I can kinda see how the town experience might just work in the future. By the looks of it, it’s like an RPG quest system. The game master chooses a quest and suggests it to you. If you don’t like the quest you can just deny it and wait for the next one. I could see later on how the game master might be able to see what type of quests you choose based on your playstyle and will attempt to give you more quests that fit you.
If this is how the system might work, I really think it’ll add a lot of depth to the game.
[quote=“Programmierer, post:14, topic:7352”]
Anyone remember good old Cultures?[/quote]
YES. I knew there had to be somebody who played that game on this forum!
I’ve always hope the game would develop to be more like this, Having a Class require a specific amount of EXP before being able to use a specific upgrade Talisman (And having some villagers not be able to use any Talisman)
I totally agree with this. I love the personal exp. I think town exp is good too. I dont mind quests per se, but quests dont need to be setting the path of town development.
I’m very suprised that you guys read so carefully our ideas and point of views and are eager to give us feedback about It, that level of interaction customer-developer is very rare and for that only you deserve a barrel of finest beer:)
As for the RPG elements ideas I would say, keep citizen level up to unlock perks like faster gathering/ building and maybe toss some specific perks class releated like better footman damage or decreased number of resources needed for making something, just limit It so It would be not possible to unclock all perks so people can experiment with different perks in their playthrough.
Making some tasks for town experience in other hand gives me feeling that I’m forced to complete the task that is not my idea in order to progress, this will take a piece of the sandbox experience from me and i would not like this. Or maybe we should gather town experience/ new building plans as our town grows and quests like build house at the hill, etc would be only optional then It would work.
I know what you mean, but, well… how else do you do it in practice?
Ultimately, it all comes down to numbers, the only issue is whether the game is transparent or opaque about them. “We should collect some wood to get our settlement started” may be preferable, but what defines “enough wood”?
What you’d see before long is either a UI mod or a website dedicated to filling in the gaps: I think that most players like to grind things efficiently on balance (and make no mistake, this is an MMO grind-style quest, whether it states the number or not), so when the game says “do X for reward Y”, they’ll immediately want to find out what X and Y actually are.
I think a better example in favour of opaque grinding requirements is this: levelling crafting skills. Perhaps making a regular comfy bed gets you +2 carpentry, but making a legendary one results in (legendary quality multiplier * item stat buff * (random number from 1.0-2.0) / skill modifier) to represent quality vs pre-existing skill plus a little randomness. Now here, it probably does make sense to keep the numbers hidden from view (at least, any numbers beyond “Carpentry Level 9: 443/1280 XP” or something dead simple like that) - if nothing else, this is a long-term project to invest time in, not a regular (ie “you can complete this quickly, and soon”) quest-style thing. Of course, enterprising players will soon reverse-engineer the levelling formula, but I don’t think there’ll be the same demand for details.
Citizen XP sounds like a good idea to give them some personality, as long as it doesn’t turn into “Welp, need to upgrade my carpenter, better churn out 50 chairs. No idea what to do with them, but daddy needs those ladders!” I suppose if/when trading is in it won’t seem so much like a grind.
I like the basic idea of town XP to give people something to guide them along, but it shouldn’t be used to gatekeep content. The idea of giving people tasks that are rewarded with a new citizen (and thus more capability in your town) is good, but feels a little disconnected from the rest of the game. You’re effectively visiting a store to buy a new settler. As others have pointed out, an exchange of good for settlers can be integrated into the gameworld better. I still like it as a measurement of progress, even if it is just a “this is what a level 50 town looks like!”
I’d use a title (“apprentice”, “adept”, “master”) for the “level” but the level progress towards a new level is a little bit harder. Showing a quantity completed or a percentage complete bar is OK but I don’t feel like it fits the game. I’m not sure the best way to indicate this…maybe a glow around the crafter or their tool slowly changes to another color.
Doesn’t that just come back to numbers in practice though? “When XP is at 20%, remove xp_sparkle_10 from tool & add xp_sparkle_20 to tool” etc. It’s still simple numbers, but you’re just hiding them from view. Like I said, I think not showing numbers for more complex things is fine, but when you receive a quest (eg, like “get 20 wood for 100 town XP”), hiding the numbers is ultimately counter-productive.
Quests are things you typically complete immediately, or fairly soon in my experience, whereas I think of things like levelling up to be a much slower process. If I’m levelling my paladin in WoW, a glance at my XP bar shows me how far along I am levelling, but to level I need to do quests, which means I need all the (accurate) information possible about it right now. “You want me to kill some bad guys? Okay, how many? What are the rewards? Are the rewards in keeping with the difficulty and/or time required to do the quest?” All those questions have to be considered when you’re doing a task right now.
Consider the impact on the flow of gameplay for a new player (ie, not one of us Alpha “veterans”) in Stonehearth when they get their first quest:
On the one hand, you tell them exactly what they need to do, and what the reward is. A quick glance or two will be enough to tell them the pertinent details, and they can then decide whether or not to do something about it.
On the other hand, you tell them nothing but vague directions (ie “get some wood and you’ll get some town XP”. Suddenly, this is a distraction for them - “how much wood do I need? I’d better pay attention / focus on this / etc” - which disrupts the otherwise smooth flow of gameplay.
Ideally then, you want your quests to fit seamlessly into the experience, and a big way of doing that is to make them easy to comprehend - and that means numbers - or at least some sort of specific / detailed information.
PS I’d be wary about saying whether it “feels” true or false to the game - simply because we’re at such an early stage in the development process. I think the aim for Stonehearth is to have a cuter, less violent, user-friendly version of Dwarf Fortress (which for the record is an awesome idea) - but I may be wrong of course . If so though… get used to the importance of numbers in the game though, because there are many more to come.
[quote=“Avairian, post:21, topic:7352”]
The game master chooses a quest and suggests it to you.[/quote]
But don’t show me a metric saying “I’m this many points from the next town level.” The game master should keep all that silent, unexposed, and to himself.
Edit: Ninja’d by @Tom - was to slow to get my comments in.
Sounds good! Of course, should we take another page from Dwarf Fortress, should their expectations be higher as well? (Basic Carpenter just needs a wood hut, whereas a higher level settler expects a mansion, complete with a fountain and a golden statue of Geoffers.)
Still a bit iffy on town levels, but I’d love to see how both play out.
[quote=“Tom, post:31, topic:7352, full:true”]
We’re going to nuke the idea of town exp.[/quote]
I am kinda glad, having to complete objectives to really advance would lower the flexability of town creation, wouldn’t it?
But is Citizen Experience being retained? It seems like that could be a very good mechanic for upgrading Professions or upgrading settlers to new tiers of classes.
yes! love this scenario as well! both are optional, can help the player get acclimated to the game, and provide a sense of challenge that the player has complete control over…
I personally like the Town exp idea, but not as overall affecting your game play. I think it should be something like this. You level up and you get to choose like say for instance you have a construction style you particularly like, or you want your workers normal clothes to look different…most of it would be more vanity rather then like say you can’t upgrade to something because you don’t have the town technology to do so, that is silly to me.
Here’s a thought on Town XP: Make it react to things you do, rather than telling you what to do. Something that reflects the choices you’ve made to specialize your town.
Train a ton of soldiers? Your town might “level” into a Militarized perk, whereby citizens are more accepting of enlistment/volunteering by a small amount, less distraught about injuries and death by a small amount, take more pride in weaponsmithing, et cetera. Keep leveling, and you might continue down the level-web into other perks… some good, some bad. Perhaps you might become a Heroic Village where legendary (insert_town_favorite_weapon)-masters are born, or get Tyrannical commanders and end up with Martial Law being inflicted on your citizens.
Perhaps you’re building a lot of… chairs? Mercantile “level” perks start racking up. You get a tech option to send out caravans for trading earlier than normal, better deals, more friendly traders. Overdo it, and you might attract too many invaders… or perhaps rot from within as Greed starts popping up among your higher-tier traders more and more frequently, and innocent immigrants start turning out to be Thieves!
Finally, while the layered interactions of citizens is fascinating to behold, it’s very easy for you to accrue citizens of every type you need - a problem that happens very frequently in Dwarf Fortress. So you’ve got a legendary mason, carpenter, weaponsmith, glassmaker, leatherworker… one of everything! Where’s the specialty? Beyond architecture, there’s not a lot to go on. Town XP/levels/perks achieved based on your actions could be useful if it was a “you can’t have everything” mechanic, or at least a speedbump to getting perfect scores in everything.
Glad to see Team Radiant is receptive as always to community feedback. I think what you propose with town quests is perfectly acceptable, and seems like it’d fall under the category of Game Master type stuff. I would love to see optional challenges appearing based on the sorts of things your town seems to be specializing in, rather than just random.
If you did want to keep town XP around, though, maybe it can be sort of aggregate value of wealth, tech progression, number of settlers, enemies killed, etc., maybe with a happiness-based multiplier so happier settlements get you more benefit from all that you have accomplished. Players can earn XP based on these things, however the player wishes to play, and then bonuses can be given out whenever you’ve advanced to another hidden rank. By sort of boiling XP down to a sum of a bunch of different metrics, you can still reward the player for his or her progress without forcing them to undertake any sort of specific quests. It won’t matter if they’re mining all the stone, or chopping down all the trees, or creating a huge agricultural empire, they’re still amassing resources and (without any explicit indication) earning XP for it.
. If so though… get used to the importance of numbers in the game though, because there are many more to come.
. I still think the town XP UI can be useful (see above) though 