Should Klei add boss hp bar?

[Edible Coal]

Since Klei added geo placement and emote wheel , i really want them to add boss hp bar into the game just like the other two

a lot of boss have health mechanic that gets trigger when certain health thresh hold , some boss even heal in certain condition ( warbot, nm werepig) 

it would help group fights and solo fights to manage boss health better and makes boss fight more fun ( you get to see a bar dropping with every chop)

[Capybara007]

at this point klei just expects you to download mods so its not gonna be a huge change anyways

[_zwb]

no this isn't Terraria this is Don't Starve

[cybers2001]

Health bar mod enthusiasts never want to admit to the undeniable truth: Health bars make boss fights easier.

[Cruvimaster]

16 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Health bar mod enthusiasts never want to admit to the undeniable truth: Health bars make boss fights easier.

I agree with you, and that's why the Souls-like genre is so easy. They show the bosses' health bar and allow infinite resurrection ("unlimited rollbacks").

[Maxil20]

I would rather have the health bar be “incorporated” into the bosses design with visual/audio cues. CK is a really good example of this, having 10 sprite states ranging from full health (where the shell is undamaged) to below 10% health (where the shell is super cracked), alongside a noticeable shell break visual/SFX whenever it changes states. I think it both feels more natural and feels better in the world!

[cybers2001]

1 minute ago, Maxil20 said:

I would rather have the health bar be “incorporated” into the bosses design with visual/audio cues. CK is a really good example of this, having 10 sprite states ranging from full health (where the shell is undamaged) to below 10% health (where the shell is super cracked), alongside a noticeable shell break visual/SFX whenever it changes states. I think it both feels more natural and feels better in the world!

Interesting, never noticed this. I think it would be a nice visual cue to at least have for bosses that can regen mid-fight, so you can tell if you're just spinning your wheels or not.

[-Variant]

No, not really.
Health bars take me -so- out of the game.

What I do want is for more bosses to be like Toadstool, AG, and Crab King, where they visually and seamlessly show the changes to their health/defense.

AG and CK change visually the lower their health gets, with AG starting to bleed, and CK's castle falling apart.
Toadstool is a fun example I don't think many people notice, where all of the mushrooms on its back actually get larger and more bladed and spread out the more damage reduction its accumulated.

More 'immersive' tells are what I want!

[AliceShiki]

I'm indifferent, but I use mods to show enemy HP anyways.

Generally speaking though, I'm generally in favor of options. So if it was something you could toggle on/off, it would be nice, I'd say.

[Random Guy000]

I mean, some bosses already have tells for how much health they have

Somebody already mentioned crab king, there's also AG that shows you when he's at about half health. Other bosses like nightmare werepig and Klaus have tells based on their behaviour

Straight up adding health bars would be lame imo, but I'd love to see more visual cues moving forward

[Hungry French]

Yes. Killing bosses in DST without the hp bar makes it feel like the fight lasts forever, and you don't do any damage at all

[cybers2001]

17 minutes ago, Random Guy000 said:

I mean, some bosses already have tells for how much health they have

Somebody already mentioned crab king, there's also AG that shows you when he's at about half health. Other bosses like nightmare werepig and Klaus have tells based on their behaviour

Straight up adding health bars would be lame imo, but I'd love to see more visual cues moving forward

Right, but having phases or changes to attack patterns is very different than health bars. Health bars let you anticipate the phase change before it happens, which does provide an edge. It also can affect critical decision making in situations where attrition is also a factor.

Say a player is learning how to fight Deerclops. There's a lot going on here that a player has to consider over the course of the fight. Armor, health, hunger, as usual, but there's also the constant sanity drain that ramps up the difficulty at a critical point. It's also winter, so daylight is short, and your thermal stone only lasts so long. Knowing that the boss is 3-4 hits away from death can affect a player's decision to fight it out where otherwise they may have chosen to flee.

[Mike23Ua]

Having a HP bar doesn’t really change much about the gameplay, you still have to hit the boss the same amount of times as you would had without the HP Bar, but having a Hp Bar would allow players to know when a boss is dying or if it’s healing up. For myself in particular I experienced this with both DragonFly & Klaus, I did not know that when you flee Dragonfly and attempt to recover Health that she “resets” back at her area, yeah I KNEW she flew back… I just had assumed all the hits I did to her still had her damaged up so I could heal up and finish the fight.

With Klaus this guy is a bit annoying, you have to keep the pressure on him at all times, and remember that if you have a moment to heal, he’s already healing.

SOME Bosses however actually DO do like had I thought Dragonfly did (where it’s damage persists even if a flee the area) such as Deerclops, Bearger & Eye/Twins of Terror.

I think by not having the HP bar or visual damage players just have to resort to reading the Wikipedia pages to understand why X can take 10,000 hits and still physically look like you haven’t even hit them once.

[Captain_Rage]

13 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Having a HP bar doesn’t really change much about the gameplay,

It does.

[Hungry French]

24 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Наличие шкалы здоровья не сильно меняет игровой процесс, вам всё равно придётся бить босса столько же раз, сколько и без шкалы здоровья, но наличие шкалы здоровья позволит игрокам знать, когда босс умирает или восстанавливается. Лично я столкнулся с этим как с DragonFly, так и с Клаусом. Я не знал, что когда вы убегаете от DragonFly и пытаетесь восстановить здоровье, она «возвращается» на своё место, да, я ЗНАЛ, что она улетела обратно… Я просто предположил, что все удары, которые я ей нанёс, всё ещё наносят ей урон, так что я могу восстановиться и закончить бой.

С Клаусом этот парень немного раздражает, ты должен постоянно давить на него и помнить, что если у тебя есть время на восстановление, то он уже восстанавливается.

Однако некоторые боссы действительно действуют так, как, по моему мнению, действовала Стрекоза (то есть урон сохраняется, даже если покинуть область), например, Дирклопс, Беаргер и Глаз/Близнецы Ужаса.

Я думаю, что из-за отсутствия шкалы здоровья или визуального урона игрокам приходится читать статьи в Википедии, чтобы понять, почему X может выдержать 10 000 ударов и при этом выглядеть так, будто вы даже не задели его ни разу.

There's a Scrappy Book. However, the hp of bosses and mobs is as ridiculous and illogical as possible.

[cybers2001]

58 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

With Klaus this guy is a bit annoying, you have to keep the pressure on him at all times, and remember that if you have a moment to heal, he’s already healing.

?? He doesn't heal though. Just despawns after a while.

58 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I think by not having the HP bar or visual damage players just have to resort to reading the Wikipedia pages to understand why X can take 10,000 hits and still physically look like you haven’t even hit them once.

Not sure what you mean. Most bosses have some sort of reaction to taking damage, at the very least in the form of a sound cue and flinching response

Edited June 29, 2025 by cybers2001

[YourWorstNightm]

I would prefer showing battle damage over the fight, like an indicator that they're below a certain hp threshold.
An example would be Ancient Guardian.

[Hungry French]

21 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

?? Но он не исцеляется. Просто исчезает через некоторое время.

Не совсем понимаю, что вы имеете в виду. Большинство боссов так или иначе реагируют на получаемый урон, по крайней мере, издавая звук и вздрагивая

This is the absurdity of raid giants. It is illogical that some giants are several or even ten times thicker than others.

[Random Guy000]

1 hour ago, cybers2001 said:

Right, but having phases or changes to attack patterns is very different than health bars. Health bars let you anticipate the phase change before it happens, which does provide an edge. It also can affect critical decision making in situations where attrition is also a factor.

That's a good point (even though I already said that I don't like the idea of health bars?). For the sake of the argument, I'll play devils advocate here

If we're taking realism into account, then you would obviously notice that deerclops is closer to death at 1 HP than it would be at full 4k and act differently from there. At the end of the day, healthbars are just a crutch for cutting down on production time and cost of sprites. Being able to react to the boss' health level is the point - you SHOULD be able to do so, wheather it's diagetic or not, and I don't blame people for using mods to see HP of mobs or bosses

To me it'll always be about the vision of the devs of how the game should be played. If something isn't there - it isn't meant to be and you shouldn't add it, but again, everybody is free to play the game however they see fit

If devs WOULD change something, I'd like them to add more diagetic ways of seeing how close bosses are to dying

Edited June 29, 2025 by Random Guy000

[Siren11]

33 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

?? He doesn't heal though. Just despawns after a while.

Klaus will despawn if you leave for awhile, but Mike is right that he’ll just heal if you leave briefly.

[RozeMeteor]

24 minutes ago, AveHortor said:

I would prefer showing battle damage over the fight, like an indicator that they're below a certain hp threshold.
An example would be Ancient Guardian.

A bit out of topic, but i absolute loved capturing monsters on older monster hunter titles, monsters like Tigrex and Diablos raged a lot more when they were low health, showcasing that was the time for a trap, it was fun while maintaining you focused on the monster state rather than asking youself when it would die.

[Hungry French]

15 minutes ago, Random Guy000 said:

Это хорошая мысль (хотя я уже говорил, что мне не нравится идея «здоровых» баров). Ради спора я сыграю здесь роль адвоката дьявола

Если мы будем учитывать реалистичность, то вы, очевидно, заметите, что при 1 единице здоровья у оленёнка больше шансов умереть, чем при полном запасе здоровья в 4 единицы, и его поведение будет отличаться. В конце концов, шкалы здоровья — это просто способ сократить время производства и стоимость спрайтов. Смысл в том, чтобы иметь возможность реагировать на уровень здоровья босса — вы ДОЛЖНЫ иметь такую возможность, независимо от того, есть ли у вас диаграмма или нет, и я не виню людей за то, что они используют моды для просмотра здоровья мобов или боссов

Для меня это всегда будет связано с видением разработчиков того, как должна проходить игра. Если чего-то нет — значит, оно не предназначено для игры, и вам не следует это добавлять, но, опять же, каждый волен играть в игру так, как считает нужным

Если бы разработчики что-то изменили, я бы хотел, чтобы они добавили больше наглядных способов показать, насколько близки боссы к смерти

Klei doesn't have a complete vision. We have one million different items and functionality, characters, conditions, a different number of players on the server, and the open ability to customize the generation and any mods Klei thinks are allowed and good.
And the existence of the hp bar is necessary only for bosses, and mainly for raid bosses, which are the most in the game.

[Johnny_Waffles]

Even though a health bar would be nice, i not so sure they should be added. Imo no health bars makes dst bosses more challenging, and I'd rather have a visual look on the boss (like CK has) then an actual health bar.

[Evelo]

5 hours ago, _zwb said:

no this isn't Terraria this is Don't Starve

Is it though? Feels more like Terraria than Don't Starve with every patch.

[Nikki Darks]

I can smell the sweat in this reply section. "Healthbars make bosses easier." Okay and? They don't drastically change anything, and the clarity is nice to have. Relax.