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I'm sure many of you have found out by now, but the Grue lives in Deadman's Shadow. It lurks in the darkness and strikes without warning. It can daze an entire crew in an instant and leave before anyone sees anything. Your only hope - aside from praying it doesn't find you?

Solar Rays.

That's right, any crew member who brings Solar Rays will be safe from the random insta-daze. Too bad about the rest of them though.

But why, you ask, am I bringing this up here, of all places? Because from a technical standpoint, this opens up a world of possibilities! What we have here is an event subroutine that checks a player's equipped rings and doles out the results based on whether Solar is worn or not. This means that other things can also make ring-based checks. An archery challenge that requires Hunter's Bow. A treasure chest that must be Bumped. There are plenty of ways to use this new feature.

*grumble, grumble*

That new trick of yours is near-unreadable :U

Legend of Zelda, some point a Goriya blocking the way says "grumble, grumble" and you're supposed to figure out he wants to eat, thus you need to feed him monster bait. Here: Meat.

Maybe an Anti Guy: really tough dude guarding a chess in Paper Mario. You can skip the fight by giving him Lemon Candy.

Point: silly stuff. There are more serious applications but that can wait emotion_awesome

That's why we shouldn't design these as "all or nothing" situations.
The grue is one of such. If it hits the crew, you die. and to revive will probably mean failing at it due to lack of buffs. Not a very good idea.

But what if, instead, rather than punish the player with such force for not bringing the arbitrarily chosen ring, specific rings would reward them, but not being absolutely necessary?
Or at least no punish them as hard.

Let us say, having a certain ring let's you go down a longer path that has a chest as opposed to none. A good idea would be to avoid having to tell the WHOLE crew to have the ring as well.
Alternatively, a spiked path will do low damage to your crew by just walking trough a section. If someone has gumshoe, they can put gum on sections of the spikes and bridge the players (don't ask how the hell that works, same as with hot foot)
One ring slot is a minor issue. 6, not quite so.

Also, while it'd be nice being a super efficient crew, adding randomness could work here. Let us say one of these optional gates will require an attack ring at complete random from the available. If you really want the gate, you'll want a crew with as diverse rings as possible. How to achieve it? Tell everyone to grab their favorites and then switch around those who don't mind not bringing duplicates. Still restrictive, but somehow, a bit less than current practice (Just you TRY bringing AoE to DMS, even if you like/want it.)

I like the Grue.

Granted, I've never been faced with him/it, so I don't have that deep set hatred yet... Aha. sweatdrop

I just like spontaneity in zOMG. I've always felt that it was something the game lacked. (Discussing spontaneity with Red was actually what landed me an invite to the guild from Quint. I'm a firm believer that these games shouldn't be so... scripted.) For me, the Grue provides it. I like the prospect that something can just shoot up and kill me out of no where and I'll have no say in it (because, let's face it, I'm not changing my rings just because of this one creature).

Being more of a soloist, I avoid crews. When I am in a crew trying to farm DMS, I really need something to just keep my mind off of the dull, repetitive nature of it all. Even different crews tend to take the same path through areas. The Grue just adds pizazz. It's the wrench in the well-oiled machine. I like wrenches.

Creatures like the Grue would only become an issue for me if:
>zOMG made the Grue appear semi-regularly. That's a no-no for me. I don't want to feel like my rings are forced upon me. I like freedom. I like rare instances.
>zOMG made other monsters that, for a lack of a better word, require a certain ring to survive IN THAT AREA. Overkill. Having other beings that dictate my rings would just make me frustrated. It would turn into, "Who has solar? Good. Okay Kally, you take Water Balloon." NO. I don't want my attack rings scrutinized/checked off like buffs! No, no, no, no. However, I'm not sure whether or not I would be fine with something like that in another area. More than one in an area = BAD IDEA. One in each area = Wary of the idea.
>zOMG hated my soul and placed me in 50,000 bad crews and they all forced Solar Rays upon me. I have nothing against Solar Rays. I just have my preferred set of rings (for attacking). I'm not a huge fan of change when the only reason behind it is a rare spawn. -.-"

Edit: Ooo.
What if there was a creature, I'll just call it Creature2, that just appeared ANYWHERE on the map (that means any area, any zone, map, whatever they are) and would kill people like the Grue. So, let's say that Creature2 appeared in a square in Zen. He'd just run around a few boxes and daze people without Fitness. Then he'd vanish. Another time, he might do the same thing to the people in Bill's Ranch or Otami. No Fitness ring? You're at Creature2's mercy... and Creature2 has none.

Oh. And Creature2 is unable to be killed, of course. You might be able to hit him, but his CL should 50.0 or something so, regardless of CL, it's an instant death and even if a "Kill Creature2" crew were to form, he'd vanish too quickly for any significant damage to be done.

He'd be like the little zOMG gremlin! Granted, if something like that were to occur, there could be absolutely no more Grue-like creatures to ever be created. Too many random insta-dazers is... blech.

My thought process to get to Creature2:
-Grue2
-No, that might make people think I wanted another Grue.
-What can I call it?
-Creature.

I just never removed the two.
Deathwing = 50x better.

Hm... it'd take a lot more coding (and risk breaking what already works), but what if the Grue really were an actual monster? If the screen in DMS suddenly goes dark, it means the Grue is on the prowl. Anyone with Solar Rays will still have a small radius of light around themselves. The Grue itself would be some ridiculously high CL monster, unlikely to be killed. If players can avoid it for x amount of time (or fend it off with Solar Rays attacks), the Grue will leave and the lights return.

We already know the ambient lighting can change dynamically (day/night cycle), and the Grue doesn't need a sprite, he'll just stay away from anyone with Solar Rays. In fact, even a single player could cover the entire crew. If the Grue appears, the others will have to hurry into the spot of light produced by their Solar bearer.

Well then, shall we propose this to the devs and/or the community at large?