The Chronicles of Masteria Update

...NPC allies? Like the four REAL grandmasters aiding you in the fight against the zombie grandmasters. o.o

This is something I've suggested quite a bit in the past. It's quite possible to program. Monsters can hit other monsters, we all know this from HPQ. However, the way this is written into the game is that Monster X can only take damage from Monster Z and Y. So, you could easily make it so that, say, Christopher Crimsonheart could take damage from each of the four Twisted masters, and that they could all take damage from him, but you couldn't accidentally hit Chris with your own attacks.

The only issue I really see with this is that you can't heal monsters (Though perhaps this could be remedied by giving Chris his own regenerative skill) so it might be tough to keep him alive. Such a plan would require a lot of testing because you'd want to make it worthwhile to have him fighting alongside you, but not make him do so much damage that you could just kick back and let him do all the fighting.

I mean something different. It IS similar, but I mean something that can only be attacked when it is attacking. It would be invisible otherwise, and thus untouchable. Geist teleports sometimes, but it's not the same thing.

Lamens terms: It appears, attacks, brief chance to attack, it disappears again. Can't attack it till it reappears. This =/= geist.

Edit: Sleep deprived state let me forget to mention the location for each reappearance would be different. Sorry about that.

You basically just described the shadow eye thing from Ludi PQ. You could only hit it when its eyes were open, and it would wander around in an invisible and invincible state until then.

The only problem I really see with this is if it's got high touch, then it just flies under your party and reappears and kills everyone. That would just be stupid...

I don't like the idea that making a boss intense and challenging equals making it do incredibly high damage. So that it 1 Hit KO’s most classes. To me that isn’t challenging it’s just not fun. It leads on to the whole pinning bosses in a corner thing as well, again that has been done it’s boring. There are enough of those bosses. I would rather see a boss that has lower touch damage. Something that means a bowman/thief etc can take a hit and live but enough so they die when attacked again.

I would like to see a boss that moves as fast as something like BF with the lower touch damage like i mentioned earlier. In a long and flat map. Also it would have to have a really high KB or no KB so you couldn’t pin it in a corner. Maybe something like where it has a charging style move where it rampages towards you and it can’t be knocked back so all you can do is run and try to avoid it. You would have to use teleporters to travel to different horizontal points on the map. That way it gets rid of the whole everyone stand on one side of the screen and spam attacks. I would also love to see a boss style savage blow like move. Where it does small hits fast. That builds up to high damage over a short time. Then you would have to try and avoid the attack, rather than just the usual take the hit and heal approach. That way it gives lower hp classes a better chance. I know that is meant to be a downside of these classes but I think we have enough of those type of bosses already. Maybe some lower gravity as well, where you can jump higher, that would encourage more dodging moves Mega Man/Rockman style. Oh also through in some super KB now and then. That’s always fun as long as it doesn’t happen too much.

You actually gave me a pretty neat idea here. What if we had some of those trampolines like were used in KMS for the moon event? the boss backs you into the corner, everyone leaps onto the trampoline and bounces over the boss's head to get back on the safe side. Unlike a teleporter, you'd have to do some maneuvering to land appropriately, and you'd need someone to hold the boss off while everyone else leaped away in order to keep it from just running under your landing spot. The trampolines were somewhat difficult to control, but if you gained experience with them it wasn't too hard to get pointed in the right direction.

Heck, there could even be some sort of a reactor floating at the top of the map which could summon a bomb-type monster that would explode and deal damage to the boss. It'd require some well timed jumps and intricate control to reach, but it'd be a great help in the fight. It might also seal the boss, like how anti-botting monsters are sealed by the reactors in their map. Doesn't really strike me as something that'd work in Crimsonwood, but it might be interesting in other areas.

Calling a boss a platypus for not straight up charging you may increase the size of your e-penis, but it's not a valid reason to say a boss sucks.

Geist Balrog is not MADE for people like you - 16x BMs who take it down in 30 seconds. The level requirement for APQ is 40. It is intended for a party of early 3rd jobbers to be able to take it down with some difficulty. When APQ was released, he was not nearly as easy as he is now. I remember APQing in the early days, when I was required to lure it and bomb it as a CB in 50% of the parties I was in. Nowadays, people are stronger. I don't even consider what level people are when I add them, because anyone can take it down.

The luring aspect of Geist is good. It takes coordination. Should we independently run after it and fall off the platforms, or should we send someone up there to make the whole battle easier?

I agree that Geist Balrog could have been made a lot better. The teleport could actually have gone somewhere instead of simply making him unhittable, and there could have been fewer spikes lying around. He could have also randomly aggroed people on the map, chasing them rather than simply running away. But what the pineapple? Bigfoot is EXACTLY like all of the other pinnable bosses, except he has an annoying missing hitbox and he gives good exp. Geist Balrog may have been sloppily designed, but the concept of a boss that isn't Zakum/Horntail (Big immobile rock/dragon/whatever in middle of map that attacks with fullscreen blasts, multiple arms/stages, massive damage, tons of HP) or Bigfoot/Anego/Black Crow/Headless Horseman (fast moving, pinnable boss, damage usually unsurvivable for ranged classes of appropriate level) is refreshing at least.

I think you've said what I was trying to say better. Of course Geist is easy *now*, we've had a year and a half to learn his moves and level up. However, when he first came out, fights with him were taking in the neighborhood of 15 minutes, and he was swinging wildly all over the place. That's what made people find it refreshing, as there was nothing like it (and really, there still isn't) in game at the time.

Maybe something that rotated specific weapon immunities, or elements, or heck, even changed forms frequently (from immobile but tough to mobile but weaker) to allow every class an oppurtunity to be useful against it. It gets old to see the same people in every boss party (1 NL, 1 Bishop, 1 DrK, 1 BM/MM, 2 random attackers)

I don't know if it'd really be possible to switch back and forth from mobile to immobile, unless it were separate forms like Pap, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't shift elemental attributes in a way similar to how Fire/Ice demon work.