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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
It is my destiny and my curse. I live and die by the boss battle. The cruel, silent fate of the designer.
jeez dude
I like a lot of the translations from MMO mechanics to RPG mechanics - the Kupo Cleave counterattack idea is cool.
...I'm incredibly tempted to make that fight, just to see how it'd play out. It'd take so much balancing, I have no idea how you'd manage it with just a four or five player party, but still. This makes me wanna convert some of the better WoW bosses to RPG Maker bosses, too >_> I can imagine a whole game dedicated to recreating cool raid bosses.
I like a lot of the translations from MMO mechanics to RPG mechanics - the Kupo Cleave counterattack idea is cool.
...I'm incredibly tempted to make that fight, just to see how it'd play out. It'd take so much balancing, I have no idea how you'd manage it with just a four or five player party, but still. This makes me wanna convert some of the better WoW bosses to RPG Maker bosses, too >_> I can imagine a whole game dedicated to recreating cool raid bosses.
It's stuff like this that I admire you for, LockeZ. You are a mad, mad genius.
If I'm ever in need of a good idea for a boss battle or clever combat mechanic, you'll be the first person I ask for help.
If I'm ever in need of a good idea for a boss battle or clever combat mechanic, you'll be the first person I ask for help.
Yo Locke! You're a smart dude that likes bosses. I have an idea for an optional superboss (don't we all) that I was wondering if you would tell me what you think about it or maybe toss a few suggestions my way. I figure that if I can get your approval with this one boss then maybe the others I'm going to make won't be so terrible.
I'm not too skilled with Ruby or VX Ace's interface yet so I'm just tentatively planning to work with the default battle system for right now. Besides, I'm a huge Dragon Quest nerd and an advocate of turn-based anyway. So this guy is basically a wizard hermit dude at the bottom of a marshy cave. But instead of magic, he has mastered the arcane powers of funk. His being incredibly physically fit from all his breakdancing and attunement to phat beats make him the ultimate magical and physical package. The trick I'm trying to balance out here is to make him feel unfair and insurmountable, but for there to exist a few strategies players can use to keep their cool under fire....a lot of DPS-related fire.
Yuzo, Master of Slam
So that's one doozy of a boss, I know. That's why he's optional. But I got the idea in my head for this guy and I thought it was too funny not to use. The cave you can find him in can be accessed early in the game, but its full of tough enemies and not intended to be entered until later in the game. I always love it when games let you go into areas you're not "supposed" to be in yet that you can come back to later. Gives you something to look forward to, y'know? Basically, the party's not going to get to this guy without a lot of skills and items at their disposal. If you manage to beat him, he'll join your party. And he can basically defeat the final boss by blinking at him.
Now the hard part is figuring out how the party can deal with him. And that's why I ask you. If you could only choose four of the following class cutouts:
Rogue: The crowd-controller. His skills are good for getting in hard and fast hits while disarming or immobilizing single-targets. Non-magical debuffs.
Duelist: Middle of the road fighter with skills that specialize in DPS, attacking multiple enemies with finesse. Doubles as a spell-caster with access to a lot of damage dealing spells.
Fighter: Tank. Lots of HP, decent defense, and good attack. Reckless, though.
Wind Spirit: Dedicated healer of the party who, as a result of being an elemental, can cast wind-related spells as a free action, which don't do much damage but few enemies have resistance to. She's also got access to most of the party-protecting buffs.
Knight: He is the meat shield the party deserves, along with the Fighter. His claim to fame is getting the foes to aggro him and beat on him. But his IRON STANCE is just too much to break through!
Ronin: Fragile fighter, like a monk, but who has skills that pierce through defense. His MO is one cut should equal one kill.
Sage: Classic magic-person. Can use the spells the other magic users can and can learn more they might not have the know-how to get. Revels in blowing stuff up. Blow on her and she falls over.
How would you shape them to defeat this dude? I've got some ideas but it helps to have a second opinion. (I'm also leaving stuff purposefully ambiguous. Like a thought experiment. No, its not because I haven't thought that far ahead yet! >.>)
I'm not too skilled with Ruby or VX Ace's interface yet so I'm just tentatively planning to work with the default battle system for right now. Besides, I'm a huge Dragon Quest nerd and an advocate of turn-based anyway. So this guy is basically a wizard hermit dude at the bottom of a marshy cave. But instead of magic, he has mastered the arcane powers of funk. His being incredibly physically fit from all his breakdancing and attunement to phat beats make him the ultimate magical and physical package. The trick I'm trying to balance out here is to make him feel unfair and insurmountable, but for there to exist a few strategies players can use to keep their cool under fire....a lot of DPS-related fire.
Yuzo, Master of Slam
- Attack x 2: Has two attacks per round.
- Resistance: Resistant to Ice and Poison.
- Slam Strike: Palm meets face. Deals moderate-heavy damage. Can get critical hits (6%).
- Crippling Strike: A knife-handed strike to an opponent's joints. Deals damage and lowers attack.
- Slam Flurry: As Slam Strike, but hits all enemies.
- Bass Staff: Attacks twice with an iron quaterstaff.
- Finger of Style: Points at an opponent, immobilizing them for exactly two turns. Always works.
- Dropkick: Deals heavy damage to one opponent. Chance of knocking them over. Small chance it could miss.
- Freestyle: Punches and kicks every which way. Attacks up to four opponents.
- Cutting the Rug: Raises evasion briefly.
- Freezemost: Powerful ice-based magic attack. Single-targeting. 10% chance to freeze opponents (all single-target ice magic has this chance).
- Zap: Single-target thunder magic. Does a shitload of damage.
- Bounce: Reflects any spells cast on the user for a single round.
- Call for Help: Can summon backup. Either two Amp Crystals or two Backup Honies, detailed in the hide tag.Amp Crystal: Makes the enemy eat bass. Deals defense piercing damage. They can also explode at critical HP, but not if defeated quickly enough. Vulnerable to electricity.
Backup Honies: Spirits that act as Yuzo's "backup singers." They can raise his attack by singing, lower an enemy's attack with nasty insults and taunts, or heal him by fawning all over his awesome moves. Since they're ghosties, holy magic will one-shot them. - Record Scratch: When he reaches critical HP, he no longer feels the rhythm; he loses his second attack per round, the ability to summon backup, and cannot land critical hits.
So that's one doozy of a boss, I know. That's why he's optional. But I got the idea in my head for this guy and I thought it was too funny not to use. The cave you can find him in can be accessed early in the game, but its full of tough enemies and not intended to be entered until later in the game. I always love it when games let you go into areas you're not "supposed" to be in yet that you can come back to later. Gives you something to look forward to, y'know? Basically, the party's not going to get to this guy without a lot of skills and items at their disposal. If you manage to beat him, he'll join your party. And he can basically defeat the final boss by blinking at him.
Now the hard part is figuring out how the party can deal with him. And that's why I ask you. If you could only choose four of the following class cutouts:
Rogue: The crowd-controller. His skills are good for getting in hard and fast hits while disarming or immobilizing single-targets. Non-magical debuffs.
Duelist: Middle of the road fighter with skills that specialize in DPS, attacking multiple enemies with finesse. Doubles as a spell-caster with access to a lot of damage dealing spells.
Fighter: Tank. Lots of HP, decent defense, and good attack. Reckless, though.
Wind Spirit: Dedicated healer of the party who, as a result of being an elemental, can cast wind-related spells as a free action, which don't do much damage but few enemies have resistance to. She's also got access to most of the party-protecting buffs.
Knight: He is the meat shield the party deserves, along with the Fighter. His claim to fame is getting the foes to aggro him and beat on him. But his IRON STANCE is just too much to break through!
Ronin: Fragile fighter, like a monk, but who has skills that pierce through defense. His MO is one cut should equal one kill.
Sage: Classic magic-person. Can use the spells the other magic users can and can learn more they might not have the know-how to get. Revels in blowing stuff up. Blow on her and she falls over.
How would you shape them to defeat this dude? I've got some ideas but it helps to have a second opinion. (I'm also leaving stuff purposefully ambiguous. Like a thought experiment. No, its not because I haven't thought that far ahead yet! >.>)
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, knowing what party I would take would require knowing how strong the adds are compared to the boss. The adds are the only reason to bring any offense into the fight. Ideally I think the player would want exactly enough offense to kill the exploding adds before they blow up, and then they'd focus everything else into defense and healing. If the ghost adds appear, it's much less of a problem, since the healer can take one of them out instantly. The adds are well designed, they do a really good job of making sure the player has to bring in some firepower instead of just turtling through the fight.
You may want to make sure that if the boss tries to summon and there's only one add left, the boss will still summon another to replace the one that's dead. Unless you want leaving one of the two ghosts alive to be a good strategy. It's a strategy that works on a lot of bosses in a lot of games, but it always seems very meta to me, like the player is abusing the AI rather than countering the boss's skills. Maybe for an "unfair" boss that's exactly the feeling you want though.
The boss himself most just attacks with different elements and different targetting each round. There's not much the player can do about any of his attacks, other than the stuff they can do for the entire game. If you want the player to have clever ways to beat him, his attacks probably should have some kind of wind-up or pattern.
To solve that, let's try giving him two stances to begin with, an AOE stance and a single-target stance. You can call them Focused Flava and Free Flava, or something, I dunno. While in the AOE stance he will only use Slam Flurry, Freestyle, and his buff skills, and the single-target stance will have the other attacks. This will at least give the player some idea of how damage is going to be distributed... not counting the adds. Make sure that when he changes stances, it's at the end of the round, not the beginning of the round.
Finger of Style is easily the most bullshit thing he does, it needs to be preventable or controllable. The knight should be taunting the boss, but I'm assuming that doesn't guarantee that every single attack hits the knight. If he uses Finger of Style on the healer, the player gets a game over. Let's make Finger of Style a counterattack instead of a move he randomly uses - give him a chance to use it on anyone who physically attacks him. This will prevent the healer from getting fingered, and let the duelist avoid it by using magic. It will also give the player a strategy: when the boss is about to summon minions, the physical characters should probably do something other than attack, so they don't end up stunned.
Similarly, if the boss uses Dropkick on the healer and it knocks the healer over, the player probably gets a game over, at least if the two adds are alive. At the very least, it's not going to be good, and there's nothing the player can do about it. I would just remove Dropkick, as it's redundant. You already have another stun skill and several other damage skills.
The player doesn't have any way for his non-duelist characters to deal with Bounce and Cutting the Rug. Actually, if Bounce only lasts a single turn, and the boss acts before the player, I'm not sure the player can deal with that at all. There's no way to predict it. I would make the boss use Bounce on his minions, instead of himself. This will encourage the magic users to attack the boss, while the evasion buff and the immobilizing counterattack encourage the physical characters to attack the adds.
You may want to make sure that if the boss tries to summon and there's only one add left, the boss will still summon another to replace the one that's dead. Unless you want leaving one of the two ghosts alive to be a good strategy. It's a strategy that works on a lot of bosses in a lot of games, but it always seems very meta to me, like the player is abusing the AI rather than countering the boss's skills. Maybe for an "unfair" boss that's exactly the feeling you want though.
The boss himself most just attacks with different elements and different targetting each round. There's not much the player can do about any of his attacks, other than the stuff they can do for the entire game. If you want the player to have clever ways to beat him, his attacks probably should have some kind of wind-up or pattern.
To solve that, let's try giving him two stances to begin with, an AOE stance and a single-target stance. You can call them Focused Flava and Free Flava, or something, I dunno. While in the AOE stance he will only use Slam Flurry, Freestyle, and his buff skills, and the single-target stance will have the other attacks. This will at least give the player some idea of how damage is going to be distributed... not counting the adds. Make sure that when he changes stances, it's at the end of the round, not the beginning of the round.
Finger of Style is easily the most bullshit thing he does, it needs to be preventable or controllable. The knight should be taunting the boss, but I'm assuming that doesn't guarantee that every single attack hits the knight. If he uses Finger of Style on the healer, the player gets a game over. Let's make Finger of Style a counterattack instead of a move he randomly uses - give him a chance to use it on anyone who physically attacks him. This will prevent the healer from getting fingered, and let the duelist avoid it by using magic. It will also give the player a strategy: when the boss is about to summon minions, the physical characters should probably do something other than attack, so they don't end up stunned.
Similarly, if the boss uses Dropkick on the healer and it knocks the healer over, the player probably gets a game over, at least if the two adds are alive. At the very least, it's not going to be good, and there's nothing the player can do about it. I would just remove Dropkick, as it's redundant. You already have another stun skill and several other damage skills.
The player doesn't have any way for his non-duelist characters to deal with Bounce and Cutting the Rug. Actually, if Bounce only lasts a single turn, and the boss acts before the player, I'm not sure the player can deal with that at all. There's no way to predict it. I would make the boss use Bounce on his minions, instead of himself. This will encourage the magic users to attack the boss, while the evasion buff and the immobilizing counterattack encourage the physical characters to attack the adds.
author=slashphoenixIf you seriously try to make the fight, leave out all but three of the minions. They are redundant fluff and serve mostly just to make sure the player has to look up the strategy instead of having any chance to figure it out. Just have King Mog, Whiskerwall, Ruffletuft, and Woolywart, and then give Holy to Woolywart. Also delete phase 2. My goal in my writeup was to faithfully recreate the original fight, but if I were sane I would have stopped when I saw that it had eight enemies and five phases. It's unnecessarily complex to the point of being stupid, and while that's actually far less of a problem in a turn-based single-player RPG since the player can take their time and isn't punished for other people's failures, it's still too much.
...I'm incredibly tempted to make that fight, just to see how it'd play out. It'd take so much balancing, I have no idea how you'd manage it with just a four or five player party, but still.
Hey LockeZ! If you have time, I would like for you to make a boss battle for me.
- Who or what the boss is: A human-like alien called The Master who can change his face, and renew his body every time he is at a near death state.
- Short summary of the player's party: Just one party member. The Doctor, who can also renew his body at a near death state, and has different gadgets they can use as skills.
- Whether your game is ATB or turn-based: Turn based.
- How comfortable you are using complex events or scripts to get weird results: COME AT ME BRO! (Very comfortable with scripts and events)
- Any key abilities the player has that you think are important in a boss fight or that make your game's battles unique: Not really, except for the renewing your body thing.
- Any ideas you think you would like to use, even if they suck (I will make them not suck): I've got nothing. I must be out of brain juice...
- Whatever you think is relevant: This is a final boss, so a bunch of awesome stuff happens.
Also, this game is based off a T.V. show, so if you are still confused, you can read these wikipedia articles about the main character, villian, and etc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_%28Doctor_Who%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_%28Doctor_Who%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_%28Doctor_Who%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who
- Who or what the boss is: A human-like alien called The Master who can change his face, and renew his body every time he is at a near death state.
- Short summary of the player's party: Just one party member. The Doctor, who can also renew his body at a near death state, and has different gadgets they can use as skills.
- Whether your game is ATB or turn-based: Turn based.
- How comfortable you are using complex events or scripts to get weird results: COME AT ME BRO! (Very comfortable with scripts and events)
- Any key abilities the player has that you think are important in a boss fight or that make your game's battles unique: Not really, except for the renewing your body thing.
- Any ideas you think you would like to use, even if they suck (I will make them not suck): I've got nothing. I must be out of brain juice...
- Whatever you think is relevant: This is a final boss, so a bunch of awesome stuff happens.
Also, this game is based off a T.V. show, so if you are still confused, you can read these wikipedia articles about the main character, villian, and etc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_%28Doctor_Who%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_%28Doctor_Who%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_%28Doctor_Who%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who
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
What are the skills the character has? I'm gonna need more info than just "different gadgets". Can you give me a list of all the decent skills he has that aren't just damage?
Also, can you describe the limitations on the player's body-renewal skill? Is it a full heal or a partial heal? Does it do anything else besides restore HP? Does it just cost MP, does it have a limit of once per battle, can it only be used below 10% health, or what?
Also, can you describe the limitations on the player's body-renewal skill? Is it a full heal or a partial heal? Does it do anything else besides restore HP? Does it just cost MP, does it have a limit of once per battle, can it only be used below 10% health, or what?
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
We just added a new superboss to that game last month. Should I post his details here? Sure, why not.
The boss is Grahf, for my Squaresoft crossover game. My goal was to create a boss that felt like it was directly using Xenogears mechanics without being anywhere near as boring as actual bosses in Xenogears. I mean, all Grahf actually did in Xenogears was deal damage, deal more damage, and occasionally dispel you with Black Hole. All he did when he was in his gear was damage and damage and damage.
What I did was use Xenogears's deathblow system to give the player a way to predict how much damage would be dealt. I also used that game's fuel system. Both of these systems were player-only in the original game, but here they're used for the enemy. Then I had Grahf get in and out of his gear (the Xenogears word for "giant battle robot") based on it being disabled or out of fuel.
Keep in mind that a combat round in this game is only a couple seconds, so the amount of time that effects and timers last might sound kind of long if you're thinking in terms of VX Ace combat rounds.
Phase 1: Alpha Weltall
- Alpha Weltall has a limit of 3000 fuel.
- Booster increases both the damage and fuel cost of Alpha Weltall's skills by 10% until the end of the battle. Stacks with itself infinitely. Not used under normal circumstances.
- Building Strike, a basic strike which also increases Alpha Weltall's attack level by one, up to a maximum of three. This allows for stronger deathblows. 30 fuel.
- Raigeki, a level 1 deathblow. Mid power. 50 fuel. Lowers attack level by one.
- Hazen, a level 2 deathblow. High power. 90 fuel. Lowers attack level by one.
- Ryubu, a level 3 deathblow. Extreme power. 140 fuel. Lowers attack level by one.
Alpha Weltall's attack level starts at zero. It increases every time the boss uses Building Strike and decreases every time it uses a deathblow. Each deathblow requires a certain attack level.
When Alpha Weltall has an attack level of 0, it will always use Building Strike. When it has an attack level of 3, it will always use a deathblow. When it has an attack level of 1 or 2, it has a 50/50 chance of using either Building Strike or a deathblow.
The amount of fuel remaining is shown every time it uses a skill, as is its attack level.
Alpha Weltall is not immune to any status effects except poison and demi. However, on any round when it cannot act, it will use Booster instead. This lets players trade a temporary reprieve for additional danger later.
If Alpha Weltall cannot act for four rounds in a row, Grahf will emerge, becoming targetable. He will also emerge if Alpha Weltall runs out of fuel. Alpha Weltall's attack level is reset if Grahf emerges. This starts phase 2.
If Alpha Weltall is killed while Grahf is inside, Grahf emerges permanently. However, Alpha Weltall can take vastly more damage than Grahf. So unless you are extremely high level, the goal is typically to either disable Alpha Weltall or survive until it runs out of fuel, then use all your burst damage on Grahf.
Phase 2: Grahf
- Raijin does low physical damage to one target.
- Super Guided Shot strikes two targets for high magical damage. Unreflectable.
- Black Hole, AOE dispel, chance to be resisted based on each target's willpower. 30 round cooldown, which means this will only get used once per emerge.
- Refreshment, which Grahf casts on Alpha Weltall if it is affected by any status ailment. This is a ticking buff that heals all ailments every 3 rounds, and lasts 18 rounds. Refreshment is a basic white magic skill that the player is already very familiar with by this point in the game - it has nothing to do with Xenogears but is an interesting way to mitigate the usefulness of powerful status effects like Paralyze and Mini in this fight, which some player classes are capable of inflicting for 20 rounds or longer.
- Recharge, which refills 1000 fuel to Alpha Weltall. Only used if Alpha Weltall is missing at least 1000 fuel.
Grahf emerges from Alpha Weltall from time to time, using hand-to-hand combat. While Grahf is fighting, Alpha Weltall performs no actions or melee attacks, not even Booster, since no one is piloting it. It can still be damaged, however. Grahf's attacks are strong, on par with Alpha Weltall's level 2 and 3 deathblows.
Grahf himself is immune to all ailments.
After 10 rounds, Grahf will re-enter Alpha Weltall, returning to Phase 1 and becoming untargettable again, unless Alpha Weltall is dead.
The boss is Grahf, for my Squaresoft crossover game. My goal was to create a boss that felt like it was directly using Xenogears mechanics without being anywhere near as boring as actual bosses in Xenogears. I mean, all Grahf actually did in Xenogears was deal damage, deal more damage, and occasionally dispel you with Black Hole. All he did when he was in his gear was damage and damage and damage.
What I did was use Xenogears's deathblow system to give the player a way to predict how much damage would be dealt. I also used that game's fuel system. Both of these systems were player-only in the original game, but here they're used for the enemy. Then I had Grahf get in and out of his gear (the Xenogears word for "giant battle robot") based on it being disabled or out of fuel.
Keep in mind that a combat round in this game is only a couple seconds, so the amount of time that effects and timers last might sound kind of long if you're thinking in terms of VX Ace combat rounds.
Phase 1: Alpha Weltall
- Alpha Weltall has a limit of 3000 fuel.
- Booster increases both the damage and fuel cost of Alpha Weltall's skills by 10% until the end of the battle. Stacks with itself infinitely. Not used under normal circumstances.
- Building Strike, a basic strike which also increases Alpha Weltall's attack level by one, up to a maximum of three. This allows for stronger deathblows. 30 fuel.
- Raigeki, a level 1 deathblow. Mid power. 50 fuel. Lowers attack level by one.
- Hazen, a level 2 deathblow. High power. 90 fuel. Lowers attack level by one.
- Ryubu, a level 3 deathblow. Extreme power. 140 fuel. Lowers attack level by one.
Alpha Weltall's attack level starts at zero. It increases every time the boss uses Building Strike and decreases every time it uses a deathblow. Each deathblow requires a certain attack level.
When Alpha Weltall has an attack level of 0, it will always use Building Strike. When it has an attack level of 3, it will always use a deathblow. When it has an attack level of 1 or 2, it has a 50/50 chance of using either Building Strike or a deathblow.
The amount of fuel remaining is shown every time it uses a skill, as is its attack level.
Alpha Weltall is not immune to any status effects except poison and demi. However, on any round when it cannot act, it will use Booster instead. This lets players trade a temporary reprieve for additional danger later.
If Alpha Weltall cannot act for four rounds in a row, Grahf will emerge, becoming targetable. He will also emerge if Alpha Weltall runs out of fuel. Alpha Weltall's attack level is reset if Grahf emerges. This starts phase 2.
If Alpha Weltall is killed while Grahf is inside, Grahf emerges permanently. However, Alpha Weltall can take vastly more damage than Grahf. So unless you are extremely high level, the goal is typically to either disable Alpha Weltall or survive until it runs out of fuel, then use all your burst damage on Grahf.
Phase 2: Grahf
- Raijin does low physical damage to one target.
- Super Guided Shot strikes two targets for high magical damage. Unreflectable.
- Black Hole, AOE dispel, chance to be resisted based on each target's willpower. 30 round cooldown, which means this will only get used once per emerge.
- Refreshment, which Grahf casts on Alpha Weltall if it is affected by any status ailment. This is a ticking buff that heals all ailments every 3 rounds, and lasts 18 rounds. Refreshment is a basic white magic skill that the player is already very familiar with by this point in the game - it has nothing to do with Xenogears but is an interesting way to mitigate the usefulness of powerful status effects like Paralyze and Mini in this fight, which some player classes are capable of inflicting for 20 rounds or longer.
- Recharge, which refills 1000 fuel to Alpha Weltall. Only used if Alpha Weltall is missing at least 1000 fuel.
Grahf emerges from Alpha Weltall from time to time, using hand-to-hand combat. While Grahf is fighting, Alpha Weltall performs no actions or melee attacks, not even Booster, since no one is piloting it. It can still be damaged, however. Grahf's attacks are strong, on par with Alpha Weltall's level 2 and 3 deathblows.
Grahf himself is immune to all ailments.
After 10 rounds, Grahf will re-enter Alpha Weltall, returning to Phase 1 and becoming untargettable again, unless Alpha Weltall is dead.
Ah, cool! I like a couple bits of that design in particular:
1. Booster gives the player the option to control the flow of combat - you can gain tempo in the battle early at the cost of a longer-lasting disadvantage. In a lot of games, you could shape your party to work better in that situation, and that's the kind of choice that gives you multiple approaches to the same battle.
2. The Building Strike / Deathblow combo adds a nice touch of equivalent randomness. A higher-level Deathblow means more burst damage, but you have more time to prepare for it when you're only eating (I assume weaker) Building Strikes. Several lower-level Deathblows means more consistent damage, but no long breaks to prepare or recover. That's the kind of randomness I can really get behind in turn-based fights! Rather than choosing between weak and strong moves, the enemy is capable of several actions that are roughly equal in power. Your job as a player is to predict and prepare for several outcomes at once.
i like it
1. Booster gives the player the option to control the flow of combat - you can gain tempo in the battle early at the cost of a longer-lasting disadvantage. In a lot of games, you could shape your party to work better in that situation, and that's the kind of choice that gives you multiple approaches to the same battle.
2. The Building Strike / Deathblow combo adds a nice touch of equivalent randomness. A higher-level Deathblow means more burst damage, but you have more time to prepare for it when you're only eating (I assume weaker) Building Strikes. Several lower-level Deathblows means more consistent damage, but no long breaks to prepare or recover. That's the kind of randomness I can really get behind in turn-based fights! Rather than choosing between weak and strong moves, the enemy is capable of several actions that are roughly equal in power. Your job as a player is to predict and prepare for several outcomes at once.
i like it
spejoku
0
this is a fantastic thread. I salute your boss making skills! These sound really really fun.
Could I request one? I'm trying to think of cool mechanics for a boss at the end of one of the first dungeons, and nothing comes to mind.
Here's the main player systems:
The characters act immediately after you select their moves, and then its the enemy turn. I'm using Yanfly's combo system for one of the characters. (now that I think about it, its really similar to xenogears' deathblows except that you don't have the whole weak/med/strong attack thing to worry about)
2 player characters. First one is a physical powerhouse who's able to do around 3 very weak attacks per round (that each have their own "element") and another combo skill on top of that (provided he has the resources for it). His skills by this point would include a moderate damage skill thats basically a two hit attack, a weak aoe, and one that increases his attack for the next round. He does around double the damage as the second character if neither use skills.
The second character is the healer, and she has some healing and elemental bomb style skills. Her skills do more damage than player 1 but they are more expensive and she doesnt have combos to add to the damage. Her main mechanic is that though she burns through her mp really quickly, she can regain a portion at the cost of severely reducing her defence and attack and not attacking for a round. the regain mp skill also has a cooldown.
The boss I was thinking could be like a cyborg chimera, where you got a rat fused with some sort of octopus or something terrifying and mutated like that. Maybe a grapple state and mechanic? I don't know. I want it to be more than just a damage sponge, and I want it to emphasize that the player needs to strategize to win.
Could I request one? I'm trying to think of cool mechanics for a boss at the end of one of the first dungeons, and nothing comes to mind.
Here's the main player systems:
The characters act immediately after you select their moves, and then its the enemy turn. I'm using Yanfly's combo system for one of the characters. (now that I think about it, its really similar to xenogears' deathblows except that you don't have the whole weak/med/strong attack thing to worry about)
2 player characters. First one is a physical powerhouse who's able to do around 3 very weak attacks per round (that each have their own "element") and another combo skill on top of that (provided he has the resources for it). His skills by this point would include a moderate damage skill thats basically a two hit attack, a weak aoe, and one that increases his attack for the next round. He does around double the damage as the second character if neither use skills.
The second character is the healer, and she has some healing and elemental bomb style skills. Her skills do more damage than player 1 but they are more expensive and she doesnt have combos to add to the damage. Her main mechanic is that though she burns through her mp really quickly, she can regain a portion at the cost of severely reducing her defence and attack and not attacking for a round. the regain mp skill also has a cooldown.
The boss I was thinking could be like a cyborg chimera, where you got a rat fused with some sort of octopus or something terrifying and mutated like that. Maybe a grapple state and mechanic? I don't know. I want it to be more than just a damage sponge, and I want it to emphasize that the player needs to strategize to win.
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 physical character's combos - when you say the player needs the resources for a combo, do you mean that you gain enough action points for a combo if you don't take a turn the previous round? Or does it use some other resource? How often is the player going to have the resources they need?
About how many rounds does it take for the healer to run out of MP if she's healing, and how many if she using attack magic?
I'm thinking that waiting until the right time to unleash your burst damage against the boss would probably be a good way to add strategy here, as one character has a charge-up period and the other has a cool-down period. I just need some more details to figure out how long those really are.
About how many rounds does it take for the healer to run out of MP if she's healing, and how many if she using attack magic?
I'm thinking that waiting until the right time to unleash your burst damage against the boss would probably be a good way to add strategy here, as one character has a charge-up period and the other has a cool-down period. I just need some more details to figure out how long those really are.
spejoku
0
author=LockeZ
The physical character's combos - when you say the player needs the resources for a combo, do you mean that you gain enough action points for a combo if you don't take a turn the previous round? Or does it use some other resource? How often is the player going to have the resources they need?
About how many rounds does it take for the healer to run out of MP if she's healing, and how many if she using attack magic?
I'm thinking that waiting until the right time to unleash your burst damage against the boss would probably be a good way to add strategy here, as one character has a charge-up period and the other has a cool-down period. I just need some more details to figure out how long those really are.
The basic combo skills have four inputs. Think up, down, left, and right. and when you push the button, he'll do one of those attacks, to a maximum of four regular hits per round. if he activates a skill by inputting the right command (like up up right or something) the skill will activate and deal damage on top of the combo damage, even if he hasnt use all the possible moves in the round. so if he has four inputs and does up up right, it'll instantly activate the skill and he'll lose that final input.
The physical character uses MP for his attack skills and each hit of a combo restores like two. the attack skills he uses cost around 10 to 20 mp, so he'd be able to use skills a lot at the beginning, and if he just uses base weak attacks he'd be able to recharge enough to throw out a skill about every two turns.
The healer, if we assume 100 mp, healing skills use 20 and attack skills use around 30, while the recharge skill would give her 30ish points as return. Her attack skills hit harder than the physical character's skills, but she cant use them as frequently.
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. The player doesn't have much that will let them respond to tactics that enemies do. That's typically fine for very early in the game, but that means this boss is going to be fairly straightforward. I'll add what strategy I can, but if you want later battles and bosses to feel more strategic, the party is going to need to eventually learn a lot more skills that do things other than damage and healing.
The rhythm that your party members have with their skills and their MP generation is probably their strongest point, so I'm going to play off that as much as possible here. To make the damage the player does actually matter, I'm going to have the boss gradually get more and more powerful as the battle goes on, so that the player can't just sit there healing all the time doing minimal damage, and win eventually.
Your grapple idea would work better with a larger party, but it still works fine to mess with the player's attempts at controlling the flow of combat. It's fine if the player feels like they have control in normal battles, but a boss should never let them get too comfortable.
CYBORG OCTORAT
- Has enough HP and defense to survive about 16 rounds of combo attacks plus 16 magic bombs. Realistically, about half of the player's damage will actually be done by weaker attacks, so the number of combo attacks and magic bombs they actually manage to use before the battle ends will be much lower.
- Tentacle Grab: Grabs one character, halving their HP and inflicting a grapple effect, preventing them from acting until the boss takes damage. When the boss takes damage, the grapple effect is removed from the player's party members. After the boss uses Tentacle Grab, it will not use Tentacle Grab again until it's taken damage and dropped the person it grabbed.
- Every three rounds, starting on round two, in addition to its normal action, it uses Upgrade, which increases its attack & magic power by an amount that will add about 10% damage. This effect stacks with itself, and lasts until the end of the battle. If you don't want to track down a script that lets you create stacking status effects, you can just make like thirty different status effects named "Upgrade", and inflict a different one each time. Upgrade does not increase the damage of Tentacle Grab.
- Diseased Chomp - Deals physical damage and lowers the player's physical attack power slightly for one round. The physical debuff is weak, maybe 25% less damage, just enough to make the player think "maybe I should do something else this turn" without really forcing them to. Early on in the battle, Diseased Chomp will deal minor damage, only about a third as much as the healer can heal for. After about twenty rounds, it will deal twice as much damage as it did originally, due to stacks of Upgrade.
- Electrocute - Shocks a character for lightning-based magic damage. About 25% stronger than Diseased Chomp. Also inflicts "Overload" status on the boss for one round. This status effect causes the boss to take double damage from both physical and magical attacks, and prevents it from acting. (The best way to cause double damage is to apply a state that causes a 200% Element Rate for an element that every single skill in the game has.) Electrocute appears twice in the boss's skill list. One of those is a normal version that gets used as often as any other attack. Details below on the second one:
A variable starts at 0 at the beginning of the battle and increases every round in a battle event. The second entry for Electrocute in the boss's skill list has maximum priority, but requires that this variable be at least 5. The Electrocute skill itself calls a common event which resets the variable to 0 every time the skill is used. What all this means is that if the boss hasn't used Electrocute for the last five rounds, it is guaranteed to use it, but sometimes it will use it more often.
Let me know what the boss's stats and the characters' stats are, and what the damage formulas for your skills look like, and I can help you figure out how much Upgrade should increase the boss's attack power by. The default damage formula uses subtractive defense, so a 10% increase in attack power translates to far more than a 10% increase in damage.
The rhythm that your party members have with their skills and their MP generation is probably their strongest point, so I'm going to play off that as much as possible here. To make the damage the player does actually matter, I'm going to have the boss gradually get more and more powerful as the battle goes on, so that the player can't just sit there healing all the time doing minimal damage, and win eventually.
Your grapple idea would work better with a larger party, but it still works fine to mess with the player's attempts at controlling the flow of combat. It's fine if the player feels like they have control in normal battles, but a boss should never let them get too comfortable.
CYBORG OCTORAT
- Has enough HP and defense to survive about 16 rounds of combo attacks plus 16 magic bombs. Realistically, about half of the player's damage will actually be done by weaker attacks, so the number of combo attacks and magic bombs they actually manage to use before the battle ends will be much lower.
- Tentacle Grab: Grabs one character, halving their HP and inflicting a grapple effect, preventing them from acting until the boss takes damage. When the boss takes damage, the grapple effect is removed from the player's party members. After the boss uses Tentacle Grab, it will not use Tentacle Grab again until it's taken damage and dropped the person it grabbed.
- Every three rounds, starting on round two, in addition to its normal action, it uses Upgrade, which increases its attack & magic power by an amount that will add about 10% damage. This effect stacks with itself, and lasts until the end of the battle. If you don't want to track down a script that lets you create stacking status effects, you can just make like thirty different status effects named "Upgrade", and inflict a different one each time. Upgrade does not increase the damage of Tentacle Grab.
- Diseased Chomp - Deals physical damage and lowers the player's physical attack power slightly for one round. The physical debuff is weak, maybe 25% less damage, just enough to make the player think "maybe I should do something else this turn" without really forcing them to. Early on in the battle, Diseased Chomp will deal minor damage, only about a third as much as the healer can heal for. After about twenty rounds, it will deal twice as much damage as it did originally, due to stacks of Upgrade.
- Electrocute - Shocks a character for lightning-based magic damage. About 25% stronger than Diseased Chomp. Also inflicts "Overload" status on the boss for one round. This status effect causes the boss to take double damage from both physical and magical attacks, and prevents it from acting. (The best way to cause double damage is to apply a state that causes a 200% Element Rate for an element that every single skill in the game has.) Electrocute appears twice in the boss's skill list. One of those is a normal version that gets used as often as any other attack. Details below on the second one:
A variable starts at 0 at the beginning of the battle and increases every round in a battle event. The second entry for Electrocute in the boss's skill list has maximum priority, but requires that this variable be at least 5. The Electrocute skill itself calls a common event which resets the variable to 0 every time the skill is used. What all this means is that if the boss hasn't used Electrocute for the last five rounds, it is guaranteed to use it, but sometimes it will use it more often.
Let me know what the boss's stats and the characters' stats are, and what the damage formulas for your skills look like, and I can help you figure out how much Upgrade should increase the boss's attack power by. The default damage formula uses subtractive defense, so a 10% increase in attack power translates to far more than a 10% increase in damage.
spejoku
0
this is fantastic! thank you very much!
The final stats are still under construction, as im still trying to balance skills and their activation, but this is great so far. thanks!
The final stats are still under construction, as im still trying to balance skills and their activation, but this is great so far. thanks!
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
Let me know if any part of it doesn't make sense, you don't like part of it, or you don't know how to do it.
LightningLord2
230
EDIT: I didn't get my game on this site, but I at least want to tell about the final (aka second) boss I made - feels like being a third grader turning in his homework >_>
Party:
The characters take 50% more damage from their weakness and 50% less from their resistance (Fire>Wind>Earth>Water>Fire) and are immune to their own element.
Shanda - she uses wind magic, can reflect magic (like Makarakarn) and her limit break buffs all stats of the party. High MP and Speed
Kallindra - she uses fire magic, boosts offense. Limit break is a recharge turn move that hits all enemies for x4 magic damage. High Offenses
Azura - she uses water magic, can heal HP and status and has a water magic skill that stuns half the time. Limit break is a group heal that cures debuffs. Balanced Stats
Flauros - she uses earth magic, can buff defenses and raise her own target rate. Limit Break hits a single target for x5 physical damage and stuns. High Durability
(I use the default battle system)
Julie
HP: Enough to last about 7 turns of nonstop attacking.
Skills: (Flauros takes notably less damage due to higher stamina)
Attack Medium damage with no effect.
Antimagic Storm Only usable on odd-numbered turns. Does about 50% HP damage neutrally and seals.
Thunderstorm, Flame Wave, Frost Nova Rotates between them. Uses the first at the second turn and picks the next one after 5 more turns. Does enough to damage to one-shot if MDF is low or the character lacks a resistance item. Changes Julie to Thunder/Fire/Ice form.
Thunder Form gives more speed, resists lightning and physical and is weak to earth.
Antimagic Storm, Power Drain and Element Explosion become Lightning element.
Fire Form boosts magic attack, resists fire and wind and is weak to water.
Antimagic Storm, Power Drain and Element Explosion become Fire element.
Ice Form boosts magic defense, resists water and ice and is weak to fire.
Antimagic Storm, Power Drain and Element Explosion become Ice element.
Power Drain Drains a lot of MP from a target and greatly debuffs offenses. Followed up by Element Explosion. Only used at 50% HP or lower.
Element Explosion Easily oneshots the party if not resisted or guarded. Can make Julie skip her form change.
Addendum: I decided not to use scripts for the project, so I did the best I could with the default stuff.
Party:
The characters take 50% more damage from their weakness and 50% less from their resistance (Fire>Wind>Earth>Water>Fire) and are immune to their own element.
Shanda - she uses wind magic, can reflect magic (like Makarakarn) and her limit break buffs all stats of the party. High MP and Speed
Kallindra - she uses fire magic, boosts offense. Limit break is a recharge turn move that hits all enemies for x4 magic damage. High Offenses
Azura - she uses water magic, can heal HP and status and has a water magic skill that stuns half the time. Limit break is a group heal that cures debuffs. Balanced Stats
Flauros - she uses earth magic, can buff defenses and raise her own target rate. Limit Break hits a single target for x5 physical damage and stuns. High Durability
(I use the default battle system)
Julie
HP: Enough to last about 7 turns of nonstop attacking.
Skills: (Flauros takes notably less damage due to higher stamina)
Attack Medium damage with no effect.
Antimagic Storm Only usable on odd-numbered turns. Does about 50% HP damage neutrally and seals.
Thunderstorm, Flame Wave, Frost Nova Rotates between them. Uses the first at the second turn and picks the next one after 5 more turns. Does enough to damage to one-shot if MDF is low or the character lacks a resistance item. Changes Julie to Thunder/Fire/Ice form.
Thunder Form gives more speed, resists lightning and physical and is weak to earth.
Antimagic Storm, Power Drain and Element Explosion become Lightning element.
Fire Form boosts magic attack, resists fire and wind and is weak to water.
Antimagic Storm, Power Drain and Element Explosion become Fire element.
Ice Form boosts magic defense, resists water and ice and is weak to fire.
Antimagic Storm, Power Drain and Element Explosion become Ice element.
Power Drain Drains a lot of MP from a target and greatly debuffs offenses. Followed up by Element Explosion. Only used at 50% HP or lower.
Element Explosion Easily oneshots the party if not resisted or guarded. Can make Julie skip her form change.
Addendum: I decided not to use scripts for the project, so I did the best I could with the default stuff.
Hey LockeZ, can I ask you a question?
I have had an idea for a short side project in my head for quite a while now, and I always intended to ask you to help me with it. I just never got around to starting it (or couldn't work up the courage to ask for your help). But now (after playing Direvil Darkfort), I got inspired to work on it again.
One major point of the game idea is that I want its combat system to be a major twist on typical turn based battles (I don't want to publicly talk about the details just yet). Now I don't need any help actually implementing the system, that's no problem for me. However, I have trouble coming up with good ideas for skills and mechanics for heroes and enemies, and I'm not good at balancing at all. In total, there probably will only be six or seven battles in the entire game, so every encounter can be a (mini)boss.
So, I guess what it all comes down to is: Would you be okay with helping me design said battles purely by contributing ideas, concepts and numbers? If so, I'll gladly send you some details via PM.
Thanks a lot already!
I have had an idea for a short side project in my head for quite a while now, and I always intended to ask you to help me with it. I just never got around to starting it (or couldn't work up the courage to ask for your help). But now (after playing Direvil Darkfort), I got inspired to work on it again.
One major point of the game idea is that I want its combat system to be a major twist on typical turn based battles (I don't want to publicly talk about the details just yet). Now I don't need any help actually implementing the system, that's no problem for me. However, I have trouble coming up with good ideas for skills and mechanics for heroes and enemies, and I'm not good at balancing at all. In total, there probably will only be six or seven battles in the entire game, so every encounter can be a (mini)boss.
So, I guess what it all comes down to is: Would you be okay with helping me design said battles purely by contributing ideas, concepts and numbers? If so, I'll gladly send you some details via PM.
Thanks a lot already!
