Building a better boss battle

[ub3rman123]

I'm working on making an epic boss to cap off the end of my dungeon. I want it to be complex, and very interesting. Unfortunately, the standard Oblivion bosses like Mannimarco are sorely lacking in being interesting, because the only mechanic to defeat them is "Hit them between 3 and 100 times depending on your difficulty setting". I've done some research into some of the finest boss battles in video games (Asked my brother about it), and one that I particularly like was the Zant fight from LoZ: Twilight Princess.

 

If you're unfamiliar with the fight, Zant warps you and himself to a multitude of location that you fought bosses before, with the mechanics changing between areas. For example, in one zone Zant is the same size as you are, and he teleports himself to a random spot on the arena and spins wildly towards with with his swords, where you then have to hit him in the back to knock him over, then slug the sucker. Another stage he turns into a gigantic version of himself, hundreds of feet tall, and you have to swing an explosive into his mouth.

 

Oblivion doesn't seem to have anything like this at all. Does anyone have suggestions for how to make a boss fight interesting? My main idea is to build in timed stages that arise each time the player manages to destroy one of six tombs around the boss's arena, where the player is then warped to a location in the game and fights the boss there. So how do you make the combat go beyond just hit them with a sword over and over?

 

A problem with my idea of warping the player around the world is the loading screens. I decided to solve that by stuffing them all into the boss arena and making them just copies of the location. Works sort of well. Except for outdoor locations.

[TheCalliton]

check the beggining to the fort death house mod, might help you

[Nightwolfhunter]

You seem to be working towards a good point. Have you played KOTN? Remember how you got warped to the sky after killing him the first time? You might do that.

 

To make it more interesting, you might make the boss look different somehow. I'm thinking something like Ganondorf to Gannon from OOT.

[ub3rman123]

I'm actually trying to avoid making it too much like KotN. My mod already has some similarities to it (The gods need your aid in striking down an ancient evil long ago banished and whatnot), although lore-wise it would make sense to have to kill the beast twice in its own plane. I lack the modeling skills for making a new model for it, though, so I might just end up with a retextured daedroth using Mehrunes Dagon sounds.

 

Calliton: I dunno, Ranokoa's message of

NO PERMISSION IS GIVEN TO USE THIS MOD! You may not even open up the CS with it without violating the agreement you make when clicking download. When you download you agree not to take any script, any part of the mod, any functions, or even open it with the CS. The scripts are very unique, most are NEVER USED before in any mod. Although the concept is complex but simple, no mod out there has the exact scripting that we do for the teleportation. DO NOT STEAL! This is a BETA, meaning incomplete. We do not want ANYTHING taken out and used somewhere else before, and possibly even after, the full version is available. Any violations is an act of theft, and CAN be punishable by a possible ban, albeit very probable. IF you want changes, IF you want a plugin, IF you want to alter it, you may ONLY do so if you NEVER EVER even upload it ANYWHERE or even let your friends play it!

 

kind of scares me. Like I might get assassinated for just downloading it to play it and see what they did.

[TurboKnight]

Zant reminds me of the "shadows of the past" type setup where you fight the main boss until he takes enough damage, and then he sends the hero back to a point in the quest where there was a challenging battle, forcing the PC to overcome those enemies again . . . at which point they instantly are returned to the main boss battle, typically to find the boss has acquired a better weapon and recovered while they were away . . .

 

To make things more interesting, you could try the classic "use their own strength to defeat them" approach - give the boss minions, and link them to his life force so that when they are all destroyed a stun or debuff is applied for a short interval before he recovers and summons more.

 

Mixing those two ideas together actually leads to another fairly regular boss battle tactic - have each warp pit the player against a different set of foes (in the same room or different ones) and when each set goes down, "destroy" that cell, returning the player to battle with the boss, who each time seems weakened - then in the end either have the PC strike down the boss, or reveal that each room contained part of the boss' power and the PC set it all free, setting up the "I am more powerful than ever before!" kind of ending.

[Vagrant0]

Not sure if you've seen it yet, but I've always thought that the boss battle in my Halloween mod was fairly good.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20390

 

Might give you some ideas.

[David Brasher]

Yes, that battle in the Halloween mod was something else.

 

I think it is cool if bosses have some powerful and unusual abilities, attacks, and resistances. In Oblivion they all kind of look and feel the same, but if you encounter a boss with some serious resistances or immunities, it changes everything. Like if a boss has so much shielding that you can hardly damage him at all. Or if a boss is immune to some particular thing like fire, frost, or shock. If that is the attack you always use, you may be in a world of hurt.

 

I have encountered bosses that regenerate faster than trolls. They are really scary, and can be indestructible to certain characters with certain armaments. All the damage has to be done really fast and all at once. You can't slowly snipe from a distance or repeatedly hit and run.

 

I encountered a boss once that had absolutely lethal ranged spells. (I didn't like it much.) One hit and any character would die. Fortunately the AI was messed up and I could repeatedly do sniping attacks at maximum possible range and then run away and dodge until the goddess gave up and calmed down went back to her throne.

 

Reflect spell and reflect damage can be pretty wild.

 

I fought a boss once who repeatedly revived his bodyguard of eight skeletons and who would would flee when injured until he had healed. Then he would go back on the attack again with his spells that could go through walls. (That battle really stunk. I eventually retreated.)

 

I enjoyed a boss battle that took place where either party might fall off the edge and die. That was pretty fun.

[ub3rman123]

I tried to run the Halloween mod, but the enemies in it just seem to spawn, die, and disappear without my hand in it.

 

So far, my idea is this. I'm trying to keep it within my basic scripting abilities. The player first pushes a casket down a huge pit, summoning the monster. The monster is at first invincible, and cannot take damage (That even possible? Or should I just set the health to ludicrous amounts?), until 6 somethings (Still figuring that out) scattered around the arena are destroyed. At each something, a memory from the beast is reawakened and must be put down, such as when the beast attacked the old Imperial City (When it was still held by Ayleids), or its first summoning deep within the Blackwood. Once all 6 memories are quelled, the monster can take damage, but by no means is it easy to kill. Near-fatal attacks and a defense make it quite difficult, but a very slow lumbering pace should make it easier. Once it's dead, I plan to make a .bik video for its death animation (Short, to keep down filesize).

 

Only problem is what the beast should look like.. Any good final-boss type models or resources out there? Something that looks like the avatar of Molag Bal?

[monkybuttface]

ummm...... 100% absorb spell + 100% shield + 1000 health regen per sec until after thing is destroyed? Will respawn every time you kill it until you destroy the things? also, how bout making it teleport every 20 seconds or so, far away if you have melee weapon, and up close (and maybe behind) if your ranging it, then it start attacking in an appropriate way? Constantly shifting resistances? H ave it count how many times you hit it with an element and gain a resistance to what seems like the player's favorite?

 

Im just throwin stuff out here.

 

edit: Make it a giant demon rat!!!!!!

[ub3rman123]

I could, but there has to be a model for it out there already. This mod's due date is August 11th.

 

I'm not sure how to implement random teleportation, though. I've worked before on trying to get stages to trigger at points on the enemy's health, but it didn't work too well.