[Suggestion] Ice/Fire Hound Tweak

[Mantispidae]

So with some new adjustments to hounds I'd thought I'd offer a suggestion I've considered for the hound waves, mainly in regards to how the fire and ice hounds work. Fire hounds are probably still the biggest threat in a hound wave even with the new varglets, because even if it isn't a big threat to the player its a huge threat to the world and it's resources, and probably still one of the things that gets new players by surprise. Ice hounds actually end up being more help than hurt, since they mostly end up freezing the other hounds an are much easier to spot. but fire hounds are both hard to spot amongst normal hounds and a lot more destructive if they die in a bad spot.

So I wanted to suggest adding a delay to the actual hound 'Explosion.' Nothing huge, just a few seconds where the corpse of the hound stays before the AoE takes place. This isn't a huge change from how the hounds normally work, so it's not too confusing or weird or distracting for veterans, and gives people less prepared or familiar with the game or waves a second to get their bearings and prepare for what is about to happen. Lunar hounds already have a pause similar to this, before they change into the undead hound, so as something similar (but faster) it could match that behavior- except instead of a new hound you get the normal elemental AoE going off a short period after hound death.

Some other things:

1. Lunar hounds have quotes if you observe them mid-transformation, and similar could be done here in order to give a pointer for how people might prepare, whether that be a warning that the dead hound is effectively a bomb or a means to manage the result, such as suggesting the character get water (It's surprisingly easy for people to overlook that water can stop fires, but a delay gives people a minute to switch to water balloons, or to try and remove things from the immediate area)
2. Since the hound death effect would be delayed, at least for a little bit, the hounds could be used strategically- for example you kill an ice hound, and then you try to redirect hounds close to it before it goes off so that they get stuck in the blast. 
3. I considered that maybe the fire hound corpse could smolder or something before it goes off, so quick to react players could douse it before it properly goes off and prevent the fire effect altogether.
4. This really isn't too bold of a change from the normal mechanics, so it's less disruptive as opposed to like, adding new attacks or abilities.

 

The fire hound appearance could also be updated, because god it is REALLY easy to not notice fire hounds from regular, especially compared to how clearly ice hounds communicate a difference. 

[Cheggf]

Would mess with the Mactusk strategy of rushing the hound to freeze him and make ice hounds harder to utilize since hounds like following you and not waiting around near a corpse. I don't see much benefit to be gained anyways, it sounds like you want the red hound to be less destructive.

I saw a suggestion where he's reworked to be like the blue hound where him dying near you turns you orange then doing it again without waiting a short while would ignite you. Would make them less dangerous to the environment and more dangerous to the player.

[Mantispidae]

3 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Would mess with the Mactusk strategy of rushing the hound to freeze him and make ice hounds harder to utilize since hounds like following you and not waiting around near a corpse. I don't see much benefit to be gained anyways, it sounds like you want the red hound to be less destructive.

Never really bothered with that strategy myself, but yeah it would (depending on how long the delay was, I suppose you could potentially modify the strat to work within it) but ultimately that's just a problem of changing anything in the game. You lose somethings you gain some things, but its good to keep in mind what else it might affect. 

3 hours ago, Cheggf said:

I saw a suggestion where he's reworked to be like the blue hound where him dying near you turns you orange then doing it again without waiting a short while would ignite you. Would make them less dangerous to the environment and more dangerous to the player.

See, I don't really like that because thats not how any of the fire mechanics in the game work, so it just feels like a weird choice. I could maybe understand spiking your temperature (ala the fire nettles) but that feels like defanging the hounds a bit too much. I do think the fire hounds could be adjusted, but I also don't want them to actually lose their ability to be harmful or damaging. If they were gonna be changed, I want it to be in a way that doesn't feel like it gets rid of their ability to cause problems.

I suppose its also possible that one hound gets changed and not the other, since as is the ice hound works pretty fine, but the two are generally paired.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

23 minutes ago, Mantispidae said:

See, I don't really like that because thats not how any of the fire mechanics in the game work

lava pools, lavae, dragonfly's stomp, warmed saladmander, fire staff in pvp and klaus fire spell works like that except you catch of fire instanly instead of needing 2 "hits"

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Mantispidae said:

See, I don't really like that because thats not how any of the fire mechanics in the game work

Ice hound's mechanic is shared exclusively with deerclops, and the fire hound already behaves a little uniquely with fire. In every other situation fire will simply ignite flammable things. Red hounds create raw fire from nothing.

1 hour ago, Mantispidae said:

I suppose its also possible that one hound gets changed and not the other, since as is the ice hound works pretty fine, but the two are generally paired.

Are they? Their effects are completely different and you can enable or disable them separately in world options. The only similarities are they're hounds with 100hp and an effect on death. The suggestion I repeated makes them more similar to each other since right now they aren't.

[Mantispidae]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

Are they? Their effects are completely different and you can enable or disable them separately in world options. The only similarities are they're hounds with 100hp and an effect on death. The suggestion I repeated makes them more similar to each other since right now they aren't.

Well what I meant by that was that it's less of a "this is how the hounds work" and more that thats how freezing (as a status) works in general in DS- Ice staffs, deerclops, and ice hounds all work the same way, which makes sense because they all work on the same mechanic... that being applying a frozen status with a bit of a buffer before it actually gets inflicted. 

the fire hounds and... dragonfly lavae? are really the only monsters (of the top of my head) that have an active fire mechanic. With the lavae also bursting on death (along with their ignition of anything flammable, but they also do the whole explosion thing iirc.) DST doesn't have an ignition mechanic, it's just you overheat, or catch fire-  and I don't really think having fire work in the same way ice does makes sense.

When I said paired i didnt really mean it literally, just that they tend to be associated with each other due to their role in the hound waves. But thats more just bad wording on my part there, and I would be absolutely fine seeing one get improved if the other is fine. Just that with the suggestion I felt it made more sense for them to both behave the same way, since I wasn't suggesting modifying what's actually occurring. But yeah 'paired together' was maybe a poor choice of description and not really relevant to how their effects should behave

[goatt]

Fire hounds in my game is as helpful as ice hounds as I turn on the ice flingo. Ice hounds and fire hounds are easy, normal hounds are pain.

[firoborn]

IMO the ice hound strategy for macktusk is already dead since you cant stunlock it anymore now its mostly just for getting rid of the hounds which you can do safer by freezing mac with an icestaff, i am all in for any change that makes summer better for pub servers i hate how that season makes rollbacks so constant it really worsens the experience of playing with other ppl.

[Cheggf]

17 minutes ago, firoborn said:

IMO the ice hound strategy for macktusk is already dead since you cant stunlock it anymore

Yes you can. You might not be able to with a cane (haven't tested) but as long as you're using a good weapon he'll die.

[Mantispidae]

26 minutes ago, firoborn said:

i am all in for any change that makes summer better for pub servers i hate how that season makes rollbacks so constant it really worsens the experience of playing with other ppl.

I wonder if it would be possible to code in custom fires for monsters with that effect? Keep the burst, but have fires that naturally stay contained to a smaller circle and won't spread nonstop outside that range. You still can lose things, still have the immediate threat, but having a chunk of something burn rather than a rapid full-on wildfire keeps it at a much more acceptable loss level. I know I would def be more willing to play with the loss of a few berry bushes/chunk of forest/a few chests in the base if thats all I had to lose from a screw up. Or just have the fires ignite anything in the immediate area with no spread so that they're closer to contained firebombs rather than wildfire starters

[firoborn]

3 minutes ago, Mantispidae said:

I wonder if it would be possible to code in custom fires for monsters with that effect? Keep the burst, but have fires that naturally stay contained to a smaller circle and won't spread nonstop outside that range. You still can lose things, still have the immediate threat, but having a chunk of something burn rather than a rapid full-on wildfire keeps it at a much more acceptable loss level. I know I would def be more willing to play with the loss of a few berry bushes/chunk of forest/a few chests in the base if thats all I had to lose from a screw up. Or just have the fires ignite anything in the immediate area with no spread so that they're closer to contained firebombs rather than wildfire starters

the redgem-deer from the klaus fight already does that, the red hounds instead of bursting into flames they should make everything around them smolder but a slow one like when wet stuff starts to smolder it takes quite a time for it to start burning something like that

[ArubaroBeefalo]

4 hours ago, goatt said:

Fire hounds in my game is as helpful as ice hounds as I turn on the ice flingo. Ice hounds and fire hounds are easy, normal hounds are pain.

is not about difficulty but destruction of non renewable resources in long term worlds. And if you build a megabase... better have big empty areas to fight them or the fire spread everywere

hound waves with fire hounds are the easiest ones and not only because of iceflingomatics freezinf everything but also because regular hounds get damaged and are scare by the fire