Reworking Every Boss in Wave Battler

By early October I had a problem with Wave Battler. The normal waves were fun. The bosses were not. Most boss fights felt the same: a big enemy that shot things while you circled it. The wave 5 boss felt close to unbeatable on Easy and Normal, and the final boss was not scary enough for a final boss. The only one I really liked was the two-armed boss that rolls into you.

Normal enemies had a problem too. If you ran in a circle, they all followed you and formed a neat circle behind you. Easy to kite, easy to farm, and boring after a while.

Research first

I really like the bosses in Terraria, so we started there and looked at a few other games too. A few ideas kept coming back:

• A boss should have a set of moves and mix them up, not repeat one loop.
• Every big attack needs a clear warning before it lands, long enough to react.
• After a big move the boss should be open for a moment, so there is a time to hit back.
• Each phase should change how the fight plays.
• Health should come from how long a fight should last for a normal build.

What changed on the bosses

Every boss got new moves on both maps, and each one now has phases. Gold means the boss is OPEN and takes extra damage. Ramming a wall or a rock can STUN some of them. A few examples:

• The Gyro (The Nautilus on Deep Drift) rams in chains of one, two or three charges. Hit a wall or a rock with it and it stuns. Its ricochet shows the bounce path first, so you can read it.
• Prism (Aurora on Deep Drift) uses fixed loops in each phase, with a split beam later on. In its last phase it is always open, so it turns into a race.
• The Mainframe (The Wreck on Deep Drift) was the one I already liked, and the first version made it dash in straight lines. That lost what I liked. In the second round it curls up and then rolls after you for a few seconds, steering as you move, leaving a trail of fire. Lead it into a wall and it stuns.
• The Nucleus got back the move I loved from the old version: it vanishes and reappears right on top of you with no warning, then charges.

Boss health now grows with the wave, and boss damage does too. Before, boss bolts did the same damage at wave 40 as at wave 5, so late bosses barely hurt. The test bot that died on wave 5 in six runs out of six on the old build got past it in five out of six on the new one.

Round two: playing it and changing my mind

I played every boss and wrote notes. Some I kept as they were: the Gyro, Prism, the Nucleus and the Abductor looked right, and Phantom Process was hard in a good way. The final boss was hard on Brutal and fine on Easy, so I said don't touch it.

Others needed more. The Network Spider and the Interceptor felt weak, so the Spider now hunts you in a zig-zag and pounces in chains, and the Interceptor got stronger whirlpools, a pack of helpers and homing torpedoes. I also noticed that rings with gaps showed up in too many attacks, so Datastream's surfacing move became a chain of geysers stepping toward you instead.

There was a real bug too. The final boss's giant hands never clapped or sank properly. Their timer had a name that the game already used for something else, so the countdown never moved. Once that was fixed, the hands follow the titan, sink with it and actually clap.

A horde that stops circling

For normal enemies, we gave the horde roles. Some chase you directly and aim a little ahead. Some cut across to where you are going to be. Some swing out to the side first and come in from the flank. New enemies tend to spawn ahead of you or on both sides when you move. Some enemies crouch with a short red line before they lunge.

Running in a circle doesn't line them up neatly any more, and it makes the waves a bit harder. I asked for one exception: the small fast runner keeps its old straight, flat-out chase. It is simple and it is fun to dodge.

The rework went into the real game the same day. If you want to see the bosses for yourself, play Wave Battler, or read about the game on its page.