Why I think boss fights are “Bad”

[grm9]

5 minutes ago, Ridley said:

There's always been this sentiment that a boss doesn't need changes if it is killable that I disagree with because it doesn't address how miserable it is. When Toadstool was nerfed to no longer flee after 5 minutes and had a 5x health reduction (down from 156500)

isn't 52k x3 less in comparison to 156k? a timer limited the strats for killing the boss to playing with others or spamming minions, ig that wasn't fun and it was fine to change it if there were only 2 strats for it and the fight wasn't fun

8 minutes ago, Ridley said:

I don't recall Klei saying Bee Queen was designed to be a puzzle. I do remember them showcasing the boss by spawning in lots of healing items and armours for the server of players to kill the boss with. I'm pretty sure the whole point of the "A New Reign" raid bosses were to challenge coordinated groups of survivors. The reason people think bosses like Bee Queen are a puzzle is because they are fighting a boss in an unintended way: not enough hands on deck

doesn't matter what was the intended way or why the boss was made that way as long as they aren't going to start making those strats not work

[Ridley]

1 hour ago, grm9 said:

isn't 52k x3 less in comparison to 156k? a timer limited the strats for killing the boss to playing with others or spamming minions, ig that wasn't fun and it was fine to change it if there were only 2 strats for it and the fight wasn't fun

His health later got a buff. My point was it was horrible but people wanted to keep it.

Edited February 1 by Ridley
grammer

[Mike23Ua]

37 minutes ago, Ridley said:

This thread was started because Mike wanted more development in the world and for bosses to take a backseat to that. He's still talking about it what kinds of world changes he wants to see. Does anyone in this thread want boss changes over any other kind of content?

Well, yes.. & No, I want world changes outside of boss fights, and whenever I fight a boss and see them doing cool abilities and such, it makes me sad that those abilities aren’t just actual biome/climate challenges.

But until we get those changes, we have nearly 30 bosses and they take up roughly 70% of the things you can do in the game. For this reason alone- The bosses should be enjoyable, scaling down for fewer players, and also up for larger groups. I would recommend doing it like the TMNT game where the world will “Scale” based on how many players can ever enter the server. (You can change maximum total players allowed in server settings if you guys weren’t aware of that) Boss Content, is still game content people could be enjoying.

But me personally- I don’t enjoy them.. and I’ve expressed WHY I don’t enjoy them so there’s no reason for me to repeat that, BUT there could be changes made so I COULD enjoy them better, which would make the games content more accessible to players of varying skill levels.

That Said, boss tuning & Reworks should fall under a QoL update and should NEVER take priority away from more important more commonly interacted with areas of the game- such as Exploring the Ocean or Caves.

For me boat/ocean content in DST is very boring.. compared to shipwrecked there’s just significantly less to see or do.

and Klei still hasn’t fixed the single biggest glaring problem with it: If players got stranded on an island in SW, they could usually have built a different type of boat to get of the island made of various types of resources. (Such as bamboo rafts)

But if you get stuck on Pearls Hermit Island, she’s not gonna sell you a float or to get back to main land.

27 minutes ago, grm9 said:

doesn't matter what was the intended way or why the boss was made that way as long as they aren't going to start making those strats not work

Except Klei DOES often make strategies no longer work, literally the entire reason some bosses have gunpowder damage resistance now, is because Klei didn’t want players beating CrabKing with a stack of gunpowder. So what are you going to do when they make its pinchers smart enough to swat away the “Bee Mine Strategy?” You’re gonna have to fight it the “intended” way and without proper boss health/difficulty scaling- Your probably going to end up hating the experience. 
 

The next update is Year of the Dragonfly, so she for sure will get changes.. and the only question I have to ask at this point is what will people who are so used to “building the wall” Strategy are going to Do if/when Klei changes larvae A.I. to leap at walls and deep themselves through the cracks? (Because they’re made of liquid and not a full solid)

Sure walls will still slow down their progress to get to you, but they won’t work like they still work now..

Will you come up with a new strategy such as building ice Flingos to freeze the larvae’s, or will the fight just become more miserable when there’s no health/difficulty scaling and it’s still spitting out what feels like endless streams of larvae intended for a group of players to be challenged by?

Edited January 31 by Mike23Ua

[arubaro]

I will never understand the cries about needing to farm weather pains to kill toadstool when is cheaper and funnier to use moon glasses... maybe people hate BQ because they are farming cookie cutter shells as armor and hit with a fishinf rod?

[Popian]

1 hour ago, Ridley said:

I don't recall Klei saying Bee Queen was designed to be a puzzle.

It simply is one because the problem thrown at you is "Grumble Bee damage and stun lock" that makes brute force tanking a no go so you have to come up with a way to solve it. Unfortunately if you are soloing you can't use the Bee Queen aggro by time (which seems to have been slightly broken in an update but it's easy to tell when aggro has changed so no biggie) and Grumble Bee aggro by distance mechanics.

Toadstool's original "intended" solution was discovered to be to run in a circle with followers (now a test of endurance to see if you don't run out of resources) just like CK was to row in circles.

[Reecitz]

Bringing up a different game in conversation has happened so many times that I begin to lose interest every time it happens; it wouldn't be this way if it was actually done properly. 

[grm9]

8 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Except Klei DOES often make strategies no longer work, literally the entire reason some bosses have gunpowder damage resistance now, is because Klei didn’t want players beating CrabKing with a stack of gunpowder. So what are you going to do when they make its pinchers smart enough to swat away the “Bee Mine Strategy?” You’re gonna have to fight it the “intended” way and without proper boss health/difficulty scaling- Your probably going to end up hating the experience. 
 

The next update is Year of the Dragonfly, so she for sure will get changes.. and the only question I have to ask at this point is what will people who are so used to “building the wall” Strategy are going to Do if/when Klei changes larvae A.I. to leap at walls and deep themselves through the cracks? (Because they’re made of liquid and not a full solid)

Sure walls will still slow down their progress to get to you, but they won’t work like they still work now..

Will you come up with a new strategy such as building ice Flingos to freeze the larvae’s, or will the fight just become more miserable when there’s no health/difficulty scaling and it’s still spitting out what feels like endless streams of larvae intended for a group of players to be challenged by?

gunpowder resistance existed before RoT iirc, CK only needs to allow placing boats on top of items and birds to make it fun, why would you use bee mines if you can just drop killer bees there and teleport away, they probably will make lavaes die in a few hits or make dragonfly do nothing while you're fighting them if they'll make it so walls won't work and you can still use ice staff or a ton of other strats, you can also still technically kill lavaes with x1 damage multiplier if you make dfly sleep while fighting them

[mykenception]

8 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Bee Mine Strategy

you use bee mines?

I just legit catch as much killer bees as I can, stuff em on an extra backpack, light up that backpack and tp on a certain distance after activating the fight

much more economical 

[gamehun20]

5 minutes ago, mykenception said:

you use bee mines?

You can but it's probably extra effort that's not really spent well

[Mike23Ua]

So uhm I ran into a bit of a snag on that biome I wanted to put together, apparently the “Turf” that I’m using will change colors (I think it’s due to the season temperature or time of day idk not sure..) But if you guys can forgive the slight color changes I’ll have that ready soon.

As far as the Bee Mine Question goes I personally didn’t have much of a problem creating these, but that still doesn’t make the actual boss fight “Fun” Im positive that with a group of players it may be a more pleasant experience, but doing it alone could use slight tweaks.

I have only a few suggestions on how to improve CK, but lowering pincher health and completely removing his healing ability might help (dudes already a health sponge..) I suppose it heals to accommodate for a fun “group” fight but alone- it just makes it drag on and on, I literally just gave up and used bees on him letting them do all the work, that’s a small example of how unfun it was.

Healing is another thing I wanted to touch on, In DST you really have no indication that a boss IS Healing, so I rather embarrassingly wasted 4 Darkswords trying to fight Klaus having no idea that when he isn’t engaged in combat, he heals..

Now let me simply explain that Spider Queen Nurse Spiders show a clearer indication that “Hey these things are healing the others…” 

But that’s because Nurse spiders are newer content, and some of the older bosses could use tweaks.

Rather it’s visible health bars, little green medic symbols popping up like damage numbers above the creatures head- whatever: If it heals give the players a bit more indication that it’s healing.

And as for me personally if Klei doesn’t want to reduce boss health for whatever reasons, then I think I’d find the fights much more enjoyable if you could simply disable their ability to heal.

Anyways, that’s all I want to say for now (please be respectful guys. <3)

[cropo]

9 hours ago, arubaro said:

I will never understand the cries about needing to farm weather pains to kill toadstool when is cheaper and funnier to use moon glasses... maybe people hate BQ because they are farming cookie cutter shells as armor and hit with a fishinf rod?

For me it's Fuelweaver that has the weather pain problem. If you aren't ON POINT with those dumb little critters the entire fight can get undone in like a second. Most players who make videos fighting FW have to hold junk in their inventory to prevent items from going too far back from their hotkeys which makes a large portion of the fight more of a battle with your inventory. Like you can fight FW without a weather pain but man it's obnoxious.

 

But a big problem I'm seeing here is that people are giving solutions on how to ''win'', as if  the ''win'' is the problem. Besides maybe Mike, most people aren't complaining that they can't ''win'' against the boss. The bigger problem is that when people are fighting these bosses they are saying ''Ugh, finally, the stupid fight is done'' and not ''Oh dear god, that was such an uncompromising and challenging experience that tested my brain and thinking skills, gee willickers what an exciting battle! I can't wait to do it again!". But I guess the "fun" of these boss fights for you guys is the flexing of brainpower, whereas the newer bosses require more raw dodging and combat knowledge and don't leave much room for big brain plays. 

[Yuuko]

26 minutes ago, cropo said:

For me it's Fuelweaver that has the weather pain problem. If you aren't ON POINT with those dumb little critters the entire fight can get undone in like a second. Most players who make videos fighting FW have to hold junk in their inventory to prevent items from going too far back from their hotkeys which makes a large portion of the fight more of a battle with your inventory. Like you can fight FW without a weather pain but man it's obnoxious.

 

But a big problem I'm seeing here is that people are giving solutions on how to ''win'', as if  the ''win'' is the problem. Besides maybe Mike, most people aren't complaining that they can't ''win'' against the boss. The bigger problem is that when people are fighting these bosses they are saying ''Ugh, finally, the stupid fight is done'' and not ''Oh dear god, that was such an uncompromising and challenging experience that tested my brain and thinking skills, gee willickers what an exciting battle! I can't wait to do it again!". But I guess the "fun" of these boss fights for you guys is the flexing of brainpower, whereas the newer bosses require more raw dodging and combat knowledge and don't leave much room for big brain plays. 

idk, there is a kiting method for AFW that isn't too tough to pull off (I was able to do it easier than managing weather pains at first.)  Give that a try?

About the second part though - This thread is started by Mike, so "besides mike" kinda doesn't apply when that is who we're responding to here.  Also many people are excited to go back.  We're talking about Antlion and Klaus.  Sure, Antlion might be a bit of a chore for many ppl, mostly b/c you have to kill him at the start of every summer to not deal with his tantrums.  But Klaus?  This is like, one of the more loved bosses.  ppl definitely finish fighting this guy and want to come back and do it again.  And again - since that is what this thread is about, saying "but bosses besides Klaus..." kinda doesn't apply.

Although I'll add - I've been excited to tackle and re-try every boss except toad and CK.

[grm9]

9 hours ago, cropo said:

But I guess the "fun" of these boss fights for you guys is the flexing of brainpower, whereas the newer bosses require more raw dodging and combat knowledge and don't leave much room for big brain plays.

problem is that there's nothing good about the new bosses, i'll play souls games if i want to fight good bosses, DST's bosses are too easy except FW which both, is fun to fight and can be killed using multiple strats, new bosses require only a few minutes of practice before you can kill them and it's boring to fight them after that

FW without weather pains is fun imo

Edited February 1 by grm9

[arubaro]

4 hours ago, cropo said:

For me it's Fuelweaver that has the weather pain problem. If you aren't ON POINT with those dumb little critters the entire fight can get undone in like a second. Most players who make videos fighting FW have to hold junk in their inventory to prevent items from going too far back from their hotkeys which makes a large portion of the fight more of a battle with your inventory. Like you can fight FW without a weather pain but man it's obnoxious.

 

But a big problem I'm seeing here is that people are giving solutions on how to ''win'', as if  the ''win'' is the problem. Besides maybe Mike, most people aren't complaining that they can't ''win'' against the boss. The bigger problem is that when people are fighting these bosses they are saying ''Ugh, finally, the stupid fight is done'' and not ''Oh dear god, that was such an uncompromising and challenging experience that tested my brain and thinking skills, gee willickers what an exciting battle! I can't wait to do it again!". But I guess the "fun" of these boss fights for you guys is the flexing of brainpower, whereas the newer bosses require more raw dodging and combat knowledge and don't leave much room for big brain plays. 

Outside of rng bad luck i dont see the problem of farming 2 horns and a goose to have a powerfum help in a fight that gives you bone armor, bone helm, a way to use reanimated skeletons as pets, ruins reset and opening the cave's rift content

We can discuss if would be a good thing to have more items with similar propieties so we have more ways of dealing with his healing minions but dst is a game about crafting, not an adventure action game where you fight everything with what the story gives to you like certain user seems to want.

We can have skill based enemies that also require crafting certain set of materials. If i wanted to kill bosses without investing time on farming and crafting i would be playing elden ring or a dark souls, atleast there you need more skill. Remove crafting out of the dst equation and you will get bland fights that you end up by pressing F like in single player where you could faceroll every boss without being skilled

I want dynamic and fun boss fights but fighting in this game has the limit of not being a game focused on combat like dark souls like games, some people just want to kill bosses in a game with simple and easy combat without even investing in getting materials...not getting materials in a game based on getting materials

Edit. And dst isnt even a grindy game. Every other survival and sandbox i played is way more grindy by far than dst. No, BQ isnt grindy as much people claim, idk what they do wrong but few silk, marble or pig skin (that they already have entire stacks by abusing hammering houses or pig farms). In dst you can make a nice base and kill most bosses without rushing in few hours, if they made every quicker and simplier we would see more threads about "dst needs more content " "what to do in late game", etc

Edited February 1 by arubaro

[The Starver]

7 hours ago, cropo said:

The bigger problem is that when people are fighting these bosses they are saying ''Ugh, finally, the stupid fight is done''

That's what I'm seeing, too. It's not an issue of winning the fight, it's an issue of fights being either unfun (CK, BQ, etc.) or just painful to beat, leaving you having not had fun. It's not a difficulty issue, it's a fun issue, and that's why I think Mike doesn't like Klaus. It's not because he can't beat him, it's because he just doesn't enjoy the fight. I mean, I might be wrong.

I think that Klei might have pushed "uncompromising" a bit too far with the bosses, making them not any fun. I mean, the entire reason we play the game is because it's fun. If there is a part that isn't fun, there's a problem. One thing Mike said was "I want to be able to play this game with my 4yr old nephew." That's what the developers intended. They want this to be a game that people of all ages can play and enjoy. I mean, that's why they disabled Long Pig meat. It was too macabre.

Again, I may be wrong, but I think this is why a lot of people are upset with DST.

[Uedo]

58 minutes ago, The Starver said:

That's what I'm seeing, too. It's not an issue of winning the fight, it's an issue of fights being either unfun (CK, BQ, etc.) or just painful to beat, leaving you having not had fun. It's not a difficulty issue, it's a fun issue, and that's why I think Mike doesn't like Klaus. It's not because he can't beat him, it's because he just doesn't enjoy the fight. I mean, I might be wrong.

I think that Klei might have pushed "uncompromising" a bit too far with the bosses, making them not any fun. I mean, the entire reason we play the game is because it's fun. If there is a part that isn't fun, there's a problem. One thing Mike said was "I want to be able to play this game with my 4yr old nephew." That's what the developers intended. They want this to be a game that people of all ages can play and enjoy. I mean, that's why they disabled Long Pig meat. It was too macabre.

Again, I may be wrong, but I think this is why a lot of people are upset with DST.

I think what a few people keep pointing out is that Klaus, generally, IS a fun fight. So when someone says it's unfun, I get the feeling like 'Well you're not going to enjoy the others then' - if that's the case, maybe this just isn't your game.

[The Starver]

1 hour ago, Uedo said:

I think what a few people keep pointing out is that Klaus, generally, IS a fun fight. So when someone says it's unfun, I get the feeling like 'Well you're not going to enjoy the others then' - if that's the case, maybe this just isn't your game.

Sorry about that. To be completely honest, I have only 100 hrs or less, with no boss kills (I have, however, encountered Deerclops, Dragonfly, and Spider Queen, and even tried fighting SQ), so I've never actually fought Klaus.

So, yes, this is my game, but I just haven't been playing long enough to have beaten all the bosses like you 1000+ hour overlords. Us peasants make do with what we've got.

[Yuuko]

10 minutes ago, The Starver said:

So, yes, this is my game, but I just haven't been playing long enough to have beaten all the bosses like you 1000+ hour overlords. Us peasants make do with what we've got.

Its a process.  The game is about knowledge and skill.  Once you learn what you need, and how to get it even restarting in a new world you have that knowledge and skill with you.  Its what I like most about DST, and why I've put so many hours into it.  There are a lot of cool things I can do, and still more things to learn.

Despite the heavy push-back to Mike here the forums are a pretty good place to get help if you actually ask for it.  The reason Mike is getting so much pushback here is b/c he is basically ignoring help, and deflecting comments about how he could overcome these bosses into comments about how they all need nerfs.  The game isn't perfect, but most bosses are able to be handled very reliably solo with some practice.

The big thing is you can't think about this game like God of War, or Souls where you're going in to duck and dodge and swing your way through a fight.  This game is about resources, crafting, and creating the right environment for success.  Its not cheating to use those elements of the game to your advantage.  Extra time in prep can make boss fights easier, and as you get better you spend less time in prep and get the fights done quicker.

[Uedo]

17 minutes ago, The Starver said:

Sorry about that. To be completely honest, I have only 100 hrs or less, with no boss kills (I have, however, encountered Deerclops, Dragonfly, and Spider Queen, and even tried fighting SQ), so I've never actually fought Klaus.

So, yes, this is my game, but I just haven't been playing long enough to have beaten all the bosses like you 1000+ hour overlords. Us peasants make do with what we've got.

'maybe' this just isn't your game <--- try stressing that word for me.

Also that was a hypothetical, it's a generalisation to someone who is upset that a game with lots of hard boss content has hard boss content.

Mike was speaking in specifics, objectively all bosses are bad. That's what he's positing. I disagree and find them alright, especially the ones he's mentioning - i'm either; Lying, a statistical anomaly or Mike's statement is not complete/substantial.

.. that help a bit?  

[The Starver]

1 hour ago, Uedo said:

'maybe' this just isn't your game

Oops.

1 hour ago, Uedo said:

that help a bit?

Very much, thanks.

[Mike23Ua]

2 hours ago, The Starver said:

Sorry about that. To be completely honest, I have only 100 hrs or less, with no boss kills (I have, however, encountered Deerclops, Dragonfly, and Spider Queen, and even tried fighting SQ), so I've never actually fought Klaus.

So, yes, this is my game, but I just haven't been playing long enough to have beaten all the bosses like you 1000+ hour overlords. Us peasants make do with what we've got.

I have fought Klaus, Bee Queen, Dragonfly, Deerclops, Feastclops, Antlion, Ancient Guardian, Eye of Terror, Twins of Terror, Bearger, Armored Bearger, Lunar Varg, Lunar Deerclops, Toadstool, Moose/Goose, Crab King, Malbatross.

I have yet to even attempt to fight Nightmare Pig, Shark Boi, Shadow Pieces, Misery Toad, Celestial Champion & AFW

”Fighting” & “Successfully killing” are two different things- but on the list of things I have yet to kill are Bee Queen, Klaus, Twins of Terror, Malbatross, Nightmare Pig, Shark Boi, Shadow Pieces, Toad/Misery Toad, & AFW.

The questions you have to ask are- do you have any FUN doing it? Does it take too long and feel like a grind or chore? 
 

My hatred towards dragonfly is because when enough people Hit her they will trigger her to fall to the ground and “Faint” allowing them to get in even more cheap free health reducing hits on her.

Yes you heard that right- there is actually a gameplay mechanic where if you Gank up on Dragonfly, she becomes an easier fight.

Fighting her alone? Bring tons of ice staffs, build a wall, & prepare to spend way longer than you ever would with people making her “faint”.

Conclusion: Bosses could use a few tweaks to be both more enjoyable solo, and in a larger group.

[Evelo]

19 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

My hatred towards dragonfly is because when enough people Hit her they will trigger her to fall to the ground and “Faint” allowing them to get in even more cheap free health reducing hits on her.

Gunpowder is a great solution to this issue if you aren't wolfgang or wanda.
Please refer to my previous post on this thread Mike.
I don't personally have fun with the bosses but that is because combat is just "hold F" that isn't a problem with the bosses in of themselves just the combat system as a whole.

Edited February 1 by Evelo

[arubaro]

51 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

My hatred towards dragonfly is because when enough people Hit her they will trigger her to fall to the ground and “Faint” allowing them to get in even more cheap free health reducing hits on her

Hire pigs and you achieve the same...

[The Starver]

3 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

The questions you have to ask are- do you have any FUN doing it? Does it take too long and feel like a grind or chore?

I know there are people who enjoy the boss fights, but I think there should be some sort of tweaks or settings so it can be fun for everyone. Not everyone wants to have to use cheese strategies, multiple people, or a certain character to fight a boss.

[prettynuggets]

1 hour ago, The Starver said:

Not everyone wants to have to use cheese strategies, multiple people, or a certain character to fight a boss.

tbh the fun of dont starve is the learning process.
there is phase for me to cheese bosses, well its fun until it lasted, it gave us somewhat accomplishment feeling when finally build the perfect mechanic to avoid fight all together,  then i bored. then try learning how to fight by leaning each of bosses pattern, and its another kind of accomplishment. learning how to fight make all boss is possible even solo. 
if the game decided just to slap baby bosses toggle, or worse make the bosses easier all together, it would be sad. since long way of learning process make me have thousands hours in the game. finding a server that suit each other preference will be harder too. since many toggle can be tweaked.
if every boss is just a simple F tanking and u can kill it . the game will be done soon. and might the replay-ability will be decreasing so much. cus you'll be clearing the game without any real learning, trial and error fight with failed attempt. several rollback cus you made hiccups. 

well if klei really decided to make baby bosses toggle. i wish it will be having cute pacifier and bonnet on every boss art XD 
well atleast its fun to look at. 

Edited February 2 by prettynuggets