What makes a Super-Boss hard?

[Angel of Iniquity]

I am making a video game and I want a ridiculously hard super boss.
Why? Cause in the FF i have played, barely has there been a Super boss that actually took skill if you were at max stats. Penance was the only boss that gave me real trouble, even at max stats.

Would this be hard?

This is trelestria, my hyper-boss.

Trelestria gains hp about 300 per second
When Trelestrias Hp drops 70%, he gains hp at an interval of 1 point every one tenth of a second
When Trelestrias Hp drops 50%, he gains Hp at an interval of 2 points every one tenth of a second
When Trelestrias Hp drops 30%, he gains Hp at an interval of 10 points every one tenth of a second

When Trelestrias Hp drops below 10%, He drops all Hp gaining processes and goes on the offense
He doubles his Att and def, but looses permanent statuses.
He then splits into 2 separate entities known as Ahura, and Mazda
Each entity has it's own 2 attack nodes
Each attack node has triple edge
All the attack nodes start hasted and quicken
The attack nodes have death touch and lv.1 doom strike
Ahura and Mazda both have Triple cast.
Ahura and Mazda are now able to create utter oblivion with their Neo-big bang
Ahura and Mazda both are immune to all magic, including dispel and white magic
Ahura and Mazda are only able to use Forbidden magic, "Ultimaga XX and Neo-Starfall XX"
Ahura and Mazda both have Magic and Magic def status points above 255, actually they are on 500
Ahura and Mazda both create another Node every time they get hit with a magic attack
Ahura and Mazda both will fall when their total Hp reduces to 1%.
Then they both will fuse to create Ahura Mazda
Ahura Mazda will have Permanent Faith, with Mag Dam to 500
Ahura Mazda will only use Neo-big bang, and Neo-Starfall XX with triple cast.
Ahura Mazda will then attempt to finish the fight with Final End when hp drops to 1%, about 560,000 Hp left
If Ahura Mazda uses Final End, the fight will end and so will all of eternity...





Trelestrias Permanent Regen allows him to gain a random Gain in Hp and randomly set intervals.

Trelestrias Mantra magic allows Him to gain 50% of all damage dealt to any party member.
So if somebody is Sapped, he gains the point in Hp. If all 4 members are sapped, He gains an addition 3 points per one tenth of a second.
Add that with his Below 30% gambit, and he gains 130 points per second.


In a single attack, If you hit him and deal 10,000 Dp to him, through his curse touch, you deal 3333 to yourself. And also, due to his mantra defense, he gains half of the Damage dealt by his curse touch.
And due to Infectious, you also fall under poison, sap and virus.
So, in easier terming

In a time span of a single attack

Laon deals 20,000 to Trelestria
Laon gets poisoned, sapped and Viruses
6666 is taken out of Laons Hp
Laons Mp is reduced to 0
Laons max Hp is reduced by 6666 Dp
3333 is added to Trelestrias Hp
The poison affects Laon and deals additional damage to Laon



Trelestria will Use strong magic attacks to both injure you and keep you on the defensive.
She will use physical attacks to both gain Hp and add status effects, as well as keep you on the defensive again.
She will often Quicken herself to allow her to move anywhere as much as 4 to 1 turns.
She will also use renew to gain one of her bars back if her Hp is dropped to quickly, though only at the 80%, 63%, 50%, 48%, 32%, 27%, 17%, and 10% marks
She will use Curaja if her Hp is dropped to quickly in a matter of 2 seconds



Is this hard?

And what makes a super boss hard anyways? is it the status ailments? Area attacks, it's speed, or an overwhelming amount f targets?

[Free_Lancer05]

I am making a video game and I want a ridiculously hard super boss.
Why? Cause in the FF i have played, barely has there been a Super boss that actually took skill if you were at max stats. Penance was the only boss that gave me real trouble, even at max stats.

Would this be hard?

This is trelestria, my hyper-boss.

Trelestria gains hp about 300 per second
When Trelestrias Hp drops 70%, he gains hp at an interval of 1 point every one tenth of a second
When Trelestrias Hp drops 50%, he gains Hp at an interval of 2 points every one tenth of a second
When Trelestrias Hp drops 30%, he gains Hp at an interval of 10 points every one tenth of a second

When Trelestrias Hp drops below 10%, He drops all Hp gaining processes and goes on the offense
He doubles his Att and def, but looses permanent statuses.
He then splits into 2 separate entities known as Ahura, and Mazda
Each entity has it's own 2 attack nodes
Each attack node has triple edge
All the attack nodes start hasted and quicken
The attack nodes have death touch and lv.1 doom strike
Ahura and Mazda both have Triple cast.
Ahura and Mazda are now able to create utter oblivion with their Neo-big bang
Ahura and Mazda both are immune to all magic, including dispel and white magic
Ahura and Mazda are only able to use Forbidden magic, "Ultimaga XX and Neo-Starfall XX"
Ahura and Mazda both have Magic and Magic def status points above 255, actually they are on 500
Ahura and Mazda both create another Node every time they get hit with a magic attack
Ahura and Mazda both will fall when their total Hp reduces to 1%.
Then they both will fuse to create Ahura Mazda
Ahura Mazda will have Permanent Faith, with Mag Dam to 500
Ahura Mazda will only use Neo-big bang, and Neo-Starfall XX with triple cast.
Ahura Mazda will then attempt to finish the fight with Final End when hp drops to 1%, about 560,000 Hp left
If Ahura Mazda uses Final End, the fight will end and so will all of eternity...





Trelestrias Permanent Regen allows him to gain a random Gain in Hp and randomly set intervals.

Trelestrias Mantra magic allows Him to gain 50% of all damage dealt to any party member.
So if somebody is Sapped, he gains the point in Hp. If all 4 members are sapped, He gains an addition 3 points per one tenth of a second.
Add that with his Below 30% gambit, and he gains 130 points per second.


In a single attack, If you hit him and deal 10,000 Dp to him, through his curse touch, you deal 3333 to yourself. And also, due to his mantra defense, he gains half of the Damage dealt by his curse touch.
And due to Infectious, you also fall under poison, sap and virus.
So, in easier terming

In a time span of a single attack

Laon deals 20,000 to Trelestria
Laon gets poisoned, sapped and Viruses
6666 is taken out of Laons Hp
Laons Mp is reduced to 0
Laons max Hp is reduced by 6666 Dp
3333 is added to Trelestrias Hp
The poison affects Laon and deals additional damage to Laon



Trelestria will Use strong magic attacks to both injure you and keep you on the defensive.
She will use physical attacks to both gain Hp and add status effects, as well as keep you on the defensive again.
She will often Quicken herself to allow her to move anywhere as much as 4 to 1 turns.
She will also use renew to gain one of her bars back if her Hp is dropped to quickly, though only at the 80%, 63%, 50%, 48%, 32%, 27%, 17%, and 10% marks
She will use Curaja if her Hp is dropped to quickly in a matter of 2 seconds



Is this hard?

And what makes a super boss hard anyways? is it the status ailments? Area attacks, it's speed, or an overwhelming amount f targets?

well i will give a quick reply to this. yes you make a good point, and yes this is a hard fight...for me, in my opinion i would have to say that a hard fight for me would be area attacks that inflict heavy damage too all characters...in addition too this follow up attacks that quickly kill players after large damage is inflicted to your whole party....but the biggest thing that gets to me is status ailments...even though you can protect your party from many before battle..some of the most annoying i will add are zombie, confuse, pretfify and doom...the problem is there are so many different status ailments that you cant always be resistent to them all...for example you can make characters...poison proof, stone proof, confuse proof, and silence proof.....but than still there are so many different ones...so in my opinion the hardest bosses can be the ones that carry the majority of different status ailments, because its a small chance that you can always be protected with everything..and the more time you spend curing status ailments means the less time you have to damage the boss.



maybe you can be a friend and comment on my thread about arena monsters in ff10 that i posted in general

[Angel of Iniquity]

Ohh, I have heard that Status ailments make bosses harder, mix that in with area strong attacks and a naturally high speed.

[Ralz]

Ohh, I have heard that Status ailments make bosses harder, mix that in with area strong attacks and a naturally high speed.

Dude, any boss can be annoying with the right combo. The best example off the top of my head is if you're under Poison when it performs a move that reduces everyone's HP to 1. Instant death, no reaction time.

But if you want general challenge, have its ATK power increase everytime its HP drops by a tenth. Near death, it'll be knocking out your members in 1 hit.

[Angel of Iniquity]

I like the Idea of increasing it's power the closer to death, which I have but are there any other ways to cripple the party? I think that fast, high defense, High defence, area attacks and increasing difficulty make bosses hard. And I also made the last part a time challenge, so even if you beat him per se, you have to finish him quickly or you die...o.o

[Heartless Angel]

I like bosses that force you to utilize some form of strategy rather than just showing up with max level and gear and unleashing your best spells and healing constantly until dead. I like a boss who can and will obliterate you in a single attack if you failed to prepare for it. I like fight that give you other things to worry about than the boss. Like spawning lesser monsters that deal a crapton of damage, or summon a random weapon that you have to focus your attacks on if you don't want it to annihilate you. What REALLy makes a boss hard, is multiple stages. Congratulations on just barely making it through that fight with like, 3 hp left! Did I mention there's a second form with no break in between? Have fun with that. Well placed normal enemies can also make bosses very difficult, like having a crapload of overpowered randoms just before a boss with no save point. Your supplies are toast before you even see the bastard. One of the worst things bosses do isn't causing status ailments, but removing your enhancements. You thnk you're prepared to go all out with your haste on, protect, stat boosts and all? Cool, btw that boss knows Dispel. Another thing that makes a great boss hard, is having waaaaaaaay too much ****ing HP. Surviving this ass for 5 minutes is hard work, but since he has about 6 trillion HP, you'll be here for an hour or two. The high HP makes luck a big deal. In a truly hard boss fight, there's a million ways to **** up and die. The fact that the fight goes on forever just increases the odds of you making one of these mistakes. All this being said, very few games have bosses I consider hard.

[Angel of Iniquity]

Okay, so a boss that weakens you, ailments you, allot of Hp, area attacks, multiple phases, distanced or grueling entry, Multiple attack targets, multiple STRONG attack targets, and the fact that you will never win on the first try, never the less 15th lol

[dragonas2]

Heres a small list of things that makes a boss hard

1: High defense
2: EXTREMELY HIGH HEALTH!
3: Immunity to melee attacks
4: super attacks that are nearly a 1-hit kill
5: of course... backup

[espritduo]

Having high HP is a double-edged sword. You don't want to give it more HP than you need to. If the battle is taking more than a half hour to finish even when you're playing right and at full strength, then you've given the enemy too much HP(see: Yiazmat). Nobody wants to sit there and slog through one battle for more than half an hour. It's just not fun, and the fun factor is just as important as the challenge factor. Give it enough HP to show you everything it's capable of doing, and forcing the player to set up counter measures to its attacks instead of shrugging them off as one-offs, but not so much that you're just sitting there doing the same cycle of strategies over and over for endless amounts of time.

A good way to make the battle last and keep the player's interest is making sure the battle changes as the enemy weakens. Increasing attack power and other stats is fine, but not very interesting by itself. Completely changing attack patterns is good. Changing forms is good(either as separate battles or as evolutions within the battle). Bringing in various types of re-enforcements is good. Having the enemy actually fall apart as you destroy parts of it is good.

Unique attacks are also a plus. Make it do something you've never seen before, something you didn't even think enemies could do. Stuff like locking abilities, destroying equipment(not permanently, please!), blowing away characters, new status ailments whatever. Anything to make the player stop and think about how to react. If you're just going to spam "Ultimate Attacks #24-56" without bringing anything new to the table, the player will get bored, even if the battle is technically challenging. Surprises are a major plus in specialty battles like super-bosses.

Also, luck should NOT be a major factor in any drawn out battle. If you're going to make a boss that takes some amount of luck to beat, you want the battle to be short and vicious, not long and drawn out. Ozma is a good example of a luck-based super-boss. He can end the battle in one move if he chooses, but he has very low HP. I can guarantee nobody would enjoy the Ozma fight if he had 600,000 HP instead of 60,000. Dying for no reason that you could possibly have prevented right at the end of a long fight is not fun, it's frustrating and sadistic. If the player dies, they should always feel like it was their fault, not the game taking a cheap shot.

[Angel of Iniquity]

Espritduo

Nice and complete answer, I appreciate that.

Would any of theses make the battle harder?

A time limit- Not throughout the whole battle maybe just for certain attacks?
An attack that could finish the party, but has a special movement before so the party know and tries to defend.

Maybe an attack that restores most of it's HP if it has low HP?

[Heartless Angel]

Time limit on attacks was ind of what I was getting at earlier. Like Bahamut's countdown on Megaflare in FFX, but with a way to actually stop it rather than just hoping you survive it.

One-hit Kills are an essential for any post endgame boss, but again with soe way to prepare or stop it. Even a few turn's advance warning so everyone can get autolife or endure or something similar going is sufficient.

Healt restoration is always a bitch on bosses, so definitely. Something a boss in one game I played did that made for an itneresting challenge: At every 1/3 interval of its health, it initiated a countdown on a healing spell that would give it 1/3 of its health back, but with a way to stop the heal from working. Basically forcing you to repeat part of the battle until you got it right.

[saber372]

tough boss battle.. a lot of what i feel it would need has already been mentioned.. but i think the thing that can make bosses the hardest is their ability to inflict status changes on themselves or the party.. FFXIII i think exemplified this very good at some points.. Orphan casting its one attack to inflict the huge amount of ailments made life very rough if immediately after they cast a strong spell to lower your health drastically.. this move forced me to change my methods of attack and such.. And the changing of strengths and move set as health dwindles i feel adds to it... because as a battle winds down i know i start thinking when can i go for the kill.. the all out offensive instead of playing it safe.. a move that has cost me from time to time.. :/ things that make enemies any enemy a pain in the ass.. high speed.. and multiple numbers.. so those i feel do add to it..

[klublife]

i think multi stage bosses are a great idea, but if your going to make the hour's on end for each segment, let there be a pause point. example: in ff12, you could fight Yiazmat for a good number hours easily, but you could take a break at any time by leaving. there would be a counter in the corner telling you how many times, because going through the whole battle at once is ridiculous.

[Linus Li Lelouch]

Lots and lots of HP, after a while, I'm just like he still isn't dead, then I get tired, and lazy and that's when the mistakes tend to happen.

I myself fought a couple of bosses that was super hard to me, and that's because when I got to them, I didn't know about half the game, and it took me more effort than usual to beat him. Perfect example is Omega Weapon in FF8, no lionheart, no the end, I didn't really know about any of it so the entire hour and 47 mins it took me to kill him was because I was doing nothing but regular attacks and magic so in terms he was a super boss to me.

If we're talking about being max out finding a boss, then I don't really see the point, unless this particular boss was created for the sole purpose of fighting it while your characters were maxed out. There was a boss in Arc Rise Fantasia I couldn't beat for a while because he was doing too much damage to me when I had very few HP. I then learned to combine some spells together to increase my HP, and combine some magic spells to increase the damage I did to him. It took me a while but just beating that guy alone made me think he was a super boss, although other people had no problem with him. Then I made a thread a while back about how easy Lucifer was in SMT Nocturne, contrary to popular belief, I had some of the weakest characters in the game, not to mention only one of my characters was actually about to do damage to him, but the fight was still easy.

A True Super Boss is kinda hard to make when it depends on the player who's fighting him. A boss may be hard to someone but a cakewalk to someone else, who will probably turn around and do the same exact thing your doing, *Making a thread about a super hard boss fight*.

Kinda went off-topic for a bit, if a boss is going to be as hard and crazy as the above posts from others mention, then the game better be interesting enough for me to even consider getting to the point of fighting him. I don't look for super hard bosses in every game I play, just the ones where I loved it and need to make sure I kill every boss in the game.


~~EDIT~~

My goal is to beat Yiazmat in one sitting, then will I call myself the Ultimate Badass. To my knowledge I haven't met anyone who did so I will be the first.

[JuzamDjinn]

I don't think there is such thing as a "hard boss" in a game like Final Fantasy.

Since the Final Fantasy battle systems have always been about menus, the only issue to keep in mind is resource management. Since this is NEVER a problem (if it is, just grind for a little while...problem solved)

There is nothing to worry about as long as you are willing to sit there untill the boss is dead. Especially scince by the time you get to these "super bosses" you've already gotten all the best stuff in the game, done whatever you do in the game to get 99 exlixer/megalixirs/heros. It's safe to assume you are going to be ok.
( I can't speak for the Tactics games, never played them)

Concerning gaming in general. The kindof boss that is unpredictable and depletes your resources quickly are the toughest of all.

[Henry]

When they use Healing magic like Curaga and heals like 9999 HP >_<

[matt]

Ok in my opinion i would say that high Hp is good also I would have the "ultimate" boss have the ability to use whatever the characters can use eg. when you have a black mage use reflect to boost the magic power delt to the enemy, it would be great if the boss could do it aswell, if the party can use "limit" style abilities so can the boss to unleash defestating damage maybe the you have to target cirten areas to deal more damage, if he is wearing armour can it be broken or better yet can he dissarm the party or destroy the weapons forcing you to change to lesser weapons. Also wouldnt it be great if the boss could learn your attack pattern for example you have a mage in the party casting regen he would be able to tell and use dispell or you have a grunt dealing out massive melee damage hetrys to wipe him out first,

It sounds to me like you have the bases covered and there is a lot of great sugestions in the thread, put all these togather and you have one hell of a boss.

[Locke4God]

I like a number of things

1. Hi HP obviously
2. Being able to cast some type of debilitating status that forces you to strategize for that to defend yourself
3. Near Immunity to something, magic, physical attacks, something that forces you to cast something to counter that or strategize around it
4. SPEED! If it's taking turns faster than you are, it gets challeging fast
5. Devestating Attacks! If it's nearly killing you each hit, you've got to do something; designate a healer, cast shell, cast mirror, something
6. Strategy Shifting - When all of a sudden you realize that your current tactics aren't working, and you have to change mid-fight!
7. Mega-Healing - When just as you think you're probably getting it low in HP, whoops +9999 HP for the bad guy!

[Minty]

I like a number of things

1. Hi HP obviously
2. Being able to cast some type of debilitating status that forces you to strategize for that to defend yourself
3. Near Immunity to something, magic, physical attacks, something that forces you to cast something to counter that or strategize around it
4. SPEED! If it's taking turns faster than you are, it gets challeging fast
5. Devestating Attacks! If it's nearly killing you each hit, you've got to do something; designate a healer, cast shell, cast mirror, something
6. Strategy Shifting - When all of a sudden you realize that your current tactics aren't working, and you have to change mid-fight!
7. Mega-Healing - When just as you think you're probably getting it low in HP, whoops +9999 HP for the bad guy!

This is actually a really awesome list.

I would say out of these, healing and speed are your worst enemy while fighting a boss.

[markandrewkinzett]

Make a boss like Penance then, if he gave you trouble but was still defeatable then work on that, a good boss should be challenging but defeatable you just need to find the right balance.

[ZenMonkey59]

Battle mechanics that can waste multiple turns if you don't know about them ahead of time.

For example, "don't spend a bunch of time destroying that sword, or he'll instantly create a new one."

That didn't actually happen, but that kind of thing happens ALL THE TIME in FF games.

[Hobaginator]

There is a fine line between an intense challenge and a retarded waste of time... My suggestion for the ultimate super boss would be:
1. Don't make him a requirement to beat the game.
2. Don't make the fight take more than 30 minutes.
3. Have different evolutions which require different tactics, follow different attack patterns, and have different weaknesses than previous "forms".
4. Have the boss pause attacking in between evolutions to call in some quick sweep and clear mobs to keep the player motivated, excited and feeling like a badass. Make them progressively harder... part of the boss battle themselves.
5. Don't give the boss instant game enders unless the player screws something up.
6. The boss should have several ways it can be defeated... let the player assess the situation and take it out using his/her own tactics. Don't make it a trial and error type of ordeal... I shouldn't have to die 15 times just to learn his secret patterns in order to beat him... common sense should be one's best ally in order to defeat it.
7. Make a hard boss without making him immune to certain attacks... let me use my menu.
8. If there are blow-away moves, I should have a chance in between evolutions to get a party member back if I play my cards right.
9. The best challenges are those won by perserverence... give me a real battle through the trenches, not a handgun against a nuclear missile launcher.
10. Since the battle will be long, give me several turns per 10 or so minutes to heal up and buff up my party, and unclench my butt muscles.
11. Make it accidentally epic.