[Discussion] How do you define a fun boss fight?

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Originally Posted by Marxam

2. Boss that give you that "oh shit, here we go" feeling

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this made me love Titan HM. It took me a while to finally get the fight down (before anyone says watch videos, I did, and its not the same as actually getting in there and fighting him) but my FC helped me have plenty of opportunities to finally figure it out. What I loved was the challenge and the hype titan had before I went in. Everyone zones in, start doing buffs....and you're like "here I am...I'm doing this". It makes the wins so much sweeter when you have to actually work for it.

As a tank... and this is going to sound weird, but my two favorite fights are the first two bosses of AK. I know, even 300 runs later they are still fun to me, particularly the first boss. Just dodging, losing, grabbing while grabbing up adds and dding as a tank to my fullest, is fun but not too hard. And dancing at the Demon Wall, yep, its still fun. We need a boss rush SE!

However, the most fitting in the game would be 8 man dungeon designed specifically for armoury system. A dungeon where changing jobs inside is allowed, and every encounter requires different party composition. Of course having to complete it with same players from start to end. Example fights:
1. boss that deals 6k damage to 6 players with highest enmity every 20 seconds. Alternated with an attack that deals 6k damage to single target from 4 of highest enmity, marked 5 seconds before.
2. Flying enemy that cannot be hit with melee attacks.
3. Boss that reflects magic damage.
4. Boss whos attacks reduce maximum hp. Ignores stoneskin, succor and adloquium.
5. Fight against 3 enemies that does high damage to single target, and each does an attack that increases damage taken for 15 seconds, every 18 seconds.

Only enabling elemental weakness and resistances would greatly increase the possibilities.

I think ultima HM and moogle are fun fights that are done right. They don't punish people, there is a fair amount of gimicks, but none of them are will break a pt. There is a fair amount of leinency, gear power, tactics, and reflexes.

You can approach Ultima HM for instance with shear reflex, with shear tactical know how, pure experience, or even push it with gear power.

Ultima HM is a good design in my opinion.
1. No one shots, yet plenty of dodging required. A mistake or two won't knock you out immediately.
2. Tank or healer dies -> chance to recover

Turn 4 is fun. Room for variations in strategy without reliance on one single job.

Titan HM is a hit or miss. Fun if you have a good connection. Miss if not.

Stuff that you can't dodge, that you just have to heal through and burn it down.
Bosses that can't be slept or stunned, that's just way too easy.

One of my favorite bosses from another game would spawn elite adds AND turn you into a chicken lol.

I like fights with some type of puzzle mechanics, especially if the rest of the crew can join in.

Kinda like how some of the guildhests work. Like halatali, brayflox, qarn,and haukke manor easy mode.

A good fight shouldn't be about unavoidable aoes.

I think fun boss fights make you think about the fight in a unique way.
The Arena itself is a part of the fight, not just in this is safe or dangerous, but both you/your team and the boss can interact with it.
Modes or phases might be scripted, or just single devastating moves telegraphed but the entire fight isn't a monotonous plod.
I know I can turn off the AoE ground markings, but I feel a good boss fight will make use of this sometimes, and not others.

I like to think Hydra is a good example of a fight which balances shown and telegraphed moves (Fire / Ice fields, Fear Itself) with 'spontaneous' ones (White Breath, Radiant Breath, Mean Thrash, Triumvirate) and Phases (add spawns)
Chimera is a fight that (if you don't 'cheat' and drag it on the hill) makes you plan interrupt abilities.
Coincounter (Aurum Vale) is a very good unscripted fight which uses mechanics you don't see often.
Baatral (Dzemal Darkhold) uses phases and a minor enrage mechanic very well
Teratotar (Qarn) changes the battlefield and uses adds well
Adjudicator (Qarn) has well scripted adds, that make sure to keep a party cohesive.


I think if I could design a fight for an 8 man instance it would use bits from each of these.
The boss would have 1 major mechanic. Every minute there would be a stoneskin which could only be broken by a specific type of damage (Slashing, Blunt, Piercing, Magical) this would be chosen at random. If the Stoneskin was not broken when it's type came up again the boss would gain a 5min damage+ buff.
2 Adds would spawn every few minutes around the arena. They would fall into Caster, Melee, Healer or Tank roles. The Caster would use AoE attacks on the field (not specifically targeting a player), the Healer would focus on supporting it's allies (Stoneskin, Cure), the Tank would cause pulse damage around himself, and the Melee would perform attacks that caused status ailments along with medium damage.
The field would begin fairly open but throughout the fight rocks will fall. These would break Line of Sight (and shunt players/enemies when they fell if needed). These could be targeted by players as well as would be damaged by enemy attacks that connected with them.

The boss would have an attack sequence which would include single target attacks on the tank, occasional *mitigated cleave* burst area attacks, frontal and rear cones. The boss would have a forward facing but would not necessarily require itself to be facing the tank to attack (however in an enrage situation it would turn and face/focus the tank with higher priority).

I would like to see this fight be planned at 15min for the appropriate gear score, and potentially completed in 10 with above average skill/equipment. I would like to think this kind of a setup would balance out the unfriendliness to melee vs. ranged allowing them to share the MT's damage from the boss to make some healing easier with HoT affects, and providing ranged LOS issues.... while still making melee potentially break off to engage adds, although not forcing them to potentially break combat and lose buffs to do so.





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Things I do NOT like in a boss fight:
unrecoverable-mechanics. I don't mind if you can get 1 shot by something (that you could avoid or should out-gear when wearing the proper equipment), but Titan's Landslide that takes out out of the arena is just not something I'm generally ok with. I would prefer if there was a 'far side ledge' where your body was dead, the healer could reach it but only from the VERY edge of the platform to get you back in the fight. Ooops you killed the spiny plume too early, time to start over (wish it just spawned a new one when the first died, but killing it caused it to spread 1 stack of debuff to everyone!)

totally-by passable-mechanics. I'm not going to say I hate the Enrage method in T2, or just skipping slimes and dealing with Cad's extra damage and burning him faster in T1... but I don't feel those should be an option in the fight. Kill ADS *just* after enrage and you didn't wipe? sure great I'm happy it's not a reset button.

one-trick ponies. Tonberry king is a good example here. He only has 1 attack that does significant damage, and that's Everyone's Grudge. Not only that but it's a SUPER telegraphed attack, along with being totally manageable with when it will occur (when you kill the adds). This is something for a mid-boss not for an end-boss.


I know it just put up a wall, but I really do feel that while we won't see 30~60min continuous fights in ARR like some people know and remember from the past, I believe that the system can still support a much more varied and dynamic fight than we currently see.

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Originally Posted by tymora

Ultima HM is a good design in my opinion.
1. No one shots, yet plenty of dodging required. A mistake or two won't knock you out immediately.
2. Tank or healer dies -> chance to recover

Turn 4 is fun. Room for variations in strategy without reliance on one single job.

Titan HM is a hit or miss. Fun if you have a good connection. Miss if not.

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I enjoyed Ultima HM and Titan HM, but I do not enjoy Titan EM. I can pass it, but only if I can find 7 of the right people. It's frankly no fun at all.

Long enough with several mechanics that keep everyone moving. An even spread of AoE near the melee and the ranged fighters/healers so everyone is equally useful.

Too often one death or dc means a wipe if there isn't enough dps, or if one healer is down, with no time to raise a person. Accidents happen. ADS for example, you can miss a silence and often you'll make it out just fine. Since its impossible to distinguish player error and connection error, we can't say which happens more. I know that I've DC'd a few times in coil pre-LB and usually someone is alive to take care of it, so it should never be down to one character to win it all at the end.

Bosses that allow for stuns from silences and stuns.

And I second on the learn the fight vs. get a better internet connection point. Take the skeleton bone dragon fight in CT. That is a fun fight that takes some coordination and getting used to, as well as the rot mechanic in coil. Neither involve really watching telegraphs on the floor that take time to get to your client, but people still have issue with it regardless. Those fights can be both difficult or fun depending on the party make up and player skill.
Fights like Titan on the other hand involve running out of AoE that might hiccup server side or client side and make the fight more difficult even if you know it by heart, just because your internet is choking.