I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do today and these days that doesn’t happen very often. I first implemented a simple system so the boss doesn’t repeat the previous action it just did. It didn’t look smart doing the same thing over and over again. Next thing was giving the boss the ability to heal itself. A rare action, but powerful one when it does it. There will definitely be a lot of spoilers here for the future, but it will still be way down the line this will be playable. There are definitely a lot of overlapping wires but that’s hard to avoid with some of this logic in blueprint. Slapped on some epic effects and the boss looks way cooler and more threatening now.
I wanted to give the boss even more options/actions for combat so I took the dodge animations I had and gave the boss the ability to dodge. There have been great interactions where the boss looked like he intentionally dodged my attack, since at the moment it’s simply random. I may make it smarter later on to prioritize dodging when it is in danger, but for now it works well. I also added an area of effect where the boss does damage when it does certain abilities. So the player can get hurt by something else as well. This adds variety and more danger to the fight.
One or two more actions for the boss should do it. It doesn’t feel like he does a lot yet, but maybe less is more. I’ll continue to fight him over and over again until I make up my mind. Next on the agenda is improving the dodging of the player, right now it isn’t consistent with the direction the character is moving. I want the player to expect the direction in which they’re going to dodge.
GoldenGratus Games 