Ideas for new monsters (with amateur MSpaint drawings)

[mew_]

I am currently not a huge fan of the monsters in VS. Not only is there a low variety (excluding animals like wolves and bears), the drifters are just so unintimidating, they're puny little manlets that don't even reach up to waist height because of their horrible gamer necks. In this ruined world I think there should be creatures that are worthy of having ruined it in the first place, and so I propose new monsters + a potential replacement for the drifters.

(disregard that I tried to make all the names start with D)

Let's start with the new idea for drifters-- These new drifters would be huge, lumbering beasts that emerge from rifts when the sun goes down. They avoid light sources, so as long as a character is holding something like a torch or is huddled around a campfire or some other light source, they'll be safe, with the drifter just studying the player, with the faint sounds of cloth blowing in the wind and the occasional indescribable utterance. If a player ever wander into the darkness of the night, the drifter will immediately begin pursuing them and hit like a truck, knocking them around and doing huge damage and destroying any blocks in its path. These creatures should be killable with mid-late game gear, which should be around the time you acquire your first temporal gear anyways, so I'd give them at least an 80% of dropping one, if not a guaranteed drop. You could also make these enemies their own monster, but I think one big terrifying creature that stalks the player would be more fitting of the isolated feeling of vintage story than a bunch of little goobers waddling at you and throwing rocks.

I have since rethought this idea, and renamed this new creature to the stalker. 

Dreamsuckers-- These massive manta-ray looking beasts signal the arrival of a temporal storm. They ride the chaos and suck the dreams out of anyone sleeping in the storm. Before the world was ruined they only appeared in the dreams of intellectuals with forbidden knowledge, until the end times arrived and even the most indebted serfs could draw them perfectly from their dreams. Instead of "an X temporal storm is approaching" signaling in chat that a temporal storm is approaching, while a player is sleeping you would see and hear the roars of these flying beasts in your dream, with the visions increasing in intensity as the storm gets closer. When one arrives, depending on the storm's intensity, one or multiple dream suckers could be flying high in sky, and if you get caught outside they'll swoop down and try to suck your brain out! If you try to strafe to their side to avoid the whip-like sucker tongue they'll beat their wings to the ground to damage players and knock them back. I'm not sure how they'd be defeated, maybe make their weakness being able to jump on them and deal damage that way? Although I'm not sure what'd they drop besides just more gears. 

Depraved-- "On the border between human and beast, these people have been trapped in the Rust World for an eternity, and wander the overworld. If there was some way to pull them out of their madness, they might be of use to you." These guys/gals would appear incredibly rarely and not respawn if they get killed, maybe wandering around ruins. They'd have different behaviors reflecting on who they were before they went mad, either being aggressive for a warrior, afraid for a merchant, or apathetic for a commoner or laborer. Using temporal gears, you could get their sanity back, and turn them into a helpful villager who could trade goods with you or maybe do chores for you. They could also be killed, and their corpse plundered. They are very vulnerable to any enemies nearby as they are unable to/ very bad at defending themselves.  

Dregs(retconned, this idea is stupid)-- "This incredibly dense fungus-like being has sank to the deepest depths of the world, and grows towards the light. It will consume everything in its path to get to what it seeks-- the blinding, pure light of a miner's lantern." These organisms would be not actively hostile to the player, however would be capable of injuring and crippling the player if they are holding a light source. Being within line of sight of a patch of dregs while holding a light source, or if a light source is in the line of sight of a patch of dregs, the dregs will grow towards that light source, slowly making a passageway impassable. In order to destroy them, you could use a sort of toxin (maybe something like salt? as in 'salting the earth') to reduce their numbers, but never destroy them, as they would still seep out from small cracks in the walls of a cave. I'd say limit the depth at which they can grow at, because without a limit a griefer could easily draw out dregs to the surface and just have them grow infinitely when the sun is out. This is probably my least favorite idea because it just doesn't feel like it would actually have an interesting effect on gameplay, rather it would just be a minor annoyance while mining, but I couldn't think of any cool cave creatures.

Edited July 14, 2022 by mew_
don't like the dregs idea anymore

[mew_]

I hate to reply to my own post when nobody else has actually commented, but I had some more ideas I'd like to share!

Dredgers-- "From the midst of the most tumultuous storms come beings, draped in cloth, and from these beings dredges a liquid, black as the oil that lubricates their mechanical brethren. In their path follows famine, and then ruin." 

These enemies come during heavy temporal storms and will target all food sources, any plant they pass over will die, any soil they pass over will become ruined, and if they need to plough through livestock in their path they will make them shrivel up and become hollow, barely living husks. If a player attempts to fend them off, they should find themselves shriveling themselves, as the toxic liquid flings off of them with every blow, causing a decrease in maximum health. I'd implement an item that keeps them away, or give them a very recognizable audio cue so that players are able to fend them off.

Riftcallers-- "These beings were the first things humans saw before an awful storm swept through an area. Their short stature would often spark ridicule, until they rang their bell, and a rip in the fabric of reality opened before them, from which emerged incomprehensible beings."

These little guys would appear during a medium/heavy temporal storm are capable of calling forth rifts by ringing their bell. They hold bright lanterns so a player can pick them out from other enemies. They'd be fairly fragile but also capable of wreaking havoc by summoning more enemies when they spot a player.

Timekeepers-- "The archivist in the wake of destruction, these tall beings survey the work of their more capable brethren with their one, unblinking eye. Their dizzying mechanical parts clang as they shamble around. They have recorded the fall of man, and their gaze is enough to drive one mad."

These dudes would appear after a temporal storm has passed, and will shamble around in the direction the storm is moving (if temporal storms ever become like regional storms). They would stop moving if they spot a player, and stare at them as long as they are in line of sight, causing temporal stability to decrease faster the longer they look at a player. Hence their description, felling one would yield a high chance of acquiring one of the lore books, as well as maybe a few gears. 

[RobinHood]

I have an idea too, what about, that 10% of all trades are monsters too? At day you can trade with them, but at full moon nights, they turn into werwolfes. Yor are only safe for them over day, but stay away from them at full moon nights, they also leave the cabins - e.g. around 300 blocks. You cant kill them, only withe a silver bullet or silver sword (if we one a day have rifles). Of you kill them, the cabins will be filled with a normal trader, or by a 10% chance withe a werwolf again

[mew_]

13 hours ago, RobinHood said:

I have an idea too, what about, that 10% of all trades are monsters too? At day you can trade with them, but at full moon nights, they turn into werwolfes. Yor are only safe for them over day, but stay away from them at full moon nights, they also leave the cabins - e.g. around 300 blocks. You cant kill them, only withe a silver bullet or silver sword (if we one a day have rifles). Of you kill them, the cabins will be filled with a normal trader, or by a 10% chance withe a werwolf again

This is an interesting idea, however I think werewolves don't fit the aesthetic that Vintage Story is going for with it's monsters. I'm not a big fan of traders in the first place, as I think they subtract from the lonely feeling of the game, however I think it would be neat if, during a temporal storm, they became abrasive and refused to sell you things, or even attacked you trying to get you away from their little wagons so you can't huddle up in there with them to stay safe. 

[mew_]

I noticed I hadn't come up for any monsters relating to the temporal stability mechanic. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be interpreted as, but I've always just assumed it's like a sanity meter. 

Clockmaker's Hands-- "These idle hands have become the devil's playthings, and now they seek that which fuels his domain-- fire. They prey on weakened minds, creeping out from the night to snuff out all light with their wicked fingers."

These creeping, spindly hands will begin harassing the player once they drop below 50% temporal stability. When night falls, they will reach towards any source of light and attempt to extinguish it. They can be chased away into the dark, and they won't return again for a short period of time. If a player is holding a light source, the hands will creep up from a direction the player isn't looking, and if they don't turn around their light will get extinguished, which can potentially leave someone stranded in the dark. 

Automata-- "Insanity made corporeal." 

These fellas show up when a player is in the Rust World, and are incredibly tough. They will endlessly pursue the player if they spot one, attacking with bites from their mechanical jaws, and flailing their arms of rusted steel. They will continue to spawn for a short period of time even after the player increases their temporal stability, so as to not be in the Rust World anymore. They drop gears and temporal gears and maybe some other exclusive goodies when they are slain. 

[mew_]

I decided to redraw a few of the dudes I made in previous posts, as well as present a few new ideas. 

Dybbuk-- "They condemned this world to ruin. Don't forget who you are." / "They dug the graves of man, for whatever had we done to them?"

Riftcaller-- "The harbingers of the end of the world. The high-pitched tone from their eldritch bell collapses the barrier which separates our world and theirs."

A dybbuk (di-behk) is, from Jewish folklore, a disembodied human spirit that has been corrupted by sin and seeks refuge in the body of another human. These beings are the antithesis of what the player represents-- the player is a Seraph working to rebuild a world that has been ruined by a previous cataclysm, the dybbuks were once seraphs who condemned the world to be destroyed, or had actively participated in it's destruction. This all hinges on the idea that the people who once inhabited the world weren't also seraphs. (I haven't figured out all the lore yet) 

I haven't quite figured out a role for these enemies, however an idea I had is that they begin appearing during temporal storms after a player has established a settlement (if such a feature is ever to be implemented, although definitely not any time soon), and actively target any NPCs or animals living there, or maybe even loot or destroy blocks. An alternative, more uncouth idea was that they would approach the player once at the end of every month and challenge them to a duel in a rust-world themed arena with gears for walls, and I never really got past that stage of brainstorming. 

The riftcaller idea is as it was described above, except this time instead of a lantern it's a bright seafoam green temporal gear necklace, and also they're not as short. 

Stormcallers-  "The riders of the apocalypse, the beating of their immense wings can be heard before a storm hits. The eyes on their underside stare daggers at anything beneath them, giving their mechanical vassals a target for which to eliminate." 

This is a rework of my previous "dreamsuckers" idea, and shortly after making my initial post I realized that those were just really big Minecraft phantoms, and nobody likes that. So I decided to go further with the reference of manta rays, and incorporated small minions that would head for any targets the stormcaller spots. To prevent them from being too annoying by overwhelming players, I would make it so when one of the stormlings gets hit, they'd fall to the ground and have to scoot along with their little rear appendage.  Like a poster pointed out, these are just phantoms with extra steps, need to rethink this idea some more.

These are some redraws and redesigns (and a rename) of previous creatures I posted in this thread.

Stalkers-- "Lumbering beasts draped in cloth, their singular orifice consumes anything that they force down it. They wait in the darkness, and prey on those caught out without a light in the night."

The design of these surface drifter replacements is still mostly the same. If the player is caught out at night in the darkness they will rush at them and try to kill them. They spawn in fewer numbers, although the amount increases in areas of high local rift activity. They're very strong, so you would need some good equipment to kill them head-on, however, and this is probably a long-shot in terms of the current AI development, when they charge at you, you could bait them into bumping into a tree, momentarily stunning them. A good player could use this to kill one early and reap the rewards, whatever they may be. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twisted Wildlife-- "The fabric of the known frays at the edges. It seems that one day all that was once pure will become tainted by an infinite scourge." 

Unfortunately I could only come up with two ideas for creatures of this caliber. I wanted to base them off of things that our ancestors conceptualized and once feared, because they couldn't know if they were real or not. Unfortunately there weren't many that matched the aesthetic of Vintage Story while also being wild animals in the game. At first I was apprehensive about including enemies like this, but I eventually fell for the idea of a world slowly turning against you, as I felt it fit with the theme of overcoming the odds the game is trying to communicate. 

About their mechanics, I would delay their spawning by maybe an in-game year, so that players have some time to prepare for them to begin appearing. After heavy temporal storms have passed, there would be a chance for a twisted wildlife to spawn if the population of a specified creature in a chunk is high enough (in the case of the varg, wolves, and for the wendigo, deer, if they ever get implemented). Other than that, not much special about them. Just beefed up normal critters, although maybe they could have special drops? A varg's tooth that could be knapped to create a super powerful knife or spear, and the head of a wendigo to be worn as a helmet. 

Edited July 14, 2022 by mew_
wanted to further modify the new drifter idea.

[Hal13]

Some are looking kinda like MC-Phantoms, please no Phantoms!

Other than that the rust world, temporal stability and it's monsters doesn't affect anything other than seraphs, hence several of your monster concepts kinda make no sense the way you describe, furthermore VS seems to be mainly played on multiplayer servers and several of your monsters will likely wreck anyone joining for the first time, as they'll join around night time about 50% of the time, and won't see if there's a storm at spawn before joining...

On 7/9/2022 at 9:30 AM, mew_ said:

If a player ever wander into the darkness of the night, the drifter will immediately begin pursuing them and hit like a truck, knocking them around and doing huge damage and destroying any blocks in its path. These creatures should be killable with mid-late game gear, which should be around the time you acquire your first temporal gear anyways

Massively griefing monsters aren't fit for a sandbox game, especially as I usually get my first temporal gears long before reaching bronze. Atm we are far from having late game equipment available as players (we still are far from Industrial Revolution tech). And no MC-Creepers are not a good example for a mob doing the same, as they are easily beaten without exploding even on day 2.

On 7/9/2022 at 9:30 AM, mew_ said:

Using temporal gears, you could get their sanity back, and turn them into a helpful villager who could trade goods with you or maybe do chores for you. They could also be killed, and their corpse plundered. They are very vulnerable to any enemies nearby as they are unable to/ very bad at defending themselves.

I partially like that, but making them weaker than traders doesn't make sense imo, as there isn't much to be feared for them, monsters don't attack other monsters, traders nor animals.

On 7/9/2022 at 9:30 AM, mew_ said:

I'd say limit the depth at which they can grow at, because without a limit a griefer could easily draw out dregs to the surface and just have them grow infinitely when the sun is out. This is probably my least favorite idea because it just doesn't feel like it would actually have an interesting effect on gameplay

For people building low down that griefing monster is just restricting players' ability to build.

tomorrow more, need to go to bed at last.

[mew_]

38 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

Some are looking kinda like MC-Phantoms, please no Phantoms!

I already addressed this and changed the concept on the monster I believe you're talking about in the post above yours. 

38 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

Other than that the rust world, temporal stability and it's monsters doesn't affect anything other than seraphs, hence several of your monster concepts kinda make no sense the way you describe,

I don't understand this. I know what you mean but I don't get what you're trying to say. 

38 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

VS seems to be mainly played on multiplayer servers and several of your monsters will likely wreck anyone joining for the first time, as they'll join around night time about 50% of the time, and won't see if there's a storm at spawn before joining...

Wouldn't the problem of getting rekt when you first spawn happen even if none of these were implemented anyways? If you spawn during a storm the drifters that spawn are strong enough to kill you, and they're very numerous. Also if you join a server at nighttime you get a light that follows you around anyways. I didn't intend for any of these monsters to spawn in high quantities, and really the only main threat is drifter (renamed to the stalker) that'll only attack you if you're caught without a light at nighttime. 

38 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

Massively griefing monsters aren't fit for a sandbox game, especially as I usually get my first temporal gears long before reaching bronze. Atm we are far from having late game equipment available as players (we still are far from Industrial Revolution tech). And no MC-Creepers are not a good example for a mob doing the same, as they are easily beaten without exploding even on day 2.

For my idea for the stalker, I meant that it would plough through soft blocks like dirt to get to the player if they try to pillar up away from them. Also the thing about the temporal gears is purely player experience, I've gotten all the way through my first year without ever getting a temporal gear, although that might just be because I never usually bother with killing drifters, because the chance of getting anything is so low. I also don't understand what you mean by "late game equipment". I figured vintage story was going to stop at the steel age and some steam power and that's it, nothing too fancy. As far as I'm concerned a steel broadsword is the greatest weapon there'll ever be. The stalker isn't meant to be invincible, it should just be an obstacle until you get some good armor and weapons and you can kill it with minimal difficulty. 

I don't see how MC creepers are relevant, and it's not like block destruction is imperative to the mob's design anyways. The stalkers don't explode, they chase down the player and bust down blocks in their path. 

38 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

I partially like that, but making them weaker than traders doesn't make sense imo, as there isn't much to be feared for them, monsters don't attack other monsters, traders nor animals

The depraved aren't designed to be strong. They're frail, insane humans who wander around. Not really a "monster". They're weak and vulnerable to being killed because you should want to help them so they'll be a part of your community. 

38 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

For people building low down that griefing monster is just restricting players' ability to build.

I was never a fan of the "dregs" idea in the first place. Just felt I needed to add a mob underground. Also it doesn't destroy blocks, it just grows towards the light and hurts you if you step on it. 

38 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

tomorrow more, need to go to bed at last.

I hope you read the rest, as it seems you only read the first post and didn't go any further. 

Edited July 13, 2022 by mew_

[Domkrats]

I like idea of time after time spawning huge/strong monsters in different places to make coop more needed in this game. Similar like game Cryofall does where huge mobs spawn and you have some time to prepare and go fighting them together splitting loot according to damage you made. Offcourse there shouldn't be in-game warning in game once it happens. It should be more like a lore-related thing. Once you find some scroll, you find something like a map/riddle/crystal, which guides you to that arena/cave you can fight in together. Only problem would be experiecing that in single player world as it seems hard to fight alone then. Unless we could hire some men at trader or small towns for gold/silver for certain time to follow us and fight for us. For me this game needs more challenge than simple grinding achievments.  Lots of ideas. And i guess...DEVS has million of them themselves. Yet adding all that needs lots of work.

22 hours ago, mew_ said:

About their mechanics, I would delay their spawning by maybe an in-game year, so that players have some time to prepare for them to begin appearing. After heavy temporal storms have passed, there would be a chance for a twisted wildlife to spawn if the population of a specified creature in a chunk is high enough (in the case of the varg, wolves, and for the wendigo, deer, if they ever get implemented). Other than that, not much special about them. Just beefed up normal critters, although maybe they could have special drops? A varg's tooth that could be knapped to create a super powerful knife or spear, and the head of a wendigo to be worn as a helmet. 

 

Edited July 13, 2022 by Domkrats

[Hal13]

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

I already addressed this and changed the concept on the monster I believe you're talking about in the post above yours.

And I clearly wrote I'm not finished with my post yet, I started at the top and the first impressions from the pictures. But after reading your changed concept that is even more like phantoms, the stormlings only look less like them, but still will be suicide bombing into the player until hit, rather easily be out on their own, but likely that stormcaller will respawn new ones constantly as it'll lose it's purpose without those little pests. The Dreamsucker had potential, maybe it only spawned directly above the bed if one sleeps in a storm and attacked players sleeping in the open/dark, preventing them from sleeping through the storm if not in some sort of well lit room? The Stormlings/Stormcaller is just MC Phantoms with an extra step.

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

I don't understand this. I know what you mean but I don't get what you're trying to say.

Several of your concepts make only sense if actually those monsters would have any way of interacting with the world and not only with the player character. It's still not confirmed why that's not the case, as long as that is, one should assume it's the intended behaviour of anything but Seraphs to not care about those monsters and temporal effects, because they can't interact with the world, if they even actually exist at all. Hence several monsters being able to break or create blocks (and i quote your drifter version "destroying any blocks in its path", not like you just now said dirt blocks with which one pillared up, as well as the dregs "will grow towards that light source, slowly making a passageway impassable") makes no sense as for that they actually had to be real, which is neither officially confirmed nor denied at this point, and as such should make animals and traders react to them.

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

Wouldn't the problem of getting rekt when you first spawn happen even if none of these were implemented anyways?

Nope, just run, heck if it's only nighttime walking would be sufficient as you just casually can walk away from surface drifters, but several of your concepts can't be ran from without any equipment. Your take on drifters (and any other of your creations even on their own) would be way worse than the wolf menace already too much for a big quantity of players.

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

They're frail, insane humans who wander around. Not really a "monster". They're weak and vulnerable to being killed

They wander around more or less alone, as such should be either dead on finding them or at least strong enough to not easily fall prey to wolves, sheep and pigs, even then that'll mean they'd have to be classified as animals (humans and monsters are safe) or nothing will attack them, as monsters and humans (traders) only attack player characters and animals only attack animals (and player characters). The only lone wanderers in the game are traders and those do travel in carts, meaning they don't actually have to be as strong as those Depraved, who have to face nature all on their own, to fight off the dangers of the world. Therefore Depraved had to be AT LEAST as strong as traders to make sense. If they'd be weak and vulnerable they'd be dead already. And if they'd pack a punch similar to traders, it'll be way more challenging to cure them and populate a village with them.

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

For my idea for the stalker, I meant that it would plough through soft blocks like dirt to get to the player if they try to pillar up away from them.

Which is not what you wrote, you wrote "destroying any blocks in their path". The way you wrote your concept they plough through the landscape and even through buildings.

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

Also the thing about the temporal gears is purely player experience, I've gotten all the way through my first year without ever getting a temporal gear, although that might just be because I never usually bother with killing drifters, because the chance of getting anything is so low.

I usually get my first temporal gears from panning and usually at the latest somewhere in the first summer (often months earlier than finding enough tin or other ores for making bronze). With drifters having a ranged attack now I don't bother approaching them as killing them only takes resources without providing any reward (other than sweet silence), you can get basically anything without fighting them. Spawn proofing isn't a big deal once you reached smithing copper.

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

I figured vintage story was going to stop at the steel age and some steam power and that's it, nothing too fancy.

Trains and possibly airships were mentioned several times, as such I have to assume the early steel equipment we can get our hands on right now is somewhere around mid-game. Implementing guns is not intended as far as I know, but who knows what we'll get, drills and chainsaws perhaps? Stuff powered by otherworldly temporal energy perhaps? Who knows, but between the steel making process implemented now and the Steam Age stuff that could come lay at least one and up to several centuries of inventions.

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

The stalker isn't meant to be invincible, it should just be an obstacle until you get some good armor and weapons and you can kill it with minimal difficulty. 

That's not what you wrote either, you wrote:

On 7/9/2022 at 9:30 AM, mew_ said:

These creatures should be killable with mid-late game gear

"killable" Which for me reads "possible with quite some effort and more or less the best gear you can obtain, basically a boss". Nothing here reads "minimal difficulty", it reads don't even try before, as you'd have no chance without really good equipment.

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

I don't see how MC creepers are relevant, and it's not like block destruction is imperative to the mob's design anyways. The stalkers don't explode, they chase down the player and bust down blocks in their path.

MC creepers are the most devastating mob in the game VS is usually compared to. But the stalkers are able to infinite destruction the way you described them, they don't explode, but "hit like a truck" and "bust down blocks in their path" (btw didn't you just write only destroy pillars of "soft" materials and now we're back to everything in their path again, even after saying block destruction wouldn't be "imperative to the mob's design"). Hence their griefing potential is comparable to a creeper who can explode over and over again, and who can't be fought until you at least reached iron age (or in Minecraft terms at least unenchanted diamond gear), meaning you'd never reach iron age as you'd constantly have to reestablish everything until the next night, of course you'd go through several deaths until dawn if you got killed at night, because your suggestion was to make that stalker a normal hostile mob replacing the (surface) drifters.

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

I was never a fan of the "dregs" idea in the first place. Just felt I needed to add a mob underground. Also it doesn't destroy blocks, it just grows towards the light and hurts you if you step on it.

You wrote it in a way that it actually made passages impassable by growing which you did not specify further leaving it up to interpretation, and if Minecraft mob votes taught me anything than when it comes to mob suggestions think of anything written in the worst way it could be implemented and add another layer of worse, which would in this case mean it creates blocks nearly uncontrollably if not encased. players building low down to utilize the whole world height therefore had to keep everything under the border up to which it can grow untouched, as when starting to prepare the area for building you can't see if there'll be any dregs below somewhere and as you can't get rid of it for good it would just come back and grow through your build.

18 hours ago, mew_ said:

I hope you read the rest, as it seems you only read the first post and didn't go any further.

Nope, and after not even getting the opportunity to finish my post and seeing how you aren't even thinking about looking at other perspectives than wanting more challenging hostiles for yourself and not thinking about game balance (the mobs have to work for SP and MP at the same time) at all, I'm really discouraged to even look at the rest and am willing to bet those changes will at best be fit for a mod not the vanilla game, especially as several things you suggested do require rather complex and individual behaviour from the game's AI.

 

14 hours ago, Domkrats said:

I like idea of time after time spawning huge/strong monsters in different places to make coop more needed in this game. Similar like game Cryofall does where huge mobs spawn and you have some time to prepare and go fighting them together splitting loot according to damage you made.

VS is no MMO, it's intended to be possible to be played either as a single player or on a multiplayer server, forcing coop gameplay meant ignoring the people who don't/can't play online, something you did acknowledge, but clearly did not think about long enough.

14 hours ago, Domkrats said:

Unless we could hire some men at trader or small towns for gold/silver for certain time to follow us and fight for us.

Even slight changes to the current AI for making wolves more realistic, are out of the possible scope for the devs right now and an additional dev making more complex AI behaviour aren't in the budget by a long shot ("If you know of any AI specialist out there that don't cost 140,000 USD per year let us know." - Stroam) it seems, therefore npc mercenaries might very well be even worse than in most other games (even big game studios aren't usually able to get them to actually being helpful in real time situations).

But I guess if the fight needs to be actively triggered by the player, that's kinda okay as long as the loot can be obtained by other more grindy means. Of course the game could scale the boss (hp, damage output, tier, amount of lootable items) to the number of players in the vicinity, but even then mobs in VS do not drop stuff into player inventories, they leave corpses to plunder and how the loot gets distributed isn't dependent on damage done but player negotiation, as the corpse is a container that can only be emptied once. Idk a big robot like mob could drop blistered steel high amounts of different gears, fuels, axles and other mechanical components, another more animal like boss could drop huge amounts of animal loot, possibly kick starting a whole leather working industry thanks to its hide, being the equivalent of a whole barrel full of hides, some kind of golem or similar construct could drop different bricks, clay, stones, ores, etc.

14 hours ago, Domkrats said:

For me this game needs more challenge than simple grinding achievments.

For me it needs more technical stuff and automation, I don't mind grinding a few hundred hours to prepare a perimeter for a farming setup, though i prefer to build and optimize a contraption that'll do the grind when I'm afk. Challenge for me means finding ways to not having to do the fighting myself, as fighting is boringly repetitive as fuck in every game, especially if it's a game intended for longterm play (which I define as several thousands of hours and which I barely reached in VS yet).

[mew_]

4 hours ago, Hal13 said:

 The Stormlings/Stormcaller is just MC Phantoms with an extra step.

This is true and I'll need to workshop the idea more, but the very alien look of manta rays draws me to their design.

4 hours ago, Hal13 said:

 The Dreamsucker had potential, maybe it only spawned directly above the bed if one sleeps in a storm and attacked players sleeping in the open/dark, preventing them from sleeping through the storm if not in some sort of well lit room?

I retconned the original concept because it seemed like a non-threat. The dreamsuckers show up on the horizon in a temporal storm, and if you're caught out they'll target you. The problem with this is that it's almost always a good idea to stay inside during a temporal storm, so it would just be completely avoidable unless they had some sort of a special drop. Maybe one of their eyeballs? 

4 hours ago, Hal13 said:

Several of your concepts make only sense if actually those monsters would have any way of interacting with the world and not only with the player character. It's still not confirmed why that's not the case, as long as that is, one should assume it's the intended behaviour of anything but Seraphs to not care about those monsters and temporal effects, because they can't interact with the world, if they even actually exist at all. Hence several monsters being able to break or create blocks (and i quote your drifter version "destroying any blocks in its path", not like you just now said dirt blocks with which one pillared up, as well as the dregs "will grow towards that light source, slowly making a passageway impassable") makes no sense as for that they actually had to be real, which is neither officially confirmed nor denied at this point, and as such should make animals and traders react to them.

This makes more sense. It's an interesting idea, all of these monsters just being in the head of the Seraph, so that would justify avoiding adding monsters capable of modifying the world. Like I had stated, the ability of the stalker to break blocks to get to the player isn't imperative to its design, it simply rushes to the player and I failed to realize that it could also just be lead around and used to grief other players. 

4 hours ago, Hal13 said:

Nope, and after not even getting the opportunity to finish my post and seeing how you aren't even thinking about looking at other perspectives than wanting more challenging hostiles for yourself and not thinking about game balance (the mobs have to work for SP and MP at the same time) at all, I'm really discouraged to even look at the rest and am willing to bet those changes will at best be fit for a mod not the vanilla game, especially as several things you suggested do require rather complex and individual behaviour from the game's AI.

This seems unreasonable. I responded to your post and wanted to clarify, as those ideas have since had some time to marinate in my head and I've thought about them more. I don't see how you waiting 24 hours to finish your post and wanting to respond beforehand was at all offensive. 

Regardless, I don't particularly see how these enemies (or I suppose only the first four since you only read those ones) completely turn the balance of the game against the player. I tried to craft them to be all choice encounters, either by mistake or by intention-- the drifter will attack you if you have no light near you at night, the dreamsucker will engage if you choose to go out during a storm, the dregs (which I might just edit that post to remove entirely because I have since forsook the idea) will creep up on a sloppy spelunker, and the depraved are barely a threat at all, and it's completely the player's choice rather to kill them and loot them or help them. 

4 hours ago, Hal13 said:

Even slight changes to the current AI for making wolves more realistic, are out of the possible scope for the devs right now and an additional dev making more complex AI behaviour aren't in the budget by a long shot ("If you know of any AI specialist out there that don't cost 140,000 USD per year let us know." - Stroam) it seems, therefore npc mercenaries might very well be even worse than in most other games (even big game studios aren't usually able to get them to actually being helpful in real time situations).

I was not aware of this. I will be more mindful of these restrictions if I have any future suggestions. 

4 hours ago, Hal13 said:

Hence their griefing potential is comparable to a creeper who can explode over and over again, and who can't be fought until you at least reached iron age (or in Minecraft terms at least unenchanted diamond gear), meaning you'd never reach iron age as you'd constantly have to reestablish everything until the next night, of course you'd go through several deaths until dawn if you got killed at night, because your suggestion was to make that stalker a normal hostile mob replacing the (surface) drifters.

This'll be redundant, but I want to make it clear that I agree that mobs that are able to grief are a bad idea. Also the stalker isn't intended to replace the surface drifters, they spawn in fewer numbers depending on the local area's rift activity. I just think it would work better as an enemy than a bunch of little guys that throw themselves at you and are more of just a nuisance than an actual threat. As long as you're holding a torch or a lantern or are near some light source, they stay in the dark and stalk the player-- hence the name.

4 hours ago, Hal13 said:

MC creepers are the most devastating mob in the game VS is usually compared to. But the stalkers are able to infinite destruction the way you described them, they don't explode, but "hit like a truck" and "bust down blocks in their path" (btw didn't you just write only destroy pillars of "soft" materials and now we're back to everything in their path again, even after saying block destruction wouldn't be "imperative to the mob's design").

Replying to this to clear up a miscommunication-- the block destruction isn't imperative to the mob's design, because it rushes very fast at the player. Them destroying soft blocks like dirt and cobblestone (stuff that can be harvested with tier 1 tools) was an additional threat that they would pose, because it meant that they would be able to get to you very quickly without having to circumvent terrain. The stalker can charge at the player regardless without needing to break blocks. 

4 hours ago, Hal13 said:

 Challenge for me means finding ways to not having to do the fighting myself, as fighting is boringly repetitive as fuck in every game, especially if it's a game intended for longterm play (which I define as several thousands of hours and which I barely reached in VS yet).

I'm fairly optimistic that VS' combat will be more dynamic in the future than it is now. Even now there's more possibilities since all the weapons have a sort of "delayed attack", which, if expanded upon, could facilitate the need for certain weapons in certain scenarios, or even certain PVP special abilities like a parry. (This might be a pipe dream, not sure if VS will ever become a pvp-focused game).

Something like a siege engine you need to assemble might be cool, a trebuchet or ballista to take down big baddies or fight other players, and it fits with the sort of early medieval time period the game seems to be set in. 

[Domkrats]

On 7/13/2022 at 10:44 PM, Hal13 said:

VS is no MMO, it's intended to be possible to be played either as a single player or on a multiplayer server, forcing coop gameplay meant ignoring the people who don't/can't play online, something you did acknowledge, but clearly did not think about long enough.

My idea was more like an option for players like me. It could spawn only in some places and only if player does certain things and wants that. In any other case, that could be simple open area with no use other than some arena with ruins having player to think about what was it used for before. I understand it could be more suitable for MMO. But i guess it's just some MMO game elements i miss in this game then.  

Edited July 15, 2022 by Domkrats

[mew_]

On 7/13/2022 at 7:30 PM, mew_ said:

I was not aware of this. I will be more mindful of these restrictions if I have any future suggestions. 

I would like to preface this post by replying to this excerpt in my last reply. I am aware the Vintage Story may not currently have the capacity for some complex AI. 

I have (once again) amended my idea for these manta-ray like creatures. Flying enemies are annoying, especially in a game where you are confined to the ground, and so I wanted to make these new creatures vulnerable even when you're on the ground, however the player still has to put themselves in danger, although not from the harbingers themselves. 

The harbingers will signal the coming of a temporal storm, which, instead of a notification in the text chat of a storm being imminent and the strength it is, they will appear on the horizon followed by a red cloud. The number of harbingers is an indicator for the strength of a temporal storm. If a player is in the "line of sight" of the eyeballs on the underside of a harbinger, they will be targeted by enemies that appear during a temporal storm. These eyes are their weak point, and can be attacked with projectiles from the ground, blinding them. If all harbingers are blinded, the player will no longer be hunted by enemies throughout the duration of the storm. This allows the player to counter the main negative effects of the temporal storm, being that you cannot leave your house to do other things because enemies are always attacking you. This would be applied on top of temporal storms being more of a "weather" event rather than a global event, which would allow players to evacuate to do other things until the storm wanes or passes over or whatever. In a multiplayer setting, temporal storms target individual players if they are far enough away, say some 3000 blocks apart, and the strength increases the more players are in one place, allowing for sort of co-op holdouts. 

Right now, temporal storms require the player to shelter in one place lest they get harassed by an endless swarm of constantly respawning drifters, some of which can one-shot unarmored players. Sometimes you aren't even safe indoors, as the spawning rules for drifters are pretty unclear. Instead of forcing a player to either log off of a multiplayer server for a few minutes or to have them sit around in singleplayer, making temporal storms similar to thunderstorms would allow players an option to either run away and occupy themselves, or wait it out. With the harbingers flying up in the sky, vulnerable to an attack on their underbelly, the player is given the opportunity to still allow themselves to be (mostly) safe, even if they are in the middle of a temporal storm. This puts choice in the player's hands. If a player could care less and would rather wait out the storm, that's their prerogative, however other types of players would take advantage of these opportunities to make the most of their time, say winter is fast approaching and every day counts, so a player would be pressured into making the most of their time without being completely unfairly swamped by enemies. Or maybe you just want to build during a storm so you go throw rocks at a harbinger so the bastards will leave you alone. 

 

These are just some redraws for the different types of drifters, excluding deep and nightmare, which I felt had no differentiating characteristics besides their color. 

Instead of drifters walking at the player and swinging madly and occasionally throwing rocks (again, I understand there are AI limitations currently), I would suggest to expand on their personality. Right now the drifters have two idling animations that have caught my attention-- one of them, the drifters will curl up into a ball and cry, and the other, they will look at their arms and then raise them into the sky (according to the wiki, I have only seen the first). 

The drifters, as they have appeared to me, are seemingly husks of what they once were, or who they once were. Instead of waddling around on short legs they should shamble and stumble around. Instead of swarming the player at night, they should spawn in fewer numbers, and hang back, staying away from light sources and throwing rocks at the player. It is incredibly scary to suddenly take damage from something out of the dark, and I think the rock throwing ability, maybe unintentionally, accomplishes this. They will attack the player with rocks until they get close, in which they will swing their arms violently and uncoordinated. Their priority should be to escape, hobbling away as they get cut to pieces by the player. In the day time, their bodies should evaporate, and leave behind nothing but scraps of cloth which the player can loot for a small chance at maybe finding some salvageable fabric. 

The different tiers of drifters would have different specializations. The corrupt drifters, with their large horns, would be specialized for melee combat, they would charge at the player in a manner similar to the stalker, a creature which also has large horns, as opposed to having ranged attacks. The double-headed drifters, whose design I have slightly altered from the original head split by an axe, would have high health but also be slow. The two turning gears in their chest holding the two individuals together serve as a mechanism to crush the player's head when they try to grab them. They are incredibly weak at range and can be whittled down by a spear, however if the player is in a situation with multiple enemies in a confined space, they could be forced to get very familiar with double-headed variants. The tainted drifter is an upgraded version of the surface drifter found underground. They are faster, although they still shamble around, and more aggressive. 

A completely separate idea that is definitely something for the far, FAR future I had that I will describe briefly was for the underground to be split into layers, separate from rock strata, that contain different biomes. Where you encounter the special drifter types and maybe other creepy crawlies the underground would stop being bare rock cave systems and turn into something more. The tainted and corrupt drifters, one bearing a sort of vined withered arm and the other having two large horns would be found in a rust-pigmented version of the surface, with reddish-orange cave moss and slick black water and maybe some other types of flora or fauna. At the depths where the double-headed drifter can be found the mechanical mantle would be revealed, with constant ticking and the grinding and turning of large mechanical machines, with speleothems of rusted axles and large spinning gears, and solid rock faces replaced by rusted grates leaking some oily black substance. To properly represent these areas, the default world height might have to be increased, which is already possible, but it could slow down the game considerably if the game is essentially generating a smaller version of the surface underground. This is likely a pipe dream that would be better represented in concept art or in a lore book than actually being in the game.   

[hellvelvet]

Ever since I saw a rift for the first time, I thought it would be interesting if you could go through one and fight something in order to close it. Both because I want a way to get rid of them and because the idea of something actively trying to tear its way into the world like that is scary. Rifts seem to spawn idly, but sometimes it feels like they spawn in deliberately inconvenient places, and some mechanic that played with that feeling more would be interesting. For how frightening looking rifts are, they're not very dangerous, since they don't really do much to your temporal stability unless you're standing right in them.

A mob that attacked your temporal stability whenever you are in line of sight of them could lead to some interesting and terrifying encounters, much like the winter lanterns do in Bloodborne. A priority target despite doing no damage, and incredibly dangerous to try to dispatch at close range.

[RobinHood]

I played some months ago return to castle of wolfenstein, the last bossmonster did teleport the fighter, what about a strong monster, that did teleport the player?! Not far away, but maybe for 15-16 blocks, if the monster is 16 blocks away, he can teleport you closer to him, very very dangerous.  It was Heinrich, something powerful, can me done in VS, but as a bossmontser e.g.

teleporting like here -

i remember when i played this game for the first time ... pure adrenaline, maybe some ideas for crazy dangerous & scary monsters

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by RobinHood

[The Teller]

Has anyone considered aquatic creatures yet? For instance, maybe a form of eel like creatures made from cables and rusted pieces of metal which can spawn in ponds within caves and within large bodies of water during the Temporal Storms. Just to make those 'safe areas' less safe while also making them easy to avoid for new players.

[mew_]

2 hours ago, The Teller said:

Has anyone considered aquatic creatures yet? For instance, maybe a form of eel like creatures made from cables and rusted pieces of metal which can spawn in ponds within caves and within large bodies of water during the Temporal Storms. Just to make those 'safe areas' less safe while also making them easy to avoid for new players.

I had considered a few ideas for aquatic creatures, however, with no rivers or oceans in the game (yet), it seemed pointless to try and include them because truly vast expanses of water are not all that common, mostly just being little ponds or very small lakes. I had always assumed that the threats that would come from large bodies of water would be mostly natural, things like drowning, hypothermia, riptide, and tropical storms. When factoring in the game's Lovecraftian influences, it gives a little more freedom to speculate. 

This creature would probably be more of an effect of temporal storms rather than an actual entity, however it would be neat that if you were out at sea on a boat or something it would come after you and maybe initiate some sort of boss fight. This is assuming that the "multi-block ships" on the roadmap are actually feasible, which I'm managing my expectations for. 

These guys serve a similar function to the Harbingers, except that instead of staying high in the sky passively, you can see their boats on the horizon before a storm, and when they get to shore they will disembark and drift towards the player, attacking slowly and vigorously with their sickle hands. 

The naming inspiration comes from the "Sea People" which are believed to be one of the factors responsible for the Bronze Age Collapse. 

Another drifter variant, they stay in murky cave water, or spawn in bodies of water at night or during a temporal storm. They have no damaging attacks but instead will grab the player and try to pull them underwater to drown them. They'd have high HP so they wouldn't be a complete pushover, but would also remain neutral unless the player jumped in the water or started fishing.

I'm not a huge fan of monsters like this, that make very aqueous areas almost completely unlivable because they just end up getting everywhere. I'd probably limit their spawning to be just in subterranean bodies of water.

 

These ideas below are really shallow, however I wanted to put them out there lest these MSpaint drawings start burning a hole in my recycling bin. 

Edited July 25, 2022 by mew_

[Hyukoroo]

there are some good ideas here though perhaps some of them seem a bit over tuned to be more or less a means to cause those players who already struggle with wolves or other such things that much more annoyance? 
I am all for new creatures, and agree more variety would help though not at the cost of the pleasant experience that is VS. For me, perhaps some more ideas along the lines of the bells and such? Currently locusts have been a threat due to their movements, and perhaps we can have more insectile enemies?

[RobinHood]

i would like see 2-3 kinds of special drifters also in water, one drifter similar to surface drifter, 1-2 other drifters for the deep water, during temporal storms or in dark underwater caves. and these 2-3 drifters, they should swim much better than others.