Out with upgrades, in with initial custom characters?

[zebramatt]

I just mantis'ed a suggestion: we keep thinking of character bonuses from living long and doing stuff as being XP-like ie. strength-related. What if the bonuses were more like an action game where you have multipliers until you lose them by dying? It would relate to the amount of consciousness shards you got, the quality of enchants, and perhaps the quality at which NPCs carry out guardian scroll duties (big storm shelter vs small storm shelter, longer continent abilities etc).

 

[Misery]

Alright, how about keeping the experience, but give it the ability to "upgrade" the Ilari as well, so that you can get small boosts (cumulative over time) to new characters in case of death, but the current character gets a larger boost?

Again, I'm talking only a very small boost per XP-based upgrade - no more than 2% of current stat per level, and you'd only get the points from bosses and missions.

If you have to kill 10 or so bosses per upgrade (depending on the settings of your difficulty options and the difficulty tier of the continent), it simply gives you the option to use that when you find the game is getting too difficult. And, yes, you could disable it at worldgen if you don't want to be tempted to find a manner in which you could level yourself to be as dangerous to the Overlord as the Overlord would be to you at initial generation.

I really don't understand why people are actually opposed to the idea of "enable the player to empower themselves." Is it a lack of self-control? A desire to NOT want to find a point of encouragement to keep playing the game? Eventually, you WILL grow bored of being so overwhelmingly powerful where you are, and actually seek out new challenge, whether it's in generating a new character or simply moving on to the next continent.

It isn't even about WANTING to have an easy ride (Or, at least, not about being given an easy-mode stick), it's about WANTING to feel that exploration and challenges can continue to make the character stronger. Simply turning down the difficulty doesn't make the character stronger, it makes the world weaker. Right now, as you continue to kill things, it unlocks new, more powerful, more dangerous enemies. But, it doesn't make the characters any stronger. The sole purpose of even bothering with taking out the lieutenants and overlord, is to progress. Yet, that progression is lost with every new continent you move on to. And that progression doesn't make you stronger, it makes the world stronger.

As it stands right now, if you kill a lieutenant and push the continental tier up, you are effectively weakening yourself. Even once you get the correct spells for that tier, you will only do, at best, about the same amount of damage in relation, yet you will take more damage, you unlock more danger, you make the world more challenging. So, using your very viewpoint, why should the player EVER bother trying to progress in the game, if it only serves to punish them with no form of reward?

You do so, for challenge. And challenge should always have its own reward. Otherwise it's challenge for the sake of challenge, which is just trying to create an unneeded meat gate. Increasing the difficulty, increasing the tiers, should come with a form of reward that you can't get at lower difficulty. You should be given a way to not just overcome the challenge, but to be able to override the challenge with persistence. Not everyone can progress the same way, and it would also mean that even between characters, the entire game feels different.

Then again, maybe I'm simply not the kind of gamer that should ever be able to find enjoyment in the game. I only have 42 hours into it so far, and I'm still just on the first continent, because I'm exploring. I wander around, I look for what there is to be found, I just set out for an hour or two at a time without checking back in at base. By saying that having a way of persistent character advancement (experience points) which can be used to make my character stronger, you are effectively saying that my method of playing the game is fundamentally -wrong-. That I shouldn't want to explore and see what there is to be seen. I have 8000 upgrade stones that will never be used, but I do wish I could upgrade my HP and damage more, because letting the world get stronger just makes things take longer for me to play the game in a way I want to play it. But simply completely removing the upgrade stones and giving me NO way to promote, enhance and power up my character after generation beyond excessively tiresome attempts to find better enchantments, doesn't make it any more desirable to play.

If I feel I am making progress, I keep working at it. Once the feeling of progression is gone, I look for a way to progress again. If there's no more room for progression beyond just making the game harder, I'm done playing. Especially with a game that has no end. If progression becomes difficult because it gets to be too grindy, even after I've done everything to minimize the grind, at least the option for progression is still there, but it means I can go find something else to do without being strictly punished for it. I can still "level" in the background, while playing the rest of the game. I can still look for things, and let the upgrades come to me as they do, once it's no longer something worth putting the conscious effort into. But if there simply IS no progression, nothing more than "You've done well, we shall now punish you for it" then why would I continue to play?

First of all, there are ALOT of ways to empower your character right now.  Granted, some of them really empower the entire civilization, but they're still the same in basic effect.   Running around and grabbing spell parts is one of them;   it is equivalent to finding a power item in Metroid, like say the Ice Beam, or the Varia, or the bombs, or whatever it is.   When you do this on any continent, you either get a totally new spell, or you make an existing spell more powerful.   

Enchants are the second way, and they can get pretty crazy at times depending on just what is going on, particularly as the game still has some screwy balance issues right now (Like JtP missions.... I'm damn near invincible in these right now because nothing can ever get the chance to even fire.....)

And so on and so forth.  You have ALOT of options in the game for making yourself stronger and giving yourself more and more tools to work with.



As for the difficulty.....  honestly, that's just how some games SHOULD work.   One problem I have with gaming lately is that so many games are SO bloody easy.  RPGs (for me) are by far the worst offenders, but it affects most genres;  this is why I havent bought a retail game in months, but am playing THIS absolutely to death, among certain other PC/indie titles as well.   The way progression works, as you put it, by "punishing" the player by getting harder as you go...... this is how MOST games used to work.   *MOST* of them.  It didn't used to be an uncommon thing.  NOWADAYS sure, it's very, very uncommon at least among retail titles.   But it didn't used to be.   

The idea is simple:  The further you get into the game, the harder it gets.  .....that's it.   That's the entire concept.  As you get closer and closer to the final battle or event or whatever, the challenge just keeps escalating.   That's how most games used to work.  And I think THIS one takes alot (quite alot) of inspiration from many older titles, as opposed to taking inspiration from current titles (thankfully!).

The idea wasnt to "punish" the player by making things difficult, or by not "empowering" their character.   The idea was that the player would practice..... they wouldnt empower their character, see.... they would empower THEMSELVES.  The PLAYER was the one that needed to get better, not just add numbers or abilities to their character so that enemies went squish real easy again.   A victory over such a game, that gets nastier and nastier as it goes on.... well, it used to feel like an actual victory.   You got better/stronger and eventually overcame the crazy crap the game threw at you, even if perhaps your CHARACTER was a bit weak, as was definitely the case in many games back then.  But winning one of those was just different;  alot of recent games, I dont bother to complete.   Why?   Because there's absolutely ZERO sense of accomplishment.  Alot of big games today are designed not to provide a challenge, but to tell a blasted story..... they make themselves easy, therefore, to get a chance to make sure every player hears that story so they think they got their money's worth.   

....Bloody irritating, if you ask me.  I find this really, REALLY boring, so I tend to just not bother buying those anymore.


As for what you mention about exploring..... that's totally fine!  Do so!  The game encourages it!  Right now you have alot of freedom with this.   You can play it in such a way where you just upgrade one or two spells, and then rush out and  try to smash the overlord/lieutenants/whatever.   Or you can do it as you say, and spend lots of time roaming around grabbing stuff.   You have alot of options right now, which is why I'm baffled that you seem to think otherwise.   Even with my generally aggressive playstyle, I'm pretty much doing the same in my own game;  I'm on continent 3, and I've lost track of just HOW MANY spells I have, and have upgraded.   I think I have ALL of the summons, for one thing.... and that wasnt easy to do.   The game is getting pretty tough at the point where I'm at, so I'm spending some time gathering some extra spells and such that might give me more options later on.   And no, this isnt the same idea as running around getting EXP, because none of these spells are, for example, allowing me to deal way more damage or take way more hits;  they tend to perform similiar functions to spells I already have, just in different ways (Ice Burst versus the Whip spells, for instance, is one that I've been working on, or the "rock" spells versus straight-shot types).

I don't see how farming for Enchants and Shards is less grindy than killing monsters for EXP.

I wouldnt know, as I've never once had to do either (and I never will), and I play only on high difficulties, so.....

But this is because the game is balanced enough that it NEVER *forces* a situation where doing one of those is the only way to progress (wheras RPGs often DO).    I can progress against even very crazy bosses by INCREASING MY OWN SKILL.  Not by increasing numbers.  So I've never grinded, unless spending 10 minutes to get 150 or so Moon Lamps counts (and THAT one feels more like exploration to me, more like getting Missiles in Metroid, rather than getting EXP in some RPG).


Also, Martyn van Buren there is right:  The game DID used to have a very similar "levels" system waaaaaaaaaayyyyyy back in the stone age of early beta, and frankly, it just made things WAY more annoying (and it HEAVILY limited exploration);  I suspect this is why it was removed.  You can probably find info on the exact ways it functioned somewhere, if you're interested, I dont know where though.   I dont recall the details well enough myself (my memory is TERRIBLE).

[SilverStar]

In a game like Metroid, progressing through the game unlocks new challenges. But, by and large, it doesn't increase the difficulty of the existing challenges. Getting the Varia or Gravity suits decrease the amount of damage you take from all sources, on top of increasing your own power. This means that the new difficulties are devised to make use of the new powers you get. Basic, trash mobs such as crawling enemies don't suddenly become stronger and require more attacks to take down, just because you pick up super missiles or the laser beam.

Instead, new challenges are introduced to compensate for your increased power. Some of these challenges are designed to replace the previous ones (see: Space Pirates evolving as a response to your increased threat to them, but not bringing unrelated monsters up in difficulty).

At no point in AVWW do the new challenges replace the old ones. They add on to them. Even at T5, you still have Water Amoeba that you have to kill. But, short of getting hugely powered enchants to increase your damage output, even getting to T5 for your spells won't allow you to kill them in one shot(based on the easiest modes).

Thus, the difficulty scales faster than character progression can achieve. Everything scales higher and faster than you do, even when you have all the spells and max them all out.

What is wrong with this, is that there's a detachment between "progression" and "difficulty." Progressing through the game will only make the game harder, it will not make you stronger. It will not unlock new skills, abilities or powers for you to overcome the new challenges. You don't unlock new weapons, go to with the new threats. You don't unlock new abilities to overcome the new challenges. You're not given some new method to take care of infestations, such as spikes, blades or even wall slimes. And you're not given any way to overcome them short of increasing personal skill or avoiding them entirely.

I support the earlier idea where you can unlock further upgrades for your character based on lieutenant and overlord kills. But, as it stands, your character will never be more powerful than the minute it's created and you've used upgrade stones to get your extra HP or mana or damage. At least by letting you get a few more upgrades per continent, it gives you the opportunity to play more conservatively (as should be, given the world), while still enabling the character to become more powerful.

What's needed, is SOME way for the characters themselves to become more powerful over time, to counter the increasing threat from the world, instead of just giving the world a way to become more powerful to overcome the characters within it.

[Misery]

In a game like Metroid, progressing through the game unlocks new challenges. But, by and large, it doesn't increase the difficulty of the existing challenges. Getting the Varia or Gravity suits decrease the amount of damage you take from all sources, on top of increasing your own power. This means that the new difficulties are devised to make use of the new powers you get. Basic, trash mobs such as crawling enemies don't suddenly become stronger and require more attacks to take down, just because you pick up super missiles or the laser beam.

Instead, new challenges are introduced to compensate for your increased power. Some of these challenges are designed to replace the previous ones (see: Space Pirates evolving as a response to your increased threat to them, but not bringing unrelated monsters up in difficulty).

At no point in AVWW do the new challenges replace the old ones. They add on to them. Even at T5, you still have Water Amoeba that you have to kill. But, short of getting hugely powered enchants to increase your damage output, even getting to T5 for your spells won't allow you to kill them in one shot(based on the easiest modes).

Thus, the difficulty scales faster than character progression can achieve. Everything scales higher and faster than you do, even when you have all the spells and max them all out.

What is wrong with this, is that there's a detachment between "progression" and "difficulty." Progressing through the game will only make the game harder, it will not make you stronger. It will not unlock new skills, abilities or powers for you to overcome the new challenges. You don't unlock new weapons, go to with the new threats. You don't unlock new abilities to overcome the new challenges. You're not given some new method to take care of infestations, such as spikes, blades or even wall slimes. And you're not given any way to overcome them short of increasing personal skill or avoiding them entirely.

I support the earlier idea where you can unlock further upgrades for your character based on lieutenant and overlord kills. But, as it stands, your character will never be more powerful than the minute it's created and you've used upgrade stones to get your extra HP or mana or damage. At least by letting you get a few more upgrades per continent, it gives you the opportunity to play more conservatively (as should be, given the world), while still enabling the character to become more powerful.

What's needed, is SOME way for the characters themselves to become more powerful over time, to counter the increasing threat from the world, instead of just giving the world a way to become more powerful to overcome the characters within it.

Actually that's just an effect of Metroid being..... well, it's REALLY unbalanced.

The original came out during the time when games like the brutally difficult Kid Icarus were the norm, but Metroid's difficulty curve is actually BACKWARDS.   As much as I like the series, it definitely has a few problems, and that's one of them.

It starts out hard, but..... well, by the time you have even just the Varia and one energy tank, you're basically invincible.  Nothing can stop you, BECAUSE of the way the game handles difficulty/challenge.   It is, in fact, an extremely easy game.  Only the Metroids are ANY threat whatsoever past that point, and even then, they're basically braindead and tend to come at you one at a time (occaisionally getting stuck on things), and one Ice Beam shot is all you need to defeat them, the missiles being a mere formality.


Anyway, that's always been, to me, the WRONG way of doing difficulty.  Again, I like the Metroid-vania type games in a general sense, but there isnt even ONE of them that provides anything resembling a challenge (The Castlevania games of this type have the same backwards curve to them).   They're fun to play through once in a "see new areas" sort of way, but kinda dull after that.


And really, if they DID offer more of a real, increasing challenge..... they'd be more INTERESTING.   The last thing I want to do is run through a corridor and just Screw Attack everything to death in one hit, as happens REALLY often in Metroid.  I end up wondering..... what the hell was the POINT of that corridor?  It was basically impossible to even take any real damage in there, and the enemies just sorta died in my general direction, so...... it exists merely to waste my time?  The game could have simply done without it.

Like what you mention with the blue Amoebas; if there comes a point when I can kill them in one strike, that instantly means I dont want to fight them anymore, because what's the bloody point?  Why even HAVE them there?  If the game is gonna do THAT, just skip the bloody boss and get to something less boring.


And a specific part of the quote here:

What is wrong with this, is that there's a detachment between "progression" and "difficulty." Progressing through the game will only make the game harder, it will not make you stronger. It will not unlock new skills, abilities or powers for you to overcome the new challenges. You don't unlock new weapons, go to with the new threats. You don't unlock new abilities to overcome the new challenges. You're not given some new method to take care of infestations, such as spikes, blades or even wall slimes. And you're not given any way to overcome them short of increasing personal skill or avoiding them entirely.

Yes, you are in fact given methods to use to deal with things like spikes, blades, and wallslimes.   But you have to realize that they EXIST, and realize what they can do, so you can go after them.

For the traps, both of the teleport spells (preferrably the less-screwy Greater Teleport) can be used to circumvent and avoid them, as can the Bat scrolls, and in some cases the.... er.... tiny dino scrolls (though that one is *really* situational).  If you need to (or just want to) deal with them without THOSE measures, you have access to shields, which can assist in preserving your health if you should make a mistake when dealing with them.   You also have platforms you can place..... worried about a few static spikes that you might land on during a fight?  Place some platforms over them, and if you fall back down there, you land on THOSE instead.     For the slimes, again, the shield can help; but also you can use the very-powerful Ice Burst to remove a few of the things if they're being a problem;  want to use the shield AND ice burst at the same time?  Invest in some mana recharge enchants, or simply step back to the previous (cleared) room, or into a warp portal, and activate a mana regen guardian scroll.  Maybe even a Water Wrath scroll or whatever those are called to damage the slimes faster.   

The game gives you *lots* of options like this.   The problem is it seems many players dont USE them;  as I understand it, alot of players tend to just get a few of the "blast things" direct shot spells, and..... that's about it.   Wheras I'm playing through and unlocking LOTS of spells, and finding uses for even alot of the really screwy ones (like Summon Tornado), AND actually using the Guardian Scrolls instead of just ignoring them, which all adds to the options available for dealing with a situation.   And things like this are exactly WHY I dont think the game needs character upgrades beyond what little is already there.   If the player isnt making use of all the options available to them, and THEN complains about the difficulty..... that's not the game, that's the player's fault.  Try new things.  EXPERIMENT.   Dont just rely on bloody numbers;  there's all sorts of other games that'll let you do THAT.


But the best way to deal with anything is still...... increase your own skill.   Frankly, that's the way it SHOULD be, and it's a huge part of the reason why I play this game, and I sure as heck hope it stays that way..

[SilverStar]

Then how about just locking all the enemy types behind gates, instead of ONLY making the world get harder? As you make the world get stronger, have weak enemies simply be replaced. Make the world have a progression arc, instead of a simple difficulty arc? By T3 they already start that, with monsters roaming to nearby parts of the map, but take it further and get rid of weaker in favor of stronger, so that by T3 you never see water amoeba (but they don't get stronger at T2, you just start seeing Fire amoeba then instead), so that the challenge can be defined by the difficulty of the enemies and NOT just their stats?

It would also mean being able to lock specific enchantment qualities to certain tiers, so you don't become overpowered too soon through methods such as farming shards in the storm, but do still have the encouragement to forge ahead in order to become more powerful. Progress until you're par for the area/difficulty, then push ahead.

In any case, the balance of this game does need tweaking. It does seem to punish taking your time to be thorough, much like AI War (Where if you take your time, build your forces and secure the galaxy, eventually you will be almost completely unable to defeat the enemy), and encourage you to minmax and ignore as much as possible (don't bother with small structures, they don't have enough rooms to have any valuable goods, just focus on the largest structures you can, do as many missions as you can to get spells, then challenge the bosses and do it over until you hit the next continent to start off fresh).

In a few places, I know the developers have said they WANT to give as many different avenues of progression as possible to the game. Whether it's by building your settlement up to higher quality in order to have a wider range of skills, spells, scrolls and people to pick from, or to go raid in order to find powerful, rare items and enchantments, or to simply get to know the world itself as best as possible and focus on learning the back story through puzzle rooms. i just offer some form of experience/dedicated character progression as another avenue, as another way to overcome the challenges.

And, really, if you're able to get through a building rescue mission where the NPC to rescue only has 27HP and it's loaded with enemies, spike traps and razor traps, I'd be impressed. I had 3 of those in a row, before the game finally stopped spawning infestations in rescue missions.

[Misery]

Then how about just locking all the enemy types behind gates, instead of ONLY making the world get harder? As you make the world get stronger, have weak enemies simply be replaced. Make the world have a progression arc, instead of a simple difficulty arc? By T3 they already start that, with monsters roaming to nearby parts of the map, but take it further and get rid of weaker in favor of stronger, so that by T3 you never see water amoeba (but they don't get stronger at T2, you just start seeing Fire amoeba then instead), so that the challenge can be defined by the difficulty of the enemies and NOT just their stats?

It would also mean being able to lock specific enchantment qualities to certain tiers, so you don't become overpowered too soon through methods such as farming shards in the storm, but do still have the encouragement to forge ahead in order to become more powerful. Progress until you're par for the area/difficulty, then push ahead.

In any case, the balance of this game does need tweaking. It does seem to punish taking your time to be thorough, much like AI War (Where if you take your time, build your forces and secure the galaxy, eventually you will be almost completely unable to defeat the enemy), and encourage you to minmax and ignore as much as possible (don't bother with small structures, they don't have enough rooms to have any valuable goods, just focus on the largest structures you can, do as many missions as you can to get spells, then challenge the bosses and do it over until you hit the next continent to start off fresh).

In a few places, I know the developers have said they WANT to give as many different avenues of progression as possible to the game. Whether it's by building your settlement up to higher quality in order to have a wider range of skills, spells, scrolls and people to pick from, or to go raid in order to find powerful, rare items and enchantments, or to simply get to know the world itself as best as possible and focus on learning the back story through puzzle rooms. i just offer some form of experience/dedicated character progression as another avenue, as another way to overcome the challenges.

And, really, if you're able to get through a building rescue mission where the NPC to rescue only has 27HP and it's loaded with enemies, spike traps and razor traps, I'd be impressed. I had 3 of those in a row, before the game finally stopped spawning infestations in rescue missions.

Infestations in rescue missions sounds like more of an oversight to me than anything (since the braindead AI of the person you're saving obviously isnt gonna be bright about avoiding them).   I expect that'll get patched out later.  The rescue missions normally though are easy as all heck so long as you're careful. 


I really dont get where you're finding the game punishing you for being "thorough" however.   I tend to run all over the place and explore ALOT, and I've never run into that.   It's not like the game ever says "Hey, you've been exploring too many of these buildings, so this one is now ON FIRE WITH BEES!!!!".    The devs have already stated that they intend on doing things like having more unique items appear in different types of buildings, so that you have REASON to go after all those stashes, so that's a non-issue at the moment.  They'll get to it when they can.

Removing so-called "weak" enemies though still doesnt sound like a good idea.

The blue Amoeba boss, for example.  By itself in a normal room in a normal situation, it's pretty easy.   But the game often does not work that way.  This normally easy boss can become a real threat depending on the situation.   Imagine, say, a boss gang mission.  This mission has a blue amoeba, a giant mecha bee, and maybe that horrid green frog thing, and takes place in a rather narrow sort of room as opposed to one of the big wide ones (and these narrow/cramped ones definitely exist).   The blue dude in another situation might not be so nasty, but in THAT situation..... you better kill it fast, because it's slow bolts that SLIDE on things and tend to stick around are going to cause you alot of trouble;  you already have to run from the bee, AND jump over Frog Jerk's endless green blobs, but with the blue guy around you ALSO have to worry about landing in water bolts, or even smacking into them if you go up near the cieling; not to mention running into them in the air, since they travel slowly (faster bullets does NOT always equal more difficult to dodge).   This is a concept seen in shmups ALOT, where even weak foes can become REALLY REALLY BAD if they are put into certain situations that produce certain types of patterns.   I've noticed this sort of thing happen in this game quite a bit, though obviously it's very random;  you never know when it's going to happen.   The game can obviously randomize it so that you get an enormous room with 4 shadowbats and one bull (I had this one earlier), which is stupid easy.   I've gotten killed by those same shadowbats though in other situations where the area + conditions caused them to become very dangerous.   This sort of idea seems to be part of the game's design as a whole.

.....that's an awful text brick, hopefully that makes actual sense.   I'm never sure if I do entirely make sense when explaining stuff, haha.

[x4000]

Okay, thanks for the feedback everybody -- this has given us a lot to think about, but this topic is getting so large and unruly that I really don't think that having it continue in this fashion is going to make it so that new readers can reasonably catch up on it.  My thinking about the whole thing has shifted considerably thanks to the feedback here, so I'm going to lock this topic and start a new one that starts from that new point instead. 

That way you folks can start poking holes in that instead, and new readers will have less to catch up on.

EDIT: And here's the new thread: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10776.0.html