superbosses- how do they fit in a cyberpunk game?

[Sirenapples]

Who's to say that combat is the only way to deal with a Boss?

Stealth, Persuasion, Leadership (Having your own NPC's to handle things / having social or political sway to circumvent a situation), Planning (Arranging the boss to be somewhere more favorable or walk into a situation that solves the problem one way or another).


Bosses are a very vague concept. If a boss is bad or boring, that's on the developers, not the concept of bosses. In an RPG I would be intensely disappointed if there were not bosses. But AS an RPG, I want as many options as possible for dealing with it.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I dunno. I find the idea that you are suddenly in an enclosed event where you can not leave until you’ve snuffed the big bad brute rather implausible. It’s of no real consequence either whether you can solve the situation by shooting the guy and his goons, jump over some pressureplates to start a mechanical event or sneak behind boxes and shelves to fuck with electric boxes to create an overload or what ever. It’s all rather gamey and distracting and more suited to arcade hack&slashes like Dark Souls or that ilk.

I’d rather there were no such ”final events” and the challenges were more organically driven than a blunt ”boss fight on an arena”.

 

[4meg]

I dunno. I find the idea that you are suddenly in an enclosed event where you can not leave until you’ve snuffed the big bad brute rather implausible. It’s of no real consequence either whether you can solve the situation by shooting the guy and his goons, jump over some pressureplates to start a mechanical event or sneak behind boxes and shelves to fuck with electric boxes to create an overload or what ever. It’s all rather gamey and distracting and more suited to arcade hack&slashes like Dark Souls or that ilk.

I’d rather there were no such ”final events” and the challenges were more organically driven than a blunt ”boss fight on an arena”.

Boss fight situations are bad for an rpg like CP2077. It means that there is no real freedom in the game and that all events are leading to a single conclusion. Life isn't like that and cyberpunk less so. It will also mean re-playability is for shit since the final outcome will be the same over and over regardless of how you approach it.

 

[Gizmo0]

What they should really concentrate on is that when you increase the difficulty, you don't get the standard more hp and hits harder, but instead it should get more challenging mechanics on how to deal with the boss.

 

[Sardukhar]

Boss fight situations are bad for an rpg like CP2077. It means that there is no real freedom in the game and that all events are leading to a single conclusion. .

Very, VERY much this. They are predictable and, well, video-game-y. Everything builds up to The Big Fight. Nah, that's inferior writing.

Sure, if you want to take on Saburo Arasaka you might have to fight a squad of FBC ( and, in Cp2020 terms, die, because 8 or more Full Body Conversions, built and kitted for combat require infantry platoons and/or armor units to kill), and that could count as a "superboss" fight, but it really flies in the face of gritty combat and Street sneakiness/tactics/betrayals.

If you -know- the story includes these set-piece boss fights, it's...less than it could be.

 

[Sirenapples]

Boss fight situations are bad for an rpg like CP2077. It means that there is no real freedom in the game and that all events are leading to a single conclusion. Life isn't like that and cyberpunk less so. It will also mean re-playability is for shit since the final outcome will be the same over and over regardless of how you approach it.

That's game design, not boss encounters. If there is no freedom, then that is bad game design. Everyone's saying "an RPG like CP2077" with little knowledge of what the game is going to be. Furthermore, ANY RPG unless it's a life simulator should have boss encounters; bosses are practically the tale as old as time staple of RPGs, how the bosses are designed and the options you have to deal with or circumvent are the only question.

Even if it WAS a life simulator if it had any combat at all there are literally endless possibilities for what constitutes a boss. A battleship, the school bully, an enemy ace pilot, The Dragon (or A dragon), the king, the celebrity's bodyguard, any encounter with any enemy could be a boss depending on the power level set before it and the proper build up and challenge presented.

ANY good RPG that pretends to be sandbox, choice-driven, or with a variety of build paths for your character progression and growth (Classes or otherwise) should even if they don't go out of their way to do so have a mirriad of options let alone if they take the proper effort.

Everyone is talking about boss fights as though they're a set in stone singular design without giving CDPR any credit as a developer, nor the genre for its endless possibility.

 

[Sardukhar]

Furthermore, ANY RPG unless it's a life simulator should have boss encounters;

No.

Just, no.

That may be what you think, but it's certainly not an automatic fact. Any more than an RPG must have Elves or parties or healing potions or magic.

Appropriately, it was these conventions that Cyberpunk 2020 was trying to throw away with Friday Night Firefight and their modelled-on-realism combat rules. Everyone has the same health. Fights are over in less than nine seconds typically and a fully-modded expert combat soldier cyborg can easily die to a standard-issue 7.62 rifle.

That's Cyberpunk.

You do not need some kind of super-fight or super-opponent to have a role-playing game. It is not integral to the concept. It is not integral even to videogames. There isn't some kind of manual that uses these creatures as a barrier to progress or story chapters. That's mere convention.

And it inhibits design freedom to insist you need such a clumsy and fight-game-focussed mechanic.

A "boss encounter" is when Saburo Arasaka tells you to do your job or else.

 

[4meg]

A "boss encounter" is when Saburo Arasaka tells you to do your job or else.

Saburo would never say 'or else'. It's a waste of words and inefficient. HR ninjas would simply cut you down in your cubicle and sell your body for parts. You DID read the fine print of the contract you signed when you accepted employment with the Arasaka Zaibatsu didn't you?

 

[tropit9]

Very, VERY much this. They are predictable and, well, video-game-y. Everything builds up to The Big Fight. Nah, that's inferior writing.

Sure, if you want to take on Saburo Arasaka you might have to fight a squad of FBC ( and, in Cp2020 terms, die, because 8 or more Full Body Conversions, built and kitted for combat require infantry platoons and/or armor units to kill), and that could count as a "superboss" fight, but it really flies in the face of gritty combat and Street sneakiness/tactics/betrayals.

If you -know- the story includes these set-piece boss fights, it's...less than it could be.

do mister araska controls them via voice command implanted his tooth? if he for some reason go flatline, do the borg termination protocol (a powerfull build in explosive) initiate?


i am really asking.


mow what if and that is a redical idea, you can go trough the game with minimal to no combat at all? no fighting boosters, dirty cops, and the borgs all together?

and what if you could make your progress by leaving a trail of led behind you?

and waht if you could go in between?


i get it. the core material is not your standard rpg. you can't just go 80' guy and survive the apocalypse with nary a scratch. but this is after all a game. and untill cdpr will reintreduce the wheel as they have promised some of us will expact based on our narroe minded gamplay tropes. and that means that evan if that legendery solo with who is wanted in five continents and two orbital stations cant't die from h 9mm to his eye socket, it will first have to penetare his helmet, which and he rarly put himself in the line of fire in contrast to say, your rookie militray academy GI.


geralt in the books is way more fragile and less a badass than in games. so changes between core materials and the video game could if not would be made. you can't make evryone happy. in the end cdpr will make waht they think would be a "holy fucking shit" exprience.

and altough i very much enjoy bosses in games, this game can be plenty good without those. one of the best games i played was red dead redemption which has no bosses.

 

[Sardukhar]

do mister araska controls them via voice command implanted his tooth? if he for some reason go flatline, do the borg termination protocol (a powerfull build in explosive) initiate?

Cortex Bombs, one of a dozen or so control methods used if you take the Sold Your Soul option at character creation. Worth an extra 10000 eb though! So, more or less, yes.

mow what if and that is a redical idea, you can go trough the game with minimal to no combat at all? no fighting boosters, dirty cops, and the borgs all together?

and what if you could make your progress by leaving a trail of led behind you?

and waht if you could go in between?

I love all those options - although I would paradoxically (?) argue that some life-and-death situations are essential for cyberpunk. Your back should be to a wall and your options should all be bad, for it to be really noir.

So, yes, you should have to fight, cower in terror while others fight or at least do something causing death at some point in any good cyberpunk story.

My issue is the plot-coded "boss fight" or encounter. If you want tough fights, hey, those opportunities abound in Cyberpunk. Much of the time if you cross (when) the wrong people, you are going to be in what in other games would be a boss-fight situation.

Also, we have Dragons. And Dragoons. Both are horrible to fight.

 

[RLKing1969]

No.

Just, no.

That may be what you think, but it's certainly not an automatic fact. Any more than an RPG must have Elves or parties or healing potions or magic.

Appropriately, it was these conventions that Cyberpunk 2020 was trying to throw away with Friday Night Firefight and their modelled-on-realism combat rules. Everyone has the same health. Fights are over in less than nine seconds typically and a fully-modded expert combat soldier cyborg can easily die to a standard-issue 7.62 rifle.

That's Cyberpunk.

You do not need some kind of super-fight or super-opponent to have a role-playing game. It is not integral to the concept. It is not integral even to videogames. There isn't some kind of manual that uses these creatures as a barrier to progress or story chapters. That's mere convention.

And it inhibits design freedom to insist you need such a clumsy and fight-game-focussed mechanic.

A "boss encounter" is when Saburo Arasaka tells you to do your job or else.

Right! So the simplest way to survive is: 1.) DON'T BE STUPID! and 2.) Get in the first shot...Preferably from FAR, FAR AWAY!

 

[BjornTheBandit]

I'm on the 'No "Boss" fights' side. Because if the game is anything like the Johnny Silverhand and Alt story, He just about ate shit and died after a gig from a couple dudes on the street (granted, they were hired professional dudes. Still...) in a not glorious explosions abounding apocalypse style event that took a few seconds. Sounds like a really difficult encounter, and who needs bosses if combat is designed that way.

 

[Suhiira]

<clip> who needs bosses if combat is designed that way.

Exactly.

When you come down to it "Boss Fights" are there to provide a challenge in games that consist mostly of mowing thru hordes of trash MOBs.

 

[tropit9]

a rockerboy dying to a group of pro solos is somehwat non avoidable, especialy in this universe. but put a more combat oriented like solo cop or evan nomad, and he probably would still die anyway. but he might just make it trough, being evaced by trauma team, if his real lucky and the assasin's are not.

i guess will just have to wait and see how and if cdpr implant bosses and maybe "super" bosses.

 

[4meg]

Well, there's always the culture shock option when it comes to dealing with assassins.

 

[ravaa124]

Super bosses, unless there are psychic mutants like in Dredd 2012, I don't see any individual person having any reasonable explanation for being "super".

High numbers of miniboss dudes n bots you are forced to face at the same time combined with an unfavorable environment could be considered "super boss".
A very difficult situation to sort out could be the "super boss".

Maybe if you really piss someone off they will send a next gen assassin bot after you which you cannot outrun, and once they find you they will terminate you, a super boss fight.

But yeah I don't see a classic superboss fitting very well into the cyberpunk world. Tons of hp running around in circles inside a locked room while throwing stuff at you. Nah.

 

[Sardukhar]

Well, there's always the culture shock option when it comes to dealing with assassins.

Nice JM reference!

 

[kennyashi]

One thing that sometimes gets annoying is when a boss battle is repetitive and easy, here's a good stereotype, when boss does a supermove and becomes vulnerable to cheap attacks. Let's pray that, oh you know, they don't run at me like a bat out of hell, not paying attention to the wall behind me that if ran into, could stun them where it open's them up for attacks. "Oh man, you really are a great fighter!" No, you're just easier to beat than a group of your own goons that killed me twice before this.
If you want to make a great boss battle for the ages, you have to make the boss intimidating equally both in character as in combat. If I'm going against the leader of a group of deadly robot assassins, I should be shitting myself throughout the whole battle, because hey, this dude is the leader of a group of deadly robot assassins.
Another annoying clichè is when the boss' health reaches a certain point where there is a mini cut scene of the boss stating how angry they are, or how you're "not going to win" then starts to use a new move. Oh no! The boss is NOW using the charge attack! Aw shucks, thank you for pulling me out of the game to tell me this!

 

[4meg]

You've just summed up why superbosses have no place in a cyberpunk setting. What you've described is a platform game and CP2077 is not, I hope, going to turn into that.

 

[Kada]

I would rather see well established boss fight mechanics as in Dark Souls. Superbosses often tend to have repetitive manner of gameplay.
Dark souls makes bosses unique and thrilling.