

[Hell Swarm]

The problem with boss combat is that it is guaranteed to be shit. To understand why, imagine the video game version of "bosses" in a movie or a book (so called more serious and mature entertainment media)

To understand why this pasta tastes bad, let me tell you about skate boarding. They have nothing in common you can contrast but skate boarding also requires you to use your hands so it's the same thing! Those 3 mediums are so radically different you cannot compare them in any meaningful way.

It should be pretty obvious that no kind of elegant or interesting combat is possible when one combatant is a human (or close to it), and another is Godzilla

Except for all the Godzilla movies where he loses to a human with a weapon.

To put it another way: actual real world combat systems are fascinating, whether we talk about historical sword fighting, archery, martial arts, boxing or special ops. That's because they involve combatants with roughly similar abilities, and thus become high speed games of chess.

I can go outside a punch a child right now. We are in no way any where near the same abilities and it's not going to be a game of chess. What kind of autism is this where you think 'real world combat systems' even exist?

But with "bosses", none of this matters. Since their abilities and stats do not parallel your character's, but are vastly inflated, you cannot engage with them on a level field.

There are plenty of games where bosses are on par with your abilities. From simple Pokemon gym battles to Bushido blade where 1 hit kills.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The fact that facing Godzilla/King Kong/Superman would require your hero to have more and more unrealistic "powers" and abilities is exactly why any such combat system is guaranteed to be shit.

So you're actually arguing from the point of view that realism = good game design
Good to know you're one of those mongloids

There is a reason for that: realism demands a certain level of complexity and logic, so it works relatively well. Shit game developers pull out of their ass, not so much in most cases.

You are the one who is not getting it. So I will have to repeat again, I guess: studying your opponent while both of you are playing by the same rules is completely different from dying 20 times to study whatever bullshit abilities your new opponent has.

No
You, are the one who's not getting it
Every good game establishes early on mechanical principles for which all other gameplay considerations must not contrafict
In the case of good figthing games, these rules apply even to NPCs, so that the player can also exert equal influence as they can exert on his PC
You, think otherwise, because you, are ignorant, because you barely played anything in these subgenres, and judging by your comment on Nioh, even from what you played, you didn't get it

I've completed most of these games, you self-"contraficting" nitwit. As anyone who played them knows, different rules apply to player and bosses. Bosses (especially in more recent offerings) have infinite stamina, infinite casting pool, 360 degree tracking, massive hitpoints, huge reach, sometimes they literally magically teleport over ground to get to you, etc, etc, etc. Stop disputing obvious shit.

Witcher games are a terrible example for your side of the argument, because they are relatively light on the kind of bosses we are talking about in this thread.

1. in the argument I quoted you on this point, you were specifically discussing with Socrates that bosses have are unnecessary in a game's narrative and structure - we were not discussing their design quality
2. I gave a few examples of games whose campgain needed bosses
3. you never specified which kind of bosses we are talking about in this thread, in fact your OP implies that we talking about the concept of "Bosses" in general

That's cause you don't read (and hence don't understand) what other people are telling you. The bosses I am complaining about are obviously the ones with humangous hitpoint pools, ridiculous attacks and movesets, etc, not a powerful enemy that's playing by the same rules pretty much as you (e.g. Letho).

...

Your whole post is so dumb, that I am going to let you think about why that is so, and come back with something that has anything to do with what is being discussed. Dismissed.

 

[Hell Swarm]

You have proven me wrong on every single point so I post ignore your post in order to maintain my ego - Some fat fuck named after a cartoon pig.

 

[Rincewind]

The so-called boss fight at the end of Eye of the Beholder II bore me to tears. Yeah, I get it that a dragon should be really powerful, but it was still shit. Just do the sidestep dance for 5 minutes... there was nothing interesting or enjoyable about it.

Fighting the cube at the end of Grimrock was also rather underwhelming but marginally more interesting.

Same in ELEX...

I guess I just really dislike formulaic boss fights at the end of a game.