Titanfall 2 = Concentrated coolness, outside of boss fights. (Gaming)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Monday, December 10, 2018, 15:15 (1955 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

There are ways to address this issue beyond adding more unique boss characters. The early Gears of War games did an admirable job of taking the same basic mechanics against the same set of enemies and repeatedly finding new, fresh, and exciting ways to contextualize it through different environments and set pieces. Halo, too. Destiny's many patrol spaces look different in superficial terms, but very few of them offer a unique gameplay experience compared to the other zones. You're usually doing the exact same thing over and over with a different skybox in the background. Again, that's a place where somebody early on needed to step in and say "for this mission, the player is going to be riding on a huge vehicle swarming with friendly NPCs, and its going to be a unique scenario unlike anything else in the game". Or "2 Scarabs. You heard me. 2 of them. I feel like those kinds of bold calls are largely missing from most of Destiny, with a few exceptions along the way. All that said, I do think things are improving on that end. The Dreaming City alone is a really special achievement, I think.

Not only was Titanfall 2's campaign specifically designed by collection of different groups coming up with cool concepts and setpieces, but the ideas behind all of the individual levels made up for the fact that every single boss fight (save for the very last) was essentially just a straightforward fight against a PvP-loadout Titan (with Ult hax).

In Destiny, all strikes are basically the same:
Run/Drive forward, fight off a wave or two, activate item/door, run forward more, defeat enemies to open door, run forward, fight big version of existing enemy with new trick.

There's no distinguishing moments to set them apart, and even the barons mostly play out the same way. Titanfall 2's campaign avoided all of this, as the level gimmicks are all distinct, the goal is never "find and fight this guy", and the small variety of enemies are thrown at you in different contexts, usually with elements of the level gimmick playing a big role in the encounters.
Fighting a Reaper and squad of soldiers on a floor-less level with sniper sightlines requires a completely different strategy than fighting a Reaper and squad of soldiers in a giant room that is constructing buildings and shifting the floor around, and then there's "Effect and Cause"...

But back to boss battles and planning, which is where Titanfall 2 faltered a bit. Enemies like Richter and Kane weren't great or memorable, because they were wholly removed from the level's gimmick, with nothing interesting to replace it. Viper and Slone, however, had unique mechanics throughout their fight that helped them stand out, even if they didn't implement their level's gimmick either. Ash was a pretty straightforward fight as well, but because the level's gimmick somewhat came into play, there was a bit more to take from it, so it could feel different or better than it was. Of course, if you just stayed in your Titan throughout the fight, you might miss out on that fact.

So yeah, the tacked-on boss fights featured a ton of missed opportunities, but the fact that they stuck out like sore thumbs is a testament to how the game could take the same generic handful of enemies, and stretch out the fun loop across an entire game, because the scenarios were interesting and varied. Halo 1 did that masterfully as well, and even that had subtle gimmicks, such as AotCR, where you're fighting the same enemies, but on a bridge with two levels, or running across an open field as wraiths bombard the space between you and a Warthog, or you walk through a room where half are sleeping and the others patrol. That game had zero dedicated boss fights, and certainly didn't have any "big" versions of an enemy.

I think Bungie has approached great bosses with stuff like Theosyion and Sedia. Neither fights had a boss that was just "This, but big, and also..."

Theosyion's fight was great because the strike's gimmick was to guide one of the Fireteam members through hordes of enemies so he could plant the orb and unlock a gate. This same mechanic played a huge part in the final fight.

Sedia's strike required careful platforming, and throwing the orb between teammates to do bonus damage and make the enemies vulnerable. The same mechanics were involved in the fight.

Protheon and the Psion Flayers were two other good fights, because even though the strike lacked a mechanic-based element, the level changed constantly, and the strikes had varied encounters (both had elements of verticality). Sure, Protheon was a big minotaur, but he didn't have to be. If the game universe hadn't already established Gate Lords, he could have been something completely new visually (or even a series of enemies), but rigged to a Minotaur skeleton, and nobody would have noticed.

(Obligatory Warframe)

Pretty much every boss in Warframe has started out as "Basic unit mesh with much more health, and they can...", but over time, DE has changed the encounter to have unique bosses, or multi-stage encounters:

Tyl Regor used to be a generic melee Grineer with an upside-down mask, now he has an entire level and custom model (still with upside-down mask), and his motivations are a part of the encounter and tileset (and he has unique enemies exclusive to the tileset).

Ambulas used to be a slightly bigger moa with a railgun. Now it's a boss fight where you disable several Ambulas units and hack them while a ship bombards you from low-atmosphere, and during normal missions, an Ambulas Moa can be dropped off by a dropship randomly.

Raptor was just a regular Osprey with high health and missiles, and now the "boss fight" involves destroying a factory production line, with Raptor-model Ospreys being manufactured throughout.

This all just reminds me of how Bungie removed the non-giant-boss Exodus Down for months while they worked on it, only to bring it back exactly the same, only with fewer waves. Yay.