The Old Master

[Manofdusk]

 I've been looking at 2 threads recently, one about roadblocks and one about a past-his-prime character... and thinking about both of them sparked an idea in me.


 In his prime, Darius (name is WIP) was the greatest warrior and mage the world had ever known. He was the first to successfully blend both swordsmanship and magic and he put down a great many evils in his time. However, time is the greatest enemy of man and eventually he began to feel the weight of his years. He married, had 2 sons, and started a school. Eventually, his sons married and had children of their own, taking over his school. However, one day an evil from Darius's past returned. The sons took their students and all of the old man's gear and went off to face the evil... but never returned, leaving Darius to raise his three Grandchildren alone.


 When the story starts, Darius is already in his 80s and his grandchildren are in their early teens. Something happens and they are forced from their home. Darius has little choice now but to train his grandchildren to face the evil. Darius is level 99 but his stats are seriously degraded. The grandchildren are level 1 and the fights (even the earliest ones) are extremely difficult. For the first (rather long) while, Darius has to strategically use his skills to protect his grandchildren so that they can learn to fight (ie. level up).


 There is a story and a plot but the player is not required to follow it. In fact, they can just grind for levels then go strait to the final boss to defeat it... but doing so results in a bad ending. The events are timed too... so, if you want to do them, you have to go when the game says to go (the marauding hordes of evil won't wait for you to go level up in a field somewhere)


 I was also planning on having the old man himself be a roadblock for certain things. For example, if you want to go to a mountain, he tells you (when you first arrive), that ogres live here, that they're very strong, but vulnerable to a type of poisonous plant. He then suggests going to gather some before proceeding. If you continue, he warns you a few more times before you get into a scripted fight with an ogre. If you lose, he'll take the unconscious kids and flee, scolding them for not listening... but if you win, he'll admit that you're strong enough to handle it. If you go get the plant, then you can use it to give your weapon a paralysis effect which makes the fight much easier.


Would you be annoyed at these kinds of roadblocks?


 I also thought about having the Old Master's training actually let you control the 3 kids'  stat growth. They all start as the "Disciple" class with relatively even (if a little slow) stat growth. By training certain stats, they can advance to a more specialized class (such as mage, warrior, or cleric). However, NOT focusing on a certain stat will leave them with only the "Adventurer" class, which is an upgraded "Disciple". Not 100% sure how this would work though.


 A friend of mine suggested that, once the kids reach a certain level/story progression (I think I'll do it when all 3 kids are no longer "Disciples" if I do it), then the option would exist to swap him out for a younger 4th member with higher stats. If given a choice to keep the Old Master or trade him for someone with higher stats but fewer skills, would you? Naturally, I'd like to make this decision harder by keeping the Old Master viable as a support character though I'm not 100% sure how to keep him viable once they really start to outpace him since he's meant to be pretty static.

 

[Kes]

Just a thought...


This looks like it might be better in 'Features Feedback' unless the discussion is very general.  If you want feedback on this specific scenario, I'll merge it.  Otherwise it can stay here.

 

[Manofdusk]

yeah, I really couldn't figure out where to put this. It's really just the evolution to the thoughts of what I've been reading on some other forums taking shape and I thought I could get some feedback.

 

[Valryia]

Reminds of Live a Live. There, you had different time periods, and in one you - the player - was a last master of an old art. Instead of being level 99, he simply didn't get exp, while having high wisdom, and low anywhere else. He got himself a few pupils which he trained by fightning them himself. When they lost, they would gain exp. Furthermore, by training in different landscapes, the pupils he fought would get permament status upgrades.

 

[BigToastie]

One thing, your first line got me 


" In his prime, Darius (name is WIP) was the greatest warrior and mage the world had ever known"


if hes this well known, when he talks to people, you may want them to act 'in awe' if you have that person in front of you, with that kind of history you would be somewhat in awe :3

 

[kaukusaki]

that sounds like an interesting game you got going there about the old master battlemage Darius (wip).

 I've been looking at 2 threads recently, one about roadblocks and one about a past-his-prime character... and thinking about both of them sparked an idea in me.


 In his prime, Darius (name is WIP) was the greatest warrior and mage the world had ever known. He was the first to successfully blend both swordsmanship and magic and he put down a great many evils in his time. However, time is the greatest enemy of man and eventually he began to feel the weight of his years. He married, had 2 sons, and started a school. Eventually, his sons married and had children of their own, taking over his school. However, one day an evil from Darius's past returned. The sons took their students and all of the old man's gear and went off to face the evil... but never returned, leaving Darius to raise his three Grandchildren alone.


 When the story starts, Darius is already in his 80s and his grandchildren are in their early teens. Something happens and they are forced from their home. Darius has little choice now but to train his grandchildren to face the evil. Darius is level 99 but his stats are seriously degraded. The grandchildren are level 1 and the fights (even the earliest ones) are extremely difficult. For the first (rather long) while, Darius has to strategically use his skills to protect his grandchildren so that they can learn to fight (ie. level up).


 There is a story and a plot but the player is not required to follow it. In fact, they can just grind for levels then go strait to the final boss to defeat it... but doing so results in a bad ending. The events are timed too... so, if you want to do them, you have to go when the game says to go (the marauding hordes of evil won't wait for you to go level up in a field somewhere)


 I was also planning on having the old man himself be a roadblock for certain things. For example, if you want to go to a mountain, he tells you (when you first arrive), that ogres live here, that they're very strong, but vulnerable to a type of poisonous plant. He then suggests going to gather some before proceeding. If you continue, he warns you a few more times before you get into a scripted fight with an ogre. If you lose, he'll take the unconscious kids and flee, scolding them for not listening... but if you win, he'll admit that you're strong enough to handle it. If you go get the plant, then you can use it to give your weapon a paralysis effect which makes the fight much easier.


Would you be annoyed at these kinds of roadblocks?

That sounds like fun. But that's me. It's a potential hair-pulling grind with side quests and timed quests and such, but variety is the spice of life! go for it and ignore the twitchy adhd kids gunning for a speed run.

 I also thought about having the Old Master's training actually let you control the 3 kids'  stat growth. They all start as the "Disciple" class with relatively even (if a little slow) stat growth. By training certain stats, they can advance to a more specialized class (such as mage, warrior, or cleric). However, NOT focusing on a certain stat will leave them with only the "Adventurer" class, which is an upgraded "Disciple". Not 100% sure how this would work though.

That's a solid idea. I like it a lot. Maybe the Adventurer is an all around jack of all trades class combining some of the warrior/mage/cleric skills, but would be slightly weaker as the other core classes, but just as effective (since they're not aggressively training in that core class).

 A friend of mine suggested that, once the kids reach a certain level/story progression (I think I'll do it when all 3 kids are no longer "Disciples" if I do it), then the option would exist to swap him out for a younger 4th member with higher stats. If given a choice to keep the Old Master or trade him for someone with higher stats but fewer skills, would you? Naturally, I'd like to make this decision harder by keeping the Old Master viable as a support character though I'm not 100% sure how to keep him viable once they really start to outpace him since he's meant to be pretty static.

The old master could still be useful as a support character if you're going to keep him in the party. maybe he learns one new super specialized skill throughout his adventures while helping train the kids. What that skill could be is up to you. no sense in letting the old man retire suddenly because he's outpaced by the new generation of fighters. i'm sure he wants to find out what happened to his sons and his gear - that's his whole starting point in training the grandkids in the first place right? make him stick around long enough to finish his personal objective - that was his motivation for even doing this one last quest in the first place.

 

[Wavelength]

Sounds like a cute game.


I wouldn't be annoyed at the type of "roadblock" you described, unless the roadblock seemed really stupid ("you can't cross this shallow stream... better go rescue the bridge builder from an ogre!") or roadblocks come up constantly that transform clear, immediate-feeling objectives into long ordeals.


I would recommend against letting the player eliminate Darius from the party at any point (except perhaps right before the final arc of the story as a rite of passage for the kids, that they are doing this without their authority figure in tow).  It connects the player to the theme of the story that Darius is in tow but the player is using him in a support role because it needs to be something he helps his grandchildren complete, not something he can do for them anymore.  If the player loses that connection with what Darius is, it will feel like a very abstract story element rather than a strong theme.  Yes, I would probably switch him out for a 4th kid - and I'd lose what makes the game special in the process.