Bosses that involve platforming

[Crowley42]

They are garbage, what do you fellow gamer individuals think of this topic? They are the bane of my existence, at least until I kill AR.

[Darkskinned King]

♥♥♥♥ uumuu in godhome

[Crowley42]

Originally posted by zpg:

♥♥♥♥ uumuu in godhome

Also ♥♥♥♥ Xero and Markoth. Hell, even gruz mother is annoying.

[Darkskinned King]

radiant xero really grinds my gears

[Crowley42]

Originally posted by zpg:

radiant xero really grinds my gears

radiant Obobbles don'T just grind them, they have sexual intercourse with said gears

[Darkskinned King]

yeah screw the obobbles

[Boksha]

I think they're the best... unless the boss can just randomly phase through the platforms and stop and attack from random places, physics be damned. In particular, Ascended/Radiant Markoth can go die in a fire.

[thorin.hannahs]

Markoth, Uumuu and AR are easily in my top five for bosses. Markoth took the most amount of study, Uumuu took patience and AR took patience and reactions. Xero and Gruz Mother are not even worth mentioning. Platform bosses are fine.

[Crowley42]

I disagree, first of all, Markoth is annoying due to the players' inability to strike him when there's an opening and because taking damage often knocks the player into another hit. He isn'T the biggest offender however. Uumuu is fine because hitting him doesn't involve the player making sketchy jumps and the dodging is fairly easy. AR is completely different, the boss has a vide variety of attacks and the platforms not only add to the dificulty but take an important role in the players decisionmaking, AR is always in reachable spots, attacking is safe and so the platforming only makes the evading tasks more difficult. Xero and Gruz mother are simply bad, because they are hard to hit and getting hit usually means falling into your death, but since they are so easy, they aren't much of an issue.

So in summary platforming is derogatory to the fight when the player has to make risky jumps in order to strike an enemy that is moving around quickly and unpredictably because falling into your death was caused not by you making a mistake but by your impatience and for me the fluidity and swiftness of a fight wheighs in a lot. Sure I could wait until I can get a safe hit on Markoth, but I wont, I want to fight and not just stand around dodging bullets and hiting him every 30 seconds when there is an opening. These lead to long and repetitive, therefore boring fights.

[thorin.hannahs]

Originally posted by Crowley42:

I disagree, first of all, Markoth is annoying due to the players' inability to strike him when there's an opening and because taking damage often knocks the player into another hit. He isn'T the biggest offender however. Uumuu is fine because hitting him doesn't involve the player making sketchy jumps and the dodging is fairly easy. AR is completely different, the boss has a vide variety of attacks and the platforms not only add to the dificulty but take an important role in the players decisionmaking, AR is always in reachable spots, attacking is safe and so the platforming only makes the evading tasks more difficult. Xero and Gruz mother are simply bad, because they are hard to hit and getting hit usually means falling into your death, but since they are so easy, they aren't much of an issue.

So in summary platforming is derogatory to the fight when the player has to make risky jumps in order to strike an enemy that is moving around quickly and unpredictably because falling into your death was caused not by you making a mistake but by your impatience and for me the fluidity and swiftness of a fight wheighs in a lot. Sure I could wait until I can get a safe hit on Markoth, but I wont, I want to fight and not just stand around dodging bullets and hiting him every 30 seconds when there is an opening. These lead to long and repetitive, therefore boring fights.

Markoth is easiest in my opinion when using great slash, the hit has great range, damage and knockback negating the potential of him floating into you or his shield hitting you. This also allows the player to utilize the "downtime" of dodging to charge. Also you can pogo Markoth to great effect greatly shortening the fight.

Xero is a very rhythmic, predictable and is not difficult to hit.

Gruz mother is very slow and predictable so as long as you know how your jump arc and attack are going to go it is very easy and fast.

As you stated AR always makes herself available to hit but that doesn't mean you should always go for damage. The platforms can help with her orb attack as they often swing back around once you dodge them but then connect with a platform preventing them from hitting the player or causing the player to dodge again.

The only one who moves unpredictably in my experience is Markoth and that is less a damaging factor then when he decides to alter the rotation of his shield.

Player decision making negates the risks that you mentioned. None of the bosses listed move around quickly. Also boss variety is a good thing as far as I am concerned if every boss fit the NKG/PV template I would of gotten bored of the quick bosses turn then my turn flow.

These fights don't last much longer than many of the others bosses aside from AR, I can admit that her platform section adds about an extra minute to the fight not counting the 3rd phase. If you get her to teleport to the bottom platform with you on the bottom platform you can get insane dps same goes for if she ends up at the middle or top platform.

The inclusion of platforms adds an additional layer of decision making and attention to detail on the players part and yes that does mean the player won't get to attack as often as they'd like. I can understand that certain bosses in this game just don't mesh with certain player playstyles though. As can be seen by the variety in what the player base considers their toughest encounters. As for boring fights? Xero (no variety), Gruz Mother (no variety) and patched Uumuu (because he dies so quickly) with that said all the bosses are repetitive as that is their trait by which we learn to master them.

[Crowley42]

Maybe it is just because I am playing on M+KB but for me having to jump, navigate mid air, then hit and calculate the knockback, while avoiding attacks and then paying attention to where you fall to is too complicated. Or maybe that's because I am retarded, but I much prefer fights where there is variety in the moveset of the enemy and where the player has to quickly react to every move, but where the moves are well-telegraphed and come in very quick succession. The best examples for this would be Traitor Lord, Sisters of Battle and PV. Their fights are dinamic, reaction-based and quickly over, regardless of who wins.

[Boksha]

Originally posted by Crowley42:

Maybe it is just because I am playing on M+KB

I can safely say this has absolutely nothing to do with using the keyboard. If anything, a keyboard is much more suited for a platforming type of fight than a controller since you have more fingers to work with.

Originally posted by Crowley42:

I much prefer fights where there is variety in the moveset of the enemy and where the player has to quickly react to every move, but where the moves are well-telegraphed and come in very quick succession. The best examples for this would be Traitor Lord, Sisters of Battle and PV. Their fights are dinamic, reaction-based and quickly over, regardless of who wins.

I can see why you'd like that kind of fight, but it really is a personal preference; there's a lot to be said for this kind of fight, but there's a lot to be said against it as well. You call it dynamic, but I would call it simple. All you ever need to do in these fights is have the right reaction based on what the boss does; there's no strategy, no planning, no decision making, no long term consequences for anything you do. You can course by entirely on muscle memory without ever having to use your brain.

[thorin.hannahs]

Originally posted by Crowley42:

Maybe it is just because I am playing on M+KB but for me having to jump, navigate mid air, then hit and calculate the knockback, while avoiding attacks and then paying attention to where you fall to is too complicated.

Get a gamepad and that should solve a lot of your issues. I use a PS4 controller with DS4windows.

[Boksha]

Nah. There's a reason speedrunners generally use keyboards.

[bobime, dorime, demomium]

Originally posted by Crowley42:

Originally posted by zpg:

radiant xero really grinds my gears

radiant Obobbles don'T just grind them, they have sexual intercourse with said gears

Just use dream shield and your spells. Problem solved.

[Scurra]

I would note that it's quite possible that the "hardest" Boss in the game for many people may be the first encounter with Hornet! It's often difficult for experienced players to remember (a) that this was pretty early on when they had no skills at all (well, OK the first spell but it's very tough to use without much experience) and incredibly slow healing, (b) that patience is involved, and (c) there is nowhere to hide (no platforms, as this thread is about!) Oh yeah, and (d) this may be one of the first times a player has played this sort of game. That's significant too and can be easily forgotten. Every game is someone's first encounter with a particular genre.

And the game is very unforgiving in terms of teaching you any of the things that are critical to know. I certainly came very, very close to quitting on Hornet. I'm glad I didn't, but it's placed at a point in the game that can colour your experience a lot; I certainly found some of the later Bosses a lot more straight-forward by comparison with that one...