ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

In theory, the whole dreamscape thing sounds really cool, if you first hear about it. And then you do it, and afterwards think "Fancy - but what's the point? Now i'm worse off than before, in terms of psi and cooldowns"

Oh sure, if you power it up really high, you might even be able to kill a strong opponent inside the dreamscape. But that in turn is a bit OP, isn't it?

Seems to me, someone had that cool idea about the dreamscape talent - but then had problems figuring out a point for it, in terms of gamemechanics.

But don't despair, lyx is here to ask the right questions (just kidding):

We're looking for a situation, in which the player is willing to play a minigame, to gain something. It must be something worthwhile, but at the same time shouldn't be OP. So ideally, it should be about something players care about frequently, but not be an outright exploit.

If it can't be killing an opponent (hack'n slash game, remember), then what else is there in the game, that often bothers players?

Status effects, cooldowns and ressources. That goddamn stun and blinding. Or "Crap, IMA outta PSI".

Or generalized even more: The player being in a really bad situation, and wanting to get out of it to get the initiative again. Not a way to win fights, but a way to change the tide in the middle of a battle.

How would that look and work like?

Well, instead of fighting a certain enemy and his projections in the dreamscape. You'd fight visualizations of your status effects, and your inner demons. While in the dreamscape, there are no ressource costs (stamina, psi, magic). For every status projection you kill, you remove that status from you. For every demon projection you kill, 3 random abilities get their cooldowns removed (keep in mind, that while in the dreamscape, the player will probably add new cooldowns, hence the strong bonus on kills). Furthermore, for any opponent you kill in the dreamscape (no matter what kind), you gain 3 in every ressource (reduction in case of equilibrium, paradox).

Because of the changed purpose and scenario, dreamscape would work without a target (and thus not need a target to be at sleep). Because of the possible strong benefits, cooldown of dreamscape would however be much higher (probably >50 turns).

__________________________________

EDIT: More polished and detailed proposal of the above in the following post further down: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... 28#p165223

EDIT 2: Second proposal, that combines current "attack someone in dreamscape" and "attack your debuffs" variants, yet is different to both: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... 67#p165267

EDIT 3: Third proposal. Much more simplified, and addresses some concerns raised: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... 74#p165374

This actually sounds like fun!

Thanks. It could be fleshed out and polished more. So far, was just some quick brainstorming - but the overall idea basically is: Fight your own current disadvantages in the dreamscape. I.e. instead of fighting projections of visible foes, fighting inner demons as 2nd type of enemy, would fit the theme as well. The reason for them reducing cooldowns would boil down to you fighting of your fears and concerns, to focus your mind on the situation at had (kinda like meditation... but more.... active, hehe).

That is a very interesting, and clearly useful, change.

What would the new cost be though, and is 3 of each resource enough of a bonus?

Also, how strong would each projection/manifestation be?

Hmmm. I think this would be even better if you combined it with its current use.

You'd be cured of status while in the Dreamscape, then your statuses would be neutral targets you could attack instead of your opponent, removing them outside of the Dreamscape.

Various fatigue elements could also be found, as neutrals, that could restore resources when killed.

Not sure how I feel about CDs resetting, but just making it a status cure/resource heal alone-and one with a weird optional element(do more damage to the target or restore more of your own problems) would be interesting.

I think I'd prefer it if it were more aggressive (i.e. attacking the enemy in effect), but I like the idea of it not being a damage mechanic. Maybe you can attack the enemy and projections of it, and for every one that you kill, one of your talents looses some turns of cooldown and a random talent of the enemy's gains those turns (so you disable the enemy as you enable yourself). At the same time, neutral NPCs are spawned that represent ALL status effects on EITHER of you, and if you kill one, then you gain control of that status effect (positives are moved to you, negatives to the enemy), but if the enemy kills one, they gain control of it (same way).

In the end, you can turn a seriously disabled with all talents on cooldown and the enemy is seriously buffed situation into the complete reverse, but HP isn't touched.

Okay, some more detailed thoughts (don't want to discourage alternative ideas, keep them coming):

Before deciding about any values, we need to consider in which state it should be feasible to enter the dreamscape, and in which state it shouldn't be. I'd argue that a player should enter dreamstate in foresight. A fight-gone-wrong usually goes through these phases:

1. Possible ahead warning signs before the fight ("oops, that's a lot of baddies...")
2. Actual fight, with accumulating disadvantages - Hitpoints haven't tanked yet - the player is still holding up, but statuseffects or lack of ressources are accumulating ("Crap, this is not looking good...")
3. Hitpoints tank hard, and the player is at the brink of death

IMO, dreamscape should not be a solution to #3. It should come in at phase #2, by the player correctly noticing "my options are running out and my hands are tied - i need to break out of this".

With this in mind...


Ressources in general:
-----------------------
Since all actions in the dreamscape cost no ressources, we can ignore talent ressource costs in the dreamscape, when considering rewards. I think it makes more sense to use percentual values instead of absolute values - scales better. What should be the typical and the maximum reward, for doing the dreamscape minigame? Maybe 20% typical and 50% maximum ressources regained (except of HP)?


On PSI:
-----------------------
Low PSI might be one of the reasons the player enters the dreamscape to begin with. Thus it makes little sense to let the player "pay PSI to enter, so that he can then earn the PSI he just paid to enter, again". Dreamscape should cost zero PSI, BUT there might be a rule that the player needs to have i.e. 20 PSI left, to enter dreamscape. That is: You need to have >19 PSI to enter dreamscape, but no PSI will actually be deducted when activating the talent.


On hitpoint rewards:
-----------------------
The player came here because he needs other things than hitpoints more than... well, hitpoints. On the other hand, if the player does the dreamscape minigame well, he also shouldn't be significantly worse off in hitpoints.


Enemies:
-----------------------
Given that the dreamscape wont last too many turns, enemies need to have low enough hp that the player actually has a chance to make multiple kills. It's okay to make them cannon-fodder (killed in 2 turns), because we can still scale via: Number of enemies and enemy dmg.

Or in short: zombie invasion game. But: Zombies with teeth.

In dreamscape there are 6 slots for enemies. Any free slot instantly gets replaced with a new enemy. If there are any statuseffects on the player similiar to nightmare, inner demons and so on, then per each such effect, an additional enemy slot is added.

There are two types of enemies:

- Statuseffect projections. They represent negative statuseffects. Per 3 turns left on a statuseffect clock, such a projection appears. However, there will never be more than 4 statuseffect projections on the map, simultaneusly, regardless of number of enemy slots.

- Fears, represented by shadows. Fears use up any unused enemy slot. This is why statuseffects like nightmare, will raise the number of fears on the map. Fears cause slightly more damage, than statuseffect projections (perhaps about 25% more)

Enemy damage would scale depending on player level and mental save.
Player damage would scale depending on talent level.


Rewards:
-----------------------
Exact values need to be found by playtesting, but here are some rough ideas:

- Hitpoints: +2% per kill
- Other ressources: +2% per kill (5% in case of fear kill)
- Cooldowns: 1 random talent off cooldown per kill (3 talents in case of fear kill)
- Statuseffects: per killed projection, -3 turns on the status clock


Available turns:
-----------------------
Since this is a bit more complex than current dreamscape, maybe available turns should be raised a bit (starting at 10 turns instead of currently around 6 i think).

We also could place an exit-portal in the dreamscape, to let the player retreat on his own. If we dont want the player to just hop in and out of dreamscape to get a free turn, we could spawn it once i.e. 10 turns elapsed.

A generic impression from my side, about the desire to keep the current theme, and rescue it somehow:

The problem i see, is that i don't know how to make dreamscape useful for attacking others, without basically shortcircuiting normal game difficulty.

Consider this:
- if you make offensive dreamscape powerful, then it can be used to circumvent difficult opponents.
- if you make offensive dreamscape as difficult as normal combat, then what's the point of dreamscape? Just killing an opponent in a more fancy way?
- if you make dreamscape weak, then you're just wasting ressources and cooldowns.

Fact is: Dreamscape is just combat on a different map. There isn't much special to it. If difficulty doesn't change, then you just for no reason change maps, and fight on as usual. If the player gains an advantage on said map, then it's basically a boss cheat (what? you want to exclude bosses? So, dreamscape will only be useful to kill small minions in a longwinded way?), etc etc etc

I just dont see, how the original "theme" is supposed to have a point. If someone can make it work - great - i don't know how to do it.

Got any ideas for how an enemy triggering dreamscape would work in your new setup?

snoop wrote:Got any ideas for how an enemy triggering dreamscape would work in your new setup?

Can enemies even do that currently? Wasn't aware they can (if they can, this actually sounds like it might be fun).

Not sure if it's needed that enemies can do it, but if they can do it - since this scenario is only about the user's mind, if an AI does it, can simply run some calcs with some randomness thrown in - basically, same as an enemy using a noninteractive talent. That does mean, that technically, there'd actually need to be two implementations of this talent: an interactive version for the player, and a "quickcombat"-style one.

lyx wrote:

snoop wrote:Got any ideas for how an enemy triggering dreamscape would work in your new setup?

Can enemies even do that currently? Wasn't aware they can (if they can, this actually sounds like it might be fun).

Dreaming Horrors do this to me all the goddamn time.

So yes.

Dreamscape, like Fearscape is a way to get you and target enemy into a private battlefield, where you don't have to worry about other enemies.
That itself is a pretty cool effect, but coming out of it weakened isn't helpful.
I really like the idea of being able to attack your own debuffs while in Dreamscape. Attacking enemy buffs would also be cool.
The large number of dream projections of you and your opponent are annoying. They clutter the field up and don't really add any tactical value.

Not sure I like the idea of it becoming some sort of strange status removing/bar refilling minigame. It could easily become a tedious 'must do continually' thing that wouldn't help with solipsists already bad reputation for boring play (although that's mostly mindsear's fault).

The original idea of the skill (and fearscape), I believe, was allowing you to isolate an enemy and 1v1 them without worrying about whatever help they may have with them. In that vein, what about instead of these fears being only to remove your statuses, you can somehow inflict them on the target? You are supposed to be invading the targets dreams after all. Not entirely sure how to work that so it doesn't just become spend a bunch of turns to massive debuff stack the target though.

Isolating an enemy for a 1-on-1 fight: cool.
Fighting your own debuffs: sweet.
Fighting your enemy's buffs: awesome.

So... how about Dreamscape becomes a pitched battle between:
+ you, your buffs, and your foe's debuffs
- your foe, your foe's buffs, and your own debuffs

Not sure if Physical buffs & debuffs should be included, though.

Make it like Poisons and give multiple talents:

tlvl1: Deeply meditate, allowing you to recover hp and psi for every bad memory you defeat.
tlvl 3: Enter your own dreams. The subconcious is morw powerful than the waking mind. Lets you fight your debuffs.
Tlvl4: Enter your targets dreams and attack their psyche: Attack your enemies buffs.
Tlvl5: Dreamscape. Your dreams vs your targets. Whose mind is more powerful?
Tlvl 6:Dreamwar. Your force of will is so strong you can control negative ailments. Not only is it normal Dreamscape but your enemies buffs spawn, and your debuffs are now friendly. And those debuffs wana go into your taegwts mind and mess him up. When Dreamwar ends, any of your debuffs still alive transfer to the target.


Because Dreamwars would be super badass.

Also, maybe sometimes I just want to have a lucid dream and not worry about the Dreamscape