Sweeper bosses, how to keep it exciting with 4 players or 20+

HeroOfNone

As @ZOS_BrianWheeler the other night on stream, the sweeper bosses are an exciting new concept that are a challenge for small groups but when large groups come in they kind of roll over it and don't have much challenge. Salling up damage can be a tricky issue because the more you increase it and the less/weaker players join in, then the more difficult the challenge. I've seen this in warhammer online (the Colossus of the Vulture Lord) & in Guild Wars 2 (Tequatl the sunless) where just increasin the health & damage ruins the fight (plus makes you hate your alliance).

A few ways to increase the scale of the fight
More spawns - more players means more adds to contend with. Issue here is any unprepared aoe trying to go after enemis will normally make them all track on one player that kites them around. I would like to think at some point you could even get waves of adds, some with loot, to give more incentive to large fights.
More bosses - while having one boss per zone is predictable and nice, the potential of having snother for twice the challenge and double the loot would be fun as well, assuming you can handle all of them!
More AoE longer AoE- potentially annoying when it's at your bass, more aoe would force groups to spread out more. Little reason to increase damage, it's almost a 1 shot now.
Damage shields stacked periodically based on number of attackers - different than a health increase, this would give more of a shield the more join in during the course of a fight. Difference here is you won't lose progress and folks will find it harder to exploit a boss. This also means the more that leave, the less the shield. Example 1: group 4 man's the boss to 25% and 10 people show up to fight it, the health would jump to 50% or such and out of execute range. Example 2: a group sends out a 4 man group to tag a boss to get it to 95%, then join in to fight a 4 man scaled boss.
Added abilities - I'm always a fan of mutating tactics on bosses to keep it interesting, and could see the same here. When certain thresholds hit, new abilities are tossed out to offer more challenge.
The Flesh Atronach in memorial district for example might start doing large cone sweeps between hits. Maybe launch fireballs at folks in the back lines.
The Lich in the temple district (I think?) could periodic ly become immune to ranges, then melee, than AOE effects, forcing changes in damage.
The Clanfear in the nobles district (I think?) Could do additional leap attacks with random locations with a ground pound
The Daedroth in the arena might have a roar to give fear to a massive group
The Spider daedra in the arboretum could web up and pull in random players to free
The Watcher eye in... someplace (can't remember, sorry!) Might have a petrify effect on any caught in its gaze


These are just a few thoughts off the top of my head, so how would you make some of these fights challenging and fun for 4 people or 30 people?

ToRelax

The sweepers are annoying enough, wich is their purpose I believe?
We can't expect them to just kill zergs (although that would still be nice ) and other than that everyone tries to stay away from them or use them against the enemy.

HeroOfNone

ToRelax wrote: »

The sweepers are annoying enough, wich is their purpose I believe?
We can't expect them to just kill zergs (although that would still be nice ) and other than that everyone tries to stay away from them or use them against the enemy.

they may be annoying to kill in small groups, but to large groups they can kill them pretty easily. the point is to give a bit more risk and challenge to those large groups while still making them entertaining. otherwise the fights are just "get a big group and roll through" without much thought. lets keep the challenge there and not make these easy fights =3

ToRelax

HeroOfNone wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

The sweepers are annoying enough, wich is their purpose I believe?
We can't expect them to just kill zergs (although that would still be nice ) and other than that everyone tries to stay away from them or use them against the enemy.

they may be annoying to kill in small groups, but to large groups they can kill them pretty easily. the point is to give a bit more risk and challenge to those large groups while still making them entertaining. otherwise the fights are just "get a big group and roll through" without much thought. lets keep the challenge there and not make these easy fights =3

I don't mind a challenge where it does not exist yet, but that still means your ideas should make sure they don't become even more dangerous to small groups, they are already deadly often.

HeroOfNone

ToRelax wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

The sweepers are annoying enough, wich is their purpose I believe?
We can't expect them to just kill zergs (although that would still be nice ) and other than that everyone tries to stay away from them or use them against the enemy.

they may be annoying to kill in small groups, but to large groups they can kill them pretty easily. the point is to give a bit more risk and challenge to those large groups while still making them entertaining. otherwise the fights are just "get a big group and roll through" without much thought. lets keep the challenge there and not make these easy fights =3

I don't mind a challenge where it does not exist yet, but that still means your ideas should make sure they don't become even more dangerous to small groups, they are already deadly often.

If done properly this wouldn't affect small groups. Just large zergs in the area

tinythinker

A similar kind of idea posted elsewhere...

Maybe make the major district bosses scale number of adds summoned/damage of boss scale to number of players in its area of reaction/aggro range?

For every player over ten increase the damage of the boss attacks by 2%.

Fifteen players in range=10% more damage.
Twenty players in range=20% more damage.
Twenty-five players in range=30% more damage.
Thirty players in range=40% more damage.

Given how hard the sweeper bosses hit already, big groups (with healing in Cyro being nerfed) would not fare well.

Contraptions

I would rather they have mechanics that scale according to the number of people around. Eg. one add or AOE for each player within a certain radius, or a certain special attack will hit 1 out of 3 or 4 people fighting it.

I would rather the mechanics also force interesting interactions between players, both friendly and enemy. Imagine the boss puts a high damage Prox Det style manabomb on a player (like during the Serpent fight). Now, in a PVE situation you would just deplete your mana and save yourself and your temmates, but now the player can choose - should I play safe and save myself and my teammates? Or keep my magicka high and charge into my enemies and blow them up instead, although potentially sacrificing myself? Suddenly what is a negative boss mechanic can be turned against your enemies as well.

Or the beam mechanic from Gamyne Bandu (FG second boss). If I get tethered to my enemy, should I run away and break the beam? Or chase him down and let the DOT assist me in finishing him off (knowing that the DOT applies to me as well)?

Or even something as simple as a unbreakable stun mechanic that needs your teammates to save you (ala the cocoon from COH second boss or the SO lamia boss) Will I risk saving my teammate, exposing myself to both the boss and enemy players? Or will I take this chance to get another player back into the fight?

Or an "you're it" mechanic, where the boss will mark one player for death and only focus its attacks and AOEs on that person. Bashing an enemy will pass "it" to that person, and so on.

So many ways to make this interesting - kiting AOEs into the enemy, facing the boss' conal attacks towards the enemy, and much more. Instead what we get is boring "avoid AOE, kill adds" fights. pff.

HeroOfNone

tinythinker wrote: »

A similar kind of idea posted elsewhere...

Maybe make the major district bosses scale number of adds summoned/damage of boss scale to number of players in its area of reaction/aggro range?

For every player over ten increase the damage of the boss attacks by 2%.

Fifteen players in range=10% more damage.
Twenty players in range=20% more damage.
Twenty-five players in range=30% more damage.
Thirty players in range=40% more damage.

Given how hard the sweeper bosses hit already, big groups (with healing in Cyro being nerfed) would not fare well.

As I pointed out though, just stacking on damage and health just serves to get you pissed off at your own alliance for trying to help. In addition, with the way most hit now that would result in a lot of one shots on healers and DPS.

Contraptions wrote: »

I would rather they have mechanics that scale according to the number of people around. Eg. one add or AOE for each player within a certain radius, or a certain special attack will hit 1 out of 3 or 4 people fighting it.

I would rather the mechanics also force interesting interactions between players, both friendly and enemy. Imagine the boss puts a high damage Prox Det style manabomb on a player (like during the Serpent fight). Now, in a PVE situation you would just deplete your mana and save yourself and your temmates, but now the player can choose - should I play safe and save myself and my teammates? Or keep my magicka high and charge into my enemies and blow them up instead, although potentially sacrificing myself? Suddenly what is a negative boss mechanic can be turned against your enemies as well.

Or the beam mechanic from Gamyne Bandu (FG second boss). If I get tethered to my enemy, should I run away and break the beam? Or chase him down and let the DOT assist me in finishing him off (knowing that the DOT applies to me as well)?

Or even something as simple as a unbreakable stun mechanic that needs your teammates to save you (ala the cocoon from COH second boss or the SO lamia boss) Will I risk saving my teammate, exposing myself to both the boss and enemy players? Or will I take this chance to get another player back into the fight?

Or an "you're it" mechanic, where the boss will mark one player for death and only focus its attacks and AOEs on that person. Bashing an enemy will pass "it" to that person, and so on.

So many ways to make this interesting - kiting AOEs into the enemy, facing the boss' conal attacks towards the enemy, and much more. Instead what we get is boring "avoid AOE, kill adds" fights. pff.

Yeah the numbers for when to increase are up for debate as wll. Maybe every + 4 players means a new mechanic or so?

Docmandu

FYI some games dynamically scale mobs depending on number of players around / hitting it. (ie. DAoC did this)

HeroOfNone

Docmandu wrote: »

FYI some games dynamically scale mobs depending on number of players around / hitting it. (ie. DAoC did this)

Warhammer online and GW2 did as well, though had isues i illustrated with the more players that showed up, the harder the fight, which lead to a lot of in fighting on how many came in. It was a hard balancing act how many you wanted for a buffed up reward but not have to spend and hour of play whacking a mob that could one shot you.

Darlgon

HeroOfNone wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

The sweepers are annoying enough, wich is their purpose I believe?
We can't expect them to just kill zergs (although that would still be nice ) and other than that everyone tries to stay away from them or use them against the enemy.

they may be annoying to kill in small groups, but to large groups they can kill them pretty easily. the point is to give a bit more risk and challenge to those large groups while still making them entertaining. otherwise the fights are just "get a big group and roll through" without much thought. lets keep the challenge there and not make these easy fights =3

I don't mind a challenge where it does not exist yet, but that still means your ideas should make sure they don't become even more dangerous to small groups, they are already deadly often.

If done properly this wouldn't affect small groups. Just large zergs in the area

As you illustrated, its much more easily done improperly.

HeroOfNone

Darlgon wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

The sweepers are annoying enough, wich is their purpose I believe?
We can't expect them to just kill zergs (although that would still be nice ) and other than that everyone tries to stay away from them or use them against the enemy.

they may be annoying to kill in small groups, but to large groups they can kill them pretty easily. the point is to give a bit more risk and challenge to those large groups while still making them entertaining. otherwise the fights are just "get a big group and roll through" without much thought. lets keep the challenge there and not make these easy fights =3

I don't mind a challenge where it does not exist yet, but that still means your ideas should make sure they don't become even more dangerous to small groups, they are already deadly often.

If done properly this wouldn't affect small groups. Just large zergs in the area

As you illustrated, its much more easily done improperly.

That includes making the fight easy for a large group =3. I've done the open world boss grinds in other MMOs, nothing sadder than an awesome boss that takes less than a minute to kill due to a player tide.

SeptimusDova

Give sweepers three abilities that do not have a cool down

ones we hate

like say

Jabs

Dawnbreaker of Smiting

and Flying Blade

All going off at once.

This in addition to whatever its favorite things are.

lucian_banneb18_ESO

The "scaling" mechanic already exists in Dark Anchors (the more ppl join, the more mobs spawn, the longer it takes"...
I've seen large groups of players wipe at some anchors because they did not coordinate.