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

[Teleniel]

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.