Open-ended game, horizontal devolpment, reward system

[marvalis]

Hello,

I'd like to see TOME 4 becoming an open-ended game that focuses on horizontal progression, ideally doing away with levels and increasing randomness of quests and dungeons.

Right now we already have more than one game mode. We have infinite dungeon and arena. In addition, we have achievements. We currently also have character progression both horizontally (in the form of multiply skill categories or classes to choose from) and vertically (by leveling up. Right now we have one mainline quest, and a few side quests. That means not much has been decided yet in terms of the final layout of the game.

* Minigames or alternative game modes

It would sure be fun to play your character and run him trough the arena, or go to the infinite dungeon with him. Death in the arena for example should not mean the death of your character, just the loss of the minigame. The infinite dungeon could be a minigame as well. The point is that you want to bring your character to the arena, not start a new one, since you love the character you developed. While minigames do not cause insta-death, the normal game still does.

Some other ideas for minigames:
- Survival mode. Big map, hostile monsters explore it, try to survive (infinite map with not corners, generated as you go)
- Siege: blast as many enemies trying to storm the castle by blowing them up (you control a cannot, hordes of enemies come towards the fortification, you shoot at them doing aoe splash heavy damage from long range.
- pvp arena: you fight against another player! Or you fight the ghost of another player.

* Achievement driven character development

We already have achievements. What we need to add is achievement tracking and we have to code quests and dungeons so they fit into the achievement system. This should be a way to visualize character progress and it should be interactive. The player should be able to click on whatever achievement in the achievement window, and see more information about it. For example, he could look at the 'dungeon crawler' achievement and see what dungeon he completed and what is left. He could click on a specific dungeon (or it is 'unknown' if he hasn't unlocked it yet) and see the info about it. Should be somehow linked to the questing system. The player will have a window where he can explore possible achievements and a bar in the regular interface where he can track his achievements (for example, dungeon crawler 10/50 at the top of the screen while exploring an area).

Achievements are primarily a way of communicating between the person who made the game (the map maker, quest scripters, ...) and the people who play it. They should not bring any rewards but a re merely a method of tracking and displaying player actions. Where should I go next? Is the question the player will ask himself. A quick glance at the achievement screen should help the player in the right direction. This means that no content will be left unexplored if it is implemented right in the achievement window.

* Randomness
There are several different things you can do to make the game interesting and random.
- Mini-games like the infinite dungeon, make this in-game accessible, achievements for diving deep (can be dynamic, like diving the deepest at any given time gives you a special achievement, always harder to get as players dive deeper)
- Random dungeon quests, easily accessible, with random boss and layout. Potentially providing infinite playability
-- Simple dungeon, short, one level
-- 3 level dungeon
-- and so on

Ideally, player actions would affect the world (town being overrun by goblins, ... . This would mean a pretty large world that could even be randomly generated. That means all mainline quests should be in seperate dungeons (they can be placed anywhere on the map based on certain properties like withing x tile of town y, on any mountain square close to grass.

Implementing random worlds, random events, and random dungeons would be a huge accomplishment. But can it be done?

* Elaborate reward system
There are, theoretically, a number of ways to reward players.
- drops
- general currency (like gold)
- specific currency (reward points)
- achievements: for example, ppl like to collect things. Collect 30 artifacts. Even if they are useless, players will still get the achievement for it. Got 30? get 50. Do more random dungeons if you need more.
- faction (making them like you more). This should lead to an achievement, but should not be needed for anything of significance (like a main quest). No grind!

While there is only one general currency, there can be an infinite number of specific currencies. Each town / area / programmer could use his or her own currency. Stores could offer items for general and specific currencies. For example, you can buy arrows everywhere, but one town has slightly better arrows if you spend your reward points there (but you cant use your reward points from another town!). Some stores might only be accessible if they are friendly enough (this should never require to much grind).

I would like to see stores in town that carry special powerful gear, for all professions. Those items can be bought with the right currency (not gold!)
For example, doing random dungeons for town x will result in getting you town x reward points. Each dungeon (one level) gets you 3 points or whatever. With 30 points you can buy one set of equipment. The boss could also drop an item, but it would probably not be so good or whatever.

The benefit from not having one currency like gold is that you can force players to spread out doing many activities.

* Class changing

Wait what class changing? But that cannot be done! Yes it can. Why not? Like I said, it should be a level-less game. Some areas will be harder (monsters have more hp do more damage and have better abilities) but they will not be higher or lower level, so the difference it within certain boundaries. On top of that, it is an open-ended game. That means that after finishing the main campaign, you could go do any random dungeon quest of the difficulty you choose.

That means you can use the character you have, with the equipment you have, and change its class (being able to change back at any point later). After unlocking the initial change, you should be able to change in any friendly town. This allows you to explore new ways of playing the game with your current character (and all the things you love about it). You will not start with all the skills, and you will have to unlock them just like you would otherwise (you should be rewarded with skills based on the reward system, for example, defeating a boss or doing a dungeon will get you a number of general reward points, and with those you can unlock skills).

BTW dying will make you feel very very sad.

* Attribution reset
Yeh there should be a way for players to correct mistakes or try new combinations. This should be fairly painless and fits into the horizontal progression (try out a new build without getting 50 levels again).

* flavor items
Buying a nice dress ... yeh sure it can be bought with reward points.
Collect-ables: things like minipets, or companions (tiny ASCII's at your feat). Collect them all! These items could have stories to them and be quests!, coins, books, notes, etc etc. Make sure players have a place to display all their collections (and a way to access that place) (I would suggest instant travel). For example, you are a part of a group of people that collect weapons. First, you don't know this exists, but you look at the achievement screen and you see that in town X there is a guild that collects weapons. You go visit them and become a member. Now you have unlocked instant map travel to this location so you can update your collection (should be a window you see when you access your collection in that location). You can then donate weapons from you personal collection to the guild. They might even really like you! (leading to all sort of achievements, like get x factions to friendly)

[Sirrocco]

This idea sounds like tearing the game apart, and replacing it with an entirely different game. Perhaps it would work better as a mod.

[marvalis]

Yes, you are absolutely right, but maybe some of those idea's can be used. Also, I will never make a mod myself because I am simple incapable of coding it so I decided to post this here anyway.