How do you feel about Superbosses being able to get one-shotted?

[DarkDestr0yer61]

In Final Fantasy 8 there is Omega weapon and in Final Fantasy 10 there is Penance.

They are both the strongest fights in their games, and they both take a lot of time and effort to beat..... the but both games have one specific move that will one shot the boss. Do you think a special move should be that strong? Or do you think that Superbosses should bring immune to a move that would kill anyone.

There are probably other games that do this, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head

Edited July 29, 2016 by DarkDestr0yer61

[shadowofchaos]

I don't see a problem in which The End, a desperation move that cannot be farmed RNG reliably, as a desperation move that will most likely get you killed fishing for, or grinding ungodly amount of Gil for Zanmatou that would most likely level you up to be able to beat it anyway.

Most of the time, superbosses rely on crappy one hit kill gimmicks and item/revival management on the player's part.

KH: Birth by Sleep is a good example of fake difficulty superbosses design. So I don't personally have a problem in those games you listed since those aren't particularly super abusable.

KH2 Terra seemed much more fun as a superboss.

Edited July 29, 2016 by shadowofchaos

[Moblin Major General]

Can you edit the poll to add "it's situational/depends on the canon of the RPG you're playing", as one RPG I have has you fighting Sauron, and I certainly wouldn't want to devalue a boss as powerful as that.

[DarkDestr0yer61]

Done, Rommel.

KH: Birth by Sleep is a good example of fake difficulty superbosses design. So I don't personally have a problem in those games you listed since those aren't particularly super abusable

Can you explain regarding fake difficulty?

I haven't done the extra fights in the Final Mix KH games, aside from Xenmas in KH1FM

[Augestein]

If it can kill everyone, it should be able to kill them if you got it. I'm not a fan of god modding on bosses. It's annoying and makes things that would be clever or useful "useless." On the boss. If these things are truly that gamebreaking, then they shouldn't be there in the first place.

[shadowofchaos]

Vanitas Lingering Will is a boss that teleports, immune to damage unless idle, and hits you to 1 hp if you have once more and second chance equipped (you die if you don't).

That's pretty standard for KH critical mode final bosses/superbosses from KH2FM on.

However, only one of their attacks can be blocked. Everything else goes through and you constantly have to dodge roll.

Their counter attack threshold is very low and mostly unpredictable unless you've fought him a hundred times or more. So you eat a counter to 1hp and seal your vision if you hit him more than 2 times. So any commands/spells that do that are pretty much risky as hell.

His homing attacks get you if your dodge roll was slightly early as it gets you on the frames on the transition when you dodge roll a second time...

Oh, and you can't use healing spells. Only limited items.

Because you do so little damage to him, that when you use a heal spell, he uses Curaga and fully heals himself.

Edited July 29, 2016 by shadowofchaos

[DarkDestr0yer61]

Vanitas Lingering Will is a boss that teleports, immune to damage unless idle, and hits you to 1 hp if you have once more and second chance equipped (you die if you don't).

That's pretty standard for KH critical mode final bosses/superbosses from KH2FM on.

However, only one of their attacks can be blocked. Everything else goes through and you constantly have to dodge roll.

Their counter attack threshold is very low and mostly unpredictable unless you've fought him a hundred times or more. So you eat a counter to 1hp and seal your vision if you hit him more than 2 times. So any commands/spells that do that are pretty much risky as hell.

His homing attacks get you if your dodge roll was slightly early as it gets you on the frames on the transition when you dodge roll a second time...

Oh, and you can't use healing spells. Only limited items.

Because you do so little damage to him, that when you use a heal spell, he uses Curaga and fully heals himself.

I tried fighting Lingering Will a few times about a year ago, I remember him being hard but jfc that is ridiculous.

[Sidereal Wraith]

I don't think a player should have the ability to one shot a superboss. Having access to such an ability defeats the entire purpose of having powerful bosses which are optional to fight in the first place.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Wraith

[Zak Something]

The only superboss I've ever one-shotted was Brachioraidos from FFIV Adv, because the Abel Lance is ridiculous (it casts Tornado randomly when Kain attacks, even activating on enemies normally immune to the spell proper. You can only get it by beating a notably hard post-game boss but still).

Other than that I feel that one shotting a superboss defeats the purpose of actually having a Superboss in the first place and shouldn't really be done.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Zak Something

[Zera]

Games need consistent and coherent design. If you tell me your boss is immune to any of my stuff for no logical reason besides "it's a superboss", you have failed as a game designer.

EDIT: I agree that the last couple bosses of Birth By Sleep were baaaad. If only more games had bosses like the ones in Sin & Punishment!

Edited July 29, 2016 by Zera

[Magical Glace]

Depends on how big the fail chance is, really. If it's a normal move with a large chance of doing nothing and a small one of OHKO'ing, that's fair game.

If it's an unconditional (No Failure chance) OHKO than yeah make bosses immune.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Glaceon Mage

[Zera]

I would much rather not have the OHKO move in the first place. Simply having one in a game with health bars is literally asking for imbalanced design.

[Topazd]

I honestly liked Vanitas' Lingering Will a lot (spam strat viability notwithstanding), Mysterious Figure w/ Terra was when things got asinine.

But in any case, no, I'd prefer such an option not to exist. Should extend to regular bosses as well.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Topazd

[shadowofchaos]

I mean, if it's something as common as a death spell, then sure immunity.

But when the OHKO ability isn't a reliable chance and was there the entire game like The End in FF8... I don't see why not?

[Magical Glace]

I would much rather not have the OHKO move in the first place. Simply having one in a game with health bars is literally asking for imbalanced design.

Whack spells in DQ did nothing wrong!

I mean, it's not like they always work. There's a fail chance meaning you wasted both your turn and your MP.

And then there's NES!Kiryl, but that's another story.

[Shinehollow]

Depends on the game. I would love if you could OHKO Dullahan in Golden Sun: The Lost Age but that requires either hacking or a certain Dijin/class set up to get your attack over a certain level to deal over 16000 damage.

I would much rather not have the OHKO move in the first place. Simply having one in a game with health bars is literally asking for imbalanced design.

It's better if the OHKO move had either a requirement to actually kill in one hit (like a status or certain amount of HP) or only has a chance of it OHKO'ing. Sharla in Xenoblade Chronicles has an art that can OHKO a dazed enemy, but it only has a 15% chance of doing so. It also can't OHKO bosses or unique enemies, which is pretty balanced since you can't take the easy way out of the harder fights. Until you get the Monado III.

[DarkDestr0yer61]

Depends on how big the fail chance is, really. If it's a normal move with a large chance of doing nothing and a small one of OHKO'ing, that's fair game.If it's an unconditional (No Failure chance) OHKO than yeah make bosses immune.

Well, I'll try to explain it this way. Selphie's "The End" is a guaranteed kill against Omega Weapon and the summon Yojimbo's "Zanmato" is a guaranteed kill against Penance.

In order for Selphie to use The End, she has to first get her limit break, which is basically a wheel of random generated moves does she can respin infinitely to get The End, but that requires luck and you don't have all time in the world to keep doing that because the enemy will still be able to attack you.

Yojimbo, on the other hand, will one shot the boss, but you have to pay him atleast 536,870,912 gil in order for him to do it. It's fast, it isn't luck based. But you have to grind up so much money in order to do it

[shadowofchaos]

Let me add that the chance that The End will appear is entirely dependent on your crisis level.

Most of the time, it doesn't even have a chance to spawn the move.

You will notice it does have a chance to spawn once her spells in the reel are more powerful. And that requires you being near death and/or knocked out party members.

[DarkDestr0yer61]

Rey, I forget. Do your allies come back with 1 HP after the battle is over if they were knocked out during that battle? Or do they stay knocked out until you revive them?

[Magical Glace]

Well, I'll try to explain it this way. Selphie's "The End" is a guaranteed kill against Omega Weapon and the summon Yojimbo's "Zanmato" is a guaranteed kill against Penance.

In order for Selphie to use The End, she has to first get her limit break, which is basically a wheel of random generated moves does she can respin infinitely to get The End, but that requires luck and you don't have all time in the world to keep doing that because the enemy will still be able to attack you.

Yojimbo, on the other hand, will one shot the boss, but you have to pay him atleast 536,870,912 gil in order for him to do it. It's fast, it isn't luck based. But you have to grind up so much money in order to do it

Hm, yeah, I'd say those are both reasonable simply for the amount of set up needed. I have no idea how gold works in FF, but in most Eastern games money is intentionally comparable to the value of Yen (for example, a Poké Ball at 200 "Yen" seems reasonable, as that's a bit under 2 US dollars), so I'll assume that...

...Maybe I'm just overthinking, but considering that assuming 1 FF coin thing = 1 Japanese Yen, pulling off that attack costs around... $5,261,018.18. I'd say that's reasonable to oneshot a superboss.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Glaceon Mage

[shadowofchaos]

Rey, I forget. Do your allies come back with 1 HP after the battle is over if they were knocked out during that battle? Or do they stay knocked out until you revive them?

Knocked out until you revive them except for Squall if you go through a story cutscene and then get solo'd.

[The Draco Knight]

Yojimbo, on the other hand, will one shot the boss, but you have to pay him atleast 536,870,912 gil in order for him to do it. It's fast, it isn't luck based. But you have to grind up so much money in order to do it

Surely, It wouldn't take as much time as trying to maximize the stats of all the party members and getting the best equipment...right?

Anyway, I personally would make these superbosses immune to this kind of move or, even better in my opinion, remove it since, if It automatically one shot everything, then It would make everything else worthless, but if It's limited in many ways, you should use normal moves.

[PeaceRibbon]

I think if your game has any kind of OHKO mechanic, nothing should be exempt from it's power. I'm even ok with the RNG being heavily against OHKOs so long as it's at the very least possible. Unfortunately most developers don't seem to agree with me. I get why, but that won't change my opinion.

[Reality]

If it were allowed in a game, I probably wouldn't even find out, because I I've been trained so well by all the other rpgs (and tabletop games) that instant death moves never work on bosses. I don't think it would make for healthy gameplay either, but I can see the "teaching player strategies, then not allowing their use when game is ostensibly testing the player to see if they've learned the mechanics". I don't think this argument covers everything though.

We have to consider how strong the instant kill ability is. Is it a 20% or miss, 50% or miss, does it instant kill OR do heavy damage? Does it use lots of MP, or can you essentially try to land it every turn throughout the entire battle?

Generally,, with spell/ability based instantkills, I wouldn't mind if lots of stuff is immune unless they are a serious resource, like in say 2nd Edition D&D, and not only are you carrying less than 3, but they also take the place of more conventional spells for the same slot.

Then there are consummbable based instantkills, such as breaking ice/fire rods in FFV. While not useful the remake's postbosses, you can ceirtainly skip many bosses in the first half of the game by doing so, but at the cost of an item that you can essentially only get from a few chests until much later in the game when money is less strict. You could argue something like this is the main mechanic of Breath of fire: Dragon Quarter. However, I consider resource management at endgame to be annoying most of the time(look at DQ's orichalcum and using same ingredients for ultimate hammer/ultimate axe). I would only accept this approach if it was a timed optional boss during the main story, such as Piastol in Skies of Arcadia who is fought at like 20-30% completion the first time. Don't farm crystales boxes in the sewers 1% drops break people.

Sometimes raw currency or some other resource (running away for the chicken blade, gil toss, winning tournaments for the sequence longdsword ,etc) is used to slowly power up some otherwise weak peace of equipment to unlimited levels. Personally I'm against that, because I think it brings out the worst in people when it comes to rpgs. once you start onion knighting, it's hard to actually know when to stop padding the stats, until you end up unlocking say, ayla's final weapon, and fully speed capsuling all 7 charathers in chrono trigger, which is comically high compared to what is required for ocean palace lavos or any of the DS port's bosses. Like if a boss kills me, I'd like the moment when I figure out what wrong and get through to be because of strategy or even luck with his attack patterns but not mindless grinding.

When it comes to passive effects that you are encouraged to use against every enemy.. no, I wouldn't want them to oneshot because of their defense/resistance ignoring properties/combo bonuses or a 10% deadly sword effect on all melee attacks. While Awakening's Apothesis and Disgea's Baal are pretty easy to get around as post-game bosses, if you made it easier with GBA luna tomes availalbe or the enemy exclusive luna+ skill I imagine that they would be less rewarding to finally beat.

Generally though I've been mostly disapointed with superbosses anyway. They're supposed to be more challenging than the rest of the game, but you can simply play a "badly balanced" 8 or 16 bit RPG like phantasy star 3, and run into mandatory bosses that might choose to 60% area damage your party every turn at a point in the game where your healing is weak enough to require one of your non healers to supplement your cleric with items every round until the end (almost guaranteeing a wipe if you ran out more than 3 turns before the end). That kind of of makes waiting for dullahan's instant death chance not to proc or keeping my healer on the alive until multiheal was needed against dq9's grotto bosses kind of paltry by comparison.