Most of my posts in this forum since Destiny has come out have been rather negative. I even took the time to write up a massive fan postmortem of Destiny which can be read [url=http://redd.it/2kv57y]here[/url] (link goes to reddit) for those that are interested in my take of what Destiny got wrong. Now in part 2 of that monstrosity of text, I say this line in reference to the rather lack luster public events within Destiny, [quote]Defeat a spider walker (an actually well designed mini-boss)[/quote] I didn't go into that statement at the time because this was more a focus on what Destiny got wrong then got right and this time I wanted to delve deeper into the devil walker from an objective game design perspective, and from a more speculative, "why I think it worked out so well" perspective. First the objective view of it. [url]http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131215172346/destinypedia/images/6/66/Devwalk.jpg[/url] The spider walker is the only "boss" in Destiny that has a bunch of different critical points instead of 1 big one (or small one in the case of some bosses). Each of the walker's six legs acts as a critical point giving people plenty of angles and targets to shoot at. Also unlike any other boss within Destiny, once a critical point has been taken out it no longer acts as a critical spot Further, the boss actually shows that damage and gives completely apparent visual feedback to players that the hurt leg can no longer be used for critical damage. The Devil Walker has a lot of varied attack moves that no other boss within Destiny matches. The Walker spawns Fallen shanks from its legs. It has its devastating main cannon (which granted, the splash damage for it borders on the unfair) which telegraphs where it will go from a laser guide giving players ample time to dodge it. It shoots a volley of plasma blasts at more regular intervals that move pretty slowly in the air but still pack a punch if they land near the player. If players get close the walker can shoot a faster plasma turret at them, drop mines, or stomp the ground for an electric shock. Every other boss in the game generally has one fairly obvious critical spot and only two or three modes of attack. A close insta-kill attack and a couple of primary range attacks. The Devil walker is the only boss players can actually approach up close and not instantly die as long as they stay behind the tank as it lumbers around. The AI for the spider tank even seems to be better than most other enemies in the game. The walker always seems to orient itself facing whomever is the last person to attack it or will attempt to position in such a way as to make its critical point legs harder to hit if there are fewer of them left. It's the only boss in the game that has multiple strategies of approach for it and that can be taken down extremely fast if coordinated well with others (not just talking shoot at something with a lot of health with rockets all at once either). You see, once one of the walker's legs is injured it opens up a reactor like chamber in the head which allows for massive amounts of damage to be done to it. If coordinated well enough I've seen walker's go down from just a single leg being taken out. Where every other boss takes ten, twenty, thirty, plus minutes of boring shooting and hiding to take down the spider tank offers a far quicker route if handled with proper strategy and teamwork. [url]http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130102200650/destinypedia/images/7/7a/Fallen_Devil_Walker_Concept_Art.jpg[/url] Now the more speculative portion of this case study. The Devil walker seems so out of place with the rest of the game when you really think about it. Other than public events the only time a Devil Walker is used is as a mini-boss before the strike boss (which falls into the lame, bullet sponge with a single critical spot and 2 total attacks pile as most other bosses in the game). Now, the spider tank is possibly one of the oldest ideas for an enemy unit in Destiny since it has been in just about every bit of gameplay footage for Destiny before release and was even in concept art that leaked before Bungie officially announced the game. So my theory is simply that before the exodus of older Bungie staff and the influx of new hires diluted the design decisions of the game they had a solid idea of what they wanted to do for a specific enemy type and just ran out of steam for any other. I don't know if they just were crunched on time (I mean that's usually the case in game development anyway) but for whatever reason the Devil Walker is leagues better in design and execution than any other enemy in the game and the only thing I can think to explain that is that a lot of time was spent on it. If anybody else agrees with my assessment or disagrees with it feel free to weigh in. Perhaps you thought a different enemy was better designed or that the spider tank isn't that hot shit, let me know. Thank you for your time.