0009046: Death needs to be meaningful, and have some consequence. - Arcen Idea Tracker (Bugs and Features)

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0009046	Valley 1	Gameplay Idea		Jul 25, 2012 10:57 pm	Jul 26, 2012 10:33 am

Reporter	Blahness	Assigned To
Severity	minor
Status	considering	Resolution	open
Product Version	1.203

Summary	0009046: Death needs to be meaningful, and have some consequence.
Description	I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to my new heroes (as long as it has good attack % and enough mana to cast the spells I need), so I feel like there's no significant penalty for dying. Back when upgrade stones existed, dying meant something. It meant you lost power, and had to scavenge for more. Now your upgrades transfer, which makes characters interchangeable and easily replaced. I don't believe time spent re-rolling is a good cost. I don't want deaths to result in grinding, though. Since the tier system was removed, this idea is outdated, but with the change in the upgrade system, rolling a character similar or the same as your previous one puts you exactly where you were, plus a ghost that you can two-or-three shot unless you were deeply spelunking, and minus a short trip (thank you warp gates!). Possible options: 1: Make ghosts vicious. Make them really powerful and chase you through different rooms, so that you can drag them away from boss rooms and fight them in a controlled situation. This is my personal favorite. If you die in a room, the room is tainted as a haunted room. If you sit in an adjacent room for about 30 seconds, the ghost will come through the door and attack you. (The logic behind this isn't too hard - just check if an adjacent room is a haunted room, then start timer if it is. After timer hits 0, turn haunted room into the room type it was previously and remove the any ghost entities in the room at that time (if this is not possible when the room is unloaded, do it when loading room entities)> and turn the room the player's in into a haunted room with the ghost's default position at wherever door leads to that previously haunted room. If there are multiple ghosts, you could either bring them in one at a time, with a new timer and a (x2, x3, xetc.) next to the Haunted Room title, or you could bring them all in at once (which has the issue of unwinnable situations with tons of ghosts, especially if the ghosts are quite vicious). Turn them into interesting boss fights - not deadly, but generally you can't deal with them and what killed you at the same time. And make them the same level as you if you do this, so they can be dealt with in caves. 2: Ticket number 7424 modified for lieutenant kills. I'm somewhat leery of the "complete missions to gain full power" idea, even though mission hunting and mission grinding is mandatory, since it seems like it may result in unnecessary grinding. So, kill lieutenant/OL, gain upgrade slot. Nice, consistent and meaningful, but has the downside of taking a while to earn, and thus really hurting time-wise if you lose it. Max 15, min 10, survivor from that one time slot can either start at 12 and max at 15 (not recommended), or start at 12 and max at 17. Or maybe even start 10, max 17. Who knows? 3.Bit grind-tastic, but missions for upgrade slots. Still max 15. It'd just give you something to do in response to death, rather than "go do whatever since you lost nothing". Better than nothing. 4: Not a standalone suggestion, but a grave marker labeling the point where a player died, and to what, would be neat. Computationally feasible? If anyone else has suggestions for making death more meaningful, definitely suggest them. Or if you don't believe death should be, I'd be interested in hearing that too.
Tags	No tags attached.

Internal Weight	Feature Suggestion

BenMiff Jul 26, 2012 3:27 am reporter ~0027151 Last edited: Jul 26, 2012 3:30 am	For 1, I prefer the implementation I suggested in 008959, since then the ghosts will be a lot less predictable in location than otherwise. (Also, nearby rooms doesn't really make ghosts that much more of a threat, and does nothing for deaths inside missions.) EDIT: I do like 4 as well, though I'd like to see it have slightly more of an effect; maybe +1 level to everything in the room if there's a gravestone there (since it boosts enemy morale)? [I'd say max of +1, regardless of how many gravestones there are, and maybe add a survivor mission to reclaim graves and remains (moving them to your settlement) which would remove the gravestone and give a small mood boost depending on the achievements of the now-dead glyphbearer (likely a result of number of lieutenants / overlords killed).]

Mick Jul 26, 2012 10:33 am reporter ~0027153	I think one thing death should do (and not necessarily the only thing) is do a mood hit against everyone in your current settlement. It's fitting, it's not a permanent hit (in so much that you can increase the mood back), and it makes death something you want to avoid.

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
Jul 25, 2012 10:57 pm	Blahness	New Issue
Jul 26, 2012 3:26 am	BenMiff	Relationship added	related to 0008959
Jul 26, 2012 3:27 am	BenMiff	Note Added: 0027151
Jul 26, 2012 3:30 am	BenMiff	Note Edited: 0027151
Jul 26, 2012 10:03 am	tigersfan	Internal Weight	=> Feature Suggestion
Jul 26, 2012 10:03 am	tigersfan	Status	new => considering
Jul 26, 2012 10:03 am	tigersfan	Description Updated
Jul 26, 2012 10:33 am	Mick	Note Added: 0027153
Apr 14, 2014 9:30 am	Chris_McElligottPark	Category	Suggestion - Gameplay => Gameplay Idea