Design Exclusive Items vs Universal Items

T

Thunder Lion

Guest
I have a quick question I'm back and forth about this, so here we go.
In my project "Final Wing" I want to make it so the player has to either buy parts or completed items. However I wanted to make it so that each ship needed to have items crafted and defined to that specific ship e.g. if the player has a machine gun, then the machine gun can be selected to work on only 1 ship and the player must gain another one to use for their other ships if they want to. My other idea was this originally, the player must buy and craft parts or buy a completed set for a premium (all are in game money not real), then the player can select that item to be used on all their ships whenever they want.

So my question is should items be only usable to a ship it is selected for or should those items be usable through all the ships once one is obtained?

I really want to know which people would prefer. I like both ideas however.
 

andev

Member
I wanted to make it so that each ship needed to have items crafted and defined to that specific ship
It's really fun to create rules and exceptions like this when brainstorming mechanics, but as a player it's really annoying to have to deal with this kind of thing.
 
S

signal

Guest
I guess if there's enough replay value, it wouldn't hurt to have a exclusive items. It could be seen as a challenge to unlock as many items for each ship.

Luckily, it's probably fairly easy to switch between the two methods, so you can test both of them and just pick whichever one feels right to you (or your testers).
 
T

Thunder Lion

Guest
From your comments, Im kinda drifting toward universal usage but will adapt different boundries.
My thoughts:
Items will be limited by a few factors, 1st ships will have a Technology Tier level this will dictate which items they can use, items will have tech tiers to define which ships can use them. The tech tier will not necessarily be defined as "higher tier better item", but will be dependent on balancing of the game and realism of what I'd imagine e.g. a machine gun is less advanced than a plasma gun or something.
Each ship will have a max slots usable and a limit to what kind of items those slots can use. Top slots are 4, items include weapon systems, equipments (defensive, tools, etc.) and armors. The next limiting factor is license level. The player will be limited in BUYING (but not finding) parts and completed items. The player must be awarded license levels via playing the "story" and will be able to gain 1 level via License XP to gain 1 level per awarded level, e.g. player starts at level 1, they can upgrade to level 2 but not 3. Once they are awarded a new level they can again gain a level themselves e.g. if level 1 and awarded a level they become level 2 and can go to level 3 via XP, but if they are willing to perform their best they can use XP to get to level 2 then get the reward (XP levels are 1 max and resets every awarded level).
Player's will be able to buy items at the license level they are on AS PARTS, anything under their license will then be available as a completed set (but sell at a premium), parts are cheaper but require the player to craft and wait a set time until the item is available to be used, completed items are available immediately. Also some markets do not sell certain items, each market will have defaults but will have unique items and random items. The different markets are accessed via completing "chapters" which are basically different zones with a set of levels. Parts can also be awarded via game achievements, random rewards from completing a level, etc. Every item will require 4 parts including unassembled ships. Some parts will be exclusive to level rewards or other means and not the market. So basically thats it. So what do you guys think?
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
It's really fun to create rules and exceptions like this when brainstorming mechanics, but as a player it's really annoying to have to deal with this kind of thing.
Depends a bit on if the items would actually apply, though. A bombing dreadnought and a scouting vessel would have VERY different loadouts, and it wouldn't make sense for equipment for one of them to work with the other.
 
S

Storyteller

Guest
mostly universal with a 'ship specialty' only used by them
if you have a "Level 3 machine gun" on ship A, you should be able to put it on ship B, if ship B can use machine guns at all.
you should [[ALL BUT NEVER]] have 'ship A type machine gun' and 'ship B type machine gun' that are the same thing, but must be upgraded and bought separately. Its annoying and diminishes game balance instead of improving it. (unless you can use both ships at the same time somehow)
modular weapon systems that attach to 'hard points' on ships, and maybe certain ships cant use certain weapons.
 

Rob

Member
As a player I'd rather just assemble and craft one item once, maybe unlock a blueprint or something to be used on all ships. Having to gather items for the same weapon for different ships would annoy me I think. You could have certain weapons being locked to certain ships, or have buffs/debuffs on certain ships/more less weapon slots for a certain type.
 
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