Bosses
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- battlestar
- Posts: 690
- Joined: January 1st, 2007, 7:12 am
Bosses
When we talk about boss fights, most people would think about an RPG, but TBS like wesnoth have bosses just the same and can be integral part of any campaign/scenario. A boss fight in a strategy game can integrate the boss, the goons and minions and the environment the battle is fought on. I've given some thought to bosses, did some reading and looked at some other game bosses, here to open a discussion/idea trade regarding this topic (pertaining to what we can do in wesnoth UMC within what we can do with WML/lua).
"Boss fight is a reward, a goal, where player can demonstrate mastery of the game, where player build and relieve tension and walk away satisfied."
Boss making includes these steps:
- identify a theme
- identify skills/strategies to test
- train the player on the skills needed to win against final boss
- reveal the boss to sell to player how interesting the boss is
- first half of boss fight can involve setting baseline intensity of battle initially, escalation of intensity or difficulty
- midpoint such as false victory/defeat/transformation may be included to change things up mentally and emotionally
- peak of battle
- "killing" the boss sequence
- victory/reward sequence
A boss fight is meant to test the a combination of skills the player has with playing Wesnoth. To name a few below, but I don't know that much about battle strategies:
Resource management, army building, utilization of terrain (mobility/defense/etc), mobility, blitz attacks (ie griffons), hiding from enemy (thief), capture and hold villages, defeat in detail, misdirect, cannonfodders, switch out front line unit to heal (bounding), confine large enemy forces with scouts, backstab, poison (and other abilities), use flying/scouts to flank enemy along rivers/bypassing enemies in defensive structures, retreating with minimal losses, and what not.
Boss prepping: build up with minibosses/previous scenarios on how to fight the final boss, teach player to deal with complicated threats one thing at a time, mid-battle transformation/taunt
Revealing the boss: to show why this boss is so badass, to build excitement. Below are meant to be separate ideas, not all at once. This depends on who the boss is, and the story.
- show of strength: reveal the boss with roar, boss brutally kills something, show off his army, show off the palace
- environmental: shaking camera, thunder, darkness with flashes of light
- buildup: metamorphosis, having skirmished small sections of the giant boss's body
- Conversant: arrogant, taunt, remind you your deeds or failures, cite a nursury rhyme (like the red lantern)
- Other: slithers behind you
Boss defeat: Defeated doesn't always mean being killed.
- Open for sequel: lose a limb and retreats, retreats with threat for revenge, encased in stone, frozen, boss is freed from mind control, boss becomes friendly
- Personal: dies cursing, dies cowardly, pleas for mercy, groveling, suicide, mass suicide, kamekaze, disfigurement
- Spectacular: expells ghosts or other things the boss absorbed or is made of, swallowed by earth, crushed by boulder, explodes, incineration by burning or lightning, melts, etc.
- Brutal: impaled, torn, eaten by heroes, eaten by insects or carrion birds
- Other: a pathetic little creature crawl out of the big boss, sound of laughter as the boss's energy dissipates into the air, boss shapeshifts as being killed by you
Final reward: Whether not this was player's reason to fight the boss, it makes the player feel good.
- Gains: items, money, access to secrets, fame and honor, knowledge, friend, pet, significant other (love)
- Saves: cheering of people, saves society, restores land, rescues prisoner, safety and escape, saves the world,
- Destroy: destruction of terrain, sorrow of the people if heroes are evil
- Retirement: peaceful life
"Boss fight is a reward, a goal, where player can demonstrate mastery of the game, where player build and relieve tension and walk away satisfied."
Boss making includes these steps:
- identify a theme
- identify skills/strategies to test
- train the player on the skills needed to win against final boss
- reveal the boss to sell to player how interesting the boss is
- first half of boss fight can involve setting baseline intensity of battle initially, escalation of intensity or difficulty
- midpoint such as false victory/defeat/transformation may be included to change things up mentally and emotionally
- peak of battle
- "killing" the boss sequence
- victory/reward sequence
A boss fight is meant to test the a combination of skills the player has with playing Wesnoth. To name a few below, but I don't know that much about battle strategies:
Resource management, army building, utilization of terrain (mobility/defense/etc), mobility, blitz attacks (ie griffons), hiding from enemy (thief), capture and hold villages, defeat in detail, misdirect, cannonfodders, switch out front line unit to heal (bounding), confine large enemy forces with scouts, backstab, poison (and other abilities), use flying/scouts to flank enemy along rivers/bypassing enemies in defensive structures, retreating with minimal losses, and what not.
Boss prepping: build up with minibosses/previous scenarios on how to fight the final boss, teach player to deal with complicated threats one thing at a time, mid-battle transformation/taunt
Revealing the boss: to show why this boss is so badass, to build excitement. Below are meant to be separate ideas, not all at once. This depends on who the boss is, and the story.
- show of strength: reveal the boss with roar, boss brutally kills something, show off his army, show off the palace
- environmental: shaking camera, thunder, darkness with flashes of light
- buildup: metamorphosis, having skirmished small sections of the giant boss's body
- Conversant: arrogant, taunt, remind you your deeds or failures, cite a nursury rhyme (like the red lantern)
- Other: slithers behind you
Boss defeat: Defeated doesn't always mean being killed.
- Open for sequel: lose a limb and retreats, retreats with threat for revenge, encased in stone, frozen, boss is freed from mind control, boss becomes friendly
- Personal: dies cursing, dies cowardly, pleas for mercy, groveling, suicide, mass suicide, kamekaze, disfigurement
- Spectacular: expells ghosts or other things the boss absorbed or is made of, swallowed by earth, crushed by boulder, explodes, incineration by burning or lightning, melts, etc.
- Brutal: impaled, torn, eaten by heroes, eaten by insects or carrion birds
- Other: a pathetic little creature crawl out of the big boss, sound of laughter as the boss's energy dissipates into the air, boss shapeshifts as being killed by you
Final reward: Whether not this was player's reason to fight the boss, it makes the player feel good.
- Gains: items, money, access to secrets, fame and honor, knowledge, friend, pet, significant other (love)
- Saves: cheering of people, saves society, restores land, rescues prisoner, safety and escape, saves the world,
- Destroy: destruction of terrain, sorrow of the people if heroes are evil
- Retirement: peaceful life
assortment of unpolished boss fight ideas
LUA: Llama Under Apprenticeship
Hell faction: completed
Hell faction: completed
Re: Bosses
I don't know exactly what you're trying to do here. I think most of us are familiar with why boss fights and some ideas but I don't see a lot here that would be particularly relevant to Wesnoth.
An important thing to remember, is that although you can do cool boss fights in Wesnoth (I'm sure several existing examples could be give), you generally have to add to or work against the general concepts of the system. Almost universally, Wesnoth focuses around army vs army combat and the skills of play focus on those skills. As a result, most climatic battles in wesnoth, emphasis enemies with huge and/or powerful armies. This tends to have the negative effect for the drama of everything where the enemy leader remains in their castle summoning a trickle of reinforcements as you have to deal with the massive waves of their army leading to a rather anti-climatic clean-up afterwards. It doesn't have to be this way (and exceptions can be found) but the basic mechanics and the primary skills worked with focus towards this. There is further some difficulty in coming up with what skills the player is supposed to be using if not their ability to command an army as by and large the turn-based and simple nature of Wesnoths mechanics make it easy once you're experienced at the game to come up with the optimal choices to resolve small scale engagements which can make even a very original and unusual boss with plenty of gimmicks, fairly boring to actually play against.
As a side note since this is vaguely related. I have a finished campaign with an unusual enemy for the last scenario (boss designed to make army and territory control decisions difficult). I am waiting to distribute it normally until art for a faction is done (it's an EoFM campaign) but if anyone wants an advance copy I am looking for testers.
An important thing to remember, is that although you can do cool boss fights in Wesnoth (I'm sure several existing examples could be give), you generally have to add to or work against the general concepts of the system. Almost universally, Wesnoth focuses around army vs army combat and the skills of play focus on those skills. As a result, most climatic battles in wesnoth, emphasis enemies with huge and/or powerful armies. This tends to have the negative effect for the drama of everything where the enemy leader remains in their castle summoning a trickle of reinforcements as you have to deal with the massive waves of their army leading to a rather anti-climatic clean-up afterwards. It doesn't have to be this way (and exceptions can be found) but the basic mechanics and the primary skills worked with focus towards this. There is further some difficulty in coming up with what skills the player is supposed to be using if not their ability to command an army as by and large the turn-based and simple nature of Wesnoths mechanics make it easy once you're experienced at the game to come up with the optimal choices to resolve small scale engagements which can make even a very original and unusual boss with plenty of gimmicks, fairly boring to actually play against.
As a side note since this is vaguely related. I have a finished campaign with an unusual enemy for the last scenario (boss designed to make army and territory control decisions difficult). I am waiting to distribute it normally until art for a faction is done (it's an EoFM campaign) but if anyone wants an advance copy I am looking for testers.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
Re: Bosses
I don't know what is exactly your point here. But I've made a campaign where some parts had a boss, and some of the ideas I implemented there aren't on your list. Adding:
Revealing the boss:
The boss appears himself at the beginning, trying to persuade the heroes to join him.
Having to fight a weaker version of the boss before the final fight, to let the player know what awaits him.
The existence of the boss is known for a long time, just identifying what the hell that boss is takes a lot of time.
The boss appears to be an ally initially, but then is revealed as an enemy, attacks the heroes, is defeated and returns to his lair, where the final fight awaits.
Boss defeat:
Revelation that there is a bigger bad behind the big bad, and defeating the big bad was a part of the bigger bad's masterful plan.
Boss seemingly dies, but then returns, much weakened, as an ally to help against a common enemy (tyrants don't like destroyers of worlds).
Boss abilities:
An important thing to note is that wesnoth is about fighting armies with armies, so the boss should have some minions.
Recruiting boss: the boss occasionally teleports to a keep to recruit some minions.
Summoner boss: the boss summons minions periodically.
Reflections boss: the boss summons decoys of himself that can't be told from the boss, but vanish after taking some damage.
Other abilities:
Shape shifter boss: the boss changes appearance and abilities every turn.
Achilles-like boss: immune to everything except a single type of damage. The single type of damage that harms him can change.
Splash damage: the boss can hit many targets at once.
Agile boss: if you miss the boss, he tries to find an empty location next to him and move there, stopping the combat.
Revealing the boss:
The boss appears himself at the beginning, trying to persuade the heroes to join him.
Having to fight a weaker version of the boss before the final fight, to let the player know what awaits him.
The existence of the boss is known for a long time, just identifying what the hell that boss is takes a lot of time.
The boss appears to be an ally initially, but then is revealed as an enemy, attacks the heroes, is defeated and returns to his lair, where the final fight awaits.
Boss defeat:
Revelation that there is a bigger bad behind the big bad, and defeating the big bad was a part of the bigger bad's masterful plan.
Boss seemingly dies, but then returns, much weakened, as an ally to help against a common enemy (tyrants don't like destroyers of worlds).
Boss abilities:
An important thing to note is that wesnoth is about fighting armies with armies, so the boss should have some minions.
Recruiting boss: the boss occasionally teleports to a keep to recruit some minions.
Summoner boss: the boss summons minions periodically.
Reflections boss: the boss summons decoys of himself that can't be told from the boss, but vanish after taking some damage.
Other abilities:
Shape shifter boss: the boss changes appearance and abilities every turn.
Achilles-like boss: immune to everything except a single type of damage. The single type of damage that harms him can change.
Splash damage: the boss can hit many targets at once.
Agile boss: if you miss the boss, he tries to find an empty location next to him and move there, stopping the combat.
Re: Bosses
Wesnoth is RPG in many addons.
Scripted bosses:
Invulnerable. To win fight you need
to kill specific summoned enemies (and not to kill other specific ones)
place all player characters on specific tiles
"Splash" kills on next turn
"splash" created if player character stays on same tile for two turns
"splash" created beneath player character, who has done most damage in previous turn
Big room with boss+thin doorways on its sides+infinity additional enemies = check how good your tank
Big room with four types of terrain. From time to time, boss takes big advantage (100% def) on one of these terrains and big vulnerables on others (0% def)
Though nothing new for game industry.
Scripted bosses:
Invulnerable. To win fight you need
to kill specific summoned enemies (and not to kill other specific ones)
place all player characters on specific tiles
"Splash" kills on next turn
"splash" created if player character stays on same tile for two turns
"splash" created beneath player character, who has done most damage in previous turn
Big room with boss+thin doorways on its sides+infinity additional enemies = check how good your tank
Big room with four types of terrain. From time to time, boss takes big advantage (100% def) on one of these terrains and big vulnerables on others (0% def)
Though nothing new for game industry.
- battlestar
- Posts: 690
- Joined: January 1st, 2007, 7:12 am
Re: Bosses
Well the point of this thread is simply an idea exchange, a discussion to stimulate more ideas. Wesnoth bosses can be rpg style, can be an army vs army battle, it can be whatever achievable by WML and lua. Dugi is right, having special minion mechanism is important in army vs army boss battles. I think having an unique environment to battle in can also make it interesting. Furthermore, a "boss" doesn't always have to be the "leader".
LUA: Llama Under Apprenticeship
Hell faction: completed
Hell faction: completed
Re: Bosses
Idk I still don't really understand the point of the thread. It seems like you are recreating what is likely already a page on "tvtropes.org" in the wesnoth forums.
Re: Bosses
I don't understand point of most threads in WML Workshops and Ideas sections, but I don't blame them for their existence.
We have a freedom of speech, aren't we?
We have a freedom of speech, aren't we?
Re: Bosses
This is quite important. If a boss is also a leader, he tends to stay around the keep, giving the player a time for relief if he moves his units from the keep's reach, and even if the player is nearby, the boss isn't very active. I was using a code that makes the boss stop being a leader when the player approaches him, and becomes a leader again when his hp drops to low values and his recruits might be potentially more dangerous than the half-dead boss himself.Furthermore, a "boss" doesn't always have to be the "leader".
Re: Bosses
Just as a side comment, in Wesnoth 1.11 and later, there is now a leader_ignores_keep AI parameter that lets the leader participate in the action just like any other unit (although the AI is still more careful with the leader in some respects).Dugi wrote:This is quite important. If a boss is also a leader, he tends to stay around the keep, giving the player a time for relief if he moves his units from the keep's reach, and even if the player is nearby, the boss isn't very active. I was using a code that makes the boss stop being a leader when the player approaches him, and becomes a leader again when his hp drops to low values and his recruits might be potentially more dangerous than the half-dead boss himself.Furthermore, a "boss" doesn't always have to be the "leader".
SP campaigns: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.14) & Grnk the Mighty (1.10 & 1.12)
AI experiments: Micro AIs (wiki, forum thread, known/fixed bugs), Fred, AI-demos add-on
AI experiments: Micro AIs (wiki, forum thread, known/fixed bugs), Fred, AI-demos add-on
-
- Art Contributor
- Posts: 1700
- Joined: December 7th, 2006, 8:08 pm
Re: Bosses
wesnoth discourages save-loading, i think it's never intended for a player to do it as part of the mechanism of solving a level. Save-loading is a meta thing outside of game mechanics, mostly a measure to overcome your previous bad judgment, not a way to react to new information received about the level.
^ with stages like that, if they are of reasonably hard "solving" difficulty level, the player will pretty much have to play through them once to see what they are. So save-loading is now pretty much a game mechanic. This is horrible. It's not unprecedented but I think it's towards the very bad end of the is-save-load-a-game-mechanic spectrum.- first half of boss fight can involve setting baseline intensity of battle initially, escalation of intensity or difficulty
- midpoint such as false victory/defeat/transformation may be included to change things up mentally and emotionally
- peak of battle
- "killing" the boss sequence
- battlestar
- Posts: 690
- Joined: January 1st, 2007, 7:12 am
Re: Bosses
Just to further clarify, this is a thread to discuss about the concept of making better boss/boss battles. It can be about concept, mechanism and setup like Blarumyrran is talking about, possibilities in abilities like dugi and Xudo posted, or an idea to code for a boss as mattsc suggested. It's not so straight forward in turn based strategy to hash out a good playable and interesting boss that's not just another simple leader with a background story. That's why I thought it would be of benefit to discuss about it in the "idea' forum. It takes many ideas of multiple individuals to refine game design (again, not referring to mainline). Maybe a some people are born with perfect ideas but I feel the need to gather information and listen to other people's ideas while I'm working on my project.
Some of you may remember this thread: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... =boss+vote. Similar goal for a thread but differently about the discussion.
Some of you may remember this thread: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... =boss+vote. Similar goal for a thread but differently about the discussion.
LUA: Llama Under Apprenticeship
Hell faction: completed
Hell faction: completed
Re: Bosses
Wesnoth lacks "Threat logic", unlike many other cooperatve and multiplayer RPGs. That's why you need some creativity in tactics planning.
Re: Bosses
some time ago i had an idea for campaign bosses that combines the "boss fight" idea with the "units larger than one hex idea".
it's an immobile oversized boss unit, made up of individual units.
the sprites would work like a puzzle, so that it looks like one big unit.
an example: the boss is a giant golem
it has a "head unit" and two "hand units". the body could be part of the terrain,
as if the golem would be coming out of a huge chasm, the torso image merges with the terrain image.
the head is a unit that is protected by the Zocs of the hands, wich are also units.
(the hands float in the air to make it easier to draw)
to attack the head, you have to defeat the hands first.
to make it more interesting, the head could have the ability to revive the hands.
the same principle could be used for a three headed dragon.
it's an immobile oversized boss unit, made up of individual units.
the sprites would work like a puzzle, so that it looks like one big unit.
an example: the boss is a giant golem
it has a "head unit" and two "hand units". the body could be part of the terrain,
as if the golem would be coming out of a huge chasm, the torso image merges with the terrain image.
the head is a unit that is protected by the Zocs of the hands, wich are also units.
(the hands float in the air to make it easier to draw)
to attack the head, you have to defeat the hands first.
to make it more interesting, the head could have the ability to revive the hands.
the same principle could be used for a three headed dragon.
may the source be with you
=(^.^)= nyan~
=(^.^)= nyan~