Looking for someone with good experience in designing Boss Fights/Coding RPGS in general.

[Ilexa]

Hey all, I'm currently in the middle of developing my map Saviors of Lordaeron (Saviors of Lordaeron BETA v0.7) and have reached a point where I see my own designed boss fights as lacking. The version of the map currently uploaded has 2 boss fights which work! but one of them is currently rather shallow. I attempted to code them the best way I can but I have 0 prior experience making boss fights.

The map is coming along great! Have just released the 0.7 update, I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along and have started working on the next series of patches that will include a boss fight I have only thought of in concept form.

Basically what I'm looking for is someone to help me touch up two currently implemented boss fights and work with me to implement extra mechanics for higher difficulty settings. As well as designing and helping me code the third boss fight.

All all your work will be credited and greatly appreciated. Besides, who knows, we might just end up finishing this map together

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

You should write down some specifics, and how you want the boss fight to be. Include some mechanics that you wish to see implemented. How should the AI of the boss work for example?

 

[Ilexa]

You should write down some specifics, and how you want the boss fight to be. Include some mechanics that you wish to see implemented. How should the AI of the boss work for example?

That's fair, I'll list the bosses and what I'm looking to do.

The first of the two bosses is a giant Abomination that is treated as a somewhat tank and spank fight with the only real avoidable mechanics being a hook that he casts on a random player and must be dodged else the player gets dragged into melee range at which point the boss is coded to cast a warstomp ability. Periodically the boss will trigger and immolation like effect, dealing aoe damage to nearby players. The boss also has the ability to trigger a 3 second Avatar to clear any debuffs and avoid being perma stunned by players. Ideally here I'd like to tidy up his triggers, make him more consistent and think of some propper mechanics to add to a "Heroic" and "Mythic" mode.

Second Boss consists of a Lich. I am fairly okay with the Lich atm but he has problems for sure. The lich currently has a core mechanic of every 45 seconds blizzard waves dropping onto the arena with safe spots and the requirement that players have to dodge them. This is working fine atm but it can be hard for players to tell where the blizzard is going to land so I'd like to impliment a marker of sorts. As well as the current way the blizzard is triggered is very complex and inefficient, there has to be a better way and I'd love to get help with this. at 66% hp the lich will transition into phase 2, triggering a death and decay effect in the arena while he remains invulnerable channeling. 4 spirits spawns that must be killed in order to push the lich into phase 3. During phase 3 the fight resumes much the same as phase 1 until the lich reaches 33% hp in which an enrage timer of sorts engages in which the lich uses continuously damaging spell and the blizzard pattern now forces the players to stay near the lich at all times, making them more vulnerable to his frost nova. What I'd love to do here is add perhaps another mechanic to the base fight while thinking of fine tuning and mechanics to add for higher difficulties.

My third boss which is still in concept stages involves 2 bosses that are fought at the same time. The whole gimmick of this boss fight is that they must stay separated lest they regenerate HP extremely quickly. Core mechanics have not been thought of yet but the plan is to have 1 melee fighter boss and the other being a caster boss. The way the boss must be designed is for the caster boss to be possibly tankable by a dps or a healer because while teams can have 2 tanks I wouldn't want to force it and I think only 1 tank and 1 offtank or possibly dps could tank the caster boss. Keeping them separated.

Like I said, I'd appreciate any help I can get and I think this project could go a long way. So ya that's basically the goal I am currently aiming for.

 

[Ouroel]

Basically, the way you want to spice up a boss fight is very simple: make the player uncomfortable. In other words, screwing over the player's rotation and forcing him to do something else, or move his character, or something.

A classic is to constrict the arena, throw in adds, add some stupid minigame, etc. Force the player to react to the boss's mechanics in a substantial way, especially if you can make the player tackle 2-3 at a time and force him to choose which one he must tank.