Andor's Trail

With the next update, we will introduce the new "actor conditions". An example of this will be "poison", where a monster can cause poison (that deals damage over time) on the player after each successful hit, which will make some monsters much harder and require a lot more planning.

I'm currently considering how we introduce these effects on monsters. One option would be to only make new monsters on the new maps have such attack effects, and another option would be to also modify old monsters to include such effects. For example, we have some monster called "poisonous snake" right now, do you think it should be updated to actually be posionous?

I am a bit reluctant to modify old monsters since that would make them harder, which of course would make the game harder for new players. Maybe we should compensate this by modifying their other stats in some way?

What are your thoughts? Should we modify existing monsters?

Hi Oskar, my opinion is that we should consider modifying old monsters to include these new conditions. Having monsters with "Venomous" or "Poisonous" in their names is a bit strange when this is a possible effect with new monsters but not with 0.6.8 and older monsters. It's probably worth balancing the old monsters (snakes) to keep them in balance with their appropriate level, experience, context, etc. Maybe lower Attack and Crit % a bit and set the duration/strength of the effect to be minimal at this stage of the game... Just my two cents.

This question may be best suited for a different thread/area but is there way for us players to help with the balancing of monsters? I would happy to offer my time with this process if you would like.

Looking forward to the conditions Oskar and thanks for your efforts on this!
Nick

Sounds like it will make the game more interesting. Will there also be anti-poison potions, or poison resistant armor/gloves, etc.?

I vote for leaving the existing monsters alone.

Add it to the new ones only. If you feel like you need to alter the existing monsters, consider editing the name to remove "venomous" or "poisonous" so they won't be named without the characteristic.

Another thing to consider is length of play required for new players to see the effect of conditions. If we only add to new mobs, then a new player may need to play 10 to 20 hours (length of time it took me to complete .6.8 the first time) to be exposed to this feature (assuming there is no new development for beginning content). If there are other conditions/effects that occur outside of poisoning, this may not be the case.

Just something to consider.

Leaving the existing monsters alone for now would be the right thing to do. i'm open for in the future to go back, and implement poison.

The game is always evolving so changing things in the beginning seems to me to just be part of the process of making the game better overall.

I do not see a reason to wait until later to do the earlier monsters, if anything it would cause more headaches when trying to balance everything.

I think we should change the current monsters and modify their stats to compensate for the new abilities.
Maintaining many almost identical monsters is going to be troublesome in the long run.

Also consider looking into issue 93.

Since any/all of the snakes in the snake cave can drop poison glands, it would seem that they should be poisonous. But since players just beginning the game have to spend a good deal of time there to get money for protective equipment, I think that a high percentage of hits should be "dry bites." (For the non-biologists in the group, this is the name for a bite by a poisonous snake which does not inject any venom.) Some species have voluntary control over whether to inject venom or not, and how much to inject if they do. So maybe the poison effect, both amount of venom, if any, and duration of effect could be tied to the bitee's experience points. (As well as to the snake type, of course.) Assuming this is possible--I was a biologist, not a computer person. Once out of the snake cave, however, I do not think the character's experience should count, any more than it does for the purely physical attacks. I would prefer that the regular methods of restoring health be used against poison, rather than introducing special antidote potions. And the regular gloves, boots and armor already protect against the snake's fangs without needing a whole new class of protective gear.

I vote to change the pre-existing monster to include poision. I remember thinking those snakes would poision me when I first saw them