Dastardly Animated Strategies

[Atrash the Squidmonger]

What strategies would you like the animated in later areas to adopt, to provide more challenge and variety? What strategies would be most devastating, while not just being powerful due to brute force?

Some ideas
- Treacherous terrain. Areas where you can drop off to other areas (either to insta-daze, or to be separated from yoru crew and have to fight your way back up), areas which damage you just by being there (like Fire Bad! - perhaps ones with debuffs that attach just for being there, or even crowd control effects).
- More crowd control, definitely. It's the most effective animated strategy we've seen so far (Masks FTW).
- Knockback used to break up crews (what if a cherry fluff type of suicide bomb thing fell into the crew with damage and a large knockback, throwing the crew apart? Healing would be tricker, among other things).
- Ranged animated knowing their place, not charging melee players.
- Knockback attacks being used to keep players from getting close to these ranged animated. Perhaps knockback from very durable animated, while the ranged fighters are weaker, but more powerful hitters.
- Animated which retreat when lowered to a certain amount of health, and keep retreating (at least a screen or so). Preferably with ranged attacks for sniping at players, but perhaps just to lure players in (while denying them the kill if they chicken out - maybe healing and returning later once healed up).
- Healing.
- Scouting to avoid players. Communicating with other swarms to converge on crews (instead of just scouting in circles, basically patrolling to get killed).
- Concentrated fire. Swarm hatred (maybe for a swarmlike animated - a sort of hive mind).

[Z741]

A super defensive animated that puts its shield up and blocks a LOT of damage while in this form... but open up and it's relatively weaker.

A Prankster animated that upon impact will lock a random ring from your hands? Or maybe fiddle with hotkeys/ring placement for the duration of the "debuff"?

Oh, and can't forget about the clingy types of Animated. Attach to a player and cause DoT as long as they are attached. Solve with knockback, perhaps? burning_eyes

[Atrash the Squidmonger]

Z741

A super defensive animated that puts its shield up and blocks a LOT of damage while in this form... but open up and it's relatively weaker.

A Prankster animated that upon impact will lock a random ring from your hands? Or maybe fiddle with hotkeys/ring placement for the duration of the "debuff"?

Oh, and can't forget about the clingy types of Animated. Attach to a player and cause DoT as long as they are attached. Solve with knockback, perhaps? burning_eyes

Nice ideas!

The defensive animated makes me think of the mushroom cannons in General Mayhem's house on Hard, but it would be nicer with them just having a sort of "armor buff" of kinds, just blocking most damage, when shielded (and only shooting or so - or only doing really nasty shooting or such, when not shielded - hence a reason to uncurl - or maybe crowd control or knockback or other things could make it uncurl [maybe you could heal it, and healing it would trick it to uncurl for a bit]).

What about an animated debuff effect which randomly changed your target? Some kind of "Confusion". Would be nasty among mostly passive animated especially.

And I love the picture of a clingy animated. No doubt there could be sinister forms, but I'm imagining an animated which just wants to be your frieeeeend... and is spiky, giving DoT and an accuracy debuff while attached.

-
Another animated I'd like to see would be a dilemma between killing one animated in a group and finishing off the threat, or just disabling other ones first, to be able to concentrate more on killing the whole.

Or penguins, with bat-packs (animated something-batlike, which they tie to their backs to fly, in the heart of volcanos - kill the bats while they are flying over lava, and the penguin will fall into the lava and die. Kill the bats while they're on the ground, and they're stranded - but in both cases, it's the penguin doing the actual attacks, and the penguin is harder to kill.

[Bow down to the zombie]

How about an animated that has a fairly large amount of health and takes all damage given to other animated. then there could be a dungeon on hard where in the end a suicide drops down, five ranged come down, and one ranged boss, plus one of the damage takers.

[Thard_Verad]

I'd like to see Animated play a support role for other Animated. Not just healing, but also applying buffs, and actively trying to avoid melee combat with players. Imagine the headache a Buffer Animated would bring if it kept applying speed boosts to its "crew." Or worse, armor!

Another thing that would be neat would be some kind of composite Animated. If anyone's played Dragon Quest VIII, think of Mumboh Jumboe. Several weak critters that, if they combine, become a much greater threat. But if you can kill one before they link up, the others become easy pickings.

And how about Animated with some kind of protection against certain rings? If it has sunglasses, Solar Rays becomes useless. If it's electrified, Hack and Mantis will damage the person who attacks. The list goes on, and throwing a handful of these monsters into an Instance will make people consider other options in their build.

[Red Kutai]

Something I've wanted to see for a while is an animated (possibly a boss) who could actually remove buffs; that is, each time he attacks a character, it simply removes a random buff from them. Using RR4 Divinity is an easy choice when it's hitting a whole crew, but is it necessarily worth the Rage when it's only hitting one person? What if that person's your healer? What if that person's you? eek

I'd have to agree with you, though, that healing and Crowd Control are probably the most frustrating things an animated can do, currently. Something else I'd like to see is a rework of the Hate system, allowing for different animated "strategies"; that is, allowing animated to gain Hate from damage, healing, and buffs/debuffs at different rates. "Smart" animated would target healers or buffers first, more-or-less ignoring Hate gained from Damage, while more straightforward animated would ignore the healers and attack the fighters.

I love the idea of working terrain into the game. Low-damage, high-knockback enemies on a screen covered in "Fire bad!" spots (perhaps an instance where walking into the center surrounds the room with fire, and the enemies keep trying to knock you into it), or maps with holes in the floor (Link to the Past style) that members of your crew could fall into, and have to work their way back. Currently, Knockback isn't all that dangerous (just kind of a nuissance), but there's a lot that could be done.

Even, simply, animated with Persistent Armor (or Armor Pool; that would be particularly interesting) would prove a hassle for those using normal attack rings. Large, heavily armored enemies that show up alone or in very small groups would be ideal, since most DoT rings (which ignore Armor) also feature AoE.

Also, more communication between groups of animated would be fun. I remember the danger of old Bass'ken Lake, where attacking any Outlaw Pup sent it running for She-Wolf. gonk Animated that were able to "call" for friends (without having to run and get them) to come from other areas of the map. Also possible: animated "ambushes", where attacking one animated spawns a number of others from the surrounding area. Ideally, these would be the kind of animated players prefer to fight one-on-one...

[Red Kutai]

Thard_Verad

I'd like to see Animated play a support role for other Animated. Not just healing, but also applying buffs, and actively trying to avoid melee combat with players. Imagine the headache a Buffer Animated would bring if it kept applying speed boosts to its "crew." Or worse, armor!

Another thing that would be neat would be some kind of composite Animated. If anyone's played Dragon Quest VIII, think of Mumboh Jumboe. Several weak critters that, if they combine, become a much greater threat. But if you can kill one before they link up, the others become easy pickings.

And how about Animated with some kind of protection against certain rings? If it has sunglasses, Solar Rays becomes useless. If it's electrified, Hack and Mantis will damage the person who attacks. The list goes on, and throwing a handful of these monsters into an Instance will make people consider other options in their build.

I don't know about punishing particular rings, but punishing styles (like melee, ranged, or support) would be good. It doesn't particularly add to the game when players have to take Hunter's Bow instead of Solar Rays, but making the choice between using Ranged rings with penalties or foregoing range altogether can be interesting... 3nodding

[Atrash the Squidmonger]

Thard_Verad

I'd like to see Animated play a support role for other Animated. Not just healing, but also applying buffs, and actively trying to avoid melee combat with players. Imagine the headache a Buffer Animated would bring if it kept applying speed boosts to its "crew." Or worse, armor!

Buffers would be an interesting ad (actually, animated and buffs in general). Maybe an animated which needs close range to apply buffs (which more 30 second or so ones, not 15 minute ones), and so is always darting in and out of combat zones to buff up the fighters (maybe heal too). You'd even have to check what buffs some of them made (to target the ones with things like armor buffs - willpower buffers would be lesser targets for battles low on crowd control, though). Some you could perhaps kill before they even started buffing.

[Thard_Verad]

Red Kutai

Thard_Verad

I'd like to see Animated play a support role for other Animated. Not just healing, but also applying buffs, and actively trying to avoid melee combat with players. Imagine the headache a Buffer Animated would bring if it kept applying speed boosts to its "crew." Or worse, armor!

Another thing that would be neat would be some kind of composite Animated. If anyone's played Dragon Quest VIII, think of Mumboh Jumboe. Several weak critters that, if they combine, become a much greater threat. But if you can kill one before they link up, the others become easy pickings.

And how about Animated with some kind of protection against certain rings? If it has sunglasses, Solar Rays becomes useless. If it's electrified, Hack and Mantis will damage the person who attacks. The list goes on, and throwing a handful of these monsters into an Instance will make people consider other options in their build.

I don't know about punishing particular rings, but punishing styles (like melee, ranged, or support) would be good. It doesn't particularly add to the game when players have to take Hunter's Bow instead of Solar Rays, but making the choice between using Ranged rings with penalties or foregoing range altogether can be interesting... 3nodding

Hm, I suppose. I was thinking more of a small handfull of these specialized monsters which resist one or two of the common rings. You can still bring them to deal with the other enemies in the instance, but you might want someone with Bump so they don't get electrocuted by the one protected pest. Same with the sunglasses monster; if you have someone with a different ranged ring, let them deal with it while you Solar the other targets.

[Redforest]

Lemme see, I dare say, I would love to have an enemy who would fake it's death. Shoot out a little gold or such to fool the player, then it becomes intangible or causes the player to deselect it and then it waits for a few seconds and then attacks again. Zomb'eh... rar.

it would be soo funny in a swarm,
"So, you killed them all, right?"
"yeah, i dropped them to the ground."
"did you get the head?"
"the wha'?"
"their heads!"
"I think so... "
"Ahh! Zomb'ehs!"

[Thard_Verad]

Redforest

Lemme see, I dare say, I would love to have an enemy who would fake it's death. Shoot out a little gold or such to fool the player, then it becomes intangible or causes the player to deselect it and then it waits for a few seconds and then attacks again. Zomb'eh... rar.

it would be soo funny in a swarm,
"So, you killed them all, right?"
"yeah, i dropped them to the ground."
"did you get the head?"
"the wha'?"
"their heads!"
"I think so... "
"Ahh! Zomb'ehs!"

It's the Rag Rappy of zOMG!

[Atrash the Squidmonger]

Red Kutai

Something I've wanted to see for a while is an animated (possibly a boss) who could actually remove buffs; that is, each time he attacks a character, it simply removes a random buff from them. Using RR4 Divinity is an easy choice when it's hitting a whole crew, but is it necessarily worth the Rage when it's only hitting one person? What if that person's your healer? What if that person's you? eek

I'm not sure if "each time he attacks" would be the right amount - seems a bit drastic (really tearing down buffs, perhaps faster than they could even be applied, much less applied when considering stamina and rage), but the concept is good. Perhaps some animated would have particular buffs they removed (based on thematic things) - making it so, unless you had good fighting technique when they attacked - you'd lose the whole advantage of being able to prepare beforehand.

Quote:

I'd have to agree with you, though, that healing and Crowd Control are probably the most frustrating things an animated can do, currently. Something else I'd like to see is a rework of the Hate system, allowing for different animated "strategies"; that is, allowing animated to gain Hate from damage, healing, and buffs/debuffs at different rates. "Smart" animated would target healers or buffers first, more-or-less ignoring Hate gained from Damage, while more straightforward animated would ignore the healers and attack the fighters.

Yeah, it would make sense for animated to have different ways of calculating their hate. Dumb animated would just be "ow, that hurts - and hit the most damage to them". Smarter ones could perhaps look at how much damage a player was doing overall, along with healing and buffing. Some animated would go crazy over Quicksand, but others wouldn't care. Some would just get a ton of rage over people using AoE attacks (adding an interesting new point in that strategy).

Quote:

I love the idea of working terrain into the game. Low-damage, high-knockback enemies on a screen covered in "Fire bad!" spots (perhaps an instance where walking into the center surrounds the room with fire, and the enemies keep trying to knock you into it), or maps with holes in the floor (Link to the Past style) that members of your crew could fall into, and have to work their way back. Currently, Knockback isn't all that dangerous (just kind of a nuissance), but there's a lot that could be done.

Even without knockback, there's a lot of things that could be done with terrain ones. Purposefully aggroing and keeping alive animated which just mostly give a Root effect, for avoiding knockback into danger - "rolling" danger that would have to be actively avoided. Perhaps rooting or sleeping a player while there's a rising danger (like lava flowing into the room), keeping them from escaping, retreating over a patch of Fire Bad style spots (but melee people could technically cross in to do more damage, and auto-move-to-target would pull them in to it)...

Quote:

Even, simply, animated with Persistent Armor (or Armor Pool; that would be particularly interesting) would prove a hassle for those using normal attack rings. Large, heavily armored enemies that show up alone or in very small groups would be ideal, since most DoT rings (which ignore Armor) also feature AoE.

And with a very flashy animation for when they buff themselves with armor (which don't last as long as crew ones, so they just buff when attacked, for battle - maybe even long battles mean they have to rebuff), for psychological warfare (can you imaging a Mask slowly charging down a hallway at you... and then suddenly it buffs itself with something like Rock Armor, in a very visible way with a loud solid ringing sound?).

Quote:

Also, more communication between groups of animated would be fun. I remember the danger of old Bass'ken Lake, where attacking any Outlaw Pup sent it running for She-Wolf. gonk Animated that were able to "call" for friends (without having to run and get them) to come from other areas of the map. Also possible: animated "ambushes", where attacking one animated spawns a number of others from the surrounding area. Ideally, these would be the kind of animated players prefer to fight one-on-one...

Or animated which avoid the players (perhaps they also can see the little points on the side of the map, warning them of our presence razz ) as they explore around the place, until converging from all sides? Or animated which retreat screen by screen as the players chase after them, slowly drawing them into greater concentrations of animated (maybe while annoyingly sniping at the players)? Maybe even animated that do that, only to unleash things like the Gauntlet Vases - where retreat is necessary, and the animated have moved around the players to make it difficult.

Or maybe where you have to find animated, which (as long as its scouts are giving it intel, perhaps), hide from the players, always trying to move around them (so previously cleared screens could be where the animated flees to). Now, the crews could spread out to cover choke points and make it hard for the animated to avoid them, but then they risk getting divided and beaten up separately (or maybe it could be something map wide, with everyone participating - more people makes it somewhat easier, but it could be done with fewer).

[Atrash the Squidmonger]

Redforest

Lemme see, I dare say, I would love to have an enemy who would fake it's death. Shoot out a little gold or such to fool the player, then it becomes intangible or causes the player to deselect it and then it waits for a few seconds and then attacks again. Zomb'eh... rar.

it would be soo funny in a swarm,
"So, you killed them all, right?"
"yeah, i dropped them to the ground."
"did you get the head?"
"the wha'?"
"their heads!"
"I think so... "
"Ahh! Zomb'ehs!"

Interesting. It'd probably need some other tactic too, to benefit from its faked death (because if it just attacked again, it would just be as if it hadn't "died" before, for the most part - there's few penalties for being "surprised" wink . Something like guarding something like a switch (so people would be left alone...), or near passive animated (so it springs up once you've started bringing in more enemies to help it), or where your location on screen is important...

[Thard_Verad]

Ooh, "Bait" Animated, that'd be fun! A single critter that tries to draw you into a much larger ambush.

With the subject of armor for the Animated, I'd like to see the effect have a fairly strong damage reduction percent, but with a relatively low armor pool size. Something along the lines of 75% reduction with 50-100 x CL durability (And that 30s duration as well)

[Z741]

Anger management animated. Left alone it's as harmless as any other fluff [well most of them anyway] but land a hit on it and see it go after you with a fukken VENGANCE. And strength to back that up, too xd

Though to differentiate between this and other animated, aggro locks on to the person who landed the first hit, I'd think....