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Weekly Update - Alpha 2 Soon! & Boss Battle Strategies
2 years ago1,018 words
I'm intending to run another alpha test the week after next!! Also, how might you make a turn-based JRPG boss battle challenging?

I got back to Atonal Dreams again this week, after a couple of weeks... and I wish I could say that time off helped to renew my focus, but pfft! I've got so little left to do before I can move to the next stage, but I've only been managing like two hours of work a day despite trying hard to sit down and get stuff done.

It's frustrating, and I think it's specific to this project, because I've been able to devote intense focus to other creative things. This week, I've composed a couple of pieces of music, drawn some things, made a 3D model, etc! But I've spent my days trudging through the AD work so then I can finish for the day and get to the other stuff... which isn't the way I should be doing it, especially since I need to be done with this game before I can move on with my life.

I think I need some actual feedback, to stop working away at it in isolation. So what I'm planning to do is to spend the coming week getting everything ready for the next alpha test the week after next. I'll ask on Patreon or Discord or something who among my supporters there is interested in testing and providing feedback.

I would have liked to clean things up a bit more before getting to that point, but it's not really working out that way, and I don't want to keep putting it off more than I already have.

I should also look into making some better promotional assets, revising the Steam page and posting about it publicly, things like that, then I'll need to start researching Kickstarter best practices... Bleh.

I don't want to do any of that! I just want to make things! Which is surely why I've been dragging my feet so much. But I have to, so...



Also, I've been thinking this week about how turn-based (J)RPGs make boss battles challenging, which has led to the addition of a new mechanic.

The Sprouting Isle section ends with this battle against Pierce and three 'Impotantrulfs':



In other JRPGs I've played - several Final Fantasies most notably come to mind - boss battles typically involve gradually whittling down a huge amount of HP with your most powerful abilities, healing when necessary; fairly straightforward, but more of a chore than a challenge. Sometimes you get gimmick bosses who do something unusual - like they have different parts or allies you have to target - but they're uncommon.

Additionally, whenever you face characters in battle who at other times join your party as an ally, they have a ridiculously inflated amount of HP. So you might battle them with 60,000 HP, and when they join, they have 1200, or something. I've never liked that, because what then are the numbers even representing?

I prefer consistency; it's one of the reasons Pokemon has always appealed to me, because you and your opponents are all working with the same stats.

Pierce here has the exact same stats he'd have when joining your party later. But if you were freely able to target him in this battle, you could dispatch him so quickly he might as well not be there at all, which didn't feel right. I had to brainstorm solutions for that.

Some turn-based battle systems include some kind of Taunt mechanic, where combatants force attention to themselves to protect their allies, and the opposite, Stealth, which prevents them being targeted normally. Previously I had status effects called Taunt and Veil which worked this way, but they were lost when I stripped out status effects in favour of the other stuff I have now.

So I've added them back in another form. Now, the 'third eye' of the status 'statues' - which previously just showed the resilience (mental defence) stat - additionally has a reddish circle which represents a value between 0 and 6. When it's full, the combatant is taunting, and must be targeted. When it's empty, they're veiled, and can't be targeted unless there are no valid non-veiled targets.

I'm thinking of calling it Presence, maybe.

Additionally, enemies use this value to weight their decisions when selecting a random target to attack. If Collie's Presence is 2 and Savitr's is 4, he's twice as likely to be attacked. Some skills can change this value. Shield, which buffs defence, also increases the target's Presence.

Since it's not an added buff, some types of figmon could start battles with full or empty Presence.

The Impotantrulfs in this battle start with full Presence, meaning you can't target Pierce until they're gone. So that worked out well!

I still had to revise it multiple times over several days though, fiddling around with HP and attack values and inventing new skills to make it hopefully challenging without just involving using the same attack over and over and healing when necessary. It felt like the first real test of all the novel mechanics I've added - the battle revolves heavily around controlling Wakefulness and Intensity - so I'm really curious to see whether other players will be won over by them during this encounter, or whether they'll just feel frustrated because they don't understand what they're supposed to do.

And that's why I should really do the next alpha sooner rather than later, which I'll spend the next week looking into! Finally!!



Also, I've been putting off replying to things again. I've been intending to reply to several people all week, but keep thinking "I'll do it when I'm in a better mood later", and that later never comes. I don't like that I do this! It's disappointing to other people, burns bridges, robs me of future opportunities. And yet even knowing all that, I'll still do it 'later'... Sigh.

Oh, and I haven't looked at the Flash game ports at all this week, though nobody commented on the previous post anyway so maybe nobody's bothered by that!

5 COMMENTS

Maniafig222~2Y
I've played a lot of JRPGs, and they've had a variety of ways to make boss battles challenging. Some good, some just bad!

The gimmick ones are always the most interesting, since they can do all sorts of unconventional weird stuff. Looking at some RPGs I've played here's the common trends I do see:

-Counterattacks/Reactions: Lets bosses punish aggressive play and apply more constant pressure than 1 action per turn.
-Resetting stat boosts: In games where the player can just keep stacking stat boosts, bosses being able to undo them can quickly even the field and makes the choice between offensive vs turtling up more difficult.
-Fixed damage attacks: Attacks that can't be mitigated by the usual mitigation strategies, stuff like dealing damage based directly on MaxHP or CurrentHP.
-Add-ons/summons: Bosses that summon helpers/clones/copies. Extra points if they resummon and there's both pros and cons to defeating the helpers.
-Scaling: Bosses that get stronger as the fight goes on, either by "turning red" at low HP/when they're alone or by passive abilities such as gaining attack every turn the battle goes on or constantly reducing the player's stats.
-No free turns: Easy bosses tend to be the ones where sometimes they will spend their turn doing something that either doesn't matter or can be easily countered with one of the player team's several actions, these would be harder if the boss would immediately follow them up with something that's guaranteed to do something. It's the difference between a boss using a skill that poisons someone or a skill that poisons AND damages someone.
-Unique/wacky mechanics: Bosses that break some of the game's usual rules and test specific skills. Stuff like Dr Lugae in FF4 reversing healing/damage, or a battle with entirely different win/loss states than reducing each other to 0 HP. These ones are the hardest to implement but also the most interesting!

I've been playing Pokémon Reborn, which has an interesting answer to the question of how to do boss battles when both parties are on equal footing. Aside from adopting 'boss battles' as the main series has been doing (Totems, Dynamax raids) they've also added a Field Effect system, where the location of a battle can have various effects on a battle, such as Grass Types being stronger in a Forest field, or using Earthquake in a Cave field causing all Pokémon on the field to faint due to a cave-in. [LINK] As one can expect these tend to favour the enemy more and more as the game goes on, but the player can also use them to their advantage.

Looking forward to the alpha when it drops!
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penguintoastfishfrog10~2Y
I just commented on your last post about porting old flash games, but I thought I'd come along here and reiterate that I am absolutely bothered about that! As you put it.

Also I thought I'd introduce myself a bit. Although this account might seem new and inactive, I've actually been loitering around these parts and the old Taming the Mind blog for a long time, under a different account which I stopped using because of reasons. Also, do you remember when someone messaged you on Twitter about MARDEK key resellers? That was me as well - I don't actually use Twitter properly so that was just a random throwaway account.

I was also one of the testers for Sindrel Song (which I own on Steam but haven't actually player since testing, I should go do that, it was a fun game). Speaking of, how would I go about registering my interest in testing Atonal Dreams? How do I join the Discord? Is it only for Patrons? I have been wondering about becoming a Patron; I'd love to support you and would have done it long ago but I'm not exactly rich ...

Anyway, sorry to hear you've been struggling with motivation lately. For what it's worth, you say you've only been able to work two hours a day as if that's a bad thing, but to me that still sounds really good! I know I've struggled in the past when it comes to motivation for personal projects I've tried to work on. And I know you've talked previously about how working from home on a project is completely different from working a 9-5, I mean, here I am at work at my Real Job and I'm typing this on my phone and eating crisps. I'm barely even working at the moment. So I think 2 hours seems fine, and if you need some more time off then go for it.

Play some games! That's another thing that I've been struggling lately, even though video games are a huge part of my life I seem to spend more time thinking and talking about them than actually playing them. So I totally get it when you say you struggle to play games regularly, and you should probably do so more.

Anyway, to answer your question, I have no idea how to make a turn based boss battle challenging/engaging. I totally get where you're coming from that JRPG bosses tend to just have massive health bars that take a while to whittle down but they're not actually hard or engaging to fight. But uh I'd look forward to playing a bit of Atonal Dreams and getting a feel for the mechanics, from what I've read so far it already sounds way more engaging than Attack-Heal-Repeat!
2
Tobias 1115~2Y
Hello! I do vaguely remember you! And I'm glad at least someone is interested in the old ports!! Though sadly I need to put those aside for the moment as I work on Atonal Dreams. I wish I could do everything at once!

I'm particularly interested in porting Taming Dreams myself - I haven't played the third chapter since around the time I made it - but annoyingly it's more complicated than the others so I really need to find some time to sit down and work through the (very unenjoyable) issues.

It's annoying that I do have 'free' time that could potentially be spent on that, but during that time I struggle to focus on anything.

I've wondered and written in this blog before, I think, about how much work people actually do at their jobs. I asked my step-dad a while back - who used to be some manager type - and he said he was lucky to get a couple of hours of productivity out of his employees on a good day. Maybe that's the norm, and I'm holding myself to unrealistic standards? I am trying to handle too much by myself, but there aren't really any alternatives at the moment.

I don't like taking money from anyone and hate pushing my Patreon in people's faces and demanding they support me, but there's a link to it at the top of the page, and the lowest tier is 1 british pound a month, I think? I wouldn't become anyone else's patron even if I like their work due to my own money struggles, so I can fully understand that, but every donation helps, and I feel it's fair to the people who are supporting me that they get exclusive testing and Discord privileges. I'm also keeping the Discord patrons-only at the moment (and it's a ghost town as a result) because I really can't bear the thought of managing a potentially toxic community again. Not that I think you'd be toxic! But annoyingly keeping the doors shut for most people also blocks out a lot of good people.

Thanks for being open-minded regarding Atonal Dreams! I need to gather various promotional assets this week and write up a summary page, update the Steam page, things like that, so those'll be the best ways to get an idea of the state the game's in now!

Oh, and I definitely should play more games! Once I start one I tend to do an hour or two every day consistently, but deciding on and starting a new one seems to be the hard bit. I haven't been playing any for a week or two now (though I've been madly focused on other creative stuff during that time which has been very enjoyable... because I haven't been worrying about how to earn money from it).
0
Lordofsea19~2Y
Check out Bug Fables. It's a turn-based Paper Mario-esque game. It is surprisingly challenging given its cartoony appearance, has great writing, and really forces you to use items and special abilities.. it's demanding, yet fair. One of the most entertaining experiences I've had for a long time. Not to mention the writing is just excellent.
1
purplerabbits148~2Y
The one boss battle that stuck out to me would be the optional superboss in Golden Sun-The Lost Age and Golden Sun-Dark Dawn; Dullahan. This particular boss has a series of moves that always go in the same order, but it is very difficult even with the knowledge of what attacks are going to happen. The boss has 3 actions per turn so even with the knowledge of what order the attacks come in, it is difficult to withstand the onslaught, recover, and then counter attack with the 4 characters you have on hand. Some of Dullahan's moves include sealing Psynergy (Golden Sun's version of mana), cast summons the party's stanby Dijinn (Dijinn are Golden Sun's unique rpg mechanic. Dijinn have 2 uses. The first would be in battle to do a variety of actions: Buff the party, cast a powerful attack, heal the party, cause an enemy to skip a turn, give another turn to the party, clear negtive status effects, revive downed party members, ect... Essentially reusable items/ casting spells without using Psynergy. After the Dijinn is used in battle it goes into Standy where it becomes like a currency that you spend to cast Summons. Summons are very powerful in that they do a lot of Elemental damage and may have extra effects such as giving the party a regen or leaving a staus effect on the enemy. Once a summon is used, the number of Dijinn used in the summon go into Recovery ((basically a cooldown)) Once Recovery is over the Dijinn can be used during attacks once again) , Cast spells that have a chance of inflicting negative statuses or instant death, and canceling out the party's buffs.

This superboss has a lot of HP and turns the main mechanic of the game against the player. It takes a bit of strategy to beat the boss (or grinding to offset the HP to tank the damage). This is one of the most memorable bosses that I remember
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