Out with upgrades, in with initial custom characters?

[Bluddy]

Maybe we should really do this piecemeal.

I think DEX is needed to prevent over-using double/triple jumps. My problem with Jerebaldo1's suggestion is that it doesn't make other jumps better than or even equivalent to double/triple jumps for any character. A low double/triple jump is still better than a small boost to a single jump. That's why I think disabling them with DEX levels is the only way. But I think this needs to be tested on its own, separately from the feedback on character creation.

[Penumbra]

5. Customizing NPCs that you find is definitely flat-out-no.  That really makes it feel completely wrong in my opinion: this is somebody you met, not somebody you designed.

I don't know about this. Before, with upgrade stones, we totally customized an NPC we found. Now, it's not called "upgrades" it's called "configure." We could just call it "upgrading" them with 10 free points (or however many) and it wouldn't lose the story part.

I would modify your idea to say that the professional NPCs cannot be glyphbearers. This way you can't have people stealing important NPCs in an MP game. The non-professionals will be running around where you can inhabit their bodies.

This would remove the restriction on who on a multiplayer server can glyph swap. Everyone has their own limited stable of characters they can add to and draw from. The professionals are untouchable by anyone, removing the ability to screw over a settlement by killing the lumbermancer or something. 

[Bluddy]

Penumbra, I really like this idea a lot more than just random wanderers all the time.

I would say that the think that matches this kind of idea the most is to have an upgrade system based on experience. Do cool stuff, and you get rewarded with an upgrade point to assign. Not only that, a highly upgraded character can be swapped into the settlement, where he'll train the other characters and slowly give them upgrade points up to his level.

Maybe at any point you die you can have the choice of getting a random character who *cannot* be upgraded, or using one of the guys in your settlement who can be upgraded? This way you can decide if you want to choose one of your main guys or a much weaker wanderer. You get much more attached to your group of settlers this way.

[Martyn van Buren]

I quite like the option X talked about in the long post, of three choices and a reroll button. I don't think i'd be pushing that button, but it would feel to me like an unobtrusive way of giving people more flexibility.

Another idea, tho, out of left field: perhaps upgrades would feel more interesting if they were harder to acquire.  As it is they're kind of trivial, even if potentially time-consuming.  Maybe it would be worth changing to a system where the first three to five were just free, but then adding more was hard enough to be a real strategic choice. Actually, upgrades seem like a perfect opportunity to develop the theme X talked about earlier of developing the individual vs. the community.  So two suggestions:

One, make upgrades past the base level available only as a mission reward. Just based on the name I'm tempted to suggest it would be "Journey to Perfection," but I think that would get me lynched if it.  were implemented. This option would still make all levels of upgrade available without giving anything up (now that CP is gone), and it would make heavily upgraded characters much more valuable. It would also resolve the inflation problem of some players having essentially unlimited upgrade stones.

Two, would be to bank heavily on the individual/choice dynamic. Create two special missions once per tier, one of which would open a new upgrade tier (I suppose starting with six, the first five being free) permanently for all characters on the continent, and the other would provide some benefit to the community. The obvious choice there would be opening up a new tier of settlement buildings, but for that to work guardian powers would have to be heavily reworked. Seek survivors would clearly have to be a level one or two power, and the high-level powers would have to be made much more attractive. But especially given the diminishing returns of upgrades, I could see it making sense to give up a few levels in favor of other powers like serious continent-wide buffs and more specialized seek powers.  This would of course create a coordination problem in multiplayer which might be insurmountable.

EDIT: Of course, in the second system finishing one special mission would make the other disappear. 

[zebramatt]

On second (or perhaps third) thought, I'm not entirely convinced Upgrade Stones need to go away.

It seems to me that there are two key problems with the current implementation:

• They're grindy to collect; and
• They're trivial to spend.

Dealing with those in reverse order, the fact that whenever you start a new character the first thing you do is arbitrarily allocate a number from your stockpile of stones to give that character the stats you want seems like it could be assuaged relatively simply within the confines of the existing system. For example, if you were only ever able to stockpile a fixed maximum number of stones (which could vary depending on how many lieutenants you've killed or through building and upgrading a specific building or something perhaps) after which the game advised you that you had to spend them or you wouldn't be able to pick up any more, then that would help. You could also consider splitting out the stones so that there is a type for each stat - Vitality, Magic, Power and Agility or something.  And/or you might make the stones themselves rarer in the world, and have a play about with the formulae behind the required number again. Indeed, you might even remove the hard limit of 10 but introduce a formula which naturally tapers to an ever diminishing point.

But all of that brings us to the main problem with them: they're grindy. It strikes me that the reason for this pivots around the fact that they're abundant and easy but time consuming to find. However, again a number of simpler solutions suggest themselves. You might start by making them much rarer indeed - give the player a few at the beginning but then drip feed them much more slowly thereafter. Give the player some for killing a lieutenant perhaps; or performing other pivotal feats. Make them a sought-after reward for certain activities, an expression of the experience you have accumulated with that one character. And maybe you can still find a number of them in the world - but they're much better hidden. I remember when Vitality Stones were first introduced, in part as a nod to Metroid's energy tanks. Well, energy tanks are found in the world but they're either tucked away in tricky platforming spots, after Big Bads or hidden somewhere in the scenery. Maybe you could emulate that more closely here - maybe just in secret missions specifically for the purpose!

Anyway, that's a bit of a brain dump to be fair. And I'm by no means suggesting the Upgrade Stones mechanic should stay. Indeed, you could implement many of the ideas which excite me above - particularly getting further upgrades as the result of epic deeds - with a system devoid entirely of stones per se. But I thought it worth bringing to the fore some ideas which have been bandying around the topic for a while now, if only so they can be considered and dismissed on reasonable grounds. 

Further reading:

Limit storage of upgrade stones
Upgrade points increase per tier
Epic deeds give bonus upgrade points

Modify upgrade costs by race inclinations

[TechSY730]

Also, I fully support the idea of dexterity, but as a more granularly implemented mechanic. Such that:

Points in dexterity influence how high double and triple jumps are, where 0 points is barely any lift at all (especially for the third jump) and 4 gives more than the current lift. The third jump will always provide less lift than the second, and the second providing less lift than the first. Points in dexterity will give disproportionate benefits to the height of the third jump at levels 3 and 4 (or 8-10 if you decide to go with a 10pt scale).


edited for clarity

I think DEX is needed to prevent over-using double/triple jumps. My problem with Jerebaldo1's suggestion is that it doesn't make other jumps better than or even equivalent to double/triple jumps for any character. A low double/triple jump is still better than a small boost to a single jump. That's why I think disabling them with DEX levels is the only way. But I think this needs to be tested on its own, separately from the feedback on character creation.

How about taking lift literally (a force applied downwards, thus pushing you up)? Like at low DEX stats, the amount of lift given on a double jump is not assured to be enough to make you move upwards when falling at high speeds. Even more so for triple jump (because it would give less lift than double jumps). That way, at low DEXs, you cannot be assured that you can always avoid falling damage, only reduce it (this would imply that the speed you land on the ground would need to be part of the falling damage calculation). Also, it would naturally reduce total jump height for low DEX characters. At mid DEX, you might always get enough lift to ensure that double jump can always get your Y velocity to >= 0 (as it would generate enough lift to overcome or at least cancel out the max falling speed), but not necessarily your 3rd jump. Only at very high DEX would all of your jumps be assured to at least stop your falling. (Some level of maximum speed up due to jumping will be needed to prevent, say, max DEX characters getting a ludicrously high total jump height when jumping from neutral or moving upwards)

This could also serve as a way to make ride the lightning desirable, it would always be assured to stop your falling, as it would always generate at least enough lift to pop you up some.

[Vinraith]

For the most part I think this is fine, but I have two questions/concerns:

1) How will this work with respect to switching off the glyph to other characters in the village? Will those characters already have their full stats set, or will you go into a customization view at the point that you first switch to them. Being able to have a stable of characters customized for various situations was a neat idea, I'd hate to lose it.

2) Does this eliminate all cost to death? It looks like it does, aside from being kicked back to the settlement (and failing the rescue mission, if you were in one). That seems like it might be undesirable. While the upgrade stone system has its drawbacks (especially in the early game) it does at least serve as a small money sink in the latter game, which I think might be desirable. Perhaps a small percentage loss (5-10%?) of shards on death would serve the same purpose, but scale appropriately (costing a starting character very little, but knocking a very advanced players stash down by hundreds or even thousands of shards if they were hording)?

P.S. I love, love, love the idea of more differentiation between characters of different time periods.

[Martyn van Buren]

I am against a shard cost; a virtue of the current system is that the death penalty only bites if you've made investments in a character. There are just some times --- learning to do a new mission type, for instance --- where you are predictably going to lose a lot of characters in a row, and it would suck if this kind of experimentation were heavily penalized.

[x4000]

On second (or perhaps third) thought, I'm not entirely convinced Upgrade Stones need to go away.

It seems to me that there are two key problems with the current implementation:

• They're grindy to collect; and
• They're trivial to spend.

The real problem is this: death is frequent, and to prevent death you need more of these things.  Or you DON'T need more of these things in order to avoid death, in which case they are just overpoweringly unbalanced in your favor and death becomes super infrequent when you aren't at 10/10 upgrades.

Put another way: players will feel compelled to max these upgrades out, whether it is easy or hard.  If it is easy but grindy then it is boring and they complain; but at least the game isn't broken with balance.  If it is hard, then either the penalty for death is enormous or else players who get 10/10 upgrades now have a super-character that they will save-scum to keep.

My goal: forget all that stuff.  Make it zero-cost for them to have these customizations.  The point is the customization itself, not the acquisition.  For the acquisition, see enchants and spells and spell scrolls and all that other stuff that persists past death.

[Vinraith]

I am against a shard cost; a virtue of the current system is that the death penalty only bites if you've made investments in a character. There are just some times --- learning to do a new mission type, for instance --- where you are predictably going to lose a lot of characters in a row, and it would suck if this kind of experimentation were heavily penalized.

That's a good point. At the same time, there should be a difference between losing a character you've "invested" in and losing an experimental drone IMO. Not sure what the best way to handle that is, exactly.

[Martyn van Buren]

In response to X's last post, how about making the challenge unlocking the ability to apply more upgrades instead of gathering stones? That would persist past death but still provide an avenue for growth.

[Vinraith]

In response to X's last post, how about making the challenge unlocking the ability to apply more upgrades instead of gathering stones? That would persist past death but still provide an avenue for growth.

I like that idea.

[Martyn van Buren]

I am against a shard cost; a virtue of the current system is that the death penalty only bites if you've made investments in a character. There are just some times --- learning to do a new mission type, for instance --- where you are predictably going to lose a lot of characters in a row, and it would suck if this kind of experimentation were heavily penalized.

That's a good point. At the same time, there should be a difference between losing a character you've "invested" in and losing an experimental drone IMO. Not sure what the best way to handle that is, exactly.

That's an idea: how about an actual experimental drone? As in an unintelligent robot species created by the skelebots that has some serious nerfs (poor stats, no ability to upgrade, something like that) but no cost on death?

[Vinraith]

I am against a shard cost; a virtue of the current system is that the death penalty only bites if you've made investments in a character. There are just some times --- learning to do a new mission type, for instance --- where you are predictably going to lose a lot of characters in a row, and it would suck if this kind of experimentation were heavily penalized.

That's a good point. At the same time, there should be a difference between losing a character you've "invested" in and losing an experimental drone IMO. Not sure what the best way to handle that is, exactly.

That's an idea: how about an actual experimental drone? As in an unintelligent robot species created by the skelebots that has some serious nerfs (poor stats, no ability to upgrade, something like that) but no cost on death?

Hmm, that's definitely a worthwhile solution. It kind of goes back to "how do glyph transfers work under this system" but combined with the "shard percent loss" for "real" characters I think it would answer my concerns.

[MaxwellDemonic]

So, on the idea of the character stable, I tend to think that a building would be required to access this ability, something like "Cryo-stasis facility" which takes the previous glyph-bearer out of the world and brings a new one in. This keeps you from having 10 useless NPCs running around. You'd still need a glyph-transplant scroll to make the swap happen.

(... I'll add more to this when I'm not supposed to be working)