Werewolf

[TheUnbeholden]

Following a post someone made a while ago...

Was able to ghost through the werewolf area (which is, again, not realistic at all, not your fault oviously, but the way they coded the monster, you CANNOT fool a wolf's sense of smell, they would catch your scent dozens of meters away, and also the hearing, which is freaking good on pretty much all canines; now that I think of it, I think it's safe to say they also see clearly in the dark, at least many times better than us... What I'm saying is that they should be basicly stalking-proof

 

Totally agree. I personally think that while a wolf is a excellent hunter and impossible to sneak right up to it or passed it unless you keep a distance of at least 20 metres... a werewolf is a like a incredibly powerful version of it that not only would have those heightened senses but also have a highly strong, fast, and regenerative body that easily makes them the most powerful creature in the world.

 

It could take on a elephant and win, other various lions, leopards, jaguar, grizzly bear. Perhaps a Cheetah might beat it speed wise but aside from that a werewolf is king of the jungle. You would have to find tricks to beat it like explosive arrows, flashbang, a few land mines, but if you don't have all that then its basically about keeping a distance from it... or run like hell when it comes and prey you have a rope arrow to get to high ground or barricade a door. If anything I think it should be upped senses wise for the following Dark Mod v1.8

 

It should be the most challenging AI to come up against.

 

Wondering if this beast has ever had a tweaking made to it?

[demagogue]

The first thing we need is a new model for it. It's a Doom3 derivative so the sooner we switch over to an original model the better.

 

They are pretty powerful as it is now. I'd worry about smell because it'd be hard to work as a gameplay mechanic. The player needs to know around where the risk zone is for getting past him. I could understand them having better night vision than other AI.

 

Of course, totally aside from what's the best werewolf for the general mod, mappers are always free to boost the power of AI in their own maps. That'd be a good place to experiment with a crazy good werewolf AI.

[Springheel]

Who ever said it was a werewolf?

[RPGista]

Well, my suggestion would probably mean that the werewolf would become something of a boss, which cant really happen as it is already used in at least one FM. It is just my opinion though, but to have monsters doing the rounds, closed in a path network loop, just doesnt work that well (as a human guard does). They had those in Thief3 too, this tree thing going around back and forth, it just doesnt look right...

 

To make those encounters really something more natural and akin to a horror moment, mappers would need some more context animations, like "monster crouching, eating with his hands" (for something like the first zombie encounter in Resident Evil 1), or "monster leaps and attacks" (for breaking a door "cutscene", or killing an AI right as you turn the corner). Anyways, this is all dreaming, as first there is a long road just to make them from scratch again...

[Xarg]

That could be addressed by having 2 "flavours" of werebeast, a lesser werebeast and a greater one. The greater one could have the boss-like statistics that would practically guarantee you only use 1 or 2 in a map, meanwhile you could have small hordes of lesser werebeasts that would be the current one, to avoid breaking existing maps. Maybe even a Dire Werebeast...

[Springheel]

Boss fights aren't really the kind of thing TDM promotes by default. Mappers can easily beef up existing AI by increasing their HP, sensitivity, damage, etc, though if they want.

 

For the record, werebeasts already have better hearing than other AI, do more damage, and have more than twice as many hit points as a regular guard, so they're not exactly pushovers.

[Xarg]

That's true enough, but after a while, you come to expect certain AI to have certain characteristics. I've done some mild experimentation with the damage values, and even though I know it's there, because I put it there, it's really disconcerting to have a guy with no head armour still howling for your blood after you've belted him in the head with a sword twice, because visually, nothing distinguishes him from any other AI wearing his skin. Maybe the answer to that is to give him some funky glowing or particle effects to differentiate him, but leaving him with the plain appearance would be highly confusing at least initially.

[ungoliant]

Maybe the answer to that is to give him some funky glowing or particle effects to differentiate him, but leaving him with the plain appearance would be highly confusing at least initially.

 

The usual TDM mapper method is to just set the AI on fire. Blue fire if you're feeling frisky. The new-wave is spectral AI with almost insta-kill proximity damage modifier

[Xarg]

I'm kinda holding out for a fully body faint smoke trail/slight glow effect myself, but I see what you did there

 

Was also thinking of a "reverse glow" like a shadow, but that might be more than slightly ripping off Alan Wake, still, it'd look great, even if it wasn't a full on hazy smoke effect, and just the curious inability of a light source to show up details of the ai...

Edited August 29, 2012 by Xarg