Summer Rework Discussion and Concepts

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

There have been plenty of discussions about seasons, and I do believe that 2nd+ fall, spring, and even winter (my personal favorite season) could do with some revamping, but summer has the least interesting mechanics despite its potential. I'd like to hear everyone's concepts, and to see discussion of people's ideas here. I'll go ahead and start with some stuff.

Pros:

The summer soundtrack and shading is fantastic.

Ideas:

Wildfires:

Spoiler

As they stand, wildfires are currently just considered a base building nuisance and lead to many players turning the feature off entirely, or avoiding it by just camping in the caves or the oasis. This gameplay loop is not that interesting, but can be easily changed into a nice seasonal danger that doesn't limit gameplay severely. My suggestion would be to significantly limit the amount of things that are prone to the spontaneous combustion, or simply remove it from smoldering man-made objects entirely. If wildfires were truly wild fires, then they can work in a fun way. Trees would be the main source of danger and one would need to plan somewhat accordingly to make sure they aren't too close to valuable structures. Plants like berry bushes would still wither instead of spontaneously smoldering. With them being limited more to trees and nature, their frequency can be turned up a good amount to create a new hazard for gameplay. Collecting wood becomes more difficult outside of the oasis, but you won't feel as restricted in terms of where to base. Flingos still retain the majority of their function, but don't become a necessity. They still prevent withering, can defend sections of trees for log gathering, and defend against fire hounds.

Beetles:

Spoiler

In winter, Pengulls are the primary mob that are responsible for some interesting terraforming and new resource. You can collect plenty of ice, mess around with their eggs, or just appreciate their majesty. Now summer brings a new mob with similar function: the Scorch Beetle. Like Pengulls, travelling around during summer will cause a slight tremor to begin and have pillars of stone rise up along with beetles climbing out of a created crevice. The pillars of stone are guaranteed to drop rocks, and additionally have a chance of dropping nitre, gold, and blue or red gems. They also serve as a spot for Scorch Beetles to lay their eggs. If a pillar has eggs when mined, they will also produce beetle larvae for collection. This can be used in the crockpot or as a crafting recipe for some new unique items and food. Scorch Beetles are inherently neutral, though they will slowly overheat the player if they stand near them, but they will defend their nest if a player attempts to mine their nests. As long as one Beetle and one column in a spawn location are left, the Beetle will continue to lay eggs that hatch new beetles every 1 1/2 days up to a population cap per spawn area in which case eggs will remain dormant. During, Summer the caves will become littered with Beetles as a very common mob, except their heat radiates more strongly while closer to the world's core, making them an overheating threat.

Old Miner (MacTusk Equivalent?):

Spoiler

MacTusk in winter is an important mob with loot that really adds to the gameplay, and is a fun side objective and adds to the environment with the homes. So two ideas, either a large sentient beetle that is more humanoid, or a rock lobster that has come to the surface. Either way, I'm imagining them as a haggardly hunchback miner with a large old and torn cloak over them, holding a paxel (pickaxe, shovel, and axe on one tool), that has a light attached to it, and is being used as a cane to support its weight, along with a miners backpack that has a small light attached to it. A player may walk up to it and offer rocks and (?) in exchange for (?), or they may attack him. While standing up on its legs, it is slow, but it will periodically roll into a ball and charge through the player and then go back into its default form. It will also ring a bell which will cause beetles or (?) to spawn to assist it. Upon killing, it will drop (rocks, or meat depending on beetle or lobster) and has a chance to drop its paxel or backpack. The Paxel is a higher durability tool that adds 5% walking speed, and can mine like a pickaxe, dig like a shovel, and chop like an axe, along with having a small light radius on it (that needs refueling?). Upon reaching 0% durability it will break. The miner's backpack is the same size as a regular one but has a refuelable small light radius. Their home can be in the rocky biome and remain dormant until summer when seismic activity is peaking.

Mountain Soul:

Spoiler

Deerclops is the seasonal giant in winter along with Klaus as the main boss. Summer has Antlion as an interesting giant, but no boss. So, going with this theme of increased seismic activity, a new ominous rock formation has assimilated in the rocky biome. Upon attempting to mine it, it awakens with extreme tremors, growing in size, and beginning the fight. A large antlion like (but much larger) rock arena forms around it locking the player in. The player can attempt to mine the rock or telepoof to escape, instantly causing the Mountain to go dormant. The Mountain Soul fight is one based on good movement and positioning with 3 key mechanics. 

1: The Soul begins with 2 tremors that orbit it that cause rocks to spike up as it travels and that quickly come back down along the way. They prioritize tracking the player, but have to move in orbit of the mountain. As the mountain becomes lower in health, the tremors orbit slightly faster and faster, and at certain thresholds (75%, 50%, 25%) will add an additional tremor orbiting it. Any player that gets in the path and is spiked will take damage.

2: The Soul will drop rocks in an avalanche throughout the fight that can be detected by shadows marking the area rocks will drop. The Soul will increase its frequency linearly upon taking sustained damage.

3: The Soul will cause a large tremor to be produced from it to the edge of an arena in a line that after a few seconds will create a crevice that cannot be jumped over. This will initially create a line that divides part of the arena but does not cause much harm. As the fight continues, and more crevices are slowly created, the arena can be more significantly limited. There will be a telegraph that lets the player know when a seismic crevice is coming so they may properly plan their positioning in order to prevent the entire arena from being cut off. If the player is already poorly positioned and has been locked into a small segment, the Soul will not fire another one in that area. They can only be crossed by telepoofing. Additionally, Rock Lobsters that are bound to the Soul and hostile the player will slowly climb up from the crevices.

Upon reducing the boss to critical health, a final stand occurs. The boss will begin to shower the area in an avalanche constantly leaving incredibly limited areas of safety that are constantly changing. The player must find windows to hit the boss when a safe area permits it, and must constantly keep moving in order to not get hit.

I don't know what the total loot pool will consist of, but one potential idea is a molten core. This item functions like a thermal stone with no durability, and significantly longer duration of being hot. It will also function as a campfire if dropped on the ground in terms of heating. It can not drop below neutral state into cold, and it will heat up slightly faster than a thermal stone.

Boating:

Spoiler

Assuming that boats as large wooden structures are still vulnerable to fires (think masts and stuff and not the actual cookie submerged in water), a new mechanic can be the player splashing water from the edge onto themselves and the boat. At the cost of severely increasing their wetness, they can cool off and extinguish a smoldering part while also wetting those parts of the boat and rendering them immune from smoldering for a while. This can be a nice way to prevent the necessity of a flingomatic on a boat.

Guano=Nitre:

Spoiler

Creating another point of access to nitre allows for better opportunity to brave summer’s overheating. Plus refining guano into nitre makes sense from a chemical composition observation (I think anyways).

 

[Mike23Ua]

Change ground collapsing from being something that’s tied to a boss battle and instead make them happen more often and more frequently as a direct result of the Summer heat becoming so hot that the ground beneath your feet is collapsing in on itself in craters.

[Well-met]

Have wildfires happen twice as much but it can't target player structures sounds perfect

[1bubbainpa]

45 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Change ground collapsing from being something that’s tied to a boss battle and instead make them happen more often and more frequently as a direct result of the Summer heat becoming so hot that the ground beneath your feet is collapsing in on itself in craters.

This sounds way more annoying than wildfires. I would not like this implemented one bit.

[QuartzBeam]

49 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Change ground collapsing from being something that’s tied to a boss battle and instead make them happen more often and more frequently as a direct result of the Summer heat becoming so hot that the ground beneath your feet is collapsing in on itself in craters.

 

This is literally how volcanic eruptions work in Shipwrecked and there's not a single person in existence who has anything less than seething hatred for those.

[Mike23Ua]

It’s for Harder Difficulty settings people.. if you don’t like it turn it off- simple!

[1bubbainpa]

5 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

It’s for Harder Difficulty settings people.. if you don’t like it turn it off- simple!

Ground collapsing is not a “challenging” mechanic. It was designed as a penalty for not dealing with the Antlion, not as a constant threat that could happen anytime during the Summer.

[Mike23Ua]

2 minutes ago, 1bubbainpa said:

Ground collapsing is not a “challenging” mechanic. It was designed as a penalty for not dealing with the Antlion, not as a constant threat that could happen anytime during the Summer.

Different strokes for different folks, I enjoy the collapsing myself.

[Superwolfkid]

15 hours ago, QuartzBeam said:

 

This is literally how volcanic eruptions work in Shipwrecked and there's not a single person in existence who has anything less than seething hatred for those.

*Flashbacks of Volcano immediately giving a warning exactly after you barely just survived the first wave.

All seriousness though, I really like the idea of the Beetles. Maybe as an idea During the Summer they spawn in Rock biomes and start Eating up all the  Rocks boulders and you can team up with the players in the server to stop them.(but only if you provoke them.)

Like a Wave mission?

[Canis]

12 hours ago, QuartzBeam said:

 

This is literally how volcanic eruptions work in Shipwrecked and there's not a single person in existence who has anything less than seething hatred for those.

I'll have you know I like the atmosphere of a volcano eruption.

 

 

/s

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

Yeah tbh sinkholes are fine as they are and in fact would become much more prevalent for players that don’t opt to kill antlion straight away since there would hopefully be more content to mess around with in the overworld and players wouldn’t be restricted to the oasis.

Speaking of which, what would thoughts be about the oasis still constantly storming, but occasionally the storms can pour out to other biomes for some durations? This probably breaches into the blizzards/other storms topic other people have brought up. 

[Owlrust]

On 2/19/2020 at 5:00 PM, 1bubbainpa said:

Ground collapsing is not a “challenging” mechanic. It was designed as a penalty for not dealing with the Antlion, not as a constant threat that could happen anytime during the Summer.

This is actually a good point that I hadn't thought of before. "what makes a challenge, and what separates that from a penalty?" is a question you have me thinking of now; and that could be a good starting position for any future suggestions (at least for me anyways).