The difficulty of Arcane Adventure’s bosses was my biggest problem with the game. For example, if you try to solo Marua at the intended level, he will just force choke you to death. You are unable to use any attack, unable to move, unable to do anything but die.
The only way you could defeat Marua was to cheese them. Just stand far away such that they cannot see you. Then, spam blast attacks. When you cheese Marua, the fight becomes mind-numbingly easy. This was true for most boss fights in Arcane Adventures: you cannot fight them the way they were intended; you have to cheese them to progress.
In AO, the bosses should be changed such that they are easier to defeat the intended way and cannot be cheesed. This can be done with a few changes.
Make attacks easier to dodge
By “easier,” I do not mean “easy.” The attacks should still be difficult to dodge and still require skill. However, the boss shouldn’t be able to force choke you from anywhere in the arena. Nor should they be able to one-shot everyone in their proximity. Blasts should be a bit slower. Beams and placed explosions should have a slightly longer startup. You should at least have a chance to attack without getting one shot.
Make AoE attacks survivable
Were you in the middle of charging a blast when Verdies started his plasma ult? DIE HEATHEN!
Large AoE attacks that turn the entire arena into an infernal wasteland shouldn’t be able to one-shot the player when at the intended level. It is just absurd. This incentivizes hiding on the outer clouds instead of actually fighting. Attacks like this should deal a reasonable amount of damage, such as 1/3 of the players’ health when the player is at the intended level.
Give bosses a reasonable amount of health
It shouldn’t take 10 minutes of chipping away at the boss’s health for it to die. If you are able to dodge the boss’s attacks, it should only take a few minutes to kill the boss.
Players shouldn't be able to damage the boss if they are not in the arena
This is mainly to disincentivize cheesing. In Arcane Adventures, you could kill many bosses (Sage, Marua, etc.) by simply standing far away from them and spamming blasts. You should not be able to damage bosses unless you are close enough for them to fight back.
Don't implement any form of Impact Fist
That attack was stupid. Just stand still for a few hours hitting the same button and eventually you will be able to one-shot the boss. That was not PvE. That was simulator BS. You should have to manually fight each boss.
For me the explosion attack was the one that really messed me up. But I guess it is semi predictable. The force choke is just impossible to evade unless you are with another dude.
Idk, Marua was legit the easiest boss and the force choke didn’t guaranteed kill you unless you’re like level 10 or something, you should’ve bought a weapon if it was really that hard for you.
Now if you’re talking about Ramses, he was hard unless you cheesed but it was mainly timed dodging and then only annoying part was the tornado.
I don’t think multiple modes would be best. This is a multiplayer game after all. It would be confusing to fight a boss when one guy is in easy mode and another is in hard mode.
Difficulty obviously varied depending on the level, so the recommended level to fight a boss will obviously make it challenging compared to someone who is around 50 levels ahead. I do agree on the cheesing part though, however it’s inevitable that people will always try to find “shortcuts” around certain parts of a videogame to make life easier for them. At least the current AI isn’t at AR level, the AI there is really unbearable at times. They can easily glitch out, spam you with attacks that make it really hard to dodge and attack at the same time. Just look at Prometheus in the latest update.
now what really got me with Ramses was both the tornado AND THE FACT THAT YOU HAD TO FIGHT THROUGH 3 GODDAM FLOORS OF UNDEAD JUST TO FUCKING REACH HIM. And then he does that stupid tornado thing, making you have to start all over.
Just because vetex is making AO like AA doesn’t mean he’s going to turn it into a total clone. The bosses in Wom were extremely well designed, and I think vetex will make some nice clean bosses.
