This was in another thread somewhere but it seems to be missing from the index and my bookmarks. I probably have it listed under the wrong section or with an irrelevant link name, but if neither are the case I would appreciate if someone had the link for it or to clarify that it exists somewhere and I simply forgot about it.

The original idea was to have a gun which fires a single projectile akin to the original shard bomb mechanic; long range, fast, but not particularly powerful. It also inflicts a random status (among fire, shock, freeze, stun, and poison; no curse). I remember the original poster rejecting the idea of having weak damage from the bullets to balance its long range, so this is not a complete ripoff of the original.

The gun itself would be a bulky flare gun, with a chamber wide enough to house the pellet/shard. The firing mechanic is essentially the same as Valiance line with one major difference: firing is delayed briefly before the bullet is fired similar to the delay Antiguas have before firing. That delay allows dodging enemies such as Devilites and Wolvers to dodge, and lack thereof is part of what makes Valiance a great sidearm. Unlike Blaster line, the flare gun only has a two shot clip and allows strafing. The bullet itself travels ten spaces before dissipating at significant speed (Valiance and the old shard bomb projectiles have relatively similar speeds) but has a low damage rate which will be addressed shortly.

To stay consistent with the original thread, wherever it may be, each basic bullet inflicts a random status (among fire, shock, freeze, stun, and poison). The firing chamber on the flare glows to indicate the status inflicted by the next bullet you fire (orange for fire, light green for shock, blue for freeze, yellow for stun, dark green for poison). Each status has a 3/3 rate of affliction (moderate chance of moderate). The chamber color changes one second following the reload animation, meaning if you hold to charge after firing the color will stay; using the charge attack locks the flare gun to that color/status for ten seconds (very short charge time; ~2 seconds base). The charge attack does not damage in any way. The charge attack does not repel nearby enemies, create a status cloud, or juggle flaming chainsaws; it only locks the basic bullets to a certain status for ten seconds. The status inflicted does not have its duration or probability to inflict increased. It already has sniping and statuses, what more do you want?

Now we need some damage for this sucker. First of all, what damage type does it have? Is it pure normal like Valiance line? Obviously no pierce, that would be silly. Shadow feels unfitting for this kind of gun. What about element or normal, seeing as those are our only remaining options? We already have a lot of element guns and with normal its damage would have to be cut down a little. Alright, stick with normal; this gun practically has no charge attack to kill with, throw it a bone. How much normal damage should it have? It only has a two shot clip, though its statuses and normal damage means it has to have pretty low overall damage in spite of its reliance on basic attacks to prevent abuse. Since it branches from the 3* Blaster, we may as well compare it to Valiance line:

{D29, H1, neutral target, no damage buffs}

Valiance (5*)
• 108 per basic bullet
• Three shot clip
• Eight space bullet path distance
• No delay between attacking and firing
• Basic bullets interrupt and push back slightly
• Charge bullet fires large projectile which blasts enemies away
• Pure normal damage

Flare (5*)
• X per basic bullet
• Two shot clip
• Twelve space bullet path distance
• Delay between attacking and firing
• May inflict one of various basic statuses at a 3/3 (moderate chance of moderate) rate
• Charge attack does not damage
• Pure normal damage

Without having damage rates on either, which would you rather use going by mechanics alone? Realistically, Valiance; but the flare is more reliant on keeping your distance and interference than front line offense. In terms of basic bullet damage, the most commonly noticed tradeoff is the lack of a whole shot in the flare clip in exchange for more range and status. The lack of offense in the flare charge more than compensates for its statuses on the basic shots (which only includes the basic statuses) and its range proportionately means their damage per bullet can be the same. Then again, Valiance is not used for its charge for damage; its knockback even at close ranges is what makes it unique. Does the status affliction on the flare balance against the lack of a third bullet in its clip? The flare still has no charge damagewise whereas many weapons get most of their damage from the charge attack. Then we have the range on the flare, its twelve space range over the eight Valiance has. Two shot clip instead of three, twelve space range instead of eight. Valiance has the bigger clip while the flare has more range. It still lacks in damage but the statuses compensate its usefulness as a long range utility whereas Valiance is more of a close range utility gun.

Changed it.

The reason there is no Lockdown/Blast Network section is because those are very specific topics and I do not have particular competence in either. Therefore someone who does have that competence needs to clarify whether the thread is acceptable, though anyone could claim to be great at everything just to get it listed.

I can set up Lockdown and Blast Network lists for others to check out.

The dual wielding stuff or something in here?

Maybe after I get my entry done for this contest.

First one needs models or reference colors, second seems too dry for me. Find some Lockdown and Blast Network junkies to help you there.

October 12, 2012

Before beginning and my computer crashes again, here are the bricks to our wall:

1. This is not meant to replace or assimilate with an existing feature of the game
2. This is not meant to be an alternative to maximize profit (grinding crowns)
3. "T4+" is not a continuation from T3
4. No 6*+ equipment or items
5. No assimilation of existing bosses (Shadow Lairs already do this)
6. Player health and damage scales to the sixth stratum (T3S6) throughout
7. "T4+" is meant to reinforce teamwork and team diversity
8. "T4+" floors do not have mini maps; you can only see what is around you
9. "T4+" does not have a tier/stratum layout to check (you have no idea what the next floor is going to be)
10. "T4+" contains variations of existing enemies, some variations on those existing enemies, and new enemies
11. "T4+" floors end with a "boss fight" which may contain either a miniboss or a group of "T4+" enemies
12. "T4+" enemies drop very little money and materials, but give normal amounts of heat (scaled to T3S6)
13. The majority of monetary loot (crowns, materials; no equipment drops in here) comes from various optional halls which have treasure at the end, though getting there involves traps which rely on using certain weapons to pass; completing these halls is not required to continue through the floor to the exit but are the main source of crowns and materials
14. {More may be added later)

For general combat here are the basic ideas of some effects granted to the six families with a few teasers of enemy concepts:

• Beast
  • More resistant to knockback from guns
  • Gains attack speed and damage bonuses the less there are together; "lone wolf" effect
  • "Vengeance" transfers half its defense into attack when health goes below half its total
  • "Chromeleon" can disguise as a knight in the party
• Construct
  • More resistant to attack interruption and knockback from bombs
  • Gain a movement speed bonus when near their own kind (same type of enemy [Lumbers with Lumbers, Retrodes with Retrodes, etc.], does not affect turrets/Gun Puppies)
  • Becomes a pile of scrap metal when defeated which can be picked up and placed by knights (each enemy becomes one pile, each pile can be picked up individually; functions similarly to statues and can be used to activate pressure pads)
• Fiend
  • More resistant to attack interruption from swords
  • Defeated fiends create a "black hole" where they died which pulls knights into its single space radius; black holes do not damage or detonate and last ten seconds after the fiend was killed before dissipating
  • "Hunger" consume black holes to gain a defense bonus
  • "Thirst" consume black holes to gain an attack bonus
  • "Haste" consume black holes to gain a movement speed bonus
• Gremlin
  • More resistant to damage from bombs
  • "Gremgineer" can use scrap metal from defeated machines to rebuild; see more detailed notes {to be completed}
  • All variations can build barricades (different kinds have different rates; "Gremgineer" has the fastest building rate, second fastest are Knockers, third are Scorchers, fourth are Thwackers, fifth are Mortafires, sixth are Demos, seventh are Mender, eighth are Ghostmanes) in preset choke points to disrupt the team
• Slime/Jelly
  • More resistant to sword damage and knockback
  • More resistant to knockback in general
  • "Coagulant" variant has a chance to absorb projectiles and explosives, then release them upon defeat; release damages both knights and enemies
• Undead
  • More resistant to gun damage and attack interruption
  • When a knight is downed enemies of this family can "feed" on them to restore health
  • Spawn with a defense bonus which wears off over time
  • "Relentless" are highly resistant to all forms of knockback but move slower
  • "Singed" leave a short trail of flame and inflict fire on contact to players; does not damage other enemies
  • "Frigid" can set ice slicks to trip up passing knights and place icicle stalagmites which act as spike surfaces

This is just an overview of the common enemies in "T4+". Each family will have its own post to go over the differences and additions compared to other families. There will also be a separate post for puzzle designs to house all these abominations.

Computer crashes while trying to make this post: 3

November 25, 2012

I decided to poot a little index for the rest of the 'T4+' stuff right here:

• Beast family
• Construct family
• Fiend family
• Gremlin family
• Slime family
• Undead family
• Weapon restrictions
• Rewards

The same links are in the original post under "T4+".

What do we know about our scaled and/or fur covered little boogers that roll around in mud and grass all day? Not including the whole "herp wolves are so amazing at everything because derp walrus laser cannons" obsession people have. I will never understand that. Is it a furry thing, a trend in anime, or something I would absolutely despise to the point of beating children with sporks until they bleed cheese? Does it have anything to do with what is inside a Wonder Ball? Does anyone even know what those are anymore?

They attack "fast", their damage is goo- alri- dece- they can attack, and swords are supposed to be especially useful against them against their hyperactive mobility. Lizards are still stupid, but the common face of this family is the fluffy little boogers we know as Wolvers. What about them, other than being fluffy little boogers? They are stupidly easy to fight compared to other enemies. Not just the normal ones, Alphas get pretty predictable, too. Before we can get new enemies to bash heads with for "T4+" we need to throw these dogs a few bones.

In the overview, these were the listed bonuses for this family:

• More resistant to knockback from guns
• Gains attack speed and damage bonuses the less there are together; "lone wolf" effect

First, resistance to knockback from guns. What does that mean? Guns that push things away. That pushing force, from guns, is reduced when used against enemies of this family. Wolvers (and Devilites) have the passive ability to automatically dodge projectiles from certain weapons; there are projectile firing weapons which can hit before they dodge (Valiance, Magnuses). For guns, even if the bullets would be dodged anyway, their knockback is halved against all members of the beast family for T4+. Halved. Why is it gun knockback instead of sword? Beasts are not known for being particularly burly or sturdy, but swords slice through them like butter. Flesh butter on toast. That sounds disgusting and interesting at the same time.

What does it mean to be a lone wolf? You stand alone, you fight alone, and you die alone. What does this have to do with actual wolves? Considering wolves are a pack based species, probably nothing; but when a wolf is cornered and healthy enough to fight back it will. Not that everything else is cowardly. Have you seen a zebra almost succeed to drown a lioness? All the amazing. All of it. Anyway, for T4+ beasts they benefit when their buddies drop but they stay standing. The effect starts kicking in when any beast (lizard/Chromalisk or wolf/Wolver) has less than five other beast family enemies within a fifteen space radius. If a lizard is derping off screen somewhere but still out of range, the wolf in front of you still gets the bonus. How much does the bonus give? First of all, this applies to both lizards and wolves; not just wolves. Lizards can benefit from being lone wolves. Stop being discriminatory against lizards. Every beast family enemy gets that invisible fifteen space radius around itself. The lone wolf effect may not happen if more than four other beast family enemies are within that range, not including themself. That means by having five beasts together no one gets the bonus. What happens if you take your Flourish and make one of those happy fluffballs into a kabob? Now there are only four beasts in their range. Once that pack of five (I was going to make it six but people would think I condone alcohol consumption) cuts down to four, all four of those beasts gain a 10% increase to damage and attack speed. At the same time. If another is dropped and there are only three, another +10% attack speed and damage. When only one is left unprepared for the picnic barbecue, they would have gained +40% attack speed and damage. Attack speed affects their attack preparation and animation speed. Damage affects damage, you derp. Wolvers are usually stunted by their attack delay stopping them from biting you in the buttocks when they teleport behind you in T3, but now they can do more than just bite you back there. They can pretend to be Diglett all they want, then pop out to be obnoxious for only a few seconds before digging around again. For lizards they can give you a wet surprise (no mature implications intended) with their tongue after dropping their transparency cloak, then recloak and run off. Silly lizards. Keep your tongues out of there. Note that movement speed is not increased through the lone wolf effect.

Enough with what we already have, onto the fun stuff already!

Unless something else flies in and leaves its calling card on my lap, I have two new enemies to add to the fluffy and scaled derps that make the beast family.

The first is named "Vengeance" and is a Wolver style enemy. How does it work? Imagine an Alpha; not just any Alpha, but it can change its attack direction on every one of those three bites. However, it will never attack in the same direction consecutively. See below for an example.

O = open space
X = you
V = Vengeance
T = trail points in its pattern

Before attacking
O O O O O O
V O O O O X
O O O O O O

First attack
O O O O O O
T V O O O X
O O O O O O

Second attack
O O O O O O
T T O O O X
O O V O O O

Third attack

O O O O O O
T T O V O X
O O T O O O

Each of its three bites can either make it lunge forward, diagonally to its left, or diagonally to its right and may not repeat the same direction (forward, forward, diagonal left; diagonal left, diagonal right, diagonal right). It can still attack in the same direction twice in a single combo (forward, diagonal right, forward) so long as the repeat is not immediately after it already went the same direction. That means if you stand right in front of where it just attacked and let it bite again, that second bite will not be able to repeat toward you; but it can still use that third bite to get you.

Vengeance has another feature outside being cross eyed: when its health reaches half its maximum amount, its defense is cut in half and the difference is eaten by its attack. Since all T4+ enemies are supposed to have high health while knight damage stays the same as in T3, here is an example of how the transfer would work:

• 3000/3000 health
• Resists 600 damage from element
• Resists 300 damage from normal
• Resists 300 damage from shadow
• Resists 0 damage from pierce
• 500 damage per bite

Vengeance loses 1500 health

• 1500/3000 health
• Resists 300 damage from element
• Resists 150 damage from normal
• Resists 150 damage from shadow
• Resists 0 damage from pierce
• • 300 + 150 + 150 + 0 = 600
• 500 + 600 damage per bite; 1100 damage per bite

If defense is percentage based it would simply take 50% from defense and buff the damage by 50%. Considering defense for knights is additive based, why not have the same for enemies when they could just use the same system? Not that they would hand out their secrets like snacks.

The second enemy, "Chromeleon" is going to be very familiar for many. This freak is basically a Chromalisk, but with one major difference: instead of turning "invisible", it can make itself visually identical to someone in your party. What if no one else is in your party? You probably have no idea, but later on will be so much party reliant stuff for this pit of hell that you will want to have parties of six. And you will wet yourself. Change your pants. Anyway, Chromeleon can appear to be a member of your party; and attack, but if it attacks the disguise falls off. What kind of attack? The basic tongue skewering, but with significantly more damage than the average derped lizard. Once it attacks it returns to its normal form, a completely gray scaled Chromalisk with no significant features or decoration; just a plain, boring, not-rainbow-color lizard. It disguises, finds prey, attacks, then runs away; for ten seconds after this process, at the point where it runs away, its movement speed increases by 75% to make a quick getaway. This thing is meant to be annoying. Worried that your buddy is just standing behind you? Try swinging your GFaust through their head. Nothing happens if they are just being cowardly, but if that was actually a Chromeleon you just interrupted their sneak attack. Unlike other Chromalisks, Chromeleon does not inflict a status, but has more raw damage and can be far more of a nuisance to knights.

Vengeance and Chromeleon are not meant to be a replacement for common enemies nor rare; mini-minibosses. They appear somewhat often, a few times every beast floor, but not alongside the common lizards and wolves. More enemy concepts may be added later on.

This is where it gets a little messy.

Fiends have two basic categories: quick little bunnies that flying around and giant hellspawn that want to kill you messily. The little and fast fiends tend to be more vulnerable to attack interruption and their attacks are faster than most enemies. To most players, fiends are the most difficult family because of how unpredictable their movement can be; except Trojans, those things are pretty predictable without derpbillion other fiends flying around to distract you.

This is what we have in the overview which was not there when I originally posted it for some reason:

• More resistant to attack interruption from swords
• Defeated fiends create a "black hole" where they died which pulls knights into its single space radius; black holes do not damage or detonate and last ten seconds after the fiend was killed before dissipating
• "Hunger" consume black holes to gain a defense bonus
• "Thirst" consume black holes to gain an attack bonus
• "Haste" consume black holes to gain a movement speed bonus

Same as the other family resistance, fiends gain 50% resistance to attack interruption from swords. This will undoubtedly bother sword users everywhere, which is completely intentional; note that among the six families two gain at least one form of resistance from only one weapon type, excluding jellies which will be addressed later on. Those crazy, jiggly, deliciou- wait, this is fiends right now. For the majority of players, more specifically all the sword lickers out there, your foils/rapiers are not going to like the loss of interruption when waving your magic pixie stick around at the happy little bats and homicidal devil-things-that-wear-ties. Gun and bomb interruption is not affected for fiends. That means those few Callahan and Valiance users out there get a thumbs up. Bombers would still need something to deal with bats but we will get to that later in something completely unrelated to the whole T4+ stuff.

This is going to be either easily avoidable or the worst thing ever for anyone. When a fiend dies, whether it was a bat or an obese Trojan, a "black hole" spawns where they died. It works as a Graviton with no damage, no detonation, no knockback, and only a single space suction radius from the epicenter; it only lasts ten seconds after the fiend was defeated before dissipating. By itself black holes will never deal damage but definitely inhibit mobility by pulling you in until it goes away. Why would this be annoying? Imagine a dozen bats trying to hug you at once. You kill them. Now you have a dozen black holes around you. Now another dozen bats want hugs. You may now wet yourself. The new enemies described below will be willing and able to consume these black holes to gain bonuses. When that happens, each bonus only lasts thirty seconds upon acquisition to prevent potentially infinite bonus stacking. You will find out and cry a little very soon.

I am not going to lie or pretend I can avoid making this clear: these three enemies are intentionally freaks. They practically eat what was left of their brethren to empower themselves, and since they count as fiends themselves their own kind is fair game for feasting. For kids, right? Freaks eating each other? Nothing weird about that at all. I could throw some happy butterflies or prancing porcupines at you, but no, we have to have cannibals.

The first is Hunger. This thing appears to be an alligator and has a short and stout jaw. It can be gray-purple to match the common fiend color scheme; purple on its body and gray on reinforced areas such as its back and the top of its head. Keep that in mind. If Hunger walks over a black hole it will remove it from the floor, but gain a 10% universal defense for every black hole consumed; to prevent 100%+ defense Hunger will stop gaining bonuses at +70% (seven black holes consumed). Hunger knows to go to black holes to gain the bonus rather than accidentally stumbling upon them. That would be lazy and stupid. Hunger moves 120% the speed of a Wolver (pretty fast, but not ridiculous sprinting) and has two attacks:

• Bite
  • Bites out in front of it. Unlike Wolvers, Hunger does not delay before biting; it just bites you. Alligators are fast, you know. Unlike normal Wolvers, Hunger can bite between one and three times as it wishes; with each bite it can move with up to a forty-five degree angle variation to its left or right at will between each bite. Each bite lunges as Alphas do, but Hunger does not have the burrowing ability all Wolvers have. Does it need it? Nurp.
• Roll
  • Anyone who has wrestled with a gator and lived can tell you those punks like to roll you off if you grab on. Does that mean I wrestle gators? Very unlikely. When Hunger is not preoccupied attacking, it can roll in place; this is its area of effect attack and covers a two space radius from its epicenter (Hunger itself is about three spaces in length, one and a half spaces wide; tubby little booger). Yes, this attack does not technically damage from its whole body; since its tail and head would be outside of that two space radius you would either be in range to be bitten or completely behind it, though it can turn as it pleases. Hunger does what it wants. Crazy alligators. This attack may inflict stun (if enemies have the same status rates knight used weapons do it would be around a 4/2 [good chance of weak] rate of stun) and knocks enemies (knights; does not affect other enemies) two spaces away if hit. The roll only lasts around three seconds and does not move around the floor (Hunger does not move around on the floor while rolling, it rolls in place) while rolling. When Hunger stops rolling (they hating) it can attack by biting but may not roll within ten seconds of having already been rolling. In other words, no roll spamming. That would be silly. Rolling is triggered by either being attacked in close range for at least ten seconds or being attacked by two or more things at close range, like a couple knights spamming sword slashes on it. The rolling attack only has one second between "stop bullying me" to "I will spin you into a smoothie".

Remember how Hunger has different colored sides? While rolling, Hunger exposes his purple side for very brief moments; if attacked when the purple side is up, Hunger takes 120% damage. When the gray side is up it only takes 80% damage. Still completely possible without forcing it to roll, but arguably faster to kill.

And that was just the first of three.

The second act in this freak show is Thirst, the offensive counterpart of Hunger. Unlike Hunger, Thirst is smaller; a moskito. Not the tiny little pest you can swat with a rolled up newspaper, but a moskito the size of a Silkwing. The body. The wings are obviously moskito-esque, meaning almost as big as bat/Greaver wings. You will need a bigger newspaper. Call the press and order extras. You will also need backup so call the neighbors.
Thirst flies at the same speed as a Silkwing and does not get faster. What makes this bug so threatening? It steals health from you when it attacks. How much health? Well, not a direct proportion that would reveal how much knight health and monster health is exactly; think of how Menders heal. They just heal. For the sake of not overcomplicating everything at once, when Thirst successfully attacks it will attach to you for five seconds; if Thirst is still drinking from your knight when those five seconds, only the initial attack damaging you, it restores 25% of its current health. That means it restores more the higher its current health is, so kill it quickly. Unlike Hunger, Thirst does not have any bizarre or majorly threatening attacks; it acts more as a pesky distraction than the new Greaver/Devilite. If Thirst eats up a black hole, similar to Hunger, it gains a +10% bonus to attack. Unlike Hunger, Thirst can gain more damage infinitely; or at least until it can keep eating dead fiends to keep the bonus as high as possible, seeing as the bonus is only temporary with every black hole absorbed.

The third and final fiend here is Haste. Remember when I said I would never make an enemy based on something so obviously adorable, like a bunny? That never happened. Zip those pants back up, ladies and mentlegen, because this enemy is literally a bunny rabbit. An ashen purple little bunny rabbit. Why is that so threatening? It has teeth and will jump on your face, obviously; what did you expect, it cuddles you to death? Ridiculous. Haste runs fast like a rabbit at 200% average knight running speed but only has one attack: jump and gnaw. It can only jump while running, the jump makes it travel three spaces before landing, and it attaches to unshielded knights if it makes contact. It can still be picked off with any weapon, it does not constantly bite while attached, but it cripples your movement speed by 20% while attached to you. No, having multiple of these on you at once does not increase the effect by 20%; after the first Haste is on you, every Haste after only takes 10% movement speed; note that these T4+ enemies are not meant to be common, so encountering even three of these freaks at once is unlikely. The initial jump-bite still damages you, but does not do notably high damage or knockback; it jumps on you and hangs on for a ride. Little freak. How does it even do that? Just like Hunger and Thirst, for every black hole Haste absorbs it gets +10% movement speed; the bonus stops growing at +50% speed because of how ridiculously fast it is. Haste has a ten second cooldown between attacks but can flee from battle if it wants to or annoy you by running around everywhere. Fortunately it has pretty low health (around 90% normal Devilite health), but it will definitely be the cause of silly screenshots where people show off having bunnies gnawing on their head. Shenanigans. All of them.

A few important notes:

• Thirst and Haste, when attached, cannot be shield bumped off. You have to attack them to get them to detach. You can attack anywhere within a single space radius of yourself to knock them off, including firing a gun or swinging a sword anywhere so long as something is attached to you to get off. For bombs you can place a bomb to remove them. Note that Thirst steals health after five seconds, allowing enough time for literally any bomb to blast it off you.
• Hunger is big and heavy. Resistant to general knockback as Trojans are.
• Both Thirst and Haste are meant to be distractions, not minibosses. Hunger is more like a miniboss and is supposed to have higher health than a Trojan.

Gremlins and constructs have good variation, unlike more predictable enemies like beasts or zombies. Unlike most families, gremlins are their own civilization; arguably fiends are just as amazing, but they come from the Spiral Knights version of hell under Ur or something big, evil, and smelly. They are a people. Just like us. They are very obviously capable of advanced technological progress, possibly including building us a ship to return to Isora or wherever the liquids we came from. We murder them for money. We are the best diplomats ever.

Gremlins have one thing most other enemies completely ignore: teamwork. They have medics to heal, a couple different kinds of melee (Thwackers and Knockers), a couple kinds of support (Scorchers and Demos), and even a couple expansion exclusive enemies (Ghostmanes and Mortafires). These little boogers are pretty well variated, unlike us knights where around 80% are the same soliding thing.

We only have these few things in the overview:

• More resistant to damage from bombs
• "Gremgineer" can use scrap metal from defeated machines to rebuild; see more detailed notes {to be completed}
• All variations can build barricades (different kinds have different rates; "Gremgineer" has the fastest building rate, second fastest are Knockers, third are Scorchers, fourth are Thwackers, fifth are Mortafires, sixth are Demos, seventh are Mender, eighth are Ghostmanes) in preset choke points to disrupt the team

Blah blah, you already know about the whole resistance thing again; 50% resistance to bomb damage. Why so much resistance? Gremlins can be easily lured into any bomb. They may not stand all in one giant clump at once and have a little dance party while you toss a Barrage at them, but their common placement patterns makes them generally easy to bomb against. Why bomb defense? Six families, three weapons; each weapon is resisted by two families, most of which are weapons easier to use against that particular family, and the resistance truly inhibiting to the common player. To intentionally annoy you. The same can be said for all these T4+ additions, to take what we have right now and make it actually difficult instead of lazily messing with health or damage.

Gremgineer was originally going to be the engineering based enemy for my series of engineering posts (the main building tools, engineer armor, other stuff for engineers, and some notes on engineering equipment compatibility just to make sure there are rules to prevent abuse of the system) as either a miniboss or a boss on its own. I still plan on doing that, just like the spider boss from way long ago (I have the written notes for it but I lost the notebook somewhere around here), but Gremgineer is completely separate from that. This is just another gremlin to skip merrily in fields of metal like the others. Not to the point of facing more than one or two at a time, same as the other special T4+ enemies, but common enough to know it is not a boss.

What does Gremgineer do? For those hard of reading, especially the T4+ stuff on constructs, Gremgineer can pick up scrap piles and move them together. Where do scrap piles come from? Go back and read this. Yes, they can be used to block knights and enemies alike. Does that mean Gremgineer will know to block certain areas? Yes. Some maps have specific halls for knights to travel through. Gremgineers can take scrap piles to those points and place the metal so knights have to stop and move them out of the way, but would rather use that metal for something more important. The very meaning of their pitiful existence: to rebuild it into another construct. What kind of construct? Any of them. Not bosses, obviously. Or Shadow Lair variants. All status variants are fair game. To clarify what might come out of the three scrap piles Gremgineers need to do this, (they bring at least three piles within a two space radius of themselves, stand like an idiot for five seconds to build, then next to them the construct appears; if a pile is taken out of their range the process is halted) only one of the following types of construct may be built:

• • Lumber (no status; can still stun as always)
  • Redward (fire)
  • Silversap (freeze)
  • Electreant (shock)
  • Vilewood (poison)
• • Gun Puppy (no status)
  • Red Rover (streams of fire)
  • Rocket Puppy (rockets which can also inflict fire)
  • Sick Puppy (poison)
  • Sparky (shock)
  • Slush Puppy (freeze)
  • No Love Puppy
• • Mecha Knight (no status)
  • Firo Knight (fire)
  • Cryo Knight (freeze)
  • Volt Knight (shock)
  • Blight Knight (poison)
• • Retrode (no status)
  • Hotrode (fire)
  • Sleetrode (freeze)
  • Voltrode (shock)
  • Isotrode (poison)
• • Scuttlebot (no status)
  • Cinderbot (fire)
  • Brumabot (freeze)
  • Surgebot (shock)
  • Hazbot (poison)

The four basic status variants, their neutral variant, and for turrets their especially obnoxious rocket variant. Nothing amazingly spectacular to make you liquid yourself. Why would this enemy be so bad? Enemies it builds never drop anything. Not even hearts. Alright, that seems kind of fair, but does Gremgineer do anything else worth mentioning? Yes, but before we get to the barricade system there is one other thing: they can swipe at you with their small wrench, unlike the exaggerated nonsense Thwackers run around with, with rapid swings (three attack combo; imitates Calibur). Unlike the knight version for Spiralgineers to use, Gremgineer can hit pretty hard if forced into melee combat. It may not stick around to keep up the attack after landing a swing or two on you, but it runs 110% the base speed of a knight. It will usually outrun you. Normal gremlins run slightly slower than knights, making them easier prey to the common clone. Well, okay, then you can just switch to your favorite spamming gun or something that vomits projectiles to blast it away, right? Nurp. Gremgineer has one fatal flaw: it keeps things in its pockets, and when it gets knocked down from knight attacks things fall out of its pockets. What kind of things? A variety of things: small magnets, some nails, but most importantly small mechanical insects which will chase you like piranha and explode on you. The magnets pull you toward them with a very weak force and will only stop once a knight walks over them, though nothing happens after that. The nails act as single space spike traps, damaging knights who walk on them, but they disappear after the first hit. The robot spiders, however, run at 170% average knight speed, are slightly smaller than Knockers, and are immune to all forms of attack interruption and knockback. What stops them? They have very low health. Lower than Knockers. Unfortunately for projectile spewers they know how to dodge as Devilites and Wolvers do and will use that dodging ability as often as they need to. How can you avoid these tiny menaces? Kill Gremgineers before they can empty their pockets.

There might be more on Gremgineer later but for now we have to move on so I can keep playing Wakfu and murder skeletons with exquisite hats, then enslave them to use for evil later.

Barricades. Yes, just like the ones in here and in the Seerus mission, they can take three hits before falling apart. Where do they come from? Gremlins build them. How many can they make? Only one at a time per individual gremlin, but they can use each of their barricades to build a wall. There are already basic ranks for how fast different gremlins can build in the overview:

"All variations can build barricades (different kinds have different rates; "Gremgineer" has the fastest building rate, second fastest are Knockers, third are Scorchers, fourth are Thwackers, fifth are Mortafires, sixth are Demos, seventh are Mender, eighth are Ghostmanes) in preset choke points to disrupt the team"

But just how long does it take? See below.

• Gremgineer: 3 seconds
• Knocker: 5 seconds
• Thwacker: 6 seconds
• Mortafire: 7 seconds
• Demo: 8 seconds
• Mender: 10 seconds
• Ghostmane: 15 seconds

Why the inconsistent rates? Why not have Gremgineer just be three seconds and everything after be one second longer than the one before it? Because that would be as boring as reading another thread about houses or healing weapons, though it would be far more intelligent and edible. Feces is disgusting. Does having Ghostmanes and Mortafires listed mean they appear for T4+ but not the normal Clockworks? Yurp. Does that mean the expansion instantly becomes pointless to purchase when people could just jump in T4+ to fight them? You can still only get the expansion exclusive weapons and helmets by purchasing it. All you get by having a couple normal enemies outside the expansion is the experience, though gameplay experience is a key factor to any game.

Once a barricade is placed it may not be moved. The gremlins can technically break their own barricades but they will not intentionally target them to attack. Considering the main floor map for gremlins has them all prespawned, they can build their barricades before you even find them if they want.

I know there are a lot of people out there who consider themselves fully knowledgable on Lockdown, seeing as more people are playing it now and have inflated egos.

Been a while since I updated this, especially that T4+ stuff. What was the next f-

Oh. Liquids. Now I have to update this.

Thanks for the probably glitched heat amp, unless it was somehow fixed without any mention in the patch notes somewhere.

All we want to do is eat your brains.

Undead are another generic type of enemy when it comes to a fictional world along with slimes/jellies and some kind of evil-demon-fiend-not-the-kind-of-guy-who-pushes-you-on-the-swing. A major feature of this particular type of enemy is coming in crowds and being easily targetable to area of effect and melee attacks, but what about projectiles? In most games, ranged weapons involve ammunition counts to prevent close range activity; does that mean to create an ammo system? Maybe if swords were all nerfed to around 60% of their current damage, then apply an ammo limit to guns and bombs (bombs can regenerate, gun bullets would have to be obtained from defeated enemies; this might be an addition to T4+ as well).

Before getting ahead of ourselves, here are our overview notes again:

• More resistant to gun damage and attack interruption
• When a knight is downed enemies of this family can "feed" on them to restore health
• Spawn with a defense bonus which wears off over time
• "Relentless" are highly resistant to all forms of knockback but move slower
• "Singed" leave a short trail of flame and inflict fire on contact to players; does not damage other enemies
• "Frigid" can set ice slicks to trip up passing knights and place icicle stalagmites which act as spike surfaces

The first part is pretty predictable, aiming at the Alchemer/Pulsar/Autogun spammers: 50% of their damage and attack interruption from their precious guns are taken away and thrown out the window of an eleven story building. Back to that thing about gun ammo for a moment, I have more evil ideas to roll with. For those who think the updated families and new enemies are cruel, the games have just begun.

The second is a personal touch in reference to every zombie related media, the ability to feed on the living; namely us knights. If and/or when you die, though the way this whole system is set up you will inevitably die by something unless you can perfectly sync with the rest of your team and help each other to survive (realistically only a handful of people would even consider attempting this), anything from the undead family can linger over your incapacitated "corpse" and "feast" to regenerate 5% of their max health per second. Not X amount of health, a percent. That means take down the big ones first if you think someone is going to drop. This feature enforces reliance on survival over trying to rush with spamming weapons, especially if it involves guns seeing as they have decent resistances to them.

This third part is another personal touch, though more based on my twisted imagination than stereotypical zombie movies/games. Once any undead spawns, digs out of the floor or whatever, it starts with a 50% universal (damage and status) defense; this resistance wears off over the course of twenty seconds, losing 2.5% universal resistance per second until it stabilizes. This temporary resistance does not already incorporate the gun damage resistance meaning guns are useless when the dead start walking.

This enemy is how I imagine an undead/zombie: it moves really slow, but it has irritating resistance to knockback. That means if you try to push it away, including shield bumping, it will resist; namely by 40% from all forms of knockback. That includes stun vials for those who know about that. This effect stacks with the T4+ undead gun knockback resistance for 90% gun knockback resistance, meaning your Polaris is practically useless here. This thing is also immune to fire, shock, freeze, and obviously curse. That means Shivermist is out, too (a lot of people consider bombing only useful through Shivermist/Voltaic). So what do you do? This thing is slow, just kill it you silly kangaroos. The name of this abomination is Relentless. To match its somewhat intimidating title it basically looks like a crawling zombie, having its legs cut off so that only short stubs drag from its body, but its arms are still bulky and threatening enough to grab you and eat your robotic little noggin. Yes, that is what this thing does. It can either swing its arms out at you, lunging while doing so, or attempt to grab one knight and "feast" on them to steal health. If successful in "feeding" the "eaten" knight is then tossed and inflicted with poison as well as having their movement speed decreased by 30% for ten seconds. The poison is curable through remedies but the movement loss is not. Relentless moves about 50% the speed of existing zombies, which is not particularly fast to begin with, but still has that knockback resistance and will track your path regardless of how far you are unlike most enemies which forget about you if you go off screen (~14 spaces away). Relentless will chase you. And it will eat you. And it will not give you hugs. Well, it technically gives you hugs, but it would also be eating you while it hugs you. Excellent.

The second enemy seems like it was inspired by something, but since I am unable to recall what it might be referring to I am going to say it is an original idea until then. Singed has two major features: faster than regular zombies and leaves a flaming trail in its path. Why does it run faster? Simple: Singed is a skeletal dog-wolf-thing. To make it even simpler, a skeletal hellhound. Its eyes glow red-orange with the fire which burns in its bones, the bones themselves singed a dark gray from the merciless flames which have consumed it. Singed moves at 120% the speed of an average knight, meaning fleeing is not an option. Singed still has that gun damage and knockback resistance from earlier, so trying to spam it away is also not an option. While trying to gnaw on your stubby little legs, Singed leaves a three space long trail in its path (where it travels) which does ignite oil, Oilers, and knights; for some reason in the overview it specified that it did not but it should say it does. This trail does not technically count as an attack but will ignite players who are caught or try to run in it. Besides running faster than a little bunny, Singed will also lunge and bite at knights similar to the evil rabbit in the fiend family; but it can bite while not moving, though doing so will not lunge in its attacking direction. Singed is a bad dog. A bad dog who will bite your legs off and drag you down with it to hell. Down to my porch. And I will tell Singed to stop bringing home strangers.

This third enemy is a little "cold-hearted", if you know what I mean. Frigid shares the trailing ability Singed has, but instead of a brief trail of flame Frigid will freeze its trail as a snail leaves a trail of slime; the main difference being this surface is slicked ice instead of disgusting mucus. The ice slick causes knights who walk on it to slip around. Normally I would go over every possible silly scenario that could come of this but anyone who has played a game involving ice slicks, which should be everyone over the age of fourteen at least, knows what happens when you get to slide around and things that want to eat you are everywhere. Aside from pulling ice related pranks, Frigid has another ability: throwing chunks of ice with a high chance to freeze upon impact (does not deal significant damage but the freeze has a very high rate and duration). What does Frigid look like? Well, Relentless is a crawling zombie and Singed is a skeletal hellhound, so how about Frigid being a disturbing combination of a polar bear with a gorilla, but with a skeletal head? When I get around to drawing these I am probably going to give people nightmares, but since I am already in hell it would be more entertaining than harmful. Frigid only moves around 80% of average knight speed due to its bulky size but can still chase you if it wants, though not very well.

There might be a fast zombie added or something to do with Kats, even if I think little of those flying blankets. The real threat is gore shredded skeletons trying to rip your limbs out, not toddlers during Halloween. You silly iguanas.

As a closing note to the T4+ families, this is not the end of the system past T3 in difficulty; this is just the enemies for T4 and up. Meaning there might be T5+ stuff. Just to spread the evil a little further. Now go to sleep.

Yes.

No.

Sort of.

The main focus is on the new enemies and restrictions, only one of which has been detailed already. Giving new abilities to existing T3 enemies is just a side bonus.

I recently got a scanning device so those sketches I promised might be up sooner than I expected, not that anyone else expected them to ever be up to begin with.

If it went by clip size it would still have to count every bullet since people still know how to clip stall to get around having to reload, though the central point of having an ammo limit for guns is to stop people from spamming bullets everywhere. We could go with a base amount of bullets so everyone starts with the same amount of clips, but after that you would have to be responsible for your own bullet use. Say, for example, we start all guns off with fifteen clips:

• Antigua: 15 * 6 = 90
• Autogun: 15 * 2 = 30
• Alchemers: 15 * 2 = 30
• Blaster: 15 * 3 = 45
• Catalyzers: 15 * 3 = 45
• Pulsars: 15 * 3 = 45
• Magnuses: 15 * 2 = 30

Not exactly the most equally distributed caches. If we made special exceptions that would force balance among guns when the guns themselves should be balanced outside this system.

Ammo consumed by basic attacks is per basic attack, meaning if you use an Autogun which has clip size of two each basic attack consumes one ammo. Zeddy was right to point out clip based ammo, but then everyone would just go for the guns which would start with more (Antiguas and Pulsars mostly) to have a starting advantage. All enemies drop five ammo each and everyone would still start with fifty basic attacks (using gun charges consumes five ammo per charge for all guns), and since ammo applies to all team members instead of only whoever picks it up it should be relatively easy to play this way as long as you can aim relatively well. If I wanted this to force people to not use guns or bombs I would start them with no ammo and make them collect it by forcing them to use swords at the start.

Towels. I shall use it for evil.

"I suggest adding a "TLDR:" "

That defeats the purpose of writing all the details. The details vital for people to understand everything. Understanding which is vital to know what the liquids you just read or you may as well be reading the nutritional "facts" on a cereal box. Eat our cereal, it does less damage to your heart than a handful of bacon.

I only break paragraphs where a new trail of thought or section begins. If you think my style is long winded I recommend watching this for a better understanding of why I do it. No, not the subject, but how they do it.

"as for the ammo ideas, guns having ammo is actually a great idea, but how would you replenish ammo? by recharging it, pick ups like hearts and heat from enemies, or both?"

I made it very clear how that works multiple times. This is why I never use TLDR.

Also, in case the post subject was not bolded enough to see, that entire restriction system is meant for "T4+" which has its relevant posts listed in the index under its own name. The index is the original post above the giant line of underscores.

Or they could all start with fifty, which is more than you would be giving them.

How about we base the starting cache on damage? Would that make everyone feel better? Base the ammo consumption rate on damage dealt? Autoguns would end up having ten or so ammo eaten per charge, Valiance and Magnuses would only be around three or four ammo per charge, and doing more damage or firing more bullets is bad.

I suppose the main reason Antiguas are not given an advantage in starting ammo is because since everyone already starts with a lot in their cache, and Antiguas have great mobility combined with speed and utility, that we may as well ask for miniguns in a zombie apocalypse to have more ammo than other guns because they use more. If there are reason(s) to not give as much ammo to non-Antiguas, such as being overpowered over Antiguas because of something, then that would mean having to set up individualized starting caches; but otherwise it would be a little too limiting for everyone else if Antigua gets a bigger starting box of supplies.

I agree with lowering the ammo consumption for Catalyzer charges, but to three per charge instead of two. Those things still do a lot of damage in the right hands

One last thing for gun and bomb ammo counts: even if you do not have a bomb or gun equipped, you will still collect ammo and it will store them on your knight for that run until you return to Haven and can use that pocketed ammo if you decide to change a weapon out to a bomb or gun and will start with the appropriate amount of ammo (if you do a floor with a gun and use ammo then store that weapon in a loadout station for the second floor, taking it out again for the third floor will not refresh the cache for that weapon; this can be done through the same system which already exists that identifies items as unique even if they are the same weapon with the same UVs or no UVs). This and the Catalyzer change will be added to the T4+ weapon restrictions.