Boss Criticisms

Even though you CAN cheese the bosses, I decide not to do it because the fights are actually fairly well balanced, disregarding block-building.

The UFO is a great first boss because it's rather easy with the best gear you can get in tier 1, but the attacks and patterns are varied enough and can still inflict lethal damage if you're not careful, so there's still that necessary boss pressure.

The robot could use some work (and I'm not a fan of endless brain grinding to summon it either) but when I decided not to build a cage around it, I actually had a lot of fun fighting it mano-y-mano with my melee weapons. No frustration from overpowered attacks or maneuvers, just one clean, exciting fight.

I have yet to beat the bone dragon though. I only fought it once, and I quickly learned that it's pretty dang difficult with melee alone. I didn't have much of a choice, because the only ranged weaponry I had access to were some crappy ~10 DPS guns (from tier 3 I believe? this was before the Offended patch so guns may be more viable now) and the steel bow, which is more than a bit impractical in this situation. The dragon's attacks themselves were a bit strong against what I presume to be the intended best T3 armor (titanium), so I'm fairly sure this was meant to be a dodgy kitefest of a battle, and I'm ok with that because it makes the boss unique compared to the previous two. I'll have to experiment with guns in the latest version before I come to a final verdict, but I have no reason to believe there are any outstanding problems with it currently.

 

I wouldn't call that cheating. Just calling in some support =) I never thought of using villages of npcs... It's also not cheating to make guard spawners and set them in a preset "arena" area so they can't wander off...

 

My boss gives me a paycheck. I have no criticism.

 

The bosses sure need some work. But I don't understand when some complain about how dumb they are when they admit to caging them in and firing a bow through a hole, that's your own fault. Some things OP mentioned that surely do need to be worked on are the dragons hitbox. It's not well defined, we should be able to swing and hit at his feet, or have some indications to where we should be hitting it. In my current playthough when I faced the dragon I did have the butterflies to be able to melee him quite easily. But I would totally agree he needs some more abilities, maybe where he swoops down to give you a moment to swing at his face, so the poor guys who don't get good techs or weapons don't have to sit there with a damn iron bow.

I think to solve some of the caging issues, well, you can always stop caging them in But really there is a few ways to go about it. One is to make bosses break walls, which honesly don't think will help (people will always find ways to exploit if they feel they have to), and may piss off some people who don't know the fights and summon them in their base, lol. You can make bosses pass through walls, terraria style, although the robot would seem a bit awkward. But what I think would be the best change to bosses is, since they don't drop any loot other than an item to progress with, DON'T MAKE BOSS SUMMON ITEMS CONSUMABLE! There's really no need for the item to disappear, and I think in a few cases read here is THE REASON they felt like needing to cheese a fight, cause if you mess up you're set back to farming mats if you don't have them, which is frustrating. Boss summons also double as decor too, and if I recall correctly don't spawn on player placed blocks, so you can safely have them in your house as sort of a trophy for your accomplishments.

 

This is beta, so bosses are mostly for balancing. There will probably be more boss-type encounters so this is a good way to test out what abilities they need to be a fun challenge.

So far, the UFO feels more fun, it spawns penguins, has varied attacks and is thematic. Robot needs some more abilities, maybe a block crushing whirlwind attack, Dragon needs some block crush ability too.
Haven't fought the slime yet.

Why do bosses despawn so easily? I did the dragon with a buddy both when we both died and went back it was gone. Should stay put longer, it's a chore to get resources to spawn them.

 

I agree that the bosses need an ability to bash blocks or ghost through them, Though if they ghosted what's keeping them from descending to the core?

Also I'm sure all the bosses will eventually make sense in some form.
Beacon: Well.. Stranded calling for help, Summon angry Penguins.
Robot: Perhaps the processor is only worthwhile once he's been activated? or someone wanted you to build him with the promise "I'll help you" and he uses the bot to betray you.
Dragon: Another one of those Save the princess deals, Probably Glitch quest.
Jellyfish: ..I'm not totally sure but I love that you use Peanut butter to summon hm (Hehe PBnJ)

 

"I'm going to build a robot buddy to help me mine! OH NO IT TURNED EVIL!" ... or, possibly, like your first point: "A really good automated crafting bench can only be powered by the hatred of an AI which went rampant and was murdered."

 

I'd love to see some kind of "space ninja" as a boss. Seriously who would not want something like this?

Dashing at you, jumping around, dissapearing and apearing again in the air as it's trying to kill you with his sword YEAH!
Back to the current bosses. I agree that the bosses should be "re-done" but wasn't it said that the bosses are pretty much placeholders right now? I'd imagine there would be different bosses later on and if I remember correctly, there should be dungeon bosses as well at the end, maybe that's where those we are fighting right now will be placed later on? Maybe they are just tweaking them for the later dungeon use. Not sure but the dragon is silly, the robot would be fine just make him destroy blocks, the first time I've fought him went like this. I started on an open field and after a few seconds I accidentaly dropped down to a cave with a dead-end. But he wasn't able to reach me there so he was just standing and I killed him with melee attacks. I did not wanted to cheat him but he did not gave me an option since he blocked the way out of there. If he'd be able to destroy blocks than I'd be dead and I'd avoid the cave next time...

 

I cheated on the UFO and made a pit and shot arrows at it through a hole. Whenever it would knock out a massive chunk of dirt I'd just replace it. Got tedious when he summoned more little ships though, they took forever.

 

Really? Since they dropped its power, i've found it to be a lot easier to take on in melee. The shield handles its dives so you can just swing at it then. Use something like crafting tables or furnaces to jump up to attack it as it returns to the air without fear of it breaking them. Then you just use a 2H axe or a 2H sword to get the downward swing from your little height advantage on all the flying little ships, and all the penguins as they appear.

 

Trapped all the bosses, they definitely need to be worked on if they can be killed this easy. My suggestion:

• Increase block damage the boss deals and surrounding blocks around it (if it's trapped)

• Better path-finding (so if Player is standing in front of wall A and is shooting through the gap, tell the Dragon to move through the back or find the weakest block type to break.
  
• Increased resistance to certain dmg (i.e. fire,lightning,water,etc.) so the Player doesn't spam with X tier gun.
• Potential time limit when boss is summoned (may be effected by planet, biome, time of day)

 

Only reason it took long is because they kept body-blocking the shots.

 

Robot 1-shoted me right after activation.
After that I trapped him and poked with a spear.
Also, we need bosses inside of the dungeons.

 

The boss AIs definitely need to be more aggressive and possibly take and deal hits a little better. Both of the following fights were with the highest armor of that tier.

My first fight with the UFO was before the character wipe update and was fairly challenging, albeit a little tedious. The fight included lots of bow action, jump boost stimpacks, and frantic healing. The aftermath included a giant crater and a decent handful of bandages used.
The second time around (post wipe), I fought it on top of a prison. It never broke any blocks nor spawned many angry penguins. I used a burning sword and the burn seemed to do way too much damage. Overall the fight took less than 2 minutes.

I recently fought the robot on a flat plains area. Turned out to be an uninteresting fight. The robot barely attempted to attack me and would most of the time stand still and outright ignore me unless I agressed it. When it did land a successful hit, the damage was pitiful. In the end, I only ended up using a few bandages and feeling really disappointed.

I have not fought the other two bosses yet but from what I hear they're either incredibly easy with guns or impossible without the right equipment.

Don't get me wrong though, they're both really varied and fun bosses with interesting attack patterns and combat opportunities. Their premises are a little silly but it fits with the game's already lighthearted feeling. What needs to be done is just tweak them the right way so they're the end of tier challenge you expect.

 

Personally, I wish the boss items transported you to a pre-designed boss room(or even a dungeon) where you can't build, an example of which would be when summoning the Penguin UFO, you would get beamed up and transported somewhere to fight a boss, or in the dungeon example, perhaps starting in a cell, and having to fight your way through the Penguin spacecraft before fighting the boss to escape back to the planet.

Reason I say this is for the most part in both Starbound and Terraria, it is just too easy to to kill a boss by trapping them in, essentially making them easily farmed(More so in Terraria, where bosses drop unique loot).

An alternative to this idea and the current implementation is to of course allow bosses to break blocks, but this in itself can also be a huge pain in the backside, and something used to grief things people have put a lot of time into building.

Just my thoughts on the matter. And if I recall correctly, one of the devs had suggested wanting boss fights to be Megaman-ish.. So why not boss rooms? Would also allow for boss room mechanics that play a part in the flow of the battle and make it more engaging and exciting.

 

About the bosses I personally think the robot boss inmersion would increase if it was more like the distress beacon. You build the robot in a second atempt to get some help, but something get wrong and what the robot get in touch with is with some abandoned factory with a still operative AI that takes over the robot and then uses it to lure you to its la (through a stargate or some coordinates to a special planet). Once inside the factory you would have to defeat your robot as well as other minions the rogue AI has and eventually disale it, retrieving the chip as a reward.

As for the dragon boss, it could have some dive attack where it uses the feets to ram that can destroy blocks.

 

The last time I checked you can't trap a boss in Terraria, they can move through blocks freely.

 

Most, not all. Me and my friends trapped in the Golem to make the encounter ridiculously easy.

I worded my post badly though when it comes to what I had in mind when referring Terraria, apologies.

 

The bosses are way too easy whether you cheese them or not. All of the attacks are super easy to dodge or be out of range of and they don't take much damage to put down. Mini bosses can be more difficult than the tier bosses... If they are mandatory progression checkpoints I understand the reason for not making them too difficult, but right now I feel like they present no challenge what so ever.

 

Hmm, everyone seems to dislike the dragon while that was my favorite fight (Barring the pre-wipe UFO fight.) But here's my thoughts on the bosses, (from the perspective of someone who thinks playing IWBTG on hard was fun, and from someone who thinks the mythic difficulty on Halo2/3 was a cool and enjoyable challenge. Just to give ya a perspective on my difficulty bias) **And note, I did not cheat any of the bosses. Didn't box them in, didn't box myself in, I just went to a semi flat planet and summoned them.

UFO: First thoughts - "A distress beacon. Obviously going to summon a UFO or some powerful aliens.... Penguins?"
I thought the UFO was the most interesting and best scripted bosses in the game. Although, after the last character wipe I think they made it waaay too weak. I fought it before the wipe (It was the only boss I had beaten before the wipe) and that fight was a ton of fun. Fighting the UFO and 5 penguins all at once? While the UFO had a ton of health and did quite a bit of damage? That was a blast. The new UFO? I hardly prepared for it and coulda beaten it with my eyes closed. It died way too fast, only summoned 2 penguins who died in 1 hit each (Where's the challenge in that?). When I fought it after the wipe I was hoping for another challenge like it was before. But I was disappointed by how easy it is now. They need to make it summon 5 penguins again, increase the damage, and give it more health. Maybe not to the extent it was at before (It had been doing 70 damage to me per hit when I had silver armor before the wipe. That may have been a bit much...) But it definitely needs a buff. Bosses should be a challenge.


The Robot: First thoughts - "This is a pet right? Ow! Why is it hitting me? Did I make it mad? Is it glitched?"
I didn't even realize it was a boss until I killed it. it literally just chased me around and smacked me when it got close, it didn't really do anything different from a normal mob. Heck, the normal mobs at least jump at me, the robot didn't even do that. It just walked in a straight line. It needs to have a variety of attacks, like the UFO, and needs better AI. To beat it, all did was walk backwards while swinging... This one I think needs the most work.


The Dragon: First thoughts - "A princess on a stick. What does it do? Just aesthetics? It exploded? OH! It was a boss spawner and holy s- that's a dragon!"
Not counting the pre-wipe UFO (Which would be my favorite) this is my favorite out of the current bosses. Why? Because the fight was fun as hell. This was the hardest boss for me after the wipe. As mentioned before, I didn't build any shelters or box it in, I just summoned it on the surface of my current planet and fought there. Dodging the fire while shooting the thing, and meleeing it when it came low to the ground. I survived only because of the dash ability, my behind was saved by clutch dashes countless times. Loved the fact that the fire stays on the ground for a while too, can't count how many times I got stuck in a situation where I had to dodge but literally everything around me was on fire. (Dashing in mid-air FTW). I found this one to be the hardest of the bosses after the wipe, and the most fun. But it really could use more attacks and better AI. (And, as some people mentioned, a better hitbox)


The Slime: First thoughts - "Alright, summoned the boss and whoa three bosses at once? Lets see what they do......." Long pause "......... They do nothing. Awesome."
The slime, like the robot, is hardly a boss IMO. Yep, it has a lot of health, but like the robot it had no attacks. There was those little purple grenades it threw everywhere but that was the only thing it did other then sit there, float around, and look stupid. It wasn't even really a threat, I chased off the two little slimes, separating them before killing them. For some reason the big one didn't chase me very far. Then I just almost sat still while smacking the big one until it died. I only had to move every once in a while to dodge one of those purple grenade things. It really needs more attacks, and the two little things should have unique attacks of their own, not just the same one the big thing has. Plus it needs better AI, the three slimes should not split up, they should stick close to eachother. It would be awesome if they could have AI good enough to actually work together. Maybe they slowly regenerate (Since they are slimes, right?) so when one of the little ones gets low on health the other tries to bodyblock your attacks to protect it's ally while the damaged one tries to pull back and heal. Or if the big one is low on health both of the little ones move in to body block while the big one tries to heal. Coding it in to make them work together as a team would be pretty easy (I've done it myself in my own game, with 5 NPCs who played much more complicated roles.). Doesn't need to be perfect, but it would be neat and challenging to have them protecting eachother and attempting coordinated attacks.



And overall, all of the bosses need to be fixed so people can't just box the boss or themselves in and cheat their way past the boss. I'm all for giving the bosses the ability to break blocks. I know people complain about their bases being destroyed in the fighting, but who actually spawns a boss who can break blocks in their own base? if you spawn it in your base, you're asking for it to be destroyed. If you don't want your base to be destroyed, just fly to a nearby empty planet. It's not like Terreria where you can't go somewhere safe before summoning them. It's easy to just hop to a nearby planet and summon them there.


Anyways, that's just my personal opinion and thoughts on the bosses and such. Nothing more then an opinion and some ideas from someone who has too much free time.