Boss Fight Mechanics discussion

[Baldur 0]

Okay, so I think the Aster event fight, and a couple of the past boss fights have illustrated problems with the way we structure the turn mechanics of the boss fights (such as the fact that our tanks for the entire raid were stunned the first turn, and haven't been able to do anything, mean while the boss gets to take 8 actions, rather than 1:1

However, there seem to be many who think that players vs boss shouldn't have 1:1 action, because the boss would just be "Standing there" while 20 players attack. I disagree with this because the way we're fighting now makes it seem like we're all standing in a line, I can see the issue people would have with this. So to strike a middle ground, I propose the following.

Players will be organized into groups of at max 6 (canon party size).

Bosses will evaluate hate on a per party basis, and choose targets from the party that is "currently up." Think of this as each party "switching" with the next. Unless the boss has global abilities (turns the floor to lava, etc..) then parties who were not up, would be out of danger. It would look something like this.

[Party 1 takes their turn]
[Boss targets player with highest hate in Party 1]
[Party 2 takes their turn]
[Boss targets player with highest hate in party 2]

etc...

This does several things:

1) It encourages team compositions. Each party will need a tank, and it benefits each party to have a player capable of support
2) It prevents players from being targeted multiple times while only getting to act once.
3) it prevents the boss from having to deal with 20 attacks all at once without getting any of its actions

In the case of adds, they would focus on the party with the most hate against them.

So think of the Leon fight. We have 6 Phalanx, but only 3 groups. These would act more like mobs, but the "party" would be treated like the player. So Phalanx one might have 3 Hate vs Party 1, and 2 hate vs Party 2. So Phalanx One would only act against Party 1. However if party 2 chose to pull aggro on Phalanx 1, then it would move over and attack them. 

It's a bit rough at this stage, but I think it might be the best idea I've come up with for this problem.

[Khrysaor 0]

I like this idea. I can see in the Asterios boss the problems is arising with too many of the boss attacking the same players, while they only get one shot. It would help solve a lot of problems, and you are right with the party composition then having to be more important.

[Seul 1]

Yeah, that's pretty good since we're never going to get a switch mechanic-

[Baldur 0]

One thing I kinda like about encouraging party comps, is it does help encourage guilds. Parties that work well together may stick together outside of the boss fight and build that team dynamic.

[Rain 0]

Yas. I like it hella. You're spot on with the whole...

6 hours ago, Baldur said:

because the way we're fighting now makes it seem like we're all standing in a line,

hella true. With this, the fight would move about more smoothly.

[Baldur 0]

We could also improve the speed of boss fights by saying that instead of 24 hours per person, you have 48 hours per team. And that posting order within the team doesn't matter. Assuming staff was on it, this would drastically cut down the length of these boss and event fights, while meaning that people might actually post once a week on these fights (AT THE WORST!!!)

[Rain 0]

Oooohhh I like that. ^