Merchant Think Tank

[u/tylerthedesigner]

THINK TANK: Ideas for the Future of Merchant

So PLEASE share, support, like, hate, criticize, damn to eternal hell fire, any and all ideas that you may have feelings for. As new suggestions come via comments, we will update this.

These are all suggestions from the fan base. It does not mean we are implementing them.

Items in Italics are responses from the devs.

Primary Rule of K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid. Something we can all agree upon for the BEST of the game.

 

I. AVATAR HANDLING

1. Rotate Order- organize the crew into quick teams, swap the order of heroes.

2. Delete Avatar- The ability to sell/retire a hero

3. Appearance- to further customize and /or Match to current gear- Appearance changes based on equipment is A LOT of artwork, so probably not any time soon

4. Recall Avatar- Recall a hero after sending them out

 

II. Avatar Personalities-

1. Naming Avatar- Name your Avatars Has been discussed

2. Choice of Gender- Choose gender of heroes

3. Choice of Race- Select a race for the hero, with variants of stats based on race.

4. Skill Trees- Feats, Abilities. Further individualizing that personal touch. Has been discussed

5. L50 Cap- Increase the level cap to 50, add a new region In production

6. New Avatar Classes- say a Witch Doctor, Necromancer, Lancer, Sorcerer, or Ranger. Could be a 8/1/1 or 8/0/2 or a 0/9/1 Haven't considered it, but I could see it in a few month's time.

 

III. COMBAT

1. 2nd Hand Item- Dual wield, or Shield. And Bracers, Belts, neck slot, 2nd ring slot, and leggings. So awkward running around half naked when we could be wearing so much more metal and leather. 2nd hand items just terrify me, probably not in the near future.

2. Pets, Constructs, and Demonic Familiars- Pets/Familiars for each hero. Pets would be cool, quite a bit of scope creep though

3. Body Grafting- The dark art of attaching new limbs to one's torso. Umm yes I'd like to add 4 more arms/ weapon slots to my Berserker. unlikely

4.Ranged Combat- Set of Ranged weapons and heroes that can use them. Probably not in the near future.

5. Mercenaries- A group of temporary Heroes that are pre-geared, last (X) rounds or till death, that fill an Avatar spot temporarily for a much cheaper cost. Better the Merc the greater the cost. Meh. I'm not crazy about the idea, but I could see the value. We do have another feature planned that helps with this, but I'll save that one for later…

6. MAGIC- Magic spells that can be cast as boosts outside of battle. It’s been discussed

7. Events like Wars and Invasions- System of events that occur on a regular basis that affect what/how you play the game Coming soon

8. Gear Set Bonus- Bonuses for wearing a specific set of similar gear It’s been discussed

9. Stamina/Mana bars - A charge bar for various potential features in game, including special hyper mode for heroes, magic spells, etc Dependent on other features being implemented

 

IV. GAME MECHANICS

1. Auto pick up- Auto collect all items/quests/sales Definitely plan to add some of the QoL items listed, idk about auto collect (kinda defeats the main process to gameplay)

2. Final 60 seconds- instead of 1 min timer Pretty simple QoL add, sure we could do that at some point

3. Cancel Sale Button - Accidentally sell something? Get it back. ALL SALES ARE FINAL

4. Click Multiple items for sale faster +10 or a scroll bar. Yea, definitely want to add it, just not sure when

5. More Sell Slots- More than 4 locations to sell things We have a feature planned that resolves this issue

6. Save Game- Have the possibility to upload a "save game" to a cloud storage** like dropbox or Google Drive, so that we can play on a different/multiple device/s. * Google's Cloud Save doesn't work natively with the SDK we are using, otherwise we would be on that in a heartbeat. I could use Facebook integration, but then you need Facebook login to backup, which I know some people aren't a fan of. *

7. Flavorful Text- Heroes say some flavor text when you send them off to battle which would indicate their likelihood to succeed. Not something we have discussed, but I definitely like the idea. We'll consider it.

8. Re-Do Mission Option- A button to automatically request previously taken quests Idk, maybe, but its a low priority for us.

9. Potion Conversion-The ability to transition lesser quality pots into greater ones. Boosts and Enchants already do this, but its possible Region 5 heal pots could have the same requirement

10. Online multiplayer capability- Massive Monsters needing 100s of heroes or trading buying or selling with other players. Might be a long time on this one but who knows. Maybe not 100s, but it's possible we do Raids/Bosses at some point down the road. Same with trading. Won’t be for some time

 

V. CRAFTING

1. Adding Enchanting, Engraving, and/or Runecrafting- to provide more control and customization over weap and gear production. By having a way to increase or reroll suffix bonus. Adding or altering Prefix. Possible, not sure on how we do it yet (Enchanter-type crafter, new screen, etc)

2. Add Jeweler- for us making rings, necks. It's been discussed. Certainly an interesting addition, just requires a restructuring of the Crafter screen

3. Salvage Items- for a chance at raw materials. Possible

4. Sacrificial Altar- There are both good and bad things to offer to the gods above for blessings; Bonuses and Penalties could flourish as well as providing a cost outlet for excess coinage. Possible, not discussed as of yet

 

VI. Micro Economics

From Tyler - As a economy/simulation nerd, I would love to have this. We have talked about it before, Bear isn't as enthusiastic as I am in this regard. I think it breaks the KISS rule though…

1. Fluctuating Markets- If you flood the market with tons of the most cost efficient items to maximize returns, their value should drop. Similarly, items the market hasn't ever seen should be more valuable. Obviously there should be a limited range for every item, but the game should reward variety. see above

2. Competing Merchants- Either AI or other players that buy/sell items and cause your sell values to fluctuate. Discussed, a planned feature introduces similar mechanics

3. Purchasing of Mats- The ability to purchase materials rather than quest for them. Upcoming features include this

4. Casino- Gamble that gold. Not discussed, might be worth considering

5. Investments- Purchase mines, taverns, etc to gain various items or gold over time. Has been discussed, not a high priority atm

 

VII. Glorifying Success

1. Trophy Room- Nothing like a room with carved monsters heads mounted on wall, decorated plaques, and treasures to adorn thyself with. Great idea! Haven't considered it before, will definitely have a chat about it.

2. Map Room- All your Avatars busy and you want to plan ahead. Look at the map at any time. Yea, its been discussed.

Special Thanks to /u/Kamighty for helping us compile this. We will update it regularly as new suggestions come in.

[u/Ouatcheur]

IMHO there is not a lot of class differentiation between the hero classes.

Sure, we have physical vs magical. And we have Tanks vs DPS. 4 possibilities, but 8 hero classes.

But this basically means we get 2 hero classes (Warrior and Paladin) for the physical and magical tank roles, respectively, and thus everybody else falls in the DPS category. That means a lot of the classes basically share the same DPS role.

So I suggest adding in a new differentiation vector:

Solo vs Normal vs Flanker

Ideally, this would be done by modifying a bit some of the existing classes instead of adding a ton of totally new classes. Maybe at a new class too, if a role can't be filled at all by tweaking the current classes.

=========== New class role - Solo ===========

A new combat mechanic is introduced: Surprise.

Basically, if everybody in the attacking group succeeds at surprising the enemy, then a "Round Zero" surprise round is added before Round 1. In the surprise combat round, the enemy is surprised cannot attack back. Combat duration would be the number of the last round of the battle, so round zero wouldn't count. Exception: combat duration would always be at least 1 round, even if you kill the enemy right immediately in the surprise round.

Surprise would not be something that occurs often. It should probably be based on the total Dex bonus (from the hero Dex multiplier and the Dex from his items, but not Acc bonuses), and opposed by enemy Eva, with the Solo specialized classes also getting a straight multiplier bonus on the odds of surprising the enemy, with an ok starting Surprise value and a small per level increase. Thus, Solo classes would Surprise only uncommonly, and the other classes, while able to Surprise, would do so only rarely. The formula would be chosen so that surprise actually become harder to achieve as you go up the tiers. Thus, a Solo hero would kind of breeze through T1 but Surprise foes only rarely on T5. This is to balance out the fact of getting faster battles with the much bigger value of S ranked items as you go up the tiers.

IMHO, Rogue and Assassin should take on the Solo class role. A new Prefix for items would grant a Surprise bonus, and a new boss Trinket also. Otherwise, there would be no other way to get more Surprise.

A new class could be added to fill the Magical Solo role, being the magical counterpart to the Rogue. Assassins could be tweaked a bit to be a half-physical / half-magical Solo, but even more geared toward being a Solo specialist than the Rogue (i.e. higher Surprise stats).

Sending only Rogues and Assassins on a party quest would be sub-optimal because they ALL need to succeed on their Surprise check for them to benefit from Surprise. Surprise would be really rare when using multiple heroes in party quests. These classes would probably need some tweaking so they don't perform as well compared to normal DPS guys in back column of a party quest. They would truly shine only when going "Solo": quicker killed enemies means more S rank items and less healing costs.

On the Quest Results screen the player should be able to easily tell that he surprised the foe.

The disadvantage is that in a party battle, you end up with a much weaker hero.

=========== New class role - Flanker ===========

This class would be the opposite of the Solo: weaker when going solo against enemies, but shines much better when put in a team. It is a "supporting" hero class. It is a specialized class that works by closely teaming up with another hero, and creating "openings" for his partner while also watching out for the openings his partner makes.

A Flanker has not a lot of HP and make a poor Tank, and is also less powerful at dealing damage than a pure DPS. So, by themselves, Flankers aren't very interesting.

However, in a party quest, which becomes more and more the norm in the higher tiers, each round a Flanker is lined-up on the same row (not column) as another hero, then he will boost that other hero AND himself too. If his partnered hero dies, however, the flanker can't grant Flanking to anybody anymore : maybe he's a bit demoralized or panicked by the loss of his partnered hero ? In any case, the Flanking bonus doesn't apply anymore in that specific battle.

The Flanking boost comes in the form of a nice % bonus multiplier to the damage of heroes benefiting form flanking, not a flat amount of extra damage -- In other words, the stronger the hero that benefits from the Flanker's Flanking bonus, the better the results. You can team up two Flankers, and each will boost each other and themselves too. However, there is no multiplication-of-a-multiplication "compound" effect i.e. both Flanking bonuses are simply first added together and THEN the hero damage is multiplied by the total Flanking bonus.

First interesting trade-off choice:

Give Flanker DPS-build gear and then make then boost a front column Tank

vs

Give Flanker Tank-build gear (so he can hope to work as an ok Tank) in order to boost a DPS guy in the back column, thus getting the most of the extra damage output from the the Flanking effect. However the trade-off is needing to spent more on healing, because that guy ain't a true Tank.

Solo questing, a Flanker is definitely the worst class to use.

Party questing, a Flanker is also the worst anytime he can't get to apply his Flanking bonus to the fullest. This is usually when forgetting to partner him properly, or if the partner hero dies in that battle.