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Patreon Poll #3: DM-200 Variants! - Discussion (Patreon)

Published:
2020-01-28 18:59:00
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

 (This is the discussion post for Patreon Poll #3. Poll choice descriptions are here, and discussion is welcome from all patrons. However, only golden+ patrons can view and vote in the voting post.) 

Hello Patrons, welcome to patron poll number three! Just as with sewer slimes, DM-200s need a rare variant, and so I've decided to leave the specific choice for that up to you!

All of these variants are focused around creating an intimidating foe that really maximizes the gameplay potential of an enemy that can't leave a room. You 100% control the engagement of the fight, which lets me make the enemy quite strong. Making something like these into a standard enemy would be too much, but a rare variant is the perfect place for it.

Each rare variant will have boosted stats, and will drop a guaranteed cursed metal shard, as well as whatever normal drops I may add to DM-200s in the future. What you guys get to decide is how the abilities of this rare variant will differ from the default DM-200. There are three options:

Unstable DM-200
"This DM-200 has a damaged engine that seems to practically spew out toxic exhaust. Approaching it might be difficult without some form of gas protection."
- Has a significantly reduced cooldown on gas venting.
- Passively spews gas around its position if it sees an enemy.
The high quantity of gas makes it difficult to approach this enemy, but its main source of added power is completely nullified if the hero uses some form of protection from gas. Additionally, as other enemies will be harmed by the gas as well, it's possible to use this ability to your benefit.

DM-201
"The dwarves briefly experimented with doubling-down on the DM-200's lack of mobility and created a DM model that was entirely stationary. The DM-201 trades in mobility and toxic exhaust for more durability and the ability to rapidly heal itself."
- Cannot move at all, or be moved by various pushing effects
- Cannot vent toxic gas
- If it cannot attack an enemy on a turn, it will heal instead. This heal is stronger the more hurt it is.
Unless you have overwhelming damage, you will have to run up and fight this variant directly in order kill it. However, as its heal is based on missing health, it may be possible to soften it up with ranged before going in with melee. Additionally it is very easy to navigate around this variant, as its threat range is very small.

DM-205
"After the dwarves began experimenting with magic, there was a brief effort to try and apply some of that knowledge to the existing DM-200 models. The result is the DM-205, a DM-200 retrofitted with magical components that let it shield itself and fire bolts of magical energy."
- Has a shield that regenerates when it cannot melee an enemy.
- Fires magical bolts at range instead of toxic exhaust, can fire more frequently too.
- Magical bolts may inflict a debuff, such as degraded.
A bit of an inversion on how DM-200s currently work. Rather that being weaker at a range, this variant is weaker up close, where it can't fire its magical bolts or charge its shield. Unlike lots of other ranged enemies though, you can't just kite it into a door.

Please vote for as many options as you like, you don't need to vote for just one! I allow multiple votes as it means that a higher proportion of people will end up voting for the winning choice. It also lets me gauge interest and lets polls be a bit more flexible, I might choose to implement the top 2 choices in some polls for example.

Comments

Zrp200

I was really hoping for that corrosive gas DM-200, and barring that some sort of reference to the DM-300 battle. I realize that it's difficult, and that we've went over this in private (and probably publicly too), but not doing ANYTHING is a huge missed opportunity imo. I'm sure there are a few more ideas where these came from that could also serve as interesting DM-200 variants.... Here's my opinions on these, from most favorable to least. Unstable DM-200: * This one is the best one in my opinion by far, but I'm still not fond of it. I do not think the answer to switching things up involves doubling down on toxic gas; in fact, I'm not sure if I find the gas super harmful to begin with. * That said, however, the passive gas generation IS both somewhat interesting, especially as it is a reference to DM-300, albeit the old, cut version. I guess in that case it is a nod to vanilla, which is honestly not bad. * Its interactions with other enemies are sure to be amusing. * What I think would be an interesting addition to this, on the other hand, is if it could vent corrosive gas with a greater cooldown instead of (or in addition to?) the regular toxic gas with a significantly reduced cooldown. This also gives me the corrosive gas DM that I've been waiting for :) * If this is the final version, please consider changing the name to something else. I'm not so fond of the other two. There's something to be said about having enemies that have complex mechanics, but this is too much, lol. These things are going to spawn less than 2% of the time... DM-205: * I feel like the proposed mechanics are far too drastic a change from the typical DM-200 for how common this thing is going to be. None of the proposed mechanics seem to tease anything about DM-300, either. * Adding more magic into the game is more likely to be aggraviating than interesting, especially when that source is going to be in the form of a rare enemy that spawns less than 2% of the time. * Adding the degraded debuff especially would make interactions a whole lot more painful. This rare enemy seems to just tease the existance of the cancer that is warlocks that is just ahead after DM-300, but do they really need a tease? We already have gnoll shamans. DM-201: * A completely immobile enemy sounds super exploitable, especially without some sort of defense mechanism. Huntress will just look at them and laugh. * Further, there's a perfectly valid option of just walking around the things without engaging. When you see them, that is. * Combined with the loss of the DM-200 gimmicks and limitations that make it actually interesting to play around, imo the DM-201 is probably going to be just as boring as it is threatening, which is imo unfitting for a rare enemy. * Readers that can vote, please--please--do not vote for this one.

Shattered Pixel
>>31808270

Thanks for the feedback! I'll try to address your main points: I opted not to go for corrosive gas because it plays exactly the same as a regular DM-200, just with more gas damage. I wanted to try and give some opportunity for patrons to choose mix-ups to gameplay, and not just have the options be "dm-200s but they get X minor extra effect." In general I don't mind if a few later-game rare enemies are more complex like this, especially if they give a suitable good reward (e.g. chaos elementals). There's no additional references to DM-300 here because none of its mechanics would fit. Electricity is already the domain of DM-100s, rock dropping wouldn't work well in rooms which may be more restricted, and digging would just absolutely break levelgen. DM-200s also already have a direct reference to DM-300 at base with their gas venting mechanic, so I didn't see a strong reason to add another one. Regarding the poll options, as I said I went with these choices because I wanted an enemy that really tries to take advantage of limited movement, by being really strong if the player chooses to confront them. Making something like that into a standard enemy wouldn't really work out though, because such a strong enemy can't really show up too often, so a rare one is the perfect spot. I'll go over each of your points: Regarding DM-205s, these are actually very similar to an early design for DM-200s, which I ended up moving away from because it would be too powerful for a common enemy. Degraded may indeed be a bit much for DM-205s, which is why I wasn't committing to it, but I don't think it's fair to call a debuff cancer because it counters the most straightforward upgrade strategy. Regarding DM-201s, they do have a defense mechanism in the form of their self-heal. The intention is that DM-201s would be the most statistically strong of the variants but the player has complete control over the engagement, basically taking the existing 'big enemy' dynamic to an extreme. I can understand that an enemy which you have to just run up to and attack isn't as interesting at a direct gameplay level though. If this option does end up winning it's entirely possible for me to tweak it slightly while sticking with the same core theme (e.g. give it back the gas attack, change its defensive power to be more interactive, etc.), depending on how playtesting goes.

D

I like the unstable option best because I think the way the persistent toxic gas offers ways to damage other opponents by clever positioning/kiting etc is really cool and not something we've really seen much of in the game so far