Bossing in POE feels bad becouse of PHASEs
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I thought it was in this thread but perhaps it wasn't. Someone said something great on this topic that I wanted to repeat here. I paraphrase:
"Phases should only be employed to test different build capacities. You shouldn't be doing the same thing after a phase". I completely agree with this. A "boss phase" should ONLY happen if the boss acts almost entirely different after the phase. There is no point to a phase if there is no change in the actual boss fight itself. Examples of POOR phases: Shaper. Okay....he regenerates life. Wonderful Sirus. He floats around, then lands and does pretty much the same thing. Elder Guardians. Their attack patterns change slightly, but haven't aged well because they are just too easy to burst down with LOW damage. Examples of MEDIOCRE phases: Maven: the brain phase, the boss summon phase, etc. are all GOOD phases. But...it ends up just being a cycle of the same phases 2 or 3 times. Uber Elder/Shaper: Good mechanical shifts in the action, but again end up being just repetitive. Cortex: Same as above. The phases themselves are good, but then it just cycles. Examples of GOOD phases: I don't really think there are any currently.....but there are bosses that I have far less experience with (King in the mists, delve boss, expedition bosses, etc.). They might have good phases.... A GOOD boss fight (with phases) should consist of permanent, non-repeating, shifts in the action. New attack patterns, new arena, whatever, but NOT repeated again in a later phase. I'm also generally not a fan of "bullet hell" phases, not because they are necessarily bad design, but because I know I am terrible at the subtle dextrous movements required. But I would note that the GAME is also designed to not allow the pretty fine maneuvering that some of the boss mechanics require. Last edited by jsuslak313 on Sep 8, 2024, 1:28:48 PM
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" I completely disagree. A classic case of fixing everything around but not the core of the problem. On Probation Any%
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That was me talking about not reusing phases but I listed Shaper as outdated for a reason
Shapers phases are segment breaks to introduce new mechanics in a staggered fashion without overwhelming the player and simultaneously a speed gauntlet to reduce his overall healing. Phase 2 he gets the bullet hell so keeping Zana alive becomes important and relevant Phase 3 he doubles himself both phases also act as a reset to the soft enrage of degen puddles. The only issue is all of those facets are now pretty much irrelevant because Shaper himself is no longer peak endgame so all of them feel like its wasting our time. Honestly the worst thing about shaper is killing the 4 plonkers before you can even start the fight that one was always irrelevant. So realistically the right move with Shaper is to cut some of the chaff and modernise the fight - but its almost the same amount of work as just making a new boss fight so we are probably stuck with it. I only mention this because I think its an important to distinguish between bad content and old content, Shaper was absolutely fucking bampf when it was new and is still one of their best designs. There is no hiding that it is slow by modern standards though, the game is paced completely differently now. |
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" So then does this mean you think the core of the problem is just having phases at all? The laziest, most boring possible boss mechanic is a bigger, beefier, "normal" encounter. A "punching bag" design, if you will. In my opinion, phases of different mechanics help to make the boss feel like a boss. And this type of "content" should be reserved FOR boss fights exclusively. Get rid of those stupid phases on random insignificant map bosses. Genuinely curious, what makes an "ideal" boss fight then? Are there any examples from other games you can relate it to? Last edited by jsuslak313 on Sep 8, 2024, 2:43:34 PM
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Bosses having phases in this game is a good design decision. It allows for skill checks, meaningful mechanics and in some cases also build checks. Just giving them more life doesn't work, hp sponges are boring as fuck and penalize low dps builds even further. Phases also allow bosses to actually do something, you know, other than being oneshot on the spot by top or specialized builds.
Recent PoE bosses are nice and I sincerely hope they double, no, triple down on those approaches in PoE 2. | |
" I like how you asked a question yourself, answered it yourself, and by putting words in my mouth, you try to have a discussion. On Probation Any%
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How can they have a discussion with you when you offered nothing to discuss? You didn't even explain what you disagreed with or why :p
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Phases are kind of obligatory, the problem is when the mechanics they use while invulnerable just suck, the big example being Sirus running away and hiding in a corner blocked off by demat storms, where you need to wait a minimum of 10 seconds and often significantly longer to get an opening to fight him again and needing to do so a minimum of four times if you never die during the fight. A better example of a phased boss is the uber uber elder, where one of the enemies is vulnerable at a time and they will occasionally go invulnerable to do their adds mechanic, resulting in all but the absolute highest dps builds being forced to do their mechanics but none of the mechanics are especially obnoxious, its just dodge what projectiles you can, tank what you cannot dodge and clear the adds before they drown you in degen.
Maven memory game is fine, Maven's punishment is stupid as hell and them outright admitting that they have no clue how to manage recovery in boss fights so they'll just turn it off and is one of many examples of them going out of their way to make boss fights annoying instead of fun, punishment is not skill testing because it turns standing still for any length of time into a death sentence, it forces you to run builds that can spend the vast majority of their time running in a specific pattern if you want to do maven and uber maven without dying or having enough dps to functionally skip the final phase entirely. |
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" Are you trying to say that this justifies what he is doing? This is a discussion forum, you can ask someone to clarify, but you don't ask, instead you answer yourself and try to base the discussion on that. On Probation Any%
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Boss immunity phases are just plain lazy.
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