Difficulty Discussion

if it leaves no room to be recovered by player skill, it's luck. even the best player can misstime a jump or an attack. one-shotting bosses are just bad gameplay.

 

AI is irrelevant, not to mention RNG. Luck simply takes its role in the generation of X, with N number of traits, living in planet N with M biomes.
Starbound's combat is not based on such a thing. Luck simply determines what type of monster you are facing, which is irrelevant to the discussion. Starbound's combat also takes into consideration the player's skill and gear; outside forces that can change the battle.

Free will != luck, basically; If I hold the coin, I determine whether it faces heads or tails when i slam it on the table. That is, unless I toss it in the air, unable to control it. There is no "50/50" chance when I control it.

That's not luck. That's a mistake on the player's part.

 

Exactly!
I still think that one- or two-hitting bosses are a very good option, as long as you're able to dodge their attacks if you time it correctly. It's SUPPOSED to be a hard fight, for which you should have to prepare properly and extensively! By the way: I'm pretty sure that there will be a lot of options to heal yourself and party members, what will make bossfights in which the boss doesn't deal life-threatening hits unnecessarily long-lasting endurance-exercises! Having bosses that actually provide the power to destroy you in a very few hits forces you to play at your maximum potential and makes the win all the more awesome! ;D I expect starbound to be a game that will provide a ****-load of playtime. I think that playing the game to the point where you can conquer level 80-100 planets will have trained you in terms of being able to control your character well enough to beat said bosses!

Cheers, Cereas

 

Considering how we've heard combat should end up like Castlevania (which I'm terrible at) I think it'll be plenty difficult for me at least. The impression I got is that with all the enemy AI behaviors and skills, plus the variety of player weapons, combat will be pretty fun and not all about "I have X Tier armor, now everything below Y Level is pathetic" which is kind of how Terraria was.

 

Wait wait wait...
I think you are all forgetting something.
Bosses that can one-hit kill you won't work.
Because then, if a team takes on such a boss(difficulty for teams will be increased i presume) healers become useless. And what about tanks? Will they be able to take more than 2 hits? If the boss can kill an all-rounded player in 1 or 2 hits, with it's power increased it should be able to 1 or 2 hit kill a tank. I don't think that would work well. Sure, they might 2 or 3 hit KO the squishy dps players(1 hit death is pretty stupid, especially in a teamfight). That would make sense perhaps. But nothing much besides that.

Also, there are other options to make things hard. For example the boss might regenerate to 90% of his max hp if you don't kill him fast enough, then to 80% and so on, so you either the option to focus him down quickly, but with great risk of getting killed, or you can make it a long,yet safe fight until he can't regenerate any more.

Another option is for the boss to have moderate damage, and yet have some slower attack that stuns or deals incredible damage. So if you get hit by one of his normal attacks once or twice, you're still OK, you still need to keep dodging them, because after all, they still do moderate damage and if you don't have enough skill to dodge most of them you'll die anyway. And if you don't have the skill to dodge the slow stun attack, then you might die after getting stunned once or twice.

You could create intricate patterns and minion summoning. The options to make a hard boss fight interesting are vast, and 1-hit death option is far from the good ways to do it. It's not as bad as making the fight an hour long, but it's not that much better.

So as you see, 1 hit deaths is not the only option to make boss fights hard, yet interesting, and is by far certainly not the best option. I know a ton of games where boss fights are difficult without 1-hit deaths, not to mention that in games where you can be part of a team, 1 hit deaths don't make much sense.

 

Most of the MMO's I've played didn't have 1-hit kill attacks. Usually, the 1-hit kills are usually caused by either a player having too low health, or the damage dealt was so fast, it was practically a 1-shot kill.

I only really agree on 1-shot attacks when the damage dealt is a variable and not a fixed "100% of your HP." That way, it can still be considered a 1-shot, but you have the option to get better and eventually survive the hit. That would technically not make it a "1-hit kill" though. Rather, a really really powerful attack.

It might even work if it was a "stream of attacks", wherein you can either "not" get out of the way and bathe in a stream of fire from a flamethrower that deals 10,000 damage/second. Or you can either get out as soon as you notice and only suffer some minor-major burns.

But yea, instant "Deals damage equal to 100% of target" are just crap.

 

Yeah, I may not have made my point clear enough! I thought if I'd say "1-2 hit-kills" it would imply "survivable-1-hits". What I meant is that if you get hit you either die because you're a fast-moving, low-hp damage-dealer and should have the skills to utilize your abilities to an extend that you won't get hit or you have to have at least enough hp to survive a hit and then dodge the hits long enough that the healer can replenish your health. Also, I didn't want to exclude tanks but designing tanks in the way that they're just stupid meatshields is incredibly boring! Tanking should involve a lot of dodging and a proper use of "invincibility- or damage-reduction-moves" and their shield.
I'm sorry for not explaining my opinion on this topic properly!

 

A tank shouldn't dodge around. That's why it's called tanking. Not ninja'ing. Tanking requires a lot of skill in good games. A tank jumping around would be useless in teamfights like that. As would be the support. You would only find teams of dps's with high reflexes in planets like those. Because look and compare:
Having 2 dps's instead of 1 dps and tank.
2DPS: Takes down the boss twice as fast. If one dps falls, the other can finish the job. 1TANK+1DPS: You have to keep dodging and risk getting killed for twice as long. If the dps falls, the tank can't do anything.
2DPS: Dodging from both required. Each can take one hit Dodging from both required. 1TANK+1DPS: DPS can take one hit, tank can take a few hits.
The role of a tank is to redirect damage from the dps. In this case, another dps can do it almost just as well, while the benefits are obvious.
Now, you understand that the tank would be pretty useless dodging around just like a dps? A support would be just as useless, of course, unless he could increase the dmg by A LOT.

What you are discussing is a bad way to increase difficulty. There are much better ways.
For example imagine a boss-fight like this in one of the top planets:
Stage 1) A giant worm first moves in and out from the ground in an "m" pattern dealing damage to those he touches. After moving like this once or twice, he unburrows and starts spitting acid at you. That's when he's vulnerable. When his health drops to 75% he burrows and releases a horde of zombie minions for you to deal with. He unburrows only after you do it.
(in this stage, at first all the players would have to jump to dodge, and it woud be fairly easy. When the worm unburrows, the tank could redirect the acid blasts, or they could simply be dodged. Also, when the zombie horde comes a tank is vital to create a "wall" which stops the zombies from passing(after shepherding the zombies to one side of the area). If they deal too much damage, he can slowly move backwards with the whole team behind him. Meanwhile, his team kills the zombies from behind his man-shield-wall. If you had DPS'S only here, you would be quickly swarmed. A support can heal the tank when he needs it. It's only the first stage, so it's relatively easy. And yet even here, teamwork, mutual understanding, cooperation and effort is required from the whole team. Also, you need all the roles to make this successful)
Stage 2) The attacks of the worm become more rapid, and his acid spit changes. He can unburrow in the middle of his m attack pattern sometimes, making it harder to predict(if you get hit by the unburrowing worm it hurts). Also, he now releases 2 acid spits at once. When his health drops to 50%, he burrows again. And zombies come at you gain, but this time it's harder, because they keeps spawning in various places throughout the area.
(Again, dodging at first, but you have to be prepared, and standing in the middle is no longer an option. Since zombies keep spawning during the fight against them, the tam should be packed in a corner as tightly as possible, to minimize the chance of zombies spawning in the protected area. Also, the tank will have to use stuns(if he has those) accordingly. And the support will be really hard at work)
Stage 3) The worm loses his shell, and his attacks change completely. Lasts until his hp drops to 25%. Rocks that can damage you start falling from the ceiling and etc....

So you see, there are ways to make boss fights difficult without discouraging people from being tanks and supports. And without making them all just about reflex. Because seriously, I can always pull through such challenges, but it's not nearly as interesting as a challenge that involves both tactics, cooperation, reflex and other things. And other's are skilled in different parts of gameplay than just reflex. "reflex" is just one point of what's called skill, and it varies in different games how much % of skill it makes up. The best games keep it there for the tension, but they don't make it all dependant on reflexes only. Counter-strike was a game where reflexes made up probably 30-40% of skill, whereas aim made another 30-40%, and tactics meant only about 10-20%(That's why I disliked the game.)

 

Sorry, but no, there is nothing more boring than mmo style raidfights. Did you ever wonder why only mmorpg's have those kind of fights? Because only in an mmorpg could people practice coordinated dance moves for weeks just to have a 4% chance of getting a small stat upgrade. First and foremost the fights needs to be interesting in singleplayer. Then they could add extra mechanics to keep them interesting even in multiplayer, such as adding extra attacks or spawns or such, but forcing people to have dedicated tanks and healers is a big no.

 

Or instead of trying and trying again hoping he doesn't do the 2shot attack, you can actually learn how to evade the 2shot attack...

 

Mmo... What? Have you ever played any game with bosses in it?
You don't seem to understand anything. I remember it being mentioned somewhere that DIFFICULTY WILL BE INCREASED IN MULTIPLAYER which means you will need a team with all roles(if the boss fights will be indeed interesting and complex). Whyever else would they mention that people could take roles(which, by the way, are in many games, not only mmo's)? In singleplayer, you are more mobile, and since the difficulty will be lower you should be able to beat the boss alone then.
I hate mmo's like wow by the way. Probably because I never get past level 20, since there's no real goal there. But these kinds of boss fights are in many games. Christ, Terraria had boss fights like this, just simplified(eye of chutulu had 2 stages which changed after 50% hp. Skeletron had 2 different attack patterns). I can give some more examples:
Boss run maps in Warcraft 3.
Boss fights in Prince of Persia.
Boss fights in Cave Story.
Boss fights in any other good game.

 

Make it Dark Souls - hard. You just try and try, but never succeed. (That's how I feel about Dark Souls difficulty). :O

 

Here is my scale. Feel free to give feedback.
(Used increments of 8 until the end )

Threat Level----What to expect

1-8 Very easy, monsters are a piece of cake
9-16 Slightly harder, but still technically easy. Medium difficulty for beginners
17-24 Somewhat easy, monsters take slightly higher tiers of equipment to deal with
25-32 Moderate difficulty, occasionally difficult monsters will appear to drop special loot (Think Pinky from terraria)
33-40 Notable difficulty, Monsters require moderate levels of skill to defeat
41-48 Going a step further, More skill required
49-56 Things get a bit tougher still, but good equipment will make monsters okay to deal with
57-64 Monsters are now hard to beat, better gear will help less
65-72 Around the difficulty that was the hell of Terraria Hardmode. You will still have some problems even with the best gear
73-80 Very hard. Monsters go insane and very challenging
81-88 The most dangerous monsters begin to appear. Very difficult going solo
89-96 Excruciating pait that will make you sh*t your pants. Bring buddies
97-99 So hard it's frustrating. Even buddies won't help
100 You're f*cked, but prevailing will yield the best loot

What I want is that they stay true to "Threat level 100 planets will always be difficult". I mean, in Terraria the Destroyer could be defeated in under 14 seconds with a magic harp and the right setup. I want bosses to always be challenging, regardless of your setup/gear.

I also like the scale of 1-100. Since the increments are small adjustments, you can have the difficulty fine-tuned to your comfort zone.

 

you can have the knowledge to evade his attack, it still comes down to luck. the time of the attack is usually randomized (because it becomes very tedious very fast otherwise) and if the RNG spits out an attack at the moment you can't evade, you're dead. that's luck. i can't see why people keep arguing with this when it's so obvious :S

 

Oh I see. But I think that attacks (especially the stronger ones) will have some sort of charging animation before the attack. Attacks shouldn't just come out of random while you are unprepared.

 

Last time I checked, most tough attacks give you a warning before they actually fire. If this doesn't happen, it's the developer's fault for poor design decisions.

And most bosses have an attack pattern. Since when have bosses been random?

 

To further explain my stance on insta-death moves: The 'avoidability' I was talking about was in reference to the insta-kill moves found in Magicka. More than stoppable if you know how.

 

My post from another thread on difficulty. In essence make the game super hard at max levels and so that one cannot just grind the game over the next 3 days and finish.

 

You obviously didn't understand what I was criticising, which is fair considering that you haven't played to the later parts of any mmorpg. You want there to be fights where you need certain roles. There shouldn't be any need to have a correct role setup for anything. Only mmo's force you to do that and with good reason too. Everyone hates those kind of fights. Honestly your description of the boss sounded just like any WoW bossfight. Then why would you be able to take on different roles if they aren't necessary? Why deal a lot of damage? Because then you kill the boss faster. Why be tanky? Because then it is easier for you to survive if you screw up and take hits, surviving longer means that in the end you dish out more damage. Why be a healer/support? Because then you can allow your allies to survive longer. Its as simple as that, different players like to lean towards different roles so then they are provided tools to fulfill those roles. Sure, certain fights will probably be easier with certain role setups, but every fight should be beatable with only tanks.

Having bossfights with interesting phases and such is mandatory of course, but that is a different subject entirely.

As for multiplayer difficulty, I'd guess that they are mostly going to scale up the health while leaving the rest the same. If you look at terraria then bosses often shoot stuff everywhere so that if you have twice the number of people you will likely take twice the number of hits. Look at this game, do you think it would be easier if you had more people?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=baJPqC4tZ8I#t=209s

 

That short sentence above was all I was talking about. It's not my fault you made a presumption that it would be impossible in other ways and began arguing against something I never even said(re-read my previous post if you don't believe me). It was exactly what I am aiming at. Boss fights where each role would be useful in it's own way. That's why I was against the suggestion of bosses that can deal incredible damage and one-hit-kill you. Because I think that all roles should be viable. Now imagine a boss while fighting against which you need to dodge an incredible amount(kind of how it is in bullet-hell games), or otherwise it will kill you real fast. DPS'S in fights like that are the only possible option. Because tanks will lose their use, even if they don't die from one hit, and can take what? Up to five? Supports would lose their use as well, because, well, if the dps dies from a hit, what can the support heal? A corpse? So you'll note that it's exactly what I was arguing against - making boss fights all about reflex only, where only 1 type of players are useful.

The boss fight I suggested was just to show that every role should be useful in it's own way. Of course, you could win that boss fight just as well with 3 tanks and a support, with tanks switching places while the support uses some AoE or just regular heals. You could do it with a couple of supports, and two DPS'S, with the supports healing one player like mad. But in no boss fight where teams are allowed will you find something you can win only with one role. For example what can 4 supports do? A team like that couldn't win for example. So I agree(and it was exactly my point and what I was talking about that all roles should be viable in boss-fights) that as many teams as possible should be able to win boss-fights, but with some combinations it could be almost impossible(practically, theoretically all, or almost all teams should be able to win), simply because it would make boss-fights too easy for other teams.