Good ideas or too much?

[ssdg]

I love this game and here are just some ideas I had after some games. I know its walls of text, so thanks in advance for reading.

1. More difference between the classes.
You start out to pick one of the 3 basic classes: warrior=>warrior, mage=>mage, paladin=>ranger.
Example: The new Warrior will have a higher leadership gain, but he can only learn a few basic support skills, he has to use scrolls if he wishes to use advanced spells,(give scroll levels).
There will also be 2 kind of advanced classes, one is based on levels, the other is based on the race.
Example: mage=>wizard=>archmage... but what if i want be a necromancer, this is where race come to play, you can also become an undead mage and level up this way necromancer=>greater necromancer=>lich... When you change race, you gain race special spells that cant be gained any other way(mage), you also require less leadership to recruit the units from your race(ranger), the units from your race gain extra attack and defend(warrior). There will also be drawbacks, like unable to hire higher tier units from opposing race, unable to do some side quests from opposing races. Each race have it own pros and cons.

2. More units and capable of hire units from different race early in game.
Capable of hire units from different race early in game
This kind go with the first idea, you pick your race and the backbone of your army should be the units from your own race.At early game, you can unlock most low tier(1-3) units from all the race by doing some easy quest for the NPCs. These NPCs can also be the same NPCs that let you change race.
More units.
Since you probably are building your army mainly based on one race, more units will certainly be needed. There also should be a large enough pool of neutral units you can pick from to compensate the units from your race.

3. Player created items. Capable of upgrade a basic item and create unique items.
Upgrade items.
You can go to a blacksmith and upgrade a basic item with gems and money. Every kind gem has 2 to 3 different effect computer can random from when upgrading. Gems can be dropped from any monsters.
You can already create item in the game, but the idea is to further expand it. You get recipes from the side quests, which allows you to get some of the best items in the game, but all unique recipes require a specific item only a selected group of monster will drop. Example: After getting the recipe of the powerful dragon tooth sword, you need the gems and the dragon tooth which will only drop from dragons.

4. Respawn of the monster.
At some areas, the monster will keep spawning based on the players level(will not spawn if there are already a few groups of monster in the area), this also give player a way to fight the dragon group 100 times to get the dragon tooth.

5. Effecting the world and More endings
Effecting the world.
Some side quests that greatly change the game play.
Example: Human castle owner ask you to get dwarf slaves for mines, you can do it, just refuse, or even fight him. You get an evil/good value depends on how you did the quest, if you decide to do it, there will be large groups of very strong dwarfs hostile spawning, and you cant do some of the dwarf side quest, but you open up more side quests from the castle owner.
More ending.
Depends on how you handled those side quest, the evil/good value you gain will effect the end of the game.
Example: End battle=Demon invasion, if you have a high evil value, demons will ask you to join them, of course you can always refuse the invitation, but demons wont bother to ask you at all if you have a high good value. You can even choose to not helping both side and get a 3rd ending.

I'm sure great minds out there have better ideas, just 2 cents from me.

[Vilk]

Well that's not really friendly but I tend to see the negative before the positive, so sorry for the following remarks!

"give player a way to fight the dragon group 100 times to get the dragon tooth." : Awful idea I wonder why you want take the worst of MMORPG and bring it in a nice game. MMORPG do that crap just to make people stay longer so they bring them more money, that's awful gameplay design.

"the evil/good value" And that's for me the worst brought by AD&D, playing the evil path always end in a ridiculous game where you save the world without to stop to always do ridiculous choices.

[ssdg]

a little bit more explanation on the monster respawn and alternative ending.

The monsters will respawn at the corner of the map or inside the caves where you can completely ignore them if you choose to.
About farming items, the item drop rate should be high enough that you don't have to go back and farm it(you run into at least 50 mobs of any units here and there), even if you didn't get it from the regular mobs the game throw at you, it shouldn't require more than a couple times to get it. Its for people who want the max levels and perfect items. If you want to play the game your way, nothings forcing you to farm.
The farming items idea was mostly due to the total random of the items, its just a way to compensate the items you already have.

I'm sorry if you had a such bad experience from AD&D, but from the example I'm giving, you can join the demon invasion force and put their flag on top of Ardan's peak eventually castle Kronberg or fight against the demon, force your way into the Demonis and Kill Baal once again.

[Vilk]

For the first point, even if it's optional, I feel it rather tedious and not a good way to solve random in order to give more choices to player.

For the second point, ok that's not really related to the D&D problem I mentioned but it's difficult to write a good story where opposite camp both "save the world". When you stay abstract it's fine when you enter in details that's another problem.

What you want is faction choices, I can understand that, it's an alternate design with plus but also with minus. Myself I'm ok to have something offering to the player some faction choices but don't feel it needs to be linked to story. In KBTL you can work for the king and use a full undead or demon army, fine for me.

[Zhuangzi]

1 - I agree that this would be nice, but it'd be a lot of work. It's true that the three classes play similarly. There are subtle differences but not all are immediately obvious.

2. I don't like the idea of being aligned with a certain race of creatures. One of the great things about KB is the random nature of it. Aside from morale issues, you can combine anything with anything. Alignment with races would limit that. I'll all in favour of more unit types though. :)

3. YES! More items would be great, and the ability to forge them would be great too. Only downside is it would reduce the randomness.

4. NO! Are you insane? Isn't 500+ fights enough for you? :rolleyes: I would hate respawning stacks, as I am a completist who likes to clear everything out.

5. This would be great, but KB isn't really about choices and consequences. It's not really that kind of game. This isn't to say I wouldn't like to see more of this.

In summary, I think you are wanting the game to be a little more streamlined in terms of story. Aligning with a race and wanting more good and evil choices is evidence of this. What I love about KB:TL is the random nature of it. Games play out differently due to this random element, which is great because I've nearly finished it five times now. I would simply like to see more variation - more units, more items, more spells. That would enhance the replayability for me.

The other thing I would dearly love is a screen where you can see which units are available in which locations. A search screen like in Space Rangers 2, basically. You would still have to travel there though. The other thing that would be cool is varying unit prices based on location. This would really influence my decision making and maybe make me use non-optimal units if they were cheap.