IDEA: The Hound Giant

[sokoteur]

I've done a lot of thinking about hounds and a way to alleviate the frustrations with hounds for experienced players who want to be doing other activities while keeping it balanced, as well as leaving hound mechanics alone for newer players.

The Hound Giant.

It doesn't appear in the world until the 3rd year (we get Bearger 2nd year, so maybe Hound Giant 3rd year.)

When it spawns, it announces that it has spawned (should be a big scary woof) and does not seek any players out.

Once you find it, it is neutral to the player but has hound followers (similar to Varg/Spider-Queen) who will not aggro a player unless they have a hound's tooth in their inventory. (maybe killing all of the Hound Giant's hounds begins the actual giant fight). When inspecting it, it could say something like "so this is who sends the hounds" etc.

I have no clue what to do for an interesting boss fight, so I'll leave this to others.

Upon killing the Hound Giant, The Hound Giant does not re-spawn for 70 days. Yes. 70 days. Because....

The major drop from killing it would be an item that allows you to stop a hound wave from spawning as soon as you hear a hound wave alert. (I guess most similar mechanic to Dripple Pipes, just reversed). It has 10 uses and can not be deconstructed. Would allow you to strategically choose if you want hounds or not. 

The ideal adjustment to the Hound Giant item drop would be to increase the difficulty/variety by tying the drop to each season. If you kill Hound Giant in autumn or spring, the item drop affects hound waves in both autumn and spring, but not in Winter/Summer. Meaning you'd have to kill the Hound Giant in Winter for the Ice Item to stop Winter hound waves, while killing Hound Giant in Summer drops Fire Item to stop hound waves in Summer.

Requiring the player to fight the Giant multiple times and putting it behind a full year (+ an extra season for the alternate drops) helps balance the idea of completely controlling the hound waves.

Any thoughts?

[Canis]

I guess it'd help with late-game when you're focused on building, but I see the item as being a tad too tricky to get right, here's my idea for it:

 

Alpha Whistle:

-Dropped by the Hound Giant during Autumn or Spring

-66.6% of an incoming hound wave won't spawn.

 

Frozen Alpha Whistle:

-Dropped by the Hound Giant during Winter.

-50% of an incoming hound wave won't spawn

-Ice Hounds will be replaced by normal hounds.

 

Scorched Alpha Whistle:

-Dropped by the Hound Giant during Summer.

-50% of an incoming hound wave won't spawn.

-Fire Hounds will be replaced by normal hounds.

 

Melancholy Whistle:

-Crafted with 1 Alpha Whistle, 1 purple gem, 5 Thulecite, at an ancient pseudoscience station.

-The next 5 scheduled hound attacks wont spawn.

[Ezaroth]

Seems pointless. By the third year, we should've made tons of traps or catapults to deal with hounds easily, and we want hounds for the gems.

Although, we do like a stronger seasonal boss for the second season, like Winter Feast Deerclops in second winter.

[Ornge]

40 minutes ago, Ezaroth said:

Seems pointless. By the third year, we should've made tons of traps or catapults to deal with hounds easily, and we want hounds for the gems.

Although, we do like a stronger seasonal boss for the second season, like Winter Feast Deerclops in second winter.

Yeah but it gets annoying to constantly have to run to a toothtrap every couple of days

[cantdeletethis]

im not so sure but how about varg dropping the whistle?

even ewecus drops steel wool, but currently varg dosent drop anything useful, therefore no actual point to him existing

also, varg/ewecus spawn rate increases over time, making it kinda balanced

[Catteflyterpill]

What if killing this kind of 'alpha hound' changed hound waves permanently for the world. Maybe adding a varg or two or stronger hounds, so that way more experienced players who made it that far could kind of add more challenge to their world?

[MondayNight]

You could go with this in an interesting direction:

1) have the Giant Hound you mentioned spawn, 3rd-or-the-like autumn in world, be it neutral and make it roam land, yet his dogs would attack player in 1-screen-vecinity; It also calls waves of dogs; if you engage and kill you get mentioned loot or something similar;

2) next 70-or-so days another Giant Hound spawns - the Alpha Parent (or the like); this one is hostile and maybe even actively seeks players to kill. Is more visually menacing, has different and more powerful attacks and instead of normal Hounds has the Haul Hound variety underlings (more agile, more HP and dmg per attack, different pattern of attack, more resilient). Killing him has different loot and world consequences and will re-spawn again in 70-or-so days.

 

Just some thoughts, but I like the concept.