Shred-VII

U L T R A S H I L L

Wannabe amateur game dev who swears a lot and memes on occasion.

Spirit animal is the sloth.


minasheep
@minasheep

One thing that differentiates SeaFor's combat encounters is that you do not have the option to flee. Once you hit an encounter you better pray that you have what you need to survive it because otherwise it's game over.

I think that tension is real and interesting but I do see the unfortunate reality that some people might face where you could find yourself in a sucky unwinnable scenario and lose progress. Ow!

While doing playtesting I had a player or two who played using a debug attack where Bess kills every enemy. And they enjoyed it! Certainly an option I want to give through cheatcodes but it got me thinking.


What if there was a consumable that killed every enemy in one go? It sounds preposterous at first but the more I thought about it the more the idea was intriguing me.

I made an item with that function called the Red Incense. It sprays a red mist that dissipates all fiends.

It would give the player one final out when all else is gone sideways. But... It's such a brutal and potent item, how would I balance it?

It needs to be ineffective against bosses and special encounters to be sure....
Would it need to be an extra expensive item?
Is being able to buy that item at all a problem?

For the moment I put it in the shop at a price 6 times as high as a regular healing potion, but I'm thinking of maybe rationing it, like you get to have one on you at a time and you can only grab one after you rest? It could have a similar flavour to grabbing an onigiri before starting a Shiren the Wanderer run.

It's also possible that this is a bad idea for the balance of the game... We are in need of further testing one way or the other but I think it has the potential of being a fun mechanic


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in reply to @minasheep's post:

nah i think this is a great idea that takes consideration for multiple kinds of players without ruining or compromising the spirit of the game. in the form of an rare/one-time/expensive consumable, it becomes something where you have to evaluate whether or not the "instant kill" is worth not having as many resources for recovery or other strategies for further encounters. there's potentially an interesting push-pull scenario that can develop from such a mechanic/idea.

This is a really fun idea! I think the drama of it is potent enough that it's worth figuring out how it fits in balance-wise, it could potentially end up being a very memorable part of the game.

You'll have to communicate this clearly, but one extra advantage to having it be limited to one in your inventory at a time is that you'll avoid the elixir problem where RPG players always want to hoard rare items "just in case," since they won't be able to get another until they use it.

I love this idea. As someone who often pushes their luck in RPGs, it's such a fun thing to have a nuclear option as a last resort. Since this ends the encounter but doesn't heal you, it means you still have to hobble home if you're wounded and you might still die. Thrilling!

I think this is especially cool because you could conceivably use it in other scenarios as well. I'm not sure the structure of your game but if you had Metal Slime-like enemies (i.e. super rare and valuable), having the option to nuke one encounter would give a neat choice of "well I could use this now and possibly gets lots of resources, but it makes this run riskier/shorter".

I think the risk balance-wise is someone wising up to its unlimited uses and using it to grind out enemies wayyyyy above their exp level. You could mitigate this by having any encounters that end this way giving no rewards, but it also limits its usefulness in other situations. And again, this may not apply to the structure of your game.

Anyway just some thoughts!! I think this is a cool idea and it got my brain churning, so I figured I'd put down my thoughts.