Improving replayability

[Val]

First I would like to congratulate to George and all other developers who helped create this awesome game!

I hope you don't mind if I continue only with negative aspects in this post, which I think could be improved on.

After beating Heretic the first time I started a permadeath game not long time ago, played slowly, gathered a lot of items and over 100k credits, and got killed around Charon because of a stupid mistake. It was then when I realized, that by restarting, I will spend another few hours doing the exact same thing, and probably end up at the exact same place, with the exact same weapons and equipment. So it would be like having to work hard to achieve nothing. It's nice to have a RNG so that not the same stations appear in every playthrough, but I feel that the variability is far below that of Nethack. Well, in space you can fly almost anywhere, and in a dungeon your strategy depends heavily on where you can easily get to in the level you are.

What could help to increase replayability?

1. More sidequest, story and mission. Making many of them hard to get to, or having a low probability to spawn, so even after many playthroughs you can wonder "wow, I've never seen that before!". It would also reduce the frustration many player post about, that a certain type of station did not spawn so they could not do its missions. Why bother if there are dozens of others sorylines and sidequests you can do?

2. More difference between possible paying styles. In Nethack it was a huge difference what class and race you were playing, and even within one, there were many different playing styles. In Transcendence, you will end up with the best possible fast firing (possibly omni) waepon against ships, a slow, long range howitzer or similar gun against stations, and a missile launcher. Even the shields are in a mostly clean ladder from worst to best. It would be nice to have different types of fighting styles and more difference between weapons. In Nethack, I can play a warrior who bashes everyone in close combat, or an archer, or a wizard... here I just blast everything with the best hardware I can afford, and if I'm low on health, I cast "IA" and run away.

3. I can understand that this is not an RPG where the character gains experience from an incompetent fool who couldn't swat a fly to a hero slaughtering hordes of dragons bare/handed. You have to upgrade you ship. However, some tiny differences in a starting class, or limited number of learning points could spice things up without affecting gameplay too much. For example, you could repair armors yourself, but only up to a certain level. I'm not saying to nerf the currently best weapons, shield and armor, but to make them more different. Especially shields lack this, as shields don't regenerate when you get hit, and most combat is against hordes of weaker enemies. So you either get the Mammoth to have a lot of HP and you retreat to recharge, or maybe take the one with the best recharge rate. All the other shields are just vendor trash.

4. Different weapons and armor types needing different strategies. Damage type is mostly a clean ladder from worst to best. In the first 2-3 systems there is enough difference between laser resistance and kinetic resistance for both being available choices, but after it, you just choose the best damaging weapon from the best damage class you can afford.

5. I would suggest 3 possible Domina powers per level, but only receiving two of them randomly when you reach the level requirement. Or just one, and receiving the second one when you reach the next level. However, the player should not be able to gather all the "spells" in one playthrough... this would lead to somewhat different strategies.

[Val]

6. More conducts. Much more conducts!
- "Preferred renewable energy." (never refueled)
- "Never killed a human." (stations and neohumans also count. Robots, pteravores and aliens, or kills made by wingmen/autons don't. Not an easy thing to achieve, but as there are people who can beat a pacifist run on DoomRL on Nightmare! setting, there would be people to attempt this, I'm sure)
- "Always respected the law." (Never traded on the black market, never held military equipment without ID, never killed allies)
- "Never got a scratch" (Never received a damage to the armor. Borders on impossible, but why deny the bragging rights from those who try it?)
- "Worked hard to earn a living" (Never looted anything, except plot critical items. Earned all the money by trading, mining, missions, etc.)

[RPC]

Sounds interesting, but the problem is that some (like the missions and backstory) is very hard to code and time consuming. I do agree on the note about the differing playing styles, so maybe a mod could be done about it to introduce items that encourage different types of gameplay.

[shanejfilomena]

"paying styles" ...... do-able. I think this is a good idea.
Rins instead of credits on some missions or for some traded items.
as for powers: they are not what they seem : you gain points to use them, and you can loose points with Domina as well, in case you did not know this.
The powers you get are limited by the points you have: in some games, had I been flying a freighter Id have died because Domina is not that loving towards my cheap pilot self I barely escaped the Sung Citadel and came very close to needing insurance services ( which I did not have at the time ).

how you explore the universe depends on what you find in it: did you know that you can get a class3deflector in Eridani ? free?

did you know that if you took advantage of Eridani you could get up to 10K credits before you hit the gate?

or did you just shoot stuff?......its all in how you explore.

Familiarity breeds contempt , experience is a down fall to many players, it makes you ignore the rest of the universe around you as if it will be a " constant".....but if that was the case you would not die, there would be no need for insurance........you would not make " mistakes "....

to make an extension the player has to see the game the way a new player sees the game, not expecting the things we know are there .....otherwise we will take forever to do the extension and even longer to test it because we are expecting things that are coming from an engine coded to be random.

one of the greatest things I ever did was put away my guns and go mining.....I took alot of time watching the systems and learned that there were things there that I did not see because I was too busy fighting.

try it, avoid the battles and explore : bet you see things you never saw before.

[PM]

You can play like a munchkin and find ways to break the game.

[shanejfilomena]

You can play like a munchkin and find ways to break the game.

LOL: i call that " Progress"...

[alterecco]

Very nice post Val. I think you raise some valid concerns and provide some excellent suggestions. I think one of the ways to increase replayability is to open up the mod micro-cosmos. You can change the style of the game quite a lot by using various mods. However, that does not mean that your suggestions would not fit into vanilla.

1) More side quests would be awesome. I would suggest to start a thread with brainstorming for possible quests. If some modder feels enterprising, it could even be done in a mod (i think we already have some small encounter mods). I am sure that if some quest mods were well enough made and fit into the vanilla style and power curve, that George might consider asking for permission to include it in vanilla.

2) I think this one should be lumped in with number 4. Adding more items and item variation to the game would add new play styles. Like you describe, there is practically only a few viable winning combinations, and they are too readily available. Perhaps something like Weapons Extended (a mod by digdug, soon coming out in a new version) that adds several hundred new weapons to the game, might change things a bit. A greater variation in shields and armor would also be nice to see. Apart from items, i think it would be nice to work on making the pacifistic choices stronger. More trading, more mining, more diplomacy and more stealth. Playing a rich mogul with a slow large ship and tons of autons/wingmen should be a game winning scenario. Playing a sneaky/stealthy type sniping or booby trapping enemies would also be a nice win scenario.

3) I think adding some sort of character/ship building to the game would be a nice idea. Perhaps it should be something along the lines of a perk system. You could have a perk that made the armor repair barrels work slightly better, better fuel efficiency, better buy/sell prices, better dropped loot, gave a chance of knowing stations in a system upon entry, etc... (RPC and I made a list once... do you still have it RPC?). Perhaps place these perks in game as items that can be bought/looted or given as quest rewards. Each perk could also have several levels, so the effect could be increased (for bigger replay value). Perhaps use the canister model from Deus Ex, where you find a item that allows you to choose from among a couple of perks? Perhaps we should also make a thread on this?

4) See number 2.

5) I think this is a good idea. Any suggestions as to what new Domina powers could be added?

6) Re. conducts. Absolutely, those are nice suggestions for new conducts. Again, make a thread for discussing conducts.

I would like to say that most of the above suggestions can actually be acomplished in mods. Some of them would have to be override heavy (that means, they would have a hard time working with other mods), but, a mod could serve as a proof of concept, and if well enough developed, it could end up in vanilla (at Georges discretion of course). Making it as a mod would also allow the concept to be tested thoroughly by the community. We should not underestimate the balance changes many of these suggestions entail plus the fact that quite a large amount of work would have to go into them. All work George would have to do for stuff like this will take him away from working on the engine and on Part II.

[PKodon]

On the subject of adding content to the Vanilla game (as opposed to taking a copy of Vanilla, modifying it and adding content to make an Adventure mod), I have a few thoughts:

For one, I'd like to see expanded use of the bars, lounges, restaurants, maintenance levels of Corporate Enclaves, and perhaps even those residential stations, as places to get missions.

For instance, in Privateer, there are sometimes "fixers" who show up in the bars, and give you "fixer" missions.

Also, when stations are mentioned in conversation (like Raisu), it might be nice if they show up on your map, as happens when you go to the bar and get a drink, and overhear miners talk about ore prices.

I haven't played through the game very far, so I don't know if other stations have bars, or if Starton Eridani is the only one that has one, but it seems to me to be a way of adding content by way of missions.

I'd also like to see a modular framework put together, that would allow modders to add new missions, stargates and whole sections of space (filled with new topology, factions, missions, story elements, items, etc.), in such a way that players could add multiple modules to Vanilla, at the same time, and be relatively sure that two or more of them would not be trying to override the same thing in Vanilla. In other words, a means for them to "play together nicely".

I don't know how feasible that is without some support from George, but, it probably needs to be explored to see just how much is possible.

Plus, this would allow for smaller, less labor-intensive projects that, together, could become as big as TSB, The Network, or Sandbox (or the ability to combine them all). Essentially, support for Transcendence MegaModding.

[Val]

"paying styles" ...... do-able. I think this is a good idea.

Sorry for the typo.

you can loose points with Domina as well, in case you did not know this.

Wow, it never happened to me.

how you explore the universe depends on what you find in it: did you know that you can get a class3deflector in Eridani ? free?

did you know that if you took advantage of Eridani you could get up to 10K credits before you hit the gate?

Yes. I don't remember exactly how I got it, but I think I looted it from Voaughn's dead body. I can usually collect around 11K with expenses from mining in Eridani.

[Val]

3) I think adding some sort of character/ship building to the game would be a nice idea. Perhaps it should be something along the lines of a perk system. You could have a perk that made the armor repair barrels work slightly better, better fuel efficiency, better buy/sell prices, better dropped loot, gave a chance of knowing stations in a system upon entry, etc... (RPC and I made a list once... do you still have it RPC?). Perhaps place these perks in game as items that can be bought/looted or given as quest rewards. Each perk could also have several levels, so the effect could be increased (for bigger replay value). Perhaps use the canister model from Deus Ex, where you find a item that allows you to choose from among a couple of perks? Perhaps we should also make a thread on this?

I like this idea. It even leaves the game quite balanced, as they will not become game breakers by themselves. And limiting the amount of them would also mean that you have to choose your playing style, and not just grab everything you can lay your hands on.




I also agree with PKodon about more activity in the bars and other places. Personally, I would prefer lots of different styles of missions with very low probability of spawning (so you could not get even half the mission types in one playthrough), rather than a few always available mission types.

[RPC]

Actually, the Sandbox mod strives to have the most replayability. D&O tell a specific story about a pilgrim, which is nice and all, but if it weren't for the ICS there would be no need to get better equipment (after all, it would be just gating across systems over and over and occasionally using Sustain.)
To increase replayability would mean to increase content and to have the ability to do more in the Transcendence universe.

Alterecco:
Here's the list of some of the classes/ attributes for the Sandbox I was talking about.

Code: Select all

;Classes:
;1.fighter
;2.rogue
;3.merchant/trader

;characteristics:
;1.mining
;2.system exploration
	;-The_Shrike:	Option 1: Scan orbiting objects....does free return around the asteroid fields and planets.
	;-The_Shrike:	Option 2: Go X ls this way, then come back
	;-The_Shrike:	And use comlinks and a map update to send the data back.
;3.item repairing
;4.item identifying
;5.loot maximisation
6.trading
;7.fuel efficiency
;8.ship repairing
;9.smuggler

It's just a jumble of ideas, but the gist of it was to choose a class that would support that play style and it would come with some characteristics already set.
However, you could work on it and improve your skills (similar to how you improve the Domina skills, except without slave donations).

For Vanilla, what we can easily expand are:
1. items
2. factions (after st. Kat's you're just killing and killing and killing, why not kill something else?)
3. maybe some Dockscreen interaction (one of Shanej's mods gives you the ability to do headshots and bodyshots, duck and run for cover in a dockscreen firefight.)
we could have some sort of interaction through Dockscreens in the form of text actions other than "commodities Exchange" and "Dock Services", like the bar idea (maybe a fight erupts in the bar? se Shield buster Mag!)
Hard stuff:
Missions: there was a Mission framework developed a while back, I would like to use it, but Sandbox basics are top priority atm.
Just a list of things of the top of my head since I was working on Sandbox recently.

[shanejfilomena]

I enjoy the missionframework: and I TRIED to push missions in my .xml....not really the first one, I was still unknowing of how to do it.
but if any of my stations and missions are helpful to your sandbox (or others working on stuff ): rip them out and get them to dance to your music
I do not ask for credits.....I use Ore , it's universal money:) : just change the names to protect the Rogues.

[Atarlost]

There are mods that change the game a lot.

The Wolfen, Sapphire, and Freighter are kind of samey, especially the Wolfen and Sapphire. Any playership that's very different from them will change the game a lot. I think I'm still the only one using scripted restrictions so my ships are farther from the vanilla three than anything but the playable capital ships and large freighters. Tempest restricts you from most of the long range weapons forcing you to dogfight. Zephyr limits everything forcing a lot of evasion. Monsoon has very low thrust compared to its top speed and can't take drive upgrades, completely changing maneuvering, and is designed to encourage ammo weapons. Typhoon is tankish and steers like a cow.

Shields, armor, or weapons with interesting strengths and weaknesses can change things as well if you use them. I don't think many are out that aren't proofs of concept though. I have a pack that's largely playable proofs of concept and from the screenshots Shrike's stuff looks good. I don't know that anyone else has that sort of mod out for 1.0x.