Question: Bosses with OHK attacks?

[Boreas249]

I was wondering, do you think it's acceptable for bosses to have a one-hit-kill attack, as long as it's not their only attack and not difficult to move from the path of?
I'm a boss fight fanatic, but I hate cheap bosses with cheap tactics like OHK attacks. However, I personally believe if it's an attack that you can avoid (without losing your shit trying) then it's ok.
But what say you?
BONUS: Is it acceptable for the attack to still do a bit of damage, even if it misses? Like splash damage or anything along those lines? If so, how much?

[NeuralStunner]

Might be the obvious answer, but: It works, if done right.

The important factors:

• Make sense. Obviously, a long-range kill-beam in a melee brawler is excessive, while a touch-of-death in a shooter is practically non-threat. However, don't go too far in the other direction, as we'll show.
• Telegraph it. The player needs to be able to recognize when the attack is coming. Not necessarily on the first try, but we'll get to that in a bit.
• Provide escape. Obviously some means of escape. If your telegraph isn't very long, compensate here by giving some time to escape. (Even if at a small cost.) This leads directly to the next point...
• Teach beforehand! Reuse a mechanic that's been taught previously in order to evade harm. There is no excuse for QTEs with no precedent. That's not challenge, it's "challenge". If gameplay is built around dodging and/or cover, keep using those.
• Keep it flowing. The biggest mistake with a OHK boss (or any boss, actually) is making the player go through levels or scenes again. Plop an autosave at the start of the fight, so our hero doesn't have to replay pre-boss crap or sit through a cutscene. Get them back into the action ASAP. It's the best way for them to get the hang of it.

In short, never frustrate your audience.

I'll give you a very good example (though minor spoilers are involved)...

In God Hand, at the third fight with Elvis, this time in his true demon form. One of his attack routines is to snap at Gene (the hero). As far as I can tell this is the only true OHK in the game (other than just taking a crapton of damage). If caught, you have to use the usual escape function (left stick) to get free of the demon's jaws, or else you're a snack. Since this is a twitch-reaction fighter, the telegraph is a lot shorter (though you've had several bosses already and should be pretty good by now). In exchange, you get an extra opportunity to escape the game-over while taking a little damage. If you do fail, you continue from the start of the fight, and it won't take long to learn the routine.

[Ghastly]

Darkeater Midir from Dark Souls III's Ringed City expansion has, I believe, a one-hit kill attack (the one where she roars and bites you for a sync'd animation). It's very well-telegraphed, and by this point of the game you understand how to dodge pretty much everything. She's considered the toughest boss in the series for a lot of other reasons, I don't even think this attack hit me at all.

[Viscra Maelstrom]

i believe the Spider Mastermind from Doom 4 is the only boss in the game that can OHKO you. i'm not sure how obvious it is, but i do know it happens when she's electrocuting the floor, forcing you to jump up on the pillars. after some time has passed, the pillars will start charging up too, and that's when you have to get off, or else you get impaled on spikes rising up for a OHKO.

it does make her seem a lot more threatening than the Cyberdemon in this game, but i'm not sure how obvious this attack is. i suppose to make life easier for you, you can store BFG rounds to pop her with to immediately cancel out this phase of the attack, since none of her other attacks are quite this lethal.

[Arctangent]

BONUS: Is it acceptable for the attack to still do a bit of damage, even if it misses? Like splash damage or anything along those lines? If so, how much?

This depends on a lot of things.

Considering how this is phrased ( and the fact that this is on a forum for games that have enemies that shoot projectiles with splash damage ), I'm actually getting some kind of JRPG vibe where your characters don't have a true map position and attacks missing is solely an RNG chance for them to do nothing. In which case, then certain attacks that can't be 100% evaded seems like a perfectly sensical mechanic, especially if the player has ways to give their characters super high evasion rates - it makes sure that evasion-tank builds can still be hurt without nullifying their defenses entirely, like what would happen if you just made some unavoidable attacks.

On another hand, if we're talking about something akin to MOBAs where attacks are homing and can only be dodged through specific items or abilities, then this also seems alright. Something that immediately comes to mind is Dragon Knight's Elder Dragon Form from DOTA; at level 2 or higher, it has splash damage which hits everything around the main target for a fraction of his attacks' damage based on their distance from the target. If the attack misses, this splash damage is still applied, but it's further reduced by half.

If we're talking about other cases where attacks can be physically dodged ... I mean, that's basically every FPS with a rocket launcher, isn't it? Hell, that's basically every game period with a rocket launcher, grenade, or so on. The main thing is that you just need to make sure the splash damage is properly conveyed - it should always feel like the player is actually caught in the blast, instead of being like five inches away yet still taking damage. Yes, realistically speaking, you'd still take damage from an explosion even if you're not caught in the fireball due to the shockwaves, but even if you use that reasoning the shockwaves should be plainly visible, unless you're going for a high-realism game. Like, super realistic. Even games with fairly realistic art styles avoid hurting you if you're not caught in a visible part of the explosion, because it's just kind of dumb feeling and looking.

[Reactor]

Yes, it is pretty acceptable - however, in this case, you must make sure that the player still has a chance of beating it even with a pistol start of the actual level. This is very important, especially for those unlucky buggers or daredevils who do not save the game in every 5th second. You should take the following into consideration:

- If the boss' weapon can finish the player in one hit, you must make sure he has other weaknesses. For instance, that mega-weapon of his would fire up slowly, so the player would have time to duck it, or run for cover. Maybe if the boss is badly damaged, that'd wreck that mega-weapon of his, and he'd start pumpin' out more frequent but less powerful attacks. A typical example is the "Secret Weapon" final boss in Heavy Weapon Deluxe. The first form of the Secret Weapon shoots twin LAZORZ, which can immediately kill you even if you have max shield. However, after taking enough damage, the Secret Weapon loses this ability.

- Make that ultimate weapon's projectiles destructible, much like Doom 3 BFG-blasts.

- Perhaps the environment will assist the player a lot. Zero gravity maybe? One of the levels in my campaign will feature a gigantic brain, which also has the antimatter beam as a weapon, and it will immediately kill the player, regardless of health and armor percentage (invulnerability does help, tho). This particular boss has huge amounts of hit points, but there is one catch - the entire scenario will be in zero gravity, so the player can easily avoid this lethal beam of pure destruction.

- It may also be a wise idea to program the boss so that he'll use this ultimate weapon on higher difficulties only.

[Kinsie]

I like how Breath of the Wild did things (or at least seemed to when I played it), where one-hit-kills were reserved for things where you were clearly outmatched and venturing into areas you really shouldn't be in your current state (like hurling yourself at a 15-foot-tall centaur in your underpants), while Guardians and other boss-like monsters had elaborate attacks with lengthy charge-ups that would leave you at just a quarter-heart, giving you time to react to what's happened and re-strategize.

[Shadelight]

Bomberman 64: The Second Attack's late bosses all had decently telegraphed OHKO attacks. They'd cover themselves in some kind of barrier and charge directly at you.

[Graf Zahl]

The obvious main issue here is that such an attack must not be a show stopper.
This not only requires careful tweaking of the boss, but also the area it is used in.

However, past experience has shown us that people designing such a monster often have little skill doing either right.

[Chris]

My general reaction is "no". There are cases where it can work, but generally anything that takes your health down from 100% to 0% in an instant is aggravating. Using them essentially forces the player to carry out specific actions when they occur, which messes with the player's combat tactics and/or strategy, which can make the fight feel cheap.

It also depends on the game. A game where you're expected to die as a way of learning is very different from one where you can theoretically make it through first try if you're observant and careful. The latter is harder to justify one-hit kills on the player. Similarly, the more chance/randomness you have, the harder it is to justify.

[Rachael]

I think they're fine as long as there's plenty of ways that the player can avoid them (i.e. slow moving projectile with lots of pillars) or is able to use it as part of their strategy (i.e. a special shield type that allows the player to reverse the attack right back onto the boss).

[Reactor]

I think they're fine as long as there's plenty of ways that the player can avoid them (i.e. slow moving projectile with lots of pillars) or is able to use it as part of their strategy (i.e. a special shield type that allows the player to reverse the attack right back onto the boss).

Empathy Shield we've been thinking along the same line! Good call!
I'd still give some utter weakness for that particular boss though (in case the player foolishly used up his Empathy Shield on a bunch of pesky ass guards, and has no protection whatsoever)

[Apeirogon]

Much depends on type of game.Implicitly you ask about shooter, right!?

One-shoot attack is primitive way to increase difficulty of game. Like increase health of enemy to infinity, or unscrew enemy resist to damage to infinity, or player vulnerable to infinity. I dont say that dont work, I say need to look based on the situation.

Besides much related from professionality developer. Sniper even from middle age black powder hand cannon can hit where they want, while simple soldier even in elephant from RPG within distance five mether miss "drop his weapon, lose all ammo and next turn". Same here, "glorious developer master race"(tm) can make game that have ONLY one_shoot-one_kill attack and everyone laud him like "twelwe gameplay out of ten, OH GAD!!!!" while "dirty game_designer peasant"(tm) can add only one one_shoot-one_kill attack to one boss at the very end of the game, at the last state of the boss form and everybody cry "without cheats/cheat engine/TAS this game unbeatable!!!!!!".

[Hege Cactus]

In general, full blown OHKO's are kind of lame, a high damage that can be survived but is heavily punished if ignored is much more preferable.

Tho, when it comes to OHKO/Ultra heavy damage deal boss moves;
-They should be fairly obvious they are coming and what they are gonna do.
-The mechanic should be something that can be learned fairly quickly
-They should be slow enough that player can stop what action they were doing before it started if this action takes time like reloading or rolling.
-Optionally it would help and be nice if player could see the move in question before hand and not die to it via some cut scene or by boss attacking another enemy or having the first time its used not be as lethal

How much the move effects the flow of the game depends on the game style tho and if the move in question has to do with defeating the boss in first place

[Amuscaria]

I think IHKs are fine if they're avoidable. The Cyberdemon is pretty much a 1-hit killer, but the rockets are easily avoidable. So long as the attacks are fair, I say it's fine.