VR Titan Combat Part 3 - NPC AI Design

God of War and Final Fantasy are huge inspirations for me when it comes to epic set piece design. Boss encounters have multiple stages with changing boss abilities, each requiring the player to develop a new mental model of strategy and execution. These battles also have interest curves that usually looks something like this :

Our goal then is to give ourselves enough levers to effectively create this type of a curve. That said, let us try and discover what strengths and weaknesses a boss would need given the above player abilities.

1. Mobility – Consider an aerial mech boss that has two modes that it alternates between – aerial and grounded. This gives us an axis to manipulate difficulty as the player’s abilities are grounded and less effective against aerial enemies.
   
   
2. Aerial Mode – The boss has two modes of movement.
• Darting - Rapid darts from one spot to another. There is a cooldown between any two consecutive darts, where the player can effectively launch a missile.
• Flying – Slower continuous aerial movement. The laser stream is effective in this mode as the re-positioning of the cursor can be done in a predictable manner.
  
  Core blast is highly ineffective in this mode. However, the player may still choose to employ this in a dire situation to escape transition from aerial mode to the easier grounded mode.
3. Aerial Mode Attacks
• Rapid Shot – Lower damage, high speed projectile. This requires the player to anticipate and boost to dodge, or orient shield at a split second’s notice.
• Spiral Missile – Lower speed, high damage projectile that loops around and trails the player. Boosting too early will simply cause the missile to follow the player. Bringing up shield will cause it significant damage and will need the player to watch the spiraling path closely.
• Charged Blast – Similar to the player’s blast. The only way to effectively guard against this attack is to bring up special defence.