What makes a Boss Battle, Epic...fun...interesting? Options

[amaro57]

For my current project, I've already planned out all the boss fights in advance before developing them. I recently started thinking that maybe the player wouldn't like my idea of a fun boss battle.

Thus leading to this thread. What are your ideas of fun and epic boss battles? Be it small touches and details or completely new twists.

In my opinion, I always like a bit of thinking involved in some fights. Not just a straight forward hack and slash but a boss that requires you to find a weakness of some sort and utilize it to an extent. Persona 3 comes to mind here for me. Even a simple or complex puzzle is welcoming and fun for me. For example, in a nutshell, one of my planned "fights" is for the player to hit all the switches while the environment is constantly changing using acquired abilities.

[SwiftPlay]

- Boss battles should be challenging
- Boss battles should not have you relying on luck and glitches.
- Boss battles should reward better for special achievements (such as perfect health, killing within a certain time, etc.
- Boss battles should incorporate the skills and use of at least half of the party members
- Boss battles should be possible even without a stock full of potions and 6 healing mages

Note: Every player should know when they are going to face a boss so they have an opportunity to save and prepare. Its ridiculous when bosses fall out of the sky and force you back levels.

This post has been edited by SwiftPlay: Jan 19 2011, 04:28 PM

[Ganstaquay5000]

A good boss fight, at least in my opinion, would have more than just one strategy needed to beat it. You shouldn't be restricted to specific characters unless the storyline required otherwise.

I think that a boss fight needs a boss that fights with intelligence. Using the right attacks on the right heros in order to make the battle more challenging without the need for giving the boss high HP and high stats.

[Titanhex]

I think we should all contribute an example of a good boss battle in order to create a realistic expectation and not merely discuss ideals (As happens a lot in these "What is a good X" thread.)

A good boss battle makes use of strategy and even incorporates the surroundings into it. It is hinted to and alluded to throughout the dungeon, so that the player comes in saved and prepared.

Enter the Forest dungeon. After making your way through a series of animals and small spiders it becomes apparent that the webbing on the trees is getting thicker, and the canopy less parted. Throughout the dungeon, and in the town prior, torches are available to be sold. Once you hit point A in the dungeon, you're required to use the torches to both burn the webbing and you must use them to see where you're going. If you run into a battle without a light, your miss chance is increased.

Challenge A for the dungeon has been set. Now as you progress spiders cause poison bites. Luckily anti-venom and anti-venom spells have become available for your minimum level in this dungeon. Challenge B is established. Finally you reach the final room of the dungeon. A giant web covers the floor leading into the next room.

Enter the Brood Mother of the Forest. Fire is her weakness, and anti-venom will be necessary. She has 3 targets, her main body, her upper body, and her lower body. Her main body is all you need to kill to win. Her upper body shoots webbing, and can exstinguish your torches. If you're low on torches, you want to exterminate this ASAP. It has a 25% increase damage from fire, and 1/7th of the HP of the main body.

Her lower body causes venom, so if you're low on anti-venom you want this exstinguished ASAP. It has 1/7th of the HP of the main and 25% increased fire damage.

Her main body has 75% weakness to fire, and at minimum level spamming fire spells on her to 0 MP should lower it by 2,3/5th. So if you're low level you may want to focus on top and bottom then mid, but if you're high level spamming the body to death would be smartest. Infact the highest level for the dungeon may yield a new fire spell on a character, thus easing it. There could even be a bonus for killing the entire body or never using a fire spell.

That's a pretty simple, easy example. You could play things up and make switches as targets that perform an action on death in some boss battles to make it interesting.

[psychofreak]

Yay! I love epic and clever boss fights and I think it's a great idea to give our examples.

So here's a boss from my WIP game. He's a monk with decent attack power, but his most powerful technique can kill our character in almost 2 hits at their expected level right? But in order to do that he must first use charge for one turn which allows him to use the attack for his next turn. When we see this is when a smart person should use lightning(a spell that can paralyze the enemy during their next turn) because the monk can only use his most damaging attack(Need to call it something dunno ) on the turn after he uses charge and if he's paralyzed it's a wasted turn.

If someone just spams lightning at the start of the battle they won't have any MP left for when the monk prepares his ultimate attack(Again I'm trying to think of what to call it). So if all you can do is attack normally at this time then your fate is inescapable.

So how do you think of that kind of boss battle? Just one of my more strategic ones. It's on RMVX btw.

This post has been edited by psychofreak: Jan 27 2011, 10:09 AM

[elliott20]

I think it's a mistake to judge a boss fight just by itself. We need to look at it from the entire holistic approach. The reason why? Variety is the spice of life.

What I mean by this is that each battle needs to be different from one another in some way. What I mean by this is that you need to introduce a new skill to the player, and then eventually get the player to put it to use, or each time, change up the paradigm/strategy slightly. Now, I don't mean something like use fire instead of ice in this battle. That's a very superficial difference and it's meaningless. I mean more like, one boss you gotta figure out which part to hit first, one boss you gotta figure out which weapon(or element) to use, one boss you gotta figure out the pattern in which you hit him, and maybe you have a boss that combines the above together. That is, each boss needs to have their own schtick. If every boss is just a matter of going through the drills, it will get boring.

oh yeah, and you can't make it TOO punishing either. (Unless you're IWTBTG, in which case you can get away with it)

[Titanhex]

Incidently I illustrated this in a practical and easy to understand method in my previous post.

[elliott20]

yeah, but I'm an egomaniac who likes to hear his own voice.

[Naridar]

I think the placement of bosses in the storyline is just as important as the fight in itself. As in, if a player is emotionally motivated to win the battle, a simple boss is much more easy to forgive. Three examples (all from my game, Border Point):

Boss A: The player reaches a big room in the dungeon, where a spiritual creature blocks its' way. The boss is a main enemy with 3 assisters: one heals the main boss, one casts ailments on you, and one casts buffs on the boss. Killed assisters respawn in 10 rounds.

Rating: The necessary "filler" boss: while it's not the worst boss ever made, it's nothing to remember. Gameplay-wise, it's fine. However, use too much of these bosses (where the player wants to defeat the boss just to progress to the next area) and the player will grow tired of them, no matter how innovative they are.

Boss B: The protagonist, jealous at the boyfriend of his love interest, and agitated by the main antagonist, causes a disaster with a magical weapon and when the boyfriend doesn't die, he attacks him directly. There are two boss battles: both take place against a single enemy that uses sword skills and has a stronger attack he must charge for one turn. The player fights this battle with only the main protagonist, armed with a weapon that puts him way above his original power (10000-some damage compared to the ~800-1000 you usually deal before).
The outcome of this battle influences the storyline and ending 4 of the 8 different plotlines entirely depend on these 2 battles.

Rating: The "storyline" boss, one case in which a player has motivation to win, if only to see different plotlines. The goal of the fight isn't progress to the next dungeon, but to help the protagonist, even if his motives are evil/selfish: the player is forced to help him to progress in the game, thus forcing a moral reconsideration. Even if the gameplay part's not very good, the storyline and motivations can carry it on their backs.

Boss C: The optional superboss of the game. The battle takes place in the replica of the dancehall of Boss B (entitled the "Sunrise Mobius arena" in the postgame). The boss is a man in his 40s, wearing a tuxedo and a rapier. He is the inventor of a feared backward-tradition and his motive to fight the party is to make the protagonists face his past actions (the reason for the arena and his clothes), with which they hurt others, no matter what. The battle begins at night and it takes 9 turns for the sun to rise. As long as there's night, the boss can't be hurt. He uses attacks that can decimate even the strongest characters, and has moves that "shatter" the sun, resetting the night counter. However, this move is predictable and he can be staggered while preparing it, thus winning time. It also takes about 200 normal attacks to wear down his HP.

Rating: This is an optional boss, so ramping up the difficulty is okay here. We have that extra gameplay element in the form of night-day shifting. As how a good boss does, it has a reason to fight (unlike the WEAPON enemies of Final Fantasy games or Red from Pokemon G/S and superbosses in general), and it also reminds you of the choices made throughout the game (especially the ones in Boss B, a key scene).

This post has been edited by Naridar: Feb 14 2011, 07:46 AM

[Listuguj_Guy9000]

- Everyone likes different things, so coming up with "The best or Good" Boss battle is hard to do...


- But in MY game, the first boss battle you really face has a "conditional" twist.


- If you just so happen to cast a water spell on her... [ fighter 7 (Cat girl) ]

She transforms into her Beserk mode.

If you continue to cast water spells on her She gets Faster & Stronger.... and on top of even that.

If you cast a water spell on her 3-4 times... She unleashes an attack so powerful, you won't survive.

Check it out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLXT1BY-ORY

[Guinevere]

There are virtually no awesome boss battles that I can think of right now, except for Tabuu. You know, the blue guy from SSBB?
He was so difficult, that i had to quit and let Blippy play all my lives so he could win.
The reason he was awesome because his special moves are awesome, and the fact that, though evil and extraordinarily difficult, he wasn't infallible.
Oh, did I mention, he looked awesome?
Almost as awesome as Zelda. Or Jigglypuff. Or Ness.

[LDanarkos]

-High HP obviously makes a battle last a while, which can either make the battle repetitive or epic, depending on how dynamic the battle is.
-When there's multiple enemies, and they use healing magic and life spells, that makes a battle difficult
-Dynamic battles are less repetitive. Things that can make a battle more dynamic are things like mute, berserk, reflect, wall change (changes elemental weakness / strength), poison, etc.. These things force you to frequently change-up which skills you use.
-When the enemy mixes-up a variety of attacks, it makes the battle less repetitive / predictable
-The harder the battle is and the more damage the enemy deals, the more you're forced to try to balance offense with healing to keep your party alive, which makes the battle dynamic. You always have to reassess the situation and shift gears when your party members are low on HP.
-If the enemy is capable of summoning other monsters to the battlefield to assist it, then the battle can be more dynamic if instead of summoning the same monster repeatedly, it summons different monsters every time with different strengths and weaknesses (preferably relatively underpowered monsters that you've already encountered and already understand the weaknesses of).
-You could have a boss (or one of its minions) that either copies the last ability you used, or acquires the abilities that you use. Therefore, it makes you think twice about which skills or attacks you should or shouldn't use since the enemy will use them back.
-It's good when there's more than one enemy on the field, so that you are forced to decide which is the best strategically to kill first.
-Kind of like Listuguj describes, a boss where your attacks alter its behavior. But instead of just water pumping it up, it'll be more like... fire attacks make it fight one way, water attacks make it fight a different way, lightning attacks make it fight a different way; all equally powerful but different behaviors (maybe different balances of physical attacks, magical attacks, status changes, healing, etc.). Kind of like a character from... I forget what game (A Blurred Line or Phylomortis maybe?) who had a different set of skills depending on which of her split personalities was manifesting.

This post has been edited by LDanarkos: Jan 30 2011, 12:50 AM

[psychofreak]

Well I definitely have variety that's for sure. One of my favorite boss is this boy who can summon a flower plant monster to attack us and barricade himself inside. We can't attack him in any way at all when the plant is protecting him. So we have to defeat the plant first obviously, which is when the plant opens up limply allowing us to attack the boy. However the boy will use his next turn to drain our health largely then resurrect the plant, only allowing the player about 2 shots at him, which is nowhere near enough to finishing him off. Also noting that he used one turn to greatly heal himself(likely even more than you can damage him).

The plant itself is slightly easier than a regular boss. But fighting it the second time becomes a pain and a nightmare the third time. But spamming your best attacks when the plant opens up will still extend the fight more than eight rounds at the expected level. So any idea what to do there?

This post has been edited by psychofreak: Feb 17 2011, 03:18 AM

[Klokinator]

I didn't see it mentioned in here (A bit tl;dr) but don't forget boss music! Most of the best and most memorable bosses (Like Nergal of FE7) have awesome boss music to accentuate their mighty power!

[shinyjiggly]

In like, the 3rd dungeon of my game, you are required to rescue these slaves which allow you to have them attack for you by use of a skill. With each slave that you rescue, this attack that they do for you gets stronger. Once you get to the boss of the area, one of the slaves will offer to gather up more of the slaves to help you take down the slave driver once and for all. If you say no, they have a level 4 attack that does ok damage, but if you say yes, that slave will leave temporarily to round them up and they will have a level 3 attack until the turn that he returns; replacing the level 3 attack with a level 6 attack that does a lot of damage.
After the boss battle, all the slaves are freed and you can finally go back home; leaving the newly freed slaves to get back to their normal lives.

[LockeZ]

This is a great topic for me, because my upcoming game will basically make at least 20-25% of battles be bosses.

Here's a sort of rough layout for my first dungeon. I use a Chrono Trigger battle system so enemies are fought one time only. Since this is only the first dungeon, and since you only have one party member, the battles are very simple.

1st battle: 3 lava sharks at short range, using bite attacks.
2nd battle: 2 lava sharks at long range, using fire-spit attacks. They deal more damage, but you obtain an ice attack.
3rd battle: 1 lava shark and 1 laser shark. The lasers can be disabled by using a dark elemental attack.
4th battle: 1 lava shark and 2 laser sharks.
5th battle: BOSS! Giant shark with sunglasses. Has a lot of HP, which forces the player to learn how energy regeneration works, and use skills a little more wisely.
6th battle: 2 laser sharks and 1 rocket shark. The rocket shark launches itself at you and explodes when low on HP.
7th battle: 3 rocket sharks.
8th battle: 2 lava sharks, 1 laser shark, and 1 rocket shark.
9th battle: 2 acid sharks. Acid sharks lower your defense and inflict gradual damage. The defense-lowering effect stacks with itself, putting a time limit on the battle and forcing the player to concentrate on offense some, rather than purely defense.
10th battle: 1 acid shark and 2 laser sharks.
11th battle: BOSS! Agent Five, 1 acid shark, 1 lava shark. Agent 5 boosts her allies' attack power, but not her own, and can summon additional sharks if either of those two is killed before her.
12th battle: BOSS! Lord Justice, lots of sharks. Lord Justice continuously summons sharks. He constantly changes the laws, FFTA style, so that different types of attacks are rewarded or forbidden. He also increases the speed of his shark allies. After you deal enough damage to Lord Justice, he will accidentally enable the Forbidden: Sharks law, causing the entire factory to explode (and causing you to win the battle).


Points to note here:
-Normal battles introduce 0-1 new gimmicks. Usually 1.
-Bosses introduce 2 or more new gimmicks, sometimes combining several gimmicks that previously stood alone.
-Bosses aren't necessarily that much less forgiving than normal battles, but they're more complex, and they're usually longer to allow time for all the complexity to play out.
-Most of the bosses in my game will punish the player for focusing entirely on defense. I feel like too many games have no reason for the player to care about their offense in boss fights. In this dungeon, it's done via acid sharks. When the player gets multiple party members and non-crappy healing skills later in the game, I'll have a lot more options.
-Three bosses in the first dungeon, holy crap. I love bosses. If I could get rid of normal battles entirely, I would do so. Unfortunately it would make the learning curve too steep, so I will settle for this method instead. Most of my normal battles are practically bosses anyway.

This post has been edited by LockeZ: Feb 16 2011, 12:32 AM

[psychofreak]

An advice on how to make your boss fights more strategic and therefore interesting: Think of your CHARACTER's skills, magic etc. Then visualize the most creative ways those abilities can be used resourcefully. Once that's done, think of which bosses you can apply those ideas to in your game. Does anyone else get their ideas that way? Or is it just me?

I gave enough examples of those kinds of fights on this thread and some other ones.

This post has been edited by psychofreak: Feb 16 2011, 09:17 AM

[LockeZ]

An advice on how to make your boss fights more strategic and therefore interesting: Think of your CHARACTER's skills, magic etc. Then visualize the most creative ways those abilities can be used resourcefully. Once that's done, think of which bosses you can apply those ideas to in your game. Does anyone else get their ideas that way? Or is it just me?

I gave enough examples of those kinds of fights on this thread and some other ones.

That's one way to do it. But other times I will come up with the boss idea first, and then give the characters skills that make it work. Or give the boss a gimmick that has little to do with specific skills.

I think World of Warcraft bosses are a pretty good example of how to make good boss fights. Many of their ideas aren't directly copyable to RM since they are based around character movement, but you can do similar types of things.

Here are the four bosses from The Stonecore, a high level dungeon in World of Warcraft.

Corborus
Skills:
# Crystal Barrage - Targets the ground under one player and deals medium damage to all players near that area for 4 seconds. Can be avoided by moving out of the effect.
# Dampening Wave - Deals low shadow damage to all players. In addition, the next 4000 points of healing done to players will be negated. This effect stacks up to 20 times. Dispelling this effect will remove the entire stack.

Corborus alternates between two strategies.
Phase 1: Corborus is above ground and uses his two abilities listed above, as well as attacking the tank.
Phase 2: Corborus burrows underground and is not attackable. Small enemies will appear rapidly in random locations, which attack the nearest party member but are easily destroyed. Due to the penalty against healing, it is important to kill them before they have a chance to hit you very many times. Also, dust clouds appear on the ground, and if a player stands in one, Corborus will surface and kill them.

If I were adapting this fight for RMXP, I would:
- Make Crystal Barrage avoidable by defending instead of moving
- Make Corborus surfacing be unavoidable, but only deal 80% of your max HP, so you can live through it if you're at full health. The dust cloud will still be visible, letting the player know which party member needs to be at full health.

Slabhide
Skills:
# Sand Blast - Deals medium damage to all players in front of Slabhide within 15 yards.
# Eruption - Deals a small amount of damage to players within melee range. In addition, a pool of lava forms in a random location, resulting in:
# Lava Pool - Deals damage quickly to anyone standing in the fire. Disappears after 10 sec.
# Collapse ceiling - Flies into the air, causing stalactites to drop from the ceiling; if one lands on you, you die. A shadow will appear on the ground where each stalagtite is going to fall.
# Crystal Storm - Deals massive damage to all enemies in line of sight every half second for 6 sec.

Strategy:
The stalactites are not a major threat. However, you have to hide behind one when he starts casting Crystal Storm to survive it, otherwise you will die after 2-3 hits of it. And you have to make sure there's not a lava pool behind the one nearest you, though standing in a lava pool is not as bad as being hit by Crystal Storm.

If I were adapting this fight for RMXP, I would:
- Make Sand Blast simply target two random party members.
- Make Eruption deal damage only to characters who performed a physical attack that round.
- Lava pools would be replaced by summoned lava elementals, which would only attack the lowest HP party member. They would self-destruct after a few turns.
- Stalactites would also be summoned enemies, but would not deal damage. Slabhide would deal earth damage to all party members when he summoned them, but after that they would just sit there.
- When Slabhide starts using Crystal Storm, the player would have to attack and destroy a stalactite. Doing so would create a resonant sound that shatters his crystal storm but strengthens any lava elementals that are alive.

I got tired of typing these out. Here are links to summaries of the other two bosses, Ozruk and High Priestess Azil.

[kraz007]

I would agree that BOSS fights should be less about the bosses themselves, more about the PC characters:

What are their strengths? - Allow them to shine ...
What are their weaknesses? - Make a valid attempt to exploit them...

That being said, here's one bess boss fight. Boss tied down, only attacks from range. At 50%HP, he enrages and breaks from his shackles. Switches to deadly melee and goes for the PC who dealt the most damage.

[EnderX]

Not sure if this counts as 'fun and epic', but it's something I've played with in the past.

Set up the boss with multiple possible 'branches' to what they can do. Have these branches be triggered by variables or switches set by how the heroes acted in battle. (Either just in that dungeon, or throughout the game, depending on scope of Boss.) Essentially, the player is 'teaching' the boss in question how they fight, at least in general terms - which means the boss should, if set up wisely, be able to counter the strategies the player has been using up until that point. If the player spammed magic, have the boss ready with shell and silence effects; if they didn't heal until nearly dead, have the boss lead them on with chipping damage, then strike powerful blows at low hp. If the player used items (healing or battle items) a great deal, have the boss knock them away.

The catch to this, and the reason I enjoy trying to set them up, is that such a tuned boss can be made at least 'easier', if not 'easy', by swapping out to another set of tactics. It forces the players to think about what strategies they have available to them based on skills, equipment or items, etc.