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BOSS SURVIVAL GO
Posts
Max McGee
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CloseHm, I once had a boss that had an item pack like the heroes did and when their health got low/they got status effected they used the appropriate healing item.
Alchemists/most bosses in To Arms! do this.
Goldenguy
855
I had a few regular enemies way back in The Legend of Kuleh (~2003-2004ish) that could drop your character a level if they used the right attack. I don't recall any in recent games that I've made but I wouldn't count out that possibility either.
post=142784
My Ra-Gald boss from Crimson Sky absorbed the player's health...
Sorry I cheated and lowered its HP by like 150!
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 point of making a boss heal is very simple: the player has to actually care about doing damage, instead of spending every single turn optimizing themselves for total defense at the complete expense of offense, which is the obvious best strategy in any "standard" boss fight. If the boss heals, the player has to come up with a more balanced strategy, they have to actually use offense as well as defense. It's a great thing to do, especially if your game includes any sort of party choices or character customization at all, since if all the hardest battles depend purely on defense, all your offensive choices are going to be pretty worthless.
However, there are other ways to achieve the same goal.
If your game gives the player a lot of MP for healing, but very few HP or MP recovery items, then having a boss that burns the player's MP will work marvelously.
You could also make the boss's offense get stronger over time - it can either gradually buff itself more and more as the fight goes on, or it can "enrage" after a certain number of turns. A similar but more direct method is to actually add a timer to the boss fight, and when it hits zero the player gets a game over, but this only makes sense in certain areas such as when escaping from a dungeon as it is self-destructing.
One of my favorite methods is to make a boss use a spell that steal buffs from the players. If your game has a regen buff, this becomes hilariously powerful. If it doesn't, it still makes defensive battle tactics have highly questionable usefulness - though gearing up for pure defense before the battle starts still works as well as ever, for better or worse.
A boss that prevents the characters from healing can work well sometimes. Inflict zombie status on the entire party so that all their healing spells cause damage instead, or a sickness status that makes them unable to recover. If the player has the ability to heal these status effects, the boss needs to cast them constantly on the entire party. The player's party will still be able to buff up their defense, but they will have to find the right balance of buffing and attacking in order to win before they run out of HP.
Constantly spawning adds works wonderfully as well, as long as they're reasonable tough to kill. This is actually one of the most commonly used methods, though it's not as direct as most of the others.
However, there are other ways to achieve the same goal.
If your game gives the player a lot of MP for healing, but very few HP or MP recovery items, then having a boss that burns the player's MP will work marvelously.
You could also make the boss's offense get stronger over time - it can either gradually buff itself more and more as the fight goes on, or it can "enrage" after a certain number of turns. A similar but more direct method is to actually add a timer to the boss fight, and when it hits zero the player gets a game over, but this only makes sense in certain areas such as when escaping from a dungeon as it is self-destructing.
One of my favorite methods is to make a boss use a spell that steal buffs from the players. If your game has a regen buff, this becomes hilariously powerful. If it doesn't, it still makes defensive battle tactics have highly questionable usefulness - though gearing up for pure defense before the battle starts still works as well as ever, for better or worse.
A boss that prevents the characters from healing can work well sometimes. Inflict zombie status on the entire party so that all their healing spells cause damage instead, or a sickness status that makes them unable to recover. If the player has the ability to heal these status effects, the boss needs to cast them constantly on the entire party. The player's party will still be able to buff up their defense, but they will have to find the right balance of buffing and attacking in order to win before they run out of HP.
Constantly spawning adds works wonderfully as well, as long as they're reasonable tough to kill. This is actually one of the most commonly used methods, though it's not as direct as most of the others.
post=147150This hits the nail on the head, but the rest of the post misses the entire point of the topic. Elaborate on effective usage of healing in boss fights beyond "lol diarahan" or "bosses should never heal", which most designers seem to espouse.
The point of making a boss heal is very simple: the player has to actually care about doing damage, instead of spending every single turn optimizing themselves for total defense at the complete expense of offense, which is the obvious best strategy in any "standard" boss fight. If the boss heals, the player has to come up with a more balanced strategy, they have to actually use offense as well as defense. It's a great thing to do, especially if your game includes any sort of party choices or character customization at all, since if all the hardest battles depend purely on defense, all your offensive choices are going to be pretty worthless.
Hm, how about a boss that has a few minions that 'share' the damage. Basically they take the brunt of the damage (if two then about 40% each and the boss takes 20% of the damage) but the boss keeps healing them - say about the same amounts as its damaged. So if in one round you take off about 200 damage, that means each minion gets hit for 80 each whilst the boss takes 40 damage. It then heals the minions for 40 each turn.
When one minion dies the boss and other minion take 50% of the damage each, the boss would heal more to their last minion but take more damage as well. And if the minions have a small heal spell themselves, but limited magic stores, or deal blind and stun attacks (not paralysis because that's just cheap) to stop the damage...
Then when it's the boss by itself it casts auto-regen, and starts to lay out the hurt.
I'm so making this.
When one minion dies the boss and other minion take 50% of the damage each, the boss would heal more to their last minion but take more damage as well. And if the minions have a small heal spell themselves, but limited magic stores, or deal blind and stun attacks (not paralysis because that's just cheap) to stop the damage...
Then when it's the boss by itself it casts auto-regen, and starts to lay out the hurt.
I'm so making this.
not paralysis because that's just cheap
Why not fix paralysis then...? Make it have a percent chance to hold the victim, instead of OOPS NO TURNS FOR YOU.
Goldenguy
855
I'd say if there are curative items available to the players or spells that alleviate stuff like paralysis and whatnot, that's a good reason to use those status effects with the boss.
The first boss in my newest project spends the first two rounds relieving two of your characters of his/her weapon and helmet.
My second boss is actually three enemies, and this is where I'm really starting to bring on the status effects - one has paralysis, one has poison, and the other has the ability to send the player into shock (90% attack/def/mental, reduced hit ratio, and no magic). Oh, the three also regenerate health each turn, and the amount of health is directly influenced by optional things done in that dungeon. Complete all optional bits, and the regeneration is very slow. Complete none of them, and the regeneration is going to be pretty hard to overcome.
As "mainstream" as it may sound, I've started to really like the idea of implementing gimmicks with bosses.
The first boss in my newest project spends the first two rounds relieving two of your characters of his/her weapon and helmet.
My second boss is actually three enemies, and this is where I'm really starting to bring on the status effects - one has paralysis, one has poison, and the other has the ability to send the player into shock (90% attack/def/mental, reduced hit ratio, and no magic). Oh, the three also regenerate health each turn, and the amount of health is directly influenced by optional things done in that dungeon. Complete all optional bits, and the regeneration is very slow. Complete none of them, and the regeneration is going to be pretty hard to overcome.
As "mainstream" as it may sound, I've started to really like the idea of implementing gimmicks with bosses.
post=147753
As "mainstream" as it may sound, I've started to really like the idea of implementing gimmicks with bosses.
"Gimmicky" sounds bad, but if the boss has a particular strategy, it makes the player use his brain. The boss should be difficult or impossible to defeat without using the strategy, and easy or at least possible to defeat once you've figured out the trick. Even after figuring out his weakness, the boss should still be a challenge.
A boss who eats his minions for health is an awesome idea. To expand on it:
1) You could make it so that the boss has a limited number of minions to eat, and killing them is easier than removing the extra HP from the healing, thus forcing players to stop hitting the boss, use ALL-attacks, etc.
2) The boss could spawn minions once in a while, and eat them after several turns, giving the player time to defeat them.
I've tried to design my game to incorporate more strategy into boss fights. Some ideas I've had are:
1) A boss that uses a super-move, very noticeably (displays a message) that is barely survivable (if your party is at full HP, meaning that you can't constantly eat it, but maybe you can survive one.) You can stop it, however, by stunning the boss when he's going to cast it (in a small but reasonable timeframe).
2) Bosses that are susceptible to poison, blind, sleep, slow, debuffs, etc. The bosses are defeatable without these status effects, but much harder. For example, you could make two powerful side-arms with a lot of HP and a core boss. You only have to defeat the core to win, but you can't ignore the side-arms or they will wreck you. You must keep them slowed, sleeped, or stunned while a couple of characters wail on the boss.
Adding minions or parts to a boss makes the possibilities endless, and you can use them to make bosses that require a lot of thinking on the player's part.
post=147245
Hm, how about a boss that has a few minions that 'share' the damage. Basically they take the brunt of the damage (if two then about 40% each and the boss takes 20% of the damage) but the boss keeps healing them - say about the same amounts as its damaged. So if in one round you take off about 200 damage, that means each minion gets hit for 80 each whilst the boss takes 40 damage. It then heals the minions for 40 each turn.
When one minion dies the boss and other minion take 50% of the damage each, the boss would heal more to their last minion but take more damage as well. And if the minions have a small heal spell themselves, but limited magic stores, or deal blind and stun attacks (not paralysis because that's just cheap) to stop the damage...
Then when it's the boss by itself it casts auto-regen, and starts to lay out the hurt.
I'm so making this.
you remind me of Seymour Mortis, from FFX. His minion, when it was supposed to die, suckled HP out of the *real* boss, wich had LOTS of HP. Wich made area-affecting spells GREAT. (you could actually inflict the usual ammount of damage plus 2000, wich is the value of Seymour Mortis' MaxHp.)
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 want to bump this thread because it's a good thread. I want to see more boss strategies that make turtling not the optimal strategy for players! Healing is the most obvious method but this topic is about boss survival in general, so other boss strategies that allow it to survive and force you to use offense (like continously summoning additional monsters) are valid posts also.
Some bosses (and normal enemies) in my game use an ability called Charge Up. This doesn't actually increase the enemy's attack power, instead it is a 1-turn status effect that allows them to access more powerful skills. I am giving some enemies healing spells that can only be cast while they are in Charge Up status. The catch here is that you can stun the enemies while they're in Charge Up status, and it will prevent them from being able to use these stronger skills. So you can stop them from healing if you have a stun skill available.
This results in something similar to an interrupt attack in a game like World of Warcraft, in which spells take time to cast and you can see when an enemy is casting them and interrupt the more deadly ones. Like WoW's interrupts, my stuns have a sizable cooldown, so you have to time them wisely and sometimes even choose which enemy skills to prevent - the damage or the healing?
Some bosses (and normal enemies) in my game use an ability called Charge Up. This doesn't actually increase the enemy's attack power, instead it is a 1-turn status effect that allows them to access more powerful skills. I am giving some enemies healing spells that can only be cast while they are in Charge Up status. The catch here is that you can stun the enemies while they're in Charge Up status, and it will prevent them from being able to use these stronger skills. So you can stop them from healing if you have a stun skill available.
This results in something similar to an interrupt attack in a game like World of Warcraft, in which spells take time to cast and you can see when an enemy is casting them and interrupt the more deadly ones. Like WoW's interrupts, my stuns have a sizable cooldown, so you have to time them wisely and sometimes even choose which enemy skills to prevent - the damage or the healing?
Healing? Pshaw! How about a boss that regenerates a flat amount of HP per turn? As constant as the northern star he'll recover HP at the end of the turn until you kill him (or he's at max HP (which he doesn't have on the highest difficulty) ). You have to set up quickly and take him out as fast as possible once set up and always keep the pressure on!
An early boss does damage proportional to its HP. The sooner it gets taken down a peg the sooner healing its damage isn't like emptying a sinking boat with a coffee mug. Once you can heal back the damage you took in the early stages you've practically won the fight.
Got another boss that creates a (weaker) clone of himself on the first turn. Can do everything the real boss can except has less health, deals less damage, and doesn't have to be killed to win the fight. If it's defeat a new one won't spawn but it will freely switch the location of the two so the player has to redetermine which enemy was the one they were trying to kill.
Another boss is invulnerable to direct damage but can't deal any either. Instead each turn it creates a new enemy that, when killed, will injure the boss. Once it can't create any more it'll switch to buffs and/or picking it's nose.
Boss gimmicks are fun!
An early boss does damage proportional to its HP. The sooner it gets taken down a peg the sooner healing its damage isn't like emptying a sinking boat with a coffee mug. Once you can heal back the damage you took in the early stages you've practically won the fight.
Got another boss that creates a (weaker) clone of himself on the first turn. Can do everything the real boss can except has less health, deals less damage, and doesn't have to be killed to win the fight. If it's defeat a new one won't spawn but it will freely switch the location of the two so the player has to redetermine which enemy was the one they were trying to kill.
Another boss is invulnerable to direct damage but can't deal any either. Instead each turn it creates a new enemy that, when killed, will injure the boss. Once it can't create any more it'll switch to buffs and/or picking it's nose.
Boss gimmicks are fun!
author=Liberty
Hm, how about a boss that has a few minions that 'share' the damage. Basically they take the brunt of the damage (if two then about 40% each and the boss takes 20% of the damage) but the boss keeps healing them - say about the same amounts as its damaged. So if in one round you take off about 200 damage, that means each minion gets hit for 80 each whilst the boss takes 40 damage. It then heals the minions for 40 each turn.
When one minion dies the boss and other minion take 50% of the damage each, the boss would heal more to their last minion but take more damage as well. And if the minions have a small heal spell themselves, but limited magic stores, or deal blind and stun attacks (not paralysis because that's just cheap) to stop the damage...
Then when it's the boss by itself it casts auto-regen, and starts to lay out the hurt.
I'm so making this.
this is in edifice (celebrina and her two flames)
in fact, everybody play edifice just for the bosses. Someone above mentioned enchantment-stealing and that is another boss' major special attack etc
Hmm... (What is the GO for?)
Anyways, how I have my bosses, is when they get to a certain amount of HP they use skills that they can only use if they have that certain amount of HP.
So I have this one skill First Aid, you can only use it if your HP is 26-50%, and it heals you by a small amount of HP.
Also if it's HP is 25% or below, it uses a standard "Cure" spell.
Also, that boss is weak to every element, so it makes it fair.
Almost everyone might think that is stupid, but it turns out pretty interesting.
But I usually don't have bosses deal status effects,
Anyways, how I have my bosses, is when they get to a certain amount of HP they use skills that they can only use if they have that certain amount of HP.
So I have this one skill First Aid, you can only use it if your HP is 26-50%, and it heals you by a small amount of HP.
Also if it's HP is 25% or below, it uses a standard "Cure" spell.
Also, that boss is weak to every element, so it makes it fair.
Almost everyone might think that is stupid, but it turns out pretty interesting.
But I usually don't have bosses deal status effects,
