Puzzle Battles, enemies that need a strategy Options

[bulmabriefs144]

So you're in some boss battle, only... before the enemy is killed off, they (a) suddenly heal themselves, ( change strategy or elemental weakness, and/or © need a specific command to kill in the first place.

So, what do you think about having battles like this? Good, bad, overused?

[Essenceblade]

Sounds like a good idea, it is always good to add variance in bosses to counter the "Spam X/A/Enter to beat every battle" theory. If you've ever played Lost Odyssey for Xbox 360 and checked out their boss battles, pretty much every boss had some sort of strategy in which you needed to plan out. FF Bosses also share a similar relation, I.E: Bosses that cast zombie on you, then attempt to cure you. which instantly adds intensity to battles. What's overused is the fact that every boss charges up for a certian move. If you add variance into that, the battle becomes yet again, more intense. So in my opinion. Strategy on bosses makes your game stand on its own feet that much more.

[Tsukihime]

Really depends on your target audience.
Some people are turned off when they come into a battle and then have no idea how to finish it.

My boss doesn't die and just keeps regenerating itself until you figure out that you're supposed to wait 3 turns while it has less than 5% HP (it doesn't have any healing skills).

Now who would figure that out?

This post has been edited by Tsukihime: Oct 18 2011, 09:23 PM

[Oceans Dream]

Yeah you should always have some hint on how the boss is beaten. For example, have enemies in that area sort of mimic the idea but in a lesser sense, a visual clue, have one of the characters give a hint (Hmm, not wise to attack it while it's in its shell!) or things of that nature. You could do a "just figure it out!" boss if it's not too bad of a pattern or if it's an optional and want to see if your player can spot it, but I would take care when doing these for main story bosses.

If it's a puzzle boss, you'll also want to clue in and reward the player who managed to figure it out. Basically want to inform the player that its correct/not correct and not just feel like the boss is overpowered or has unlimited heals or whatever. Just simple gimmicks even can vary things up so every boss is not just some big monster with 99999 HP and 9999 Attack.

Successfully repeating a pattern 3 times might be okay. I think it might be preferable to have the boss defend against wrong attacks rather than heal itself because you did it wrong. Healing makes it feel like your work went to waste and that it's a cheap boss instead of a puzzle boss.

Sun of Son in Chrono Trigger had a big Sun with little fires around it. Doing an all enemy damage skill just gets you counter-attacked instead. So you have to hit the correct fire so it will do damage to the big Sun. You get an audio hint and the damage shown that you did it correctly. And it shuffles it every so often so you can tell that you need to do something with the flames. You could also equip fire elemental armor to lower or nullify the damage you take as well. It's always good if you have multiple ways of solving a battle, rather than having to only think in a certain way.

This post has been edited by Oceans Dream: Oct 20 2011, 10:33 AM

[bulmabriefs144]

Yeah, a hint would be good. (Maybe I should take this to heart, as I have a few of these)

[Atoa]

You should try playing some Shin Megami Tensei games, there a lot of enemies that requires different stragies. (not only bosses)
One thing that would add challenges to battle is wise use of status effect. A thing that no many people do. People in most time focus on the boss damage and forget everything else.

Bosses that switch patterns and weakness during the fight is one thing that also could add some challenge, i've fought some bosses in some games that seemed impossible to beat, but once you figured how the actions pattern of these bosses worked, they were easy.

Another game with some ideas that can be applied is Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced and Advanced 2, there was the "law system" wich was thing that you couldn't do in battle, or it would mean penalties, there is some that could be applied to some enimes, like the copycat, where the player would be penalized if he repeat the action of a previous player. So you can make a enemy that gives a strong counter if the player repeat the actions of another in sequence.

[Kaust]

Personally, I wouldn't consider a boss healing itself at the end a strategy battle, its an incredibly annoying battle that has now doubled in length. Especially since these bosses tend to be 'tanks' in themselves.

A lot of the ideas on here though ( http://www.rpgrevolution.com/tutorial/desi...ounters_76.html ) I instantly recognised as being some of my favourite fights from the FF series.

So while they may be 'overused', certainly not original, adding a couple of them would make your game considerably more entertaining, and would mix-up it up sufficiently.

[bulmabriefs144]

Well that alone, mebbe not. But if it can only be weakened by some such magic or item, making it killable, probably so. The other way to do this is have the enemy be superstrong to just about every element and then weaken it. In Forever's End for instance, you had an enemy weak to water, but only after its body was heated up. Hmmm, let's look at the list.

I disagree on the Tank one. I actually liked the end boss to Legend of Dragoon which was a marathon boss even with good items. The key is to have items prepared that makes the boss more doable, and you can increase the difficulty by not using/equipping them. I think most of my classes tend to be Tank hybrids with other stuff.

Done the Eggshell Sledgehammer (which I personally dislike, since it tends to require a great deal of grind to stay in the game). Done the Time Bomb, which I like, but I had trouble managing it, as either the party couldn't kill it in time, or they killed it easily. I did it by turns rather than a straight timer though (closer to Timed Attack, except it was after like 30 turns, and the attack would 0hko the party). Linear Transforming I've done, as a way to extend Tank enemies to epic levels (usually making this an endurance battle, as you start running out of MP and need pots). Unbeatable are generally a bad idea. Bosses should seem unbeatable, and maybe even respawn without the proper weakness, but Unbeatable bosses smack of Deus Ex Machina events. It's better to make a boss that you can lose to, or deal the limit (gaining the experience and bonus weapon as a perk), but it's a Tank Sledgehammer making it seemingly unbeatable. Little Helpers I've done a variant on, Puppeteer. Basically the boss is fairly weak, but immune to mass spells while the Helpers are on the field. They mainly get beaten by weapon attacks. The helpers on the other hand are much stronger (and possibly invulnerable) but die when the boss does. I think I've done the Multi-Part Boss and the Team Boss is a recurring feature in the form of a nemesis group. Done a Random Transform Boss, and one mini-boss enemy like this. Smart Fire takes too much battle programming, which I'm sorta bad at. Skipped Rotating Defense, but I know what you mean. The last one I have a variant on (you move instead, to solve the puzzle aspect).

I'd add a few:

Renewal Boss

Keeps coming back. Unless you know its weakness. You'd better figure it out, and quick! Expect this to be true of ghosts, Elder Gods, and demons. Sometimes the best you can do is banish or seal it rather than kill it, using some sort of special item.

Armored Boss

The enemy is pretty much invulnerable to attack, until you do something to break its defenses. Then you can attack it normally. Fairly common feature in Final Fantasy X and X-2.

Core/Hostage Boss

This is actually kind of easy, but still fun. The boss has some glaring mark on its body, like a crystal on the forehead or something embedded in its chest that kills it off when destroyed. Often used in golems and such, like an enemy in Final Fantasy IX. A variant of this is earlier in the game called the Hostage Boss (this is also used in the game before). In this battle, an ally is somehow being held inside the boss's reach. Your job is to kill the boss before all its energy is drained since the game is over if your ally dies.

True Strategy Boss

The enemy is seemingly unstoppable, but has a few flaws. To defeat it, though, you'll need to figure out about three or four things to use against it, since one of them will fail alone. Example:
1. Dispel its Regen
2. Reflect on your party to bounce back defense lowering spell (and most of its offensive spells) making it weak to your magic and its own
3. Cast poison/demi on it to whittle down its huge hp.
The only example I can think of that was more involved than this was maybe Final Fantasy X's gate guardian to Zanarkand. You had to some how keep it from massive regen and a bunch of other things, and it was fairly smart and could dispel and counter stuff.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Jan 13 2012, 09:58 PM

[Kaust]

But that seems like a strategy fight on its own, there would be no need for the boss to recover health. Admittedly, it would be easier to take down a second time once the strategy is figured out but the main 'strategy' element is discovering how to beat it, rather than actually beating it. This is assuming that it is so strong that without figuring out the strategy it would be nigh unbeatable.

The whole recovering at the point of death scenario has just always seemed to me a redundant manner of prolonging a fight. (With the exception of hume enemies, as it seems to validate your own party healing near death)

This post has been edited by Kaust: Jan 14 2012, 04:17 AM

[Titanhex]

http://www.rpgrevolution.com/forums/index....8&hl=Battle

Many games can benefit from strategy being added before the battle itself.

Perhaps destroying certain enemies before encountering the last boss makes it easier, or vice versa.

Hitting switches or having the boss battle occur randomly in the dungeon are ideas worth exploring. Certainly we cant be limited to the battle itself as designers.

[Kaust]

Eyeopening, especially your own post.

I had toyed with the idea of making the environment of greater consequence to a battle but only ever directly -the roof of the ancient ruin collapses signalling the end of the fight, or allowing the player to hit a cave's stalagtite above a foe that would do massive dmg when it fell (though making it targetable just seemed like it'd be too obvious).

But I much prefer your idea; it can be frustrating throwing all your attacks at a boss and getting nowhere because the strategy hasn't been clearly hinted, whereas your areas not only made it clear but I imagined the smaller spiders you mentioned the player would likely encounter several times and presuming they shared the same weakness as the boss would be a way of figuring out the bosses weakness before the life or death situation

@Bulmabriefs I love some of the additions you made in the edit. That cageplant enemy in FF9 was one of my favourites and is a way underused idea imo.
Not sure I fully understand the renewal boss (once you've successfully killed it the fight would end, so how would it respawn?) but it sounds much more interesting than a boss simply recovering its HP.

This post has been edited by Kaust: Jan 14 2012, 06:31 AM

[Titanhex]

Also imagine a dungeon where there's some Magical Entities flying around and the main boss is a giant manifestation of that. Red Entities vs Blue Entities.

Every time you kill a blue entity you absorb it. (Adds +1 to a variable.) Every time you kill a red entity, it destroys one blue entity inside you. When you get to the Giant Entity, it does a special move. For every blue entity you've absorbed it does bonus damage. The strategy is, before the boss fight, try to avoid killing blue entities. Or perhaps every time you attack him you do bonus damage based on blue entities. The idea now is to collect the entities.

Also why does a boss in a dungeon have to be single battled and confined to one room. Lets use the previous example. ANY time you kill an entity it increases a counter by +1. When that counter hits a certain amount, the dungeon boss appears to fight you, probably out of vengeance for those you've slain. This occurs every time you reach that amount on the counter. To compensate the boss may not be a very efficient fight, so your strategy would be to avoid this encounter.

Variants here are numerous too, use your imagination and experiment within the gamescape.

This post has been edited by Titanhex: Jan 14 2012, 09:54 AM

[Kaust]

Damn Titanhex, why haven't you got any games up? I'd love to play a game made by you.
You're clearly deserving of your Revolutionary title

[Titanhex]

lol Thanks Kaust. I do have one game I made in under a month for a competition. It's nowhere near as interesting as what I come up with though. I'm sure if I tried again I could do a lot more now than I could before though.

[X-M-O]

lol Thanks Kaust. I do have one game I made in under a month for a competition. It's nowhere near as interesting as what I come up with though. I'm sure if I tried again I could do a lot more now than I could before though.

Yeah, and I enjoyed the game you submitted to that competition! ^^
I'd definitely recommend you trying again, because I know you have the mind for game development. =D


On-topic reply:
I've seen a few Puzzle Battle games that I'd personally like better if they were RTS (or turn-based RTS; Fire Emblem style) games.
It's interesting to see the stories that develop under these game types though; usually linear, but almost always enjoyable. =]

[bulmabriefs144]

@Bulmabriefs I love some of the additions you made in the edit. That cageplant enemy in FF9 was one of my favourites and is a way underused idea imo.
Not sure I fully understand the renewal boss (once you've successfully killed it the fight would end, so how would it respawn?) but it sounds much more interesting than a boss simply recovering its HP.

The hostage thing is one of the few I haven't tried (because it is super-hard unless you really know programming).

Renewal bosses are like this. You have a blank enemy beside the boss. As long as that is on the field (and it's immune to all magic, and has a Evade Attacks status added to it on turn 0), there is some sort of If Boss Hp = 0, remove death status and add basically all hp back. In my game, you have an Exorcist character to deal with some of these (since alot of these bosses are ghosts or immortals), by using a switch to turn things off. This kills of the blank enemy, ending the battle. But since such enemies are like ghosts, they might have unfinished things to do. You could end the battle, for instance after you promise to find its lost keepsake it wanted to see once last time (the battle may restart if you later decide to try to run off without doing the job). Usually, such events are for after killing the enemy off a few times, sorta "It keeps coming back!" "Wait, let me talk to it..." thing.

[Titanhex]

That reminds me. I forgot to post this very useful list. I'll add my post here to my last post there. It could always use more ideas too:

http://www.rpgrevolution.com/forums/index....attle&st=20

[LDanarkos]

Really depends on your target audience.
Some people are turned off when they come into a battle and then have no idea how to finish it.

My boss doesn't die and just keeps regenerating itself until you figure out that you're supposed to wait 3 turns while it has less than 5% HP (it doesn't have any healing skills).

Now who would figure that out?

Yeah, exactly. Sometimes the puzzle is just impossible to decipher. If you have to attack your own party members to damage the enemy, or if the damage / healing that the boss receives secretly doesn't match what the game says it receives, or if you win the battle as soon as all of your heroes run out of MP or something like that... no one's going to get lucky and figure that out on their own. If an NPC tells you that it works that way, then it's different. But if you just have to figure it out through trial and error... good luck.

I very much approve of these puzzle-styled battles, but only when the elements of the puzzle operate in a transparent way. It should be clear or quickly apparent how everything functions, and the challenge should be how to best exploit these functions. I.e. if the enemies have heal spells, Life 1 spells (that only restore 10% of max health), use wall changes (change elemental weakness), go into defensive / offensive stance, regenerative enemies, wasting enemies (like they're already suffering from poison), auto-resurrecting lackeys, or other strategy-altering abilities, then that's fine.

This post has been edited by LDanarkos: Jan 26 2012, 04:19 PM

[Cleril]

Duel does exactly what you posted in the OP, OP.

Words also does this too with most enemies requiring some method of dealing with them efficiently and some enemies being drowned when they burrow if the water level (controleld by the player) is high enough.

[LDanarkos]

Trying to figure out how to delete this post...

This post has been edited by LDanarkos: Jan 26 2012, 05:36 PM