How to Make Challenging Bosses...?

Started by Reno-s--Joker, February 10, 2009, 12:39:28 am

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shdwlink1993

February 13, 2009, 11:22:28 pm #20 Last Edit: February 14, 2009, 01:29:28 am by shdwlink1993
Quote from: Pokol DaErran on February 13, 2009, 07:30:35 pm
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...* :P

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!).
Stuff I've made:




"Never think you're perfect or else you'll stop improving yourself."

"Some people say the glass is half full... some half empty... I just wanna know who's been drinking my beer."

fugibo


Reno-s--Joker

Agreed. :D

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.... :haha:

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.
Join the Starcraft Territories team now!

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.
Join the Starcraft Territories team now!

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

G_G Is my hero!
Munkey != monkey
Munkey > monkey

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.

G_G Is my hero!
Munkey != monkey
Munkey > monkey

Reno-s--Joker

Quote from: Kingmunkey on February 22, 2009, 07:44:52 pm
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.

Quote from: Kingmunkey on February 22, 2009, 08:07:02 pm
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


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.

G_G Is my hero!
Munkey != monkey
Munkey > monkey

tSwitch

Quote from: Reno-s--Joker on February 22, 2009, 08:31:51 pm
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


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King Munkey


G_G Is my hero!
Munkey != monkey
Munkey > monkey

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... :shifty: <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! :D *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. :D

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!!