Boss design

[Lazurak]

So I have not played the game as long as many others have, and I have not made that much progress, but I have already noticed that, so far, there has not been a single boss fight I've been in that did not spawn loads of trash mobs.

I wouldn't mind it if that was just a few bosses here and there, but so far, I get the nagging feeling that this is a pretty cheap way of increasing the difficulty, in order to get more hard boss fights in to satisfy the randomly generated campaign.
Consequently, many boss fights feel very much the same, with the hordes of enemies basically forcing you away from paying closer attention to what the actual boss is doing.

Hope the boss design will get better further in (only recently got into the labyrinth), or even with further updates, but so far, this is a serious damper on a game that I'm really enjoying so far.

[Dude Random]

I guess they have mobs to reinforce you with ammo drops

[Bragdras]

You say it's cheap, I say it keeps you from having to pop ammo boxes and makes it more interesting than just tunnel visioning one dude and pressing dodge. It actually makes you multitask and you learn to keep track of multiple threats at once rather than just the middle of the screen.

But yes, there's bosses that don't spawn adds constantly.

[NekoValkyrie]

Honestly, if you get lucky to get the boss "Shroud" from earth, you can get a decoy mod that can distract even world bosses at times. Other then that, in my experience mobs are to
1, refill ammo
2, build up your damage mods for when you wanna burst the boss.
The ONLY boss where adds are BS is Harrow i think? Its almost none stop of those fast guys.

[Lazurak]

True, mobs bring ammo and are "useful" for skills and so on.

The thing about "just tunnel visioning" on a boss isn't necessarily easier - although its probably not really useful to compare this game to dark souls in that respect, as you can do a lot more in terms of boss fight variations if you have a melee-heavy system - in Dark Souls you need to learn the bosses' exact movements to win.
I would have expected more of that type of combat, but whenever I try to figure out how the boss moves, or what his skills do, it always seems there is a horde of monsters there, just to hide the fact that the bosses' behaviour really isn't all that complex.
But again, I can't really say I would be able to come up with many interesting encounters like that for a shooter.

[Myrmicus]

Hordes of adds on every. single. boss.
The difficulty lean toward the irritating side, when it isn't simply infuriating. I am not necessarily against adds in a boss fight. But come on, every single one of them ? Plus the adds are specifically the most annoying ones : the kamikaze type... It throws you off the rythm of the boss and is an overall pain.

It is obviously designed to cramp up the difficulty, while stretching the boss itself. It's aggravated by the fact that bosses are bullet sponges (even for bosses), while not being that difficult on themselves.

"Oh but the adds gives you helpful ammunitions !"
Well, how kind of them to give back the bullets I spent to keep them at bay. Even if it was intended as such, it defeats the purpose.

"Oh but the adds gives you skills !"
Same here, skills are mostly usefull to keep adds off you... the decoy skill is the most mentionned for some reason, strange hey ? Plus, adds aren't even needed, since the seven without adds you could use your skills.kills charge simply by doing damage, not by killing mobs, so

[Hampamatta]

i have no issue with ads on a boss fight. i have an issue with the absurd amount of them that either spawn all at the same time or spawn one after another over and over untill the boss is dead. the narrow FoV doesnt help either as you get extreme tunnel vision when you try to deal with the adds and thus dont see when the boss is behind you and makes his "i gonna ♥♥♥♥ you up" attack.

[BigDaddyBulgyWulgy420]

I can think of only two bosses that don't have adds, and technically im lying, talking about the 2 Insect guys int he swamp. There are theoretically no adds but you gotta shoot down the flying bubbles cos you cannot evade them. And the optional statue near the desert merchant.

Ravager isn't too bad either, cos its very few adds with lots of downtime between them.

So there's maybe 3 bosses in the game that don't over swarm you with adds, and technically only 1 singular boss, which is just a tankier normal enemy without them completely. Pretty depressing.

This kind of boss "design" renders some playstyles/weapons unviable, especially at higher than normal, when adds become real threats and makes solo play terribly boring or frustrating (looking at you undying, harrow)

[reverbexe]

We have to remember this is a coop game that happens to have single player not the other way around. Mostly every other game out there especially the greats are designed around one player for boss fights and as soon as you add coop out of laziness the only solution to keep the balance is to use adds. Unfortunately, it makes this a game of pest control while babysitting the neighbors bet bulldog (and sometimes it has rabies).

[Nish-Ki]

The adds ruin boss fights.
The Dragon was annoying despite being such a great and varied boss.
All from one annoying add that would always spawn no matter how many times you kill it.

The Devs need to have a down time on mobs, you can't just keep spawning a minimum number of trash and $hiet. Even if it's just 10 secs of no spawning mobs after killing them, would make the boss battles more enjoyable.

[Mr. Stimpson]

Originally posted by Myrmicus:

Hordes of adds on every. single. boss.

That's just simply not true.

[lentinant]

Originally posted by Mr. Stimpson:

Originally posted by Myrmicus:

Hordes of adds on every. single. boss.

That's just simply not true.

I haven't seen all minibosses, or some optional bosses, but I've finished game once, and found only one boss without adds - twin insects. But there is variety of other reasons why this boss is annoying (having need of ammo boxes is one of them, especially since you can't spend all ammo on actual boss).

[lentinant]

I don't really mind adds on boss, but not in the quantity some of the bosses are providing them, or when boss itself creates numerous sources of danger at once. I'm fine with adds on dragon, because he spawns only 1-2 of them at time. I'm fine with adds on Shroud or key keeper boss in desert world because while having adds, those bosses have relatively easy patterns.

But there are bosses, which have combos hard to evade alone, not to mention constant streams of adds, who may just spawn behind your back.

[MrMorrison226]

They are there to spawn ammo and some bosses are really easy to get away from

[Mr. Stimpson]

Originally posted by lentinant:

Originally posted by Mr. Stimpson:

That's just simply not true.

I haven't seen all minibosses, or some optional bosses, but I've finished game once, and found only one boss without adds - twin insects. But there is variety of other reasons why this boss is annoying (having need of ammo boxes is one of them, especially since you can't spend all ammo on actual boss).

I was speaking more to the use of the term "hordes."

There are only a few bosses that spawn a tonne of adds, and a lot that spawn a couple at a time. Most of the time, the bosses that only spawn a couple adds aren't an issue, because you can avoid the adds while you're fighting the boss. Only killing the adds when you need ammo/mod power.

[Fishyman336]

so the game is easier? no thanks it'd be boring