Just curious, Oblivion and Fallout 3/New Vegas seem quite absent of boss style opponents. Though New Vegas did feature a challenging final boss fight if you were against the legion.

I just always thought it was a bit anti climactic in Oblivion when I get an epic quest to go kill some vampire lord or ancient lich. I fight my way through the dungeons and their hordes of undead minions for a face to face confrontation with my opponent... Only to slay them effortlessly. These seemingly epic foes were barely stronger then their followers and I never really felt satisfied or challenged by any individual foe throughout all of Oblivion.

When I face off against a dragon or some ancient vampire lord; I want it feel epic and challenging. Not like I just killed some random no name bandit who has no real strength, power or intellect.

Dragons?

To clarify after the edit, according to Todd Howard, they've put quite a lot of effort into making the Dragon fights sufficiently epic.

The issue with that in Oblivion lies with the fact that the combat is ultimately attrition-based. Weapons have consistent damage, so basically it's just shot for shot till soembody dies, then you heal yourself. Theres no decisive maneuvers or strategies. Dagoth Ur in Morrowind serves as a boss I suppose, but you don't really combat him directly. Mankar Cameron is about the closest thing to a boss in Oblivion. I suppose dodging Mehrune Dagon's giant boots was also a boss battle in some sense.

A combat boss would not have worked for Oblivion, you'd get your ass completely whooped since the Boss would be just strong enough to kill you every time. Assuming there's a bit more strategy to combat in Skyrim, I'd hope we'd see a boss. Though it really bugs me when bosses simply wind up as "booolet sponges," I want a boss thats smart in a fight, not a boss who can get hit a million times before he dies.

Yes, I want to see more dungeon crawls that result in some mini-bosses at least. You know, the giant spider queen guarding the amulet of . . . whatever. Not that I want every cave and dungeon to have a dungeon master, but it would be nice to see a few here and there, with nice lewt. I definitely want to go into a cave as a low level player and run into something uber, only to turn tail and run. I will keep playing, thinking to myself, am I strong enough to take on that thing now?

New Vegas had multiple boss creatures.

And I expect the epic Great Wyrms and such to be the boss type.

True, though Mankar Cameron tended to kick mages asses if you sent your most powerful spell at him and then he put his reflect spell up, so annoying <_<

I think in the GI podcast Todd Howard compared the dragons of Skyrim to a cross between the Big Daddy in Bioshock and Helicopter in GTA.

Either Todd has a lot of difficulty playing video games or Dragons are going to be really easy to kill. :sadvaultboy:

Yes but that was in name only. Seriously, even though there were some unique creatures with more hit points doesn't make them bosses. There has to be a reason, a feel, an ambiance per se.

I hate boss battles. It feels like its the 90's, when I hear the words boss battle. I way I see it is the boss just calls the shots. The idea of a boss battle is just weird to me. Who is harder to kill the knight in his full plate armor or the king in his regale robe. The solider with a flak jacket and assault rifle or his president/leader in a suit. Its just silly. That is just the way I see it anyway.

Bosses is a dangerous thing to be asking for. If not done perfectly they will end up either: Too much health. Too much damage. Too hard to hit. Too easy. Or (most often) too boring.

With Oblivions AI. Boss fights would just have been whack-heal-whack-heal until someones dead. This would have been extremely boring, especially if it's done after every quest, I probably would have put the game down, high level fights w/goblin warlords are long and boring enough imo.

If Skyrims new AI system is all its cracked up to be it could work out alright but it'd be better to not do it at all than to do it wrong. If they can apply more strategy than just creature x has y% weakness to shock, but also not hold our hands in finding out how to defeat the particular boss, than yes, I'll gladly welcome it.

EDIT: Oh and congrats on making a useful, thought provoking, not completely useless thread. They're getting rare these days. :foodndrink:

I understand your reasoning here, but Tolkien-esque games have always been filled with rare mythical creatures that served as a trial, meant to test the progress of the protagonist.

I remember in Oblivion I played in a stealth style and some quest had me retrieve something from an Ayleid dungeon. It turns out that quest triggered some wraith boss that I unknowingly ran from. It turns out this thing *followed me all over Cyrodiil* until at one point I finally ran into the boss and it scared the heck out of me!!

I suspect there will be boss type situations, even if they aren't as dramatic as they are in many other games.

Half life 2 not GTA. Which I replayed recently and those choppers are belligerent [censored]s.

Well there was "bosses" in Oblivion, but they were the Bandit Ring Leader or Necromancer Adept. They dropped usually a full set of what ever was the highest gear Attainable at your level and maybe an enchanted item. I know those aren't the epic boss battles we were all hoping for but like Hypno Toad said, they would beat your ass.

With Skyrim the dragons are going to be like bosses and they have been devoting a lot of time to make the dragons an OH!!!! OH [censored]!!! GETT TO THEE CHOPPPAHHH!! type of boss. well maybe not to that extent but you guys know where i'm going with it.

Also the choppers in HL2 were wayyyy to easy. They took three rockets to kcok out of the sky and every fight there was always an abundance of rockets lying around.

Hopefully i'll be fighting a dragon for a good 5 minutes and crawling away from the fight.

Actually now that I think about it, Umbra was a nice optional boss.

I think he meant before you got the launcher. Like when you have to grab barrels to block its fire and dodge around in little sewer areas that it cant reach you in. Pretty exciting nice rush early on.

When you use H2H as your only damage skill; EVERYTHING is a boss.

Ohhh yeah lol that was scary as hell the first time around. Good way to get the blood pumping lol

Anyone who played Nehrim on the PC (which used Oblivion's engine and resources) knows exactly how Bethesda could do boss battles.

In the tutorial quest of Nehrim, you're stuck in a massive, abandoned mine being chased by an unkillable Black Troll. You have to run from the creature, sealing gates and knocking it down with traps to survive. Eventually, you find out that the troll ate a key that you need, and that it's very weak against fire. You then have to collect torches, place them in the troll's den and finally kill it as it combusts before you. THAT is how you do a boss fight in an Elder Scrolls game.

The key is to present the player with an enemy that can't be killed through normal means, then force them to use the environment to win the battle. Imagine an undead Nord Sorcerer who regenerates health too quickly to be killed in regular combat, so you instead lure him to the top of a mountain, or to some bottomless pit, and knock him in. The boss here wouldn't be a "bullet sponge" because you don't actually need to fight him if you know what to do, and it isn't boring because it relies on quick thinking and strategy.

Well, I think that Dragons will be nice bosses, but still think that mini-bosses should be made more interesting.
At least make them drop some more unique stuff instead of just a bit stronger version of already existing stuff.
Also, they should work on their AI to make them more interesting.
For example, Mannimarco was a total let down.
I expected an awesome necromancer who will summon bunch of skeletons, have some special spells and do crazy stuff, but instead all I got was a bit stronger enemy I slew 100 times before already.
For example, boss of Shivering Isle expansion, Jyggalag was an awesome boss in my opinion.
They should make all those bosses more custom and special in my opinion.
And yeah, stuff they drop should wort a damn thing.
Staff of Worms and Mannimarco's robes were almost useless!

A boss couldn't be just another NPC, at least not in Oblivion. The bosses would have to be something different, something more dangerous.

I forgot about Jyggalag, but he was definitely a good boss. The Behemoths in Fallout 3 and Alpha/Mother/Legendary Deathclaws in New Vegas also fit the bill. I'd love to see interesting, semi-scripted boss encounters, but I'd be alright with lots of larger/retextured minibosses as well. It just has to be unique in some way, so that I don't get to the end of a dungeon and go "Oh, I already fought this guy twice." And so I can't say "I bet the boss of this cave will be a 'Bandit Ringleader,' just because the cave has bandits in it."

Hell, they could just give the Bandit Ringleader an interesting weapon and call him "Evan" instead of "Bandit Ringleader." Even that would be a slight improvement over Oblivion's cut-and-paste bosses.

I think that BGS could really pull off boss fights really well IF they implement them right. But I totally agree that in Oblivion, most "bosses" were just some bandits that had more health than your regular run of the mill bandit. They should make the "bosses" SMARTER. :goodjob: