Would you like to see an end to Invulnerable phases on Bosses?

SilverBride

SilverBride

Yes

I feel that Invulnerable phases add nothing of interest to Boss fights and only serve to artificially prolong the fight.

The_Meathead

Yes

Oh my god, yes.

Tedious.

Tedious is the word for it. Time consumption isn't a challenge, it's just boring.

AzuraFan

Yes

Yes. They're tedious and prolong a fight in ways that aren't challenging or interesting. Just tedious.

The_Meathead

Yes

AzuraFan wrote: »

Yes. They're tedious and prolong a fight in ways that aren't challenging or interesting. Just tedious.

We didn't plan this, I swear.

Our synchronized swimming team will put out a Calendar in November, though, if anyone's interested.

Hapexamendios

Yes

I don't think the mechanic adds anything to a fight. It's just boring.

Parasaurolophus

Don't care

I don't see much difference from other mechanics. I think you understand that this is done to keep bosses alive for at least some time? This is done for new players and for casuals.

SilverBride

Yes

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I don't see much difference from other mechanics. I think you understand that this is done to keep bosses alive for at least some time? This is done for new players and for casuals.

I don't see how this helps new players and casuals, or how either would benefit from a prolonged flight.

Kikazaru

Yes

Yes, then some bosses won’t be able to finish their evil monologue speeches lol.

Theist_VII

Yes

I almost wish I voted “No” just to have my own category, can’t imagine there’s a single player on this game that enjoys being told to wait around. 😂

disky

No

I know this is a touchy subject for a lot of players but I really, honestly don't think it's a bad thing. It forces you to think about something else for a minute. If immunity phases were removed then a lot of attempts at adding interesting mechanics to the game would be broken and in a lot of cases players would be able to just rush down the boss' health bar until it was dead.

It bothers me that players so often ask for things to be as easy as possible. I don't want to delete the parts of the game that shake things up, I want more of them. I want to have to use my head and pay attention. One thing I *would* like to see is more in-game information about how to address a given situation, which frequently seems to be missing. The exception being actual puzzles, if they do ever show up in the game.

coop500

Yes

Please, namely world bosses and even the dang mirror incursions too!

For dungeons and trials though, I think they should stay.

Estin

Don't care

For bosses that don't have any mechanics, yeah, invulnerable phases aren't worth it. For bosses that have mechanics that must be done, keep them

disky

No

Estin wrote: »

For bosses that don't have any mechanics, yeah, invulnerable phases aren't worth it. For bosses that have mechanics that must be done, keep them

Forgive my ignorance, but which bosses have immunity phases with no mechanics attached? How often do we just stand around and wait for them to finish whatever they're doing without doing something ourselves?

OtarTheMad

Yes

I would love to see that and also resource drain mechanics. These seem to be just easy ways to make some boss fights harder without actually making them harder.

Erickson9610

No

The most entertaining boss fights are the ones which require the players to do something other than parse on them. Invulnerability phases are used to push the player to do some mechanics, hear some dialogue, or anything else that would make the boss fight more engaging and involved.

spartaxoxo

Yes

I want less immunity, not a complete removal. When it's used creatively to add real atmosphere and uniqueness to a fight, then I don't mind them or even like them e.g. Hollowjack hunting us.

But then there's times where it's clearly just done to completely waste our time like the Mirrormoor invasions. Those suck.

Stafford197

Yes

Invulnerability phases do have a part in creating cool boss fights. Like in Sunspire, dragon bosses fly around the battlefield and do mechanics while being invulnerable. It has to be clever and fun.

The problem is how recently bosses are created for the sole purpose of having random invulnerability phases which waste our time. It’s boring and really bad design… looking at the West Weald world bosses here….

SilverBride

Yes

disky wrote: »

It bothers me that players so often ask for things to be as easy as possible.

It bothers me that players ask for the game to become more difficult which completely ruins the experience for those that play to relax.

And these invulnerable phases do not make the Boss fights more difficult. They just prolong it and make it tedious.

A prime example of this is the Golden Road zone story Boss fights. The Boss becomes invulnerable and the player has to kill mobs coming out of a portal to charge their weapon, then when it's charged they use it on the portal to close it, then they do the same to the other portal in the room, then the Boss can be attacked for a few seconds before once again it's invulnerable and it starts over again, and this repeats a few more times until the Boss is finally defeated.

This is not challenging or rewarding... it's just tedious.

LunaFlora

Yes

Yes, all it does is lengthen fights which doesn't make it more fun (to me).

spartaxoxo

Yes

SilverBride wrote: »

The Boss becomes invulnerable and the player has to kill mobs coming out of a portal to charge their weapon, then when it's charged they use it on the portal to close it, then they do the same to the other portal in the room, then the Boss can be attacked for a few seconds before once again it's invulnerable and it starts over again, and this repeats a few more times until the Boss is finally defeated.

This is another big problem of the invulnerable phases, it's often so we can waste our time killing trash mobs. I'm also getting sick of excessive amounts of adds in the fights.

disky

No

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

It bothers me that players so often ask for things to be as easy as possible.

It bothers me that players ask for the game to become more difficult which completely ruins the experience for those that play to relax.

And these invulnerable phases do not make the Boss fights more difficult. They just prolong it and make it tedious.

A prime example of this is the Golden Road zone story Boss fights. The Boss becomes invulnerable and the player has to kill mobs coming out of a portal to charge their weapon, then when it's charged they use it on the portal to close it, then they do the same to the other portal in the room, then the Boss can be attacked for a few seconds before once again it's invulnerable and it starts over again, and this repeats a few more times until the Boss is finally defeated.

This is not challenging or rewarding... it's just tedious.

Then would you be okay with ZOS increasing the health of the boss to compensate, so that you can attack it while other players have to destroy the adds? That sounds fine to me, but I gather you wouldn't like it.

They could certainly also do more interesting things instead of "go fight this other guy for a second" while the immunity phases are in-effect, but again, we arrive at the problem of not wanting to actually do anything other than attack the big bad.

spartaxoxo

Yes

disky wrote: »

They could certainly also do more interesting things instead of "go fight this other guy for a second" while the immunity phases are in-effect, but again, we arrive at the problem of not wanting to actually do anything other than attack the big bad.

I can't speak for others but I find that type of thing more enjoyable than just immunity for add phases. I really enjoyed the Hollowjack fight. I also like the fight in one of the dungeons where you gotta eat sweet rolls near you because you're a goat. It's the lack of creativity and time wasting that makes these fights so unpleasant imo.

If all the boss is going to do is trash talk and shoot stuff at me, then just let me kill him.

SilverBride

Yes

disky wrote: »

Then would you be okay with ZOS increasing the health of the boss to compensate, so that you can attack it while other players have to destroy the adds? That sounds fine to me, but I gather you wouldn't like it.

No I wouldn't be ok with an increase in difficulty because it ruins the experience for those that can no longer defeat these Bosses then. But that is a completely different debate and not what this poll is asking.

disky

No

spartaxoxo wrote: »

disky wrote: »

They could certainly also do more interesting things instead of "go fight this other guy for a second" while the immunity phases are in-effect, but again, we arrive at the problem of not wanting to actually do anything other than attack the big bad.

I can't speak for others but I find that type of thing more enjoyable than just immunity for add phases. I really enjoyed the Hollowjack fight. I also like the fight in one of the dungeons where you gotta eat sweet rolls near you're a goat. It's the lack of creativity and time wasting that makes these fights so unpleasant imo.

If all the boss is going to do is trash talk and shoot stuff at me, then just let me kill him.

So then the real problem, for some people at least, is just that the immunity phases need to be more fun.

Joy_Division

Yes

disky wrote: »

I know this is a touchy subject for a lot of players but I really, honestly don't think it's a bad thing. It forces you to think about something else for a minute. If immunity phases were removed then a lot of attempts at adding interesting mechanics to the game would be broken and in a lot of cases players would be able to just rush down the boss' health bar until it was dead.

It bothers me that players so often ask for things to be as easy as possible. I don't want to delete the parts of the game that shake things up, I want more of them. I want to have to use my head and pay attention. One thing I *would* like to see is more in-game information about how to address a given situation, which frequently seems to be missing. The exception being actual puzzles, if they do ever show up in the game.

It's not that it's touchy, rather it's a contrived and artificial means to achieve the ends you want. I don't want the boss to be easy. But I also don't want the devs to just neuter my abilities simply because they can't think of something that might incentivize me to do something else besides rushing down a boss's health bar.

SilverBride

Yes

Why can't other things go on without the Boss becoming invulnerable for over half of the fight? These phases are way too frequent and last way too long.

Why can't it be something like the player has to kite the Boss to a certain object on the ground to damage them, and this object glows when it's active, and there are several of these scattered around the room and each does a different type of damage to the Boss and the player can only damage them when they are near one of these, and they are only active for so long then they stop glowing and another becomes active?

The Boss wouldn't be invulnerable for a predictable set amount of time but rather the player has some control over how fast they can kite them to the right spots and do more damage. That would take some thinking and would be way more fun than what we have now.

disky

No

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

Then would you be okay with ZOS increasing the health of the boss to compensate, so that you can attack it while other players have to destroy the adds? That sounds fine to me, but I gather you wouldn't like it.

No I wouldn't be ok with an increase in difficulty because it ruins the experience for those that can no longer defeat these Bosses then. But that is a completely different debate and not what this poll is asking.

It just sounds like you want an easy mode for bosses, then. Frankly, if there is a reason to have immunity phases I think the fact that they act as a barrier to the encounter being too easy is it. The game is already staggeringly easy for a lot of players, and if ZOS continues to remove challenge elements without anything else to fill the challenge gap then there are fewer and fewer reasons for challenge-motivated players to stick around. I think they should focus on making those challenge elements more fun/interesting, not remove them because a portion of players don't like them as they currently are.

Removing tedium is one thing, but I think we're failing to consider the real reason those phases exist, and by getting rid of them entirely we're missing an opportunity to ask for something better.

disky

No

Joy_Division wrote: »

disky wrote: »

I know this is a touchy subject for a lot of players but I really, honestly don't think it's a bad thing. It forces you to think about something else for a minute. If immunity phases were removed then a lot of attempts at adding interesting mechanics to the game would be broken and in a lot of cases players would be able to just rush down the boss' health bar until it was dead.

It bothers me that players so often ask for things to be as easy as possible. I don't want to delete the parts of the game that shake things up, I want more of them. I want to have to use my head and pay attention. One thing I *would* like to see is more in-game information about how to address a given situation, which frequently seems to be missing. The exception being actual puzzles, if they do ever show up in the game.

It's not that it's touchy, rather it's a contrived and artificial means to achieve the ends you want. I don't want the boss to be easy. But I also don't want the devs to just neuter my abilities simply because they can't think of something that might incentivize me to do something else besides rushing down a boss's health bar.

I think it's all about how the phase is presented to the player and the action they have to take during the phase which makes it tedious. I also think boss fights with immunity phases are designed to be roughly as long as fights without them and their defensive capabilities and health pools are probably also toned down. I also -also- think that because of these factors, immunity phases are perceived as tedious due to the negative psychological effect of having to stop, do something else and then start again, and that could be relieved somewhat by different mechanics.

SilverBride

Yes

disky wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

disky wrote: »

Then would you be okay with ZOS increasing the health of the boss to compensate, so that you can attack it while other players have to destroy the adds? That sounds fine to me, but I gather you wouldn't like it.

No I wouldn't be ok with an increase in difficulty because it ruins the experience for those that can no longer defeat these Bosses then. But that is a completely different debate and not what this poll is asking.

It just sounds like you want an easy mode for bosses, then.

That is not what I said or what I want, and I will not get into a debate over difficulty in this poll.

My post above gives a good example of what I'd like to see, which would be options to put an end to the tedium.

disky

No

SilverBride wrote: »

Why can't other things go on without the Boss becoming invulnerable for over half of the fight? These phases are way too frequent and last way too long.

Why can't it be something like the player has to kite the Boss to a certain object on the ground to damage them, and this object glows when it's active, and there are several of these scattered around the room and each does a different type of damage to the Boss and the player can only damage them when they are near one of these, and they are only active for so long then they stop glowing and another becomes active?

The Boss wouldn't be invulnerable for a predictable set amount of time but rather the player has some control over how fast they can kite them to the right spots and do more damage. That would take some thinking and would be way more fun than what we have now.

They can, it's just that the health pool and/or defensive abilities of a boss which normally has an immunity phase would need to be increased so that the fight is roughly as long as it was when the immunity phases were part of the fight. I really don't think ZOS is making those fights longer than other fights, players just perceive them to be more tedious because of the immunity mechanic.