Id like to see what everyones Favorite Boss Mechanics/encounters are. And why.
For Example it could be a boss that is immune to crushing damage( blunt weapons ) or one that is immune to magic attacks and Magic weapons, or one that charms a player to attack the group if you dont interupt him in time.
Im interested to see peoples thoughts.
Given that the mobs have a rudimentary AI, one thing that I would like to see is bosses that learn from their previous defeats. For instance, maybe the first time "he" was defeated, it was by a bunch of "cold spells". Maybe for the next encounter "he" has cold resist gear.
Obviously, there would need to be some sort of limitation on that othereise you make a "learning boss" invulnerable over time.
Kalok said:Given that the mobs have a rudimentary AI, one thing that I would like to see is bosses that learn from their previous defeats. For instance, maybe the first time "he" was defeated, it was by a bunch of "cold spells". Maybe for the next encounter "he" has cold resist gear.
Obviously, there would need to be some sort of limitation on that othereise you make a "learning boss" invulnerable over time.
That would be very interesting, Not the invulnerable over time part LOL, but the Learning part, Expanding on your Boss learning from past experiences and to limit the chances of invulnerable over time, maybe the boss could have different Sets of abilitys and resist sets they can use...So as you said Last time it was Defeated was with cold spells So it puts on cold resist Gear, but also this time it uses fire attacks instead of magic, or it uses poison attacks, Now it would have to have a limited number of resist sets and abilitys, but it could rotate these resists and abilitys around every time it is defeated or is reset, so that you Never know what to expect.
Agreed, it would "Help" with people just Zerging bosses too, Since the boss would reset its abilitys and resists after every Defeat, Either its Defeat or yours. Trying the same tactic over and over wouldn't work. Just because you zerged the boss the first time because it was only using poison or disease attacks and the healers were removing them fast enough, doesnt mean that THIS time the boss will be using the same attacks / resists, he could be using life leach or fire Etc.
I liked the tactic of Vox and Naggy in EQ1 where they banish anyone on their aggro list that is over level 52. With Pantheon this could maybe be expanded so that the area around the boss can completely disable higher level characters so they can't buff or heal the raiders, or higher level buffs can be stripped.
Something else that might be interesting is if you repeatedly went up against a specific boss, over time they remembered you and called you by name.
Curse Callers in Inku'ta the Unmasked Chapel. You need to kill 6 CurseCallers. While trying to kill these 6 CurseCallers (all who cast quite debilitating debuffs but have little DPS of their own) up to 5 Curse Bearers can spawn at any given time. As one spawns, a random person in the raid will receive a /tell saying "I am coming for you". If the Curse Bearer touches you, it hits for 100k and procs a Death Touch. The good thing it is doesnt run very fast so you can avoid being touched. After a few moments it will depawn and another Curse Bearer will spawn so there are usually 5 active at any one time.
I love raids where everyone needs to pay attention and react to to either a personal event, like the Curse Bearers, or a raid-wide event like an AoE Events where different groups need to focus on different things simulataneously are really the best. Emperor Ssraezsha in Ssra Temple Luclin expanion is a good example as are the raid events in the Muramite Proving Grounds Omens of War expansion.
Kalok said:Something else that might be interesting is if you repeatedly went up against a specific boss, over time they remembered you and called you by name.
HAHA that would be funny, the look some on peoples face would be awesome when they hear their name called out, they would be WTF HAHA, maybe because they had remembered them they would focus their attacks on them reguardless of the tank, because the boss now has a grudge against that player..
Tiberius said:Kalok said:Something else that might be interesting is if you repeatedly went up against a specific boss, over time they remembered you and called you by name.
HAHA that would be funny, the look some on peoples face would be awesome when they hear their name called out, they would be WTF HAHA, maybe because they had remembered them they would focus their attacks on them reguardless of the tank, because the boss now has a grudge against that player..
That's what I was thinking.... heheheheheh
Along the lines of Bosses learning from previous fights. You mentions using different skills. The boss could have like say, 5 skill slots that are defaulty populated at first, but each time they are defeated they pick a skill at random that was used during their previous fight (nukes, Pets, heals, stealths, cleaves, etc.) That way each time a group or raid kills a boss, it decides that since their skills bested him last time, he will adopt one of their skills.
Kargen said:Along the lines of Bosses learning from previous fights. You mentions using different skills. The boss could have like say, 5 skill slots that are defaulty populated at first, but each time they are defeated they pick a skill at random that was used during their previous fight (nukes, Pets, heals, stealths, cleaves, etc.) That way each time a group or raid kills a boss, it decides that since their skills bested him last time, he will adopt one of their skills.
Exactly something like this. They would just have to be careful in order to keep the boss from becoming "invulnerable".
Hopefully Kilsin or Aradune will stumble across this thread.
Typically it's the guild raid that needs to discover the mechanics of the scripts employed. That could take a few tries. Usually I recall doing 3 attempt to learn and then move on to another known target as not to get players too depressed for some well diserved loot.
As learning how a raid works is part of the fun, complicating it with random AI defense changes based on last meet of a guild, could make an event too hard to complete. Especially with multiple stage events like Vandraad's 'Unmasked Chapel' referenced raid. (I liked the GoD raids)
(I always thought they began slow but moved faster untill they got you; something changed? anyways, ZAM confirms Vandraad).
Putting in a random factor is definatly something to consider for discovery sake for other guilds as well. Keep scripts every raid the same can become boring.
Kargen said:Along the lines of Bosses learning from previous fights. You mentions using different skills. The boss could have like say, 5 skill slots that are defaulty populated at first, but each time they are defeated they pick a skill at random that was used during their previous fight (nukes, Pets, heals, stealths, cleaves, etc.) That way each time a group or raid kills a boss, it decides that since their skills bested him last time, he will adopt one of their skills.
Love the idea.. they learn from us, we learn from them..
Hmmm....in FFXI there was an event called salvage. Your group started off naked with locked abilities, when you started you were given a few keys to unlock various things. You had to prioritize who got what keys. For instance you would want to make sure your healer can heal, and might want your tank to get a main weapon and abilities unlocked. You had a time limit to progress through a maze of sorts to the final boss, and various mini bosses would drop more keys and loot along the way. Wasn't perfect, but the approach to the encounter was very interesting to me.
Grimix said:Hmmm....in FFXI there was an event called salvage. Your group started off naked with locked abilities, when you started you were given a few keys to unlock various things. You had to prioritize who got what keys. For instance you would want to make sure your healer can heal, and might want your tank to get a main weapon and abilities unlocked. You had a time limit to progress through a maze of sorts to the final boss, and various mini bosses would drop more keys and loot along the way. Wasn't perfect, but the approach to the encounter was very interesting to me.
Reminds me of the Ancient Cave from Lufia 2. I shared a similar idea on here awhile back that Evoras was kind enough to expand on. It's similar to Palace of the Dead from the FF series but Lufia 2 is the first game where I saw this concept utilized. Evoras' post is on page 2. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4986/ideas
The thing I enjoyed most about it was the replay value. Nothing earned inside the cave could be used outside of it unless you actually conquered the full dungeon, which was 100 floors deep. The dungeon also had some progression elements that were exclusive to the dungeon itself. Every time you entered, you would start off as level 1 and with no gear. The more you play the dungeon, the more "blue gear" you could earn which was something that you could start off with on future visits. There were also the iris jewels which could provide a reward for the outside world but they were extremely rare. The main reason I think something like this would be great for an MMO is this ... it's a "hardcore dungeon" that people can dedicate as much time to as they want, all without interfering with the standard progression of their character or the server. The biggest issue was finding a way to make it work without instances and I think Evoras delivered some ideas on how that could be accomplished.
Kilsin has actually asked this a couple times. See what the community said here:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3548/epic-boss-and-raid-mobs
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2370/group-and-raid-bosses