Patreon Weekly #57 - July 6th, 2020 (Patreon)

Hey Patrons!

This week I’m getting some of the technical work in place for v0.8.2, including a lot of the internal structuring for the news and supporter interfaces. If things go well I may have some screenshots to share on that next week.

Also, there’s a new Content Poll! I’m making a few changes to the way polls work to try and ensure one comes out every month, take a look at the poll post for more details.

Now, let me share a bit more of my thoughts on Shattered’s upcoming gameplay system!

How Should the System be Organized?

Firstly, go read last week’s weekly if you haven’t already. When I started talking about skills/abilities/etc, I imagine everyone had a different idea of how such a system might look. This sort of mechanic is nearly universal in RPG games, and so there are many, many different ways they have been implemented. Let’s take a look at a few examples of how the overall system could be structured.

We can probably all agree that something like Path of Exile’s skill tree is far too complex, but is a simpler tree structure the right call? I’d say no, because skill trees are geared toward a completed build, with branching paths and lots of skill dependencies. This creates a structure that’s really satisfying to plan out and see completed, but runs don’t always make it that far in Shattered. Additionally, random loot means that the player shouldn’t be expecting to plan a build out from the start; that’s one of the reasons why I removed starting with the tome of mastery.

So then what about an opposite extreme, something like the linear levelling system in Dungeon of the Endless? DotE is a sort of roguelike/tower-defense game where the player can spend resources to level up heroes. Levelling unlocks stat boosts and abilities in a pre-set order. This works really well for DotE, so much so that playing it in 2017 is what originally got me thinking about how boring levelling up in Shattered is. However, in DotE resource allocation is an important part of gameplay strategy, and so even though levels are linear there is still a lot of decision-making involved. In Shattered, with one hero and consistent exp gain, a linear system would be simple to the point of not being fun.

So how about something that’s a little more in between? I think a good candidate for Shattered is a layered system, and a good example of that can be found in the MMO MapleStory (2000’s era Maplestory, specifically). In Maplestory the skills a player can learn are tiered based on character level (referred to as job advancements). A skill point you get while in one tier has to be spent on that tier’s skills, and skills in later tiers are (mostly) independent of skills in earlier tiers. This provides a lot of the benefits of a skill tree while not requiring the same level of planning.

With a layered system the player is free to choose the earlygame skills they want right now without fearing that they will invalidate a build they may want to use in the lategame. It also helps keep complexity in check, as the player only needs to consider the skills within their current layer. It preserves a lot of the fun factor though, as the player still has meaningful choices to make, and the different layers still provides a sense of progression!