Are auto immune bosses good for the game?

[Riddle_of_Steel]

I remember a PnP game one, we had a huge build up to a dragon encounter... Big Big beast and one we fully expected to loose a couple of characters to. My cleric and a mage teamed up with a "hope for the best" attack where I dumped Harm and hoped to beat his SR (we gave it about a 33% chance) and he would dropped magic missile as each missile got a SR check.

I got through and dropped it to 2 HP instantly and then the Mage's first missile got through on his check and BOOM a 20 and big bad dragon dead in about 5 seconds.

Was it awesome ... well kinda .. but that feeling of that was awesome quickly drained away and in it's wake was disappointment. hell we even asked if we could fight it again (consciously choosing not to use Harm) just to see if we were up to the task. Happy to note we had the **** kicked out of us, my Cleric ended up pretty much naked but we scraped through.

DDO without some boss immunities would be the same, hell it was the same. Kinda cool at first but quickly turning into a big pile of"meh". Now if they were to tweak it a little so that tactics could be used (probably not insta kills though) then I would be OK with that.

Say, for example, that you could trip bosses but they had to fail 4 checks in 5 or 6 seconds, same for CC and once they fell to it it lasted a lot less time. Say 10 seconds max. You would then have to have a party that really coordinated well that could take the boss down without too much damage but then if they are playing together and working together well isn't that a good reward for successful group tactics?

I don't mind the idea of some tactics and CC working in even more limited fashions against bosses but the real bugger is when they have blanket immunity and resistances to everything DPS wise. As a caster I almost always just pike the fight and buff and scroll / spot heal if I can because it's a complete waste of SP. At least if the group seems to have it in hand. Occasionally I have had an intim specced caster and ran in there and pulled agro off the tanks (generally sacrificing myself) so they could get a heal in. As a 10 - 45 second distraction I am generally sill more useful

[Gremmlynn]

There are some effects that bosses are immune to that should effect them (slow for instance) there are also probably some bosses immune to things like Poison that they shouldn't be. But why should Instakills work on a boss?

If you could instakill a boss you would trivialize the encounter all you would need is one Wizard to go full ****** on his DC's and make sure he can kill the boss in one cast (or maybe one cast +debuffs) this would make the encounter boring and meaningless.

Yes bosses should be immune to all save or die effects and should be immune to most save or suck effects (suck = can not act, a save or suck effect like slow that still allows action is something that should effect most bosses).

Or just spam until it rolls a 1 regardless of DCs.

[Gremmlynn]

This also contributes to the game being too easy. Obviously bosses have saves for a reason, if they have well designed saves, and also select RESISTANCE then blanket immunity just makes them one dimensional surround and pound encounters.

On my CC and tactical builds getting to the boss is the worst part of every raid and quest... straight DPS is boring as ****.

On the other hand imagine a Raid boss:

Three players land stuns (boss fails his hefty save) at roughly the same time = 3 second stun immune to further stunns for however long works to maintain balance (maybe 10 secs?)

Or two players land Trip (Boss fails his save) falls down for 2 seconds and can't cast/hit or land specials immune to further trips for a few seconds.

Or two casters land Hold Monster (fails very high spell penn and fails save) which of course has a much reduced effect on a Boss, say 1 second for every caster that lands, boss is held for 2 seconds. with same short term immunity after.

Not only would stuff like this lead to much more dynamic boss battles, it would increase the value of CC and tactics. But that's not all, it would allow bosses to have more formidable special attacks. Imagine a Legendary LOB but his Stun attack stuns players for 1 minute no save, and his cleave (whirlwind) does one shot 3k damage regardless of PRR say this whirlwind lasts for 3-4 seconds from the start of the "tell" animation, everyone calls out "whirlwind" and the Tank and two off tanks hit trip within ~1 second of each other, LOB falls down and his one shotty whirlwind doesn't kill half the raid. If only 2 land trip he still gets 1 second of whirlwind and kills a couple people potentially, if only the tank lands trip he's only lost 1 out of 3 seconds but this still saves some people potentially. Of course Slowing and otherwise impeding the boss could easily be a part of battles as well, a Slowed LOB hits less people with Whirlwind or his stun.

Ofc you can also require debuffing before anything works, and the debuffs can be limited for balance reasons, short duration, constant reapplication, or complicated combinations would all add dynamics to boss battles.Obviously they have to avoid allowing stuff to be too good:

I would say it should just interrupt special attacks if timed right on an unlikely failed save. Or if it does do more, no helpless damage bonus anyway.

[Gremmlynn]

The issue is not insta-kills, and I agree that insta-kills should not be possible with end-bosses. The problem is that there are too many bosses that are completely immune to nearly anything a spell-caster can throw at them, and when they're not completely immune they're so resistant that the spell caster wonders what they're doing there, as they're doing pitiful dps. They're just ping-pinging away, using all their spell points with nothing to show for it. And, since so many of the mobs in legendary content are red-named, not just the end bosses, it's most of the mobs, not just a few.

That tells me casters need more and varied debuffs to give them something useful to do.

[acemonkey]

Dev determines players can handle 1k incoming dps (hypothetical). Dev knows slow reduces boss dps by 30%, so he ups mob dps to 1.5k, so that it will be ~1k after debuff. No one can tank boss without slow now, and slower becomes required for groups. Worse, slow is hard to land, so you need an optimized slower of a certain class. So now you need, let's say a transmuter wizard with all the tricks and gear. People complain on the forum, and slow gets nerfed, and the boss is reduced to 1k dps.

What's the point of going through all those backflips? We will never have what some other mmos had in the past where you need a healer, slower, main tank, puller, and 2 dps, or w/e, and that's for the best, because it would be the literal end for this game. We don't have the subscribers and the people willing to log on and play for hours with their set group. I'm happy that typically twice a week I can manage to log in and play with a buddy for a few hours, but I guarantee you we won't stick around and beg for groups if more roles become required. We came to this game for solo/duoing and self sufficiency. I say this as someone who wants to play my 30 wizard more and hates that so many spells have no effect, there's a reason they have no effect.

[Junk]

Don't know if this was mentioned how about random immunities. Every time you fight the boss there something that will effect it but it always changes.

[Hobgoblin]

I can recall way back in the game, at least the first few months after launch, when red-named were not immune to a lot of what they are now. Stunning Blow, Trip, Phantasmal Killer... all worked. And it was silly.


While I do wish that more debuffs worked nowadays, I am glad those days ended, and boss fights became more worthy of the name.

vorpal. on crit. sorjeck.


nough said


mostly glad it got changed

[cdbd3rd]

Are auto immune bosses good for the game?

No!

No mob should ever be immune to damage from a fast-moving Buick.

[IronClan]

Like people read your posts?

Admittedly some are more capable than others.

[azrael4h]

No!

No mob should ever be immune to damage from a fast-moving Buick.

What if it's a slow moving Buick? After all, you are legally required to be in your 80's to drive one. I got a ticket once for being too young to drive a Buick Skyhawk.

Off topic, the 'moar dps' design of DDO isn't good for the game, but at this point, we'd need an army of unpaid interns and a small army of slave drivers with whips to beat them into redoing basically the entire game from the ground up. I'd love to run my Wizard at all, even if he is gimp and ungeared (I don't think I've played him seriously since before Shadowfell). But in the end, it comes down to blasting away just like my Sorc I rarely play, and my Warlock. If I ever run another Cleric, it'll end up being a light nuker because, that's pretty much the only option. DPS. Favored Soul? Probably the same thing.

Ultimately, I like options, and DDO has one for boss fights: DPS.

Note, I'm not an advocate for intsta-killing bosses. I'm not entirely certain I like the instant kill mechanic, and in my own (SP) design, have it both extremely high cost and limited to one per shot. But debuffs and CC should land, even if in reduced form (not perma-holds or stun locks either, which is basically a slower form of insta-kill).

[Aletys]

I don't feel bad for all the poor spell casters. Nobody is excluding them. I play light armor toon and I am very effective. I think your heavy armor complaints are about a year too late, and you don't seem to understand the current state of the game.

It was not a complaint, and I don't expect it to be changed. It was an observation, directed at the some of the suggestions in the OP.

Unless the spellcaster is running in Eldritch Knight (or is a Warlock rather than a traditional caster), they're likely wearing robes, and have very little in the way of effective defenses. And, unfortunately, running in Eldritch Knight greatly decreases their effectiveness in terms of dps, so that's not particularly attractive.

My light armor toons are also very effective, but they're not casters, they're rangers & rogues, and they have a ton of evasion.

Right now there is too much high-level content which is caster-unfriendly, so frankly, except for my healer, I'm not running my casters much. If you do physical damage you're king, otherwise, well, it's pretty sad.

[Memnir]

vorpal. on crit. sorjeck.


nough said


mostly glad it got changed

Yeah, that was one I didn't mention - but was thinking of when I called it silly.

Back in those fabled days of yore, we had a player on Xoriat with a Vorpal scimitar. I still remember running with him, and his French Canadian accent over the headphones half-yelling to let him go first! "Just Haste me, I go first, and all will be dead soon! Just haste and I go!"


This was also back in the day when you could Vorpal Beholders. Yeah, them's were the (silly) days.

[Hobgoblin]

Yeah, that was one I didn't mention - but was thinking of when I called it silly.

Back in those fabled days of yore, we had a player on Xoriat with a Vorpal scimitar. I still remember running with him, and his French Canadian accent over the headphones half-yelling to let him go first! "Just Haste me, I go first, and all will be dead soon! Just haste and I go!"


This was also back in the day when you could Vorpal Beholders. Yeah, them's were the (silly) days.

my one experience with axer in game -

running tangleroot with him.

from part 4ish on.

i have fireball and am level 7.

(i also have haste.)

run ahead grab aggro listen to him tell me ima gonna die.

gather group, kill group move on.

he is cussing and swearing like nothing!

He gets about 4 kills entire quest while im shrining.

after that part he drops group after telling me "only noob sorcs take fireball. real sorcs would have hasted me." as he runs away i cast haste on him. get one last tell from him "****."

no real relation to vorpal, but was humorous.

and yes a giant post was made on forums about it.

i take pride in the fact that part of me made it into shade's guide to barbarians.

derail on!

[Khatzhas]

Regarding instakill effects. Would adding a rider along the lines of "If the target fails their save but is immune to kill effects, they take X negative energy damage instead." help things?

Regarding CCs, 5th edition D&D "Legendary" creatures often have the ability to count as having passed a save even if they failed the roll a few times. If bosses took reduced effects from CC and had a renewing version of this, that might change things. (So a boss has say 3 charges that renew one per 5 secs. In order to land a CC the raid would have to throw enough effects to beat those 3 charges, before the next goes though to affect the boss. For 1 s stun, or whatever effect they actually take from it.) Having been CCed, these legendary saves are then reset (possibly to a higher amount.)
Actually, Wildstar has something similar as well in "Interrupt Armour" I think.

[Darkmits]

***PLEASE, LET'S KEEP THE CONVERSATION RESPECTFUL AND ENGAGING***

I read a post in the Bodak thread that made me think about this question. How does giving red name mobs immunity to nearly everything contribute to a more engaging game? Doesn't this just feed the DPS train?

Try to think it from the other side of the fence. What would the average player reaction be if an enemy had blanket immunity to all forms of hit point damage (including Vorpal OHKO) and instead required other ways to kill (like applying negative levels).

That's how I feel when I see debuff songs and spells.

When was the last time you used Crushing Despair? When was the last time you used Bestow Curse or Bane? Feeblemind? Greater Command? Touch of Idiocy?

The issue with DDO is that a lot of debuffs take an enemy temporarily out of the combat. Trip, Hold, Daze etc. all make an enemy not act and just stand there and get pummeled. If instead they worked as a means to interrupt the enemy's attack sequence and force it to restart, it would make for more interesting battles. Imagine:
- if the attack sequence of an enemy was Light hit -> Light hit -> Light hit -> Medium hit -> Medium hit -> Heavy hit
- if all Crowd Control effects instead had a duration of 1 sec on rednames and forced the enemy to restart his attack sequence from scratch.

Then using CC right before it gets to the Heavy Hit would become a tactical advantage, because CC in general costs a lot of resources too, which means that they are not infinite and cannot be spammed.

[bsquishwizzy]

***PLEASE, LET'S KEEP THE CONVERSATION RESPECTFUL AND ENGAGING***

I read a post in the Bodak thread that made me think about this question. How does giving red name mobs immunity to nearly everything contribute to a more engaging game? Doesn't this just feed the DPS train?

No, it makes the game incredibly boring.

If I am a caster, they become nothing more than a sponge for my blue bar.

If I am squishy, they become an insurmountable obstacle without a safe spot.

If I am a rogue assassin, the bestest, biggest trick in my book becomes null and void.

If I am a ranged player, I either kite or pray that I find a safe spot.

In fact the only thing that bosses with blanket immunities have on the game is to force players to discourage DC-based / tactics-based game play, and basically become high-DPS with heavy armor or high dodge. Because in a majority of quests, you can still get completion if you bypass most mobs, and maybe bypass most traps. But you’ll NEVER get it if the boss ain’t dead.

What’s the point of investing in something like Grease or Web if it only works on trash mobs (and other players)?

I realize that in an MMO, your options are somewhat limited. However, I believe that Turbine can be inventive with quest objectives. They’ve done it in the past.

[salmag]

Bosses should not be immune to anything. They should have the same immunities the party has.

Treat them as if they were wearing Deathblock (which I'm sure they all have), and have Blindness, Fear, Disease, Natural Poison (not Magical), and Fear Immunity.

Start them out being buffed with equivalent of all ship buffs, and all other buff spells (Death Ward, etc.). Casting Dispell Magic (up to level 10), Break Enchantment (up to level 15), Greater Dispell Magic (up to level 20), and Mordenkainen's Disjunction (for Epics).

Caster spells could be treated as Improved Vorpal weapons.

[redoubt]

The problem is that players quickly find the best combo, and bosses provide even less challenge than they do now.

Bosses can't have interesting abilities until player saves are more uniform. (good vs bad saves within 10-15 of each other). Right now a good (maximized) save can be 100 and a bad (maximized) save can be 50.

That is why the goal is to make alternate paths, but not always better paths.

As long as DPS is the best/only way to kill bosses AND dps can clear the trash, DPS will remain the only way to build.

[bbcjoke]

Suggestion: red-named bosses should have, in addition to their high saves (and spell resistance, if any), other layers of protection. I'd suggest the following two.

The first layer should be a set of quickly-recharging one time protections. Think of it as having both a single charge scarab of protection and/or a single charge beholder optical nerves equipped, both recharging in ~3 seconds just like an eternal wand in steroids. This layer should be treated as being from a magical source, allowing dispel magic to remove all the red-named wards at once (but not preventing them from recharging). Mordenkainen's disjunction could do he same and also prevent the wards from recharging for an additional time. A sunder attempt could have a chance of doing the same disjunction effect for monster whose type/race allow them to "equip" items.

The second layer I suggest is one just like the status damage protection they already have (say, a 50% chance of preventing a level drain, a 90% chance of preventing a trip/stun attempt, a 95% chance of preventing an instant-kill, etc). Note that this works basically like a second save, only having a fixed chance, ignoring any (uber) bonuses the player might have for the DC that would make this layer useless.

The red-named should also be treated as players for most spell/effects (saves allowed against power word kill, reduced hold/stunned/etc time, etc).

The overall expected result is that, in the average, this would keep the time/effort/resources needed to defeat the red named. But it would allow players to create some interesting strategies requiring coordination to defeat the red named faster. For example, one player could be meleeing the red named with dispelling strikes just to strip its protective absorption while the casters in the party could try to land instant-killing spells. Or maybe all players could switch to two weapon fighting with both weapons having the phantasmal killing effect.

But I think orange nameds could have these protections as well, but with a much less chance of prevention and with much longer cooldowns. Purple named bosses should remain as they are.

[Enoach]

I think this is a fair question but it also raises the question of what should be RED named vs Orange.

one of the ways Turbine Development has engaged in is to add in RED named mobs to counter effects that were added into the game that have made balancing quest difficulty. Part of this problem is some "difficulty" is being added through pilling on more HP.

The Debuff has been killed as an option in Epics due to the reduced time a Debuff lasts. However, this is another hard place to balance because these effects on a melee/range weapon actually fair better then casting from spell points. In my opinion if the weapon debuffs had to follow the same rules as spells or if they were added as a limited amount of charges per rest where a player can choose that effect to be activated then I think Turbine could reverse some of the limiting factors that have been added to Debuffs especially at the Epic levels.

I do think that Red Named and Up should be immune to instant death/banish types of effects, effects based on taking a Percent of HP and while they should be able to be slowed (movement/attack) they should not be allowed to be stopped/frozen/made inactive.