[POLL] STATUS EFFECT AGAINST BOSSES

author=LockeZ
I don't think "random chance to instantly kill a boss" is a great plan, period, no matter what secondary effects you attach or what limitations you impose.

Well, an instant death spell should never work on a boss - in the case of a boss fight such a spell would just deal damage and ignore the chance to kill. A 'Death' summon which deals dark damage to bosses (or to normal enemies if it doesn't instant-kill) would be useful against anything light-based or anything which simply has a high resistance to the more common elements.

However, I think how viable instant-death (and other status effects) is really depends upon the overall game. A spell with a high chance to kill and even one which can hit multiple enemies is fine in a game with an average or above-average encounter rate where a player may defeat dozens or even hundreds of normal enemies in a single dungeon. However, If a a game has a low encounter rate, non-random battles, and/or tends towards encounters consisting of 1-3 fairly strong enemies instant death no matter the percentage can really trivialize things; if normal encounters are designed to simply give players something to do while going through a dungeon or as fodder to ensuring players are at a high enough level for a boss fight, instant death is understandable, but I don't think it's a good idea to include it unless with a very small success chance if individual encounters are still designed to be threatening (you could just make miniboss-esque normal enemies immune to instant death, but if it doesn't at least deal damage to enemies when they're strong, then that implies that it's only really useful against foes which both the player and the developer view as little more than wastes of time, which calls into question just what that spell and those enemies are really doing in the game in the first place).

I like LockeZ's idea, and I've been thinking about something like that myself. Rather than simply being able to cast "Death", you need to use a combination of abilities that culminate with a "Death" spell, and the enemy will interrupt your combination, so you have to prepare for that too... not unlike a game of chess between you and the bad guys.

Oh? Well, I mean, the idea of skill combos that end in big skills is not new. Street Fighter did it, along with a few billion other games. Using it in an RPG as a way to totally remove status randomization and immunity isn't something I've ever seen done, though. Is there a game I need to play? If you know of a game that actually did something like this, I kinda want to play it now.

I voted 3.

Some status effects shouldn't work on bosses, or should work less often (Stun being a potential game breaker in particular). But I like to make my bosses have some vulnerability to status effects. It leaves a lot of room for strategy beyond simple "use strongest attack until it dies".

For example, In an old RPG I had, I had a boss (a blind troll) with low accuracy and high attack. Dizzy was really helpful. And then when he went to phase 2 (Dying berserker rage. MORE attack power, less accuracy, and damage over time until it died), dizzy became even MORE useful. Poison would have broken the fight, and stun might have as well.

I find the best way to determine what's totally ineffective is to establish ground rules that are very clear. For example, make Armored enemies resist stun, and then mark all armored enemies as such (ex: "Paladin or Paladin or something like that).

Also, balanced status effects are a must. Having a spell that poisons the enemy indefinitely is usually not a good idea, as it makes it way too good against bosses, forcing you to ban it against them. I usually set it to 3 turns, it's long enough to be useful, but not so long that it's broken.

Lastly, I think that stat debuffs should always work. I have never seen a time when they're broken.

I'm not sure because I haven't worked with the RPG Maker battle system yet, but wouldn't stuns be less powerful on a boss if you can make a boss use multiple attacks in 1 turn? That way, if a boss could use 3 skills, stun would only block 1 of his skills, not making stunlocking a possibility.

About poll: I think conditions should work on bosses, although some conditions may have to be weakened somewhat. Things such as sleep not working for multiple turns, and/or have a fair chance of missing.

author=slashphoenix
Now, lest I be accused of providing problems and not solutions, let's brainstorm some alternatives!

1) Limited effect on bosses: This is a compromise approach taken by many games. This is a good solution if the skill essentially works in a similar way and is used in similar situations. For example, a Sleep spell might work on a boss for 1 or 2 turns, or Death can be used on a bosses' minions, but not the boss itself. This allows these spells utility during these boss fights, so players feel that their mastery of these spells is still useful.

2) Status effects work on select bosses: This is actually worse than simply making all bosses immune to status effects. Once the player fights a couple bosses and learns what skills don't work on them, don't break the rule again! Arbitrarily slapping immunity on random enemies/bosses is confusing and frustrating. Unless these immunities are clearly labeled and immediately discoverable, you are misleading your player. "Scan" abilities are only a band-aid, often flooding the player with multiple weaknesses/strengths, and sometimes disappearing immediately afterward (hope you have a pen!). The only exception would be a boss whose weakness is clearly stated somewhere else (such as NPCs), which is a successful weave of exploration, critical thinking and combat.

3) Remove these status effects completely: If your spell doesn't provide strategy to your combat, cut it! A powerful status effect that doesn't work on bosses but is overpowered on trash mobs is a poorly designed spell. An example would be a Death spell: typically this spell one-shots any trash mob and never works on bosses. It's the obvious choice on trash (leaving no other optimal strategy) but doesn't work on bosses, which means when your player gets to the boss she suddenly has to learn all those other spells! When you start compensating for this spell's power via reduced hit chance, overly high MP cost, etc., try asking yourself what strategy that spell brings to the game. Be harsh. If you find yourself struggling for answers, cut it.

4) Design your bosses to work with your status effects: I believe this to be the fairest solution. It doesn't betray your player's trust - the spell is useful in the same way it always was, but now they have to be really good with it, or the boss will crush them! Design your spells with bosses in the forefront, not merely as an afterthought. Cut your death spells. Make your poison damage use standard damage, not percent-based damage. Allow your characters to break the boss's weapon, and encourage them to do so, because the boss will crush them otherwise! Make them stun the boss right before his big attack goes off! This makes for a fulfilling battle where a player has to whip out every tool in the toolbelt to succeed, and damn is it rewarding.

Changing the rules on your player because it would break the game is a design flaw, and ultimately the player will be the one left unsatisfied. Your game should reward players that master the skills you've been teaching them; when they succeed this way, they'll feel a sense of real accomplishment, not unlike getting an A+!

metaphor over!

Whew! That was fun!

I actually favored 2. Or rather a mix of 1 & 2. Certain status on certain bosses. Some bosses are poison weak (which can be devastating), and some can be stoned. Some can be hit by demi or blind. Death, doom, and the like are always out, but the addition of some status weaknesses creates a sense of strategy. Of course, the strategy should make sense. A fire dragon can't be easily frozen for instance.

Death should deal damage in addition to its status. Most enemies should be resistant enough that the status itself is unlikely to one shot them (maybe D resist out of E, D is 10% and E is 0%), so if it fails, you deal some sort of small non-element damage. Of course, that's also if the attack connects at all, since spells can have hit %.

I was always of the opinion that if it worked in one scenario it should work in all of them or have a compelling reason why it doesn't. I mean why does Paralyze work on the Mini Gnome Assassin enemy but not on the Mega Gnome Dark Lord? Now obviously if you make all your normal enemies people and all your bosses robots, than we have a reason why things work different on bosses, but in general, if it is good enough for your mobs it should be good enough for your bosses. IMO.

Now as far as interesting approaches to status effects, I always liked the idea of taking as much of the randomness out of it as possible. The fact is the more chance based a thing is the less likely I am to rely on it in a game. Therefore, if my status effect moves have a random chance I already slightly favor my normal attacks. If it has a very low chance, well then why bother with it? It's more likely than not a waste of a turn.

I believe if you add it to your game than it needs to be something that is going to be used. I don't like to add useless features or objects and I don't like to play games with useless stuff either.

author=Jester
Seriously, why not have one or two spells or abilities that are only effective against normal enemies, and totally ineffective against bosses? How is that different than having bosses that, say, are immune to certain elemental attacks from a tactical perspective? Either way there are certain abilities that are totally useless against certain enemies.

The difference is that it's all bosses. When making 20 enemies in your game resist fire, the placement of the enemies is essentially random from a gameplay perspective - they're given immunities based on appearance of the monsters and/or the zone. There will be some easy enemies, some medium ones, and some bosses. However, there will still be other bosses that are vulnerable to fire. The end result is generally just that combat stays fresh a little better, because battles aren't all the same. (Also, in all likelihood, your elemental spells are actually identical except for the elements, and so the only meaningful difference between a fire-immune enemy and an ice-immune enemy is the animation that plays when your mage attacks them.)

But when you make every boss immune to paralyze, something else happens. The combat staying a little fresher doesn't disappear, but there's a second, seperate effect as well. What happens is that bosses, which are designed to be climactic tests of player skill and tactics that build upon and test what you've learned so far from normal enemies, no longer function that way. The player is learning status-based tactics in normal battles - complex tactics, generally far more reliant on player planning and attentiveness than elemental attacks - but then this major element of gameplay is completely ignored in all the climactic encounters in the entire game. It feels like you are being trained not to use them, because when you need them most, you can't. In fact, that's exactly what's happening: the game is teaching you that status effects are a clutch, and that you need to learn how not to use them, because when things get rough they'll be disabled. That seems like the opposite of what you should be learning about a type of tactic that's harder to perform and that is inherently better suited to longer battles, right? Why would you ever want to have a "newbies only" tactic that takes far more knowledge and skill to utilize effectively than the things you're supposed to be using? It's quite frankly insane.

author=SqueakyReaper
If you have an ATB system, or any reasonably slow paced real time battle system in place, give enemy boss monsters some tells. Whether it's a consistent pattern of actions, your characters going "The enemy is charging up!", or them glowing blue, make the player know that the enemy is about to do something big.

Your status effects may have a weaker effect against bosses, or lower duration, but when that tell comes up you have to hit them with something. Perhaps you have simple "attack down" effects, or a blind to lower accuracy, or a silence to stop it entirely. The duration of the debuff would be shorter, but your player would be able to notice the effect it has on the enemy and would feel rewarded for saving that ace.

I'm planning to make that kind of system for the cook-off contest game I'm working on. I have all the skills (minus, like...two that I have no idea what to make them) done, and most of them are designed to be strategically used like that.

And each of my planned bosses has some annoying ace move that is best countered with one or more of those skills.