[SUGGESTION] Taking inspiration from Armored Core

Estender

Deepscanner
Jul 26, 2016
55
63
18
Planet Tölva
#21
There was some confusion in terminology very early on, but Grummz has since clarified that even though he will often refer to "horizontal progression" in Em-8ER (because expanding options is the larger focus) he does intend for the player to gain some amount of direct power increase through progression.
'tis true, the vision the book shows this quite clearly.
Yet i haven't seen any evidence of such chief chat he was talking about, curious.
 
Jul 26, 2016
1,461
2,441
113
43
#22
There was some confusion in terminology very early on, but Grummz has since clarified that even though he will often refer to "horizontal progression" in Em-8ER (because expanding options is the larger focus) he does intend for the player to gain some amount of direct power increase through progression.
Weapon power or reaction core power?

I liked that part of the design. That you have to be mindful of how much power each part on your omniframe will cost on the reaction core. I know crafting will play a role in how strong that is... but if that reaction core strength is also connected to the player's progression/level that it makes it interesting to me.

But if the direct power increase is just sent to weapon damage or something then it gets less interesting to me. That's just Shotgun+0 has evolved to Shotgun+1. Just revelant to the shotgun. But an increase to reaction core power is a different story.

Like in the first Amored Core if the player actually ran themselves into debt enough times and way over, the game will give you an internal engine that was essentially a one time permanent +% to any of the swappable mech's engine part. That meant you can bolt on more stuff or movement boost longer than normal. It gave you a slight edge.

'tis true, the vision the book shows this quite clearly.
darn. don't have that. I'm relying on the site.
 
Last edited:

Tragedy

ARES Operator
Jul 26, 2016
39
64
18
California, America
#23
There was some confusion in terminology very early on, but Grummz has since clarified that even though he will often refer to "horizontal progression" in Em-8ER (because expanding options is the larger focus) he does intend for the player to gain some amount of direct power increase through progression.
Thanks for the response, and for clarification: vertical progression isn't inherently a bad thing - a small amount of vertical progression 10-15% increase from noob->veteran just adds a sense of progress and achievement to the game. In a horizontal setting you can consider it a specialization in a specific field.

It's only when there's 6000 item levels and 1000 quality levels that vertical progression starts to get really out of hand. If anyone reading this disagrees with me, feel free to respond -- I'm always open to discussion.
 

Tragedy

ARES Operator
Jul 26, 2016
39
64
18
California, America
#24
Like in the first Amored Core if the player actually ran themselves into debt enough times and way over, the game will give you an internal engine that was essentially a one time permanent +% to any of the swappable mech's engine part. That meant you can bolt on more stuff or movement boost longer than normal. It gave you a slight edge.
This is actually what I was referencing when I was discussing pilot progression. In the first four Armored Core titles there was a body modification program called Human+ (later called OP-I) that was obtained when you incurred excessive amounts of debt.

Lore-wise, you became a test-subject for new body-modifications to pay off your debts - and these would in turn make you a "better pilot". Notably, you were able to do things such as fire shoulder-mounted weaponry without getting into firing-position, target airborne missiles, pilot an overweight machine, etc.

These absolutely made you stronger, but they weren't direct damage/health increases either. They were a "horizontal" upgrade to the pilot that gave you more options instead of a generic %damage or %health increase.
 

BunnyHunny

Deepscanner
Aug 20, 2016
127
69
28
#25
If you disagree with this and see a severe vertical impact to the game, then please by all means debate me - I am open to discussion.
This will not happen.
What I am not open to however, is your attempts to completely shutdown discussion with information that isn't even accurate.
This will keep happening.

The forums are a strange place.
Good luck with your thread.
 

Estender

Deepscanner
Jul 26, 2016
55
63
18
Planet Tölva
#26
Weapon power or reaction core power?

I liked that part of the design. That you have to be mindful of how much power each part on your omniframe will cost on the reaction core. I know crafting will play a role in how strong that is... but if that reaction core strength is also connected to the player's progression/level that it makes it interesting to me.

But if the direct power increase is just sent to weapon damage or something then it gets less interesting to me. That's just Shotgun+0 has evolved to Shotgun+1. Just revelant to the shotgun. But an increase to reaction core power is a different story.

Like in the first Amored Core if the player actually ran themselves into debt enough times and way over, the game will give you an internal engine that was essentially a one time permanent +% to any of the swappable mech's engine part. That meant you can bolt on more stuff or movement boost longer than normal. It gave you a slight edge.
Quoting from V.B.

"Unlocking Tiers

There is no leveling in Em-8ER. Instead, advancement is more about
giving the player options than huge power increases. You can develop
your Omniframe’s abilities, weapons and armor as you progress
both individually and as you help advance the world state.
Abilities, weapons, and such are arranged in tiers. Each tier gives
more options and sometimes more powerful upgrades to craft.
Players unlock tiers by gathering resources and using them to reach
higher tiers up to the maximum. The maximum is determined by
how far the players have progressed in the world goal."

Also this.

"Advanced Crafting

Players can improve their items and tune them after their basic
creation. There are two main aspects that can be tuned. The first is
raw stats, called traits: things such as defense ratings, damage ratings,
and other item specific aspects such as power consumption,
cooldown rates, etc. The second is adding secondary characteristics,
called effects, to items such as procs or secondary effects.

Standard traits are modified directly. Each item will have a number
of traits such as damage and rate of fire or others. Each of these
traits can be increased up to 50% of their original value. Each trait is
tied to a specific isotope. The overall percentage of improvement of
all traits (combined) is capped at 50%. If a player improves an item’s
damage by 50%, they cannot improve its other traits such as power
savings or reload rates, for example, but if they were to improve it
by 25%, they would have 25% left to improve among other stats. The
more a player wishes to improve a stat, the more of that isotope is
required.

Effects can be added to many crafted items. Effects can range from
additional effects that fire on critical hits, such as immobilization
or targeted damage, to knock-back effects, or bonuses against
creature types. These effects come in the form of upgrade modules.
Each item has a certain number of upgrade slots available to them.
Modules are created from phased ore and have their own set of
recipes.

Players who do not wish to engage in advanced crafting can
have other players modify their equipment for them, or purchase
modules off of the future player marketplace. There will also crafting
NPCs in the world that can improve items randomly for a price,
sometimes even beyond what players can accomplish."

So if V.B. is still relevant (assuming it is), then there is gonna be a bit of vertical progression, and at the same time isn't.
 
Likes: Degiance

BunnyHunny

Deepscanner
Aug 20, 2016
127
69
28
#28
While there are some issues in some places, there are plenty of healthy discussions involving folks of different viewpoints on these forums.
True.

Admittedly, my post really seems toxic, but that was not the intention.
The intention was to tell Tragedy not to expect too much, as he noticed something that i came across as well: some people not being reasonable and rational in the way they discuss or debate.

I made a mistake here:
This will not happen.
I should have said
"This does not happen as often as it should."

It was not my intention to devalue any of the reasonable discussions on these forums.
 
Last edited:
Jul 26, 2016
1,461
2,441
113
43
#29
'tis true, the vision the book shows this quite clearly.
Yet i haven't seen any evidence of such chief chat he was talking about, curious.
Quoting from V.B.

[snip]

So if V.B. is still relevant (assuming it is), then there is gonna be a bit of vertical progression, and at the same time isn't.
Thank you for quoting the VB!
So the vertical progression is crafting tiers which unlock different stuff or options?

That's better than Loadout crafting system which also had crafting tiers but also had the problem in that each item could also be leveled up via +% in the crafting menu. That bit got annoying.

This is actually what I was referencing when I was discussing pilot progression. In the first four Armored Core titles there was a body modification program called Human+ (later called OP-I) that was obtained when you incurred excessive amounts of debt.

Lore-wise, you became a test-subject for new body-modifications to pay off your debts - and these would in turn make you a "better pilot". Notably, you were able to do things such as fire shoulder-mounted weaponry without getting into firing-position, target airborne missiles, pilot an overweight machine, etc.

These absolutely made you stronger, but they weren't direct damage/health increases either. They were a "horizontal" upgrade to the pilot that gave you more options instead of a generic %damage or %health increase.
That type of player progression is cool with me.
It's why I backed Project Genom. They got plans for mutations on a end game player. Depending on what they do in regards to those mutations, it will create different options for play rather than just +% increase. Or you could forgo that and go mech suit and give yourself completely different options.
 
Last edited:
Likes: Degiance

BunnyHunny

Deepscanner
Aug 20, 2016
127
69
28
#30
Just saw this
There will also be crafting
NPCs in the world that can improve items randomly for a price,
sometimes even beyond what players can accomplish.
Please no RNG cancer.

If there is an NPC doing random upgrades, which are always better than what a player can do (and always by the same amount/percentage), ok.
Debatable.

But if there is an NPC doing random upgrades, where not only the upgrade type, but also the quality is random...
That would be pretty damn bad.
 
Last edited:

Torgue_Joey

Kaiju Slayer
KAIJU 'SPLODER
Jul 27, 2016
1,123
2,703
113
Germany
#31
Just saw this

Please no RNG cancer.

If there is one NPC that makes random upgrades, which are generally better than what a player can do, ok. Debatable.

But if there is an NPC that makes random upgrades, which can be any kind of upgrade and also different qualities, that would be pretty damn bad.
TOO LATE. GRUMMZ ALREADY MADE HIS DECISION.
THAT DUDE GONNA BE THE ONLY ONE ARMED BANDIT RNG BULLSH*T IN THE GAME (I hope)

TALKING ABOUT ONE ARMED BANDIT. THAT GUY SHOULD REALLY HAVE ONLY ONE ARM.
 

BunnyHunny

Deepscanner
Aug 20, 2016
127
69
28
#32
TOO LATE. GRUMMZ ALREADY MADE HIS DECISION.
THAT DUDE GONNA BE THE ONLY ONE ARMED BANDIT RNG BULLSH*T IN THE GAME (I hope)

TALKING ABOUT ONE ARMED BANDIT. THAT GUY SHOULD REALLY HAVE ONLY ONE ARM.
It does not look like it is really specified, which of the two
>> random upgrade type with set quality
>> random upgrade type with random quality
it should be.

The "sometimes" part could mean "some NPC can do it" or "it just happens, if you are lucky".
Also, a vision will barely ever be realized 100% accurately.


I really hope that -if this RNG upgrade dude makes it into the game- the RNG is kept to a minimum (or can be skipped).

An option could be added, where a player can give the NPC a special item like "Upgrade Matrix" or something (exclusive reward for skilled players, or crafted item), which allows the player to choose, which upgrade the item should get.

Everybody would be able to get any of the upgrades, but skilled players would be rewarded by being allowed to skip the RNG and make a choice instead.

That would definitely make it much better.
In most games, where something is about RNG, i get bad luck all the time (talking about misfortune that should happen 1/100000, or worse).
 
Last edited:

Estender

Deepscanner
Jul 26, 2016
55
63
18
Planet Tölva
#33
It does not look like it is really specified, which of the two
>> random upgrade type with set quality
>> random upgrade type with random quality
it should be.

The "sometimes" part could mean "some NPC can do it" or "it just happens, if you are lucky".
Also, a vision will barely ever be realized 100% accurately.


I really hope that -if this RNG upgrade dude makes it into the game- the RNG is kept to a minimum (or can be skipped).

An option could be added, where a player can give the NPC a special item like "Upgrade Matrix" or something (exclusive reward for skilled players, or crafted item), which allows the player to choose, which upgrade the item should get.

Everybody would be able to get any of the upgrades, but skilled players would be rewarded by being allowed to skip the RNG and make a choice instead.

That would definitely make it much better.
In most games, where something is about RNG, i get bad luck all the time (talking about misfortune that should happen 1/100000, or worse).
I think the phrase "sometimes even beyond what players can accomplish" meant that if, say, player is low on resources to improve his weapon, but has some cash, he can try his luck on one of those npcs to do it for him, with the 50% limit of course, because the first sentence is: "Players who do not wish to engage in advanced crafting etc etc".
Just speculation on my part.
 
Likes: Mahdi
Aug 14, 2016
978
1,554
93
#34
But what if the guy was doing the random thing on purpose? That he really can give you the upgrade you want/need no problem but just doesn't care enough about you to even try. Plus he secretly finds it funny to see people get upset when they don't get what they want. But if you befriend him, by talking to him and doing favors sometimes, the less random things become as he'll more than likely do what you ask because you are friends. He might even give you extra upgrade options that he only gives to his friends.

This way people with bad luck (in most games I play RNG seems to hate me, so focus on having high skill because I have below average luck) will have a way to get what they need by doing something that needs skill and not luck. I don't mind RNG in games a long as their is ways to bypass it with skill because not everyone has good luck.
 
Jul 26, 2016
1,461
2,441
113
43
#35
Just saw this

Please no RNG cancer.

If there is an NPC doing random upgrades, which are always better than what a player can do (and always by the same amount/percentage), ok.
Debatable.

But if there is an NPC doing random upgrades, where not only the upgrade type, but also the quality is random...
That would be pretty damn bad.
Well there is the way that the Division does it.
Every weapon over the basic level has certain skills that is picked from a global list and different named gear tends to the same skills. But you can decide to use a special crafting table and pay to change each skill once. The way it works is that you pay to randomly create a small pool of choices from the global pool. Then you pick one of the skills from that smaller pool.

So in a way, you have RNG but the player doesn't lose much control either.

Do you think that would be good way to do random paid upgrades?
 

BunnyHunny

Deepscanner
Aug 20, 2016
127
69
28
#37
Do you think that would be good way to do random paid upgrades?
Not really.
I am against any kind of RNG, when it comes to upgrading gear, in general.
Especially against permanent upgrades, which are RNG based.

Every weapon over the basic level has certain skills that is picked from a global list and different named gear tends to the same skills.
Nothing against stuff like the item prefixes in FireFall.
i.e. a weapon "brand" with higher base dmg/accuracy/etc.
or a weapon "brand" with damage/accuracy/etc. upgrade already on the stock item

But you can [...] change each skill once. [...] randomly create a small pool of choices from the global pool. Then you pick one [...] from that smaller pool.
Having to pick from a randomly generated pool, but only being able to change each stat (if that is what you mean by "skill") once, is a bad idea imo (even though it is more reasonable than relying 100% on RNG).

A player who wants to get a specifically upgraded item, is forced to craft the same item multiple times and upgrade again and again, until the wanted item is finally achieved, leaving the player with a bunch of "decent" trash items.


Either do one, or the other.

<1>
If each stat on an item can only be changed once, that is no problem, as long as every stat change is 100% under player control.
The player has to think before changing the stats and only needs to craft as many items as he wants to use.
There are no wasted items, unless the player chooses the wrong upgrade.

<2>
If each stat can be changed unlimited times, but the upgrade choices are limited by RNG, there are no wasted items at all.
A player would not be punished for lacking the ability to think ahead.
Weapons could be altered any time, but it could take many tries to finally get the wanted upgrade.


I definitely prefer the first option.
RNG sucks and players should think, before they craft/upgrade something.
Misfortune should not be punished, unintelligent and overhasty behavior should.

There could be the option to pay less for an upgrade, but lose control over the kind of upgrade in return, but there should always be an option to upgrade with 100% control over the outcome, as well.
 

Tragedy

ARES Operator
Jul 26, 2016
39
64
18
California, America
#38
<1>
If each stat on an item can only be changed once, that is no problem, as long as every stat change is 100% under player control.
The player has to think before changing the stats and only needs to craft as many items as he wants to use.
There are no wasted items, unless the player chooses the wrong upgrade.
Seeing as there will be a fairly limited amount of vertical content in game: I wouldn't mind player choice in crafting as long as crafting those "vertical upgrades" (like prefixes) is considerably expensive.

I don't really like the RNG content either, but it's probably the only repeatable content in game. The only alternative to make the content last would be to make vertical upgrades considerably expensive, or to have so many options that making a new build every month is viable (which I don't think is realistic given the current scope of the game.)

Ideally, you would have player-chocie upgrades as you described, and they would be obtainable in a reasonable amount of time. The repeatable content would come from making new builds frequently, like you see in Path of Exile (or like we did at the end there in Firefall.) However, that requires an amount of unique content that I don't really believe is realistic to expect in Ember as of this moment.
 

Torgue_Joey

Kaiju Slayer
KAIJU 'SPLODER
Jul 27, 2016
1,123
2,703
113
Germany
#39
GOOD NEWS. EMBER WILL HAVE LITTLE OR BARELY ANY RNG.

AS EVERYTHING IS CRAFT ABLE. BUT THROUGH CRAFTING, YOU CAN ONLY IMPROVE YOUR OVERALL STATS BY 50%.
OR ONE STAT IF YOU PUT EVERYTHING IN ONE SPOT.

THE RNG-ONE-ARMED-BANDIT-LOTTERY-JOKER HAS THE ABILITY TO IMPROVE THE STATS BEYOND 50% OR GIVE IT AN ADDITIONAL UPGRADE/EFFECT.

WHEN GRUMMZ WAS TALKING ABOUT IT IN THE EARLY DAYS.

THIS WAS MY PLAN. BUILD 2 SAME WEAPON.
1 FOR KILLING RABBITS AND 1 AS R.N.G. FOOD.
AND I'LL SLAP THAT JUNK IN HIS FACE UNTIL I GET I DESIRABLE RESULT.
LET'S SAY BY IMPROVING THE OVERALL STATS BY 53% WHERE THE FIRE RATE GOT AN ADDITIONAL 3%. THAT SH*T STILL F*CKING BETTER.
SO I'LL START TO USE IT AS A MAIN WEAPON.
THE PREVIOUS MAIN WEAPON WILL BECOME THE RNG FOOD.

UNTIL I FIND IT BETTER THEN THE NEW ONE.
AND *BOOM* INSTEAD OF GETTING A STATS IMPROVEMENT. IT GOT AN ADDITIONAL KNOCK BACK EFFECT.
F*CK THE STATS. KNOCK BACK BABY.
*MEEDLYMEEDLYBEEBLYWEOWEOWEEEOWWWWWWOOO*

OH YEAH, ONE LAST THING ABOUT THAT RNG NPC.
IT'S A NON-ESSENTIAL FEATURE IN THE GAME. JUST A NON-ESSENTIAL RESOURCE SINK FOR THOSE WHO FEELS LIKE IT.
 
Jul 26, 2016
1,461
2,441
113
43
#40
GOOD NEWS. EMBER WILL HAVE LITTLE OR BARELY ANY RNG.

AS EVERYTHING IS CRAFT ABLE. BUT THROUGH CRAFTING, YOU CAN ONLY IMPROVE YOUR OVERALL STATS BY 50%.
OR ONE STAT IF YOU PUT EVERYTHING IN ONE SPOT.

THE RNG-ONE-ARMED-BANDIT-LOTTERY-JOKER HAS THE ABILITY TO IMPROVE THE STATS BEYOND 50% OR GIVE IT AN ADDITIONAL UPGRADE/EFFECT.

WHEN GRUMMZ WAS TALKING ABOUT IT IN THE EARLY DAYS.
meh. In The Divison, the only reason I search for newer and newer gear was because different skills would change the gameplay somewhat. I would actually either sell or cannibalize stuff with better stats over gear with neat skills because the effects of those skills made the game interesting.

so a RNG lottery machine in the game probably wouldn't be used by me if it's a toss up between more stats or new effects. I'd rather use a RNG lottery machine that deals solely with skills/effects like in The Division.

Hell that was the sole reason I kept using the elephant gun{ & etc.} in Firefall, way past it's expiry date because it had an unique effect.

RNG lottery machines are fucking stupidly annoying especially when a dev decides to link multiple types of things in one lottery.

For example, In Mass Effect:Andromeda's multiplayer, you will develop game money over the course of multiple wins. That game money can be used in a lottery machine set at different prices that will unlock everything within a ranked level {weapons, ammo, gear, characters, etc}. The only reason it is done that way is to increase the game's shelf life.
 
Last edited: