Was in items, thanks again Madfox.

Now to integrate it. 

think the firs qc I offered was the real spike mine.

It has an substitutional qc as the gremlin, but then I realized it would only work in order with the whole qc script. 

Has anyone worked on making the monsters hunt in packs, or any sort of group behavior?

kell and i had several ideas about something like this but nothing ever came of it.

i'd love to see a boss that uses minions in some creative way.

i liked the guardian in d3 because it's sight depended on the seekers. i think something like this, but much more complex could be cool.

i'd also love to see bosses with phases, healing, interruptible abilities or something... 

has the zombie master, but that is simply a creature that ports in zombies.

Over the past few weeks I have revisited Max Payne 2, and played Gears of War. After dealing with frustrating bosses I have to conclude one of Quake's strengths and an element that helps the game flow is the absence of serious boss monsters until the very end. There is Chthon, but he isn't that big of a deal to fight.

It has led me to redesign the hub scenario I am fiddling with because boss fights just stop everything in their tracks until the fight is resolved. It seems to me that better game flow can occur by allowing the player to work the boss fights around
his personal schedule of play.

How many people have dropped a game altogether because of the boredom and tedium of a boss fight? I would have likely stopped playing GoW but I called my nephew up to come over and fight it out for me. Not that I couldn't do it, I just despise repetition. I probably have a condition that is the exact opposite of obsessive compulsion whatever that may be :) 

...boredom and tedium of a boss fight...

I think you can make a non-boss climax just as boring, tedious, hard, or frustrating as any boss fight. I've played some giant horde endings to levels that i had to play through 3 or 4 times, and they're long, and tedious, too.

And surely if you can make a fun horde finale, you can make a fun boss fight.

I think quake would benefit by more good bosses. 

should of had some sort of boss, due to it was the more metal theme

metal refering to the original map types
base
metal
midevil

at least i think that was the episode

also i have z aware ores andzombies

where zombies are no a problem due to unintentional fast move ment making them hard to hit, strifing all round
the ogres on the other hand i have seen the beam problem where they will shoot it too high and hit a beam and bounce it on to them selves,
but when there health rech lower than 25 they start shooting and strifing round like crazy, all the monsters due that now, the draw backs i have ran into was the knight and the fish, the fish are fine now but the knight runs in to a problem where i had to give him a th_missile attack and now when hes far away hell start slashing, so i might try and make him fore some kind of spike :P 

but I just saw HT's new Scrag and simply had to comment.

Quake's hordes should defy explanation. The scrag is scary because it flies without the aid of [big butterfly] wings, and doesn't have any arms. It's like a ghost.

Quake's anatomy should always be slightly questionable. 

Like Fiend and Shambler and Vores WITHOUT EYES.

The essence of Quake. 

I think quake would benefit by more good bosses.

I agree with this, but I feel there are some barriers which are difficult to overcome. The best bosses are designed with their environment in mind - the map and the boss as designed in tandem. So some sort of compilation mod containing 10-15 ready made bosses for quake isn't going to produce great results.

On the other hand, if a boss was made specifically for one map, then one benefit is uniqueness; the reward for reaching the end of the map is something you've never seen before. The problem of course is that you need to have co-operation between a modeller/animator/coder and a mapper. I wouldn't mind giving this a go though, if someone had a map in the early stages and an idea of a boss.

In terms of gameplay, there's one question I'd like to ask about making quake bosses. Typically when you face a boss in quake there's no reason not to just continually fire on them with your most powerful weapon. What ways are there to break up this pattern? 

Firstly I pretty much loathe boss combats that are all based around some gimmick that involves not fighting the boss i.e. somehow know in advance that you have to destroy some arbitrary power crystal that looks like every other sodding part of the boss arena whilst getting pwnd by 200% damage projectiles and balancing on beams above lava. Fuck that shit homie.

Other options.

1. Boss manouverability / teleportation.

2. Other monsters present.

3. Varying boss vulnerability to weapons.

4. Necessity to use enviroment to help destroy boss (not total reliance).

5. Boss actually not very tough but very dangerous so tables have turned to survive rather than just shoot. 

Descent teleporting bosses have:

1. Boss manouverability / teleportation.
latter, kinda slow.
2. Other monsters present.
Some bosses even generate monsters.
3. Varying boss vulnerability to weapons.
Large invulnerable spots on the front. Sound is VERY important here though, descent has one default 'can't shoot this' sound all the time.
4. Necessity to use enviroment to help destroy boss (not total reliance).
Various goodies, missiles, invis, invulnerables in secret rooms around the boss room. This isn't what you meant though?

In descent it works kinda great, the bosses are the enemies you need to be most careful about, and they're fucking tough, but still managable, and very rewarding.

They're mostly very dangerous, but the levels don't just drop you in one giant room with em with no way to go, so you can see how you kill them best, etc. The room itself mostly has hiding places, etc. They're never just a box. 

I think quake would benefit by more good bosses.

I think Quake would benefit from nicer AI. Cleverer animation. Quality sound effects.
I know it's been done before, but it would be nice. 

Typically when you face a boss in quake there's no reason not to just continually fire on them with your most powerful weapon. What ways are there to break up this pattern?

Selective monster/weapon interaction maybe? like shamblers taking 1/2 damage from asplosions. Your boss could be immune to lightning, or nails could ricochet off of him. Stuff like that encourages a certain weapon set/play behavior without absolutely requiring special behavior X (like chthon).

You can also reduce the player's stores of ammo by throwing cannon fodder at him for a while. If players tend to have too many grenades before a boss fight because you overused ogres early on, just make him wade through a sea of zombies, for example. A pair of shamblers will encourage the player to burn his nails/cells pretty quick too. 

I like having to lure bosses in to specific areas of the environment to reveal their weakness, as long as it's logical [and therefore obvious] enough. Somebody earlier mentioned making a level that involves discharging the LG in the water with a pentagram, so perhaps a boss that you can lure in to the water would be good? Obviously you'd have to script it so that the pent doesn't become available until the boss is in the water [perhaps it smashes some bars that made it previously inaccessible].

I quite enjoyed the big dragon at the end of the Rogue Mission Pack. Gravity Belt + Large Open Space + Fire Breathing Dragon = FUN. Shame about all the lava.

The best boss monster I've ever come across in any game would have to be the three tentacles in a giant silo half way through HL1, but that sort of thing requires complexity that would just seem out of place in Quake's dimension. 

well ever sence i have messed with the ai i came to a bug, but more like a feature where chantion moves around in his lava, his move ments are kinda creepy and somtimes he will move in your way if the path and get his hit box to stop you, then u r dead cos u cant get by him 

Quake would benefit from nicer AI
See Nehahra. Most people seem to dislike the new monster behavior because they want to play Quake like they're used to - predictable.

An unknown but potentially cool boss has just been discovered at Quaddicted: The Anaconda. Nothing too special in the end, but impressive wakeup animation.

Initially unkillable monsters roaming the levels or chasing the player should be used more often. As for bosses, some slight modifications to the standard ones might make for an interesting change already. Obstacle monsters like the HL silo tentacles or the Xen trees are nice, too. 

This afternoon I've been playing around with a new monster idea.

Monster Name: DreadGhast

When veteran deathknights have achieved all they can with the sword, they have been known to sever their own arms and legs in order to better hone their extra sensory powers. These 'DreadGhast' as they have become known by the few who have survived an encounter with one, have learned to levitate and are now capable of ten times the firepower they once were. Should you manage to bring one to the brink of death, then in one last vitriolic act he will erupt in a beautiful but deadly lightshow.

Attack1: The same fiery excretion as a DeathKnight, but more trails get fired in one shot. Can also fire whilst moving.
Attack2: Suicide bomb. DreadGhast only resorts to this when reduced to 1 HP. Body explodes, releasing a volley of above mentioned fiery trails in all directions.

Behavior: Floats around at slightly slower speeds than a scrag, but can take much more damage [three times that of a DeathKnight].

I've also used my very limited modeling knowledge to edit the DK model:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a155/text_fish/DreadGhast01.jpg

I'll work on a proper skin at some point too.

Any opinions on the general idea? 

Three times of a DK's health is a lot (750HP), I'd suggest giving him 450 (slightly more than the vore) or something. Also, getting an enemy down to 1HP doesn't happen very often, personally I'd rise that to 10% of his starting health (whatever you decide it to be).

Otherwise it's a fine idea. 

I thought I might be going a little bit wild with the HP. :P

Good idea about the 10%. Thanks for the feedback! 

I like Armagon a lot :) 

the model and idea are pretty cool, a floating torso seems pretty Quakey. Perhaps some particles moving around him. And part of his skin looking whiteish like the wizard. Lower part perhaps. 

give him a blood trail i guess, i think u can do that in qme 

 

I'd like more bosses in Quake as well. I'll be making one for my pack, but not yet.

I reckon they should have the puzzle solving element of the original 2 and not be killable conventionally, but there's no need for such a behavior to be irritating. 

but it could work in quake. People will often achieve snake/sandworm kind of things by having a bunch of segments that are all unconnected models but move in a line, with one following the next and a head at the end that drives the whole thing.