Demons
From Hellgate Times Index
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General
Demons are separated into two distinct groups: Greater Demons and Lesser Demons. Greater demons are the boss type of creatures, they are more powerful and dangerous than their lesser demon counterparts. Greater Demons will also offer better loot. Lesser demons are the minions that mass London, they usually do not pose much of a challenge alone but can be deadly in packs. The only foes players will face are demons, you will never fight other humans (except, in multiplayer pvp if you so choose!)
"The foes are a diverse lot, with demons, undead, beasts, and spectral monsters. There will be no humans (at least not live ones) to fight. This is pretty much a battle against demonic evil. "Max Schaefer, Gamebanshee interview
Lesser Demons
Lesser Demons form the majority of demons you will encounter, they are everywhere. While they tend to be relatively weak, they are a challenge if faced unprepared. This is because weak demons never travel alone and in large numbers they can overwhelm their foes (you!). View our Lesser Demon listing.
Greater Demons
Greater Demons are large, powerful and intimidating beasts that one must take seriously, or perish on the battlefield. These are the end-boss demons of Hellgate and consequently provide a much more challenging experience than lesser demons. Their presents tends to coincide with key quests and pivotal moments of the storyline. Greater demons are challenges, but also offer large rewards for their slaying: loot and experience. Taking down a greater demon provides much more experience and better loot than walking about slaying packs of minions. For a complete list, view our Greater Demon listing.
Lesser Demon Bosses
Packs of minions at times have a central figure either controlling/supporting them or leading them into battle. These are overpowered lesser demons (much weaker than greater demons) and are more difficult to combat than their underlings. The prototypical boss of RPGs, is a powerful healer rejuvenating the underlings or reviving them after they are slain. They usually complement the group they are part of.
Variations
The demon population of london follows a certain pattern, you will find that there are demon families that offshoot into many different but physically similar demons. That is, demons that have similar appearances and share common behaviors, but have different names and are not of the same difficulty. This is a technique widely used in the Diablo series and infact, many modern MMOs. You can usually make the distinction between an easy demon x from difficult demon x, by a slight color variation (and a different name, if you decide to look a bit more closely).
Support Demons
Some demons tend to stand back and do not attack their foes, but instead increase the strength of the minions around them. In such circumstances, the support demon is the most important creature on the battlefield. While not directly contributing to a character's injuries, his buffs and support skills can give the edge to his peons.
The Zombie Lord both raises and enhances the undead to fight against the heroes. The manner in which he does this, though, is downright creepy. And the players have to focus their attentions on the Zombie Lord because he’ll keep raising new recruits if you simply focus on his minions. And since the experience gained from destroying them is negligible, their master is really the one that needs putting down." Bill Roper, Firing Squad interview
Artificial Demon Intelligence
The AI in Hellgate:London probably falls into the stupid but creative category. Demons will not do novel things that will impress you, but this is complemented by a set of interesting behaviors. One could say that this is where the distinction between RPG and FPS is made. FPS games tend to put a large emphasis on AI (react according to their environment), while RPGs use sets of simple behaviors to define the actions and reactions of creatures.
"Numbers tend to be the earliest tactics you see in the game, and since we haven't really let people play the higher level content, they haven't seen some of the more advanced states. We view monster AI as being sets of specific behaviors rather than trying to create artificial intelligence. Every demon should have something unique about how it interacts with the world, the player or other demons that makes it different and interesting. Early on, we definitely have enemies that are much easier to fight than later in the game because we know players will still be getting used to the controls, the world, learning their character's class and so forth. Later, when they have gained some expertise, we can unleash nastier critters." Bill Roper, actiontrip interview
Demon Ranks/Taxonomy
Ranks classify demons according to their physical characteristics or lineage in the same way we classify mammals (primates, felines etc). There are four different classes of demons, as follow:
- Beasts: Vicious creatures that have distinctly animalistic features.
- Necros: Dead or reanimated demons, such as skeletons, rotten flesh creatures and zombies.
- Primus: Tend to have some humanoid features, but not always. Sometimes similar to necros.. but not dead.
- Spectrals: These creatures are not ghosts, but they do share similar characteristics. They tend to have odd shapes and have an demonic apparition like consistency.
Loot Drops
Once slain, items pop out of the demonic corpses, but not all drops are created equal. Loot quality increases with the difficulty of demons faced. In other words, you are not going to be finding great items by slaying easy minions near the start of the game. You are bound to have much greater success in finding those ever so valuable items by killing high level demons, bosses and greater demons. If the loot-odds system is anything like that of Diablo, expect certain demons to have a higher likelihood of dropping certain items (or types of items).
