Expanding the Empyrean Campaign

[dorkster]

SPOILERS AHEAD, TURN BACK NOW IF YOU LIKE SURPRISES

I've been thinking about how we can expand and improve the Empyrean Campaign. I'm happy with how it turned out overall, but this isn't the case for everyone. Some may have been fans of certain properties the Alpha Demo had. Some may simply want more depth in certain areas.

It's hard to please everyone, so haphazardly changing parts of the existing campaign could drive away the people that like it as it is right now. The original plan to expand the game was to make a sequel that continued from the end of the current campaign. Instead, I think the new content should run parallel to the existing content.

Remember, this is just brainstorming. Nothing below is concrete, and may unfortunately never come to fruition. I just hope all this rambling makes sense. :)

Story

The end of the current main quest is bittersweet. After defeating Lezaith, the portal to Empyrean is cursed, preventing the player's planned return to Empyrean. Rather than replace this story, I'd like to provide an alternate path that results in a "good" ending for the player.

The portal curse, which appears to the player as being cast by Lezaith, should actually be caused by the player having done the ritual to enter to the Underworld. In other words, this new quest should involve the player avoiding the ritual, and instead finding the true way to the Underworld. This will likely involve destroying the Book of the Dead (and maybe the nearby residents as well).

The new content will be focused on 4 large regions, each with a major city. The 4th region is Empyrean itself, so ignore that for now. In the first 3 of these cities, the player will learn of the cursed nature that befalls the Book of the Dead. They will learn that there is a beast protecting the outer walls of the Book of the Dead's chamber, and can only be defeated with a special weapon based on the Knife of Sacrifices. This weapon will be crafted with the 3 items the player would normally collect for the main quest, as well as 3 new items.

With the special weapon in hand, the player will go defeat the creature. This will destroy the Book of the Dead, but will still unlock the portal to the Underworld. From here, the game continues as normal. Except when the player defeats Lezaith, the portal is not destroyed. The player can then warp to Empyrean.

With the portal open, Empyrean will be overrun with monsters. The player must reclaim the city. Doing so will earn the respect of the citizens who had previously exiled them. Citizens who are unaware that the player is the one who opened the gate in the first place.

Gameplay goals

Larger, less linear maps

Each of the new regions will be mostly of one very large map, with no more than 1-2 side maps. The city will likely be located in the center of each region, with points of interest scattered around the outskirts. The current Empyrean maps are very linear, so I want to emphasize exploration. Think like the Alpha Demo's Frontier Plains. Tilesets will need to be expanded for buildings, unique points of interest, etc.

More challenging puzzles

Puzzles aren't the primary focus of a game like ours. I wanted to keep the barrier for completing the game low, at least on the puzzle side of things. Yet, I like challenging puzzles, so I think this parallel quest for the "good" ending is the perfect place to put them.

Crafting

This is mostly because I want to use the new book functionality implemented recently. There are multiple crafting uses I've thought up:

• Each creature type (skeleton, goblin, zombie, etc) has a specific crafting item they can drop. Two of these can be combined at a time to make unique potions that the player can't buy anywhere else.
• Breaking down non-magical items into their basic resources. In addition to loot-able "Mana Stones", these resources can be crafted into magical gear.

Improved encounters

I'd like to do a better job with the boss design here. Many of the current boss attacks were repetitive and not very different than normal enemy attacks. Some new art here could go a long way. On the engine side, it would be nice if we had some way to define patterns of attack, so that boss behavior wasn't completely random. Something like a loop of do attack 1, then run around, then do attack 2, etc.

As for the normal enemies, we'll probably just reuse the ones we have for the appropriate levels. Of course, there's always room for new art. I mean, it's weird to see an RPG without bats...

[un404known]

I am commenting on this one as it has the discussion tag and I am really excited about getting more monsters to hack and slay.

While I like the general plot, I am mostly enthusiastic about large open maps that allows to introduce new quest types. Some of the most entertaining quests in Diablo 2 where about exploring a large area in order to finish-up a task and actually finding the entry to a side area for a specific quest or a exit. You explored a boring area in detail for a quest and ran through it later on. This stretched the total play time without giving users the feeling of repeating something they already did (such as running a second time through most hallways in a dungeon as it feels like you are taking the shortest path).

This weapon will be crafted with the 3 items the player would normally collect for the main quest, as well as 3 new items.

Do you think about scattering all three items over all three new regions/cities? If that is the case, please don't forget that this would occupy up to 6 slots as you can't move quest items to your chest. It might make sense to fuse those items in four steps: The first one to turn all three existing items to a Knife of Sacrifices and three other steps to update this weapon to its final form. Even occupying only up to four slots for a longer time might be too much.

I wonder whether it make sense to increase the looting aspect of crafting with receipts. Like you have to find some special receipts to extend a basic set of crafting rules before you can actually use them. Bookshelfs and bookstands are everywhere in Flare. Such a system would give them a new spin. Some basic receipts could be rare at first but commonly found later on in case they are not activated yet. This would also open the doors to side quests inside a super-secret library or alchemic laboratory full of traps and puzzles. Creating content that keeps player tuned is hard enough. This could be a new thing that makes dungeons more interesting as you have a good reason to examine them. There could be a set of alchemic symbols similar to teleporter runes as clue in case there are receipts close by.

Each character class could start out with different receipts. A magician might know how to put together potions while a brute knows more about blunt items.

Receipts may give away too much. Having some sort of index with information about an item that needs to be put together by finding pages or notes might be better. E.g. you need common alchemic information about spider legs before you can actually use them for crafting.

[HeadClot]

I am going to chime in on the "Larger, less linear maps" feature.

Tiled Map editor has a feature in 1.2 snapshot that allows showing multiple adjacent maps in the editor view. In order to mange multiple .tmx files this they have made a JSON based .world file.

You can read more about it here. The idea that I had was to stream .tmx or .json maps in and out based on coordinates in that .world file compared to the players location. Think what ever is the nearest neighbor to the player.

This post by dynetis games should go into a bit more detail on what I am describing.

[un404known]

I still think the most limiting factor for extending the game is art and engine mechanic. A expansion need to find ways to keep the game fresh while re-using whatever is available. I had some ideas where I think they are good enough to share while playing. However, I know that having ideas is the easy part. Implementing them is not. I am not even sure whether I'd have what it take to build a proper map / whether this would even be appreciated. I am only going to share those I already had and won't bother you with "awesome new ideas" every week. Feel free to ignore them.

Introduce a character class overlapping Quest:

• Idea: A quest that uses the shared stack and can't be solved by a single character class alone
• This (hopefully) increases the replay value of the whole game
• Add a hall including three warp-obelisks and a door
• Each obelisk can only be activated by a specific character class and leads to a dungeon.
• You can find a different unique item / for this area specific crafting items in each dungeon
• You need to combine all three items to a quest item that opens the final door.
• Character class dungeons may re-use the same map with different monsters
• brute -> mele; scout -> long range; adept -> magic

Lighting fire when encountering a boss:

• There are burning and non-burning fire place versions in your existing dungeon tile set
• A boss room could consist of a long and small hallway with a larger area at the end
• Add non-burning fire places at the side.
• Light the ones in the hallway when a player comes close and light all in the larger area when stepping into it.
• Example: https://youtu.be/OQtv2KEGvsw?t=10s

Ice Mage Island:

• Idea: combine the ice and greenland tile set to a unique place
• Main map/area is grassland. There is a small ice tileset based island in the middle.
• The island is inhabited by ice monsters and might have a dungeon below.
• The island could have some ice tileset based trees at its edge and normal trees at the mainlands shore.
• Water and bridge tiles are used to separate both tile sets visually so that there is no odd-looking transition between them.

[dorkster]

@HeadClot I did see that update to Tiled. Really cool feature, but probably of little use to the way our map/world layout is structured.

@un404known Some good ideas. Thanks for sharing. Although this stood out:

Lighting fire when encountering a boss

Not to be rude, but did you miss the first boss battle in the Empyrean Campaign? As you approach Seagate's arena, the torches light up. In fact, that Chrono Trigger scene that you linked was 100% my inspiration to make it like that.

[un404known]

@dorkster This is actually where I got the idea from. :+1:

[dorkster]

For anyone that's missed it, rubberduck on OGA has been working on some fantastic artwork for us to use: https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/new-potential-art-for-flare

[Danimal696]

Hi, im reposting this here (from OGA) and adding a few more things.

1) So far story is told in an uninteresting way; it needs more dialogue and cutscenes. The book on itself is too vague of an story drive. It should be explained more clearly and presented like a "Book of redemption", the one who manages to get their name in there is considered worthy of coming back to the city. First act should be expanded story wise before new acts.

2) The whole world is just centered around that book and your quest, you are missing a lot of potential world building. Everything feels extremely lineal, just one city with 3 persons, and levels that connect to the next without much explanation of what to do or expect. I can see new acts will add the opportunity to add new cities, please dont spoil that chance to expand that world and involve the player on their hard lives on a fallen world. Those new cities you arrive could be under siege from bandits, suffering from an undead raising plague (cough, book of the dead vault)... so many possible options for new missions to abstract from the main quest for a while. It will be a waste if you just add more lineal dungeons... in fact most of the time you should be helping the cities just so you have a collective chance to survive and getting a small trickle of information about the Book as a reward.

3) Just a handful of skills, that all heroes can learn regarding initial type selected. Need more specific ones. 4) The names of the hero classes... Brute? c´mon call him swordman at least. *****Thinking upon this, why not limit your inital skills windows to the class you start with, and once you reach certain cities and complete a mission you are presented with the chance to promote your class to a better one?

 Swordman(brute) to:
->Knight
         ->Paladin
         ->Dark Knight
->Sellsword
          ->Berserker 
          ->Duelist

So in the end you would end up with 3 skill tabs, each having skills unique to them (Knights having pasive increases of defenses while sellsword could be more agressive oriented and their sub´s would build on that). The masters that promote you could even sell armor and weapons unique to your specialization.

5) Something else to pour your money in, not that many useful items on vendors. Money just overflows unused. The master i mentioned before would help, i like your recipes idea as well, maybe add some city building elements? Ex: in the sieged city, after killing the bandits and their leader on their camp, you are asked to kill ents to collect wood and get the blacksmith house rebuilt... later iron, wood and money to rebuild the bridge that lets you access a new area... Pay for priests to purify tombs in the plagued city and unseal a unholy barrier blocking a dungeon, or get the materials to build a ship to move to the next city.

Lastly, why not adding a twist to the story? once you help clean Empyrean of monsters , the king orders your death since no exilee is supposed to ever return, you escape and start a resistance, with the final act being an epic total assault on the king castle aided by all the oppresed common folk tired of the overbearing tiranny (maybe the king is aided by an inquisition like church?) and constant menace of exilement. Story shows you becoming the first republic president and trying to reclaim the lands for humanity. Time advances and an older you calls for new heroes to aid in the troublesome expansion of the new lands ( a start for Flare 2?)

I like more mature stories and Empirean could be a very good medium for that, i think it was aiming for that since the start but wasnt developed enough so far.

[brigazvi]

The ideas here are really wonderful. If I may add my thoughts about it: I think you can take the game in the direction of a sandbox game. In other words, there should be a really big city. And there must be many kinds of skills. Fishing, carving, stitching, building, etc. It opens the game to lots of new directions. This allows the player to choose what he wants to do. It prolongs the game very much. It is an idea that can fit in with the ideas above.

It seems to me that there is no objection to dorkster's ideas. So I think you should start by listing them to small issues, and divide them into milestones. I think you should add some of the ideas to the existing game (crafting, for example), and when the engine includes all the features needed, create the campaign extension.

@dorkster, if you need help with specific new art, I can try to help. I have not done such things before, but I'm a designer and an illustrator, and I can try.

[McSinyx]

In other words, there should be a really big city. And there must be many kinds of skills. Fishing, carving, stitching, building, etc.

Most essentially, I think, is the skill to carve arrows. It's not logical at all when arrows supply is infinite. At least the player should:

• Try to pick used ones up
• Buy them
• Carve new ones
• Generate using mana