My experience with the new Purge system has been mostly positive. It’s a bit buggy admittedly, with the most pressing concern being the way the camp spawns (or rather, how it doesn’t spawn); but there’s plenty of complaints about that already. Aside from the bugs I love the new Purge system. Without question it’s better than the old one, which I only ever triggered a few times (mostly by accident) and found to be boring and uninteresting. The new Purge system is easily better because it has a purpose, and because it actually feels like you’re under attack from an invading army intent on sacking your treasury instead of a bunch of random people walking up and shooting arrows at your stone hut for no apparent reason.
That said, aside from the bugs I do take one issue with one aspect of the Purge: Demolishers.
I get the gist of them, and like it, but I feel they’re maybe not being optimized. As it stands Demolishers will run up and try to smash through your gates and doors to punch a hole in your walls for their comrades to pour in - okay, sure, fair enough. But after that they just kind of wander around aimlessly smashing random bits of your base, which I guess I understand but it seems rather redundant. There’s already a path to my coffer; so why bother?
Their behavior is what irks me. They have a decent deal of health yet at the same time can’t defend themselves and instead just stand there getting pelted and whacked without retaliating. Like the rest of the Purge enemies they gun for the coffer, but when they get there they don’t do anything. They don’t take treasure, demolish anything, fight anyone, etc. They just stand there, or maybe walk around a bit at random. They might lock onto bench or decoration or building piece and try to demolish, but sometimes they won’t even do that.
Strangest of all is when you have nothing around your coffer at all; no base or benches or anything, just the coffer in the wilderness. I’ve done this a few times to test the performance of thralls, pets, and golems + their armor/weapons/food to see how they measure up against Purge waves. Despite having nothing to demolish the Demolishers will still spawn, in obscene numbers, and rush the coffer just to start idling. Weird.
Ultimately I feel like Demolishers are mostly useless as it stands. They can break down gates and doors sure, and that’s nice, but beyond that niche purpose their existence is just bland. I think their general behavior should be tweaked to be less silly and more useful for the attackers. To that I have some suggestions on how this might work:
-
Demolishers should only spawn if there are doors or gates to demolish; if they aren’t present, they don’t spawn. Once the Demolishers that have spawned have accomplished their sole objective no further Demolishers really need to spawn IMO.
-
Demolishers that have accomplished their objective and haven’t been killed should either return to the camp, continue tearing apart the base (prioritizing traps, cauldrons, trebuchets, and other defensive measures) as they do now, or proceed to the coffer to try and loot it like everybody else - put that big health pool to good use.
-
Demolishers should be able to defend themselves, even if it’s only a crummy iron sword. Obviously they should prioritize tearing down gates/doors but if a thrall/player is lashing into them and there’s no gate/door within striking range I think it’s best to let the Demolishers defend themselves in case there are no allied NPCs nearby assisting. I think this would be more believable than the tanky punching bags they are now; making them just a smidge dangerous so that anyone trying to disrupt their work won’t just be completely ignored.
-
Fix their targeting so they don’t demolish important pathway pieces. It seems rather silly for Demolishers to sabotage their own side so willingly and easily by having them smash vital stairs, floors, foundations, etc. needed to get to the coffer.
-
Make the coffer immune to the Demolisher weapon. I set up a vapor trap in front of a coffer once and the witless Demolishers destroyed the coffer itself while gunning for the trap, which terminated the Purge before it reached it’s conclusion. Even though it was an accidental ‘misfire’ I think it’s better to be on the safe side and just have the coffer be immune to their weapons so they don’t cause their own Purge to fail.
These are just a few ideas I came up with, nothing fancy. Just a way to make Demolishers more useful and logical for their purpose and role.
