Share your boss ideas!

[goodgimp]

I realize Bosses aren't in final shape yet and all, but I was thinking about some of those cool boss fights in the old NES days and wondered if something similar could be done in AVWW.  I'll keep it short and simple since I'm posting via my phone, but I'd love to see people's ideas.

-Armored Skelebot:  A heavily-armored skelebot immune to all damage on his body. His one point of vulnerability is striking him in his optical sensor - which also happens to shoot laser beams and fireballs!

-Battlebot: A heavily armed skelebot variant capable of carpet bombing areas with a wide arsenal of weapons mounted on its chassis. Blow off the individual weapon systems to slow down the onslaught before you move in for the kill!

-Tentacled creature: Similar idea to the above. A many-tentacled floating creature which can be slain by doing enough damage to his main body, but individual tentacles can be destroyed as well.

That's all very basic stuff but you get the idea. The Arcen staff and this community is way more creative than I, though, so I was hoping someone else would reply with an idea that makes me go "Oooh, that'd be cool!

[@B0FH]

-Tentacled creature: Similar idea to the above. A many-tentacled floating creature which can be slain by doing enough damage to his main body, but individual tentacles can be destroyed as well.

Why do I now have visions of the Flying Spaghetti Monster terrorising my world? 

[Terraziel]

Rather than commenting on the ideas themselves, I want to know if the game can be set up to do them, locational damage and boss enemies with individual parts to kill are fairly standard fare at this point, they are almost a basic requirement for keeping the bosses varied.

[Hunam]

Here's a few overly complicated ones :

1)Core: Glowing sphere that remains in a fixed position and is tethered to 5-6 smaller orbs by a nondamaging magical cord. The orbs move around the room in spurts usually randomly but occasional move in the direction of the player. After pausing briefly the tether glows and then shoots a continuous damaging pulse back towards the central core. The core is the only part that may be damaged.

2)Frame: Large rectangular boss that is elevated a fixed position off the floor and moves very slowly horizontally. It is surrounded by a shield that does not allow attacks to pass through in either direction so the player has to get in close below the boss to attack; however, it has one beam attack that targets players at extreme range, rarely shoots, and may pass through the shield and other obstacles. The beam attack gives off a warning pulse beam to let you know briefly before it attacks. It also fires slow moving small spells below it that fall straight to the floor. The player would have to get inside the shield to attack and then dodge these close range spells that could be fired in various patterns. Being forced to get in close would allow the boss to stay on the screen and give more of a bullet hell feel to the boss as the projectiles would be plentiful but easier to dodge since they were coming from above.

3)Starzilla: amoeba like boss with 5-6 energy arms that periodically extend and retract. The arms cause damage at regular intervals if the player contacts them. Once the arms are retracted, the boss rapidly rotates to change the direction of attack. It may also pull itself along one of its arms instead of retracting it back. 
 

[JedTheHumanoid]

As far as I know, this boss fight is perfect in every way, variation is key.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3bQudaTzc

[x4000]

Rather than commenting on the ideas themselves, I want to know if the game can be set up to do them, locational damage and boss enemies with individual parts to kill are fairly standard fare at this point, they are almost a basic requirement for keeping the bosses varied.

Yes, that sort of thing is possible, and in fact we already have objects with multiple parts (windmills, for instance), I just haven't applied this to bosses yet.

[stblr]

Instead of just BIG ROBOT or CRIPPED DRAGON that has a 1 in 6 chance of spawning or something, I'd like to see some sort of modifier system where there is not only a boss variant, but random modifiers that boss gets to make them more interesting. I know this is already sort of in place in that they have a chance to have more health than usual and whatnot, but I'm talking about expanding that and making the modifiers sort of entities unto themselves that have a visual effect. For example:

• Stone - The boss is made of stone. The boss is tinted gray; they move slower but have twice as much hp.
• Blood - The boss specializes in blood magic. Whenever the boss damages the player, the boss is healed for that amount.
• Big - The boss is big; they move slower but hit twice as hard
• Drones - The boss spawns with two drones who protect him and must be defeated before the boss can be damaged.

These are just a few ideas for modifiers off the top of my head but you get my drift.

[paramime]

Right now the player only has randsom missions to deal with. The monsters show up and you're told you can pay the ransom or go fight the bosses.

I would like to add a similiar mission where the player is informed that monsters have raided and kidnapped someone from a shelter or village and the player has to rescue them that turn or pay ransom. Upon arriving at the area, the player has a time limit to reach and  beat the bosses before the captured npc is killed. If the player rescues the npc, the npc gives them an item as a reward.

As for old games i liked megaman style bosses, humanoid and lively. The bosses ask for ransom indirectly, i'd like to see a bit of boss dialogue. Nothing interactive, just text taunts.

[Dizzard]

I had an idea rolling around in my head for a monster, it's not specific to any game though but I guess I'll post it here.

Lock Spider / Spiderlock

A large metalic spider that covers the entrance to a small room that contains a very rare item/chest. They are found underground and are incredibly rare. The body of the spider is round and metallic and it's legs are actually chains that are attached to the wall behind it.

It can't move (because it's guarding the entrance). However it occasionally unlatches a chain and shoots it towards you. Being a spider I bet it could shoot some kind of poison or even call baby spiders to fight for it. (I haven't done much thought on attacks)

---

Again the idea isn't one I thought of for AVWW, just a general thought.

[CoyoteTheClever]

My idea is an evil lord type boss that periodically spawns minions that look just like your friends in your settlement to attack you. That might be fun in a surprise the player sort of way.

[zebramatt]

One of my favourite Metroid boss fights was with Draygon. For those who aren't familiar, Draygon was a giant, fat, green, horrible prawn monster completely covered in armour aside from its soft underbelly. It would whiz about through the walls and occasionally grab you with its claws and try to crush the life from you. All the while, wall-mounted cannons would bombard you with balls of lightning. And that's without mentioning its horrid little spawnlings. (Which, despite their vicious spikes, were there for the classic Metroid mid-battle health and ammo pick-ups - so even the most apparently hopeless battle could always be won, if you were skillful enough to dodge all the various attacks, kill the minions and collect their pick-ups before something finally did you in. But I digress.)

What was really smart about this battle is that while you could simply lay into Draygon by launching super missiles at its belly - not an easy ask in itself, given how quickly it could move, and how slow and scarce your super missiles were - there was another way. Blast apart the wall-mounted cannons and beneath the wreckage would be revealed a generator for their electric charge. Shoot that with your grapple beam, at just the right moment, and Draygon's grab-and-crush technique would come back to bite it - as the current ran down your beam, through your suit's outer armour and straight into the beast's flabby gut! Fried shrimp, anyone?


So, yeah. That was such a good boss battle because the most effective tactic utilised aspects of the level, your own special abilities, precision and timing of the shot, and knowing & exploiting the boss's attack pattern.


Of course, that's a set piece in a totally pre-planned environment. In Valley, so much is generated on the fly I've no idea how you might go about incorporating anything like that... but I'm sure there's something in there which might inspire some boss ideas nonetheless!

[mrhanman]

One of my favourite Metroid boss fights was with Draygon.

I have to agree.

[KDR_11k]

Trick bosses won't work in AVWW because we'll see each boss many times so having one trick to instakill a boss would just make the boss fight incredibly easy after the first time.

Turretpede:
A metal centipede kind of creature consisting of 10 segments or so walking on the background wall. The boss's main body cannot be hit directly. It spawns turrets on its segments that perform various attacks. Every time a turret is destroyed the boss loses health, after a while a new turret spawns. The higher the boss's rank (miniboss, lieutenant, overlord) the more turrets it'll have active at a time.
- spread turret: Shoots multiple projectiles with fixed arcs between them (like the espers).
- burst turret: Fires a bunch of shots in rapid succession, all of them aimed at the player.
- rail turret: Before firing it starts to hum and glow, once it's ready it fires a quickly moving shot.
- beam turret: Gives a warning like the rail turret but fires a hitscan beam. The turret turns fairly slowly while preparing to fire (it starts preparing when aimed at the player) so the counterstrategy is to move around it while fairly close so it can't track you. Staying far away results in getting hit.
- phase grenades: Timed explosives that can pass through walls. They are launched at the player's position and stay there for a few seconds before exploding, intended for getting the player out of hiding spots behind walls.
- miasma turret: Leaves a miasma trail like ghosts do.
The boss doesn't use all of these at once, a fill of turrets should probably only consist of 2-3 types, possibly with an AI to pick which turrets to use.

Cross claws:
Like shadow bats these appear in pairs (or more?). They jump from surface to surface at fairly high speed, aiming to ram the player but they cannot turn in mid-air. Every time they land they place a cross bomb. These bombs explode Bomberman-style into long lines along the horizontal and vertical axis after a few seconds.

[Itchykobu]

I'm all for a boss like Gold Silver from Gunstar Heroes and Guardian Heroes. The boss itself cannot be hurt, but there are other things in the room that you have to kill in order to defeat the boss. For Gold Silver, he had 4 crystals flying around him that you had to destroy.

[Gallant Dragon]

Sounds like the Nihilanth...
except the Nihilanth could insta-kill you and had a teleport attack.