DXHR's boss battles

[James]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/arch ... ttles.aspx

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9YbSkOW7sU[/youtube]

Rage.

[Tantalus]

Not knowing about the Deus Ex world.

I can tell.

[or 1=1]

Why?

[Aidan]

Eidos, please NEVER HAND YOUR MASTERPIECES IN THE HANDS OF G.R.I.P. AGAIN.



Quote from clueless grip man: "I-I-I Don't know"



YEAH. YOU DON't FUCKING KNOW.


"IF YOU JUST-I-I YOU JUST UHHHHHHH THE COMPLEXITY THE UHH WHE-WH-WHEN THE -IVE BEEN MAKING TECHNOLOGY FOR 20 YEARS"

[Tantalus]

Why?

Mandatory lethal kill boss battles. Specced for stealth/hacking? TOUGH SHIT.

[Allan]

So what he's saying is - predictable AI loops in bosses?

Also, he sounds like one of the localization directors from 4kids. I cannot get that out of my mind.

[Aidan]

Yeah, the AI loops are pretty bad. I like AI's that can throw out their own outcome, with randomization or strategy.. Bosses that do unpredictable, or sneaky things. Would make them more epic, and difficult (Even though DXHR's bosses are somewhat difficult on the highest setting).

And...

So what he's saying is - predictable AI loops in bosses?

Also, he sounds like one of the localization directors from 4kids. I cannot get that out of my mind.

YES.

[ynnaD]

Awesome, i've got crappy boss battles to look forward to then

[James]

Personally I like the first three, but I completely understand how horrible they are for a person expecting Deus Ex encounters and solutions for them. They're straight up Metal Gear Solid bosses, though most people unfamilar with The Icarus Effect have no connection to them.

My opinion is that they're a welcome change over lackluster simple "buffed up" enemies that filled Deus Ex's bosses. (Maggie, Anna, Gunther, Walton etc.). But my desire to avoid them and them to have more involvement in the story is stronger. A prime example is weeping Gunther in the dark, something that made the first game brilliant.

I hope mods sort it out, there's a lot of potential for the first 3.

---

This video makes me angry because it concerns me how split the development of Deus Ex: Human Revolution was. I hope with the recent staff vacancies they produce a videogame that is more in house.

[MrBlackDX]

I mean, it's actually difficult to think about how they could have done good boss battles.

[spoiler]If you look at all of the Khan confrontations, if they did boss battles like how they implemented Khan encounters, it would be way to easy.

But yeah there are ways to add variety to them.

Using the Metal Gear Solid example, adding a "hunt or be hunted" like The End for say, Yelena, would have been interesting

Likewise if there was a stealthy way to deal with Barrett (say sneaking up on him and then being able to use a takedown-like quicktime event against him), which you have to use say 3-5 times.

They should have made the arenas bigger (think something like Jill/Wesker battle), and added in things like turrets or bots to hack, maybe some interactive environmental weapon[/spoiler]

[James]

[spoiler]Kahn was beautiful. Loved every time I seen him, my friend kept getting the same elbow snapping takedown on him again and again aha.

There needed to be more encounters like Kahn and boxguards/dogbots[/spoiler]

[MrBlackDX]

[spoiler]

Kahn was beautiful. Loved every time I seen him, my friend kept getting the same elbow snapping takedown on him again and again aha.

There needed to be more encounters like Kahn and boxguards/dogbots

Yeah he was good, and it was funny to see him pop up all the time.

But he was by no means difficult, wasn't even a mini-boss, just a guard with a face.[/spoiler]

[James]

[spoiler]He's also well educated according to his Tai Yong Medical office![/spoiler]

Reminds me of Johnny from MGS.

[James]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq8P6yBHuNc[/youtube]

AHAHAHA

[Tantalus]

OODLE-LOOP.

[MrBlackDX]

Observe - "Why did I pick stealth, how the fuck am I going to kill this guy?"
Orient - "Ok ok, I'm ducking behind a low wall which is slowly being disintegrated by his massive machine gun"
Decide - "Fuck fuck fuck, he's stopped shooting, he's walking towards me, what do I do!?!"
Act - "I'm dead"

[spoiler]Ok anyone who explains the main boss difference between Barrett and Yelena is by saying that she can "sneak sneak sneak" is such a fucking retard.[/spoiler]

[James]

Notable of the second boss:
[spoiler]She has invincibility frames when she is fleeing so she can hide and recharge then do her swag walk. (can still be stunned I think, but other damage will not affect her)

I spent 5 minutes unleading 500 heavy rifle bullets with my max sprint (no lungs) and vision aug to see through walls.

Poor design in that aspect.[/spoiler]

[MrBlackDX]

Thinking about this I've realised that they have made the gameplay simple (kill this person before they kill you), but have approached it with some complexity which does not complement their integration of this oodle-loop.

There's always too much going on in a short amount of time, there's no opportunity to really retreat and get your bearings like a Metal Gear Solid boss.

Never once does a boss state anything like "where are you?" because you have retreated and hid.

[spoiler]

Eliza Cassan commenting on your actions is just added complex noise which only distracts you if anything. I loved the idea, but again, not executed well.

Following their four stage loop;

Observation requires some level of "breathing room" to be able to comfortably observe. So if you hide from Barrett, you should expect him to search for you, and then have time to observe him as a boss. Instead this game makes the boss character KNOW pretty much where you are at all times, making observation always broken.

The product of observation should be able to identify either weaknesses or patterns in the bosses behaviour.

- Pausing between shots is not a weakness. It's a given.
- His weapon overheating is potentially a weakness, but how do you get him to predictably get to this point? And what action should you take to exploit this weakness?
- Something like being able to sneak behind him and do a quicktime event which would lower his health, would be a weakness!

Orient;

Once you know a pattern to your enemy, you should be able to re-orient your character to a better vantage point.

This occurs minimally in this boss fight, you run from his grenade, and then find new cover.

True orientation would be to trick a boss into thinking you were in area A (in front of them) but you are actually in area B (behind them).

Decide;

Being in a "zen" like state to be able to make a well thought out decision, is part of being able to accomplish the previous two goals without much hitches.

Alternatively, if you have failed in your previous two goals, your decisions and actions from this point now must be about getting yourself to a better position, rather than combat.

Again this happens minimally, he turns around a corner to shoot at you while you were covered, so now you have to find new cover.

Decision SHOULD be about either you are in a good place, so now you need to decide how to get to a vantage point to start dealing damage, or knowing that your current spot is really ineffective, and so you ned to find a more effective location.

This game doesn't have "better" locations to hide behind, it's cover based system isn't tiered in boss fights basically.

Act

Stealth should have some method of exploiting a weakness.
Hacking should have some way of activating a turret, activating a bot, or activating an environmental weapon.
Brute force can work with smaller iterations of this loop. That's why its effective now.

[/spoiler]

too long; didn't read - They kindof had the right idea with this loop, they should have stuck with complexity only by allowing the player to switch between small iterations of the loop to large iterations of the loop seemlessly.

Unfortunately, following Metal Gear Solid's approach is the only viable option, and they failed to do that.

[James]

"Never once does a boss state anything like "where are you?" because you have retreated and hid."

[spoiler]Completely wrong. They do. Barrett gets a cob on and throws nades at random corners (not the cluster reaction) He will shoot where you were and look around for you.[/spoiler]

[Aidan]

Notable of the second boss:
[spoiler]She has invincibility frames when she is fleeing so she can hide and recharge then do her swag walk. (can still be stunned I think, but other damage will not affect her)

I spent 5 minutes unleading 500 heavy rifle bullets with my max sprint (no lungs) and vision aug to see through walls.

Poor design in that aspect.[/spoiler]

I did the exact same thing lol

[Spiderbot01]

Gunther weeping in the dark?

[James]

Max if you spent one moment not being a spas shooting everyone up in games and looked around there's a log of an MJ12 trooper noting the new heavily augmented that joined their unit who he caught crying at night (because of Anna)

[Tantalus]

Never once does a boss state anything like "where are you?" because you have retreated and hid.

I tricked Barrett a few times in to thinking I was at the other side of the room.

And when you go cloak, he starts say "You can't hide for long Jensen" and starts throwing grenades everywhere.

[MrBlackDX]

Never once does a boss state anything like "where are you?" because you have retreated and hid.

I tricked Barrett a few times in to thinking I was at the other side of the room.

And when you go cloak, he starts say "You can't hide for long Jensen" and starts throwing grenades everywhere.

Ok so I didn't have cloak at that stage on the two playthroughs so far.

And I noticed that he can mistake roughly where you are, but he still heads relatively fast in that direction.

There's no rewarding gameplay mechanism for stealthily outsmarting him.

[James]

You don't need cloak, you just stun him and tip toe away.

[Shinobi]

Eidos, please NEVER HAND YOUR MASTERPIECES IN THE HANDS OF G.R.I.P. AGAIN.



Quote from clueless grip man: "I-I-I Don't know"



YEAH. YOU DON't FUCKING KNOW.


"IF YOU JUST-I-I YOU JUST UHHHHHHH THE COMPLEXITY THE UHH WHE-WH-WHEN THE -IVE BEEN MAKING TECHNOLOGY FOR 20 YEARS"

LOL

[James]

http://kotaku.com/5891360/deus-ex-human ... oss-fights

[Psychotic]

Are people still writing about this? I thought the community already established that the DX:HR boss fights sucked and they should've been improved.

Simply put: They won't be improved now, and all we can hope is that they've learned their lesson for any future Deus Ex games.

[-HDD21-]

I have to agree with them being like MGS bosses, I am a HUGE MGS fan. Picked up a promo disc on its own without a case even for 3 quid. Was an amazing game, the first was the hardest for me as I had so little ammo when I first entered into it, ammo in DX3 was scarce in the first part of the game.

[Siva]

The first one was the worst one, until I was told how to defeat him without ammo. The second one was fun because who doesn't want to kill Rihanna? And the third one was just bad

On the interview,

That guy makes me feel nothing but pity.

Been building technology for 20 years bro? Then why could I read every boss's pattern in about 2 minutes?