Dilophosaurus: Gameplay, Mechanics, Revamped Venom Formula

[Sable]

Introduction

Same rules as every other thread.
1. Read the entire thing before you make a comment.
2. Make sure your comment is civilized and detailed.
3. Do not derail with any ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about "devs bad gaem bad." Take it elsewhere.
4. Don't be a douche.

Concept

The grisly, vicious gangster of the night, a sadistic serial killer that kills by use of hallucinogens and old-fashioned slash-and-spill, ripping open animals and letting them bleed to death. While it is venomous, it’s venom is purely a tool for hunting rather than fighting or defense, and instead will use the raw damage dealt from teeth and claws to fight rivals.

Dilophosaurus runs in gangs ranging from about four individuals to ten, using numbers and the darkness to confuse its victims so that it may strike and induce venom, wearing an animal down over time. Dilophosaurus can traverse great distances in search of prey, and use their excellent endurance to help them tire their victims out and trap them for the kill.

Mechanics

Grapple-Pin
A form of grapple which Dilophosaurus uses to battle and maul its rivals. This mechanic is only to be used on animals of similar or smaller size to Dilophosaurus and cannot be used on creatures bigger or stronger than itself (Diabloceratops, Ceratosaurus, for examples, would much too large). Everything else, ranging up to the size of a Utahraptor or another Dilophosaurus, would be susceptible to the grapple-pin.

Venomous Bite
This mechanic requires far more detail than what can be said here, so read into the following segments.

Venom Type

Dilophosaurus’ venom type is classed as hemotoxic; a moderately fast-acting venom type that attacks the cardiovascular system, causing blood coagulation disruption which can then lead to severe internal and external bleeding, causing heart failure and eventually death.

In the game, this venom type would target stamina and cause some unfortunate issues to occur victim side.

Blood coagulation disruption
Similar to what Dilophosaurus used to do, but with some tweaks. Rather than simply have Dilophosaurus deal an insane amount of bleed and drain a victim in a matter of seconds, I propose that we instead tone down the level of bleed, but have it last much longer than bleed from a non-hemotoxic animal.

Hallucinogenic
Now, I’m sure everyone expects hallucinations to be something extremely incredible, but I’m going to say that it’s best to really lower expectations. Don’t assume you’ll be seeing imaginary Dilophosaurus running around you, as that is far more advanced than what can be done in a reasonable amount of time and would be difficult even for larger companies to achieve.

As an alternative and something I think compliments Dilophosaurus’ hunting technique rather well, is to instead implement the visual aspect of hallucinations as a blur effect and rely mostly on auditorial distortions. It compliments Dilophosaurus’ way of hunting for a simple reason. They rely on the darkness to keep themselves concealed, so a prey item isn’t relying on sight to counter them, it’s relying on sound. Say a prey animal is bitten... now its hearing the calls of the nocturnal killers, all around it, distorting its sense of where they are. It hears a false call on the left, which draws its focus away from the real Dilophosaurus on the right, allowing the predator to strike again.

Severity Formula

So how do we ensure that the venom works as intended? Well, once again, you old-timers might remember this formula from the old venom system proposal; the Severity Formula.

This formula is called the Severity Formula.

S = Severity
Severity is... well, the severity of the envenomation.

n = number of bites
Self-explanatory.

D = Dosage
Amount of venom induced with each bite.

t = time delay
The amount of time it takes for venom effects to kick in, in seconds

P = Potency
How powerful the venom is.

S = n(D – t) + P

This formula is how you set up each venom type to perform differently from each other. Now, we dive into the fun part (it’s actually not very fun because math is never fun). The numbers I’m about to use are simply what I think is ideal, but are open to change based on what is needed for the formula to work.

D = 40
P = 10
t = 25
n = 1

S = 1(40-25) + 10
S = 25

What does this mean?

So, Dilophosaurus’ venom is only mildly potent. A single bite is of little concern to animals that are much larger than itself. However, Dilophosaurus can pump more venom with each bite, which means it can raise the Severity by a significant amount with fewer bites. I’ll demonstrate how by changing the number of bites “n” from 1 to 2.

S = 2(40-25) + 10
S = 40

So now we can see that Dilophosaurus’ Severity jumps by 15 with each bite. Being able to raise Severity this significantly means that Dilophosaurus can bring down larger animals with more ease. Following this formula, after 10 bites, Dilophosaurus’ Severity would rise to a whopping 215.

Lethality Threshold Formula

Now, if you read my post on Troodon, then you’re probably familiar with this formula is and how it applies to neurotoxic venom. However, it is very different for hemotoxic venom. So different in fact, that it actually doesn’t exist for hemotoxic.

Neurotoxic required the Lethality Threshold because of how the venom functions. The effects don’t increase passively over time, but decrease. If a victim didn’t meet lethality, it could recover simply by sitting and waiting for the effects to wear off.

Hemotoxic on the other hand, deals in bleed. This isn’t something that just goes away, and instead remains as a constant that must be increased over time. Considering that bleeding in itself is already a deadly effect (or rather, should be) there is no need for Lethality Threshold to exist. We can simply tie the killing point of hemotoxic venom to whatever the killing point for bleed is.

For the same reason, I will not include a time graph like I did with Troodon’s venom. It will simply be tied to the bleed time itself and be extended based upon how much Severity is induced.

Balance Points

So, by now, we should know what comes next. Venom is only a small part of Dilophosaurus as an animal. It’s not enough to simply talk how that works, given that it has the potential to be quite the terror of the night. It is necessary to ensure that Dilophosaurus isn’t left to be an overpowered or underpowered playable.

So, we talk balance.

Dilophosaurus has the ability to throw down with similar-sized rivals, strong enough to maul them without relying on venom. At the same time, it’s venom poses a danger to animals in just about every size grade. Sounds like an animal that would definitely be overpowered, right?

No.

Before I explain how its threat level is justified, lets take a look at the mobility of animals in-game already and those who are not in-game, but have their estimated speeds.

While the current balance can and most definitely will change, there will likely be some similarities between present and future. Using this knowledge, we can take a crack at discussing these things to get a close idea of how balance should/would be in the future.

Known and in-game
Utahraptor – 52 kilometers per hour
Dryosaurus – 50 kilometers per hour
Tenontosaurus – 45 kilometers per hour
Carnotaurus – 61 kilometers per hour
Stegosaurus – 26 kilometers per hour
Hypsilophodon – 39 kilometers per hour

Estimated and not in-game
Allosaurus – 42 kilometers per hour (from animation speed)
Tyrannosaurus – 30 to 33 kilometers per hour (from animation speed)

Now that we have a sort of “standard” to base this on, we can go about the business of setting up Dilophosaurus’ mobility. Mobility consists of five things:

• Top Speed
  
• Stamina Duration
  
• Stamina Regeneration while trotting
  
• Stamina Regeneration while walking
  
• Stamina Regeneration while resting

The numbers I’m using here are purely speculation and simply my own opinion, how I feel it should be.

• Top Speed – 45 kilometers an hour
  
• Stamina Duration – 140 seconds
  
• Stamina Regeneration while trotting – 185 seconds
  
• Stamina Regeneration while walking – 185 seconds
  
• Stamina Regeneration while resting – 120 seconds

So, the goal here was to generally keep its mobility overall similar to Legacy. It’s slower relative to size in comparison with the likes of Utahraptor, with a top speed of 45 kilometers an hour. It’s just enough to stay a few steps ahead of the like of Allosaurus and other large carnivores, without being so fast as to be completely untouchable; a fair trade given its ability to kill large animals with greater ease than others.

Stamina Duration is about average and close to what it was in Legacy. Regeneration while moving is roughly similar as well, as to allow it to keep its ability to travel quickly and efficiently like it did in Legacy; useful for covering great distances and tracking prey during the night.

Closure

You should know by now I don't do closures. Tne end.

[Sable]

Like with Troodon's post, this one was also a giant pain in the ass.

Link to my other topics:
Troodon
https://steamcommunity.com/app/376210/discussions/14/3171072251346022594/

Herrerasaurus
https://steamcommunity.com/app/376210/discussions/14/3076496088112481431/

Pachycephalosaurus
https://steamcommunity.com/app/376210/discussions/14/3076496088122634672/

[Tregrenos]

I like the concept of a grapple and would like that more to be a universal option for carnivore who likely use their bites as a main offense. Having it limited in style to Deinos lunge (IE: It doesn’t work on a full grown Steggo.), but on a simpler case of weight class is something that can be understood from a new players perspective. ”That thing’s around my size, I can bite and hold on to it.” This would allow the Utah pounce to remain uniquely specialized to working on larger targets, but making it more in line with other carnos around their size in a 1v1 fight. It also makes sense seeing as how recent fossil evidence shows Dillo were actually among the top of the food chain at the time of their existence and were likely incredibly aggressive. There’s no real evidence to show whether they were actually venomous and that’s likely a “Jurassic Park” thing, but they were quite muscular and their size compared to the prey at the time would have been a much more physical confrontation.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y7jSOp2mr2s

As for the types of venom, I really hope the venom has an initial base that doesn’t require a particular time of day to activate, but rather see perks effect this. This would allow the Dillo to be less restrictive when balancing while also allowing it to be equally effective on servers that might disable or limit the night cycle. As for the perk that enables the venoms “night time” effect, have it so this perk also takes effect while inside a cave or dark building.

Lastly, back when showing the possible N-Type strains the concept art for the N-Type Dillo showed it had some bioluminescence going as well as being an apt swimmer. If the devs are still going down this road it’d be great to see some perks that actually lean toward being a semi-aquatic and possible piscivore. This doesn’t make sense from a realistic standpoint, but does from a “genetically modified” one that could lead to unlocking this unique strain, or at least fulfilling a similar function. It would allow Dillo to fill a niche roll as a smaller aquatic predator alongside the larger Deino and even larger Spino. If not semi-aquatic it would at least be nice to see perks that relate more toward getting more nutritional value from fish as well as increasing their “stealth” when approaching fish if they’re dead set on making Dillo a specialized nocturnal hunter. This would give them an alternate food source by allowing them to be adept fishers.

[Shot'em]

Regarding severity and bleed duration interactions, what would the relation be here? Would you need to heal the venom before you can start healing the bleed? Or would the rate at which you heal bleed be reduced roughly proportional to the amount of severity currently in your system?

[M.R. Smith]

how long does it take you to put these together?

[Sable]

Originally posted by Shot'em:

Regarding severity and bleed duration interactions, what would the relation be here? Would you need to heal the venom before you can start healing the bleed? Or would the rate at which you heal bleed be reduced roughly proportional to the amount of severity currently in your system?

The latter. As said in the mechanic's description, the level of bleed isn't incredibly high, but the time it takes to heal it is greatly increased as opposed to a wound inflicted by a non-venomous predator.

So for example, a Dilophosaurus does roughly similar bleed with a bite as a Utahraptor does... except most things will heal a bite from a raptor in... let's just 2 minutes for now, considering bleed is getting some adjustments and we don't know exacts at the moment.
2 minutes to heal bleed from a single raptor bite.
2 minutes after a bite from a Dilophosaurus... you're still going to be bleeding. 3 minutes, you are bleeding. 4 minutes, bleeding. 5 minutes, finally slowing down.

The time it takes to heal is increasing per bite both because of bleed inflicted and severity increased per bite.

This can be both passively and actively altered. Passive changes to how long it takes for the bleed to cease can be tied to the different healing rates of each animal. So if we take a Giganotosaurus for example, assuming it retains its godly level of bleed heal, it may recover faster than a Tyrannosaurus would.

Active changes to how long it takes can be done via the Wallow mechanic. It won't fully stop it, but it will reduce it and can therefore assist your animal in recovering faster, including the Severity.

Again, I will not and cannot give any exact estimates at the moment until I see how bleed functions with the next update, but that is the general gist of what I want to do with it.

[Sable]

Originally posted by M.R. Smith:

how long does it take you to put these together?

Too broad for me to give an exact answer. This latest iteration of Hemotoxic venom with Dilophosaurus? Roughly 30-35 hours of actually working on it. Working on Hemotoxic with all the versions and drafts I've made, edited, and discarded to get to this final product?

Well, I've been doing that since I made the oldest version of the system seen here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/376210/discussions/14/1749021985764968037/

That is from February of 2020.

If you're asking me for how long it takes to make these suggestions in general.... well, it depends. Some are more complex and demand more detail than others. One I have yet to post for example, Parasaurolophus, took me about 14 hours to complete. Herrerasaurus by contrast, took about double that.

[Voyager]

My few cents about maximum run speed in the game.

In my opinion all max speed numbers should be only achieved while in special sprint\ambush, with extreme stamina drain. To simply simulate real animals. Every animal in real life will achieve maximum speed only for few seconds.

So we could have legacy style charged sprint but for every dinosaur - called "Ambush" for carnivores and "Escape" for herbivores. It would also add extra balancing tool where some animals would be good at " normal " running but had barely better sprint, while others would be extremely fast in charged sprint while having preety bad normal run, or having longer\shorter sprint lenght etc. Ton of options just with that.

But in the game we got this weird system where they used estimated maximum speed for all species and used this number for normal run speed with SHIFT key.
Not a fan of simply slapping onto Carnotaurus 60+ km\h and calling it - Done.
It looks stupid when they zoom from one place to another like a sports car that uses horsepower and fuel.

I know that The Isle isn't super realistic :) but it shoulnd't be like an arcade game either.

[Tregrenos]

Originally posted by Voyager:

My few cents about maximum run speed in the game.

In my opinion all max speed numbers should be only achieved while in special sprint\ambush, with extreme stamina drain. To simply simulate real animals. Every animal in real life will achieve maximum speed only for few seconds.

So we could have legacy style charged sprint but for every dinosaur - called "Ambush" for carnivores and "Escape" for herbivores. It would also add extra balancing tool where some animals would be good at " normal " running but had barely better sprint, while others would be extremely fast in charged sprint while having preety bad normal run, or having longer\shorter sprint lenght etc. Ton of options just with that.

But in the game we got this weird system where they used estimated maximum speed for all species and used this number for normal run speed with SHIFT key.
Not a fan of simply slapping onto Carnotaurus 60+ km\h and calling it - Done.
It looks stupid when they zoom from one place to another like a sports car that uses horsepower and fuel.

I know that The Isle isn't super realistic :) but it shoulnd't be like an arcade game either.

The reason “Ambush” was removed with Evrima is because it wasn’t being used as intended. Dinos were crouching and sprinting during combat, which didn’t look natural. It actually looked kinda goofy. So, they did away with that and decided it would be better to just have a set speed be the max speed. Perhaps they’ll establish what qualifies as “in combat” from a mechanical point of view and Ambush will return properly the way it was intended, but not for now.

[bigmoe808]

Minor Correction: 15

Dilo can increase the Severity of its venom by 15 for every bite, and 10 bites will give you a Severity of 160. Reason being is that Dosage is not included in the Parentheses and PEMDAS is king.

I don't know if this was intentional or not-or really, what I mean is that I don't know if you want Dosage to be included when you multiply # of Bites or if you specifically want Dilo to have a Severity of 215 at 10 bites. For it to come close-and actually over shoot-the formula needs to look like this:

S=n((D-t)+P) or S=n(D-t+P)

Which will give you 250S at 10n

That said, is 160S at 10n good enough for you? I need to check how you treat Severity. Anywho, you know I overall agree with the idea. Not much else for me to say besides keep trucking on with the good math.

[Sable]

Originally posted by bigmoe808:

snip

Stop finding my errors damn it.

But yeah, I see what happened. That is from my last set of values I used and forgot to change 20. Thanks.

[bigmoe808]

Originally posted by The Stoat:

Originally posted by bigmoe808:

snip

Stop finding my errors damn it.

But yeah, I see what happened. That is from my last set of values I used and forgot to change 20. Thanks.

To be fair, this was the first one.

All and all, what exactly is the difference between a Severity of 160 and 215 in your book? The most I got out of Hemotoxin is that it reduces one's ability to heal bleed and it doesn't inherently give diminishing returns.

What does Hemo (fun fact, my auto correct said Hemp) Severity do in terms of numbers.

Nero Severity has a Lethality point, but not Hemo Severity.

[Sable]

Originally posted by bigmoe808:

To be fair, this was the first one.

All and all, what exactly is the difference between a Severity of 160 and 215 in your book? The most I got out of Hemotoxin is that it reduces one's ability to heal bleed and it doesn't inherently give diminishing returns.

What does Hemo (fun fact, my auto correct said Hemp) Severity do in terms of numbers.

Nero Severity has a Lethality point, but not Hemo Severity.

So, like I said earlier, it's tied to your bleed and affects how you can heal it. As long as you are bleeding, you are dying, even if it's lower than what it was in Legacy.

Your Severity is determining how long it's going to last. So you have low Severity, it's taking X time and when you have high Severity it's taking Y time (Y time being greater than X, obviously).

So you get bit by a Raptor and you have 10 bleed. As long as you have this bleed you are dying... but it doesn't mean you are a kill confirmed. It takes say 2 minutes to heal this bleed, and you'll still have enough left in you to stay alive.

You get bit by a Dilophosaurus and you have 11 or 12 bleed. Not a significant difference, but instead of taking 2 minutes to heal this level of bleed, it's taking 6 minutes. You are still dying at about the same rate, but now the time that rate is going to last is extended.

So think about it like how in Legacy, if you were an Allosaurus and you got bit by a raptor... you're dying as long as the bleed lasts, but it doesn't last very long. So you're not worried. Switch scenario, you're bit by a Dilophosaurus. You are dying as long as the bleed lasts, but unlike the raptor's bleed, this bleed IS lasting very long.

All Severity is doing is taking your bleed heal, and making it longer. This is in regards to blood coagulation disruption.

In relation to the hallucinations, it's just going to increase the frequency at which you're being ♥♥♥♥♥♥ with. So, low Severity - you hear a false call every 20-30 seconds; and then as Severity increases, 20-25, 15-20, 10-15 and so on.

Like I said before, I'm not going to try for exacts given bleed is being changed some, so until then this is the best I can give.

[bigmoe808]

Originally posted by The Stoat:

Originally posted by bigmoe808:

To be fair, this was the first one.

All and all, what exactly is the difference between a Severity of 160 and 215 in your book? The most I got out of Hemotoxin is that it reduces one's ability to heal bleed and it doesn't inherently give diminishing returns.

What does Hemo (fun fact, my auto correct said Hemp) Severity do in terms of numbers.

Nero Severity has a Lethality point, but not Hemo Severity.

So, like I said earlier, it's tied to your bleed and affects how you can heal it. As long as you are bleeding, you are dying, even if it's lower than what it was in Legacy.

Your Severity is determining how long it's going to last. So you have low Severity, it's taking X time and when you have high Severity it's taking Y time (Y time being greater than X, obviously).

So you get bit by a Raptor and you have 10 bleed. As long as you have this bleed you are dying... but it doesn't mean you are a kill confirmed. It takes say 2 minutes to heal this bleed, and you'll still have enough left in you to stay alive.

You get bit by a Dilophosaurus and you have 11 or 12 bleed. Not a significant difference, but instead of taking 2 minutes to heal this level of bleed, it's taking 6 minutes. You are still dying at about the same rate, but now the time that rate is going to last is extended.

So think about it like how in Legacy, if you were an Allosaurus and you got bit by a raptor... you're dying as long as the bleed lasts, but it doesn't last very long. So you're not worried. Switch scenario, you're bit by a Dilophosaurus. You are dying as long as the bleed lasts, but unlike the raptor's bleed, this bleed IS lasting very long.

All Severity is doing is taking your bleed heal, and making it longer. This is in regards to blood coagulation disruption.

In relation to the hallucinations, it's just going to increase the frequency at which you're being ♥♥♥♥♥♥ with. So, low Severity - you hear a false call every 20-30 seconds; and then as Severity increases, 20-25, 15-20, 10-15 and so on.

Like I said before, I'm not going to try for exacts given bleed is being changed some, so until then this is the best I can give.

Ah. I see. I like this because it adds a bit more complexity. You can have the same bleed, just different bleed heal. Compare this to Legacy where instead Dilo was just given ♥♥♥♥ Off High Bleed (admittedly to introduce the idea of its venom) and everyone simply had their own individual bleed heal to respond.

I also hope this reintroduces the old Bleed Drop Icon as you touch on something that can be taken as Bleed Tiers. Severity determines what time it'll take to heal, but these times can be given specific icons such as X and Y to place them in category. So 160 and 215 could both be Y if you chose to make that the scope or 160 could be X and 215 be Y. Why does that matter? I just think it's cool and fits with Hemo Lethality controlling your Bleed Heal while making it simple to gauge. So

• Tier 1 - X - Single Blood Drop
  
  
• Tier 2 - Y - Double Blood Drop
  
  
• Tier 3 - Z - Tripple Blood Drop