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Endgame Design and Brainstorming
As you all are aware (or maybe unaware), one of the things on our scope is doing a rework of our endgame system. The following is the initial proposal for some feedback as well as a request to help with some brainstorming.
We have three basic goals that we're trying to meet with these changes. The goals are to make the end-game mechanics more engaging, more rewarding and shrink the gap between Demigods and Ascendants.
The basics of the proposal are as follows:
Demipowers
RP powers weight costs will be removed. These powers include the following:
For the rest of the powers, we'll be opening up every power to be accessible by everyone. We'll be adjusting the weight thresholds from 50/100/150 to 50/75/100 for demigod/vernal demigod/ascendants. With the weight change in mind, we'll be making adjustments to the weight and essence cost of the currently available powers, as well as changing some of the unused powers to hopefully be more desirable. We are going to ask for some ideas and help to brainstorm those changes (in another thread though). We do want to note that some powers will keep their current weights/costs. True Ascendants will still get their 3 domoth powers inherently and Sealbearers will be able to choose one free power.
Essence
We want to remove the cap on essence gain and instead allow players to 'purchase' additional levels with essence. The first level would start at 50 million and would increment 10 million per level until each level is 100 million. Each level would bestow a small amount of vitals gain, a minor critical bonus (like 0.01%) and an additional 1 weight to use on demi-powers. In addition, we would like to give some 'perk' every 10 additional levels. The perk at level 110 would be Omniscience. This is where we'd like help brainstorming as well - what other perks would be 'nice but not necessary' perks for continuing to hunt and gain essence?
The goal of the Essence grind is to give players something else to achieve, but not something they -need- to do. Grinding and gaining essence is a part of Lusternia and it's not something we're going to eliminate entirely. We do realize that this is a huge amount of essence to gain to continue to level, but that's very much intentional. It's meant to be something you work (a lot for) but not something you need to do.
We would love to hear your feedback as well as other ideas for the level perks in this thread. Again, this is the initial proposal so things are subject to change and anything stated here is not guaranteed to make it into the final iteration. There will be another thread for the demipowers, so please refrain from commenting on those here.
We have three basic goals that we're trying to meet with these changes. The goals are to make the end-game mechanics more engaging, more rewarding and shrink the gap between Demigods and Ascendants.
The basics of the proposal are as follows:
Demipowers
RP powers weight costs will be removed. These powers include the following:
- CustomShout
- CustomZap
- CustomLook
- ChoiceShout
- ChoiceZap
- ChoiceEnter
- ChoiceLook
- ChoiceTeleport
- Typecast
- Masquerade
- Sparkler
For the rest of the powers, we'll be opening up every power to be accessible by everyone. We'll be adjusting the weight thresholds from 50/100/150 to 50/75/100 for demigod/vernal demigod/ascendants. With the weight change in mind, we'll be making adjustments to the weight and essence cost of the currently available powers, as well as changing some of the unused powers to hopefully be more desirable. We are going to ask for some ideas and help to brainstorm those changes (in another thread though). We do want to note that some powers will keep their current weights/costs. True Ascendants will still get their 3 domoth powers inherently and Sealbearers will be able to choose one free power.
Essence
We want to remove the cap on essence gain and instead allow players to 'purchase' additional levels with essence. The first level would start at 50 million and would increment 10 million per level until each level is 100 million. Each level would bestow a small amount of vitals gain, a minor critical bonus (like 0.01%) and an additional 1 weight to use on demi-powers. In addition, we would like to give some 'perk' every 10 additional levels. The perk at level 110 would be Omniscience. This is where we'd like help brainstorming as well - what other perks would be 'nice but not necessary' perks for continuing to hunt and gain essence?
The goal of the Essence grind is to give players something else to achieve, but not something they -need- to do. Grinding and gaining essence is a part of Lusternia and it's not something we're going to eliminate entirely. We do realize that this is a huge amount of essence to gain to continue to level, but that's very much intentional. It's meant to be something you work (a lot for) but not something you need to do.
We would love to hear your feedback as well as other ideas for the level perks in this thread. Again, this is the initial proposal so things are subject to change and anything stated here is not guaranteed to make it into the final iteration. There will be another thread for the demipowers, so please refrain from commenting on those here.
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(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
For now, the level cap could be open ended, but I imagined at least to 200 to begin with. The changes to critical hits a while back actually allows us to not have a cap on criticals (because even going above 100% means your odds of the better crits go up).
Manna of the Gods would be the same, an additional 30 weight. Everyone has access to it so we don't see any need to change that.
I also feel like the former would be more fair to current true ascendants, who are not in a position where they can collect new seals to benefit from.
Will Manna be adjusted in any way, or will it remain the same?
Idea for 100+ level glam power:
Intimidating presence. No cow or sheep dares to bump into you, and so long as it is up, sandworms/gravediggers/icediggers won't pull you. You too scary.
Sealbearers would likely just operate similarly to how they operate now. They would be able to choose one power weight/essence free to have at any given time. We'll have to think more about winning multiple seals, we can either just allow one power (which encourages people to let others win) or allow them to pick one per seal, but maybe that runs into balance issues. If I had to make a call today, I'd probably say just limited to one free power, but the more seals, the more options you have. TA would supersede that. That's just me gut-shooting it though.
50 million being a starting point is because we want you to work for it and 10 million seems pretty easy to gain with some concerted effort.
We could remove the vitals gain, we were imaging something small like 10-15 per level, but it's not a big deal either way.
When I suggested the level-up thing I wasn't anticipating it giving any bonuses at all, so I'm certainly not going to be upset if the vitals boost goes away.
A torus-style room with custom exits which you have to ASCEND to, but without the down exit to cubix rooms like a traditional torus would have
Becoming a new, differently labeled kind of ascendant through your own hard work! (At level 200)
I am not a fan of the vitals boost, but the bodyguard/RoA sounds interesting. Could also do a perk where drawing power from a nexus gives you more power per link, or more power per astral node via coning/artifact dunce cap.
FYI this is what I loathe most about the torus. If I could reset the rooms it wouldn't be a problem, but as-is... my torus still has no exits assigned to it.
I think adding more venues with benefits for flexing various skills/items would probably be more fresh and appreciated.
Psychodrama could be made relevant with little daily/weekly events.
Debates would be better in confined time-quake esque little rooms that open and prevent running.
Making Fate Decks more prominent would be fun, even if they do require some initial investment.
Expansion on Aethership Mechanics to get people involved in those again.
More Accessible Opposition City Mechanics could be nice.
Events involving influencing temporary areas like revolts? Fun.
Stuff constantly going on, even if it's not always attended, make the world feel generally more alive.
Titles/Achievements/Rankings/Little Bonuses/Crafting/Gold/Org Points from participating in extra daily/weekly events wouldn't be begrudged by anyone.
Input?
Changes to Endgame mechanics and how they work have been something that's been requested for awhile now. This thread is specifically to deal with this proposal - feel free to talk about adjustments and changes to other mechanics in other threads though.
Also, since Illusions seem to be going the way of the Dodo, could it be a power we could get, would be a nice RP power imo.
The vitals will be seen as affecting combat effectiveness, and both will be seen as having an impact on various parts of ascension.
Even if the increase is so small as to be irrelevant, it will likely be seen that way - particularly if it falls outside of the bodyscan system.
Personally, I would like to see more RP/flavour things as you go up the levels, rather than things that are going to directly alter combat. Possibly include some things that are, or were before wonderitems, more typically associated with the divine, although that is an idea that came to me just now and I haven't thought it through - it just makes sense to me that you would become more powerful as you gain amounts of essence far beyond what would have been considered previously. Examples include things like:
Opening portals - could even have custom portal lines at higher levels.
Warn-zaps for RP use - probably with restrictions on where or how often they can be used so as to prevent spam.
Flicking people to Astral when masochism is down and not in a peaced area - would need some kind of level restriction to make sure the target can survive there, we don't want players flicking newbies ideally.
Area emotes - put a timer or a large essence cost on these - maybe have a stock set of them so as to avoid the need for admin review.
Choice (or even custom) login messages.
Basically, things that scream "Look how much essence this person has. They must be really powerful," rather than things that affect combat.
I do however like the idea of more involved bashing opportunities as endgame content. I just think that instancing is not the way to go about it. If there had to be instances though, I would rather have it tied to aetherspace instead of being an extension of the timequake instances. All in all however, I would rather just avoid hiding all of the endgame content away in instances.