Boss mechanics and removal of N/C/M

Imagine having to fight Merci Dominus without ever fighting him on Normal and Cruel. Sounds a bit scary, right?

GGG has so far been very successful with their boss designs, as most of them seem very hard at first, but once the player has understood and practiced the boss fights, it becomes rather easy. Atziri at first seemed impossible to fight, but very quickly we even had people with 1/1 health winning the boss fight. The game rewards practice and mechanical skills, at least in boss fights.

Most of the practice would come in enviroment that is challenging but allows for a mistake. Being able to live through Dominus Touch of god served as a good example of how the mechanic works and as a warning that you won't be able to tank it on Merci. Similar with Uber Atziri - she has the same mechanics as Normal one, because the normal one gives you a bit of a room for mistakes, so you can practice and learn all of ins and outs before going for the real challenge.

This long intro is meant to serve as a basis for a discussion regarding boss designs in Act5-10 and how GGG will manage to make the fights challenging, yet allow people to practice the bosses in a safe enviroment.

Since they will remove Normal, Cruel and Merci, there won't be a chance to practice mechanics of a boss in less difficult scenario, but will require players to immediatelly grasp the boss mechanics and rules from the first try. And since we are expecting acts 7-10 (probably) to replace Merci, one would expect that these boss fights will be challenging.

So how can GGG solve this issue? How can they make bosses be enough challenging but also allow players to learn their mechanics? Do they simplify the boss fights and dumb-down the mechanical aspects, so it doesn't matter if you are fighting the boss for the first time or for 50th time? Or do they throw us in the fire and see how well we roast?

I'd really love to see a dev manfesto (or at least a comment) on this subject, as it feels to me as a very important part of game design.

It's pretty simple man.

Play the boss. Either die or kill him/her.

Create new instance and repeat.

First up, I think some (if not all) of the new bosses will be reworks of existing bosses (like how Brutus becomes Kole becomes Penitentiary Incarcerator). The earlier versions prepare you for the later versions within the same difficulty.

Secondly:

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Odoakar wrote:

How can they make bosses be enough challenging but also allow players to learn their mechanics?

That's what SC is for.

There are a lot of games that only have one appearance of a boss in an entire playthrough. In PoE's case, the best way to learn would be to do it on a softcore playthrough which lets you experiment with overcoming mistakes more quickly before risking hardcore character deaths.

Also, the difficulty design needs to reboot after Act 4 anyway, so that it can slowly ramp back up to a similar difficulty apex for Act 10.

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brunowa wrote:

It's pretty simple man.

Play the boss. Either die or kill him/her.

Create new instance and repeat.

Not so easy on HC:)

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MonstaMunch wrote:

First up, I think some (if not all) of the new bosses will be reworks of existing bosses (like how Brutus becomes Kole becomes Penitentiary Incarcerator). The earlier versions prepare you for the later versions within the same difficulty.

Secondly:

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Odoakar wrote:

How can they make bosses be enough challenging but also allow players to learn their mechanics?

That's what SC is for.

That is true, but that would mean once 3.0 hits, all the players should first go SC to practice, and only after that roll HC. That doesn't sound that fun, as I'd certainly want to start HC when 3.0. But I see your point.