So, I'm not sure if there were any blue posts discussing this yet (if there were, links please ♥) and I know with the Skeleton King there were some mechanics...
But I'd like to know just how crazy bosses are going to get mechanics wise. How much will one need to learn, will it be relatively similar to Diablo 2 where a boss is very simple to learn, and then farm?
I know the 'difficulty' will be set fairly high, but that doesn't say much in how it will be hard. In a recently released video "You will Die, We Promise" from Blizzard, it essentially seems like there will just be a ton of damage, where that comes from was unclear.
ANYWAY, if anyone has knowledge on this topic, please enlighten me...
Otherwise! Discuss what kind of mechanics you think bosses will have, theorycraft, guess, I don't care, I have just been very interested in this topic, since the PvE in Diablo 1 and 2 wasn't very engaging, I only played for the PvP for the most part.
there will be no boss farming in D3. champions drop better loot and bosses are 100x harder. this was done so that people have the entire game to farm and not just boss runs. thank god
there has been no info on specific boss mechanics other than they will be very difficult to beat. much harder then D2.
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
As GladHeHasBeta said, Blizzard wants to move away from the boss farming that was so common in Diablo 2. The best drops will supposedly come from unique monster spawns throughout the game, but not in the same locations every time.
I do expect that Blizzard will not disappoint, and that there will be a lot of tricky boss fights. Especially since character builds are so dynamic, I would not be surprised if bosses would require, or at least be much more manageable with, on the fly changes to the skills and runes you are using.
As GladHeHasBeta said, Blizzard wants to move away from the boss farming that was so common in Diablo 2. The best drops will supposedly come from unique monster spawns throughout the game, but not in the same locations every time.
I do expect that Blizzard will not disappoint, and that there will be a lot of tricky boss fights. Especially since character builds are so dynamic, I would not be surprised if bosses would require, or at least be much more manageable with, on the fly changes to the skills and runes you are using.
lol no. not in a million years. the whole reason they added a cooldown to swapping abilities was because they DIDNT want people switching in combat depending on what mobs/boss they are fighting.
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
Honestly I like the idea of a boss being an actual challange and not easily farmed. When you play through the game you get through all the content to kill the final boss. I can only hope that they make the boss drop better loot but at the same time, the fight is too long and difficult for it to be worth farming.
Honestly I like the idea of a boss being an actual challange and not easily farmed. When you play through the game you get through all the content to kill the final boss. I can only hope that they make the boss drop better loot but at the same time, the fight is too long and difficult for it to be worth farming.
bosses drop better loot then normal mobs. just not THE best loot.
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
lol no. not in a million years. the whole reason they added a cooldown to swapping abilities was because they DIDNT want people switching in combat depending on what mobs/boss they are fighting.
Yeah, the way I understand it, Blizzard wants you to play the class according to your preferred playstyle, not according to what the enemies requires of you. That is a much better system if you ask me.
On the topic of bosses, I really hope they have some crazy fighting mechanics that you need to work around, especially if they require prompts and timing. I also hope some bosses gain new mechanics on higher difficulties and not just damage and health.
Well, the only bosses we've seen thus far in videos are:
Siegebreaker - this is a boss you kite around, while he's focused on you and attack when he's not.
Skeleton King - kill adds, kill boss. Or let boss kill adds. Either way.
Gluttony incarnate - move out of his charge - but he might just be a mini boss?
It's a single player game, really, so you can only get so complex with fights. Dark Souls has a good template of how strategy-driven a fight could be with a single player. Gaping Dragon is a good example - if you played that game. I bet we see things like that. Maybe that spider lady one in blighttown too - stay out of lava pools she puts on the ground.
Well, the only bosses we've seen thus far in videos are:
Siegebreaker - this is a boss you kite around, while he's focused on you and attack when he's not.
Skeleton King - kill adds, kill boss. Or let boss kill adds. Either way.
Gluttony incarnate - move out of his charge - but he might just be a mini boss?
It's a single player game, really, so you can only get so complex with fights. Dark Souls has a good template of how strategy-driven a fight could be with a single player. Gaping Dragon is a good example - if you played that game. I bet we see things like that. Maybe that spider lady one in blighttown too - stay out of lava pools she puts on the ground.
Stuff like that.
those are mini bosses too. not even end act bosses. end act bosses will be INSANE im sure
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
those are mini bosses too. not even end act bosses. end act bosses will be INSANE im sure
That's fine, as long as the fight is comprehensible. I hate that crap in wow raiding, where a fight is near impossible to understand unless you watch a video of it, or just die for a very long time to get the mechanics down. That's not interesting at all.
Or, if there's only 1 solution to a boss fight. That's stupid too. I hope they are a bit more dynamic that recent Blizzard history shows.
As GladHeHasBeta said, Blizzard wants to move away from the boss farming that was so common in Diablo 2. The best drops will supposedly come from unique monster spawns throughout the game, but not in the same locations every time.
I do expect that Blizzard will not disappoint, and that there will be a lot of tricky boss fights. Especially since character builds are so dynamic, I would not be surprised if bosses would require, or at least be much more manageable with, on the fly changes to the skills and runes you are using.
lol no. not in a million years. the whole reason they added a cooldown to swapping abilities was because they DIDNT want people switching in combat depending on what mobs/boss they are fighting.
I see your point, I guess I was not so much thinking about switching mid combat, but in a more general way. If the particular build you're using doesn't seem too effective against a boss, you could pop out of the fight to safety, switch things up, and give it another go.
If the game is designed in such a way that most builds are viable, at least in the earlier difficulties, that's even better.
So long as there's not alot of 2get out of the green goo" mechanics and more of "use your skills to overcome the boss" mechanics, it should be good!
Take a look at how far Blizzard has come from Molten Core in World of Warcraft, to Dragon Soul. Molten Core has fairly simple bosses, most of them being tank and spank. Dragon Soul has a boss where you fly on the back of a dragon! Fair enough, the mechanics of that fight arn't that dificult to understand (nuke mob, use the blood it drops to douse another mob, blow that up to slowly attack the boss), it's alot more complex than stand still and just DPS.
Like others have said, the Skeleton King is just a mini boss, but he's miles ahead of even Andariel of Diablo 2. You pull her out of her room, then stand still while chugging health pots and attacking her. At least with the Skeleton King there's the added danger of constantly streaming adds and two ways to combat them! Do you use the boss to help kill the skellies to give you health orbs, or kill them yourself? Do you move out of the way to advoid his teleport attack, or just soak it?
Even if the main act bosses are like this, that's still miles ahead of how the previous two games have handled bosses.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Pull 'em in, den smash 'em up gud!" - Grimjaw, Barbarian Poet
As GladHeHasBeta said, Blizzard wants to move away from the boss farming that was so common in Diablo 2. The best drops will supposedly come from unique monster spawns throughout the game, but not in the same locations every time.
I do expect that Blizzard will not disappoint, and that there will be a lot of tricky boss fights. Especially since character builds are so dynamic, I would not be surprised if bosses would require, or at least be much more manageable with, on the fly changes to the skills and runes you are using.
lol no. not in a million years. the whole reason they added a cooldown to swapping abilities was because they DIDNT want people switching in combat depending on what mobs/boss they are fighting.
I see your point, I guess I was not so much thinking about switching mid combat, but in a more general way. If the particular build you're using doesn't seem too effective against a boss, you could pop out of the fight to safety, switch things up, and give it another go.
If the game is designed in such a way that most builds are viable, at least in the earlier difficulties, that's even better.
Yes that would be the smart thing to do...but the game isnt really designed in such a way that you would have to do this either.
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One is never hurt by being given additional choices, only by taking them away. A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
Well I'm sure it would boil down to a couple mechanics, the difference being in which order.
Attack while unshielded / don't attack while shield is up.
Certain shields repel certain attacks for a time, like say 'omg fire shield's up, omg physical shields up'
Boss is immune until you kill either a certain add / adds, or an object.
Boss is so big you need to attack certain parts first (hey maybe 3 headed fem diablo?)
Boss is impossible until you get yourself a buff from killing an add / touching object ect
Boss is only really hurt by environment, like falling pillars that you need to kite them through or something
Dodge flame / whatever spell pools on ground
Dodge bosses charge / charge-up spells
Dodge indicator on ground before meteor / giant foot lands
Hide behind objects for LoS attacks
Maybe some will have a chase phase, where you just book it / fighting adds along the way
Possible some will need you to free allies by attacking chains / prisons while fighting boss
Probably an escort boss or two; Help BlahBlah survive by leading them to safety
The difficulty imo will end up being what combo they go with for tactics. I'm pretty sure they said inferno will have a different / more intense tactics for bosses. Hopefully for at least inferno there's no on screen indicator flashing 'HIDE NAOW', and instead we get to figure it out =D
I'm sure there's more, what can you guys think of?
So long as there's not alot of 2get out of the green goo" mechanics and more of "use your skills to overcome the boss" mechanics, it should be good!
Take a look at how far Blizzard has come from Molten Core in World of Warcraft, to Dragon Soul. Molten Core has fairly simple bosses, most of them being tank and spank. Dragon Soul has a boss where you fly on the back of a dragon! Fair enough, the mechanics of that fight arn't that dificult to understand (nuke mob, use the blood it drops to douse another mob, blow that up to slowly attack the boss), it's alot more complex than stand still and just DPS.
Like others have said, the Skeleton King is just a mini boss, but he's miles ahead of even Andariel of Diablo 2. You pull her out of her room, then stand still while chugging health pots and attacking her. At least with the Skeleton King there's the added danger of constantly streaming adds and two ways to combat them! Do you use the boss to help kill the skellies to give you health orbs, or kill them yourself? Do you move out of the way to advoid his teleport attack, or just soak it?
Even if the main act bosses are like this, that's still miles ahead of how the previous two games have handled bosses.
I disagree the bosses in MC were much more interesting than in DS. So your on a dragons back in DS? So what, thats just some stupid video not boss mechanics. In MC there was no established set way to kill the bosses, you had to come up with strategies, possibly divide into several groups and even use the terrain around you to the fullest. It also took a lot of hard work and dedication to make progress back then...now the game is a loot pinata. Heck I didnt even bother playing Fire lands, logged into DS and we killed the first few bosses like it was nothing at all. Mechanics? What mechanics? Its such a fking joke you barely need to know what to do....
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
One is never hurt by being given additional choices, only by taking them away. A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
So long as there's not alot of 2get out of the green goo" mechanics and more of "use your skills to overcome the boss" mechanics, it should be good!
Take a look at how far Blizzard has come from Molten Core in World of Warcraft, to Dragon Soul. Molten Core has fairly simple bosses, most of them being tank and spank. Dragon Soul has a boss where you fly on the back of a dragon! Fair enough, the mechanics of that fight arn't that dificult to understand (nuke mob, use the blood it drops to douse another mob, blow that up to slowly attack the boss), it's alot more complex than stand still and just DPS.
Like others have said, the Skeleton King is just a mini boss, but he's miles ahead of even Andariel of Diablo 2. You pull her out of her room, then stand still while chugging health pots and attacking her. At least with the Skeleton King there's the added danger of constantly streaming adds and two ways to combat them! Do you use the boss to help kill the skellies to give you health orbs, or kill them yourself? Do you move out of the way to advoid his teleport attack, or just soak it?
Even if the main act bosses are like this, that's still miles ahead of how the previous two games have handled bosses.
I disagree the bosses in MC were much more interesting than in DS. So your on a dragons back in DS? So what, thats just some stupid video not boss mechanics. In MC there was no established set way to kill the bosses, you had to come up with strategies, possibly divide into several groups and even use the terrain around you to the fullest. It also took a lot of hard work and dedication to make progress back then...now the game is a loot pinata. Heck I didnt even bother playing Fire lands, logged into DS and we killed the first few bosses like it was nothing at all. Mechanics? What mechanics? Its such a fking joke you barely need to know what to do....
Ugh, i knew talking about wow would take this thread off-topic, but i thought it'd help as an example. Yes, some of the fights in Dragon Soul are pretty crappy. But looked how far wow has come! You were stuck inside a cave, where everything was shades of red...to flying on the back of a dragon! Maybe not the mechanical, but the technical stuff that makes raids work have come on a long way, just as boss design should have from Diablo 2 to Diablo 3.
Back on topic - Snaks42 made some really cool predictions of how to conquer bosses and what they'd throw at the players. Like i said earlier, here's hoping to less move out the green goo and more "Ah, green goo! What can i do to remove it, or hurt the boss with it?" style decisions than running about like a headless chicken.
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"Pull 'em in, den smash 'em up gud!" - Grimjaw, Barbarian Poet
WoW is a relatively slow-paced MMO game. It is balanced around many players doing many easy tasks but is relatively unforgiving of mistakes. It's very easy to position yourself correctly, DPS the correct add, and use "Dream" when you get Shrapnel on you. However, all it takes is one mistake (Oops, forgot to switch to elementium bolt) during a 15 minute long fight and you wipe. Being a "good raider" in WoW is more about consistency than any amazing skill.
A lot of WoW mechanics are simply a matter of what target you are DPSing. (ie, Spine of Deathwing) This would be incredibly lame in a game like D3. D3 mechanics are more likely to be either about avoiding major damage, or killing a large pack of adds so that you can get health orbs. By virtue of being an action game, D3 mechanics should be a lot more fast-paced and reaction time dependent. Judging by the one avoidable boss attack in the game right now (SK's teleport strike), boss attacks should be a lot better-paced than in D2 where abilities were either unavoidable (fire nova! hoarfrost!) or so weak you didn't care (mephisto poison cloud!). The teleport strike is balanced to where it is avoidable, but not if you are poorly positioned or slow to react.
Another major difference is that D2 boss abilities had no pattern and gave you little to no warning. Dodging Mephisto's Ice Skulls as a ranged character was pure luck - his casting animation was so fast and unpredictable that you were either already moving or you got hit. On the other hand, the SK has a somewhat (but not completely) predictable pattern of when he will use each of his abilities, which you can see in any of the Level 1 SK kills. This is pretty cool because it allows a skilled player to both predict and react to boss abilities.
It would also be cool if some boss mechanics required players to use the boss's own abilities against them, like tennis ball boss in Dragon Soul. Obviously this would be a much faster-moving ability than the WoW tennis ball.
But I'd like to know just how crazy bosses are going to get mechanics wise. How much will one need to learn, will it be relatively similar to Diablo 2 where a boss is very simple to learn, and then farm?
I know the 'difficulty' will be set fairly high, but that doesn't say much in how it will be hard. In a recently released video "You will Die, We Promise" from Blizzard, it essentially seems like there will just be a ton of damage, where that comes from was unclear.
ANYWAY, if anyone has knowledge on this topic, please enlighten me...
Otherwise! Discuss what kind of mechanics you think bosses will have, theorycraft, guess, I don't care, I have just been very interested in this topic, since the PvE in Diablo 1 and 2 wasn't very engaging, I only played for the PvP for the most part.
-Brian
there has been no info on specific boss mechanics other than they will be very difficult to beat. much harder then D2.
I do expect that Blizzard will not disappoint, and that there will be a lot of tricky boss fights. Especially since character builds are so dynamic, I would not be surprised if bosses would require, or at least be much more manageable with, on the fly changes to the skills and runes you are using.
lol no. not in a million years. the whole reason they added a cooldown to swapping abilities was because they DIDNT want people switching in combat depending on what mobs/boss they are fighting.
bosses drop better loot then normal mobs. just not THE best loot.
On the topic of bosses, I really hope they have some crazy fighting mechanics that you need to work around, especially if they require prompts and timing. I also hope some bosses gain new mechanics on higher difficulties and not just damage and health.
Siegebreaker - this is a boss you kite around, while he's focused on you and attack when he's not.
Skeleton King - kill adds, kill boss. Or let boss kill adds. Either way.
Gluttony incarnate - move out of his charge - but he might just be a mini boss?
It's a single player game, really, so you can only get so complex with fights. Dark Souls has a good template of how strategy-driven a fight could be with a single player. Gaping Dragon is a good example - if you played that game. I bet we see things like that. Maybe that spider lady one in blighttown too - stay out of lava pools she puts on the ground.
Stuff like that.
those are mini bosses too. not even end act bosses. end act bosses will be INSANE im sure
That's fine, as long as the fight is comprehensible. I hate that crap in wow raiding, where a fight is near impossible to understand unless you watch a video of it, or just die for a very long time to get the mechanics down. That's not interesting at all.
Or, if there's only 1 solution to a boss fight. That's stupid too. I hope they are a bit more dynamic that recent Blizzard history shows.
Super Cop! He knows where you live, he knows where you sleep.
I see your point, I guess I was not so much thinking about switching mid combat, but in a more general way. If the particular build you're using doesn't seem too effective against a boss, you could pop out of the fight to safety, switch things up, and give it another go.
If the game is designed in such a way that most builds are viable, at least in the earlier difficulties, that's even better.
Take a look at how far Blizzard has come from Molten Core in World of Warcraft, to Dragon Soul. Molten Core has fairly simple bosses, most of them being tank and spank. Dragon Soul has a boss where you fly on the back of a dragon! Fair enough, the mechanics of that fight arn't that dificult to understand (nuke mob, use the blood it drops to douse another mob, blow that up to slowly attack the boss), it's alot more complex than stand still and just DPS.
Like others have said, the Skeleton King is just a mini boss, but he's miles ahead of even Andariel of Diablo 2. You pull her out of her room, then stand still while chugging health pots and attacking her. At least with the Skeleton King there's the added danger of constantly streaming adds and two ways to combat them! Do you use the boss to help kill the skellies to give you health orbs, or kill them yourself? Do you move out of the way to advoid his teleport attack, or just soak it?
Even if the main act bosses are like this, that's still miles ahead of how the previous two games have handled bosses.
"Pull 'em in, den smash 'em up gud!" - Grimjaw, Barbarian Poet
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
Attack while unshielded / don't attack while shield is up.
Certain shields repel certain attacks for a time, like say 'omg fire shield's up, omg physical shields up'
Boss is immune until you kill either a certain add / adds, or an object.
Boss is so big you need to attack certain parts first (hey maybe 3 headed fem diablo?)
Boss is impossible until you get yourself a buff from killing an add / touching object ect
Boss is only really hurt by environment, like falling pillars that you need to kite them through or something
Dodge flame / whatever spell pools on ground
Dodge bosses charge / charge-up spells
Dodge indicator on ground before meteor / giant foot lands
Hide behind objects for LoS attacks
Maybe some will have a chase phase, where you just book it / fighting adds along the way
Possible some will need you to free allies by attacking chains / prisons while fighting boss
Probably an escort boss or two; Help BlahBlah survive by leading them to safety
The difficulty imo will end up being what combo they go with for tactics. I'm pretty sure they said inferno will have a different / more intense tactics for bosses. Hopefully for at least inferno there's no on screen indicator flashing 'HIDE NAOW', and instead we get to figure it out =D
I'm sure there's more, what can you guys think of?
I disagree the bosses in MC were much more interesting than in DS. So your on a dragons back in DS? So what, thats just some stupid video not boss mechanics. In MC there was no established set way to kill the bosses, you had to come up with strategies, possibly divide into several groups and even use the terrain around you to the fullest. It also took a lot of hard work and dedication to make progress back then...now the game is a loot pinata. Heck I didnt even bother playing Fire lands, logged into DS and we killed the first few bosses like it was nothing at all. Mechanics? What mechanics? Its such a fking joke you barely need to know what to do....
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
Ugh, i knew talking about wow would take this thread off-topic, but i thought it'd help as an example. Yes, some of the fights in Dragon Soul are pretty crappy. But looked how far wow has come! You were stuck inside a cave, where everything was shades of red...to flying on the back of a dragon! Maybe not the mechanical, but the technical stuff that makes raids work have come on a long way, just as boss design should have from Diablo 2 to Diablo 3.
Back on topic - Snaks42 made some really cool predictions of how to conquer bosses and what they'd throw at the players. Like i said earlier, here's hoping to less move out the green goo and more "Ah, green goo! What can i do to remove it, or hurt the boss with it?" style decisions than running about like a headless chicken.
"Pull 'em in, den smash 'em up gud!" - Grimjaw, Barbarian Poet
A lot of WoW mechanics are simply a matter of what target you are DPSing. (ie, Spine of Deathwing) This would be incredibly lame in a game like D3. D3 mechanics are more likely to be either about avoiding major damage, or killing a large pack of adds so that you can get health orbs. By virtue of being an action game, D3 mechanics should be a lot more fast-paced and reaction time dependent. Judging by the one avoidable boss attack in the game right now (SK's teleport strike), boss attacks should be a lot better-paced than in D2 where abilities were either unavoidable (fire nova! hoarfrost!) or so weak you didn't care (mephisto poison cloud!). The teleport strike is balanced to where it is avoidable, but not if you are poorly positioned or slow to react.
Another major difference is that D2 boss abilities had no pattern and gave you little to no warning. Dodging Mephisto's Ice Skulls as a ranged character was pure luck - his casting animation was so fast and unpredictable that you were either already moving or you got hit. On the other hand, the SK has a somewhat (but not completely) predictable pattern of when he will use each of his abilities, which you can see in any of the Level 1 SK kills. This is pretty cool because it allows a skilled player to both predict and react to boss abilities.
It would also be cool if some boss mechanics required players to use the boss's own abilities against them, like tennis ball boss in Dragon Soul. Obviously this would be a much faster-moving ability than the WoW tennis ball.
No. lol