How long is too long? (Instance / Boss fights).

[Simbosan.2863]

I don't have a problem with long instances per se, with checkpoints they can be fine.

 

What is very wrong, and it stuns me that devs still design things like this after all these years, is to have achievements that are difficult in themselves, attached to very difficult to understand boss fights. This means that you will have to repeat the whole instance multiple times to get those achievements. This incredibly poor and lazy design and shows that the designers have forgotten what the word 'Story' in Story Missions means. Repeating very long very difficult missions because the achieves are at the end is poor, very poor.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @TexZero.7910 said:

> For story, id personally put the story step with eater of souls as too long but that's because it's not broken up and the first fight (if you wish to call it that) is beyond pointless.

>

> Outside of that one scenario i don't think we've had any story instances be too long.

 

Agreed. Considering the result, and that you basically have to do the same fight three times over PoF, the fight at the beginning of that instance should have taken like 1/3 as long or less. I get that they couldn't reasonably split the mission up into two different missions, given what happens in the middle, but that fight really was pretty long and engaged given the huge mission that came after.

 

Beyond that, I think the library mission was only long due to the collection aspect, a speedrunner could probably clear it quickly, so I'm fine on that. I feel like the last mission of Daybreak was just too long, with two boss fights and lots of smaller encounters. I think it was all good and interesting in its own right, I don't think it was a bad mission, I just wish that they had maybe taken some of those encounters and put them in a separate instance so that it wasn't all in one pass like that.

 

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @Ohoni.6057 said:

> > > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > "An instance should take 20 minutes"

> > >

> > > For whom? Under what circumstances?

> >

> > For the average player, who isn't going out of his way to explore.

>

> The point is: there's no such thing as "the average player." There are all sorts of players.

 

Again, the "average" player is the *average* of all the players. I didn't say they should balance it for *every* player.

 

>ANet has to take all kinds into consideration, including whether to treat story instances as solo content that is accessible to groups as a group content that can be soloed by some.

 

That's not a question. **YES** they should treat story instances as solo content. Period. Full stop.

 

Groups can participate in them, and they should scale up to make for an interesting experience for those groups, and they can add Challenge motes to add additional mechanics to the encounter to further allow high-skill solo player or groups interested in a mini-raid encounter to have one, but first and foremost the story mission needs to be designed to provide maximum fun to a single player of moderate skill, and to be minimally achievable by even a solo player of minimal skill (with some tribulations).

 

I'm not sure how the idea that they might not already *know* that could even get started.

 

> @Simbosan.2863 said:

> I don't have a problem with long instances per se, with checkpoints they can be fine.

>

> What is very wrong, and it stuns me that devs still design things like this after all these years, is to have achievements that are difficult in themselves, attached to very difficult to understand boss fights. This means that you will have to repeat the whole instance multiple times to get those achievements. This incredibly poor and lazy design and shows that the designers have forgotten what the word 'Story' in Story Missions means. Repeating very long very difficult missions because the achieves are at the end is poor, very poor.

 

At one point they used to have restart nodes in some missions, where if you failed an achievement halfway through, you could reboot the fight and try again. They need to bring that back. One thing that does annoy me about those is that they have those little yellow achievement markers (which are good), but they sometimes don't pop up until they are plot-relevant, presumably to avoid spoilers. You can scour the Hero Panel achievements to figure out what might be ahead, but otherwise you'd have to manually mouse over these achievements, *while* in combat, *while* that bar is dancing around due to boons and condis.

 

One thing they could maybe do is make it so that "live" achievements are in yellow dots, while "spoilery" achievements are red dots, that way players wouldn't accidentally mouse over them if they wanted to avoid spoilers, but the option would exist for those that did. Also, if an achievement suddenly becomes "live," maybe it could pop up as a system message, "avoid all the fire pools!" or something, so that anyone trying to play the encounter would be given notice that there's an achievement to do, without having to fiddle with the boon-bar.

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > @Khisanth.2948 said:

> > > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > I think an Instance should be 10 minutes each. Break it up between 10 minutes.

> > > A boss should not take longer than 10 minutes neither. Super long boss battles don't feel challenging or epic. The longer the battle goes on, the longer I'm wondering "Can this end soon? I was liking it before, but it's overstaying its welcome now..."

> >

> > For "The Departing" the talking alone is more than 10 minutes. -_-

>

> Yeah. One of my friends was doing it and they said they would not pay attention until they finish the past stories before PoF. They only wanted to unlock Griffon.

> We tried to rush it as much as we could and I think it took about 20 or more minutes to first fight, then the area with the talking, then running around to find crap, then more talking, then running around to find crap, then to follow that white thing, then more talking, then the fight, then more talking, then trying to leave, then even more talking, then finally leaving, then more talking, then it ends.

>

> I would go back and time how fast it would take if I completely rushed it, but unless I NEED to do it (which I will later for the last 2 backs from the story), I never want to play that instance again.

 

It was around 5 minutes of fighting and 15 minutes of talking for me. That is while speeding through the 'walk down memory lane with a raven' section(you don't have to wait for any of that to finish except for the achievement).

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

"Average among all players" -- I would hate to play a game balanced around that idea.

[Daddicus.6128]

I'm OK with long, as long as it's not boring. Specifically, if the only way to beat it is to die repeatedly until you whittle it down, that's bad. And, long boss battles caused by near-infinite hit points or very harsh break bars are bad.

 

But, I don't mind 30 minutes, although that's about at the top. Claw of Jormag takes close to that, and it's interesting, because it changes several times. Teq, same idea.

 

Mordremoth in the mission? Boring. And, breaks nearly all of my rules (above). Balthazar where he kept beating you down and rezzing you got stale, but there was a point, so I'm OK with that one.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @Khisanth.2948 said:

> > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > @Khisanth.2948 said:

> > > > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > > I think an Instance should be 10 minutes each. Break it up between 10 minutes.

> > > > A boss should not take longer than 10 minutes neither. Super long boss battles don't feel challenging or epic. The longer the battle goes on, the longer I'm wondering "Can this end soon? I was liking it before, but it's overstaying its welcome now..."

> > >

> > > For "The Departing" the talking alone is more than 10 minutes. -_-

> >

> > Yeah. One of my friends was doing it and they said they would not pay attention until they finish the past stories before PoF. They only wanted to unlock Griffon.

> > We tried to rush it as much as we could and I think it took about 20 or more minutes to first fight, then the area with the talking, then running around to find crap, then more talking, then running around to find crap, then to follow that white thing, then more talking, then the fight, then more talking, then trying to leave, then even more talking, then finally leaving, then more talking, then it ends.

> >

> > I would go back and time how fast it would take if I completely rushed it, but unless I NEED to do it (which I will later for the last 2 backs from the story), I never want to play that instance again.

>

> It was around 5 minutes of fighting and 15 minutes of talking for me. That is while speeding through the 'walk down memory lane with a raven' section(you don't have to wait for any of that to finish except for the achievement).

 

Oh, I know as I didn't wait to listen and my friend didn't either. We just rush past all that to not get spoiled.

It was still "Chase the white bird" in a damn circle until getting to the end even without not sitting there and listening.

[Westenev.5289]

I think an instance should take as long as the writers feel an instance should take - I don't want to limit what they can create. That being said, I did enjoy the length of the Ls4 episodes (on my more moble dps orientated characters). I can imagine pewpew rangers might have a hard time without help, however.

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

I believe the problem is that not all players will need the same time at soloing one single boss or doing an instance.

 

If I take my example: I play with casters (light armor) and I am an "average" player, as in not one who can rush and solo everything within minutes as if it would be hollidays. For me, certain instances are by far too long. Typically, I have about 50 minutes at the last one of the new LS4 episode, out of which 20 minutes alone for the last boss. It was by far too much to my taste and had stopped being fun after 40 minutes: I just wanted it to end.

 

Of course, the solution is to always go with groups, to ease my life at it. But once in awhile, I can't resist and always regret it afterwards because it very rarely turns out good and I get no fun.

 

And because this very much depends on how the player is able to manage, it will be also difficult to optimize the timing, because based on what criteria? To shorten it for a player like me will mean that it will be too easy for a player better than me. There is no easy adjustment possible.

[Drew.1865]

I think the boss health pools are ridiculous. Cough Balthazar cough.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @Westenev.5289 said:

> I think an instance should take as long as the writers feel an instance should take - I don't want to limit what they can create. That being said, I did enjoy the length of the Ls4 episodes (on my more moble dps orientated characters). I can imagine pewpew rangers might have a hard time without help, however.

 

Writing has nothing to do with how long a boss fight is though.

 

Spoilers here as an example of the final battle in PoF in writing:

 

SPOILERS!

> SECOND SPOILERS WARNING TO THOSE THAT DID NOT CATCH IT THE FIRST TIME!

> You meet up with the Awakened and put back the disguises and meet up with the Awakened to prepare for the fight, the Forged are now coming for you and you see the giant machine they created. You begin pursuit as many Forged try to stop your progression. You defeat the Forged on your way up to the top. Taimi tries to warn you on something as you head up to get to Balthazar. You now fight Balthazar's toy which at times blocks itself with a barrier you need to break. After that, you take it down and defeat it leaving only Balthazar left. You and Aurene take on Balthazar with "maybe" the help of Kralk. You finally beat Balthazar and Kralk sucks up the energy that Balthazar had. Aurene takes some of it too.

> SPOILERS END HERE! SPOILERS END HERE!

SPOILERS!

 

Now just add the dialogue within what I've posted and if you negate some of the slow parts at the end? You can pretty much say that it would be about 5 minutes if you told someone all of the speech and then what happened inbetween. About 5 minutes. Of course 5 minutes for a final battle is bad, but what I'm getting at is writing doesn't direct how long something would be.

That's on 2 sets of people. The director(s) and the developer(s). Those set the rules of after seeing the story and what supposed to happen and then pan it out.

This is also why you can sometimes get a whole book (yes they take pieces out at times, but also add things at times not in the book) which can take you a few days to finish, turn into a 2 hour movie. It's not up to the writer on how long something will be.

[FitzChevalerie.1035]

dont use a support character to solo instances duh.

 

 

I never had instances that were way too long.

glass tempest burns everything fast.

 

Play how you want, sure, but don'texpect to get through instances as a healbot char as fast as a dmg char

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @FitzChevalerie.1035 said:

> dont use a support character to solo instances duh.

>

>

> I never had instances that were way too long.

> glass tempest burns everything fast.

>

> Play how you want, sure, but don'texpect to get through instances as a healbot char as fast as a dmg char

 

While I only play damage chars, can't really be fair on that on let's say someone who mains a Mesmer.

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > @Khisanth.2948 said:

> > > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > > @Khisanth.2948 said:

> > > > > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > > > I think an Instance should be 10 minutes each. Break it up between 10 minutes.

> > > > > A boss should not take longer than 10 minutes neither. Super long boss battles don't feel challenging or epic. The longer the battle goes on, the longer I'm wondering "Can this end soon? I was liking it before, but it's overstaying its welcome now..."

> > > >

> > > > For "The Departing" the talking alone is more than 10 minutes. -_-

> > >

> > > Yeah. One of my friends was doing it and they said they would not pay attention until they finish the past stories before PoF. They only wanted to unlock Griffon.

> > > We tried to rush it as much as we could and I think it took about 20 or more minutes to first fight, then the area with the talking, then running around to find crap, then more talking, then running around to find crap, then to follow that white thing, then more talking, then the fight, then more talking, then trying to leave, then even more talking, then finally leaving, then more talking, then it ends.

> > >

> > > I would go back and time how fast it would take if I completely rushed it, but unless I NEED to do it (which I will later for the last 2 backs from the story), I never want to play that instance again.

> >

> > It was around 5 minutes of fighting and 15 minutes of talking for me. That is while speeding through the 'walk down memory lane with a raven' section(you don't have to wait for any of that to finish except for the achievement).

>

> Oh, I know as I didn't wait to listen and my friend didn't either. We just rush past all that to not get spoiled.

> It was still "Chase the white bird" in a kitten circle until getting to the end even without not sitting there and listening.

 

None of that should be a spoiler unless you also skipped either the original personal story or HoT. That is what makes it even more annoying because for the player that is something they already know.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @Khisanth.2948 said:

> > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > @Khisanth.2948 said:

> > > > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > > > @Khisanth.2948 said:

> > > > > > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > > > > I think an Instance should be 10 minutes each. Break it up between 10 minutes.

> > > > > > A boss should not take longer than 10 minutes neither. Super long boss battles don't feel challenging or epic. The longer the battle goes on, the longer I'm wondering "Can this end soon? I was liking it before, but it's overstaying its welcome now..."

> > > > >

> > > > > For "The Departing" the talking alone is more than 10 minutes. -_-

> > > >

> > > > Yeah. One of my friends was doing it and they said they would not pay attention until they finish the past stories before PoF. They only wanted to unlock Griffon.

> > > > We tried to rush it as much as we could and I think it took about 20 or more minutes to first fight, then the area with the talking, then running around to find crap, then more talking, then running around to find crap, then to follow that white thing, then more talking, then the fight, then more talking, then trying to leave, then even more talking, then finally leaving, then more talking, then it ends.

> > > >

> > > > I would go back and time how fast it would take if I completely rushed it, but unless I NEED to do it (which I will later for the last 2 backs from the story), I never want to play that instance again.

> > >

> > > It was around 5 minutes of fighting and 15 minutes of talking for me. That is while speeding through the 'walk down memory lane with a raven' section(you don't have to wait for any of that to finish except for the achievement).

> >

> > Oh, I know as I didn't wait to listen and my friend didn't either. We just rush past all that to not get spoiled.

> > It was still "Chase the white bird" in a kitten circle until getting to the end even without not sitting there and listening.

>

> None of that should be a spoiler unless you also skipped either the original personal story or HoT. That is what makes it even more annoying because for the player that is something they already know.

 

Yeah, we didn't finish the personal story yet and only did one part of HoT to unlock the masteries for HoT.

[Westenev.5289]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > @Westenev.5289 said:

> > I think an instance should take as long as the writers feel an instance should take - I don't want to limit what they can create. That being said, I did enjoy the length of the Ls4 episodes (on my more moble dps orientated characters). I can imagine pewpew rangers might have a hard time without help, however.

>

> Writing has nothing to do with how long a boss fight is though.

>

> Spoilers here as an example of the final battle in PoF in writing:

>

> SPOILERS!

> > SECOND SPOILERS WARNING TO THOSE THAT DID NOT CATCH IT THE FIRST TIME!

> > You meet up with the Awakened and put back the disguises and meet up with the Awakened to prepare for the fight, the Forged are now coming for you and you see the giant machine they created. You begin pursuit as many Forged try to stop your progression. You defeat the Forged on your way up to the top. Taimi tries to warn you on something as you head up to get to Balthazar. You now fight Balthazar's toy which at times blocks itself with a barrier you need to break. After that, you take it down and defeat it leaving only Balthazar left. You and Aurene take on Balthazar with "maybe" the help of Kralk. You finally beat Balthazar and Kralk sucks up the energy that Balthazar had. Aurene takes some of it too.

> > SPOILERS END HERE! SPOILERS END HERE!

> SPOILERS!

>

> Now just add the dialogue within what I've posted and if you negate some of the slow parts at the end? You can pretty much say that it would be about 5 minutes if you told someone all of the speech and then what happened inbetween. About 5 minutes. Of course 5 minutes for a final battle is bad, but what I'm getting at is writing doesn't direct how long something would be.

> That's on 2 sets of people. The director(s) and the developer(s). Those set the rules of after seeing the story and what supposed to happen and then pan it out.

> This is also why you can sometimes get a whole book (yes they take pieces out at times, but also add things at times not in the book) which can take you a few days to finish, turn into a 2 hour movie. It's not up to the writer on how long something will be.

 

Writers? Developers? Directors? Who cares. My point still stands.

 

If you're worried about the time it takes to complete a fight, simply bring a friend. No story instances scale, so everything simply melts. Bonus points if you can phase (or outright kill) the enemy before they finish their monologue (like elite specs can do in Personal Story - is that what you want?).

 

Balthy is no exception.

[Mahou.3924]

For me as an average to below-average skilled player (in before the mandatory "git gud"), some boss fights definitely >felt< long due to trying to dodge (most of) the visual AoE clutter and trying to damage the boss. Of course, part of was clearly due to my lack of skill, but I tend to lose (slightly) the overview with the combination of hectic + visual clutter. That's just me, though, so don't interpret it as "nerf plx as I liked the mood and atmosphere surrounding it.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @Daddicus.6128 said:

> Mordremoth in the mission? Boring. And, breaks nearly all of my rules (above). Balthazar where he kept beating you down and rezzing you got stale, but there was a point, so I'm OK with that one.

 

Wait, when was one where he keeps rezzing you? All the times I fought Balthazar he'd only down me at the end of the fight when the story intended me to be downed.

 

 

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> Oh, I know as I didn't wait to listen and my friend didn't either. We just rush past all that to not get spoiled.

> It was still "Chase the white bird" in a kitten circle until getting to the end even without not sitting there and listening.

 

I got annoyed because I DID follow the bird to every event, but still lost the achievement at some point. And it's not like I'm redoing *that* mission any time soon.

 

> @"Dreamy Lu.3865" said:

> And because this very much depends on how the player is able to manage, it will be also difficult to optimize the timing, because based on what criteria? To shorten it for a player like me will mean that it will be too easy for a player better than me. There is no easy adjustment possible.

 

Well, I think the timing most of us are talking about has less to do with skill and more to do with design. Like if you're dying a lot and you're taking longer because you have to redo portions or run back to the fight or whatever (sorry), but that wouldn't be factored into the "completion time" as we're discussing it. It would be more like "how fast could *you* complete it if you played exactly as you did, but were able to stay alive the entire time and just play continuously?" A lot of us seem to think that even "played well" the mission is just scaled to take a bit longer than most seem to find fun, that enemy HP bars seem to take a bit too long to wear down even if you're aplying steady damage.

 

I don't claim to be any sort of expert badkitten, but I was playing a staff DD (with P/P back-up), using Ascended weapons, Ascended/Exotic armor, Ascended trinkets, and I was able to stay on my feet and applying damage for most of these encounters, I feel like I was performing at least at where a reasonable baseline would be, and yet each phase of the fights seemed to drag on a bit past the point that I felt optimally engaged, and further the entire length of the mission was a bit long for a single closed instance.

 

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > @FitzChevalerie.1035 said:

> > dont use a support character to solo instances duh.

> >

> >

> > I never had instances that were way too long.

> > glass tempest burns everything fast.

> >

> > Play how you want, sure, but don'texpect to get through instances as a healbot char as fast as a dmg char

>

> While I only play damage chars, can't really be fair on that on let's say someone who mains a Mesmer.

 

True. The game needs to accommodate the builds that will be available to a given character. They can't design it around certain ideal specs for the content, they have to design it around likely builds people will be bringing.

 

 

[Dashiva.6149]

As long as it isn't like the first time i "fought" Zaithan (firing cannons at him for 30 years before he finally dies), I don't mind slightly longer battles. The most important part is that the encounter is engaging. The fights against Mordremoth, Caudecus, Lazarus and Balthazar were also long, but didn't feel drawn out to me.

[Mahou.3924]

> @Ohoni.6057 said:

> > @Daddicus.6128 said:

> > Mordremoth in the mission? Boring. And, breaks nearly all of my rules (above). Balthazar where he kept beating you down and rezzing you got stale, but there was a point, so I'm OK with that one.

>

> Wait, when was one where he keeps rezzing you? All the times I fought Balthazar he'd only down me at the end of the fight when the story intended me to be downed.

>

>

 

The second fight with Balthazar. If you get downed before you depleted his HP enough, he continues to rezz you with remarks on how the "fun" should continue or something like that.

 

I should know a I'm an expert when it comes to dying against him, haha.

[Miellyn.6847]

> @Phy.2913 said:

> The LS4 story instances have save points now, so if you leave the game you can start back at roughly where the checkpoint is. The bosses in LS4 felt too spongy and got tedious, and tons of AOE. I only have 2 dodges you know.

 

The only AoE spam was the end of Scruffy. The only boss that actucally survived some time was Amala. Koss took around 30 seconds, he couldn't even finish his healing. Scruffy only took so long because he has invulnerability phases, not because of high health.

[Supz.9836]

Agree OP instances should be no more than 10 minutes long unless there is something really unique and interesting you can't do without a longer time period and padding boss with more hp to make the fight longer is poor design

 

I think its not THAT bad atm but definitely hope that higher and higher hp bosses are not what anet uses to make bosses 'harder', its not more challenging or fun, just a grind (seen it happen to other mmos in the past)

[Ildrid Ildhjertet.2489]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> While I only play damage chars, can't really be fair on that on let's say someone who mains a Mesmer.

Oy my Mirage wreaks havoc everywhere!

 

Instances should be as long as the writers feel are needed to tell the relevant story. That said, I would love checkpoints so if you got dc'd or had to log out you could jump right in to the last checkpoint reached before dc or leaving. Also motes for achievement hunters. Really loved those in LS2 and I want them back :)

 

I'm doing my second play through of PoF now and I'm scared that Eater of Souls will be a total pushover this time around. It was a great boss fight with cool mechanics and it managed just to get to the point of being annoying when it "clicked" and I got him down in one try after that. More of those fights please, it brings back the gw1 feels with considering what build to take for an encounter (traits, utilities, weapon set in gw2). Mechanics where some brainstorming will make fights easier, but with just smashing at them will make them drag out.

 

 

[Chadramar.8156]

> @"Ildrid Ildhjertet.2489" said:

> Instances should be as long as the writers feel are needed to tell the relevant story. That said, I would love checkpoints so if you got dc'd or had to log out you could jump right in to the last checkpoint reached before dc or leaving. Also motes for achievement hunters.

 

I agree with pretty much all of this. Mostly I could do with less time spent on bossfights because I simply don't find combat enjoyable most of the time, so they tend to overstay their welcome very quickly, especially when they are full of gimmicks.

 

The fights I did find enjoyable and engaging and satisfying even when they were longer/harder were the ones that managed to feel _personal_. For me, that means the two Shadow of the Dragon fights in LS2, because I play mainly sylvari, and Balthazar in PoF because of Vlast, because of his ego/cruelty in toying with me, because he had Aurene ... and because she was there to help in the final phase. That was fun and I want more of us teaming up. I couldn't stand the Warbeast phase though, because IMO it's a ridiculous contraption and wasn't fun to fight either. Mordremoth _should_ have been the ultimate "this is personal" fight for a sylvari player, but the whole notion of its own domain being its weakness was such BS that I couldn't take it seriously, and the "tiny chubby dinosaur" look didn't help one bit either. Nor did the wonky updrafts and the bugs. It was pretty much an exercise in how to completely tank a climactic boss battle in terms of mechanics, visuals _and_ story. The only aspect I liked about it was Canach and a sylvari PC helping each other resist.

[Oglaf.1074]

I'd say that as long as they are not longer than the Xera fight (which is really stretching it as far as to what is really tolerable - especially without checkpoints) it is fine.

[Odinens.5920]

The only reason the last boss was so hard for me, as a melee, was because 75% of the time I had to sit back and wait to actually be able to hit him 2 or 3 times........pretty annoying.