I am so clueless as to how to go about this, it may be more simple than I allow myself to believe. I am trying to create a "boss battle" template; I am just so very... lost... as to actually making a boss battle. I am thinking more along the lines of a great big raid style fight; not some super strong default AI junk. I know a lot of this is gonna be "what I want outta it" so let me start with what I think might be some solutions; and maybe someone has experience in the field:
* I have dialog based life bars, a working threat system, a difficulty scaling system.. everything but the physical boss to kill!*
Auto Attacks: Are these set instead to be an ability with a cooldown? or is the cooldown on attacks just increased a lot? It seems silly to have a giant boss stand there and do nothing, but still follow a unit around that it intends to attack (say the attack rate is 3 seconds)
Random events/casts: I want to keep triggers out of it (...I am a trigger guy) to keep trigger caused lag to a minimum. It is possible for 4 bosses to be fought at once. If there were like, 100 missiles to be called down; with an impact target on the ground before they hit; is this done through data? I can see it pretty easily done through triggers. Or say a ball spinning around a unit. What seems like pretty simple stuff; I am drawing a complete blank on.
I have almost no experience with skill making beyond the level of what sc2 has in it already. validators make me scratch my head; physics make me cringe a bit.
I searched via the search function for answers; but.. I mean... I think going to google returns results for sc2mapster better than sc2mapster does. If anyone has an open source to look at; that could help a lot. I learn well by tinkering around with it; occasionally breaking it, then trying to fix it.
I'm actually working on tutorial called "Reliable Boss Fights".
I wouldn't call it "raid style" but I believe the method itself can be easily scaled depending on what you need. It covers four main phases which I call: Activate, Engage, Control (AI), End Fight. Creating boss fight might seem simple but I found out it is harder than it looks, especially in multiplayer environment. There are many things that can go wrong when players start to mess with the map and won't play it as they should.
Also, this tutorial is very much focused on triggers, not data stuff (only boss abilities are in data). All AI is in triggers, but I wouldn't worry about trigger lag, there are ways to reduce it, as well as, in my opinion, it doesn't have such big impact.
Let me know if you are interested, I can send this map to you or upload it somewhere before I finish the tutorial.
I am planning on a boss tutorial, though not quite yet. I did a boss fight in Amber Sun 06. Download that to see how I did it.
The way I do is basically to use random integers to designate the boss' actions (along with a "repeat forever" trigger to keep him going). I also make different stages based on how much life he has. Example: if the boss' life drops below 50 %, a new stage starts. Same with 25 %, etc.
Awesome. Any rough time frame on how long it will be before you finish the tutorial? I am in no rush; though I would like to get started on this before the upcoming contest ends. Is your tutorial complete enough to play? hands-on learning. How about comments? I would rather not put you in the position of having to answer a million questions I may have.
I guess sure though; I could take a look at it and see what I can learn. I am pretty good with reducing trigger lag too; i was just hopeful that it would be possible through data. I know that games like "boss testing" and "clownz gladiator arena" are mostly trigger based. I have also seen the dozens of periodics they fire per second. ><
thanks again! You can email it to me at seandarlin14@hotmail.com or upload it to some site and link it to me; if you'd prefer. Silly that you cannot send attachments via PM.
ohh, a new message since I posted! Eivindl; I will look into that right away as well ^_^ thanks.
I'm not sure when I will end, this or next week probably. However, the map is finished and only text part of the tutorial left. I guess the triggers are pretty well commented so you should have no trouble digging through it.
You can find the map attached to this post. Let me know what do you think and in case you have any additional question I will gladly answer them.
Just a note, I don't claim this is a best method ever, but just something that I came up with during work on my maps.
I... do not... have hots :( If blizzard did it through triggers though; I guess that is the route to go. I was just hopeful that it was possible to get the same results with data only.
I am so clueless as to how to go about this, it may be more simple than I allow myself to believe. I am trying to create a "boss battle" template; I am just so very... lost... as to actually making a boss battle. I am thinking more along the lines of a great big raid style fight; not some super strong default AI junk. I know a lot of this is gonna be "what I want outta it" so let me start with what I think might be some solutions; and maybe someone has experience in the field:
* I have dialog based life bars, a working threat system, a difficulty scaling system.. everything but the physical boss to kill!*
Auto Attacks: Are these set instead to be an ability with a cooldown? or is the cooldown on attacks just increased a lot? It seems silly to have a giant boss stand there and do nothing, but still follow a unit around that it intends to attack (say the attack rate is 3 seconds)
Random events/casts: I want to keep triggers out of it (...I am a trigger guy) to keep trigger caused lag to a minimum. It is possible for 4 bosses to be fought at once. If there were like, 100 missiles to be called down; with an impact target on the ground before they hit; is this done through data? I can see it pretty easily done through triggers. Or say a ball spinning around a unit. What seems like pretty simple stuff; I am drawing a complete blank on.
I have almost no experience with skill making beyond the level of what sc2 has in it already. validators make me scratch my head; physics make me cringe a bit.
I searched via the search function for answers; but.. I mean... I think going to google returns results for sc2mapster better than sc2mapster does. If anyone has an open source to look at; that could help a lot. I learn well by tinkering around with it; occasionally breaking it, then trying to fix it.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
Hello there,
I'm actually working on tutorial called "Reliable Boss Fights".
I wouldn't call it "raid style" but I believe the method itself can be easily scaled depending on what you need. It covers four main phases which I call: Activate, Engage, Control (AI), End Fight. Creating boss fight might seem simple but I found out it is harder than it looks, especially in multiplayer environment. There are many things that can go wrong when players start to mess with the map and won't play it as they should.
Also, this tutorial is very much focused on triggers, not data stuff (only boss abilities are in data). All AI is in triggers, but I wouldn't worry about trigger lag, there are ways to reduce it, as well as, in my opinion, it doesn't have such big impact.
Let me know if you are interested, I can send this map to you or upload it somewhere before I finish the tutorial.
Regards
Matic
I am planning on a boss tutorial, though not quite yet. I did a boss fight in Amber Sun 06. Download that to see how I did it.
The way I do is basically to use random integers to designate the boss' actions (along with a "repeat forever" trigger to keep him going). I also make different stages based on how much life he has. Example: if the boss' life drops below 50 %, a new stage starts. Same with 25 %, etc.
Awesome. Any rough time frame on how long it will be before you finish the tutorial? I am in no rush; though I would like to get started on this before the upcoming contest ends. Is your tutorial complete enough to play? hands-on learning. How about comments? I would rather not put you in the position of having to answer a million questions I may have.
I guess sure though; I could take a look at it and see what I can learn. I am pretty good with reducing trigger lag too; i was just hopeful that it would be possible through data. I know that games like "boss testing" and "clownz gladiator arena" are mostly trigger based. I have also seen the dozens of periodics they fire per second. ><
thanks again! You can email it to me at seandarlin14@hotmail.com or upload it to some site and link it to me; if you'd prefer. Silly that you cannot send attachments via PM.
ohh, a new message since I posted! Eivindl; I will look into that right away as well ^_^ thanks.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
I'm not sure when I will end, this or next week probably. However, the map is finished and only text part of the tutorial left. I guess the triggers are pretty well commented so you should have no trouble digging through it.
You can find the map attached to this post. Let me know what do you think and in case you have any additional question I will gladly answer them. Just a note, I don't claim this is a best method ever, but just something that I came up with during work on my maps.
Regards
Matic
You could also look at the Archangel fight in HOTS.
By the way, I'm not sure why you wouldn't use triggers. Use 'em, they work!
The HOTS campaign mission 3 has triggers that explain in great detail how the archangel boss was set up.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
I... do not... have hots :( If blizzard did it through triggers though; I guess that is the route to go. I was just hopeful that it was possible to get the same results with data only.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
Archangel has the ability and effect tree in data but it uses the triggers to determine the behaviour.
On the one thread about the same topic I posted raw format triggers for the boss.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg