Nei Nalen
patreon
Level system is changing
🕑 Added 2024-12-09 15:55:01 +0000 UTCI wanted to talk a bit about the level system and the progression in Maze of Ambition, as those are going to change a lot in Update 3.
The idea behind the current system was to allow your character to grow a lot in a single run, so you could just do a run and experience the whole growth. It would impact gameplay a lot too, offering you different, more powerful cards, alongside a more powerful passive.
Truth is, it becomes stale pretty quickly. Once you got through that initial level cap, replaying through it, it was just another game mechanic. There were not a lot of key growth points to strive for. Also, cards being split into many levels caused you to not care so much about your deck as it's going to get replaced pretty quickly, and each level only had so much to offer.
It's not the first card game I make, and I think card design is overall pretty good. That said, MoA was my first go at a roguelite, and it shows. I made mistakes, but I wanted to give it a go, see if people would like it. And they did. You did.
So now, I want to thank you for your trust and support by making the game better.
I'm reworking the level system entirely. Characters are still going to level up and grow bigger, but at a slower pace, with more, lesser-impact levels to jump to. That said, the growth is permanent. You can bring your new growth outside the maze and to your new runs, with more powerful starts, and have evoluting interactions with characters.
Card level will be gone as well. To accomodate for the change, you'll be able to gather long-term resources in the maze to upgrade cards and items into a more up-to-level version, and cards will also have different rarities, to still allow you to get access to more powerful cards as you progress through the maze. This should allow you to always be progressing, while having access to a more varied pool of cards at any point.
Hopefully, the plan is good for you. I don't intend on having a lot of bigger growth content for the next update, as applying those changes, making the existing growth more impactful, updating all cards, as well as inserting the story in all of that, is going to take a lot of time. That said, those are not the only changes coming to Update 3. This is a big one, and I've been working a lot on it already! I'll keep you updated!
Comments
Limstella
I'll miss the old system for sure. I like having to balance keeping yourself alive vs greeding for the next level. And getting the big burst of growth accompanied with getting access to really powerful new cards is really satisfying. Here's hoping the new system is just as fun!
Just Poli
The only thing I'd like to see changed is the fact that I had to complete each Floor two times, the first without gaining EXP but just for the quest and the second with EXP... I think it'll be better to need to complete each level just one time and gain both EXP and Quests progressions
Brandon Edwards
I did like the huge power spikes but, it does lock you in and force you to ditch lower level cards. i'm interested to see what you come up with.
Nei Nalen
I was trying to think of a more elegant way to incorporate difficulty than separate game modes. The thing is roguelites tend to target "gamers", and push for a die, learn and retry, and the difficulty curve allows you to slowly get there, while more advanced players will get a win not so far in, and get to higher difficulty. The problem is, there are a lot of people that want to play games like MoA that are not ready to die, learn and retry, and just want to sit back and enjoy the growth process and stuff, playing but not really thinking. And I don't want to get in the way of that. With that in mind, I haven't found a better solution than separate game modes yet. I don't want to lock out main content behind difficulty either, so my incentive would have been a separate resource system or achievements that would help you unlock things like skins or cosmetics for instance.
Marcus
I hear what you are saying and I certainly wouldn't want that either. So I've been giving it some thought and I came up with an idea I'd like to throw out to you. What if you could build a separate resource grinding our casual runs that you could then spend in challenge runs that you could then spend to either re-roll explorations or to increase the odds of rarer card pulls?
Nei Nalen
I have enough experience to recognize what works and what doesn't. I'm also not completely doing over. The new system is a more intricate one, it is overall reusing a lot of bases from before and starting with that from the start would have been a big undertaking. Although yes this kind of change would only become harder as things progress.
Milk-N-Potatoes
I think this direction is going to be good for the overall longevity of the game. Very happy to hear that you're not afraid to start over and try new things- I know personally it's very easy to just keep pushing a failing system to its limits because you don't want to do it all again. And then by the time you're forced to, you're three times as far behind as you would've been when you first realized.
Henry
those change sound great, good roguelite are the one who have some meta progression imo where when a run finish you can upgrade to make the next run easier or unlock new thing for the next run. looking forward to it and see how it play whenever the update is ready as the current loop of leveling -story - back to square one - longer dungeon/leveling - story - back to square one made the game feel like a bit of a waste of time even though i wanted to see the next bit of the story
Nei Nalen
I did think about it and I did not find an answer yet. The system should be quite adaptative to player skill level, and I don't really want to completely lock you out of your long term progression if you're switching from casual to challenge. But still, the skill level difference between players is massive and it wouldn't be a good thing to just beat challenge by leveling up in casual then playing the early achievements on the higher difficulty setting.
Marcus
I do think that reworking the growth/level/card system will be beneficial to your project in the long run. Have you given any thought as to whether you will keep the casual/challenge modes independent of each other in this new system?
Nei Nalen
I have a few things in mind but I'm still unsure and need more testing before being able to answer, and upgrading hasn't been properly implemented yet.
Nei Nalen
You do not start with all cards, and will unlock brand new cards for future runs, just not a bunch at once. Plus all the cards you're upgrading. So it should provide more variety all around while still giving you the satisfaction of unlocking new content. And yeah card art will upgrade. Name I'm still thinking about it but it's likely.
Dialgo777
The changes looks good. But just wondering about the materials to upgrade your cards, if they are gonna be found randomly on the floor or you have to defeat monsters to get them?
T
A bit sad to hear that card levels will be removed, though I understand the change. Having smaller but multiple stages of growth would've also inevitably required constantly coming up with brand new card effects to the point it'll be difficult to come up with any more unique ones to make them distinct. Will we start will all cards unlocked? Don't play too many card rougelites, but part of the fun replayability was unlocking new cards for future runs. Will we have updated art or name changes when we upgrade cards? When I say name changes, I mean cards changing their text to sound more intense as it gets upgraded (e.g. Ruby card named "thrust" changes into "relentless pounding" after upgrading it three times with another new name after three more upgrades). Part of what made the original system fun was watching characters get new cards with updated art in terms of size, but also the fact that the titles of the new cards clearly showcased their ever increasing arousal and fall into depravity to their changes as well.
Eveelith
Those changes sound great, the huge powerspike betwern levels was indeed a bit annoying because it made basically try to get the minimum amount of cards before reaching cap
