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Castle Paradox
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Mr B
Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 382
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 10:29 am Post subject: Why Final Bosses? |
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Every game has a final boss, right? And every game must have a final boss, right?
Why?
I had always (qualified "always") thought that every RPG has a final boss, and does so because it's simply a necessary and emergent aspect of the game system. (though I suppose that pen-n-paper RPGs may not have this, I've never played one)
However, final bosses seem to be a general disappointment to most players. When asked for a favorite battle, how often do we think of the final boss battle? Pretty rarely, I think. The final boss is supposed to be the most difficult battle of the game, so they're pretty much always increadibly strong (dealing heaps of damage) and increadibly vivacious (absorbing heaps of damage). As a result, there is little strategy involved besides hit-n-heal. Additionally, the player tends to hoard all of the goodies simply for this single battle, which rather tends to mess up the already-precarious balance.
The battles we seem to better enjoy involve multiple enemies working together to provoke a strategic assault. Players have to decide who to attack first, and how to do so. Lone enemies tend to just not provide that kind of strategy.
So why are final bosses always alone? I suppose that the primary reason is that there is only one main bad-guy in the plot, so it makes sense to have a single final boss. This doesn't seem like much of an obstacle, as mega henchmen could be inserted without much trouble.
What if, instead of having the final boss be a single enemy, it was a group of enemies? A group of battles, each one equally difficult in its own way? This could provide a great deal more strategic interest than a single battle with a single opponent. On the other hand, the player would not have the same emotional impact as is granted by the "this is it, this is the final battle, this is THE END" sensation.
It seems as if there is a bit of a duel between having an interesting final battle and an emotionally fullfilling story. What ways can these two extremes be successfully mated, without compromising either? |
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jabbercat Composer

Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 823 Location: Oxford
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 10:57 am Post subject: |
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How about if the final boss was a single enemy, but working in different parts? As in, you have to disable all parts of the same creature/other (which behave like individual creatures) to complete the battle. It'd help the sotry stick perhaps. But you're right, normally final bosses are un-interesting.
To touch on Pen and paper RPGs are final bosses, there aren't any really. End of quest monsters for sure, but it's very rare that a D'n'D game will ever have an absolute end. _________________ Moogle no longer owes prizes. |
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Moogle1 Scourge of the Seas Halloween 2006 Creativity Winner


Joined: 15 Jul 2004 Posts: 3377 Location: Seattle, WA
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 11:40 am Post subject: |
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Final bosses are kind of necessary because a game generally has a rising challenge level. It has to end somewhere and the challenge should be the same style as the rest of the game. It wouldn't make sense for an RPG's final conflict to be a DDR match.
This doesn't mean that the last battle has to be a hackfest, even if most games' are. Darkmoor Dungeon has a really unusual last boss, but thematically it works really well. Final Fantasy VII has a little story battle after the last boss (which you might be able to lose, actually, but that's not important). Earthbound has a pretty standard last boss and then lets you wander around the world as long as you want until you decide the game is over.
As far as grouped enemies in a last battle, Final Fantasy V comes to mind (it really is just Exdeath, but he is transformed into some multitarget abomination). Darkmoor Dungeon has two targets in its last battle, and, uh, I really can't think of a lot of other examples. _________________
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LeRoy_Leo Project manager Class S Minstrel

Joined: 24 Sep 2003 Posts: 2683 Location: The dead-center of your brain!
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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I agree completely. Single bosses were meant to be cool only when they were new, but since we've seen them so much already, it is time for some change. I have seen final bosses sort of like what you speak of emerging more and more lately, like in the last 5 years, or so (I'm talking abotu FINAL bosses, and not bosses in general). That's good news for us. FF may have stuck with the classic solo final boss, but a lot of bosses now have either different stages or a few henchmen helping them. I think it's the Japanese idea of honor in their culture. Maybe they want the boss to seem honorable or cocky. A general rule is, if you can't beat a boss, it's not fun. Sqauresoft should have thought a little harder about that when they made some of their final bosses. I don't want to have to be a freakin' super human to beat a game. _________________ Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...
---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. " |
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Iblis Ghost Cat

Joined: 26 May 2003 Posts: 1233 Location: Your brain
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:16 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: | the player tends to hoard all of the goodies simply for this single battle, which rather tends to mess up the already-precarious balance. |
This gives me an idea: what would happen if consumable items in RPGs had expiration dates?
As for the final boss problem (which really relates to all bosses, it's just on a larger scale), I think a good way to increase the amount of strategy in a boss battle is to make the boss change during the battle. And not just one change, a repeated change. And then the player has to change their playing style to match what the boss is doing.
For example, a boss might have several weapons but only use one at a time. And they have different stats and attacks depending on whether they're using a sword or axe or spear or staff. Or a boss's stats change throughout a battle. For an especially hard boss, you might even just make their stats increase regularly (I once planned a boss whose speed would gradually go up as you fought it). Or a boss could summon different helpers during the battle. Similar to that, if you're making a boss with many parts, you could change around the parts too. We've all seen bosses where you can kill their arms and then after a time the arms revive. But, have we seen bosses that have multiple types of arms they can have? These could have different elements, or different attacks, or whatever.
Anyway, the point is: if a boss has the same stats and same attack pattern through the whole battle, the player only needs to make one stategy and stick with it. If you change things around, you encourage the player to change things around too (as long as your game has a way for them to do this). It keeps them thinking.
Also, most people seem to automatically make their bosses immune against all status effects. This is a terrible thing to do. A status effect can be a good weak spot for a boss. And of course, this is another thing you can change.
Having a multi-target last boss is a good idea as well, of course. But that alone isn't going to do much. _________________ Locked
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Raekuul Delicious!

Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 641 Location: Nowhere
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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Well, the Partitioned Final Boss is what I had in mind for Pludes, the mastermind in Colora. He comes in eight parts: One Epitomezzo for each Epitome Skill, and a main body that re-spawns the Epitomezzos when alone. You're pretty much doing Trial and Error. Now, if only Countering wasn't broken... _________________ A broken clock is still right twice a day. |
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Mr B
Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 382
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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That does it; I have got to play Darkmoor Dungeon sometime. Where is the time!?!
Having separate parts to an enemy makes a lot of sense. The player can have a more complex strategy presented to him while still being able to maintain the emotional fiction of fighting a single enemy.
How different would it be for a game to have multiple final boss characters? Many RPGs already have complex storylines, but there would probably have to be some unusual changes to permit this. Eh, topic for another thread.
Anyway, yes; now that I think about it, final boss battles are almost obligated to be the exact modal average of all the battles in the game. A game can have exceptional (not necessarily positive; merely different) battles here and there, but if the player has been strategizing and developing character aptitudes for the broadest, most-common type of battle, he will probably get quite upset if the final boss uses a completely different strategy.
Of course, if the final boss uses the most generic strategy, then the player is theoretically freed to use nearly any of the strategies he has developed. If the final boss can only be defeated by the use of one single spell many times over, then all of that strategy development goes down the drain. I suppose that having a generic-strategy final boss is therefore a defense mechanism against player anger (well, it minimizes peaks of anger while increasing general discontent).
Does this average-ness necessarily doom the final boss? If most battles are hack-n-heal affairs, then I suppose that it must. However, if the average battle presents a lot of strategy, variability, and problem-solving, then final boss genericity (?) wouldn't be a bad thing at all.
Of course, making general battles more strategic and complicated would alter the entire tempo of the game, probably resulting in fewer, longer battles. Or you could just make every battle a boss battle. I guess Darkmoor Dungeon does this. What about Shadow of the Colossus?
An aside note on henchmen; they have to be done correctly, or they're even worse than a single boss. The "henchmen" in KotORII rather offended me, as they were so pathetic that I didn't have to worry about them whatsoever.
So much for story-intensive games. What about games that have little (if any) story? Roguelikes come to mind. As far as I can tell (never beaten any of 'em), the average roguelike starts out with the presentation of a little blurb about what is at the bottom of the dungeon (if that much info), ends with a battle (after which the player can sometimes continue playing), and everything else is yay killing.
Since the player's emotional attachment is far more entity-oriented than character oriented (since, after all, when a character dies, it stays dead, and there is little story development to provoke a social type of emotional attachment), the player probably doesn't really care whether there is one or ten final bosses. That requirement is not neccessitated by the story.
This can't be translated directly back to story-intensive (I use the term rather liberally) games, but it shows that it can be done if the player's emotions can be directed correctly.
Iblis wrote: | This gives me an idea: what would happen if consumable items in RPGs had expiration dates? |
Yeah..! I was thinking of extreme item-count restrictions, but this is better. It could find its way into all sorts of game mechanics. Players could pay top-dollar to get the potions that will last the longest, and stuff could be upgraded at a potionary in town. Weapon decay, enhancement restrictions, hmm. Lots of possibilities.
Iblis wrote: | As for the final boss problem (which really relates to all bosses, it's just on a larger scale), I think a good way to increase the amount of strategy in a boss battle is to make the boss change during the battle. And not just one change, a repeated change. And then the player has to change their playing style to match what the boss is doing. |
This is a good way to increase the playability of a battle. Having multiple entities would be one good way to effect this, but anything that requires strategy and compensation and all that.
Iblis wrote: | Also, most people seem to automatically make their bosses immune against all status effects. This is a terrible thing to do. A status effect can be a good weak spot for a boss. And of course, this is another thing you can change. |
E.g., Immune vs. death. That bugs me. Why are all of the status effects useless against the only enemies you'd use them on? It's a poor substitute for design. |
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Moogle1 Scourge of the Seas Halloween 2006 Creativity Winner


Joined: 15 Jul 2004 Posts: 3377 Location: Seattle, WA
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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DD is barely over half an hour. I'm sure you can spare that kind of time. You would enjoy it.
Status effects are useless in most games, which is stupid. Death spells are useless in almost every game in which they appear, which is really stupid. I like the balance of the Death spell in DD: it has a 100% success rate (except on enemies that are immune to it, which the game tells you beforehand) and it kills its caster. It is still one of the best spells for the first half of the game. Similar drawbacks can make other status attacks balanced but useful.
Ideally, I'd like to make all status effects work on all enemies, but not always to the same extent. For example, a certain enemy might have 90% resistance to poison attacks, meaning poison does 1/10 its damage to that enemy, or 50% resistance to instant death, meaning two instant death attacks will kill it instantly (but one will do nothing). This is an oversimplification, but it approximates how I'd like to deal with status effects. _________________
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Fenrir-Lunaris WUT

Joined: 03 Feb 2003 Posts: 1747
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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A death spell SHOULD be able to kill most any non-boss enemy. I seem to remember that FF8 was also fairly balanced in its approach to status effects working on bosses too. Just about every single enemy in the game COULD be blinded, for example. |
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JSH357

Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 1705
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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Pokémon and Earthbound have the greatest final bosses I've seen in RPGs.
In Pokémon, you have to face the five toughest opponents in the game in a row (with time to use up items inbetween) and all of them have very powerful monsters. If you aren't ready, you can't win, and all five of them have different teams so you have to be ready for all of them. Personally, I think Pokémon handles the endgame situation better than any game I've ever played besides Earthbound.
Earthbound's final boss is kind of hard to understand if you don't get what the game is all about. Just the concept of killing the final boss with your own power is enough to make it personal, and then being able to wander around the world and talk to people before watching the ending makes it even better.
Final Fantasy 6 also has a really good final boss. FF8 tried to mimic it and failed. |
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chris98

Joined: 23 Feb 2005 Posts: 114 Location: On Jupiter, My rubber Boobie, s45 h79
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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I've got a final boss idea, not for Cair Navon, something new. The final boss being the 3 generals in charge of an army after world domination. Oh, sure, there would be Ultima and Holy type spells, but one would absorb the holy element while taking double damage from Ultima, and another would be vice versa. The super spells, there fore would get you nowhere, and you would have to strategise. Muiltiple final bosses? There ya have it. _________________ ANIME FREAK!!!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL DIS RO><ORS!!!
Come to http://firaga.conforums3.com for discussions about RPGs, old and new alike. We need members. |
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Battleblaze Warrior Thread Monk

Joined: 19 Dec 2003 Posts: 782 Location: IndY OHR
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Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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Instead of a instant death spell, why not a spell that does a huge amount of damage that woul kill most enimies, but not the boss who has tons of life anyway? _________________ Indy OHR! and National OHR Month Contest going on now!
"Aeth calls PHC an anti-semite; PHC blames anti-semitism"
-squall |
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Me HI.

Joined: 30 Mar 2003 Posts: 870 Location: MY CUSTOM TITLE CAME BACK
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Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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Battleblaze wrote: | Instead of a instant death spell, why not a spell that does a huge amount of damage that woul kill most enimies, but not the boss who has tons of life anyway? |
Because that would be just another high damage attack and not an instant-death spell. _________________ UP DOWN UP DOWN LEFT LEFT RIGHT RIGHT A B START |
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msw188
Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:45 am Post subject: |
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Moogle1 said:
Ideally, I'd like to make all status effects work on all enemies, but not always to the same extent. For example, a certain enemy might have 90% resistance to poison attacks, meaning poison does 1/10 its damage to that enemy, or 50% resistance to instant death, meaning two instant death attacks will kill it instantly (but one will do nothing). This is an oversimplification, but it approximates how I'd like to deal with status effects.
Now do you guys see why I want percentage-based attacks to allow elemental modifiers, etc. so bad? In fact, as I look at this, I think it would be even better if a percentage could be chosen as a base stat, so that defense could be set against it as well. Any thoughts on this? |
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Mr B
Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 382
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:16 pm Post subject: |
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Moogle1 wrote: | DD is barely over half an hour. I'm sure you can spare that kind of time. You would enjoy it. |
Then it's on my to-do list.
It seems to me that a streight-out insta-death spell is going down the wrong path, game-play wise. If it doesn't work against bosses, then its primary use is gone. If it does work against bosses, then there's no balance.
What I did/am-doing/will-have-done for a game of mine is to throw out the insta-death attacks entirely, and replace it with an assassin attack. The assassin attack does a great deal of damage (3x-4x, if I remember), but then immediately chains to an attack that heals 100% of previous damage done to the previous target, shows no damage, and does not randomize. Thus it does a large amount of damage but immediately restores it if the target does not die. As a result, it acts like an insta-death attack vs. most weaker enemies, but when it fails against a truly strong enemy it's because of the intrinsic nature of the ability, not because of an externally imposed restriction.
How do you think a game would be affected game-play-wise if it did not have a single final boss battle?
What I mean is, when the player enters the final area, he has to fight several mega-tough battles (probably in whichever order he chooses), but does not have one single overbearing this-is-the-end battle.
I don't know what I think about it, yet. Completely apart from the difficulties that it might make for the story (justifying twenty final bosses instead of one Final Boss), it would probably upset a lot of established player strategy. Item hoarding, for instance. What would the advantages be? If a player doesn't like one of the final boss battles, at least one of the others should do the trick. Several different strategies could be catered to. Perhaps strategic deployment could be used (what if, in FFVI, each of the three final parties fought a different final boss?).
I don't know... It would be strange. Tricky. Considering how deeply-established the single Final Boss is in the RPG world, I expect players would tend to be rather disturbed if the developer fails to really impress. |
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