Final Unique Encounter for each Cycle

Voters 182

+ 136 voters

A
+ 40 anonymous

182

Done

Bagus Setiadi

I think the whole cycle is currently underused. It's only to reset everything back to the starting point. However, it might be really cool to see some kind of "boss fight" at the end of a cycle. This could be a very challenging map with very specific challenges or penalty. The challenge could be tied to a certain cycle like a seasonal event. A few that comes to mind:

1. A timed mission where a rampaging beast moves through the glades to your hearth and you need to finish a project to stop it.
2. Conducting a research into the lore in an ancient ruins at a certain marked glade. Opening new glades could give more challenges that could halt progress, and working on the research also trigger global debuff. There could be more than 1 ruins.
3. Setting an "outpost for the future" by having you create a certain set of building and future proofing it. This could also be another explanation for how you could find the "broken buildings in a glade"

These "boss fights" could be marked on a certain edge of the world map, thus encouraging player to go a certain direction if they would challenge this. Tying into the cycle, player could also choose a perk/cornerstone/blueprint/resources that they would bring into this "boss fight" everytime they complete a settlement before the cycle ends. I feel this will add another layer of meta-roguelike-progression to the cycle.

To sum up:
1. add a unique encounter ("boss fight") at the end of a cycle
2. gave player progression to help them for this encounter when completing settlements
3. all this to give more meaning to the cycle system.

30-10-2022 -

Activity Newest / Oldest

Yes, we need a motivation to go for another cycle.

Aron Pietron

Status changed to: Done

My current experience with the Cycle is that it's too long. I'm on P20 and it takes about 7 town for me to reach the seal on the map, but I'm being gated from doing the seal because I've only gotten 63 seals when forging the seal requires a whopping 105, meaning I have to grind roughly 5 more towns before I can play the Seal map. This is way too long for a cycle.
In addition, I suggest that you breaking seal map into little components instead of being THE final stage. Player should be able to experience seal map along the journey. As of right now the seal map update means nothing to me because I know I won't have the patience to grind 13 towns just to play the final map.

Surya R

Well, the goal of the game in each cycle is to reforge the seal. So the final map can tie into that goal.

There would be a huge seal in the map, and the goal of this final encounter would be to reforge that seal successfully. You would have to reach the seal, build a settlement near the seal, and then do certain specific things to help rebuild the seal. There would be specific challenges and impediments to that (like the rampaging beasts, or specific end-of-cycle weather storms and debuffs like the OP mentioned).

And ofc, after each encounter you can get a "permanent" perk/cornerstone/blueprint that the player would have to choose and strategize accordingly, so that it helps him with the final encounter.

That ties in logically and thematically well to the game.

Aron Pietron

Status changed to: In progress

Aron Pietron

Status changed to: Under review

I mean, I thought the cycles were a "more on this later" kinda thing. That they are focusing on actual gameplay first, and then when that is working well start to flesh out the cycles. So, I thought they had a lot of thoughts on what to do with cycles already. I mean the game has no end condition, so something is definitely needed.

If they don't have anything planned, then this is a super idea!

Alexander Demura

After finishing two full cycles (and 70 hrs of playing) I feel the need of some meta-progression that would give an overarching goal for everything that happens during a cycle.

One of directions of thought is trying to understand the nature of Blightstorms and learn to control them (which is probably what people of the world would want to do)

The idea is to introduce special type of missions, available as a last one every cycle - where you are venturing into the eye of the storm to get some rewards or insights. These missions would be limited in time (e.g. 5 years), have harder difficulty (storm effects primarily killing people + maybe some additional effects like cysts continuously spawning or longer storms in general) and you'd start with more or less functional settlement with a task to do something other than gain reputation (the idea here is to break the traditional mission script and introduce new gameplay challenges that require new strategies).

Examples:
1. Queen requires you to organise shipping of food from an advance camp to the citadel. You start with 2 hearths on different sides of the map and your job is to connect two warehouses with a continuous road (you get bonus if parts of that road is made of stone or copper). Or light some signposts along a path to secure a route.
2. You start away from ancient hearth and there is a huge Blightstorm cyst corrupting it that you can't reach. You need to cut to the hearth and burn the thing while buying yourself time by burning regular cysts and levelling up your other hearths
3. You need to find an artefact that has something to do with the storm (similar to archaeology but can be at any biome and you win once you uncover it fully)

As a reward you get special items that allow you do something along these lines
1. Delay the next Blightstorm by a few years (if you desperately need another settlement)
2. Make the next Blightstorm sooner (if you need to mess with other factions or just want to get to next end-mission sooner)
3. Drop beacon on the global map to see some area around it
4. Get some radar functionality that would allow you to detect modifiers on the global map (e.g. fertile grounds or chests)
5. Embark anywhere on the map
6. Make next cycle more difficult, which would unlock next progression piece and work as a global difficulty modifier, justifying all progression.

The cycle would then be a preparation for such mission, which could have risk/reward elements. You would have to spend citadel resources to improve your odds - like food would get you more settlers and machinery would allow you to start your camp with some structures already built. Factions you traded with during the cycle could offer you extra resources, etc.

Players who wouldn't want such missions would still have an option to finish a cycle as usual.

Would be great to add some unique mechanics - like Blightstorm is closing in, so every year it permanently eats away part of the map, destroying everything that was there - glades, buildings, resources, forcing you to be on the move (which is an example of what I call a new gameplay challenge)

There could be additional sideline effects of such activities, like getting corrupted by the power, or making the queen upset...

Aron Pietron

Merged with: Meta-progression: Blightstorm missions

Chiel Booij

I'm really missing a goal for the cycles. I really like the gameplay but after the 3rd cycle everything felt more like a chore than completing a game.
The name of the game implied to me there is a special encounter at the edge of the overworld map that would stop the storms/cycles thus completing the overworld game.
It would be nearly impossible to get to the edge and complete the game without citadel upgrades.
If you get better at the game and play on higher difficulties you need less cycles. Thus having a feeling of improvement and accomplishment between overworld games.
Difficulty could be selected per game/beating the storm. Starting an overwoldgame on the highest prestige gives the most citadel resources making it possible to beat the overworld game within 1 cycle.
I'm not sure a 'boss' fight is the thing to do, but there should be something.
I really like the game and how it is being developed, keep up the good work!

Great idea, a special scenario map for when the cycle is over, I like it, would feel more climactic

Agree with the feeling that the significance of the cycle is underwhelming. I wouldn't like a boss fight with a beast though. Just a more unique / special map like your 2nd suggestion about a one-off huge glade event that has to be completed (and can be turned on and off to mitigate the huge debuff it would give). Maybe the difficulty would depend on distance from the citadel, encouraging to explore outward more.

Juan Manuel Mayo

I love the idea, the final boss map could be a special game, for instance I wrote that idea:

feedback.eremitegames.com/b/suggestions-feature-requests/alternatives-to-reputation-win-conditions/

And if you win the boss map you get something new in the following cycle:

feedback.eremitegames.com/b/suggestions-feature-requests/unique-resets/

feedback.eremitegames.com/b/suggestions-feature-requests/cycle-long-cornerstones/

Aron Pietron

Merged with: Add a special final stage at the end of the cycle

Hiroki Azumi

The gist of this proposal is that while normal gameplay is fun, changing difficulty or biomes doesn't change much and is boring. (no sharpness)
So I think the game would be better if we created a special event to end the cycle.

For example, at the end of the cycle you will have a final battle in a special stage where you will receive resources from all the settlements you have created to resist the destruction of the world.
It is an element that further sharpens the trade route.

Filip Kudroń

May I interest you with a similar suggestion I made here? feedback.eremitegames.com/b/suggestions-feature-requests/city-planning-new-difficulty-game-mode/

In that post I suggested a game mode that I think would scratch the itch of classical roguelike experience.

Michael Collins

One idea is the classic story trope from fantasy where you have to collect specific, rare items (e.g. triforce pieces in legend of zelda, golden fleece & jason in greek mythology). The same could be the goal of the player: you need to retrieve rare items for the queen for the citadel that were lost in blightstorms past. These artifacts should fit the theme of the game/citadel and could have mechanical benefits (e.g. an astrolabe that lets you tell when the next blightstorm will come; a more powerful shield that lets you embark farther at the start of a cycle).

Mechanically, when you start a new story run, those items would be in fixed positions on the world map (procedurally generated for that run). You would need to first reveal the artifacts on the world map, and then start a settlement on their tile. You'd play through a settlement map - but because of the artifact's presence there's additional challenges on the map. Maybe there's something about the blightstorm that has corrupted the artifact, or it has attracted monstrous creatures, etc. This challenge can be a variety of things mechanically, but it can be fixed for the specific artifact(?)

If you beat the map, you claim the artifact. If you fail, you can try again - but if the blightstorm comes, you'll have to start out again from the center of the map.

The artifacts are spread out on the map; some are closer to the citadel, others are farther out. (The reason that their position on the world map is fixed for a particular story run is because a lot of the challenge will be finding them - they don't show up as ? on the map. It would be anti-fun to have the location of the artifacts change every blightstorm)

Other factions are also searching for these artifacts. (Factions could become active when you return the first artifact to the Citadel). They can block your discovery, by settling a town on the tile that the artifact is on until the blightstorm clears them away. (I don't think they should ever actually collect an artifact however, since I'm not sure what the gameplay would be to steal/get the artifact back from them?) You could talk with the Faction leaders/NPCs to get small hints or red herrings about the Artifact locations. (I really like how fun the traders as characters are, putting that to the Faction leaders would be great!)

Josielancer

I think the idea of "set pieces" / "boss fight" settlements (with a fixed set of mysteries and maybe even fixed/unique glade events) has a lot of potential overall for injecting more lore/story and a feeling of progress and permanence.

Like others in the Discord mentioned, we could be heading out to these boss-fight settlements to bring back especially powerful artefacts to the Citadel for some form of unlocks. Would be a nice place to inject clues to the past of the world, and other lore.

Perhaps winning a boss-fight settlement unlocks new forest mysteries and/or map modifiers (as the forest reacts to what has been built / unearthed / altered).
These might give that feeling of "I did something and now the world is different".

Or maybe boss-fight settlement could be a way to "set up" for the next cycle, giving us a cycle-wide modifier (which is another suggestion I've seen on this board and in the Discord).

Maybe winning a boss-fight settlement is a way to unlock new species? New cornerstones? New very rare buildings?
Or maybe certain tiers of the unlock tree in the Citadel could be gated behind winning these boss-fight settlements.

Or, expanding on your outpost idea, perhaps winning certain boss-fight settlements could give us a permanent "beacon" that we can embark from in future cycles?