new unique idea - Horda the Quokka


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Post Sunday, 14th June 2015, 02:44

new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

A very fast quokka with high evasion that occasionally generates in the early dungeon, and unlike most uniques, it is of animal intelligence and does not speak. It has a special vault: an empty tile surrounded by 7 trees, with a bread ration in the middle. Instead of chasing the player like any other monster, it will patrol its vault like a Pan Lord patrols its rune. However, if you take the ration, it will hunt you, and if you manage to shake it off and leave the level, it will find you there. The only way to stop it from generating on your level is to kill it. The point of the unique is to foreshadow unique Pan Lord behavior, which seems to come out of nowhere right now, and maybe Boris too.

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Post Sunday, 14th June 2015, 04:47

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

Lost me at "does not speak."
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Post Sunday, 14th June 2015, 04:57

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

It can still have unique silly messages: "Horda's teeth start clattering like dice in a cup!"

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Post Sunday, 14th June 2015, 05:26

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

If it doesn't speak, who named it Horda?
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Post Sunday, 14th June 2015, 05:49

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

I'm fairly certain you don't need to speak to have a name. But, that is good for flavor text, Berder. Nice.

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Post Sunday, 14th June 2015, 07:49

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

High speed / evasion on a monster that can chase you to other floors seems like overkill... and also makes it unlikely that the player would get an opportunity to escape to another floor to see the creature do so.

I think the idea of a unique that pursues you across levels until killed isn't without merit, but it seems punishing for the early game. For the unique appearing across multiple floors to be dangerous, the unique would have to be particularly dangerous at shallow depths it could spawn, and early characters have far less options to handle that.

The same concept I think would maybe be better applied for a late game unique. Perhaps a monster imprisoned by indestructible translucent walls, in a vault with some item of value. Perhaps the vault might clearly mark that the item is cursed and will release the unique? Wouldn't want this to be a death by not knowing spoilers.

That would also solve any issues of making the monster patrol / not pursue the player, completely different behavior than every other monster.

Some sort of champion of Ashenzari would work well for that.

I like the idea of a silly quokka unique as well, but in a vacuum, not this specific implementation.
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Post Sunday, 14th June 2015, 08:37

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

We already have Ashenzarianesque monsters. Some smiters are found in a metal cage, which you may disintegrate if you like, and free the hostile smiter.

Aethrus wrote:That would also solve any issues of making the monster patrol / not pursue the player, completely different behavior than every other monster.

Hellooo, Pan Lords do this, and for them, it is completely different behavior than every other monster. That's the issue Horda addresses.

Hm, high speed might be a bad idea. High evasion (or HP) is necessary though, because otherwise any player would quickly kill it like any quokka. The quokka could go berserk when you take the ration - that way most players will get a chance to escape it, when it becomes slowed. Like Dowan/Duvessa but earlier. It wouldn't be overkill, though, because quokkas hit weak and don't pose a threat unless you let them hit you forever.

Another implementation might be to have the quokka blink, and be fast, and throw stones at you.

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Post Sunday, 14th June 2015, 10:11

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

Pan lords spawn on further pan levels if you ninja their rune, yes. They attack like any other monster though. They don't patrol passively, they see you, they chase you down regardless of whether you go for the rune.

Dowan / Duvessa have situational berserk for instance, but as far as I'm aware no monster in the game strays from the decision making path of (attack player / move towards player / cast spell - pick one) that this creature you described would completely deviate from.

EDIT: thinking about it further, if Horda is remotely threatening there is no reason anyone would ever fight him, because food is so plentiful that it's almost never going to be a situation where a bread ration would be worth the risk of losing to him. The only players who would encounter him would be new players who don't understand the unique. In which case the lesson isn't 'hey, some monsters reappear later if you don't kill them' but 'hey, this game killed me for not knowing how this one specific monster works, screw this'

I don't dislike the idea of a unique that chases you on principle, but this specific idea has a lot of problems that would need to be addressed

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Post Sunday, 14th June 2015, 15:45

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

Aethrus wrote:EDIT: thinking about it further, if Horda is remotely threatening there is no reason anyone would ever fight him, because food is so plentiful that it's almost never going to be a situation where a bread ration would be worth the risk of losing to him. The only players who would encounter him would be new players who don't understand the unique. In which case the lesson isn't 'hey, some monsters reappear later if you don't kill them' but 'hey, this game killed me for not knowing how this one specific monster works, screw this'


But most early uniques already follow the same pattern. And as for the spoilery vault that kills you - well I'm just going to point at Crazy Yiuf. If it's early enough and escapeable with some consumable usage, I don't see the problem.

... I still don't like the idea of a unqiue quokka though >_>
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Post Monday, 15th June 2015, 06:18

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

If the goal is to foreshadow Pan Lord behaviour, perhaps foreshadow it closer to Pan than D:2!

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Post Monday, 15th June 2015, 06:50

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

Pan lords respawn on Pan levels, never on other levels until the orb run. This is significant because the temporary nature of Pan levels in general makes them 100% ignorable and I've never had the sense that they're in hot pursuit, just "oh hey, good to see ya, bye". It's really not anything I can see needing extra education about.
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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 15th June 2015, 14:24

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

I feel like there's a joke or reference I'm not getting here? Like, a play on "hoarder" or something?

Anyhow, I'm also of the mind that I would never fight this unique unless it was absolute tab-fodder, because why do I want another bread ration? Generally, the only items in Crawl that are actually worth chancing death for are runes and the orb

Also neither Pan lords (may reappear on the orb run) nor Boris (respawns only if killed) work this way, so it's not really introducing an existing mechanic so much as adding a new one.

A unique who does "chase" you around until killed might be interesting, though -- say, one who may appear in unexplored terrain on a new level if not killed.
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Post Monday, 15th June 2015, 20:12

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

It's a quokka. How hard can it be that anyone would get to sample the behavior before just killing the damn thing? That evasion better be very high.
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Post Tuesday, 16th June 2015, 16:07

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

A quokka with rakshasha-style cloning would hit the design goals in this thread: 1) it previews a later monster ability 2) it is quirky 3) it wouldn't be overkill on D:2 because they're still just quokkas. Though if the clones could clone, that could get really interesting really quickly.
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Post Friday, 19th June 2015, 02:25

Re: new unique idea - Horda the Quokka

I think the name is a reference to how these guys talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyGxZrhcgKg
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