Weekly Poll 3/11/19 - Boss Fights.

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Boss fights


  • Total voters
    123
5, 9, 8. A bit of an unorthodox mix, but I think they work well together.

"Boss" enemies should just be super dangerous due to cybernetics, high-end weaponry, and better AI - but they shouldn't be "special" otherwise. No bullet sponges, and preferably fewer "ATTACK THE WEAK POINT, LINK!" encounters.

Just as in TW3, planning should be critical. If you're entering an area where the "boss" is particularly well-equipped, or -- worse- - prepared for your arrival, you should need to prepare in turn. What that entails, I don't know, because blade oils and the like are obviously not really applicable here.

Ideally, we should be able to avoid boss encounters in one way or another. Whether that's by sneaking past them, or simply solving a situation through diplomacy instead of violence, I don't care - as long as it can happen.
 
I picked planning not necessary, changed it to planning necessary, then changed it back.

In retrospect, pre-planned and geared "boss fight strategy" is a big part of what I dislike about the very video-gamey aspect of boss fights.

You absolutely plan jobs and missions in Cyberpunk...but you don't have the leeway to save and reload after death until you get your plan right if you meet something bigger than you.

Imagine if you could carefully plan all those infantry V tanks fights in combat. Sure would be handy for the infantry guys! Sure would make tanks kind of silly, huh?

Sure, if you had intelligence that some kind of serious problem is on the mission, that's different. Also super convenient for you. If your intelligence is -that- good, why are you there at all? Just change the parameters to avoid the darn thing.

No, preplanning specifically for boss fights is totally, utterly unrealistic and, for me, not part of Cyberpunk at all.
 
No, preplanning specifically for boss fights is totally, utterly unrealistic and, for me, not part of Cyberpunk at all.
Hey Sard, we agree on something in this topic! I wont be upset if it's not like this, but you should be able to adapt on the fly and win the fight if you play it correctly.

I felt like the Royce fight in the demo did this pretty well actually. Information became available about the weaknesses of the enemy through a scan (including a weak spot that would disable the exosuit), there were varied attack patterns the player had to adapt to, environmental elements you could use to your advantage and etc. What's more, once you disabled the shield and exosuit, Royce was just another enemy, so there was an in game explanation for what made him a "boss," namely the equipment.
 
Hey Sard, we agree on something in this topic! I wont be upset if it's not like this, but you should be able to adapt on the fly and win the fight if you play it correctly.

I felt like the Royce fight in the demo did this pretty well actually. Information became available about the weaknesses of the enemy through a scan (including a weak spot that would disable the exosuit), there were varied attack patterns the player had to adapt to, environmental elements you could use to your advantage and etc. What's more, once you disabled the shield and exosuit, Royce was just another enemy, so there was an in game explanation for what made him a "boss," namely the equipment.

Yeah, the Royce fight was fine. Fine-ish. Boss-fight-ey, but stomacheable. Even a solid argument that if you are going into A Bad Place you should bring something with a bit of punch - or cache it somewhere accessible.
 
Yeah, the Royce fight was fine. Fine-ish. Boss-fight-ey, but stomacheable. Even a solid argument that if you are going into A Bad Place you should bring something with a bit of punch - or cache it somewhere accessible.
I think it's important to define what you mean by pre-planning (which you sort of did here).

If you're going into an extremely dangerous area and you know the "boss" is kitted out with top-end cyberware, high-grade weaponry and an army of goons to kick your butt, I imagine you want to pre-plan as much as possible, no? As I mentioned before, "blade oils" aren't really viable given the theme and setting, but surely there's other things you could bring along that you might not ordinarily.

At least, that's how I interpreted the poll option I selected.
 
I think it's important to define what you mean by pre-planning (which you sort of did here).
This is pretty much what I had in mind too.

Just finished a fight in Pathfinder where I needed a cold iron weapon ... which I didn't have the first time around.
This sort of thing in fine in D&D, NOT in CP.
 
This is pretty much what I had in mind too.

Just finished a fight in Pathfinder where I needed a cold iron weapon ... which I didn't have the first time around.
This sort of thing in fine in D&D, NOT in CP.
Fair enough. Perhaps I'm trying too hard to extrapolate CDPR's previous mantra of "prepare before every battle" (because the Witcher games have monsters) to this game when its not really as necessary.

I mean, what is there to prepare if you already have your guns, cyberware, etc. on you?

Unless I misunderstood you.

Also, do you mean Pathfinder: Kingmaker?
 
Going for 5 and 9. You should be able to prepare yourself to whatever comes imo - maybe do some research about the boss personality, what he likes/dislikes, stuff like that, and also make preparations for when talking goes wrong. That would be really fun.

PS: English isn't my native language. I can read everything but writing is something else, thanks for ur comprehension.
 
2,5,6 and 9. Sounds like a contracdiction, but the point is I want variety. I want a lot of bosses that should be different from normal encounters.

I want some bosses that have special skills (like super fast, or become invisible, or bullet spongey for realistic reasons), I want bosses that have different stages (i.e. a guy is in a big robot, you detroy it and then you need to fight him directly), I want some bosses that require gimmick to be defeated (ancient wyvern in DS3 or a time limit), some can be scripted events (car race and the ability to destroy each others' car) or require the use of specific gear, other bosses can be defeated just talking or escaping, in other cases you need to use the environment (i.e. destroy oil barrels creating oil ponds, and then burn the boss in those thanks to a flame thrower or a molotov).

I like the idea of preparing before a boss fight, but the point is that realistically you don't know boss' weaknesses until you fight him/her.

Bosses can't be anticlimatic, that's the important thing.
 
At least, that's how I interpreted the poll option I selected.

Yeah, that's the reason I changed mine to should be able to wing it. Because you should be able to wing it if you're fast and dangerous enough. If you have enough -Edge-.

Still, I'd totally expect you to die if you walked in on Hack Man with a combat knife and a lot of optimism. Unless you were a skinny soldier named Kenji.
 
I don't get the hate for boss fights. They create cruxes in the plot and challenges to build up to in an RPG.
I agree, but its "realistic" games where they bother me a bit more, because you have to try way harder to suspend the player's disbelief. Otherwise you end up with Division-like bullet sponges where the "boss" is effectively a normal dude with a special ability and a billion hitpoints.

In fantasy games, its far easier to figure out. They have cool spells, fancy powers and attacks that are dodge-able (or otherwise counterable)... It is often very fun. But when the whole point of the game is "Everyone is vulnerable," how do you make bosses not feel bad?

Royce was OK - at least as far as bosses go. He went down reasonably quickly. But only when the player "unlocked the abilities of a much higher level character." I'm concerned with how spongey Royce will be when battled as intended.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you guys how garbage the nuDeus Ex games' boss fights could feel...
 
Royce was OK - at least as far as bosses go. He went down reasonably quickly. But only when the player "unlocked the abilities of a much higher level character." I'm concerned with how spongey Royce will be when battled as intended.
I'm think he may have been leveled up a bit too for the purposes of the demo compared to the other NPCs. He was still listed as "deadly" by V's scanner. Almost all the other NPCs we saw has a "very low" threat level once V became overpowered.
 
Fair enough. Perhaps I'm trying too hard to extrapolate CDPR's previous mantra of "prepare before every battle" (because the Witcher games have monsters) to this game when its not really as necessary.

I mean, what is there to prepare if you already have your guns, cyberware, etc. on you?
IRL unless you're trying to take out a tank or battleship bullets tend to do the job. You don't "need" some specialized acid/fire/cold/silver/whatever attack, that's PURE fantasy.


Also, do you mean Pathfinder: Kingmaker?
Yep.
 
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I don't get the hate for boss fights. They create cruxes in the plot and challenges to build up to in an RPG.

Its not the concept of boss fights thats the problem, its usually the execution. And the latter depends on the combat system, progression system, even game system (do you have alternate methods of circumventing the boss fight). In short, a whole lot of stuff. And since so many things can affect it, its easy to go astray, in my opinion.

So I was personally just issuing a warning. I'm not saying that boss fights are inherently wrong. Boss fights are a 'time-honored tradition'. I doubt we will go without them.

I'm think he may have been leveled up a bit too for the purposes of the demo compared to the other NPCs. He was still listed as "deadly" by V's scanner. Almost all the other NPCs we saw has a "very low" threat level once V became overpowered.
Didn't devs amp/level up V's abilities to show what they are like later in the game? If so, it makes sense that they did the same for the boss.

ps. The fact that other mobs showed as 'very low' might imply that the bosses will scale with your level, unlike the other mobs? Or it might mean that they manually amped only V and the Boss.

Otherwise you end up with Division-like bullet sponges where the "boss" is effectively a normal dude with a special ability and a billion hitpoints.

This is what I fear the most. Normal mob but with billion hitpoints. Extremely lazy programming and done by people who don't know how to balance their combat any other way or because they are incapable of making the AI a challenge any other way. I REALLY hope it doesn't go that route.

pps.
I actually hope that CDPR wouldn't waste too much effort on bosses. I haven't played a single ARPG (I started playing video games 1992 or so) where I particularly enjoyed the bossfight or considered beating it an achievement (If they are challenging enough for that, then they are immersionbreaking). Bossfights have always been obligatory work that needs to be done in order to proceed, nothing enjoyable. I'd rather the game challenge us mentally or morally instead of physically.
 
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Would it be fun if boss fight happened while driving with your car? That would be first one at least for me, maybe first one in whole game industry? Car Bosses? Shooting through windows, pumping into them, drifting around etc.
 
"Boss" fights in this game shouldn't require too much investment on the player part in terms of preparation, they should be doable with your "as is" spec tree, maybe some changes in weapon type to best suit the situation, even so, doable on the fly.

It would be a bit out of place to sit in front of a door which you know leads to a "boss" and start buffing up, switching skills up, weapons, implants, ala Path of Exile or Dark Souls, knowing you'd probably die a lot before you learn crap like "attack patern" or some other bit which are totally fine in those kinds of game but very out of place in an cRPG.

A cRPG where i believe has been said that a non-combat approach is just as viable. All the more reason "bosses" in a traditional PoE, Diablo, Dark Souls, and yes even The Witcher 3 since if we're to associate Geralt to any type of character in Cp2077 he would be a Solo, and thus the game was tailored to that specific play-style through the options given to the player in resolving a fight, would be completely out of place. You can't expect a Netrunner to go toe to toe with an enemy who can hand it to a Solo, not without major changes to the approach, changes that include but are not limited to not being detected.

So, no to preparation, big yes to improvisation. 4,6 and 9

-EDIT-

Oh, and 8. Missed it the first time.
 
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