“Hey there! How are you doing? ? I’m fine, thanks!”
My voice resounds in the laboratory. I’m inside the ga talking alone. As usual.
“It’s been so ti since we last talked! Hmm…. was it a week?”
“Yes, it’s been around a week.”
“Well, there’s been very little things happening this week… but let explain the small bits that ARE important!”
“Fine, go ahead. I’ll listen.”
I reply in a bored tone. I an, I already know what happened. So why would I be interested in myself explaining it again to ? Boring, right?
“In fact, there’s only one very important thing that happened this week. And it’s that I leveled up to player level 4!”
*Clap, Clap, Clap!*
“And the only other important things that happened in this past week are that I leveled up my champion and also my strongest mobs: the Lab Assistants.”
‘How is it that you only did this in a whole week?’ you might be asking. The answer is easy: I had exams! And as much as I would have preferred to play, I’m not that stupid to prioritize my ga sessions over my future!
Though I do know of sobody that spent most of the ti playing instead of studying and then was complaining that the exams didn’t go so well.
Yeah, at this point all of us already know I’m talking about Ricard.
“If you really want to be a ga programr in the future, why do you slack off by playing gas instead of working hard!? You won’t be able to develop gas if you don’t actually learn to program them, even if you have played all the gas in the world!”
*Cough, cough!* “...Anyway, returning to what I was saying… This is the ssage I received when I leveled up.”
Reached player level 4!
- Boss monsters unlocked
- Maximum boss monsters increased to 1
- Maximum invaders in a party raised to 2
- Received 3 x Stasis chamber
- Received 2.000 cp
As you can see, the most important new stuff at player level 4 are the Boss monsters! Fucking aweso and player-shredding Boss monsters!
“But as usual, I need to get the bodies for the units that I’m going to use to create the Boss monster… And I didn’t have too much ti to play… So I don’t have a Boss monster. Yet! Because I swear I’m going to create it next week! I don’t have any more exams, so I can spend all the ti playing and looking for the best first-boss ever!”
Oh, and Boss monsters have the sa rules as Champions: they get a buff that increases all stats by 100% when used to defend the dungeon. So they can actually be on the sa level as the Champions and have a chance to defeat them in a straight fight.
Regarding Boss monsters, there’s also a special rule. DMA only allows you to substitute a boss monster by completely removing the previous one. This is to prevent easy boss-swapping with the objective to surprise or kill dungeon invaders.
“Basically this is translated into: you can only have one boss monster for each allowed slot. If you want to create a new one, you must permanently delete the old boss monster. To make it even harder, you can’t use an already created unit as a boss. It must be a new unit.”
Of course, nobody would put a weak unit as a boss (unless they are stupid). This makes changing bosses a very big cost in both cp and ‘special resources’, and most players only substitute them when they get access to even stronger units.
“Or leave them as they co, to make a feeling of progression through the dungeon. The pri example being those players obsessed with creating dungeon floors, as in an RPG. As they progress, they create new floors and put the new and stronger monsters there. So each floor is harder than the last. Once they create a Boss, its strength remains forever the sa.”
As I already explained, I didn’t have ti to go look for the bodies to create my first Boss. But I’m sure of one thing. My first boss is going to be either a Hybrid or a Basic Chira.
And I also have so ideas of what units I would like to use. Like a troll. Or maybe a troll. I would also like to use a troll. …did I ntion the troll?
Maybe it’s because we had a very hard ti against that troll boss, but every ti I think about what units I can use, the troll keeps appearing. All the ti!
“Yeah… I still need to think a little bit about it. Although a troll is stupidly resilient and strong, it wouldn’t fit the the of the dungeon that much. Because all units are tricky in one way or another, and the troll definitely isn’t.”
And the last ‘perk’ of the level up is that now other players can enter my dungeon with parties of up to two players.
“Yeah… this isn’t really a good thing. But I suppose it’s needed for balancing. I an, I could have a stupid amount of strong units plus a boss. And the Boss can be as strong as a Champion, or even stronger. There’s no way to beat sothing like this as a single invader… unless you are a higher-leveled player.”
Returning to what I did last week… Let’s go for the Champion level up first!
The first idea was to balance the skills by getting another triggered skill. But then I thought: wouldn’t it make more sense to level up a skill?
“So I chose my two most important skills and looked at their upgrades. I’m talking about Chain Lightning and Shared Voltage, of course.”
Chain Lightning (Active skill)Cost: 200 MPDeal (10 SPI) lightning damage to an enemy. Then, the lightning jumps to the closest enemy within 5 ters and deals 10% less damage. The lightning continues to jump up to a total of 10 tis. This skill can’t damage a unit more than once.Available UpgradesExtra Jumps: Increase the maximum jumps by 5.Far Jumps: Increase the maximum jump distance to 10 ters.Conductivity: The damage isn’t reduced after each jump anymore.High Voltage: Increase the lightning damage to (20 1,5 * SPI).Shared Voltage (Triggered skill)If a skill would deal enough lightning damage to kill another unit, you leave it at 1 HP instead and the target is stunned for 5 seconds. The prevented damage is then dealt to the closest enemy within 5 ters, if there is one. This damage can also trigger this skill.Available UpgradesDeadly: You can now kill units affected by this skill. The rest works the sa.Battery: The damage of this skill is increased by 20%. The lightning can’t jump again to the enemies that were already affected by this skill.Extra Sharing: The lightning can jump to a second target, but when doing so, each jump deals only 50% damage.
“Believe when I say I had a LOT of trouble deciding on what upgrade to pick. They all looked so good! Except for the Deadly upgrade for the Shared Voltage, which would kill enemies, and remove the whole reason why I picked the skill in the first place. Because I won’t be able to capture them if they’re dead.”
It also made think that a specialization into a single skill wouldn’t be that bad. I an, just look at the Chain Lightning upgrades and imagine picking all of them at the sa ti. As long as you aren’t against a single opponent, you can electrocute so many enemies and deal so much damage with a single skill, that it’s absurd.
“Clearly, this is where the balance between specialization and diversification cos. If you specialize so much in a single skill, you would be more powerful but won’t be able to adapt to situations that go against your build.”
There was also one extra thing I had to consider here: the Shared Voltage upgrades would also affect any other lightning skill I pick in the future.
After discarding most upgrades, I ended with the two that actually increase the damage I deal. But then I ca into a dilemma.
“Should I pick the High Voltage upgrade so that I can deal more damage directly, or should I pick the Battery upgrade so that the damage builds after each jump when multiple enemies get stunned at the sa ti?”
In case you don’t understand what I’m talking about, the Battery skill increases the damage by 20% after EACH jump. So in a situation where I would deal lightning damage to an enemy and it gets stunned by the Shared Voltage skill, the remaining damage would increase by 20% before jumping to another enemy. And if that enemy gets stunned too, it’s an extra 20% damage AGAIN. It can quickly build up to an absurd amount.
“Though with it I can’t create eternal lightning zones anymore… Because now the lightning can’t jump to an enemy it has already struck. So no infinitely multiplying damage here.”
It’s the perfect upgrade against multiple weak enemies, because each ti one gets stunned, the next one takes more damage, so the chain can continue until all of them have been stunned.
This increased damage after each jump, paired with the fact that I had just upgraded my champion and it now has a lot more SPI, which ans more damage with any spell, made choose the Battery skill in the end.
“So… this is what my current status looks like. Strong, right? Hahahaha!”
Mad Rat (Lv 5)HP518 (370)STA36 (26)SOU44 (32) EP420 (300)MP574 (410)STR35 (25)CON49 (35)AGI49 (35)SPI58 (42)WIL43 (31)DEX44 (32)SPD7 Mad Rat - SkillsActiveTriggeredPassive
Rat Transformation (Innate)
Chain Lightning
Cold Blast
Shared Voltage - Lv 2 (Battery)
Lightning Shield
Mana Attuned (Innate)
Mana Core (Innate)
Maniac - Lv 2 (Expert)
“Now for the last thing that I did this week. When upgrading the Lab Assistants, I thought that the best approach would be to upgrade one of their skills too. In fights they always end very low on mana because of the Fire Aura and the Fireball skills, so adding even more damage skills would be a bad idea.”
“Also, they are already tanky enough. And I don’t want to give them MP draining skills because it doesn't fit the image of a fire and ice battlemage. So a skill upgrade to increase the damage they deal, or how tricky they are, would be the best.”
As you can expect, I chose the upgrade that was the trickiest and also increased the damage the Lab Assistants do.
Frosty Retribution - Lv 2 (Triggered skill)When your HP is reduced to 50% or lower, you release an ice nova that travels for 10 ters. It deals (5 0,25 * lost HP 0,5 * SPI) cold damage to every enemy and immobilizes them for 5 seconds. This skill can only be triggered once every 5 minutes.UpgradesDouble Snap: Release two ice novas instead of one. One at 66% HP and one at 33%. Each ice nova can only be triggered once every 5 minutes.
“The upgrade makes the Lab Assistants generate two different ice novas as his HP decreases. The first ice nova is going to deal less damage than the second because of the different HP amounts.”
I also changed the AI so that they save the last 100 MP for the second skill trigger.
“Now they are a lot tricker because the invaders can get immobilized two tis instead of one, and the damage from the two novas is also about twice as the damage the skill could deal before. Best of all, the mana cost stayed the sa! Completely free! Hahaha!”
This is how the Lab Assistants look right now.
Lab Assistant (Lv 5)HP476 (340)STA32 (23)SOU35 (25) EP336 (240)MP392 (280)STR36 (26)CON44 (32)AGI26 (19)SPI44 (32)WIL47 (34)DEX53 (38)SPD6INT5COM3SkillsActive: Fireball, Jumping Smash Triggered: Frosty Retribution - Lv 2 (Double Snap) Passive: Mana Attuned (Innate), Stoneskin (Innate), Fire Aura
“You might be asking why I only leveled up my Champion and the Lab Assistants. The reason is simple: I’ve already said this multiple tis, but I don’t want to make this dungeon stupidly difficult. I only want it to have a lot of unexpected stuff and surprises.”
If I level up all the units to level 5, the difficulty would spike because everything would be harder to beat and deal more damage. But the current ‘feel’ of the dungeon would be destroyed.
“That’s all, folks! This is the only relevant stuff that happened this past week!”
“Since today’s Friday and I don’t have anything to do today, I’ll start looking for so bodies to capture! Hahaha!”
Just as I’m saying this, everything starts to shake. I even feel myself shaking with the dungeon.
“An earthquake!? There’s no way! I’m inside the ga! This shouldn’t be possible!”
Then, a ssage from the ga appears in front of .
You are going to be forcefully disconnected from the ga in 10 seconds.
The shaking stops, but I still don’t understand anything.
“What the hell's going on!? Is it a bug? Why is the ga disconnecting !?”
The ten seconds pass, and I’m forced out of the ga. After a white flash, everything turns dark. I’m fully disconnected.
As I take my VR helt out, I see my sister, Clara, inside my room, staring down at . What are you doing here!?
“W-what’s happening? Why was I disconnected from the ga!?”
I look around, trying to find a cause. Maybe the power cable was removed? No, it is in its proper place…
The only unusual thing in my bedroom is my sister’s presence. Don’t tell …
“Clara… What are you doing here? Don’t you know it’s rude to enter other’s rooms without permission?”
As I stare at her, she returns a happy smile. Hello? Shouldn’t you be feeling remorse, at least!?
“Andreu, Andreu! You know what!?”
“No, I don’t know.”
She’s clearly trying to change the topic. But I won’t allow her to. My playing ti is sacred and nobody, not even my cute little sister, is allowed to interrupt it!
“Don’t change the topic. What are you doing here!?”
“I just wanted to tell you sothing important, but you were inside the ga…”
“Ok, since I’m already out of the ga, you can tell .” I interrupt her. “Just leave a mont to find the cause of the disconnection… It’s the first ti it’s happened. Sothing must be broken.”
“Oh, it was ! I pressed the ergency disconnection button to bring you out of the ga! I wanted to tell you that I’m already level 3, so we can start playing together!”
The ergency button…? Oh, now I rember…
There’s a button in the helt to forcefully disconnect the user. It’s a safety chanism for when the person using the helt must be quickly or forcefully disconnected. For example, in case of a seizure. Or if the house is on fire… And it’s also used by parents that don’t want their children to play for too long.
“And why did you press it!? Wasn’t it better to send a ssage inside the ga? We can send ssages to each other easily because we are friends, after all!”
Making a pout, she answers. “But I wanted to tell you in person! And also to say I did well and pat my head!”
“Huh… ok. Just co here. Congratulations for reaching level 3, Clara. Just don’t ever disconnect unless there’s a good reason, ok!?” I say while patting her and hugging her at the sa ti.
“Yes! Hehehe!”
Then, what was the earthquake…? Don’t tell it was Clara shaking , trying to make leave the ga? Well… it makes sense.
Luckily, I wasn’t doing important stuff so I didn’t lose anything. I imagine losing the progress I did the other day, while renovating the dungeon. I would have lost six hours if she forcefully ejected then! Because of her whims!
While patting her, Clara looks up to and asks.
“So, are we playing together now? I want to play with you already!”
“I don’t know. With my friends… we decided to play together as soon as you reached level 3 because we want to have so experience before the tournant. And it starts very soon. We don’t have too much ti remaining. Let’s see what they say. Wait a little bit.”
“Ok!”
Then I take my phone and send a ssage to both Ricard and Laura asking what they want to do.
After so ssages, we decided that the best would be to et in person today and finish planning the team. We can play tomorrow. I agree with them and ask Clara, who’s sitting next to on top of my bed.
“See this? We are eting in thirty minutes. Do you want to co and introduce yourself? We will talk about the ga and the team we are going to create.”
“As long as it’s with you, I’ll go to any place! Let’s go! I’m going to change clothes, so don’t peek!”
She says as she runs to her room.
“Hahaha… there’s no way I would peek at my little sister… I’m not THAT perverted!”
When Andreu reached level 4, the forums about his dungeon turned very active. It was because the players who were trying to conquer the dungeon thought it would be easier if two players dived into the dungeon together.
The results were… a little unexpected. Although they did have an easier ti during battles, nothing prevented them from getting lost, poisoned, ambushed or tricked. So the amount of players who beated the dungeon didn’t rise by a lot.
Also, it was at this ti that the players discovered the real despair caused by the Tunnel Mimic. It dived into the impassable terrain after swallowing a player, so it couldn’t be attacked by the remaining player. And even if the player inside the monster managed to defeat it, they would appear ‘in the closest available space’, usually very far from the other invader, with no way to contact one another. Which spelled certain death for those unlucky players.
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