"Monsters in games or make fear diverse"

The series of articles “monstropedia” Part 2

Often, developers resort to simple solutions to create the illusion of a variety of opponents in the game. Repaint the monster, change the color of the flame, pull a new skin on the old creature and add thorns / horns / teeth / paws, but the well-known phrase says “you can't teach the old dog new tricks”

Players want a variety of game situations, a new sense of the game, a new gameplay. The developer wants to give it to the player, but with little blood, as a result, players are unhappy because of the monotonous gameplay and boring opponents, endless corridors of guts, identical dungeons and monsters with the same behavior, but different appearance. (About the design will be articles)

You are a developer, what to do?

The following comment served as a starting point for this article.

“I would like to add the following: the variety of monsters in the game should be really diverse, and not dragging the skin of the same type of monsters without changing the behavior and mechanics of the game.

Often they take a golem or elemental and make it of different types - stone, sand, etc. formally inscribing in different locations. If at the same time for each type will make different behavior and vulnerabilities and the mechanics of the game takes into account, it will be interesting, but if you change only the appearance, then the player is quickly tired. "- DaneSoul

Thanks to the author of the comment, and we will return to the topic.

How to solve the issue of diversity of gameplay and monsters, but it does not spend a lot of time to implement?

Each location should have its unique opponents about how to come up with them in this article.

Well, we have an opponent, now we need their variations. Returning to the long-suffering sand shark, we can shove it into lava, sand, even a swamp. We changed the skin, but the model and the essence remained the same. Let's push more teeth, increase different parts of the body and you're done!

Most developers believe that they have coped with the task at this stage.

And no

How has the opponent changed in terms of gameplay? This is the same shark ...

Now that the problem is clear, the example is ready, we understand what is needed. It is necessary to change the mechanics of the enemy.

So let's start

Sandy shark

in accordance with the initial concept from the previous article.

Lava shark

She will not attack suddenly, she will jump out of the lava up, then fall on the player and explode like a meteorite. Such an attack sets the player on fire, you can kill it only in flight, or by imposing stun status and so on. The old model is another adversary. We changed the skin, behavior, added effects of fire and lava, added DoT damage from the shark. It remains to add a few details to the model to give credibility.

Such alteration should not take more than 2 hours. (For everything, better than 1 hour)

Marsh shark

Elementary, it will just guard the player at 1 point, her mouth will be barely visible, this creature looks more like a trap. The open mouth slams sharply. From the enemy this creature has become a trap, which corresponds to the idea of ​​diversity. But, let's revive her, now she climbs the length of the body on the floor and begins to eat everything in her radius. For credibility, we can make it thinner or fat, it is done easily and quickly. Again, the replacement of the skin, model addition and behavior change.

To consolidate, take the previously mentioned golems.

A golem is a creature of magic. As a rule, in games it looks like a living clay statue of enormous size. Golem is a construct, the most important thing is to remain within the rules, the golem must remain a golem. The bottom line is, forward to diversity

Let's take 5 golems:

• Ice
• Fiery
• Plain clay
• Metal
• Bone (why not)

Very often (with rare exceptions) they differ only in appearance.

Here is what we do.

The basis is a composite of several objects, so it will be easier to edit and change it.

Ice Golem

Option 1

Simply splits into thousands of small fragments and flies into the player, it looks beautiful - a suicide golem. Of course it does a lot of damage.

Option 2

Around the golem aura of slowing down and frostbite, you can make a cold whirl around, also interesting. A golem can fight both close and far away. For melee huge sharp claws on his hands. For a long-distance one, he simply tears the icicle out of the cave, perhaps from himself and throws it at the player. An icicle can splinter into fragments and injure a player additionally, it can impose DoT frostbite and bleeding. An interesting thing turned out.

You need 2 additional animations - to break the icicle from the cave and throw, to break the ice and throw.

Of course it needs to be made like a block of ice, but sometimes it is enough to emphasize it with details and color. But for the sake of completeness, we have a composite model and it is convenient to edit it. Again, it takes time, no animations for a couple of hours. This golem is kept at a distance, a kind of glass cannon.

Fire golem

Of course, it ignites everything around and attacks with fire, we can just set it on fire and this effect will suffice. Here is the question in his attacks, I have 2 options. The first is fire breath, the second is an ordinary fireball. Nobody has canceled heavy punches, but every golem can boast of this. If desired, you can add both attacks. This golem prefers to keep the average distance, it feels great on it.

Clay golem

Ordinary tank, rushing through, stupid, slow and clumsy, is immune to any magic. Typical burly with high defense and destroying everything in melee. Not a problem for deft players.

Metal golem

Composite construct It breaks apart and with the help of magic creates a metal vortex. Since this is a creation of magic, he can transform (hello Michael) his hands into edged weapons - maces, axes, hammers, blades. It is better to make it small and fast, it distinguishes it from previous golems. Hit - ran away, so he is so vile.

Bone Golem

The most clumsy of all, he is generally harmless ... until you start beating him. It turns into a pile of bones, when a player thinks that he won ... armies of skeletons climb from this pile - they represent a danger. Armed with everything, who grabs the bones of comrades, who are stones, someone is lucky to have a sword in his hands, a horde runs to the hero. Skeletons just watch over the heap like a nest and react aggressively to anyone passing by. The golem itself - just goes in a straight line, you can not touch it and avoid a lot of problems. But where problems are, there is good mining. A great adversary for a graveyard, abandoned villages and cursed places.

Here are some tools to create a new mechanics we have:

• change of attack type (from near to far)
• behavior change (aggressive, defensive, expectant, biting)
• change the size and appearance
• monster attack and speed
• add effects / buffs (hota, vampirism, etc.)
• add statuses / debuffs (stun, rollover)
• opponent's mind (he became smarter, intellect)
• the complexity of the enemy (complex)
• new attacks and skills
• change the reaction of the enemy to the player (response)

You can still add teeth and fat, but there are ways cooler, trust players to like them.

Thanks to DaneSoul readers for the topic and AlexTOPMAN for the important point.

The next article will be on “monster behavior or how to surprise and scare the player”

Thanks for reading.

PS Please throw tomatoes in the author, from this it gets better.

Continuation