Stories from Development: The Undying

These insights into the development process are fascinating. Thanks for posting it and keep em coming.

In 2016 when I was testing out this game, I knew it was special the moment those statues came alive (above the beautiful textures and Passive Path). That was one of those moments you will always remember. The music matched perfectly.

Enjoyed this.
That explains the mechanic of the ruthless support gem :> third difficulty, third hit ^^

Something like: ?

-Monsters don't like light, regen and dark areas cause significant player life degen.

-If baleful gem in inventory monsters charge you, coming out of their dark hideouts and player no longer degens inside buildings.

-If spike in inventory players, hits against monsters no longer regen.

"

Hamallainen wrote:

Now the story of the Undying blockage, please.

This!

"If the City Stalkers can't go in the sunlight, then what stops you kiting them around and hitting them while you're out of the shade?

While they regen too fast to die, they certainly look like noobs standing in the shadow and not doing anything. There would have been a lot of work to make this realistic and feel good."



Vampires also look like noobs regarding sunlight! :D


The monstrum from Stranger Things seem to be inspired a bit by your Undying as well, maybe the creator of the series was a Beta-tester...

Maybe you could ask Maramoa for a buff (lasting 1 hour from when asking for it, with a cooldown before you could grab it the next time, let's say 10 min cooldown) that allows you to do more damage to undeads.

Could be used for special Undead Bosses in side-quests.


Maybe even implement a side-area with an Undead Boss that is invulnerable without the buff (either for Pantheon or Skillpointquest)

I do like the idea of realistic interactive environment you're trying to go for.It definitely makes this game more immersive and I do encourage it though its harder to deal with such new mechanics with those mysterious immense lags and crashes I've been having since the release of Fall of Oriath but that is irrelevant.

Anyway while I believe this post is more likely not to get attention from any dev,I have
2 suggestions/ideas you could add to the game if you still feel like adding that Undying mechanic:

1-Torches:these will be in a 6th flask slot specialized for them and people can buy stacks of them using say 1 scroll of wisdom ea which is almost as good as free.
The way those torches would work is that if people enter darker areas with mobs that prefer darkness,they could use those torches to light a torch and throw it in that area to light up the area up to x radius for x amount of seconds.
You could also make torches as interactive items in dungeons instead of items where the character can light them up by clicking them whether melee or with some innate ranged fire spell.
Undying mobs could gain phasing in dark for example since its the closest status to invisibility or camouflage in this game and that would make more sense in the darkness.

2-Light element and light skills:In my opinion,I think the game lacks this type of element.
Specially that I find that Chaos already fills the gap of darkness element.
I also sometimes feel I wanna have a character that smites enemies with holy light without having to use MTX which still doesn't make it light which makes MTX kind of break my immersion if I wanted to RP such a character regardless of how it looks cool and all.

You could make a new support which could be called "Luminousity support"for example which is a support to Auras whether pure Auras or Curses turned to Auras.
This support would make using a certain Aura illuminate a big area around you in a bigger radius than torch while also giving some certain bonuses to your Auras like increasing their effectiveness by a % or may be increasing your light resistance or whatever.

Using light spells would affect Undying even if they're in darkness since we're hitting them with pure light.

Light's ailment could be blind for example which could make it great for evasion and dodge builds or could be any other ailment you'd see fit like an offensive ailment that increases your accuracy and crit against enemies that have that ailment for example since they're overwhelmed by the light that they can't dodge your attacks as good anymore.

I finally finished reading that. Nice touch. I want to write some ideas down and send them your way if you don't mind. Love that element of surprise and support gem ideas. There is a reason after all we are carrying all this junk around in act2.

One idea, specifically for act2, is if you choose to support a bandit, you get a waypoint in their hideout and a personal chest. Tbh, after facing the delima of talking to a bandit and given the choice the first time I thought this would happen. I literally stopped playing for two days to think about it.

"Stay out of the shadows. They bite." -- Hargan

This makes so much more sense now.

Good stuff :)