Mega Boss Are nothing but wall of Hit Points

[xzar_monty]

 

 

Why is it in these kind of games, when you beat the toughest possible opponent you get an item which makes you more powerful?

 

 

Here's my answer: Because these games are mainly designed as escapist power fantasy for an incredibly conservative male audience who want precisely that and would get royally angry if it were any other way.

 

 

i'm a history and political science degree holder and i think youre over politicizing this

 

this new liberal gamer trend about shaming power fantasies in rpgs is asinine, go play games the way you want to i want to crush nazis with tanks **** you lol

 

 

I'm not sure what kind of discussion you're expecting to get with arguments and phrasing like that. You do realise, for instance, that your stance on "liberals" is only a fringe phenomenon in one small corner of the world? (There was also no shaming in what I wrote.)

Edited January 12, 2019 by xzar_monty

[daven]

Did you know there are ONLY 2 categories of people in the world. Dirty hippy lefties and nazis. You are either with them or against them... or something.

[Stealthmandem]

I like the idea if the Megabosses being more quest driven and like Eothos, threaten civilisation obviously to a lesser extent.

 

The quests should work towards build a weapon to exploit a weakness or finding knowledge regarding how to exploit their weaknesses if any. Without context, they are pretty boring.

[gloomseeker]

To be fair the male power fantasy thing works better with games where you can play a scantily clad female in third person view.

 

I haven't played the mega bosses yet (just started my second run the other day but didn't have time to get back into the game) but I would expect a mega boss to be somewhat of a challenge. 

 

There is a fine line between challenging and frustrating but if you don't get challenged you also don't get any sense of accomplishment from beating a boss. 

 

I mean in good old BG2 you could cheese your way to defeat Kangaxx the Demilich and make your life easier and I would expect there are some tricks to defeat bosses in Deadfire (but as I've said before I haven't played the DLC yet). 

 

 

I like the idea if the Megabosses being more quest driven and like Eothos, threaten civilisation obviously to a lesser extent.

The quests should work towards build a weapon to exploit a weakness or finding knowledge regarding how to exploit their weaknesses if any. Without context, they are pretty boring.

 

The problem is that the monster slaying weapon thing is a very common issue with Dungeon Masters with little experience. 

 

You want your players to feel a bit of a thrill so you end up putting a high level enemy (typically a dragon) but you still want them to be able to defeat the enemy so you give them the one thing that will give them a fighting chance (or even worse make the whole fight trivial). It's why in some adventures you get a dragon slaying weapon right next to the dragon's lair. 

 

The whole things is indeed a power fantasy but then as a Game Master you have to come up with a trick in order to take away the weapon so it doesn't ruin the campaign (presumably by making lose its magic) because you probably  don't want to have the party start a dragon slaying business. 

 

Although to be fair a nice twist would be to make the dragon slaying artefact act as a magnet not only for other (more powerful) dragons but also other would be dragon slayers and orders of knights who would do pretty much anything to get hold of that artefact.

Edited January 12, 2019 by gloomseeker

[xzar_monty]

To be fair the male power fantasy thing works better with games where you can play a scantily clad female in third person view.

 

I haven't played the mega bosses yet (just started my second run the other day but didn't have time to get back into the game) but I would expect a mega boss to be somewhat of a challenge. 

 

There is a fine line between challenging and frustrating but if you don't get challenged you also don't get any sense of accomplishment from beating a boss. 

 

I mean in good old BG2 you could cheese your way to defeat Kangaxx the Demilich and make your life easier and I would expect there are some tricks to defeat bosses in Deadfire (but as I've said before I haven't played the DLC yet). 

 

 

I just tried one of them, for the heck of it, knowing that I almost certainly couldn't beat it, given that I'm at level 14. That was indeed the case: I had absolutely no chance whatsoever. It was the steel thingie that I tried.

 

You make a good point there, and that's mainly why I replied. BG2 did indeed allow you to cheese many of the really hard fights, although I personally tried to avoid those tactics (for the simple reason that it does rather take away your sense of accomplishment, doesn't it?). Now, I'm not sure whether there are any special tricks for these bosses in Deadfire, but from what I've played the game, it seems to me that the system is clearly superior to that of BG2 in the sense that cheesing is generally harder. I could be wrong here, of course, but that's my rather strong impression so far.

 

In PoE1, I found only one way to defeat the adra dragon, and that was through using Gaze of the Adragan. I don't regard that as cheese at all, since it is a legitimate spell appropriately used, but I was left wondering how many other plausible ways there were. I tried a few approaches, and I tended to get roasted very quickly.

[Boeroer]

On a completely unrelated note Boeroer, what was the truth of Sonic's comment that had nothing wrong with it?

Can't remember. I just found it was one of the most nonsensical but at the same time funnily bizarre sentences I ever read.

[Boeroer]

I hold a science degree in being awesome - but nobody cares because my arguments are usually shyte.

Edited January 12, 2019 by Boeroer

[hilfazer]

You make a good point there, and that's mainly why I replied. BG2 did indeed allow you to cheese many of the really hard fights, although I personally tried to avoid those tactics (for the simple reason that it does rather take away your sense of accomplishment, doesn't it?). Now, I'm not sure whether there are any special tricks for these bosses in Deadfire, but from what I've played the game, it seems to me that the system is clearly superior to that of BG2 in the sense that cheesing is generally harder. I could be wrong here, of course, but that's my rather strong impression so far.

 

In PoE1, I found only one way to defeat the adra dragon, and that was through using Gaze of the Adragan. I don't regard that as cheese at all, since it is a legitimate spell appropriately used, but I was left wondering how many other plausible ways there were. I tried a few approaches, and I tended to get roasted very quickly.

Kill all monsters but dragon and two xaurip archers then use them to block the dragon. Kill Adra with ranged attacks while keeping distance.

[xzar_monty]

Wow! Interesting, thanks. I always ignored the xaurips until I got the dragon.

[Boeroer]

Why didn't you just charm it?

[hollerer]

My only problem with megabosses is that performance gets really bad in long fights and then it's playing is not fun anymore. Your micro gets screwed because when you click something, it doesn't choose it but perhaps moves a previously selected character in that location.

 

I like megabosses, because they still require some strategy to finish them.

[DozingDragon]

The large HP pools for the mega bosses is just another part of how each mega boss is a giant tactical puzzle, as the large HP pool necessitates a close eye on resource management for an extended battle.  If their HP pools were too low, they would be easy to steamroll by stacking DoTs and raw damage.  And in terms of player accommodation and accessibility, it is easy enough to lower the difficulty setting if someone just wants to "complete" the encounter.  Overall, it seems about right to me.  

[hollerer]

Another thing to point out about mega-bosses is that it's silly how tough AND hard to hit they are. This kind of combats are those where you go prepared. So might aswell think, I'm gonna waste all my gadgets, bombs and scrolls in this fight. But NO, all of the gadgets and bombs and scrolls MISS all the time and you end up using some very specific strategy to deal damage. Same goes with traps, ill make a big trap carpet, lure the boss over it and miss miss miss.

 

My main bombadier with 11 explosives had 0% accuracy to huani o whe with bombs.

[DozingDragon]

Hauani o Whe's lowest defense is Deflection, so that was probably the problem as explosives target the other three defenses.  There are plenty of ways to lower defenses that stack (weapon modals, abilities that lower defenses without applying an affliction, abilities that lower attributes without applying an affliction, and applying an affliction), and to increase your accuracy (equipment, consumables, and equipment).  However, it is fair to say that you normally do not have to go through all of that rigmarole and worry about stacking debuffs and buffs to just land hits against enemies during the rest of the game, but I suppose that's why this only comes up during the mega boss fights. 

[InsaneCommander]

My only problem with megabosses is that performance gets really bad in long fights and then it's playing is not fun anymore. Your micro gets screwed because when you click something, it doesn't choose it but perhaps moves a previously selected character in that location.

 

This just happened to me when fighting the Mega Ooze. But instead of one character, it moved the previously selected four characters. And they spawned so many lesser oozes that they ended up forming a massive or bigger one.

[anameforobsidian]

Here's my problem with the megabosses I've gone against: there's no narrative weight to the fight.  No talking.  No quest.  Just plop, here's a monster.  The Skydragon was part of a quest, the ardra dragon was alluded to multiple times, the ice dragon had a bit of flavor text and an interesting resolution.  The Llengrath fight was really cool, both in the dialogue before and the fight itself.

[AeonsLegend]

Wall of hitpoints? They learned from the best (50.0000.0000 HP):

 

Edit: this is probably the fastest you can clear this. I remember my wife took 4 hours or so killing it.

Edited January 20, 2019 by AeonsLegend

[InsaneCommander]

Here's my problem with the megabosses I've gone against: there's no narrative weight to the fight.  No talking.  No quest.  Just plop, here's a monster.  The Skydragon was part of a quest, the ardra dragon was alluded to multiple times, the ice dragon had a bit of flavor text and an interesting resolution.  The Llengrath fight was really cool, both in the dialogue before and the fight itself.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Instead of just going to an Island and finding the Megaboss, wouldn't it be much better if we heard of missing people or had an event finding a ship with survivors?

[DozingDragon]

Stronger narrative hooks would have been nice, but seeing as we got the four megabosses as free DLC, I suspect additional window-dressing like that was out of the question due to voiceover and localization costs.  

[house2fly]

There's the books, at least. I'm not sure where you can find them except at Sanza's store- maybe they turn up as loot?

[Boeroer]

Sorry - but 50.0000.0000?

 

That's not a proper format for a number.

 

Is it 50 million (going by dots) or 500 million (going by zeroes)?

[daven]

I only found out recently that Germans (and maybe others) use .'s instead of ,'s for the 000 separator.

 

It can be jarring seeing an invoice like that. 

[Boeroer]

Yeah - it's really annoying when developing software that displays lots of numbers and then having to localize it. Especially since in some countries they even mix both variants up (looking at you, Liechtenstein & Swizerland!). Good thing is that nowadays usually somebody else did that work for you. Still confusing though.

 

But in no country there are 4 zeroes between separators!

Edited January 21, 2019 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty]

I only found out recently that Germans (and maybe others) use .'s instead of ,'s for the 000 separator.

 

It can be jarring seeing an invoice like that. 

 

It's comparable to the metric system: nearly all countries use it, with the exception of some English-speaking ones who don't. For instance, when it comes to Canada, there's a difference in use of .'s and ,'s between English-speaking and French-speaking parts of the country. (Granted, here the distinction is not so clear, because Israel, for example, who use the metric system, are with the English-speaking countries in this one.)

 

@Boeroer: Four zeroes between separations is correct in China. So, curiously enough, that's a sizeable portion of the population of the planet, a lot more than English-speakers, for instance!

Edited January 21, 2019 by xzar_monty

[algroth]

Yeah - it's really annoying when developing software that displays lots of numbers and then having to localize it. Especially since in some countries they even mix both variants up (looking at you, Liechtenstein & Swizerland!). Good thing is that nowadays usually somebody else did that work for you. Still confusing though.

 

But in no country there are 4 zeroes between separators!

I was wondering if it was perhaps the case with Chinese and Japanese and so on since they tend to read numbers in sets of myriads instead of thousands, but apparently they too separate every thousand when writing in Arabic numerals.

 

Though actually the video states the boss has "over 50 million HP", so just a typo.

Edited January 21, 2019 by algroth