Introduction to this series of posts here.
Thread 1: "We don't need more content but revamped content" concept and PvE revamp ideas focused on Skeletons
(Little disclaimer: as you can probably tell, english is not my first language, I'll try to explain myself the best I can, I really hope you can understand everything)
In case you haven't read the first thread I want to repeat a bunch of concepts that I think are important for thi argoment too. First of all I think that most of the time game mechanics feel good when the player gets rewarded with something on doing something good and gets punished ONLY if he do something bad, getting punished for no reason almost always feel frustrating. If we talk about "Simulator" genre this is not true, since their goal is to be the most realistic as possible, but in every other game that doesn't want to be specifically simulative this is very important to make the player feels like he's having a good time playing the game. In SoT this is a problem because of how difficulty is managed, in SoT most tasks that are supposed to be harder are actually just more time consuming.
Volcanoes
The first problem with the Devil's Roar are volcanoes, heres why. It happens quite often that as soon as youg et close to an island its volcano starts erupting, since parking your ship too close to the island would either mean sinking or wasting all your wood, you are forced to step away form the island. At this point there's 3 things you can do:
- Wait untill the volcano stops erupting, which feels an eternity (maybe fishing meanwhile).
- Go to another island (hoping that it wont erupt too).
- Shoot yourself on the island so you can try to do your task. Most of the time you will die from the hot water unless you waste some food.
The Devil's Roar is supposed to be an harder region, but as you can see this is just more annoying. My fix this: volcanoes that are situated inside the islands should have smaller radius so you can park the ship closer and shoot yourself on the island more consistently and without having to waste food. Fighting skeletons or digging chest while the volcano is erupting is actually cool since you need to keep an eye on the sky so you can dodge the rocks that are falling. Other volcanoes that aren't on islands can actually have a greater radius.
Geysers
Geysers can be annoying at first, but that's cause you aren't used to keep an eye on the ground, as soon as you get used to it you can dodge it in time, so what's the problem here? The problem comes when geysers spawn under a chest that you are trying to dig, as for waiting that the volcano stops erupting here the same concept: you are forced to wait for the geyser to stop erupting. Fix: geysers can't spawn too close to a chest that is being digged (or on the place where the chest is buried, not sure if this is possible tho O.o).
The second problem with geysers is that it actually make fighting Gold skeletons and Skeleton captains too much easier, even if I actually like the idea of using the environment to kill skeletons isn't this place meant to be harder? So why is it actually easier? I think this should be removed, nerfed or impossible to do with skeleton captains at least. A new type of ashen skeletons immune to geysers dmg may have a chance to spawn in the Devils too.
Earthquakes
Being unable to walk properly and run is just annoying tbh, keep only the screen tilting effect and remove the other debuffs the player gets.
New Unique Skeletons
So, as I said, Ashen Skeletons may be a new variant that has an high chance to spawn in the Devil (this variant could even be the ONLY variant that can spawn here). We already have the model for it. These Skeletons should be immune to geysers and fire damage, they should also have fire related abilities. One I though of is that they may have a charging glow effect (wich can take about 5 seconds to charge), when glowing at max they permanetly get on fire, you can throw water on them with the bucket to extinguish their fire and reset their glowing charge. They could also have some sort of abilities (already talked about of some of these concept but I'm gonna repeat myself):
- Sometimens when the skeleton is in melee range he takes out a Firebomb and drinks from it with a 0.5 seconds charging animation, then breaths fire fore about 2-3 seconds in a big cone in front of him dealing damage and setting the player on fire. If you shoot the Firebomb during the drinking animation it explode dealing damage and setting on fire entities too close to him, also the skeleton that were drinking either gets either killed or takes about 80% of his max HP as dmg.
- Sometimes when a skeleton is far away from the player he takes out a firebomb and prepare himself to throw it to the player with a 0.5-1 second charging animation, during this time you can shoot the Firebomb to make it explode with same consequences as the previus skill.
- Skeletons guns may start glowing, their next shot will set his target on fire on hit.
Ashen Skeleton Lord abilities ideas:
- The Skeleton Lord sticks his hand into the ground for about 5-10 seconds, a lot of Geysers start appearing around him and he takes more damage while doing this.
- The Skeleton Lord shoot a special projectile upwards that explode in the air splitting itself in 5-10 small rocks on fire that will fall in a big area aorund the Skeleton Lord.
New types of chest
Ashen stuff are worth the double but for no real gameplay reason but "the Devil is """harder""" so here you find more valuable chests", it would make more sense in my opinion if they gave a debuff (like the chest of Sorrow), as for Ashen Skeletons, the ashen chests and skulls should start glowing intensively right before catching fire, as soon as the chest ignites a zone of the ship close to it should catch fire too (or either the player if he's too close or trasporting the chest itself). After thining this idea tho, I realised that the quantity of ashen chests or skulls you might have to deal with simultaniously onboard it might be too overwhelming and would punish players who likes to stack loot. It would be better to have a new chest: the Molten Chest, that is a rare chest that can spawn only in the Devil (1-2 guaranteed in the Devil's Fort) with this effect.
Unique Fauna
I think that in the Devil only stronger animals should have survived, one I thought of is a boar: killing it grants you 2 pieces of boars meat (which heals as much as pork). Also, the Boar would not be a passive mob like pigs and chickens, it would attack the player with his tusks. Eventually it could even charge the player, while charging the boar should follow the player but sidestepping with the sword at the last moment should let you dodge the attack.
On more creature I thought of is a Piranhas like fish in that attacks the player in school of 2-5 units (instead of sharks). They should be bigger and different from Devilfishes (It even could be Devilfishes itself, but I'm not sure how the loot would be managed at that point).
