Who's the Boss?

Some while ago I had implemented a new monster template: the Boss.  The idea behind this monster type is that it would always be a slaughter, it would be big and bad, and everyone would be rewarded for participating in defeating it.

Well, the last part I got right, but the first part was a complete and decided failure on my part.  After a formidable boss was defeated, I recall players laughing in town and announcing "ha ha! Rank number 17!"  I had jacked the boss's Histia ranks up to a ludicrous level, and the just-as-high slaughter ranks were absolutely ignored.  So yeah, the boss template was not working in practice the way I had designed it on paper.  Players who defeated the boss received both shared reward experience and got credit for the not-a-slaughter-but-instead-a-very-juicy vanquish.  What an embarrassing disaster for me.

I have been redesigning the entire template and giving a lot of thought to my goals for Boss Template v2.0.  I still love the elements of increased rewards based on increased participants, and I want all of the active participants to be rewarded (whether they are in the area or not: nothing sucks like falling and getting chained to the safe cave just as the Boss falls and the big reward chest is popped: both the kill credit and the bonus are missed).  And I am exploring the possibility of a new slaughter/dispatch/kill/vanquish mechanic: "You have massacred Yappy the Black!" or "You have conquered Eldon the Grey!" or some other unique description of defeating of a boss.

And then players can gloat over the corpse of the boss.  "Who's the boss now?"