Dungeons of Daggerhelm is an expansive universe that has the potential to have everything and anything possible within the confines of Java. What we are trying to do is create a game standard where players can make up their own adventures without being forced into following a story they may or may not like, with a huge variety of encounters and environments that will keep the game interesting. We are learning about this from the shortcomings of games such as Diablo 3, in which the story needs to be played over and over in order to get the best gear, and in which there is no adventure mode.
We do not want that to happen with DoD. A story mode is in the works in the distant future, but in order to have this, we must have a framework in place to build the world around. We are creating a game that has complete full-randomization. Meaning, the worlds and maps you will encounter will be different each time, as far as appearance and monster spawning is concerned. Features of environment construction won't have sectors of the map being regenerated across the entire world. There will be absolutely no repetition of maps in which players will recognize areas that they've seen elsewhere. Essentially, we want DoD to have a playable adventure mode where players are free to roam wherever they like in a non-linear fashion.
The Leveling System is a hot item on our list to implement. Unfortunately, we can't do this until we have enemy sprites and AI in place. However, I can talk about it still because the leveling logic is fresh in my mind and I'm excited to share it.
First, what does the leveling system mean for the player? Like most games similar to DoD, it means access to higher levels of gear and more powerful weapons, as well as higher-value equipment drop rate. This is what we are looking to implement into our game, obviously, but more than that is where your character level can take you. I believe a nice idea for DoD is to make certain maps with tougher monsters locked for players until they reach a certain level. This gives more motivation to level up your character and experience the game-entry maps to the fullest first before plunging into the harder content.
The Item Drop System is also very important because it determines how well your player is geared. We, again, like to learn from previous games that have loot tables. I especially like the prospect of having absolutely no crafting abilities in the game and have everything you wear strictly looted from enemies or bought from NPCs. Why do I like this? Because crafting is an overused concept. My logic behind no-crafting in DoD is that crafting is a process best suited for games like Minecraft and Terraria, where half of the game is exploring for materials and the other half is... well, crafting.
The focus of DoD isn't going to be on farming for materials to craft stuff. We've seen that before a billion times. A lot of the time, it is clunky and not worth the effort of implementing. More often than not, it is a crafting system rip-off of Minecraft, and I believe crafting has etched a negative connotation into my brain for all eternity! -gasps-
I believe that keeping crafting far away from our game makes it so players are concentrated on getting the actual gear item itself instead of waiting for a crafting reagent to drop. That being said, we hope that this announcement doesn't take away from your expectations. We will be brainstorming additional game play methods to make up for this "lack of depth."
These are just a few concepts that we will be adding later in the development process. They are, as always, subject to change (including my decision about crafting) and most likely will change when it is all said and done. We will be announcing more development concepts a little later in the process once we have a playable prototype.
