AlexanderM
15-07-2008, 02:20
It's always bothered me that boss monsters look generally fine until the moment you smack the last hitpoint from them. And while I haven't seen it done very well in the past (I don't play too many games, so there may well be some out there), but I think D3 would be fun if you could slowly dismember bosses. Maybe once they lost one of their arms, they could attack in a different pattern, spice things up a bit. Maybe have one really mean boss that would take a it's own lost limb and try to beat you with it :scratchchin:.
Aside from being a generally interesting aspect, I think the D3 engine could probably handle such things pretty easily. In the gameplay video we saw bosses change texture/behavior (the "Thousand Pounder" in the barbarian section) during combat, and during the last big fight the boss's corpse crumbled (it changed actual shape or model). This would also seem to fit with the custom player death animation we saw (which was pretty awesome, though a bit disheartening if you're playing hardcore, lol).
While it wouldn't be appropriate for every boss to be slowly taken apart, it would be nice to have some visual indicator (not a healthbar) that would show you generally what shape the boss was in, even just wounds and bleeding, damaged armor, etc. Also, if acher-class characters come back (don't see why not), arrows persisting in large bosses would be more epic. Nothing like an ENORMOUS beast, peppered with arrows, finally dying. Couldn't keep all the arrows displayed, or else bosses would look like porcupines every time an amazon (or equivalent) joined in.
Of course you'd have to track damage-type as well, monster shouldn't get slashed in half by a firebolt, it's limbs should EXPLODE OFF! :D. I suppose it would take quite a bit of time to make damage-threshold animations for each damage type, but I still like the idea.
I also like the idea of gaining levels, going back to a low-level area, and cutting old bosses in half in one hit, to make up for them being so hard before hand ;)
Just a suggestion, but I thought it was worth a mention.
Aside from being a generally interesting aspect, I think the D3 engine could probably handle such things pretty easily. In the gameplay video we saw bosses change texture/behavior (the "Thousand Pounder" in the barbarian section) during combat, and during the last big fight the boss's corpse crumbled (it changed actual shape or model). This would also seem to fit with the custom player death animation we saw (which was pretty awesome, though a bit disheartening if you're playing hardcore, lol).
While it wouldn't be appropriate for every boss to be slowly taken apart, it would be nice to have some visual indicator (not a healthbar) that would show you generally what shape the boss was in, even just wounds and bleeding, damaged armor, etc. Also, if acher-class characters come back (don't see why not), arrows persisting in large bosses would be more epic. Nothing like an ENORMOUS beast, peppered with arrows, finally dying. Couldn't keep all the arrows displayed, or else bosses would look like porcupines every time an amazon (or equivalent) joined in.
Of course you'd have to track damage-type as well, monster shouldn't get slashed in half by a firebolt, it's limbs should EXPLODE OFF! :D. I suppose it would take quite a bit of time to make damage-threshold animations for each damage type, but I still like the idea.
I also like the idea of gaining levels, going back to a low-level area, and cutting old bosses in half in one hit, to make up for them being so hard before hand ;)
Just a suggestion, but I thought it was worth a mention.