Just a post to see what kind of mechanics we can think up, and what we'd really like to see in the game. Throw out whatever, be silly, be serious, be edgy, be fun.
If possible, make sure to note whether its for a group boss, raid boss, or event (Event being open world event).
I'd like to make a note, I'm one of the few people who believe in soft rage timers. I'll be adding ways that they can be added with what I believe is a reasonable way.
Boss: Mad Doctor Zoloctor
Type: Group
Mad Doctor Zoloctor (Now MDZ) will be in a large hexagon room. On each side will be reinforced glass, with either large vats, or machines on the other side. In the middle will be a small circle.
At the start, MDZ will start in the middle of the circle. The players can fight him there, however after a bit of time, the vats/machines will activate and if MDZ is standing in the middle, he will be buffed with more damage, and potentially a new ability (Electricity or something will zap whose in the circle). These buffs are permanent for him.
If players start beating on the reinforced glass, MDZ will leave the circle in an attempt to stop you. When the glass is broken, the vats/machines will activate again, and MDZ will head back to the circle to be buffed.
If a vat/machine is destroyed (Takes a bit of damage to destroy it still), it will slightly reduce the buff that the circle provides. If all of them are destroyed, the circle will be deactivated.
If MDZ runs off the circle to stop the players, a player can stand on the circle before MDZ gets back to it, the player will receive the buff instead of MDZ. However, the player is not equipped properly, and will be driven to a frenzy, so the player will lose control for 10 seconds, attacking targets at random (Including MDZ and other players). After the frenzy ends, the buff will slowly dwindle. However they will be left a stacking debuff, each time that same player goes on the circle, the buff will be increased, and the frenzy will last longer.
Strategies:
1. Players can either just try to burn down MDZ before he simply gets too strong.
2. Players can attempt to destroy the vats/machines reducing the buffs MDZ receives, and eventually stopping them all together.
3. Players can pull MDZ off the circle, and steal the buff themselves. Hoping that their own players won't kill them.
4. A mix between 2 and 3
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This one is how I'd think of an improved Rikti Invasion
Boss: Alien Invasion
Type: Event
Aliens invade, with a few drops flying around teleporting troops to the ground. As the outside of the ships are made of a material too strong for players, the only way to destroy them are to go inside. Once inside, players can go through destroying key components while fighting ship crew. After a bit, the dropship will be destroyed.
However, if left alone, ground troops will create shield generators, which will prevent players from boarding the ships, and causing reinforcements to arrive on the ships making things far more difficult on the ships. If continued to be left alone, ground troops will also create portals on the ground, that will bring in even more ground troops. Kind of a snowball effect essentially.
The idea is, having players work together on clearing the ground forces (Maybe having the weaker players deal with ground troops), while other players board the dropships and take them down. Can't focus on just one, need to bring down both.
We've tapped ideas from a variety of games, from traditional MMO's to bullet hell titles. Always love to see new mechanics ideas batted about.
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
If you make bullet hell bosses, I will insta love this game haha.
I'd like to see at least a few boss fights where stealth and/or extreme range are useful mechanics for managing aggro and tricking the boss into being less dangerous to a player with non-traditional, non-face-tanking defenses. How to implement?
Well, some could be typical maps where players with those existing skills are permitted to "cheat" a little due to the nature of a boss. For instance, if a boss is not very intelligent, it may very quickly lose knowledge and drop the player from its aggro list if line-of-sight is broken by restealthing or using terrain. A boss with poor sensing abilities may simply never understand where an extreme-range attack is coming from and might move or fire location AoEs in random directions.
Another method is to create special map sections which would allow more players to experiment with these tricks regardless of their power selections. Perhaps a very dark, or foggy, or maze-like room, where the visual range of the boss is reduced. Temp power infrared goggles could be made available to allow players to overcome their own reduced range. A different map might contain teleport pads or tunnels that the boss cannot enter, which players can use to shed aggro and reposition themselves without the boss knowing.
The key to both methods is to allow some realism in boss behavior. Most games let the boss see through stealth instantly and maintain perfect knowledge of player location and identity even in a confusing situation. That's fine for enemies with super-senses, but if applied to every boss, this eliminates some fun tactical options for the players.
In a sort of similar fashion, but maybe not quite? I personally would love situations where specific powers might give you a slight edge over a boss. Maybe flight / super jump you can reach a control at the top that might hurt the boss. Or super strength, might be able to toss a boulder on a device the boss is using. Etcetc
Would have to be fairly minor though, and more flavor than anything. Cause I'd hate to see groups specifically requiring that stuff.
I think it would be interesting to see a boss who could absorb energy and get more powerful the more energy it absorbed. So any attack or ability cast upon it would make it more powerful. And I see there could be a few ways to beat it.
- One would be to overwhelm it with too much energy. So if everyone was able to pump attacks into it, it would overload and turn into a puddled mass or maybe break up into a bunch of smaller masses with lower threshholds that could then be dispatched easier. (but each could also potentially become as dangerous as the original if not) I think it would be extra cool to make heals extra effective against it.
- another way to defeat it would be to starve it by taking out its current power source and surviving those defenses as well as the boss's attacks, remembering that any attack on the boss gives it fuel
- another way would be to somehow combine the two by attacking the powersource, spawning its defenders and somehow getting the power source's defenders to attack and overload the boss with you.
So this could be a DPS battle, a survival battle or a control battle or all of the above. And I think it could really highlight momentum effects.[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Counter-proposal ... "input" to the Boss above a threshold amount is "absorbed" and powers up the Boss, meaning you want a Death Of A Thousand Cuts rather than a Nuke strategy in order to be successful. Sort of an "inverse" Rage Timer. Do "too much" and you aren't helping your own cause, you're harming it, because you're aiding the enemy rather than advancing your own side (faster) towards success. That way, you wind up with a "steady ... steady ... steady ..." strategy needed to achieve a defeat, rather than just unloading everything all at once.
Boil the frog slowly, rather than (too) quickly ... because if you overdo it, there will be a backlash to deal with that will be more hazardous than taking a slow and steady approach.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Demon-possessed Necro-Man Sr. and Necro-Man Jrs. (because I love a good pun, I made Necro-Man Sr. look like it sounds like 'necromancer') Encounter:
Objective: Necro-Man Sr. and his lieutenants, Necro-Man Jrs. are about to do bad things. You're either heroes looking to stop the bad things, or you're villains who wants to haz his evil stuff.
Underground map because ambiance and it's the only real way for the map layout to work. Five mini-bosses at the points of the pentagram that the map appears to be arranged in. Or if that symbolism is too dark or might be found offensive (no, I don't want to have that conversation again, it's been done to death, no pun intended this time), it can be skull-shaped. With horns or something. Either way, five mini-bosses can be arranged at the points and the players can draw their own conclusions if they choose to do so.
A single Necro-Man Jr. (NMJr) is at each point. Each one will have a different mechanic based on their respective adds:
*NMJr-1 has adds (black) that gives him a life-boost when killed or Sacrificed (special move by the mini-boss, interruptible)
*NMJr-2 has adds (red) gives the boss a damage boost when killed or Sacrificed
*NMJr-3 has adds (orange) that explode in a PBAoE when killed or Sacrificed
*NMJr-4 has adds (purple) that also explodes but leaves caustic blood that's damage to stand in when killed or Sacrified
*NMJr-5 has adds that are just sheer damn numbers, literally five times the normal mob size (or just five mobs in extremely close proximity)
The map is laden with environment traps, like any good and classic encounter. And I like traps that encourage different travel powers to circumvent or that respond to different conditions.
*Spiked pits (with impaled cultists that also temporarily poison the player, vaguely alluding to the mini-boss adds that explode and leave caustic blood) are going to harass the speedster until he can superspeed up the pit wall and out (or maybe he was so fast, he ran right over the hole). Teleporter can just TP over it. Flyer doesn't give a damn like honey badger. Destructable obstacle.
*Spiked ceiling dripping acid to harass the flyer and speedster, but the TPer can get through relatively easily. Destructable obstacle.
*Collapsing cave tunnel ceiling keeps the flyer from getting through, but the TPer might have an option to get passed it, or maybe even the speedster can phase through the wall too, if they've invested enough into their respective travel powers. If it were possible, I'd make the wall clickable so that the speedster or TPer could get through, even if they didn't actually have that power. You don't want to force someone to take a power just to get through some bit of content. It would just trigger a map-based TP based on the clickable object to the other side of the wall. And if the TPer or the speedster gets through by their own powers, it would probably trigger an ambush, which'll be challenging to defeat on their own or in their limited numbers. If in the strange edge-case condition were to happen that everyone in the team was a flyer, I'd have the rubble wall be defeatable through damage. Edit: Actually, it's destructable, now that I've thought about it, due to later mechanics with adds.
Note: Flyers definitely won't set off the weight-based traps, but stealthy characters might if they're ground-based. Stealthy-flyers would definitely have the advantage. But that's a very specific combination of skills/abilities. Maybe Limited Stealth only has a chance to circumvent certain types of traps. Perhaps their Limited Stealth is based off a certain portion of the light spectrum, but they're still visible to thermal imaging, pheromone detection, or sound. Perhaps Improved Stealth, if that was an option, would expand their capabilities to cover the limitations of a lesser skill/ability. Either way, the encounter could possibly be coded to trigger (or not) on certain abilities.
BOSS FIGHT:
Eventually (let's hope), the team/party gets to the final room. It's in the center area of the pentagram or in the mouth of the horned skull or whatever. Depending on the order of the Necro-Man Jrs. killed/arrested, the team enters the room from a different tunnel. Either way, there are (potentially) five tunnels that lead into the central room. The reason I say 'potentially' is because if the team rushes to the end room, the encounter is different. I would want to balance the encounter depending on the route taken (e.g. time invested).
*If you don't defeat the NMJrs along the way, the tunnels are open behind you, leaving the final fight available to additional ambush adds. The boss has only 75% HP for some strange reason (re: NMJrs are actually homunculus connected to Necro-Man Sr., they're like life-energy reservoirs). He actually starts at 100% but drops to 75% when he starts casting the summoning spell.
*If you defeat the NMJrs along the way, the tunnels are blocked behind you, preventing or limiting adds from getting to the room. This takes time, but the final boss fight is theoretically shorter due to less boss HP (50% at start, drops to 25% at start of summon spell) and less ambush adds. The NMJrs are not required to start the final boss fight, but if players choose to do so, I feel they should be rewarded not only with the additional potential drops from the mini-bosses, but the end fight should also be theoretically easier.
I'd prefer the fight to not be focused on the boss itself. That's done time and time again. Instead, it's the adds you have to focus on. So the boss can't be dealt damage directly from the players. Necro-Man Sr. is surrounded by a Wall of Force (or it's non-trademarked equivalent...) that can't be phased or TPed through or flown around/above/under. And since he's surrounded by such a perfect defense, he can't access his externally-derived stygian energies. Makes sense, otherwise it wouldn't be perfect. The Barrier is attackable, but I'd like to make so that only upper tier attacks can damage it, due to it's resilience. So, he's going to use his own tained life-force as the juice for his spell and summon his demonic patron, Reficulnatas (Satan + Lucifer backwards because I'm making this up as I go). That name is (forked) tongue-in-cheek. I don't actually expect that name to stick. Anyways. The room is also full of timed and/or triggerable (damage-able) traps and mysterious (mildly-hidden) switches.
Boss' HP is ticking down. If he gets to full HP, encounter over. [b]More on this in The Aftermath.[/b]
Now, NMSr needs to stain his soul just a bit darker to pull this off, but if the party defeated the NMJrs along the way, since those were his life-force reservoirs, he doesn't have enough HP to cast the spell. However, what he can do is use the life-force of his cult-followers as fuel to complete the spell. Essentially, stop the adds from getting to the Barrier where they die and do things. The adds are the same type of adds that were seen (or not) in the NMJr fight(s). One of the advantages of fighting the NMJrs is that the team knows what each color-coded add does. If the party didn't defeat the NMJrs, they're going to arrive as ambushes with their adds because NMSr needs their life-energy to finish the spell. They contain approximately 10% of his total max HP (50% divided amongst the five of the NMJrs, that's why he's at 50% if you defeat them before this). Fret not, fellow adventurers. Why would I punish players like that? So what if they zerg rushed the boss? Maybe that's how they like to roll. Don't worry. I'm not that evil. Since they didn't fight the NMJrs, the tunnels are open... which means the traps are still there. If the team can find the switches (more on this below) and activate them properly, they can either collapse the tunnels and/or trigger the traps to impede that incoming adds. This won't keep them out forever. It will only slow them down. Necro-Man Sr. will also burn a bit of his life-force to summon adds (randomly). They could be the exploding kind or they could be the life-force kind or whatever. They're summoned (also randomly) somewhere in the room where there could be enough time to intercept them with CC or AoEs or whatever, but not always. If the traps in the room are destroyed, that's just more surface area on the map where they could be summoned. So there are advantages to leaving them there. Or player placement in the room, as a mob can't be summoned directly on top of a player.
All the adds can be used to the players' advantage under certain conditions, such as being Confused. Usually if a mob is confused, there's some measure of penalty like reduced XP or some nonsense. I get it, risk vs. reward. I prefer the reward to be either information or they do what they would have done for the boss BUT instead to the team. If the aforementioned trap switches haven't been triggered because the players haven't located them (they're not out in the immediate open but certainly discoverable), the first time a mob is confused, it will go for the switches and trigger one of them. He's confused, after all. He's working for the team now. Five confused mobs, if not activated by the players, will trigger five switches that activate the five separate traps in the five separate tunnels. If the switches have been thrown, then they'll just do their thing but it will positively affect the team instead. The confused adds will either heal the team, damage buff the team, PBAoE explode on the Barrier, explode and leave caustic acid blood on the ground to damage the Barrier or damage-able traps in the room or hurt other adds.
So you have multiple options of how the final boss fight can go:
*Standard contain and kill/arrest the adds so they can't get to the boss until he drops to zero HP.
*Confuse the adds so that they don't help the boss and attack either other adds or the Barrier and then hopefully the boss directly.
*Ignore all the adds, and rush the boss by trying to take down the Barrier and then Necro-Man Sr. himself with overwhelming damage.
*Any and all variations in-between.
[b]The Aftermath[/b]
*If the team loses, Reficulnatas is successfully summoned and banishes the team from his presence. This sets up for a later boss fight with Reficulnatas (yay!).
*If the team wins, Necro-Man Sr. is defeated, collapsing to the ground, form shriveled and desiccated like an ancient mummy. However, a diminutive twinkle wafts up from his corpse and whisks off with dark foreboding. This also sets up for a later boss fight with Reficulnatas (yay!). I did consider that Reficulnatas escaping, even at reduced capacity, may seem like it takes away some of the shine of actually defeating Necro-Man Sr., so I'd give a badge to go along with it (for first time accomplishment) and then because they won, they of course get that sweet, sweet reward of loot or gear or IGC or whatever.
I really like the boss fight, and the detail put into it. My issue though, is the losing. If you lose, you just continue the fight to the last boss? I could easily see people purposely losing the fight, just to get to the last boss quicker. I've legit seen stuff like this become the standard, and you can get kicked from groups if you don't exploit stupid crap like that.
I hope we have a global event that happens at some point on the servers over the course of a few days that is sort of like a global battle.
Well, that's one of the options, if I understand your question correctly. If you choose to go to the last fight without dealing with the other mini-bosses, that's going to influence the parameters of the encounter, such as higher HP and those additional ambushes that include the mini-bosses. That is, unless you use the switches that trigger the traps, which slows the ambushes etc etc etc.
Another option to discourage failing for speed in multipart encounters (besides Cobalt Azurean's very valid plan) is to provide a good reward matched to the difficulty of each stage. It also helps in cases of internet connection issues or family emergencies that would otherwise deprive a player of the entire completion reward.
I think there is another thread out there with a similar purpose where we discussed various boss mechanics. One in particular was a "running" boss, where the goal would be to attempt to divert, slow, trap, or stun/mez the boss by various means in order to prevent it from reaching a target or escaping.
Second Chance: https://store.missingworldsmedia.com/CityOfTitans/SecondChance/
Dev Tracker: http://cityoftitans.com/forum/fixing-dev-digest
Dev Comments: https://cityoftitans.com/forum/dev-comments
Yes this is an old thread, but I think this is the best location for the following post:
I was reading through some changelogs for the MMO [b]Wakfu[/b], and the following update sounded intriguing:
[size=10]Quote was translated from the original French, so word choice is clunky. Emphasis provided by me[/size]
I thought that making these modifiers random and yet still appropriate to the type of boss archetype is great not only for making fights more interesting, but also for increasing replay value and preventing people from memorizing combats; and I especially like the point that these modifiers are positive only and purely optional.
I'm not saying that MWM should plagiarize Ankama, but I think this is interesting fodder for discussion and consideration.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Reminds me a bit of Diablo II. Strong monsters would be randomized with different effects on them.
On the harder difficulties you could run into problems like having a creature that's both magic and physical immune. But thems the breaks.
Having a mission modifier that randoms traits for the missions could make things very interesting. I could definitely see such a thing as an event with some chaos god or a Mr. Mxyzptlk analog is running around causing chaos. Could even mix in some good effects like enemies heal you when you defeat or all your attacks are more powerful. Along with all the enemy power up ones. Could even have one where they mix in another enemy group or make all the enemies from different factions. Or throw in a big villain.
An idea such as this has potential.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I seem to recall that MWM stated that bosses (named ones at least, and maybe AV level only) will have a fairly large pool of abilities but only use a random sub-set of them for each encounter, making it so that there is no point in trying to memorize the encounter as a whole.
That's when you call for your friendly Sorceress to take care of them.