Post by hypevosa on Apr 4, 2013 16:24:49 GMT -5
I have a two questions / concerns about the current prisms system.
1. Why do we have 2 rows of prisms?
This seems to take up valuable screen space that could be used for other things now and in the future, while offering no real benefits either. When you die, all prisms just lose a level anyways, and now you effectively just double the time it takes to find all the prisms you need. Since the game is primarily skill driven over equipment driven, this doesn't seem like a necessary slowdown for players to encounter.
I would like to suggest we double prism effectiveness, and remove the second row of prisms.
2. There is currently 0 incentive for players to kill enemies that aren't drills.
The drills provide more shards, faster, and are the only place to get the highest level prisms quickly. There is no incentive to killing deadly delta refineries, or annoying if safe grid control towers when the rewards are compared. The only reasons to kill smaller enemies are to connect towns and clear regions for victory.
In order to encourage players to kill all enemies rather than just look for drills, I would like to suggest the following three changes.
1. Different prisms should drop from the 3 different castes of enemies.
This would encourage players to hunt for prisms they want rather than just all go to drills. I suggest square based enemies drop Range and Shield prisms, circles drop Speed and Health based prisms, and triangles drop Damage and Cooldown based prisms. These feel most in line with the motifs the enemies display, their difficulty, and also works out for player progression in terms of helping them survive before they thrive.
2. Decrease shard rewards for big enemies to make them equal to low enemies for time invested.
Essentially, if I spend 5 minutes killing a drill, it should be about the same reward as if I spent 5 minutes killing smaller enemies. Player skill and tank choice will throw this one way or another, but right now I can make 30k or so every minute killing a drill, or I can spend 1 minute killing small enemies for around 10k shards, and be in the same relative danger for both.
3A. Give prisms use some form of additive progression, rather than a simple supremacy based progression.
What I mean is, instead of having it so that there's this one prism you get that trumps all the others, have it so that all the prisms have an effect on the end result. This way getting the lesser prisms (and their very existence for most players) isn't a waste of time.
The current effect we have is seen in ROTMG, where all weapons that aren't T7 or above are essentially useless to any non-new player and may as well not exist. Right now any prism that's not pulchritudinous or auroral is not sought out since they really only matter if you die that many times in a row without finding the replacement. The grid reimbursement for an unused prism is paltry and doesn't really help.
I've thought of a few different methods of doing this, but the best (least grindy, most helpful to all players) options to me seem as follows:
a) Give lesser prisms a value relative to the player's current prism level and have prisms "level up" if enough lesser prisms are collected.
Essentially add a little bar beside a prism, and that bar fills by a percentage based on the prism picked up if it's not high enough to replace your current prism. If I have an auroral prism, and I pick up another auroral prism, the bar fills by 50%, if I pick up the least valuable prism, it fills by 10%, that kind of thing.
This means that players whose goal is to get all pulchs will still have an incentive to help clear regions, and all prisms now still have a use to all players who are not maxed for that kind of prism.
B). Alternately we could have a different mechanic, where instead of leveling up your prism you're filling a temporary buff gauge, and clicking the prism would double your current buff for as long as the gauge doesn't run out (max 30 seconds?).
This would means all prisms are always useful for everyone in a fun and exciting way.
1. Why do we have 2 rows of prisms?
This seems to take up valuable screen space that could be used for other things now and in the future, while offering no real benefits either. When you die, all prisms just lose a level anyways, and now you effectively just double the time it takes to find all the prisms you need. Since the game is primarily skill driven over equipment driven, this doesn't seem like a necessary slowdown for players to encounter.
I would like to suggest we double prism effectiveness, and remove the second row of prisms.
2. There is currently 0 incentive for players to kill enemies that aren't drills.
The drills provide more shards, faster, and are the only place to get the highest level prisms quickly. There is no incentive to killing deadly delta refineries, or annoying if safe grid control towers when the rewards are compared. The only reasons to kill smaller enemies are to connect towns and clear regions for victory.
In order to encourage players to kill all enemies rather than just look for drills, I would like to suggest the following three changes.
1. Different prisms should drop from the 3 different castes of enemies.
This would encourage players to hunt for prisms they want rather than just all go to drills. I suggest square based enemies drop Range and Shield prisms, circles drop Speed and Health based prisms, and triangles drop Damage and Cooldown based prisms. These feel most in line with the motifs the enemies display, their difficulty, and also works out for player progression in terms of helping them survive before they thrive.
2. Decrease shard rewards for big enemies to make them equal to low enemies for time invested.
Essentially, if I spend 5 minutes killing a drill, it should be about the same reward as if I spent 5 minutes killing smaller enemies. Player skill and tank choice will throw this one way or another, but right now I can make 30k or so every minute killing a drill, or I can spend 1 minute killing small enemies for around 10k shards, and be in the same relative danger for both.
3A. Give prisms use some form of additive progression, rather than a simple supremacy based progression.
What I mean is, instead of having it so that there's this one prism you get that trumps all the others, have it so that all the prisms have an effect on the end result. This way getting the lesser prisms (and their very existence for most players) isn't a waste of time.
The current effect we have is seen in ROTMG, where all weapons that aren't T7 or above are essentially useless to any non-new player and may as well not exist. Right now any prism that's not pulchritudinous or auroral is not sought out since they really only matter if you die that many times in a row without finding the replacement. The grid reimbursement for an unused prism is paltry and doesn't really help.
I've thought of a few different methods of doing this, but the best (least grindy, most helpful to all players) options to me seem as follows:
a) Give lesser prisms a value relative to the player's current prism level and have prisms "level up" if enough lesser prisms are collected.
Essentially add a little bar beside a prism, and that bar fills by a percentage based on the prism picked up if it's not high enough to replace your current prism. If I have an auroral prism, and I pick up another auroral prism, the bar fills by 50%, if I pick up the least valuable prism, it fills by 10%, that kind of thing.
This means that players whose goal is to get all pulchs will still have an incentive to help clear regions, and all prisms now still have a use to all players who are not maxed for that kind of prism.
B). Alternately we could have a different mechanic, where instead of leveling up your prism you're filling a temporary buff gauge, and clicking the prism would double your current buff for as long as the gauge doesn't run out (max 30 seconds?).
This would means all prisms are always useful for everyone in a fun and exciting way.
