Honestly though, “boss used a healing potion” or “boss used Heal Me Daddy spell” is bad game design, and somewhat immersion breaking.
It shows you couldn’t balance out the skill and pacing, so to artificially lengthen a fight, you simply dump more health.
It’s in the class of mechanics that disrespect the player’s time: it wasn’t a long fight because you had to figure out some hidden pattern, it wasn’t long because it was hard, it wasn’t a mistake you did… You did everything right and almost killed the boss too fast, so the game artificially removed your progress.
You can have healing mechanics that aren’t lazy: elemental affinities, a healer companion that can be defeated, etc
Star Wars KotOR did this really well with the final boss. He heals himself but it makes sense why he can and you can prevent him from doing it if you know how.
Honestly though, “boss used a healing potion” or “boss used Heal Me Daddy spell” is bad game design, and somewhat immersion breaking.
It shows you couldn’t balance out the skill and pacing, so to artificially lengthen a fight, you simply dump more health.
It’s in the class of mechanics that disrespect the player’s time: it wasn’t a long fight because you had to figure out some hidden pattern, it wasn’t long because it was hard, it wasn’t a mistake you did… You did everything right and almost killed the boss too fast, so the game artificially removed your progress.
You can have healing mechanics that aren’t lazy: elemental affinities, a healer companion that can be defeated, etc
Boss/enemy healing isn’t bad game design. There are a lot of very valid reasons that lead to more interesting interactions.
A boss with slow health regen might require players to try to burst the boss down through weakpoints or debuffs
A boss entering a second phase and getting their health back creates a cool “oh shit” moment and really emphasizes their power
A boss that has an interuptable or preventable heal adds an interesting challenge and requires players to do more than just DPSing them down
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Star Wars KotOR did this really well with the final boss. He heals himself but it makes sense why he can and you can prevent him from doing it if you know how.