Sacman said:
No, the biggest problem with the boss battles was the fact that all of them, without exception, are designed almost entirely around one type of character build... not specifically that they were over powered, though that was certainly part of it... It's that you had to shoot them to death, or follow the directions on how to beat them, there was no other option, sure they had specific things you could do to win, but it's so specific and requires such a uniform set of directions that there might as well not be any choice in how you handle it... might as well make the first boss only take damage from barrels or the second boss only take damage from electricity, which would still undermine the idea of unique character builds and favor specific character builds over others, which is the initial problem...
and placing mines and stun locking aren't particularly viable... unless you feel like glitching character animations and that's still poor design, but of a different sort... and stealth is about as well implemented as an axe head is in the victim of a serial murderer... it's like the stealth in Metro 2033... you're either wondering around waiting to bump into someone who than starts shooting at you... or you just use it to cry in a corner for a bit before you're spotted and the shooting begins again... there just isn't enough depth in the level design or boss AI to facilitate much in terms of stealth mechanics... not to mention the fact that the stealth mechanics themselves aren't suited well for the kind of tactics required for a boss...
You can describe as many ways as you want to beat a boss, but most of them simply aren't a viable option... even with specialization...
If hacking or platforming mechanics were actually implemented, it might've been better... but even that would just be touching the tip of how the boss fights could've been improved... I mean the boss fights from the original Deus Ex are a decent example... I mean each boss fight, wasn't particularly deep but they had their quirks and were generally accessible by any and all character builds... mostly due to the fact that they were basically just stronger regular enemies... I mean a well designed boss battle goes beyond the room you fight them in...
The best thing the boss fights in Deus Ex did, from a gameplay perspective, was make them at times optional and actually having alternatives to fighting... So that even a character not meant for combat can still win, or at least make past that part... but the best thing they did for the boss fights at all, and this is something that Human Revolution didn't even touch on, and that is that the boss fights actually made sense, for character development and plot... and they didn't undermine the player's own role playing experience...<.<
Honestly I really don't agree, look at the first boss. If you sneak, he loses track of you and you can hide and take potshots at him whilst he's not looking if you have a stealth build. You can throw barrels at him with an augmented build. If you have a stun gun and plenty of ammo, stunlocking the first boss is very viable. If you've been stacking up armour you can take him out in a straight gun fight. If you've got typhoon, well instant win.
I stealthed the first boss, theres loads of videos on Youtube of people baralleling him, I've seen videos of someone stun locking and I was watching an LP where they went the shooty way.
Equally the electric floor is a valid option with the second boss, or you can chase her around whilst she tries to turn invisible, or you can take out the electricity things from distance with a weapon. Or you can stun her, take a shot with something stronger, stun her, take another shot again. Or you can typhoon her or you can dodge her charges and plough into her with something shotgunny whilst she does that.
I've seen people do all of those, but I think the point where we've got crossed wires is, I believe that whilst you have to be very skilled for them to do it now, if they'd turned down the DPS, then all of them would be very easily viable, if they're viable now for skilled player who know exactly what needs to happen, then with more time in the game you could have explored them and found them out.
This is what I think people missed, the devs included a lot of different strategies to take down each boss, but the power of the bosses meant it wasn't viable to discover these strategies and people didn't.
Take the second last boss, again if you stealth he loses track of you and you can take potshots, or you can run around the maze and never let him get a lock on, or if you've brought big guns with you, you can shoot through the walls and take him out like that. Or typhoon, or melee etc. But the problem was whenever I thought him, I would start trying one of those strategies and he'd kill me in two seconds for putting a foot wrong. So stealth stopped being viable, despite the mechanics being there just because if I got my stealth wrong for a second I'd lose the whole boss fight.
They were actually quite similar to MGS boss fights in design, using the water and footsteps to track an invisible person etc, it's just in MGS you've got time to try out strategies in a boss fight.
However I agree that they a)had nothing for hackers and charisma people except in the last bossfight, and b) needed more options to make the bosses skippable, but I'd like to note that they didn't avoid it entirely because the last bossfight (against the computer) is skippable if you have decent hacking, or speech check the last boss. It's also for all purposes and intent, skippable if you've got a shoot through walls weapon
