Brainstorming ideas for minor rewards for defeating enemies.

[keith.lamothe]

Keith: Yeah, I thought about that, but it seems like in multiplayer that could really go nuts.  I'm not sure.

Any more nuts than enchant-container gathering in MP?

That's a good idea if the player maintains the philosophy of only killing the monsters that it needs to, but the more manic players will kill every monster, not realizing that they'd be better off spending their time on other activities in the game.

In my opinion, whatever gets implemented, needs to be something that has no chance of being misinterpreted as something that can or should be grinded.

Well, why?  Is Diablo fun?  Does it encourage killing everything?  Are there more-interesting/more-fun ways to progress than intentionally clearing areas in that game?  I think the answer to all those is 'yes'.

In order to literally have no chance of that misinterpretation, the monsters need to give no reward that is more lasting than the current health drops or possibly cave-story-ish drops.  If it gives anything that's even partial progress towards a permanent gain, that misinterpretation becomes possible.  The real question is: is it more important to avoid that misinterpretation, or is it more important to provide an interesting (albeit very-small-bit-towards-something-interesting) reward for killing trash?

[HellishFiend]

In order to literally have no chance of that misinterpretation, the monsters need to give no reward that is more lasting than the current health drops or possibly cave-story-ish drops.  If it gives anything that's even partial progress towards a permanent gain, that misinterpretation becomes possible.  The real question is: is it more important to avoid that misinterpretation, or is it more important to provide an interesting (albeit very-small-bit-towards-something-interesting) reward for killing trash?

I know the topic says "rewards for defeating enemies", but I feel that the actual point here is twofold: to make the slaying or avoidance of enemies be more meaningful than it currently is, and to attract newbies to actually purchase the game after trying the demo (Trash mobs are extremely relevant in that scenario). Chris raises a good point, there is already somewhat of a reward system due to the fact that mobs all drop health orbs. That, however, doesnt solve the problem of your generic, ignorant (I dont mean that in a negative way) newbie writing off the game because there is no point to killing enemies with all his flashy cool spells.

This game has a lot of potential to draw in new players to it that didn't previously play or enjoy games of this type. That being said, it should strive hard to bridge the gap between the types of games they enjoy (probably action RPGs, or top-down/side-scrolling shooters, where killing everything is encouraged and rewarded), and the kind of game it actually is.

Just looking out for you guys. As a pure consumer when it comes to games, I feel it is important to help you guys figure out how to generate sales and draw customers, rather than simply fine tuning the game for our enjoyment. 

[x4000]

Keith: Yeah, I thought about that, but it seems like in multiplayer that could really go nuts.  I'm not sure.

Any more nuts than enchant-container gathering in MP?

Well, actually, we probably need to have that divide by the number of players active on the server at the time, or something, come to think of it.  If we did that, we'd need to multiply the enchant point scale a lot in order to be able to keep it an integer.  And then really it would need to be  Int64 to be safe if we did that.  That would be... doable, I think.  And in that sense, we could do it for monsters, too.

That's a good idea if the player maintains the philosophy of only killing the monsters that it needs to, but the more manic players will kill every monster, not realizing that they'd be better off spending their time on other activities in the game.

In my opinion, whatever gets implemented, needs to be something that has no chance of being misinterpreted as something that can or should be grinded.

Well, why?  Is Diablo fun?  Does it encourage killing everything?  Are there more-interesting/more-fun ways to progress than intentionally clearing areas in that game?  I think the answer to all those is 'yes'.

In order to literally have no chance of that misinterpretation, the monsters need to give no reward that is more lasting than the current health drops or possibly cave-story-ish drops.  If it gives anything that's even partial progress towards a permanent gain, that misinterpretation becomes possible.  The real question is: is it more important to avoid that misinterpretation, or is it more important to provide an interesting (albeit very-small-bit-towards-something-interesting) reward for killing trash?

Ninja'd by HF, but he made a lot of my points for me.  With Diablo, I would say, though, that the entire grinding cycle is at the very core of what that game is.  That's not exactly a stretch.   But we don't really include that in any sort of satisfactory way, nor do we want to.  So anything that misleads players into thinking that's what they are here for is going to a) be misleading, which is bad in the first place; and b) lead to disappointment if they think we're a not-good version of Diablo Lite, versus a (hopefully) good version of something completely else.

Perhaps there needs to be some education in the intro mission about "your only source of healing is killing the trash mobs, so be careful with that!"  And in that sense, perhaps the neutral Ilari stone in the intro mission needs to go away, since he heals you.  That would actually give a more correct introduction to what the game actually is, without having to twist anything.  But I'm not sure.

[HellishFiend]

With Diablo, I would say, though, that the entire grinding cycle is at the very core of what that game is.  That's not exactly a stretch.   But we don't really include that in any sort of satisfactory way, nor do we want to.  So anything that misleads players into thinking that's what they are here for is going to a) be misleading, which is bad in the first place; and b) lead to disappointment if they think we're a not-good version of Diablo Lite, versus a (hopefully) good version of something completely else.

My thoughts exactly.

Perhaps there needs to be some education in the intro mission about "your only source of healing is killing the trash mobs, so be careful with that!"  And in that sense, perhaps the neutral Ilari stone in the intro mission needs to go away, since he heals you.  That would actually give a more correct introduction to what the game actually is, without having to twist anything.  But I'm not sure.

Now that you mention it, that is an excellent idea and should defintely make it in the game at some point, in my opinion. I still think the current system of interaction with the trash mobs needs some work though. Not to create too much of a sense of urgency, but it would probably be best to rework it before launch, as there are a great many players that will look at the game/play the demo once at launch, and then not come back to look at it again later (or at least not until it reaches non-profitable price points). Like I said before, as a consumer, I cant stress enough the importance of how the basic interaction system with trash mobs in a game affects the decision to purchase. It is one of the first things most players look at, if not the only thing in cases where they decide to write it off early.

[Terraziel]

I think what bothers me about the rubber band idea is that implies, if not outright states, that there is a "correct" way to play the game, which clearly there isn't.
It is, and should be an entirely valid choice to not kill anything but the bare minimum of enemies. It is, and should be an entirely valid choice to kill everything that crosses your path.

This is why the current system doesn't bother me, through not providing incentives to combat it is entirely up to player choice. I mean, what we are endeavoring to do here is change people's minds about the way they play the game.
The issue as it was presented was that players WANT to fight but don't, and that combat needs a "carrot". If the players reaction to a binary decision about whether or not to engage in combat is "Why bother with it?" To me what that says is these people aren't finding combat fun.

Now personally, I think that is more likely to be down to the difficulty levels and balance, than it is a fundamental issue with combat. Adding enemies in more vital places, whilst clearly a good idea, isn't actually going to change the fun of combat for these people.

[Underfot]

Personally, I would find Martyn's suggestion quite rewarding - trash enemies  mobbing up on occasion and having some guiding AI. 
For instance:  There are three skelebots and two espers standing/floating close together in front of a building.  They don't attack or move.  When you get within distance X they all turn to face you.  When you attack or get within distance Y they all rush you.   I would feel good about surviving that.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, another couple random thoughts:

- Along with president van Buren's (that's some longevity, man) suggestion, have some "guard points" seed enchant containers that are thus kind of difficulty/perilous to get without killing the monsters.  No direct reward from killing them, just a matter of how risky you want to play it.

- When you kill a monster that's credit towards an unlock, show the current progress towards that unlock.

[HellishFiend]

The issue as it was presented was that players WANT to fight but don't, and that combat needs a "carrot".

Yes, but I think the actual issue here is bridging the gap for those players so that they cross over to the way the game was meant to be played. That involves two things: educating players on how the game works, and providing some kind of mechanic that makes the killing or non-killing of the trash mobs relevant in some way (which it already has, to a limited degree).

This isn't minecraft. It's not the kind of game where you can stand behind giving a player a map and a set of game mechanics and telling them they can do whatever they want. In minecraft, there is no chance of players misinterpreting the game, buying/trying the game under that misinterpretation, and trying to make it into something it isnt.  With AVWW, that scenario exists. It has elements of minecraft, sure, but it also has elements you see in shooters and action RPGs, and those elements need to be properly delineated and/or well-represented in the game to draw and keep a playerbase.

[zebramatt]

Perhaps there needs to be some education in the intro mission about "your only source of healing is killing the trash mobs, so be careful with that!"  And in that sense, perhaps the neutral Ilari stone in the intro mission needs to go away, since he heals you.  That would actually give a more correct introduction to what the game actually is, without having to twist anything.  But I'm not sure.

I'm... not sure. Metroid doesn't give me any indication enemies heal me until, you know, I kill one and the pick-up heals me. And right off the bat I can recharge at my ship.

Come to think of it, in Super Metroid there's also an abundance of save stations scattered about which heal you too. And enemies are practically guaranteed to give you health (or missiles, etc.). And bosses give you loads. So it's pretty different from Valley at the moment, where kills don't actually guarantee anything; but are the only way to heal in the wild.

[Ixiohm]

I like Martyn's suggestion as well, and here comes my twist

I like the general idea of making the rewards from trash mobs similar to  the cave story buffs, however I fear it will conflict too much with the upgrade stone and enchant systems, which has already been pointed out. Therefore I came to approach a solution from a slightly different angle.

I like games where when you get more powerful, it gets reflected in others reactions towards you, and this works as a kind of reward. If I recall right, Borderlands for example have this - if you approach a group of low level Skaggs when you are many levels higher than them, they will run away.  This is a quite subtle system that ideally wouldn't even needed be explained to the player.

The core idea is that instead of altering the glyph bearer you alter the mobs reactions to the glyph bearer. As monsters are killed the glyph bearer rises thru a few menacing-ranks. The enemies then alters their behavior depending on the menacing rank.   

[Terraziel]

- Along with president van Buren's (that's some longevity, man) suggestion, have some "guard points" seed enchant containers that are thus kind of difficulty/perilous to get without killing the monsters.  No direct reward from killing them, just a matter of how risky you want to play it.

After a fashion I would argue that is what stashes in buildings are already.

- When you kill a monster that's credit towards an unlock, show the current progress towards that unlock.

Loosely related to this but, personally I think the unlocks are all a tad low. I generally unlock half of them before i am even out of tier 1

Edit: On further reflection I am coming back to this being a difficulty concern, or perhaps more specifically, a damage to healing ratio concern, on the highest difficulty it can take half a dozen enemies worth of healing orbs to make up for one mistake, this makes the way you interact with trash mobs a lot more complex.

[BobTheJanitor]

Enemies that block things would just encourage me to pop a shield and run through them. That's pretty much what I do right now if I run across something like a clockwork probe in the way of an enchant container. If it's weaker, I might stop and shoot it. So if the desired effect is to make monster interactions more meaningful, I don't think having them in the way would do much. Running across anything in a small hallway is pretty much already a monster in the way.

[Terraziel]

Enemies that block things would just encourage me to pop a shield and run through them. That's pretty much what I do right now if I run across something like a clockwork probe in the way of an enchant container. If it's weaker, I might stop and shoot it. So if the desired effect is to make monster interactions more meaningful, I don't think having them in the way would do much. Running across anything in a small hallway is pretty much already a monster in the way.

To me that just says shields are too powerful, as well as highlighting that lack of knockback from melee damage is problematic.

Edit: Rather that is using the methods provided to avoid damage to avoid combat, which though I won't claim to be illegitimate usage, is clearly not a good thing.

[HellishFiend]

To me that just says shields are too powerful, as well as highlighting that lack of knockback from melee damage is problematic.

I cant remember which game it was, but there was a classic game where you would always suffer knockback damage+animation against the direction you were facing regardless of the nature of the damage. Needless to say that provided for some hilarious and rage-inducing moments. Perhaps on "I am already the guy" difficulty....

[BobTheJanitor]

To me that just says shields are too powerful, as well as highlighting that lack of knockback from melee damage is problematic.

The problem being that without shields, there is just no way to avoid some damage. Too many small hallways, and too many big enemy shots. Sometimes you can jump or duck to avoid things, but with something like the probe's shot, you just have to take it or shield it or run the opposite direction and wait for it to sputter out. On the other hand, if everything had knockback from melee damage it would probably force me to deal with it, but it would probably also require the addition of a temporary invulnerability after taking a hit, megaman style, or else you could get in some unfortunate scenarios getting bounced back and forth between two enemies and being unable to get out of it (and then that becomes abusable; take hit, run through enemy while invulnerable). You could also just straight up add actual physical blocking on enemies, so you simply can't run through them, but I'm guessing that might involve a whole lot of new programming work.