Interesting Enemies

[fireflyege]

Well, this thread is basically for interesting enemy designs. I want to see your enemy designs, where you got the inspiration and how to defeat them.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Note: This is all just a plan for now as I haven't gotten to the point that I am implementing the enemies

In my game/s, I've put in place a customized threat system with a customized action selection and target selection (for enemy AI) so I have plans for enemies that can:

- Target low threat targets instead of the usual high threat targeting
- Target the character that has the lowest HP
- Target the "healer" character

etc etc

What I want to achieve is for the players to need to actually examine enemy behavior and take that into account when selecting what to do rather than focusing on just dealing the highest damage possible. This way, the battles become more interesting instead of a "mash attack button" type of battle.

 

[CleanWater]

Consider their strong and weak points for each enemy. Then form a party of monsters based on this, the same way you would make the hero party.

A example:

If you have a Knight, a Mage and a Healer in the hero party... Do the same with a monster party.

Spoiler

The final boss from Fantasya Final Definitiva follows this concept above. It worked wonders in the degree of challenge.

 

[Wavelength]

Probably my favorite enemy that I've ever created was a boss that's essentially a "runaway robot" which has malfunctioned and attacks anything that "she" sees (and of course you happen to find yourself in her path). I feel that I did a lot of things right with this boss, so I'll explain a bit about the flow of the battle and possible tactics that the player can use to gain an edge.

This boss has a sort of strategic theme, which is Critical Hits. "She" has a high chance to Crit, and it's hard to Crit her.

• The player can use certain moves that raise a character's Crit rate to 100% for a short time, making the robot's usual resistance to crits irrelevant.
• The player can focus on defending characters who are more prone to taking Crits.
• The player can just accept the fact that the robot does well with Crits, and compensate with advantages over the robot in other stats.

On turn 1 of the battle she will target one of your party members (crosshairs and all). She is much more likely to target that character over any other character, and much more likely to Crit that character on any given hit as well. (I inform the player of this fact, which I feel is important for them to know.) Every few turns, she changes her target to another character.

• The player can allow non-targeted characters to use high-risk moves that deal lots of damage but leave the character vulnerable.
• The player can have the targeted character use the Guard action to defend themselves.
• The player can have other characters Substitute for a targeted character who is taking too many hits too quickly.
• The player can go aggressive in general if the targeted character has high Defense stats and/or still has high HP.

On turn 4 and every few turns thereafter, the robot will ask the player to "select a Mode" (in the form of cards) to reprogram her with. At first this is a blind guess between three face-down cards, but once you flip a card face-up you can always select it in the future when asked to select a Mode, or you can flip one of the other face-down cards. Physical Mode contains several sword skills that the player has seen before, and heals the robot for a % of her missing HP each time she crits you. Magical Mode contains several magic skills the player has seen, and gives her 30% resistance to magic. Minigun Mode contains only one special move which hits you 5 times for very minor damage, but once she's accumulated 10 crits she will unload on you for big damage.

• The player can choose to go with "the devil they know" and choose a Mode they've already seen.
• The player can choose one of the other Modes if the robot is countering them in this Mode.
• The player can avoid Physical Mode if the robot is at fairly low HP.
• The player can avoid Magical Mode if the robot is targeting the party's mage.
• The player can avoid Minigun Mode if the robot has already accumulated several Crits.
• The player can seek any of the above modes if the opposite is true!
• The player can also seek Physical or Magical Mode if their characters have high resistance to physical or magic damage.

Once the robot is reduced to 30% HP or less, she will go haywire. Instead of asking you to select a Mode, the Modes will flash quickly in a specified pattern and you're asked to hit the Spacebar to "lock in" a mode every few turns.

• The player can use most of the above reasons to seek or avoid a specific Mode.
• The player can try to use their reflexes to lock in the exact Mode they want (challenging but definitely feasible for most gamers).
• The player can much more easily avoid a specific Mode by locking in a fraction of a second after that Mode is pulled offscreen.

Finally, there's a "temptation" of sorts available to the player: a "Reset Mechanism" enemy is also onscreen. The reset mechanism isn't a threat and can't do anything but heal itself, but if you hit it enough times before you defeat the robot (this isn't a victory condition - you still need to defeat the robot), you will be able to fix the runaway robot afterwards instead of destroying her, which grants you a certain benefit later on.

• The player can decide to take the risk of "wasting" actions hitting the Reset Mechanism in order to achieve this bonus condition.
• The player can decide they can't afford the wasted actions, and ignore the Reset Mechanism entirely.
• The player can use (generally expensive) multi-target skills to attack the robot at the same time they hit the Reset Mechanism.

In my opinion, this is the best enemy I've ever made because it's thematic and memorable, because it introduces a unique twist that distorts but doesn't replace the player's standard battle strategies, and because it offers the player a wide variety of interesting choices to make about how they want to deal with the enemy's mechanics.

 

[fireflyege]

@Engr. Adiktuzmiko targetting low target rated characters and targets with less health is actually good but I do not find ''just target the healer'' because that would oppress the healer.

@CleanWater I actually made one. Based on the most Final Fantasy parties, World's Saviors from MARDEK and completely replicating skill names from Warcraft (whole theme of the fight) I made a party made from 1 knight, 1 mage, 1 thief and 1 healer. Their strategy is placing the right debuffs on people instead of just outright killing the healer. For example if you are underleveled or taking too much damage (the mage will abuse your elemental weaknesses if you have one) you can cast Decay (%50 healing debuff) on the mage and focus the mage instead and make some different strategies.

@Wavelength I actually like the idea, but I cannot do such complex coding like that. I will find out a way to make things interesting though.

 

[KayZaman]

My concept, change weapons to find enemies' weakness.

Spoiler: Video

 

[fireflyege]

@KayZaman how can I make an ability to find weakness? I want to do abilities that seek enemy's weakest elment too but I cannot figure out a way.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

@fireflyege as I said, the main goal of the set-up was to make players determine enemy behavior and act accordingly. If you find an enemy that will always target your healer, do you kill it first to save your healer while risking taking more damage from the enemy hitters or do you go kill the other enemies first while making the healer heal himself continuously or let him die if he cant heal enough?

 

[KayZaman]

@fireflyege The post I posted, I made the enemy weak for 'other' element instead of 'physical' element. The gun sign on enemy's head just to show what is his weakness.

About to make an ability to find enemy's weakness.......sorry. Wish that I can create ability like 'Scan' from FFVIII

 

[Kes]

@fireflyege and @KayZaman
Yanfly has a Scan script for Ace, called Enemy Target Info and (I'm fairly sure) a plugin for MV. The Ace one at least is very simple to use. However, remember this is not a "How do I....?" thread. Queries like that belong over in the support forum for the engine you are using.

 

[fireflyege]

I did not mean something like that but instead of this:

Shape Elements
-Deals %150 Magic + %150 Attack as damage, reduced by %75 of Enemy Defense and %75 of enemy Resistance. Seeks weakness, and damages using the element the monster is weakest against.

Well, the ability itself does not have that much strategic levels so I am not gonna talk about that.

@Engr. Adiktuzmiko I actually thought about that, I understood as every enemy using that so it is my bad. But we should not limit that to healers only such as Spellthieves which only target magical attackers and such would actually be fun.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

The healer of course is just an example

 

[Milennin]

Interesting enemies are those that have you pay attention and adapt to what they do. Like, a strong healer enemy makes you want to take it out first. A heavy-hitting enemy makes you want to weaken or stun it. A time-bomb enemy makes you want to rush it before it can explode.
Enemies don't need any fancy mechanics to be interesting. As long as you can't just ignore what they're doing, they're doing a good job.

 

[Failivrin]

Making my first MV game, and I think I've got some good monster ideas, but I don't want to give spoilers just yet
I will say that I draw loads of inspiration from FFIV, where every boss has a gimmick, usually related to their personality. One of the craziest battles is near the end, when Zemus summons a colossus to attack the earth. It came from another dimension, so the player knows nothing about it--but you can learn very quickly by watching it's behavior. The colossus is designed for intimidation; it's builders apparently never expected anyone would attempt frontal assault. When the heroes' allies launch a direct attack on the colossus, they activate a glitch that makes it slow down. There's your cue! Your job is to attack the main reactor, a boss with three nodes--one for attack, one for defense, and the core. Their SPEED stats are completely off the charts; you'll be pulverized if you resort to time-consuming multi-target moves. The best way to destroy the reactor is to boost party SPEED, then unleash a relentless rain of assaults on one target at a time. The reactor nodes behave like the colossus itself: Unrelenting chains of attack slow them down.
That's just my favorite example, but there are plenty more in FFIV.

 

[fireflyege]

@Milennin well not all healers are designed to ''just kill it'' for example I find a non-killable healer as long at its mates are alive then when it is alone berserks itself that needs you to use excessive CC to shut down first then when it berserks going deep is more interesting. Killing the healer is too simple, and things like silence must be used somewhere.

 

[Milennin]

@Milennin well not all healers are designed to ''just kill it'' for example I find a non-killable healer as long at its mates are alive then when it is alone berserks itself that needs you to use excessive CC to shut down first then when it berserks going deep is more interesting. Killing the healer is too simple, and things like silence must be used somewhere.

Way to miss the point of my post. Enemy mechanics that can be ignored = bad. Enemy mechanics that must be paid attention to = good. Even a simple healing enemy shouldn't be able to be ignored, hence why it works. Anything on top of that is just a bonus.

 

[fireflyege]

@Milennin I understood it wrong but yeah that explanation covered it pretty well. You should not be able to just waltz in and spam your strong AoE to defeat your enemies. I think that is the work of the game developer.

Entering a different topic, there is another thing that when people load mobs with health it quickly becomes boring that is why I hate hard modes in games. I always prefer the hardest challenges but when I play the game every 5 steps you have an encounter you cannot really escape from, and if you battle it takes 5 minutes so oh wow I explored the dungeon and made its puzzle in 5 hours lucky me. Against bosses high HP is indeed important though.

 

[Tai_MT]

I'm not really sure my enemy designs are "interesting", but I'll list some things that I've done with the few I've created and been using to test things on.

Wolf - Has a high Speed stat (at least for early in the game). It's Luck stat is also fairly high. It has moderate Defense and low Magic Defense. It's weak to Fire, and in particular the State of "Burn". They come in packs of 2-4, depending on where you're at in the game. Sometimes they're also trained and have a "Master" alongside them that usually adds buffs to them. We'll focus on the basic Wolf troop for now. It has three skills. Bite, which is a flavored version of the "Basic Attack" in the game, it deals Piercing Damage (which means it can hurt if your equipment isn't the proper kind). It has "Swift Blows" which is an ability that takes the Speed stat, subtracts your Luck stat from it, and does damage based on that (and with its high Speed stat... this can and frequently is deadly early on in the game to new players). The third skill is "Escape". Escape only activates if you manage to inflict the state "Burn" on the Wolf. Once inflicted with "Burn", it does "Escape" 100% of the time (if it survived to escape anyway) and runs away from combat.

The point of this enemy is to teach my players about Equipment. It serves as a "benchmark" for whether or not a player is paying attention to NPC's and the Armor Tutorial. In short, the enemy serves as a "Test". NPC's in town tell players that Wolves are very fast and they'll need to not wear lightweight armor if they hope to keep up with them. This is a hint telling the player to buy some Leather Armor to increase their "Luck" stat (It's renamed Reflex in my game... it makes sense, shut up ). If you're wearing that, the Wolves do negligible damage to you using "Swift Blows". Another NPC tells you that the bites of wolves really hurt and that he wished he had put on something to keep those teeth from Piercing his arm. This is another hint that tells the player that maybe they could equip Chainmail armor as a "middle ground" type armor to prevent Piercing damage from wolves (this armor, in fact, zeroes out all Piercing damage, it is full resistance to that single type of damage), but it doesn't protect as much as Leather Armor from the Swift Blows skill (damage is mitigated by about half from default stats instead of three quarters). The final NPC tells you, as you take a quest to clear out a Den of Wolves, that if you find yourself in a pinch, don't hesitate to run away... or, if you can't run away, to throw fire at the wolves because they are afraid of it.
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Life Weaver - It doesn't do anything at all in battle except use a zero MP healing skill that restores all health instantly to the target (it can target itself, or allies). It is partnered with:

Dread Knight - This is an enemy with moderate Defense and very high attack power. It's got two skills. It has a skill that increases its critical hit chance by 50% for 3 turns (called "Spot Weakness")... And a skill that does very high damage to the entire party dealing both Physical and Slashing damage (called "Brutal Swing"). It's Speed and Luck stats are very low, so those can be exploited for large amounts of damage. It also wears Heavy Armor so you can use Blunt Weaponry or any form of Magic against it to decent effect. However! The Dread Knight is only encountered in a team of two Life Weavers and two Dread Knights.

This battle is again, intended to be a test for my players. A lesson, if you will. Before these enemies, players are given the ability to cause "Stun" to enemies. Stun, can be pretty powerful. But, it depends on how you use it. Stun works by essentially keeping the enemy from moving... ever. It doesn't wear off. Except... If you land a blow on the enemy. Any damage it takes, and Stun wears off instantly. The intended method of use for this State is to use it on "problem" enemies so you can approach combat in the most comfortable way for you. There are several options for its use in these combats. You can stun both of the Life Weavers and prevent them from healing any damage to the party and then focus entirely on the Dread Knights... Or you can Stun the Dread Knights and focus down the Life Weavers. Or, you can Stun everyone and focus down each enemy in turn, so you only have to deal with a single enemy at a time. And, finally, if you're just strong enough, you can just smoke these enemies without relying on Stun at all. Though, I don't anticipate that.
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Pouncer - This is an early boss creature that tests you on your knowledge of the "Poison" state. It's a plant that can cast two different forms of Poison. It casts Level 1 Poison and Level 2 Poison. Sometimes it casts these as a single skill ("Foul Bile") or as individual skills ("Poison Cloud" for Poison Level 1 and "Stinger" for Poison Level 2). It also has a basic attack that hits all enemies for moderate/minor damage (called "Tentacle Sweep"). From a merchant, you can find rings that nullify Poison Level 1... or Poison level 2. But, not both. In the Dungeon where this creature resides as the boss monster, you can find "Poison Resistance Relic" which drops your chances of being inflicted with any poison down to 50%... But, it makes you more susceptible to Sleep (Levels 1 through 4) by 50% more. The same merchant also tells you to stock up on Antidotes, since they cure all poisons of any severity. Level 1 Poison deals 2% damage to you each turn. At early levels when your stats are low, this is only a single HP a turn (engine seems to round this up). Level 2 Poison does 5% damage to you each turn. At early levels, with low stats (again!), this is usually 2 damage a turn. But, when the enemy inflicts these on you, they don't wear off for several turns. You can also be inflicted with both at a time. Maybe 1 or 2 damage a turn doesn't seem like a whole lot. But, when you've only got 30 HP or so, and most enemies at that point take off 2-4 HP a hit... It's decision time. Furthermore, Poison 1 lasts 3-5 turns and cures on its own. Poison 2 lasts 5 to 8 turns before being cured on its own.

So, the player is meant to learn about how Poison works, why it's deadly, and ways to perhaps mitigate it (in the dungeon, before this boss. Most enemies in the area inflict you with one of the two types of poisons). It's also meant to teach the player about Choice in the game. The boss itself is really only difficult due to the small amount of stats a player will be working with at that point in the game (including the HP pool). You can choose to mitigate the Poison 2 stuff with that ring and just deal with Poison 1 for 3 to 5 turns if you want. You can choose to mitigate the Poison 1 stuff with the other ring and deal with the less frequently casted Poison 2 with Antidotes. Or, maybe you also equip that Relic that drops the remaining Poison chances down by half to save resources.
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Anyway, that's really all I have for Enemies at the moment. I'm too busy making skills for my 9 characters to work on anything except a few basic enemies to test my skills on. So that's basically all I've got right now. I've got regular basic enemies, but they're nothing to write home about. They exist merely to teach the player about their stats and nothing more.

 

[Basileus]

Enemy design will depend heavily on your combat system. If your system is designed for quick battles you need enemies that pull out their trick fast, but if you want slower battles you have time to make more complex behaviors. Neither of these is inherently "right" or "better".

If you want good enemy design, look at platformers. Each enemy has a niche that forces certain behavior out of the player. An armored enemy moving along the ground tests to player's ability to time jumps, a flying enemy can test sliding and/or jump attacks. Each enemy is just a different type of barrier for the player to maneuver around and does that job by acting in a specific way which the player can predict and react to.

For an RPG, I prefer the style of Dragon Quest enemies. Unlike Final Fantasy, most Dragon Quest games utilize many of the same monsters and many of them haven't needed major changes since the NES days. Most monsters can be broken down into "families" with each family having some shared traits and behaviors.

Slime type monsters have high Agility and like to use status effects but are kinda weak. Dragon type monsters tend to resist fire and are very strong, often using breath attacks instead of spells so their damage can't be blocked by Silence. Beast type enemies have high HP and Attack but don't have many special skills. Each individual monster type in a family gets its own tricks and patterns, but just looking at an enemy you can often guess some important details about it.

There is also a stronger emphasis on team comps over individual monsters. A lone monster is pretty weak and generally a lucky encounter. But monsters like to team up with other monsters that compliment their abilities, or can be a real pain when multiple show up together.

Rogue Knights and Heal Slimes often work together, with the Knight having high Defense and Attack that cannot be ignored and the Heal Slime restoring the Knight's HP if left unchecked. Sea Slimes are total jerks that often appear in groups of 4, can call in more Sea Slimes to help, and they can all cast Increase to raise all of their Defense. Bubble Slimes and Butterflys combo their status effects, with Butterflys casting Surround to lower the party's accuracy while Bubble Slimes poison everyone.

Overall, most comps have a specific trick they plan to defeat the party with and it will absolutely work if the player does not play around it...at least until your stats are high enough to just bash them. But by that point there are newer and better versions of all of those monsters to ruin your day. This partly works because the battle system is endurance-based. MP is limited and restoring it is difficult, so most enemies are really there to make the player blow their resources. Battles only last a few turns, so most comps are geared toward dealing a little damage to everyone or chunking one character before dying. Each individual battle isn't too threatening unless you are under-leveled but enough battles over time will turn even a simple battle into a life-or-death struggle. This is mostly because the way to cleat enemies easily is by using MP...which means that the more you fight and run down your MP the slower each battle gets and the more damage you start to take.

Obviously you can take any approach you want. Just keep in mind what your combat system is meant to be like and design enemies to exploit some aspect of it.

 

[Harosata]

I would like to say World of Warcraft was an interesting motivation for me. Enemies and Bosses have interesting mechanics and phases, plus bosses like Ursoc motivated me to try out a Tanking mechanic in RPG Maker.

===

Snapbloom - A flower that uses Poppy Seed, which attacks 3 random targets. However, it has a "magnet" tag, so it can focus-fire on anyone who is Marked or Guarding. On the map, the flower dives into the ground and pops up, so its Ambush will Mark one member of the party (if you manage to get behind it, the Preempt causes Snapbloom to curl and gain Defend). Generally, you only need to Guard if you want to divert the damage.

Mudball - A mud golem that mainly uses Mud Slap, which deals more damage based on the stacks of Mud on the target. Not counting previous battles or map traps, Mud is added after Mud Slap or from a Mudfall Counterattack. Ideally, you want to use magic to defeat this foe before too much Mud stacks on you. Also Mud slows you down on the map, so generally not a good idea to fight Mudballs one after another.

Cyber/Mecha Fae - Cyber Fae are part of a security system that uses Tape Tackle for some damage and a stacking state that transforms into a stun that lasts a few turns. Since they have low HP, you can use group attacks to wipe them out. However, Mecha Fae are Armored versions of Cyber Fae, meaning they Guard every turn, and in my game, some group attacks have their damage reduced if at least one person guards. They also have a chance to do a light heal and to attack a second time. Thankfully, your party should have some attacks that deal extra damage to Guard or removes it temporarily.

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Bosses: Mae the Fae (Hard Mode)

I say Hard Mode because Normal Mae only has Phase 1. Anyway, you only have two party members at this point, but you thankfully have some self-heals and damage skills to start.

Phase 1 - Mae's two main attacks are Fireball and Charge. Charge will eventually lead to Mega Fae, which deals about 180 to the party's 450~ HP. If you took the tutorial with the enemies, Guard is able to reduce attacks like Mega Fae so that the Guarding takes 90 and the other member takes no damage. In addition, Mae uses Fairy Dance at half MP to recover her MP while also give the party a Healing Boost to increase their own heals. In Normal Mode, the general strategy is to fight normally but to Guard after Charge...

Phase 2 - Though the other strategy might be to have one person guarding the whole time, so Mae decides to replace Fireball with Fairy Freeze at 66% HP. This is a weaker attack, but if you Guard it, it deals more damage and Freezes you. I should also mention that Shields can reduce damage while Guarding, but you only have one shield at this point so you can designate that person to soak up Mega Fae...

Phase 3 - Which is why Mae will replace Charge with Seal Breaker at 33% HP. Not only does Seal Breaker still activate Mega Fae for the next turn, but it seals away Guard, so you'll have to pay attention to your characters so you don't accidentally Pass and get the full damage. Overall, this boss hits hard but you should be able to survive by Tanking at the right time.

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Also, I do use a "Random Trait" mode for my enemies (does not affect bosses or unique enemies). That is, give the enemy a prefix that alters how they act. For example, a Lucky minion has a "double or nothing" multiplier to their attacks, Lone enemies get a damage boost if they are the only ones alive, and Inspiring leaders can increase damage for the rest of the troop if they are alive.