Introduction
Hi, I'm shaweel a (quite casual I'd say) gamer, programmer and (very amateur) game designer and developer. In this thread, I'd like to discuss bossfights and why I feel like I have never truly played a good bossfight, get insight on which games might change that(but please don't just comment a game title and leave it at that). I'd also like this thread to be exclusively for the open minded and a meaningful discussion. If the only thing you're here for is to have your own opinions reflected back onto you, this thread is probably not for you.
What games I have played
I'd like to start by telling you all which games I have played since it's an important factor in all of this. I will only mention games with bossfights and will exclude games in which I haven't gotten to the bossfights. I have played Minecraft. Now before you leave with a downvote, let me explain. I treat Minecraft more as a game engine rather than one game. There are countless unique experiences people have made in it. I am also someone who doesn't like to play too many games at once and has in the past mostly only had one game which they've played for a very long time. I simply find it easier to play a very large game for a long time than playing new ones each time. It mostly comes down to accessibility, whenever I download a game, I have to set up controls and settings, learn the controls, learn how the game works, not even mentioning the process of finding the game in the first place, which, this not being exclusive to new games but also other experiences in Minecraft(e.g. modpacks, servers etc.) is dread. There's so many choices that you have choice paralysis and you feel like there's nothing good to play at the same time. And instead of playing whole new games, playing new modpacks seems quite easy as there's things I can expect to just be there(e.g. the movement, the physics, very core game mechanics)
So what in Minecraft, have I played?
Well first of all I've played vanilla Minecraft (duh) and after that I've played Hypixel Skyblock, which I've played for years and which revolves around combat. After quitting Skyblock I've started speedrunning and playing modpacks. If anyone cares, here's a list of modpacks I have played: Abyssal Ascent, Beyond Depth, Beyond Ascension, Linggango, Calamycraft, Jetpack Cat, Trepidation, RotN, Resurvival, MC Rebalanced, Roguecraft(technically not a modpack)
Bossfights
Now let's actually talk about the major bossfights I've experienced. And I think it's only appropriate to start with The Ender Dragon
The Ender Dragon
Even though the way of getting to the fight is also horrible, here I'll talk about the fight exclusively. First of all, the arena itself is horrible, the terrain is uninteresting, which is not even that much of an issue, my main gripe with the arena is the endermen which just make the fight extremely annoying because they aggro you when you look at them and you need to often look upwards. The intended way of dealing with the dragon is first either shooting the crystals which heal the dragon with a bow, which I admit is a bit fun, or pillaring up to deal with the crystals up close, which is not fun at all, because 90% of the gameplay will turn into pillaring up. After all the crystals are down, you have 2 options of damaging the dragon. Shoot him with a bow, which like, good luck Tediously wait for him to perch and then dealing melee hits by clicking left click once in a while, until he leaves and you have to rinse and repeat. The dragon only has 2 attacks Shooting dragon breath at you occasionally, which you can easily avoid by scaling one block higher. Charging at you after perching The only fun I have ever had fighting this boss was speedrunning, when I wasn't even killing it the intended way.
The Wither Lords
This bossfight is from Hypixel Skyblock, all bosses from this game are designed to be beaten a ton of times. This is by far the most complicated boss here. The bossfight consists of 4 phases, phase 1 - Maxor, where you need to bring two end crystals to different place before you can damage him, the way to get to the crystals is intended to be a parkour course. After this you can damage him until he reaches 25% health when he turns enraged making him deal more damage and recovering the crystals back, after bringing the end crystals to said different place again you can finally kill maxor and progress to phase 2 - Storm. Storm will start off by aimlessly flying around for 30s until he charges an instakill lightning for which you need to stay under a pillar to avoid. Then he will start aggroing people, there are 3 pads and pillars, you can stand on a pad to make a pillar go down, you must cooperate with your team to crush storm with a pillar to be able to damage him, you need to do this twice again for some reason and after killing Storm you can go to phase 3 - Goldor. You will find yourself in a hallway where goldor is moving towards you forcing you to go quick, you must activate terminals by solving small puzzles to destroy the gate at the end of the hallway for all four sections until you reach the core where you can finally kill Goldor and move on to section 4 - Necron. You damage Necron. That's it. Now all that wouldn't be too bad on it's own, until you realize it's a 5 player fight where you have to cooperate with a lot of the time random people. The community is also very toxic. Since this boss is made to be beaten a ton of times, most of the skill is speedrunning the boss, which is actually quite fun(ignoring the apes you usually play with)
The Giant
This is a boss present in the roguecraft datapack which transforms Minecraft into a roguelike. This boss is mostly just a damage tank. You left click, done.
The Wildfire
This is a boss present in the roguecraft datapack which transforms Minecraft into a roguelike. This boss is a large blaze which has 4 shields which you simply need to break by hitting them, then you just kill him normally, he has actually interesting attacks, however they are extremely easy to dodge and avoid
The roguecraft version of The Ender Dragon
This boss is very similar to The Ender Dragon, however it is interesting in having phases where it will summon mobs ranging from a simple zombie to a warden. It also adds a few new attacks, however the fight is still easy and uninteresting.
The Iron Colossus
This is a boss present in the Linggango modpack It is simply a boss which deals damage and takes damage, which you are extremely undergeared for at the stage of the game youre supposed to fight him
The Ferrous Wroughtnaut
This is a boss present in the Calamycraft modpack You simply hold your shield, wait for a specific attack, stab him in the back, rinse and repeat, very repetitive, very boring.
The Cerberus
This is a boss present in the Calamycraft modpack The boss is severely overpowered and almost impossible to kill without cheesing it. It's also easily cheesable in tons of ways.
The Bellringer
This is a boss present in the Calamycraft modpack He does a few attacks which you have to dodge, you hit him once, rinse and repeat, these attacks don't change much, gear doesn't even matter because the attacks one or two shot you either way, this also seems to be a boss where you aren't supposed to beat him on the first try, so why am I punished when I die in a way that will let me attempt the boss a finite amount of times
Conclusion
I don't know if I just haven't played the right games. If I have too high standards. Or if I'm just wrong. Let me know your thoughts Edit: seeing people saying Minecraft isn't where I should look for bossfights, I know, I'm trying to find games with good bossfights after playing Minecraft and have not played much other games because of accessibility
