Veteran Levels - Level cap up to 100

[Kezarus]

Hey everyone! You asked for it, so here it is!

Endless RPG isn’t an endless incremental game and the tight systems don’t allow much room for unlimited growth. Just letting levels go past the cap would break balance fast.

But games like Battle Brothers found clever ways to handle this and we came up with something inspired by that, which I’d love your feedback on.

🎖️ Veteran Levels
After a character hits level 10, they’ll earn Veteran Levels instead:
▶️Max: 90
▶️XP needed: 50,000
▶️Character level stays the same, won’t affect other game variables.
▶️After level 10, only ATR Plus are possible to increase.

Each Veteran Level lets you choose a “Plus” bonus (max 30 total):

Power Plus:
▶️+1 Health (Max 100 HP)
▶️+2% Vigor Save
▶️+0.1 Armor

Speed Plus:
▶️+2 Guard (Max 100)
▶️+0.2 Guard Recovery
▶️+0.2% Critical
▶️+2% Reflex Save
▶️+0.1 Move

Mind Plus:
▶️+0.5 Skills (Max 25)
▶️+0.2 Mastery XP Boost
▶️+2% Will Save
▶️+0.1 Magic Armor

It’s all doable, but testing every edge case is tough, so I’ll count on your amazing help to catch bugs. And remember: the game is still aiming for a June 1.0 release and is 90% done, so, no major system rewrites from here on.

What do you think? Does this work for you?

Cheers! =]

[Darkluv]

Sounds interesting but remember that once you are lvl 10 with even a basic skill set and t3 crafted gear (not even min/max) you are stronger than anything in the game. The only things that can slow your roll are cyclops and bears. They take an extra turn to kill. This is when you feel all of your hard work has paid off and you own the streets! So to add veteran levels only raises your power with no need. Unless that last bit of content has true dungeon bosses or something, I just don't see a need for this. Maybe those playing on a hard mode might need it? Standard seems good as is.

Not sure if it's a misprint but 80 veteran levels and 30 total? I'm guessing that means you can only put 30 bonus points into one particular choice? Guaranteed 30 mind, 30 speed, and 20 power heh. In order to make power as attractive as the other two perhaps move critical to it and add initiative to speed?

[Tiwaking! 56k NZ]

Originally posted by Darkluv:

Not sure if it's a misprint but 80 veteran levels and 30 total? I'm guessing that means you can only put 30 bonus points into one particular choice? Guaranteed 30 mind, 30 speed, and 20 power heh. In order to make power as attractive as the other two perhaps move critical to it and add initiative to speed?

I agree with Darkluv, power is not the most powerful of abilities. In fact, I am considering changing my human fighter into another ranger. My warriors (power / mind) go last and are the slowest and everyone ignores them to go beat up on my weakest ranger. They even ignore all of my mages to do so.

It is rumoured that Evil Centres scale to the level of heroes so I am very afraid of what a level 30 Evil Centre is going to look like.

[redwitch]

I'm not sure the main goal of adding veteran levels is just to make your characters more powerful which, as stated above, may not be needed in the gameplay as it normally is. I suppose the main goal may be to offer the player a way to continue developing the characters which, at least in my opinion, is one of the most enjoyable aspects in this kind of games. That's why a similar feature was introduded in Battle brothers and mods have been created which tweak how it works by changing the +1 level up to a random approach, so may get +2 for some attributes. It's certainly true that it's a balance act but I'm pretty sure kezarus would implement it in a way which does not feel it's just a superfluous feature. In any case, as far as I'm concerned, I'm all for it.

btw ... I already love this game as it is, it may become one of my all time favourites, together with Battle Brothers, Mount & Blade, Urtuk the Desolation, Our Adventurer Guild and a few others, which I always keep returning to.

[Darkluv]

I was only talking about power as a veteran level choice as shown above but as far as power for characters I think it's good. Sure the two handed needs a tiny bump to damage, justifying giving up the 50% extra a dual wielder gets or the extra defenses from shields. Other than that though my party uses two dual wielding melee orcs that are 5 power and 5 mind. Ax thrower to wipe out any shield carrier and a spear/dagger thrower to assassinate the unprotected.

I also run with a dwarf tank center front to take the brunt of rushers since they can't get to the back line unless you move them forward. Just use first turn for buffing until the enemy team has closed the distance. I know my red mage can cast almost to the other side of the map since he takes the green passives to keep his sight range.

[Kezarus]

Did some corrections on the original post. The max level is 100, 10 standard and 90 veteran. And only ATR Plus can be increased after level 10.

Gonna take a closer look on what you guys posted here shortly. =]

[Kezarus]

Thanks for the contribution, mates! The level cap increase is mostly there to give a better sense of progression past the first 10 levels, which is why Attributes Plus doesn’t work the same way as base Attributes.

Not sure how much you’ve seen from the new update, but Evil Centers now follows the party level and are way tougher than before. Also, I think some players still find the game challenging on Standard difficulty. Should I also create a Harder difficulty? What should it look like?

[redwitch]

well, as fa as I can say, ruins, even the smallest, have become much much harder, and I'm still playing on "relaxed". Very early game I'm encountering golems en masse instead of the typical rats as in the previous version. It's still doable, though having characters knocked out is the new normal, and I wonder what difficulty to expect in the more difficult ruins.

Just a suggestion: Considering the big difficulty spike in ruins, why not also increase the final reward? It seems rather poor now relative to the difficulty.

[Kezarus]

Originally posted by redwitch:

well, as fa as I can say, ruins, even the smallest, have become much much harder, and I'm still playing on "relaxed". Very early game I'm encountering golems en masse instead of the typical rats as in the previous version. It's still doable, though having characters knocked out is the new normal, and I wonder what difficulty to expect in the more difficult ruins.

Just a suggestion: Considering the big difficulty spike in ruins, why not also increase the final reward? It seems rather poor now relative to the difficulty.

(see, that’s why I get genuinely scared when someone says the game isn’t too hard on Standard. o.Ô)

Since Ruin challenges now scale with party level, that’s expected. I’ll review the rewards at the end of Ruins.

Cheers! =]

[redwitch]

Originally posted by Kezarus:

(see, that’s why I get genuinely scared when someone says the game isn’t too hard on Standard. o.Ô)

Since Ruin challenges now scale with party level, that’s expected. I’ll review the rewards at the end of Ruins.

Cheers! =]

you may have to rename the difficulty mode though, some people won't find constantly having to revive characters all too relaxing :-)

[redwitch]

it has nothing to do directly with the patch, but, I wonder, it is intended that almost every single piece of equipment you get as loot from encounters has a negative modifier? If it is intended, waht I suppose, I'd like to know the rationale behind this decision. To me it seems rather odd and above all frustrating. I almost never get something I could use, it generally ends up sold or salvaged.

[Darkluv]

I never found golems to be a difficult fight. Are there now 6 in a fight now or something? Good strategy is to put green mages wolf, blue mages summons, or your tank out front and only attack at range to prevent the retribution strikes. Sure golems can do big damage but easily tanked so have the tank buff and heal and all others hit em from a ranged square. It's dead in 1-2 turns.

[redwitch]

OK, I have to revise my feedback, the difficulty has not increased drastically, at least generally, it's OK. It has been just a ruin so far, in which I encountered a series of fights with golems, which I found rather challenging for my low level party. Maybe it wasn't a level 1 ruin. Anyway, I've visited a few other level 1 ruins, and it was not much harder than before the patch. I'd say it's fine.

[Echtel]

Fantastic idea! 100% support this