Over the past year I have noticed that boss battles have some what became a stroll in the park. Its like the boss in games turns out to be a geek who only says threats and never puts them into action. Since sephiroth is retired and donkey kong in a coma what are game designers gonna do.

Nothing. THEIR boss is actually a supervillain, and he sees that hard boss battles in games are teaching kids how to defeat him, and in order to take over the world, he's weakening us by telling the game designers to create easy bosses.

They are gonna make more World of Warcraft instances.

Ah ha, I see now. You have opened my eyes.

This topic just makes me pine for another Shadow of the Colossus.

Hard boss fights were always the best bits, turok 2 seeds of evil had ace boss fights

Leeathal:
what are game designers gonna do.

Because there's no way they can implement code that makes a new boss difficult.

Say Anything:

Leeathal:
what are game designers gonna do.

Because there's no way they can implement code that makes a new boss difficult.

I code myself as I am currently studying game design at university, but if you are given 3 - 4 years to code a game then you should be able to come up with a better boss than we get today.

Hmm, maybe it's because games of the present have more repetition.

You can stroll through a game like Halo and encounter the same situation numerous times with little variation.

Having a boss that breaks the combat norm is outgoing, many designers just take the easier option of having a buffer soldier.

Leeathal:

Say Anything:

Leeathal:
what are game designers gonna do.

Because there's no way they can implement code that makes a new boss difficult.

I code myself as I am currently studying game design at university, but if you are given 3 - 4 years to code a game then you should be able to come up with a better boss than we get today.

Yes, but you wanted to know what game designers are going to do if bosses become to easy for the public. They'd implement code that makes them more difficult.

If I'm reading it wrong and you want to know why game developers feel the need to make bosses easy, I can't say. Maybe you've gotten better, or you're playing the wrong types of games? Maybe you need to step up the difficulty? Personally, I had to go down to normal mode on Half-Life 2 because I was just getting my ass handed to me every 3 minutes by the normal encounters. Perhaps you should try playing online games against other people? There's always somebody better than you.

Not to toote my own horn I do play online games, and I do get a challenge but you get better and can take them on, and I play most games on hard or veteran difficulty. Anyway what I meant was why are boss battles getting easier no matter the difficulty.

Maybe we're just getting better at defeating them?
The first time I played through Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I had trouble with almost all the bosses.
Later Zelda games, like the Wind Waker had easier bosses.
Twilight Princesses bosses were laughably weak, not one of them even got close to killing me.

Then when I went back to playing Ocarina of Time after years, I had way less trouble with the bosses then I used to.
Sure, the old bosses do a lot more damage every time they hit you but a big part of their difficulty depends on your experience if you ask me.

Leeathal:
Not to toote my own horn I do play online games, and I do get a challenge but you get better and can take them on, and I play most games on hard or veteran difficulty. Anyway what I meant was why are boss battles getting easier no matter the difficulty.

You're getting better or you're not playing the right games, it's blatantly obvious if you can take on most people that you play online.

Landslide:
This topic just makes me pine for another Shadow of the Colossus.

That would be incredible but let's see what the new game from Team Ico brings use. It sure is gonna be awesome.

I'm totally with you on this. In the last like few years, game bosses have just been a total cake-walk. I think Oblivion has one of the worst cases for this. If you play it on the hardest difficulty, sometimes you can struggle in battle with a random bandit. But when you do a cool quest with a cool plot that has a unique character at the end. You charge in expecting a long epic battle only to find if you poke him hard enough, he falls over and dies.

I dunno, I don't really mind it so much. A boss battle is really just a sequence that doesn't belong in a game - it requires you to approach the encounter in a way that is different from how the rest of the game functions. Really difficult boss battles are just frustrating - when there's one boss battle you just can't beat, it's not exciting, it's infuriating.

Yes true, but a game leads up to an ending which in turn means defeating the evil guy/girl, lad/lass whatever tickles your fancy as this was the whole purpose of the game, to get to the climax and rid yourself of that pesky lad/lass/guy/girl who has been taunting you the whole time.

Hard boss battles are hard to come by these days, and most of the time there quick time events for instance every dam boss in spider man web of shadows, yes you get to fight them but to finish them off ow what should we make the player do, super power, something so amazing it would blow their mind, no lets use a quick time event.

raxiv:
They are gonna make more World of Warcraft instances.

Funnily enough, World of Warcraft has some of the best boss fights I've seen. As a matter of fact, most MMORPGs I've played have great boss fights.

When I say great, I mean fun, but quite difficult at the same time.

Xojins:

raxiv:
They are gonna make more World of Warcraft instances.

Funnily enough, World of Warcraft has some of the best boss fights I've seen. As a matter of fact, most MMORPGs I've played have great boss fights.

When I say great, I mean fun, but quite difficult at the same time.

I'd have to agree.

I think devs just need to up the damage you take with some bosses, back in the old days bosses HURT.

They do truely need to step up the boss fights, could be a lack of ideas, or pure laziness.
However the thrid person games need more good bosses, and don't forget the pain in the ass mini boss.

Really, it took you this long to notice?

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for the gba if i am not mistaken had some cool boss fights and some great mini boss aswell...but then again it is an old zelda game not much can top those games :D

Use weak weapons to take him down, dumb tactics, etc. Try to be bad and win at the same time.

at least some games have final bosses, whether they be easy or not, unlike a certain game, lets call it... Phable Two

Ty fighting Decus and Alice on Tales of Symphonia 2. I got raped in less than 10 seconds! =(

Because it makes me feel accomplished when I beat a boss.

Also I needz me some Shadow of the Collosus 2 now.

Agreed.
Other than the fact that they can't be bosses if there is no other enemies.
Edit: Directed at Landslide

No More Heroes had quite good bossbattles (and they were actually fun). It took me quite a while to fight off No.1, considering it was extremely hard to just connect one hit.
But your point is clear. I dont recall having any troubles with the Boss Fights aside from that, with the biggest cockblock being Mass Effects final boss....seriously, wtf was that?
All that talking about reapers and shit and we get to fight....that?

Is that Brumak at the end of Gears 2 considered a boss? I heard that some people did think of it as a boss.
That thig was basically a mean spirited traffic barrier; if I may quote Yahtzee somewhat.

Landslide:
This topic just makes me pine for another Shadow of the Colossus.

Exactly. That game was nothing BUT bosses, and it rocked. Also, is the title of this thread a reference to Catch 22?

As much as I had fun in Kingdom Hearts, all of the boss battles in Kingdom Hearts 2 were nothing more than spamming quicktime events until loads of munnies and health balls littered the floor.

Hard bosses in action-oriented games are usually just annoying.

Weell, I always loved boss battles in RPG games. Especially when it came to the Final Fantasy series. I'd love to see the people who design FPS games like id or maybe even DICE or Valve to create a boss much like a Shadow of the Colossus boss meets a Final Fantasy GF/Boss character and have it so killing it plays much like a puzzle with pattern recognition, reflex testing, and tactical maneuvering.

That would be HARDCORE