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

[Trikki]

Twintania is a decently designed encounter, to use an example in FFXIV:

Multiple phases, each with their own challenges.
Tank and healer checks on Death Sentences and Snakes
DPS checks on Conflags and Dreadknights
Movement mechanics for all: Dive Bombs, Twisters and Hatches
Paying attention to debuffs: Conflags, Fireballs, Liquid Hells
Knowing timers for stuff: Dive bombs round 2, death sentence cooldown rotations, twisters, etc.

Plenty going on. In a well designed raid this type of boss would make an excellent early-mid tier encounter. Everyone has to know their role and positioning and nobody can screw up. Deaths can be recovered from, depending on who and when.

More like this would be a good start.

[zaviermhigo]

Some of these issues, seem to be player base problems also. I mean yes, insta kill mechanics aren't fun, but I notice the most fun in content I can have is with all FC members, because they are always on their A game. Duty/party finder and shout groups tend to give awful players most of the time (I do get good groups, I savor them), just straight up lazy players, I get this is a game, and it shouldn't be like a job, but also put some effort into playing and don't be a jerk. Even if a boss fight started out with interesting mechanics, often the population creates strategies that sap all the fun out of the content, because we want to clear it as fast as possible which is understandable. A lot of ambiance is lost in how we speed run things though, cut scenes skipped, strategies have 1 or 2 people doing absolutely mundane tasks to make the fight easier.

Its not like SE thought "every one is going to do it this way and it will be fun", they thought "they'd do the content as intended, have some fun", INSTEAD, it became "omg fast fast fast, I'm a spammer", I get it, I don't want to be stuck doing the same repetitive thing, and have it be slow, but in a way it is ruining the immersion and ambiance of the content.

Also as a healer the fact that most fights boil down to "dps race" is extremely boring for me, adding some other mechanics in there to make sure we do more dmg to the boss is more fun in my opinion instead of "omg DD EPEEN FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I player healer, my boyfriend plays tank, we're doing our job, but the dds just can't do enough dmg, there really isn't much we can do to win the fight past that...we lose because of gimp dds, and its not just gear, sometimes its just they don't know the proper rotations, its terribly boring for most fights to boil down to this. Some are fine, but in total there should be...some fights that the dd shine, and some fights that tanks really shine, and some fights healers really shine, maybe even different phases of the same fight that do all 3.

[Rekujen]

No more "one person screws up = wipe" mechanics... they are fun but going in this direction is terrible and repetitive.

I would like to see more sustained damage and constant spike damage if you keep screwing up, compared to "oh i stood here a split second too late, now my groups gonna rage quit"

Yes personal skill is involved but these fights become mundane, I think most of the CT fights are really well scripted and I'd love to see more of those at end-game i90+ (think bone dragon, the demons/bombs fight, behemoth)

[Orophin]

Personally I think the Extreme Primals are fun fights. It's sometimes the people you get lumped with that make it a frustrating experience.

I really like the Acheron fight. Even though mechanically it's pretty simple, just seeing all the different attacks he has and the badass music that plays, that fight is always fun for me no matter how many times I run it.

My opinion may be pretty skewed though. I don't play a tank or healer so I don't have any real position of importance in a fight apart from not doing dumb stuff to get myself killed.

[Lord_Zlatan]

Iselia is not even harder than Indalecio with limiter off. Earthquake hits everyone and seems harder to guts through. Sure she looks intimidating when she knocks a guy back for 9999X20 or whatever, but most of the time the guy getting knocked back can still parry/guts through that.

So happy I got a response to this ^^

I found indy limiter off easier than her on universe mode. Her hitting everyone so fast so many times got me very frustrated. I had to swirch to 3 mage and claude. Both very fun encounters

[indira]

all are fun when the whole party knows the fight or atleast keeps there eyes open, when you have a couple people who are saying they know the fight but keep dying its not fun.

"lag" is the excuses of excuses yeah theres lag but if you know the fight you would know where to stand, i still get lag spikes but its rare i die from it. in 1.0 it had 10 times the lag & no aoe boxes yet people finished content i mean 30 secs later you dropped dead from the lag.

[Jubez187]

Since we're playing a FF game:

1. Exploiting weaknesses, from elemental or status - If we have a Pieste boss, why can't blind prevent gaze attacks?

Great idea, but this would NEVER work in practice. Here are a few scenerios:

1. Boss is fire, let's all stack ice damage (assume it's the only viable option, easy to acquire ice damage).
1.1. Boss is now way too easy.
1.2. Boss should have been balanced around the party having ice damage (similar to how bosses are pretty much balanced around protect + stoneskin on whole party).
1.3. Now we just made a 1-way decision path that did no enhance the game whatsoever.

2. Boss is fire, let's all stack ice damage (assume the boss could be beaten without it).
2.1. Overkill, boss was too easy. Balance around people exploiting the weakness.

See? there's really no way to implement it because you either make it necessary or you make it unimportant (like how resist potions are now).

[Lucke]

For me, most important is tactic/counter-tactic loop between the boss and players:

You decide you wanna stack BLM, boss recognizes this and counters by putting up a magic shield. Now the players have to counter that tactic, and it goes back and forth. Or it sees a SMN pet, so it decides to push them away constantly. You'll have to do something to prevent the boss from doing that to SMN pets.

Also like climbing on bosses (Like Shadow of the Colossus and Dragon's Dogma) although I dunno how that could work in an MMO. Think of a fight with Bahamut. He's huge. So everyone will have to climb on Bahamut to reach weak spots on his body. He'll shake around trying to shake you off. He'll fly all around Hydaelyn with the party hanging on. There would be some way to replenish the grip of the party though.

I did like the way you could incapacitate body parts, but there has to be a better way than 1.0. Maybe each skill will stay which body part it can incapacitate on the tool tip.

[Ri_ri]

Great idea, but this would NEVER work in practice. Here are a few scenerios:

Let me give you one of my scenarios...

Shiva is weak to Fire.
But she casts Reflect in set intervals so casting Fire on her would be suicide.
You can break Reflect with physical attacks.

Done.

Right now the only division between DDs are "melee" or "ranged". It's really bland.

[Nightray]

I've enjoyed every boss I've done, however, I too hit the titan HM wall as many others have and those where not a happy 7 weeks.