Hey Ponderers!
Happy New Year!!
As we enter the new year, the orb continues to grow. I don't have an exact maturation date for you, ...yet. But I do have a progress report with how things have been going since the start of December!
On my content creation journey I have just started dipping into rituals. With lots of the new mechanics I've been adding into the game, I'm hungry to start actually building the ritual content. I've got so many cool stats that can be ritual-exclusive that it makes it very exciting to get into it. I've also been working with some artists to give this portion of the game, and some other portions, a bit more polish than my limited artistic abilities can pull off on my own.
The big thing I wanna talk about in this development update though is the current iteration of researches. Be prepared as I'm about to ramble on some game design technicals:
Researches got another slight overhaul. I've been tweaking their advancement costs a lot since v0.6 finding the version that feels the most polished. Originally, the big change was making Technology cost from [1 Tech + 1 Other] advancement -> [2 Tech + 1 Other], and making the power impact of technology much higher. This worked for awhile but ended up creating a advancement imbalance that leaned too hard into the [Tech] advancements, creating a deficit where the other advancements felt much weaker.
There was another problem that I've been solving for awhile in which stats like "Spell Weight Capacity" became less and less valuable as you went on. Investments into Expert Augments where cheap and solved spell capacity issues too easily. Something that playing Silksong taught me is that being more reserved with the upgrades that you dish out can be a good thing, and can actually enhance the experience of actually obtaining those upgrades when they are more rare.
This realization created a philosophy change in orb's researches. Almost all unique stats where removed off of expert researches and moved onto technology researches. "Improved Casting", for example, is now one of the only sources of "Spell Weight Capacity" in the game, and its gated by a scaling requirement in "Expert Augments". This effectively creates a diminishing-returns on spell weight increases, as to get more capacity requires more and more investment into "Expert Augments". This keeps spell weight capacity a valuable statistic throughout the game, especially when the more powerful spells cost a significant amount.
But just a few days ago I found even more changes that even further increased the polish of this section:
- Technology researches now cost [2 Tech + 2 Other] advancements. Their power has been significantly increased to compensate.
- Capstones now cost from [3 Various] advancements -> [1 Orb + 1 Other] advancements, making them very cheap and easy to purchase, their biggest restriction just being your expert levels. (This is double dipping on good design because capstones costing [1 Orb advancement] makes them feel special)
- Lots of really cheap researches were added to the game that only cost 1 advancement. They are mini power spikes that are extremely valuable, but also act as doors to other stronger, more costly researches. This also to gives the player cheap options in the early game where advancements are much more valuable.
These changes ended up with the current design philosophy for them being as follows:
- Expert Researches are your classic RPG attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence). You invest in these to reach attribute requirements and get minor statistically bonuses.
- Technology Researches are your power spikes and your RPG class definition. Investing into Expert Augments is like raising your intelligence, but getting a point of Improved Casting is what defines you as a spell-caster.
- Capstones are still your expert research payoffs. If you invest 4 into Expert Wizardry, you get an extra spell slot. Their cheaper cost makes them feel even more like payoffs rather than expensive upgrades that you might purchase.
- The rest of the innovation researches are the little trinkets you find along the way.
The final thing I'll say here is that I've been spending lots of time making sure every Expert-path feels like it has a strong payoff. Expert Storm and Expert Arcane, for example, now both have their own associated technology research with unique stats you can't get elsewhere.
In addition, I've been designing every expert path with interlocking side benefits. If you want to improve your spell casting, you can invest in Expert Augments, Wizardry, but also Storm or Arcane. If you want to improve your mastery over plants, you can invest in Druidry of course, but you'll also find a ton of synergy in Expert Items, Arcane, Storm, Augments and Expansion.
Oh and each expert research now has an associated infinitely scaling "ascendency" research that starts at level 32.
Til next month
-Marple
PS. This might be a little hard to decipher without the context that I have, but here are some of the juicy new researches: