An Idea for Pickups - more use for usables.
Fri, 09/13/2013 - 17:57
SK idea – Summon the Deities
Brief summary: this will utilize the arcade. Deities will be able to be summoned in special spawning areas, a scenario-type room most commonly found in the clockwork tunnels, using materials made with…vials. Yes.
I’ve noticed that most pickups (vials, in this case) are used less and less by players – they prefer to keep them in the usable slots, in order to obtain better elevator prizes. (Vs. smashing them in the faces of our enemies). I do this myself as well. But here’s an idea that will make vials more USABLE than mere usable pickups.
Going into mechanics now, with a bit of story flare and an overload of opinion.
Power flows through the clockworks. It keeps this great mess of a machine turning through space and time. But it’s not just any kind of power. And it’s not just one kind of power either…
Gods. They stir in the deeps, their presence only known from legends and distant rumblings. The great Vog, an entity of flames, is the most famous of these deities. But there is a god for every status. Every vial contains their power, their ichor captured in diluted form. These deities will resonate with their own power signatures, and send minor shadows of themselves into the glory of combat, if a knight has the mind and the method for it.
Part 1 – Preparing the Offering
As a knight explores the clockworks, they tend to pick up a lot of shiny things. Some of these things are used in crafting, making the knight pretty, or in combat. Many knights prefer the use of their crafted weapons, rarely smashing vials in a useful manner, once they have their 5* loadouts established. They stay in the usable belts of knights, carried through the levels, and are discarded in favor of pills, or for the aesthetic show at elevators. It’s time that their power is recognized for what it could be.
At Clockwork Terminals, there would be new special potion-pot stations that a knight can put their vials in, that they’ve carried, if they have, through previous arcade levels. The pot/cauldron contains its own recipes, so no need to worry about clogging your knight’s memory cells.
Lower tier terminal will of course lack recipes that use higher tier vials that cannot be carried.
Recipes:
3 of vial type X will create an Y Orb of X Ichor. Y = star, X = status.
0*: Orb of X Ichor. 2*: Super Orb of X Ichor. 4*: Ultra Orb of X Ichor.
You must use the same kind of vial – so three t1 freeze vials, three T3 curse vials. No mixing of statuses or tiers will be acceptable, because the cauldron would explode. Picture the knight pouring the contents of the vials into the cauldron, and then dropping the empty containers into the center. These empty containers will melt into a spherical shape, and the vial contents will flow into the hollow orb formed by the empty, melted containers, using the magic of the cauldron and the desire of the knight, forming a potent, concentrated Orb of Ichor. This will land in the knight’s materials inventory.
Part 2- Offering the Offering.
The room will be obvious…a craggy, crumbling scenario, rumbling and humming with lines of power, that may or may not be organic. In the center of this large, danger-room type area, there is a very big orb of clear mineral-like material (roughly the size of Vanaduke’s angry balls of doom). This strange effigy appears to be roundish, with a gap in the top…
Perhaps…the Orb of Ichor should go there…it seems to want to!!
Interacting with the orb will prompt a menu to appear, if the knight has at least one kind of Orb of Ichor on them. If a knight has no Orb of Ichor, then the effigy will not interact – the knight can poke it all they want (making that boop boop gesture over and over, like you see in Pinch of Salt, for example). The menu will allow a knight to choose what orb to drop into the effigy. Any orb of any tier in the clockworks will take ONE Orb of Ichor of any type of any tier. So you can hoard Ultra Orbs of X Ichor and use them in D10 if you happen to encounter that situation.
Part 3 – Fighting the Deity
Once the Orb is offered to the Orb, it will shudder, slowly filling with the color relevant to the status used, swirling forth from the center of the ball. Eyes, angry eyes, will appear on it, and it will levitate off the ground. As it rises, it will shout “I AM A SUMMONED SHADOW OF THE GREAT AND ALMIGHTY [god’s name]. DEFEAT ME TO PROVE YOUR WORTH!” As soon as the orb is done shouting its speech, the party can fight it.
It behaves just like Vanaduke’s mask – floating around and shooting out status projectiles. And it has a very angry face, again, just like Vanaduke’s balls of doom. Hmmm…maybe those balls of doom would now be considered echoes of Vog? Fun thoughts. It will follow a knight once aggro is established, so you can lead it all over the map if you want.
An issue here is that summoning the Curse Deity will allow curse to appear in lower tiers. Perhaps the Ultra Orbs of Curse Ichor should be restricted, along with other special statuses, to T3 Effigy Scenarios.
Upon defeat, the orb could drop an item relevant to its status. (A T3 entity could always drop the 5* related material). All entities could drop a batch of forge crystals relevant to the tier, maybe 10 of them. For depths that can have two kinds of crystal drop, 5 of each. There could also be a low chance of the power condensing into an orb of alchemy, relevant to the depth the entity was summoned in. A good batch of prize for effort and the luck of finding an Effigy Scenario.
More Thoughts:
Sure, using vials has merits. In battle, you can’t inflict all that many statuses, depending on your chosen weapons and battle sprite, of course. They can help in a pinch. This is simply another optional use for the vials. And yes, you can go over to the vendors in the towns and buy pickups, but the scenario rooms containing the Effigies would be very rare. So it should be pretty balanced between effort, economy, and function. Since you can only use one orb of a kind per effigy, overstocking yourself with them would not be an unbalancing factor.
EDIT: please discuss potential god names for the other statuses, and potential Stun material prizes if you like the idea. Also be nice.
Fri, 09/13/2013 - 18:33
#2
@Little-Juances
Sure, a more complex crafting tree for the Orb of Ichor would be cool. Though it would need to sound more magical than fragment in my mind, perhaps a sort of...physical whisper of the deity. Call it a Fire Whisper (Super Fire Whisper, Ultra Fire Whisper), Stun Whisper, etc. Of which you would need 3 to make the relevant Orb of Ichor, as you suggested. That would certainly balance it out more, if the prizes are super duper.
Oh that's a good point - team play for this could be problematic. Players would just have to agree on what to use (like omg, we all want a plague essence!) -could be similar to the Margrel fight. One guy uses the summoning thing, and the guy that used the summoning thing would get a special thing+common things, and the others would get just the common things. Special thing - orb of alchemy. One. Standard things - forge crystals and relevant material.
Fri, 09/13/2013 - 18:56
#3
When I first starting
When I first starting reading, and saw you say summoning deities, this is what came to mind -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvTiku_vzaY
Some sort of rare super usable item that triggers a cutscene, then does some really cool thing. Mega-damage, some sort of awesome effect like a protective bubble around your entire squad or putting every enemy within a couple screens to sleep, etc.
Just something of super fun awesome thing to spice up your runs.
Fri, 09/13/2013 - 19:12
#4
@ Khamsin
Hmm. Well, they are Deities, and as we all know, they're fickle things. The team could choose an option: fight or be "blessed" (with, as you say, a team buff)...Or, the offering could randomly be pleasing or displeasing (resulting in a buff or a fight, respectively). If this were to be the case, effigy scenario rooms would have to only spawn earlier in a level (before the first party button) in order for a potential buff to be fully utilized. This would also allow knights to know whether or not an effigy scenario is in the level, sooner. Make the buffs specific to a deity, fire would obviously grant some attack power, shock additional movement speed... lots of options.
Great thought, Khamsin.
Fri, 09/13/2013 - 20:02
#5
Ok, let's move onto names. My plan is to take the opportunity to link random pieces of lore.
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Crest_of_Ur -> not much is said as to what 'Ur' means. Could become our new curse god.
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Armor_of_the_Fallen -> "The Fallen" is also a standard name for an evil god
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Skolver_Cap -> vog's frozen relative?
Fri, 09/13/2013 - 20:52
#6
Names
Names are so important. SK does a very good job diction dancing. It would be fun to come up with names that keep Vog's pattern, 3 letters, related to something irl as well as sk...
Been talking with a few friends, so far we've come up with:
Keeping them 3 letters, so that they have a sort of divine family with Vog...squabling siblings. Gods often have more spheres of influence that are obvious, so I worked with a few people to come up with names. It was fun.
------
Curse- Rue. Curses are often given with regret. Some Faust users certainly feel this way. And regret lasts a long time, as does the curse status in SK. Also, most things that give curse are undead and undead are always only still around cause of unfinished biz, something they regret.
Alternative: Urs. Ur is, as LJ said, lacking in context.
Fire- Vog. Vog is volcanic smog, and an already established sk deity.
Freeze- Eon. Ice, preserving, preventing movement, sometimes forever, if a knight finds themselves in a bad situation with evil wisps. Frozen in time, as they say. An Age of Ice.
Alternative: Flo. Like a glacier, or ice flow.
Poison- Wry. Poison in SK is very mocking - preventing health restoring, and using menders' abilities against the enemy. Most poisonous things make a person's expression "wry" irl. Many poisons are not deadly - just debilitating, annoying. The few that are deadly twist the face into something else...
Alternative: Ick. "a sticky or congealed substance, typically regarded with disgust."
Shock- Arc. "a luminous electrical discharge between two electrodes or other points." Lightning is often described in literature to "arc" from target to target. In sk, a shock stutter will certainly bother your party mates if they are near enough to you. Arc, like vog, is a more physical name.
Sleep- Ink. Inspired largely by the film "Ink". When one sleeps, it is often night, which is dark like many types of ink. In sk, sleep is a mysterious status, causing immobility...something ink can easily associate with, because of its staining behavior. Ink is also used to write stories, which are often told at bed time. While "ink" doesn't sound soft like sleep, not all sleep is soft. Some sleep is nightmarish, and obtained on rough terrain due to exhaustion.
Stun- Gem. Gems are shiny, like stars. And hard like stones, which you can throw at peoples' heads to stun them.
Alternative: Ram. Bit of a more physical, obvious thing. Rams would certainly stun anyone in the way, and give the Deity a more...solid form to take.
Sat, 09/14/2013 - 10:32
#7
A few things:
1: God summoning is way overused, and just doesn't fit with the Spiral Knights feel. Instead, have it be some sort of robot or golem that is constructed or summoned.
2: Have the boss battle be more interesting, such as fighting the robot/golem thing itself. That way, you have the potential for 7 new randomly spawning bosses.
3: Have the summon thing only appear in T3.
4: To summon the Ice robot/golem you have to be in an freeze stratum, poison stratum for poison, etc.
5: Summon room should not always be crumbling and ancient. I want to be able to fight a giant shock robot in a tron-themed room.
Otherwise, great suggestion. Seems like it'd be a lot of fun.
Sat, 09/14/2013 - 20:16
#8
I like the idea.
My random, rambling thoughts:
Not sure about it needing to sound magical.
If only the summoner gets something, some people would rush to get there first to dump in what they want. Better let everyone dump in what they like, and if it's different statuses, you get a hideous chimera type of deity spirit, dealing all used statuese. Now that we have instanced loot, every player could then get their respective reward, if it's tied to the status.
A few Fire Crystals sounds good as reward. Or maybe a new kind of token.
Making the scenario room ultra rare might invalidate the point of making it in the first place. You might just end up with a pile of Ichor Orbs and nothing to do with them, could be frustrating.
A (preferably replayable) Prestige Mission with just that boss, map size of the cake invasion, could be fun. Not an event, but to stay.
For the tokens you could get Forge Boxes, or wait! Fire status orbs would get you Fire Crystals or tokens with which you can buy Forge Boxes (100 tokens sounds fair?).
{Snipping some extra rambling thoughts that led to...}
Cursed Ichor Orb - Boss drops Sealed Doom Tokens - 1000 for a Nemesis Price Box or a Book of Dark Rituals (for the unlucky folks).
Fire Ichor Orb - Boss drops Heat Ember Tokens - 100 for a Shining Forge Prize Box.
Freeze Ichor Orb - Boss drops Winter Wish Tokens - 100 for a Frosty Prize Box / 500 for a Winterfest Prize Box.
Poison Ichor Orb - Boss drops Natural Hazard Tokens - 500 for a Hunter Prize Box.
Shock Ichor Orb - Boss drops Static Charge Tokens - 500 for a Surge Price Box / 1000 for a Stormy Price Box.
Sleep Ichor Orb - Boss drops Sleeping Pill Tokens - 50 (+50 Knock Out) for a new Box with yellow+blue reskinned costumes and accessories. {*}
Stun Ichor Orb - Boss drops Knock Out Tokens - 50 (+50 Sleeping Pills) for a new Box with yellow+blue reskinned costumes and accessories. {*}
And as sleep is not an enemy-given status right now, we also have a no-status, normal, boss type.
Coming up with the names, I now also want them to produce confetti style effects, hm. ;P
Anyone preparing to yell: "But that'd devalue that stuff!" I seriously doubt anything in the game is there to make players rich.
{*} If they're gonna wake Tortodrone, make it in its honour.
Additional wishful thinking: add yellow+blue Dragon and Valkyrie Wings to make these extra special. Of course, then the price would be 500 Tokens each of both kinds.
I like the random buff or fight idea. Don't know how that'd fit into the Prestige Mission I had in mind.
You could have the special scenario at the start of the Danger Missions.
If you don't want people to replay this as often as they like, put it at the 2nd level, 25% chance.
Otherwise, right after Arsenal of the first level, would replace the Cake-size Prestige Mission I mentioned, and replaying just that bit until you're tired of it would just give you that boss' tokens.
It should be harder. Of course there's a technical problem, your belt only holds 3 of each vial at a time.
So... do this: 3 vials--> one orb fragment. X orb fragments -> the final orb of summon thing.
Alternatively, make the offering require multiple orbs. This would also force parties to cooperate instead of having one guy use all his orbs alone.