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*