Patriarch fight somewhat anti-climatic

[Nenjin]

Ok, it's climactic when he appears and surprises your party and immediately guns one person down with his mini-gun.

But usually the scenario is-

1. See cutscene.
2. Wait.
3. Wait some more.
4. Shoot him until he heals and runs off (unless you weld him into a room.)
5. Wait some more.
6. Kill 5 or 6 clots while waiting.
7. Kill him finally.

There's just too much waiting on average for the patriarch to show up. Is he spawning too far away? Is he spending time sneaking around pointlessly in stealth while his victims are standing around waiting for him? Whatever the reason is, after the intensity of the second to last round, the Patriarch fight feels a little flat.

Suggestion-

Make him part of a larger, final wave. I sort of expect the patriarch to lead his 'children' into battle, not skulk around until 95% of them are dead. He can take his sweet time getting there then, if he wants, because players will be defending and killing. It will make his arrival more dramatic and a lot more challenging. He doesn't need a full ~160 specimen wave or whatever backing him up, but only being backed up by a handful of clots and maybe some crawlers is a little pathetic for the nastiest of nasties.

 

[CaptainDingo]

Patriarch should feel more like a boss fight. Like a really good boss fight, and not just "Har har we made a zombie with a million HP and a chain gun!"

Using some sort of tactics to defeat him would be nice. When I think of a good boss fight, I think of some sort of multi-tiered battle. Like maybe he's not vulnerable until you destroy a particular part of him, and then you have to fire on a weak point or something, then the part you destroyed regenerates later and he's not vulnerable again... give the team something to really work towards instead of "Alright boys, aim in his general direction and left-click until he's dead, just like every other zombie!" I'm thinking something vaguely similar to a Legend of Zelda boss mechanic, except fitted into a FPS feel.

Also agree that the fact that you face him alone makes no sense. You've already bested all his minions, what would it hurt to send another wave of them at you in addition to the Patriarch himself?

Just kind of thinking out loud, but anyways.

 

[AXEL]

maybe try playing with more people so he has more health. Usually he wipes out my entire team. Occasionally he will kill everyone down to the last man who then finishes him off. I don't find it boring at all.

 

[Nenjin]

Play with 6, all the time. Yeah, he sometimes kills someone. But half the time we just nade/unload on him, he takes a knee, runs, and we wait. It's just not that intense compared to a non-stop wave of 170 guys. If he's going to run off, we should have to deal with more than just the easiest of the specimen in tiny numbers.

 

[AXEL]

Play with 6, all the time. Yeah, he sometimes kills someone. But half the time we just nade/unload on him, he takes a knee, runs, and we wait. It's just not that intense compared to a non-stop wave of 170 guys. If he's going to run off, we should have to deal with more than just the easiest of the specimen in tiny numbers.

well you do know what you can kill him before he runs off right? You don't have to stop shooting when he takes a knee. Also it depends entirely on what map you are playing, I have yet to beat him on Prison and Office. He gets to you pretty quickly on those maps, and on the Farm it takes him forever to travel, but is tough to fight once you find him.

 

[krid]

I played on a 40-man normal server. The Patriarch had 121,000hp. It was quite an epic battle.

This game would scale really well to large player servers if the server could be set to have more specimens active at a time; with the 32 limit they just trickle out and are mashed by the sheer number of people.

 

[Nenjin]

well you do know what you can kill him before he runs off right? You don't have to stop shooting when he takes a knee. Also it depends entirely on what map you are playing, I have yet to beat him on Prison and Office. He gets to you pretty quickly on those maps, and on the Farm it takes him forever to travel, but is tough to fight once you find him.

This isn't a "how do I beat the patriarch" thread. I know how to beat him. You lock his *** in a room and shoot him with impunity. (That alone can make the fight lame.)

I have killed him on all levels. Biotics Lab and Farm seem to take the longest for the Patriarch to figure out what he's doing an attack. By the time it's over though, with the usual run and hide, run and hide....I dunno, it just doesn't seem that exciting. Or challenging. The only reason I find the patriarch challenging is because his gun will shred one person. But a handful of grenades and a hunting shotgun, and he's doesn't get a chance to do much before he's forced to run. He's most effective in the first seconds after he comes out of invis (if you weren't paying any attention and let him sneak up on you.) He'll unload and get his almost guaranteed gib in. After that, *shrug*. He rarely lasts long enough to put up a serious fight.

It's not terrible, but it could be more challenging and therefore more intense. With a group of friends, the patriarch just isn't that tough.

 

[Philosoraptor]

Fleshpounds scare the poops out of me. With the patriarch I usually just nade him and chase after his ***.

 

[Arcane]

I think all indoor lighting should be extinguished on the wave of the Patriarch. On maps like West London, it will stop people from resorting to welding him in a room and spamming him, and on indoor maps like Biotic Labs it will be genuinely a lot scarier having to use flashlights and guesswork. Much more "Survival-Horror" sounding to me.

 

[TANK828]

I think all indoor lighting should be extinguished on the wave of the Patriarch. On maps like West London, it will stop people from resorting to welding him in a room and spamming him, and on indoor maps like Biotic Labs it will be genuinely a lot scarier having to use flashlights and guesswork. Much more "Survival-Horror" sounding to me.

Genius.

 

[Arcane]

Genius.

I really hope that wasn't sarcasm It's so hard to tell sometimes.

 

[Electrocuuute]

I think all indoor lighting should be extinguished on the wave of the Patriarch. On maps like West London, it will stop people from resorting to welding him in a room and spamming him, and on indoor maps like Biotic Labs it will be genuinely a lot scarier having to use flashlights and guesswork. Much more "Survival-Horror" sounding to me.

I agree.

@Devs: GIVE US A REASON TO USE FLASHLIGHTS!!!!!

 

[krid]

@Devs: GIVE US A REASON TO USE FLASHLIGHTS!!!!!

So long as they switch to a shoulder or headlamp, sure. Otherwise it would give a serious advantage to the Support class, since they're the only one to get a bonus to a weapon with a flashlight. Everybody else would be either basically useless or entirely reliant on the support class to keep a bead on him.

I do wonder, though, if the U2.5 engine can actually handle lighting shifts like that. I don't actually recall seeing things like that in ANY Unreal engine game aside from Bioshock, and in that case the engine was modified until it was unrecognizable.

 

[AXEL]

I'm working on a map that requires flashlights, and it is possible to set up triggers to take out lights for certain events.

 

[krid]

I'm working on a map that requires flashlights, and it is possible to set up triggers to take out lights for certain events.

I meant on a large scale. Plenty of engines have limits on how much lighting can be toggleable, and I don't know if blacking-out an entire map (Biolab, in this case) is something that can be reasonably accomplished.

 

[Benjamin]

I don't particularly like the idea of requiring too much use of the flashlight, as there are only two weapons that allow its use, and the other weapons are useless if you can't see where the enemies are.

 

[novex]

they could always change the spawns during patriarch to bring in a few fleshpounds and scrakes instead of just clots etc.

patriarch showing up with 2fp and 2scrakes from the get go would mix thins up a lot.

 

[Morgoth]

i prefer to see a more resident evil type boss
afther the amount of % damage it has taken it evolvels to a more stronger form

 

[Electrocuuute]

I meant on a large scale. Plenty of engines have limits on how much lighting can be toggleable, and I don't know if blacking-out an entire map (Biolab, in this case) is something that can be reasonably accomplished.

I don't think they'd go as far as making the whole map pitch black the whole time, but so dark so that you can only see silhouettes.

I my mind, I think the best cutscene for the Patriarch in the Biolab would go down like this:

1.Shop closes
2. Your screen shakes, hear a boom, lights flicker flicker flicker, then out.
3. Voice clip plays "What the hell was that?!" and "We're in deep s*** now.."
4."Emergency lights" come on (very slow pulsing dim red lights. You can only see silhouettes for about 5 seconds before it dims again and it's pitch black. Emergency lights only available in main corridors. Think of the lights at the top of the stairs, but a lot dimmer and pulsing).
5. Regular cutscene where Patriarch gets up and says something.

I think this would add a lot to the horror feeling to the game, especially if you have name tags and whatnot turned off. The silhouette could be anything from like 20m unless you were close enough to clearly see the outline.

Another awesome addition to the Patriarch battle in Biolab could be the power outage affecting the doors. Obviously they aren't swing on the hinge doors, so they must be electronically powered.
It'd be interesting to have to hold E (or whatever the use button is) and slowly force it open.
Obviously more teammates could work to move it open faster.
Same goes for closing, welding ability unchanged.

 

[Superfly724]

I have the answer to the Patriarch problem.

Play a harder difficulty.