Should Klei add boss hp bar?

[_zwb]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

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

well Klei can stop that if they want, just not really likely...

[Milordo]

Again no. It has been discussed to death. Bad people, to the majority which voted yes

4 hours 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!

Plus this ^ was the solution founded years and years and years ago, yes. This should be implemented, not the awful bar.

Edited June 29, 2025 by Milordo

[JustAPineapple]

I don't see why not honestly. Not having a health bar isn't adding some super interesting level of depth to fights, and the ship has sailed in regards to Dst having a heavy bossfight focus.

[Mike23Ua]

2 hours ago, Random Guy000 said:

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

Thing is it takes a lot of development time and resources to add sprites and animations for visual damage done to a boss then it does to add a HP Bar.

I do not think ALL Mobs should have HP bars though, a horde of spiders all with HP bars would clutter your screen up real bad, but the major big bosses absolutely should have one.

[Wawchik]

What if warbis helmet could show the health bar of the enemy that it locked on but like not in numbers maybe in hits of the weapon that you're using 

Edited June 29, 2025 by Wawchik

[00petar00]

It should be a toggle in options and turned off by default.

I do agree that there is an advantage but it is mostly for players that aren't that experienced at the game, most forum regulars know how much resources they need for every boss fight.

Edited June 29, 2025 by 00petar00

[cybers2001]

3 hours ago, Nikki Darks said:

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.

Hey, just calling it for what it is. I personally don't mind if Klei adds baby-mode hand-holdy features, as I'm a megabaser first and fore-moest. Makes my job farming the loot easier.

1 hour ago, Wawchik said:

What if warbis helmet could show the health bar of the enemy that it locked on but like not in numbers maybe in hits of the weapon that you're using 

Would be an interesting compromise. Similarly to the horizon expandinator where a feature that used to just be in a mod was brought to the base game, but in a way that forced you to acquire and use a specific item.

[Esplanado]

Adding geometric placement to the base game was a great choice. Hopefully healthbars come next

[Echsrick]

i mean the game has become a combat game (bad) for a while now so it would make sense

[Edible Coal]

tbh the only reason i made this post is because i need to lure afw to the edge before it goes into second phrase

[Cheggf]

I can only assume that most of the people who voted yes meant to vote no and didn't see that you put no at the top for some reason. 

[Radicaljoe]

I like the idea where the bosses show/have tells about their health. 

Bq has her screams for different phases

CK has the shell cracks as the health gets lower

Fw's music changes in the second phase 

Stuff like that. An actual on screen hud effect I think would be ugly (even if it was made well), more screen clutter is not fun when you're focused on dodging already.

[cybers2001]

3 hours ago, Edible Coal said:

tbh the only reason i made this post is because i need to lure afw to the edge before it goes into second phrase

Hey I’m in the same boat. When I play a fresh world as Winona, I have a strat that lets me use catapults on Klaus. But it’s important to kite Klaus out of range before he summons the krampii, or the catapults can pull him out of his taunt, and then chaos ensues while I try to get the catapults to switch aggro to the krampii.  
  
If I can see his health bar, I’d know exactly when to pull him away.

[Queron81]

What if the healthbar isn't a bar, instead a certain amount of hearts (maybe 3-7 depending on the total health) just as an indicator without showing the exact (remaining) health. When the boss is hit, the last heart could be shaking. After a certain amount of damage taken, the heart turns grey. So players have some feedback without giving too much information.

[cropo]

I'm surprised "health bars make boss fights easier" is taken this seriously; as if knowing a bosses health and having clarity on how well or how terrible you are doing is some kind of critical factor that can sway your chances of beating it. Like in a vacuum I understand that it does make the boss fight easier, but that's like saying adding a droplet of gas to my car is going to make it drive farther.

[Sacco]

39 minutes ago, cropo said:

I'm surprised "health bars make boss fights easier" is taken this seriously; as if knowing a bosses health and having clarity on how well or how terrible you are doing is some kind of critical factor that can sway your chances of beating it. Like in a vacuum I understand that it does make the boss fight easier, but that's like saying adding a droplet of gas to my car is going to make it drive farther.

people understimate the health bar honestly. I’ve played both with the health bar mod on and off, and fights feel way easier. With that mod you can see how much deep you are in a phase and be 100% prepared for the next one. Sometimes happens that you got like 50 health and no healing and one piece of armor left at the end of a fight and you do not know if to continue the fight, but with that mod you are going to take less risks at predicting if you are going to make it.

Visual clues would be way cooler honestly.

[Mike23Ua]

2 hours ago, Queron81 said:

What if the healthbar isn't a bar, instead a certain amount of hearts (maybe 3-7 depending on the total health) just as an indicator without showing the exact (remaining) health. When the boss is hit, the last heart could be shaking. After a certain amount of damage taken, the heart turns grey. So players have some feedback without giving too much information.

I’m currently playing the new TMNT game Splintered Fate and yeah I Uhm…. Any enemy that requires more than about 40 hits to kill, TOTALLY needs a health bar.

[cropo]

1 hour ago, Sacco said:

people understimate the health bar honestly. I’ve played both with the health bar mod on and off, and fights feel way easier. With that mod you can see how much deep you are in a phase and be 100% prepared for the next one. Sometimes happens that you got like 50 health and no healing and one piece of armor left at the end of a fight and you do not know if to continue the fight, but with that mod you are going to take less risks at predicting if you are going to make it.

Visual clues would be way cooler honestly.

Eh...seems like a bit of a stretch. Although I would not be averse to visual clues like Monster Hunter but that seems like it would take a lot of work to animate and portray in the game.

I get that being clued in to certain phase transitions could like, kinda make the fight easier but unless you are planning to use a bunch of contraptions or have a strategy that requires a very specific timing to pull off the benefits don't seem significant enough to claim you're having a massive advantage.

If anything, it's more likely to clue a player off that they're in way over their heads and should not be fighting said boss, and inform them that they've essentially failed fuelweaver instead of wasting more time on a hopeless fight.

[Captain_Rage]

1 hour ago, cropo said:

I'm surprised "health bars make boss fights easier" is taken this seriously; as if knowing a bosses health and having clarity on how well or how terrible you are doing is some kind of critical factor that can sway your chances of beating it. Like in a vacuum I understand that it does make the boss fight easier, but that's like saying adding a droplet of gas to my car is going to make it drive farther.

Because the player's action are dictated by assessing the risk of their next move. Of course it dumbs down any fight to a ridiculous level if you know the boss is one hit away from being defeated / changing phase when your own health and armor is running low as opposed to fifty more hits. The same goes for groups of minions. Imagine playing The Forge and everybody can see exactly how much HP each Snortoise has which makes focused fire a cakewalk even for noobs.

It is the "healtbars won't make fights easier" argument which is trolling. Plus imagine the atrocious visual clutter of having heatlthbars covering the screen when fighting >15 Bees.

[NeoDeusMachina]

The only thing it does is help making a go/no go decision on whether you should risk fighting on or leave fight. It doesn't make the fight itself easier. The mechanics are the same.

Hp bar doesn't need to show phases, that can be left out to visual cues or roars or whatever. Most bosses who have significant mechanics change between phases already indicate it in some way.

As far as I know, bees aren't bosses. The topic is about boss hp bar not all mobs hp bars.

 

[cropo]

14 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

Because the player's action are dictated by assessing the risk of their next move.

In DST? Most bosses have a clear-and-dry method of fighting them that rarely is changed to adapt to changing circumstances. Maybe the boss is one hit from death, and you take a single and solitary risk by going for one more hit because you know you don't need to dodge. I don't really consider that a significant change in difficulty, to the point it's more valuable to keep the HP of a boss obfuscated. The boss was already one hit away from dying...you already won at that point.

 

 

14 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

Imagine playing The Forge and everybody can see exactly how much HP each Snortoise has which makes focused fire a cakewalk even for noobs.

The snortoise isn't a boss, right? I played the Forge pretty extensively and the method I used to repeatedly beat it was the exact same each time to the point I had to instruct others on exactly what to do. Knowing their HP would not have changed the fight in any way, it would have had an emotional impact on the fight however as the player is having a visual display of the progress their efforts are making.

The visuals of boss healths on the epic healthbar mod also make the fight feel more...epic? I get it's a preference thing but I like the official "bossness" of seeing an HP bar.

Even if what you guys were saying is true and the HP bars do have a significant change in the way fights are, your reasons for it are that it keeps the player more informed and able to make decisions and judgements. To me that sounds more like a positive than a negative, as it allows more interaction and expression in the gameplay rather than just winging it and hoping you're actually doing something with no real idea if you even have a chance at succeeding at what you're doing and having no idea how bad or good you did if you die.

Edited June 30, 2025 by cropo

[gaymime]

frankly hp bars are a -good- thing as long as they are kept simple and kept optional. a lot of veterans have forgotten what it is like to be new to this game and to have fought their first boss between 0 and 0 times. you arent going into a boss battle for the very first time(or even the second, honestly) already knowing all the phases off a boss, having an awareness of graphical shifts to tell you what their health is and the proper state off calm level-headedness to be watching the boss instead of watching the boss's attacks.

let the game have toggable healthbars so the people who want them, the people who need them, the people who don't want them and the people who just like having the choice ALL can get what they want. i you want to preserve the game's theme of "figure it out, scrub" from the old days then make the toggle an accessibility feature to opt-into instead of opt-out of so the people who arent keen never have to interact with it

[00petar00]

5 hours ago, Cheggf said:

I can only assume that most of the people who voted yes meant to vote no and didn't see that you put no at the top for some reason. 

It is very incorrect to assume something like that, as If we people can't read 2 or 5 letters before answering a poll.

Maybe it is time to accept that most players want DST to become more RPG-like.

[Mysterious box]

3 hours ago, cropo said:

If anything, it's more likely to clue a player off that they're in way over their heads and should not be fighting said boss, and inform them that they've essentially failed fuelweaver instead of wasting more time on a hopeless fight.

You just explained right here how it makes it easier. An hp bar removes a level of caution and gives certainty to your actions this in turn can make fights feel easier. That being said I'd definitely prefer a visual degrading system but I'm not really bothered with whatever way they go with it be it bars or nothing at all.

[Sacco]

4 hours ago, cropo said:

If anything, it's more likely to clue a player off that they're in way over their heads and should not be fighting said boss, and inform them that they've essentially failed fuelweaver instead of wasting more time on a hopeless fight.

I think that’s the point, you SHOULD NOT get told if you are going to fail or not, judging you own skills is a part of the game.