Designing a boss. Thanos vs. Ultron vs. Galactus vs.Boss mode 5* vs. Kaeicellus

Phumade

Alot of good things are happening with this iteration of Bosses.

Broadly speaking, There are 2 types of bosses.

Puzzle Bosses (Galactus / Thanos / Ultron/ Kaecillius)      vs.  Active power bosses (Civil war, Boss Rush)
I'll let other people discuss how to make a good active power boss, and I'll just limit my comments to puzzle style bosses.

Thanos does a great job of combining Galactus style futility with Ultron/Kaecillius style match 3 puzzles.  Specifically, the infinity gauntlet inevitably and consistently wipes out team health without the unpredictability and confusion of the Galactus cd tiles.  I think its really important that players can consistently predict that 5 bombs = dead team vs.  how many of the Galactus timers can go before he can fire beam of death.  Players enjoy using their common sense intuition on bosses vs referring to off screen ap totals to let them know about danger.  

More importantly, the inclusion of the gems gives players a method to speeding up their powers and changing match outcome.  This is a very welcome mechanic that simplifies how players would "manually do the same thing " via hulk bombing.  I think its a very important design milestone when they create standard mechanics that replicate how players actually solved the game.  Players should NOT feel compelled to bring winfinite style teams or hulk bombs to turbo charge powers.  Those mechanics should be built into the rules so that players can use other options.

I do think they need to revisit the damage numbers.  Specifically infinity gauntlets should be tuned to similar damage as an Ultron bomb at the same round level.  In addition, there should be more forethought on how gauntlets are tuned in comparison to bombs/strike tiles.  You can have multiple utlron bombs detonate in one turn,  but only 1 infinity gauntlet.  I don't think the damage table was well thought out in that regard.

otherwise great boss design and looking forward to more puzzle type events.

Last thought to ponder.
In a boss event, we'll fight thanos over 50 times in at various power/health levels

but in Strange Sights,  we fight Kaecillius 3 times for the entire event.  He is arguably one of the more interesting opponents to fight.

Orion

So are you saying that you want Thanos to do more damage?  Because right now, his damage is pretty laughable. Bringing his damage in line with Galactus would mean at least doubling what he does now.

I liked the puzzle aspect of Thanos, but since the difficulty level was so low, it ultimately didn't matter. With some more tweaking he could be really fun.

StarScream

Round six will see Thanos one-shotting my characters, so no, no added damage on top of what he has now.

CrookedKnight

Yeah, once you get into round 6/7 any cascade triggered by the gauntlet going off is most likely going to kill at least one of your characters. I can only imagine that in round 8 it's more like two dead characters. And since the gauntlet is just dealing tile destruction damage you can't boost it without also boosting the power of cascades.

Orion

Round 8 is doing about 10k + a couple more from cascades. That might kill an unboosted 3*, but it's hardly earth shattering.

Previous 3* rosters had no chance at a level 8 boss, did they?

MarkersMake

Thanos' damage doesn't necessarily have to be ramped up to eleven. I mean, it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable for the infinity gems to have drawbacks. Want 30AP? You have to eat a 4k "psychic overload" damage component too. 

Nothing overboard, but it could increase the challenge without simply making Thanos a damage monster. It could be thematically sound (as above) too. 

But yeah, I love the design of the encounter. Way more fun than just "survive, if you can". 

Phumade

It looks like the infinity gauntlet works by charging the basic tiles and exploding them for bonus damage.  It makes me wonder how much less damage it does if the entire line is TU gems.

Round 8 is definitely well tuned for unboosted 4*, but easy for for 5* rosters.  I look forward to playing this in unlimited mode after we finish round 8. 

The boss R8health is a little lite at 45k.  My preference would have been 64k for 3x5* combos.  But 45k is incredibly well tuned for champed 4* roster.

One way they could tune difficultly is by adding an extra infinity gauntlet in round 8.  But the CD timing is perfect.

Punisher5784

I thought for sure the Gauntlet tile would explode 4 ways in the later rounds. If you look at the Gauntlet, there is an arrow for left and right.. I was waiting for it to also have up and down arrow. Destroying a row and a column could have been the increased damage. Oh well.. maybe next time.

turul

That pink gem is so useless...... a gem that makes another gem. Why not place the second gem instantly

Punisher5784

turul said:

That pink gem is so useless...... a gem that makes another gem. Why not place the second gem instantly

Agreed. Instead of placing a random gem that you may never be able to match, it should just give you a random gem ability 

GuntherBlobel

Great insights OP. I really like that I can bring in multiple teams that fit the puzzle. Other boss event required really cheap tactics like Hulk bombing to get through the later stages.

DarthDeVo

Punisher5784 said:

turul said:

That pink gem is so useless...... a gem that makes another gem. Why not place the second gem instantly

Agreed. Instead of placing a random gem that you may never be able to match, it should just give you a random gem ability 

It can be a bit hit or miss, but it's also been pretty helpful on several occasions, especially when it creates another red or black gem.

OneLastGambit

I whole heartedly recommend this boss. No ridiculous scaling no need for my usual boss killer (GR) and a chance for actual puzzle based tactics. 

The best thing about this boss was that it gave you..choice.
You could choose to take out the infinity gauntlet for extra time. 
You could choose to aim to match the gems (and therefore design a team for this purpose) 
You could aim to go for fast damage...

There was a multitude of ways to win meaning the boss fights weren't boring. As someone who experiments with different teams and systems this boss was perfect. Previous boss fights had very few ways to win and they usually involved gaming the system in some way. This didn't, it had valid and different ways to win for all roster levels. That's how you design a boss event. 

PuceMoose

This was definitely the most fun boss event for me. I loved the puzzle element of matching, and even though the boss fights weren't frustratingly hard, they still required some thought (at least for those in the 3/4 transition). I felt that randomly matching tiles without careful consideration would result in death. 

I used Wasp/4Carol/4Blade, and that was a fun team - if I couldn't get rid of a gauntlet tile, I could flip my strikes to protects to soften the blow, then flip them back to strikes on my turn (assuming I had enough yellow, of course.) 4Blade had a gleeful giggle when he earned the 30 red AP from the AP gem a few times, and 4carol set up a photonic barrage superstore when she cashed in on the black from said gem. 

Dragon_Nexus

turul said:

That pink gem is so useless...... a gem that makes another gem. Why not place the second gem instantly

It makes *any* colur though, so it could be you match the purple gem and it makes a blue, giving you more AP. Or a red just where you need one to finish him off. Or a yellow when you were low on health and about to lose.