I think the better aspect of it is like this: "What makes a boss in a videogame?" Normally the response would be, a "unique" enemy, something which generally: -is harder than the normal enemies faced -Does different things than them -Can be similar or entirely different But in the history of game genres, the aspect of Boss and FPS doesn't meld easy when it usually has that aspect of well, "more life" as the main aspect aside from being larger and having a larger hitbox. This goes all the way back to even some of the early games such as the first Mario and Zelda, where say against bowser, did you try to jump over him or run under him to get to the axe? The first zelda had bosses as creatures that needed a certain item to work on them, and its been like that for practically every game. Bosses in almost any genre, be it a platformer, action adventure, RPG, most of these can take a "boss" and make a fight into something dynamic, be is something older like Mega Man in which you choose the order and weapons, the RPG encounters of any classic turn based or active battle ones such as the older final fantasys or more rencent year ones like Xenoblade Chronicles, etc, all games have a method of doing something. God of war is a good example too, lots of dynamics despite quick time events. But the aspect of Shooter and boss never fully melded that well together. Halo 2 had bosses, but it wasnt anything beyond them being well, bullet sponges. The heretic, truth, and tartarus were all just well, bulky. Truth you just had to punch though, but you could still shoot him. Dont even get me started on the lackluster 343GS event at the end of halo 3, that was just pointless. Quake/doom , even as it was a classic, it was really just you use the strongest weapons like the rockets or lightning gun to deal with it. Even the BFG did that easy stuff. Half life 2- had a couple bosses, like the first hunter chopper, but that was a placement deal where you had a chaingun to do the dirty work on an airboat. Even Borderlands, being the RPG shooter, its had a bit of trouble between either bullet sponge or just plain easy. Want to know something? Its entirely possible to beat the final boss in borderlands, by just meleeing a tenticle far far far away and dodging its shots. No I am serious, its very very possible. Borderlands even put more of the RPG mechanics of RNG over destiny, with all the hitpoint and stat stuff and how guns could turn out, and yet its fights still amounted too "just shoot them" And this was the shooter that had the system that inspired this game. But even other games such as Diablo and more recent RPGs that followed it like Torchlight 1 and 2, they have bosses in the same context, all those mechanics, lots of adds, some require different approaches, but many are still just super versions of a lesser enemy while others are unique. Even team fortress 2, with its coop mode, Mann vs Machine, its essentially a tower defense aspect but some maps and difficulties have bosses, major bullet sponges who you have to just keep pounding away at, while they regenerate, while dealing with the mooks that come in from all places. But this is an objective, stop them from reaching a place but still kill them none the less. In Destiny, its no different. Because if playing many shooters has taught me anything, its where do you draw the aspect of "Shooting vs mechanics" Even for the 3 major PVE bosses, Atheon, Crota, and Skolas, each of their battles was to include something beyond just shooting the bad guy to death. Atheon, was generally well recived, he was killable, but just had very high armor, you had to take out the oracles, essentially a classic mechanic of making the badguy vulernable to damage for a while. Crota was different, shooting only wounded him, you had to hurt him with the sword. It was such a specific mechanic that while we couldnt just fill him with bullets, we had to depend on one person and it became strained it was sometimes, annoying. It was a specific mechanic like how in zelda, you have to kill ganon with the master sword, story reasons. Other times in this case, gameplay and story reasons, just cause. Skolas, was perhaps a good middleground. Minus the burn modifiers when the fight actually became enjoyable, no requirements to cheese or having a specific weapon, and also on weeks when say, lightswitch was not on, it was an enjoyable fight. It had something like atheons armor, but you had to kill the servitors, then later keep passing a debuff and get ready to play control for a little with the bombs. It was a nice blend to both keep phases like a good boss did and had you need to keep moving and in communitation. Also a couple of the PoE bosses were not bad, I thought Quadron with his eye mechanic, it was fairly good. If you failed, aside from sunsingers able to rez themselves, there were other ways around the debuff such as reviving someone as the others are trapped or a striker could break themselves out with their own super. At least in this fight, we got flexiblity and means to rebound without the main tool we needed. It was more a fight of endurance and finding time to pot shot quadron while focusing on the eye and hobgoblins, mainly the major ones. The other good one in my opinion was the forever eater, low life but regenerated quickly, it was a decent inversion of what we had commonly, he was very very frail but healed very fast, it was rather a case of, hurt him, kill the "food" then adds, then back to him. Take his life down over time, try to prevent him from healing greatly. But these fights also had their flaws, technical and gameplay based. Atheon was plauged with glitches like the pretorans regerating life or the players not coming out of the warps. Crota, seemed lazy and irratic, like there wasnt any pattern. Sometimes he would move and other times, he would stay still, not to mention the cheesing stuff. Otherwise on hard, the aspect of no life regen at all (unless items like red death or powers like drain, etc) and instant rage, forcing a wipe instead of still giving you a chance, its kinda a cheap way out, atheon rage at least allowed us to try and keep going and even win. Skolas, the burns were a problem, nuff said. Some stopped playing him at the time because they either didnt have a proper burn weapon or others wouldnt even allow them. Arc burn was seriously a bad idea. The fight was supposed to be hard, not impossible. This is also the bad thing that helped give rise to the "you need a gally or you cannot play" Not all the PoE bosses were that hard or even thought out. The cabal one was just, shielding type changed. Gulrot was easy, even on hard. Urrox was just stay in the air, get a defender titan to let everyone live. Solar burn helped everyone else and made it an easy fight. The problem is, when we have cases like the bullet sponge bosses, we dont want to just empty clip after clip into them. But they we have cases like Crota, where we must obey a specific mechanic that can end up being a deal where no one wants to be the guy that screws up. Thats why, out of the fights so far, perhaps the best example of being dynamic, phased, giving player flexibility and creativity, has been the templar. Why the templar? The entire encounter is from defending the confluxes, to stopping the oracles, to getting the aegis to appear, then the fight against the templar himself, was one where the fireteam has a lot of choice. -Do we stay in one area or move as he does? -Do we hunt the oracles or just depend on the aegis cleanse? -Do we split the team or unite it? -Do we hit the templar while we can try to block him? Those were all choices, even something as derpy as going snipers in the hills while one person played the special op down below to take out the shields while others sniped the oracles, least there was a downside and sense of failure with this one, in case an oracle was missed. Even when the templar enraged, victory was still possible, like against Atheon, but not against Crota. The templar gave us choice and vareity, but the rest were just much simplier or not as dynamic. When Oryx is there, we want there to be a set of menahcis that keep us going but also give us choice. Something varied but something that does more than just mindlessly shoot but not lean entirely on a specific mechanic either. I mean look at Metal Gear Solid, not asking for anything radical, but the game doesnt have you just unload on the bosses, they have you think and go around them. Use your tools, its always varied. Others like Resident evil 4, you have a choice between simply trying to use the enrivonment to limit item consupmtion or hell, you could unload on them until they died provided you had the resources. Even getting a free RPG would serve as a "free pass" if you wanted. One part in the castle gives you the chance to get a free RPG. Hell you could even just use the knife if you knew how and could win. Destiny itself, bungie needs to find varity beyond just shoot and move, the echo chamber, seems like a good idea in the right direction, even though its a PS exclusive. But thats what we need, mechanics that are a balance of shoot and something unique or keeping us going, like again skolas with the virus, that was a good mechanic for what could have been if it were a raid. So there are good ideas there, but we just dont need it to come back to being well, bullet sponging again. But the aspect of it always being open itself is not bad either. Give players choice, thats what we need.