View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0007414 | Valley 1 | Gameplay Idea | May 1, 2012 3:40 pm | Jul 7, 2012 10:31 am | |
| Reporter | MaxwellDemonic | Assigned To | |||
| Status | considering | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | 1.006 | ||||
| Summary | 0007414: Modifiers for continents | ||||
| Description | This is an idea that's been around for a long time in many other games (the one that comes to mind is the blitz-basic version of Lost Labyrinth). When a continent is generated, it can be assigned a set of modifiers to change things up a bit. For example, Continent two could have an "Elemental Imbalance", causing certain magic types to be more or less effective (EX. a "Fiery Elemental Imbalance" would cause enemies to be more fire resistant, and less water resistant). This isn't just limited to enemy buffs, it could affect aspects of the player, such as "Gravitational Instability" which would increase fall speed and decrease jump height. The idea is not to make anything crushingly hard, but just to mix things up with little detriments. It might be something toggle-able to make it purely optional for added challenge. EDIT: This is also a way to make people step out of their comfort zone and use spells they may otherwise pass up. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Internal Weight | Feature Suggestion | ||||
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I definitely like this idea, especially if it was further set to different regions having different attributes. "The bleak snowfield" happens to be "peaceful", so it gets 50% as many monsters. However, the "perilous junkyard" is classed as "statically charged" so all lighting spells travel twice as fast and hit twice as hard. Or something like that. |
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I'm not sure if that kinda of granularity can be balanced for, but it would be awesome. EDIT: If the bonuses/penalties aren't too big it shouldn't be impossible to balance at the region level. |
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I think this is a cool idea, but I suggest limiting the effects to positive ones for the player. A negative effect (or a positive effect for enemies) can tip the scales from making a boss/region/monster/etc seem hard but manageable, to making them considered "OP" and annoying. It's already been mentioned that these effects could be separated by continent or region. Another way would be to have the effects be global, but timed. Something like "solar flare: 20% to the power of fire spells, 20 minutes remaining". Although come to think of it, that could stress players out a bit, making players feel like they had to do as much as possible with their fire spells in the next 20 minutes... Yeah, scratch that last idea. Making these permanent positive effects in regions/continents might work, I think. Hm, now I'm thinking that giving positive effects to regions might also be annoying, as players might (say) refuse to explore in any ice age regions, except the ones that had a fire magic bonus. So yeah, I think I favor a permanent, continent-wide effect. A player can't really choose another continent if they don't like the continent-wide effect (if they want to play at the latest level), so they'd have to just live with it (and living with a positive thing isn't all that bad). Ideally, the continent buff would just be a little perk at the edge of their awareness, encouraging them to use certain spells (which I think seems kind of nice, versus being something that stresses out the player). Note that the available continent bonuses wouldn't have to be just elemental bonuses, but could possibly be any sort of the bonuses usually found in enchants. Stealth bonus, Mana bonus (probably a small, fixed number of points), Mana recharge bonus, projectile speed bonus...etc. Hmm. Maybe the continent-wide buff should never be an elemental one? An elemental buff is like a constant reminder to use a certain kind of spell, which could be perceived as rather annoying. A buff-free continent would even be kind of a relief, since "I can finally stop worrying about which spell is the strongest on this continent, and can just use the spell I want". Buffs like +stealth (which may be another one to axe - would always seeing those lines be annoying?), + projectile speed, + some mana, etc - don't really feel like they favor one spell over another, yet would still be positive things that the player would (hopefully) enjoy. And on the note of complicatedness: maybe a continent-wide buff, even a non-elemental one, would just feel like it complicated the game more than the player enjoyed? On top of everything else going on (overlords, dispatch, leveling orbs, adventuring, citybuilding, and more), there would also be a continent effect to keep in mind. I'm not so sure about this last point, but I think it's something to consider. To end with some lesser notes: I'd suggest that each continent always have only one bonus, to keep things from getting too complicated. And I doubt the first continent should have any bonus, otherwise players might want to respawn worlds over and over, until they finally got a first-continent-buff that they enjoyed. |
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All good input. I personally feel that there should be slight negative modifiers. The idea originally was to make things more challenging and to make people vary their play styles a bit. Nothing would be totally game breaking if you want to keep doing what you are doing. Something like "5% increased fall speed" would make things just a little bit more challenging and interesting. Continent-wide makes most sense to me as it would be, like Pyrrhic said, something they would have to live with. Perhaps it would be a combination of minor generic spell buff and minor environmental debuff. |
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I would prefer to avoid elemental boosts and negative modifiers for the same reasons Pyrrhic gave. I'd also agree they should be continent wide; however, a thought to that. Continents last a /long/ time, so it would be nice have a rare-but-doable way to change the effect. I'm thinking that seeding 5 Weather Stations (or similar) on the overmap in the same way as Lieutenant Towers, and having them pose some form of platforming / combat challenge to get to the control room where you can use one of yoyur Disjunctions would be an appropriate level of challenge; you'd only be able to use one Weather Station per tier, and each Weather Station could only be used once. |
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I honestly think the point of this is kinda lost if there isn't any kind of detrimental behavior. I don't think we should be making the game easier. I would much prefer the idea of meshing positive and negative, and I totally agree with the idea of ditching elemental changes. I also wanted to emphasize that this would be something I think should be toggle-able via the difficulty menu. |
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Thinking a bit more, I may of hit on a form of negatives I'd be more comfortable with; I wouldn't object to enemies receiving a benefit (instead of me receiving a penalty). I'm thinking things like giving enemies increased Movement Speed, increased Projectile Speed, etc. Some of them would likely be miniboss / boss only as well (for instance, giving all minibosses and bosses an extra random 15% resistance, or halving their vulnerabilities.) The catch is that the modifiers would need to be things that can be worked around (high Projectile Speeds can be countered by more Movement Speed or better jumping, lower vulnerabilities can be dealt with via better spells and +damage effects, etc.) That way, it wouldn't be against my particular playstyle or whatever, but rather an additional challenge to overcome. |
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What about an all-around basic effect... What you get (+move, proj speed, +spell dmg - non-elemental-specific, +hp), enemies get too. 5 ranks or so on the difficulty. Default is balanced, easier is it favors you more, so you gain say 5% hp, and they gain 2%, and harder favors enemies. A 6th option is the opt-out, turning off the effect altogether. Different effects have a name, and some environmental change which is a constant reminder in the backgrounds, like a comet hanging in the background, mid-flight. On one of the menus, it can give a flavor text name for the effect, as well as the bonus, in a different color to show what's affected by the difficulty, and with a reminder of the difficulty setting for it. "Solar Flare - Enhances spell power for everything by 3% (Balanced - Default)" ((skies appear with a red tint and sun is a red-white color, the moon is reddish at night)); "Western Winds - Your projectiles fly 2% faster, and enemy projectiles fly 10% faster (Cos Espers are People Too)" ((modified wind storm sound mostly masked by normal sounds)) This combines bonuses to the players, "penalties" or rather bonuses to enemies, and changes in difficulty to affect by just how much. Of course if you choose to opt out of it, to keep your game unaffected by environmental effects, and let nature take its course... just without you. If for nothing else, it will give the continent a feel of some natural environment there, then. The effects will still show, but nobody gets a bonus from it. And all the bonuses are neutral, not forcing you to pick any one thing, but come with balance in giving enemies bonuses too, if you choose to accept them. How do you feel about that, MaxwellDemonic? |
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I like the sound of that, it provides balance while still offering additional challenge. It allows players to opt in at whatever level they feel comfortable with. Overall it's more refined than the original concept. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 1, 2012 3:40 pm | MaxwellDemonic | New Issue | |
| May 1, 2012 4:08 pm | khadgar | Note Added: 0023185 | |
| May 1, 2012 4:13 pm | MaxwellDemonic | Note Added: 0023186 | |
| May 1, 2012 5:08 pm | tigersfan | Internal Weight | => Feature Suggestion |
| May 1, 2012 5:08 pm | tigersfan | Status | new => considering |
| May 2, 2012 8:33 am | MaxwellDemonic | Note Edited: 0023186 | |
| Jul 6, 2012 9:03 am | MaxwellDemonic | Description Updated | |
| Jul 6, 2012 9:05 am | MaxwellDemonic | Summary | Qualifiers for continents => Modifiers for continents |
| Jul 6, 2012 9:05 am | MaxwellDemonic | Description Updated | |
| Jul 6, 2012 10:36 am | Pyrrhic | Note Added: 0026388 | |
| Jul 6, 2012 10:51 am | MaxwellDemonic | Note Added: 0026391 | |
| Jul 6, 2012 11:12 am | BenMiff | Note Added: 0026394 | |
| Jul 6, 2012 11:21 am | MaxwellDemonic | Note Added: 0026397 | |
| Jul 6, 2012 11:22 am | MaxwellDemonic | Note Edited: 0026397 | |
| Jul 6, 2012 12:36 pm | BenMiff | Note Added: 0026409 | |
| Jul 6, 2012 8:05 pm | Kio | Note Added: 0026422 | |
| Jul 7, 2012 10:31 am | MaxwellDemonic | Note Added: 0026446 | |
| Apr 14, 2014 9:30 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Category | Suggestion - Gameplay => Gameplay Idea |
