Musings: Alternate progression mechanics.

[Misery]

The one thing about the Outposts though.... right now, even if they are stuck as, say, the place you go to fight the "tier boss", they'd still kinda..... feel like most other areas of the game, just with different music and switch rooms.   Heck, even the bosses are just normal bosses but with more health;  it's very underwhelming to go through one of those towers and find that the Lieutenant is....... one of those huge robots, the super-easy ones.....

But not just that, I think the towers themselves need to be more interesting and unique.

I'm thinking of stuff like this:




I ran into those for the first time in the Outpost that I finished just now.... and those were INTERESTING.   I couldnt tell what the heck they were at first, and my shroud enchant was reacting to them, so I knew they did SOMETHING, but jumping into them or poking them with spells didn't do anything..... so I go up, flip the switch, and HOLYCRAP FIRE EVERYWHERE.

The switch rooms themselves are a good idea, but I'd like to see more unique trap/platforming/whatever things like these.

[MouldyK]

Besides Chris BLATANTLY stealing the idea I told my friend on mic 2 days ago (Arcen have some sort of dream capture device tucked away somewhere OR they are always listening to me talk alone in my room), I think this would be a good idea as it will provide people with stages and more structure, like they know they HAVE to defeat General Douchbag because he is stopping our intrepid heroes from gaining the All-Spark needed to power up their spells.

However, one thing which bothered me when I thought of the idea 2 days ago is what if the Lieutenant tower of the first overlord is MILES away from your home? Might be annoying for people who are unlocking the wind for miles, going past the other Lieutenants' Home on the way there.

Either way, it's nice that you are thinking of changing mechanics, but also discussing it with Forumites for their views on the matter. Makes me feel heard...even if I did think of this idea 2 days ago, therefore I should claim creative license over this and sue you for stealing my brain ideas!

[jonasan]

while in principal i really like this idea - gating tiers with lieutenants makes a lot of sense - otherwise they almost always get left till the end - i.e. all l's and the overlord for the continent end game. Not so much fun, better to spread them out for more variety... completely agree.

but i'm a little concerned about this idea of giving everyone as long as they want at each tier combined with tier orbs being available from secret missions - i have a feeling that some (possibly many) people will start levelling up almost all the spells for each tier (or at least those they find interesting) which to my mind is going to either greatly reduce motivation for replaying the game on new continents (because i've already played with all the spells i'm interested in) or lead to some people with delicate OCD 100% tendencies to complain about the grind of getting spells and lack of progression.

but most importantly for me, I really like the fact that the game now makes me make choices and beacuse of the CP increase and corresponding tier rise these choices have real meaning - a game like this without impacting choice would loose a lot of its magic for me.

i really like the fact that i cant possibly experiment with all the spells on every continent, for me it makes my exploration and resource gathering more meaningful and leaves me with the feeling that there is so much more to do later on other continents. Now if there were a much increased number of spells this might be different but still ... i think we'd be loosing some of the meaning to our decisions if there is no pressure of any kind on the player to get on and make some headway towards being armed and ready to take down the overlord.

I guess what i'm saying is while the original idea from X, bluddy and terraziel is great i still want threat, meaningful choice in valley - its in the game right now, for me really well done - and it would be a great loss to feel like my choices are arbitrary and close no doors, that with enough time and effort i can prepare myself for anything that might happen by arming myself for all possible encounters (you don't think many people will go crazy on this?!) .... but maybe i'm in a minority or even alone in enjoying these aspects of valley as it is now??

[MouldyK]

Maybe they can set a spell limit for each tier? Sort of like:

Tier 1: 45 Spells Max. (Gives you a choice of 30 on your own + the 10 given to you at the start)

Tier 2: 30 Spells Max.

Tier 3: 15 Spells Max.

Tier 4: 10 Spells Max.

Tier 5: 5 Spells Max.

My reason for the numbers is because it provides people a chance to try out their spells, then narrow it down to a chosen few by the time it gets to the final overlord.

For example, I usually only upgrade 5 spells or so anyway and by tier 5, I usually have:

- T5 Launch Rock
- T5 Leafy Whip or Forest Rage
- T5 Flash of Light
- T5 Fireball
- T5 Plasma Bolt.

And I only have Fireball and Plasma Bolt if the overlord is resistant against Earth Power, so it gives me margin for error.


Of course there is still the matter of repetitiveness and pointlessness of Continent 2+ due to lack of variety as LayZboy spoke of below, but I am sure with more missions to act as kind of side-quests, with more unlocking each continent, and more enemies, that could be solved in the future.

[LayZboy]

Whilst this is a step in the right direction, I don't think it addresses the issue that you're still gonna be doing the same old stuff on the next continent apart from having 1 new area that you'll maybe visit, and slightly stronger monsters. Right now new continents provide little reason to do them, as you could probably just do continent one and no others and not miss anything.

[khadgar]

but most importantly for me, I really like the fact that the game now makes me make choices and beacuse of the CP increase and corresponding tier rise these choices have real meaning - a game like this without impacting choice would loose a lot of its magic for me

What if it worked in reverse: missions still raise CP, killing lieutenants lower CP. I haven't put thought into this, it's just a thought. So, you could gather up the materials for 10 spells or so before the continent increases. If you want to extend that, you have to take out a lieutenant, who will push it back a certain amount.

Or, you know, maybe world map missions raise CP, secret missions lower CP, and... I don't know?

Maybe having any way to lower CP that was repeatable would feel super grindy, because sice CP is bad, you would always want to make it as low as possible.

[Stg]

I was going to suggest having "unique" spells or Guardian Scrolls only found as secret mission rewards - something to give the player a reason to delve further into a building than just those little yellow rectangles.

It would go from "Well, I don't see any stashes, time to move on" to "That's a lot of rooms for only one stash... I better check a few places before I write this place off". At this point, buildings feel more like a grocery store than anything; asking yourself if you need anything from that building or if you should just move onto the next one, barely glancing at what's actually inside the building.

[Dizzard]

What if it worked in reverse: missions still raise CP, killing lieutenants lower CP.

CP stands for Civilization Progress though, how does killing a lieutenant make your civilization move backwards?

I'm not convinced CP is all that great. It's just a number that goes up when you complete missions. Does it actually mean your civilization is becoming more advanced just because you picked up a couple of magma stones for one spell?

It's also unclear that increasing CP means the overlord is now sending out harder monsters (increasing the tier level) It seems more like something the game itself decides to do when you complete a certain number of missions. It's easy to forget the overlord exists. (at least early on)

In theory you would imagine erecting a new structure would count towards civilization progress. Or that rescuing a new survivor would increase civilization progress. (regardless of whether it was a secret mission or map mission) Or that the actual crafting (research) of a new spell would increase CP....not necessarily the gathering of the materials through a mission.

[khadgar]

In theory you would imagine erecting a new structure would count towards civilization progress. Or that rescuing a new survivor would increase civilization progress. (regardless of whether it was a secret mission or map mission) Or that the actual crafting (research) of a new spell would increase CP....not necessarily the gathering of the materials through a mission.

Exactly!

But in so far as a game mechanic, CP is inexorably tied to both the power of your enemies. Allies too, supposedly, but the only place they show up is the battleground missions, so it's really a moot point. To me, CP is just another name for "enemy level" because that's all it does to me. It has no positive benefits to raising the "Civilization Progress", therefore it doesn't feel anything like progress.

I like your ideas though, the progress of my civilization might (also?) be tied to actual progress for my settlement and it's people, as opposed to the pre-improvement gathering. So, earning an aquargists well from a boss tower doesn't increase CP, but placing it does.

Just brainstorming, because I don't think that massive design change is needed, but it's always worth considering if you stumble upon something that sounds too great to pass up.

[IIE16 Yoshi]

CP increasing as you rescue survivors and build up the settlement sounds like an awesome idea to me. The idea being that you're making something of a reputation for yourself, so the Overlord is sending out his better boys.

[Bluddy]

Just a note: there has to be some kind of limited resource in the game. I don't know what it should be, but perhaps if the game revolves around killing lieutenants, each one should have a stash of orbs for the next tier. This is the entire supply you'll have of orbs.

This needs to be thought through before any changes are made.

Another mechanism that I like: perhaps everything should center on upgrading the settlement. You only have X upgrades. A mage tower will provide certain spells, another structure will provide other spells. And this needs to be balanced vs yet another structure that the settlement really needs to survive.

[nflftw]

Please do this. This sounds amazing.

[IIE16 Yoshi]

* IIE16 Yoshi likes the discussion of practically rebuilding AVWW.