How TLD could have "Boss" animals

[Willy Pete]

I hate using the term "boss" animals to describe this as TLD is not the kind of game where you'd expect boss battles and whatnot, but the shoe fits so I'm going with it as the descriptor.

Anyways, the idea is to essentially have two or three super rare one-of-a-kind animals. In any playthrough there'd only be one of each "boss" animal, the animal spawning either in its own new map area or in a few hardier or otherwise difficult spots. The point of this would be to add in a sort of pseudo-end game or other (I hate to say it) "boss fight" that the player would need to prepare for. If the first thing you do upon spawning in is grab a rifle and rush in, you're more than likely to fail and have the particular creature beat you. For example, a well-aimed shot to the head would take each down immediately, but only at level 5 rifle/bow.

Furthermore, getting attacked by one of these creatures gives you a permanent wound, much like Frostbite meaning you'll want to come prepared or not at all.

Once you do manage to take down one of these creatures it would have a special pelt that could be used to craft two items. This would mean that you have to choose one and only one item to use the pelt for, increasing the replay value. But enough of all this, lets get into the animal ideas.

1. The Albino Moose:

An old, lumbering beast of a moose with a white coat and blood-red eyes. Like other moose it doesn't bleed out, requiring multiple shots to take down. Unlike other moose, however, it only comes out on nights with an Aurora and it doesn't fear fires, only flare rounds. This means you'll need to hunt it when other hunters are out and about. It gives the normal broken ribs wound if it gets the player, but the wounds never fully heal, permanently reducing your carry weight by 5-15%

If slain, its pelt can be used to craft a heftier version of the moose-hide satchel that gives increased carry weight over the normal one. Alternatively, it can be used to craft a pair of moose-hide pants that are incredibly waterproof and damage resistant.

I would personally like to see new regions for each of the animals, the moose residing in a broken down residential area with no interiors. You would have to get in close to shoot it and run like hell between the buildings in an effort to lose it.

2. The Grizzly

A large grizzly bear with brown coat and black eyes. Similar to bears except that like the moose it doesn't bleed out. The bear lives in a pitch black den, attacking anything that enters said domicile. However, it will smell any characters with a filled scent bar, whereupon it will act like the bear in the Hunted, tracking down the character to maul them to pieces. If it does so, the player will receive a permanent reduction in their stamina bar, maybe 10% or so, with their legs never fully recovering from such an attack.

If slain, the pelt can be used to create a heftier version of the bearskin bedroll, or a better version of the bearskin coat. Both increase wolf fear but also decrease the range at which normal black bears can detect you.

The grizzly would have its own region with sparse wildlife or vegetation, bountiful caves, and frigid weather. Perhaps something like Hushed River Valley.

3. The Direwolf

While not really a dire wolf, it would be a wolf of greater size and tenacity. Like the others it wouldn't bleed out, but it would also be the weakest of the three, but with a catch: at any given time the Direwolf will be surrounded by four normal wolves that have greatly reduced wolf fear. If the four wolves are killed, the Direwolf will flee from the player until the four wolves respawn. This will mean taking down the Direwolf runs the risk of a mauling from the other four wolves. Surviving an attack from the Direwolf would incur a weakened immune system, increasing the chance of infection and sickness.

Its pelt could be used to craft either a coat or a pair of pants. Not sure what sort of map I'd put this one on, maybe something wide with lots of territory for the wolf pack to range through. You could set yourself up atop a ridge to ambush the beast, but sleep for an hour and you might see it pass you by...or come upon you in your sleep!

All items would be repaired normally, requiring normal animal pelts (or cured leather in the satchel's case) in place of special ones.

What do you guys think?

[Doc Feral]

Watch "Night of the lepus" and then come back.

[Guest hoasd1]

if you want a bear boss play wintermute episode 2.

[Doc Feral]

Right, jokes apart "boss" enemies are more fitted for a story driven game, where you know they're bound to appear some time or another for the sake of the plot. If I knew some cryptid lurked around Great Bear I'd go crazy looking for it AND live if fear of running into it for a game-wrecking encounter.

[Willy Pete]

20 hours ago, hoasd1 said:

if you want a bear boss play wintermute episode 2.

You can't skin that bear and then craft a special item from it and you're forced to fight it. All of these creatures would be optional to fight.

20 hours ago, Doc Feral said:

Right, jokes apart "boss" enemies are more fitted for a story driven game, where you know they're bound to appear some time or another for the sake of the plot. If I knew some cryptid lurked around Great Bear I'd go crazy looking for it AND live if fear of running into it for a game-wrecking encounter.

You could probably lock these creatures behind some sort of level requirement, ie they only appear after a few of your skills have reached level 3 or X amount of days have passed. And if they each had their own region that would further decrease the chance of running into one, the idea would be you have to deliberately seek out these creatures.

[Willy Pete]

On 3/31/2019 at 3:17 AM, Doc Feral said:

Watch "Night of the lepus" and then come back.

Got a laugh out of me! Maybe have that be an April fools thing that works like the Halloween stuff.

[Mroz4k]

20 hours ago, Doc Feral said:

Right, jokes apart "boss" enemies are more fitted for a story driven game, where you know they're bound to appear some time or another for the sake of the plot. If I knew some cryptid lurked around Great Bear I'd go crazy looking for it AND live if fear of running into it for a game-wrecking encounter.

I basically agree with Doc there. That said, I am not opposed to seeing some tougher animals as a part of a "random" encounter. Not in their own map. Not in their own lair.

Just simply somewhere out there. No more items or trophies from them then the usual items, maybe save an achievement on Steam...

Why call it Direwolf? Wouldnt simply calling it an alpha wolf make more sense?

I think it could add some variety and depth to the game but overall, maybe this would be too much of work for too little of reward. Point of Sandbox is its randomness - and while there are few rare exceptions to this rule, majority of it should remain randomized. These could easily be randomized, once-in-a-game type of incidents you run into.

1 minute ago, Willy Pete said:

You can't skin that bear and then craft a special item from it and you're forced to fight it.

That is exactly the type of thing I would not like to see. Special items. special crafting and other incentives that challenge people to go for these animals in set locations, apart of simply wanting to do it. That is why it would fit story mode, but also why it is not the type of game design that fits the idea of sandbox.

[Willy Pete]

12 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

Why call it Direwolf? Wouldnt simply calling it an alpha wolf make more sense?

Special items. special crafting and other incentives that challenge people to go for these animals in set locations, apart of simply wanting to do it. That is why it would fit story mode, but also why it is not the type of game design that fits the idea of sandbox.

Fair point on the name thing, I was going more for a mystical-sounding or otherwise metaphorical-sounding approach. Something that involved mystery or a return to the dark age.

I disagree on the special items, though. We've already got the flare gun as a special item that gives incentive to go out of your way and burn precious time and calories. Moose could be another, they only appear rarely, are tough to kill, and don't stick around for long. First moose I ever saw I ignored for a few days and then it was gone for good.

Or even caches, I've still only found one and it was during a playthrough of the Hunted Part 1. I've invested serious time and resources into cache hunting, just as one would need to do to defeat one of these beasts.

[Mroz4k]

28 minutes ago, Willy Pete said:

We've already got the flare gun as a special item that gives incentive to go out of your way

yes, that is the one of the only two exceptions to pre-spawned items in the entire sandbox, the other being moosehide satchel in Hushed River Valley.

It also kind of proves my point - people will make their way to that location based on the knowledge that they can get this item in there, which in itself kind of breaks the point of it, being a sandbox, something that should be randomized.

30 minutes ago, Willy Pete said:

First moose I ever saw I ignored for a few days and then it was gone for good.

Not how the moose works, they work exactly the same as Bears - they have their set spawn points in each game, and will spawn in this area again if they get killed. You maybe saw it first, then it wandered off into its territory and you just never saw it again. They mark their territory with trees that have bark scratched off.

33 minutes ago, Willy Pete said:

Or even caches, I've still only found one and it was during a playthrough of the Hunted Part 1. I've invested serious time and resources into cache hunting, just as one would need to do to defeat one of these beasts.

In Hushed river valley? I've found several. Sadly, just like with most things, they do spawn in certain positions, so once you know their locations, finding them is no longer that difficult, albeit sometimes dangerous.

[Willy Pete]

11 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

Not how the moose works.

In Hushed river valley?

I saw it in its territory, surrounded by scratched bark outside the Dam in ML. A day or two later I came back to kill it, but it wasn't there and I never saw it again.

I meant Prepper Caches, haven't visited HRV yet.

[Mroz4k]

1 minute ago, Willy Pete said:

I saw it in its territory, surrounded by scratched bark outside the Dam in ML. A day or two later I came back to kill it, but it wasn't there and I never saw it again.

I meant Prepper Caches, haven't visited HRV yet.

Ah, gotcha. Same as with caches, though. Once you have a general idea where they can be found, they are not that difficult to find.

But at least this part has some variety to it - they do not spawn always in the same place, so there is a little bit of randomness to it. Unlike the satchel and signal pistol in Ravine or the summit, where they always spawn. With Prepper caches, you need to search most of the region, usually, before you find it.

If that was the idea of the unique wildlife, I would not mind it. There was a suggestion some time ago about animals, which would be roaming outside of the usual animal behaviour. If these unique animals were, for example, specific to a Timberwolf mountain, but could be found anywhere in that region, and is roaming all over the region sporadically, I think that would be a pretty cool mechanic. It would certainly keep the players more alert.

[Moll]

I could understand "bosses" as special versions of animals with different behauviour, like increased agressive attack due to animal illness, but certainly not scary looking bulletproof terminators.

[Nyarlathotep]

On 4/3/2019 at 5:06 AM, Moll said:

I could understand "bosses" as special versions of animals with different behauviour, like increased agressive attack due to animal illness, but certainly not scary looking bulletproof terminators.

They already get green eyes during an aurora  

[Guest kristaok]

I dunno...  sounds too RPGy for me... I mean I wouldn't mind seeing more animals to hunt, etc... but the direwolf thing reminds me too much of a WoW type thing, not saying RPGs are bad but... TLD isn't really that... Sorry Willy, but I do agree again that we need more animals, and that alone could add more of a challenge? like Wild Cats, Coyotes, Foxes, etc. etc. 

[Fuarian]

I see you have been inspired by RDR2

[Willy Pete]

On 4/7/2019 at 6:58 PM, Fuarian said:

I see you have been inspired by RDR2

How so? I'm a PC gamer, don't have RDR2 

[Guest kristaok]

I do agree that it would be nice to have more critters like the Old Bear, and Fluffy. Considering the Aurora does cause these animals to change... perhaps Willy is on to something, as long as the animals are not made too OP I think it could work. It already has worked, look at the Old Bear, they was tough but not too OP. 

They could make a Mountain Lion or something that stalks you for a while from the mountains, then it attacks you and you have to fight it. Suspense could happen by making it knock your Weapons down or something, and you have to fight it off with your bare hands and eventually snap it's neck. It could work sort of like the cut scene of snapping a Rabbits neck, but this time it's a larger critter. 

Just an idea... probably a silly idea as most of mine are, but oh well...  

But I do think that we need to see more types of animals to hunt, and the Story Mode is the perfect place to introduce them! and that can be done with Boss fights like Willy suggested. 

[Fuarian]

11 hours ago, Willy Pete said:

How so? I'm a PC gamer, don't have RDR2 

In RDR2 there are a legendary version of nearly every animal in the game that are usually tougher to kill than the normal ones. And there is only one of each. And the animals you described eerily fit those. There is a legendary white moose and wolf in the game.

[Willy Pete]

18 hours ago, Fuarian said:

In RDR2 there are a legendary version of nearly every animal in the game that are usually tougher to kill than the normal ones. And there is only one of each. And the animals you described eerily fit those. There is a legendary white moose and wolf in the game.

Great minds think alike? Neat