#So let's talk about the bosses...

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

nocturne fiber
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Specifically, the arbitrary restrictions on card playing by the Archdemon and Antipope. Also consider the mini-bosses that prevent playing of attack cards and increase the cost of skill cards.

So far, everyone I've played this game with thoroughly dislikes these mechanics, and I can't blame them.

I see a few issues with these mechanics:

  1. They feel horribly artificial and fundamentally change the core gameplay loop. It's like when you fight bosses in other games that are immune to every status effect or power for no apparent reason other than it's the only way the devs could figure out how to make the fight harder.

  2. They completely screw over very specific decks. Maybe this is the intent, but it seems very unfair - especially to players who didn't know it was coming. To play for 11 floors and then suddenly find out your build is worthless for the end battle is...not good.

  3. Because they change the core gameplay loop, they are confusing. Even after fighting both bosses several times, it's common for people to forget that the card playing restriction is there.

Really, the card playing restriction is the only thing that makes the boss fights more difficult than the rest of the game. I'd rather be challenged in a less artificial way.

Some ideas:

  1. More interesting ways to spawn additional monsters. This is the easiest way to increase the difficulty without placing the players in handcuffs. Maybe a creature that spawns stuff when you kill it. This would let the players strategically decide when they want to deal with the extra spawns.
  2. Monsters or objects that provide an aura of immunity to certain effects until they are destroyed
  3. More monsters that reflect damage, but only when certain conditions are met. When in near range, or when they have block, etc.

Overall, this game shines with the strategic/tactical aspects so I think it would be better to give the players more opportunity to decide on target prioritization.

sly orchid
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I'm not in love with the bosses. I don't have any ideas about how to do it better though either. You are able to view which boss you have at the destination selection screen.

celest jolt
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I wouldn't mind alternative bosses that have different ways to make the fight more difficult, but I think the two current ones should stay around. They are both effects that shut down infinites in their own way. Once we get more bosses that don't have mechanics that limit your plays, I think it'll feel better overall.

nocturne fiber
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I just feel like the card playing restrictions make the fights more difficult in a very tedious way. And I don't like how they render some cards completely useless.

wanton burrow
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Maybe bosses could inflict more artifact style status effects? As in they inflict additional Torment modifiers, different bosses having different modifier groupings they pull from so it's not always the same exact thing.

lone barn
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I'm with you @nocturne fiber . I made a similar thread a little while back, but after playing the bosses they aren't exactly unfair (felt it at the time), but the way they restrict play is done in a very unfun way.

The antipope seems to be inspired from Slay the Spire, one of the chapter 3 bosses. The restriction was 12 cards tho, for a single player to manage. Very rarely was you able to one turn kill him, so it was a balance of providing the block to yourself and doing damage. Also, that 12 card restriction carried over between rounds and you often couldn't run 12 cards a turn either, so it would often come a choice of not using all your cards so that you can play more next turn. The antipope, however, is 10 cards split amongst 3 players where it's very easy to play that amount for each player. The core difference is that in Slay the Spire it doesn't feel like a restriction, but more like a mechanic you make decisions against and play around, while here any deck being able to easily consume that 10 cards it feels like "ok who gets to do stuff this turn". 10/3 = 3.33, any player barely gets to play, and that simply isn't fun.

Archdemon i've warmed up to a little bit, tho he may feel a lot worst playing with randoms who aren't prepared. It's a little easy for one player to end up restricting the potency of the turn for others. It's nowhere near as bad as with the antipope tho. I'm kind of indifferent about him.. i think the antipope is like an emergency whereas this boss is like.. he could use a change but it's not such a big deal. To say the least, it's not nearly as unfun to deal with.

I like the "objects that provide an aura of immunity" idea. An object that can't be destroyed providing a medium radius with ice immunity, placed randomly at the start of battle. some other objects for stun immunity and pull/push immunity (preventing things like kick/ambush). that could be a fun boss fight concept.

nocturne fiber
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I think it would be more fun if the immunity sources were destructible, which would include them in the target priority list for players.

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The archdemon's card playing restriction is at its worst with 2 players. It's not so bad with 3, and it's non-existent if you play solo with no companions. With 2 people, I almost always find that one of us has a build that plays lots of cards and the other has a build that plays very few

lone barn
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I felt the indestructible idea as a final boss thing.. or maybe destroying them puts them on a turn or two respawn timer. builds are easily busted late-game in it's current state, so if you can just destroy the object then it doesn't really change much. Most games that make it to the end right now for me and my friends we would first turn the boss if it weren't for the current boss effects. So making the destructible would mean we can just set the whole arena to being a standard battle and do what we do. As things are balanced out, maybe destructible would be fine. If this was miniboss effect, then destructible is just fine too in such case. Still, i think respawn timer so it's not a one and done.. unless they are going to have a health pool thats noteworthy (which, still in a lot of builds, healthpool itself is negligible).

Last night in 2 player me and my friend had a coop'd infinite. I cycled 2 finesses, and he would deep breath once and Ox until he had the block to kill the boss. Kills the boss and then i just spam finesse and he spams cardio with the draws. That said, I get what your saying and didn't think about that. Archdemon is literally disabled if you don't bring companions (that's not easy to get that far anyways tho), but it's way more troublesome in 2 player. I haven't done any real companion runs to the final boss.. does their decks ever get good enough to play a lot of cards in a single turn?

nocturne fiber
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I think one of the big problems right now is that it's pretty easy to get an infinite deck

lone barn
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no argument their XD

nocturne fiber
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so I guess a lot of the design hinges on which way they go with infinite decks

lone barn
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It's definitely going to be something that takes time. Once they remove infinites (or make them way harder to do), their will have to be a time period of playtesting it for balance before other things can be changed. If that were the current state.. my stance on destructible vs indestructible for these immunity objects would very likely change.

I don't want them to remove infinites. They should however be hard to achieve. It's just way to easy right now, and theirs so many ways of doing it. Finesse, i've found, can basically do that for the whole team on it's own with just 2 of them.

agile bear
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I second this. My party thought the same. It does make it harder. But not in a fun or interesting way

halcyon basin
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i would also love to have the artificial restrictions lifted, so i dont have to play a schizophrenic deck build for the run and the boss at the end.

pure prawn
# nocturne fiber I think one of the big problems right now is that it's pretty easy to get an inf...

Pretty much this.
The only thing stopping us from going out of control is these restrictive effects.

I'm also unsympathetic because you can look at all these bosses before you take your first step, so "My Deck gets hard countered by the Boss I knew about for twelve floors" doesn't resonate with me in the slightest.

That said, I think that there should be a better hover tooltip over Bosses that tells you their Influence effect.
It should also probably note on my Floorplan where my Teammates Bosses are and what Bosses + Tooltips as well. That'd be a great Quality of Life that you don't have to dig into a spreadsheet and your allies' menus just to start planning my route.

gloomy lantern
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There are little arrows next to your name in the route menu to quickly switch to your allies' routes so you can look at them pretty much side-by-side, but yes tooltips explaining what the boss effects are on the path could be nice for newer players, but then again games like slay the spire felt okay without it for bosses, it was just part of the learning curve of the game. So I can see it being okay either way

celest jolt
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While we're talking about StS, I think we can agree that Antipope is inspired by Time Eater. How bad would it be to take inspiration from the other StS bosses to pad out the options in HC. One that gets bonus damage per influence or increased damage dealt based on number of influences. One boss fight that is multiple boss monsters with different patterns, so you have a buffer, a shielder, etc. Heck, even a boss that has a second phase or health gate so it can't be taken out in one turn.

wicked salmon
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I would like to add than Antipope's mechanic in a MP environment can be very frustrating

balmy minnow
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Antipope: I think a lot of the problem has to deal with the "loop" of card-playing. GENERALLY, you have attack, defend, mana/card generation, buffing, debuffing.

The problem is it's not uncommon to have to worry about 50+ damage on the first turn of the boss fight and due to only having 10 cards to play you are really limited in what cards you have to play in order to survive the turn. It often means passing on influence cards or other cards that won't have benefit until later turns or after killing a few monsters.

Changing the mechanic to "can only play 10 attack/defend/influence cards" and it randomly chooses 1 type would be a little better.

Another potential option would be to allow summoned or duplicate cards to be played for free. It's painful to use stamina burst when it costs 2 cards. Same goes for other cards that allow cards to be played back to back.

halcyon basin
pure prawn
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I see Antipope and I got for Influences and chunky AoE.

Sometimes I will buy Exploding Eyeball and Kek on my teammates.

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Also, Warrior's Armoury node pretty much solves Antipope fight by itself.

lone barn
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The entire argument over the bosses isn't just centered on challenge. I would argue each is fairly easy at this point.. not due to their effects not being potent but because it's very easy to become OP. Their is some consideration to be had about the final boss when your building your deck.. but I would say the balance is so off that you almost don't even have to consider the final boss when building. So many times the final boss skips my mind and my team still comes out on top.

The issue I mainly have with the final bosses is that they are unfun. Antipope mainly, I love weave leylines and i often plan at the hideout to have it in my starting hand.. but without the chair it's a card that's doing very little for the cost of one of those 10 cards you could play. Same for most card draw or mana boost cards. Not to say they are worthless, as card draw would be good for your rogue to get his stonks, or team effort to mass kill the squishy mobs for a sticks and stones hit on the boss.. big damage, essentially. Once the boss is dead, it's no longer relevant, and pope doesn't have much health for what you can ultimately do. After his death.. mechanic is gone and your team cleans up. But until then, it's usually one player with the potential for the most impact taking up all of the turn to do it. He's simply not fun.

Archdemon i have a lot less issue with. I've come to conclusion that things like finesse and leylines are extremely good against him as your teammates being less able to keep up with your card usage is sorta solved with these cards (giving a single player major impact from their own choices, which is nice). Still, he's not that hard to deal with and the mechanic is at best tedious. Still, if he never left the game or was changed i would be fine with it, it's just not a super engaging mechanic. I like to imagine these final bosses to be a bit more drawn out, a bit more fun mechanically, and maybe even a bit more stressing.

stray vergeBOT
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Premo#7074 has been warned

Reason: Duplicated text

stoic fox
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I like it ... makes it so you gotta play different styles if you dont check who the boss is on the first floor then thats your fault

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Once they add more its only gonna add more layers of builds that will be useful

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Part of the challenge is adapting to what you're facing

nocturne fiber
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I think the issue is that the challenge provided isn't a fun kind of challenge, but more tedious

stoic fox
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I dont see it that way... it puts road blocks on certain play styles and punishes you for it too

nocturne fiber
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That's fine, everyone is entitled to an opinion :). As a general rule of game design, I'm not a fan of artificial limitations imposed on the player as a way to increase difficulty. I prefer that the enemies be enhanced.

random elbow
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Personally, I'm fine with the current bosses. Yes, they can be tedious. That is a fact and I won't argue against it. However, both are able to be easily beaten with several different builds. I believe most of this perceived problem will iron itself out over time once a more variety of enemies are added with a wider array of abilities/effects. On the topic of artificial limitations, even something like Mirage Mage would fall under that, but I don't see that necessarily as a problem because (a) you know ahead of time and (b) it is easy to circumvent the limitation. I will agree that some things kill builds or make them useful, but it's also your personal choice whether or not to engage with those things. As I have said before, exercise the player agency given to you - if something is not fun to you, avoid it. There is no reason to engage with mechanics that you find unfun, apart from the 2 final bosses because, unfortunately, those are the only choices as of now.

somber flint
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I think this can feel annoying right now because both of the available final bosses counter pretty similar builds (builds that in my opinion are a little overpowered so they're the ones we all often gravitate to). This shouldn't be such an issue if and when new bosses are added, assuming they have unique mechanics that counter other builds like stun or block reliant ones.