Creating unique boss fights?

So, I've been looking and there is alot of stuff about making balanced bosses and good enemy groups, but one of the things I want to make is a boss that feels like a boss from a trial. One like UG that regens unless something is killed.

So I was wondering if there is any way to achieve any of these desired effects.

1) Have a boss that will rapidly regen unless a mob is killed before it reaches them (I was thinking give the AV high regen and have ambush spawn a mob that only use painbringer on the boss to send his regen sky high). I was thinking something similar could be done for end if the mob only had thundering blast and his adds give him end via buffs.
2) A boss that is about surviving his attacks, damaging his regen, res, defence etc and doing a bit of damage, while letting adds spawn that attack and kill him. (Is it possible to have an enemy group spawn that is only aggressive to him and not the players and does huge damage?)

If I could do them, that would be great, cause I've got stories planned out and those kinda bosses will make great ends to the story, as what could be cooler than fighting a living black hole and using antimatter on it :P

#1 sounds interesting

depending on the story #2 may or may not be liked since NPCs that do a lot of dmg to baddies suck away your rewards and if its just a boss then it will go down quickly once the other mobs show up

There's not much of a way to boost an enemy's stats or make them dependent on other mobs for survival... you could give him a Regen or Willpower secondary... Maybe also give him a special enemy group that's all */Emp (Minions, Lts, and bosses) and set them to come ambush a few times. Theoretically, they'll keep healing and spamming regen aura until you dispatch them.

You CAN have an ambush that attacks enemies, BUT 1) friendly ambushes are currently "bugged", only one friendly from the group will come assist you, also 2), very few MA critters can out-damage a Player-Character of the same powerset.

OK. How does this sound then.

The boss does lots of AoE damage. At every 25% he will spawn an aggressive escort that will attack him. You have to burn fast or keep the escort up before he manages to kill them with AoE.

How does that sound?

Most "attack" NPCs won't stop attacking until whatever they're fighting is dead. Also, there's no way to guarantee the NPC will appear close enough to the boss to be activated (IE, see you and waltz on over, then see and attack the boss)

Regen buffs do not expire when the buffing critter dies. They expire when the duration expires. This makes them annoying. Having him spawn with healers will work, although if you set the healers as an ambush they might not use targeted heals on him, since he's not a member of their "group." He will be healed by their AoE heals though.

Having allies stop the boss's regen won't work, due to the Designated Helper system. Only one ally will use debuffs.

Basically, forget about trying to make an AE encounter anything like a trial. You can't do fancy gimmicks, you can't control where stuff spawns. The more complicated the fight, the greater the chance it will go wrong and at best not have the desired effect, and worst really annoy the player. If you do choose to use a complicated mechanic, make sure you test it, test it, then test it some more.

So, there is an option for having a unique mechanic in the story arc. Anyone got any examples of this?

One fun trick i almost did once: Set your "bad guy" as a Required Escort, then set them to Betray the moment you "free" them from the surrounding minions (if there are no minions, they'll betray immediately). If you defeat them, you get "Mission Failed". If you somehow manage to get them to the Exit, you get Mission Success. This doesn't do much good as an in-mission mechanic, but it's fun if you want the player to experience one of two separate dialogs depending on their actions.

I had somehow rigged it so that the boss encounter was optional and still gave you a Mission Failed if you killed the boss, but i nixed it when that wound up, well, failing the mission and making the rest of the objectives meaningless.

You could also set a bunch of Destructable objects around the mission and encourage the players to drag the Boss to these things, blow them up, and thus hurt the boss, though it's be more practical to just wail on the bad guy... The only way to force this would be ham-fisted and contrived: Have the Boss be a friendly escort, and have the player have to bring them to a bomb. Then the player can destroy the bomb (they'd have to be told to do this). Then the Boss will lose a few HP. I don't know if you can chain Escort objectives so you can kill the Boss with bombs, but it'd be fun to try. I can see this in a villainous mission: "Make the hero's death look like an accident", but short of giggles I don't see any justification for a Hero blowing up a badguy they can just punch into submission.

Right now, we don't have the means to make Bosses invincible, or super high level, or the ability to debuff them through in-mission temps or by clicking glowies. We can's set a mission to be timed only at certain spots (It's either from the beginning or not at all).

I guess one thing you can try: Bots/Devices-MM/Blaster minions. Make sure Bots has ForceField generator, and that Devices has Gun Drone. The moment you appear, the boss is extra-protected and it will behoove the player to get rid of the things shooting them and protecting the boss before actually engaging him. Granted, a decently intelligent player will know to kill the summoners, but ignoring the baddies simply isn't an option like in some encounters. (in all honesty, i forget if MA Bots MMs get access to FFG, but I'm sure it's in there somewhere...)

Can you set diffrent fails, for example clearing a zone with escort alive or taking them to the exit? For making it look like an accidentet or shaking off a tail.

Eva: Aw dammit, so much for those ideas, haha.

Trilby: Taking an escort to an exit will just pass the mission. Doing all your other objectives first or afterward won't have any affect. You can set up a TIMED mission that will fail the mission if you don't get the escort out first, but people generally disslike a) timed missions b) escort missions and c) TIMED ESCORT MISSIONS.

About the only thing you can really do to make things difficult is set the minimum and maximum levels of the mission to 54... OR... have a level 20 mission and put a naturally level 40+ EB/Boss in the mission. They'll be leveled down but will be a lot tougher than normal level 20 EBs.

Aww, but I had a really fun idea for an arc I like to call "Stop Helping Me!" Or can you set it that the escort goes to somewhere else besides the door, for example, escorting them to somewhere like a safe?

Basically, you are going around doing generic hero stuff when you pick up a tail in the form of a fan who you have to lose as a tail. My idea was first 2 times you would escape from the tail, the next time you take him with you but he would be really weak and aggressive and final mission has someone empowering him up to EB levels and making him stronger as he decides to be your nemesis in order to spend time with you.

I'm thinking I should probably start an AE ideas thread, no?

You CAN escort a Hostage to any other objective point (like a glowie) and have them stop following you, and then set the mission to only end when you get to the exit (which would make it appear that you've lost them)... that might work out for ya. Though using the same gag 2 or 3 times in a row might be a bit tedious unless you find ways to change it up.

What I'm wondering is, how does the "Designated Helper" code interact with betraying allies? If he betrays, does he keep his dissallowance from using non-standard-attack powers?

If not, I have a fun idea that I should mess around with...

Step 1: Fill mission with Escorts to a particular objective, then glowies that make each of them betray. The result: Fully customizable royal rumbles with bosses, AV's, EB's, Author Self-Inserts, whatever you can imagine!

Ever wanted to fight every version of Marcus Cole at once? Now you can! (Except for the bit where some of them aren't in MA, maybe?)

Solo showdown with the Freedom Phalanx? Or bringing a team? Why not!

I was kind of inspired by the "You're cloning yourself" villainside arc, that one mission where you can set up a massive ambush of 8 boss level doppelgangers, it seemed like a fun time. (Until I played it with my Pistols/Time defender, 8x Time's Juncture is pure pain). Making your own danger room sounds like a hoot, don't it?