Dev blog 86 - Dire Units
This post is written by Mat, our gameplay designer.
Hello! Wanted to share a bit more about our hard mode plans.
One of the early concepts of the game’s difficulty curve was to introduce “powered-up” versions of each abomination. Larger and meaner, these units would serve as the center focus of a match. In fact, the older players among you might notice that we do have such a unit in the game, the current Dire Thorntoad - a 2x2 version of Thorntoad, introduced in Marca Hispanica.
It serves an interesting purpose. It takes the place of the Behemoths as a “Major abomination”, and it's important to have some variation there, especially since we don’t introduce Lindworm, another abomination in the same category, until Al-Andalus.
But we want to further the concept. We’ll change the large toad’s name, and introduce new versions of each abomination in the game, called Dires. They’ll be far stronger versions, having more action points, less cooldowns, and unique passive effects, changing the challenges that each enemy presents. And, just for good measure, a bit more health and armor.
These Dires are planned as a Hardmode-only treat. Our current plan is for each corrupted fight in Hardmode to pick one of the enemies and “upgrade” them to their dire version, offering a somewhat randomized challenge for you to solve. Due to their nature, we are expecting each Dire to be your focus for most of the match, making each skirmish just a tiny bit different, a useful trait for our target audience for hardmode - the player that already mastered the game.
The Dires are also retextured, and Kaz has been consistently delivering interesting visual variations so you can know at a glance which of the Mandrakes is about to ruin your day!
We’re excited to show you what Hardmode (and metaprogression) is shaping up to be, and this is just one of the pieces. What do you think? Any particular ideas for how each Dire should behave? Drop in to our Discord server and let us know!
Mat
Hello! Wanted to share a bit more about our hard mode plans.
One of the early concepts of the game’s difficulty curve was to introduce “powered-up” versions of each abomination. Larger and meaner, these units would serve as the center focus of a match. In fact, the older players among you might notice that we do have such a unit in the game, the current Dire Thorntoad - a 2x2 version of Thorntoad, introduced in Marca Hispanica.
It serves an interesting purpose. It takes the place of the Behemoths as a “Major abomination”, and it's important to have some variation there, especially since we don’t introduce Lindworm, another abomination in the same category, until Al-Andalus.
But we want to further the concept. We’ll change the large toad’s name, and introduce new versions of each abomination in the game, called Dires. They’ll be far stronger versions, having more action points, less cooldowns, and unique passive effects, changing the challenges that each enemy presents. And, just for good measure, a bit more health and armor.
These Dires are planned as a Hardmode-only treat. Our current plan is for each corrupted fight in Hardmode to pick one of the enemies and “upgrade” them to their dire version, offering a somewhat randomized challenge for you to solve. Due to their nature, we are expecting each Dire to be your focus for most of the match, making each skirmish just a tiny bit different, a useful trait for our target audience for hardmode - the player that already mastered the game.
The Dires are also retextured, and Kaz has been consistently delivering interesting visual variations so you can know at a glance which of the Mandrakes is about to ruin your day!
We’re excited to show you what Hardmode (and metaprogression) is shaping up to be, and this is just one of the pieces. What do you think? Any particular ideas for how each Dire should behave? Drop in to our Discord server and let us know!
Mat