Game bosses

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sidusar
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Re: Game bosses

Post by sidusar »

kay22626 wrote: Your idea is interesting though, sounds like fun but still, making existing mobs more difficult in order to please the players that have outgrown them is not a good idea. New, more difficult content is the answer for them.
But we didn't outgrow them, they were always this easy! :p The only reason they were ever perceived as hard was because we fought lvl 250 bosses with lvl 200 skills. Level 250 bosses should provide a challenge for level 250 players, and they never did.

(Some did, but I'm speaking in general, and specially the herbies.)

Have you ever killed Bodokin and seen how that works? Or (I hear, never actually seen them myself) Crakin or Shooketh? Well, that's how bosses were supposed to work. The current system of "just dump the boss down in an open field and surround it by mobs of the same species with enhanced sight range" is nothing but a placeholder because they didn't have the time to implement every boss properly. How can we expect them to add new, more difficult bosses if they haven't even finished the current bosses yet?

I'm all for adding new content without taking away existing content in the process, but that's like saying "No, don't add the modifiers to 1h weapons, instead add in new 1h weapons that do have the modifiers." There's a difference between changing existing content and finishing half-implemented content.
bgraz
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Re: Game bosses

Post by bgraz »

I've done a fair amount of boss hunting here as well and I really think they are underpowered for the mats they drop. I've seen a couple bosses mentioned here like clopperketh, bodokin, shooketh that actually involve some degree of organization and work in order to kill. this should be the way all bosses are along with much more random timers. Imagine how much work it would be to take down madakoo if yuo had to wipe the guards in order to aggro the boss, or if he were like Fraketh and a group of guards spawn next to him when his HP reach a certain level.

As it is now its just maintaining a calander and farming, no real challenge and getting a 3 man boss team to take down 99% of the bosses is really effortless.

Would be nice to see the devs pull out thier imaginations and see what kinds of real challenges they can throw at us with these, mixing it up with all bosses reacting differently. Mabey even randomize the way they act so each time the boss is hunted you have to figure out the tactic involved on the fly.

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petersk
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Re: Game bosses

Post by petersk »

Interesting topic... I would have to agree with Faa on this subject. Camping boss spawn spots, having a down to the second timer for bosses... It diminishes the spirit of the game. People will exploit any and all weaknesses or loopholes in a system, including boss timers, healer "slaves" to level melee/magic quickly.. It is rare to find a boss up, but when I do, I enjoy sending out a call and gathering a team together to fight it. I also enjoy messing up someone's calculations and killing it before they can. But that said, the people with the calendars know within 30 minutes or so when the boss was killed without them, and adjust accordingly. Having random respawns, I liked the idea of 24-96 hours, is a good idea in my humble opinion. However, random area respawns I don't agree with, too much chance of programming conflict with the existing flora/fauna of the new area. Adjusting the spawn timer doesn't seem like it should be that much of a problem for the devs.
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arfindel
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Re: Game bosses

Post by arfindel »

From Rushin who cnnot post here as yet:

"have been asking for randomising the time they pop since like forever, but what they could add to that is that they will also only pop when xxx number (some number in a range not an exact number) of the normal mobs in a region have been killed.

So in effect you anger the boss enough by seeing so many of its kind killed that it comes out to play. Would actually get people hunting in PR which would be nice to see imo ofc this is not an easy task in some cases - distinct lack of ragus wandering around in LoC for example "
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kay22626
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Re: Game bosses

Post by kay22626 »

sidusar wrote:But we didn't outgrow them, they were always this easy! :p The only reason they were ever perceived as hard was because we fought lvl 250 bosses with lvl 200 skills. Level 250 bosses should provide a challenge for level 250 players, and they never did
(Some did, but I'm speaking in general, and specially the herbies.).
So some bosses are harder and some are easier, i see no problem with that.
How hard would be hard enough for you? What if hard enough for you is not hard enough for some players, and too hard for others? You cannot please everybody and some compromise has to be made.
In all mmos i played, there were bosses that could be taken down by a very small group of inexperienced players, others that required a maxed group of experienced and organized players and imho thats a good thing.
Sure you may argue that Ryzom is not "other mmos", and i would totally agree, but there is one thing that Ryzom has in common with other mmos, namely it needs players to survive, and making a game that is already perceived as hard, even harder, is not going to help. Thats the only reason why i think that adding new more difficult content is better than making existing content harder (my 2 cents)
fadebait
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Re: Game bosses

Post by fadebait »

arfindel(rushin) wrote:what they could add to that is that they will also only pop when xxx number (some number in a range not an exact number) of the normal mobs in a region have been killed.

So in effect you anger the boss enough by seeing so many of its kind killed that it comes out to play. Would actually get people hunting in PR which would be nice to see imo ofc this is not an easy task in some cases - distinct lack of ragus wandering around in LoC for example
I have seen this in another MMO I have played - it doesn't tend to work too well in practice - it's too hard and timeconsuming to find bosses for all but the most dedicated of players.
It would be far worse in Ryzom, where quite a lot of mobs are extremely difficult to solo, especially in PR - you would need to get an entire group farming xxx mob, then going to check the spawn, then going on to the next one - it's not really attainable for casual players. I would like to see the required amount of time investment lowered, but the difficulty increased.

If the adds were linked in the same way as NPCs frequently are, so that a hit on the boss causes all the guards to aggro (but perhaps guards could be pulled without aggroing the entire spawn) then all of a sudden killing Vorkoo with 3 would become trickier. Guard respawn rates could also be raised so that you have in effect a limited amount of time to get the guards down and kill the boss before the guards reappear and wreak havok and distruction.

As it is most q220 bosses can be killed with 2, most q270 can be killed with 3 - it's simply too easy. Requiring a larger group and more time would mean more organisation, more people involved, and coupled with a randomised spawn timer would make dedicated farming teams not impossible, but harder. And the harder you make something to farm, the less people farm it - and more bosses are killed by different people - spreading the love a little.
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deadelf
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Re: Game bosses

Post by deadelf »

Although i agree with fadebait that killing xxx mobs is not a good idea overall it can be done for some bosses, especially lower lvl ones (q100 and below) but not all. if you had a certain number of mobs to kill (which could also be random between a min and a max value) for certain bosses it could really add to the diversity.

fixing and finishing (tweaking, making them more interesting, etc) the current bosses and adding new, harder (and easier) content is the way to go imo.
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danolt
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Re: Game bosses

Post by danolt »

I think it would be worth considering creating new 'boss based' zones. These new zones could be accessed by turning in materials or doing missions for factions or possibly national representatives.

I think one of the most serious problems in subscription retention is the difficulty of newly created guilds to be or even feel viable.

By creating some sort of rewards for guilds that support guild development (sort of mini temple events) would be a good start. Being able to 'purchase' access to an old land hunting ground that has a guaranteed boss might be a way to keep young guilds motivated and old guilds interested.

I would think the existing R2 tools would be sufficient.
kay22626
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Re: Game bosses

Post by kay22626 »

danolt wrote: I think one of the most serious problems in subscription retention is the difficulty of newly created guilds to be or even feel viable.
This is an excellent point, it would deserve a separate thread of its own.
I noticed that when new players ask about making a guild, more often than not they are told its better to join an existing one.
Also they are told that best way for everything is to get the help of hi level players.
With the risk of being flamed, i want to challenge this deeply rooted mentality.
Its better only if your goal is to achieve as much as possible in as short a time as possible, and thats not the case for everyone, some players really want to enjoy the journey rather than being whisked to the destination by hi level players/guilds.
Also there is the question of what exactly is a "viable" guild, and do new players need to be in such a guild to enjoy the game?
Personally i think that if new players would form new guilds of their own and set out to discover the beauty of this game for themselves, they would have a wonderful time, and thats what matters in the end.
Dont get me wrong, i dont want to imply that they couldnt have a wonderful time by joining established guilds, just that it is NOT the only way to enjoy this game.
I might be wrong but...isnt the present outpost system one of the main elements that prevents newly formed guilds to feel or become viable?
I might be wrong yet again but i think the outpost system in its present form, was never part of the original design of David Cohen Corval?
Danolt's ideas seem a lot more on the lines of the original game development :)
I wish the new Ryzom team would develop on the wonderful ideas of the original game's creator:
http://web.archive.org/web/200408030041 ... rialnotes4
sidusar
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Re: Game bosses

Post by sidusar »

kay22626 wrote:So some bosses are harder and some are easier, i see no problem with that.
How hard would be hard enough for you? What if hard enough for you is not hard enough for some players, and too hard for others? You cannot please everybody and some compromise has to be made.
In all mmos i played, there were bosses that could be taken down by a very small group of inexperienced players, others that required a maxed group of experienced and organized players and imho thats a good thing.
I agree completely. :) To appeal to a large playerbase there needs to be a spread in difficulty level, from easy bosses to hard bosses.

My problem is exactly that right now, 90% of the bosses are all exactly identical and all just as easy, while only 10% is harder in some way. I'm not saying make all bosses harder, but there needs to be a much better spread.

And even the easy bosses don't all have to be the exact same "pull the boss away from the minions and nuke it until it's dead" routine. They can bring in some variety without making it harder.
arfindel wrote:"have been asking for randomising the time they pop since like forever, but what they could add to that is that they will also only pop when xxx number (some number in a range not an exact number) of the normal mobs in a region have been killed.
Wouldn't work I think. If you do this in addition to the random timer, it means a lot of killing mobs for nothing. If you do it instead of the timer, a hardcore group can spawn the boss again and again.

What they can do is this: When it's time for the boss to spawn, a bunch of minions spawn first, and they all have to be killed before the boss spawns. This can just be a group of minions in the boss' lair, but they can be all over the region too, as long as there's a way to identify them as minions and not random mobs. For example, when Rakoo activates, a dozen Great Ragus spread out over LoC and all have to be killed before Rakoo spawns. Or when Plodekya activates, three Demolisher Ploderos appear in Void and all have to be killed before Plodekya spawns.

I think your idea would work pretty well for nameds though. Kill too many najabs in Void and Bajam spawns on you to take revenge. :D
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