A Less Trashy Boss

posted by on 17th August 2014, at 1:57am

Hello everyone, if you read my last article I covered the idea of raising the level cap to 120. Today I am covering something that is also endgame related. If you are a lover of combat, then get ready because I have a self made ideal boss that would change RuneScape bosses forever.

With the release of God Wars, we had to kill 40 monsters of the correct god in order to get into the throne room and fight the boss. This can relate similar to other MMO’s that have requirements to fight the big baddy at the end. The idea of “Trash” or monster killing before a boss to get to the boss, is as old as MMO’s themselves. It can be annoying like in God Wars to the point where Jagex attempts to make methods for skipping kill count. This can be a really negative part of the bossing experience.

So why make it negative? Trash doesn’t have to make the overall experience negative. Other games handle their trash really well. It just has to be done right. This part of the boss fight needs to feel more like part of the actual fight itself than a chore that has to be done before the real fun begins. I feel that a boss that is missing from RuneScape is a boss that has real trash and not the poorly executed excuse for monsters in the God Wars Dungeon.

Give us a themed dungeon with 3 to 5 variants of the monsters with similar abilities that all are unique enough to enjoy. Give the trash drops that will aid in the killing of the big boss at the end, maybe add something like the kill weapon for the final boss that a random monster in the trash drops. As long as all the trash is taken care of or have the boss spawn if the players disregard the trash and have the mobs attack with the boss making the fight impossible. The last option can give an illusion of the team making choices. Choices are nice, isn’t it one of the reason we play such a massive game? Isn’t it why there are now 3 ways to play this game?

Give us stronger trash that I need to pay attention to. Make it a dangerous journey to the final boss, an actual part of the experience. Something to look forward to with your bossing mates.

What if bossing also had a maze mechanic where the maze would change just like dungeons from Daemonheim. It would yet another mechanic to cool boss raids but it would also continue to renew the boss battle every time. This way people wouldn’t be able to have one or two methods in order to kill the boss. Many methods would be needed and possibly discussed as everyone treks the dungeon or tower or whatever setting it could possibly be.

I think it’s important that after taking care of difficult trash that the actual boss fight should be also themed and intense quick paced yet at the same time carries out to a desirable length of time. When I boss I don’t enjoy grinding the boss for drops, I wish it was more of a challenge so i could be at the edge of my seat. I crave for that feeling of my lower levels going against Bandos for the first time.

One of the things in boss battle that I almost passed over is music; I think that the audio of the music can also make or break a boss for me. For those of you that have done Plague’s End, there is a scene where you break a door down and then the music attempts but fails to captivate. While I was playing through this part I was thinking they could have made a more epic track. Same for bossing, make some epic tracks that I am willing to turn audio back on for. They have made some good tracks for quest bosses like the Zaros quest that was released a few months ago.

So where would this new boss style go? Well, they can make brand new areas like they did with Polypore and the Order of Ascension dungeons. They could try putting it in Dungeoneering, you trek through the warped halls of Daemonheim killing Kal’gerion demons working you way through stronger and stronger enemies before coming face to face with the big bad demon boss at the end that drops something rare and useful.

Just one example of such an easy concept with content that already slightly exists. It can be done. It just comes down to the task of the developers and the fans. I feel that it is time for something new. and this would be a great solution to traditional bosses with a new twist.

This game has so many options, Jagex should really consider adding a boss with real trash to it for once. They should try shaking it up for once. They should try adding a maze mechanic to major trash killing before the final boss. They don’t seem to have a problem shaking up the rest of the game.Take us back to my first times bossing against the difficult bosses. Show us a boss fight that is worth remembering.


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