[font=arial]It's been a bit longer than usual, i blame me trying to keep my release deadline and hence not finding the time to write one of these sooner. In this Journal entry i want to talk about another Wicked Lair mechanic that adds some flavor to the Gameplay. Boss Encounters. What fun would building a dungeon be if there were no powerful creatures that would seek to establish their home in your domain. Not much, so Wicked Lair totally has that.[/font]
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[font=arial]While the tweaking of this is still very much a work in progress, the idea is that the deeper you build your dungeon the more likely it is that there will be a powerful creature wanting to come setup it's living room on one of your floors. For release i intend that every different dungeon theme (12 total) comes with at least one boss encounter. After that it should be easy to add in more additional bosses as DLC, which will hopefully end up in a very diverse pool of possible boss encounters for you to experience while playing the game.[/font]
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[font=arial]How mighty is it
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[font=arial]Boss units are supposed to be mighty creatures with powerful and unique abilities. They are not limited to be offensive creatures, but can be any of the previously described creature arch types. Just stronger. [/font]
[font=arial]Yet to put it in perspective i'd put their strength at about 3-4 times that of a normal creature of the same level, although all that is still being tuned at this point.
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[font=arial]Decisions
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[font=arial]When a boss creature pokes you that it wants to be part of your dungeon it does not mean you are required to accept, you may tell it to get lost. Now, "why would you ever do that?" you may ask. For strategic reasons! The floor chosen by the boss creature is random and there can only be a limited amount of boss creatures in your dungeon at any time. So if your dungeon is already 8 floors deep and some dude wants come rock it on the first level floor it may be more useful to tell him to go away and wait for the next one,[/font]
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[font=arial]Thoughts on Balance.
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[font=arial]Since boss creatures are so strong it is important to counteract that strength somewhat, right now i am doing that by limiting the total amount of bosses alive at a given time relative to how many floors there are. So for example the limit might be 1 boss per 5 floors. Which means that in a non-survival-mode game (10 floors maximum) you'd at most see 2 bosses alive at the same time. In addition to that, bosses don't respawn like other creatures, meaning that a defeated boss will be removed until it decides to establish it's lair again later on. We will see if this needs further adjusting, but during play testing so far it seems sufficient, and has the nice side effect of making boss encounters rare, as they should be.[/font]
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[font=arial]Enough talk, Showcase plx.
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[font=arial]I want to end this, as always, by showing some examples of currently implemented boss creatures.[/font]
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[font=arial]First we have "Nightblade" of the Bandit Camp (Bandits) dungeon theme. He is a rogue of the worst kind. A melee defender and his speciality (besides hitting annoyingly hard) is that he can jump to his target. This is big, if you read my post about creature types, normal defenders are stationary and can't move, meaning any ranged hero will take them out if they are not backed up by a creature with a ranged attack. Not this guy tho tho, watch him leap and make short work of the warrior.[/font]
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[font=arial]Second there is "Dreadcharger" of the Pit (Demons) dungeon theme. A Horse with a fiery mane he is of the invader creature type, meaning he runs into town and does a bunch of damage, but since he is supposed to be kinda powerful he also sets fire to any heroes he passes on the way, making them flee as they are ablaze. Also, animating horses is ha[/font]
[font=arial]rd, so take it easy on me!
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[font=arial]Finally we end with "Harrock the Greedy" of the Warclans (Orcs & Goblins theme) dungeon theme. He is of the plunderer type, meaning instead of defending he runs into town and steals some loot. Relative to normal creature plunderers he can carry about 3 times as much, has a lot more health (eg. its much harder for heroes to stop him from getting to town and back) and on top of that he cannot be stunned.[/font]
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[font=arial]Come along, Samwise.
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If you like checking WIP screenshots and videos and follow development as it happens go check out the game's twitter and facebook, as i post to those daily!
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