Dead Planets

To be honest,

It would be nice that you can beat it, but it would be very difficult to win.


Kind of like an endgame boss, or something of the sort.

 

And probably drops some of the best loot for your current level, I'd like the risk and reward play style to it. The potential for the best stuff the game offers (for your current level, for balance, so you don't become broken as hell for the rest of the game) with the risk of having your planet wiped. I love it.

 

It would be cool maybe idk.

 

I think it's a great idea, but only as an endgame scenario. Like, once you've built your empire or utopia or whatever, you are then charged with defending it from all manner of dark, unreasoning forces from beyond the void, or some such thing.
My suggestion would be to include a warning, but not make it immediately apparent that something's going to happen. For instance, you've got odd blips on your radars occasionally, or celestial bodies show up on the maps that weren't there before, etc. And if you fail to act on what you find, BLAM, a planet's being taken over.

 

I just skipped to the last page to say this, I don't know if it has yet been suggested:

You would arrive on a planet with only black and gray environment. It has very high skyscrapers, all black and covered in ash. There would be little clues scattered around the ruins, clues about the existence of that... Thing. My semi-twisted mind added burnt skulls and trees everywhere.

 

Hmmm, perhaps this can be done a different way. Instead of a chance of it happening anywhere at anytime (and risk destroying so much you've built and pissing the playing off) perhaps it can be worked like karma? For example if you destroy other people's homes/races for your own goals then it increases the chance of something bad happening to YOU. What goes around comes around, so it only happens if you are asking for it.

 

If it's a bullshit random event that you can't predict or stop, then there's very little fun involved, especially when it can damage or destroy a planet that you've worked diligently on for hours and hours.
I wouldn't mind an event that caused an army to attack a planet with wave upon wave of enemies to slaughter, but you should be able to go up to the flagship, bitchslap the some sense into the high general and fix your shit.
Now, it shouldn't be easy, it might even not be possible with your current gear or skill level, but it should be entirely possible to do.
While it's definitely okay for a game to mess you up every once in a while, games are about making stuff go your way.
In fact, it'd be pretty awesome to hold everything that you've done up to this point for ransom for an endgame quest, it'd give you a much greater sense of urgency, but the thing is, you can get all that back.
If I want a game that doesn't care about the hundreds of hours that I put into it, a game that I have little to no control over what happens, then I don't need a game for that. I'll just settle with Real Life.

 

I highly appreciate this suggestion. I always play on the hardest available mode of any game and enjoy hardmode so long as it is implemented well. Personally, I enjoy ridiculously difficult challenges. You see, they force a perspective reorientation. As a near-demigod at the end of most common videogames (as are most players), I am functionally immortal, indestructible... heck, the word for this is "inhuman". I would very much enjoy an assortment of events designed to put me in my place. This... creation, this.. Visitor - it would be a Thing that, for whatever reasons it may have, destroys, devours, conquers - or does any array of activities for reasons we might not comprehend. The challenge of it would not be destroying it, but surviving it. Those insane fools (likely myself, at the least) who stay planet-side to resist would be up for an amazing challenge. Not an impossible one, mind you. If you try to kill it, sure, enjoy making no progress. On the other hand, if you want to try to survive (and possible collect exceptionally rare loot from its newly changed environment that is now far more dangerous), then that's feasible. Let me now outline a few variant ideas I have for this:

1. Immortal, amazingly powerful
-Does not arrive naturally.
-Summon-able via crafting recipe, special altar, etc
--Only one instance of this per game universe at any time
-Massively dangerous just as it is, by itself
--All creatures, liquids and other environmental variables changed to exceptionally difficult, possibly much harder to kill, options include"
---creatures gain increased health and selective vulnerability through armor plating and the like
---swarms of smaller creatures that, while vulnerable, deal damage to players
---larger "harvester" creatures lay waste to the first few layers of the planet and obliterate forest layers
-May be immobile and not of normal construction. (Not all giant dangerous things are fleshy, or tentacled. It could, for example, take form as a giant crystal, some sort of twisted monolith, or some distinctly unnatural Thing. For example, the OP contains an image of a Thing that is not clearly an organism.)
-May spawn (once per player-drop to the planet) "miniboss" which is in itself extremely (I'd use all caps here, but I hate that) hard to kill and drops loot specific to this creature as well as other items of higher stats and rarity
-Created extraordinarily rare drops at zones closer to it, but it impacts all areas on the planet. Variant enemies may appear. Typical conventions of this form of creature would be the implementation of various dangerous creatures both above-ground and underground, as well as various enemies that may well hide within the ground itself
-This planet becomes forever dangerous

2. Event-based "harvester" class (typically a large self-propelled organism of clear shape and size)
-Arrives naturally, small chance
--Merely arrives as some sort of giant creature, harvests resources (trees, minerals, liquids, it matters not) and exits unless killed
--Difficulty to kill varies. Some may defend themselves exceptionally well (and drop better loot), others may not.

3. Environmental changer
-Arrives naturally, but changes environments on a larger scale than #2
--Can be prevented from arriving through the creation of some simple object, but isn't particularly dangerous if it arrives
--May actually increase rare ore in its vicinity or otherwise favorably alter the environment, but may also be problematic through attacking the player and other lifeforms
--May be much less visible, producing odd gasses, steam, or some kind of player-damaging ooze that may cause the player to kill it for these reasons, not knowing its other favorable effects