Creature properties list

Discussion in 'NPCs and Creatures' started by Drithyl, Mar 3, 2012.

  1. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    Relevant topics to this list: DNA Mixing; Research!; Procedurally Created Materials; Melee Mechanics.

    So, I'm about to present a short list of possible creature properties. What I mean by properties are abilities, innate skills, vulnerabilities, resistances or whatever. For instance, 50% fire resistance. These properties would be randomly included when generating new creatures of a new planet. The harder the planet, the more "good" properties these creatures would get. Also, these properties are the ones that you could mix or acquire supposing that the DNA Mixing thing gets implemented (see the topic, really good suggestions there), and would also be listed on your logbook when doing advanced research on the creatures of the planet (see the Research! topic). Now, here it goes.

    # Additional attacks / Activated powers #

    - Breath-weapon: The creature's breath is nasty. Either it breathes fire upon its enemies, or simply freezes them, right on.
    - Dash (By Zeska): The creature is able to quickly run towards you for a powerful and quick opening attack. Has increased speed, power, and maybe knockback or stunning.
    - Possession (By Zeska): The creature has some sort of attack or power to take control of the victim during a short time, for instance, mushroom spores or octopuses sitting on your head.
    - Telekinesis (By PuppyVolcano): The creature can move materials or objects with its mind. The more powerful it is, the bigger things it can move. This could also be used as an attack mode.
    - Wing whirlwind (By Zeska): Using its powerful wings, the creature can hurt you and push you back, i.e. a dragon flapping them to hurl you back.

    # Attack modifiers #

    - Additional Damage: Not only do the creature's attacks make physical damage (piercing, cutting, blunt...), but also some kind of extra damage. Creatures burning with fire could do extra fire damage, for instance. Also, if using charged attacks (see Melee mechanics thread), it could even affect blocks that get hit by the attack, burning high-flammable ones, melting some of them in the case of acid damage...
    - Bloodsucker (% of damage inflicted): A percentage of the damage inflicted to others by the creature would heal it. Imagine giant leeches, bats, whatever.
    - Debuffing (By Mercgilado): The attack has a chance (or automatically) to impose a debuff over its victim. This can take multiple forms (instant death, unable to flee from the creature or be killed, etc...). Basically, something that would dissuade low-levels to approach the creature. Probably reserved to bosses. (This topic here by Red Space Monkey has some buff/debuff listed which could be included http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/ideas-for-status-effects.1669/#post-29014)
    - Paralyzing: So yeah, the creature's attacks paralyze. No big deal, except when it starts to eat you alive. There could be some items to give resistance against this.
    - Poison: The creature possesses a strong poison inside its body that it transmits either by throwing it up or by attacking with its natural weapons (fangs, claws). The poison inflicts debuffs of some kind on victims.

    # Behaviour #

    - Diurnal/Nocturnal (By Andinicus): This creature is either diurnal or nocturnal, and thus carries out its activies during this section of the day. The rest of it would be spent sleeping. Maybe even creatures that don't sleep at all, or other specific time schedules.
    - Hostility level (By Andinicus): This level indicates how aggresive (or friendly) a creature is. The higher it is, the more likely it is to attack you if you get too close, and the lower it is, the less likely. Negative numbers could even get them to follow you or something of the sort (wolves are incredibly territorial animals, for instance. .
    - Material generator: For some reason, the biological processes of this creature generates a certain type of material (just like plants do with oxygen). They could consume one type of material and generate others in a certain percentage by "leaving" them behind. These materials could also be high-quality, in the sense that the only way to obtain them is to wait and look at the goddamned beast eating as it pleases. Also think of liquids or gases. They could make the atmosphere of a planet poisonous simply by breathing oxygen and transforming it into, I don't know, CO2, or worse (hey, that reminds me of someone).
    - Merging: These creatures can merge and become one bigger and stronger version of the original. Picture small, inoffensive creatures merging into a tremendous one at the sight of trouble. Epic. Also deadly.
    - Nesting (By Chikara): The creature has its nest or burrow in a specific environment (on trees, under water, in caves, etc...). The hostility levels and reproduction could be affected by this choice of nesting (if you get too close to the nest, the hostility level skyrockets).
    - Reproduction/Spawning (By Zeska): The creature spawns other creatures of the type by laying eggs, or sapplings, or whatever, which would grow and become a threat after a given time. Do not ignore these creatures, or you'll find yourself overwhelmed.
    - Retreat (By Zeska): Under a certain condition (usually low hitpoints) the creature would run away using its movement modes (stealth, burrowing, etc...), resulting in you having to chase them if you want to obtain the loot.
    - Splitting: The creature reproduces by splitting. This means that if it gets hit under a certain ammount of HPs, it would split into two (ideally half of its life). Or even into 4. Or... Yeah, imagine the typical slimes (or GIANT WORMS! :D).
    - Statuesque: These ones are nasty. They seem statue-like and invulnerable to certain damages, until you turn their back on them, and BANG, your guts are lying all over the floor.
    - Swarming (By Mercgilado): These creatures get stronger by keeping together. The more creatures of the same species there are around, the stronger all of them become (imagine bee swarms). Also, this could be done in the way of one of those creatures buffing others, like eels electrifying their peers.
    - Symbiosis (By Zeska): Similar to Merging, this makes it possible for two creatures of different species to merge and become a unique creature with combined traits. Imagine for instance a slime/tree, where the tree would obtain movement thanks to being lodged on the slime, and gain more hitpints, strength, etc...

    # Movement modes #

    - Flying: This one is pretty obvious, the creature has the ability to fly!
    - Merging with materials: This creature can simply merge and unmerge with some kind of material, effectively being able to ignore it when moving. A stone-merging creature could walk right through stone walls, for instance.
    - Mounting (By Zeska): Intelligent creatures could use other species as mounts, just like players do, to move around.
    - Teleporting (By PuppyVolcano): The creature is strangely mutated, partially existing in another dimension. This gives it the ability to teleport short distances to fight and run, for instance.

    # Passive Abilities #

    - Aura (meters/pixels around the creature): The creature has an aura surrounding it that alters the environment. Either it's really radioactive and you need a special suit to get close to it, or it emits such cold that everything is freezed around it. Maybe even electromagnetic aura that would mess up wire connections around it. Also, auras could be stronger or weaker. Think of a Radioactive Waste Monster, or whatever.
    ----Death/Life Aura (By Zeska): Death/Life auras for bosses which would alter the terrain around them, killing plants and grass, or making it grow.
    - Chamaleonic: The creature would be hard to see, as it would assume the colors of the environment. Also, it could work only on certain types of block/materials, like, a stone golem could be hard to see among other stones.
    ----Chamaleonic Ambush bonus (By Zeska): A Chamaleonic creature could get extra damage if attacking you out of stealrh.
    - Decreased Life Regeneration (HP/s): Same as before, only life regeneration would decrease. This could also render it to zero. For instance, plant-like creatures would regenerate 0 HP/s under the moonlight. Even more, it could get it down to negative regeneration, resulting in degradation of the creature (vampires under sunlight, for instance).
    - Increased Life Regeneration (HP/s): This one would only work under a certain condition and would increase the normal regeneration of the creature if that condition was met. For instance, plant-like creatures would regenerate faster under sunlight.
    - Life Regeneration (HP/s): The creature would regenerate its life (even if this is standard to every creature, they could simply have different regeneration rates).
    - Magnetic: The creature would attract or repel bullets fired at it (ideally only metal bullets, not energy). This could also have a scale, stronger attraction or repulsion.
    - Resistance to damage (%): The creature is especially resilient against some kind of damage. For example, a creature living in a planet covered in lava could be 100% resistant to fire damage.
    - Resistance to material (%): Similar to the damage resistance, but this one depends on the type of material of the weapon (or the bullet). A creature could be highly resistant against iron, for instance. What I don't like about this is the low compatibility with the idea of procedurally generated materials, but I bet there's some way to mix the two.
    - Unstable: When killed, the creature's body becomes highly unstable and... "does something". Either it goes boom, or it releases acid, you name it.
    - Vulnerability to damage (%): Same as before, only the creature is weak against some specific damage. Imagine, crystal-like creatures could be vulnerable to blunt damage (like hammers).
    - Vulnerability to material (%): Just the contrary of the resistance. Imagine a creature being vulnerable to wood. Also, the creature would have trouble going through areas made of this material, and the percentage of vulnerability would be the slowing of its movement (down to zero, even, being unable to touch certain materials).
    - Weak spot (%) (By Zeska): The creature receives more damage when hit in a certain part of its body. For instance, a hard-shelled beetle would receive more damage when flipped upside-down.

    That's all for now. New suggestions appreciated, I would add them alphabetically to this list.
     
  2. Andinicus

    Andinicus Big Damn Hero

    How bout hostility level?
    The closer you are the higher the chance its going to attack you?
    Or even other creatures around it.
    e.g = wolves are very territorial animals

    And in contrary to that how bout a "companion" level?
    If its "partner" dies or gets hurt it goes berserk.
    e.g = Baby dies Mother goes crazy.

    And sleep?
    Once its sleeping it wont do anything until u make to much sound and/or tempt it (gun shots or provoking it)
    Sleeping creatures respond to other creatures hopefully.
    e.g = nocturnal animals sleep in the day, diurnal sleeps at night.
    This can also control what creatures come out during the day and night.
     
    Drithyl likes this.
  3. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    All of them seem like great ideas, especially the diurnal/nocturnal things! I'll add them to the list ^^
     
    Andinicus likes this.
  4. Zeska

    Zeska Void-Bound Voyager

    you could add a weakness property, i.e. a giant beetle with a hard chitin shell so your weapons do minimal damage, but if your able to flip him upside down somehow you can damage his weak belly-spot :)
     
    Drithyl likes this.
  5. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    Nice one, I'll add it ^^
     
  6. Mercury Gilado

    Mercury Gilado Existential Complex

    Some enemies should get stronger the closer to others of its kind it is (like a swarm of bees) or caster-like enemies that can make its friends stronger (maybe an electric eel that charges up another). You could call it swarming.

    Some enemies can also have unique debuffs that are hard to remove, like diamondizing in Earthbound (only two enemies in the game I can think of do that, it basically is an OHKO that you can't be revived from) or the Wall of Flesh's Horrified. It'd make it unwise to approach certain enemies until later on when you're stronger.
     
    Drithyl likes this.
  7. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    I think it's time I organize the property list to properly include new suggestions. Anyways those sound awesome, I'll do that now!
     
  8. PuppyVolcano

    PuppyVolcano Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Teleportation - a mutated version of a more common creature, unstable on the material plane
    Telekinesis - once again a rare mutant that has had its mind altered, giving it power over objects (this one could vary in strength greatly)
     
    Drithyl likes this.
  9. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    Nice ones, although do you mean something like teleportation as a movement mode, like, the creature moves by teleporting on the screen? (which is an awesome idea by the way).
     
  10. PuppyVolcano

    PuppyVolcano Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Well it would make for sense for the creature to have control over the teleportation, otherwise it would be more help than hinderance (but of course there could be some negative modifiers to enemies) I thought perhaps the creature could teleport short distance to assist with engaging and escape.
     
  11. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    I'll add it to movement modes then, thanks :D
     
  12. Dal

    Dal Phantasmal Quasar

    this would be especially interesting combined with the dna mixer. trying to mix the traits you want into your ideal pet :)
     
  13. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    Which is why I mentioned the topic on the first post. The list came out of different topics combined, like the research and the DNA one, and I think all of them should be included in combination. It would give so much content to the game...
     
  14. Zeska

    Zeska Void-Bound Voyager

    ok so i have some new ideas

    passive:
    - a cool addition for auras would be a death/posion aura which would kill grass and plants as the creature walks by, could be only cosmetic or damaging (would cool especially cool on bosses and give them a powerful appearance). also there could be the counterpart to this with a life aura so grass and flowers grow as the creature walks
    - another passive ability would be to reproduce so a creature would lay an egg or a sapling would grow from dangerous plants, would be cool and a player would have to look out for it, if enemies are ignored for long time the player could be overwhelmed (not every enemy should have this ability and the cooldown of this ability can vary, some may lay eggs on death)

    additional attacks:
    - monsters could have a charge attack, i.e. an aggressive boar kind creature could charge at you at sight with increased movement speed and stun/pushback/damage you
    - aggresive chamaelonic creatures could get an ambush bonus if they attack you out of stealth
    - some creatures may infect you or even control you for a short time if you touch them, i.e. octopus sitting on your head for 3 seconds, or you will be poisoned by the touch of a toxic mushroom
    - wing attack, i.e. big bird or dragon like creature flap with its wings to push you back

    behavior:
    - retreat behaviour of creatures, i.e. a creature will dig in the ground when low hp (so player must defeat those enemies with a strong finishing blow or dig after it if he wants the loot), simply run away, call more enemies of same species, or go into an enrage state where attack get stronger when low hp, or go stealth mode, or spay out ink/dust/sand for better escape
    - an addition to merging: some creatues may posses the ability to contract symbiosis, i.e. a slime and a sapling, so the sapling has its roots in the slime and is mobile, and the slime gets energy and more hp etc (i like the idea of a slime with a little plant on top of its head somehow :) )

    movement modes:
    - some intelligent (humanoid) creatures could posses the ability to mount other creatures, i.e. a jungle plantes where tribesman rides on giant beetles

    thats it for today:)

    tell me what you think about it^^
     
    Drithyl likes this.
  15. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    I love them all! I'll add them, although it will take me some time with such an extensive list ;)
     
  16. Vaux

    Vaux Void-Bound Voyager

  17. wsensor

    wsensor Subatomic Cosmonaut

    What I was wondering about is how are different creatures going to be affected by different types of weapons and damage? (This is one of the things I think should have been added into terraria T_T.)
    If its a slime type creature I do not think a bullet would work too well same with a sword. However a hammer (splatters the slime around) or a flamethrower (burns the slime) would work very well.
    A creature with thick shell type armor would work the same way so you would use a hammer type (works ok) or an explosive (works great) type weapon.

    An enemy made of metal could have a lot of defense but might be harmed more by electricity. If heated really well and then cooled the enemies armor could break down/apart.

    EDIT:
    It would all depend on potential weapon properties too.
    Some weapons might have piercing meaning they can ignore some defense others might deal fire/electricity damage.
    ENDEDIT:

    Adding these things as possibilities would be just great and allow for a ton of interesting battles/possibilities.
     
  18. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    I already suggested the possibility of different kinds of damage (not just "40 damage" like Terraria) in my topic Melee mechanics, I also think that types of damage greatly increase the gameplay, having to switch weapons against certain enemies, or downright specializing against some creatures, it's really nice as a feature. I also think Terraria should've had it, so let's hope we'll see it in this game!
     
  19. Chikara

    Chikara Orbital Explorer

    How about some of the wildlife making nests, in which those eggs would be? That would also be a logical place for the creatures to sleep and it would be perfectly reasonable for a creature to get pissed off, should you (one way or another) disturb/destroy his/hers/it's nest. This could give nice variation to creature species, given some would have their nests up in the trees, while others in ground level, caves, underground or no nest at all.
     
  20. Drithyl

    Drithyl Phantasmal Quasar

    I'll include it in the list ^^
     

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