Alternative win conditions

[tukkek]

With the Campaign mode evolving to be a catch-all for other game modes, there should be different ways for players to win the game according with their play-styles. These playstyles being:

• Narrative: obtain all Relics from each of the Temples (current win condition).
• Wargaming: mostly clear Haunts #33 and Towns in large-scale battles (win condition: capture all Haunts and Towns?)
• Roguelike: delve and return safely from the depths of a Dungeon (maybe return a McGuffin from the Deep Dungeon).

Each of those require more careful consideration to properly incentivize each player's preferred playstyle. Victory types would have different Highscore boards, to prevent players from comparing the success of a Roguelike run to that of a Narrative playthrough.

More fine tuning would go from anywhere between the Deep Dungeon having checkpoints to help the player to a better definition and implementation of the Wargaming playstyle.

[tukkek]

Once planes are implemented #91, a win condition for that could apply as well.

[tukkek]

Actually, having different win conditions would be a pain to test out, since it would mean testing each one for every release - and this game being a rogue-like, it becomes this much worse. An alternative would be to allow all playstyles to roughly achieve the same results independently and then converge into one final showdown before the game ends.

An idea, similar to what we have today, is to have a final area (maybe a short dungeon) which will only allow entry once the player has at least 7 relics. These could be taken from Temples (like today), floors 5/10/15/20 of the Deep Dungeon or in 7 random Haunts - thus ensuring a player focusing in any single playstyle can finish the game. The downsides are obviously that there need to be enough different Relics in game to allow for that, plus the fact the player can easily acquire most of them and rampage through the game, etc - but the overall structure is fine.

Mitigating factors could be: replacing 7 relics with Keys towards the final area; having a single relic per end-game content (last floor of deep dungeon, hardest haunt, hardest temple) and that allowing entry; or even making sure there are enough minor-tier relics (or even proper relic tiers) to give the player.

Both the d20srd and d20pfsrd websites have a healthy listing of minor and major artifacts, and that would be a good way to gate the final content: giving minor artifacts in minor milesone and a major artifact once the hardest piece of content in that playstyle is beaten. The final gate would then only a Squad with enough artifact power enter (minor relic=1ap, major=2ap, 8ap needed to enter).

The final area then needs to be figured out, maybe just a single dungeon floor that is recreated each time you try to "restart" it, probably with scaled encounters that then lead to a final fight? A location name like "Ascendancy hall" or something epic like that is in order.

[tukkek]

Completing Town quests should also be considered a gameplay path.

[tukkek]

Current idea for end-game dungeon: a number of floors with very low but punishing encounter rate. Not much, if any treasure at all given, but plenty of fountains and opportunities to rest - forcing players to go in "fully ready". Small levels with no way to leave, only go forward.

Levels go from 21 to 25 but scale with player level, if higher than that (el+1 to el+5). This prevents players from grinding senselessly and going in to an easy endgame. There's also no way to upgrade inside the end-game dungeon, so grinding inside is also not an option. The idea is to push players to beat the game as fast as they can, or at least faster than their latest highscore.

The main goal of each level is to get to the stairs up (Tower of Ascension), which is blocked by walls and a Boss encounter, forcing players to get through the boss fight of the level's EL. This fight cannot be run from or avoided (probably same with random encounters here).

The "sixth floor" is simply an Altar-like Feature, with no encounters, that asks you to confirm your unit's Ascension to godhood. Something cool like saving the Combatants so they can be used as enemies on further Ascension runs would be cool.

If you have mercenaries when entering the Tower of Ascension, you should probably see a warning telling you they will not enter with you (and clearing mercenaries before entering). Regardless, you should also see a warning that this is the point of no return and whether you're prepared to move forward or not (`el>=20').

[tukkek]

A diplomacy-based win condition would be pretty cool!