Bosses why can't you just die now?

News & General Discussion
1

Many games have a boss, or set of bosses who just don’t know when to quit.

So many examples to pick, I bet you’ve a few in your own heads that your thinking “MY GOD! Why didn’t it just die?”

Bosses, know when to say die!

A general rule of thumb which I follow, is that if both the boss and the party have exhausted all their special abilities, and the group themselves are perfectly fine. The boss needs to go.

So taking my Pen and Paper test scenario. I would pit my players against the boss I created. I begin to keep watch for player routines, healers heal, tank tanks, and DPS spanks. Forming what I call the “Tank and Spank!” zone. Meaning that they have been rinse dry and repeating for several rounds now.

Once this zone has been breached, you should be ready to end the boss, and note how much health was taken from it. This will help you know when a boss has too much or too little health.

Night, what if the boss has other abilities like regeneration, or evolution?

This is a good question!
For the most part, regeneration is merely a cover to give bosses a huge amount of health anyway. Players should be given the ability to stop this, else it becomes annoying.

Evolution
A boss evolving to ever more powerful forms is alright, as long as the players don’t feel like they’ve been hit below the belt.

I’ve felt times like this, form parasite eve, final fantasy, and a few FPS’s. Where I’m rocking the boss, just smashing them and suddenly it evolves, more health, tougher skills. Okay this is fine the first time, but then suddenly IT DOES IT AGAIN!

This is a terrible use of evolution, it merely prolongs the fight into absurdity, least to me it does.

Why must the player die just to learn the bosses new routine? This is hardly realistic for a game where the player really isn’t supposed to die. Sure there are those good enough to pass these bosses without dying, but what about the others? As a Game Designer, its our job to make sure to reach out to all players of varying competency.

Here’s a good question. Should a player really have to deal with death, just to learn an ever changing bosses routine?

Isn’t that a bit…ironic? Your player isn’t supposed to be immortal. The whole extra lives is merely a safety net for those who do die.

If a boss with evolution still can’t be defeated without the player dying at least once, it may be that it needs to be slightly simplified.

What I enjoyed from a few arcade games is that the health of a boss “was” his health. He evolved, but his health bar stayed them same. Thus you knew your goal.

What about devolving bosses, where as they lose health they get easier and easier.

nothing like a nigh impossible boss becoming a pathetic ball of fluff that you punt around before squashing.

I remember in the previous lesson, someone gave there thoughts on bosses, that they just aren’t necessary.

Tell me what you think, are Bosses necessary, do you know of a boss who just didn’t die? How do you judge when a boss has too much or too little health?

Drop your side of the discussion and I’ll be happy to return fire my own answer or thoughts asap!

Next Monday- The Rule of Three’s!!!

2

Haha the last boss I couldn’t kill was the big thing on the boat in Crysis where you have to use that super power gun that only works when you’re in the right place at the right time (what a pathetic ‘crowbar this weapon into special use case’ effort that was, eh?).

Some kind of bug in their junk software meant that the triggers were broken so I had to restart the game 3 or 4 times from an earlier save and keep trying again before it would die! (which I only knew was the right way because I read countless other peoples entries in forums about it) Good QA there, Ubisoft! We found it, they denied all knowledge (“bug? what bug iz dat?”) Man, that was a really good looking game that STUNK! Multiplayer mode was just amateurish, too. Maybe it was the same guys who made Farcy Vengeance on the Wii? shudder

I really wanted to blow up everything (including the writers and producers) with that weapon but oh no… why not!?? Because they need it for their rubbish idea of a final battle scene, that’s why! I’d rather they let me fire the weapon and I put winged boots on to stomp on its head instead. Just as believable imo.

3

ganon in the first zelda game for the NES, i know its supposed to die from 1 silver arrow, but actually getting him shot its something nearly impossible hahahhaa

i remember i was never able to kill ganon on that game…

yeah i know some games have bosses which are super difficult and some of them are stupidly easy and more weird when thats after a very difficult one ( kintaro from mortal kombat comes to my mind which was like 10 times harder to kill than the real final boss)

about the subject about boss evolution , castle crashers comes to my mind , the last boss just evolves way too many times and lasts a lot hahahaha, and again with previous example, the fight with the necromancer is shorter but way harder

i personally like bosses but just to some point, i dont like them to be dumb easy but also not impossible…

i just want them to be challenging but be able to be defeated with a recent amount of skills just enough to encourage you to keep trying but not as much to frustrate you and abandon the game

4

An idea might be a boss health bar with a few markers. So if there 3 modes there would be 3 ticks, this way you know how much damage you are doing and how many forms the boss will have, if we simply didnt care about immersion we could also have a relative health for the current mode.

I dont see what the problem is with pattern bosses. As you learn and defeat one it adds another. This will mean you are playing against the patterns and after you realize it you can with a bit of skill beat it. The only problem is if they make it less about knowledge of this pattern and more about skill (so that you end up dying or making it to the second or third form with little or no health).

5

Great examples from people!

Most important from aiursrage2k brought a very important thing about which I will talk about on monday. 3

The rules of 3, this will be a very good topic to read indeed!

As for pattern bosses, its the idea that yes, the player reads the pattern and conforms to it in order to win. But even then, there are sometimes bosses that will hit you, and when you reach a final form with little to no health.

it feels a tad unfair, all that work just to do it all over again!

Evolution bosses should definitely change and be different each form. But the focus of the boss should change, a tank with high health, to a low health speed freak or range dps.

A bosses evolution should also make sense. Ever had times where you saw a boss change and wonder “Why?” This is something we game designers also need to be wary of. If it just doesn’t make sense, don’t do it, learn to know when your own body calls your creation bs! This is a very important step!.

Something else is like a boss with 1k health splitting into 2 bosses with 500 health. It brings a new challenge but the length of time to kill the boss, doesn’t feel idiotically impossible.

Discuss on gamers! Lets see what more we can delve into bosses!

6

I know it’s a little late to comment on this, but I just found it.

An example (or at least to me) of a de-evolving boss is Gannon from the Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time. His original form is unusually hard, but in his final form, all you have to do is run over to the other side of him and hit his tail.

Did I mention he’s really, REALLY slow?

7

I think the hardest boss i’ve ever encountered was the final battle in Clock Tower 3… I remember pressing “continue” for like 20 times, 2 days long.

8

The longest boss I can remember is the final battle in God of War 3. When you are in Gaia’s body fighting Zeus. I didn’t even die on that part, but it took more then 30 minutes of doing the same repetitive action. I actually thought that was a bug, maybe it was.

However, the worst offenders are back in the good old days. Anyone remember those games where the boss has 3 different forms with 3 different health bars, while you have one health bar and no continues? That was beautiful.

However, In general I like bosses. They provide a good finale for one, which a lot of games are lacking now. Also, they are an interesting technical and gameplay marvel. For the technical side, with today’s graphics I can’t help but drool a bit when I see a well made boss. As for gameplay, bosses offer a unique gameplay experience from the rest of the game most of the time, which helps with adding variety. However, most bosses are simply “shoot the red glowing part” or “wait for him to do the move that exposes his chest and shoot, even though this guy should be smart enough to not expose his chest at this point.” For bosses to regain their relevance, video game designers are going to have to be a bit more creative.

9

This is one of my favorite boss battles, well the whole game is just one boss fight, but its really well done IMO.

http://www.java-gaming.com/game/2487/Castle_Crash_the_beard/

10

Lol.

“The beard will devour you”

11

i love the boss at then end of, fable 2 i think it is. You walk up to it and shoot it, mission over. GUN AS

12

Wow, its never to late to always drop in your thoughts, course this guy here has been busy with rl work now that papers are coming in double and triple time for me to deal with.

Course keep your eyes on the Unity magazine, you’ll find plenty of articles form me in there!

As for the descriptions on bosses, yes it does seem that the overly generic “Hit the glowing part” seems to be a common challenge, as is the multiple life bar.

As a matter of fact I recently watched MGS 4 and noted the final fight did the exact same thing to a point that didn’t fully make sense, but epic it was.

Bosses have their place in the world, they bring us the satisfaction of accomplishment, but as we’ve noted their are a lot of commonalities with these bosses.

So looking at the problem, what are ways that you all would like to adapt your bosses.

If a boss has a weak spot, he’d fight to keep it form being exposed, so wouldn’t it make sense that the first part of the fight is removing the bosses protection?

What are the thoughts of the people?

13

Did anyone else like the bosses from SOTC? I especially liked the flying desert-snake one!
Also: Night_Fox, I think that your on to something! I just got the idea for a boss.

How about some haywire AI boss, like the thing from Tron.

First form:
Some kind of laser wall that you have to disable, also some offensive lasers(with a pattern), then you find a power box,destroy it, and turn off the lasers.

Second form:
The lasers go off, but… ah-ha! He has turrets in the ceiling! You destroy the turrets and then it’s core is exposed.

Third form:
Ha ha I have no idea of what to do for a final form, any suggestions.

14

Reading through your post and when you said as a game developer you need to reach out to different levels of audiance. One thing that WoW did do good was the fight in I think oculous sanctum where the varying difficulty of the boss was left up to the players to decide by either killing all 3 drakes, 2, or 1.
Anyway this is one way to reach out to a variety of audiance and I really like this idea because you can play the same boss in different ways and it doesnt get old fast.
This is also a good way to keep the longevity of the boss around.

15

I’ve always found that a system that never seems to loose it’s annoying-ness is the hit the glowing part, which has its own health bar. Whenever there’s some kind of giant walker / mech, it’s always hit the knees, then hit the joints, then hit the front. It makes for a very, very, VERY long boss battle.