Combat Interactivity in Boss Fights for Fun Gameplay

Hello,

I think that there are elements in gameplay that make the game a lot of fun, more fun than other ARPG games that I've played and I really think these are some novel ideas. For example the buckler parry mechanic really makes me feel like I'm interacting with the mobs on a level that I've not experienced before.

This kind of interactivity should be built upon, in my opinion, and mechanics like these focused upon, because ultimatively I see this as the evolution of games like these.

Now, I've just played the boss gauntlet map in endgame and almost got bored to death, because I had to fight one boss after the other and it just felt tedious at some point in time. At some points during the fights, I was playing with my huntress with spear and buckler, I had some kind of interactivity going on with the bosses and it almost felt, almost, like I was fighting a "real" being. For example when I parry a blow and then jump backwards to get the frenzy charge and do other cool stuff, because of my support gems, it makes me feel like there was an interaction between me and the boss which I often times don't feel when I just throw my spears until the health bar is drained. Luckily this game seems to have a lot of interactions like these and often times I can create a build, because of the game systems that are available to me, that makes those interactions happen more often and creates some kind of "dramatic" gameplay where I jump into the fray and unleash my handful of tornadoes to blind everybody and then jump out again and so on. It's just cool.

Anyway, back to the criticism. I feel that bosses should offer more of this interactivity and if this game wants to be more fun than it already is and really become an evolution to ARPG games, which there are elements that make it seem like that is possible, then it needs to create the feeling of fighting "real" beings when doing boss fights. One possibility would be to improve the AI of bosses, which I think at the moment has some kind of timers deciding how they should attack. Sometimes during the mentioned gauntlet map there were times where I called hammer of gods (because my huntress also uses a two-handed mace) and the boss teleported away, making me almost feel like they did it on purpose and that they were being smart about it, which I know wasn't the case, because of said timer-mechanics. But wouldn't it be cool, it that were the case? This also made me feel like maybe I need to rethink my build or have some kind of plan-B for bosses that teleport away like this, which I found to be a very positive thing.



Cheers