ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

To add to the I-want-it-all-I-want-it-now vs. Everything-needs-to-be-earned -debate I have some ideas on how to add some addiction on the meta-game dimension. The unlocks are a wonderful system of affecting things beyond one game(run): What you do actually makes a difference beyond your immediate context. Fireballing serves a purpose even if you die early. Etc. Now this could be taken further.

The Fylish Island extension introduced some interesting concepts, like limited unlock and dynamic content. These could be used in the main game as well. To make things more interesting, there could be rewards for playing the limited unlock, and dynamic the content could respond to community input. I'll give some simple examples.

Let's say that there are two hidden relatively weak classes, librarian and archeologist, that can be unlocked by getting the key at lake Nur and opening the library at the fortress. One unlock for each time you get these achievements, of course. Then, by getting to the fortress as an archeologist you'd get Pearl of Scyring, a weightless item to replace the Orb in all subsequent games. As a Librarian you could sell lore to the library and get some special rewards (skill trees? prodigies, even?) that make the class more interesting.

As for the special content, there could be a chain of dungeons - ? la the Fylish Island - or a campaign where the following dungeons only come available when a sufficient number of players have successfully completed the previous part... Also, the dungeon/quest/whatever could change depending on how many people have already completed it. Say, the loot gives diminishing returns...

Interesting ideas; I have had the idea (mostly from the pop-up zones sometimes put in.... Of an occasional very deadly zone that could pop up. The rewards would obviously be tremendous, but the enemies involved would put up a worthy fight...

Basically, I think this is just an idea we can throw into the list of the ever-growing "how to add to replayability" section.

Good replayability is essential.

Another idea just came to my mind: How about a shared zone with increasing loots... To be claimed at most once per profile...

Nifty. I'd also like to see something of a "point system" where accomplishing various things esoteric and otherwise throughout the course of the game, which would be listed on the final win or death character sheet to make it extra-nifty---could then be used towards any manner of unlocks that carry forward into future characters. Possibilities could include "stacking the deck" as far as normally heavily luck-dependent events and so on....let's imagine a non-grind based riff on the Grade system of latter day games in the "Tales of" jrpg series.

I really don't like the idea of one-shot/context-sensitive content. Random generation is fun; missing an opportunity because of external circumstances isn't.

I agree with bricks here, I play ToME in bursts. A new beta comes out and I play relentlessly for a week or 2 till i've seen all the new stuff, then I will start it up off and on maybe for a couple hours total a week just to kill some time. Just because im bored with the current beta with all its buggy glory shouldnt mean I miss something because it was exclusive for 1 weekend.

MMOs do this to ramp up usage and increase stickiness, put in special events all the time to get people logged in and playing together, because the more people play together the more fun they have, and the higher the chance they will renew the subscription / purchase something in the micro-transaction market with real world money converting to fictional in game money.

We dont need that, this is a singleplayer roguelike. Yes its nice and super cool that DG can roll out some content dynamically here and there, but I dont want that to be the norm and I REALLY dont want unlocks to be limited to those 1 time events.

Points system could be cool if used properly. I like Borderlands 2 Badass ranking system. Completing challenges earns you "badass points" which can be used for permanent buffs to every character you have. Very minor things, like +0.5% melee damage, +0.5% health bonus, but they add up. They arent required and dont break the game, but they're nice little things to make you feel like you're accomplishing something outside of just this 1 gaming session.

Maybe start with +1% more gold, +.01 more life regen, +1 luck, etc that you can get by exchanging these "Adventuring Points" you get for doing various tasks across Maj'Eyal.

Kill 5 Eternal Bone giants in 1 game without being killed by one, all future characters gain +1% damage or +1% damage resistance against undead (Due to your mastery of taking down / braving the attacks of some of the most vile undead creations) could be a static bonus.

Collect a total of 10 artifacts before level 15 (its possible) to earn yourself a cool 5 "Adventure Points" to be used on anything in the adventure point bank you want.

I wouldn't be a fan of something like this unless it could 'make sense' setting and game wise. - I think having fun and learning new tactics/things is already progress, and being able to lose an unlock is something I would be quite...disappointed with.

However...it must be said that something like what Sradac suggested WAS planned:
http://git.develz.org/?p=tome.git;a=blo ... 03;hb=HEAD

Sradac wrote:Yes its nice and super cool that DG can roll out some content dynamically here and there, but I dont want that to be the norm and I REALLY dont want unlocks to be limited to those 1 time events..

To clarify, I didn't suggest this. Limited unlocks would be available in any game and stacking. Say every time you get a level 25 char you get one more round to play something. In this respect Fylish Island is different.

Once the game gets stable, contex-sensible dynamic content might play more role. We'll see.

While I do like the idea of an unlock point system, it feels like any advantages you get should either be very minor or sidegrade, one. Otherwise, it's easy for people with a good save to get out of touch with how easy/hard the game is on base, which can make people want it balanced for the high end, etc., it can be a mess.

Something like the ability to swap two of your class's natural categories for one of another's, or the ability to juggle your own category point values at a 2-1 ratio, or an option to be able to strip egos from equipment so that you can more easily use some artifacts...those are the sort of replay advantages I could see working. They do make you more powerful, if you're clever enough, but it is the kind of power that's only leverageable by an experienced player. Who would hopefully be the person who has a lot of these points.

(I would also say that such a point system should A: Only temporarily use up points, on a per character basis, and B: Have a relatively low cap, so that people don't min-max everything after X playthroughs, and instead have to make more choices.)

I think if there's a point system or similar, none of the features should directly make the game easier with no drawbacks.

If anything, it should let you optionally make the game even more challenging or just different in some way.

I'm pretty meh to the concept, only because I see pro's to each side of the argument.

As long as it doesn't turn into "I want to build a mindstar mastery rogue, let's restart the game over and over again until I get the right escort..." kind of deal where a player starts with a specific thing in mind, and has to keep replaying content until he get's the shot to accomplish what he's envisioned.