This is Darkgod's great idea, and it could use lots of community input. Picture a unique enemy that only appears with its own special vault, rather like scripted boss fights in, say, Zelda games. You walk in, the door slams shut, and you've got an epic battle on your hands. The endgame fight works like this, and I think it's the most entertaining fight in ToME. What makes it so fun? Here are what I think are the reasons:
1) You can't just walk away (teleport) if the fight starts going badly.
2) The terrain doesn't allow for much exploitation of the game's AI.
3) There's more than one boss to contend with, and their abilities compliment each other.
4) Those summoning portals introduce all sorts of mayhem, and give the player a compelling decision to make about their overall strategy: deal with the portals or deal with the wizards?
Darkgod mentioned that he'd like to see vault boss suggestions. I'll start off with a couple:
A vault that consists of two rooms, a foyer and the boss room. The foyer contains various magical indestructible statues, each associated with one rare damage type, which lob brutally powerful spells of their damage type at anybody to come within, say, two tiles of them. The boss in the next room has very high resistances to most common damage types, but not rare ones. The player can either beat him down the hard way, or somehow maneuver the boss to within two squares of one of the statues where the statue will bombard him with irresistible damage.
The Adventurer Tomb: a single-room vault with a sarcophagus in each corner. The sarcophagi contain the shades of a party of adventurers; one has a fighter, one an archmage, one a rogue, and one a sun paladin. Scattered around on the floor are various bits of loot. When the player enters, the shades of the adventurers rise from the dead and, horrifyingly... proceed to loot the room. Once all items have been looted by the shades and/or the player, the shades attack. The player can safely attack the shades while they're busy looting the room, and would be wise to do so. Clever players will drop additional loot on the ground to set off a looting frenzy mid-battle.
Boss + vault combinations
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Re: Boss + vault combinations
Neat ideas Sus.
A few of my own...
The lich's liar
A lich with a phylactery would be a cool vault. Basically have a lich with infinite resses (maybe on a timer so it stays dead for a few turns when you kill it) and a stone or gem in the room with hit points. Killing the phylactery removes the lich's resurrection power and allows you to destroy it permanently.
Of course the 'vault' should be laid out like a nasty undead spellcasters personal living quarters complete with many nasty traps, some undead or golem servants, and of course excellent treasure. Maybe the phylactery could be in the treasure room and the lich could always res near it.
Great Wyrms
This goes hand and hand with some of the stuff Sus has brought up on IRC. First of all we'll either need lots of Great Wyrm (that's above Wyrm) uniques or a way to make lots of semi-random Great Wyrm uniques. Then we need a few different vault styles to put them in. Great Wyrm's would only spawn in vaults (their liars). The liars would be large, cavernous, and packed full of treasure, especially gold and gems. Yes it's stereotypical and not the most original idea but personally one of my favorite vaults is the one containing a single high level wyrm and a pack of hatchlings in an open cave looking room. I'd like to see more of these but with some more unique dragons and different layouts
Rifts
Vaults that are actually portals to other zones could be fun. The vaults themselves would be static zones each connected to a different type of Rift entrance. These would need to be fairly large to justify load times and could be packed full of all sorts of interesting things. I use the term Rift to give people an idea but could do Gates to demonic planes or Portals to Horror Sanctums, there's a lot of possibilities beyond time plane stuff. Each Rift zone could have a unique boss or quest. A demon prince in the case of the Gate or a unique Horror for the Sanctum. A portal that leads deep into the core of the earth might lead to some interesting discoveries as well and could be left generic enough to give good foreshadowing without giving away to much (since this stuff is basically a random encounter it shouldn't reveal any main plots but hinting at main plots is always good
).
A few of my own...
The lich's liar
A lich with a phylactery would be a cool vault. Basically have a lich with infinite resses (maybe on a timer so it stays dead for a few turns when you kill it) and a stone or gem in the room with hit points. Killing the phylactery removes the lich's resurrection power and allows you to destroy it permanently.
Of course the 'vault' should be laid out like a nasty undead spellcasters personal living quarters complete with many nasty traps, some undead or golem servants, and of course excellent treasure. Maybe the phylactery could be in the treasure room and the lich could always res near it.
Great Wyrms
This goes hand and hand with some of the stuff Sus has brought up on IRC. First of all we'll either need lots of Great Wyrm (that's above Wyrm) uniques or a way to make lots of semi-random Great Wyrm uniques. Then we need a few different vault styles to put them in. Great Wyrm's would only spawn in vaults (their liars). The liars would be large, cavernous, and packed full of treasure, especially gold and gems. Yes it's stereotypical and not the most original idea but personally one of my favorite vaults is the one containing a single high level wyrm and a pack of hatchlings in an open cave looking room. I'd like to see more of these but with some more unique dragons and different layouts
Rifts
Vaults that are actually portals to other zones could be fun. The vaults themselves would be static zones each connected to a different type of Rift entrance. These would need to be fairly large to justify load times and could be packed full of all sorts of interesting things. I use the term Rift to give people an idea but could do Gates to demonic planes or Portals to Horror Sanctums, there's a lot of possibilities beyond time plane stuff. Each Rift zone could have a unique boss or quest. A demon prince in the case of the Gate or a unique Horror for the Sanctum. A portal that leads deep into the core of the earth might lead to some interesting discoveries as well and could be left generic enough to give good foreshadowing without giving away to much (since this stuff is basically a random encounter it shouldn't reveal any main plots but hinting at main plots is always good
).Re: Boss + vault combinations
Good, moar!
PS: Oh and how would we deal with increased player experience ? hum
PS: Oh and how would we deal with increased player experience ? hum
[tome] joylove: You can't just release an expansion like one would release a Kraken XD
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
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[tome] phantomfrettchen: your ability not to tease anyone is simply stunning
Re: Boss + vault combinations
I can expand on these ideas with maps if anyone likes them.
Too Much Mario
You know those things in Mario that when you run beneath them, they fall and smash you? Like that, only going more directions. It's a maze with two types of enemies: spiky block things that go left and right, and spiky block things that go up and down. If you step in front of one, it'll mash you. It's fast, but not too fast to dodge if you're careful, and it has a cooldown before it moves again. You have to wander in through the maze, unchain the boss only to discover that he's invincible, and then lead him back through the maze in such a manner that he gets mashed and dies.
This Is Not Going Well
Another orc ambush, but this time a bit harder than the first one. If you win, then no dungeon. If you lose, they take all your stuff, take you to a training camp, and throw you into a cookpot, which is where you wake up. You're on the edge of camp, it's foggy, and only the cook is there. He's easy to kill, even though you're naked. Then you take his weapon, the Wooden Spoon, and use it to hunt around the training camp full of low level enemies to get enough gear to retake your original equipment, which is stored in various rooms in the Officers' Barracks. The barracks has all the enemies from the raid that you didn't kill, although they're not all in one place this time. During the entire dungeon, the fog limits view distance, theirs and yours, but they will still wander if you make noise (fight) too close to another one. If you are careful, it's not that hard.
Sokobanned
There's a large, tentacled monstrosity that shoots lasers in the middle of a field. You have to dodge the lasers while you push the magical artifacts back into their proper alignment while he takes potshots at you. If you get too close, then it's too many tentacles at once and you will die. If you stay far enough away, then all you have to worry about is the odd tentacle and the cooldown on his lasers of mayhem.
A better Master
The Master in Dreadfell spawns in a large, predesigned crypt. There are corpses all over, which he raises instead of randomly creating undead. He also knows where all the traps are. He will flee over traps, not triggering them, instead of using phase door, every time he loses another 20% of his hps. Every time he flees, he will raise every corpse in sight, one at a time. If you hide from him, you can destroy the corpses before he raises them, making the fight much easier.
A better Shade
The Shade's vault is now a larger circular area with a light in the middle. There are a number of undead in the room. The shade appears against the wall, and only against the wall, where a creature or player is casting a shadow. It appears first in the shadows of enemies, but once they're dead, it will appear in your shadow, so you can run up to the wall and kill it.
Hope you're fast
In the end of a long, windy, maze-y tunnel, there's a large crystal skull. When you touch it, it breaks, (revealing its loot inside) and the wall behind it opens, revealing flowing lava. The lava is as wide as the dungeon is across, ignores obstacles, and chases you back out.
Better Spellblaze Crystal
The Spellblaze Crystal gets a vault which is littered with shiny gems that act as mirrors. The crystal is the only enemy in there, but it doesn't look that way. The player sees 20 spellblaze crystals all shooting in random directions. Only one of the shots is actually real - the rest are illusions. You don't know where the crystal is until you smash all the mirror gem things, and it moves every time you break one. If you figure out where it is quickly, then you can kill it without destroying the others.
Anyway, it's a start. I'm sure I'll think of more as the night goes on.
Too Much Mario
You know those things in Mario that when you run beneath them, they fall and smash you? Like that, only going more directions. It's a maze with two types of enemies: spiky block things that go left and right, and spiky block things that go up and down. If you step in front of one, it'll mash you. It's fast, but not too fast to dodge if you're careful, and it has a cooldown before it moves again. You have to wander in through the maze, unchain the boss only to discover that he's invincible, and then lead him back through the maze in such a manner that he gets mashed and dies.
This Is Not Going Well
Another orc ambush, but this time a bit harder than the first one. If you win, then no dungeon. If you lose, they take all your stuff, take you to a training camp, and throw you into a cookpot, which is where you wake up. You're on the edge of camp, it's foggy, and only the cook is there. He's easy to kill, even though you're naked. Then you take his weapon, the Wooden Spoon, and use it to hunt around the training camp full of low level enemies to get enough gear to retake your original equipment, which is stored in various rooms in the Officers' Barracks. The barracks has all the enemies from the raid that you didn't kill, although they're not all in one place this time. During the entire dungeon, the fog limits view distance, theirs and yours, but they will still wander if you make noise (fight) too close to another one. If you are careful, it's not that hard.
Sokobanned
There's a large, tentacled monstrosity that shoots lasers in the middle of a field. You have to dodge the lasers while you push the magical artifacts back into their proper alignment while he takes potshots at you. If you get too close, then it's too many tentacles at once and you will die. If you stay far enough away, then all you have to worry about is the odd tentacle and the cooldown on his lasers of mayhem.
A better Master
The Master in Dreadfell spawns in a large, predesigned crypt. There are corpses all over, which he raises instead of randomly creating undead. He also knows where all the traps are. He will flee over traps, not triggering them, instead of using phase door, every time he loses another 20% of his hps. Every time he flees, he will raise every corpse in sight, one at a time. If you hide from him, you can destroy the corpses before he raises them, making the fight much easier.
A better Shade
The Shade's vault is now a larger circular area with a light in the middle. There are a number of undead in the room. The shade appears against the wall, and only against the wall, where a creature or player is casting a shadow. It appears first in the shadows of enemies, but once they're dead, it will appear in your shadow, so you can run up to the wall and kill it.
Hope you're fast
In the end of a long, windy, maze-y tunnel, there's a large crystal skull. When you touch it, it breaks, (revealing its loot inside) and the wall behind it opens, revealing flowing lava. The lava is as wide as the dungeon is across, ignores obstacles, and chases you back out.
Better Spellblaze Crystal
The Spellblaze Crystal gets a vault which is littered with shiny gems that act as mirrors. The crystal is the only enemy in there, but it doesn't look that way. The player sees 20 spellblaze crystals all shooting in random directions. Only one of the shots is actually real - the rest are illusions. You don't know where the crystal is until you smash all the mirror gem things, and it moves every time you break one. If you figure out where it is quickly, then you can kill it without destroying the others.
Anyway, it's a start. I'm sure I'll think of more as the night goes on.
Re: Boss + vault combinations
Reward some with category points or new category like Grand Corrupter quest, some with talent&generic points and reduce boss xp cost.darkgod wrote:Good, moar!
PS: Oh and how would we deal with increased player experience ? hum