Bosses

[StopSignal]

Unstable Conglomeration: A zombie that absorbs other zombies. Can attract zombies and destroy them to gain their health and a proportion of their physical stats. Has, effectively, only one bodypart. Can sacrifice a fixed amount of health to throw an animate limb at an enemy. These limbs could range anywhere from a slow-moving leg that lacks the leverage to kick with much force, to an armed arm, to a zombear head that latches onto a bodypart and keeps biting until it is killed…

[Shadowchaser]

Just to throw my hat into the ring on this one:

As long as these unique beasties aren’t something a well-prepared survivor who ISN’T looking for trouble would instantly lose weeks or months of work to, I’d like them.

The idea of having a horror somewhere on the map creating spawn of doom I like. The idea of that horror punching down the base I’ve spent the last several realtime days building and tinkering with and playing with and perfecting to my liking, I like that a lot less.

I don’t mind that say, an occasional zombie horde might show up. That’s something you can deal with, a mitigatable threat if you practice noise discipline, set up defenses, etc.

If you’re just sort of hanging out in your base, resting up or reading books or otherwise preparing for your next big outing, having Dagon’s slightly younger little brother, Pfargthe, The Thousand Eyes Of Darkness, a swirling mass of eyeball tentacles and entropic destruction, suddenly break down your walls and rearrange your internal organs into a nice pretty pattern on the ground out of literally nowhere would be really frustrating.

Basically, I’d never want these things “dynamically” spawned. Give them a chance to appear in a given city, maybe, or location on the map, and then use the fact that they exist to modify OTHER spawns nearby (Say some sort of super Zombie Master making it so that there are more special zombies around, or Floating Eyes having a chance to spawn if Pfargthe is in town, or some sort of weird thing like crawling hands or whatever if there’s some sort of superblob, I dunno), but make it so that if you don’t set up your shelter NEARBY, they shouldn’t come homing in on you like a PCeeking Missile. (Which, due to the way the world only exists when you’re nearby, is basically how it would feel).

[infectedmochi]

Agree, some sort of “final stage” or “lair” for those bosses would be nice. Possible location include at the bottom of a randomly chosen lab, or the final stage in temple.

[RAM]

[quote=“RAM, post:20, topic:5895”]Unstable Conglomeration: A zombie that absorbs other zombies. Can attract zombies and destroy them to gain their health and a proportion of their physical stats. Has, effectively, only one bodypart. Can sacrifice a fixed amount of health to throw an animate limb at an enemy. These limbs could range anywhere from a slow-moving leg that lacks the leverage to kick with much force, to an armed arm, to a zombear head that latches onto a bodypart and keeps biting until it is killed…

Your post appears to be much less informative then mine, all I can really do in response to that is rephrase the whole thing and hope that it is more coherent for you…
Ummm, a zombie, with some ability to attract surrounding zombies to itself, and if it makes contact with another zombie, then the other zombie vanishes and the special zombie grows stronger.
Damaging an arm or a leg or getting a headshot wouldn’t really matter, because it has spares, many of them.
It has a ranged attack, where it throws a part of itself at a target, which would weaken it. Which would spawn a partial-zombie-creature adjacent to the target. If this attack hits, then it deals damage, probably according to the weight of the thrown object, and may have secondary effects, such as a head being able to clamp its jaws onto a victim, thereby allowing it to follow the victim even if the part was less mobile than the victim.
The victim would have to choose between attacking the thrown parts and risk being hit by more and the main zombie getting closer, or attacking the main zombie and risk having half-a-dozen zombear heads clamped onto their body, gnawing away furiously, by the time the main zombie had been killed. I am not sure how well the lore would deal with individual animated limbs, but they would not need to remain viable for very long relative to a normal zombie…

[kevin.granade]

[quote=“Shadowchaser, post:22, topic:5895”]As long as these unique beasties aren’t something a well-prepared survivor who ISN’T looking for trouble would instantly lose weeks or months of work to, I’d like them.

The idea of having a horror somewhere on the map creating spawn of doom I like. The idea of that horror punching down the base I’ve spent the last several realtime days building and tinkering with and playing with and perfecting to my liking, I like that a lot less.

If you’re just sort of hanging out in your base, resting up or reading books or otherwise preparing for your next big outing, having Dagon’s slightly younger little brother, Pfargthe, The Thousand Eyes Of Darkness, a swirling mass of eyeball tentacles and entropic destruction, suddenly break down your walls and rearrange your internal organs into a nice pretty pattern on the ground out of literally nowhere would be really frustrating.[/quote]
i totally agree, random wandering threats should be a challenge, but the uber tough stuff should require you to be looking for trouble to run into it. either that or at least provide a lot of advance notice, skirmishes if you will.

[kilozombie]

The only reason that I’d like this:

Have the horrible event monsters happen at specific, dedicated, calendar-friendly times.

When you hear the message “You feel something coming” a few times, it means that you’ve got about 10 days to fortify before something big comes your way. Actually, probably something even more straightforward. Say, on the first day of Autumn, the leaves kick up violently for a while, and you can observe this by looking at forests. A couple days into Autumn, something begins forming in any nearby forests to where you currently are- after another few days (if nothing has been done to stop this) a giant living mass of razor-sharp leaves will start hulking toward you, the size of a map tile, and observable, and you can encounter it at ANY point during its movement (at your base, on the road near your base, or right when it spawns near the forest)

edit:

a good part is also this:

Preventing a boss spawn should take time out of your normal Cata routine, but be feasible for most characters.

[vache]

I’m totally fine with boss spawns being a gated thing, where you control when to fight it and you have decent heads up that it’s there, if you’re paying attention. Bosses IMO should require something besides raw power to defeat, like timing, positioning, environmental cues, etc. Random uber beasties in the world at large is a different matter, they should be more like “semi bosses” that are just tougher, like hulks but maybe less destructive. They could accompany hordes, and killing them could make the horde dissipate faster, like a “zombie attractor” or something.

[kevin.granade]

I agree with what your getting at in principle, but there’s no one solution, that’d be boring. Some options are:

Buildup over time: Pretty much what you described. If you’re not ready for it, you can at least pack up your stuff and get out of dodge. An area might become spontaneously more dangerous, but as long as it ramps up over time, you have a chance to figure out it’s too much to handle and get out.

Location, location, location: If you make your base next to a “smoking hole in the ground, constantly issuing forth noxious gasses”, I’m not going to be very sympathetic if you complain about your base being overrun with flaming snakes in the middle of the night. Likewise giant ant mounds, triffid groves, slime pits, strange temples, etc… If you want a challenge though, by all means stake those places out and see what arises, or go in after them if you dare.

Creeping doom: Maybe it’s really hard to stop/kill neutralize, but it doesn’t matter how hard it is to stop if you can just run away. Maybe something that comes after you, but slowly like the sludge crawler, maybe something that’s just territorial and if you leave its area it won’t follow you.

Other options will come up situationally, but the key is to give the player options to neutralize the threat other than taking it on directly.

[Nappist]

Manufacturing Line
Rows and rows of featureless, faceless, armed and armored drones stand at attention. They face you as you move around, watching. Eerie but harmless. Do not respond to being smashed or damaged. Haven’t decided what should trigger them to assault you.
Reward: Manhacks, turrets, ???

Anti-Riot Drone
Found in the back of larger police centers and in prisons, this armored chassis (normally carrying an abundance of napalm and rockets) has been modified with a water cannon intended to pummel you into unconsciousness (or a bloody pulp) and painful, oversized flashbangs containing an absolute abundance of tear gas. Backed by copbots and eyebots.
Reward: Improved quality and quantity from the armory, as appropriate.
Odds and Ends: Police badges, Beat Cop’s Guide to Law

Test Subject Omega
You have no idea what this thing used to be. Scattered research notes leads the player to believe that Test Subject was an intended and designed product that then had mutagen inserted into it during gestation periods. It then broke containment and killed everyone. Lives at the bottom of nearly empty science labs with most everything smashed, pulped zombies, and makes a distinct noise when walking around.
Has Troglobite post-threshold by default and several others randomly rolled. Lowest level will be rearranged by Omega to be more comfortable (if it rolls fish for example, the bottom lab will have lots of flooded areas). Will actually chase player through z-levels until they reach the surface once implemented.
Reward: The omega body. Holy mutagen batman. Isn’t a zombie, and nonhuman, so the flesh is directly edible. Questionable decision to eat it, though.
Makes the finest Mutagen Cocktail. Don’t forget the maraschino cherry! {Jar of comes included with research notes}
Odds and Ends: Gene Tweaking lab, smashed incubation chamber, notes, things written by Omega. Will vary from psychopathic to childlike. And crayon to blood.

The Screamer
A gigantic mass of bubbling flesh and eyes steadily growing, forcing it’s way into this reality. Is part of a gigantic eldritch being trying to fully enter this universe. Can be killed with missile silos or by simply causing it so much pain that it leaves. Large fires, radiation, smoke, electricity, leading zombie hordes into it, etc. are all valid tactics. Is fairly dangerous with poisonous tentacle attacks and Special, mental. Bonus points if someone records a hideous noise and uses it to scare the hell out of players.
Reward: Artifacts, science lab with netherworld creatures instead of zombies that resembles a cavern more than a lab.
Odds and Ends: You find a massive glowing portal in the bottom. Netherbeing spawns go up in the area.

Empty Town
An empty town with no enemies, no spawns, and no critters.

It isn’t actually empty. Enjoy dealing with nighttime CHUDs and other horrors. Yes, they will pursue if you leave once nighttime hits.

Reward: The spawn is adjusted slightly to replace zombies with folded pieces of clothing and odds and ends. Tools and piles of material are out and about, nothing is stockpiled, has slightly higher then average amounts of consumables.

Edit: Made a few changes.

[StopSignal]

snip

All awesome.

[KA101]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:15, topic:5895”]Actually, remember phalanx from Demons/Dark souls?

Please god no[/quote]

Yes, Dust.

It’s not like you’re a battleship or anything, you ought to be fine.

[John_Candlebury]

[quote=“Inquisitor Dust, post:16, topic:5895”][quote=“Kevin Granade, post:15, topic:5895”]Actually, remember phalanx from Demons/Dark souls?

Please god no[/quote]

Yes, Dust.

It’s not like you’re a battleship or anything, you ought to be fine.[/quote]

Hey cool!