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

[Acewing]

Lucifer (Devil Survivor) - It casts an AOE each turn that deals damage that stacks per turn; gradually building up to the point where you'll die if you can't defeat him before a certain turn. That's the only entity that came to mind in terms of an actual "time-limit" imposed, though it's still based on turns more-so than actual time.

So do the damage still stack up on turns when he's immobilized? Like with sleep or stun?

He casts the AOE each turn no matter what you do to him, so you have to blitz him and take him down in terms of health relatively quickly or you end up losing. You can think of it as a battle of attrition that benefits the boss more than you; since all he would have to do is stall until it's turn each round.

Also keep in mind that Lucifer still attacks when his turn comes up; so you have to keep up with heals as well =p. (And reinforcements arrive once he's below a certain point to spice things up); although the reinforcements can actually get blocked off if you send someone to bait the aggro.

This post has been edited by Acewing: May 23 2011, 01:28 PM

[psychofreak]

He can still do stuff when he's stunned??? I thought of the strategy to save stunning techniques for when his attacks get really high. But now I'm not sure if there's any better strategy than just spam your most powerful attacks from the start as early as possible. Please don't tell me that's actually the best strategy.

This post has been edited by psychofreak: May 23 2011, 04:06 PM

[Acewing]

He can still do stuff when he's stunned??? I thought of the strategy to save stunning techniques for when his attacks get really high. But now I'm not sure if there's any better strategy than just spam your most powerful attacks from the start as early as possible. Please don't tell me that's actually the best strategy.

Eh, well you actually need around a level 80-99 party, not sure if anyone's done it below that, but it's mostly about getting as much hp as you can get so you can tank the aoe and dish out damage in return. There's a few vid's up on youtube if you type in Devil Survivor: Lucifer.

[amaro57]

Well, there's also the aspect of spamming your most powerful attacks that other monsters are weak too. So basically, I don't see it as "spam your most powerful attacks", but that you have to actually decide what each character will do, when, and effectively in order to beat the boss before the "time limit" is up. Sending in backups also affects the players strategy and forces them to rethink, or pre-plan.

Reminds me of Luminous Arc 1 and 2. The scripted monster backups in 2 were an absolute nightmare to take account into my strategy for some bosses. But you also had to use elevation and position of attacks (front,side,back; least to most damage) to increase your damage output, because that game is unforgiving if you charge in there expecting a straight isometric battle.

[manat31790]

1) Paula's "Pray" ability poped into my head about a week ago or two. My idea is that you aren't supposed to beat the boss, as doing so result in a game over or that the boss's unbeatable at all. You fight the boss in the normal untill the boss or your characters give you a signal. You then talk to the boss or pray for helps multiple time. I think this method is quite neat for bosses that aren't actually bad guys or one of your members are turned into an enemy. After all, giving dialogues during a battle's one of the good ways to make both battles and characters interesting.

2) Giving special rewards if you beat the boss within the requirement. It can be anything: beat it in time limit, beat it without having a key member in your team die, reduce it power to 10% without killing it, etc. (The idea is from Super Robot Taisen's mastery system.)

3) Making a boss unbeatable untill you fufil some requirements, like bashing it with a fire spell to shut down the boss's barrier before you can attack it. Make barrier change its element during the battle is also interesting as you need to figure what element you need to use to destroy it..

4) Bosses that are immure to and are weak to curtain attacking types. Work really well with in battle party swap system. Imagine FFX, where birds are weak toward Wakka's Blitzball throwing attack, while a heavy armored turtle are weak to Auron's armor-piecing katana, and wisp type enemies can't be touched if you keep spamming magic attacks.

[lemonairable]

In addition to the above information, I'd like to say that creating several different musical scores for boss battles will go a long way to keeping the player interested in continuing with the story. Furthermore, try not to have any irrelevant bosses. Even if they come completely out of nowhere, at least use them to add something to the information that the player knows or as part of a puzzle.

[masterofrotten]

for me personally even when designing bosses the key is strategy. The boss has got to have some challenge to it but not overbearing. Make the player sit back for a second and think "how am i going to tackle this?"

[Antaresmoon]

In my game
The boss is quite annoying and does a lot of status effects for the player to take care of just
to keep the player busy.

Such as kefka


This post has been edited by Antaresmoon: Jul 12 2011, 04:47 AM

[Reshiram//Exe]

Well...a good balance of difficulty and fairness is a good idea. Giving the player the ability to utterly obliterate everything that stands in their way is boring. For instance, My Game I happen to have as a side project, the character can go and get an Item called the Brutal Sword on the first floor of the dungeon. It allows the player to pretty much take down most regular enemies on the first few floors rather easily, but soon the enemies start using more powerful attacks. The only really decent way to resist elemental attacks is through wearing a Elemental Aligned shield. The Brutal Sword is 2-Handed, taking away your ability to equip a shield. At most, having say, a 2-Handed weapon against say, an Ice Giant(Which can use Ice 4) Is absolute Suicide, while wearing the flaming shield, body armour helm and the flare amulet will make it's attacks a Joke. While this also takes alot from your agility, meaning the Quicker enemies can stun you, then disable your elemental strengths, then the Ice Giant will cast Ice 4 and kill you. It comes down to a fact of, do you equip the flaming armour and a weaker weapon to survive easier or leave it to chance and take a 2-Handed weapon and Hope that you don't get hit by Ice 4. Casting Resist would help, but you are extemely limited on MP, even at maximum levels, requiring skillful use of Skills. If you spam Flare to win a boss battle, you'll lose because you won't have any MP to heal yourself.

[Doomhunt]

- 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

This is amazing. I really like what you've accomplished here. Would you mind maybe sharing with me how you did this?

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).

Just wanted to say that I really enjoy your system. I like that you have a learning curve here to introduce players to new status effects quote:"gimmicks" in order to further delve them into game play.

Reason for edit: Posts Merged See my reply below for more information~Jonnie19

[Shaddow]

Be careful not to necropost, anything older then six months is off limits, there is a newer version of this topic in the same area, or you can pm the poster if it was in response to something they said. Thanks.

[Jonnie19]

As Shadowval said, In this case you weren't adding more information to the post, which means that you are Necroposting.
Also please remember not to double post. You can use the EDIT button to add another reply. Thankyou

[userjosh704]

Suppose things you do out of battle could affect what goes on in a battle?
You could fight a boss in alternate locations and the location would influence the tactics. For instance, fighting a giant monster in a cave would give it the CAVEIN ability and a weakness to blind but fighting him by the lake would give him the TIDALWAVE ability and a weakness to lightning. The player would unknowingly decide this by choosing which route to take on an adventure. You could make a boss where one route will force a Magic and Ranged battle due to a big gap in the room and another route will force a battle in a trapped room which does terrain damage to the characters every round via spiked floor or swinging blades or fire or something.

This post has been edited by userjosh704: Apr 23 2013, 07:15 AM