How to Make Challenging Bosses...?

[Reno-s--Joker]

Sorry if I posted this in the wrong place, but I was wondering if someone could perhaps make a tutorial or guide for making certain bosses at certain stages in the game just right for the player's level (it would be grand if you could do this without a million people testing the game)...?

Perhaps what kind of HP corresponds to what player strength/level, or what skills are just torturous enough to keep a battle long and fair.

...
That is, only IF there are nifty tricks like that out there... ^-^;

[Calintz]

I actually think there is already a topic for this, but I'm not sure...

Anyway, make sure you have events during the fight. That helps to keep it interesting. Talking, Status changes...transformations...

[Starrodkirby86]

1. Play the project along as you make it. This may help. It also keeps yourself in level with what you're willing to go for. You can see how a learning curve will change or not, and check out everything else. However, you have to make sure that while having fun you need to see if this learning curve is intended or not. Like, if you spent 1 hour grinding for Boss 2 or something, then watch out.

2. Who the heck cares about level!? Strategy. That makes a boss battle really great. I mean seriously, a whole fight of HP knocking is boring. What makes things fun is the skills the bosses use that are original and great. You can see this in many Boss Battles throughout the land. Come on, it's not so hard at all doing this, anything can work, like the summoning of another monster or the transformation of one. ;x

3. Test Battle your Boss Monster at various levels. See which one is just right for your actors. This can go hand-in-hand with what's happening on Number 1.



Checking out how challenging bosses are and all is really up to your game actually. It's up to you, the developer to set things right. But to me, the perfect bosses are the ones that give an interesting and challenging puzzle to beat themselves, yet you're a good range to beat them up to a pulp. The bad bosses are just hit hit, magic spell, hit hit, for the next 400 turns. :/


@Calintz: There is. Susys made it.
http://forum.chaos-project.com/index.php?topic=567.0

[Reno-s--Joker]

YES. THANK YOU - you guys are awesome!
*powers you both up*
<333

[Blizzard]

Rather then necroing the old topic, it's better that a new topic was made. I'll move it to General Discussion, though.

When I want a challenging boss, I give him some attacks that add nasty status effects. His multi-target attack should take around 50% of everybody's HP and he single should have a single target attack that can kill some party members while others get damaged by 80%-90% of their max HP. Making the status effect attacks multi-target can make the boss even harder. Then you truly need a good strategy. You need to use support states like Auto-Life, Regen, MDEF Increase, PDEF Increases, etc.
To make it maximally interesting, multi-target attacks should be able to kill the weakest character (in HP), his single-target attacks should kill in over 90% of the cases, status attack go against everybody except if it's a nasty status effect, then a common event calling a copy of the skill (so it's not called again) is a nice idea so you can actually add the status effect to up to 2 characters. It makes the battle harder since it's more than 1, but not as annoyingly almost-impossible when adding to all characters.

[Punn]

I made some boss fight where you need to live for certain amount of turn before the event activates then you can proceed to kill the boss. Other then that, you should seriously give many actors certain weaknesses to make the boss a little hard. You can also use the event where after every 10 turns, the boss can use its powerful attack that might instantly kill half of the actors.
As for skill, make something that have a side effect, like a skill that can hurt actors and also poison them all at the same move. You can also use some script from Tons that can be a help for making certain skills very unique in a way.

Some peeps here covered the rest so I wont be a parrot and repeat em. Just throwing whats on my mind out there.

[Calintz]

You guys are doing great, and helping me out very much.
*powers*

[Reno-s--Joker]

Haha, me too, funnily enough.

Thanks again everyone - this has given me a great new idea about how I should control the way my characters level and learn skills. <333

I made some boss fight where you need to live for certain amount of turn before the event activates then you can proceed to kill the boss.

I really like this idea. A lot.

[Calintz]

I have seen that particular battle before. And yes, it is a very good way of doing things...

[Reno-s--Joker]

Me too, and I remember it was really fun.

.......oooh stuff this, I want to power everyone up again. Those even numbers are annoying. ^-^;
EDIT:
Woot for OCD.
28=4x7
105=15x7
7=7
169=13^2

[Calintz]

Haha...

Anyway, I've decided that I won't make the transformation process take place during the battle itself, rather you will fight the boss, defeat him...He will lure you to his secret chamber and stock up on power. At that point, he will transform, and you will fight his new appearance.

I am thinking that I will give this boss a shit of HP, and make his regular attacks cause an original status effect. Then, he will have a skill that instantly kills your party members(one at a time) and a couple skills that will devastate them all at once...

[Reno-s--Joker]

I hope you're talking about the final boss because that sounds nasty... O_O
<3

I'm planning to use a different strategy for each of my major bosses - one of the main reasons why I need lots of tips. I also wanted to make the game's order of bosses pretty open, so I had to ask about levels too. But maybe demi skills could counter that, and strategy/status over power definitely could too.....

[Starrodkirby86]

The best set of bosses are ones that require keen thinking and skill to beat. Of your group of bosses, you should have them unique. Look at Ocarina of Time or something. There's some special way of beating every single boss. It made the game more exciting like that. No two bosses are really the same (Unless you're fighting the same guy over again or something)...

You can fight a huge freakin' wall of defense. Okay, that's one boss. Maybe to make the uniqueness another boss would be a pure strength machine. You know, he just mows down his opponent, bam, kill. That's another boss, and he's different than the first one. And now let's sum it up with a third boss, who's weak, but very durable as his HP is high. What's more is that he is annoying with spraying all these debuffs and status effects!

There we go, three different bosses. :3

[Calintz]

I wasn't gonna say anything, because I was gonna use this in my game, and hope for me to be the only person to use this technique in a boss fight, but oh well XD...

I am gonna have structures in the background itself to make it look like they blend in. If the player notices them and attacks and destroys them, it will weaken the boss...

[Reno-s--Joker]

@Kirby (I hope you don't mind if I call you that, I'm too lazy): Lol at the third one. ^-^ Muahaha, that was very useful. Now to think of ten more unique ones like that... >_<;

@Cal: Noo Calintz... spoiler....
Nice idea though - obviously for an ABS...?

[Cid]

I like giving meaner bosses the ability to act more than once per turn. I'll set up multiple attack strings like [multi-target spell] followed by [normal attack], or whatever. And towards the end of the fight it may even get a little desperate and throw a third action in from time to time. 

[tSwitch]

the best boss battles are enigmatic and have more than just RAWR HIGH DAMAGE and etc...
give them a pattern, or some form of weakness.

[Reno-s--Joker]

@Cid: Thanks for the input! <3 That's a great idea too - I might use it!

@NAMKCOR: >.< I agree - I usually get quickly owned by those. Not fun. :|
Patterns are always good - if anyone remembers FFIV's Asura (I think - you know, summon lady... queen to leviathan) - it took me forever to figure out that I could use reflect to counter her self healing moves. <3 It was really satisfying to win in the end.

[Pokol DaErran]

Gimmicks.  I cannot say this enough.

If your boss is in the typical RPG interface, put in a few spiffy effects, talking heads, cool looking graphics, status effects, and doom.  Lots and lots of doom!  Plus, if it's the final boss, pulling a surprise final boss after the boss everyone thought was a final boss can work (although that's somewhat cliche by now.)

If you do it on ABS, like I do, the best boss battles are the one where you don't just walk up to the boss and slam it.  Give it attacks with funky range that you have to dodge, make the players have to solve a sort of puzzle to get to it, etc etc.

In any category, bosses should always be unique; a boss that just looks like a very big normal enemy gets old fast.  (That niche is more for minibosses.)  Plus, a boss that gives the player a good laugh can be good for comic relief once in a while (this category includes bosses that are stronger than they look, bosses that are a lot weaker than they look, and bosses that are just plain ridiculous.)

[Calintz]

Great advice Pokol
*power up*

[shdwlink1993]

In any category, bosses should always be unique; a boss that just looks like a very big normal enemy gets old fast.  (That niche is more for minibosses.)  Plus, a boss that gives the player a good laugh can be good for comic relief once in a while (this category includes bosses that are stronger than they look, bosses that are a lot weaker than they look, and bosses that are just plain ridiculous.)

Hey! Why are we fighting this teddy bear? We aren't that cruel, are we?

*Teddy Bear Attacks!*
*You are Dead...*

On a related note to Gimmicks, an idea is to conveniently "mistranslate" a line someone says (example being FF7's first boss fight: "Attack while the tail is up."... and DIE!).

[fugibo]

FFIV's fight against Dark Knight.

[Reno-s--Joker]

Agreed.

Ooh, I was just reminded of the magic master guy at the top of that whopping magic tower in FFVI. If I remember correctly you were very worn down by the tower first, offered no healing and plunged into battle. I had to use Life 3. :O

And definitely the most memorable and best boss battle to date was Kefka's tiered battle which involved all your party members, not just 3 . I was actually pwned on the first go, for once. D:

Man, FFVI was so good....

[Xero Shifter]

You could be like the FF series, the boss has attacks just a bit more than normal, and tons of hp, with an ocassional super attack (like a 10% chance of using it.)
Or you could be creative.... Like blizzard sugested.

[Calintz]

I plan on giving my bosses TON of HP, while at the same time, trying my hardest to make them very unique. My goal...to have very hard battles that last a very long time XD.

[Xero Shifter]

Since i probably wont be using him.... ill give you my boss idea.

Boss name here
hp of 5 monsters in the area put together (not that much but you will see why)
Special attack: Human shield (either the heros are trying to rescue innocent victims of this thing or the monster uses one of the heroes themselves, as a shield. If it's attacked when it is using this ability it hurts the hostage instead, if the hostage is a person other than a hero, and they die, the battle is lost, if its a hero, they can be "pheonix downed" The boss uses this ability most of the time only when a special condition is met does the ability go down, then there is one or two turns before it uses the ability again.

Itll make for a really interesting and hard battle if you can do it right.

[Calintz]

That would be very interesting actually...

[King Munkey]

in a way it reminds me of FF8 I can't remember the name of the boss but it was right at the beggining of disk 4 right after you fight seifer(I believe was his name) but rinoa is attached to the things chest and he can drain her life to heal himself. I remember it because I never used her and she was like lvl 20 when everyone else was like 60 or more and she died to quickly. But ur idea is a really good idea. Would require alot of thinking ahead

[Calintz]

Ah, I remember that battle, Lol.

Speaking of hard bosses. We can use video game bosses as examples. Here was a tough one for me to beat...The fucking weapon in the ocean in FFVII. I have yet to beat him O.o

[King Munkey]

Emerald Weapon and Ruby Weapon were freaking hard as hell to beat. I remember when i beat Emerald Weapon I had I think Vincent was the only person alive and was at less than 100 hp when i finally killed him with a knights of the round summon.

[Reno-s--Joker]

in a way it reminds me of FF8 I can't remember the name of the boss but it was right at the beggining of disk 4 right after you fight seifer(I believe was his name) but rinoa is attached to the things chest and he can drain her life to heal himself. I remember it because I never used her and she was like lvl 20 when everyone else was like 60 or more and she died to quickly. But ur idea is a really good idea. Would require alot of thinking ahead

Sorceress Adel, that EVIL MANWOMAN. DD:
But I agree, that would be a good idea. <3 Nice one Xero.

Emerald Weapon and Ruby Weapon were freaking hard as hell to beat. I remember when i beat Emerald Weapon I had I think Vincent was the only person alive and was at less than 100 hp when i finally killed him with a knights of the round summon.

KoR == Pure Pwnage. After overusing it though, the animation got boring.
I remember having to repeat a single strategy - healing and KoR'ing - not knowing whether or not I'd die on each turn. It was hell. O_O

[Calintz]

Haha, I hear ya...

[King Munkey]

@Reno: Yea I wish they had a way to skip the summons so that you didnt have to sit there and wait especially when u had the quad magic crap with copycat or whatever it was called.

If anyone ever tries to make a boss that requires over use of very long animations please put in a way to skip it.

[tSwitch]

KoR == Pure Pwnage. After overusing it though, the animation got boring.
I remember having to repeat a single strategy - healing and KoR'ing - not knowing whether or not I'd die on each turn. It was hell. O_O

Preparations: W-Summon linked with Knights of the Round
                   All linked with Reflect
---
Step 1: cast reflect on party
Step 2: W-Summon Knights of the Round on your party
Step 3: Get a sammich as KotR reflects 6 times
Stem 4: repeat

[King Munkey]

exactly thats how it is done.

[Azuriyuu]

One concept which I always thought was interesting was the sort of 'Mirror Boss' idea.  Like a Boss which compared to most bosses is actually very weak, and could be taken out in four or five turns if they were the kind to just sit there and take your nuking...but they're a party of 3/4/whatever size your party is.  One of them would have an AI which loves to buff and acts as a healer whenever someone's HP is low who's semi-fragile, one of them is a strong physical attacker with some minor healing ability and a ton of HP, one is a strong magical attacker, and the other is an incredibly nasty physical attacker who's only got moderate health, but inflicts all sorts of crazy debuffs on your party.

To make it even nastier, you can make the AI as Player-Like as possible, raise their stats or give them new skills if the player's above a certain level and even do some horrible tricks like giving them an inventory and access to healing, and even reviving items that all of them can use.

Although in doing so you could give the player some concessions too; weakening them if the player's level is low, giving them an inventory of a specified size, giving them limited(And truly limited, not a level of which they'll NEVER run out) of SP and forcing them to use their limited SP healing items to restore their SP and continue to assault you, as well as being HIGHLY succeptible to status effects.

Bosses which are strong because they possess the player's strengths are fun; there's countless examples.  And having such bosses having the same weaknesses as players could make it interesting as the player continues to fight them until they realize that they can fight using a strategy similar to one they'd use against themselves.

[Reno-s--Joker]

Wow, thanks for that Azuriyuu! *powers up*

Man, actually I just got the most awesome idea from your post... <3

[fugibo]

Employing strategy is always good. Like having an multiple enemies who respawn unless you kill them a certain way, ie you only have a certain window in which you can finish the battle, but you can't predict and you always have to be ready to fill a certain criteria in a short amount of time.

[Reno-s--Joker]

Thanks WcW! *powers up*
I remember ones similar to that for one of the GBA FF titles.

... I'm starting to think I should compile these good ideas together.

[Calintz]

That would be worth a power up =)

- Then, you could create a new thread with all of the ideas in a nice list and organize them well, and maybe Blizzard will sticky it!!

[Reno-s--Joker]

Muahaha, my ultimate life's dream is to become sticky!
... I'll work on it now.

EDIT: >.< This is going to take a while. There's so much stuff here.... I regret not doing it as I went along. 

[RoseSkye]

What I like to do - Make characters with good strengths and exploitable weaknesses.

Give the bosses everything that focuses on the weaknesses of the characters. In the party there is always someone that covers the weaknesses of the character thats being exploited however have a weakness that can be countered by the party members strength.

Er.. This only makes sense to me. 

Simple version - Rock paper scissors.

Party Member 1 - Only can use scissors
Party Member 2 - Only Rock

Boss - Can use rock paper and scissors.

Party member 1 defends 2 when the boss uses rock, 2 covers 1 when scissors is used, and when the boss is caught off guard both characters go in for an all out attack.

However, the boss can use a wild card which uses all 3 types at once and the party have to cover each others weaknesses.

This way strategy has to be used to defeat a boss that isn't able to be defeated alone.