Spiral Knights - randomized enemy traits

randomized enemy traits

6 replies [Last post]

Wed, 09/21/2011 - 20:20

mejezfeld

Legacy Username

I think enemy spawns need to be a LITTLE more interesting.

So I came up with this- whenever a monster is created it has a chance of gaining a certain personality/physical trait. This trait will change the stats of the monster slightly

"Cowardly"--> Moves faster, doesn't attack as much, runs away when health is low. Signified by a "sweatdrop" effect appearing occasionally
"Bold"--> Attacks a lot more often than usual, but has less defense- kind of like a knight rushing at enemies and not shielding. Signified by the "veins popping out" effect on the monster
"Relaxed"--> Moves slower, higher defense, and generally doesn't bother attacking unless they really HAVE to attack.
"Hyperactive"--> Movement is more erratic and random and fast. attack and defense seem to change from time to time. signified by a speech bubble with really random symbols.

alternatively they could just get a random status increase.

Wed, 09/21/2011 - 20:43

Madadder

i dont see the constructs as

i dont see the constructs as being cowardly maybe they could instead be affiliated with the monster types instead?

so beasts- hyperactive, bold
undead- bold, relaxed
fiends-cowardly, relaxed
slime- bold, hyperactive
gremlins- cowardly, bold
Constructs- hyperactive, relaxed

Wed, 09/21/2011 - 21:26

Bopp

not bad

I like Mejezfeld's idea, because it decreases the predictability of scenarios that one has done many times before (Royal Jelly Palace, Firestorm Citadel, etc.). I like Monkeyman135's idea less, because it does not decrease the predictability.

Wed, 09/21/2011 - 22:14

mejezfeld

Legacy Username

@Garfield's author Or we can

@Garfield's author
Or we can say that certain monsters/monster lines are more/less likely to have certain traits than others (and by more or less likely I mean by a very small difference in probability).

For instance, because of a general stereotypical lack of emotion Constructs are more likely to be relaxed, save for Retrodes who LOOK like they have a tendency to be crazy, and Love Puppies already have a personality of sorts going from the descriptions of the items they drop.

Gremlins, Devilites and Jelly cubes seem to be more like people so the chances of all personalities should be equal... The Zombies were most likely people at some point so ditto. Phantoms and Kats are probably very likely to be crazy (or hyperactive in the case of the latter).

Alternatively Gremlins are very likely to be Bold/Hyper whereas Devilites tend towards the Cowardly/Lazy frequency of the spectrum- though how to handle it when they transform, I dunno.

Tiny Lichens probably have no personality (so as to avoid confusion of how to handle the personalities of merged lichens) but Lichen Colonies/Giant Lichen colonies could have personalities.

Beasts could get the same sort of dichotomy as the Devilites- Chromalisks are more likely to be cowards and Wolvers are more likely to be crazy or bold (particularly rabid wolvers).

Thu, 09/22/2011 - 19:24

goile

Legacy Username

This is interesting

as long as the probability is balanced so that traits aren't overused - or so rare that they're... well... rares - they would make very interesting additions to the game

Thu, 09/22/2011 - 19:46

mejezfeld

Legacy Username

We could probably even extend

We could probably even extend this to which attack they prefer (provided they have more than one attack).

So when a mob spawns we'll have...

-Random "personality" (small stat change+AI difference).
-Random physical trait (Like one monster just happens to have a little more elemental resist or any other stat than another monster of the same type).
-Attacking preference (if they have more than one attack they might favor one over the other)

As for the chances, I think it should be... Say you're in a room full of say 20 Salamander you'd have 8 that are cowardly and try to stay away from you, 3 who are extremely chill, 4 crazy ones going AEIOU AEIOU and running around like they're on crack, and 5 who confront knights without bothering to cloak at all.

and of these same 20 you've got one odd dude who's got some raised shadow resist and two with raised shock resists, and 1 dude who prefers to whack you with his tongue more than spitting status goo at you

Thu, 09/22/2011 - 20:09

goile

Legacy Username

my approach

Traits: out of those 20 chromalisks, I would say 1/4 to 1/2 of them should have traits.
Resists: raised random resists may be a problem since many creatures already have natural resistances to certain elements.
attack preferences: going too far. assigning random chance preferences to certain attacks would (i'm no coder here) most likely be a time consuming algorythm to assign to every/most monsters.

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randomized enemy traits