How do you make a boss battle against a huge boss without relying on QTEs, cutscenes and gimmicks?
Get swole
Gapping Vagina Dragon
"You people do not learn, curiosity just killed you."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwUYIEFhAsY
Make the boss a living platform that will murder you if you don't keep moving.
>>337094012
Hmm I honestly can't think of a game that doesn't, besides Monster Hunter/MH like games. I guess meme souls.
>>337094012
>no gimicks allowed
So... That leaves out everything.
>>337094012
yhorm didnt even need the stormruler gimmick, i honestly expected him to be bigger
i don't see a problem with the SoTC bosses
![latest[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/krFtdzo.jpg "latest[1].jpg")
Elaborate on how 'big' you're talking about. Just fuckhuge?
Pic sorta related, though I don't think Monster Hunter does any particularly good fuckhuge boss fights
>>337094440
They have a weak point gimmick.
>>337094012
Have a cast of about good characters.
Have them make it to the boss as a group.
Emphasise the scale of the boss throughout the game - you should be fighting the boss themselves, not a thrall or henchman.
Now the game should make you play as each character in turn, with each character capable of doing some kind of large attack using the game world that kills them. You should have to sacrifice at least 3 of the characters to kill the end boss. There should also be an autistic way of doing it that saves everyone and requires hundreds of hours of grinding.
The size of any section of a game is linked to how much you have invested in it. A boss can be HUEG but shit.
ME2 did this particularly well. The human reaper was cool but everyone was still reeling from the character deaths.
>>337095834
>Now the game should make you play as each character in turn, with each character capable of doing some kind of large attack using the game world that kills them.
no gimmics nigga
>>337094012
deathwings spine fight would be cool on a single player adventure game
>>337094012
This guy was a pretty good big boss that didn't rely on any of those things. But overall I think sotc has the most enjoyable big bosses.
>>337095172
That's not as bad as the hit it until it's dead gimmick.
>>337095949
You have to choose who is a pawn and who is Nobility. That strategy isn't a gimmick.
>>337096190
I think I preferred the Mohrans and Dire as far as huge monsters go. Dalamadur just felt much more multiplayer oriented, even at high rank. That fight takes a ridiculous amount of time even to solo.
>>337096190
Ah yes, the superman dive tutorial
By flying around it i guess.
Man you reminded me of how pathetic the deathwing fights were.
>>337094012
>shadow of the colossus
All these years, and I've yet to see a flying boss fight top Avion and Phalanx.
Dalamadur is my favorite in this thread so far, but I am also reminded of God of War's Chronos
>>337094454
>most gimmick fight in the game
FPS is the only way to go for fighting giant bosses
The answer is easy
You don't.
Huge bosses are never good
>>337094012
SotC and dragons dogma did it well.
You cant unless you want them to end up as a wonky mess
I honestly really liked the final fight in GOW A
The thing is that game mechanics usually aren't designed with huge enemies in mind, so when it does get to a giant boss fight it either becomes a gimmick fight or it doesn't work well within the scope of the gameplay. This doesn't mean you can't have giant boss fights that are good, just that the majority of them aren't that satisfying.
>cutscenes
I love nothing more than a long boss fight intercut with dialogue so I really don't see this as a problem. Nothing too long, but similar to Final Fantasy XII.
>Gimmicks
I disagree with the largely derogatory response to "gimmicks". Bosses are unique, as such they shouldn't suffer from using the same gameplay elements (entirely, anyway) the player is going to utilize for the other 20-60 hours of trash mobs. It demeans the boss itself to have it be nothing more than an enemy that just happens to have 20x health and damage. Never should gimmicks be used for the rest of the game.
Somewhere in between Legend of Zelda's braindead bosses and Dragon God/Bed of Chaos is a perfect formula that has yet to be found. Dark Souls III's Wolnir was close, but didn't have enough depth to the fight and resulted in a fight worthy of a LoZ. Dark Souls III as a whole suffered from the very fact that almost every boss is fought in the same fashion as every other enemy, I ended up just dodging and listening to the music because of how boring the fights were.
>QTEs
Never. Not even in minigames.
>>337096936
game?
>>337094012
Aerial combat. KH2/FFXV
>>337097362
Painkiller. Good game.
Maybe games shouldn't have boss fights?
They rarely make any form of sense in context, and I'd for sure sacrifice them for a little more narrative focus and fine tuning on the overall gameplay.
I don't know, I always thought of boss fights as a backseat aspect, especially when games are somehow still struggling with otherwise basic shit like general gameplay, graphics and plot.
>>337094012
Design the level or arena around the boss, so you can hit it or jump onto it from various spots when it's near enough.
>>337096190
No, Dala is pretty shit.
None of the "huge" monsters are good.
But, big monsters are really fun when they aren't "Giant and fucking slow" idology.
AKA: Amatsu, Uragaan, Alatreon, ect.
Gammoth was close to being a good fight if it was more focused around pulling you in with it's trunk instead of constant AoEs and no counter to being behind it
>>337095834
I like it when that sort of thing happens. Where every party member has their moment to shine and be badass in the final battle, make everyone seem important. Not just the main character.
>>337094012
Anyone mind filling me in on what game the bottom right is? I know the others but I can't place that one.
>>337097596
But the thing is, all narrative conventions rely on the concept of bosses, because without them you have no reason to build up any sort of drama via an antagonist.
Why would a movie or game spend time making it's primary antagonist seem threatening to you (the main character), if not specifically because when you actually face off against him, it's a big moment that requires significant effort?
Boss fights are the logical conclusion of an antagonist in any narrative. And as video games go, we've sort of accepted the paradigm that they should, in general, be a spectacle event that puts the skills and tools you've acquired over the course of gameplay, to the test.
If you remove that, what do you have? Just going around killing brainless monsters with no drama involved? You have to provide some alternative to fill the gameplay space. "More story" isn't really an option, because...story about what, exactly?
>>337097775
Gogmazios looked pretty badass but it's the worst of the bunch. There's no real gimmick to it besides the dragonator and cannon. Anyone can easily hit it with the dragonators and the binders on the ground. I've never seen anyone use the cannon. He's just a big and slow damage sponge. The fight is entirely too long, it's just a boring slog because he has too much goddamn health. I won't even fight him anymore unless there's at least two glaives to mount spam and burn him down in 10 minutes or less.
>>337097942
Maybe make a game not about killing things?
I'm not trying to preach some anti-war vegan bullshit either, I mean seriously, why does every fucking game have to be about killing everything?
Why is "gameplay" synonymous with "combat"? Why do developers struggle to add gameplay for games not relating to violence and then just give up and make VNs?
Anyway, these are probably two of my favorite boss fights in video games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdA-fwlTh0w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMjblq5mfNc
>>337097596
>Maybe games shouldn't have boss fights?
Kill yourself, my man.
>>337098380
Most of the games that are not about killing things do not have boss fights
>>337098380
>Maybe make a game not about killing things?
...there are games like that. Surprise, Animal Crossing doesn't have any boss fights. Rollercoaster Tycoon and Madden 2025 don't have boss fights.
Are you seriously retarded? We're clearly talking very specifically about games which have and/or are focused on combat for the gameplay, and thus have boss fights.
>>337098490
Not that anon but I believe he meant like instead of killing things you could perhaps have a mission to keep everyone alive via healing or maybe somehow have an actually intense charisma boss battle or something.
>>337098463
>Most of the games that are not about killing things do not have boss fights
This is true.
>>337097942
>because without them you have no reason to build up any sort of drama via an antagonist
See the thing that bites me is that video games almost never have any actual drama. They're so poorly written, even in critically acclaimed shit like FFVII or "moviegames" like TLOU. The drama is nonexistent, but the boss fights are.
And the gameplay is shit, so all you get is a somewhat unique enemy the player has no motivation to kill, whether for some form of narrative revenge or just because the gameplay is so damn good you just want to keep playing it.
If game's can't grasp writing or gameplay, they sure as fuck shouldn't be putting in boss fights or enemies, yet people keep giving 9/10 scores to game's with neither.
>>337097450
OP asked for ones that don't use QTE's/Cutscenes/Gimmicks you dip
>>337097596
>Maybe games shouldn't have boss fights
>I'd for sure sacrifice them for a little more narrative focus
Oh fuck off
>>337096190
Pic related is better, desu. Would be a goat fight if it attacked more.
>>337099027
Wow dude spoilers and also wrong thread and nice fake
>>337099068
>>337099048
How the fuck do you even fight something like that?
>>337098490
Those are games with no actual conflict though. Conflict is where the action is, but conflict is not inherently violent.
Silent Hill 2? Yeah, you kill some bosses, and the combat is absolute shit, but it's more of a puzzle game than an action game.
It's got conflict, mystery, atmosphere, music and of course, horror. If ever Silent Hill 2 was to get a remake, I'd say cut the boss "fights" and add a few more puzzles.
>>337099027
Well, I would. If the gameplay is going to be garbage, and it most likely is in every game ever, I'd rather maybe have a good plot and/or atmosphere instead of shit gameplay AND a shit plot.
Starfox 64 had some nice big bosses.
>>337099079
>nice fake
Really? Did you even bother to look up an Uncharted 4 walkthrough to see if it was real or not? Protip, it's real.
>>337099079
You're welcome :^)
Also it's true, just because most western developers can't get it right doesn't mean the concept should be done away with. And the narratives aren't stronger in the ones without them necessarily either so the logic is faulty.
>>337099008
But air combat is actually integral for hitting high spots on giants or even attacking flying enemies maybe even dragons in the late game.
>>337099235
Hit it until it dies, don't get hit.
>>337099274
What are some non-shitty plots in vidya to you? Because pro tip: if The Last of Us was a real movie people would walk out of the theatres laughing.
>>337098668
>or maybe somehow have an actually intense charisma boss battle or something.
Yeah, I'd prefer to see more emotional skill required in games rather than twitch skill.
>>337098670
>See the thing that bites me is that video games almost never have any actual drama.
I mean, they do, but it's not the same kind of drama you can write into a movie, because the medium is different. For example, I just played Rise of the Tomb Raider, and there was more than a few moments where shit I'm supposed to land on or grab breaks or the character tumbles down a hill. But obviously, I know this is supposed to happen, it's not dramatic. A movie is not the same, because we evaluate it differently.
>The drama is nonexistent, but the boss fights are.
Because of my previous point; Games are, sort of by necessity, written and stuctured like B-grade action movies. They've got a very basic structure, you can predict all the narrative tropes before they happen, and they can't really subvert your expectations in many ways because generally those wouldn't make sense gameplay-wise.
>And the gameplay is shit
I'm having trouble identifying what you'd call "good gameplay".
>whether for some form of narrative revenge or just because the gameplay is so damn good you just want to keep playing it.
Your contention here seems to be "no game has ever had good gameplay or a good villain ever". Which is pretty retarded.
>If game's can't grasp writing or gameplay, they sure as fuck shouldn't be putting in boss fights or enemies
So...games with poor writing should just have nothing in them? Because they can't have enemies, according to you? What about games with NO writing, like Monster Hunter?
>yet people keep giving 9/10 scores to game's with neither.
Neither, according to who?
>>337094012
What game on bottom right?
>>337099274
>If the gameplay is going to be garbage, and it most likely is in every game ever
So according to you, there has never been good gameplay in any game ever.
There has also never been a good story or villain in any game ever.
So what exactly do you come here to talk about? It sure as fuck isn't video games.
>>337099474
I think it's God of War: Ascension.
>>337099274
>I'd rather maybe have a good plot
Then you're in the wrong medium. The best video game stories wouldn't even beat bargain bin books.
>>337094440
Yeah he was tiny compared to the trailer or even the other giants in the game
>it's another video games should set aside the one thing they can do that other mediums can't so they can have mediocre versions of shit that other mediums can do better
>>337099439
>What are some non-shitty plots in vidya to you?
I can't think of a single one. There are good ideas, concepts you know? Outlines of plots. But they all drop the ball. Hard.
Whether it's in the dialogue, the overall plotline, the ending. Every video game that I've gone into expecting or had been told was some paramount of writing has been a shitfest.
Video games have only ever done dialogue reasonably well, they can't seem to play the long game though.
>>337094012
You make them platforming puzzles like in SotC
>>337099659
The only people who seem to be impressed by video game stories are those that don't read any books
Seriously games just focus on the gameplay
>>337099561
>The best video game stories wouldn't even beat bargain bin books.
That's kind of a necessity of the medium, though. Most books and movies with fantastic and dramatic and tense plots would make fucking awful games, due to the scope of the story or the setting. Reservoir Dogs is a great movie, but it'd be a fucking shit game, because you can't tell that kind of story through a video game. I mean, I suppose you could try, but it'd be retarded. Movies and books have the freedom to twist and turn, give omniscient detail, and hide details in subtext that it doesn't matter if the reader/viewer picks up right away, because they'll be paid off later. Video games really can't do that in any real way.
>>337099764
To me, the best kind of vidya plot is a Dark Souls one. Quite interesting, but told through the worldbuilding and item descriptions instead of obnoxiously being in your face all the times with cutscenes and whatnot
>>337099561
>Then you're in the wrong medium
Yeah, but it doesn't have to be. Strangely enough, no matter how hard I bash this shit I'm trying to be optimistic.
When anons just laugh and tell me to the GTFO when I talk about writing in /v/idya, that just reminds me that developers are just giving the retards what they want, except nowadays they don't even try to make even remotely fun gameplay AND they lock content behind DLC AND they now want you to fund their games and then buy it again.
And supposedly I'm the fool, looking for narratives in video games.
>>337099516
>there has never been good gameplay in any game ever
Well, nothing that doesn't get old eventually. I mean think about it, someone who plays baseball, football, whatever for a living, it never gets old for them, right? Well, in theory anyway. But no video game, for me anyway, has ever had that impact. I've never once thought to myself "man the gameplay is so good I could pick it up and play it 30 years from now", and that's not necessarily because games are evolving, it's because they just can't last for longer than what? 40 hours?
I honestly envy these people who play Melee/Project M and other game's played in tournaments. They found that game that they'll play for a lifetime.
I can't for the life of me find THAT game.Final Fantasy VII had shit gameplay and shit writing. It won acclaim for it's revolutionary, yet garbage use of the hardware.
>>337099663
>gimmicks
>>337099934
Kill yourself.
>>337094012
Tons of huge bosses through Final Fantasy series. You fight them normally, but they tend to have inflated health pools and much higher damage than usual.
>>337095172
>weak point gimmick
>implying you can kill something by repeatedly stabbing it's toe or something.
Your heart, throat and brain are weak points. Honestly a good giant boss fight SHOULD be centered around weak points, if maybe a little more realistically than SotC.
>>337099934
I haven't played nor have I any interest in playing Dark Souls, and I know everyone who loves it overexaggerates the fuck out of everything they say about it.
Still, while I agree that telling the player about your world through detail, obviously. But the problem is, there's no impetus there. There's no reason for you to be invested in the world, or want to go kill the final boss. Take away Dark Souls' difficulty and replace it's gameplay with, say, Uncharted. Do you still want to get to the end of the game? Probably not.
>>337100005
>But no video game, for me anyway, has ever had that impact
This is not video games' problem. This is YOUR problem. This is what we call "opinions", and you're telling us yours.
Just because you've never enjoyed a game enough to want to keep playing it doesn't mean that there's never been a game worth playing, it means you either have ADHD or probably some other mental disorder, or you're just not into video games. Which is fine, no one cares if you don't like video games.
>I can't for the life of me find THAT game.
This is a personal problem of yours.
>>337099048
>>337099106
Whats this thing called? Looks insane
>>337094012
>make your way through cityscape to a mechsuit in order to fight giant monster
>fight giant monster in mech suit, destroying cityscape
>next sequence is the player fighting their way out of the destroyed city
hell you could stretch this to an entire game and it would be pretty fucking cool
Both Banjo Kazooie games had some size large bosses.
Mr Patch was great.
Not sure it counts, but I had an idea for a Fantasy Total War like game. Ib the main campaign you are tasked with taking down a mountain monster in X number of turns before it reaches some city and you gane over. You can do this by fighting on the massive mountain monster, encountering the other monsters that live on its back to eventually reach its magical core and magic out a victory.
Why don't developers act like they're creating art?
Who cares if society judges or views video games as art, but if we as the fanbase don't believe respect the medium enough how can we expect anybody else too? If we don't, why should the developers?
When did video games stop being a hobby, and start being a business? I mean, at least on the outside.
Video games were never great, but they could've been. They can be.
Honestly there really isn't a way to do it without QTE's and gimmicks. The only other option is just hitting it until it dies and that isn't much better.
Alternatively, make big bosses smaller and more challenging. It should feel like a tough matchup, but one that's on your "level." Think of some of the bosses from MGR:R.
Games don't need gigantic building-sized bosses.
>>337101129
>Video games were never great
Oh fuck off
Do it like dragon dogmas minor bosses like the cyclops just climb all over it and smack it until it dies
>>337101129
>Why don't developers act like they're creating art?
Because most developers don't make art, they make products.
Do you really not understand how video games get made? Because it's not "Some idealistic and inspired group of people has a great idea, toils away in their garage for a year, and out pops a brand-new and awesome video game!". Games cost millions of dollars and require huge studios full of paid programmers, managers, and artists to make. And that money comes from business people who BUY those studios when they invest money into having their next sequel to the IP they own produced.
We have a scene where people can exercise artistic freedom and make their creative little ideas and distribute them to the masses, it's called the indie scene.
>>337101354
>Because it's not "Some idealistic and inspired group of people has a great idea, toils away in their garage for a year, and out pops a brand-new and awesome video game!"
It used to be.
I think you're overestimating video game production. I mean, you're not wrong, it is a big process especially for AAA productions, but it's still 1/4th the size of a AAA film, with 1/4th the budget, not accounting for celebrity's paychecks, and video games still sell for 6-8x the price of a movie ticket with 1/4th the quality in every aspect ranging from graphical capabilities to writing to...everything, because the medium judges itself to be inferior by default. And that's all just talking about your average AAA production, not even including B-movie tier games.
Video games obviously have gameplay, which is unique to the medium, but that's stagnated because, lets face it, the fanbase has been obsessed with graphics since 1997, so that's where the budget goes.
Are we really a fanbase of Michael Bay enthusiasts? What happened to art design? Video games already have the benefit of being animated, why are we wasting so much time trying to make "realistic" graphics, and why do people even want that? That's the opposite of creativity, to just copy what 7,000,000,000 see every single day.
I'll reiterate, you're overestimating game production. As the technology ages it becomes cheaper and easier to utilize. The technology hasn't actually changed in a decade, yet video games have become 1.5x more expensive.
If things are to change, a crash is undeniably needed, but a crash isn't caused by developers or publishers, it's caused by the consumer, since that's we are, cattle to line up and accept our shit game after shit game year after year.
Look at what E3 has become. if this isn't insulting to you or anyone still in this thread, then I don't know what the fuck to make of this place any more.
>>337102513
AAA anything usually tends to not be art
Movies can be art, but the Avengers sure as hell is not an artistic work.
there's plenty of indie games that could be described as art
YOU BECOME BIG AS WELL
>>337102513
>It used to be.
Yeah, in 1998 when making a game didn't cost millions of dollars.
>I think you're overestimating video game production.
I worked 3D sculpting and graphic design in the industry for a few years after college. I promise you, I am not remotely overestimating how much it costs to make a remotely AAA game.
>but it's still 1/4th the size of a AAA film, with 1/4th the budget
The top budget games are generally fairly on par with high budget movies. I promise you, more money will be spent marketing Call of Duty or Battlefield or Skyrim 2 than it cost to make most movies you'll see this year.
>Are we really a fanbase of Michael Bay enthusiasts? What happened to art design?
Artists are a tiny cog in a huge wheel. Trust me, I'm speaking as a working artist. You aren't paid to be creative or make art, you're paid to deliver a product on a deadline. Art takes time and passion and struggle, and games don't have time for that in their development cycle. Especially not when there's 10 concept artists trying to churn out designs for different swords so the 10 modelers can sculpt them and get them sent to the texture guys.
>why are we wasting so much time trying to make "realistic" graphics, and why do people even want that?
Because...opinions? Why are you acting like somehow, because you don't value realistic graphics, you're somehow intellectually superior to people who do?
>As the technology ages it becomes cheaper and easier to utilize.
Holy fuck, no it doesn't.
Dude, I get it, you're "le enlightened gamer". Shit's not going to change, so you might as well cry in the corner instead of posting more.
By making the main character powerful enough to actually fight them. See Bayonetta.
