Monsters!

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LordBob
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Re: Monsters!

Post by LordBob »

Time is scarce as ever, but I wanted to chime in and say that's a really good start. Well referenced yet with its own presence, I'm eager to see what comes next.
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doofus-01
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Re: Monsters!

Post by doofus-01 »

Thanks. I'll have to take my time with that portrait, so I don't face-plant. In the meantime, I think the scorpion sprite can be made smaller (best to get this settled now before the thing gets animated). Not for a lower unit, but as an edit to the current one for level 1. I was a bit conservative, it might need to be even smaller, not sure.
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doofus-01
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Re: Monsters!

Post by doofus-01 »

I trimmed down the scorpion a bit more (still may be too subtle), and have a level 0 young scorpion. I'm thinking the young scorpion actually may be the right size for the level 1, and the level zero needs to be even smaller. I'm posting the sprites, such as they are, in case anyone is interested in tweaking these.
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scorpion-smaller.png
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scorpion-young.png
scorpion-young.png (1.97 KiB) Viewed 9436 times
Screenshot_000.jpg
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beetlenaut
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Re: Monsters!

Post by beetlenaut »

The original was too big, but I think the scorpion-smaller is just fine for level 1. It's a little bigger than most units, but so is a horseman or gryphon rider, so it's no big deal. If we are going to be working on the scorpion anyway, can we improve the stats? It has a hard shell, so it should probably have resistances similar to a heavy infantry--more resistant to pierce, much less resistant to impact, and vulnerable to fire but not catastrophically so.
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The_Gnat
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Re: Monsters!

Post by The_Gnat »

It looks good, however I believe that it is not different enough from the original, perhaps a slight recolouring would improve it.

Also I support beetlenaut's suggestion.
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ForestDragon
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Re: Monsters!

Post by ForestDragon »

I agree with beetlenaut too, the insane fire weakness/insane impact resistance are quite weird (not to mention that they've been borrowed from mudcrawlers)
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Samonella
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Re: Monsters!

Post by Samonella »

beetlenaut wrote:If we are going to be working on the scorpion anyway, can we improve the stats? It has a hard shell, so it should probably have resistances similar to a heavy infantry--more resistant to pierce, much less resistant to impact, and vulnerable to fire but not catastrophically so.
I partially disagree with this, actually. Exoskeletons are not much like iron suits. You can drop a book on a beetle and it will quite literally walk it off, but you can mount it on a display board by almost effortlessly sliding a pin through a crevice in the shell. A spear would be a much, much more effective weapon against a giant arthropod than a club, because it takes a slightly smaller force but concentrates it on a much smaller area. A HI is completely different because the iron is much harder to pierce, but you can shake up the human inside by beating it around; on the other hand, you can literally throw a spider against the wall and it just gets a bit frightened. If you pit a troll vs a giant scorpion, the best the troll could possibly do is break some legs.

Of course, I'm definitely not saying the resistance/weaknesses should stay so extreme, +/- 50% for impact/fire is still probably plenty.
EDIT: I'm also not saying that spears would actually work well... I imagine it would still take a very strong and well placed thrust to actually do damage. But I think you'd have a better chance of killing one than you would with a club.
Last edited by Samonella on June 4th, 2017, 5:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Vyncyn
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Re: Monsters!

Post by Vyncyn »

Like all you work, the scorpions are very good. I would still argue to keep zerovirus' version due to its amazing level of detail, which gets lost on the smaller scorpions. Maybe keep it as lvl2 giant scorpion mother?
The tail on the small scorpion look weird. I think it should be a bit flatter.
Resistances should definitely be reworked.
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doofus-01
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Re: Monsters!

Post by doofus-01 »

Vyncyn wrote: I would still argue to keep zerovirus' version due to its amazing level of detail, which gets lost on the smaller scorpions. Maybe keep it as lvl2 giant scorpion mother?
Sure, I think mamma scorpion (side leader) is something I've seen in at least a couple campaigns. It's not up to me though.
Samonella wrote:I partially disagree with this, actually. Exoskeletons are not much like iron suits. You can drop a book on a beetle and it will quite literally walk it off, ...
I agree, the impact resistance makes sense, even if it was just a sloppy inheritance from the movetype. The fire weakness isn't that intuitive (a desert monster that can't take the heat?). Pierce seems like a pretty good choice for a weakness, compared to the other options. Maybe cold would work, but that isn't so common.
The_Gnat wrote:It looks good, however I believe that it is not different enough from the original, perhaps a slight recolouring would improve it.
I had stuck with the original colors, but making the young scorpion less "armored" with the blue stuff makes sense to me. If these look about right, I can start on some animation frames:
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ForestDragon
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Re: Monsters!

Post by ForestDragon »

Very glad to see the scorpions being actually worked on (the lvl0 is very fitting if a campaign needs more realistic scorpions, instead of fantasy human-sized ones). I agree with Vyncyn about keeping the old version as lvl2.

regarding art critique, I think you should probably recolor young scorpion's pincers to the same color s the rest of their parts, this will make them more realistic (if you think they look better the way they are, you can keep it that way). I also suggest changing the name from young scorpion to just 'scorpion', considering they resemble real-life full-grown scorpions in terms of size (being even bigger than real-life ones, I came to this conclusion by roughly measuring them next to grunts in the screenshot)
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Re: Monsters!

Post by Wussel »

My vote is going for monochromatic scorpions too. Never seen any other. The brownish for the young ones is not my first choice. Could be whitish or bluish for example. Anyway nice shapes and perspective.
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doofus-01
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Re: Monsters!

Post by doofus-01 »

ForestDragon wrote:the lvl0 is very fitting if a campaign needs more realistic scorpions, instead of fantasy human-sized ones [...] if you think they look better the way they are, you can keep it that way
I do, and I plan to. ;)
I'd think these are still fantasy creatures, big as a ... dog?

I've got animation frames here. I could make a PR, but that hasn't seemed so useful in the past.
EDIT: removed file, see below
This is the animation WML I used:
Spoiler:
Presumably these would be same as Giant Scorpion, just weaker. Even if they are weaker, having poison would still be pretty big. I guess it's OK for a monster resource, not an MP unit. Another option for the stinger would be to keep the damage of the Giant Scorpion, just remove the poison. :hmm:
Last edited by doofus-01 on June 10th, 2017, 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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beetlenaut
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Re: Monsters!

Post by beetlenaut »

doofus-01 wrote:Another option for the stinger would be to keep the damage of the Giant Scorpion, just remove the poison
I don't think we should do that: Poison is kind of a defining characteristic of a scorpion. If a scenario designer doesn't want units to get poisoned, they should use a different monster. In a case where the scorpion is recruitable by the player, it would make sense for it to be more expensive than most level-0 units because of the weapon special.
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ForestDragon
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Re: Monsters!

Post by ForestDragon »

it's rather weird that the swish effects of the animations are static (though that's probably what you meant by the animations being to fully complete). Anyway, they still look great :)
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doofus-01
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Re: Monsters!

Post by doofus-01 »

Thanks. These are the finished frames (to my eyes at least).
young-scorpion.tar.gz
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