Feeling railroaded into secret missions

[omegajasam]

I almost wonder if we need 1-2 more /types/ of collectables, so that you can have things like world map missions giving one material and a commen spell and a scroll and some X while secret missions give 8 materials, lots of Y, rare scrolls and orbs. And both X and Y are rarely found in stashes and so forth and so on. It would give more to play with when balancing the rewards.

Or alterntivly, have both missions give spells/scrolls/e.t.c. But secret missions give more/rarer/better.

[Mick]

An update of my thoughts after some more experience with playing.

I've played on further in my Continent and managed to get all the wind shelters I needed to get all the lieutenants down and expose the overlord. I sucked it up and dumped my shards into wind shelters to do this and focused my entire effort on diving into caves for secret missions exclusively. Since cave diving involves a lot of boss killing, this seems like a good way to farm shards as well. I still think that stashes need to have larger shard piles. Killing a bat will give me like 30-40, but a pile in a stash will sometimes have 4. If stashes held more like 100-200 shards (at least) I'd be much more excited about seeking them out.

I still feel like the map-missions are worthless, and I'd like to have more incentive to do them, because I find the missions themselves to be fun to do. I've never needed a spell drop they provide after the first couple I did, and the only reason I even do them now is because they are in the way when I want to place a structure in that square.

The more I think about it, the more I think that it is a mistake to try and make such a sharp distinction between the three reward-giving tasks (map missions, stash looting, secret missions). I think they'd all be much more interesting if the results pulled in a variety of random rewards (everything that can be provided by a stash or a secret mission), but you didn't know the results until you finished it. Secret missions should return the highest number of things and therefore have a much higher chance of providing guardian power stuff. It would be fine to leave the survivor rescue mission as they are though since the reward for them is meant to be very specific.

If the "loot chests" of all three had a minimum number of shards as a reward (in addition to whatever else they provide), then no result would be completely worthless, since they can build toward buying what you need if the RNG is never in your favor.

Ideally, an "expedition" for me would involve:

1) Find a map mission that sounds interesting.
2) Do the mission.
3) Loot a few buildings in the area.
4) Maybe find and do 1-2 secret missions as well.

I wonder if the game would be improved by providing some incentive to 'stay' in a map area for a longer period of time. That could help counter the strategy of grinding map missions exclusively. The world feels too passive and nonthreatening at the moment, and I wish there was more of a reward for going on 'efficient' expeditions. Perhaps simply a small 'cost' for every map square you traverse, to represent the time spent traveling.

[LayZboy]

I don't really like the idea of "missions not showing you what they give".

Given that resources are commonly found in varying types of location, I don't really wanna do a mission just to get some crap I don't need. I can understand the whole "Well maybe it'll give something good" type of view, like getting loot drops from bosses in other games. I don't really feel it'd work here though because most bosses aside from the overlord are  not that challenging to beat, making me think that killing an easy boss with give poor rewards, which in this game is typically true.

[Mick]

I don't really like the idea of "missions not showing you what they give".

Given that resources are commonly found in varying types of location, I don't really wanna do a mission just to get some crap I don't need. I can understand the whole "Well maybe it'll give something good" type of view, like getting loot drops from bosses in other games. I don't really feel it'd work here though because most bosses aside from the overlord are  not that challenging to beat, making me think that killing an easy boss with give poor rewards, which in this game is typically true.

Well that mechanic already exists with stashes, since you don't know what you are going to get from them until you dive down and find out. Also, stash looting is no more challenging than map missions, quite the opposite in fact.

Right now, I feel that the map mission rewards are 99% useless, but I think simply making them give useful rewards will have a negative effect on the game in that most people will just roll over every map mission and do the ones that give the exact rewards they want. Random loot will make them act more as a alternative to stash exploration.

Ideally, I'd want the game to encourage me to do a mix of everything.

[omegajasam]

Now that we have lost the old tier system, and theres less of the 'planning the exact missions and materials you get at a reward vs increased difficulty' it seems to me there is less need for the 'show every material' that said gameplay required (Though I must admit, I did enjoy that aspect).

Perhaps missions could I've a combination of shown and hidden rewards. A shown spell + 1-3 scrolls/mats/dohickys

I think generaly the main theme here is that the reward types need to be less segmented, while somehow keeping them distinct feeling.

[Matthew Carras]

I was thinking about this just a few minutes ago as I played on my server. The incentive to go deep exploring just isn't there...there are some unlockables, but that's about it.

What I'd like to see is an increased chance to spawn better and better loot, as well as more stashes / gems, the deeper you go. There could even start to spawn higher level regions the deeper you go, leading to better loot as well as tougher enemies. Example:

L3 Surface With Caves -> L3 Dungeon -> (Deeper) L3 Dungeon -> (Deeper) L3 Dungeon -> (Deeper) L4 Dungeon -> L4 Abandoned Hideout (has 100% chance of at least 1 stash room)

Another change could be the deeper in regions you go, the more Consciousness Shards you collect from all sources due to being "closer to the source". Like +25% per region depth. This would then be a good way to farm Consciousness Shards.

[BenMiff]

What I'd like to see is an increased chance to spawn better and better loot, as well as more stashes / gems, the deeper you go. There could even start to spawn higher level regions the deeper you go, leading to better loot as well as tougher enemies. Example:

L3 Surface With Caves -> L3 Dungeon -> (Deeper) L3 Dungeon -> (Deeper) L3 Dungeon -> (Deeper) L4 Dungeon -> L4 Abandoned Hideout (has 100% chance of at least 1 stash room)

Another change could be the deeper in regions you go, the more Consciousness Shards you collect from all sources due to being "closer to the source". Like +25% per region depth. This would then be a good way to farm Consciousness Shards.

I do like the idea of reward improvement as you get deeper, though I'd be inclined not to increase the number of gem / stash rooms but instead make those rooms better (extra gems and/or stash items as appropriate).

The increased number of consciousness shards isn't really necessary though since you're already getting more from the increased level.

[Matthew Carras]

I do like the idea of reward improvement as you get deeper, though I'd be inclined not to increase the number of gem / stash rooms but instead make those rooms better (extra gems and/or stash items as appropriate).

Hmm, good idea.

The increased number of consciousness shards isn't really necessary though since you're already getting more from the increased level.

Yeah, I was thinking "either/or" if there's balancing reason for not increasing the levels.

[Mick]

Would an increase to the number of gem rooms (or the number of gems in such rooms) really be enough incentive to going deeper? I seem to easily reach a point where I have more than enough gems from any particular cave, and the only reason I go deeper at all is to find more secret missions (and I feel too lazy to go find a different cave, which would technically be the smarter option). I think having the deeper levels give a higher chance of giving secret missions would be a much better incentive.

[Matthew Carras]

Well I went pretty deep (about 7 levels down) and I noticed the enemy levels *did* go up, and houses *almost always* had at least 1 stash room, and about a 25% chance to have a secret mission.

But overall I didn't really get any rewards I couldn't get from just going into the few first chunks in a region for houses and secret missions, except those are MUCH faster. All I got was extra challenge and a little bit more consciousness shards.

It was fun anyway, but I feel like there should be more epicness to deep diving...like some "retired overlord" that lives deep in the caves that guards multiple stashes.

[Mick]

I like the fact that the latest patch adds buildings as a reward for 50% of map missions. I was a bit surprised though that the reward is shown ahead of time, I expected it to be a random chance.

[Stx11]

Thinking about this and overall gameplay...

What if Missions were assigned by your NPC Companions in the Settlement and there were new "mini-boost" reward types (Lore Fragments +10 NPC Skill and Minor Gift +10 NPC Mood) so we were now doing Missions to help our NPCs complete Deployments to help us defeat the Overlord?

[Regdren]

Now that buildings are given in outdoor missions, I'm going to suggest something counter-intuitive.

Outdoor missions should give spells of equal level to the continent, rather than +1.

As it is there really isn't much need to craft your own spells, in my experience. Just go through a few quick missions after increasing the continent level and your spells are restocked, no problem at all.

Reducing the power of spells given by missions would allow you to have a reasonable variety of spells as before, but if you want that extra edge you'll need to collect those ingredients and decide on whether to use them now or upgrade the continent one more time first.

I also agree with the idea of changing the small consciousness shard pickups found in stashes to something else. I've run into 2 shard piles plus an enchant charge stash rooms and it is not fun.

[Misery]

Now that buildings are given in outdoor missions, I'm going to suggest something counter-intuitive.

Outdoor missions should give spells of equal level to the continent, rather than +1.

As it is there really isn't much need to craft your own spells, in my experience. Just go through a few quick missions after increasing the continent level and your spells are restocked, no problem at all.

Reducing the power of spells given by missions would allow you to have a reasonable variety of spells as before, but if you want that extra edge you'll need to collect those ingredients and decide on whether to use them now or upgrade the continent one more time first.

I also agree with the idea of changing the small consciousness shard pickups found in stashes to something else. I've run into 2 shard piles plus an enchant charge stash rooms and it is not fun.

Aye, I've had this thought as well.

That the "common" spellgems need to differentiate themselves from the uncommon and higher, a bit more than they currently do.   I dunno how much of a change it needs to be though.   There's the risk of adding to the game's difficulty as a whole a bit much by changing something like that.    Or, at least, by my (potentially wrong) logic, that looks to be the case.

And yes, those shard piles.....  It'd be one thing to find like, a group of say, 200 shards there, right?  That kind of thing could add up well, as you do stashes.  But usually I find, well, 30, or just 4.... seems like an oversight.     Or just replace shards entirely in stashes, yes.  Either would be nice.

[BobTheJanitor]

Yeah a stash with nothing but a few shards or yet another glyph transplant scroll or some platforms or whatever are terribly unexciting. Maybe stash loot could be tiered into common, good, and great and make the random generator pick something from each pile so you don't get so many worthless rooms.