Hello guys
Under the guide of the great moderator
Walküre, i managed to open this new thread which is completly devoted to
Smaug The Terrible. The Misty Mountains faction is not around the corner yet, however it would be good to start the discussion about such a central figure as Smug will be for MM.
As Walküre said to me: the sooner we start the better will be.
So, to begin with, here is my concept of Smaug as i would like to see him implemented. Feel yourself free to discuss/criticize about any detail you deem relevant. if you catch some mistake(s), please tell me and i'll correct it/them
.
P.s: graphical matters are not involved (for now) in my concept. Mainly because i have seen there are many different tastes about it in the forum. I also deem the design secondary with respect to the game mechanics and functions; even if i cannot hide the deep desire to see, one day, a movie-based model in game (classical 4 legs dragon):
SMAUG THE CHIEFEST AND GREATEST OF CALAMITIES
Blazing breath (a Walküre'poem)As the strongest wind, slashing the air,
Catastrophe, come out of his lair,
He seeks gold, the treasure inside the mountain-realm, whose gate is torn down by blazing breath,
Descending the skies, a dreadful dragon much havoc has wrought, willing to sow fire and reap death.The core of my concept.
Initially the Greatest Calamity of Middle Earth will have a weakness against arrows while flying, but with an increasing of the armor along the path of power. Following the lore and films Smaug has an impenetrable armor, it is practically impossible to fear him with normal weapons. Since this interpretation would be unbalance in game, it is impossible to implementi it as it is.
Anyhow, the player must have (at least) more chances to survive against rains of arrows. Therefore i decided for that increasing of armor at level five.
The dragon will have two different animation in flight and on the ground like in 3.8.1 (Drogoth+Summoned dragon).
As for the fire related abilities: i don’t think fireball and fireflies fit very well with a dragon. These type of attack are more related to wizard, which are able to create such particular form of fire attack using magic. In particular we have these two abilities just implemented via Gandalf (Dwarves) and Saruman . I will explain better all the details below in the skill-set.
P.s: There are some parts that are denoted as
Work In Progress (
W.I.P.). These parts, because of lack of ideas or dissatisfaction, are still to be completed. There I need to know new ideas to fill in the gaps and/or change some particulars
.
SMAUG GAME IMPLEMENTATION
EARLY GAME: TRIBUTES SYSTEM
At the beginning of the game Smaug will be available in the Dragon Lair, with the summoning system showed below. Smaug is summoned at level 10 with the below mentioned stats.
With respect to old versions, i decided to remove from Smaug the traditional leveling up system. That's because it actually doesn't fit really well with such an ancient,experienced, huge dragon like he is. In his summon form he will appear at level 10 but with limited stats with respect to the maximum, mainly because balance reasons. Then in his permanent form he will directly gets the maximum stats. Summon statistic values :
- HP : 10000.
- No Population cost
- Melee attack value: 400.
- Type of melee attack: AOE.
Basic attack like fellbeast and eagles in flight, fire attack at land.
He unlocks abilites through the summoning system, and each tribute is the evolution of the tribute before so each offer can be used only once. Between one offer and the other, there will be a certain cooldown.
Level 1: "Small Treasure": at the cost of 750 resources you can temporary summon Smaug for some minutes. Smaug can now land and fly and he unlocks abilites "
Incinerate" and "
Dragon Breath".
Level 2: "Great Treasure": at the cost of 1500 resources you can temporary summon Smaug for some minutes. Smaug unlocks abilites "
Roar of the beast","
Greediness","
Impenetrable armor".
Level 3: "Immense Treasure": at the cost of 3000 resources you can temporary summon Smaug for some minutes. Smaug unlocks the abilites "
My claws are spear","
Wings like an hurricane", "
Hypnotic Gaze" and "
I'm Fire I'm Death".
Smaug cannot pick up the ring in this form.
The cost values and time-interval involved can change.
SMAUG IN THE SPELLBOOK: CENTRAL SPELL FOR MM
"Usurper"
The term "Usurper" is general and refers to the infesting nature of goblins. They take possession of places and things that once own to the enemy, rather than build and produce (which is the main characterstic of other "industrial" evil faction, such as Isengard).
I chosen Smaug as a picture for the spell, because he's the greatest of the example of the usurping nature of the faction, with the climax of Erebor ruin.
Via this spell, advanced upgrades and/or elitè units will be provided to the most important military structures of MM:
-
Dragon Lairs are filled with the
"Treasure Of the Golden One" (in game the treasure will be graphically visible around the Lairs), Smaug is now recruitable at the cost of
3000 resources just at level 10 with improved stats:
- HP : 15000.
- Population cost: 60
- Melee attack value: 600.
- Type of melee attack: AOE.
Basic attack like fellbeast and eagles in flight, fire attack at land.
His initial set of ability is carried over from the tributes system. The lair give now passive leadership on drakes near it, since now they are more aggressive to defend the treasure (something like +30% of armor).
Note: If the player don't make use of the tributing system before unlocking the central power, then he can upgrade smuag's skillset left-clicking on tribute button and then on Smaug. If the Dragon Lair is destroyed, it drops a certain amount of resources (balancewise, equal at most to the cost of the building itself, in order to avoid extra-earnig via self-destruction of the Lair).
If the
last Dragon Lair in game is shattered when Smaug is in game,
the treasure of the Golden One is Lost , and Smaug has no more reasons to fight permanently on your side: immediately after the destruction, Smaug
turns back in is temporary form, with a timer that has to be set properly in order to give the possibility to build again the Lair. The restoration of his treasure (via rebuilding) is the only way to stop the running out of the timer.
Influence on the other structures (W.I.P.)
I report here some ideas of the user
Garlodur, feel freeto post new ideas or critiques about the implementation of the other caves
- Warg/Wolf Lair (settlement):
Similar to Angmar's Wolf Den a small defensive point is built (perhaps producing few resources) surrounded by a few Warg/Wolf creeps. Before upgrading however it does not have the ability to recruit units. When the central spell is bought, the Lair recruits Wargs with a specialty as anti-cavalry.
- Settlement Troll Cave (settlement):
A simple Troll Lair with creeps that produces few resources and recruits Cave Trolls as they are currently known, useful for quick assaults on enemy buildings (performing the battering ram function). With Untamed Allegiance bought these Trolls can receive a weapon upgrade improving melee combat against units (mace/club), buildings (hammer), or cavalry/heroes (spear). Of course it also recruits the infamous Bill, Bert and Tom.
- Giant Cave/Hideout (outpost):
The Giants remain in this faction as long range siege weapons with high defensive capability. The upgrade unlocks a defensive boost to the Giants, making them more resistant to arrows and ranged siege. The Hideout itself provides a defensive leadership yet unspecified. I feel it should reflect Gandalf's thoughts in The Hobbit crossing the mountain passes, as he considered taking refuge in a Giant cave.
SMAUG'S SKILLSET
Smaug skill-set in flight
Rank 1 : "Landing" – as usual.
“Incinerate”(Requires "Small Treasure") – Smaug spits fire on the selected area, inflicting high damage to standard units and medium damage to siege weapons, but low damage against structures, heroes, heroic units and monsters (except fire-sensible ones like ent and mumakil).
The power is nerfed with respect to the original version, it will be something more effective against units, as a first mass-slayer area of effect ability, like for example is wizard blast for Gandalf and Saruman. The animation of course will remain the same of Drogoth. Personally i think Smaug deserves some more devasting power for the last level.
“Roar of the Beast”(Requires "Great Treasure") – the fearsome roar of the Golden one makes the enemy flee in terror.
“Impenetrable amour (passive)”(Requires "Great Treasure") – quoting Tolkien, “my armor is like tenfold shields”. Smaug permanently gains +50% armour against arrows.
“Wings like an hurricane”(Requires "Immense Treasure") – Smaug uses his massive wings to create an air blast that knock back units in a wide radius dealing also medium damage.
“I’m fire, I’m death”(Requires "Immense Treasure") – like we seen in the scenes of BOTFA during the attack of Lake Town, Smaug sets fire on the ground while flying, burning everything in a hell of fire.
The crucial point of this last ability is the animation. The most fitting to resamble what we have seen in the movie, is the Dragon Strike attack. Supposing the power will be removed of the spellbook of MM of course. Just imagine this beautiful animation given to Smaug:The sequence from BOTFA:Smaug skill-set on the ground
Now the basic melee attack of Smaug is fire as in 3.8.1. Being on the ground, he will be weaker to revenge-damage of the pikes and hero-killers.
Rank 1 : “Flying “– as usual.
"Dragon Breath"(Requires "Small Treasure"): a fire attack very effective against gates. Smaug’s Firebreath opens Gates and even burns garrisoned units.
I simply copied the one presented so far by the team but i make it active and not passive. Same animation of the basic fire attack. Also the flames of Firedrakes from vanilla game are very good but probably is difficut to adapt such animation to a bigger model like the one of Smaug. “Roar of the Beast” (Requires "Great Treasure") – same as in flight.
“Greediness (passive)”(Requires "Great Treasure") – The desire of gold and treasures makes Smaug very greedy. ALL the productive buildings (both enemies and allies) in a wide area around Smaug get -30% of production.
“My Claws are Spears”(Requires "Immense Treasure") – Smaug uses his legs and claws to smash the enemy units. For 30 seconds he gets +30% armor against spearmen and he can trample the masses swatting all on his path (just think about the amazing scenes in which he enters into Erebor). It affects also cavalry-type units.
“Hypnotic Gaze”(Requires "Immense Treasure") – as the ancient fire-worms of the first age, Smaug can cast hypnotic spells using his eyes. The selected enemy hero can suffer three possible effetcs:
1) The enemy hero cannot withstand the dragon-spell and falls in an hypnotic state, Smaug takes control of him. The hero is temporary converted on your side but his ability cool-down timer are reset.
2) The magic gaze of Smaug stuns the enemy hero who temporary falls in an hypnotic state. Smaug forces the hero to reveal himself and all tell to the dragon all his plans. For 20 seconds the hero cannot move and you share the sight with all the enemy heroes. Also, as a consequence, invisible heroes are revelated.
3) The enemy hero free himself from the dragon-spell but he's demoralized and outworn: he has -25% of attack,defence and speed for 10 seconds.
The first effect will mainly affect weak heroes like scout-heroes and, in minor way,
also stronger heroes from 1000 to 2500 resources.
The three effect are in decreasing order of power. Apart of the esclusions indicated below, the more the hero is stronger the less will be hypnotized, so lower is the probability to fall in the hands (better to say claws 
) of Smaug. For example, heroes like Aragorn, Gimli, Thranduil will be mostly stunned or debuffed.
For gameplay, balance, lore and possible bug-related reasons all the Ring-Heroes (if you prefer main leader of the factions, usually they coincide) cannot be affected by effect 1.
Sauron' servants (Nazgul and Mouth of Sauron) and Sauron himself are immune to all the three effect.
Here you can find the quote from the book about the dragon spell: Bilbo was now beginning to feel really uncomfortable. Whenever Smaug's roving eye, seeking for him in the shadows, flashed across him, he trembled, and an unaccountable desire seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug. In fact he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell. But plucking up courage he spoke again.
Here's the article (MM Part 2),from moddb, where i get some of the abilities of Smaug.
The article also contains the description of the others most important heroes of MM.
Heroes Of Misty MountainsTHE RING FORM (W.I.P.)
The Golden One: the One ring amplify the greediness of Smaug, making him a more powerful and out of control beast.
Smaug unlocks all his abilities independetly to the tribute system.Related Ring issue and solution
A problem related to the ring has been found while discussing here in the thread. While flyng, if smaug dies and the ring is dropped, it could be a problem if th One falls in not walkable terrain like rocks or water. In this case Gollum it would remain stuck on that point for all the match, avoiding the players to recover the ring.
For this reason i went to a new solution, presented as follow.
When Smaug pick up the ring, the One is stored in The Dragon Lair (if there are more than one at the same time, the one in which you recruited Smaug).
Beside resolving the aforementioned problem, also it fits even best for Smaug. Many in the forum raised the issue if Smaug can or cannot wear the ring. In my view, would be fitting to consider the ring as the
most precious piece of Gold for him. As we all know, once the One recognize his new (temporary) keeper, it starts to cast his influence independently by the wearing or not. I deem this explanation sufficient to justify Smaug "storing" the ring instead of wearing it.
Anyway, coming back to the mechanic it self, the Lair storing the One it will be visible in some way by the other players. If it is destroyed, than Smaug Turns back on his normal form and the ring is available for the other players. If the destroyed Lair was the last in game, also the aforementioned timer start the runnig out.
I don't know about technical problems such as coding. If the storing is not allowed, then the Denethor idea of esperado could be very good imo, also making the ring more visible to the other players.
In flight
"The Golden Armor (passive)": when Smaug wears the Ring, his whole body is immediatly covered by a Golden Armor. His armor is improved to +100% against arrows but his Flying-speed is reduced to -25%.
On the ground
"Immeasurable Greediness" (passive)": through the whispers of the ring, the sickness of Smaug becomes an
Immeasurable Greediness. The debuff on buldings (both enemies and allies) is -50%.
Note: the palantir is a tribute to The Professor, from his drawing
"Conversation with Smaug".
“My Claws are Spears”: armor against spearmen is increased to +50% but the trampling damage affects also your own unit.
This should give Smaug more chances to go through the masses without losing health too fast; especially against elitè and heroic pikemen, which usually have a massive revenge damage against monsters.
The Golden armor will be graphically visible during game through a
golden tone texture (both in flight and on the ground).
The other powers remain the same but are more effective:
the elemental damage (fire, wind) as well as the melee damage are increased. However, the madness of Smaug make him even more careless and cruel:
his attack and abilities strike also allies if they are on his path.IN FAVOUR1. Aulë
2. Walküre
3. Dain@
4. dkbluewizard
5. Artificialis
6. Astapor
7. Fredius
8. TheDarkOne
9. Julio229
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11. esparado87
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13. NoldorSithLordsShipwrigh t
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16. The Witch-King of Angmar
17. Garlodur
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