Poor beastiary, Unsatisfying Creature variety "Unacceptable".

[kabaliero]

Sounds like TS bought D3.

[Rosveen]

*ahem*

 

Will there be Dragons?

Dragons, dragons everywhere!

 

Please, don't include them. Lizards are good, even dragonlings, but not full-sized dragons in yet another game.

[kabaliero]

Deathclaws!

 

But yeah. Dragons are alrdy pissin' every1 off.

 

Not mentioning that now every kid knows that they're nothing more than a primitive people's interpretation of ancient flying machines.

[Tamerlane]

Cliff Racers.

 

I demand nothing but Cliff Racers.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Cliff Racers.

 

I demand nothing but Cliff Racers.

 

 

[Kurumi Morishita]

Yes.. NO Dragons and NO Demons, too, please.. at least not the Balor/Balrog etc. types.. we've really seen enough of them.. I think, that especially a greater variety of mystical, natural or even unique creatures would be very welcomed.. for example I really loved the giant toads in TToEE or Myconid/Plant-like creatures (except Treants and Shamblers).. what about Fauns, Manticors and Centaurs for example, special "creaturized" Worms/Snails, .. or even "lovecraftian" creatures?

Edited December 8, 2012 by Kurumi Morishita

[Osvir]

*ahem*

 

Will there be Dragons?

*ahem*

 

Will there be Dragons?

Dragons, dragons everywhere!

 

Please, don't include them. Lizards are good, even dragonlings, but not full-sized dragons in yet another game.

Deathclaws!

 

But yeah. Dragons are alrdy pissin' every1 off.

 

Not mentioning that now every kid knows that they're nothing more than a primitive people's interpretation of ancient flying machines.

Yes.. NO Dragons and NO Demons, too, please.. at least not the Balor/Balrog etc. types.. we've really seen enough of them.. I think, that especially a greater variety of mystical, natural or even unique creatures would be very welcomed.. for example I really loved the giant toads in TToEE or Myconid/Plant-like creatures (except Treants and Shamblers).. what about Fauns, Manticors and Centaurs for example, special "creaturized" Worms/Snails, .. or even "lovecraftian" creatures?

 

One single Dragon can really set a tone in any fictional work (Smaug).

 

13-14 Dragons ruins it and makes Dragons boring (Skyrim).

 

How would the inclusion of one or two dragons (and not more) affect your experience of the game? A Full-Grown Dragon (in whatever way it is) in my opinion needs to be "Epic", Legendary and Rare. Not something you stumble upon in your first dungeon to say the least.

 

Hormalakh brought up this, and although it isn't entirely true for a Dragon (but it could be another monster/object) I can see it being more interesting if some "Ancient Beast of Wisdom & Destruction". Who doesn't want to cook and eat a Dragon's heart and gain an insightful Dragon's Wisdom?

 

More Dragons.

Edited December 8, 2012 by Osvir

[Kurumi Morishita]

One single Dragon can really set a tone in any fictional work (Smaug).

 

13-14 Dragons ruins it and makes Dragons boring (Skyrim).

 

How would the inclusion of one or two dragons (and not more) affect your experience of the game? A Full-Grown Dragon (in whatever way it is) in my opinion needs to be "Epic", Legendary and Rare. Not something you stumble upon in your first dungeon to say the least.

 

Hormalakh brought up this, and although it isn't entirely true for a Dragon (but it could be another monster/object) I can see it being more interesting if some "Ancient Beast of Wisdom & Destruction". Who doesn't want to cook and eat a Dragon's heart and gain an insightful Dragon's Wisdom?

 

More Dragons.

 

True.. and esp. if it would be really some kind of unique or mythic Dragon-like creature such as a Lindworm, then I guess I could live with it, but on the other hand I've to ask.. would P:E so much worse without a Dragon.. did Baldur's Gate need a Dragon to be great? did Icewind Dale? ..

[steelshark]

Hi everyone,

I guess I'll just chip in my 2 cents:

 

There are a few things that came to my mind when reading over the posts.

 

Now, as probably everyone, I'd wish for a good variety of enemies. But I'd restict that to the kind of variety that actually makes sense. To me it seems some settings are way to crowded with overly powerful monsters, for civilization to actually be able to survive. Also, intelligent, humanoid monsters automatically make more interesting enemies (IMHO), since they can have wildely differing equipment and agendas, whereas wolves, zombies or even very exotic, yet unintelligent, monsters mostly come only in one or two flavours.

 

As for "epic" monsters/enemies, my thought is that it's not the "toughness" of that enemy that matters so terribly much, but the "uniqueness". If there is one, and only one, giant balrog-type demon, say as an optional enemy summmoned during a ritualdone by long standing enemies, i'd feel it's ok. It does however become bland if you walk into "hell" and the very same demon becomes your average "mob". I think that devaluates previous encounters with such monsters.

 

On the topic of "don't bring monster X, it's so stereotypical", I can only say that some stereotypes persist because they make sense. Dragons, Zombies, Skeletons, Orcs, Demons, and Wizards are tried and true elements of d&d-type, tolkien-esque settings.

 

Lastly I think that an overcrowding of the world with monsters should be avoided, for the sake of immersion/realism. If I get ambushed by trolls, dragons, demons and whatnot every 5 meters as soon as i step out of the city gate, I (outgame) am going to wonder how economy in this setting is still existing.

 

br,

Rizzo

 

edit:

Oh, one more thing that i just thought of:

To give the world a subtle hue of ... "matureness"? I guess (don't know how I should put it), It would be interesting to get a feeling that the "monsters" are not all purely evil, and just waiting to kill me and my friends, and that there is something of a world outside my screen. A bunch of zombies with the ragged clothes of a farmer familiy, perhaps including a somewhat smaller zombie, is going to make me think "who where the poor people that turned into zombies". An evil cultist with a loveletter from another cultist makes them more human, less one-dimensional. And in consequence it could make my actions not seem as "purely white" as it's sometimes the case in such games. I really like the thought of the stormcloak vs. imperial war in skyrim, as there was no "right" or "good" side.

Edited December 8, 2012 by steelshark

[Hormalakh]

Honestly, my feeling about monsters is this: Let's have as many as we can put in there, with one very big disclaimer. Since this game is in a completely new universe, I would hope that the monsters would tell part of the story too. A lot of times, the story can be told straight through exposition and dialogue, but especially in a game/interactive media, you can utilize other methods of telling your story. Just like some games utilize the backgrounds and settings to tell part of the story, I would hope that the monsters could do the same. We have the beginnings of such a thing with the biamhac (wind spirits) but I'd like as much of the monsters to tell part of the story as possible.

 

If there are goblins in there, why are there goblins? What's their history? Where did they come from? Why are they there? And so on and so forth. We don't have to be given an exposition for each one: perhaps the places that they can be found, the items found nearby, the setting that they're in can help tell that story too, but ultimately they should feel like they belong in the universe.

 

I know this is difficult to do with a large bestiary, so it might be nice to get a couple of them fleshed out and perhaps we can know about the other monsters in a later game. This is what I think Fallout did quite well. Each monster found in the game had a reason to be there: it wasn't always immediately clear why they were found in the universe, but there was always a reason.

[SophosTheWise]

Do it the Blizzard way.

 

 

Problem solved.

Edited December 9, 2012 by SophosTheWise

[Osvir]

^That is unfair towards Blizzard. Many companies use this method "Same monster different colors".

 

EDIT: Though I agree, "problem solved". I don't mind it actually, "Same monster different colors". It works, makes the game feel like it has more monsters than it actually has. That isn't to say that there should be "3 types" of monsters that go through all of the rainbows colors, but if there are 50 monsters and 5 colors are being used you suddenly get 250 monsters.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Osvir

[Hormalakh]

@Sophos Yuck. Two maybe three, but eight? That's just ridiculous.

@Osvir Even five is too high. We can have more "types" in different parts of the P:E world, but in a place like Eir Glanfath there shouldn't be 5 types of the same animal...

Edited December 9, 2012 by Hormalakh

[Osvir]

Everything is conceptual Hormalakh... I pretty much just pressed a number blind all I am saying is that it is an effective method to add in more critters and make the world feel bigger than it is. Blue Slime, Red Slime, Green Slime, Purple Slime are all unique in their own way <3

Edited December 9, 2012 by Osvir

[rjshae]

One things for certain: whatever Obsidian does, somebody is bound to grumble about it.

 

I'd actually like to see fewer monster types with more internal variety within each species: variation in size; differences between male and female or young and old; a few with old wounds, ragged coats, broken horns, or walking with a limp. It can also help to have more realistic AI, with males battling each other, females guarding their young, creatures hunting for fish or digging for rodents, &c. Finally, I'd like it for the creature forms to make sense in their environment: no fire-breathing creatures in a grassy forest please. Thank you.

[Osvir]

I think this is true for design and for the player alike:

 

The designer only need to make one limping Beggar, for the player to understand that there are limping Beggars in the game (regardless if they are physically in the game or not). I think this is true for many monster types, characters and a lot of designs. In this sense, just having one old recycled boar in 3 areas could give the feeling that there are 100's (your brain analyzes it automatically, whether you are aware or unaware). Uhm... in Baldur's Gate, facing Sarevok, some mindless Bats were placed in the doorway (when opening) and also inside. I don't know if this was added in in mods or if it was there in core gameplay.

 

What it did, even though they were completely mindless and served no physical purpose, they served a strong purpose for immersion.

[Wulfic]

I hate to much variety. I love the classics. First of all I love animals in the woods like deer,moose,bears,fox,wolves and so on. They should behave like animals too, hunt eachother eat plants and deer should run away quickly. Wolves and bears should not attack at once they should roar and growl and suddenly jump on you. That would be awesome. If it goes for undead I dont want to see flaming skeleton warrior of vengeance and stuff like that :| this is always pretty stupid. Skeletons should have a variety of armors and weapons which are of course worn and rusted but still. Well. I dont like to much variety because in our world we dont have to much variety either ( in one region ofc ) I dont like to have my immersion destroyed by greater flaming poisonous basilisk of vengeance if you know what I mean. I prefer to make the creatures more detailed each one with their own original behaviour and habitat instead of just making random monster and throw them at you.

[Gumbercules]

A limited number of enemy creatures and races can work if they make sure to not also limit the amount of combat scenarios. The Dragon Age games had limited bestiaries, but that wasn't why combat would grow boring. It would grow boring because that limited bestiary would almost always attack in the same way. So if you limit the number of species of opponents the player will face, don't also limit the number of attacks, abilities, and enemy party compositions.

[Rabain]

Blizzard rarely uses more than 1 or 2 of the same type of creature in any area. The example given above was totally misrepresentative and probably covers models used over the main game and 3 expansions.

 

They also do a very good job of tying the model change to the story of the area. Peaceful areas have the standard model, infected areas have patchy looking models, fire models are used for elite mobs or in offworld zones with radiation / mutation etc.

 

Blizzard is probably an example of how to re-use models properly rather than an example to avoid.

[Agelastos]

A wide variety of monsters is not necessarily a good thing. Not if it's just for the sake of "diversity". I don't want a bunch of weird creatures that are just there, without any explanation as to what they really are, where they came from, how they fit into the food chain, etc. They have to make sense in the context of the setting.

I won't mind if the list of monsters is short, as long as they are well-fleshed out (and preferably make some kind of evolutionary sense - i.e. no mimics, flumphs or roving maulers).

Also, I hope there won't be monsters around every corner. Too much supernatural stuff just ruins the sense of wonder and makes the fantastic mundane.

There's a ton of real-world animals they can use. And since P.E. is going to be an old-school isometric game, I'm sure there will be a lot of carefully planned hand-crafted encounters. So even if there were nothing but human(oid) enemies, combat could still be plenty diverse and exciting.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Agelastos

[AGX-17]

So you're complaining about an aspect of the game Obsidian has released zero information on? Bravo. Slow clapping is called for, here.

[Osvir]

Didn't find the original thread! But it's somewhere. This one always makes me smile

[Jobby]

I'm in agreement with the people who've said that ensuring that the mobs fit in with their environment and make evolutionary sense from a lore point of view is more important than having a large variety of seemingly random mobs, i would like to see a bit of variety though and please dont overdo the re-colours lol.

[smithereen]

I know it's heresy, but I hated that there were only a very small number of distinct monsters in The Witcher 2.

[jivex5k]

Skyrim failed in this regard for amount of monster variety if you ask me....it wasn't nearly as bad as Oblivion though.

Get bored of killing Draugrs over and over.

The giants were freaking awesome though...

Edited December 11, 2012 by jivex5k