Give us Shiva!

Okay, so with the coming destruction of Galaxy City at the hands of the Shivans, and an idea I've had for a little bit now about trying to improve Giant Monsters, I wanted to combine them a bit to create this semi-fleshed out idea.

Basically: create some Giant Monsters that are incarnate-level challenges.


Backstory: The meteors in Bloody Bay and soon Galaxy City contain energy/beings that can incorporate inorganic or dead matter into their structure, creating at least semi-sentient enemies out of local material. In Bloody Bay, it's dead bodies of the former citizens. From the pictures of Galaxy City, it's rubble and other construction materials.

However, nothing in the backstory on ParagonWiki leads me to believe that the energy can't join with living or otherwise animate materials.


So, onto the idea:

While the current destruction from meteorites has been wide-scale, destroying whole areas of a city, there have also been meteorites that seem to have been purposefully aimed at other areas of the city. It seems as if some of the Shivan meteorites have been aimed at areas where Giant Monsters roam the city. This, in turn, creates two new classes of Giant Monster

1) Shivan Versions of existing Giant Monsters: A 10% chance that when a Monster is formed, that it creates a Shivan Version of that Monster (this information would be included in the text warnings that we get). What makes them different, you ask? Well, while the Giant Monster code scales with level, these GMs would always scale as if they were +4 to you. Also, they would come with a meteorite nearby that spawns level 54 Shivan Bosses as you fight the monster. The Monster would also get new abilities to reflect the fact that it has been "infected" with the Shivan energy.

These Monsters would be tougher to take down than they currently are (and may need more than just the level 54 adjustment to make them a bit harder). However, they would give some rewards consistent with the challenge. Characters that have not yet unlocked the Alpha Slot would get twice the XP, Influence, and Merits for taking them down. Characters that have unlocked the Alpha Slot would get normal XP, Influence, and Merits for defeating them, but would also get Incarnate Experience for defeating the Monster and the meteor-spawned allies. Upon defeat, the Monster would also award a random incarnate component.


2) Manifestation of Shiva (Shiva for short in this description): A completely new Giant Monster. Like the Rikti Invasions, this GM could pop up in any zone. Shiva would be a Level 54 GM, with the ability to spawn level 54 pets (not sure if these should just be level 54 Shivans, or maybe infected versions of any level 54 group). However, I'd want Shiva to be truly hard to take down, or at least more dangerous than normal Giant Monsters (or the Shivan-infected Giant Monsters, for that matter). Taking down Shiva would reward decent XP, Influence, and Merits for non-Incarnates, but would give Incarnate XP, and two random incarnate components to anyone who has at least unlocked the Alpha Slot.




Certainly, I don't know the exact numbers of what each should give, but what do people think of the basic idea? It would give some other options for Incarnate Progression, a way of Incarnate Progression for those who aren't thrilled with the Praetorian story, and maybe a break from the grindy feeling.

26 views and no responses? I take it that this might fall into the "a decent idea, and therefore generates no flaming and therefore sinks to the bottom of the S&I forum"?

i think adding new giant monsters and improving the reward given from a GM would make them more worthwhile

i know the devs wouldnt want us to farm them, but what other point are they for aside from badges

GMs shouldnt give a piddly amount of inf which is the same as a boss ranked foe

an even con AV gives about 138,000 inf if you solo it in sg mode, while soloing AVs is not an easy task, most poepple dont do it due to time/reward ratio, soloing a GM can be approximately as hard as an AV to solo (i say approximate because they are in general weaker offensively but stronger in terms of hp and regen)

if a GM awarded the same amount as an even con AV poeple would definitly be wanting to fight them some more and not because "oh i needed this badge for an accolade"

i used to always go and fight GMs when i saw them pop up, but soloing or teaming to kill a GM is usually a lot more work than an AV and like 1/8th the reward, if GMs rewards were changed to match that of an even con AV then it would definitly give incentive to fight them

if you solo even con AV its approx 138,000 inf

if you have 8 man team to kill even con AV its approx 30,000 per person due to there being 8 people and the slight xp bonus a 8 man team gets

if you have multiple teams attacking the monster then that would prolly get reduced compared to how much dmg your team did (like how it currently works for GMs)

i dont think its over-rewarding, but it would definitly give more incentive to fight them

Sorry, no flames. I do have a couple of comments though. I do like the idea of it rewarding double for non-incarnates and some incarnate xp for incarnates. Although just straight threads would probably be better than incarnate xp, since once you have them unlocked the xp portion would be useless. I'd think that rewarding incarnate xp would result in the people with the best chance of winning having the least incentive to fight since they're only going to get base rewards. I much rather see an astral merit rather than a random component as well.

As for them spawning level 54 bosses to aid them, that could be a problem. Does that mean Shivan Deathsurge is spawning level 54 bosses in an 8-20 zone? That's not really going to be fun for people trying to run missions in the zone. They'd have to be on a pretty short leash to keep it so that lower level characters could still get around them. Just a beefed up GM would be fine with me.

Speaking of Shivan Deathsurge, these should probably just be a random chance to spawn new GM instead of a take off of existing ones. Deathsurge doesn't have a body to be reanimated by the Shivans. Nor does Caleb in Nerva. A Shivan Flyer in Grandville? Scrappy doesn't have a body either. Overall Redside is just not going to work for that theme.

It's also a problem that some of the GMs are spawned by player actions. Hunting for Caleb and getting a Shivan version instead may upset some people. It'd be better if the Shivan GMs were treated like Rikti or Zombie Invasions and became an extra zone event, only without the mass exodus of street mobs.

I'd rather see a standalone GM that fitted in somewhere than a 'chance' for one (see Jack during Halloween and how well he goes down) being shoe-horned in elsewhere.

That and GMs not having such piddly rewards.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I'd rather see a standalone GM that fitted in somewhere than a 'chance' for one (see Jack during Halloween and how well he goes down) being shoe-horned in elsewhere.

That and GMs not having such piddly rewards.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.