Post by Damian on Feb 27, 2015 15:55:44 GMT 10
After a session of internal play testing of the current prototype we learned something interesting. I really wanted to share this with you to give you all an understanding of just how fluid game design can be.
We initially came up with the idea of non-expendable minions that accumulated combat experience and became stronger. The longer they survived, the stronger they got. The player would have to take an active interest in preserving their minions and getting involved in combat to draw some fire.
Minions that had a life span become more valued and the player develops an attachment to particular units. The player might even want to customise the names and appearance of their minions.
This idea seemed really compelling, but the reality is that after winning a few combat scenarios your minions became pretty much unstoppable. Without minions suffering a final death the player is able to amass an unstoppable army in pretty short order.
There is no ebb and flow of battle and the need to bolster the ranks of your army as they fall, the game becomes boring a lot sooner than we would like. In fact the player generally stops using necromancy skills at all after a while.
Obviously we don't want to devalue necromancy entirely and we want the player to have to work consistently at maintaining and undead army and getting their hands dirty in combat too. Their has to be a real fear of failure when going into combat.
We also wanted the player to be able to customise their minions and take a personal interest in how their army performs.
Enter the concept of Grimoire Skill Trees. Your undead minions no longer accumulate their own combat experience. Instead they accumulate Experience Points for the player that are redeemed as Skill Points in their Grimoire. The player can then spend these Skill Points to upgrade certain features of an undead unit. For example the player could choose to add more health to their skeleton sorcerer, improve the damage dealt by their zombie or add fire damage to their skeleton swordsmen. Their are still some details to work out, but we're excited about how this changes gameplay and keeps combat tense and interactive
We initially came up with the idea of non-expendable minions that accumulated combat experience and became stronger. The longer they survived, the stronger they got. The player would have to take an active interest in preserving their minions and getting involved in combat to draw some fire.
Minions that had a life span become more valued and the player develops an attachment to particular units. The player might even want to customise the names and appearance of their minions.
This idea seemed really compelling, but the reality is that after winning a few combat scenarios your minions became pretty much unstoppable. Without minions suffering a final death the player is able to amass an unstoppable army in pretty short order.
There is no ebb and flow of battle and the need to bolster the ranks of your army as they fall, the game becomes boring a lot sooner than we would like. In fact the player generally stops using necromancy skills at all after a while.
Obviously we don't want to devalue necromancy entirely and we want the player to have to work consistently at maintaining and undead army and getting their hands dirty in combat too. Their has to be a real fear of failure when going into combat.
We also wanted the player to be able to customise their minions and take a personal interest in how their army performs.
Enter the concept of Grimoire Skill Trees. Your undead minions no longer accumulate their own combat experience. Instead they accumulate Experience Points for the player that are redeemed as Skill Points in their Grimoire. The player can then spend these Skill Points to upgrade certain features of an undead unit. For example the player could choose to add more health to their skeleton sorcerer, improve the damage dealt by their zombie or add fire damage to their skeleton swordsmen. Their are still some details to work out, but we're excited about how this changes gameplay and keeps combat tense and interactive
