Boss design

[Daynen]

Hi, uufortunatelly this thread is waaay to long to read the whole thing. But I did read the first 10 or so posts and here's my input:

Rewards
- No fixed loot. This is very deterimental to the gameplay, as many have already explained. Top players will not ever repeat the fight if once they got the loot.
- Random loot with high value in reprocessing. Rare crafting ingredients, obtainable only by trade or winning vs the boss. Look at "Frozen Core" from WOW:WOTLK. You couldn't get it anywhere but by killing a boss or buying it from other players.

This is very telling of one's MMO experiences and shows a very grind-oriented mindset. If the only reason people fight a boss is for the resources, then of course fixed loot will bore them quickly. If the boss is fun, dynamic, and genuinely challenging each time, then the fun of battle is a reward as well.

Boss locations

- Instances kill it for me. Instances are passe. Instances defy the whole "open-world" idea.
FF had a decent idea for open world bosses and I stand behind it. The issue with FF bosses was that they were "stupid", but that's a different topic. Someone above mentioned that if a boss spawns/comes into the main area of a city players should be terrified. If they are not then there's something wrong with design. I absolutely agree. In fact, I experienced something like that in FF. A melding tornado liked to spawn very close to Sunken Harbour. Now, when you are low lvl with "white" gear - a nado right next to your re-spawn point is a horror. At least in the old times. This is how the bosses in EM8ER should be. They should be allowed to "wander into" or teleport into an allied (presumably safe) city. This is exactly the event we want and need. All should panic and take part in defeating it, otherwise we lose the city.

And when they hit, I'll be right beside ya, guns blazing.

Boss AI

- Technically it is impossible to make the bosses behave like in DS. This is a Massively Multiplayer Real-Time Action game. How do you imagine synchronizing boss movements with your "dodges"? Ever heard of latency, bandwidth, packet loss?
- Instead, the idea with "fighting stages" where we need to destroy his armor or weapons before we can start hurting it seems much more reasonable.
- Erratic and Chaotic. This is the key - the boss must be totally unpredictable. Have you ever played Dont Starve? Seen how to fight a Deerclops? More or less "walk to it, walk back, wait one attack, walk to it, hit x3, walk back, wait aoe, repeat". This may work for Dont Starve, but would be ultra boring for an Action game. The boss should have a ton of possible attacks, some very rare, some very strong. And basing on some pRNG it should fire them periodically but without any obvious pattern. This would make every fight participant stay on their toes.

Let me know what you think

I don't think it's impossible; it's just a very different kind of design challenge with a somewhat different goal. Bosses can be intelligent, swift, sporadic, and responsive, even to multiple players; they just have to be designed to actually handle multiple enemies. The bosses in Dark Souls, for example, were CLEARLY not designed for multiple players; they simply can't defend themselves effectively against two or more people with their big animated attack tells and wide, detailed hitboxes. Every boss I've found challenging and fun solo crumbles like dry parmesan cheese when I have any help at all. Remember the bell gargoyles? Solo, it's a nightmare. Summon Solaire, and it's basically impossible to lose.

There's perhaps the biggest hint, Grummz: don't give bosses massive attacks that lock them into helpless animations for 3-5 seconds at a time. This basically pigeonholes them as single player encounters, which are EASILY made obsolete by even just one additional player. Keep them short and sweet; give their attacks some snap so they feel vicious and tenacious, not "ohhhhh look out, I'm gonna lift up my foot and stomp ya! I'm liftin' up my foot! My foot's in the air! I'm gonna stomp ya! I'm STOMPIN Y--oh. You moved. Sadface..." It's not challenging (for long,) it's not exciting (after the first time,) and it's not even appropriate to a real fight (unless the boss REALLY. IS. THAT. FREAKING. BIG.)

I also don't think bosses need to be totally erratic; there should be some method to their madness, especially since they do have a goal. They simply need programming that gives them actual assessment and decision-making skills, rather than a clumsy assortment of massive, instant-kill AOEs on a timed pattern that even the dullest of observers could work out after a single rotation. As long as bosses aren't that primitive, there's a good chance they'll be a lot of fun.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

AS FAR MY ROTTEN BRAIN CELLS CAN TELL. MOST PROBLEMS ABOUT STUPID ASS BOSSES. IS THE AI. THE MORE INTELLIGENT, THE MORE F*CK SERVER POWER IT NEEDS.

THE LATENCIES (THE POOR VICTIM YE ALL ALWAYS USE FOR STUPID EXCUSES) AND PROCESSING (YE ALL GOTTA BLAME SOMETHING FOR STUPID BOSSES) BETWEEN MMO(RPG) AND SHOOTERS, THERE'S A BIG. F*CKIN. DEFERENCE. ON HOW IT WORKS.

 

[Gaya]

This is very telling of one's MMO experiences and shows a very grind-oriented mindset. If the only reason people fight a boss is for the resources, then of course fixed loot will bore them quickly. If the boss is fun, dynamic, and genuinely challenging each time, then the fun of battle is a reward as well.

I won't argue with that. In fact - I absolutely agree, the mindset is very grind-oriented. Moreover, YOU also agree that this is the way. To explain: Since you are here, on these fora you are probably interested in EM8er. Now, EM8ER will be about thumping and resource refining. That is the ultimate grind so how can you argue that random loot and it's reprocessing is wrong?

Boss AI

It's really hard to come up with a good formula. And I don't expect us to bring anything very revolutionary to the table here, since great minds and whole teams have been working on this for years and we still haven't seen the best formula. What I propose is to learn from the best MMO's (don't forget, EM8er is an MMO) and refine it to be better. I would propose taking example from benchmark titles, such as WoW, GW2, etc. Those bosses are very strong, a single mistake from a healer, tank (or sometimes a dps) can result in a wipe and 30 min progress loss. Adding erratic behaviour adds more tension to the fight - not only you need to be careful because the boss is strong. You also need to be careful because you dont know what he's going to throw at you.
And just as Torgue_Joey said, AI requires great computation power and with the little budget EM8er has, we just can't allow it to be very sophisticated. Thus, my suggestion appears to be the most realistic within the constraints we have. Make it tough and make it random, make it a staged fight for more diversity (Not only pew pew pew, bang from a stationary position).

 

[Ars Nova]

I think there should be a balance when it comes to fixed /randomness of loot. Like, certain mobs have a chance to drop certain items, but only if they have been hit/killed with certain weapons or in a certain place. (Or NOT hit, as the case may be). And the best items, the rare items, should be ACTUALLY rare, and non-transferable (locked to the players time stream?) So we don't get established players just farming the economy. Like, you want something, you gotta work for it yourself, or get help to do so. (Squad loot rolls/manual distribution for that one)

As for bosses, FireFall had bad AI (AFAIK) because the game engine wasn't suitable for advanced AI, but UE4 has great AI support built into to it, and is good at accepting plugins, so if someone makes better AI for UE4, it's easy to add.

 

[Omnires]

In some games, the loot you get from some enemies change backed on how you fight them.

For example, http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Succubus#Black_Succubus
Note how you can take off the different succubi clothes if you do the right attacks on them. These clothing you knock off of them are a type of rare loot that can be female characters can wear as armor if they want. Like using Counterattack (a kind of block) against the Black Succubus will cause her to visually lose clothing.

There are other games that do things like this, that explain is just funny to me because you can also get titles for being like that. "the One Who Stripped a Siren."

 

[Torgue_Joey]

I think there should be a balance when it comes to fixed /randomness of loot. Like, certain mobs have a chance to drop certain items, but only if they have been hit/killed with certain weapons or in a certain place. (Or NOT hit, as the case may be).

YOU GOTTA KILL THE RABBIT WITH ACID. BUT. ALONG CAME AN ASSHAT JOEY AND BLOW SH*T UP WITH *EXPLOSIOOOOOON*
AND F*CKING RUINED YOUR STUPID LOOT.

So we don't get established players just farming the economy. Like, you want something, you gotta work for it yourself, or get help to do so. (Squad loot rolls/manual distribution for that one)

I DON'T THINK WE'LL GONNA HAVE THAT KINDA ECO-SH*T.
AND SUDDENLY ALL SQUAD LEADER AUTOMATICALLY BECOMES ASSHOLES FOR WANTING ALL YOUR SH*TTY LOOT FOR THEMSELVES?

 

[HumanTrainingBot]

I DON'T THINK WE'LL GONNA HAVE THAT KINDA ECO-SH*T.
AND SUDDENLY ALL SQUAD LEADER AUTOMATICALLY BECOMES ASSHOLES FOR WANTING ALL YOUR SH*TTY LOOT FOR THEMSELVES?

That's where clans/guilds/armies come in. Squad up with people you trust.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

That's where clans/guilds/armies come in. Squad up with people you trust.

I CALL DISCRIMINATION TOWARDS NEWBIES.

PS: clan/guilds??? WILL YOU PEOPLE KINDLY STOP F*CKING REMINDING ME ARTICLES I'M TOO LAZY TO WRITE ABOUT.

 

[Ars Nova]

Well then, maybe PUG squads will be locked onto the options "r-n-jesus loot distribution" or "he who gets it gets it".

But TBH, I was thinking that after an engagement, you'd see a screen which shows you squad loot, and everybody gets to 'tag' the items they want, and if uncontested, the player who tags gets it, but if more than one person wants it, they get the option to barter for it, and if there is no agreement there, it's roll an rng. (Ofc, in PUG squads, playerMaxTags=totalLootValue/squadMembers, where loot value is determined by rarity, so you can tag multiple low quality items, or fewer high quality items.
Guild squads have the same option and/or unlimited tags. )

 

[Daynen]

I won't argue with that. In fact - I absolutely agree, the mindset is very grind-oriented. Moreover, YOU also agree that this is the way. To explain: Since you are here, on these fora you are probably interested in EM8er. Now, EM8ER will be about thumping and resource refining. That is the ultimate grind so how can you argue that random loot and it's reprocessing is wrong?

Telling people what they agree with--never a good idea. I didn't say I agreed on what it HAD to be. I was making a psychological observation based on recognition and personal experiences. That doesn't mean I agree. There is a time and a place for "random loot." There is also most certainly a place for "no loot, but other rewards." The term "reward" is very subjective and very broad; saying everything is supposed to funnel down into a single resource, or even a few, is what leads to people gaming economies for maximum profit...instead of, I dunno, enjoying the game itself. Kept in check and in context, unpredictable loot can be fun and interesting...for awhile.

It's really hard to come up with a good formula. And I don't expect us to bring anything very revolutionary to the table here, since great minds and whole teams have been working on this for years and we still haven't seen the best formula.

It may sound a bit flippant, but I feel like that's a very defeatist attitude. Sadly, it's also telling of the same mindset I mentioned above. Don't let the past chain your perspective down like that! We can aim higher!

What I propose is to learn from the best MMO's (don't forget, EM8er is an MMO) and refine it to be better. I would propose taking example from benchmark titles, such as WoW, GW2, etc. Those bosses are very strong, a single mistake from a healer, tank (or sometimes a dps) can result in a wipe and 30 min progress loss. Adding erratic behaviour adds more tension to the fight - not only you need to be careful because the boss is strong. You also need to be careful because you dont know what he's going to throw at you.

Unpredictable behavior forces you to be on your toes, but the whole "one mistake from one person and twenty people instantly die" is not actually fun, it's just frustrating. Even if the death isn't instant, it can still be a guaranteed wipe before the fight's over, leading to "lame duck" scenarios where everyone knows they've lost, but there's nothing to do but go through the motions anyway. Nobody --NOBODY-- should want that. One mistake should suddenly add new challenges to the fight which must be answered quickly, leading to cumulatively harder fights as mistakes pile up; the "everyone performs perfectly or the night is a complete waste" formula is not as fun as people have convinced themselves it is.

That's not to say that such content can't exist! It's just to say that it should be the extreme exception so that only the hardest of hardcores care about it. The rest of us probably want something that challenges us without completely wasting our time for the tiniest of errors. (We probably have jobs for that IRL, honestly...)

And just as Torgue_Joey said, AI requires great computation power and with the little budget EM8er has, we just can't allow it to be very sophisticated. Thus, my suggestion appears to be the most realistic within the constraints we have. Make it tough and make it random, make it a staged fight for more diversity (Not only pew pew pew, bang from a stationary position).

Ahhh, but sophistication too can be relative. Keep in mind we're not 100% sure of the final budget for Ember yet; we only know it doesn't have AAA backing at the moment. Bear in mind that many pioneers of the game industry are the ones who've worked within tight constraints and squeezed surprising amounts of cleverness and performance out of difficult design situations. This ain't Grummz's first rodeo either, so I say let's keep the benefit of doubt on the table and hold on to some cautious optimism instead, shall we?

 

[Gaya]

Telling people what they agree with--never a good idea. I didn't say I agreed on what it HAD to be. I was making a psychological observation based on recognition and personal experiences. That doesn't mean I agree. There is a time and a place for "random loot." There is also most certainly a place for "no loot, but other rewards." The term "reward" is very subjective and very broad; saying everything is supposed to funnel down into a single resource, or even a few, is what leads to people gaming economies for maximum profit...instead of, I dunno, enjoying the game itself. Kept in check and in context, unpredictable loot can be fun and interesting...for awhile.




It may sound a bit flippant, but I feel like that's a very defeatist attitude. Sadly, it's also telling of the same mindset I mentioned above. Don't let the past chain your perspective down like that! We can aim higher!




Unpredictable behavior forces you to be on your toes, but the whole "one mistake from one person and twenty people instantly die" is not actually fun, it's just frustrating. Even if the death isn't instant, it can still be a guaranteed wipe before the fight's over, leading to "lame duck" scenarios where everyone knows they've lost, but there's nothing to do but go through the motions anyway. Nobody --NOBODY-- should want that. One mistake should suddenly add new challenges to the fight which must be answered quickly, leading to cumulatively harder fights as mistakes pile up; the "everyone performs perfectly or the night is a complete waste" formula is not as fun as people have convinced themselves it is.

That's not to say that such content can't exist! It's just to say that it should be the extreme exception so that only the hardest of hardcores care about it. The rest of us probably want something that challenges us without completely wasting our time for the tiniest of errors. (We probably have jobs for that IRL, honestly...)




Ahhh, but sophistication too can be relative. Keep in mind we're not 100% sure of the final budget for Ember yet; we only know it doesn't have AAA backing at the moment. Bear in mind that many pioneers of the game industry are the ones who've worked within tight constraints and squeezed surprising amounts of cleverness and performance out of difficult design situations. This ain't Grummz's first rodeo either, so I say let's keep the benefit of doubt on the table and hold on to some cautious optimism instead, shall we?

Wow, man, just wow. So much criticizm yet zero actual input. Asu such I no longer find you interesting enough to discuss this topic with.

BOOOOM!

*jumpjets away*

 

[Rio Aria]

here what I think, in Firefall raid is kinda boring all of it you name it.
1. all of the boss are kinda just sitting around in one spot to be hit by players.
- it could be a very mobile bosses that move around fast, in not a very small map ofcourse.
2. raid bosses doesnt have to be always massively big. almost in every mmo out there raid bosses always massively big.
- it could be as same size your omniframe, and maybe not just 1 boss, lets say 3 bosses or more agains 10 players.
3. Raid bosses usualy so predictable, their move and ability is always limited. after he do that, he'll do this, after he do this, he'll do that sort of things.
- bosses AI/NPC should have been more intelligent, that sometime randomly move or dodge our ability.
- bosses should attack the most vulnerable omniframe in the group, for example: player with lower health or player that have been snare and unable to move. bosses attack with priority.
4. Raid bosses moves in firefall is kinda boring too, in Ember I hope. if some bosses goin to do some move/ability or what so ever, it should be epic and fun to watch. so when im playing and killed by that bosses, I'll say "wow that was epic, I got killed by it, it was so unpredictable." maybe its goin to be HARD but better than it's so easy and we got bored to do it again.
5. Raid bosses doesnt always have to be NPC it can be played by Devs too, like in firefall devs played as chosen. but in ember it have to be more epic, make some raid are evently timed. that drop an awesome gear and so on. this raid is all about players skills agains devs skill, ohh man that would be fun. fighting Devs as raid bosses, count me in.

so what do you guys think, about my opinion hope devs put some comment to

 

[Torgue_Joey]

a bunch of stuff

When it comes to raids, i always think of INSTANCED SH*T. Dunno why lol

May have some sort of "semi instanced" map, for player overflow at some point after release.

Just call em world boss or so. Enemys WILL raid our bases. It's open world, let them try to stop us with everything they got. EVEN IF THEY NEED THE DEV TO TAKE OVER THE CONTROLS.

A mob-like-a-bauss formed, decided to rip down a "strategical" base. Because respawn station. But we givin em hell. So. Reroute to the nearest outpost and rip down that.

A boss (depending on the typ) can "phase" out when he lose to much minions and render his goal as unreachable. By doing so will render the defence event successful. But defeat the boss event as a failure.

 

[Rio Aria]

When it comes to raids, i always think of INSTANCED SH*T. Dunno why lol

May have some sort of "semi instanced" map, for player overflow at some point after release.

Just call em world boss or so. Enemys WILL raid our bases. It's open world, let them try to stop us with everything they got. EVEN IF THEY NEED THE DEV TO TAKE OVER THE CONTROLS.

A mob-like-a-bauss formed, decided to rip down a "strategical" base. Because respawn station. But we givin em hell. So. Reroute to the nearest outpost and rip down that.

A boss (depending on the typ) can "phase" out when he lose to much minions and render his goal as unreachable. By doing so will render the defence event successful. But defeat the boss event as a failure.

That's quite a good idea, the only problems is, an events like that its goin to be massively overflown by players and it will cause lags haha

 

[Torgue_Joey]

That's quite a good idea, the only problems is, an events like that its goin to be massively overflown by players and it will cause lags haha

True. I'm just hoping for something bigger than guild wars 2. 60 player per map ain't enough for a planetary scaled war

100 players ok. But would indeed lag if all jumps on 1 event. Better have multiple events, it's war after all

 

[Daynen]

Attempting to save face

Well, not how I would've liked that convo to end, but whatever. Thick skin and all that...

I'm on board with some bosses being piloted by devs, or perhaps even dedicated GM's whose job it is to strategically push back against the playerbase's expansion. give them constraints to work within and a limit to their power and forces, obviously, but make it akin to an RTS for them and let us fight back as individuals trying to rally. I look forward to that.

 

[NanoTechnician]

So,

This is the prototype of the boss...

 

[Daynen]

I THOUGHT I recognized a little Carpathian in Mark...everything makes sense now.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

I THOUGHT I recognized a little Carpathian in Mark...everything makes sense now.

LMAO
DIDN'T SAW THAT SH*T ON MY PHONE xD

 

[Demigan]

Boss design in Ember should be using the environment more, that’s actually true for the entire gameplay. Unlike standard RPG’s Ember can use the verticality much more, it’s actually something I missed in Firefall. The inside of the tornado was a wonderfully designed place to climb to the top of (and not just to that portal but the top).Unfortunately almost all battles in Firefall ended up being single-dimension affairs where you basically did a short dungeon crawl with little height variation, if any. The enemies, especially the bosses, should be using that verticality a lot. Using height differences in caves, trees, walls and mountainsides so that the players need to move to chase the enemy and get a better position on them. The enemies must climb, jump, jumpjet, fly, dash, roll and crawl all over the place.

Further, Firefall copied the standard “one giant hitpointsink with telegraphed attacks” that just about any RPG uses for it’s bosses. Firefall is an FPS, while a few hitpointsink enemies would be OK so you can WOW players with giant boss enemies they should be using smaller and faster enemies with much better reflexes and attacks. Ember can learn from this. Rather than making almost every boss either a slow-as-molasses humanoid or a giant bug that sits in one place all the time the bosses should be fast. From teleporting around to running&jumping&flying all over the place to make for tough targets.
Take Halo’s Hunters. Yes they are big and they are relatively slow, but they always come in pairs at minimum, they can be pretty fast when charging you, they have a shield to make themselves smaller targets and if you get too close they can do quick attacks. Similar bosses could be used in Ember, especially in small groups against players, even more so if you get enemies that have synergies together.

Another thing that needs to change is the way the health system works. Not for the bosses, but for the players.
Currently in most games, including in Firefall, you can heal on a dime. This means that a boss can only really be dangerous if it can basically OHK you or has some tough-to-dodge attack chain that’ll kill just about any player.
Healing during combat should take much longer (outside combat healing could still be a 1-second to 100% affair). This way a boss (or any enemy group for that matter) doesn’t need to rely on dealing massive amounts of damage on a player before he’s got time to heal/be healed but can be threatening by wearing down the players. Tactics would change over the course of a battle to be safer for the players that are hurt, finding time and space to safely heal yourself, even just partially, should be parts of the combat.
This would also make balancing player/class health much easier. The original idea for recharging health and shields was so that developers knew how much health the player would have at the start of each engagement. Otherwise a less skilled player might not have any health by the time he reaches a difficult fight and always lose.
But with slow health regeneration during combat the developers can still have a good idea how much health the players will start with and have during the engagement. Players will also not be able to simply tank damage and different attack styles as their health falls and they need to start being more careful.

Also, boss encounters could consist out of champions or mini-bosses that band together, especially nice if you have a Diablo-style creature generation where once in a while a group of enemies will have special abilities and such setting themselves apart from the standard fare. To go back to the Halo Hunters they could function as one entity. Imagine if both Hunters would always stay within a certain distance of each other. Both Hunters have a weakspot in the back where you want to hit them. But the moment you are with multiple players and one tries circling to the back, the second Hunter will cover the back of the other Hunter. This way two units can use a single AI as they are treated as a single entity but with two separate healthpools, hitboxes and cooldowns.
Similar feats can be done in Ember. Even Firefall has Drones that protected nearby allies with shields. Ember could feature (mini)bosses and champions that would support each other, either by functioning as a single entity on the battlefield or by simply having attack&support moves that synergise.

Aggro shouldn’t be the current dumb state.
Pulling Aggro is mostly about dealing damage, being in close proximity and using special abilities to get the attention. It’s lame, it’s dumb and it’s mostly gamed so that the damage dealers can sit in a row doing nothing but punch their abilities in a cooldown as they unlock while the tanks sit up front tanking and pulling aggro. It would be much better if the AI would pick targets based on different criteria, such as hunting down players with health below a certain %, sending mooks who will actively hunt down a specific player (like the high-DPS player sitting at a distance) or specifically taking out all players of a certain category, such as trying to kill off all heal/buff supports.

As for loot drops, guarantee some loot but not everything. You don't even need to dangle some super-rare item in front of players, but have an increase in valuables that make the fight even more worthwhile.