“Oooh, look at this! So, so beautiful! I’m brought to tears at this spectacular view!” I swipe my ‘tears’ with the hem of my robe. “Haa… so much effort, so many Dungeon Invasions, but finally, FINALLY, I’m ready to start building the next area! Hahaha!”
The room with the stasis chambers, which not long ago was almost empty, is now filled to the brim with specially picked units. I had nothing before, but now I have everything I want! Hahaha!
Still, I believe it’s better for the stasis chambers to be empty than filled with useless human garbage…
It took me quite a while to fill my Stasis chambers.
I’ve been upgrading the Collectionist tech since I started playing the game, and can now capture up to thirty units after every Dungeon Invasion. Which is a lot, but it doesn’t help when I need units from several factions.
It’s a good thing we had the exam season before the tournament because, otherwise, it would have taken a lot more time for me to reach this point.
Of course, I looked through the new units available to unlock before going to catch them and captured only those units that I actually needed instead of random stuff. As you already know, I never do these kinds of stupid mistakes.
Absolutely never!
Oh, by the way, the Hauntlings spawned some time ago and are already haunting the players. I've read a few comments from players who died because of them, Hahaha!
Well, continuing with the topic… These are the new units I can unlock. As Ricard told me, there are now exciting options that use three units as the base now.
For now, I only unlocked a single one of them. Because it was the only cheap one, and because it’ll help me decorate the dungeon. It’s called Weirdy, and it’s this one:
| Weirdy |
| Research cost: 500 cp, 200 food. Research time: 3 hours |
| A critter unit. This unit needs three critter bodies to be created. It inherits the aspect, innate skills and stats of one of the bodies, plus the innate skills of all of them. The cp cost and ‘cp value’ of this unit are the same as the sum of all the units used to create it plus 5 cp. |
As you can see, the Weirdy is a critter unit, that’s why it was so cheap to unlock. It’s the same as the Creepy, except I can put three critters into a single unit, and can thus give it up to three innate skills.
Is good that the tech I unlocked to change the Creepy’s looks, allowing me to use parts of each unit used to create them instead of having to choose a single one, also works for the Weirdy. There’s no need for extra research, which is very good.
Now the next ones are the amazing ones. With them, I can do so many things… So, so, so, soooooooooo many things! Just imagining the crazy things I can do with them makes me very excited.
If only I had the spare resources to unlock them, it would be amazing… But I need to keep my cp for now because I really want to expand the dungeon first.
The thing is, if I unlock them now, I won’t have enough cp for both creating a new area and filling it with monsters. I can create the monsters, but can’t put them anywhere and let them rot in an unreachable area, or create a new area and leave it completely empty.
Either way, it would be too lame, so I’ll leave them for later.
I’m sure you’re curious by now, am I right? Well, the units I’m talking about are the respective upgrades to the Hybrid and the Basic Chimera: the Amalgam and the Chimera.
| Amalgam |
| Research cost: 12.000 cp, 2.500 food, 1.500 metal. Research time: 1 day |
| Abominations of flesh composed of parts of three humanoid units. Every Amalgam inherits the innate skills of its original units, and their stats are the sum of the original units’. The cp cost and ‘cp value’ of this unit are the same as the sum of the three units used to create it plus 30 cp. |
The Amalgams are the upgraded Hybrids. Instead of two humanoid units with all their stats and innate skills added, it’s three humanoid units with their stats and innate skills added.
Though this doesn’t make them broken, because they end up having similar stats to those in the resulting cp range.
I’m sure the extra cp cost is to take into account the extra innate skills. Hybrids don’t have it, but they also only have two innate skills, the things you can do with them is limited. But things start to get crazy if you give them a third one…
Another thing Amalgams have in common with Hybrids is that I must use parts of all the original units when deciding how they’ll look. This is so enemies have an easier time predicting what the Amalgams can do.
Though I’m not sure how much this will help them if I add the Wererabbit’s tail to one and the players only get to see its front, for example.
| Chimera |
| Research cost: 15.000 cp, 3.000 food, 2.000 metal. Research time: 2 days |
| Abominations of flesh composed of parts of three non-humanoid units. Chimeras are naturally resilient to pain, because of the eternal torment they suffer for simply existing. Every Chimera inherits the innate skills of its original units, and their stats are the sum of the original units’. Also, all Chimeras start with the Eternal Pain innate skill. The cp cost and ‘cp value’ of this unit are the same as the sum of the three units used to create it plus 50 cp. |
The Chimeras are to the Basic Chimeras the same as Amalgams to Hybrids. They’re the upgraded version: instead of two non-humanoids, it’s three.
They too have the Eternal Pain skill, giving them the ability to survive combat for at least ten seconds. An excellent skill for stalling tactics, or simply to give them more time to deal damage.
The only other thing worth noting is that, similar to the Basic Chimeras, it’s also possible to give them extra limbs, heads, etc, as long as the final unit has parts of the three original ones.
I’m sure that once I unlock both the Amalgam and the Chimera units, the game will allow me to research another unit type; one that’ll allow me to use three units of any combination of humanoid and non-humanoid units to create a single unit with any innate skill I want, similar to the Monstrous Hybrid.
What I’m not so sure about is why Amalgams are cheaper than Chimeras.
Maybe it’s because the units used are humanoids? All humanoids can be used as Champions, I’m sure the DMA developers balanced them so that the players can’t do anything too crazy with them… But this doesn’t apply to non-humanoids, their innate skills tend to be a lot more crazy.
For example, take the Mimic. A dumb monster that turns into an object to fool a player is one thing, but if you give the same skill to a player, – assuming they don’t get sick because of the transformation, – things can turn too crazy, too fast.
It could also be because of something else…
Well, I don’t know, and I don’t really care, either. I’m here to have fun, not win. The only part I care about is that they cost more.
But both the Amalgams and Chimeras are a thing for the future, let’s not waste any more time on them, I’ll end up crying otherwise…
There’s also another interesting unit I can unlock in the future. You can imagine it as the upgraded version of the Fleshlings I just created. It’s called Flesh Golem, and like what happens with Fleshlings, it’s possible to create multiple of them at the same time with a single unit to give them innate skills. But they can have up to three innate skills instead of one.
| Flesh Golem |
| Research cost: 20.000 cp, 7.000 food, 5.000 metal. Research time: 2 days |
| A strong unit formed by the flesh and blood of multiple enemies. You need to provide bodies worth at least 1.000 cp for its creation. Flesh Golems will inherit a maximum of three innate skills from the original units used to create them. |
You can imagine them as the bigger, scarier version of the Fleshlings. If the latter focus on speed and numbers, the stronger Flesh Golems are the tanks that can take a large of beating.
They’re also pretty disgusting.
Imagine this: an oversized slime trying to take a humanoid shape but failing at it, continuously squirming around, and a pair of appendices that kind of look like arms but at the same time they don’t. Now, imagine everything made out of meat chunks and bloody gore. Did you get the image? Then, you now know what the Flesh Golems look like too.
Nightmarish stuff if you’re squeamish.
And oh my god if Flesh Golems are strong! I looked at their stats and they’re worthy of a 1.000 cp unit, with their stupidly high HP and STR they are very difficult to fight in close quarters.
Once I create them in the future, they’re going to be a terror for the invading players. Granted, they aren’t that fast, but they’re five meters tall meat walls that can take any beating and can crush you with a single blow in return.
Heck, I don’t think I can win in a 1vs1 fight against one of those things even if I have the champion’s buff that doubles all my stats!
No, actually, I might have a chance if I stay out of its range all the time and keep poking at it with spells until it finally dies… How much time would this take? Maybe five minutes?
…I really don’t want to test it.
With this one, I can clearly see a pattern for the ‘standard’ Flesh Monstrosities units. And with standard I mean those that have fixed stats and appearance, so for now it’s the Stitched, Fleshlings, and Flesh Golems.
The first is the Stitched, the stupid, cheap, weak swarm. They move slowly but can absorb quite some damage for their cp range. Like zombies, just less resilient. If you find yourself swarmed by them you’re doomed – unless you have a build like mine, that is.
Then there are the Fleshlings. They’re versatile because they’re fast and have decent stats. You can turn them into anything you want. Suicide bombers? Sure. Stalkers? Why not. Pack hunters? Hell, yeah! Mine are like this too! Ranged attackers? Well… maybe not this, because they don’t have limbs to hold a weapon, and they suck at magic.
But they’re still pretty good at anything else.
And the third one is the Flesh Golems, the tanky ones. They’re big, strong, resilient… They increase the power of the dungeon and are reliable units that will surely scare more than one invader. What else can you ask from a literal meat mountain?
There’s also a tendency to get smarter. Flesh Golems > Fleshlings > Stitched. In the future, there might be more specialized and ranged ‘standard’ units in the future.
Aagh… ok, ok, I’ll say it. You know I want to say it, and you want me to actually say it… here it goes…
I must add that being better than the Stitched in the intelligence department isn’t difficult. Because, as far as I’ve seen: Absolutely anything >>>> Stitched. Poor Stitched, they’re so useless… Though I’ll continue to love (hate) them as usual.
Ok, you got it? I said it! Are you happy now?
You’re asking what about the other units? Well, I consider the Hybrids, Chimeras, and other stuff as a second group, separated from those three, because you need to know what you’re doing to create the monsters or you can end with suboptimal choices.
Or awful ones, like that time I went to one of my peer’s dungeons and saw a hybrid of a Wererabbit and an earth elemental…
Can you imagine? A unit that has the Earth Elemental skill, which needs the unit to stay still for it to work, but in a very fast unit that lacks the HP or resistances to take a beating? It was an utterly useless unit! One that couldn’t do anything at all, with stats all over the place, and not being able to take advantage of either of its innate skills!
Shame! Shame on the rock-bunnies, shame on their creator, shame on that dungeon filled with useless monsters! And shame on the DMA developers for allowing the creation of such a random and messed-up monstrosity!
Hell, shame on me too, for having to see that disaster!
Calm down, Andreu, calm down… Now, where was I before this stupidly long internal explanation to nobody? Oh, yeah, I remember!
“My beautiful room, filled with beautiful bodies of useful units! *Khm, khm!* Fuck you, humans. *Khm!* I’m so excited about this. It’s dungeon development now! Oh, beauty, I love you so much…”
I rub my cheek on a certain and very specific Stasis chamber as I hug it. A Stasis chamber containing a specific and very useful unit. Though I’m not going to use it yet, because first comes the new dungeon area!
If I first create the monsters, I’ll have to reassign them after creating the new rooms. But if I do it the other way around, I can start the unit creation and they’ll automatically be assigned where I want them to be. It’s way more efficient to do it like this.
Oh, no! I start to sound like Ricard! Efficiency this, efficiency that! Aaagh, I hate myself right now…
“All right then. To the laboratory!”
Hmm… did I hear this phrase before? I’m not sure…
“...
Do you know what’s worse than having to spend a lot of time and effort to capture the units you’re going to use in the future? It’s spending a lot of time and effort to capture units and then creating completely useless monsters with them.
Believe me when I say this because I’ve seen players make Hybrids that are worse than any of the two units used to create them.
I assure you, you don’t want to be one of those players.
Ask yourself this question first: ‘What role do you want the monster you create to take?’.
If you already have an idea of what you want, sure, go for it. But if you don’t, first search for two units that already do what you want; or find something nasty, then fuse them together, and make them even better!
Let’s use an example here. If you want a melee attacker, you can pick an orc, which is a decent unit for that role. Then, let’s say you want to make it very, very dangerous. You just need to smack an Invisible Stalker together and bam! you have an invisible killing machine.
Now you only need to change the AI so that it targets the mages and archers at the back… Fufufu! Hahaha! Can you imagine? It’s going to be awesome! For you, not for the invaders, but who cares about the invaders anyway?
…”
- Fragment from ‘Introduction to the Flesh Monstrosities’, one part of ‘The Dark Teachings’ series.
This episode, in particular, was the beginning of an onslaught of invisible orcs in the Flesh Monstrosities dungeons. A not-so-good event for most of the other players, leading to a new meta: tanks in the front, weaklings in the middle, and tanks at the back too.
There was even one player who went a step further and created an all-invisible dungeon. A dungeon where only dauntless (or crazy) players dared to invade; but that’s another story.
“Oooh, look at this! So, so beautiful! I’m brought to tears at this spectacular view!” I swipe my ‘tears’ with the hem of my robe. “Haa… so much effort, so many Dungeon Invasions, but finally, FINALLY, I’m ready to start building the next area! Hahaha!”
The room with the stasis chambers, which not long ago was almost empty, is now filled to the brim with specially picked units. I had nothing before, but now I have everything I want! Hahaha!
Still, I believe it’s better for the stasis chambers to be empty than filled with useless human garbage…
It took me quite a while to fill my Stasis chambers.
I’ve been upgrading the Collectionist tech since I started playing the game, and can now capture up to thirty units after every Dungeon Invasion. Which is a lot, but it doesn’t help when I need units from several factions.
It’s a good thing we had the exam season before the tournament because, otherwise, it would have taken a lot more time for me to reach this point.
Of course, I looked through the new units available to unlock before going to catch them and captured only those units that I actually needed instead of random stuff. As you already know, I never do these kinds of stupid mistakes.
Absolutely never!
Oh, by the way, the Hauntlings spawned some time ago and are already haunting the players. I've read a few comments from players who died because of them, Hahaha!
Well, continuing with the topic… These are the new units I can unlock. As Ricard told me, there are now exciting options that use three units as the base now.
For now, I only unlocked a single one of them. Because it was the only cheap one, and because it’ll help me decorate the dungeon. It’s called Weirdy, and it’s this one:
| Weirdy |
| Research cost: 500 cp, 200 food. Research time: 3 hours |
| A critter unit. This unit needs three critter bodies to be created. It inherits the aspect, innate skills and stats of one of the bodies, plus the innate skills of all of them. The cp cost and ‘cp value’ of this unit are the same as the sum of all the units used to create it plus 5 cp. |
As you can see, the Weirdy is a critter unit, that’s why it was so cheap to unlock. It’s the same as the Creepy, except I can put three critters into a single unit, and can thus give it up to three innate skills.
Is good that the tech I unlocked to change the Creepy’s looks, allowing me to use parts of each unit used to create them instead of having to choose a single one, also works for the Weirdy. There’s no need for extra research, which is very good.
Now the next ones are the amazing ones. With them, I can do so many things… So, so, so, soooooooooo many things! Just imagining the crazy things I can do with them makes me very excited.
If only I had the spare resources to unlock them, it would be amazing… But I need to keep my cp for now because I really want to expand the dungeon first.
The thing is, if I unlock them now, I won’t have enough cp for both creating a new area and filling it with monsters. I can create the monsters, but can’t put them anywhere and let them rot in an unreachable area, or create a new area and leave it completely empty.
Either way, it would be too lame, so I’ll leave them for later.
I’m sure you’re curious by now, am I right? Well, the units I’m talking about are the respective upgrades to the Hybrid and the Basic Chimera: the Amalgam and the Chimera.
| Amalgam |
| Research cost: 12.000 cp, 2.500 food, 1.500 metal. Research time: 1 day |
| Abominations of flesh composed of parts of three humanoid units. Every Amalgam inherits the innate skills of its original units, and their stats are the sum of the original units’. The cp cost and ‘cp value’ of this unit are the same as the sum of the three units used to create it plus 30 cp. |
The Amalgams are the upgraded Hybrids. Instead of two humanoid units with all their stats and innate skills added, it’s three humanoid units with their stats and innate skills added.
Though this doesn’t make them broken, because they end up having similar stats to those in the resulting cp range.
I’m sure the extra cp cost is to take into account the extra innate skills. Hybrids don’t have it, but they also only have two innate skills, the things you can do with them is limited. But things start to get crazy if you give them a third one…
Another thing Amalgams have in common with Hybrids is that I must use parts of all the original units when deciding how they’ll look. This is so enemies have an easier time predicting what the Amalgams can do.
Though I’m not sure how much this will help them if I add the Wererabbit’s tail to one and the players only get to see its front, for example.
| Chimera |
| Research cost: 15.000 cp, 3.000 food, 2.000 metal. Research time: 2 days |
| Abominations of flesh composed of parts of three non-humanoid units. Chimeras are naturally resilient to pain, because of the eternal torment they suffer for simply existing. Every Chimera inherits the innate skills of its original units, and their stats are the sum of the original units’. Also, all Chimeras start with the Eternal Pain innate skill. The cp cost and ‘cp value’ of this unit are the same as the sum of the three units used to create it plus 50 cp. |
The Chimeras are to the Basic Chimeras the same as Amalgams to Hybrids. They’re the upgraded version: instead of two non-humanoids, it’s three.
They too have the Eternal Pain skill, giving them the ability to survive combat for at least ten seconds. An excellent skill for stalling tactics, or simply to give them more time to deal damage.
The only other thing worth noting is that, similar to the Basic Chimeras, it’s also possible to give them extra limbs, heads, etc, as long as the final unit has parts of the three original ones.
I’m sure that once I unlock both the Amalgam and the Chimera units, the game will allow me to research another unit type; one that’ll allow me to use three units of any combination of humanoid and non-humanoid units to create a single unit with any innate skill I want, similar to the Monstrous Hybrid.
What I’m not so sure about is why Amalgams are cheaper than Chimeras.
Maybe it’s because the units used are humanoids? All humanoids can be used as Champions, I’m sure the DMA developers balanced them so that the players can’t do anything too crazy with them… But this doesn’t apply to non-humanoids, their innate skills tend to be a lot more crazy.
For example, take the Mimic. A dumb monster that turns into an object to fool a player is one thing, but if you give the same skill to a player, – assuming they don’t get sick because of the transformation, – things can turn too crazy, too fast.
It could also be because of something else…
Well, I don’t know, and I don’t really care, either. I’m here to have fun, not win. The only part I care about is that they cost more.
But both the Amalgams and Chimeras are a thing for the future, let’s not waste any more time on them, I’ll end up crying otherwise…
There’s also another interesting unit I can unlock in the future. You can imagine it as the upgraded version of the Fleshlings I just created. It’s called Flesh Golem, and like what happens with Fleshlings, it’s possible to create multiple of them at the same time with a single unit to give them innate skills. But they can have up to three innate skills instead of one.
| Flesh Golem |
| Research cost: 20.000 cp, 7.000 food, 5.000 metal. Research time: 2 days |
| A strong unit formed by the flesh and blood of multiple enemies. You need to provide bodies worth at least 1.000 cp for its creation. Flesh Golems will inherit a maximum of three innate skills from the original units used to create them. |
You can imagine them as the bigger, scarier version of the Fleshlings. If the latter focus on speed and numbers, the stronger Flesh Golems are the tanks that can take a large of beating.
They’re also pretty disgusting.
Imagine this: an oversized slime trying to take a humanoid shape but failing at it, continuously squirming around, and a pair of appendices that kind of look like arms but at the same time they don’t. Now, imagine everything made out of meat chunks and bloody gore. Did you get the image? Then, you now know what the Flesh Golems look like too.
Nightmarish stuff if you’re squeamish.
And oh my god if Flesh Golems are strong! I looked at their stats and they’re worthy of a 1.000 cp unit, with their stupidly high HP and STR they are very difficult to fight in close quarters.
Once I create them in the future, they’re going to be a terror for the invading players. Granted, they aren’t that fast, but they’re five meters tall meat walls that can take any beating and can crush you with a single blow in return.
Heck, I don’t think I can win in a 1vs1 fight against one of those things even if I have the champion’s buff that doubles all my stats!
No, actually, I might have a chance if I stay out of its range all the time and keep poking at it with spells until it finally dies… How much time would this take? Maybe five minutes?
…I really don’t want to test it.
With this one, I can clearly see a pattern for the ‘standard’ Flesh Monstrosities units. And with standard I mean those that have fixed stats and appearance, so for now it’s the Stitched, Fleshlings, and Flesh Golems.
The first is the Stitched, the stupid, cheap, weak swarm. They move slowly but can absorb quite some damage for their cp range. Like zombies, just less resilient. If you find yourself swarmed by them you’re doomed – unless you have a build like mine, that is.
Then there are the Fleshlings. They’re versatile because they’re fast and have decent stats. You can turn them into anything you want. Suicide bombers? Sure. Stalkers? Why not. Pack hunters? Hell, yeah! Mine are like this too! Ranged attackers? Well… maybe not this, because they don’t have limbs to hold a weapon, and they suck at magic.
But they’re still pretty good at anything else.
And the third one is the Flesh Golems, the tanky ones. They’re big, strong, resilient… They increase the power of the dungeon and are reliable units that will surely scare more than one invader. What else can you ask from a literal meat mountain?
There’s also a tendency to get smarter. Flesh Golems > Fleshlings > Stitched. In the future, there might be more specialized and ranged ‘standard’ units in the future.
Aagh… ok, ok, I’ll say it. You know I want to say it, and you want me to actually say it… here it goes…
I must add that being better than the Stitched in the intelligence department isn’t difficult. Because, as far as I’ve seen: Absolutely anything >>>> Stitched. Poor Stitched, they’re so useless… Though I’ll continue to love (hate) them as usual.
Ok, you got it? I said it! Are you happy now?
You’re asking what about the other units? Well, I consider the Hybrids, Chimeras, and other stuff as a second group, separated from those three, because you need to know what you’re doing to create the monsters or you can end with suboptimal choices.
Or awful ones, like that time I went to one of my peer’s dungeons and saw a hybrid of a Wererabbit and an earth elemental…
Can you imagine? A unit that has the Earth Elemental skill, which needs the unit to stay still for it to work, but in a very fast unit that lacks the HP or resistances to take a beating? It was an utterly useless unit! One that couldn’t do anything at all, with stats all over the place, and not being able to take advantage of either of its innate skills!
Shame! Shame on the rock-bunnies, shame on their creator, shame on that dungeon filled with useless monsters! And shame on the DMA developers for allowing the creation of such a random and messed-up monstrosity!
Hell, shame on me too, for having to see that disaster!
Calm down, Andreu, calm down… Now, where was I before this stupidly long internal explanation to nobody? Oh, yeah, I remember!
“My beautiful room, filled with beautiful bodies of useful units! *Khm, khm!* Fuck you, humans. *Khm!* I’m so excited about this. It’s dungeon development now! Oh, beauty, I love you so much…”
I rub my cheek on a certain and very specific Stasis chamber as I hug it. A Stasis chamber containing a specific and very useful unit. Though I’m not going to use it yet, because first comes the new dungeon area!
If I first create the monsters, I’ll have to reassign them after creating the new rooms. But if I do it the other way around, I can start the unit creation and they’ll automatically be assigned where I want them to be. It’s way more efficient to do it like this.
Oh, no! I start to sound like Ricard! Efficiency this, efficiency that! Aaagh, I hate myself right now…
“All right then. To the laboratory!”
Hmm… did I hear this phrase before? I’m not sure…
“...
Do you know what’s worse than having to spend a lot of time and effort to capture the units you’re going to use in the future? It’s spending a lot of time and effort to capture units and then creating completely useless monsters with them.
Believe me when I say this because I’ve seen players make Hybrids that are worse than any of the two units used to create them.
I assure you, you don’t want to be one of those players.
Ask yourself this question first: ‘What role do you want the monster you create to take?’.
If you already have an idea of what you want, sure, go for it. But if you don’t, first search for two units that already do what you want; or find something nasty, then fuse them together, and make them even better!
Let’s use an example here. If you want a melee attacker, you can pick an orc, which is a decent unit for that role. Then, let’s say you want to make it very, very dangerous. You just need to smack an Invisible Stalker together and bam! you have an invisible killing machine.
Now you only need to change the AI so that it targets the mages and archers at the back… Fufufu! Hahaha! Can you imagine? It’s going to be awesome! For you, not for the invaders, but who cares about the invaders anyway?
…”
- Fragment from ‘Introduction to the Flesh Monstrosities’, one part of ‘The Dark Teachings’ series.
This episode, in particular, was the beginning of an onslaught of invisible orcs in the Flesh Monstrosities dungeons. A not-so-good event for most of the other players, leading to a new meta: tanks in the front, weaklings in the middle, and tanks at the back too.
There was even one player who went a step further and created an all-invisible dungeon. A dungeon where only dauntless (or crazy) players dared to invade; but that’s another story.
