Dealing with the divide: customization vs randomization.

[madcow]

I like this idea a lot. Especially the idea of random perks on character generation.

If I can make a suggestion, how about adding an option in character generation called "risktaker" or something to that effect. It would in addition to your idea add a negative perk, and then either strengthen the positive ones, or add a third positive one.

[NyQuil]

The retirement option is a decent idea, however I would think the option to pull a character out of retirement would be useful.  Otherwise I can see a huge retirement roster filling up every time someone switches characters for a specific trait, like hot or cold resistance.   

As opposed to new enchant slots, why not just add a +/- next to each stat and letting people readjust to whatever they want at the settlement?    I can see myself hurting in the field, and dumping in an enchant to see what my stats will look like and my health dropping to negative levels.

[Martyn van Buren]

Sounds great! it sounds to me like an improvement.  But yeah, some filters for enchants would help. I think a filter for stat enchants is especially important for new players to understand the difference between them and random drops.

By the way, will character perks be visible on the selection screen? I do like the idea of occasion negative perks if they could be balanced.

[LintMan]

Overall, this sounds pretty good to me.

Some specific comments:
- Will the enchants that replace the upgrade stones be upgradeable with better ones over time like the regular enchants are, or with a fixed set of values?

- With the increased importance of enchants, it'd be nice if they were easier to organize, compare, and see exactly what overall effect/impact any given enchant will have.  (There are already number of Mantis suggestions on that front). 

- Is the amount of stat bonuses being lowered (or the base stats increased)?  From the description of the stat enchants, it sounds like they would provide considerably less boosts overall than the upgrade stones currently do.  (ie: a single large % boost with minuses to the rest, or small % boost to all, whereas before the upgrade stones all start with a large effect but diminishing returns as you stack more on.)

- I really like the minor random enchant bonuses as a way to radomize the characters.   I'm thinking 3 small bonuses instead of 2 might make the characters even more unique.  And perhaps for even more variety, perhaps there could be a chance that in place of any enchant-type bonus, instead the character gets a boost to one of the main stats.

- While I like the idea of having some consequence for death, I don't really like the term "penalty".  I think that if you have a unique character you like, then losing that character is enough consequence that no add-on external penalty is needed.

[x4000]

Stat enchants would be fixed in quality, and something you could peruse and buy directly at the store.  They wouldn't be upgraded over time or something that you get more of with time.  Though some might be gated behind some unlockables if we wanted.

The idea is that those would all be hand-crafted to provide maximum options to players without getting into the realms of the un-fun balance.

[nanostrike]

I'm a little iffy on the "Enchants" part of it, but I'd like to see how it's put into action before I make any real judgement calls.

I like the rest of it though.  Just remember: the more random you make it, the higher the chances of characters taking a lava bath because of a bad attributes.  Do you want their blood on your hands?



Also...if you can basically customize stats via Enchants, what effect would the different time periods have?  Different starting stats, all having the same stats, or what?

[x4000]

Also...if you can basically customize stats via Enchants, what effect would the different time periods have?  Different starting stats, all having the same stats, or what?

Same as now, basically.  That wouldn't change.  We're just moving the mechanism of the upgrading of stats, and changing a bit the mechanics and balance of it; we're not actually changing the concept wholesale.

[yllamana]

- With the increased importance of enchants, it'd be nice if they were easier to organize, compare, and see exactly what overall effect/impact any given enchant will have.  (There are already number of Mantis suggestions on that front).

I agree with this. It's quite difficult to compare the enchants at the moment, and it'd be much more useful to see the contribution on the item I'm currently replacing than the overall amount of the stat I have. I think there's definitely potential in moving the current stats into the enchant system, though!

On the topic of sentimentality, is there any kind of memorialisation of characters in the game? I think it'd be nice if fallen characters got a little memorial somewhere detailing their particular exploits (missions they cleared, maybe unlocks they completed or even progress they made on unlocks). I like the retirement option, too.

Maybe they could even aid the later glyphbearers in some way, lending them their strength in some sort of highly-sentimental and possibly metaphorical fashion.

[Vinraith]

The only problem I see here is that, if you're making characters from different eras have different abilities (which seems to be the trend, and is something I enjoy) then doing away with glyph transfer scrolls or any other way of switching what era of character you're playing is problematic. The enchants take care of upgrade stone customization, but don't take care of "I want to use a robot for this kind of mission, and a bronze age person for this kind of mission" customization.

[x4000]

That's true -- so for round 1, I'll leave glyph transplant scrolls alone.

[Zozma]

I'm interested in seeing how this works. Reserving final judgement until I see what happens, but at the moment I support these changes

[EtherealOne]

Those ideas all sounds really good.

I'm particular interested with the minor enchants on characters since it really does force people to try out different things.

How the stat enchants will work will be quite interesting, whether it is something that you can only do at the settlement or something you can do on the fly. Both have their advantages, settlement only will stop people trying to over prepare for each encounter although at the same time on the fly means you don't have to go for more balanced stats.

[Misery]

This whole thing sounds like a much better way of doing all this.

I support this.

[MouldyK]

While talking to LayZboy, we raised a point that with the Enchant Slots for Health, Attack and Mana, doesn't that mean that people can switch them on the go and make things a bit weird when you can be suited for every occassion when out and about (Also, adding/Minusing Health mid-battle might be weird).


Unless you can only switch them in the settlement, then it could be quite cool. SImilar to the way things are now, but also cooler.

[x4000]

While talking to LayZboy, we raised a point that with the Enchant Slots for Health, Attack and Mana, doesn't that mean that people can switch them on the go and make things a bit weird when you can be suited for every occassion when out and about (Also, adding/Minusing Health mid-battle might be weird).


Unless you can only switch them in the settlement, then it could be quite cool. SImilar to the way things are now, but also cooler.

You can actually kill yourself if you swap the health out and it goes down when you are out in the wild.  But part of the appeal for me is that you can actually switch between being a glass cannon and being a tank from one battle to the next while in a given mission.  I think that has the possibility to add a lot.

It also has the possibility of being wonky and exploitable, of course.  But that's why we're trying our best to get this in today, so that we have a full week before things settle down for 1.1's release and we can then get maximum feedback from folks here about how well or poorly various parts of this work.