How can I program a boss fight?

[injerto]

Hello, I'm new to the videogame development industry, I've played WoW for some years and now I'm looking into the idea of creating a similar experience in my own terms.

I've read a lot of the documentation, but still haven't found how to script a boss fight that, for instance, spawns things (like animated 3d models) on the area that hit players, say things, enter to different phases, etc.

Or how to do a cinematic that happens when players enter an instanced dungeon. Or that when the player approaches a zone in a dungeon, the enemies come running to them from point A to their respective final positions in which they're going to stand during the fight.

I know it may sound ambitious, I'm not pretending to have the game ready in a couple months, but I'd like to know what my learning path is going to be.

[Martin (Dragonsan)]

On 9/7/2022 at 11:25 AM, injerto said:

I've read a lot of the documentation, but still haven't found how to script a boss fight that, for instance, spawns things (like animated 3d models) on the area that hit players, say things, enter to different phases, etc.

There is no special logic for bosses. They are treated like other mobs, and currently there is only a simple AI which will aggro mob if you will enter aggro range, or if you will attack the mob. You can also define something like linked aggro, where one aggroed mob can aggro other friendly mobs within specific distance. Mob can also use different abilities based on its own statistics, like if the health will drop below some level then the mob will start using another ability, and currently you can define up to 3 such levels. Information about it you can find on the wiki https://unity.wiki.atavismonline.com/project/mobs-plugin/ 

We are working on the much better and more sophisticated AI that will be part of the Atavism X.7, where you will be able to define behaviors with more conditions, like if number of friendly targets will be <> than the value or number of enemies will be <> than the value, etc. as well as within behaviors you will have fleeing, melee, ranged offensive, ranged defensive, defend and heal behaviors, and each behavior will have its own settings, and mob will be able to switch between these behaviors based on conditions. Like, if health is more than 90%, and there are fewer enemies than 3, then mob will use melee behavior, and if more players will come, like more enemies for the mob, then the mob can start using more powerful melee abilities, or use ranged ones and start fleeing and summoning other mobs during the road.

On 9/7/2022 at 11:25 AM, injerto said:

Or how to do a cinematic that happens when players enter an instanced dungeon. Or that when the player approaches a zone in a dungeon, the enemies come running to them from point A to their respective final positions in which they're going to stand during the fight.

As for the cinematic, you would have to handle it by yourself, but it would be client side only.

 

[injerto]

Thank you VERY much for all that info.

Do you have any ETA for X.7? I'm very interested in this new AI, since I want to create a real project and I would like to invest the time the best way possible.

[Martin (Dragonsan)]

Currently, we are testing and fixing bugs, so the whole logic is ready, and we hope that everything will be ready within a few weeks.