Difficulty scaling and end of level bosses

by Mr Danger, Scotland, Monday, April 01, 2013, 03:06 (4015 days ago)

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Hi DBO forums,

I was looking at the above GDC concept image that Staten kind of teased, and thought that the smoke coming from the ball/engine/weird alien artefact in the middle also looked like a giant hand reaching down to leech energy from it. Its got to be an End of Level boss!... Then I saw the lasers and thought probably not.

But it got me thinking about if anyone would want them or something like them. One of the things I loved about Halo was the lack of bosses It kept the universe consistent and more immersive(and hated it whenever it was broken with stuff like Tartarus's magic shield etc.) and ramped up the difficulty through enemy ranks/numbers and layout etc or just went and flipped the gameplay with a death race.

I can imagine end of level bosses being used to encourage co-op play, i.e they are doable solo, but not without alot of death and time compared to co-op which is where bungie are obviously aiming for the "funzone" to be.

But this brings up the issue of general difficulty and difficulty scaling. As anyone who has played through a game with 4 player co-op like the later Halo games or borderlands etc knows there is almost no difficulty to it without radically altering the game compared to single or even two player playthroughs.


So with 6 player co-op being always available if not required, how do we think Bungie will keep it from being either a cake walk or a instakill respawn grind? (and I am not sure if any game can be consistent challenge wise when it can go from single player to co-op with the press of an invite button).


Will it be a dip into dungeon bosses or something else like (I hope) a new high standard of enemy A.I. and tactics that has not been attempted before? Or possibly a "Skulls" style ramping up of difficulty the more players there are present or in your party. There is also the option of the borderlands approach where you can set you own difficulty level but and you do/take damage accordingly for greater or lesser reward.


P.S. I've been lurking around for about 10 years on HBO but i think this is my first post on a bungie.org forum so apologies if its not quite right but i hope the fact i've been pushed into posting tells how excited I am about destiny, haha.

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Difficulty scaling and end of level bosses

by Malagate @, Sea of Tranquility, Monday, April 01, 2013, 05:36 (4015 days ago) @ Mr Danger

Haha, Happy First Post!! Welcome to the conversation. :)

Personally, I'm a fan of boss fights. Bear in mind, the idea of space combat has been thrown around quite a bit, and judging from a lot of the technological and gameplay aspects from recent Bungie games (Reach's Long Night of Solace in particular), boss fights in all probability will be present, and could just as likely include strafing leviathan starships as battling massive creatures or particularly fearsome squads of enemies/vehicles on the ground.

We've already seen Bungie do massive creatures (the Gúta in Reach) as well as the Scarab battles in Halo 3, so we know they've got a bit of recent experience playing with that dynamic. I don't think a boss fight necessarily needs to break the general rules of a game's gameplay formula. It's probably unavoidable in this type of format. Chances are pretty good that we'll see a fair amount of wildlife or otherwise non-affiliated enemies appear in random mobs and such, but limiting the entire gamut of combat experiences to varying groups of standard enemies? I dunno.


Nothing quite like throwing your all at an enemy much bigger or more powerful than you, and having to trust your teammates to be right there in the thick of it with you.

Matter of fact, I can't think of a situation that "Be brave" fits better.

~M

Difficulty scaling and end of level bosses

by Mr Danger, Scotland, Monday, April 01, 2013, 07:19 (4015 days ago) @ Malagate

Mmmm, I do like the idea of big bosses that actually fit the universe and don't rely on some sort of bullet sponge or glowing red areas to be a challenge.

It will be interesting to see if they can have the balance nessesary to keep the whole game interesting no matter how many people or what difficulty everyone is playing on.

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Difficulty scaling and end of level bosses

by Jillybean, Monday, April 01, 2013, 14:56 (4015 days ago) @ Malagate

Scarab bosses are about the only kind of bosses I like. Halo 3's scarab fights were intense and you can go about them a hundred different ways, that is what makes them good boss fights.

I hate being railroaded into a playstyle. Give me the flexibility to choose my many deaths.

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Difficulty scaling and end of level bosses

by Malagate @, Sea of Tranquility, Tuesday, April 02, 2013, 05:13 (4014 days ago) @ Jillybean

I agree. Breaking the gameplay formula for a boss fight is bad form. Bestowing a superweapon that is only used at that time, for example.

~M

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Difficulty scaling and end of level bosses

by SonofMacPhisto @, Saturday, April 06, 2013, 13:27 (4010 days ago) @ Malagate

I agree. Breaking the gameplay formula for a boss fight is bad form. Bestowing a superweapon that is only used at that time, for example.

~M

Amen. After DX:HR, ME3, and Halo 4 I might just snap the disc of the game that does it next.

I wish there was more conscious discussion/effort in creating, what I like to call, Boss Situation (patent pending?). Like the massive fight to the Banshees, near the end of Two Betrayals. Bioshock: Infinite's final hurrah is another great example.

Welcome!

by Cold, Monday, April 01, 2013, 10:29 (4015 days ago) @ Mr Danger

This post will be about more of what I'm hoping for and less of what is currently speculated...

That said, I really like to think of Destiny (at this point) as a beautiful lovechild that was conceived during a wild night of partying between Halo, Borderlands and -insert generic MMORPG here-.

Hopefully, Destiny (why do I think of a stripper every time I type that?), will inherit the best characteristics of its party-going parents.

I would like to see:
the FPS perfection of Halo,
the story immersion, expansive loot and comradery of Borderlands,
and from the MMORPG genes I want ...instances. That's right, instances...

I'll reference vanilla WoW here, because that's the MMO that I am most familiar with. The best experiences of my time spent playing WoW were in instances. Coming together with a group of friends to take down foes that we had no hope of killing on our own (foes that added to the universe, not break it). I am not talking about raids. I don't want MC, Ony, BWL...40 man, week-long raids in Destiny. I want equivalents of 5-man BRD, Strath, Scholo, LBRS, UBRS ..doable in 30min to an hour. I want instances that progressively get harder. If your group cannot beat the first boss, then they cannot attempt the final boss. I also think these instances should have various difficulty settings with corresponding loot to accommodate the casual/inexperienced players and also the hardcore/veteran gamers (much like we've seen in the latest MMOs).

I know some people cringe at the word "instance", but it is a welcome addition in my mind, if handled correctly.

...Back to work :(.

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Difficulty scaling and end of level bosses

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, April 01, 2013, 13:21 (4015 days ago) @ Mr Danger

Probably some sort of scaling similar to what Diablo 2 did. The more players in the game, the tougher the monsters are. You could ramp up any number of things: unit designation, hit points, AI, etc.

Difficulty scaling and end of level bosses

by yakaman, Tuesday, April 02, 2013, 10:15 (4014 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Probably some sort of scaling similar to what Diablo 2 did. The more players in the game, the tougher the monsters are. You could ramp up any number of things: unit designation, hit points, AI, etc.

A good motivation to gather more friends for a fight would be the scale of things, especially if it was a non-linear increase. For the general population, a certain battle might be difficult but manageable, but for those chasing the ridiculous, gathering 10+ people (or whatever) might be mythic, utterly insane and nigh-impossible.

Something like that could be used as a gateway to cool items without being grind-based. To continue along those lines, one could imagine other scenarios in which the reward matched the challenge of the feat:

  • A solo run through something very difficult
  • A speed run through a dungeon/maze in which failure is death
  • An endurance challenge in which point X was held for 4 hours (or whatever)

There's a lot that could be done, here. I really don't like grinding, so boss battles or boss levels would be a great way to present (and reward) skill-based challenges, to bring the community together, and to create unique "legends".

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