I'm in relative agreement here; adding the variable of hindering conditions such as freezing, poisoning, enflaming (sets you on fire) or knockback would add that bit of challenge EVERYONE is looking for. Imagine being set afire, nulled in place while having the life sucked out of you while healing the monsters (vampiric, anyone?)... hmm, I may be getting ahead of myself here.d2frob wrote:Hey, I mentioned this on vent and acy suggested i post it here. Regarding the new monsters I totally like them and have no qualms (sp?) about the damage they do but for people trying to get into the server its a bit demoralising that by wave 6 they can be pretty much instagibbed for a good few levels yet. My suggestion was to let certain monsters poison, freeze, null etc - add a bit more strategy to the waves but without ensuring a certain instagib, just a possible one.
A wave I had in mind earlier was the wave with raptors and goo titans, if the titans were to slow players down in a manner freezing does, the raptors could get closer, upping the difficulty for the high level players. It's up in the air i guess, to what monsters would be suitable doing what but i figured could make things a little more scary - imagine trying to unfreeze while being chased by monsters! eek! :bounce:
In any event, the only thing I'd see hindering a venture such as enhancing monsters in this fashion is the difficulty of the coding, and the time the fine people of the DW server have to devote to it. It's certainly an interesting idea, and if the secrets were unlocked on how to change monsters in such a way... well, the possibilities would be near-limitless.
Also, I've seen the difficulty some people have on the server, and my only explanation is that the Damage Reduction Stat may be a bit high, especially for people such as Rob and myself (Medics). However, the majority of players on the DW server have learned to adapt and have fun and those who are having trouble can use the forum as a resource to get tips/hints on how to survive and look good while doing it!
Getting back to the topic of enhanced monsters, it seems that balancing monsters in such a way that increases the difficulty for higher level players without making it terribly impossible for lower level players is almost impossible in itself. If raptors can one-bite a level 70 or lower, adding a freezing property to the equation seems like a "fate-sealer" for lower levels. It would surely make higher levels sweat, but at the cost of lower levels sanity? If we were to lower the damage raptors and other monsters cause, it could make the gameplay too easy for the higher levels, as well. That's all probably too dramatic an example, but with all honesty, the only way to ensure a "global difficulty", if you will, is to drastically limit the stats that can be put into, say, damage reduction, or something that makes players near-invulnerable.
Well, those are my thoughts. To summarize, I AM in favor of "colorful" monsters (fire, poison, freezing, nulling, vampiric, knockback, and a slue of other types), but I'm unsure it'd solve the problem of unbalanced difficulty amongst differently-leveled and experienced players.