Code Name: onslaught discussion...

[Jonathan Buckley]

To re-post what I put on the Kickstarter thread, (with spelling corrections and a better explanation :bashful.

Let's have a "big boss" card for Wave 3, the kind that makes the other creatures scatter in fear when it emerges.
How about a boss card that's comprised of multiple cards, each representing a body part.

CAUSTIC TYRANT / CODE-NAME: ONSLAUGHT

Reveal: Remove all enemies from the lane, including this card,
then take the following cards and add them face-up to the lane in the following order, starting from the front:

Card 1 - Onslaught (Head)
Card 2 - Onslaught (Thorax)
Card 3 - Onslaught (Acid Sack)

Individually the cards are:

Onslaught (Head)
Pwr = 5 / HP = 7
Ability = While 'Onslaught (Acid Sack)' is in the lane, this enemy part heals 2 HP when it is attacked and not killed.
Can it live without a head? Dunno; no one survived long enough to watch it die.

Onslaught (Thorax)
Pwr = 2 / HP = 10
Ability = While this enemy part is not at the front of the lane it cannot be damaged.
It looks heavy and slow, and it is - until it sees you.

Onslaught (Acid Sack)
Pwr = 6 / HP = 8
Ability = If 'Onslaught (Thorax)' is in the lane when this enemy part is killed; deal 5 damage to one troop in your lane, assigning any excess damage to the base.
A mixologist that serves you a cocktail of torture and dread.


The bonus from specific parts encourages the team to attack strategically, and I like the idea of the artwork spread across all 3 cards to form the creature as a whole; showcasing its sheer size and threat. :bashful:

 

[Echosilence]

@Jonathan
Cool stuff, I've been wondering about how to implement a hive monster that was multi sectionned as well.
I think the way you made the different sections interact with each other lend really well to the end game massive monster feeling.
So big it doesn't into one card.

 

[Rodney Smith]

Another idea that had been proposed, was a Boss Monster that you faced at the end of Round 9, should you survive that long.

During the game, each time you burned a card, you would add a token to this enemy, which would boost it's stats in some way (obviously, this would need to be play-tested to determine the appropriate boost). At the end of the game, all of the players would take their remaining survivors, and combine them into a line to fight the final boss. The line of heroes could be longer than the usual 5.

Someone suggested it be based on this crazy bug, that wears it's victims as armor: http://didyouknowarchive.com/?p=1671

View attachment 28783

Maybe Onslaught gets a boost to it's health for each burned card, but its attack level stays the same?

 

[runawayrogue]

Here were some of the things I had posted to the forum:

1.Onslaught
Concept – Huge bug type that becomes stronger as the gameprogresses
Wave 3 Monster – Mixed in with all wave 3.
Reveal - when the monster emerges all other enemies flee theboard
Damage – Players X 2
Health – 5 +1 for every burned soldier in the game.
All excess damage attacks the base.


2. Hive Mother
Concept – Multiplier
Wave 3 Monster
Reveal- All empty lanes fill with wave 1 monsters and thismonster jumps to the end of the line.
Damage – Players X2
Health -20

If this enemy takes damage and is not killed, it jumps tothe end of the lane of the next player, reveal stage happens again.
Any excess damage attacks the base before the enemy jumps tothe next players lane. (Think someone suggested It go through all other lanes before dealing base damage.)


3. Onslaught 2.0
Multi part boss, 5 -7 cards make up the boss, like 1 card inthe center with the art of the bug and the mechanics, then the remaining 4-6cards populate a 1 spot on each player’slane and is the portion of the beast they have to contend with?

Honestly, I am completely open on strength and health numbers, as I have not actually played the game. My main concern is that the monster is difficult but not impossible. There have been some really good suggestions on here so I'm sure Codename ONSLAUGHT will be amazing.

 

[Korsheth]

From what I've been reading, a lot of people like the concept of a HUGE bug with multiple parts/cards.
My main concern with this would be theme of when and how these cards come into play.
Randomly having a thorax pop up in someones lane and blowing it away, then two rounds later the head shows up. Just seems weird to me.
So how about having 1 card in the wave, and having several body cards in the box.
When the monster card is revealed, you place it off to the side and finish the combat round.
Instead of starting a new wave, you pull out all the body parts (1+ per player) perhaps also include some tentacles to fill the lanes or something.
The boss battle becomes an entire wave of it's own in addition to all other waves.

 

[Jonathan Buckley]

My main concern with this would be theme of when and how these cards come into play.
Randomly having a thorax pop up in someones lane and blowing it away, then two rounds later the head shows up. Just seems weird to me.
So how about having 1 card in the wave, and having several body cards in the box.

To quote:

"Reveal: Remove all enemies from the lane, including this card,
then take the following cards and add them face-up to the lane in the following order, starting from the front:

Card 1 - Onslaught (Head)
Card 2 - Onslaught (Thorax)
Card 3 - Onslaught (Acid Sack)"

So, yes, that's exactly what I was thinking
The deck would contain 1 card with that reveal text, (no health and no power), so it would be removed and then replaced with previously set aside parts.

Would be kinda silly to see a random head appear from nowhere unless it was out of the ground

Hope that explains it better.

 

[Echosilence]

Another idea that had been proposed, was a Boss Monster that you faced at the end of Round 9, should you survive that long.

During the game, each time you burned a card, you would add a token to this enemy, which would boost it's stats in some way (obviously, this would need to be play-tested to determine the appropriate boost). At the end of the game, all of the players would take their remaining survivors, and combine them into a line to fight the final boss. The line of heroes could be longer than the usual 5.

Someone suggested it be based on this crazy bug, that wears it's victims as armor: http://didyouknowarchive.com/?p=1671

Maybe Onslaught gets a boost to it's health for each burned card, but its attack level stays the same?

Never even knew that bug existed... nature is pretty scary.
Even if they don't use this idea for Onslaught I think its too good to not use for other games in the xenoshyft universe.

 

[runawayrogue]

I was thinking 1 card for the main bug with the basic instructions and art. When that bug is revealed then you place that card in the center, remove all enemies from the board and place the parts randomly in each lane.

From what I've been reading, a lot of people like the concept of a HUGE bug with multiple parts/cards.
My main concern with this would be theme of when and how these cards come into play.
Randomly having a thorax pop up in someones lane and blowing it away, then two rounds later the head shows up. Just seems weird to me.
So how about having 1 card in the wave, and having several body cards in the box.
When the monster card is revealed, you place it off to the side and finish the combat round.
Instead of starting a new wave, you pull out all the body parts (1+ per player) perhaps also include some tentacles to fill the lanes or something.
The boss battle becomes an entire wave of it's own in addition to all other waves.

 

[Ramsay]

From what I've been reading, a lot of people like the concept of a HUGE bug with multiple parts/cards.
My main concern with this would be theme of when and how these cards come into play.
Randomly having a thorax pop up in someones lane and blowing it away, then two rounds later the head shows up. Just seems weird to me.
So how about having 1 card in the wave, and having several body cards in the box.
When the monster card is revealed, you place it off to the side and finish the combat round.
Instead of starting a new wave, you pull out all the body parts (1+ per player) perhaps also include some tentacles to fill the lanes or something.
The boss battle becomes an entire wave of it's own in addition to all other waves.

I agree with Korsheth, I think a multi-card bug, while cool, is a bit too different and potentially confusing, introducing new mechanics and such seems a bit clunky. Not to mention, we need to know if the developers are even cool with designing a multi-card boss for this enemy. They have only one card up to be designed and stretching that into multiple cards may not even fly with them.

 

[Korsheth]

I agree with Korsheth, I think a multi-card bug, while cool, is a bit too different and potentially confusing, introducing new mechanics and such seems a bit clunky. Not to mention, we need to know if the developers are even cool with designing a multi-card boss for this enemy. They have only one card up to be designed and stretching that into multiple cards may not even fly with them.

I also think a multi card boss while cool, won't fly with CMON.
This topic may lead to future expansion add-ons, but in the short run I think we need to stick to a single card boss.
That being said, I like the idea of making it more co-op. Thus the idea of a spawner that summons units into your allies lanes or clogs their decks with bugs is a cool one. Anything that uses the tools already displayed by CMON in the shown cards.

 

[Jonathan Buckley]

I agree with Korsheth, I think a multi-card bug, while cool, is a bit too different and potentially confusing, introducing new mechanics and such seems a bit clunky.

Said with the greatest of respect, but I'm not too sure what could be confusing.
Maybe my idea was a little fuzzy with details, but essentially the Caustic Tyrant is a card that clears 'that' player's lane and replaces it with previously set-aside cards.
Think of it as just 3 separate enemies - except they're referred to as 'enemy parts', which have conditional buffers like some of the existing cards - no real change in mechanic.

If I may; I personally don't recommend isolating concept and ideas based on what CMoN may / may not approve.
I think we should keep churning various and vibrant ideas you think could work, especially if it could give them ideas for their expansions.
To be fair, there have been a number of great ideas posted for this boss, and I'm really excited to see which one they'll go for, and how they'll visually envisage it!

[Edit: not sure if "Visually envisage" is a misnomer :S]

 

[Korsheth]

Said with the greatest of respect, but I'm not too sure what could be confusing.
Maybe my idea was a little fuzzy with details, but essentially the Caustic Tyrant is a card that clears 'that' player's lane and replaces it with previously set-aside cards.
Think of it as just 3 separate enemies - except they're referred to as 'enemy parts', which have conditional buffers like some of the existing cards - no real change in mechanic.

If I may; I personally don't recommend isolating concept and ideas based on what CMoN may / may not approve.
I think we should keep churning various and vibrant ideas you think could work, especially if it could give them ideas for their expansions.
To be fair, there have been a number of great ideas posted for this boss, and I'm really excited to see which one they'll go for, and how they'll visually envisage it!

[Edit: not sure if "Visually envisage" is a misnomer :S]

I agree that we should keep coming up with inventive ideas, as you said expansion wise CMON's options will be limitless.
What I myself was getting at, is that they gave us " ONE " boss to create, and the likelihood of them saying "Ooohh A boss made up of 3-6 different cards, lets do that!"
Is simply unlikely! They have stressed the point of art being troublesome to produce, making 3-6 new art pieces to fill the boss cards won't be high priority.

In short: We are on a time frame, CMON needs to finalize the boss. Maybe we should focus on a single card Boss that everyone likes.
If you have ideas for cool epic bosses, feel free to share them still.

 

[Jonathan Buckley]

They have stressed the point of art being troublesome to produce, making 3-6 new art pieces to fill the boss cards won't be high priority.

In short: We are on a time frame, CMON needs to finalize the boss. .

Very good point.

There's a possible work around for a multi-card boss,
Have one design on the 'trigger card', and each 'part-card' is literally a zoomed in image of that boss' body part.
That way it's 4 physical cards, but just needs one design.
The Kickstarter page and these forums are brimming with single-card ideas, I just wanted to rock the ideas boat slightly "Nothing ventured..." eh?

Speaking of which:
I'm noticing a number of cards with variable HP & Power values.
How do we feel about this? I like the idea of having an unknown factor, but I'm worried it could make it too easy or too complicated, unless there was a suitable 'base' value which gets added to it.
What do we think?
HP / Power - Variable values or Static values?

 

[Korsheth]

I'm noticing a number of cards with variable HP & Power values.
How do we feel about this? I like the idea of having an unknown factor, but I'm worried it could make it too easy or too complicated, unless there was a suitable 'base' value which gets added to it.
What do we think?
HP / Power - Variable values or Static values?

Tough to say, Static Values are great due to sheer simplicity.
Variable is great as it adds to the element of surprise / horror when playing the game, and gives it a little extra variety.
The problem with variable is the balancing act of keeping the figures simple enough and balanced for number of players. You don't want to pause the game for too long just to figure out the stats of a card, and I think we should stay away from a constantly changing variable unless it's very simple to calculate.
Some examples: Power equal to # of troops in lane +2 or something. Easy to calculate yet can change as troops are destroyed ( if we didn't want the variable to be static.... if that makes sense )
vs. # of cards in player deck, minus cards in hand, plus # of bugs in lane.... etc. which would just be chaos to calculate.

 

[Ramsay]

Something I think we need to be aware of in creating a boss, is how it would work in different spawning situations. Like the big 3/6 bug card bosses, what if its the last creature you spawn in the wave? That probably be a balancing issue. I think power and health ratings are really dependent on the boss ability mechanics. I like Static power and health, but I also like abilities that cause variables. Such as, it eats your xenosathem and gains power nor health. Troops is neat but a bit to close to the Grave Titan Tarantula possibly?

 

[Echosilence]

Same boat with the static vs variables.

Static keeps things simple but variables just scale so well. Obviously i feel those of us contributing to this forum have more than a beginner's take on board games. I think Xenoshyft:Onslaught being the first of many will best be served with keeping things as simple as possible.

There will definitely be expansions and add-ons and these can be made to up the difficulty. So that everyone can start off with learning basics with the basic game.

Since CMON opened the flood gates to allowing us to pile on ideas i think we should just throw as many as we can, even if its unrealistic they can definitely use the ideas later. Some of the hive boss cards ideas almost seem as if they can be an expansion all on their own, ie the boss that starts from wave 1 and mutates through wave 2 and 3... definitely feels like a special scenario people can play.

 

[antisocialmunky]

Someone told me that I should post my idea for Onslaught here.

Basically my idea was to have Onslaught be a Wave 1 Boss that gets shuffled into the next Wave Deck at the end of every wave (not sure how to guarantee that its gets drawn). He comes back progressively stronger in each wave based on the number of burned cards. So his ability would be something like:

2/4
Wave 1: +1 Power + 1 HP for each card burned
Wave 2: +2 Power + 2 HP for each card burned
Wave 3: +3 Power + 3 HP for each card burned

Or something like that.

The Fluff about Onslauht could be that it retreats every time its about to get killed. It gets stronger because it is learning your defenses because this one is actually intelligent. Maybe he's the last mutated survivor of the native sapient species and just wants off this rock.

 

[runawayrogue]

Great idea! Thanks for posting. I like the idea of a boss that gets harder depending on how you fight the war.

i also like like your back story. Having an assimilated alien race or something like that could lend to a cool looking amalgamation and let Onslaught be completely different from all other monsters.


**Speaking of Onslaught... I love the art in the new update.

 

[antisocialmunky]

I guess you could make it scale with the number of killed enemies or something.

It kinda looks like an amorphous pile of corpse meat.

 

[Korsheth]

Basically my idea was to have Onslaught be a Wave 1 Boss that gets shuffled into the next Wave Deck at the end of every wave (not sure how to guarantee that its gets drawn). He comes back progressively stronger in each wave based on the number of burned cards. So his ability would be something like:

2/4
Wave 1: +1 Power + 1 HP for each card burned
Wave 2: +2 Power + 2 HP for each card burned
Wave 3: +3 Power + 3 HP for each card burned

Or something like that.

The Fluff about Onslauht could be that it retreats every time its about to get killed. It gets stronger because it is learning your defenses because this one is actually intelligent. Maybe he's the last mutated survivor of the native sapient species and just wants off this rock.

I like the idea, however just to clarify and or revamp it a bit.
"for each card burned" is this cumulative over the 3 waves or separate for each wave?
If it's cumulative, I don't think you need the +2 or 3, +1 should be enough.
If it's separate for each wave, you could run into the issue of him being super weak in one of the rounds should nothing have been burned that round.