Grimrock

Hello all, I've been playing around with this idea so I'd like to see what you all think.

What if, on a custom dungeon set, the leveling mechanics worked backwards. You start with a vast number of XP points to spend on your character, and you start with some of the harder enemies. As you progress, you de-level, losing abilities and skills as you go on. The reasoning behind this:

Because you start with (lots of abilities), you now have to make choices of what abilities to KEEP, eventually ending with only a few skills. Enemies will of course have to become slowly weaker as you progress. The idea is to challenge the player not to rely as much on character abilities and more on their own cunning. Grimrock might not be the best game to test this idea on, however there is a lot yet to think through. I'm mainly just throwing this idea out there to see what people think. Hopefully this could also eliminate 'end-game' syndrome where you feel you've got/done everything and are just waiting for the game to wrap itself up. It's possible you could trade off skills for gear, although then skill level requirements would have to be removed. That might itself be a separate mod to go with a random loot mod..

So, thoughts?

Interesting idea but I don't think it would be fun to play. All sense of progression would be lost and I imagine it would be very unsatisfying. (lol, you find a secret and lose your best weapon...)

The idea of puzzles that work backwards in different ways than they do forwards is however quite interesting.

From my point of view, it would entirely remove the sense of accomplishment from the game. I'd probably end up avoiding fights, so I could keep all my powers.

I think I remember a game like this. But its foggy. I do recall something where the players had to tactically decide what to give up when.

I like the principle of resource management and careful planning, but stripping away skills? Where's the reasoning behind it beyond an interesting game mechanic? Also what's stopping players just using their favourite skills from start to finish and caring not a jot at losing skills they don't use?

I like the idea of starting out 'good to go', and progress getting significantly harder, I don't think you need to make the enemies weaker as you progress. Why pander to the need to finish the dungeon, when failure is an acceptable outcome.

What if instead of losing skills, the weapons and armour wore out? Instead of placing conveniently improved gear along the way, what you take into the dungeon is the best you have available for the entire journey.

Do you save up that good condition sword for later or more difficult foes, but having not used it as much be less proficient in its use? You'd need to spread your skill points, to survive the dungeon.

You could still place minor weapon repair items and 'add-ons' that offer a use limited damage bonus around the levels to reward and encourage thorough exploration. Sharpening stones, replacement handles, perishable spiked netting around a hammer head.

The ultimate point being your equipment is what deteriorates and its scarcity is what dictates where you put your skill points. If you just focus build, your gear wont last and you've got a lot of wasted skill points.

The downside to this idea is it would require a heck of a lot of play testing to get the deterioration speed just right that its enjoyable AND difficult.

At least with this model, making it to the end will feel like an accomplishment.

You know.... I just and a twisted idea....

Small dungeon Grimrock sized (10-15 floors) with a twist. You Start out with a premo set of gear for your class. Stuff like the Valor set. And just enough levels to use it all. But here is the two fold twist. You get to the bottom and Do your thing with the big bad guy and that starts a count down. But like every evil master mind it is also a death trap. The floors above reset to some degree (gates/doors looking new monsters re-spawning) and you have to get out before the time runs out. Lucky for you that premo set of gear is just what you need to escape. Each floor would be locked by a barrier that you basically have to sacrifice the starting gear to so it will open. Time runs out and you die.

Of course this would only really work if they only gear in the dungeon was all low quality. So ditching gear really has an impact on you.

Interesting ideas. Increasing the significance of found gear would be important.

I'm not sure about switching losing skills with losing gear though. Admittedly you pointed out a flaw that there's no good story reason for you to de-level (yet) and it's just an interesting game mechanic idea. Well, what's more important, game mechanics or story? I assume since it's fantasy after a while a slightly plausible explanation could be conjured.

The main reason I wanted skills to degrade is so the player is forced into choices about what abilities to keep. If it was gear wearing down it'd be harder to control the degradation, plus it's less about the player's choice. Although the suggestion of repairing items does rectify this somewhat.

As for avoiding fights, what if that were a genuine gameplay mechanic? I suppose some fights would have to be done while others, if the player was clever, could be avoided. Another option, is that combat no longer affects XP. Perhaps the player would be "rewarded" with a linear (or exponential) loss of XP at the end of each level - POSSIBLY with secrets (that reward you with better gear) also incurring a small penalty. This way, the player would have to weigh up the chance of getting better gear with the certainty of losing a few XP points.

Bek wrote:The main reason I wanted skills to degrade is so the player is forced into choices about what abilities to keep. If it was gear wearing down it'd be harder to control the degradation, plus it's less about the player's choice. Although the suggestion of repairing items does rectify this somewhat.

What about this. You don't lose XP at all but instead you have something that removes skill points after a part in the story. Say 5 levels in you get the "CRUSE OF ANNOYING PLOT!" that causes your characters to bleed 1 skill point from one or more randoms skills every X moves/times/rests. This adds an odd thing were have players trying to complete things in a timely manner because of there are slowly become worse. At the same time at lest for a limited phase gaining XP and leveling can stave off the effects of the cruse but as that XP curve rises that becomes less and less of good idea and players would start avoiding unneeded fights just to save time.

How about equipment that wears down after time rather than losing skills? You start off with the sharpest sword in the world but as you progress is slowly dulls until it is useless, you can use stones and other items to resharpen but even this can only be done a few times until the sword breaks. This will make you think more tactically, is it worth powering through the first few mobs you come along or should you bypass? Obviously you can find replacement gear along the way but they will not be in peak condition themselves as they've been laying there since who knows when.

I thought you meant you work through grim rock form the bottom up instead of the top down.