0008017: Character growth in non-strength-oriented ways - DEV Arcen

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0008017	Valley 1	Gameplay Idea		May 22, 2012 11:00 am	May 23, 2012 11:37 am

Reporter	Bluddy	Assigned To
Status	considering	Resolution	open
Product Version	1.026

Summary	0008017: Character growth in non-strength-oriented ways
Description	Especially now that upgrade stones are going away, I think we really want to come up with a reward for characters who survive for long and do many things (kill lieutenants, bosses, maybe finish X tough missions, fight in very deep caves...) so that there'll be something to take away once the character dies. So far, most of my thinking has been along the line of an XP system. But maybe something else is warranted? Something closer to what action games do? When you do something great or survive for a long time in an action game, you sometimes get bonus multipliers that don't make you stronger per se, but allow you to rack up more points. In AVWW, this could manifest itself in a. Giving you more consciousness shards so you can get more stuff at the store b. Getting enchants faster c. Making your NPCs more effective at what they do. Right now there's no such measure of effectiveness, but an idea could be making guardian scrolls stronger and longer lasting. To take just one example, a wind shield by an NPC doing a crappy job (with no inspiration from a long-living character) will only clear a few squares, while a wind shield by an 'inspired' NPC will clear out more squares. Another, easier example is just making guardian scroll effects last longer. d. Increasing your abilities in the strategy portions, assuming those are put in eventually (which I hope they are).
Tags	No tags attached.

Internal Weight	Feature Suggestion

GauHelldragon May 22, 2012 11:39 am reporter ~0024583	Upgrade stones are going away?

BenMiff May 22, 2012 12:41 pm reporter ~0024588	a: Yes. b: ...this is essentially giving more character strength in a nondirect way, since faster enchant improvement means it'll likely overtake difficulty increases, so no. c: I'd prefer NPC effectiveness to go off settlement development rather than personal development. Guardian scrolls that provide bonuses for 10 minutes are personal in effect, though, so I wouldn't mind if there's an increased duration for survival. However, since the bonuses are most likely going to be wanted when you die on something (to boost yourself past it), I'd suggest that every mission / stash room you "improve" one random guardian scroll of this nature you currently have, rather than it being a passive bonus dependent on survival; to make it worthwhile with this to still live a long time, make it so that the time award increases the more of them you got so far on the character. d: Depends on the strategy portions. I'd want to measure it by mission completion and stash room finding (or "award" items found only in stash rooms) (use both so there's equal value in exploring still) rather than by time (or even partially by time - time measurement will likely lead to some grind as to get stronger it may be worth "wasting" time somewhere safe-ish to get to the point where you feel you can tackle what killed you last time).

topper May 22, 2012 4:30 pm reporter ~0024619	For character progression not tied to an exp system this sounds really good, and it could help with character uniqueness also. If there was a list of small "Hero" attributes that are different from enchants (basically the attributes the OP suggests, but the maximum increases should be pretty small). When you beat a lieutenant or overlord you get to choose one of these upgrades for your current character with a cap of five or so per character. These are non-transferable and you lose them upon death. To make different characters more unique, each could start with one of these Hero attributes randomly assigned.

zebramatt May 23, 2012 4:46 am reporter ~0024677	I'm not sure the rewards for this multiplier system are precisely right... but I have to say I think the idea of a multiplier system in general is pretty inspired. I know just having an on-screen display of the current multiplier and a notion that it affects some sort of score has inspired me to stay alive (or not get hit or maintain a combo or whatever) for as long as possible in other games, and feel a genuine loss from breaking the chain.

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
May 22, 2012 11:00 am	Bluddy	New Issue
May 22, 2012 11:39 am	GauHelldragon	Note Added: 0024583
May 22, 2012 12:41 pm	BenMiff	Note Added: 0024588
May 22, 2012 3:47 pm	tigersfan	Internal Weight	=> Feature Suggestion
May 22, 2012 3:47 pm	tigersfan	Status	new => considering
May 22, 2012 4:30 pm	topper	Note Added: 0024619
May 23, 2012 4:46 am	zebramatt	Note Added: 0024677
May 23, 2012 11:37 am	zebramatt	Relationship added	related to 0008054
Apr 14, 2014 9:30 am	Chris_McElligottPark	Category	Suggestion - Gameplay => Gameplay Idea