[Discussion] DarkGod needs idea on how to unlock Oozemancer

[Sradac]

Tie it into the slime tunnels. I was extremely disappointed by the slime tunnels my first time through. No real challenge, no real boss, just go in and do a few tasks.

Make the end of the tunnels have a new, completely optional pedestal. Make it summon a scary oozemancer boss similar to summoning a destroyer from the 3 random pedestals you can find old forest, etc.

How do you use this thing though? It cant be as simple as just walking on it, can it? No because then anyone can do it.

So how?

To tie it all together, to make these tunnels more interesting, and throw a shout out to the origins, you must pour a potion of slime mold juice on it to summon the oozemancer champion!!

Where to get the slime mold juice? Eh, that I havent worked out. Maybe a 100% random drop, maybe from a previous boss or quest.

[Mewtarthio]

new Slime Tunnels randbosses.

Can you elaborate on that? There are random but fixed bosses that will always appear there now?

That's the gist of it, yeah. The Slime Tunnels have always been kind of boring, so in the SVN, each pedestal summons a particular random boss when you activate it (such as a Greater Multihued Wyrm Archmage for the Dragon Pedestal).

[SageAcrin]

How do you use this thing though? It cant be as simple as just walking on it, can it? No because then anyone can do it.

Considering that you have to destroy most-realistically, at least all but the boss-of a Pride to get to it, that's not that simple.

I still like the idea of just having it unlock by talking to Aeryn about the Slime Tunnels. She could give you a story about it's probable origin and you could get Oozemancer that way. Downside is that it's really late though...

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

new Slime Tunnels randbosses.

Can you elaborate on that? There are random but fixed bosses that will always appear there now?

That's the gist of it, yeah. The Slime Tunnels have always been kind of boring, so in the SVN, each pedestal summons a particular random boss when you activate it (such as a Greater Multihued Wyrm Archmage for the Dragon Pedestal).

Well, that actually works well. Just have some ooze-themed randomly generated bosses, and upon there defeat, an oozmancer guarding the gate. Voila, he drops slime mold juice. It's the only slime place in game, so it's gonna be a late unlock, and it can act as a consolation prize for those who don't quite manage to clock high peak or clear the sanctum.

[Papagelos]

The Alchmist Brotherhood has a new quest.

They are on the tracks of creating a new powerful SLIME POTION.
Once you drink it, you get imbued by the powers of slime, and become an oozemancer.

This far they have managed to create primal Ooze, but it is not yet powerful enough for
their purposes. They need you to take the vial of Primal Ooze and charge it up.

In order to do this, you need to seek out ten bosses, and weaken them (to 5% hp).
Then, you open the vial and throw the ooze at them. The ooze enters through the boss'
breathing cavities and eats it up from the inside, transforming the boss to slime.
Sample this slime and put it back into the vial, heading to the next boss.

Once you have charged it up with enough energy, come back to us and we will make the final
adjustments to the potion, allowing you to imbibe it and become.. ta daa. an Oozemancer!

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Could also just do a random unique that spawns with a swarm (say... a vault or greater pits worth) of oozes. Add in oozing horrors for the hell of it. Make the unique a real oozemancer. Throw oozemancer talents into the adventurer class so that the rare oozes in the swarm could have some more oozemancy abilities.

He carries the potion of slime mold juice when defeated, just like the heart from it's boss. Ta-DA! Easy to make, fit in at any mid- to late-game dungeon (because of the oozing horrors) and has enough challenge to not just be a gimme. WIN.

OR, along the same lines, do a 'splitting oozemancer' that splits and divides as you kill it over and over, kinda the reverse of Harkor'Zhun. Instead of killing the little ones to make the big one, kill the big one to make several smaller ones, repeat that a few more times for progressively smaller ones, till it's nothing but a puddle. Puddle = Slime mold juice.

OR... If we want to talk about splitting, some famous yet misguided oozemancer of the past could have tried to make himself into ooze in some fashion. (just spitballing this. Ooze fetish? Miscast spell? Flubbed ability? Crazy?) He succeeded but the portions of his oozy self split apart, giving us several uniques scattered randomly. Find and defeat all parts (in random locations, no guarantees) and collect a bit of mold from each. With enough parts, you can turn that mold into slime mold juice.

Regardless of whatever else we do, someone get DG or Grey or some other lore-writing hound in here to make some cute lore about the perils of slime mold juice. Or the history of oozemancers. We know so little....

[Mewtarthio]

OR, along the same lines, do a 'splitting oozemancer' that splits and divides as you kill it over and over, kinda the reverse of Harkor'Zhun. Instead of killing the little ones to make the big one, kill the big one to make several smaller ones, repeat that a few more times for progressively smaller ones, till it's nothing but a puddle. Puddle = Slime mold juice.

I like this idea, actually. To tie into the antimagic, maybe there could be, say, a 5-10% chance that any encounter with a Ziguranth patrol throws you into a unique Ambush map where you fight the Oozemancer boss instead of the regular adventurer encounter.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I definitely think hiding an unlock in world map encounters is a bad idea, as the whole anti-farming basis of the game is designed to make those encounters eventually lethal, since any one of them could generate a lethal combination you couldn't handle. What's wrong with a unique that crops up in random dungeons above level X?

[omero]

For all my opinion's worth, I like more the thrill of 'shall I enter that vault/unknown tunnel?' situation than something more tedious like the Brotherhood of the Alchemists 'fetch me this' quest or even one of those boring 'kill a zillion [X]' tasks.

For a dungeon idea, anything generally slime and nature filled would work. The problem with a large dungeon, however, is that you need to make it randomly appear(not a good flat rate idea), or it'll be another dungeon of loot and EXP, which allows for goodie creep(a problem the game has had to correct for before with EXP drops).

Kill a rare random Oozing Horror boss in the Slime Tunnels (or an event trigger side dungeon in the Slime Tunnels). Similar to the Stone Magic unlock. Could unlock a slimey category for Zigur followers.

Could also just do a random unique that spawns with a swarm (say... a vault or greater pits worth) of oozes. Add in oozing horrors for the hell of it. Make the unique a real oozemancer. Throw oozemancer talents into the adventurer class so that the rare oozes in the swarm could have some more oozemancy abilities.

Something simple as the above suggestions, are the best suggestions
Cheers!

[CNAshel]

Potion of slime mold juice is an amusing callback. An option for where to get it might be when you aren't the deciding factor in the Brotherhood of Alchemists - the unhappy loser throws the potion you just made at you along with an 'experiment gone bad'.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Potion of slime mold juice is an amusing callback. An option for where to get it might be when you aren't the deciding factor in the Brotherhood of Alchemists - the unhappy loser throws the potion you just made at you along with an 'experiment gone bad'.

I *LIKE* this, and it would require a decent amount of progress, so it's not just a gimme achievement. To be fair, we still need some oozemancer history, backstory, and rares/uniques but still.