Dreaming about the Purge

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Fellow barbarians!

I’d like to share some ideas to add more encounters to the Purge. If you want, add your own, and who knows, maybe we’ll be heard and the beast ideas get picked!

I suggest only adding encounters that are easy to implement, e. g. reskins of existing encounters.
An imho bad idea, for example, would be catapults or trebuchets. It would be the most logical addition, and I’m sure Funcom thought of that when they designed the Purge, but choose against them. The answer is most likely that it would be very hard to implement them. The Purge already has wayfinding problems; fixed ranged attackers are probably a nightmare to create and balance. I’m pretty sure the Starcaller was Funcom’s duct tape solution to this: Make the siege boulders fall from the sky, no wayfinding necessary!
Any ideas should keep that in mind: If anything will be added, it will be cool, but simple stuff. So let us dream, but dream small. :wink:

We should also respect the lore and atmosphere of Conan Exiles. No tanks, no cannons, no dragon riders. The Purge already has an unusually high amount of magic for Conan Exiles (Starcaller and Golems) - let us take that as an upper ceiling.

I’ll open up with five ideas:

The Dogs of War
Inspiration: Master of War Slaves
Levels: 1 to 5
Description: The Master of War Dogs sends waves of attack dogs (https://conanexiles.fandom.com/wiki/Feral_Dog_(Variant_A) on you. The encounter works just like the Master of War Slaves, but with different enemies. The Master of War Dogs could wear a Dogs of the Desert outfit to give him or her a “wild” look.
Reasoning: It increases variety in low level purges. It only uses existing models and should be easy to implement.
Lore: War Dogs were used actually used in (pre)history (Dogs in warfare - Wikipedia), so it’s 100% immersive.

Siege Rhinos
Inspiration: Stygian Demolisher
Levels: 2 to 10
Description: The Siege Rhino walks slowly towards the base (like Stygian Demolishers) and attacks the nearest building pieces it sees (as Explosive Golem Constructs). The Siege Rhino cannot be staggered and has lots of health. Its health should be roughly as much as a whole wave of Stygian Demolishers combined, maybe more.
If aggroed, it fights like a regular rhino (including the charge and knockback). It uses the model of regular rhinos with a rhino saddle.
Reasoning: It adds a new challenge: Deal enough damage quickly enough on a single enemy (instead of the usual hordes of enemies) while dealing with its knockback ability to be ready for the next purge. This requires single target DPS instead of AoE spamming.
Lore: Rhinos were not used in real history warfare afaik, but in the Conan Exiles/Age of Conan universe (and a certain, not very realistic movie about Spartans), they obviously are, so it doesn’t break immersion.

Siege Elephants
Inspiration: Stygian Demolisher
Levels: 5 to 10
Description: Instead of every two Stygian Demolishers, one Siege Elephant spawns. It uses the elephant model, but with a saddle and a NPC archer riding it.
The Elephant walks slowly towards the base and tries to clear the way to the coffer, just as a Demolisher. However, it cannot be staggered and has more health. Also, the rider fires arrows at anything attacking the Siege Elephant.
Reasoning: The encounter is similar to a Stygian Demolisher, but adds flavor and a slightly changed challenge due to the stagger immunity and archer attacks.
Lore: Elephants were used in real history as well as in the Conan Exiles/Age of Conan Universe.

Undead Horde
Inspiration: Siege Demiurge / Master of War Slaves
Levels: 6 to 10
Description: The Stygians have brought a Necromancer from the Black Ring that summons a foul horde to attack the base. He summons zombies from three graves. The zombies have high movement speed, weak attacks and low health, but make up for that in numbers. Also, they explode into poison clouds (similar to Gas Orbs or Golem brimstone clouds) if killed. The clouds linger for 30 seconds each. The zombies themselves, however, are immune to poison.
Reasoning: It adds another new challenge without needing much work. To beat the zombie horde, you need to do damage to lots of enemies without using poison arrows, giving e. g. Fire Orbs and Explosive Arrows a new use. The poison clouds should be dangerous to hordes of low-level thralls, which currently is a way to cheese the purge a tiny little bit (speaking from experience).
Lore: The Stygians have access to necromancy in the Conan Exiles/Age of Conan universe. The Stygian army could easily have hired one from e. g. the Black Ring.
We should be wary not bring too much magic into the low magic Conan Exiles universe, but undead and necromancers already exist, and the Purge has Golems and summoned meteors already - so some undead should be okay.
As the Stygians aren’t bound by the bracelets, they should be free to use their magic in the Exiled Lands.

Portal to Hell
Inspiration: Siege Demiurge / Master of War Slaves / Starcaller
Levels: 8 to 10
Description: The Stygian Army has hired an even more powerful wizard to open a portal from which demons pour forth to attack the base. The summoning only ends if the portal is destroyed. It has e. g. 5.000 health. The Summoner stays with the portal and defends it. He fights like a Siege Demiurge.
The demons use the demon model from “Sacrifice Interrupted” (https://conanexiles.fandom.com/wiki/Sacrifice_Interrupted). They move and attack slowly, but have high health and damage. If possible, Frost Giants reskinned with the demon model should suffice. They attack thralls and buildings and deal building damage similar to Exploding Golems.
Reasoning: This should be thought of as an alternative to the Starcaller. As with the Starcaller, it forces the defenders out of the base to attack the portal. The demons are less dangerous than the all-destroying meteors, but the portal has more health and is actively defended by the Summoner, making it harder to stop the attack.
Lore: As above.

What do you think? What are your ideas?

Not sure about these ones considering that the Stygian Invaders are too chicken to fight Wights and average Maelstrom monsters - they’d not be accustomed to the sight of these ultra dark sorcery