Game getting harder over time, the experience bar.

[Vichi]

The basic idea is to increase the game difficult over time. This is my idea of how it could be:

The concept:

The game will start easy and you will gain experience over time, lets say you win experience for day survived. At some point you will level up, but you will not get stronger, instead of that, the game unlocks new dangers, improve the existing one or maybe unlock new other things. So, the game gets harder when you spend more and more days.

The objective:

The objective is to give a real value to the question "How long can you survive?". With the game getting harder and harder, survive will become a challenge at some point and finally you will die, giving yourself a personal score to beat the next game: your level. Will you do better in the next game reaching higher level?

Getting harder? What do you mean?

Some examples of things can be unlocked by leveling up:

-Hounds introduced to the game.

-More treants will appear.

-Animals are now faster.

-Bushes need more time to restore berries.

-Fire hounds are now more common

-Your will get hungry faster

They are examples to ilustrate the concept, maybe not every one is a good idea

Unlocking other things not directly related to difficult:

Also this can be a way to unlock new recipes to research, making more recipes available as you level up,the recipes can unlock every level or at certain level, and it can be unlocked one by one or by groups. Characters can be unlocked this way too, only the first time you get to the required level, of course. If Willow get unlocked, for example, at level 5, you will unlock her during the first game you get to level 5 and she will remain unlocked forever.

This way, people will get motivated to play again and again and try to get to a higher level. New characters and new recipes? who can resist to play again and try to get further!

But maybe this system is too hard for some people or dont fit with the way they :

Like everyone don't want to rush to get stronger before the game gets to hard, the experience can be granted for a lot of actions: building, killing enemies, researching, gathering... So the level up speed will adapt to the style of everyone. You are an experienced player and you can get everything in a few days? You will level up faster and the game will become hard early. You love to take your time to do things, explore, and play in a more relaxed way? You will level up slowly, so the game will not become very hard early, but at some point, the game will challenge you too!

Difficult can be added in a easy way too:

Sandbox: Experience doesn't exist. You have a menu to unlock everything you want but it will be limited to the higher level reached in a not sandbox game.

Easy: halves the experience you get.

Normal: you get experience at a normal rate.

Hard: you get 50% extra experience.

Final thoughts:

I think some system like this one will increase a lot the replayability of the game. Ok , maybe not this specific system with the experience bar, but something like that.

Thanks for reading and sorry if my English is not very good.

[Wasserstern]

Yes! I love this idea! Thats something I really want in the game.

But there are some ideas I dont like that much.

I dont think you should get hungry faster. If food is getting harder to find + hunger meter goes down faster it wouldnt be possible to survive after some time.

And I dont really like the "experience bar" idea.

I think the game should get harder after every "year".

(see seasons thread:http://forums.kleientertainment.com/showthread.php?1878-Suggesions-Seasons-!)

But still. This is something I would really like to see implemented in the game.

[Miss Andry]

I like that a lot. I was saying before how I'd like different difficulties and challenges, but I think the way you've set it up really expands on it so much more than just picking hard or easy.

I know exactly what you mean by EXP bar, but I think wording it differently will make your idea sound a lot better. Most people will see you say "EXP bar" and think that it means you'll be grinding monsters to try and level up instead of understanding what you're saying.

How about just a points bar? Like example once you get to 1000 points, then you'll unlock the next set of monsters or events and what not. I'm sure there could be an even better name than a "points bar" though. I have a feeling someone could come up with a clever name for it.

I got distracted, but I really dig the idea. It makes the game deeper and at the same time allows people how to play how they like. Seriously, I hope they go with something like this.

[mobius187]

It certainly an interesting idea. Right now I assume a player earns experience points from actions like "days survived", enemies killed, inventions researched, and items crafted, but all of this only has an effect once you die. I like how this affects the game you're playing. For example, as you pointed out, a new player could spend days just surviving and only really earn a small amount of XP during this period as they learn the ropes. In exchange the difficulty wouldn't be ramped up for them until much later. While the experienced player who knows everything and quickly starts inventing/building ASAP, for them they'll earn XP faster and therefore the difficulty would ramp-up faster for them too.

My only qualm is with making the "ramp-up" endless. I don't mind making things difficult, but to a limit. I want to enjoy what I've built with my own two hands, not spend every day dealing with greater and greater threats. At the very most I would say this could be a gameplay type or setting (i.e. occurs on "Hard" difficulty).

[501105]

I love the idea for the most part. Introducing new dangers at certain points would keep the game fresh and would make surviving in general a lot more interesting. Who knows what dangers are lurking out there.

My problem with your idea however relates to the increasing hunger to make it more difficult and the unlocking of recipes. I like new dangers such as monsters to make it more difficult as time goes on, but increasing the hunger sounds cheap and frankly not much fun at all. Combining recipes and levels also seems a bit tricky in my eyes. Kevin is busy with trying to make the game less grindy and frankly getting XP to level up and unlock new recipes is the definition of grinding.

[Vichi]

Well, you are right: increasing hunger is not a good idea. Anyway that examples was to explain the idea, not part of the idea.

The experience bar is the simplest way I found to explain this. But one more time, the idea is not the experience bar, it can be any other way. I personally prefer a hidden method.

My main idea is the game getting harder while you play. How and when is a balance problem.

The unlocking recipes and characters is only a way to keep the player interest to try getting further. This recipes doesn't have to be important ones, maybe only decorative or alternative recipes, but I think is important the existence of a reward.

The main reason for this suggestion is my own experience, i have played the game for 12 hours, the game stopped to be challenging some hours before but i keep playing because there was a lot of things to discover(objects, recipes, npcs...). Without a challenge and everything discovered the game have lost most of it fun.

The game getting harder is an endless challenge and you will always have a personal score to beat, and in the other hand you can compete with friends(or foes). Personally i really love compete with my friends and we've playing stupid games for months just beating the other's score again and again, trying to keep ourselves in the top. Trying to survive more than my friends seems like a lot of fun to me.

The game unlocking things(characters, npcs, recipes, events, diseases, harder seasons... whatever the designers think is right to be unlockable) would be a major reason to keep players playing and trying to get further. Unlocking things is a very powerful weapon for this objective.

My only qualm is with making the "ramp-up" endless. I don't mind making things difficult, but to a limit. I want to enjoy what I've built with my own two hands, not spend every day dealing with greater and greater threats. At the very most I would say this could be a gameplay type or setting (i.e. occurs on "Hard" difficulty).

An endless difficult ramp is indeed a problem if you don't want to see death in the way i see it: a thing that have to happen and you have to delay in any possible way. Anyway, it doesn't have to be a constant desperate struggle, getting harder from one day to another. It can be in a more relaxed way allowing you to enjoy your world while the game doesn't stop to give you new challenges. If not, I think the player will get bored Soon or later. But like you have pointed, it can be an option or something like that.

[mobius187]

An endless difficult ramp is indeed a problem if you don't want to see death in the way i see it: a thing that have to happen and you have to delay in any possible way. Anyway, it doesn't have to be a constant desperate struggle, getting harder from one day to another. It can be in a more relaxed way allowing you to enjoy your world while the game doesn't stop to give you new challenges. If not, I think the player will get bored Soon or later. But like you have pointed, it can be an option or something like that.

I agree, but in terms of option I was thinking it would be best suited with setting a difficulty level at the start of the map. So your idea, in its purest form (maybe with adjustments to the hunger idea) would be considered "Hard". At the same time I still like the idea of the game becoming more difficult as the player progresses, except allowing it to level out at some point. This could be considered "Normal" difficulty. That way it keeps your idea, while allowing players who want to continue their game beyond that peak level, to do so. Of course other challenges could exist in both modes, akin to boss fights (for lack of a better term) or new more difficult worlds to explore (i.e. via portal).

[Miss Andry]

Kevin is busy with trying to make the game less grindy and frankly getting XP to level up and unlock new recipes is the definition of grinding.

That's what I was saying in my post. It's not grinding to get XP. I knew people would assume that if you "level up" you have to grind something. It's just playing the game at your own pace. If playing the game and doing various things count as grinding, then we might as well be saying that playing Mario is grinding. The way Vichi explained it is more of a point system. The more you do in the world, the harder it'll be. It's really perfect for this game seeing how easy it is to survive.

I like the idea that you won't survive forever. What's the point in playing if you're going to be able to just live off a farm forever? The fun part should be trying to last longer and longer each time. Not just lasting forever one time and having nothing to do. I personally hope that's not what this game will be about.

As for the hunger complaints and what not, how about after a set of "xp" points, your hunger will hit a cap. That way you won't constantly getting hungrier and hungrier and by say day 50 you'll go hungry in one minute.

Another way around it is to just make food harder to find which is probably already what is going to happen in game as it is.

What I'm basically saying is, I think this is just the perfect idea. Just change the wording of "exp" and "leveling up" and I'm sure everyone would basically agree.

[mobius187]

My only thought about collecting XP vs grinding for XP, is simply this, the DEVs should never tell or show us what or how we earn XP. Sure, we could make assumptions, but we would never know for certain and by how much (i.e. how much XP) each action rewards.

[grzegorz]

Nope, i dont want to try to lat longer and longer, it could have more places to visit (cave's(?)), but i dont want to be reminded how long i did survive, and i want to be sure, that if i try, i will survive for ever!

Its up to you to take more risks and move out of your farm.

Game is very good right now, no experience, no quests, no achivments, no "must play or i will get behind" thing.

Perfect to relax!

[mobius187]

Game is very good right now, no experience, no quests, no achievments, no "must play or i will get behind" thing. Perfect to relax!

Well I do like those aspects of the game, and while there is XP, right now the only impact it has is for unlocking new characters when you perish. That will change, but regardless the XP is tracked behind the scenes.

[501105]

That's what I was saying in my post. It's not grinding to get XP. I knew people would assume that if you "level up" you have to grind something. It's just playing the game at your own pace. If playing the game and doing various things count as grinding, then we might as well be saying that playing Mario is grinding. The way Vichi explained it is more of a point system. The more you do in the world, the harder it'll be. It's really perfect for this game seeing how easy it is to survive.

I like the idea that you won't survive forever. What's the point in playing if you're going to be able to just live off a farm forever? The fun part should be trying to last longer and longer each time. Not just lasting forever one time and having nothing to do. I personally hope that's not what this game will be about.

As for the hunger complaints and what not, how about after a set of "xp" points, your hunger will hit a cap. That way you won't constantly getting hungrier and hungrier and by say day 50 you'll go hungry in one minute.

Another way around it is to just make food harder to find which is probably already what is going to happen in game as it is.

What I'm basically saying is, I think this is just the perfect idea. Just change the wording of "exp" and "leveling up" and I'm sure everyone would basically agree.

XP is a tricky thing. It could be made natural in that you get XP for doing certain activities that you will do no matter what anyway. The danger in XP is that doing the things you normally do in the game is not enough to get lots of XP (or at a very slow pace) and thus requires you to repeat activities that reward with large sums of XP. I agree with you that getting XP is not grinding, it is just that many game that use XP tend to require grinding to get to a certain point.

On the difficult part I agree. The longer you play the game, the more XP you get and the better you become as a survivor in the game. Keeping the game the same would be too easy for the players who have basically mastered all there is at the start. I dont mind the hunger getting slightly higher, but the cap of it needs to be carefully considered for it not to be a huge annoyance. It is after all still a game and even though survival should be more difficult, it should not become annoying to play at any given time.

[Soltys]

I already suggested something like that. Progressively harder events every 10 days that you have to beat/evade in order to survive.

I like the idea of actually having to sweat to keep playing... It's a survival game after all, not farmville :/

[Miss Andry]

I already suggested something like that. Progressively harder events every 10 days that you have to beat/evade in order to survive.

I like the idea of actually having to sweat to keep playing... It's a survival game after all, not farmville :/

Thank you. That's what I've been saying. I think this is the perfect way to add challenge to the game seeing as it goes at everyone's pace.

[Antr4cite]

Add broken limbs (wodden splints = rope + twigs) and bleeding (bandages = built with cotton)