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I'll try fail to keep this one relatively short and sweet, in contrast to a lot of my posts.
The world of Deadhaus Sonata is envisioned to be persistent and growing/evolving, and there's already an interest on both dev and player (speaking for myself at the very least) sides to allow clans/guilds to be formed by the players. I'd like to beseech/ensure that, as a community-driven story and world, there's enough of a spotlight on that aspect of it for the clans/guilds/covens or whatever to be heavily included as well.
Speaking from past experience as a (now retired) veteran member of the Remnants of the Void clan (if you're unfamiliar, they're historically and consistently the 1st place winning clan for any/all clan events) from Warframe (among others), clan-based communities have their own culture and gravity to them that can keep breathing life into the experience of a game for players long after burn out would normally occur as a solo player--and I stipulate that I enjoy both solo and group game play, though in all honesty the greatest enjoyment comes when I play games with my IRL friends, I'd say that playing as part of a clan community has been my second preferred experience for game play approaches. We all know that a game has to be very compelling in some ways to be thoroughly enjoyable for the duration of a solo experience.
Back to the clan-based game play approach, however: the best times we had in RV in Warframe were when the devs put in persistent or recurring gameplay events that rewarded both solo and clan-based efforts. This included things like the original Dark Sectors nodes of the star map, the Raids, and the various large scale Events with leader boards. Warframe still has a pretty cool clan base of operations system (the Dojos), where you can customize, decorate, and build out the dojo itself, and do weapon, warframe (characters you play as), and combat ship (called railjacks) research and development. They initially teased adding the kingpin system (now known as the Kuva Liches and Sisters of Parvos) as a huge clan-focused system where there would be goals that the clans would work on as a whole to accomplish and progress through stages, but in the end the entire thing was stripped down and overly simplified as a solo only experience with no clan focus inclusion to it at all. Over time, all of these clan focuses except the Dojos were removed from Warframe (directly counter to DigitalExtremes' "Make clans great again" campaign
), and a lot of clans experienced extreme drops in membership and/or were abandoned completely as a result. RV and its sister clan PV (Phantoms of the Void) are still hanging around because of exemplary clan leadership, where they regularly host their own custom clan events in Warframe with various rewards and try to include as much clan participation as possible (including rewarding people who come up with clan events and/or host them). They, as always, are the exception however, and a lot of the clans activity and their memberships are stagnant or dwindling.So how might we (and by we I mean both Apocalypse Studios and the community as a whole) avoid something like that coming to pass in Deadhaus Sonata? I think a good place to start would be at the start, which is to say to design the very game with fun, persistent, and evolving clan gameplay in mind from the get-go! The world of Deadhaus Sonata needs to be able to evolve along with these active communities, perhaps to the depth of the world of Malorum reacting to clan event outcomes--NPCs commenting on the top clans in an event, recognizing players who are in those clans and reacting to them in unique ways based on that, things like that would be pretty cool, I think. You could also throw in the usual exclusive/unique clan event rewards. DE and Warframe actually had an interesting clan reward from some events where certain clans that achieved a high enough spot in the leaderboards would have access to special weapon blueprints and be able to resell them to other players (RV gave these blueprints away for free, always
), and in later iterations of these events DE made it to where personal copies of those blueprint rewards were also able to be acquired by solo players if they performed extremely well in these events (so they wouldn't have to bother with trading with the high ranking clans I guess), but initially it was a top clan only thing, which was kind of cool.I guess to cut to the chase--the biggest/most obvious way to have the clan experience feel rewarding is to have rewards in the design, and having unique rewards is even more enticing. This could be access to exclusive weaponry, armor, abilities, housing, decorations, titles, missions, stories, lore elements and so on; there is, however, always an element of risk of building up disappointment/disillusionment from locking anything behind a certain kind of gameplay that not everyone would want to get into. So, as with most things, a balance is required there in what a clan player could access vs what an independent player could. I expect that there will, no matter what, be an approach of fairness to just about everything in Deadhaus Sonata, so that anything with a significant gameplay impact (anything that would grant notable changes in stats or abilities) would likely be accessible in some manner to a non-clan player just as it would a clan member, whether this would be a similar weapon but without a unique clan skin, or a similar skill but without a unique clan flair/effect, or just first dibs on something that will then later be accessible to everyone else, or whatever the case is.
Now as for the evolving narrative of the world itself, I'm not exactly sure how this will be able to be "balanced" between the impact of the individual player against the coordinated efforts of entire clans...could just be as simple as what I said earlier, where the world will react in certain ways to the accomplishments of certain clans, but it will always react the same general way in the story line to the individual player.
Possible Example:
After an event where Demons breach into Malorum and Deadhaus has to fight them back-
NPC: "You not only survived it, but you were also pivotal in ending the demon invasion, well done."
NPC if you were in the top placing clan: "Ah, you're a member of [Clan name]. You all nearly wiped out the demons on your own, as I hear it. It will be a VERY long time before they're able to mount another invasion on that scale, thanks to you lot."
It could be more involved than that, depending on how deep Apocalypse Studios cares to get into it. Down to differing commentary based not only on how your clan placed in an event, overall, but your own performance within the clan as well. "Your clan beat back the most demons, and YOU were the tip of the spear! Those demons will shudder at your name for untold millenia, I bet."
I suppose it could be simplified to three R's:
Clan gameplay has to have
- Rewards (in general, but the more unique/exclusive they can be, the better)
- Recognition (of the coordinated efforts and experience of the players in clans)
- Revision (evolving clan game play, addition of new things, improvement of existing things)
I'd like to ask everyone else now, in your history/experience in gaming as part of a clan/guild, what are some notable examples in your memory of games that did an amazing job with clan gameplay, versus what games handled them poorly? My example above from Warframe is both--started out amazing, then went more and more poorly over time. I'd like to collect some more ideas here for how to make the clan experience in Deadhaus Sonata a very very memorable one, but leaning heavily into the positive category!
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Howdy, had a chance to play the current iteration last night a bit. Gotta say it felt pretty good for an early batch.
Loved the telekinesis ragdolling. Note that some enemies do get stuck on/behind terrain after being tossed like hackeysacks.
One thing that comes to mind for me that I didn't see mentioned 13 times already by everyone else is that sometimes the blood spatter decals on the terrain pop in.
I agree with other folks that the mace needs a bit of TLC to it, maybe a slower step forward during the attack (compared to sword) so the attack arc has an easier time hitting the enemies, who love keeping their distance (understandably).
Another thing is that after being in there for a while (10-15 waves maybe), it seems like Zorin's feet get possessed and won't stop moving when the rest of him does. He has happy feet.
As far as other potential improvements goes, for the enemy AI (and I'm sure y'all were already planning on doing something like this) you might try having one rarely decide to lose his composure and go for an all out assault against you, sprinting toward you, swinging wildly, and yelling. That would make for some nice variety in pacing. After attacking wildly for about 10-20 seconds he can calm down and act normal again (if he's still alive💀). You might also be able to cancel his fervor by slamming him with telekinesis.
One other thing that I'm not sure if I saw or just imagined, dented armor? Armor being torn off by the force of our blows is very cool and I'm glad that already got added in, but did I imagine it when I briefly glimpsed one soldier's helmet get caved in on one side from a blow during my combos? If not in already, I hope that's still planned.
It doesn't run stupendously well right now, I'm mostly getting some very minor tremors/stutters, but I expect the optimization will be coming down the line later on.
I think I gave my specs somewhere else a while ago, but here, for y'all's notes:
Gfx card - GTX Zotac AMP EXTREME! 1080 ti 11gb
Mobo - ASUS PRIME Z370-A
Processor - Intel® Core i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz
RAM - G.Skill Trident Z Royal 40 GB DDR4-2133 CL19 Memory (weird numbers here, I know, as far as I can tell they don't make these anymore)
Monitor - LG ULTRAWIDE 34" (only a 60hz refresh rate, so I'm locked to 60fps at best🥺, planning on upgrading here sometime soon)
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the idea could be more fleshed out, you could have posted more lore, gone in more detail, but the core idea is there, it is something to work with, it could work both in games, novels etc, it could be a really interesting plot in fantasy story.
Working on it. Even on my days off, I'm pretty busy lately. 😬
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The closest thing I can think of would be the Ghoul, it eats things to gain their powers essentially copying the traits and abilities.
I thought Ghouls ate to empower themselves via feeding the malevolent spirit latched onto them. I might be mistaken.
If the Ghoul can steal powers/skills/abilities at a touch (and then later at distance) then it and the Doppel might overlap a lot. I know Ghouls are also supposed to be stealthy and can infiltrate places easily.
maybe for a different haus?
Might end up working that way better! Perhaps the Doppels can be more suited for instances where the Ghouls would find issues, like infiltrating hardened/high security locations such as fortresses, castles, keeps, and prisons.
Eternal darkness has the enemies which takeover the house servents
Blood omen has the spell to mind control
Still haven't played ED 😔
Control Mind worked a little differently in my memory than how I'm imagining the Doppel's abilities to operate--Control Mind didn't fool the enemies nearby, they were still hostile to your copy cat meat sack upon seeing it, and the flesh of the copy was very weak, dying in only a couple of hits most of the time, and then ultimately you could only use that enemy's abilities whereas with the Doppel, I imagine they'll be able to use skills to Store and Recall skills from some enemies, as well as still use some of their own inherent abilities (and variations of them) in any form they assume.
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I've been playing FF6 PR here a lot lately, and it's reminded me how fun it is to use an enemy's moves against them.
This eventually sparked the idea in my head "What if there could be a class added in Deadhaus that will be able to do the same thing?"
The Doppel
Based loosely on the doppelganger/skinwalker/mimic folklore, the idea is that you have a creature that has no real identity of its own, and persists by stealing/copying the traits of other creatures, whether physical or even memories/skills.
In its "base form," a Doppel will be vaguely humanoid, and almost entirely featureless. It's skills will be centered around finding targets to rob of their appearance and abilities. In my head just calling this focal skill "Taking" seems to fit well enough. When it selects a target, it can TAKE from it, and what/how much it is able to Take is determined by how the skill is set up and the relative strength of the target creature; you could set it to only steal appearance, leaving the Doppel as a perfect copy of the creature, but with none of its skills/memories, and the creature left as formless as the Doppel had been (lethal on weak targets, debilitating on stronger targets, ineffective on strongest targets). This would be ideal for using to sneak into the settlements/camps/midst of unsuspecting members of the same faction (note that some creatures with innate or highly perceptive senses would be able to detect a Doppel, even when Disguised, like Dragons maybe).
Taking a target's memories along with their form would allow a Doppel to pass by/into highly secured locations (if they Take the form of someone who has clearance to do so), as well as learn the skills that target possessed the entire time they're in its form. When the Doppel loses that form (either by running out of the resource required to Take--maybe Mana or Essence or something else--or deciding to end the Disguise of their own volition) it would normally lose access to that form, its memories, and skills, but the Doppel will be able to Store and Recall a limited number of forms, memories, and skills.
A weaker Doppel may be unable to use any skills or abilities that its Taken target wouldn't know, and be limited to that target's physical strengths and weaknesses as well, but as a Doppel grows more powerful, they will be able to use Stored abilities at will, no matter the form, and they will also learn and develop their own inherent skills they'll be able to use in any form, including enhancing the vitals of any form they Take. A very powerful Doppel might be able to Take a crippled and diseased peasant on death's door, march into a stronghold, and lay waste to all the hardened knights defending it, much to their shock.
I'm not sure how much this idea overlaps with how the Ghoul is being developed, but if it does too much, it could be from another faction outside of Deadhaus initially, and then join us later.
Skills
Taking - The primary and focal ability of the Doppel. The Doppel chooses a target, physically touches it (later on can be learned to do at a distance), and steals from it; Form, Memories, Abilities (later combinations of them, or even all).
Form allows the Doppel to steal the physical form of the target, leaving it dead, weakened, or unaffected depending on the target's inherent strength/power. A weaker Doppel will be limited to that creature's base physical parameters, both strengths and weaknesses. A power Doppel will be able to enhance the target's parameters, boosting strengths and negating weaknesses. Unless members of that target's faction possess sharp innate senses, the Doppel will be seen as an ally by them unless/until pressed for sensitive information that the Doppel lacks.
Memories gives the Doppel insight into the target's faction, such as secure/sensitive information that would allow them to pass suspicion when pressed by other faction members, and locations of points of interest, such as towns, keeps, strongholds, patrol patterns, locations of armies and their numbers, locations of treasures/valuables/artifacts, and even weak points in defenses. How much and what kinds of information are Taken depends on the strength of the Doppel relative to the strength of the target's will.
Abilities imparts the martial and/or magical skills of the target creature into the Doppel. Both how many and the strength of the abilities imparted is determined by the relative power of the Doppel against that of the target.
Ultimate Form of Taking - Expropriate - The Doppel steals the very being of the target, not only Taking their form, knowledge, and skills, but enhancing them to their fullest potential, essentially becoming the target at their prime. If a target is Expropriated, nothing is left behind.
Store and Recall - This could be considered the secondary ability of the Doppel, but still very important. Allows the Doppel to "remember" aspects of a Taken target for later use. This could allow them to have a convenient readied disguise that they don't have to Take again to utilize, or they could use it to recall certain useful information such as enemy locations and numbers or where that treasure was that the Doppel didn't have access to earlier, or quickly use a helpful skill in a dangerous situation (great cleave ability from a warrior when surrounded by foes, or blink/teleport from a magic user when trapped). The number of things able to be stored would depend on their complexity (power/strength/importance) and the Doppel's own level of skill. A mid-level Doppel may be able to Store and Recall several lesser abilities and a few good/useful disguises and one really useful piece of information, whereas a high-level powerful Doppel may be able to perfectly Recall the aspects of several former targets.
Ebb and Flow - A passive ability in the normal state (no disguise). The Doppel's formlessness allows it to move in preternatural ways; it can contort and slink through small confined spaces, and even escape from most non-magical bindings and physical holds this way.
---have to go, will finish this thought later
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I think I recall Denis saying in one of the first streams I watched that he doesn't want DHS to be an inventory management simulator, so we ought to be ok.
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It's a good idea - to have another tier of "mastery skill" beyond maxing out a normal tradecraft.
Might even consider having it be unlocked by requiring mastery of more than one type of trade/skill, for instance:
Runesmithing/Enchanting = Blacksmithing Mastery (Tradecraft) + Arcane Skill Mastery (Combat)
If you wanted to compound it even further you could necessitate that "Runic Mastery" (being able to create and enchant the highest level of Runic effect on a weapon/armor/accessory) require certain levels achieved on Runesmithing, the specific magic type you're trying to imbue (fire/cold/electric/wind/blood/death/abyssal/eldritch), and finally discovery of that specific Master Rune in an ancient runeforge in order to finally be able to craft it successfully.
Lacking any of those three elements of the crafting process might hinder the process by weakening the effect of the rune, or giving it a high chance of failure depending on the severity of the lacking element (IE if you don't know the master rune, you might have a 99% fail rate--but if you know the rune and have the runesmithing skill but lack mastery of the related arcane spell knowledge, you might end up with a 100% success rate, but end up with a weaker version of the effect- reduced dmg/are of effect/et cetera)
A high quality/level base implement might also be required to contain the awesome power of a master runic enhancement successfully. A rusty copper short sword might not be able to be imbued at all, whereas a suit of dragonscale mail may readily (perhaps even greedily) accept high level runic enhancements. Something between the two might survive the process, but eventually be overwhelmed by the power it tries to contain--like a Songsteel long sword (Elvish make) might hold a Mastered Abyssal Flame Rune for perhaps a hundred strikes before the surge of magic cracks and splinters the blade, rendering it useless.
There's a lot of places this idea can go.
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And upon Denis' request, here's my short list of demands from the Discord I made after playing the tech demo
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Those are some interesting ideas, and many sound in line with what's been shared about Banshees so far, with one exception--the ability to avoid damage and having a spectral essence, that sounds more like an inherent Wraith thing than a Banshee thing. Banshees in Deadhaus, while taking some inspiration from the Banshees of folklore, have their own unique spin in this game's lore. They're otherworldly servants of an ancient force--perhaps an Elder God, or at least a lesser God, they are the only known undead who were never alive, and there is much mystery behind their nature even to the other undead classes.
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Just clicked in my mind that if we end up having "Defense Events" for our 'hausing' like I described in one of my earlier ideas, perhaps depending on how we build them, we could get certain boons for ourselves/our defenders and/or certain detrimental effects for invaders, including perhaps Lair Actions a la D&D if we participate in the events personally!
One example in particular came forth with the inception of this idea. Some items are so powerful that they cannot be too close to other powerful objects or they'll tear apart the fabric of reality and ruin the Lair (
), so these powerful items take up "defense slots" in your Lair, which prevents items of too powerful a nature to be put within those dangerous confines of one another. (IE powerful item limitations so your Lair isn't too OP )Lair Construction: Eye of Madness
Area of Effect: Anywhere within Lair
Duration/Frequency of Effect: Constant
Effect Target(s): Sentient Creatures with Eyesight
Countered/Nullified By: Natural Blindness, magickal effects stronger than Item's effect (inspiration, courage, dispel effect, counter-curse), or leaving the area of effect (leaving the Lair), or passing the willpower/discipline check per tick (resists effect, on critical success removes an additional stack of fear/madness)
Item Effect: +1 stack of Fear/Madness to valid enemies per Global Tick, if targets succumb to effects item grants 1 stack of Inspiration to allied creatures defending the Lair
Item Effect Description: Sentient invaders who have eyesight will see aberrations and monstrosities in their peripheral vision at least once per global tick, each time the effect is triggered the creature must pass a willpower/discipline check or gain one stack of fear/madness, the effect stacks until the creature is either rendered Broken/Insane or leaves the area of effect or is made immune to the effect via magickal effect greater in power than the item's effect; each instance that a creature succumbs to fear/madness and is rendered broken/insane, the Eye of Madness grants a stack of inspiration to defenders of the Lair if they are within the area of the item's effects
Item Level: 9 - Legendary
Item Capacity Cost: 3 Legendary Tier Slots (of 5)
Item Flavor Description: "'Madness begets madness' is an unspoken rule of the world. Put into practice, the effects are not only deleterious but disastrous to any standing force. Some doubt that the hands that guide our world have humor in them, but they are fools. The Eye of Madness is proof of it. It sees through reality and into the hearts of any with sight and mind, tearing from them their nightmares and putting them on display before them, treating them to their own weaknesses and doubts until the mind is shattered under the weight of its own comprehension. This humor may be seen as depraved or poetically ironic, but I know this fragment of truth for what it is--Justice." -Raaz Arash, Liche Scribe, Order of the Veil
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Part of the blame is on people not knowing how game development works but a lot of the fault comes with many developers claiming a product that is ready to ship is a beta or alpha build so people expect polish anytime they get early access to a game.
Getting bad reviews at this point can only hurt the future expectations of this game so I feel the message should be closely controlled at this point
I echo these sentiments. Not understanding what they were seeing was what led to the reviewers commenting very negatively on the first Deadhaus proof of concept video ("Memento Mori" is it called?). From my perspective what this seems to be is a treat for the community that has gathered thus far for jumping on board so early. I'm not sure this combat demo would be making its way out of Apocalypse Studio's doors right now if this community didn't exist (I don't know that, of course, I'm just guessing at intentions).
I'm tentatively open, therefor, to anyone in this current community (forums and discord channel) having open access to it since--in my mind--we're the target audience for this demo, but also because as PurGry said, we're the most in-the-know about the current state of the game (outside of the devs themselves) and we're most likely to understand what we'll be seeing and where it's at. Open minds.
Beyond that, I feel like the essence of the accord between Apocalypse Studio and the gaming community at large is that only the full release will be free and full access, anything short of the full release of Deadhaus Sonata is subject to restricted access. Though again, that's just how I'm interpreting the presentation/language thus far.
This was a good idea, putting this thread and poll up. I wasn't aware they weren't sure who to grant access to on this.
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Listening to today's stream, I heard the part where Jack was talking about the possibility of a fallen warrior's body being placed under protective/preventative spells so they would not be able to rise again as a revenant. In another stream I managed to catch, there was a discussion of some hypothetical scenarios where the enemies of Deadhaus might set up complex and potent traps for the undead. This has me thinking of a possible mission type for us denizens of the dead to embark upon: a mission to render aid to the dead and undead, so they may rise again in freedom.
This might entail an assault on a hunkered down enemy encampment/fortification, a battle would take place where not only must the enemies themselves be killed and/or scattered, but the bindings placed upon the fallen or risen be undone in order to allow them to rise or rise again. This would certainly be a rescue/release of friendly NPCs starting out, but perhaps at some point the captured person could be a real player who got themselves into trouble and you could join their instance in real time as part of your mission and rescue them as a side quest/bonus objective.
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While I understand that perspective, going up against tougher odds without your gear, in order to get it back just seems like a negative feedback loop that will send you back to the starting levels in terms of gear, which would just be annoying, and no fun at all.
In this scenario you'd still have all of your Soulbound gear, and you'd probably be able to grab some temporary gear to fill in any empty slots, so you wouldn't necessarily be going in completely defenseless.
But in just about every game out there people do not like losing things they spent time collecting. It takes away from their fun and turns them away from the game
I guess it would need to be at the very least a balanced level of risk and reward.
You've reminded me of the Kuva Liches in Warframe now...those were annoying, but you never had the risk of permanent loss of what they stole, and they never stole anything vital to continued gameplay. I guess that would have to be the case here, as well, probably. Instead of the risk of destruction of your loot, maybe it never gets destroyed and could merely, at worse, be moved to another location if you fail to complete the mission.
Come to think of it, you wouldn't run into any looters or strongholds in Iron Man Mode, even if it does become a thing. 😏
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What if "soulbinding" an item took up one or more slots on an item that could possibly be used for other enhancements.
That's a good alternative as well! And perhaps only items above a certain threshold of rarity would possess these "augmentation slots," so while you could use mundane gear, it would be riskier to do so, if you're prone to entering one of the death states anyway.
As far as the potential but of fun suggestion. I don't think many would consider that fun but more of a hassle.
I can understand that perspective, but I'm also one of those weirdos who enjoys the occasional challenge or test of skill. To me, going up against tougher odds with higher stakes and the potential for substantial rewards upon victory sounds amusing.
Perhaps there could be a service available in several places that would seek to reclaim your lost gear/loot, or otherwise replace it.
"Death Insurance"
Perhaps those looter enemy types would only be present on higher difficulty levels.
Perhaps even at those higher levels, maybe there would be an option under the gameplay menu where you could disable the spawning of certain "pesky" enemy types.
Perhaps the more challenging options you have present, the higher chance the gods will smile upon your efforts and reward you with increased luck. (higher challenge = higher chance for better loot/rewards/rare tarot cards)
I like having more options available like that, that way everyone can play within their own comfort/fun zones.
To not just get back to your corpse but now have to fight against time and fleeing enemies seems a little over the top.
I'll be honest (can usually count on me for that), if the rewards for the "assault the loot stronghold" mode were significant enough, I'd probably die and let the looters steal my stuff on purpose just to play that mission type.
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I was giving some thought to Liches possessing new bodies and losing their old ones today, and the thought occurred to me that if you abandon your body, aren't you abandoning all of your gear at the same time? So my mind went to work thinking of ways around what would be an obscenely annoying system of having to go back to your fallen corpse every time you die to reacquire all of your dropped gear.
Soulbinding Gear
As the name suggests, you can, for a cost, have your equipment bound magically to your own soul/essence, and so where it goes, the gear follows and will remanifest onto your physical form once you do. This would solve the majority of that problem for all of the classes. Anything that isn't Soulbound, however, would still have to be picked up again. So if you just got some really good loot, and you take an exploding silver crossbolt to the back of the head, you might respawn with all of your normal gear, and just have to go pick up that new loot again. It wouldn't be as much of a fool's errand though than trying to fight through the same enemies again without having anything equipped at all.
Naturally I'm sure there will be differences in the types and nature of equipment that each class will utilize, but anywhere the system would share some of the mechanics this rule would cover.
A Potential Bit Of Fun
Perhaps the enemies will grab up anything you drop and attempt to flee with it, thus keeping the tools of their enemies away from their hands (or claws). There could be a mini-event where you have to track down that unit and kill it before it escapes the battlefield with your dropped gear. If it does manage to successfully escape with it, that could open up a special mission type where you have to assail a stronghold to get your stuff back. It would be a more challenging mission type than usual as these strongholds would be designed with the intent in mind to keep those spoils out of your reach, so higher risk than normal. There would be a chance for higher rewards as well, though, due to the nature of it being a treasury. If you can crack the stronghold open, then you would at the very least get everything you lost back.
Perhaps there could be a secondary race against time element included, where deep within the stronghold, mages are working to destroy or relocate the best of the spoils. So if you could complete the race to the vault before they finish the ritual, then the superior loot would be yours, whatever it is, in addition to your own lost gear.
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Along in the same vein as the other Minion entries, this is another idea for a special/unique critter that a particularly studious/skilled Liche may be able to employ.
The Shambling Horror
This critter is all about having that PRESENCE on the battlefield. Created to elicit abject terror in ones enemies, the Shambling Horror is an imposing figure that embodies concepts such as body horror and unnerving construction/form. A somewhat taller unit than the average minion, commonly adorned with a large animal skull such as from an elk or moose, with dead, empty eyes, and possessing a twisted and lithe body that lulls to either side when idle, but when disturbed or otherwise directed toward enemies, it releases a horrid whooping shriek from its maw and lunges forward in a frantic, unnatural, scrambling, unbalanced shuffle on its lanky limbs, pursuing its quarry with a fierce and unrelenting single-mindedness. When within a short distance, it will leap through the air with surprising agility and coordination considering its otherwise unceremonious behavior, and will come down on its target with all its weight and fury, with a high chance to knock a target prone if it is the same size or smaller than itself, and begin flailing and thrashing at it with its three peculiar varying arms. One long arm with long curled black claws rends flesh, another medium length arm grasps the target with a powerful grip that is difficult to resist, the third short and somewhat shriveled arm is imbued with an effect similar to casting an inflict wounds spell on touch, which both injures the target as well as amplifies injuries inflicted to it while it is being restrained by the Shambling Horror.
While not as powerful as other minion options open to the Liche, the psychological impact of its presence on a battlefield cannot be overstated and should not be underestimated. While it may only kill a handful of targets itself, its unnerving nature will greatly disturb the minds and sap the will power of otherwise hardened soldiers and mercenaries as they witness their darkest nightmares undoing their own allies before them. The weakest willed will flee from battle, the sturdier may still flinch and hesitate and leave formation.
Any mistake in a battle is a valuable opportunity, and the Shambling Horror is a means to create openings for easy victory for the cleverer Liches and their allies.
As for the "whooping shriek" I mentioned, in my mind it's similar in nature to a bull Elk's bugle. Here's a video with a pretty good example of that at about 2:35 into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOp8wUGDRU8:155
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Not aiming to detract from the idea, but you're not the first one to think of/suggest this, and whether or not it happens in this regard, Denis has said that at some point other factions will become playable...whether this means they'll specifically be joining the House of the Dead or not in order to become playable remains to be clarified, as far as I'm aware.
It wouldn't surprise me to see it unfold either way, or even both ways.
Community goals are also on the table and are a fairly well-supported idea, to my knowledge.
I'm curious, if it plays out that the other factions will become undead, whether that will detract from their inherent abilities/capabilities, or perhaps open avenues to potentially enhance them further.
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Blood magic, yay. Yet more intrigue, however. Can Vampires in Malorum be created as mere thralls, as in other fictions, if so, would this vampiress be seeking to turn his sister into a pawn to be used against him if he dared stand against her whims?
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Intriguing--that suggests the Historian Liche has a subservient Wraith of his own. I seem to recall you intended for the sister to become a Vampire, I eargerly await to see how exactly that process comes about. I think I've missed a good handful of devstreams, so I might be missing some knowledge on how Vampires are created in Malorum. I do know that they seemingly one and all count The Red Lady to be their Matron, though.
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A thirst for knowledge, a scorned beauty, revenge, corruption, dark sorcery. Nice story so far.
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The trickle will swell to a stream, then babble into a brook, run into a river, and turn into a tide.
The community is gonna grow vast as release approaches, then when everyone is aware of Deadhaus, the total following will be an ocean.
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I like the idea of the community working together on certain things to unlock them for everyone to enjoy! Nice idea.
We know that Banshees are already in Malorum at the time of Deadhaus' rising, so we'll surely see one or two hanging around here or there as NPCs. Perhaps we'll even get to see Keeva chatting with N'Gaztak at some point.
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Had this idea while talking to Varik in Discord and thinking about the Swarm Host minion idea I just had prior to this.
[Tarot Card]
<Command/Dominate>
>1st Tier Command
Allows a Liche to assume direct control over a summoned minion, leaving his "main" body behind immobilized within a strong (but not invincible) magical shell. Is this shell is breached by enemies then the Liche is immediately shunted back into his "main" body with a small radial AoE knockback around both the minion he was controlling as well as his "main" body.
Potentially at higher levels this direct command ability will impart boons upon the controlled minion that last as long as the Liche master controls it, and perhaps a modicum of these boons would be imparted on nearby non-controlled minions as well.
>2nd Tier Dominate
This much more powerful version of the skill allows the Liche to instead assume direct control of an enemy unit. This controlled unit will not be suspected by its allies until the Liche uses it to attack them, or if another enemy unit has a unique perception or skill that allows it to detect the change. The Liche's "main" body is still left behind in an energy cocoon.
The higher level versions of this tier might similarly impart the dominated unit with more powerful boons that would allow it to last longer against its former allies.
Ultimately this tier of skill might end with a powerful explosion of magical force that would likely gravely injure all nearby enemy units upon the death of the dominated unit.
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A rarer type of undead in the horror and gaming world, a creature that serves as a dangerous foe not only on its own with its large body and powerful limbs, but more so due to its unique nature.
This is a unit that serves as a factory and house for a swarm of parasitic organisms that will attack either any nearby enemy, or if marked somehow by the Host (perhaps by pheromones or bile) attack single targets en masse.
The types of parasites might be changeable or upgradable on the whim of the Liche master to things such as but not limited to:
<Leeches> Drain living targets of their precious life's blood and can inflict natural bleeding/blood loss on the foe due to anti-coagulants secreted by the parasites, as well as a chance to inflict bloodborne illness
-if vampire allies are in proximity maybe they would have the option to use the leeches to recover their own health or use them for Blood Magic-enemies afflicted by the anti-coagulant would likely be more susceptible to Blood Magic as well<Swarmers> Clouds of varying biting insects that can have differing effects such as a larger chance to inflict mind-altering diseases (madness, confusion, fear, sleep); or laying eggs within the target that feed on it, mature, and burst out, spreading to others nearby who will share a similar fate
<Bursters> Heavily modified organisms that can be thrown by the Host like organic contact grenades and burst into clouds of cloying toxic corpse gasses, perhaps upgradeable to have splintering chitinous carapaces that explode into shrapnel and can inflict bleed, or be filled with strong acids to melt exposed flesh and dissolve untreated armor
<Tendrils> Rather than attacking with ranged parasites, this Host type is home to very powerful tentacle-like barbed worms that lash out extremely violently against nearby foes, converting the Host into a mobile flogger
), and a lot of clans experienced extreme drops in membership and/or were abandoned completely as a result. RV and its sister clan PV (Phantoms of the Void) are still hanging around because of exemplary clan leadership, where they regularly host their own custom clan events in Warframe with various rewards and try to include as much clan participation as possible (including rewarding people who come up with clan events and/or host them). They, as always, are the exception however, and a lot of the clans activity and their memberships are stagnant or dwindling.
), and in later iterations of these events DE made it to where personal copies of those blueprint rewards were also able to be acquired by solo players if they performed extremely well in these events (so they wouldn't have to bother with trading with the high ranking clans I guess), but initially it was a top clan only thing, which was kind of cool.
), so these powerful items take up "defense slots" in your Lair, which prevents items of too powerful a nature to be put within those dangerous confines of one another. (IE powerful item limitations so your Lair isn't too OP 
A Place for Clans/Guilds/Groups in Deadhaus Sonata
in Suggestions
Posted
I still play PS2 here and there, but I'm not into it for the outfit (clan) game play. I'm into it for the large scale warfare, and sci-fi aspects. I'm not sure how much I've talked about Planetside in these forums and on the Discord channels, but I don't typically enjoy PvP-centric games (anymore). That game's definitely an outlier. Anyway, Deadhaus isn't aimed to be similar in terms of scale of multiplayer activity; Denis said it's intended to be up to 6 person co-op, not nearly the same scope as the average battles in PS2, which numbers in the handfuls to dozens, and rarely 100s of players all engaging each other in the same area of the open map. Point being that it's going to approach multiplayer game play very differently from that aspect alone, and that's without taking into consideration that Deadhaus will be PvE-centric, conversely.
As far as the outfit-related rewards goes, mostly cosmetics, but also the opportunity to call in special vehicles like the huge tank and the fleet carrier...which I've never gotten to use outside of the Test server, because it's very uncommon for the oufit leaders to give permission to anyone to call them in.
I'm expecting that Deadhaus won't have much in the way of major, game-changing content--which had each been the focus of major updates--getting locked behind some dude's whims (or joining a clan for that matter). One of the larger frustrations I had with that game, along with the rampancy of hackers, and the jankiness of the aged netcode--game's often referred to as Clientside 2, because of how you might see an enemy, duck around a corner, and then get shot to death by them anyway, because on their screen you were still standing out in the open.
Might be little in the way of those worries in Deadhaus, since it'll be a completely different game loop from the ground up.
I'm largely of the notion that anything that does get completely locked behind clan game play should be relatively unimpactful on the rest of the game play experience (cosmetics, building stuff, titles, stuff like that). I'd be down for pretty much anything to be put under lock, though, as long as it's something you could unlock in alternate ways, in the end.
Example:
- If you reach tier 3 of 20 in a vampire clan, you get access to Dire Werewolf tarot
- Alternately, as a vampire reach level 30 of 99 Blood Affinity level to unlock the same tarot
- Finally, if you locate and access the secret Blood Fountain related to the Dire forms during a full moon, you unlock the Dire Werewolf tarot
Perhaps it could be somewhat faster to engage in clan stuff and get to tier 3, but as long as you could unlock the same powerful thing another way, I think I'd be ok with it.
Thanks for the input, Mortis!