Spell gem tiers aren't fun

[KDR_11k]

5 tiers per gem is definitely far too fast, for all the very many reasons we stopped using them

I meant that you should keep the 10 level decay delay but allow us to get a new tier every 5 levels so e.g. if we're level 25 we can get a tier 6 gem for that awesome rare commodity we just found instead of having to wait until we're good enough to take on level 29-30 caves or wasting a lot of level range on our new gem.

[x4000]

5 tiers per gem is definitely far too fast, for all the very many reasons we stopped using them

I meant that you should keep the 10 level decay delay but allow us to get a new tier every 5 levels so e.g. if we're level 25 we can get a tier 6 gem for that awesome rare commodity we just found instead of having to wait until we're good enough to take on level 29-30 caves or wasting a lot of level range on our new gem.

Right, that's what I was referring to as being way too fast.  That means that you're at tier XVI gems by the time you hit level 80.  That's waaaay faster than we'd meant.  The end design direction is for there to be so vastly many spell choices by the time you get to higher tiers that you're not able to craft remotely all of them before you hit the next tier.  Which means that everyone winds up with a very customized loadout, like in AI War.  But that's pretty incompatible with constant turnover in tiers, and the constant turnover in tiers just adds a treadmill-like effect that is just too much time pressure to begin with.

[KDR_11k]

It wouldn't be more turnover since they'd still be good for 10 levels from their tier level, just the option to grab a new gem more often if you e.g. got a rare ingredient and want to use that on the next tier step. Currently that can take many levels before you're able to get that new tier even though you're still at a point where crafting your rare spell with the old tier would give you a much smaller usage level span than you could get. E.g. when you're at level 25 you don't want to waste your rare item on a tier 3 spell but you'll have trouble getting a tier 4 gem so you leave that item sitting in your inventory for a while.

I.e. a tier 1 is for levels 0-10, a tier 2 for 5-15, a tier 3 for 10-20, ... You would still get a new gem every 10 levels if you just want to maintain one specific spell but you get the option of getting a gem with the full 10 levels left on it every 5 levels. That would realistically always leave you able to get ingredients for a new spell that would last at least 9 levels.

Or maybe it could even be set up so a gem is always valid for 10 levels from the chunk level it was found in.

[Nalgas]

Similarly, If this were say, Diablo, then you would experiencing the same thing, you would be fighting through groups of enemies with slowly increasing stats, making your weapons relatively worse, until *clang* something drops a weapon with higher stats and you are back to parity.

The only real difference here is that this is honest about the lack of actual increase.

It's not exactly Diablo, but after convincing my friend he should play Titan Quest, he dragged me back into it to play co-op recently.  It may in some ways effectively amount to "treading water" over time in terms of your strength compared to the enemies (although that depends on how good of a build you use and how far into the game you are; you can improve more quickly than they do if you know what you're doing or get way behind if you make really poor decisions), but it doesn't feel like it in the same way, for a few different reasons.

In a game like that, as you level up your stats increase, you gain more skills, and you get new equipment.  The equipment may at times be just a replacement of the old stuff with higher numbers on it that just counteracts the higher stats the enemies have, but even then it has a different name and looks different, so it feels like a change, and a lot of the time it's actually something that is functionally different in some way.  Adding some extra type of bonus damage to your attacks, giving you elemental resistances, lowering the cooldown time of your skills, granting unique abilities, etc. all give a lot more variety than just "yay you have the same thing as you did before with the number adjusted to compensate for the enemies being a higher level now".

And that's not even counting the separate skill progression, which works on a different scale and rewards the player in a different way and with a different frequency and can also have synergy with the equipment.  Obviously AVWW will have more of that added later on, but pretty much the entirety of its progression is crammed into one system at the moment (get more gems, make more (of the same) spells), so it seems a little silly to compare it to an MMO or ARPG that has vastly more depth and tricks to hide the way things are done and players are rewarded to keep them from getting sick of it.  Even other Metroidvania games have much more player-visible change/reward in terms of progression and power increase over time compared to AVWW's current state.

Of course, most of the spells are still missing, and everyone seems to forget that crests and enchants and things like that don't even exist yet, all of which should have a non-trivial affect on how all of that plays out during people's time in the game, to put it mildly.  Getting too invested arguing about how to balance it based on the lack of existence of most of its features is kind of silly in some ways.  Heh.

[x4000]

We could debate this all day, because it's mostly subjective.  I'm not trying to brush you off, but I can't think of a way to say it that isn't just repeating what I already said. 

Although, I do have one thing to add: you make excellent points about the increased viability of stuff based on making sure that they always last 9 levels at least.  But let's assume that you have the choice of upgrading a spell every 5 levels or every 10 levels, and it then lasts for 9-14 levels.

Either:

1. Those are identical early on in, and utterly pointless.

2. Or the one that is higher-level and will last for 14 levels is awesomely better and makes everything easier, thus making people complain about the uneven difficulty.

3. Or the one that is higher-level and will last for 14 levels is what you really need unless you are insanely good at the game, making the game way too hard if you don't grind the gems all the time.


The basic rule of thumb that I have learned from AI War is that if you make an un-fun or repetitive activity that can nevertheless be used to gain a gameplay advantage, players will undertake that activity repeatedly and then complain about it constantly.  For many of them there is no "I'll do this when I feel like it, or have a special need."  It's "I want to play optimally, and you've made the 'optimal' way un-fun, and I want you to make it fun."

We're also striving for a balance between simplicity and complexity here.  Especially right when you are getting started with the game, having to suddenly upgrade your gems right as you are getting the hang of things doesn't add anything but extra complexity.  Just as players are hitting level 5 and getting some new kinds of spells, and other parts of the game are unlocking, they also have to replace all their existing gems?  Or at least have the option?  It just doesn't work out very kindly except to the very hardcore, in my opinion.


In general I'm quite attached to the 10-levels thing instead of the 5-levels thing, for a whole slew of reasons including but not limited to the above, in short.  It's one of those things that, to me at least, "just fits" -- like starting with 3 hearts in every Zelda game.  There are a lot of parts of the game that aren't finished evolving yet, but the tiers-to-levels relationship I'm feeling pretty solid about.  Never say never, of course, but you know.

[x4000]

Of course, most of the spells are still missing, and everyone seems to forget that crests and enchants and things like that don't even exist yet, all of which should have a non-trivial affect on how all of that plays out during people's time in the game, to put it mildly.  Getting too invested arguing about how to balance it based on the lack of existence of most of its features is kind of silly in some ways.  Heh.

Right -- if this were a linear Zelda game, the amount of content in here is like getting to the first dungeon and beating the boss.  It's actually more than that, but in the scope of what the end balance is to be, that's a pretty good percentage indicator.