So this is going to be a polarizing sentiment, but I feel like the difficulty curve is really strangely applied in this game. The majority of the game feels way too easy even on legendary, then you encounter a boss…and die 30+ times.
I’m not against the concept. A boss is meant to be a challenge that surpasses all of the normal enemies in any game. But I feel like how it was done here is the problem.
See, bosses in Infinite aren’t just difficult because they have smarter AI, better weapons, more difficult movesets, etc.
They’re difficult because they have a ton of health and multiple ways to cheese you with one hit kills. I think back to all of my favorite games that have bosses in them, and it becomes apparent what the problem is…this is artificial difficulty. Outplaying them, finding ways to counter their abilities, finding weapons and gear that can overpower them, discovering their weakness, etc is not the goal. The goal is for the boss to kill you dozens of times quickly, while you scratch your head figuring out how to whittle their health down over a long period of time while avoiding their one hit kills.
Like I said, some people probably think this is awesome, but in my personal experience its bad game design.
Reminds me of Destiny’s bosses, which were largely the same way. I’m not necessarily bothered by it, but that more or less describes how ‘intricate’ their design is I suppose.
throwing cores are you’re friend on bosses tbh.
also i think they are hard because of shields, but i think on multiple plays there be much easier. Think about it, u know a boss is coming, you get the right weapons for it and ur good to go. rockets for example do massive dmg to health of a boss.
either way i enjoy the bosses , could they be better? sure like doom style i guess, but there the best bosses in a halo by far.
Ive found each boss seems to have a weakness to certain weapons, I’ve died alot on them but kept changing weapons and 2 bosses i killed in a minute on legendary
Weapons are really bad against Boss shields, that’s my only gripe.
You are pretty much forced to spam Cores at the boss until their shield pops, then give them the good ol power weapon beat down on their Health.
You could treat it like Cores = Johnson’s Beam rifle shots in Tartarus fight.
1st boss was easy. I just ffought the second one who had invis and it was a challenge. died about 10 times on heroic. That whole mission and then the 2nd boss fight at the end hooked me on the game. i went in with some marines, rescued some more marines during the mission. I was going round with about 10 marines able to keep them allive which added a lot of immersion to the game. the marines didnt follow me on the ship but thats understandable. finally got to the boss and i enjoyed i could die at any moment. it also taught me to memorise and switch equipment really quickly. the deaths felt cheasy at first but it was because i wasnt playing the game properly. the reason i loved that boss battle was because youu had to constantly move and shoot and i love the moving and shooting in this game.
" Outplaying them, finding ways to counter their abilities, finding weapons and gear that can overpower them, discovering their weakness, etc is not the goal. "
i felt it had those things. the movement and pulse radar was his weakness so that you could counter and outplay him. Are not the rest of the bosses like this?
Admittedly, some of the bosses do feel like an outright DPS race and only a handful that i’ve fought so far make you feel clever for using your equipment and specific weapons in order to trivialize an otherwise hard fight, but then again I’m from the era of “shoot it until it dies” kinds of FPSs so it doesn’t bother me too much…
These bosses are nowhere NEAR as bad as the Prophet of Regret or Warden Eternal cringe, and as someone I discussed it with once said, Bosses in FPS games are very difficult to make good/fun. The only game that to me has the most memorable and fun bosses to fight against (if we’re talking strictly FPS) are from the Metroid Prime series, and only because every single one of them escalates in difficulty and methods of dealing with them with your newly found arsenal, but even in that game they are spongey, especially in harder difficulties…
So I honestly wouldn’t even begin to know how to best make a boss in an FPS feel good or better than how they already are in Infinite, which is just a spongey enemy variant with a gimmick or two…
I honestly think the bosses are pretty good, though there l’s always room for improvement. Once their shields are down, if you have kinetic weapons/needler/melee weapons then they’re pretty easy to kill. One problem is if they boss regents their shield faster than you’re able to drain it while not dying. I’d have liked to see the bosses have some different move sets so that they’re distinguishable from the rest of the species on their race, but at least they have different weapon variants.
maybe its all about the illussion of spongey enemies. maybe there should be a boss that knows how to dodge alll of yyour attacks until he runs out of dodges. i mean thats why we stay alive, by dodging. maybe bosses sshould have llike dodging stamina instead of tons of sheilds. Not sure how bosses would dodge hit sccan weapons though which i guess is why fps bosses feel limited in design
I am on legendary and it feels really easy, but when I get to a boss I absolutely dread it. It isn’t fun, its about running around in circles and refrain from punching the screen because the grapple didn’t land right and I die. The best method I have found is to use cores to smash their shields down + use a plasma weapon to pepper them once in a while so their shields don’t recharge while I am finding another core. Soon as their health bar is vulnrable I usually try to skewer or rocket them but yeah… it isn’t fun. The rest of the campaign I am enjoying though.
it would result in the same thing, except worse IMO… Just look at the Marauder in DOOM Eternal, he literally cannot get hit because he either dodges or blocks your attack and will only take damage if you hit him while he’s vulnerable, and all that does it drag the fight out WAY longer than it needs to because it just becomes a waiting game of Simon Says…
The Dark Lord fight is EVEN WORSE than this too, because compared to him, the Marauder is genuinely balanced…
it doesnt make the fights longer. it would be up to the designer to make it fair. i just checked out marauder on youtube. some peoplle really like that enemy type
I have yet to play on Legendary, but in my experience so far, the shock grenades are a complete game changer if you can get your hands on some before facing a Brute boss fight (having the Disruptor may help as well), as they are temporarily stunned, allowing you to deal some damage.