Balrog21 wrote: » This will be a long post but bare with me.... 1. A boss fight to me should be epic. You've endured the dungeon or wild and it's minions to get to said boss, and now it's time to grit your teeth and put all your skills to the test. (I'm going to use a dragon as the example because I think we all associate a dragon with the big bad guy in a true fantasy mmo. That is not to say there are other type of nasties as bosses, I'm just using a dragon for this one.) A side note, I don't know if dragons in Ashes are like most table top rpg's as in they can talk and cast magic, but for this scenario I will assume they can do both.Phase 1. The Lair For one, since Ashes is implementing archetype skills, there should be traps all over the place, especially at the entrance to the boss. That is taking for granted the boss isn't stupid and it hears all the fighting going on in the hallways or caverns leading up to it. (which i hope is the case) The traps could be of any type, spike traps, flame traps, darts, etc. IT will give the rogue a hearty workout for sure and possibly the ranger. But as soon as the first party member steps into the lair the dragon takes flight and will do a few strafing runs on the entrance. The whole raid will have to time it to run to a relatively safe space while the dragon is circling above or get cooked. While the dragon is flying he will taunt the party, calling them insects, vermin, or even fool hardy wannabe thieves, etc Once in the room you notice the cavern is immense and the ceiling is barely visible, you also see a huge spire in the center of the room, which is a great distance away, with a stair case that is carved on the side of the spire that leads up to the top. You also see magical auras flashing from atop the spire and you hear booming chants coming from the top.. Great, he has lackeys to help him, but you do know the top of the spire is where you need to go. The raid sets off for the spire as the dragon continues to make strafing runs at the raid, and also uses it's massive weight and fire to loose huge stalactites from the ceiling that will fall down onto the raid, which are now fiery molten pieces of stone. A very tedious cat and mouse game ensues until the raid reaches the spire. Luckily, there are a few stalagmites scattered across the floor to hide behind while the dragon unleashes holy hell fire upon the raid.Phase 2. The Spire The raid has made it to spire, it's immense, a LOT bigger than you first thought. The spire ascends at least 100 feet up if not more, and the steps aren't very wide. A fall from the top would be certain death, and even halfway up a fall would be deadly. The journey up is not without peril. The dragon circles the spire breathing fire on the raid, and in once instance the dragon hovers before the raid and unleashes a HUGE breath of fire, engulfing a huge section of the stairs. If you are unlucky enough to be caught in it it will be certain death. To make matters worse the dragon tail slaps the spire and you have to be butted up to the spire wall or be knocked prone or off the side. After a tedious climb you make it to the top to find four wizards, hands and arms moving, voices booming. What spell or ritual they are attempting to cast is unknown but you know it's best to stop them. A very hard fight ensues and to make matter worse the dragon continues to fly overhead and breath fire onto the raid. The wizards employ all kinds of tactics to the fight even levitating off and away from the spire to rain spells of mass destruction onto the raid. One notable spell is a control person spell all wizards use, and it is discernible by the length of the time taking to cast the spell, those unlucky enough not to stop this spell will be controlled and walked off the spire top and fall to certain death. The fight is long and tedious, but you have managed to kill all four of the wizards and stopped whatever spell/ritual they were attempting atop the spire, but as the last wizard dies the dragon becomes enraged and finally lands onto the top of the spire.Phase 3. The Dragon The dragon lands and then with it's huge wings, wing buffets the raid hoping to knock some of them off the edge, but all will be knocked prone. if you are knocked prone the massive wind from the dragon's wings push you back 10-15 feet, hopefully you aren't at the edge of the spire. The fight is a nasty one, with it's breath weapon and tail slaps, bites, and claws. The dragon takes flight twice during the fight and lands repeating the wing buffet on the raid. As a last ditch effort the dragon polymorphs into a giant humanoid type creature and begins casting spells at the party. Numerous types of spells are employed against the raid, the control person, silence, mass control, slow, and the most powerful, the ray of death, which is a thin dark violet beam that will dot the player and quickly kill the player. The dragon not being stupid knows it's losing the fight and takes to the air once again, hoping it will end the raid with it's fiery breath. While hovering above the raid, the raid has to burn him down to kill him, otherwise the dragon will self heal itself x number of heath and the process will start all over again beginning with phase two of the dragon fight. If the party does manage to bring him down the dragon falls from the sky engulfed in flames bellowing, "You will never find my hoard!!!!"Phase 4. The Hoard The old dragon is a smart one, it has hidden its hoard in a secret chamber deep underground in the cavern and yes, its trapped and spell warded. Time to use those archetype abilities to find it! The raid finally diffuses the traps and breaks the ward on the treasure. A hard day, but a great day to be an adventurer! This is what I'm hoping to see and my vision as an example of an epic boss fight in Ashes of Creation.
Balrog21 wrote: » @Kreed believe it or not the picking up and carrying a random player away was in my original scenario...I just dont know of Ashes will have that type of mechanic in the game, hence why I didnt add it in. I do love the tail spike idea and getting thrown off....anything new and unexpected is a plus in my book. The old tired and worn out tank and spank or just move to pre lit area is old....we need/want more these days I do believe. The computer power is there and so is the AI. I hope we see it in Ashes! Thanks for commenting.
maouw wrote: » @Kreed Maplestory has a boss that does the player grab thing (at 1:06): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVzgmVT6QiA&ab_channel=drewsPistol You have to jump on his shoulders/back to hit his face to free them. I don't think it's quite what you imagine though?
Birthday wrote: » Really great thread with amazing ideas from OP and everyone. Hope devs see the post.
grisu wrote: » I actually laughed reading the "use the tank as a bat" thing. Really cool. In general I'm always for a more expansive repetoire of boss fight mechanics. I will say it here again like in my old thread. I don't always have to kill a boss to win. There are endless ways to feel victorious even if you didn't bring something to 0 HP. Same for the boss fight itself as you have pointed out. There are a lot of things you could do with bosses that are not "I throw x at you". I can think of a few games that did that and were memorable for it, none of them were mmos tho. Definitively something to make your mark in. Other than that eh don't care to much. Armor (not just female) will always be a topic of discussion. I just always plead for lots of options so everyone can find something they like. Some want something more risque some want the full body armor plating and others just want to skin their enemies and wear their fur as thropys (hint hint). Neither are wrong as long as it fits the general styles found inside the world. Only thing I will disagree on is incorprating skills of other classes through your 2ndary choice. For now at least. I want to see the extend of customization first that you can achieve with what is already planned. Aside from it all being pretty expansive (supposedly) I don't agree with the reasoning. A ranger that can throw an icebolt doesn't feel like a true crossover of two classes. It feels weird. Why is he casting a shitty icebolt that his stats don't support? Even worse why DO his stats support an icebolt? 2 Spells don't change enough and yet already I have more problems with it than I care to admit in a post. A ranger that can enhance his skill to apply the effect of an icebolt on the other hand feels like, imo, a class that expanded itself in a natural way. Learning from other classes.
maouw wrote: » I reckon there's great opportunity using deep-learning neural nets for boss AI in a way that takes in the raid's abilities. Doesn't have to be trained to perfection (coz at that point, humans resort to cheesing the AI like in DotA2). Also if the same boss can occasionally spawn with a different personality: like in one raid where the boss is really defensive and the battle is more about going all out at every opportunity you get before the boss flees, but then another raid the boss is really aggressive, so your concern is more about keeping everyone alive. I enjoy the classic bosses with protected weakpoints - where you have to do something for the boss to fall over and then you can attack its weakpoint. It'd be cool if there was a boss that goes invisible and tries to jump attack someone in the back lines HOWEVER, there is a danger of going overboard coz boss mechanics can become annoying gimmicks.
Xenotor wrote: » A boss having multiple Phases that change the way it attacks is pretty common. But as stated above. It become stale quickly as guides pop out saying "Do this in phase 1 and do that in phase 2." A better way would be to have multiple different skill sets for each boss. Every time the boss spawn they random a set of them. Example. The ogre can in Phase 1 - 4 Swing around his tree and has skills corresponding to that. Or he has no tree and starts garbing and swinging players. Or he spawn as a Elemental variant but you only see it after he starts breathing Toxins. Or he calls Adds that he usually only calls on the second phase. There could be dozens over dozens of moves for 1 boss that could be miss matched to different phases. When the phases start should also change with each boss spawn. The first time you killed the boss he went into phase 2 at 80% health. In your second fight he switched to phase 2 at 95%health and switches phases randomly every 5% - 10% health, never changing at the same % twice. There is so much potential for engaging boss fights. The only negative site is the time to create all that. Each boss would take the time of several "Normal" bosses to create. I am however a fan of Quality of Quantity. Better a small number of engaging bosses then a large number of boring bosses. #MakeBossFightsChallanging
