Starting next game design

[Shadow]

Well I've started working on the design of the next game and as I have promised before I'm going to try to be more open during the process. This is not an official announcement or anything because it's always possible I will change focus. However as of right now, our next game is going to be more of a hardcore, realtime dungeon crawl (hardcore compared to Kivi that is).

It's going to be an action RPG that is going to take some elements from Depths of Peril (no covenants though) and some from Kivi's Underworld. I'm thinking of having some of the key features revolve around random elements (controlled randomness), a very dynamic world, and lots of smaller game mechanics that can interact to result in some more emergent gameplay than is usual in an action RPG.

This doesn't give you much to go on yet, but now is a great time to give your input of what you would like to see in a realtime dungeon crawl. Don't worry I have plenty of ideas to make this a really cool game, but I love hearing feedback from all of you. I will try to comment more than I usually do on ideas. Even if I do not comment on your idea, I will read it and consider it (assuming it's not spam).

I'm only going to use ideas that fit my vision of the game though, so please don't get upset if I don't use your awesome idea. BTW, sometimes ideas really are awesome, but can't be used for various reasons like it's not feasible to do with this team or within this game's time frame or it just doesn't fit with this specific game.

Anyone have any cool and fun ideas?

[GeorgiaBoy]

Hi Shadow,

Sounds great! Whatever you do, please softcode as much as possible. Please keep the modding system in DoP (maybe even simpler if .txt files in a file take precedence over zipped files). In a perfect world:

1) Moddable quests as well as random quests
2) Multiple towns with a world to explore. Fate (the game) did not have this.
3) Moddable classes with the ability to create new classes.
4) Level cap? What level cap?
5) DoP item system with more levels of rarity. Socketable items and runes would also be very nice.
6) Modifiers, modifiers,and more modifiers to protection, damage, etc. Examples include: Experience Drain, Level Drain, Paralyzation, Stun, Disease, Spreading Disease, Possession, Pertification, etc. Of course, the usual Lightning, Fire, etc.

More to come.

Thanks, Shadow!


GB

[Delilah Rehm]

Number 4 made me laugh!

[SharpCarlos]

Woo hoo! As a dungeon crawl fanatic (and DoP fan), I'm VERY excited about this. Top three things that I think make for a great dungeon crawl:

1) Awesome loot. Well, yeah, of course, but I mean more than just finding a sword that does 2 points more damage than the one I already have. GeorgiaBoy really hit the nail on the head with his point #6: modifiers. I want stuff that will tempt me to use an item that's slightly less powerful than another because it's more FUN. I want to play for 20 hours and still once in a while find an item that makes me say "Whoah. I didn't know there were swords that could do THAT."
2) Randomization. Not just of items and level layouts, but quests and everything else. Your description of "emergent gameplay" and my experiences with DoP make me pretty confident that you'll have this nailed.
3) Skill trees with interesting skills. Much like with the item mods, I want skills that make me anxious to get to them just so I can see them in action. Crazy spell attacks, summoning abilities, passive skills that don't LOOK passive (dodging, counterattacking), etc.

Combine those three things with the general quality and polish that you've demonstrated in DoP and Kivi, and I'll never stop playing...

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaBoy

1) Moddable quests as well as random quests

This should be possible. The quest stuff is now much more moddable with the changes from Kivi.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaBoy

2) Multiple towns with a world to explore. Fate (the game) did not have this.

I'm currently thinking that each "world" will have only 1 town, but ever world has a different town.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaBoy

3) Moddable classes with the ability to create new classes.

This should already be possible from the changes in Kivi.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaBoy

4) Level cap? What level cap?

Sad thing this isn't as easy as it sounds. I can change the number easily of course, but you start running into more and more integer wrapping issues.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaBoy

5) DoP item system with more levels of rarity. Socketable items and runes would also be very nice.

I'm basically going to start with the DoP item system. I haven't decided what to add yet though. I'm very much considering sockets, runes, gems, and other crafting ideas.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaBoy

6) Modifiers, modifiers,and more modifiers to protection, damage, etc. Examples include: Experience Drain, Level Drain, Paralyzation, Stun, Disease, Spreading Disease, Possession, Pertification, etc. Of course, the usual Lightning, Fire, etc.

So you're looking for things like a percent chance to cast a spell like effect?

For both of you, is there any game in particular that does what you want?

Originally Posted by SharpCarlos

1) Awesome loot. Well, yeah, of course, but I mean more than just finding a sword that does 2 points more damage than the one I already have. GeorgiaBoy really hit the nail on the head with his point #6: modifiers. I want stuff that will tempt me to use an item that's slightly less powerful than another because it's more FUN. I want to play for 20 hours and still once in a while find an item that makes me say "Whoah. I didn't know there were swords that could do THAT."

Are you just looking for weapons that can cause a spell like effect, or something more?

Originally Posted by SharpCarlos

2) Randomization. Not just of items and level layouts, but quests and everything else. Your description of "emergent gameplay" and my experiences with DoP make me pretty confident that you'll have this nailed.

If I can get what I already have thought of working, it will be very cool and every game will be very unique (different town, people, quests, items, monsters, events, and theme(s) ).

Originally Posted by SharpCarlos

3) Skill trees with interesting skills. Much like with the item mods, I want skills that make me anxious to get to them just so I can see them in action. Crazy spell attacks, summoning abilities, passive skills that don't LOOK passive (dodging, counterattacking), etc.

I haven't thought too much about our skills yet. Any specific skill ideas?

As a side note, I'm trying to get our skills & spells to interact with the environment a bit more with this game which should lead to some interesting events and tactics.

[SharpCarlos]

Yeah, a percentage chance to cast a spell-like effect is something I LOVE in items. And not just weapons; it's cool when an armor piece has a chance to do something (like fire off a retaliatory fire ball) when you get hit.

Here are some item mod ideas (some of which are already in GeorgiaBoy's initial post).

Weapon type effects (many should be % chance):
1) Freeze
2) Slow.
3) Poison.
4) Confuse (wanders aimlessly).
5) Enchant (enemy fights for the hero)
6) Morph (turn foe into weaker enemy type)
7) Silence (foe can't cast spells).
8) Stone (temporarily can't move or attack, but is invulnerable).
9) Weaken (enemy does less damage, or has less defense).
10) Fear (runs away).
11) Disease (like poison, but can spread to other enemies).
12) Vampire (player gains hit points when doing damage).
13) Knock-back.
14) Homing (for ranged attacks: arrows).

Passive abilities (probably armor mods):
1) Increase movement speed.
2) Gradually heal over time (or increase rate if that happens naturally).
3) Retalliation (either fire off a spell at attackers, or cause a status effect in attackers).
4) Radiation (gradual damage to all enemies within a certain range).
5) Increase chance of finding hidden objects or traps.
6) Boost skill, or grant skill the player doesn't have (maybe from a different class).
7) Rescue (chance to reduce/eliminate any death penalty the game may have).
8) Increaes damage (or attack speed, or something) when close to death.

And some skill/spell ideas:
1) Summon minion.
2) Teleport out of danger.
3) Heal, or cure status effects.
4) Create wall.
5) Invisibility.
6) Set trap.
7) Super Speed (actually slow down the rest of the game world temporarily).

Note that a lot of the "weapon mods" above could also make fun attack spells, and a lot of the armor mods could be temporary "aura" type spells.

Something that's strategically interesting with skills is when some rely on a status effect (Guild Wars) is great at this). Like, a skill that can stun, and another skill that does huge damage, but only to stunned opponents. This can also interact with the loot (makes a weapons with a chance to stun even more valuable).

By the way, your randomization goals sound really cool. Can't wait to see them in action!

[Shadow]

Lots of cool ideas SharpCarlos.

[GeorgiaBoy]

+1 SharpCarlos. For more modifier ideas, look at Diablo II.

Titan Quest is a great example of a skill tree. Of course, make it moddable.

It is very disappointing that there is only one town per world (?) planned. I really do not understand this trend of only one town (Torchlight, the Fate series being two). Does it really cost that much in priogramming time?

GB

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaBoy

It is very disappointing that there is only one town per world (?) planned. I really do not understand this trend of only one town (Torchlight, the Fate series being two). Does it really cost that much in priogramming time?

In this case, the idea is that you are a hero that has come to save the town. After you have solved all of the quests for that town you have "won" the adventure and move onto the next town. So there is only 1 town at a time, but every adventure has a different town.

[SharpCarlos]

Originally Posted by Shadow

In this case, the idea is that you are a hero that has come to save the town. After you have solved all of the quests for that town you have "won" the adventure and move onto the next town. So there is only 1 town at a time, but every adventure has a different town.

Ooh, so this will be a bit like DoP, in that I'll be able to finish "a game", and get some sense of closure, but then continue with that character in my next game? That sounds terrific.

I agree with GeorgiaBoy that, STILL, no game has done a better job of offering up tantalizing loot than Diablo II. And, yep, Titan Quest does have a terrific skill system. One of the coolest things about it is the ability to dual-class, which really opens up the opportunities for interesting builds.