The issue with the last iteration of this suggestion wasn’t that it lacked a melee attack; a boss can have only ranged abilities. The issue was that the idea was underdeveloped.
In this iteration, I think you have the opposite problem. You’ve listed a ton of relatively generic attacks. Most of them are redundant, simply doing damage via a projectile or melee hit. For a boss like this, it’s not enough to just damage the player with pretty effects and cool animations, sometimes inflicting a status effect. Mobs, especially bosses, need a hook - a core gameplay and design element that makes the mob interesting. This can be a weakness or a strength or a special role in gameplay. All of the mob’s abilities and attacks need to play off of this hook and support it in interesting ways. Players should be able to learn and understand that hook and develop new strategies and ways of playing around it. A mob is not just new because it looks different and has a different name, it’s new because it makes players interact with the game in new ways.
Take the grottol for example. It’s hook is it’s a mob that you have to chase down to get a reward - something Minecraft didn’t really have before. It’s resistant to ranged attacks, forcing players to actually chase after it to hit it with a pick. It can hop into Minecarts to get away. It can burrow and disappear if chased too long. Its design is cute and its death animation is sad, making players feel a twang of guilt after chasing it down. All of these things support its hook. (It has a secondary hook too revolving around its living ore theme, which allows you to use silk touch and fortune enchantments when you kill it.) And that’s it! It has no combat abilities, because that wouldn’t support the hook.
Now take Barako. His hook is that he’s a powerful ranged opponent, but he can’t move. So he mainly deals damage from far away with sunstrikes and summoned Barakoa minions. Players will no doubt close in to hit him, so he pushes them away with a solar flare which has high knockback but barely any damage to put them back in his sunstrike gauntlet. The sunstrikes seem to be a basic ranged attack at first, but if you think about it, they come from the sky, allowing clever players to avoid the onslaught by hiding under or building a roof. This is a valid strategy, but once Barako loses some health, he gains new abilities that expand his hook and throw a wrench in players’ plans. His solar beam is line-of-sight based but slow to focus on a target, getting those players camped out in front of him under a roof with a bow but not those running quickly through his sunstrikes. His supernova move was developed specifically to counter players who wall themselves in next to him under a roof or below his throne. It deals massive damage around him, but only after a long charge up time that allows players that haven’t blocked themselves in to get away. It only lifts mobs up and towards him to damage players that dig far down beneath his throne and try shooting his butt with arrows. Every ability has a purpose that works together and supports the hook. It’s streamlined: only 5 abilities. If I gave Barako a big wooden club to wield, it might look cool but it wouldn’t support his hook at all - so I didn’t.
Designing mobs is hard and takes time. But I don’t need a full design from a suggestion. Some of the best suggestions I’ve received were just cool hooks I hadn’t thought of. Think really hard and find that hook.
I've never thought about that before. Honestly, my creation process is, "Hey, that's a cool idea, I'm gonna run with it!" Which is obviously not the best process. I'll try to take your advice to heart and improve upon the Emissary (because I'm quite fond of it's concept). All I can hope for is that it turns out good!
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Holy moly does he look phenomenal!!!
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I was initially thinking that he could spawn in ships made of blocks, but now I'm really liking your idea a lot more in regards to him spawning in shipwrecks instead, as well as the Cap'n's Key opening a special chest. It'd be much more thematic, have breakable blocks, and also give the key a purpose!
In terms of the chest, though, I can see it having a whole bunch of valuables in it; gold nuggets, emeralds, and maybe even the Black Spot weapon!
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Back at it again with another detailed idea suggestion!
Cap'n Bonebeard is a pirate boss that can be found in the ocean aboard a ghost ship. Although one can simply find a ghost ship by chance while traveling through the ocean, because of how rare they are, the quickest way to locate a ghost ship is by obtaining the Ghastly Compass; an item that could be acquired from a Wandering Trader. The Ghastly Compass will point at the direction of the ghost ship at all times.
As for the boss itself, Cap'n Bonebeard is a large, fat skeleton dressed in a pirate captain outfit covered in rips & tears, barnacles, and seaweed. He could also have one of his arms be an octopus tentacle, maybe, and could have octopus tentacles sprouting out of his back. He is also armed with a cutlass and a flintlock pistol. When the player boards a ghost ship, Bonebeard will appear on the deck, making a jolly laugh before pointing his sword at the player, beginning the battle. He is a tanky boss with lots of tricks up his sleeve, and cannot be damaged through normal means. His attacks consist of:
Upon defeat, he could drop three items
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I haven't messaged here in awhile, but on top of new monsters and such, I would like to add and expand upon my idea of the Librarian boss by suggesting that he could be apart of some kind of unique dungeon; The Forbidden Archives. As the names suggests, the Forbidden Archives could be an archive of dusty books, relics, artifacts and other things the Librarian has collected over the years, with the structure itself being a labyrinth of halls and tall walls of bookshelves on every corner. Due to the arcane nature of the Forbidden Archives, the mechanic of this dungeon could involve portals that take the player to different locations within the dungeon, pools of purple goo that damage players, and illusions consisting of walls that the player can walk through.
For the enemies, I wanted to have them simple, yet unique and interesting in their own ways. Here are the ones I brainstormed so far:
Dark Tome: Ancient books possessed by evil spirits, Dark Tomes attack the player by flying out of book shelves and floating around them, occasionally firing a low-damaging magic missile. Upon death, the Dark Tome will fall to the ground and become a normal book, but can be reanimated by a Curator. To prevent Dark Tomes from reanimating, the player will need to either kill the Curator(s), or burn the book with flint and steel.
Voidling: Purple, imp-like creatures with chomping books for heads, these creatures run at the player the bite and slash at them. Upon death, however, Voidlings will split into two smaller, weaker versions of themselves. Because of this, Voidlings can swarm players who underestimate them.
Curator: Once aspiring mages and wizards who sought the Forbidden Archives in search for knowledge, they now serve the Librarian as his corrupted servants. Not only can they use a number of magic attacks, but can also reanimated fallen Dark Tomes. Curators are also very squishy in terms of health, with their only method of escape being teleporting a few blocks away from the player.
Void Mutant: Former adventurers who were also corrupted by the Librarian, these brutish enemies have slimy tentacles replacing their left arm and carry a runic mallet in their right arm. Their attacks switch between lashing the player with their tentacles, and slamming their mallet against the ground and sending a pillar of arcane fire towards the player.
Beyonder: Observers are floating balls of flesh and eyes that patrol the halls of the Forbidden Archives, searching for intruders. If one spots the player, it will spawn a bunch of Voidlings before lobbing balls of arcane energy that slightly chase the player.
I was also thinking about some kind of high-threat monster that would either look like a Shoggoth or a Dark Young from H.P. Lovecraft's work, but I couldn't figure out how to make it unique/interesting beyond it being a fleshy horror with some tooth and claw attacks. Buut with that, it'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
EDIT: I'm also really sorry if what I described seems not-very detailed/rushed; when I come up with ideas I tend to have a lot of trouble writing them down vs thinking about them XD
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I saw! I'm super glad you liked that idea! I'm also curious to see how it's obstacle courses would work in game!
And honestly, I'd imagine that warlock tower idea working more in favor for my Librarian idea, due to the stark similarities. I can definitely see how the chaotic demon design could be a bit overwhelming to deal with; my initial idea was something that was just really bizarre and uncanny, and fought the player in a way that no other monster/boss does as of yet. For my monster ideas, I try to theme them around bosses/mini bosses, in that they have their own strengths and weaknesses; Librarian is a super glass cannon that relies heavily on his collection of magic, while the Tiki Guardians rely on synergies between each other XD
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Back at it again with another monster idea I came up with while at work and thinking about Majora's Mask XD
The Inkubai
A malevolent yet bizzare demon obsessed with painting, the Inkubai appears as a tall, imp-like monster with multiple arms, paint stained all over it's lanky body, and a staff-like paint brush it carries around. Pretty much, the Inkubai looks like a chaotic, abstract piece of art XD
Found within it's lair deep underground, which could appear as a large room full of works of art and paintings it has hoarded over the years. Once disturbed, the Inkubai will begin to laugh and grunt maniacally, doing bizarre dances and movements before diving into a portrait, beginning the fight. The Inkubai's abilities would go as followed:
1. Jumping into one of his portraits, the Inkubai will come out from another portrait from a random side of the room, performing one of his attacks before fleeing back into a portrait.
2. Using the portrait nearest to it, it'll start painting on it and create a random threat for the player. These threats include various paint monsters, bombs, paint projectiles, paint lasors, etc.
3. Occasionally, the Inkubai will bounce out from one portrait and begin to hop across the room towards another, creating splashes of damaging paint that fly randomly. If the player hits him with a ranged attack, though, the Inkubai will fall over and get stunned for a little bit.
4. Once at low health, the Inkubai will create two paint clones of itself; although these clones have much less health than the player, they follow the same behavior of the Inkubai, and can create absolute chaos of the player does not kill them quick enough.
Once defeated, the Inkubai will drop his brush, the Artisan's Folly, allowing the player to splash damaging paint onto enemies, as well as create paint monsters to aid them in combat!
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Shaolin music intensifies :3
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This is a really well done magic mod! I would download it to try it out myself, but I've been making preparations to move on from 1.11 to 1.12 XD
Otherwise, it's clear that you have a lot of compassion for this mod, seeing how polished everything looks and how awesome the spells look in action. I can't wait to try this out!
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Hopefully we'll get to see it updated to newer versions such as 1.11 or 1.12, which would be so so awesome.