Re: Tentative Entombed 2 Design Decisions
Alright, I'm finally caught up with all these posts. Now it's time for idea. Although I can promise detail for each entry, I cannot promise organization of the list (as usual).
-Size: Why limit size to living things? Would it make sense for a giant troll to wield a tiny dagger or a two inch pixie to heft a titanic scythe? You could even do the same with armors, and impose some kind of similar restriction with languages on scrolls.
-Lore: Sticking to that idea about languages of scrolls and tying into the mechanics for dungion exploration, why does it all have to be strictly environmental in a room sense? What about skills like arcane lore to know what a potion is or legend lore to know about certain creatures or tomes that you can find in chests, etc.
-Tomes: My idea for tomes (that you find in chests or on random dead opponents) are kerkerkruip-esk. For those who haven't played kerekrkruip, basically, the tomes have a drastic effect on the environme
nt. I probably don't mean the entire dungion in this case, just the floor. So for example: "You read the heavy blue-covered tome with silver title (heavy blue-covered tome with silver draconic runes if you understand the language, the tome of eternal frost if you have enough applicable lore skills). The tome dissintigrates into a swirling cloud of mist which expands to coat the entire floor. The whole dungion floor has been covered in a thick layer of ice, making it extremely dangerous to move too much!" So then people could slip on the ice while dodging or attacking, temperature would drop to effect different spells and skills and stuff, and could even melt into water. Basically, what separates "roguelike" from "dungion crawl" to me is the mechanics. When thhe mechanics are a whole set of intelegently interlinked things (you could use the depth mechanics of the ice to change the height of passage ways, and use the same height/depth mechanic for th
e water or for inclines/declines in hallways or even for swinging swords or different ypes of spells) it makes things interesting. YOu have to think realistically about how something would logically effect something else. When the mechanics are there but not really actively used or smartly used, or used on a "when it suits me" basis, then I don't have much fun playing the game because I am constantly bothered about how stuff should work a lot more realistically. This is probably the reason I have so much praise for kerkerkruip. I have been playing that game for quite a while, and I am still discovering stuff. Anyways, getting a bit off track here, next.
-trainers: I personally liked that idea a bit. Each class has a randomly generated handful of skills they can learn from trainers, random runic inscriptions on cavern walls, from items or from quests from a list of learnable skills that exist, but that you cannot learn through leveling or at the start of the game.
So it would be a nice thing to look forward to, and a subtle kick in the nuts of you were expectin git and building a strategy around the eventual attaining of that skill, and then finding out it's random. Since the keyword of this thing seems to be random, I think it would be fitting to make people not be able to rely on a repeatable experience.
-Religion: Rnaomdlly generated shrines and temple rooms to different gods, where you can sacrifice items and pray for favor. You could even make it so that anyone could get favor and scrolls and stuff from the god, but clerics can actually expand their powerset, and temples would be their kind of "randomly generated trainer".
-Percentages: I like the idea of reward for risk thing, but I don't like the idea that whoever plays the riskier option will always be better off than the person who plays it safe if they succeed. So my suggestion is make it all percentage base. There might be a 10% base chance of getting
a truly awesome weapon load or a very powerful monster load (like the general orc in an army of orcs), but that increases the more things you kill without resting. So anyone could get anything, but actually trying to get something awesome will result in just that: a better chance of getting that something awesome.
-pets: I would like pets to be just as much of a task of powering up and armoring as you. So you could raise your wolf, give it armor that would fit a wolf, etc. But what if you found a dragon egg in the treasure horde of a dragon and it hatched later on in the dungion, and as it grew it became more powerful and eventually got a firebreathing ability? Leveling a pet would be pretty neat.
-traps: When I say traps I don't just mean "you step on a concealed rock and are hit by a buolder! Or you are sliced by a blade that falls from the ceiling! I mean stuff like falling to the floor below byt having your legs broken, noxious fumes that debuff you fo
r a while, spikes that slide out of the bloor and make you take damage as you walk, etc.
-corruptions: Why make them 100% negative? They could be a calculated risk. As you gain slime points your body becomes more amorphous, allowing you to dodge and move faster, but also more effected by temperature. As your vampirism curse rises you need more blood more frequently to stay sane, but get bloodmagic powers. If a psychic parasite leeches onto your brain and drains your of your self you slowly lose who you are and attack others around you but can channel psychic abilities of death, etc.
-druids: I always wished that druids were actually more useful at using their environment in combat (and this goes for pretty much any class, but when I was thinking of it I thought mainly of druid). So maybe they have lots of skills, like icestorm, or radiant lance, or tremor, but one would only work in cold weather or while surrounded by ice, radiant lance would only work under direct sunligh
t or when there's lots of light in the area, tremor would only work on solid natural ground, etc. Maybe even out-of-combat spells that could effect the environment
-more flavor text: Even in combat, I would like something more unique than "firebolt does 2 damage to generic kobold!" Descriptions for scrolls, items, even maybe randomly generated types of vial materials and colors for potions.
That's all for now, but maybe i'll post more later. To be honest, if even half the stuff in this thread gets implamented, I would consider $30 cheap for the experience. Good luck, and I expect awesomeness^3 from from this game.
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