Bosses ruin the game

[jeron]

Bosses are really challenging. From 20+ hours of my experience, you are basically guaranteed to loose a hero or two in any bossfight. Which is sad, but would be playable if you get reinforcements after that. It would be even kinda interesting that game enforces heroes rotation in such a brutal way.

And thus, I don't understand – why in the world bossfight is not the very last encounter on map? Because how it works now – after defeating boss you stay with those two survived heroes, at half hp at very best, and in 99% cases they die in very next encounter. Simply because they are outnumbered and can't act optimally. Happened to me every single time I managed to kill a boss.

That is, for all your efforts and hard-earned victory, in reward you get a guaranteed gameover. WTF?

With the requirement to bring a trophy to the mountain, bosses are NOT optional by no means. You have to face them – one or each one, doesn't matter at this point. And you anyway always want to postpone bossfight as much as possible – to potentially get more equip for battle. The very end of map is perfect place for bossfight.

Maybe – if we're about to keep them "optional" – just make the boss lair an alternative to oblivion's rampart, so player has to choose one of them. Simple as that – and it would change the game experience tremendously. Because even losing some heroes in bossfight, you get to inn right afterwards, and can keep going with a new squad. It would make the game, you know, playable.

Currently – I'm just dropping it, because it's nothing but a waste of time. Being rewarded with a gameover is total bs.

[RE4everMK]

Man... Some bosses can be tough and sometimes you will lose a hero (or even suffer a wipe). But once you understand their fight and prepare for it, they are not big deal. Learn their strenghts and know your team weaknesses.

[Magni]

Skill issue. ~20 runs in, I'm at one hero loss in a bossfight. If you want to have it easy, the General is almost trivial if you have a solid team and at least 2 people able to hit rank 4 consistently and a basic understanding of his mechanics.

[jeron]

Yep, and here we go. Instant "git gud". Of course.
Thanks for Cap Obvious' advices, guys, but did you even get the point of problem and proposed changes? Not about "mom, it's too hard", but about "how to make it better". From "if you got f*ckd, you're f*ckd" to "keep player involved". Which will make game better for everyone rather than a few "skilled" no-lifers.
Please don't start flooding with gitguds.

[ska.one]

Think of the lair bosses as a team comp and stat check. If you can't take down the Librarian, what hope do you have on the real boss? Experience (and spending candles) will have you choosing which lairs to take down because you want their loot. You won't be worried about avoiding lairs - you'll be thinking about whether you should take down a second or all three if the right trinket shows up.

[Ignosius]

This is genuinely a "git gud" scenario, though.

You're not guaranteed to lose people against a boss. If you go in properly prepared, you should be able to beat them pretty consistently without deaths.

The point I do think is legit, however, is that I wish lairs were always near the end of map. Even when I beat a boss near the start of the map with no deaths, my party is usually at pretty high stress. Since lowering stress outside of an inn is fairly unreliable, it tends to lead to my party bickering for the rest of the map.

[Phaden]

Originally posted by Magni:

Skill issue.

[GHURATR]

Outside of maybe Leviathan, Lair bosses are readily winnable if you know what you're getting into. A bigger gripe I think is that there isn't enough Lair bosses which reinforces certain party compositions seeming overtuned/necessary.

[Pitchslayer]

Lair Bosses are rather trivial, allthough Mountain ones und NEED certain Builds and ffs why cant we have a screen like at the Oblivion Ingresses, so we don't forget to switch Skills & Combat Items. i just lost my Party because of my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mistake...

[Discotooth™]

Sorry but its legitimately just a skill issue. Not every game is the same, Bosses do not require you to lose party members.

You have 3 chances to leave the boss before starting it - Don't even go in, leave at round 1 and leave at round 2. You know you have the rest of the region + oblivions rampart to deal with and if you don't bother to account for that then its your own fault. Prepare better

[jbrd_]

Librarian
- Prep with move- and burn-resist items.
- Avoid attacking books.
- Prevent boss from reaching position 1.

General
- Prep with stress-resist items.
- Attack root (position 4) twice per round, starting round 2.

Baby
- Prep with move- and debuff-resist items.
- Ignore meat.
- Prevent boss from maintaining position 1.

Monster
- Prep with move- and debuff-resist items.
- Defeat hand asap.

All four bosses are susceptible to DOTs and debuffs. The fights are manageable if you prep and have a flexible team comp. You shouldn't be losing people after the first or second try.

[Rathalos23]

Well, it's funny to see you complaining about "git gud" comments when your post isn't about learning how to improve or understand bosses but clearly about stating how unfair or bad designed bosses are.

I'll get to the point as objectively as possible : all bosses are doable and if you ask me, they are far too easy.
Most of them can be easily countered to the point there is no challenge.

Let's pick the Tangle boss "Dream General" for example.
All you need to do to counter his mechanic is to hit two time per turn tile 4. And if you get two heros that can hit boss tile 3 and 4, it's a piece of cake.

The only boss that is "unfair" objectively is Act III final boss, Cluster of Eyes.


Change your attitude : try to understand why you loose heroes every attempt when the rest of us easily kill them every run.
Maybe the problem is on you side, just maybe ?

[Mister Sir]

Originally posted by jeron:

Yep, and here we go. Instant "git gud". Of course.
Thanks for Cap Obvious' advices, guys, but did you even get the point of problem and proposed changes? Not about "mom, it's too hard", but about "how to make it better". From "if you got f*ckd, you're f*ckd" to "keep player involved". Which will make game better for everyone rather than a few "skilled" no-lifers.
Please don't start flooding with gitguds.

You legit don't have to lose a hero in a boss fight though, it's all down to experience. At first I found game super hard, unable to get to the mountain and thought some bosses are bs all the way through, then I could not beat exemplar. Now for the most part I can pretty reliably to get to final boss every time and most of the time beat it.

You got to learn how to fight bosses cause even if I have super mega awesome team, I know not to take some boss fights due to bosses mechanics. Like I wont take a team with runaway or 2+ chars that can't hit back line vs librarian, or a team with no movement lock or no movement options vs harvest child, etc.

My suggestion is learn the bosses, learn how to counter stuff and build your team at crossroads with an idea which boss you will take down.

[snuggleform]

Sorry git gud.

I tackle every lair boss starting and including region 1. Certain comps will suffer against certain bosses for sure but it's totally doable. I have librarian and general on lockdown.

Yes I did read your post and I think the most critical point you tried to make was this one

"With the requirement to bring a trophy to the mountain, bosses are NOT optional by no means. You have to face them – one or each one, doesn't matter at this point."

Yes, there is absolutely a HUGE DIFFERENCE between facing one vs each one. You have agency of which boss you fight at what point in the journey. If you want to build a specific team and savescum to find one particular boss in region 1 that your team is good at, you can do that.

Or, you can do what most people do which is avoid bosses until region 3 when you're all geared and skilled out and target one which isn't horrible for your team makeup. You're way too black and white basically making it look like someone has a gun to your head and somehow you having the choice to face one of them is equivalent to being forced to fight every single one of them. Stop that nonsense please, I'm getting cancer listening to this kind of cognitive bias.

And no, to your other crappy point no it's actually not the case that it's best to wait until the last region. I have builds that tackle every lair boss and it's rewarding to do so. Think about the early snowball you can get from for example getting the +100% scouting trophy from region 1 vs waiting until the last second to pick it up when it's no longer used at all.

[GoBoomYay]

Preparation and planning issue.

[HighLanderPony]

Not a fan of the hindsight design of some bosses.

"Just prepare" yeah, I'll go and prepare during a blind run vs the boss. Don't you see the silliness in that logic?

There's a difference between:

"I can figure out what the boss does while fighting it, adapt, and then win"
and
"I needed to know XY about this boss before even challenging it or otherwise I was gonna lose to it from the start but maybe I'll get it on the next run using what I learned while getting rekt".