Risk versus Reward in PoE: Bosses

Speaking as a noob, my biggest problem with PoE's postgame (and it's still a pretty good postgame) is that it rewards playing it safe and penalizes you for pushing your limits.

As such, I'd love it if (a) the boss room was restored to its starting conditions on your death, and (b) getting killed by a boss didn't cost you XP. I don't get killed by bosses often, but when I do it's usually in a way that I absolutely wouldn't go down a second time, so it's frustrating to drop a chunk of XP progress on that. With changes like those, I could actually learn the boss, develop a strategy, and then get the feeling of actually achieving something. Even if they ramped up overall difficulty and added more insta-death attacks, it wouldn't bother me if I was given a chance to figure them out.

In addition, I agree with all of the posters who have asked for more conditions and mechanics in boss fights. Basically, I would like to see lots and lots of puzzle bosses.

What if the map boss's drops could never roll the bottom tier rolls? (maybe cut off the lowest 2 tiers of multi-tier pre/suffixes with 6 or more possible tiers of rolls)

It would guarantee that the items are always of better potential quality than the trash mobs of the same map.

They could even make sure the boss drops are of the highest base items that the level can support.

It doesn't remove the RNG, but it tilts it in favor of better stuff from bosses.

1.) NO

2.) How to Improve that:

a.) Visually not rewarding: most bosses look small, weak, normal.

SOLUTION >> make bosses look like bosses


b.) Loot not rewarding: most of the time what they drop is crap

SOLUTION >> make the fights much harder and complicated, with interessting mechanics that maybe even involve the whole map right from the start. Give each boss the chance to drop an item that only he/she/it can drop and make that item have variables to make it worthwhile to return to it to get a better version. Also, make those items grow in power based on the map-tier-boss u defeat. I liked how MEDIAN XL a Diablo Mod had very cool Uber-Quest-System with very tough bosses and mobs protecting them, but they (the bosses) all had the chance to drop a unique item that was really rewarding and could only be found at their place.


c.) XP not rewarding: It's faster and safer to just blast through the map and skip boss

SOLUTION >> forget about improving the bosses XP. It will only be more appealing with Loot.

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Antigegner wrote:

SOLUTION >> make the fights much harder and complicated, with interessting mechanics that maybe even involve the whole map right from the start. Give each boss the chance to drop an item that only he/she/it can drop and make that item have variables to make it worthwhile to return to it to get a better version.

And you think after 100.000 players killed the map boss multiple times, no matter how nice the item is, it will still be worth >1 alchemy orb?

I 99% kill the boss during mapping, from tier 1 - 14.
Until I read this post and think about it, I didn't realize bosses are giving bad reward lol. From now on I might just skipping them.

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Peterlerock wrote:

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Antigegner wrote:

SOLUTION >> make the fights much harder and complicated, with interessting mechanics that maybe even involve the whole map right from the start. Give each boss the chance to drop an item that only he/she/it can drop and make that item have variables to make it worthwhile to return to it to get a better version.

And you think after 100.000 players killed the map boss multiple times, no matter how nice the item is, it will still be worth >1 alchemy orb?

Well it doesn't appear to me that items or rewards gated or having increased chances to drop on x or y bosses at this hour end to worth 1 alchemy.
If it's on an uber version of the boss let's say, it will involve some more risk, having an interesting reward doesn't change anything from shaper / atziri / uber atziri / breach domains rewards and model at all.

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Heli0nix wrote:

Well it doesn't appear to me that items or rewards gated or having increased chances to drop on x or y bosses at this hour end to worth 1 alchemy.

Just look at Atziri's flask. Super strong, super popular, worth nothing.

If all bosses are turned into Mini-atziri's (that's how I read the post I quoted), their special loot will maybe be worth something at the start of a league, but this will go down very quickly.

Strand boss drops a nice unique?
10.000 strands later, the value of that unique would be close to zero.

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Peterlerock wrote:

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Heli0nix wrote:

Well it doesn't appear to me that items or rewards gated or having increased chances to drop on x or y bosses at this hour end to worth 1 alchemy.

Just look at Atziri's flask. Super strong, super popular, worth nothing.

If all bosses are turned into Mini-atziri's (that's how I read the post I quoted), their special loot will maybe be worth something at the start of a league, but this will go down very quickly.

Strand boss drops a nice unique?
10.000 strands later, the value of that unique would be close to zero.

and why is the value so important? Also, who said it drops that often? But the fact in my opinion remains that it can only become more interesting if there is either good loot or a (quest-) reward that matters.

Just turn them into loot pinatas like the enraged rhoa bosses. Whole lot of nothing will cover the screen but it will still have some psychological effect.

That's the best you will eventually get,since this game is about trade not about reward.

The real problem with this thread is the supposition that "risk" is the same for all. It's not. For some, risk=0 and forming a ratio out of it is meaningless. For others, and for a bit of overlap, reward=0. They have everything they could possibly want.

When you discuss this issue, you are imposing your own prejudice on the values. That's why different people have different opinions and strategies.

All this thread is doing is crying "Base your game around ME!". Not going to happen.