Shadow of the Colossus

July 24th, 2016 marks the day the black hole event ended. Countless amounts of players participated by taking arms and combating the evil that manifested Animation Studio. In its final moments, Timmy the Harbinger presented himself to address the denizens of Animation Studio of the last trick up his sleeve. He then summoned: the Colossus.

Courtesy of DaDerpLizard

In the early stages of the update, we weren't sure what exactly would be the final boss or even if there was going to be one. We joked around about adding a giant Shadow of the Colossus-sized enemy attacking the studio. Shortly after the joke, MisterObvious began constructing the Colossus and shortly animated him after. With no space to fight the alleged boss, we expanded the map wide enough to fit the soon-to-be boss. We wanted to make something that hasn't been seen before, a massive wandering NPC that fights the player back. The Colossus stands at 228 studs tall, nearly half the size of the starting baseplate. When far away, the Colossus wanders the area whose giant footsteps echo throughout the map with every step. When a player was near, he slowly walked towards the player until he was within reach of his massive blade. With his massive strength, he lifts his enormous sword above his head and violently slams it into the ground causing the ground to break. Any unlucky soul who was under the sword when it landed would take insurmountable amounts of damage while the shockwave produced from the collision would hurt players who did not jump over it. Due to time constraints, we were only able to fit one move into the boss. With this in mind, we didn't want the battle to be tedious so we kept its health on the lower end of the spectrum. Even then, however, with it being a raid boss, we opted on giving him an incredible amount of health at 1.25 million max health, but even with this amount, the Colossus was no match for the players of Animation Studio who took him down within 7 minutes of his summoning.

Timmy the Harbinger appeared before everyone to announce his final move. Once his speech was finished, the screen faded to white and their cameras panned to the center of the new empty field. The Colossus appeared; crouched and slowly rising from the floor as Shadow of Colossus music played. As the player's camera snaps back to their character the health bar, drawn by BlazerC, tweened from below. The amount of hype from the players almost put a tear in my eye; to see all of our work be cherished amongst everyone invoked pure jubilation. Some yelled battle cries as the battle began, others swore to take it down. Everyone was excited to tackle the Colossus. Everyone knew a boss was coming, but they didn't think it was this. It was an amazing boss fight to an exciting event, but that wasn't the end, the finale was much bigger than the Colossus.

Ejob Loves You - The Developer's Own Guide to Tree Boss

To the very few who were waiting for the blog post on the Colossus and the finale for the black hole event, I'll get around to it. I've been busy working on this update and I just finished releasing it. Before I explain the event, allow me to help those who are currently attempting the new boss.

Gathering Items

Before we get into the boss fight, you're going to need to collect some items before the fight. They'll be ordered based on proximity with each other, allowing you to get multiple without having to backtrack as often.

Mage's Bottoms:
The Mager Bottoms grant the wearer 15% magic damage while decreasing range damage by 10%. You can find the legs in the bathroom of the heist room behind the bathtub, the room behind the planks of wood on the second floor.

Protect from Magic:
The protection prayers are the most important part of the fight. In order to successfully kill the boss, you must switch your protections properly in order to nullify the insurmountable amounts of damage dealt from the boss. The damage is only protected against if the prayer was up before the projectile was shot.

The first one we're going to get is Protect from Magic, which protects you from the purple blasts of the boss and the projectiles from the Treelings. This one can be found in the ruins of BlazerC's shop which is located on the second floor of the apartment down the main hall. You can find the book that teaches the prayer inside his shop laying on the floor.

Shark:
Sharks heal you a whopping 22 HP, 10 HP healed more than the burger. You could bring Red Cola with you, but you have to have the tool out until the drink is finished in order to receive the health benefits, preventing you from healing up with multiple items in a short frame of time.

The Shark can be found on a little ledge on the edge of the border buildings nearby the factory. To get here, go on the roof of the apartment and drop down on the buildings that are pressed against the apartment. Jump onto the higher building then drop below to where the shark is located.

Skull Trident:
The Skull Trident is an upgrade to the Magic Axes staff and deals 1-17 base damage and only has a 10% chance of rolling a 0. To find the Trident, head to the secret shop and buy a picture frame. Go down the main hallway on the same floor and go through the wall at the end of the hallway, towards the left wall. Use the picture frame on the purple door and enter the portal. Go past the door with the tree obscuring it and head towards the room with a picture of BlazerC over it. Turn immediately to your right and you'll find the Trident.

Crystal Eye Prayer:
The Crystal Eye Prayer is a damage boost prayer that allows you to increase your range damage output by 15%. You can find the book behind the fake chest on Skyworld. If you don't know how to get to Skyworld, the portal in the room under BlazerC's apartment will take you there. If you don't know how to get to the chest behind the Skyworld shop, there's a translucent path to the right of the of the shop. You can squeeze through the fences to get through and onto the path.

Captain's Axe:
The Captain's Axe is the upgrade to the default throwing axes and deals 1-15 base damage and only has a 12.5% chance of rolling a 0. To find the axes, head to Skyworld and buy the sewer key.  Use the key on the sewer hatch behind Rhysmon's shop. Head straight and turn left then cross the bridge. Keep going straight until you reach the end and turn right to end up in Waterworld. Go inside the shop in Waterworld to find the Captain's Axe.

Magic Surge:
Magic Surge is the magic equivalent to Crystal Eye. When toggled, it grants the user a 15% boost in magic damage. To find the book that grants the prayer, named Magic 101, head to the school to the right of the shops and check inside the teacher's lectern.

Protect from Missiles:
The Protect from Missiles Prayer protects you from range damage: the green projectiles from the Tree Boss. Head down the black road and turn left into the police station. Go into the senior officers only room and behind the table, you'll find the prayer book.

Mage's Top:
The Mage's Top grants the wearer 25% more magic damage while reducing range damage by 15%. Walk down the light yellow path until you reach Club Lazy. You can find the Mager Torso leaning behind the left speaker, relative to when you enter the club.

Ranger Tunic:
The Ranger Tunic grants the wearer 15% range damage while decreasing magic damage by 30%. Head to the Badlands past the broken fence left to the shop and walk across the bridge to the elevated area. Go inside the building directly in front of the bridge through the staircase. You'll find the Ranger Tunic behind some crates under the stairs you entered on.

Ranger Chaps:
The Ranger Chaps grant 25% range damage to the wearer while dropping your magic damage by 30%. Go to the junkyard in the Badlands that's adjacent to the building with the sign saying "git lost" on it. You'll find the chaps nearby a crate.

(Not Necessary) Protect from Melee:
The only attack that does melee damage during the battle is the Treelings and the tail and smash attack from the boss. It isn't recommended to use protect from melee during any of these situations because protecting against the Tree Boss is more important than protecting against the Treelings and you can simply walk further away to avoid the Tree Boss's melee attacks. It's considered a waste of a slot to bring this prayer however if you wish to be a completionist you can find it behind Rhysmon in his shop.

Finding the Boss

The island where you fight the boss can be teleported to by heading inside the vacant room inside the Phillies building which is right next to Club Lazy.

Once you go inside the room, touch the fairy ring inside and it will teleport you to the island nearby the factory.

 Once you've reached the island and you're ready to fight the Tree Boss, talk to the Ancient Lumberjack to pick which items you wish to use. Once you've selected all your items, exit the menu and step onto the boat and sail to the island.

Selecting your loadout

The Tree Boss may be daunting at first glance but once you understand the mechanics and the patterns you'll be able to kill him with ease. You will most likely die your first few times but hopefully, with the help of this guide, you'll have the confidence and the knowledge to take it down.

Many people have different set-ups for fighting Tree Boss so I'll be sharing some that will make fighting the boss much easier. I'll order them from most effective to the least while accounting for difficulty as well.

Best in slot:

This is the best possible loadout you can use to kill Tree Boss, however, this loadout requires copious amounts of switching and has the lowest possible amount of sharks. This loadout will allow you to deal the highest possible amount of damage to the boss which in turn allows you to kill it faster than any other loadout. When fighting the boss with this loadout, when you must switch damage types and change protections, you press and click 1-5 for against ranged or 6-0 against magic. Since the weapons are at the end of the switch, you'll land right on them. During the Jad phase (more on that later) the prayers are to the left and right of the Trident, making prayer switching much easier. This loadout is only recommended to those who can manage to switch all their equipment in time. With this loadout, you can defeat the boss in under 1:50.

No Armor:

This type of loadout seems to be pretty popular amongst players. This loadout eliminates the need to switch armor when fighting the Tree Boss and only focusing on the protections prayers, the damage prayers, and the weapons. With 4 fewer items in your inventory than the one above, you'll be able to add 4 more sharks to your inventory, allowing you to stay alive longer if you take heavy damage during the fight. With the elimination of clothes in this loadout, Tree Boss will take a minute or so longer than the best in slot. If you run this loadout, you can try arranging the switches like the best in slot loadout to only have to press 1-3 or 4-6 to switch as opposed to 1, 5, then 3. With this loadout, you'll be able to defeat the boss in times around 2:15-3:30.

Magic Only:

This loadout is the slowest viable loadout I'm aware of. By using only magic, you'll be doing abysmal amounts of damage during Tree Boss's magic form. The benefit of this loadout is the lack of switching needed to utilize it; all you have to do is switch prayers. You start the fight turning on Magic Surge and equipping your Mage clothes and you're done. Requires a whole less amount of thinking at the cost of time and longer the fight takes, the more food you may have to use. You'll probably hit times over 3:30.

Fighting the Tree Boss

With your equipment selected you'll be sailed to the Tree Boss's shrine where you'll be prompted with a message and given a 20 second grace period. During this free time, you're free to set up armor or prayers or arrange items in your pack. It's important to remember that you can use tools inside your backpack by selecting them and clicking outside of the backpack, making eating food inside your pack faster than if you were to move them into your hot bar.

After the 20 second grace period the EMP you definitely planted yourself will detonate and trigger the boss. The Tree Boss will rise from the water and begin the fight.

The Tree Boss has many mechanics that require different methods of handling. A quick rundown:

Tree Form:

While in its tree form the Tree Boss will be brown and made of wood covered in green vines. During this form, the Tree Boss will shoot a range attack at the player. When the boss is in this mode, you want to protect from range and attack using magic damage. Tree Boss will always spawn as this form but won't attack. That being said, always start the fight ready to attack its tree form but you don't have to protect range.

Black Hole Form:

This is the Tree Boss's magic phase. In this form, Tree Boss's colors will switch to the black hole color palette: black and purple. During this form, the boss will shoot dominantly magic projectiles but has a 1/6 chance to shoot a range attack. Since it's only 1/6 chance, it's recommended to protect from magic since you cannot predict what type of projectile it will be.

Stone Form:

This form you don't really see. The boss will be covered in dark green vines and turn its skin to stone. When in this form, Tree Boss will emerge from the water and smash the ground with either its tail or its arms. If you're caught close to the attack, you'll be stunned and knocked over. When using its upper body to attack, the stun duration and area of effect is larger; this attack is known as the slam attack.

Venom Clouds:

Occasionally Tree Boss will shoot venom clouds onto the island that deals constant damage when standing inside of them. The boss fight always starts with Tree Boss deploying clouds except for on the upper right area of the map, the East side. The clouds deal 0.75-3 damage every 1/4th second you're inside it.

Treelings:

Sometimes Tree Boss ends one of its forms by spawning 5 Treelings. These mini Tree Bosses have a max hit of 15 and use both magic and melee attacks. They only have 1 HP so it's best you ignore them and let your innate recoil powers damage the boss. You can only recoil 40 total damage before it stops working and the recoil property works on the boss too.

The "Jad" Phase:

Towards the end of each rotation, you will encounter a phase called "the Jad phase." During this phase, Tree Boss will appear in its Tree form and start out with a range attack. Tree Boss will then follow up the attack with a magic attack and alternate between attacks, requiring you to alternate protection prayers. The moment you see a green projectile start protecting from magic and when you see a purple projectile, start protecting range. The protection prayer protects you the moment the projectile is shot, not the moment it contacts you. The Jad phase is noticeably longer, shooting 4 projectiles more than either Tree Form or Black Hole phase.

The Rotations:

Here's a chart of the rotations and where to stand during each portion. Some key notes:

• Each rotation starts with a center Tree Form that spews clouds except for the northeast portion. During the grace period, run to the upper right portion of the island to avoid the initial clouds
• At the end of each rotation, Tree Boss will select a new rotation but skips the center Tree Form. All rotations except the 3rd end the phase with spawning clouds on every point of the island. At the end of each rotation rush to the northeast to prepare for the next rotation.
• Rotation 1 and 4 are identical in the beginning. At the end of the south Tree Form portion, see whether or not Tree Boss spawns treelings. If its projectiles are dark green, run to the west; if the projectiles are white and are spawning treelings, run back towards the east.
• Prepare for each rotation accordingly by initializing any prayers and equipment and moving into position. The Tree Boss will shoot 6 projectiles before continuing its pattern. If Tree Boss spawns clouds or Treelings then it will not shoot until it relocates.

(HD Version)

When defeated the Tree Boss will drop various amounts of living bark, which are used to fueling the boss's rewards. If you're lucky, the boss has a 1/128 chance to drop an item, with 2 rolls, equating to 1/64 chance to receive an item. The items are:

• Guitar
• Saxophone
• Violin
• Accordion
• Wheelchair
• Unicycle

If you're even luckier, you have a 1/500 chance to receive a pet voucher that you can use to acquire a pet.

The grind for an item may be tedious but the drops are definitely a worthwhile payout for your time and effort. It may take some time to get used to and this may all seem overwhelming but it shouldn't be too difficult to fight.

All For Fun

The black hole update wouldn't be complete without the weapons to combat the black hole spawns. Initially, we opted on using the preexisting guns I had created beforehand, the Hotline Miami inspired bases. We threw ideas out in the air on how players will acquire the weapons themselves. At first, they were going to be borrowed from the gun wall in the secret hideout room but BlazerC made a joke about them being bought from vending machines. I had first thought he meant those really old ones with shotguns piercing through them but then he explained he meant like those found in Borderlands. Disregarding the time it would take to make them, I decided to do it anyways, with some help of course.

Everyone do the Michigan rag!

Luckily for us, Rhysmon was capable of making a pretty good replica of the gun machine. BlazerC then made the cover of the gun machine to tie it together, giving it its own Animation Studio flavor to it.

Probably my favorite sentence said between the four of us during the update was "I just need to draw a gun over this frog."

Now, a machine that dispenses guns would be nothing without the guns and in true Borderlands fashion, the guns were randomly generated with stats and rarities. I decided to add a black quality to be put below Borderland's white rarity, making an absolute trash quality to add more variety. The guns had the same stats as those in Borderlands, minus the extra bits like elemental damage and extra shots or extra ammo consumption. With 27 names, 7 brands, 6 weapon types, 6 qualities and 5 stats, every time the store restocked, the store always contained unique weapons.

The guns had the same stats from Borderlands: damage, accuracy, fire rate, reload speed and capacity. Each stat was affected by the quality of the gun, the multipliers being 0.5 poor, 0.75 for low,1 for average, 1.2 for rare, 1.5 for epic and 2 for legendary. The final modifier for the weapon stats was the weapon's brand, each designed by BlazerC. The brands were based on brands found in the game along with a different player.

Nothing like competitive firearm brands.

Each brand had their own effects and can be viewed with this screenshot of my text document:

The best part of the machine, in my opinion, was the accuracy. BlazerC did an outstanding job on the drawing the HUD from Borderlands for us to use. We even had a rotating Rhys head in place of Marcus's. Upon opening the machine you're greeted by Rhys reciting Marcus's lines, all uploaded on one audio track!

There was an item of the day for every stock which had a higher chance of getting good rolls while also increasing its price by 75%. There was also only one in stock and was the only way to obtain a legendary quality item. Hell, you could even press A and D to rotate your camera.

Top notch

The guns were a hit during the update. Many people asked if they could keep their weapons. Luckily for them their save data will always be with the game so we have the freedom to bring them back whenever we need them. Some players even got their own custom weapons with unique effects and flavor text. All in all, I'm very proud with how this came out. There isn't much to say about how I scripted it all, it was for the most part a lot of tables storing info with that info being randomly generated numbers whose range is pulled from more tables. If I ever get requests to go more indepth I'd be happy to.

Now all that's left is to explain the finale.

Jokes First, Questions Later

It's been quite a while since I've posted on this blog; I've been pretty lacking in terms of content here even though I have content to provide. I'm unsure of how many people check this blog but I'm happy to update it again.

To pick up from where I left off I'm proud yet disappointed to say I've made progress on something completely unrelated to Project Fight Club. Instead, I spent the months of May and June on an update for MisterObvious's Animation Studio. To those unaware, it looked something like this:

The update started as a joke between the four of us (the other three being MisterObvious, BlazerC, and his brother Rhysmon). Back in 2014 shortly after PFCs inception, I made a joke saying there should be a tool that lets me recreate the falcon punch scene from the anime F-Zero: GP Legends. I myself never got around to creating it until around late May when I decided to tackle the project after successfully recreating You Have to Burn the Rope. Although I wanted to insert it in MisterObvious's game and just show everyone, I needed a reason to use it and to give the cutscene some context. We then created The Black Hole Event. In animation studio, an entity known as The Black Hole loomed over the map whose uncomfortable gaze gave the game's visitors an uneasy feeling of being watched. The black hole would grow ever so slightly whenever a player was banned ingame causing the black hole to grow to an astronomical size that nearly covered half the map in black nothingness. We then agreed the players of the game should combat the black hole in an effort to save the map. The rest of the lore can be told another time if anyone else requests it, but as with all good tales, it's better told by someone who was there so you should definitely ask around the local Animation Studio Senior Center to locate a black hole wheelchaired veteran.

The update added 4 enemies for the player to fight and a boss at the end of the update. The 4 enemies are named Roller, Doppelganger, Distraction Tree, and Golem. Over time the enemies grew in max health and spawn rate as servers grew larger and stayed longer. I'll be quickly going over each one and how they were programmed.

The Roller

The Roller's model was designed and built by my friend Rhysmon when I requested monsters. Originally planned to be a ranged enemy, I opted out for a constant nuisance that'd surprise players. The aptly named Roller would roll towards players and hop on their head, leeching the life of the player they latched themselves onto. The targeted player would need to either shoot the roller off or have another player assist in shooting them. Their weak spot is amongst the hardest to land being the hole in their mouth. They were relatively easy to kill having the lowest health pool of all the enemies but the highest spawn rate and areas of all of the monsters.

The Roller's AI is a simple one: roll towards them and pounce when close enough. The AI used a while loop that constantly looked for players via the :GetPlayers() function of Players. Once the table of players was acquired, it simply compared the distances between the player and the roller and picked the closest one to roll to. Once the roller was within 7 studs of the player it would speed up and jump towards them and weld itself to the player's head, dealing damage and healing the roller. Rollers didn't use pathfinding or any ledge detection because we thought pathfinding wouldn't be necessary since we wanted them to surprise players that pass through doors or pass by rocks they hid behind. We let them fall off the edge because, well, we thought it was hilarious.

Nobody liked you anyways

The Doppelganger

The Doppelganger's model was hastily made when I noticed a lack of ranged enemies; I just slapped on the classic zombie face with no eyes and gave them the same color and material scheme as the roller. I thought the idea of an enemy using the same weapons as the players would be a fun foe to go up against. The fact their bodies were the same and their combat styles were the same, I decided to make them wear the same hats as a random player in the game. Their weapons were randomly generated using the same algorithm as the vending machines that dispensed the weapons for the players and did the same damage as theirs. These guys were either a joke to fight against or were a huge trouble to deal with. They had the same base health as players and were the second most common to spawn. They tended to spawn in areas where players commonly hung out at.

Their AI was much smarter than the roller with pathfinding and edge detection. They were also fully animated and had accuracy based off the gun's stats. The game would roll a number between one to six; if six was selected, the doppelganger would aim for the head with one through five being the other body parts. They would run towards nearby players and fire when within a reasonable range. They also could toss their weapons in the trash if they managed to touch it, which was quite rare. If they tossed their weapon out, they began to break down crying exclaiming their frustration for tossing their firearm in the garbage.

dude y

The Distraction Tree

These were designed by MisterObvious while we were making monsters and boy are these just great. These were just fantastic: balancing the tone of the game to make sure the update wasn't too serious by giving them hilarious AI to match their old fashion appearance. These guys had the second most health of all the enemies and spawned in open green areas. When approached they'd spin and yell DEMACIA, harming players who get whacked by its distraction tail with the barb at the end, dealing more damage. The best part about these guys is that their crit spot is actually the face in its chest, which is actually its real face. Why else would it be called distraction tree?

These guys had the same AI as the Roller with the exception of its behavior when a player is near. They'd spin using BodyAngularVelocity isntead of, well, jumping. The best part about their AI was how they'd get on the roof because they'd hit the teleport pad on the floor. There wasn't much else to these fellas but they definitely rank amongst my favorite NPCs I ever made.

The Golem

The Golem's design was inspired by Runescape's Brawler enemy from the Minigame Pest Control. These hulking enemies were the bulkiest and the deadliest enemy of the four with a whopping 3.5k base health that could scale into the ten thousand range, a max speed that nearly doubles the default speed of the player, a tiny weak spot in its eye, and hard hitting moves to hit both single targets and groups of players. These spawned the rarest and only spawned in 3 places: behind the apartment, in the desert, and near the MisterObvious statue.

The Golem's AI shared the same pathfinding as the Doppelganger. The game would count how many enemies are near it; if there was only a single enemy, it will punch the player in the face, if there's more it'd slam the floor knocking nearby enemies into the air, damaging and stunning them. Being the tankiest and the deadliest of the four, they were notorious for killing multiple players and required multiple players on the server to take one down, especially when their health is at its max.

You can still find a Golem in Animation Studio, albeit a friendly one that goes by the name of Jimmy. You won't be able to see it attack but you can see it walk around the map.

I plan on posting a part two of the event going in depth on the weapon system and the game itself. I also have some PFC progress to share to those who follow this blog.