I really like the idea of getting a “reset” at each continent. This makes the player arc more of a sin curve, which is great for an infinite game. I also think I would be more comfortable with the system of reset over things just breaking like in the degradation system. When things break I feel it was my fault and I shouldn’t have let it happen.
Also, making it more like the AI War concept of base plus bonus is awesome, but I would like to add one thing that I hope hasn’t already been suggested. A lot of brainstorming has gone on here, and I’ve probably missed half of it.
Players like “becoming more powerful” and nothing like bigger numbers gives you that feeling. Doing 9999 damage in Final Fantasy is awesome. There used to be damage scaling before with the infinite tier system, but it became untenable for a whole host of different mathematical reasons of scaling and effects over the long term: early levels being too strong, late levels being too weak, exponential number grown etc.
Now with the change to continents, the number scaling could be brought back on a per continent basis. If you have seen a game called “30 Second Hero” on the Sony PSP, it had a very interesting play mechanic. Each level was a different JRPG “game” that started with the player at level 1, but able to carry over equipment from level to level. You started out dealing little damage and had to level up over the course of 30 seconds until you were doing massive damage to monsters with more life. Then, it all restarted the next level.
In AVWW there could still be tiers for spell gems, but it would be a straight upgrade to existing spell gems through the new crafting system. A fireball gem would start at tier 1, and be upgraded to 3 or so, giving the nice Fire, Fira, Firaga type effect. The tier of the gem would be based on the continent, not the gem itself, so on any previous continent the gem would still work at whatever highest tier was unlocked.
This all depends on the chosen difficulty curve across a whole continent. You don’t want it to be flat; this would help with giving more life to monsters in later regions and provide extra methods for gating. If each tier was double or triple, it would show a huge increase in numbers and provide a method of “leveling up” and feeling more powerful.
The more I think about it you could probably even just upgrade all the spell gems at once for the same gating type mechanic. It doesn’t feel as special on the per-spell increase but gives the tier to all the players at once. That way if you are at tier 3 on a continent, players just joining in would have that benefit too without being left behind.
I like the mechanics in the health redesign a lot too, so what is considered to be “100%” could change based on tier as well.
As for the gating I mentioned, this would give the player the ability to level up over monsters appearing early on a continent and need to gain power to progress through harder content. To me, being barred by a locked door is not as fun as being barred by challenge. I can do nothing with a locked door but find the key whereas challenge can be overcome. If there were, say, 10 tiers with a 50% increase between them, a group of players may be able to fight in harder regions through team work or great skill. It might even allow the skipping of tiers and players being able to progress at a rate of their own choosing.
Locked doors are great, but I think both together works better.
