Tip.it Times 7 February 2010

[Maco]

The article has a good point. Runescape has been around for what? 9 years maybe? I played it actively for 3-4 years (but not seriously in the last couple years), and a lot has changed, from the limiting of free trade, to the grand exchange, which almost completely removed the element of trading with people, but there is one thing that hasn't. Armor has gotten better, weapons more powerful, potions more potent, but our hit points have always been limited to 99. This means that it doesn't make sense for any monster to be able to hit higher than 99 because it would accomplish nothing more. So I think that unless hit points are allowed to exceed 99 (I know that sara brews will raise it temporarily) that there is a limit to how powerful any monster can be in RS.

[Assume Nothing]

The thing is; Most examples of 'not hard' boss monsters ARE hard. If you let them be. Say if Kree can randomly hit you through prayer. Now that's some KO factor. JaGex can do everything to make a monster harder, but with new updates, eventually it'll be like the KBD.

 

What I'd like to see is a monster that can literally hybrid you in max gear. Would it be too difficult to make a Nukearcher as a monster? Hmmm. Actually; Can AI even acheive that?

[Zachneap]

I think the key lies in special attacks.

 

Regular attacks are more than a nuisance than anything. players gear up for the regular hits. but special attacks are where the challenge in fighting bosses should be at.

 

The styrkewyrm update for instance. i saw a level 122 praying soulsplit die at the desert one because of the special (he turned on soul split at low hp, burrow, KO)

Sure thats more to carelessness than anything else but if bosses had more unique abilities then it would be more of a challenge.

 

What about a boss who thieves potions and food from you and uses them? that would require some strategy in how your inventory is assembled and how you fight the boss. (you really wanna fight a boss who just brewed?)

[Assume Nothing]

I think the key lies in special attacks.

 

Regular attacks are more than a nuisance than anything. players gear up for the regular hits. but special attacks are where the challenge in fighting bosses should be at.

 

The styrkewyrm update for instance. i saw a level 122 praying soulsplit die at the desert one because of the special (he turned on soul split at low hp, burrow, KO)

Sure thats more to carelessness than anything else but if bosses had more unique abilities then it would be more of a challenge.

 

What about a boss who thieves potions and food from you and uses them? that would require some strategy in how your inventory is assembled and how you fight the boss. (you really wanna fight a boss who just brewed?)

 

I suppose these bosses won't get 15% health from a brew? I mean.... 15% * 2000 = 300 health, assuming another Corporeal beast monster will be made. >.>

 

I really would love to see a monster with Dclaws and Hyb Gear... basically PvP in PvM. ;o

[Zachneap]

I think the key lies in special attacks.

 

Regular attacks are more than a nuisance than anything. players gear up for the regular hits. but special attacks are where the challenge in fighting bosses should be at.

 

The styrkewyrm update for instance. i saw a level 122 praying soulsplit die at the desert one because of the special (he turned on soul split at low hp, burrow, KO)

Sure thats more to carelessness than anything else but if bosses had more unique abilities then it would be more of a challenge.

 

What about a boss who thieves potions and food from you and uses them? that would require some strategy in how your inventory is assembled and how you fight the boss. (you really wanna fight a boss who just brewed?)

 

I suppose these bosses won't get 15% health from a brew? I mean.... 15% * 2000 = 300 health, assuming another Corporeal beast monster will be made. >.>

 

I really would love to see a monster with Dclaws and Hyb Gear... basically PvP in PvM. ;o

 

its not about hp. its about other factors.

 

Hp stretches out a boss battle. but doesn't actually make it more challenging. (unless the boss is a dharoker.) Hp is just a big coverup. dealing 2000 damage among one corp beast or several is negligent.

 

if he stole random food and pots then using all brews might prolong the battle unnecessarily. while wasting supplies.

 

Players could get around this using butterflies or something. which has its own effect on the battle.

What if the only thing the team could use was butterflies to heal each other? each team member had to watch their allies backs.

[Malgoradan]

I have come with a few boss mechanics that could potentially make a boss impossible to solo, regardless of equipment or levels.

 

Mechanic 1: A special attack that does damage to players based on the number of players in a group. For example, let's take a giant crab boss. One of his attacks is to shoot out 20 bubbles. They do 10 damage each, rarely or never miss, and can not be prayed against. However, these bubbles are divided roughly evenly amongst all players in the group. So if you had a 10 player group, each individual would take 20 damage, each person in a 5 player would take 40, and if you were by yourself, you would take 200 damage (thus an instant kill).

 

Mechanic 2: Have part of the boss fight have damage based on number of hits rather than raw power. Taking the previous example of the giant crab boss, let's say at the boss starts out in "shell mode" and every now and then during the fight, it will re-enter "shell mode". Shell mode has 100 health, and while the boss is in shell mode you will almost always hit, but you never do more than 1 damage. Also, while in shell mode the boss is constantly restoring health fairly rapidly. So unless the boss is taking a high number of hits (like you would find in a group), the boss will take a long time (if ever) to leave shell mode so that you can start doing 'real' damage to the boss. In fact, though you may eventually take the boss out of shell mode when you are solo, because you take so long to do so, you may just be taking it out of shell mode just to have it re-enter.

 

Mechanic 3: Require 'terrain interaction', divided between players in the group. Couldn't think of a better way to summarize the idea in one sentence. Anyways, going once again back to the example of the crab boss, let's say that the fight takes place in a cave, and rocks are constantly falling. Every 20 seconds the game will randomly choose one of the members of the group to try and drop a rock on. If the person does not move far enough away, he or she will take 15 damage. So, if you are by yourself, you will have to be almost constantly moving if you want to avoid damage (thus greatly reducing the damage you deal), but if you are in a group with several mamabers, you might only have to move every couple of minutes.