Progression Design
Monsters vs. Users
I’m working on finalizing the primary leveling system. As it stands now, monsters and System users (the player and faction NPCs) won’t level the same way. This is thematic, since monsters don’t have the benefit of the sapient mana System.
- Users will spend mana to level paths, and the sum of all path levels will determine primary level.
- Monsters will only have a primary level, and will use kills and possibly things like infestation of resources to gain levels.
- Spawners will have a similar mechanic, in which they level up and in turn spawn higher-level monsters. They might use total spawns, total kills by spawn, infestations, and other metrics like that to gain progression.
Primary Level Effects
For monsters, the primary level will provide all relevant stats and ability unlocks. For users, it may be more limited to basic stats like max hit points (since paths cover the more exotic stats and abilities).
There could also be one-off stat increases at important levels (like 10 or 50).
Path Levels
Users level paths by spending mana. Paths have a specific set of mana that can be spent, so a Rogue path might use dark mana (shadows) or water mana (dexterity). Each mana type spent in a path provides its own base stats and ability or path unlocks. Each path level also provides its own stats.
So, in a Path of the Acolyte, spending Fire mana to level it might provide +1 strength attribute per level and eventually unlock the Fire Touch ability, a Fire Power perk, and the Path of the Fire Mage, whereas spending water mana might provide +1 dexterity, Ice Touch, Water Power, and Path of the Water Mage.
No matter what mana is used, however, each level of the Acolyte path would also provide +1 Intelligence, and ultimately unlock a generic path of the Mage, and possibly a generic ability.
Other thoughts:
- I’d like to provide free stats per level, allowing you to customize attribute gain.
- I’m toying with the idea of max path levels, forcing you to give up some unlocks, and I could also make it possible for only some paths to increase the primary level (which makes the system more class-like). I’d rather, however, try opportunity cost first.
- For NPCs, the primary level may look like a class. For instance, an NPC Engineer will have relevant paths, such as Path of Construction, that contribute to the level of the Engineer.
Mana Sources
Since mana is used both to level paths and power abilities, getting mana is an important mechanic. As it stands, I intend zones to have various levels of ambient mana, that can be absorbed passively or actively, depending on the System user’s mana affinities. So, an underground zone might have more dark and earth mana, while a desert zone might have more fire and light.
Monsters are another key source of mana. A Shadow Rat might drop dark mana, for instance. (I’d like this to matter to monsters, too, but we’ll see.)
Possibilities:
- I want the faction base to build rooms to absorb larger quantities of ambient mana (or even have things like planar taps), and then allow mana to be purchased for prestige, the faction currency.
- Another possibility are mana anomalies or veins that can hurt you if your resists or affinities are too low, but provide unparalleled absorption potential. (Monsters could leverage these too.)
- Unaspected or generic mana that could be refined into aspected mana. This would also allow more generic, weaker magic abilities (mana bolt instead of fire bolt). If I add it, unaspected mana would probably be the most common. Lesser paths might use it as upgrade fuel.
Game Loop
The player will suit up at base, go into the wilds, kill monsters, and absorb mana. If the player survives, the mana can be taken back to the base to use for upgrades at the System pylon.
Notes:
- At this point, there are no max mana stats, but I’m thinking I’ll want that, to make the game loop more interesting.
- I want one of the potential purchases at the System pylon to be mana protection, so that if you buy X protection for a mana type, you get to keep X mana if you die (instead of it being looted by whatever killed you).
- Note that right now the base will have minimal but comprehensive ambient mana sources (which I intend to also be an upgrade project, so you could increase base ambience, if you wanted). The idea is that you’ll want a way to get at least a little fuel for abilities if you’ve died and respawned with nothing.
Other changes
I updated equipment such that it’s now possible to fully-reconfigure a loadout in one turn (previously, equipped gear could only be unequipped, not transferred to other valid slots, so it took two turns to transfer it).
I also did low-level updates on the stat and character systems, to prepare for implementing the above leveling systems, and I tested monsters with levels that make them stronger.