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[kitvonsnookerz]

Dont sugar coat your feedback guys, you wont hurt my feelings.

TLDR
Elysium
Train heroes to journey across the globe to earn enough honor to enter Elysium.
Thoughts?


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As it stands right now but all of this is subject to change...

Elysium
Train heroes to journey across the globe to earn enough honor to enter Elysium.

Playtime: 30 mins
Gameplay Style: RTS

The play cycle:
You train your heroes by casting abilities, each landed ability increases their weapon or magic stat depending. Completing quests and killing monsters have a chance to drop more abilities and weapons which you can assign to your heroes. When you're ready you send out 4 to 6 heroes on an odyssey which earns them points for each leg completed, earning them a bonus for finishing the entire journey. Meanwhile at home your base is still going, it could be attacked or flourish. Then they come back to the city where you can train them some more for harder adventures.

Eventually they will die of old age or die on a journey, and if they earned enough points on an odyssey they go to Elysium, adding to the players final score, and if they don't you lose them forever. You can pull heroes who have already gained Elysium back for bonuses but you lose the score. If you get the same heroes back into Elysium you score bonus points. After a time period the game ends the score is tallied.

TRAINING
When you start the game you will pick a starting area (starting areas have unique loot). You can only leave this area with an odyssey party (4-6 heroes). In this area you can do quests and build up your base, which needs to defend its self while you are away as well as be a place to rest and train your men. While you're in the area you can use however many people you want to train on monsters and collect loot. You can use the loot to give to your guys to go out on odysseys or sell to build up a base to train heroes in.

HEROES

-CHART
Hero Name
Weapon 1-10 (Power Level)
Magical Item 1-10 (Power level)
Ambition (A special goal for that hero that gives extra honor)

Magical items and weapons have a power rating that improves with more use, as well as the Boons and Banes (extra bonus') their use provides. When power rating goes over the max the item is destroyed.

ODYSSEY
It will be be episodic. So go to a place complete a quest that leads you further down the path to the big boss. Each leg completed gives you honor, magic items, weapons, and advances time so you get a report of whats going on at your base. You'll be prompted to turn around or keep going. Turning around takes time and you could lose weapons or powers.

STORY
I don't have one. I need to reread/read the Illiad, the Odyssey, and brush up on some more of the source material before I make that decision. Anyone can fill this in if they like.

COMBAT
The pace will be slower and more tactical. Placement of your heroes will be key because once a hero is in a spot, it takes a while for him to disengage. They may be heroes, but they're still people, fragile, slow, and human compared to the challenges you'll be facing. Anticipation, awareness, quick decision-making, and clever use of your environment will be key to keeping your heroes out of harms way.

ENEMIES
Instead of enemies having health they have weak points to break or specific sequences or environmental to disable/kill them.

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I was wondering if anyone had any helpful notes or ideas to really differentiate this from other games before I start implementing.

[Squire Grooktook]

Hmmm, few questions/comments:

-What's the scope/length of the game? And is there any kind of overarching story? I personally find that the more indirect the action, and the more "simulation"-like the gameplay is, the more the game needs a human element for players to connect to. If you're planning on a short, simple arcade-esque experience, even something simple like "ultimate goal: the heroes defeat the demon king" with some scattered lore/dialogue would add some heart to it.

-You mention base defense. Could there be some kind of RTS-style combat?

[kitvonsnookerz]

Hmmm, few questions/comments:

-What's the scope/length of the game? And is there any kind of overarching story? I personally find that the more indirect the action, and the more "simulation"-like the gameplay is, the more the game needs a human element for players to connect to. If you're planning on a short, simple arcade-esque experience, even something simple like "ultimate goal: the heroes defeat the demon king" with some scattered lore/dialogue would add some heart to it.

-You mention base defense. Could there be some kind of RTS-style combat?

HEY :D You're from the Computer Science post. Hi.
Ok onto business...

Its RTS style combat. Standard Select and right click style with hotkeys to cast abilities. Your heroes will start with a weapon and while training in their home area they will pick up weapons and magic items that can be assigned to anyone.

So a player will look like this.

Player Name
Weapons (Weapon Effectiveness Stat) 1-10
Weapon 1-10 (Rating)
Power 1-10 (Power level)

Heroes must train in using weapons as well as have a decent one. Magical items have a power rating that improves with more use, as well as the Boons and Banes their use provides.

I realize the more I think about it, the more I want there to be stats just as few stats as possible.
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Id like the length of a game to be 30 minutes a pop but we'll see. There may be an overarching story but that's a little later in development when the MVP is done and I start building content. Now that you say it (or rather type it), I don't think I'm going to do indirect control because it will focus more on the story and less on the player toppling a big monster or something like you said. I'm not a big story guy so I haven't thought that far ahead. But what I do make will probably be heavily inspired by Greek Mythology, which PS, is why I picked it because then I don't have to write.

[Squire Grooktook]

Man, wanted to respond to this and keep this going last week. Too much work.

I don't know if you've already begun or solidified the ideas yet, but I figured it might be fun to keep this going:

Player Name
Weapons (Weapon Effectiveness Stat) 1-10
Weapon 1-10 (Rating)
Power 1-10 (Power level)

Heroes must train in using weapons as well as have a decent one. Magical items have a power rating that improves with more use, as well as the Boons and Banes their use provides.

I realize the more I think about it, the more I want there to be stats just as few stats as possible.

Basing effectiveness around the weapons you find (rather than grinding) could definitely work. Metroid kinda does that, and Indivisible has a similar plan for character growth. I think it would fit the exploration/journey based theme of the game.

As for stats in general, my personal experience is that you shouldn't worry too much about it until you begin prototyping. Whether you use huge numbers for damage and stats (end-game jrpg shit), or small ones (think Paper Mario) is something you'll probably sort out while prototyping.

Id like the length of a game to be 30 minutes a pop but we'll see. There may be an overarching story but that's a little later in development when the MVP is done and I start building content. Now that you say it (or rather type it), I don't think I'm going to do indirect control because it will focus more on the story and less on the player toppling a big monster or something like you said. I'm not a big story guy so I haven't thought that far ahead. But what I do make will probably be heavily inspired by Greek Mythology, which PS, is why I picked it because then I don't have to write.

Yah, sounds good! I've come to believe that "excuse plots" are under-rated, especially for short games. The larger than life characters of mythology work well with a simple story too.