LOCKEZ DESIGNS A BOSS BATTLE FOR YOU

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LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Glad I could help. Let me know if you want something for your game. Also, you have a great username.
Much appreciated.

I have through of a conceptual question for non-linear/open-world games: how to increase boss difficulty?

Say you could fight all 5 bosses, but not the final boss, in any order and point in the game you choose. How would you recommend adapting the difficulty?
I have planned to include different move-sets depending on the player's party level, some puzzle aspects such as the respawning grunts with buff/debuff etc.

I'm also considering requiring a boss to be defeated with a weapon/armour/skill gained in another non-boss dungeon or in a town. But without the blatant "step by step explanation" since I'm trying to retain a lot of the exploration components and include only subtle "step by step" guides to the player.

If you have any insight to grace me with that would be appreciated. Or if I need to explain this more clearly I can do that.

Thanks and have a great day,

-SP
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
My general opinion is that level scaling for a game's main challenges is sort of horrible. It makes power you gain feel worthless at best, and often makes you actually avoid becoming stronger.

A lot of solutions end up making the game not feel like an RPG. Open world games are really just poor choices for RPGs. The two systems are working directly against each-other. You can work around the problems, but it's hard to really make the freedom and the level ups work together.

One good solution that will make the game still feel like an RPG would be to design each boss so that multiple tactics work well on it. So maybe one of the bosses can be beaten by either wearing fire immunity armor, or by having multiple characters with stun skills, or by having only one character with a stun skill but recognizing all of his attack patterns. Then the player would have the option of either gathering fire armor from another dungeon, recruiting party members from several other dungeons, or playing very intelligently (and likely dying several times while learning the fight). Sort of a Mega Man X approach of giving a boss a couple weaknesses but letting a good player win without them.

You would want each boss's "trick" that lets the player beat it first to be very different from the others, so that if the player can't figure out one of them, there's probably a different one he can figure out. Like, for example, one boss that can be beaten by turtling and perfectly maintaining your buffs, one boss that can be beaten by recognizing its attack pattern and preemmptively preventing its skills, one boss that can be beaten by spending consumable items and swapping party members mid-battle intelligently to avoid running out of resources in a very long battle, etc. For the bosses that the player can't figure out, they'll get ways to "cheat" by beating the other bosses. And of course, beating other bosses will also just give them precious level ups.

Of course, an alternate method of designing the game would be to make it so there's a very real difficulty progression, with the five bosses being meant to be fought in a certain order, and each boss being stronger than the last. But just give the player the power to sequence break if they want. This is how the early Zelda games work. They give you a road to follow for an easy time, but they don't force you to follow it.

No matter what method you choose, you almost certainly want the amount of power the player gains over the course of the game to be pretty small compared to most RPGs. No Final Fantasy stuff where you deal 40x as much damage at the end of the game. Being twice as strong offensively and four or five times times as strong defensively would be plenty. Giving the player more defense is easier to justify than giving them more offense - it makes their life easier without removing nearly as much of the strategy from battles.

If you like my idea of bosses that can be beaten multiple ways, with the basic way being the hardest to figure out and the other ways requiring specific powers you get elsewhere in the game, I would definitely help you design a few bosses like that.
Thanks,

Merging the two styles of game is a challenge I'm looking to tackle and a major component is in the role itself. But that shouldn't be an issue because the player and main character are I the same position (thrust into an unknown land). Similar to the first Zeldas With more characters and story behind it. But I digress.

After writing I though about the progression of power and considered not to have much more grinding opportunities than already made so that a general level plateau is reached. With your suggestions about defense and augmentations I feel I have a workable solution as of now.
I really like those "cheats" in part because of the options it gives on how to approach the game world, reducing those whom just force their way through (similar to the Castlevania style general gameplay if I remember correctly) and doesn't hinder adventuring around.
This has given me some more ideas and I'll certainly look into more of that Mega Man X style, it's better than the one-path puzzle bosses I considered.

Thanks again as this has been very informative to keeping my design on track without relying on people playing through the entire thing just to give some critiques.
Is this thread still available? I might need some ideas in the near future.

Also, take a look at the WC3/SC2 map Impossible Bosses - the game is even more boss-focused than Shadow of the Colossus as you don't even have a plot or exploration element between the fights. It's also for 8 players.

EDIT: Regarding the open world problem in general, my idea is to make most/all areas accessible at low levels and getting progressively harder as you venture deeper inside. Another thing I like is that some rpgs have strategies that are not only viable for low-level characters, these strategies wouldn't work if you're evenly leveled. Focus Sash Endeavor Quick Attack Rattata is the most prominent example I know of that.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
can you please design a boss battle where you, lockez, lose horribly
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
LightningLord2, this is definitely still active (forever and ever, or at least until the day I'm not on RMN any more). It got moved to the other thread after "The Job Board" subforum was created though, as it seemed to fit better there. Make a more detailed post in that thread as soon as you've got a better grasp on what you want to ask for.

Craze, you can never defeat me, I am protected by plot armor.
The thread didn't get updated, but I changed a small post noting on the error you mentioned to me asking for a critique onto my boss fight (from a game I failed to get on the site). Is that a proper thing to ask for?
Hello mmmm I want to ask an opinion on how correctly should work this boss well let's see okay first thing right...

First the game that I'm developing has the stats limited so characters and enemies can get up to 40 points in each stat characters Hp can get up to 999 and MP up to 500, enemies and bosses is different.

Also all the playable character are limited to 3 Attacking Skill and 3 Passives (as slots... by that I mean that they are equipped instead of having normal equip), up to this point they have the chance of getting the 4 elemental skill two with side-effect, two physical skill one of them which can inflict Poison, the first normal healing skill, a skill that removes poison.

As for passives there're two passives that reduce elemental damage, one that allow normal attacks to inflict something akin to Paralyze(called Bind in the game)one that rises Hp by 10% and another that raises MP +10%

There are 3 characters up to this point, the Main (can be Magical, Physical, Neutral or Defensive) a Magic character and a Physical Character

Boss: Mad Andrew Hp: I don't know how much but maybe less than 700 the characters should be around level 13 - 15 when fighting him... so they should have around 150-200

Mp: he doesn't run out...

Original Idea:
He was going to have two turns (he is the first enemy to have them) one of them should use a Break skill which reduce element resistance of one ally of one element, and then he would use one AOE - element skill... that was the idea but I see it too simple... however he is the first boss so...

Maybe a back story of the boss could also help, he is a student that joined a cult thanks to his father, he seems to have killed his father and kills the girl that he was obsessed with... yeah he is pretty much insane...

Sooo opinion and Help please...

Edit:

Sorry didn't read not the dates nor the fact that this would be better at the Job board I'm sorry so maybe I'll post there yep sorry about the inconvenience
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
Okay, I'm gonna do this thing.

I'm developing a game using GubiD's tactical battle system. The game is a strange mashup of RPG and resource management. Characters do not level. Instead, they improve stats and learn skills from items acquired in combat and found in the field. The human race is extinct. The three main characters are genetically engineered human's who are trying to restore the human race.

The first dungeon is an abandoned droid factory that has come back on line and is badly malfunctioning. All of the machines in the factory attack you. The final boss is a computer. It cannot attack. It can only build droids to attack you, and activate security systems in the room you're in. It is also highly durable and difficult to damage. The player must disable the computer to end the battle. Disabling the computer stops everything in the factory.

Yeah, I know I've mostly got this designed, but still being mostly amateur, I'm certain I have plenty of room to improve and any advice or opinions would be helpful.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Interesting.

1) What are some abilities that the player is likely to have? Especially ones that haven't really been very useful for the player in general so far.
2) When you say "security systems" in a tactical RPG battle system, I'm imagining a dynamic spacial component to the battle. Is it possible to temporarily create things like barriers and damage tiles that can be turned on/off by events?
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
1) Abilities are determined by weapons. Pure sci-fi, so no magic, but I'm working on an alternative. At this point, however all they have are energy guns, and a limited supply of pulse grenades found on location, which will stun the droids, but not the computer. At least one of the characters could have a tech ability that lets her disable droids, but I figured that might make the fight too easy, this being the first boss (except the training simulator, but that doesn't count since you can't die in the simulator.).

2) That's a good question. I'm looking at the documentation, and there doesn't seem to be a way to do any of that, but it occurs to me that there could be a way to create enemies that basically perform the same function.
Doesn't this topic already exist on the job board? I feel that one of the two should be locked.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I didn't want two active threads so I had originally moved all discussion to the other one. But posting here at this point isn't causing two active threads, so whatever, it's fine.

As for the boss!

Since this is the first boss in the game, you don't really want the player to get stuck here, even if you were making a "hardcore" game. The stun grenades make this interesting in that they're a limited resource, and the player could have used all of them up before reaching the boss. So they can't be required for the fight. But we do want them to be worth using! They should feel like a major advantage if the player hung onto them.

I'm going to assume the player has healing items/abilities of some kind, and that they're limited too. This fight is going to be mostly about creating a good rhythm of enemies.

So, two more questions.
1) About how many times can the player heal before running out of healing?
2) In your battle system, when enemies die, do they leave a corpse or treasure chest or anything else behind that takes up the tile they were standing on? If so can you explain what it does? (For example, if you don't give the enemy an item drop, is there no chest? Does the player get the item immediately or after the battle? Can enemies be revived?)
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
1) They can fully heal three times. I think I'll raise their base stats, a little. At the moment, they each start at 30 HP. I've got a good balance with regular fights, but in a fight where enemies keep spawning, I imagine that it can be easy to get overwhelmed.
2) The system has script calls that let you choose whether or not they leave a corpse. I imagine that the screen could potentially get overfull with bodies in a fight like this. I suppose the corpse graphic could be a treasure chest. In either case, it would just sit there, blocking the tile. Yes they can item drop. Characters get all items at the end of the fight. As far as revived enemies go...I can do that. I mean, with new enemies spawning, I hadn't really thought of enemy reviving.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
If you can toggle the enemy corpses off for this battle that's perfect.

It's a little inconsistent for enemies to turn into corpses in other fights but not in this fight. I don't think it'll be a problem, though. As far as the player is concerned, "doesn't leave a corpse" will just be a property of these specific enemies, or maybe of boss battles in general.

The trick with the pulse grenades is to make them feel more useful than just attacking. If the player can kill the enemy before it can attack, then stunning it will feel pointless.

I would say not to include the tech ability that disables droids, unless you severely limit how often it can be used, like once per battle, twice at most.

Here are my initial thoughts for the battle:

CENTRAL PROCESSOR
- At the beginning of the battle, this is the only enemy present.
- Has enough HP to survive about 35 attacks.
- Can't move.
- Has no attacks.
- Uses Build Timed Mine, which summons a Timed Mine.
- Uses Build Security Droid, which summons a Security Droid.
- If there is already a Timed Mine present, the boss has a 100% chance to use Build Security Droid. If there isn't one present, the boss has a 50/50 chance to use either ability.



SECURITY DROID
- Has enough HP to survive one attack, is usually killed by the second attack.
- Can move freely.
- Is summoned in one of several possible locations on the map at random.
- Attacks the player with basic short-range attacks, hitting for about one fourth of the player's max HP.


TIMED MINE
- Has enough HP to survive being attacked by each player character three times.
- Cannot move.
- Is summoned in one specific location every time. This location needs to be clearly obvious to the player, like a giant central pipe or a glowing teleport pad. It needs to stand out compared to the spots where the Security Droids are summoned.
- Uses Countdown: 2 on its first turn, which does nothing.
- Uses Countdown: 1 on its second turn, which does nothing.
- Uses Detonate on its third turn, dealing heavy damage to all player characters (about two thirds of their max HP).
- Its countdown doesn't reset when it's stunned.


The player will initially try to attack and kill the land mine when it's summoned the first time, but it has too much HP to kill before it reaches 0. If the player has any kind of brains, they'll remember they have another option: pulse grenades.

The big flashy spawn point for the Timed Mine is to clue the player in that it only spawns at this one location. Combined with the fact that it doesn't move, the player will subconsciously realize that only one Timed Mine can ever be present at a time. This is important as stunning the mine would not be a good idea if more of them were going to appear.

At first the security droids will be easily picked off before they can hurt the player, but the turns spent attacking the timed mines will allow multiple droids to join the field at once.

If you want the battle to last shorter or longer, adjust the main boss's HP, not the HP of the summoned adds. Making the fight shorter is probably the best way to prevent the player from getting overwhelmed, if that turns out to be a problem. However if you make it take less than about 25 hits, the whole battle will fail because they'll be able to ignore the adds and still win.

Let me know how this looks to you! And if you try it out, let me know how it works. I'm definitely willing to help you tweak it if the balance feels funky or if it doesn't really accomplish what you wanted.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
I may have to abandon this design. After three days of trying to implement this, I can only determine that GubiD's Tactical Battle System breaks the Battle Events. It spawns all enemies at the start of battle and will not allow them to spawn at any other time. Enemies have to be called by script call. I have even set them to "Don't Run" and it ran them anyway. I've tried tying them switches and putting them on latter pages. If the script call to add enemies appears on any page in the battle events, it automatically runs the script call and ignores all other conditions. I could put it on page 40 and make it wait an hour before spawning and it'll still spawn at the start of battle. Obviously, I have no idea how to fix this.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Interesting conundrum. Try this method, which doesn't use any battle events:

Give the boss a single ability, Construction Algorithm, which does nothing except call a common event. We'll call the common event "Construction Algorithm Event."

"Construction Algorithm Event" should use conditional branches to check whether a Timed Mine is present in the battle yet. Depending on that condition, it should run the appropriate script call to summon either a Timed Mine or a Security Droid.



You might run into problems later in the game due to your inability to use battle events, but anything that you want to happen on an enemy's turn can usually be handled this way. In some cases, you may want to give the boss an ability which calls a common event which in turn calls one of several other abilities, just so the names of the other abilities will be shown on-screen when those skills are used.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
It doesn't work. I tried having it activate a switch. It won't recognize an enemy script call in common events, so there is no way to do it outside of the battle event screen. This battle system won't even acknowledge a loop. I tried to contain the conditions in a loop and it just spawned them right at the start of the battle.

I've given them four spawn locations. Maybe I should turn on the corpse setting, start the fight with four enemies helping the computer, and then after they've died, have the computer revive them. I haven't tried that yet. Maybe it'll cooperate if I revive instead of spawn enemies.
Heh, hearing the above makes me realize I don't know how to summon more enemies in the default battle systems, either... any help about how to do this in MV?