Unique video game nitpick I have: Can we actually have bosses who aren't suicidality overconfident they're going to kick my ass.

[CriticalGaming]

Most Wow boss, at high difficulty, do massacre the party dozen if not hundreds of time before they die once, so I think their confidence is warranted.

This is true. Hell normal bosses do that do.

Quel Thas the guildbreaker. Yeah he can be confident it took my guild 4 months to kill him.....cocky fucker.

 

[Gordon_4]

This is true. Hell normal bosses do that do.

Quel Thas the guildbreaker. Yeah he can be confident it took my guild 4 months to kill him.....cocky fucker.

I fucking swear, WoW bosses LOVE the sound of their own voice.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

I fucking swear, WoW bosses LOVE the sound of their own voice.

It doesn't help that you run Dungeons and raids every week in that game. So much of the boss dialogue in Legion is etched into my brain.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Heyy, what about Shadow of the Colossus? Or Monster Hunter? Those bosses kinda make me feel sorry for them while fighting, but the game make me do the bad stuff! I don't want to do the bad stuff, I just want to see the story through by doing all the bad stuff. Also the end of TLoU2 please don't hurt me, I know everyone has decided to hate that game.

 

[EvilRoy]

I think the fundamental issue is just that of the surprisingly short list of reasons someone will enter into a fight, "I'm pretty sure I'll win" is very close to the top, if not taking the #1 position.Yeah they should characterize bosses better than belligerent confidence, but unless this is a tragedy its very hard to give enemies much other reason to fight a lot of the time. Killing an enemy that attacks you because they're under threat of death or they're crazy is tragic unless you're a villain.

 

[sXeth]

I think the fundamental issue is just that of the surprisingly short list of reasons someone will enter into a fight, "I'm pretty sure I'll win" is very close to the top, if not taking the #1 position.Yeah they should characterize bosses better than belligerent confidence, but unless this is a tragedy its very hard to give enemies much other reason to fight a lot of the time. Killing an enemy that attacks you because they're under threat of death or they're crazy is tragic unless you're a villain.

I think the point being disputed is not the narrow running of Agressor vs defender, but rather the tendency of the bosses in question to be insanely confident in their own prowess and/or completely ignorant of the protagonists prowess.


The majority of combat presumably not being with a batch of dudes dueling over who is the Best Fisticuffs in the World, but rather theoretically in pursuit or defense of their goals and logic reasons taht have brought them into your conflict with your character.

 

[Dalisclock]

Heyy, what about Shadow of the Colossus? Or Monster Hunter? Those bosses kinda make me feel sorry for them while fighting, but the game make me do the bad stuff! I don't want to do the bad stuff, I just want to see the story through by doing all the bad stuff. Also the end of TLoU2 please don't hurt me, I know everyone has decided to hate that game.

Not gonna lie, a couple Souls bosses come to mind for "I don't feel heroic for killing you".

The Twin Princes come to mind off the top of my head. Literally wanted to be left alone forever and locked every damn door before them to ensure this. You have to kill them to complete the game, despite the "Leave us alone" plea.

Priscilla also counts if you choose to attack her.

Possibly Vendrick as well, though Vendrick made some poor decisions in his reign that arguably came back to bite him hard. Velstadt, OTOH, is just ultra dedicated to doing his job as a bodyguard and it's hard to dislike him other then being a PITA to kill.

Sister Friede is a debatable case, since she does tell you to go away and doesn't fight you until you enter her private room, but at the same time, the painting is kind of a horror show and somebody is ordering the slaughter of the villagers down below.

 

[Casual Shinji]

That's fair but still even in the God of War games it just gets ridiculous. One moment sticks out to me is where you're fighting Hermes and he's so confident he's going to kick kratos's ass. I will remind you Kratos has already taken out Aries, Poseidon and Hades but no Hermes is going to be the one to mop the floor with Kratos.

God of War games post GoW1 have the habit of making all of Kratos' opponents have the most obnoxious shit talking, to establish some hate in the player and to contrast them negatively against Kratos. They're portrayed as overly snivling and annoying so you'll want Kratos to kill them, and it's really blunt about it. See Theseus, Perseus, and Icarus in GoW2. You can tell the voice director told these guys to make their character sound as pompous, and obnoxious as they could.

 

[EvilRoy]

I think the point being disputed is not the narrow running of Agressor vs defender, but rather the tendency of the bosses in question to be insanely confident in their own prowess and/or completely ignorant of the protagonists prowess.


The majority of combat presumably not being with a batch of dudes dueling over who is the Best Fisticuffs in the World, but rather theoretically in pursuit or defense of their goals and logic reasons taht have brought them into your conflict with your character.

I hear what you're saying and I agree - that's kind of what I was getting at with the writing could be better here to avoid pumping out samey belligerent d-bags over and over. What I was more getting at is the general concept that in real life most people only enter into fights because they think they're gonna win, or they're being forced (by internal or external circumstances). And that totally meshes with being in pursuit or defense of goals - its just that characterizing someone as a belligerent d-bag is much more likely to create a straightforward, easy hero/villain conflict.

Its lazy, and an overused trope, to define a villain as a person you want to beat up (and not feel bad about it) as a larger than life "death by hubris" character, but its done because its an easy shorthand to express how you're supposed to feel about a guy you're going to kill if you plan to beat the game. I get that, I just wish they would at least make the confidence interesting to watch. Senator Armstrong was a trip to watch chew on the furniture, and although fundamentally he was clearly entering into the conflict because he was sure he would win, he's still way more engaging than the bog standard "what chance do you have against me" types.

If you've played Hades at all you can see it pretty much laid bare. Avoiding spoilers, some of your midbosses are a person fighting for her employment, a mindless beast, and a douche. A person forced to fight, and two who just think they're gonna win. Hades is a great game, but they absolutely leaned in to some shortcuts on the majority of the midbosses so they could spend time characterizing everybody else instead.

 

[Gordon_4]

This is such a common trope in gaming storytelling that's overused and not really thought out that well a lot of the time.

Okay here's how most dialogue goes in boss fights.

The player character meets the boss, the boss talks about how much they're going to kick my ass and how much of a weakling I am, after the boss fight ends before the boss dies they scream in defiance on how could a weakling beat them and says how their death changes nothing blah blah blah and then dies. Lather, rinse, repeat for every boss afterwards besides for the occasional sympathetic villain who dies tragically or the boss who wants to fight a worthy opponent who appears once or twice.

I have a problem with this for two reasons.

1. The bosses start to bleed together and it makes them uninteresting characters no matter how good their designs are.

2. It's sometimes laughably stupid when the boss does this cliche at a certain point. How many bosses have I murdered before you? we are on the 7th or 8th game I'm a person well known of kicking the lord of hells ass every week.

At this point I just kind of want a boss who's unbelievably terrified of the player character and is desperately fighting for their life. Just fucking once.

Is anyone else tired of this cliche or have I been playing too much Mega Man X/Zero?

Well to be fair if the Bosses in question hadn't been going through all other forms of resistence like a lightsaber through a loaf of bread then what are we the player for? I mean broken down to brass tacks, in lets say Mass Effect for example, the Reapers have every reason to be confident as fuck because some of the bullshit Shepard pulls is just nuts but we allow it because we're the player and we're aware there's a story being told.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Not gonna lie, a couple Souls bosses come to mind for "I don't feel heroic for killing you".

The Twin Princes come to mind off the top of my head. Literally wanted to be left alone forever and locked every damn door before them to ensure this. You have to kill them to complete the game, despite the "Leave us alone" plea.

Priscilla also counts if you choose to attack her.

Possibly Vendrick as well, though Vendrick made some poor decisions in his reign that arguably came back to bite him hard. Velstadt, OTOH, is just ultra dedicated to doing his job as a bodyguard and it's hard to dislike him other then being a PITA to kill.

Sister Friede is a debatable case, since she does tell you to go away and doesn't fight you until you enter her private room, but at the same time, the painting is kind of a horror show and somebody is ordering the slaughter of the villagers down below.

Oh yeah, I wondered about mentioning dark souls at the time, but wasn't confident in the lore knowledge to have referenced it with any certainty. Thankfully your encyclopedic skills have proven a far more convincing example for the subject at hand

 

[Xprimentyl]

Not gonna lie, a couple Souls bosses come to mind for "I don't feel heroic for killing you".

The Twin Princes come to mind off the top of my head. Literally wanted to be left alone forever and locked every damn door before them to ensure this. You have to kill them to complete the game, despite the "Leave us alone" plea.

Priscilla also counts if you choose to attack her.

Possibly Vendrick as well, though Vendrick made some poor decisions in his reign that arguably came back to bite him hard. Velstadt, OTOH, is just ultra dedicated to doing his job as a bodyguard and it's hard to dislike him other then being a PITA to kill.

Sister Friede is a debatable case, since she does tell you to go away and doesn't fight you until you enter her private room, but at the same time, the painting is kind of a horror show and somebody is ordering the slaughter of the villagers down below.

I'd lump Artorias in there as well, a fallen hero who sacrificed his shield to save his loyal companion Sif before being consumed by the very thing he'd been tasked to stop. There's apparently unused audio of him, probably meant to be heard during is opening cinematic, where he's actually telling the player to stay back or something to that effect; they likely cut it because it was too on the nose in a game that prides itself on ambiguity within the choices and motivations of the player.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'd lump Artorias in there as well, a fallen hero who sacrificed his shield to save his loyal companion Sif before being consumed by the very thing he'd been tasked to stop. There's apparently unused audio of him, probably meant to be heard during is opening cinematic, where he's actually telling the player to stay back or something to that effect; they likely cut it because it was too on the nose in a game that prides itself on ambiguity within the choices and motivations of the player.

Not sure how I missed that.

Sif as well. It's particularly heartbreaking if you fight SIF after Artorias, because then he clearly recognizes you but still feels like he has to fight you.

Oh yeah, I wondered about mentioning dark souls at the time, but wasn't confident in the lore knowledge to have referenced it with any certainty. Thankfully your encyclopedic skills have proven a far more convincing example for the subject at hand

I've been binging Vaati a lot due to my DS3 playthrough. I'm also trying to find evidence to support a pet theory of mine for DS3 but I'd never claim to be a lore expert. Especially because then you end up like this guy after a while

 

[Shadyside]

This is such a common trope in gaming storytelling that's overused and not really thought out that well a lot of the time.

Okay here's how most dialogue goes in boss fights.

The player character meets the boss, the boss talks about how much they're going to kick my ass and how much of a weakling I am, after the boss fight ends before the boss dies they scream in defiance on how could a weakling beat them and says how their death changes nothing blah blah blah and then dies. Lather, rinse, repeat for every boss afterwards besides for the occasional sympathetic villain who dies tragically or the boss who wants to fight a worthy opponent who appears once or twice.

I have a problem with this for two reasons.

1. The bosses start to bleed together and it makes them uninteresting characters no matter how good their designs are.

2. It's sometimes laughably stupid when the boss does this cliche at a certain point. How many bosses have I murdered before you? we are on the 7th or 8th game I'm a person well known of kicking the lord of hells ass every week.

At this point I just kind of want a boss who's unbelievably terrified of the player character and is desperately fighting for their life. Just fucking once.

Is anyone else tired of this cliche or have I been playing too much Mega Man X/Zero?

Which is why I liked Demons Souls. Some of the bosses were weak or afraid of you.