Dungeon Master
Posts: 762
Joined: Thursday, 25th April 2013, 02:43
Giving Stories to Uniques through Multiple Encounters
The simplest way would to have multiple uniques, each of which represent the same character at a different stages of their journey
Example:
Act I: Asterion, King in Exile
A simple, early-game melee unique (replacing Terrence?). He fights you with a weapon, has a headbutt attack, but doesn't do much else. His description implies that he was ousted only recently, and the replacement government hasn't yet gained legitimacy. His dialogue lines indicate desperation.
Act II: Asterion, the Fallen King
Same as the Asterion currently in the game.
Act III: Asterion of his second zenith
This unique replaces one of the random pan lords (the kind guarding copies of the demonic rune) in Pandemonium, having gained a new Kingdom. His mechanics are similar to Act II Asterion.
More complicated example:
Act I: Dowan, Brother of Duvessa and Duvessa, Sister of Dowan
As in the game now
Act II part 1: Duvessa alone
Duvessa without Dowan in late-D, worshipping Trog. She has access to Berserk Rage as a spell-like ability, along with Brothers-in-Arms. She might have a spriggan berserker friend with her.
Act II part 2: Dowan alone
Dowan without Duvessa with a superior spell set, appearing most in Elf but also occasionally in other branches. Description mentions his search for magical knowledge.
Act III: Duvessa, last of her line
Duvessa spawns next to several corpses, including dead spriggan berserkers, dead elf wizards, and a elf wizard corpse labelled as "Dowan". If you examine her she has the status "paralyzed by sorrow", which functions as sleep except it can't be removed by noise. You can just ignore her. If you want you can attack her, in which case she'll fight like Act II part 1 Duvessa.
Less fleshed out examples:
A mage (Erolcha?) and their unnamed pet slug -> Gastronok
Melee unique with distortion weapon (Pysche?) -> Louise
Purgy -> Purgy in a band with Transmuter -> Snorg (reskined)
Human Boris / Natasha -> Natasha alone -> Boris alone
Nergelle in Orc Mines -> Nergelle exiled from Orc Mines
Margery pre-dragonslaying (Jessica reskin?) -> Margery (as now)
Prince Ribbit pre-curse -> Prince Ribbit (as now)
Ensuring the player sees each of the linked uniques:
There are multiple ways of making sure the player sees the full story. Options I see:
1) Stochastic. Basically leave it to chance. Don't spawn more than one encounter from each unique's story, but have the encounters behave like individual uniques otherwise. This has the advantage of being simple, but the player might need to reassemble the story backwards. (Example: they could see Pan!Asterion 3 before Dungeon!Asterion 2)
2) Same game. If you encounter Asterion 1, you know you'll see Asterion 2 and 3. This requires special casing for when you "kill" Asterion 1. It could be that it prevents Asterion 2 and 3 from spawning, but that is kind of spoiler-y and might prevent most players from ever seeing Asterion 2 and 3. You could also have Asterion 1 and 2 "surrender" when they would die, dropping their items and disappearing from the game, but this would raise questions about why no other monster ever surrenders.
I strongly believe in the importance of making every game's randomization an independent event, and don't believe this feature is worth compromising that. Therefore I have discarded several alternative ideas which would use such "meta-game" elements.
Feedback requested:
Would you enjoy this feature if it were in the game? What do you like/dislike about this idea?
What do you think is the best way to ensure the player encounters the character at each stage?