Enough with Boss immunity phases

Hapexamendios

I completely agree. I think immunity phases are an outdated mechanic that should be abolished. In my opinion they don't add anything to gameplay and are just time wasters.

SilverBride

This is what happens when players complain that bosses are defeated too fast.

spartaxoxo

I think it's good for story bosses so you can actually hear the boss dialogue. Trials also work well because they can allow for more complicated fights because they actually do something with that immunity phase. But, it doesn't need to be so common with every other type of boss. I don't need to hit an immunity phase every day because I'm doing boss dailies.

ElderSmitter

I assume this is how they deal with Power Creep

RomanRex

100% agree with OP.

It’s not fun. More “time” in game which they love to brag about, but we all hate to experience.

I’m sure they love every extra minute they can suck out of us for the spreadsheet they turn in to their mid-level manager.

SpiritKitten

I've wasted so many ultimates on the sudden immunity phase.

colossalvoids

Lazy design 101. Instead of proper balancing / scaling or introduction of difficulty just prolong the fights with immunity, ez no complaints bout boss can't finish his lines (still zero engagement).

alpha_synuclein

SilverBride wrote: »

This is what happens when players complain that bosses are defeated too fast.

No, that is what happens when zos hear what they want to hear instead of what we're saying.

There's a reason why Lair of Maarselok is the least favourite dungeon for so many players

prof-dracko

I feel like the immunity phases are to give more players a chance to interact before the boss is butned down. The amount of times I ran to a geyser or anchor just as the boss spawned only to see it burned before I can reach it is in the dozens. Never happened with the portals or incursions so far.

amig186

kargen27 wrote: »

amig186 wrote: »

I think the Mirrormoor incursion is the best example, the boss becomes immune, then the valks show up, then they become immune and you can attack the boss, then the boss becomes immune again and the valks appear again.. it's just padding. It's especially annoying when you're trying to set up your dots and debuffs and have to switch targets and do it over again, because it just became immune. That said, I got used to it and just go for quick damage instead.

I don't mind the immunity because there needs to be something to extend the fight and the other answer seems to be layer upon layer of AOEs and one shots. At least this way a melee character can contribute.

I would argue that it makes it worse for melee characters (which is what I use). A ranged one can easily switch targets, often by the time I jump on a target it's already immune and I have to locate the one that isn't. For incursions I have to resort to using spear shards, potl and zapping targets well outside of execute range with templar beam to get any damage in before they get burned down to their immune state. I don't see this kind of, pardon the term, cockblocking in events like harrowstorms or dragon hunts where I can melee everything without issue (except the dragon when it perches I guess).

robpr

And there is that one shard collosus boss that also heals itself.

xylena_lazarow

SilverBride wrote: »

This is what happens when players complain that bosses are defeated too fast.

Worst way to solve the issue. I'll take "fun but short" over "long boring waiting" any day.

davidtk

amig186 wrote: »

I think the Mirrormoor incursion is the best example, the boss becomes immune, then the valks show up, then they become immune and you can attack the boss, then the boss becomes immune again and the valks appear again.. it's just padding. It's especially annoying when you're trying to set up your dots and debuffs and have to switch targets and do it over again, because it just became immune. That said, I got used to it and just go for quick damage instead.

kargen27 wrote: »

I don't mind the immunity because there needs to be something to extend the fight and the other answer seems to be layer upon layer of AOEs and one shots. At least this way a melee character can contribute.

Mirrormoor incursion... I would just like to add that right here is one Walkynaz with cast mechanics. He shield himself and needs to be bash by someone. Bash is taught in the tutorial for new players and experienced players should know this. (Although more and more often people don't do it, someone else will do it, even if it makes the fight take longer)
Otherwise, if there is someone with a taunt or tank, leave them all in one place, dmg will do AOE. But if some "tank" is running all over the field with them it's hard. I have an IA "tanky" build and I keep them all together at the boss so they can be destroyed nicely with AoE and the best is when a super tank pulls them out of ultimates...

Elsonso

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

This is what happens when players complain that bosses are defeated too fast.

No, that is what happens when zos hear what they want to hear instead of what we're saying.

No, my thinking that it is because players have been complaining in the the Overland thread about the game being too easy.

I see adding extended immunity phases to be a way to accomplish harder bosses. It seems obvious to me. Players complain that the bosses get burned down before they can get their snarky "you'll never kill me!" speech out. If the players can't actually damage the boss, the boss has plenty of time to verbally taunt the players before they die.

Part of the problem is that some of those bosses can do damage while they are immune, which is just cheating. They might as well be standing up on a cliff outside of our range raining AoE down where we are standing. I really don't like fighting the Hand of God.

The other problem is that some bosses don't have a reliable visual clue that they are immune. The only reliable means to tell if the boss is immune is to look all the way up at the top to see if they have the gold health bar. If there is another way, I have been too busy in combat to notice. Too subtle.

Aside: I have not decided what I think about the random teleportation to get away from player attacks, yet. It is on the annoying side of the scale. The bosses already act like they have attention problems, running from player to player. Maybe them teleporting all over the place is just Boss Derangement Syndrome.

I find boss fights to be challenging when there is a lot going on. Incoming overlapping AoE fields that matter and adds coming in behind me and from the sides that force my attention away from the boss. One shots, immunity, and teleportation don't really impress me that much. It is more annoying than challenging.

TybaltKaine

"Bosses are too easy"

Immunity phases

"Immunity phases are pointless and a waste of time"

Nerf every damage set into the ground and buff Boss HP by 80%

Be careful what you wish for.

Veinblood1965

OMG I have thought this so often, especially the freaking portal main boss in the deadlands and blackwood. They freaking go immune every two seconds.

xclassgaming

every boss has a immunity phase with ads in this chapter and it got old extremely fast once i realised

Necrotech_Master

i can understand wanting the fight to last a bit longer, but every 25% hp or so it just gets annoying

theres 2 other ways that they could make the boss live longer without immune phases: more hp, or more flat dmg reduction

but both of these have problems of their own

sure you could change the boss from 10 mil to 300 mil hp, but if your solo or small group, is going to take a very long time to burn the boss down (it would be like falgravn HM (who has 297 mil hp), but hitting as hard as he does on normal), which would also amount to a really boring fight unless you had a "zerg" of people to burn it down in reasonable time

an example of that basically is soloing one of the wandering WBs from other zones, such as the spriggan in galen or the havocrels in the deadlands (because theres less people doing both), those bosses have 10 mil hp and as a solo player with a companion take a good amount of time to whittle down, but they disintegrate if theres 20-30 people trying to fight them

dmg reduction is the other method, but again doesnt really make the fight harder, it just takes longer (this can be seen in fungal grotto 2 with the boss with the 3 spider pets, each spider pet killed gives her 30% dmg mitigation, stacking per spider, so at max its about 90% dmg mitigation if all 3 spiders die before she does)

her dmg output is not high, but it takes significantly longer to burn her when shes got so much mitigation

the general problem with MMO bosses is that they are mostly scripted so they arent really "dynamic" and have a very predictable set of fighting patterns, and the easiest ways to make encounters harder is "add more hp or dmg reduction" and "add more dmg"

this is one of the reasons that people get into pvp, because other players present far higher challenge than any pve content

Foxtrot39

Should have taken inspiration of Walks-Like-Thunder and have a strong healing phase you gotta destroy specific adds/static object quickly to prevent or mitigate it

At least he's not invincible

Or make only specifics adds (not HP punchbags preferably) grant the boss immunity while alive rather than time gating the only window of opportunity to do anything

Elsonso

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Should have taken inspiration of Walks-Like-Thunder and have a strong healing phase you gotta destroy specific adds/static object quickly to prevent or mitigate it

Ultimately, bosses die because they are as dumb as a bag of rocks. Healing and immunity phases just add potentially frustrating delays to the process. They do not change the ultimate outcome.

Anyone who wants real challenge in their combat needs to spend more time in Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds.

Necrotech_Master

Elsonso wrote: »

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Should have taken inspiration of Walks-Like-Thunder and have a strong healing phase you gotta destroy specific adds/static object quickly to prevent or mitigate it

Ultimately, bosses die because they are as dumb as a bag of rocks. Healing and immunity phases just add potentially frustrating delays to the process. They do not change the ultimate outcome.

Anyone who wants real challenge in their combat needs to spend more time in Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds.

personally i think one of the most challenging WB encounters to solo is https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Ri'Atahrashi

he has no immunity phases by himself, but the adds present a major problem when fighting him solo, because you cannot easily burn them before they start their fire circles (and if you have ANY dots going when that happens, you will get nuked)

obviously he melts when theres a large gathering of players which is fine, i think most of the subject of challenging WBs come more from a solo/small group perspective

jaws343

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Should have taken inspiration of Walks-Like-Thunder and have a strong healing phase you gotta destroy specific adds/static object quickly to prevent or mitigate it

Ultimately, bosses die because they are as dumb as a bag of rocks. Healing and immunity phases just add potentially frustrating delays to the process. They do not change the ultimate outcome.

Anyone who wants real challenge in their combat needs to spend more time in Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds.

personally i think one of the most challenging WB encounters to solo is https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Ri'Atahrashi

he has no immunity phases by himself, but the adds present a major problem when fighting him solo, because you cannot easily burn them before they start their fire circles (and if you have ANY dots going when that happens, you will get nuked)

obviously he melts when theres a large gathering of players which is fine, i think most of the subject of challenging WBs come more from a solo/small group perspective

I actually think he is easier solo than with a random group. You can single target him and as long as you don't AOE the ads, they don't do their major damage attacks.

Necrotech_Master

jaws343 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Should have taken inspiration of Walks-Like-Thunder and have a strong healing phase you gotta destroy specific adds/static object quickly to prevent or mitigate it

Ultimately, bosses die because they are as dumb as a bag of rocks. Healing and immunity phases just add potentially frustrating delays to the process. They do not change the ultimate outcome.

Anyone who wants real challenge in their combat needs to spend more time in Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds.

personally i think one of the most challenging WB encounters to solo is https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Ri'Atahrashi

he has no immunity phases by himself, but the adds present a major problem when fighting him solo, because you cannot easily burn them before they start their fire circles (and if you have ANY dots going when that happens, you will get nuked)

obviously he melts when theres a large gathering of players which is fine, i think most of the subject of challenging WBs come more from a solo/small group perspective

I actually think he is easier solo than with a random group. You can single target him and as long as you don't AOE the ads, they don't do their major damage attacks.

from when ive fought him, the adds will always end up going to the fire ring mode, even if you hit them very little

its also challenging when a lot of your builds are built for aoe dmg lol, its the one time ive had to take off my leeching plate because if that gets put under an add, im gonna get nuked lol

AnduinTryggva

DuskShard wrote: »

Delves, incursions, overland, raid...In this chapter, it seems like bosses in every type of content have an immunity phase. It is so annoying. New players will just struggle more during the phase and veterans will see it as a waste of time. It serves literally no other purpose than making the fight longer when it shouldn't be if the group is good enough.

I understand the reason for your rant. As a veteran but average player I still can share your feeling with respect to some of the bosses.

However, as I have also some low level toons I am quite happy to have a few seconds respite where I can deal with the mobs without the need to take care of the boss.

So I think it is a bit of a coin with two sides.

As a compromise we could get a side mechanic that can remove the immunity from the boss in a quick manner instantly. As such you can always chose to shorten that phase or play it thru.

KlauthWarthog

Immunity phases are as interesting as whatever it is you get to do during them.

On Frostvault, you get examples of both a good one and a pointless one.
The pointless one is from the Vault Protector - you have to kill a couple mobs and hide behind the boss for a fixed amount of time. Dull and boring.
The good one is from the Stonekeeper, the skeevaton phases. You have to navigate an interesting environment, deal with some environmental hazards and manage unique skills, and you have a good amount of control over how long it takes. It does get old if you are farming the place, but it is still far more interesting than the standard.

But, regardless of how interesting the side mechanic is, overusing immunity phases just makes the game dull.

Calastir

Calastir wrote: »

Combined with the often unresponsive controls, lag spikes, stun spamming and massive insta-kill damage enemies deal it feels like the engine is just plain cheating.

Took on Fall's Glade boss this morning with 3 other lvl 50 players, which should've been easy. But just after we'd passed all the endless immunity phases to finally finish the fight, for some unknown reason we were all pinned down to death so the boss could reset himself. Now I'm convinced. The engine is just plain cheating now, especially the West Weald bosses.

Orbital78

There are most likely loads of people doing incursions for the event later today. That is the only time I could see it being useful.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

It does not help for the immersion factor either,

But the Vestige overpowers Ithelia who is a God

and some random World Boss becomes immune to them skills that let them do that?

alpha_synuclein

Elsonso wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

This is what happens when players complain that bosses are defeated too fast.

No, that is what happens when zos hear what they want to hear instead of what we're saying.

No, my thinking that it is because players have been complaining in the the Overland thread about the game being too easy.

I see adding extended immunity phases to be a way to accomplish harder bosses. It seems obvious to me. Players complain that the bosses get burned down before they can get their snarky "you'll never kill me!" speech out. If the players can't actually damage the boss, the boss has plenty of time to verbally taunt the players before they die.

Part of the problem is that some of those bosses can do damage while they are immune, which is just cheating. They might as well be standing up on a cliff outside of our range raining AoE down where we are standing. I really don't like fighting the Hand of God.

The other problem is that some bosses don't have a reliable visual clue that they are immune. The only reliable means to tell if the boss is immune is to look all the way up at the top to see if they have the gold health bar. If there is another way, I have been too busy in combat to notice. Too subtle.

Aside: I have not decided what I think about the random teleportation to get away from player attacks, yet. It is on the annoying side of the scale. The bosses already act like they have attention problems, running from player to player. Maybe them teleporting all over the place is just Boss Derangement Syndrome.

I find boss fights to be challenging when there is a lot going on. Incoming overlapping AoE fields that matter and adds coming in behind me and from the sides that force my attention away from the boss. One shots, immunity, and teleportation don't really impress me that much. It is more annoying than challenging.

Those are very good points, but I think we have two separate issues here.

First, the immunity phase option became a bit overused recently.
Look at dragons in Elsweyr. They have very obvious immunity phases, yet you don't hear much complains about them. Maybe it's because when they were introduced the immunity phases were not as prevalent?
Also, flying up goes with the character of the dragon as an enemy, so it doesn't feel artificial and out of place.

Second, the immunity phase won't bother people so much if they have something interesting to do while it happens. More interesting than mindlessly mowing bunch of add waves.
Let's take dungeon example, the laser boss from Frostvault. It becomes immune several times during the fight, but between additional enemies with interrupt mechanic and the positioning restraint coming from the necessity to avoid lasers, the fight was an interesting one. Then they nerf the adds and the lasers to a point where they no longer so much of a threat and the fight become quite boring one with immunity phase that feels pointless.
Another example is Assembly General in vHoF. It's a very old trial, but this fight is the only one that you cannot burn through, it pushes you to do mechanics (even in high damage group) and gives options to strategize.

So, immune phases can be done in a fun way.
Or they can be done the Maarselok way

Same with the teleport type mechanics. It can be done like in Euphotic gatekeeper, that jumps for the sake of jumping and is utterly annoying.
Or it can be done in Lylanar and Turlasil's way, where the teleport mechanic phase engages multiple DDs and is a cool addition to the fight.

Edit: or pretty much what KlauthWarthog said xd

Casdha

I personally hate trying to solo the roaming minotaurs. It may just be my build but I seem to get perma-rooted with plenty of stamina and that dang fireball totem you have to take out that has nothing to do with damaging them.

edit: it reminds me of running up on a zerg while soling in Cyrodiil, none of your skills will register because you are getting hit with so much at once and there is no way to break free before your health is gone.