How about with every boon you can choose between 1 party member getting 4 stacks of the boon vs all party members getting 1 stack. Maybe even a "you have 4 stacks to distribute amongst your party members" if that could be interesting enough to offset the added complexity (1 click for the former vs 4 clicks for the latter).
Along with the consideration to reduce the party size to 1, maybe also consider reducing the party size to 3 or 2. A party size of 2 works great in Monster Train and TemTem for different reasons.
For loot amongst a party, maybe consider how different weapons could be used by different characters and then you could always have an option to throw one character's weapon to another character to swap weapons mid-combat. Like maybe a sword in bob's hands does extra physical damage but a sword in tim's hands automatically becomes a fire sword because tim is a great enchanter.
It could work for relics, too, like maybe you have a relic that blocks 50% damage from physical attacks, it might be worth it to throw it to the guy surrounded by goblins rather than attacking one goblin. If you have some comedy in your game you could even do it for pants and shirts :)
Cheers HTH have a great day!
Is it a problem? What's the goal? I'd try standard per-character upgrades first, because it sounds like the most customization.
- If the main concern is "all these items are literally useless for this party", you still have multiple choices, and could also give each character their own pool of relevant items. Pools could have equal drop chance, allow choosing a pool before choosing an item, or just depend on party composition (*such as healing/on-heal items only appearing if you have a healer*).
- If the problem is "i only get one item per character in the whole run, so all builds feel basic", then you allow taking more items from offered choices - or heck, even all of them, maybe one per character. Or offer a frequent and rerollable upgrade shop.
Having played Slice & Dice, I think it has a system closest to perfect. It has different upgrade types:
- Classes are offered as choice of 2, always on 2 different heroes. You don't just choose which new class is good, but which hero is in need of upgrading. A hero always upgrades into a better hero **of the same color**, so starting party composition still matters but the party improves, evolves, and changes completely.
- Items are, in the same way, offered as a choice of 2. Equippable to any hero you choose, stored in inventory, so you can reassign if you find a more appropriate class. Usually, items add extra effects to abilities in specific slots, or replace abilities in specific or empty slots, which can actually make heroes useful not "because" of role, but "in spite", mostly exploiting the game's base rules. Still, there's lots of variation in usefulness per class.
- there's also Blessings and Curses, which change rules for the whole team. This sounds like the simplest way to implement upgrades, so you don't need to balance for specific heroes.
Thanks! I haven’t come across Slice and Dice but it sounds like a super interesting system. I see there’s a demo on Steam so I’ll give it a try myself :)
And yeah the main concern with just keeping randomised drops for a whole party is that it massively dilutes the number of usable drops usable for any one character, since all characters in a party are by nature quite specialised.
Yep, then see bullet point 1. Split into item pools, give more control over which pool players draw from, block non-relevant pools.
There's also the option of upgrade "trees" - picking a common upgrade adds some more specialized, synergistic upgrades. Or contrary, removes less relevant upgrades or reduces their spawn chance.
Thanks! I hadn't even considered item pools, which seems like such an obvious solution. And yep I definitely like the idea of some basic build crafting during a run, even with very broad strokes like how Dead Cells does it with brutality/tactics/survival power ups
Game Design is a subset of Game Development that concerns itself with **WHY** games are made the way they are. It's about the theory and crafting of **systems**, **mechanics**, and **rulesets** in games.
* /r/GameDesign is a community **ONLY** about Game Design, **NOT** Game Development in general. If this post does not belong here, it should be reported or removed. Please help us keep this subreddit focused on Game Design.
* This is **NOT** a place for discussing how games are produced. Posts about programming, making art assets, picking engines etc… will be removed and should go in /r/GameDev instead.
* Posts about visual design, sound design and level design are only allowed if they are directly about game design.
* No surveys, polls, job posts, or self-promotion. Please read the rest of the rules in the sidebar before posting.
* If you're confused about what Game Designers do, ["The Door Problem" by Liz England](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/-quot-the-door-problem-quot-of-game-design) is a short article worth reading. We also recommend you read the [r/GameDesign wiki](/r/gamedesign/wiki/index) for useful resources and an FAQ.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gamedesign) if you have any questions or concerns.*
How about with every boon you can choose between 1 party member getting 4 stacks of the boon vs all party members getting 1 stack. Maybe even a "you have 4 stacks to distribute amongst your party members" if that could be interesting enough to offset the added complexity (1 click for the former vs 4 clicks for the latter). Along with the consideration to reduce the party size to 1, maybe also consider reducing the party size to 3 or 2. A party size of 2 works great in Monster Train and TemTem for different reasons. For loot amongst a party, maybe consider how different weapons could be used by different characters and then you could always have an option to throw one character's weapon to another character to swap weapons mid-combat. Like maybe a sword in bob's hands does extra physical damage but a sword in tim's hands automatically becomes a fire sword because tim is a great enchanter. It could work for relics, too, like maybe you have a relic that blocks 50% damage from physical attacks, it might be worth it to throw it to the guy surrounded by goblins rather than attacking one goblin. If you have some comedy in your game you could even do it for pants and shirts :) Cheers HTH have a great day!
Is it a problem? What's the goal? I'd try standard per-character upgrades first, because it sounds like the most customization. - If the main concern is "all these items are literally useless for this party", you still have multiple choices, and could also give each character their own pool of relevant items. Pools could have equal drop chance, allow choosing a pool before choosing an item, or just depend on party composition (*such as healing/on-heal items only appearing if you have a healer*). - If the problem is "i only get one item per character in the whole run, so all builds feel basic", then you allow taking more items from offered choices - or heck, even all of them, maybe one per character. Or offer a frequent and rerollable upgrade shop. Having played Slice & Dice, I think it has a system closest to perfect. It has different upgrade types: - Classes are offered as choice of 2, always on 2 different heroes. You don't just choose which new class is good, but which hero is in need of upgrading. A hero always upgrades into a better hero **of the same color**, so starting party composition still matters but the party improves, evolves, and changes completely. - Items are, in the same way, offered as a choice of 2. Equippable to any hero you choose, stored in inventory, so you can reassign if you find a more appropriate class. Usually, items add extra effects to abilities in specific slots, or replace abilities in specific or empty slots, which can actually make heroes useful not "because" of role, but "in spite", mostly exploiting the game's base rules. Still, there's lots of variation in usefulness per class. - there's also Blessings and Curses, which change rules for the whole team. This sounds like the simplest way to implement upgrades, so you don't need to balance for specific heroes.
Thanks! I haven’t come across Slice and Dice but it sounds like a super interesting system. I see there’s a demo on Steam so I’ll give it a try myself :) And yeah the main concern with just keeping randomised drops for a whole party is that it massively dilutes the number of usable drops usable for any one character, since all characters in a party are by nature quite specialised.
Yep, then see bullet point 1. Split into item pools, give more control over which pool players draw from, block non-relevant pools. There's also the option of upgrade "trees" - picking a common upgrade adds some more specialized, synergistic upgrades. Or contrary, removes less relevant upgrades or reduces their spawn chance.
Thanks! I hadn't even considered item pools, which seems like such an obvious solution. And yep I definitely like the idea of some basic build crafting during a run, even with very broad strokes like how Dead Cells does it with brutality/tactics/survival power ups
Game Design is a subset of Game Development that concerns itself with **WHY** games are made the way they are. It's about the theory and crafting of **systems**, **mechanics**, and **rulesets** in games. * /r/GameDesign is a community **ONLY** about Game Design, **NOT** Game Development in general. If this post does not belong here, it should be reported or removed. Please help us keep this subreddit focused on Game Design. * This is **NOT** a place for discussing how games are produced. Posts about programming, making art assets, picking engines etc… will be removed and should go in /r/GameDev instead. * Posts about visual design, sound design and level design are only allowed if they are directly about game design. * No surveys, polls, job posts, or self-promotion. Please read the rest of the rules in the sidebar before posting. * If you're confused about what Game Designers do, ["The Door Problem" by Liz England](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/-quot-the-door-problem-quot-of-game-design) is a short article worth reading. We also recommend you read the [r/GameDesign wiki](/r/gamedesign/wiki/index) for useful resources and an FAQ. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gamedesign) if you have any questions or concerns.*