A few weeks ago I made a YouTube video asking for your feedback on some of my plans for the game. You guys provided some great feedback, resulting in me scrapping most of the ideas I had for the game! I’ve diverted my attention elsewhere and wanted to give you an update:
ALTARS
Altars are being added to most maps in the game. I want each level to feel unique, and change the way you play the game. 2 Altars have been added so far, which you can read about here. I can use as many ideas as I can get, so I setup a suggestion form just for altars here! There are guidelines on the form to help you come up with ideas that could make it into the game.
MAP VOTING
Players can now vote on the next map after a game ends. Each player gets one free vote. Extra votes can be bought for 250 gold each – up to a maximum of 4 extra votes. Instructions for how to vote are on the Map Selection screen. I included the extra votes mostly as a gold sink. These are the kinds of things I would like gold to be used for moving forward (impacting gameplay temporarily how the player sees fit).
MOVING FORWARD
Moving forward I have a few ideas I’d like to implement, but don’t feel entirely confident about yet. I could use as much feedback as I can get on these ideas:
Class Progression
I would like to take gold out of class progression, and make the process more interesting. My current idea is to create a new type of currency (let’s call it “dust”), that would be specific to each class category. There would be archer dust, rogue dust, firemage dust, etc.
Collecting this dust would automatically increase the “rank” of that class category. As your rank with that category increased, you’d gain the benefits you currently gain with the class-specific gems. Ex: Play the rogue enough, and you’ll deal more damage and reduce more armor with rogues, ninjas, and assassins.
Dust is also how you would unlock new classes. For example: get to rank 10 with rogues and unlock the assassin. Later classes may require you to rank up multiple categories (similar to Realm of the Mad God’s progression system). To unlock the ninja you may need a rank 20 rogue and a rank 15 firemage.
Highpriest could also unlock spells, and increase their mana regen by collection “priest dust”
The idea is to:
- 1. Make the progression system longer, and more rewarding
- 2. Allow players to specialize in specific classes, so they can feel more useful to their team.
The other, non-class-specific gems (Citrine, Onyx, Pearl, Ruby, Emerald, Topaz) would stay in the game, and I’d likely add more to replace the class-specific gems. However, the gems might have their power reduced to compensate for the increase in power from playing each class.
The dust would likely be given out in the way gold is given out now (throughout the game and on the score screen). Therefore, the better you play, the faster you rank up your class. Gold would be given out similar to how gem shards are now – dependent on how well the team does, instead of the individual.
Unfortunately, to make this work, I would probably have to remove the ability to switch classes during the game. There would be a ~2min window at the beginning of the game where players can change their class to make sure the team is balanced, but then you’d be locked-in. However, locking players into their class would allow me to do a lot of cool things in this same vein.
Gold Sinks
Part of the reason I’ve been moving other systems (gems, class progression) away from gold, is that I have some fun ideas for gold. However, if players can use gold to increase their power, or speed up progression, it’s hard to justify spending it on fun silly things instead. In the future, I would like gold to be used to change up gameplay for the team, instead of unlocking classes or increasing your power.
Another idea I have for gold is allowing players to summon enemies, or add affixes to a wave – which would increase the difficulty of the wave, but grant a reward to the team if they can defeat it. For example: You could spend gold to create a horde wave – doubling the amount of enemies. However, if you killed the wave without leaking, all players would receive a bunch of XP as a reward.
TL;DR
All of these ideas are still very rough, and may never make it into the game. I just wanted to give you guys an idea of where’s the game is heading, so you can help me correct course if you believe I’m off. Let me know (though forums, Facebook, Twitter, or Twitch) what you think of these ideas. Your feedback is really invaluable, and I’m lucky to have such active players throughout the game’s development.
Thanks for playing!
Archon