LOCKEZ DESIGNS BOSS BATTLES 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
In an attempt to get more exposure I'm duplicating my antique thread from the other board. If you want to see the old boss battles I designed for people, you can read through this thread and decide if you hate my style or not, maybe.

I'm not going to claim to be any kind of expert - all I can claim is passion. And an abundance of free time to spend thinking about this stuff and wasting my days on game design forums, I guess. And two articles [1] [2] which you can read if you're intested.

I'm talking about gameplay here, just to make that clear. How the boss plays, not how it looks or what its story is. I know there are a lot of people who mostly are trying to tell a story, or create an artistic experience, or build a world to explore, or something else and most of the combat gameplay they include is just whatever occurs to them; they care about the gameplay, but it's not where they want to spend their time. I feel you. I'm here for you! Others of you are very interested in gameplay design, but might have a case of designer's block and could use a jumpstart for certain battle.

In the previous thread, I mostly just did one or two bosses per person. But if you want ten or twenty, SWEET. That should probably happen over PMs though instead of in a forum thread.


Bare minimum of what you need to tell me if you want some boss design up in this bitch:
- Who or what the boss is, if you have decided that much. For example, "a robot that spews slime" or "a wizard who's in the process of summoning a demon."
- Short summary of the player's party (like two sentences per party member probably) (if you have 150 party members or fully customizable characters, then tell me what are the main differences the player will look at to decide which characters/skills to take)
- Whether your game is ATB or turn-based; and if it's turn-based, whether you input commands for the whole party at once or not
- How comfortable you are using complex events or scripts to get weird results (like an enemy that self-destructs when hit with fire magic).
- Any key abilities the player has that you think are important in a boss fight or that make your game's battles unique
- Any ideas you think you would like to use, even if they suck (I will make them not suck)
- Whatever you think is relevant

I will then probably ask a few more questions! But that'll at least give me an idea of what questions to ask.

What you will get when I'm done is a fairly detailed description of boss mechanics. I will tend to list damage and HP values as something like "enough HP to take five hits from the player party" or "enough damage to take away about one third of a character's health", but if you need more detail, I can give as much detail as you need. If you need help figuring out exactly what stats to give the boss to get the numbers you want, or figuring out how to actually do one of the things I said, I can do that too. This would be a pretty pointless thread if I didn't help people actually get the bosses into their games.

I would prefer to discuss everything right in this topic, just so the topic keeps getting bumped, but if you'd rather do it privately for any reason, that's perfectly fine. Send me a message.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I will seriously be interested in having you design every boss battle in a future game at some point, if you're cool with it. Every boss you designed for me in the other thread was a home-run, and players gave me plenty of positive comments on them :DDDD
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
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
author=LockeZ
I'm game!


Bad pun! NO!

It's really likely I'll be looking for some suggestions for boss ideas for a project once I chisel out some more mechanics, so I might be back here soon!
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
You know what...I might take you up on this, or at least use ya as a sounding board.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

Do you have an event list / file with demo bosses that I can like totally rip off if I want them?
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
Hmm. I don't, sorry. Feel free to reuse any of the bosses from Iniquity & Vindication (every fourth battle in that game is a boss, you can ask me for details on the AI/mechanics of any of them you are interested in), but a good boss is going to be game-specific, and your game probably doesn't have enough in common with mine for a lot of those bosses to work well. At least a couple of them should surely be okay, though?
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
Here's a boss battle I designed for someone else, but they weren't able to use (because of graphics and mapping), so now anyone who wants it can use it! It's up for grabs.

The fight would take places on an entirely aquatic battlefield, such as the surface of a lake. The player will be swimming on the surface of the water, while the boss will be massive enough that it can stand up in waist-deep water. Or the boss could float, either way works; I'm imagining it as a giant but it could just as easily be a kraken. This allows the boss to act freely while forcing the player to create ice floes to stand on. The player creates ice floes by freezing the water in front of a character, and then instructing that character to climb onto the ice floe.


This boss involves the hero gaining a new skill for this specific battle:

Player Skill: Freeze Beam
- Single target ice-elemental attack.
- Also freezes the enemy, preventing that enemy from acting for one round. 100% success rate.
- Cannot be used for the next two rounds after being used. Alternately, could be a limit break skill that costs a small portion of the limit gauge.
- Only one member of the player party has this skill.
- Should not require MP, or any other resource that the player could potentially run out of.


And here's the boss itself, and other targets that appear during the battle:

AQUATIC GIANT BOSS
- Has enough HP to survive somewhere around twenty to thirty hits from each party member.
- During this boss fight, all players start with the "Swimming" status effect. This makes short-range attacks impossible. Like a reverse silence effect.
- Miscellaneous Attacks: Uses a variety of water-elemental and physical attacks on the player party. None of these attacks need to have any special effects beyond regular damage. The amount of damage and the frequency of area-attacks will depend on how powerful healing is in your game.
- Ice Smash: If an Ice Floe enemy is present, the boss has a 25% chance to spend a turn using this ability to instantly kill the Ice Floe by smashing it. This will turn the Ice Floe back into a Water Pool.
- Ice Smash: If any character in the player's party has the "Riding Ice Floe" status effect, the boss has a 25% chance to spend a turn attacking that character with a smash attack, which deals physical damage to the character, dispels the "Riding Ice Floe" status effect, and reapplies the "Swimming" status effect. This will respawn the Water Pool in front of that character.

WATER POOL
- Invulnerable.
- Doesn't do anything except sit there.
- There are as many of these as you have party members. One of them is directly in front of each party member.
- Since the battle background is already water, this enemy is actually invisible. It just looks like the cursor is pointing at the surface of the water in front of the character.
- The player using Freeze Beam on a Water Pool will turn it into an Ice Floe.

ICE FLOE
- Invulnerable.
- Doesn't do anything except sit there.
- This enemy is directly in front of one of the party members (the same party member that the Water Pool was in front of).
- That party member's normal attack command is replaced by a new command when this enemy is present: Climb.
- Climb: When the character next to an Ice Floe uses Climb, the Ice Floe disappears, the character gains "Riding Ice Floe" status effect, and the character loses the "Swimming" status effect.
- Characters affected by the "Riding Ice Floe" status effect have their graphic changed to have an ice floe under their feet. They are no longer restricted like swimming characters, and can attack freely.


The battle ends when the Aquatic Giant Boss is killed.
Design my boss battles, monster and character stats! Lol...
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
The last person to message me was all like, "Can you also make and plan the placement of all the combat, items, spells, monsters, skills and equipment in the entire game for me? I need the game done in two weeks."

There's a limit to my generosity, guys. Please try to keep your requests sane. I mean, I guess you can request anything you want, but if you request hundreds of hours of work I reserve the right to say no.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

author=jin69
Design my boss battles, monster and character stats! Lol...


I can do one better:

Locke Z, can you like make my entire game for me!
I always have a hard time with the balance of character stats and monster stats.
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 really do want help, I can't help unless you post more details.
Well, I think I'll have to let you know when I get that far. You see my icon? Those characters I made for a game I'm working on, but I only made the sprite sheets. Right now I'm just focusing on the character sprites. But thank you for giving up your time to help me in the future, I really appreciate it.

But I definitely want you to make a boss battle for me, I want challenging bosses!
OK, I am not sure I wanted a boss designed for this, yet, but I was thinking of having a tutorial boss that teaches the player the perks of running away from combat sometimes. I do not know how good of an idea that is, but it is something that I at least wanted to know if it was possible.
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
It definitely sounds possible, and interesting to try. Can you describe exactly what the perks are? Does your game handle it any differently than a typical Final Fantasy / Dragon Quest game?
author=LockeZ
It definitely sounds possible, and interesting to try. Can you describe exactly what the perks are? Does your game handle it any differently than a typical Final Fantasy / Dragon Quest game?

The game is still in the concept phase of things, and I don't have an engine picked out yet. I was leaning more towards a final fantasy type engine for the combat, as I like the cinematic side more.
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
Well, I was thinking more about the penalties and rewards for fleeing, rather than the actual method. The fact that the "Escape" command escapes from battle obviously doesn't need a tutorial - so if you wanted to have one, I assume it's because you're wanting to design a game where escaping is useful in different situations than it was in most FF games, or maybe where the process of escaping is more complex.
author=LockeZ
The last person to message me was all like, "Can you also make and plan the placement of all the combat, items, spells, monsters, skills and equipment in the entire game for me? I need the game done in two weeks."

There's a limit to my generosity, guys. Please try to keep your requests sane. I mean, I guess you can request anything you want, but if you request hundreds of hours of work I reserve the right to say no.

Need you to make game for me. Also, you can take credit if you want. Brb, vacationing in Africa.
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
Someone said that the Good King Moggle Mog EX battle from Final Fantasy 14 was too complex and relied too much on real-time positioning and threat-based tanking to be able to be converted into a turn-based RPG Maker battle. I decided that sounded like a challenge.

In the hide tags, I will describe what was different about the abilities in the original MMORPG fight, how I adapted them, and why.

Note that throughout the fight, in place of POSITIONING I will be using THE DEFEND COMMAND to allow players to "avoid" damage. The power of the defend command should almost certainly be improved to reduce damage by 66% or 75% instead of the normal 50%.

Also note that in place of THREAT I will be using COUNTERATTACKS to give players a degree of control over who takes damage. This is actually kind of an obtuse workaround, but it allows this single boss to use threat-like aggro behavior without adding tanking mechanics to the entire game. This isn't something I would actually recommend doing, you should probably just add a taunt skill to your game instead of doing this, but I wanted to prove this was possible.


GOOD KING MOGGLE MOG
- Every round, he uses two actions: Kupo Cleave plus another random skill.
- Kupo Cleave deals physical damage, and has a 50% chance to also damage the MP of the hero it hits. When Good King Moggle Mog is attacked, he uses this skill as a counterattack. If he's attacked multiple times in a single round, only the first attack causes the counterattack. If no one attacks him on any given round, he will use this on a random player instead. Because counterattacks obviously cannot be defended against, the character with the highest defense should be attacking Good King Moggle Mog to get hit by this.
- Furry Finisher is a basic single-target attack. He only uses this skill on heroes who are defending. The chance of him using it is higher the lower the hero's HP is.
- Royal Rouse buffs the attack and defense power of two of his minions. This buff can stack multiple times on a single minion. If a buffed minion is not attacked for three rounds, this effect starts wearing off, losing a stack every round. This buff is twice as likely to be used on Whiskerwall and Ruffletuft than on the other five minions.
- Moogle Creation places a status ailment on two random heroes, who take heavy magical damage the following round. The affected hero should defend in order to survive.


- In the original version, he had two frontal cleave attacks. One of these also damaged targets' MP, and the other also damaged targets' TP (used to cast physical skills). In RPG Maker terms, MP and TP are the same thing, but I wanted to keep the aspect of having a 50% chance of not being as bad when it hits someone, so I simply made it do that randomly. The purpose of these cleave attacks was to force the main tank to keep the boss faced away from the rest of the players. This is effectively forcing the tanks to stay in one position at all times, making them unable to move. In my version, the counterattack acts as an "aggro" mechanic, and simultaneously makes them unable to defend, which is my equivalent of moving.
- I got rid of his basic normal attack, combining it with the cleave. It existed in the original fight for numerical balance reasons, not because it added any mechanics.
- His short range AOE was meant to keep other players away from him. The only reason they would get near him is if they were avoiding something else more deadly, though. I converted this into his chance to attack heroes who were defending, IE, dodging something else. I also added the HP mechanic to give the player an unreliable method of avoiding this, which is something they had in the original game.
- Controlling which moogles got buffed by Royal Rouse was originally done through positioning. This skill is a buff rather than an attack, so the defend command wasn't a good choice to let the player control it. I used attack targetting instead. I had to let the player control the wearoff rather than the application, but the overall result is similar since the buff is not a big deal until it has stacked several times on a single minion.
- Moogle Creation originally hit heroes in a line-shaped area going a random direction from King Mog, and they had to move out of it. This is a basic move-to-avoid attack, which I turned into a basic defend-to-avoid attack.


Whiskerwall
- Whiskerwall's Mark is an ailment ability that is used as a counterattack any time he is attacked, but only if no heroes are currently affected by it. Only one hero can be affected by Whiskerwall's Mark at a time, so if someone already is, he won't counterattack. Also, this ailment will replace Ruffletuft's Mark if it is present; both marks cannot be applied to a single hero.
- Whiskerwall's Mark has no real negative effect, but Whiskerwall will always attack the affected hero. It wears off after five rounds and can be removed by a healer.
- Pop Smite deals a small amount of physical damage to one hero and heals Whiskerwall slightly. This skill is used almost every round.
- 1000 Kuponze Swing applies a debuff to one hero that deals damage after one round. The hero must defend. This skill will never target anyone who is affected by Whiskerwall's Mark or Ruffletuft's Mark.
- Thrown For A Loop applies paralysis and poison to the last two characters to attack Whiskerwall. The player's healer can remove both of these ailments at once.

Ruffletuft
- Ruffletuft's Mark is an ailment ability that is used as a counterattack any time he is attacked, but only if no heroes are currently affected by it. Only one hero can be affected by Ruffletuft's Mark at a time, so if someone already is, he won't counterattack. Also, this ailment will replace Whiskerwall's Mark if it is present; both marks cannot be applied to a single hero.
- Ruffletuft's Mark has no real negative effect, but Ruffletuft will always attack the affected hero. It wears off after five rounds and can be removed by a healer.
- Kupound deals a small amount of physical damage to one hero. This skill is used almost every round.
- 1000 Kuponze Swing applies a debuff to one hero that deals damage after one round. The hero must defend. This skill will never target anyone who is affected by Whiskerwall's Mark or Ruffletuft's Mark.
- Moogle-Go-Round inflicts a status ailment on one random hero, who dies after three rounds unless it is removed by a healer.


- Whiskerwall and Ruffeltuft's method of being tanked is much easier to manage than King Mog's, since it continues for five rounds. In FF14 the tanks could use their high threat to hold both King Mog and a minion, but my version of King Mog's counterattacks offer no such luxury. The tank who's holding both King Mog and one of these two minions can instead use use an AOE attack every few rounds to get the mark and the king's counterattack at the same tiime.
- Whiskerwall's Mark and Ruffletuft's Mark can also be removed by a healer, to allow tank swapping at will.
- RPG Maker doesn't have eight-character parties (usually), so the "tank swap" is actually more like the tank holding one of two tankable moogles at a time while the other one attacks the highest HP damage dealer. To compensate, the vast majority of the damage is done by King Mog instead of Whiskerwall and Ruffletuft.
- The stacks of Royal Rouse will accumulate over time on whichever of the two tankable minions is attacking the DPS. However, Royal Rouse will wear off quickly from the minion who's attacking the tank, as long as no one else attacks it. When the damage from the buffed minion gets too high for the damage dealers to handle, the healer should heal the minion's mark from the damage dealers, and the tank should attack that minion to get the mark. The other minion, which should hopefully have at most one stack of the buff, will then wander away from the tank and start hitting other people, since its mark has been dispelled.
- 1000 Kuponze Swing was a cone attack that party members had to step out of in FF14. It was targetted out in a random direction, rather than at the tank. I made it target random raid members other than the two people affected by marks, partially to be equivalent, and partially because the tank holding King Mog is unable to defend and thus couldn't survive.
- Thrown For A Loop was reduced from 3 targets to 2 but is otherwise almost identical to its FF14 incarnation. The poison is applied to the character instead of the ground, but the end result is identical. In FF14 this hit the three closest players to Whiskerwall, and the healers needed to stay away from Whiskerwall for the entire fight to avoid being targetted by this skill. There was no perfect equivalent to this in RPG Maker. I chose to make it be based on targetting instead. This should be functional for most games, since the healers in a typical RPG Maker game probably spend some of their time attacking instead of being dedicated healers.
- Moogle-Go-Round is unchanged other than being reduced from 2 targets to 1.


Pukla
- About four fifths of the time, Pukla simply does nothing.
- Meteor applies a debuff to two random characters, causing a small amount of magic damage the next round. The damage can be defended against but is also easily survivable. Any time Pukla uses this skill, he will use it for two rounds in a row; if the same character is targetted twice in a row them defending becomes more necessary.
- Pom Flare makes him start charging up for three rounds. At the end of the three rounds he will cast it, dealing massive damage to all heroes. This skill can be prevented by attacking him five times while he's charging up.

Furryfoot
- Cure! is used to heal other moogle guards, or himself.
- Holy makes him start charging up for three rounds. At the end of the three rounds he will cast it, dealing massive damage to all heroes. This skill can be prevented by attacking him five times while he's charging up.


- Meteor is a basic move-to-avoid attack that I turned into a basic defend-to-avoid attack. Nothing weird, though good luck if it targets the tank who's taking King Mog's counterattacks. Hopefully the healers can handle that, or maybe you should give your game's tank some kind of defend + damage skill on a cooldown.
- Pom Flare and Holy are exact literal translations of the original skills.


Pukna
- Attacks every other round.
- Poke attacks a random character for a small amount of physical damage. This damage is very low unless he has been buffed by several stacks of Royal Rouse.

Puksi
- About two thirds of the time, Puksi simply does nothing.
- Love Sonata buffs another minion's attack and magic power for five rounds. Puksi will not use this on more than one ally at a time, and will not use it on Good King Moggle Mog.
- Dusk Requium deals a small amount of damage to a hero. This attack is only used on heroes who used Defend on the previous round.


- Originally, Puski's attack was a very short range instant AOE attack, hitting any player negligent enough to get too close to her. It mostly only hit people because they were trying to avoid something else much more deadly. I replicated that feeling by making it hit people who defended on the previous round, though the player would never realize how it worked; at most, they might just notice that it's not hitting the tank. The damage in FF14 was too low and too unlikely to be worth bothering to think about when moving out of damage zones, so removing the player's ability to avoid it does not seem like it results in any loss of tactics. Also, it was capable of hitting tanks in FF14, but "tanks" in RPG Maker are probably a lot squishier, so the fact that this mechanic doesn't hit them is probably good balance-wise.


Woolywart
- About four fifths of the time, Woolywart simply does nothing.
- Moogle Eye Shot picks one hero and attacks them for the next four rounds. This damage is very low unless he has been buffed by several stacks of Royal Rouse.
- Mograin of Death applies a debuff to one character. On the following round, the debuff explodes, dealing physical damage to that character, and all other characters take an equal amount of damage. The affected character can defend to reduce the damage to everyone, and other characters can defend to reduce the damage to themselves. This damage is fairly low unless he has been buffed by several stacks of Royal Rouse.



This fight is split into five phases.

PHASE 1
Only Good King Moggle Mog is present at first. The tank will want to have the highest speed of anyone in the party in order to be hit by the counterattack during this phase, though it's not extremely important since the counterattacks can be easily healed through at this point no matter who they hit. This phase is very easy compared to the other phases.

When his health reaches 90%, he becomes invulnerable and summons all seven minions, starting phase 2.

PHASE 2
The tank needs to be ready to pick up one of the two moogle guards, either Whiskerwall or Ruffletuft, while the next hardiest fighter needs to be ready to pick up the other one. The tank can use an area attack to do this, since only one of the two can apply their mark to him at a time. Other heroes will mostly be unable to use AOE attacks safely for the rest of the fight, since Royal Rouse will never wear off if they do.

Thrown For A Loop, Moogle-Go-Round, Pom Flare, Holy, and Mograin of Death are considered "ultimate" attacks, and will not be used within two rounds of each-other during this phase of the fight.

Delta is a combination attack used by Woolywart, Pukna and Puksi. Before using it, Puksi will say "Delta! Delta!" and all three of them will then spend three rounds charging up before using a massive area attack. This attack hits the entire player party, dealing heavy damage to anyone who's not defending, including the tank. However, it also stuns all eight moogles, including Good King Moggle Mog, preventing any of them from using any abilities or counterattacking for the next two rounds after it hits. This makes it survivable.

The original Delta attack in FF14 covered a large zone across most of the battlefield, meaning that most people had to move to avoid it. As with most of the other similar attacks, I had the player defend to "avoid" it. Rather than making the tank exempt from this, I chose this time to make the tank temporarily exempt from all other damage, so that it became survivable. The two rounds of stun also give the player a chance to heal from the AOE damage. That extra time for healing wasn't needed in the original game because the attack could be completely avoided.


Good King Moggle Mog cannot be harmed directly, but when one of his minions is killed, he will sacrifice his own HP to fully heal and revive all seven minions. The amount of HP he spends doing this is equal to the amount of HP that the other seven moogles were missing, so it is best to get them all down as low as possible before killing one, to deal the maximum amount of damage to the king. Killing one of the moogles will begin phase 3.

PHASE 3
In Phase 3, the seven moogle minions become capable of using some of their ultimate attacks simultaneously.
- Holy + Moogle-Go-Round are used together. Healers must remove the ailment while damage dealers attack Furryfoot to interrupt.
- Mograin + Thrown For A Loop are used together. One targetted hero must defend himself to mitigate the explosion while two others are stunned and poisoned. Healers must remove the status ailments from the stunned characters while also keeping everyone's health high enough to survive Mograin.

Also, during this phase, Furryfoot gains a new ability, Dispel Mark, which he will occasionally use to remove Whiskerwall's Mark and Ruffletuft's Mark from the heroes. The tank and damage dealer should be able to pick them back up immediately before anything happens... as long as nothing else is going wrong.

The player should damage all the moogles evenly again, down to low health, and then pick one to kill. The king will revive them again, spending more HP. Killing a moogle for the second time will begin phase 4.

PHASE 4
When Phase 4 starts, after reviving and healing his minions, Good King Moggle Mog uses Mog Meteor to damage the player party. He charges up for one round and then spends three rounds damaging the heroes with this spell. While he is using this, none of the minions attack or perform any actions. The player must defend with everyone while using area healing spells to survive.

Phase 4 then starts properly. The rest of it is identical to Phase 3. Killing a minion for the third time initiates Phase 5.

PHASE 5
When the first minion dies at the end of phase 4, Good King Moggle Mog will not revive it. Instead he will start casting Memento Moogle, which causes instant death to all heroes after twelve rounds. However, he remains invulnerable until all seven minions are dead. Because of this, it's important that the player got all seven minions' HP as low as possible before killing the first one.

The amount of HP that Good King Moggle Mog has remaining at this point is based on how much HP he spent healing his minions at the ends of phases 2 and 3. The less he has left, the easier it is to kill him before he annihilates the player party.
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