More Variety In Exploration (IBrainstorming And Discussion)

[BenMiff]

Okay, so at the moment the game is heading towards encouraging exploration a lot more. A big thing that would improve exploration (to my mind at least) is if the game threw more variety at you (infestations and other such things not withstanding.) To that end, I figured I'd start a thread to collect and discuss a pile of suggestions as to potential modifiers / mini-events / etc. that could be added to the game to make things more varied. (The ideal, here, is to get to the point where there's enough stuff so that exploration keeps you coming across new things.)

I'll start with a couple of ideas that I had towards this end, before throwing it open to other ideas:-

Harvester

• This enemy could appear in any non-boss surface chunk (appearing in all regions).
  This enemy would always appear 512 px from the edge the player entered the chunk from, and would only be able to spawn in new surface chunks.
• When this enemy spots the player, it flies towards the other edge of the chunk; if it reaches it, it disappears and escapes. It moves at 90% of the Movement Speed of the closest player to it.
• When destroyed, this monster drops a "mini-stash" of 2-3 stash items as a reward for chasing it down.
• This enemies vulnerabilities and weaknesses would be suited to the region it is in, and the enemy has decent health (enough to take 2 - 3 hits at least).

(The rough idea here is that when this enemy shows up, it encourages a mad chase into the chunk to kill it to get the reward, dodging or otherwise dealing with the other normal enemies on the way; essentially, encouraging a change in pace and playstyle to get the reward.)

Double Trouble

• This would be able to affect any boss room.
• When this modifier occurs, two bosses are spawned instead of one.
• In addition, the bosses are working together; as such, as soon as one boss is alerted to the player they both are.
• To shift the balance back towards the player a little, each boss gains a single additional vulnerability at 30% that the player can exploit if they can manage it.

(The rough gist here is to get some interesting variety from two bosses working together and their interactions, plus offering extra vulnerabilities to encourage the player to try elements they don't usually.)

Anyway, any other ideas?

[Misery]

Okay, so at the moment the game is heading towards encouraging exploration a lot more. A big thing that would improve exploration (to my mind at least) is if the game threw more variety at you (infestations and other such things not withstanding.) To that end, I figured I'd start a thread to collect and discuss a pile of suggestions as to potential modifiers / mini-events / etc. that could be added to the game to make things more varied. (The ideal, here, is to get to the point where there's enough stuff so that exploration keeps you coming across new things.)

I'll start with a couple of ideas that I had towards this end, before throwing it open to other ideas:-

Harvester

• This enemy could appear in any non-boss surface chunk (appearing in all regions).
  This enemy would always appear 512 px from the edge the player entered the chunk from, and would only be able to spawn in new surface chunks.
• When this enemy spots the player, it flies towards the other edge of the chunk; if it reaches it, it disappears and escapes. It moves at 90% of the Movement Speed of the closest player to it.
• When destroyed, this monster drops a "mini-stash" of 2-3 stash items as a reward for chasing it down.
• This enemies vulnerabilities and weaknesses would be suited to the region it is in, and the enemy has decent health (enough to take 2 - 3 hits at least).

(The rough idea here is that when this enemy shows up, it encourages a mad chase into the chunk to kill it to get the reward, dodging or otherwise dealing with the other normal enemies on the way; essentially, encouraging a change in pace and playstyle to get the reward.)

Double Trouble

• This would be able to affect any boss room.
• When this modifier occurs, two bosses are spawned instead of one.
• In addition, the bosses are working together; as such, as soon as one boss is alerted to the player they both are.
• To shift the balance back towards the player a little, each boss gains a single additional vulnerability at 30% that the player can exploit if they can manage it.

(The rough gist here is to get some interesting variety from two bosses working together and their interactions, plus offering extra vulnerabilities to encourage the player to try elements they don't usually.)

Anyway, any other ideas?

Oh yes, I completely agree with this sort of idea.

This is something I've been pondering recently too.  Infestations and such seem to add quite alot to the game.... many areas become even more interesting and challenging when you've got blades flying around, or downpours of entropic evil coming out of holes in the cave wall.  Or the slimes!  I love those, any room with slimes is instantly crazy and exciting.    Even just the Stinging Nettles make a big difference in any chunk they appear in.    More infestation types, as well as more.... uh..... "special" chunks or events would indeed be super.

I like the Harvester idea;  alot of RPGs do exactly that, and it's an element that always seems to work, providing that the things are kept as being fairly rare.


A couple of other ideas I'd had:

1.  Have some rooms include random microbosses.  They wouldnt necessarily have to be native monsters;  but pop 3 or so of these guys in randomly, and they can make things interesting, particularly depending on the level layout.   They also provide an opportunity for some extra shards (since microbosses drop more) if the player wants to fight them, but of course could be ignored as well.

2.  Evil Otto: anyone remember this guy, from the old arcade game Berserk?  He was the invincible bouncing smiley nightmare that'd show up in any room if you took too long in it.   His presence basically meant that you needed to get out of there FAST;  the game quickly shifted from "shoot robots for points" to "avoid everything and run to the exit" when he showed up.   I'm thinking something along the lines of this;  some rooms (it would be considered an infestation by the engine, so chunks that are "normal" would never have this guy appear) would have him show up a short time after the player enters the area.  He'd be invincible and able to simply pass through walls;  the chunk in question would become something of a race to find the exit, avoiding dangers along the way so this guy doesnt catch you.   Wouldnt ever appear in stash rooms or gem rooms.

3. Neutral Ilari:  I'm surprised these guys ARENT there already.  In beta, they did actually show up randomly, and they did..... something.   I forget what.   You could run into these guys every now and then (in any type of chunk, surface, building or cave), and they could have a variety of things that they could do.    You might have one that can sell you special things you normally cant buy, such as randomly-generated enchantments, the stats of which you can see when you look at his selection.  They could be a higher rarity-level than the common ones.... but they'd be pricey, and once you choose one and buy it, the Ilari leaves that chunk.   That's just one thing these guys could do, I'm sure there's all sorts of other ideas that would fit them.   They could be a scoutable chunk type, appearing as a different color, leaving that chunk and turning it into a normal one once their purpose (whatever it is at the time) has been finished.

4. Storm Rooms:  These rooms would have the "windstorm" effect going on during them.  Somewhere in the room, there would be an..... I dunno, an "anomaly" or something, that is producing the effect;  basically, the mysterious evil wind is breaking through a crack in reality, and trying to infest the area.   The anomaly would have a fairly high HP, but wouldnt attack the player; instead they'd have to deal with enemy attacks (have perhaps more enemies than usual, and spawners) while they try to close the anomaly.    The player doesnt have to close it, could just avoid things and move on, but if they do, they're rewarded with..... something.  I've no idea what.

5. Hives:  This one is simple, a room which contains a pretty high population of one specific enemy type. 




That's all I've got for now.

[Bluddy]

I'd really like to see objects with effects implemented. This has been talked about for a while.

Mossy barrels are fun. There are just too many of them in the junkyard -- they become predictable rather than an interesting change. Objects need to be rare enough to be special, yet have fun effects.

[BenMiff]

1.  Have some rooms include random microbosses.  They wouldnt necessarily have to be native monsters;  but pop 3 or so of these guys in randomly, and they can make things interesting, particularly depending on the level layout.   They also provide an opportunity for some extra shards (since microbosses drop more) if the player wants to fight them, but of course could be ignored as well.

I'd prefer to have the minibosses native (unless they came in via migration), but otherwise I like this one.

3. Neutral Ilari:  I'm surprised these guys ARENT there already.  In beta, they did actually show up randomly, and they did..... something.   I forget what.   You could run into these guys every now and then (in any type of chunk, surface, building or cave), and they could have a variety of things that they could do.    You might have one that can sell you special things you normally cant buy, such as randomly-generated enchantments, the stats of which you can see when you look at his selection.  They could be a higher rarity-level than the common ones.... but they'd be pricey, and once you choose one and buy it, the Ilari leaves that chunk.   That's just one thing these guys could do, I'm sure there's all sorts of other ideas that would fit them.   They could be a scoutable chunk type, appearing as a different color, leaving that chunk and turning it into a normal one once their purpose (whatever it is at the time) has been finished.

I do like the sound of this one. I'd suggest there be 3 versions rather than the one, though - once can sell you enchants, another can sell you guardian powers and the third can sell arcane ingredients.
I'd also be inclined to let them stick around until you've finished buying things, and maybe after you leave the chunk too; maybe stick them on a 7-day timer like secret missions?

4. Storm Rooms:  These rooms would have the "windstorm" effect going on during them.  Somewhere in the room, there would be an..... I dunno, an "anomaly" or something, that is producing the effect;  basically, the mysterious evil wind is breaking through a crack in reality, and trying to infest the area.   The anomaly would have a fairly high HP, but wouldnt attack the player; instead they'd have to deal with enemy attacks (have perhaps more enemies than usual, and spawners) while they try to close the anomaly.    The player doesnt have to close it, could just avoid things and move on, but if they do, they're rewarded with..... something.  I've no idea what.

Rather than spawners, I'd be inclined to let the anomaly act as a (faster than normal) spawner once it has attacked, since it seems to tie in better to the "crack in reality" effect; I'd be inclined to let it spawn anything rather than natives as well. Reward wise, I'd like to see it turn into a Warp Gate when destroyed (tying in to the crack in reality idea; "killing" it stabilises the crack rather than sealing it), and then give a Mystery Puzzle clue solution (from insights into the broken reality.)

5. Hives:  This one is simple, a room which contains a pretty high population of one specific enemy type. 

I like this one a lot. I'd suggest that the specific enemy type always spawn a single miniboss of it's type as the hive "queen" as well, though.

I'd really like to see objects with effects implemented. This has been talked about for a while.

Mossy barrels are fun. There are just too many of them in the junkyard -- they become predictable rather than an interesting change. Objects need to be rare enough to be special, yet have fun effects.

This is the first I've heard of the idea, but I do like it. Some added explosive effects could fire projectiles in an arc upwards (like the Highland Lights do), and I'd like to see a gas canister that whizzes off in a random path (not unlike letting go of a filled balloon) before exploding. Some non-explosive effects would be nice too; a cage that releases a miniboss when destroyed, or something that throw off light in a small radius until it is destroyed, where it then sheds a huge radius of light for 30 seconds.

Also, an additional idea (kind of springboarding off the storm):

Meteor Shower

• Would only appear in surface chunks.
• Meteors fall from the sky, similar to in Meteor Shower missions, but at a higher density.
• Ongoing effect: No way to "end" the meteor fall.
• Meteors would have a chance to spawn monsters when they detonate at higher combat difficulties (as the monsters "rode" the meteors down).

[Tobias]

More puzzles.

Also, some form of risk vs reward. The main problem with this is that everything in the game levels with the player. The difficulty setting affects nothing but how hard the enemies are to kill. There needs to be an incentive to face more dangerous areas to get bigger rewards.

[Misery]

Also, some form of risk vs reward. The main problem with this is that everything in the game levels with the player. The difficulty setting affects nothing but how hard the enemies are to kill. There needs to be an incentive to face more dangerous areas to get bigger rewards.

I think that cave depths are the potential solution to this.

They DO get harder as you go further and further into them, as the levels increase, but...... there's not too much reason to do this beyond some unlockables.

There needs to be an actual reason to occaisionally go that deep beyond just the unlockables.   I cant imagine just what it'd be though. It'd need to be useful, but not overpowered.

[Tobias]

Also, some form of risk vs reward. The main problem with this is that everything in the game levels with the player. The difficulty setting affects nothing but how hard the enemies are to kill. There needs to be an incentive to face more dangerous areas to get bigger rewards.

I think that cave depths are the potential solution to this.

They DO get harder as you go further and further into them, as the levels increase, but...... there's not too much reason to do this beyond some unlockables.

There needs to be an actual reason to occaisionally go that deep beyond just the unlockables.   I cant imagine just what it'd be though. It'd need to be useful, but not overpowered.

Just increase gem vein / secret mission / stash frequency the deeper you get. Find underground mining colonies and crypts full of treasure and stuff like that.