How many Floors do you prefer for a D&D Styled Tower Climb - Mini Game ?

[Black Pagan]

Just want to know your opinion

 

[gstv87]

depends on the size of the floor itself.

3 well-twisted floors is enough.... 10 open floors, with crowded and empty areas sufficiently shuffled, it also enough.

 

[Black Pagan]

Well, I plan to make them anywhere between 20 x 20 to 25 x 25.

 

[gstv87]

I mean the complexity.
it doesn't matter if the floor is 10x10 or 100x100.... if it's 10x10 with one room locked with a very complicated lock, one floor with a complex puzzle will slow the player the same as five consecutive battles.

 

[Frostorm]

Crap I have a 50-floor dungeon planned... Granted it's 1 encounter per floor, is totally optional, and meant as a bonus with a really sweet reward. It's extremely challenging though since you have to solo it w/o your other party members and if you leave then you gotta start from floor 1 again. Also, no consumables allowed. Story-wise it takes place in your weapon's "inner world" like you're basically diving into its soul, hence the limitations. The reward grants you the ability to summon your weapon's avatar onto the battlefield, which is huge for what's usually a party size of 3.

 

[Wavelength]

Is "1" an option?

I actually had something very similar to what @Frostorm describes (try to climb an entire, epic-sized ziggurat in a single run with one battle per floor) planned as postgame content for one of my games, but as I iterated on its design, I changed it into more of a classic "randomized dungeon" system that can be played as a side activity throughout the whole game. It now contains Visual Encounters, a few Action mechanics, lots of Treasure, Time Limits on each floor (failing the time limit forces you out of the tower), and checkpoints every several floors so that you don't have to run the really easy stages to get to the interesting part once you're further in the game and so highly leveled that the first-tier floors don't offer any challenge.

 

[Frostorm]

@Wavelength That later iteration sounds like lots of fun. I especially like the checkpoint mechanic. Of course, this newer iteration sounds like it would serve a totally different purpose than your original. At least in the sense of it being pre-end game vs postgame content. Maybe I could change mine so that every 10 floors you're rewarded with ever more powerful versions of the summon... Or just totally different rewards altogether.

 

[Wavelength]

@Wavelength That later iteration sounds like lots of fun. I especially like the checkpoint mechanic. Of course, this newer iteration sounds like it would serve a totally different purpose than your original. At least in the sense of it being pre-end game vs postgame content. Maybe I could change mine so that every 10 floors you're rewarded with ever more powerful versions of the summon... Or just totally different rewards altogether.

Very perceptive - you're right, the design purpose of my tower dungeon did shift dramatically in addition to its role between the first and current iterations. I had gotten some player feedback from an earlier build of the game that didn't include as much battle time (leaning harder into grand strategy instead), and as I made the effort to add this "supergoal" to the game for players who wanted more combat, I started to realize that (1) my effort shouldn't be wasted on something that most players might not ever play, (2) there were a lot of good opportunities for two-way hooks between the strategy and combat portions, and (3) the game's interest curve was too constant, and could benefit from changes of pace. So I turned the tower into something that would be there alongside the core gameplay loops, allowing you to invest your time and thought into either as you felt fit and encouraging you to switch between them periodically.

For your ideas on your own game - I agree with you, giving a reward every X floors would definitely be welcome. Consumer psychology studies have shown that receiving rewards at intervals feels a lot better than working for a long time towards something with no intermediate rewards. (Interestingly, "random" or unpredictable intervals work even better than fixed intervals at keeping your player hooked, but fixed intervals are still a lot better than nothing.) So whether you give a more powerful version of the summon every 10 floors and then a really cool ability or game-changer at the top, or whether you save the summon for the top floor and award endgame equipment/items/skills along the way (either variant sounds cool to me), definitely be sure to give 'em something!