SBURBDEV Forum

[Oxide]

We need to start discussing this: what will keep you playing?

Within a single game, the player will be facing only a few types of monsters. Granted, because of prototyping, the difference between imps in 2 games will be wildly different, but within the same game, they'll all be the same.

So we must consider we only have so many creature types to deal with : imps, giant imps, chess pieces, and maybe a few more.
Going from one planet to the other will grant a much needed change of scenery, but the enemies will remain static.

To combat this, automatic quest generation will come into play (The fact that we would have automatic quest generation was pretty much a given considering we have world generation as well.), but I fear it might not be enough: without it, the game could very well be one giant grind fest.

I ask of you two things in this thread:
We need ideas for quests that can be randomly generated. Quest templates that can be applied to an existing world. Note that we can easily create and spawn monsters, but not randomly spawn new buildings and caves.
Also, don't say it if you think it's obvious. Don't post for a fetch quest or a "go in the wilderness and kill X monsters of type Y" derivatives.

The other thing we need is game mechanics that would keep things interesting and potentially allow for new types of quests.


For example, stealth could be a game mechanic that would allow for stealth based quests or stealth based quest bonuses. This is a shitty example though because stealth in non-stealth games is consistently terrible, but you get the idea of what we're looking for.

[The Cool]

An idea i had earlier today was that someone like, say, the Seer of Paths would have a quest where you would have to go through a maze that forces you to rotate the camera a lot.

I was also thinking about a 2D isometric camera angle, which is where the idea came from, but that's another topic entirely...




Maybe quest goals are formed from the last half of the player's title, and the solution is derived from the first half?

[Interloper]

Actually yeah, we can spawn new buildings and caves, assuming we use a world map, setup. Think the original Fallouts - you might stumble across a cave or a village or a bunch of underlings on the way to your next destination. It's as easy as making random encounters more interesting than a bunch of guys to fight.

That said, fighting guys is still pretty important because it's what the player will do a LOT of.

First off, I imagine the enemy list would be something like this:
Found on planets:
Imps (these would be basically neutral unless you attacked)
Ogres
Basilisks
Liches
Giclopses
The Denezin
Found on the battlefield:
Pawns (probably also neutral unless attacked)
Bishops (it stands to reason only Dersite creatures would actually attack you)
Knights
Rooks
The King
The Queen
Other
Agents

Underlings would be affected both by prototyping and by their material, the rest just by prototyping. Also battlefield enemies don't seem to drop grist.
In terms of a power hierarchy, the order above should work, and battlefield creatures should be on average more powerful than their corresponding planetary counterparts. So pawns should be able to kill imps without a lot of trouble. Agents should be the most powerful, like minibosses. In addition, within those classes, their strength could be based on prototyping - so a player 1 prototyped imp would be weaker than a player 4 prototyped one. Different materials should also be rarer than others, so finding a gold imp would be harder than a shale imp.

Ideally this creates plenty of depth in terms of power levels, and plenty of variety in appearance. It should also be interesting in that minecraft sense where finding a rare material would be satisfying, though this would be proportionate to the kind of stuff people can craft.

Additionally, having enemies able to pick up items and equip them could be interesting, as they might behave differently based on what they were equipped with - one wielding a hammer might hit slower but harder than one wielding a stick. A great example of this is Plants Versus Zombies where most zombies are just the same thing, but with different behaviours.

The real question is how to make carapeople fun to fight, because being on the battlefield neither they nor you would have access to random items, so there would be a lot less variety. Perhaps they could be made more fun by each one having different attacks based on their class - pawns will lunge at you, knights will do jumping attacks, bishops might cast spells and perhaps you have to scale a rook to kill it. I think allied carapeople could be recruited to follow you though so you might get a kind of RTS aspect - additionally, certain pawns for example could take medic roles or be given different types of weapons, so it would be kind of like Half Life 2's squad mechanics, where they're differentiated by function, not so much because they're actually different. And I think that kind of thing would be necessary anyway - a god tier player for example wouldn't have access to any inventory items so they'd have to rely on medic pawns if they got hurt.

In that way gameplay could follow two different styles - going from Diablo to a kind of Overlord setup based on whether you're on the battlefield or not.
I think this would play well with the procedural generation, as well as having them perform a few basic actions or being able to issue a few basic orders to allies, the most difficult part to program would be having allies follow you, but as long as they don't collide with you, it should be easy enough. I don't estimate AI being a huge problem, as they don't have to be smart, just be able to navigate and perform simple tasks.


You'd still have side quests, lore, items to find and puzzles to solve, in terms of keeping interested but this should about cover the enemies.
The biggest challenge is just making the battlefield as interesting as the planets because it's visually bland, and beyond randomly generated castles, there isn't a lot of opportunity to do interesting stuff with it, or the enemies there because as I said, they don't drop grist. On the other hand, this is where you expect to really do a lot of adventuring with friends, so it could have a focus on cooperative elements.

[Legendary]

Found on the battlefield:
Pawns (probably also neutral unless attacked)
Bishops (it stands to reason only Dersite creatures would actually attack you)
Knights
Rooks
The King
The Queen

Prospitan pieces should probably be "neutral unless attacked" by default, just so that you don't decide that "Hey, I'm ready for the Black King, let's get this Reckoning going!" and kill the White King as soon as you are able. That would probably end in disaster, especially if you're the first player in the chain and thus everyone else has fewer levels than you.

And the Queens aren't on the Battlefield, at least not by default. They might be able to move there, but the White Queen probably stays on Prospit (unless she exiles herself) to be an adviser for the dreamers who arrive there, and the Black Queen probably stays on Derse so that the players don't have to fight both Royals at once.

Also, isn't there a sixth kind of prototyped enemy? Those flying things that Dave fought in [S] Descend?

[demosthenes2k8]

First of all this is only a list of things I think could be used to increase player interaction and replayability, as well as keep them interested. I wrote it on a long car ride (along with a ton of other stuff I may post later) after a college tour, so I'm exhausted and ramble. Have fun reading it or tl;dr-ing it.

First of all, combat has to be fun. One reason why I continued to play The World Ends With You long after I beat it was because battles were always interesting and exciting - I couldn't just spam A. (Well, I could, but Neku would die.) In order to keep players interested, battles have to be fun. One way to do this is to have each role play differently. I expect ___ of Time characters to feel different than ___ of Light players. Anyone who's played Kingdom Hearts for a fair amount of time knows that which Keyblade you use greatly impacts how you play - I personally enjoy Zero/One and similar keys that are all about movement. In the same way, I would expect a ___ of Earth player to move slowly and not jump as quickly as a ___ of Breath player, but have more powerful attacks and maybe an ability to create platforms.

Second of all, and I know this doesn't REALLY answer the topic either, but it concerns replayability. I propose that players can keep their characters afterward, and connect up to any other completed characters, slightly like in Diablo II. The difference would be that, after going to Skaia, there would be a portal to each other connected player's Land. This would give players a chance to continue playing with a fun character, or just have fun with a bunch of overpowered characters. Another possible option, probably based off of this, is the ability to create a character using any class and title parts in the role. So, if a player completes SGAME with the Heir of Breath and the Witch of Space, they can create a "free play" character of the "Heir of Space" if they want to. Similarly, for Free Play, if any character they control has obtained God Tier, then they can start a Free Play character with God Tier, and they can choose their Land from any aspects they've completed the game with. If they want to play through again, they won't be able to do that with the new "story" character. (I'll probably make a thread about this later)

Now, how do you make sure they continue playing to complete a session? This is a problem that most MMOs encounter. One thing that might work is that "gotta catch 'em all" mentality - try to get all of the roles they can. Another thing that might help is making all players be required to be playing to complete the session. Players will then be more likely to force each other to keep playing, so they don't lose all their progress. Other ways would include having a HUGE random quest list, making houses easy enough to customize that it's fun to keep building, and adding enough random events that the game is always unpredictable. Stopping a player from grinding with a random interrupting quest, or a surprise event as they travel, will keep players wondering what will happen next, keeping them interested.

[Interloper]

Prospitan pieces should probably be "neutral unless attacked" by default....

And the Queens aren't on the Battlefield, at least not by default....

Also, isn't there a sixth kind of prototyped enemy? Those flying things that Dave fought in [S] Descend?

Ideally you wouldn't be fighting the Prospitans at all - they're on your side, and the Reckoning would only start after the players have been ectobiologized so that shouldn't be an issue.
Queens I assumed would get to the battlefield somehow - don't you still have to fight them in order to win? hence why Aradia had to prototype the frog head?

And the flying things were crow-prototyped basilisks

I think the best way to make the characters feel different would be to have their abilities tie directly into combat - so if a Breath player jumps, they'd get a height boost, a light player may score mini-crits in addition to critical hits, and a time player would have the freezing ability, so in that way different elements could focus on different playstyles. I might make a new post for ideas on that but the bottom line is, yeah - make the classes differ.

[Legendary]

I would like to direct you to the first word of your post. "Ideally". This is a dangerous word when talking about MSPA fans or video game players or really, both. If Prospitans are damageable by the players at all (and they should be, since hey it's amusing that way) then they should be able to fight back because if not, a player can attack the White King and possibly kill him. That's probably a bad thing, no matter how we handle the White Staff. So let's just go with that.

As for Queens, we honestly don't know. On the other hand, the prototyped-with-no-embarrassing-attachments BQ had no interest on the Battlefield. I am pretty sure that a player group should confront her on Derse. The thing that made a difference involving the frog head for the trolls was that she had no prototypings and was thus exileable. In a session with a weaker group of players that didn't need a Horrorterror or a Frog prototyping, the implication is that the Queen will just have all of her powers at the ready.

Plus fighting her on Derse allows Dreamselfs to have some potential use and also provides a good way to reach God Tier reliably. Get killed, have a teammate drag you down to the core, reach 0 HP, and let the fun begin. A crafty group could repeat this process with every Derse dreamer and be at least half-God Tier because of this fight.

[Interloper]

I say "ideally" in that "ideally" players are on the Prospitan's side, so they shouldn't be fighting them. That's not to say people won't try, obviously they will, but in game terms they should be your allies, so if you're playing normally (as opposed to bored and seeing what you can kill) then you get the idea.

Thinking about it, there's really no requirement in game terms to confront the Black Queen at all - she doesn't have anything to do with the reckoning, so you won't save Skaia by killing her, making her a bonus boss at most. Though I could see her getting off her throne to stop the players if they were winning or something. On the other hand the Derse God Tier gambit is way too awesome not to do, so yeah, I think being able to fight her on Derse would be pretty awesome. Sadly Prospitans wouldn't really have an equivalent, unless there was a way to win the game for Black's side, which would seem counterproductive to the whole ultimate reward thing. Perhaps if you let the Queen go on the offensive she flies to Prospit, but if you attack her she's on Derse.

[immortius]

Well, we can't be sure of the Black Queen's role. Unfortunately in the 2 sessions we are aware of she was cheesed past. She is evidently quite powerful, but bound to her duty. Given her hatred of frogs she would likely stand in opposition of any attempt to create Bilious Slick/the new universe though.

[Legendary]

Actually, there IS a Prospitan equivalent. It just happens LATER.

So, you've got the Derse kids all Tiered up and the Black Queen is dead, so destroy the shit out of her ring (this has been implied to be how Kanaya lit her Forge... if Jade is forced to remove WV's ring to light her own then perhaps we'll figure out the BQ's role!) and fly down to the Battlefield, then let the Black King eviscerate your Prospit players and drag them to the Quest Beds they each have on Skaia. Just food for thought.

And of course obviously players are welcome to engineer their own deaths using the regular Quest Beds, but this is at least a reliable way for players who have been left behind on the echeladder to catch back up.