Why I think boss fights are “Bad”

[The Starver]

11 hours ago, prettynuggets said:

if every boss is just a simple F tanking and u can kill it

That's not what I meant.

 

 

 

I give up. Either throw this whole hot mess of a thread in the bit bucket, or somehow come to an agreement on this stupid topic.

[Swiyss]

I think more ways to fight and engage in combat would greatly help how bosses feel "bad" for you now. I think lowering the bosses health now that we got used to it might be worse.

[Mike23Ua]

5 hours ago, Swiyss said:

I think more ways to fight and engage in combat would greatly help how bosses feel "bad" for you now. I think lowering the bosses health now that we got used to it might be worse.

Lowering their health would literally be no different from going into settings and changing the length of the games seasons to be shorter or shortest.

In the Nicest way possible of saying this: It allows players to experience the content the game has to offer, without all the resource gathering, waiting till “x” day, or hitting an opponent with a extremely large health bar a long time, etc..

If you happen to play DST on Default settings- then seasons last roughly 20 days each, so if you started the game on Day 1, you wouldn’t actually see a Winter until Day 20. However if you change seasons to “Shortest” Then you’ll experience winter content on Day 6.

As they stand right now- bosses are a resource sink, a test of endurance, and a skill check.

But by them BEING that, it limits how many players actually get to experience and enjoy this particular content.

I figure that if 2 Wolfgang Players instantly = a boss with 25% of its total health just by Wolfgang even existing, that having toggles to enjoy the fight as someone other than Wolfgang couldn’t ever possibly kill anyone.

Please don’t get this thread locked guys, stay on topic and be respectful, post what you like/dislike about bosses, how you feel they should be changed, I’m wanting to put together some cool stuff but, it’s going to take me some time to do because I can’t just Admin command things in front of me on Xbox.

So if something I’m trying to put together and present calls for for example: A fog covered graveyard set piece, then I actually have to play the game and find a world that generates this particular set piece in a way that I’m wanting to use it in.

Really wish you guys would be willing to help with this though.. instead of trying to argue & get the thread locked.  

Heres what you need to know: DST is a game that given enough play time, the player can literally almost remove every single naturally spawning turf in the game, and replace it with a different type of turf. 
 

Sooooo- If you wanted to, you could literally go to Moon Quay Island, obtain Beach Turf, come back to the Main Land, use Antlion Helm to uproot the entire Swamp Biome, replace said swamp turf with Beach biome Turf, and just like that… you now have tentacles popping up out of the sand of what appears to otherwise be a pleasant and inviting beach. 

[Mike23Ua]

I’m in a hurry to try and get these shown off as fast as I possibly can because I don’t want the thread locked before I can.

So Warning: The final results going to be a ugly poorly edited Image, but HOPEFULLY somebody, somewhere.. actually understands and gets what I’m trying to show here.

 

Please forgive the off-colored tiles, I wanted to show here very clearly Both Klaus, and Deerclops Icey attacks working on top of a Turf that looks Icey itself.

I also wanted to go find and place Gravestones on Icey Turf. 

and to truly show off how nearly every mob in the game already seems to have an Animation to be Frozen over into an Icey Block. (I used an ice staff, but the general concept of it getting so cold that animals just Ice Over like the spontaneously combust in Summer.. is still THERE.)

I really wanted to get a frozen Koelaphant screen capture on the Lunar Turf too, but well I rushed this.. so just imagine him  

Pig King now Resides in a Melting Ice Land (aside from the coloration being off, I love how that looks like melting blankets of ice.

The Antlion sink craters were intended to show cracking ice, but the coloration is off.. anyway here’s a rough concept icey biome-

Spoiler

I will be doing this one more time with an Egyptian/Sandy like Biome, but I really don’t want to rush the Egyptian Biome, because In general I love Egyptian type stuff, so Im gonna take my time on it.

This was only rushed cause I fear thread lock.

Edited February 2 by Mike23Ua

[Uedo]

57 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I’m in a hurry to try and get these shown off as fast as I possibly can because I don’t want the thread locked before I can.

So Warning: The final results going to be a ugly poorly edited Image, but HOPEFULLY somebody, somewhere.. actually understands and gets what I’m trying to show here.

 

Please forgive the off-colored tiles, I wanted to show here very clearly Both Klaus, and Deerclops Icey attacks working on top of a Turf that looks Icey itself.

I also wanted to go find and place Gravestones on Icey Turf. 

and to truly show off how nearly every mob in the game already seems to have an Animation to be Frozen over into an Icey Block. (I used an ice staff, but the general concept of it getting so cold that animals just Ice Over like the spontaneously combust in Summer.. is still THERE.)

I really wanted to get a frozen Koelaphant screen capture on the Lunar Turf too, but well I rushed this.. so just imagine him  

Pig King now Resides in a Melting Ice Land (aside from the coloration being off, I love how that looks like melting blankets of ice.

The Antlion sink craters were intended to show cracking ice, but the coloration is off.. anyway here’s a rough concept icey biome-

  Reveal hidden contents

I will be doing this one more time with an Egyptian/Sandy like Biome, but I really don’t want to rush the Egyptian Biome, because In general I love Egyptian type stuff, so Im gonna take my time on it.

This was only rushed cause I fear thread lock.

I don't think anyone has had any difficulty understanding what you're saying, I think people disagree. I get what you mean, I guess it would be nice but I still think your points about boss fights relate to your personal struggles and not the general struggles of every player.

I appreciate the effort to showcase the effects you mean though - It would be nice for a little more variation.

[Mike23Ua]

25 minutes ago, Uedo said:

I appreciate the effort to showcase the effects you mean though - It would be nice for a little more variation.

If you notice in the two above presented biome concepts, they only use existing content and animations all of that is Surface stuff & not even touching on Caves Content or the games massive collection of Skins, but between what spawns in the game, boss fight animations/unique mechanics, and the animations that are already in the game.. DST has potential to be a far more interesting game (through general biome exploration) beyond what Klei currently limits it to.

If the game only had an actual creative mode so we the players could choose where to place things like types of trees, ground turfs, and mob spawners- DST would be a much prettier game. And that’s all without even needing to download unofficial content mods.

And I’m trying to show that, but I can’t do that without the right people getting onboard and bring it to light better than I ever could through these poor photo edits.

Moon Quay is a good example, it’s a tiny little island full of pirate monkeys in one contained little area..

But what if there were islands out and about in the sea that had these Palmcone trees and monkey pirates inhabiting the actual land itself?

A Wurt player given enough time can place hand crafted Merm villages on an island at sea. But I don’t think “Pick Wurt” should be the answer to adding more life to the constant.

Edited February 2 by Mike23Ua

[Yuuko]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

I’m in a hurry to try and get these shown off as fast as I possibly can because I don’t want the thread locked before I can.

So Warning: The final results going to be a ugly poorly edited Image, but HOPEFULLY somebody, somewhere.. actually understands and gets what I’m trying to show here.

 

Please forgive the off-colored tiles, I wanted to show here very clearly Both Klaus, and Deerclops Icey attacks working on top of a Turf that looks Icey itself.

I also wanted to go find and place Gravestones on Icey Turf. 

and to truly show off how nearly every mob in the game already seems to have an Animation to be Frozen over into an Icey Block. (I used an ice staff, but the general concept of it getting so cold that animals just Ice Over like the spontaneously combust in Summer.. is still THERE.)

I really wanted to get a frozen Koelaphant screen capture on the Lunar Turf too, but well I rushed this.. so just imagine him  

Pig King now Resides in a Melting Ice Land (aside from the coloration being off, I love how that looks like melting blankets of ice.

The Antlion sink craters were intended to show cracking ice, but the coloration is off.. anyway here’s a rough concept icey biome-

  Reveal hidden contents

I will be doing this one more time with an Egyptian/Sandy like Biome, but I really don’t want to rush the Egyptian Biome, because In general I love Egyptian type stuff, so Im gonna take my time on it.

This was only rushed cause I fear thread lock.

None of this has anything to do with bosses, or why they are bad.  These images provide zero reason to nerf them or change them in any way.  None of these assets are "off limits" from reuse simply because they are part of a boss fight.

This thread is about why you think boss fights are bad.  pls stay on topic.

[Reecitz]

37 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

None of this has anything to do with bosses, or why they are bad.  These images provide zero reason to nerf them or change them in any way.  None of these assets are "off limits" from reuse simply because they are part of a boss fight.

This thread is about why you think boss fights are bad.  pls stay on topic.

Not gonna happen.

[Mike23Ua]

38 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

None of this has anything to do with bosses, or why they are bad.  These images provide zero reason to nerf them or change them in any way.  None of these assets are "off limits" from reuse simply because they are part of a boss fight.

This thread is about why you think boss fights are bad.  pls stay on topic.

Re-using boss assets outside of the boss fight itself makes said boss encounter less unique. As such: Klei is unlikely to use their assets anywhere else within the game outside of boss fights.

It can’t get much more simple than that. <3

[EATZYOWAFFLEZ]

3 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Really wish you guys would be willing to help with this though.. instead of trying to argue & get the thread locked.  

There are multiple pages of people trying to help you get better at the Klaus fight. You just completely ignored their advice.

[Swiyss]

3 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

As they stand right now- bosses are a resource sink, a test of endurance, and a skill check

I think that's how they're supposed to be.

 

3 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

But by them BEING that, it limits how many players actually get to experience and enjoy this particular content

Well I think that's healthy. For around the first 6 months of ds (when insight was needed to unlock recipes in the science machine), I never fought anything, specially tallbirds. I had to go out of my way to survive winter and fight deerclops, after they released winter I spent almost a year away from experiencing deerclops. From the beginning, the game always limited you. It doesn't want you to go out of your way to kill bosses. I feel like IF the bosses had lower health from the start, then I wouldn't ask for them to make it higher. When I got to dst, I already had killed deerclops and dominated him, but I was scared of moose goose and dragonfly. The first actual time I killed dfly was in 2018, years after release. And I did it on WES, it took me 3 worlds. If the boss had 5k hp I wouldn't feel as good as I felt when I actually killed him. I didn't care about the rewards, I was happy I killed him. 

For misery it was different. Everyone on every single yt video would say the drops are useless, the boss is bad and his health is way too much for solo. So when I finally went out of my way to kill him, I felt bad doing it so, not great, not happy, the only thing on my mind was "I wasted 3 game days for nothing". I know this is another point but it's just something to keep in mind.

If they make the health lower, everyone would say "oh yeah you defeated dragonfly? Nice noob, but I did it when he had a lot more HP". That for me already disqualifies any chance of that happening.

[Uedo]

2 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

And I’m trying to show that, but I can’t do that without the right people getting onboard and bring it to light better than I ever could through these poor photo edits.

Honestly Mike, I think everyone completely understands. It would be interesting and I see no reason why a feature wouldn't be welcomed - I don't. But the game has these tools. This is another reason that you should be discussing these things in your relevant sub-forum. On PC we do have mods, and it's really good for showcasing ideas like this. They're really well developed and they're often by people who play the game themselves, it's really nice. 

This should be a mod, you should totally have that experience but you refuse to develop one, you refuse to listen to suggestions and you refuse to accept that mods DO exist and it does a bit of a disservice to the people who put their efforts into them. Buy a very simple device and create a mod, use a pc of someone elses to see if it works, whatever, but stop sitting on the side-lines shouting ideas and, basically, pleading with people to do the creative and technical work for you.

Make a mod, i'm sure it'll be great with some practice, you're very passionate about the game and it'd be nice to see your vision come to life.

[Spino43]

4 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Please don’t get this thread locked guys, stay on topic and be respectful,

That's rich, coming from you of all people who inserts the fireland thingy in a topic about bosses.

You want us to help you? Good luck with that attitude. It's like my nephew who never stops complaining about anything, and he is only 4 years old.

Anyway, keep it coming. I love the endless wolfgang slandering and the ignorance.

P/s: please lock the thread, as entertaining as it be, it's clear nothing is going anywhere meaningful in this derailed topic. Mike is using it to discuss his fireland stuffs instead of about bosses, which he uses the same excuses again and again anyway.

[Uedo]

12 minutes ago, Spino43 said:

P/s: please lock the thread, as entertaining as it be, it's clear nothing is going anywhere meaningful in this derailed topic. Mike is using it to discuss his fireland stuffs instead of about bosses, which he uses the same excuses again and again anyway.

I remember being young when the first cries for this thread to be locked echoed out across the land :'(

[JoeW]

Keep posts polite, on topic, and without personal attacks. If you cannot do that, don't reply and move on. 

Thanks. 

[Popian]

9 hours ago, The Starver said:

That's not what I meant.

While Mike does have ideas worth considering, I think you should try it yourself to see if you find it reasonable before assuming it isn't.

For x1 damage characters solo a boss with roughly 8k-13k hp sounds like a reasonable amount of time to spend without overstaying its welcome (to me) while giving it a chance to catch one off guard if not make one use up all of one's healing and armor. Some bosses have a lot more hp to handle the "but what if it's not being soloed or dealt with x1 damage character" cases, which may have workarounds if not taking more time.

There is a slight issue with Crab King and Ancient Fuelweaver where they have healing that results in near 100% regression with no regard to the rate of damage received beforehand, which is like saying "Oh those resources you just used? You might as well have burned them." It's not something that is entirely the player's fault to be a lose condition like dying or giving up, but I think I get why it is like that, even if scaling the amount healed (which wouldn't really affect people "doing it right" because they'd still be getting near 0% regression) or an alternative threat would have been preferred (by me).

2 hours ago, Yuuko said:

This thread is about why you think boss fights are bad.  pls stay on topic.

Mike moved on because there was nothing more to discuss. And there isn't much to discuss about "Aren't these biomes neat?" either unless the answer isn't "yes".

 

While fire and ice biomes would be cool, temperature and wetness have turned into "lock and key (one (some parts of "combination locks" may be simple enough to be negligible) simple solution)" challenges with the practical immunity they have given some characters. Insulation (such as subtracting ~45 from total) or the cooling/heating effects of things would have to be dealt with in some way to make it interesting, which may be possible but "messy".

[Reecitz]

24 minutes ago, Popian said:

While Mike does have ideas worth considering, I think you should try it yourself to see if you find it reasonable before assuming it isn't.

For x1 damage characters solo a boss with roughly 8k-13k hp sounds like a reasonable amount of time to spend without overstaying its welcome (to me) while giving it a chance to catch one off guard if not make one use up all of one's healing and armor. Some bosses have a lot more hp to handle the "but what if it's not being soloed or dealt with x1 damage character" cases, which may have workarounds if not taking more time.

There is a slight issue with Crab King and Ancient Fuelweaver where they have healing that results in near 100% regression with no regard to the rate of damage received beforehand, which is like saying "Oh those resources you just used? You might as well have burned them." It's not something that is entirely the player's fault to be a lose condition like dying or giving up, but I think I get why it is like that, even if scaling the amount healed (which wouldn't really affect people "doing it right" because they'd still be getting near 0% regression) or an alternative threat would have been preferred (by me).

Mike moved on because there was nothing more to discuss. And there isn't much to discuss about "Aren't these biomes neat?" either unless the answer isn't "yes".

 

While fire and ice biomes would be cool, temperature and wetness have turned into "lock and key (one (some parts of "combination locks" may be simple enough to be negligible) simple solution)" challenges with the practical immunity they have given some characters. Insulation (such as subtracting ~45 from total) or the cooling/heating effects of things would have to be dealt with in some way to make it interesting, which may be possible but "messy".

Mike moved on? Cool, then lock the thread. 

Don't lock the thread? Then Mike hasn't actually moved on, so what YOU need to do is be quiet.

[Popian]

5 minutes ago, Reecitz said:

Mike moved on? Cool, then lock the thread.

Locking the thread only means that you will get trolled by Mike (who isn't even trying to troll) in other threads.

Edited February 3 by Popian

[Reecitz]

7 minutes ago, Popian said:

Locking the thread only means that you will get trolled by Mike (who isn't even trying to troll) in other threads.

Rather that than having you here saying stupid things like justifying letting someone talk off-topic in a thread with a specific topic. 

[Popian]

22 minutes ago, Reecitz said:

Rather that than having you here saying stupid things like justifying letting someone talk off-topic in a thread with a specific topic. 

If that's what you will take from it, it can't be helped.

Mike is completely on topic, as this is from the opening post:

On 1/8/2024 at 4:57 PM, Mike23Ua said:

Boss fights also tend to have unique mechanics that are exclusive to the boss fight itself which sucks because the rest of the game it’s biomes, and mobs continue to be severally lacking &/or un-Updated to match the newer boss.

Case in Point- FrostJaw Arena features a skidding across Ice Mechanic, which is of course cool and makes the fight more unique, but players should also slip across ice when stepping on frozen lakes or Pengul nests- Why are the interesting mechanics reserved for some Optional boss shoved away in some obscure corner of the map somewhere?

Why can’t the mechanics of said FrostJaw fight be implemented Elsewhere? Such as for example turning the Rocky Biome into frozen Ice sheets during Winters or something?

My point is that boss fights limit the rest of the games creativity…

But say, those warnings look like they could apply to you, couldn't they?

[Reecitz]

10 minutes ago, Popian said:

If that's what you will take from it, it can't be helped.

Mike is completely on topic, as this is from the opening post:

But say, those warnings look like they could apply to you, couldn't they?

I'm not the delusional one.

[Yuuko]

4 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Re-using boss assets outside of the boss fight itself makes said boss encounter less unique. As such: Klei is unlikely to use their assets anywhere else within the game outside of boss fights.

It can’t get much more simple than that. <3

Eh... x to doubt.  As I pointed out before the craters from Antlion are already reused in other bosses and the boulders he dropped in the caves have been added in rift quakes so like...  No.  Klei can freely reuse them where appropriate.

Not only that but fr - lets say there was some boss exclusivity on some assets - how would nerfing their health change that?

I think the reason we don't have more environmental hazards has more to do with the load the game is already under, and the difficulty of adding things in a way where they challenge a player but don't just get rolled over, or become a "no go" zone.  Like look at meteors - no one would want to build here b/c your stuff just gets destroyed.  A player isn't really challenged by this b/c they just don't go there.  Same with the swamp for a lot of newer players - merms and tentacles can make this place pretty hazardous but like... they just don't go into the swamp then.  When a player becomes more experienced they will go to the swamp, but they will clear out tentacles, merm huts, spider dens etc and re-pave the whole thing and its basically not a swamp anymore lol.

So sure, adding in sand spikes and ice geysers might sound cool but how much value would it actually add to the game?  Would players actually interact with it, or avoid / overwrite it?  If players aren't going to actually engage the mechanic, is it even worth adding?

tbh the funny thing is while you go on about these things you want, Klei has actually been doing things along these lines but in a better way this whole time.

The AFW quest line resets the ruins.  It doesn't ramp them up, but it means a player restores the hazards throughout the ruins and monkey areas.  The CC quest line steps up the lunar grotto from a pretty peaceful place for farming living logs to an honestly pretty treacherous place with the greater gasalts and terror beaks both aggroing on you regardless of your sanity if you step in.  Granted there isn't much reason to go back here late game, but the step up is permanent.  Then you have to experience moon storms and their unique hazards which I think are pretty well implemented in that they don't destroy your base, and aren't completely mitigated by a single item.  They aren't just another stale boss fight, but you also aren't able to just rush in to grab one item and rush out.

So like - these things you're saying you want, and think are locked away b/c bosses are the main focus, and think can't be done b/c bosses own all of the good assets - and somehow argue that nerfing bosses helps with?? - they are actually being done, and are even part of the current arc with how rifts try to escalate the world.  Its not perfect, but they're working on it.

[Reecitz]

29 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

Eh... x to doubt.  As I pointed out before the craters from Antlion are already reused in other bosses and the boulders he dropped in the caves have been added in rift quakes so like...  No.  Klei can freely reuse them where appropriate.

Not only that but fr - lets say there was some boss exclusivity on some assets - how would nerfing their health change that?

I think the reason we don't have more environmental hazards has more to do with the load the game is already under, and the difficulty of adding things in a way where they challenge a player but don't just get rolled over, or become a "no go" zone.  Like look at meteors - no one would want to build here b/c your stuff just gets destroyed.  A player isn't really challenged by this b/c they just don't go there.  Same with the swamp for a lot of newer players - merms and tentacles can make this place pretty hazardous but like... they just don't go into the swamp then.  When a player becomes more experienced they will go to the swamp, but they will clear out tentacles, merm huts, spider dens etc and re-pave the whole thing and its basically not a swamp anymore lol.

So sure, adding in sand spikes and ice geysers might sound cool but how much value would it actually add to the game?  Would players actually interact with it, or avoid / overwrite it?  If players aren't going to actually engage the mechanic, is it even worth adding?

tbh the funny thing is while you go on about these things you want, Klei has actually been doing things along these lines but in a better way this whole time.

The AFW quest line resets the ruins.  It doesn't ramp them up, but it means a player restores the hazards throughout the ruins and monkey areas.  The CC quest line steps up the lunar grotto from a pretty peaceful place for farming living logs to an honestly pretty treacherous place with the greater gasalts and terror beaks both aggroing on you regardless of your sanity if you step in.  Granted there isn't much reason to go back here late game, but the step up is permanent.  Then you have to experience moon storms and their unique hazards which I think are pretty well implemented in that they don't destroy your base, and aren't completely mitigated by a single item.  They aren't just another stale boss fight, but you also aren't able to just rush in to grab one item and rush out.

So like - these things you're saying you want, and think are locked away b/c bosses are the main focus, and think can't be done b/c bosses own all of the good assets - and somehow argue that nerfing bosses helps with?? - they are actually being done, and are even part of the current arc with how rifts try to escalate the world.  Its not perfect, but they're working on it.

Just be prepared for your post to be cherrypicked... again. 

[_zwb]

9 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Re-using boss assets outside of the boss fight itself makes said boss encounter less unique. As such: Klei is unlikely to use their assets anywhere else within the game outside of boss fights.

Why would Klei care about uniqueness when they have already killed off character uniqueness with planar mechanics? Plus reusing sprites saves development time, Klei already did that with mini glaciers for frost jaw.

[The Starver]

On 2/2/2024 at 1:50 PM, Mike23Ua said:

I will be doing this one more time with an Egyptian/Sandy like Biome, but I really don’t want to rush the Egyptian Biome, because In general I love Egyptian type stuff, so Im gonna take my time on it.

Please do! I have saved both of your previous concept pictures for further reference as I work on these fairly complicated mods, and I would like to have the Egyptian one especially for reference. Good ideas, @Mike23Ua.

Edited February 19 by The Starver