Hello there!
This time, it is a post on the XP systems of Heart&Slash.
In our early alphas, enemies gave experience in the 20-80 range after being destroyed. The quantity was added to a counter on the top right corner of the interface and, when you had enough, you could go to the equipment menu and acquire upgrades. The cost for these would usually be from 100 to 500 "xp".
Unfortunately, this system failed at several levels.
First, a lot of people wouldn't notice that XP was being added up there. This is a feedback issue.
Second, some didn't know there was an equipment menu (Start button or Enter). An information issue.
Third, the upgrade costs were pretty arbitrary and hard to remember, since each weapon had its own scaling. This was a... I don't know. A lack of focus and consistency issue?
So we got to think about the problems. Obviously, the solution to issue #1 is giving feedback to the player when XP is collected. We have, therefore implemented "collectible XP" which travels towards the player. Add an effect when XP is actually collected, and now people should know they get something from defeating enemies.
Issue #1... maybe not solved, but toned down.
MOAR particles!
Issue #2 is still a problem. We added a note about it in the game's README and the Splash screen, but we all know what people do with manuals in 2014. Nothing, because most games don't include one.
I'm considering options, like displaying part of the upgrades menu in the pause menu and letting players switch from one to the other. Maybe we'll always display a visual aid when it is possible to buy upgrades, with a small part of the menu and the Equipment Menu button visible.
So, issue #2... postponed. Let's see if the XP feedback helps players notice there is an upgrade menu.
Issue #3 is the most important here. Our solution has been to revamp and further discretize the XP system. As we did with damage, the base XP will 1, and one must be a considerable amount. But we don't want players to get a new upgrade after each kill, either. So the base price for upgrades will be higher: 5-50 maybe. But that just adds noise and the need to check if the price for that upgrade was 25 or 30. Our players shouldn't care about XP until they can make use of it!
Our solution is to have XP accumulated until players have enough to fill a "bucket" (still deciding what to call these). And these buckets will be the actual currency for the upgrade system. This way, we can have upgrades which cost 1-10 buckets, which are easy to remember quantities, as well as easy to display without pesky numbers.
Currently, we have set a 10 to 1 XP to bucket ratio. Every 10 XP "bolts" (Ratchet & Who?), you get a new bucket and usually the chance to acquire some new upgrade.
Filled bucket
With these changes, plus the corresponding interface reworking, our XP system is easier to read and our upgrades easier to account for. Better for the players, and definitely better for us. We can easily design the upgrades cost with clearer numbers now. If we go for one basic enemy = 1 bolt, we can be sure that after every 2-4 rooms players will be able to acquire a basic upgrade.
Upgrade costs made easy
But that's not all. We don't want players to get absurd amounts of XP without ever using it, so we have set a (variable) maximum number of buckets, set to 10 at first. If players obtain XP above the bucket limit, they should still get something for filling a whole new bucket. In our case, the player will recover one health point, so saving up has its reward too.
This could become a balancing hell, but we like this new, tighter design a lot, so it will be worth it.
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