Overview
For the purpose of these tutorials I plan on designing 3 boss types that designers can look at and play around with for their own designs. The three types I’ll be working with are The Tank, The Berserker, and the Multi Type. These designs aren’t meant to be simple copy and paste designs for those lazy developers out their but are supposed to jump-start ideas regarding the design of your games bosses. Before that though, there are a few things I want to point out.
Naming
Naming your boss really shouldn’t be an issue but time and time again I’ve seen designers drop either random names or famous names referencing another object but have nothing to do with it. aside from stolen IP’s. Much like the importance of characters, bosses need to be named according to what they represent and not simply named something you think is cool. Take the time and effort to name your bosses is all that I ask.
Themes and Types
A bosses theme is the first of five important aspects that go into the design of a boss. Themes for bosses come in many flavors but the theme that is most suited is dependent on the game in question. Generic Bosses tend to be themed after either their appearance, abilities, or the area that they inhabit. The other type of bosses are either heavily tied into the plot, or exist merely to challenge players. The three bosses being designed for this tutorial fall into the former category while the Arcana Bosses and Elizabeth of Persona 3 are examples of bosses that fall into the latter type.
A bosses type is the second of five aspects that tie together a convincing and challenging boss. The bosses type can be considered the template which you’re using to design your boss. When making a boss, you need to ask yourself questions that relate to the type of boss you want to create. What kind of attributes does it have? What kind of skill set does it have? How does it react to certain damage and skill types? asking these questions can lead you to define a more focused and structured boss encounter which leaves us with the three designed for this tutorial.
•Iron Golem
•Boss Type: Physical Tank
•Boss Theme: Mechanical Guard
•Triforce
•Boss Type: Multiple Limbs
•Boss Theme: Three Headed Dragon
•The Juggernaut
•Boss Type: Berserker
•Boss Theme: Physical Powerhouse
Attributes
The third aspect to boss designs is one of the most overlooked area’s in terms of balancing and effort is concerned. A bosses attributes are what make it stand out in the game as a boss. Simply giving a boss 100x a random value for HP and 2x to 3x the players stats is not making a boss, it is an extremely lazy approach and needs to be stopped. Players absolutely hate overpowered Meat Tanks that have no weaknesses to take advantage of and overbearing attacks that wipe out the party. A bosses attributes should reflect everything about it including the Theme, Type, Skills, and Behavior. Using The Juggernaut as an example, his stats revolve around having an average HP Pool, High ATK power, and average or below average ability in just about every other area. What he also possesses is a weakness to Blinding (Lowers his accuracy drastically) and Burning(Deals HP Damage over time). However he also resist anything Poison Typed based due to the makeup of his body. The main thing here is a method of bringing down his overbearing ATK power so that it’s more manageable for the player in regards to protecting themselves against it. No, and I absolutely mean No boss should be immune to nearly every single status effect and debuff in the game. It’s absurdly unfair to the player and is what I personally think is a lazy design aspect for what kids consider “Hard” bosses.
On the other side of the spectrum, we have this tool called Resistances that developers tend to ignore a great deal of the time aside from making one element a weak point and leaving the rest untouched. Clever manipulation of this ever useful tool can make design bosses easier as they can more often than not replace the absurdly high base stat of a boss. In the case of the Iron Golem who has a great level of resistance to Physical Damage (reduced to 10%), to go alongside his already heightened Physical ATK and DEF, he has glaring weaknesses in several areas as well. First and foremost are his resistances to Fire, Ice, and Volt, where he takes normal damage from both Fire and Ice, and 300% Damage from the Volt element. To add on to this, his resistances to the status effects Overheatand Critical Error are extremely low, making the viable options for the player to take a chance with outside of Volt Damage. The Status effect of Overheating causes his skill cost to shoot up to 1.5x their base cost while also reducing all of his stats by 25%. Additionally, Overheating will completely disable any defenses he has whatsoever leaving him to be a sitting duck. Critical Error can cause the boss to random attack either it’s own forces or the player while disabling it’s defenses much like Overheating does before it. These are just a few ways to design your bosses.
Behavior Patterns
Bosses can easily become a bit more challenging if you have them change their attack behaviors when certain ailments are inflicted. In the case of The Juggernaut, it will attack wildly when Blinded, often using a stronger skill set but not something that can easily connect with the players party when used. The skills Thrash About, Bulldoze, and Roar are used more frequently while it’s in this state, but the former two already have a low hit rate to start with. Other bosses can obtain a zen like accuracy, or even be smart enough to heal themselves if possible. Learn how to take control of those behaviors and use them to your advantage.
Skills
For the issue with skills, they they should also fall into the theme and type of boss that you’re developing with an altered behavior pattern compared to similar enemy types. What makes them stand out isn’t unique skills, but rather how their existing skills can be linked together to become a devastating weapon against the player. A boss doesn’t need to have it’s skill set focused on a particular type as they’re generally supposed to be able to be an all-rounder unless design dictates otherwise. The boss Triforce clearly wields the 3 Elements in it’s arsenal of skills, each tied to a specific body part, but also has skill associated with it’s main body as well, which can be anything from a physical attacker to a self regenerating support type depending on how you want to design it.
End of guide
I DID NOT MAKE THIS GUIDE.
All credit goes to Lowell Richards on the RPG MAKER VX ACE Community forums.
[link]
Original Post.
I uploaded this here for easy viewing for the steam community.