Dynamic Foes

[Thalius]

Greetings, Vintarians!

I have a mod to offer, for those seeking some added challenge and danger in their Vintage Story world:  Dynamic Foes!

The aim of the mod is to tweak the ai and stats of hostile vanilla mobs such as drifters and locusts in order to make them more challenging and, as the mod name states, more dynamic in their behavior and combat.

Dynamic Foes is, at it's root, an offshoot of Mr1k3's Better Drifters mod. I have for some time been using a Wilderland's version of Better Drifters with permission, for which I and the Wilderlands' members have been grateful.  I have since modified their behavior and stats quite a bit to achieve the feel we have been looking for, and am wanting to expand the scope of the mod to also begin modifying the behavior of locusts as well as other possible entities that will find their way into the game world.  For that I felt it was time to release a stand-alone mod that I could work on, maintain, and develop at my leisure.

I did not want to lose the look of our drifters though. Mr1k3 did a fantastic job on them, and I could not envision making them look any better. I sought Mr1k3's blessing to launch the mod while continuing to use the Better Drifters drifter media files, and permission was given to do so.  For that I cannot say thank you enough!

SO, for what it might prove to be worth to some, I am happy to give you Dynamic Foes!

Click the spoiler if you want the details, or just download the mod and figured the new drifters out as you go. I promise, there will be some surprises!

Spoiler

Drifter modifications:

• Hp has been increased significantly over vanilla drifters.
• Drifter loot has been tweaked to be more balanced.
• Drifter entity sizes have been altered. Higher tier drifters are larger, and graphics have been overhauled compared to vanilla drifters (See Better Drifters by Mr1k3 for some excellent images from his work with them).
• Drifters perform random leaping attacks.
• Attack timers have been altered, making attacks harder to dodge once they have begun.
• The reach of all drifters has been increased. Drifters holding weapons have an attack range on par with a player's longsword.  (Have care standing on blocks- Pillaring may not save you.)
• Drifters now have a chance to "summon" nearby drifters when significant damage has been dealt to them.  When a drifter performs this task, there is a chance of additional drifters spawning in the area.  Only surface, deep, and tainted drifters will "respond" to another drifter's summons.  This chance is slight in surface drifters but scales upward with higher-tier drifters.  There are some visual cues the player should learn to notice that will alert them to when this action is or might be performed.

Drifter spawn mechanics have been significantly altered.

• Surface drifters are unchanged.
• Deep drifters spawn from their current spawn height limits down to the mantle.
• Tainted and corrupt drifters now spawn anywhere in the game world, but only in near-zero light conditions.
• Nightmare drifters spawn anywhere underground from mantle to the spawn height limit for deep drifters.  If you see deep drifters, nightmare drifters could show up as well.
• Spawn rates of corrupt and nightmare drifters are highly reduced, making them feel like more of a rare, randomly spawning low-tier game boss.
• Spawn rates of most drifters have been reduced from vanilla settings.  They are "less common, but more memorable", which has sort of been a guidepost for my work in modifying them.

Drifters now have two "phases": Normal and enraged.

• Normal drifters' ai tasks are close to vanilla settings, with some minor alterations.
• Enraged drifters move faster, attack faster, hit harder, and have a chance to "summon" other drifters to aid them when they have been hurt badly enough.  They also perform leaping attacks more often when enraged.

Locust Modifications:

Very minor locust modifications have been made at this time.

• Slightly higher hp for each locust type.
• Slightly increased damage.
• Slightly faster.
• Bells spawn approximately 5% higher in the game world.

Link to download from mod database: Dynamic Foes

Feedback, including any glitches, bugs, or balancing suggestions, are always welcomed!

Humbly and happily submitted for your enjoyment...
~TH~
 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Thalius

[Thalius]

The summons ability this mod adds quickly proved to be too strong once added to a multiplayer server. This release addresses some needed balancing issues as well as an error.

Tweak:

• Added a min/max cool-down as well as a min/max duration to the event that summons other drifters.when activated. This along with the chance that the execution of the ai task will fail seems to have created a much more balanced pace to combat.
• Reduced group spawn size of tainted drifters from 2-3 to 1-2.
• Tainted drifters now only summon one other drifter at a time rather than two.

Fixed:

• Nightmare drifters were accidentally set to spawn from mantle to surface. This has been corrected. Nightmare drifters now spawn within the same limits as deep drifters.

 

The original release of the mod works just fine but could be considered pretty hard core, even by my standards.

~TH~