I am curently in the initial design stages of a game however I need the main character to be defeated even if they have performed perfectly for that round. In this game the vilian is trying to attain items that are held by the player, and I actuly want the vilian to aquire these objects temporarly. However in order to do so the vilian needs to defeat the hero. Any suggestions?

You could do something really cheap like give the villian lots of health. That might be a problem if the player easily beats the villian before or after, though. What type of game is it? The fight could be rigged, maybe. (trap, etc.)

The main problem is that players are not used to the concept, so it will probably be necessary to gradually lead the player towards a point where he will "just play" without going back to achieve better results.
And you´ll have to rig the fight in some way.

The cheapest way out would be to simply show a self-running sequence of the defeat *after* the boss has lost a certain amount of HP (or whatever fits your genre), so in essence the player has to win in order to progress the story (which means losing).
players are more accustomed to this, and it´s less effort.

I''m trying to avoid, the your beat the boss up and cut to a movie that has you defeated, with some trap you could of avoid your self.

That is a tough one. You could give him an incredibly high hp, making it near impossible to defeat him. Another problem might be, that when the hero dies normally, you''re returned to the menu screen (or given the option to restart, etc.), but when you''re defeated by him, you continue the story. I don''t know if it''d be that hard, depending on what kind of game it is.. Or you could just make the villian really agressive and barely give the hero a word in edge-wise (making it really hard to hit him).

But, I do agree with you about the cut-scene idea. It''s really rather frustrating when a game does that (I know Max Payne 2 did it and it bugged me for days).

Well, good luck. (And sorry if I wasn''t much help to you.)

Another World had a sequence where, after defeating a guard, you run offscreen right (to get to the next screen) and instead of arriving in the next screen, a guard (offscreen) punches you back onto the screen. No way of avoiding it... although it wasn't a storyline point, just a bit of variety, it was well done.

How about after the boss collapses you get a cutscene where your character is jumped from behind while kneeling over the body of the boss? [edit: ie. it's not something you could have avoided while playing, and you can only see it happening now because the viewpoint shifts. Maybe someone hits you with a knockout dart from a blowgun from an upstairs window or something?]

[edited by - fractoid on May 4, 2004 9:35:08 PM]

If the player absolutely must lose the fight, you have to make it impossible to win, and not just extremely unlikely. For example, Star Ocean II (Playstation) had several fights that you were supposed to lose, and I managed to win a few of them because the battle system relies a lot on player skill.

IMO, the least annoying way to rig the fight is with a cutscene - that way the player knows that he was supposed to lose and won''t be too disappointed.

Making the enemy super-powerful doesn''t ensure that the player will lose (a friend of mine has a habit of maxing out his level before even moving to the first town/whatever in RPGs, and any system can be defeated with enough work).

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
If the player absolutely must lose the fight, you have to make it impossible to win, and not just extremely unlikely. For example, Star Ocean II (Playstation) had several fights that you were supposed to lose, and I managed to win a few of them because the battle system relies a lot on player skill.

IMO, the least annoying way to rig the fight is with a cutscene - that way the player knows that he was supposed to lose and won''t be too disappointed.

Making the enemy super-powerful doesn''t ensure that the player will lose (a friend of mine has a habit of maxing out his level before even moving to the first town/whatever in RPGs, and any system can be defeated with enough work).

Or you could just have it say "Boss used magical regenerative potion!" every time his health gets low.

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How about you make the boss overly powerful, but still defeatable?

If the party loses, well, problem solved. Cutscene to party getting pwN3d by the boss, story continues.

If the party wins, something else occures. One of the boss' henchmen sneaks up behind the leader in the heat of the battle and holds him up at swordpoint just when they figure everything's ok, etc.. Or something to that end.

Either way, the player won't feel slighted because they can win the fight and aren't forced to lose, even though it's possible and for the most part, likely. You can also award the player a bonus for defeating the boss, such as extra bits of storyline as the party's leader drills the defeated villain for answers, or special items such as a unique sword. That way, losing is the normal way to go but winning still turns out being worth it.

Edit: Final Fantasy 3j had a battle against Bahamuth, the king of dragons, rather early on. Obviously the player isn't supposed to beat him no matter what (Dude, it's the king of dragons. STFU and admit defeat, hero or not. ) so you have to run away. It took me a while to realize this (despite the "We can't hope to defeat him, we must escape"-type message I was getting every round) frankly. ^^; Anyhow, to prevent you from actually defeating him, his HP were reset every round. Since he had 65,000 HP and the max you could do was 9,999 every round, it was impossible to win.

[edited by - RuneLancer on May 4, 2004 9:53:14 PM]

Or cut out when the player encounters the boss, do a huge cinematic fight scene that kicks fscking ass, and then have the player "lose"

I wouldn''t mind watching a kick ass martial arts fight.

but tht depends on the type of game....