pblack
07-03-2009, 12:55 AM
Again... another suggestion box topic.
This time... the dungeons.
Some thought i had in the shower:
Make monsters team up/fight each other more often: this is i think, one of the most important features ever (yet) to be implemented. It already exists in a very small scale i think, but what i have in mind is more elaborate.
First, making monsters natural enemies of one another and more easily angered by " - foo - displaces the - foo -" messages. It always bothered me that in most, if not all games you play, the common monster seems to always be patrolling for YOU, because there's no other enemy that he could care about.
Ocasionally you see neutral monsters fending off some hostiles and such, but my idea goes past this "mood swings". It could mean dwarves attacking goblins on sight, orcs attacking rats and such for food, goblin slavemasters whipping other goblins around and things like that. It always seems like you are the only dangerous thing on the level, specially in cavernous ones. The bugbear is calmly walking in between a flesh golem, a giant spider and a goblin berseker, but when he sees YOU he charges.
I'm not saying it should be a slaughter fest in every level, but make it noticeable beyond simple "lawful vs evil" types of combat. Dragons of different kinds could be natural enemies. Should be interesting to get a named great red wyrm to follow you to a white dragon vault (it would also make the wyrm really powerful if he manages to survive). Maybe no dragon fights karmic ones. Dragons are, after all, very intelligent creatures.
Second, make monsters team up and find allies. On the event of an orc hunting a giant rat for example. If another orc is around and sees the event happening, he gets closer in order to help his fellow orc. This would not impede the event of two orcs fighting afterwards to see who gets the rat corpse thou. Some other monsters might make for likely allies too. An ogre might help an orc chieftain in distress, a chaos brother helping a chaos sister, ratlings of all kinds.... well...you get the picture. Similar monsters helping each other out.
All this would be of little significance if it were not to be implemented in a noticeable scale. Every other level should allow for the observation of some kind of interaction between the creatures other than just randomly walking around.
This would also allow for intresting scenarios where there could be a specific dungeon level where a war between ettins and ogres was being waged, and the monsters, too focused on the war, weren't initially hostile. So maybe you could try to settle things in a peaceful (or not) manner. But that's just a consequence of the general idea i'm proposing.
All this should minimize the general random feel of most dungeon levels. If well implemented could make the entire game come just a bit more alive, with orcs that despite being dumb, are humanoid creatures gifted with (some) intelligence.
This time... the dungeons.
Some thought i had in the shower:
Make monsters team up/fight each other more often: this is i think, one of the most important features ever (yet) to be implemented. It already exists in a very small scale i think, but what i have in mind is more elaborate.
First, making monsters natural enemies of one another and more easily angered by " - foo - displaces the - foo -" messages. It always bothered me that in most, if not all games you play, the common monster seems to always be patrolling for YOU, because there's no other enemy that he could care about.
Ocasionally you see neutral monsters fending off some hostiles and such, but my idea goes past this "mood swings". It could mean dwarves attacking goblins on sight, orcs attacking rats and such for food, goblin slavemasters whipping other goblins around and things like that. It always seems like you are the only dangerous thing on the level, specially in cavernous ones. The bugbear is calmly walking in between a flesh golem, a giant spider and a goblin berseker, but when he sees YOU he charges.
I'm not saying it should be a slaughter fest in every level, but make it noticeable beyond simple "lawful vs evil" types of combat. Dragons of different kinds could be natural enemies. Should be interesting to get a named great red wyrm to follow you to a white dragon vault (it would also make the wyrm really powerful if he manages to survive). Maybe no dragon fights karmic ones. Dragons are, after all, very intelligent creatures.
Second, make monsters team up and find allies. On the event of an orc hunting a giant rat for example. If another orc is around and sees the event happening, he gets closer in order to help his fellow orc. This would not impede the event of two orcs fighting afterwards to see who gets the rat corpse thou. Some other monsters might make for likely allies too. An ogre might help an orc chieftain in distress, a chaos brother helping a chaos sister, ratlings of all kinds.... well...you get the picture. Similar monsters helping each other out.
All this would be of little significance if it were not to be implemented in a noticeable scale. Every other level should allow for the observation of some kind of interaction between the creatures other than just randomly walking around.
This would also allow for intresting scenarios where there could be a specific dungeon level where a war between ettins and ogres was being waged, and the monsters, too focused on the war, weren't initially hostile. So maybe you could try to settle things in a peaceful (or not) manner. But that's just a consequence of the general idea i'm proposing.
All this should minimize the general random feel of most dungeon levels. If well implemented could make the entire game come just a bit more alive, with orcs that despite being dumb, are humanoid creatures gifted with (some) intelligence.