Some quick and simple tools to allow authors to create their own boss:
1) Allow scaling of existing "costumes"
2) Choose a hit point range, the game can then scale based on level/group size.
3) Set triggers based on %health of boss.
4) Assign abilities from a power pool.
Yes please.
1) Custom Name/Appearance that sets it apart.
2) HP scaling system. Something as simple as say bossmobhp=playerbase*200%. So say a single character with 1000hp solos a mission the boss mob hp would be around 2000hp where as a group of characters say hp total of 11500 would create a mob boss of 23000 hp. The % scale could be adjusted by devs behind the scenes per player feedback. IE bosses to hard/easy polls, etc.
3) %health and combattimer are a must when it comes to a boss imo. It would be nice to have some form of drop down menu where you can choose (say) 5 abilities and at what hp lvl the abilities are used. We probably all have played games where you could set your npc teammates to use a certain skill (say heal) when a condition is meet.
4) Icing on the cake would be somewhere down the road having the boss be able to interact with the environment. Even if its as simple as running to a wall at a certain point, to simulate him pulling that dreaded trap trigger. What fun it would be if we could then go one step further by scripting to prevent the traps from going off by preventing the boss to reach the wall.
The big ones for me like many others is scalable hp, adjustable abilities that use a trigger (ie heal, timer, number of players present).
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rathma86Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 80
edited April 2013
Orrr... Just go Hella Final Fantasy on it, make it a 1hr +boss encounter.... LOL
Orrr... Just go Hella Final Fantasy on it, make it a 1hr +boss encounter.... LOL
Make it really long and drawn out, but not challenging at all. Then, when the boss is at its final 1% of health, make it unleash an unblockable instant-kill AoE that can be avoided by doing something very specific on the map that nobody can be prepared for. This is great game design, trust me!
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crok2Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, SilverstarsPosts: 0Arc User
edited April 2013
To me, a boss would programmable. Of course this will be in my dream world. I want to be able to assign special abilities that have to be learned, by trying the fight and dying a few times, to beat it. Random made up example: I want the boss to be able to trap a single individual for the duration of the fight unless the group does X to release the person. I want dynamics to beat the encounter. Of course this would have to scale to 1 person as well OR be labelled as a group quest. Or both! No idea how to keep people from abusing it though. No one wants to run a foundry for over an hour and then encounter stacked bosses that can't be beat. Only allowing 1 boss would help, but there would still be mob stacking. Maybe that's ok. Maybe the foundry self policing would be enough.
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masticonusMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 13Arc User
edited April 2013
Minimum to make it a boss:
Boss intro cut scene.
Boss Health Bar.
I can do a lot with just that. I can use triggers to spawn NPCs. I can include traps. With this I can make a boss.
The idea of adding at XX% health special effects would make for some great flexibility.
Adding the ability to pick 3-4 encounter specific powers (PBAOE, AOE, Single Target Nuke, Single Target DOT, AOE DOT, AOE Stun, etc) could also great customizability but could also lead to some serious spam quests.
More than one boss per quest would also be nice, but you'd need to make sure people couldn't have 20 bosses in a row and call it a mod. Maybe a limit of 3.
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apocrs1980Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, SilverstarsPosts: 0Arc User
Ok, so recently I have found myself rather disappointing with the traditional MMO boss model of high hp, trigger health, environmental hazard etc. I mean - I agree these things are needed, but I was trying to think of new (to me) mechanisms that might add some fun to an encounter. This is probably brought about by the fact that I'm rarely if ever 'first' to a dungeon, so I end up in groups farming the dungeon, who 'brief' me on what to expect and farm it for loot. It takes the joy of discovery away
I am not a very experienced MMOer, so I have no idea if any of these have been done before. I would be shocked if they hadn't
1. Mimic
Under certain conditions the boss swaps places with a character. Models and position are swapped. Heals that target the character are applied to the boss, and attacks on the boss are applied to the character. This has a tell (obviously) and a duration, but you need to pay attention or you miss it - like the boss bar flashing twice, or a special animation. (its not an obvious telegraph like a spoken cue).
2. Crit reflection
The boss a % chance of absorbing an attack that crits, and reflecting it back to the attacker. Has a short 'red circle' type telegraph, but certainly makes the DPS think for a moment about unleashing that daily. Alternate approach, boss enters a phase that reflects damage incoming damage as AOE burst DPS. Any damage in the burst not blocked or dodged also HEALS the boss.
3. Adaptive resistance
If more than x percentage of damage over y time is of type 'z' then gain xx percentage resistance to that damage type for a given duration. This forces the party to balance and adjust damage type over time to reduce resistance bonus.
4. Healing Vampire Aura
'x' percentage of all healing energy is redirected to the boss. The more cautious the party is about taking damage and the less healing they require, the easier it becomes to take the boss down.
5. Camoflauge
For a short time, characters lose the ability to separate the boss from the trash mobs - the boss aquires the character model of the trash mobs, and the 'boss bar' disappears.
6. Situational Awareness
The boss is adaptively tactical, and changes behavior based on party composition. Roll in with a party which is DPS class heavy, and the boss will respond by choosing one behaviour/skill profile. Tank heavy, and you get a different profile. Slight randomization to timing of other triggers. I haven't really thought this one through yet. The idea really is to mix up the experience somewhat - each time you encounter that boss will be a slightly different experience unless your party is identical. Watching a YouTube playthrough won't immediately tell you everything you need to know about this boss.
Essentially, I want to see high end bosses that subvert traditional tactics, and require flexibility on the part of the party, instead of rote responses at generic triggers.
To bring this back on topic, it would be amazing to see a system flexible enough to allow the creation of these sorts of events. Not in the 'pick ability from list' way, but in a fully scripted way. I'm not exactly holding my breathe here - the ability to roll up such advanced tactics within player created content would be hella hard for the NWO judges to evaluate.
But a man can dream, right?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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masticonusMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 13Arc User
This wouldn't be a problem as something like that would be impossible to complete, there for no one would play it
I disagree. I think that it would be possible to complete and it would probably be one of the most used quests to spam loot. Assuming bosses dropped greater loot than other mobs (which I'd have to assume), there would be a huge number of people who would want a quest in which you just kill the big guys for the good loot, then complete the quest, running back and forth, no clickeys to find. I admit it's not what the foundry is designed for, but neither is Admiral Fluffy (or what ever it's called) in STO. Yet it's the highest rated quest in the game.
I would like to see a variable for Boss encounters from Official Dungeons. The variable is the special abilities of the boss. For example a Boss special attacks are based on Charge and Melee. Currently you can re-run that dungeon and the mechanics stay the same for every run. It becomes a rinse and repeat and you learn you want a certain party makeup for that boss. This ends up where certain classes or certain builds of classes get the invites to queue for the Dungeon.
If you set it up so that the Boss has 5 different mechanics that could be attached to the boss or 5 different bosses in the same skin but different abilities/mechanics that can get spawned based off a random trigger. So every time you run that dungeon you never know what mechanic you will run into. Could be a melee, magic, control, area affect, or player focus style of mechanic. You can't pre-plan for a specific group makeup because you don't know what you are going to get. No more rinse and repeat or I know he will smash the ground at 30% health... Eventually you will learn all the mechanics but I think it will extend the end game content.
As far as Foundry Boss.. Movement: Teleport (Instant Relocation), Planeshift(Vanish 2-3 seconds and reappear behind a random player then bop him on the head like Homey the Clown), Time Shift (Run speed increased n% and attacks multiple targets)
Health: Large Bucket of Hit Points, Self Heal nTimes, Self heal at 25% back to 50% if you can't reach 25% health in nSeconds from the time he hits 50% health.
Target: Class Target Random, Class Target Specific, Player Target Health Level, Player Target DPS Output. Each one of these the Boss could charge and special attack or multiple regular attack the target and then return back to who ever had aggro.
Control: Take control of a player and make them attack other players until spell broke(time or damage taken/given), Dead zone (Immobilize / incapacitate a player), Fear (Make player run away from battle for nSeconds)
Area: Damage(Traps, Acid Rain, Fireballs, Lava, Ice...), Battlegrounds(Floors turns yellow then falls or crumbles away), five separate floor spaces break apart and float around close to one another (You have to jump as the floors pass each other to get back to your party or get close to boss to attack).
Damage: Enrages at different times or health to increase DPS output from hitting harder or faster. Switches from a Melee style to a range or magic style. Activates reactive armor or some mirroring effect that returns n% of damage to player.
Transformation: Changes into a werewolf and takes on the characteristics of it. As a Devil it could transform into one of the many souls it has taken and then take on the characteristics of the new image.
Comments
Yes please.
1) Custom Name/Appearance that sets it apart.
2) HP scaling system. Something as simple as say bossmobhp=playerbase*200%. So say a single character with 1000hp solos a mission the boss mob hp would be around 2000hp where as a group of characters say hp total of 11500 would create a mob boss of 23000 hp. The % scale could be adjusted by devs behind the scenes per player feedback. IE bosses to hard/easy polls, etc.
3) %health and combattimer are a must when it comes to a boss imo. It would be nice to have some form of drop down menu where you can choose (say) 5 abilities and at what hp lvl the abilities are used. We probably all have played games where you could set your npc teammates to use a certain skill (say heal) when a condition is meet.
4) Icing on the cake would be somewhere down the road having the boss be able to interact with the environment. Even if its as simple as running to a wall at a certain point, to simulate him pulling that dreaded trap trigger. What fun it would be if we could then go one step further by scripting to prevent the traps from going off by preventing the boss to reach the wall.
The big ones for me like many others is scalable hp, adjustable abilities that use a trigger (ie heal, timer, number of players present).
Make it really long and drawn out, but not challenging at all. Then, when the boss is at its final 1% of health, make it unleash an unblockable instant-kill AoE that can be avoided by doing something very specific on the map that nobody can be prepared for. This is great game design, trust me!
Boss intro cut scene.
Boss Health Bar.
I can do a lot with just that. I can use triggers to spawn NPCs. I can include traps. With this I can make a boss.
The idea of adding at XX% health special effects would make for some great flexibility.
Adding the ability to pick 3-4 encounter specific powers (PBAOE, AOE, Single Target Nuke, Single Target DOT, AOE DOT, AOE Stun, etc) could also great customizability but could also lead to some serious spam quests.
More than one boss per quest would also be nice, but you'd need to make sure people couldn't have 20 bosses in a row and call it a mod. Maybe a limit of 3.
This wouldn't be a problem as something like that would be impossible to complete, there for no one would play it
Ravenloft
Look for@Apocrs1980 or visit the main page here or Ravenloft here
I am not a very experienced MMOer, so I have no idea if any of these have been done before. I would be shocked if they hadn't
1. Mimic
Under certain conditions the boss swaps places with a character. Models and position are swapped. Heals that target the character are applied to the boss, and attacks on the boss are applied to the character. This has a tell (obviously) and a duration, but you need to pay attention or you miss it - like the boss bar flashing twice, or a special animation. (its not an obvious telegraph like a spoken cue).
2. Crit reflection
The boss a % chance of absorbing an attack that crits, and reflecting it back to the attacker. Has a short 'red circle' type telegraph, but certainly makes the DPS think for a moment about unleashing that daily. Alternate approach, boss enters a phase that reflects damage incoming damage as AOE burst DPS. Any damage in the burst not blocked or dodged also HEALS the boss.
3. Adaptive resistance
If more than x percentage of damage over y time is of type 'z' then gain xx percentage resistance to that damage type for a given duration. This forces the party to balance and adjust damage type over time to reduce resistance bonus.
4. Healing Vampire Aura
'x' percentage of all healing energy is redirected to the boss. The more cautious the party is about taking damage and the less healing they require, the easier it becomes to take the boss down.
5. Camoflauge
For a short time, characters lose the ability to separate the boss from the trash mobs - the boss aquires the character model of the trash mobs, and the 'boss bar' disappears.
6. Situational Awareness
The boss is adaptively tactical, and changes behavior based on party composition. Roll in with a party which is DPS class heavy, and the boss will respond by choosing one behaviour/skill profile. Tank heavy, and you get a different profile. Slight randomization to timing of other triggers. I haven't really thought this one through yet. The idea really is to mix up the experience somewhat - each time you encounter that boss will be a slightly different experience unless your party is identical. Watching a YouTube playthrough won't immediately tell you everything you need to know about this boss.
Essentially, I want to see high end bosses that subvert traditional tactics, and require flexibility on the part of the party, instead of rote responses at generic triggers.
To bring this back on topic, it would be amazing to see a system flexible enough to allow the creation of these sorts of events. Not in the 'pick ability from list' way, but in a fully scripted way. I'm not exactly holding my breathe here - the ability to roll up such advanced tactics within player created content would be hella hard for the NWO judges to evaluate.
But a man can dream, right?
I disagree. I think that it would be possible to complete and it would probably be one of the most used quests to spam loot. Assuming bosses dropped greater loot than other mobs (which I'd have to assume), there would be a huge number of people who would want a quest in which you just kill the big guys for the good loot, then complete the quest, running back and forth, no clickeys to find. I admit it's not what the foundry is designed for, but neither is Admiral Fluffy (or what ever it's called) in STO. Yet it's the highest rated quest in the game.
Have to say, think this is a good basis.