Point of Flexiscope?

[turkfish]

I don't understand the point / usefulness of the Flexiscope system. It's possible to log out and save after every floor, so there is no real practical difference in playstyle between "very small" and "very big." For example, under either option, you can log out and save whenever, so I can choose "very big" even if I only have 10 minutes to play, and just log out after the first floor if I feel like it. (If there is something I'm missing about this system, please let me know. I am honestly not sure about what it does, but it feels like it could be replaced by a system where there are no checkpoints and no Flexiscope because you can just return to the town after any floor.)

To make the system more meaningful, maybe it could determine the size of the FLOOR, not the size of whatever it is it determines? (I think currently, the system determines how many floors you need to go through until the next "checkpoint" of some sort, which is generally meaningless for the reasons described in my first paragraph.) By having the Flexiscope selection choose the size of the floor, it would actually change the feel of the gameplay, rather than just the number of floors one needs to conquer before going onto the next series of floors.

Also, you could make the Flexiscope a system for meaningful risk/reward decisions (sort of like the magic cauldron) by (1) increasing the reward:time ratio slight for larger floors, and (2) making it so you can only save AFTER completing a floor. This would require some actual decisionmaking and tradeoff analysis in choosing the game size, which feels lacking under the current system.

[Konstanty]

The Flexiscope system goes a bit deeper and is part of the bigger game balancing system. Its purpose is to offer a meaningful and complete experience in the time that the player has.

By complete, we understand levels with varied difficulty, strategically placed rewards and a boss fight near the end. There is a game design theory that says that challenge should flow like music - there must be faster 'attack' parts but if they are without slower and calmer interludes they become mundane and boring. Picking correct order of those parts is difficult if you don't know how long the player will be playing. For example in Skyrim player might spend his whole game session riding on a horse in order to get to a new location. While for some people this is a great experience for most that would be a waste of time.

By having the player declare how much time he/she can invest in one sitting we can craft the game session to offer experience and balance crafted for him/her. Floor size plays a part in this - shorter floors lead to longer and more difficult ones to create enjoyable flow.

The whole idea was not to punish or reward scopes of different lengths. Some people can play only in short sessions while others have free weekends and can play how they like. Limiting rewards or save opportunities would be unfair.

PS We just discussed your post and we agreed that we should prefer larger levels on longer Flexiscopes. We will modify the algorithm accordingly and see how it plays :-)

[turkfish]

Thanks for the explanation! I think that makes sense to me, I didn't really understand the role that the system had in setting up "game flow" situations like you're describing.

[Whateverman]

I realize I'm bumping a very old thread, but I have a question about the Flexiscope - and it seemed relevant to the question asked here.

Do the rewards scale up slightly as the length of the session increases?

Take two people who start two different games. Each plays through the first part of the game to "The Cook": One of them always chooses Very Small games, and the other always chooses Very Big games.

Does the person who chose Very Big end up with more rewards/gold than the person who chose Very Small?

I understand that there may be some randomness involved, but I'm asking about the algorithm which determines the rewards; will one player generally end up with more than the other?

Thanks in advance.

[Darkness]

As far as I can tell, there's no incentive for extra larger levels, otherwise you'd feel obliged to play larger levels.

Basically, when you have little time to play, you have the options of can creating a small dungeon and finish it, instead of having to leave it unfinished.

Also, when you start getting imposed cards, having smaller or longer flexiscopes will influence on how long each imposed card set holds itself, greatly impacting in gameplay and item choosing.

I agree the system is dull in general and rarelly makes a difference, but well, there're a few cases where it does.

[Konstanty]

The system doesn't reward any length over another. If a big game is twice as a small game it will yield twice as many rewards (in theory, there is obviously randomness at play, but you see my point).

The system itself doesn't change the rules of the game but rather the flow of the gameplay.

[Whateverman]

Great - thanks for the answer, Konstanty (and Darkness).

[123 Casual Player]

Am I the only one who find small the be the least risky? Very small tends to have these monster clusters in close rooms and near entrance, while large give less opportunities to heal in between. You are also less lock in to bad rolls with relic impose.

And if you run into fights you can't win, you can also run back to the entrance.

[Whateverman]

Originally posted by 123 Casual Player:

Am I the only one who find small the be the least risky? Very small tends to have these monster clusters in close rooms and near entrance, while large give less opportunities to heal in between. You are also less lock in to bad rolls with relic impose.

And if you run into fights you can't win, you can also run back to the entrance.

Yeah, I tend to do small runs in general, especially when my characters are at higher levels. The shorter dungeons are easier to achieve.

I personally think there should be some small "benefit" to playing longer dungeons - maybe like a tiny XP / gold bonus.

[Aquillion]

Belatedly, I think the interface for the Flexscope should unambiguously state that there's no overall reward for doing longer games vs. a comparable total length of shorter ones. A player's natural instinct is going to be to assume that it's for adjusting difficulty rather than play experience and that longer ones therefore yield better rewards.

[Konstanty]

Originally posted by Aquillion:

Belatedly, I think the interface for the Flexscope should unambiguously state that there's no overall reward for doing longer games vs. a comparable total length of shorter ones. A player's natural instinct is going to be to assume that it's for adjusting difficulty rather than play experience and that longer ones therefore yield better rewards.

You have a point, but we have limited screen real estate in that window. Too much text makes for an unpleasant UI experience. Which is why general overview of how Flexiscope works is explained in the window popping-up when the player can use the flexiscope for the first time.

[Sanex]

I think the flexiscope is a great feature included in the game. I gather that the purpose of it is to create levels appropriate for available time, but i actually like it for a different reason. If i create dungeon levels of the maximum size available, afaik it will mean that i will be at a higher level when i reach the quest levels compared to when making smaller levels because i will gain more xp (and items) in between those quest levels. It also means that i can extend the playtime of a first-run of the game, keeping the first playthrough fresh for longer before i need to start repeating things if i want to continue on a higher difficulty. This is great i.m.o. if i'm not wrong about how the progression works. Plus, i can always go back to town to resupply and save in between each dungeon level, so i do not need to worry about completing a whole flexiscope generation in one sitting.

[Whateverman]

Originally posted by Vinnie:

I think the flexiscope is a great feature included in the game. I gather that the purpose of it is to create levels appropriate for available time, but i actually like it for a different reason. If i create dungeon levels of the maximum size available, afaik it will mean that i will be at a higher level when i reach the quest levels compared to when making smaller levels because i will gain more xp (and items) in between those quest levels. It also means that i can extend the playtime of a first-run of the game, keeping the first playthrough fresh for longer before i need to start repeating things if i want to continue on a higher difficulty. This is great i.m.o. if i'm not wrong about how the progression works. Plus, i can always go back to town to resupply and save in between each dungeon level, so i do not need to worry about completing a whole flexiscope generation in one sitting.

I don't believe there's any benefit to larger vs smaller levels.

If you descend 21 levels/floors, you'll gain as much XP/items if you do it in three runs of 7 floors each, vs seven runs of 3 floors each.

Within the last few months, they found / fixed a bug where you'd actually gain SLIGHTLY more reputation/rank doing the shorter runs. Beyond that, though, the Devs have stated there should be no XP / loot advantage of one size over the other.

[Aquillion]

Originally posted by Vinnie:

If i create dungeon levels of the maximum size available, afaik it will mean that i will be at a higher level when i reach the quest levels compared to when making smaller levels because i will gain more xp (and items) in between those quest levels.

No, there's no benefit to doing long vs. short levels. That's the purpose of this thread. It's purely there to let you customize your experience, not as a betting / difficulty mechanism the way the cauldron is.

(I still think the game ought to clarify this somewhere, because I think most players are going to assume what you did.)

[Sanex]

I understand now; there are a set number of individual levels/floors until you reach a quest boss. I assumed the progress advanced +1 for each flexiscope generation, when that "go deeper" button was clicked, and i had to click it a set number of times. It makes sense that completing a large flexiscope dungeon will get you further towards a boss than a small one. Thanks for clarifying i think i will start making small ones now.

Edit: You know what, i just noticed that when selecting a size with the flexiscope, it shows you an estimate of how much progress it generates. I feel like a derp now for not noticing that sooner :s