Penalty for death? Nah. Extra-curricular reward for staying alive!

[mrhanman]

Would this include leaderboards?

[Zozma]

I like the idea of being rewarded for performing well over being punished for failure, especially when failure is supposed to be inevitable.

[Drjones013]

This seems to be a really good compromise. Possibly including a 'character achievement' (how many missions did the avatar do, how many enemies did s/he kill, etc) could also give a feeling of 'job well done' and perhaps even a bit of a sentimental note (only two more missions and I woulda hit 100).

[MouldyK]

This seems to be a really good compromise. Possibly including a 'character achievement' (how many missions did the avatar do, how many enemies did s/he kill, etc) could also give a feeling of 'job well done' and perhaps even a bit of a sentimental note (only two more missions and I woulda hit 100).

Then I am so gonna be saying "Damn, and he only has 2 more days till retirement." alot xD

[Psyren]

I like the idea of 'famous' retired characters granting some sort of small mentorship bonus to your settlement, or a small continent-wide buff to characters...

It make perfect sense, you know: the wise old adventurer who has many stories to share, and plenty of knowledge to bestow unto up and coming glyphbearers...

[zebramatt]

This seems to be a really good compromise. Possibly including a 'character achievement' (how many missions did the avatar do, how many enemies did s/he kill, etc) could also give a feeling of 'job well done' and perhaps even a bit of a sentimental note (only two more missions and I woulda hit 100).

Then I am so gonna be saying "Damn, and he only has 2 more days till retirement." alot xD

 

[Drjones013]

This seems to be a really good compromise. Possibly including a 'character achievement' (how many missions did the avatar do, how many enemies did s/he kill, etc) could also give a feeling of 'job well done' and perhaps even a bit of a sentimental note (only two more missions and I woulda hit 100).

Then I am so gonna be saying "Damn, and he only has 2 more days till retirement." alot xD

 

LOL

[x4000]

Regarding the question of leaderboards: maybe.  One of Tom Chick's big suggestions to me was doing something like "Radnet" in Prototype 2, and this could tie well into something along those lines.

[timesend]

I would like to see skins as a reward for a player/ character surviving for a certain amount of time, basicaly it would mean that no gameplay balance issues are caused by rewarding players and yet you give a player a feeling of accomplishment for surviving, I would make it so what needed to unlock skins is random, it is stated that you are able to unlock them but not exactly what does. Stuff like red wild age creatures or a gold suit of armor will always make players happy. Even if they do absolutly nothing.

[BenMiff]

I do like the skins idea.

However, a slight tweak to the idea of saying you can unlock them but not how - instead, say at what score each skin is unlocked, but that the skin received will be randomly chosen from those skins that you don't already have.

(I'd also suggest that not all the skins be characters; I'd like to see unlocking different coldsuit and heatsuit skins too.)

[tigersfan]

Nice idea. Unfortunately, with the way the art is done in the game, skins aren't really possible.

[timesend]

Ok thxs for reply about skins, a shame but nevermind. I am all in favour of the fame idea, but I have two suggestions, firstly I would prefer fame xp to be hidden so people cant know how much they are gaining, thus stopping the idea of fame farming.

Secondly I was wondering if their could be two types of fame, individual fame and settlement fame, the settlement fame acts as an incidary to the overlord and the higher it gets the more he is angered, (possibly leading to more mob spawn, or high damage). Given incentive for players to keep many characters alive and rewarding multiplayer games.

[Quaix]

How about an 'inspiration' system. Basically the character gets 'inspired' from overcoming challenges in the game with which he gains deeper understanding of the world.

 - Each action of significance has a chance of producing an inspiration. "You are inspired by recent events and gain a deeper understanding of the world."
 - Completing missions and killing overlords will have a large chance of an inspiration. Killing common enemies could give a small chance.
 - Inspirations act as small permanent bonus to all your stats. Health, attack, etc.
 - The bonus is 0% at 0 inspiration and asymptotically approaches 10% as inspiration goes to infinity. So you multiply all affected stats by (1.1 - 1/(10+I)), where I is accumulated inspiration points. This means inspiration isn't capped, but its effect is.
 - Not deterministic like XP system. Sometimes you'll get two inspirations in a row, and at other times you'll go for a while without getting one at all.
 - The 10% limit means the character won't be crippled upon death, yet it's significant enough to be felt when lost on death. It's not significant enough to make a player compelled to grind it.
 - Could have a 'high score' for your characters with highest inspiration. Similar to my character graveyard suggestion.
 - In essence the longer you play your character the stronger he gets, but with diminishing returns. Rewarded for staying alive.