The Dwarvish Treasure - Version 0.5

[Baufo]

Great! Can't await it!

[Neoriceisgood]

any list of what you need, and how much freedome do I have on the designs?

[Baufo]

Hmm I don't really know what we need. But you know the scenario: there are very weak creeps (about the strenght of a lvl 0 unit) and rather strong creeps (about like a lvl 2 unit). But generally it would be good to have about 50% melee and 50% ranged creeps. And of course anything to replace a yeti would be cool. I have some vague ideas about some units I would like but I feel to tired to work the details out propely right now (Maybe some cool new dwarvish units? Or even "dark dwarves"? Or cool new goblin units (maybe a ranged version or a "Goblin Torcher" like someone suggested in the ideas forum some time ago or even a goblin that deals with magic?); and some "monsters" (like this giant spider) would be neat of course but I don't really have any concrete ideas about that for now). Basically we could use anything you can imagine lurking around in a cave. Just draw anything that pleases you. I have seen enough of your sprites to know it will be great.

[Rhuvaen]

Hm, some ideas for dungeon creeps:
- slimes / moulds (level 1's that split off level 0's)
- minotaur / ettin / cyclops (maybe instead of yetis - and I know neorice is good at these!! )
- giant rats (sigh)
- golems, elemental guardian spirits
- other mythological stuff: hydra, medusa and company
- mummy
- gargoyle

Lots of stereotypical stuff .

It'd be great to assemble a lot of these into a Dungeon Era that distributes these units and has a standardised level 1 RPG faction - then all MP scenarios featuring dungeons could use this.

I still like Dwarvish Treasure in theory, but the gameplay is a travesty of "runaway gobbling the upgrades/creeps". I think all upgrades need to have an exponential slowing curve, otherwise leaders just run away and the whole thing plays like Sauron's less luck mod (10+ attacks ). And creeps need to be placed in more places, some of them with guardian_ai - because passive creep pwning is such a strong element atm.

[Baufo]

I still like Dwarvish Treasure in theory, but the gameplay is a travesty of "runaway gobbling the upgrades/creeps". I think all upgrades need to have an exponential slowing curve, otherwise leaders just run away and the whole thing plays like Sauron's less luck mod (10+ attacks ). And creeps need to be placed in more places, some of them with guardian_ai - because passive creep pwning is such a strong element atm.

I agree that the gameplay is not perfect yet.

Do you mean by "exponential slowing curve" something like get a (your-current-max-HP^-1)*100 hitpoint bonus? This could be difficult to do since you still can't divide by x AFAIK in the 1.2 branch.

And do I get you right if I think you want more guardian_ai creeps (but not all of them guarding something)?

PS: I am not sure if cyclops are such a good idea since some people might get the "Great Cyclop of the Den" of the KKK in mind.

[Neoriceisgood]

I'll just make some sweet monsters;

Baufo: Mind of I post the graphics here, or do you want me to keep them a suprise for now?

[Baufo]

I'll just make some sweet monsters;

Baufo: Mind of I post the graphics here, or do you want me to keep them a suprise for now?

I would not mind if you posted them here but if you prefer to stick with PMs it would also be fine.

[Rhuvaen]

Do you mean by "exponential slowing curve" something like get a (your-current-max-HP^-1)*100 hitpoint bonus?

Any way of increasing the "price" of something you bought a lot of before. For instance, you get +2 damage for one kill. After a while, it'll be +2 damage for every even kill, +1 for every odd kill. going down to +1/kill, then multiple creeps needed for one +1. It's a bit clumsy for Dwarvish Treasure, although if you get rid of the 1 full reward per creep kill paradigm, it's not so hard to understand. And do the same for moves, hp etc.

DotX's really suffer from the same problem.

And do I get you right if I think you want more guardian_ai creeps (but not all of them guarding something)?

I mean more spawn places where creeps could appear (but do so randomly), and setting them to guardian_ai after one move (in order to avoid bunching of creeps in one part of the map).

I know this would mean some reworking of the basics of the scenario, but I guess that's needed to get rid of some of the serious flaws. Don't get me wrong - I think it's a fantastic piece of work, a great idea, but sadly I don't see much point in the gameplay as it is. (Your mileage may vary )

[Neoriceisgood]

First 3 creep designs;

gazer: level 1 'beholder"-esque dungeon creep, balanced with both a good melee and ranged attack, ranged possibly magical-cold

imp: level 0 dungeon creep, rather fast with a pierce or blade claw melee attack and a relatively weak fire breath for ranged; should appear a lot

Skeletal Demon: I'd say a level 2 creep, it lacks a ranged attack but is resist to nearly everything but blunt and holy; and has a devestating drain-blade melee attack.

[Baufo]

Do you mean by "exponential slowing curve" something like get a (your-current-max-HP^-1)*100 hitpoint bonus?

Any way of increasing the "price" of something you bought a lot of before. For instance, you get +2 damage for one kill. After a while, it'll be +2 damage for every even kill, +1 for every odd kill. going down to +1/kill, then multiple creeps needed for one +1. It's a bit clumsy for Dwarvish Treasure, although if you get rid of the 1 full reward per creep kill paradigm, it's not so hard to understand. And do the same for moves, hp etc.

DotX's really suffer from the same problem.

Maybe this could be done by introducing a "buy point system". You get a certain amount of points for killing certain kinds of creeps (depend on the strenght of the creeps obviously) and each time you kill one you get a "buy dialog" (just as it is now) but you have also got the posibility to save your points for better upgrades. (This could also be done by gold if I set the base income and the village gold to 0 (Is it possible?) (or should villages even earn you some money then? - you really get me thinking ))

And do I get you right if I think you want more guardian_ai creeps (but not all of them guarding something)?

I mean more spawn places where creeps could appear (but do so randomly), and setting them to guardian_ai after one move (in order to avoid bunching of creeps in one part of the map).

Interesting idea. But maybe I could try to make actuallys two allied sides of creeps and see what happens (I have not got any clue how the AI code works).

[Baufo]

First 3 creep designs;

gazer: level 1 'beholder"-esque dungeon creep, balanced with both a good melee and ranged attack, ranged possibly magical-cold

imp: level 0 dungeon creep, rather fast with a pierce or blade claw melee attack and a relatively weak fire breath for ranged; should appear a lot

Skeletal Demon: I'd say a level 2 creep, it lacks a ranged attack but is resist to nearly everything but blunt and holy; and has a devestating drain-blade melee attack.

I like them! This demon looks quite scary! Good work!

[Neoriceisgood]

Actually, I'll make a topic for the monsters in either factions or the art section once I finish another one,


the main idea is that there should be a good variety of weaknesses and resistances amongst the creeps, to avoid people being forced into heroes.

[Baufo]

This afternoon I made the the basic WML files for the new units that Neorice has drawn yet (which took quite some time, even if it is of course a trivial task) and while doing it I had some ideas how the next version of this scenario could look like. I will post my rough ideas I want to work on once I have organized the currently really messy WML a bit (I am afraid this will take some time too... ). Please post some feedback what you think about it.

The biggest change I have in mind is to add another creepside (allied with the other one) that is not set to "suicide-mode" but uses defensive terrain and tries to group its units. Especially level 2 creeps would be controlled by this new AI. (I would also spawn its creeps in groups to make it easier actually to group them )
Creeps would not keep appearing constantly through the whole scenario; The first few turns only really weak things like maybe some rat or bat swarms would spawn, then some imps and satyrs would begin to show up; this process continues until maybe around turn 20 the strongest creeps start appearing while the weaker ones would be reduced.
Generally I feel that the creeps' current spawn points are somehow displaced but I don't really know where else to place them - ideas please
I think I am going to remove the six weapon guardians (and of course their weapons) from the center. I am not sure how to replace them (since I want to avoid to put them into "normal" creep killing buy menus). This is again something I would really need your opinions on.
I want to replace the Yetis with different units (Maybe something like Fire Dragon - Skeleton Dragon - Yeti - Fire Dragon - Skeleton Dragon - Yeti because I think it would be a pity to use Neorice's awesome big demon as a plain "Monster of the Cave" which would only appear once or twice (which does not mean that this scary unit would appear more anyway but I want to use it more unique)). For different types of "Monster of the Caves" I would give unique bonuses (e.g.: 10-30% fire resistance for killing a Dragon).
Bonuses for killing other players should be radically reduced (What a very simple way to get rid of spawn campers, silly me did not think of this before!)

[Neoriceisgood]

Yeah, the killing-other-player bonus is a terrible thing; as it means that being stronger than someone else is rewarded by becomming even stronger, which completely unsettles balance;

I'll make a bunch of units that can work as guardians of the cave soon; I'd like to make 6 completely unique monsters that all have completely different strenghts and weaknesses.



(One thing, I find that at a certain point you become so powerfull that from that point on it just turns into an excessively easy one-hit killing fest, I'd mostly blame this on the potions giving insane stat boosts)

[Baufo]

I'll make a bunch of units that can work as guardians of the cave soon; I'd like to make 6 completely unique monsters that all have completely different strenghts and weaknesses.

This would be GREAT

(One thing, I find that at a certain point you become so powerfull that from that point on it just turns into an excessively easy one-hit killing fest, I'd mostly blame this on the potions giving insane stat boosts)

I completely agree. This is something I forgot to mention in my previous post. I want to speed the gameplay up so you can take the treasure before you become too powerful. E.g. if there are different monsters you can pick one you can kill rather easily (instead of facing 6 monsters with equal resistances and the same ranged and melee attack). Also I want to spawn really powerful creeps later in the game. What about also making the creeps that spawn stronger each time a yeti is killed?