It's common knowledge at this point that most bosses have servere issues, and that a lot of people don't find most of them worth killing. Considering the amount of replies my thread on the economy got, I'd want to have one about bosses as well.
We will be talking about the following subjects:- Loot
- Difficulty & mechanics
- Requirements & accessability
- What can be done with <insert boss name here>?
- Weapon & gear variety
LootIn terms of loot, bossing is far outclassed by slayer in the long run. In the short term bossing is only better if you're killing a certain boss and recieving good drops. Which doesn't outright prevent people from bossing, granted not everyone likes doing slayer compared to bossing. However it gives people that are out for money and have somewhat of an idea how the game works no reason to kill bosses.
The amount of impact a rare drop has the money you make on a trip should be greater, and the money per trip regardless of your luck should be a little better. I don't really have exact fixes for this, but that's what I would want. I'll leave the rest of that to other people.
And for the love of fucking god, the following drops need to be removed from a lot of droptables: dragon boots, uncut onyx and barrows gloves. Onyx should be made exclusive to the tokkul shop and stars so furies/stones don't become downright unsellable. Dragon boots and bgloves should be limited to one table and one table only. These items could be way more satisfying to get than they are.
Difficulty & mechanicsA lot of boss fights are currently quite a cakewalk as long as you've got decent gear. Boss fights are mostly a matter of dps, getting the boss to deal less dps so you can stay longer and doing more dps to the boss so it dies faster. It's essentially the same as fighting a goblin on a lot of steroids with most bosses, I think we should work to stray from that.
An example of a change in the right direction is corporeal beast's second phase mage attack, it was changed to do a lot of damage if you don't dodge it. It adds quite a bit of risk and a slight skill gap to corp's second phase. If you don't pay attention, you could die. If you dodge it you won't have to eat, which means you don't have to stop attacking. It's got a reward to it, which is how mechanics should work.
Otto really made a point when he said bosses shouldn't require high level gear to kill efficiently. It makes the rewards from the boss necessary to kill it, and that's bad design. You should be able to kill bosses in dragon/black dhide/inf, and you shouldn't compeltely struggle with it. Granted some bosses should require a bit better gear, but if a boss is designed around requiring gwd sets to kill it better be something other than a buffed up goblin.
Boss minions are something I wanna touch on. They're kind of bad, aside from just being a little extra damage they don't do much. Yes, they have their own drops but that's no benefit during the fight. There's just not very much of a reason to them. I'll talk about solutions for this when discussing specific bosses.
Requirements & accessabilityThis is certainly not the most major issue, however I do think that the requirements for some bosses need to be changed. Ease of access is good for bosses that are intended for beginners. Ease of access is bad or unnecessary for bosses intended at higher leveled/geared players. If a boss is harder to access, it's loot becomes a bit more valuable. KQ is a decent example of this, it being members only has been a factor on the price of it's rare drops. More when talking about specific bosses.
What can be done with KBD?I'd say currently KBD is quite solid overall. Since it's d'hides were changed to be noted it's become quite a great moneymaker. It's rare drops aren't too awful for it's intended purpose either. I would say KBD is in the best spot in terms of intended purpose and outcome right now.
There is something that can be improved upon; it's location. It's in rimmington dungeon surrounded by a swarm of black dragons. Due to always being targeted by multiple creatures, degradable items aren't an option as they go away too fast. Being forced to protect from melee all the time limits what we can do with KBD in terms of mechanics. Attacking it from a distance also completely nullifies most of what the boss can do to you, and just leaves you to the black dragons (unless you're using the safespot, in which case it's irrelevant).
Let's say we move KBD to it's lair, and we have that lair accessible from the dungeoneering unlocked entrance that it's currently close to. It would make black dragon tasks a lot more convenient, since we won't have to rely on the two that spawn in barb dungeon if we don't wanna be taking KBD's attacks. KBD can get some slight upgrade to it's mechanics, which would give it a bit more flavor. And it could no longer be safespotted.
What can be done with GWD?God wars need mechanics. The fights are kind of boring if you've been to gwd a few times, this could use some change.
Something simple is to do with minions. If minions are alive, the boss loses 10% of it's accuracy, if the minions are dead, the boss loses 10% of it's defence. It would mean killing the minions is something you have to make a decision on. Having different benefits for groups and duo/solos it could be a nice addition.
A simple mechanic that could be implemented to all bosses is some kind of AoE attack. The boss would say "For Saradomin/Zamorak/Bandos/Armadyl!" and an area would light up/be marked, and the AoE attack would land a couple of gameticks later. This attack would need the same sort of impact as corp's 2nd phase mage attack. To make it different it would do a bit less damage to hitpoints, but would drain prayer.
The altar in GWD needs to be changed. Right now it provides near infinite prayer points, as it's cooldown is reset upon logout. You can just relog after the boss dies and use the altar again. It's actual cooldown also isn't too high. I'd want it changed to be based around your killcount. Restoring a percentage of your total prayer points at the cost of 4 killcount. Higher prayer levels get more out of this, which is also a slight benefit to prayer.
What can be done with KQ?It attacks with multiple styles which isn't too bad. It's poison could be buffed up, giving antipoison and the poison aura some more use. It's drops are quite fine, aside form the uncut onyx. The hellcat pet could be made a lot rarer. Her protection prayers need to be more significant. To the point where using different styles or veracs is viable.
Her transformation is too slow and gives way too much breathing room for a boss fight. Speed it the hell up.
What can be done with Chronozon?His spawns don't really do anything if you're praying mage. It might be fun to make them deal damage to the boss when killed. Or they could be removed, that works too.
Remove the onyx, remove the dboots, remove the bgloves. Elemental staff is good enough of a drop.
What can be done with SDC?First off, the key ring. Making the keys way easier to get is all fine and dandy for people that don't yet have a key ring.. Now I get two keys every time I go for a task in smoke dungeon. It's not that difficult to get your key ring back if you die, you don't really need to be keeping a multitude of keys around. They need another function besides making the key ring. Making them usable on the smoke chest could be done, the smoke chest also needs an update anyways, and it would improve the boss' loot as well since it drops the keys.
It's minions don't really do anything either, they could be given the same treatment as in gwd but maybe with a higher percentage.
Droptable needs improvements, and for gods sake get rid of the bgloves drop.
What can be done with Wildy wyrm?Claws just need a bloody sink for these to be decent again. Make obby dragons drop an upgrade item instead of obby claws and we're there. Dclaws are consumed every time you die with them in PvP.
What can be done with Corporeal beast?Two things were done right with this boss. It's mage attack in phase two and it's droptable. Those are both great.
Corp's biggest issue is it's phases. Phase one is a complete cakewalk, all you need to do is pray melee. It's transformation is slow as hell, giving you a ton of breathing room. Phase two could be better as well, the mage attack is all you really have to worry about. Honestly, it would already greatly improve if it was just phase 2 corp. The dark core could be added to make soloing the damn thing actually difficult. Corp should've been the most challenging boss we got, but it fell short.
Put holy elixrs in the droptable and stop having them be a shop item. It's unnecessary.
That's all I have to say for now. Feel free to post your own thoughts on the topic.
