Reversing Legacy Maimings/Themes?

[Tank Lady (Sicilian King)]

Like everyone else with a suggestion, I guess I'll start by saying the game is great—random stories are something tough to do right, but I feel like the game hits the sweet spot of having enough structure to draw me in while also changing things up enough between playthroughs.

One issue that kind of bugs me from both the narrative and gameplay perspectives, though, is how maimings (and, though it bothers me slightly less, themes) carry over onto characters when they're made legacies. If our heroes are inhabiting a matrix of stories rather than a continuous sequence (incidentally, another thing I really like about the game—it's a super neat storytelling device!), it just doesn't make sense to me for certain injuries to be inseparable from the characters... if my Warrior got his left arm chopped off at age 48 in one playthrough and begins the next as a legacy character, age 30-whatever, why should he still be missing an arm? To a lesser extent (because with the game's variable difficulty settings, I can't imagine it's a real issue), it seems like this might punish players who get too many maimings over the course of a campaign and are stuck with sub-ideal choices for legacies.

So I guess my question/suggestion is—I think a toggle button for transferring maimings/theme (all or nothing) when you carry a character over or promote them would be great! Similarly, though I'd be surprised if this weren't already on your agenda (or even in the game, and I just haven't seen it yet?), I'd love to see an event to restore lost limbs and/or remove theme parts. I'm assuming this latter is also something that might be able to be done through mods? I haven't really delved into the tools yet.

But again, this is a minor quibble—the game is great already, and I look forward to playing through all further developments. Keep up the good work!

[DNLH]

AFAIK, once they achieve legacy level 2 they no longer get maimed, losing max health for the campaign instead. It makes sense that a hero who lost a hand in an epic fight against monster and later became a legend is now remembered as someone with a hook for hand in all the other stories about them.

That being said, it would be interesting to see a possibility for full body restoration. Maybe this could be a personal quest? Many of the transformations tie character one way or another to some kind of higher being, maybe there could be a small possibility for that being returning and demanding their chosen to fulfil their destiny, for which they could either choose a small, but permanent boon or demand the being to relieve them of duty? Lochias, crow lady, whatever sits in that fire altar, they all seem like guys that would have a job to get done sooner or later. Just maybe don't have the possibility to re-enlist for that character, add 'defied the gods' or something, so that it doesn't turn into gotta catch 'em all kind of affair.

I don't think simply a 'purge/purify' button would work, though. I don't know, from the story-telling perspective it just seems like something that should be chased and become another milestone in hero's myth-life.

[Worldwalker Games]

Yeah, we don't have any magical healing in the game, other than transformations, and I'd be very hesitant to introduce any, even as a quest, because the permanence of character progression is something we care about. If you knew you could reverse it, it then becomes this burden that you have to try, or it changes how other stories work, why aren't we doing this all the time, etc..

The game is balanced, narratively, for 1-4 maimings per playthrough, and if you are seeing much more than this, it's definitely gonna feel weird. Your best option if you don't want someone permanently maimed is to not promote them when they are. The old version will stick in the legacy.

We should add some cheats for removing history lines - that would allow you to do what you want using cheats at least, even if it's not part of the core experience.

[davea]

Another possibility to consider is forcing the hero/player to make a tradeoff and choose whether to keep the transformation or give up something else. Love Is In the Air has an encounter that forces this, Fire Vs Flame.

[zest]

I don't really feel like avoiding maimings needs to he any easier, we already have a fairly robust set of options for dealing with them:

1) get a hero to 2 star, they are now immune to maiming

2). Let the hero die if they get a among you don't want to be stuck with and build them a tomb. This adds them to legacy without the lost limb- it just does so at a cost(they are out of the current campaign).

3). Just don't choose anyone who has been Mae's in ways you don't like. Other then their first campaign heros not promoted don't get their legacy updated.

4). Roll with the maiming and shoot for a build around theme prostethic limbs. A lot of them are quite strong in the current version of the game


In short the options exist, most of them just come at a cost. This is good for the game as it means screwing up and having a member of your group get KOed has consequences and forces meaningful decisions where you must balance the goals of your legacy against your goals in the current campaign.



I would love to see some less severe non-limb maimings be added to the pool when a hero hits 0 hp though- losing an eye(we already have an aspect for this), disfigured face(-charisma maybe), inhealling wound(-2 max hp maybe?), and the like.

[Tank Lady (Sicilian King)]

These are all great answers, and bring up a lot of perspectives I wasn't considering! I want to clarify, though, that my concerns are less with too many maimings as a game balance thing (they're not too tough to avoid) and more with the fact that theme events seem to occur so often that, along with maimings, sometimes it's tough for me to finish a five-chapter campaign with any "normal" human heroes left in the party! I love experimenting with themes, but sometimes I wish that my mostly-stone hunter with a scorpion tail could be back how he was at the beginning of the adventure, you know? (Honestly, I guess I stressed the maimings because I figured more people would want to keep themes all the time, but the frequency with which those events pop up is really what led to this post.)

Originally posted by zest:

This is good for the game as it means screwing up and having a member of your group get KOed has consequences and forces meaningful decisions where you must balance the goals of your legacy against your goals in the current campaign

I think this is actually great reasoning as far as maimings go—definitely the most convincing argument (though again, all the arguments you guys have brought up have been pretty good). Definitely adds another layer of strategic depth that I hadn't considered before...

[DNLH]

Well, the themes are mostly avoidable without consequences once you learn about them. Won't gonna lie, I got carried away with thought of those responsible for heroes' transformation returning to them after a while and just thought that the 'purify' scenario would be a plausbile reward for such thing.

[zest]

Originally posted by DNLH:

Well, the themes are mostly avoidable without consequences once you learn about them...

Except for elmsoul. No personality minimum to trigger, and the "no thanks" option tends to fail 60-80% of the time.

[Syrris]

Elmsoul will still only happen once, and if you recruit someone with it, it won't happen at all in that playthrough. Given that the base effect of it is 'you have green streaks in your hair', not exactly a major shift toward looking inhuman, either. (For all the average person knows, you just dye it that way because you like the look. Or it was accidental after someone called you 'carrots'.)

A fair number of transformations fall into that category when first picked up, actually. You only end up with obviously not-human body parts if you choose to advance it or the character gets maimed, in which case the part shows up instead of a hook hand/peg leg.

As for the granting power coming back and removing it, that seems really unlikely. The vast majority of them are granted as gifts by beings that see them as such. Taking them away (if that's even in their power - I doubt that it is) would be a punishment in their eyes.


Lochias probably doesn''t have the power to un-wolf someone (it would be contrary to what he is) and he certainly doesn't see it as a curse to be used as a bargaining chip. The character choosing that transformation also expresses the feeling that it's meant to be, so they're unlikely to want it undone anyway.

The crystalline one (gem-eye) apparently comes from a Deepist shrine (you see it being used in a ritual during the Monarchs Under The Mountain campaign) so it might be possible that high-ranking Deepists could undo it somehow, but even if they can, they have no reason to do so. (After all, they're a cult, and the character has been blessed by the powers below and/or defiled one of their altars...)

Etc.

[zest]

Tbh I don't disagree, see my first post, I don't want the ability to remove transformations, nor that anything needs to change about the splinter event. Was merely expressing my annoyance at elmsoul, as it's the only one that doesn't let you choose to not get it or avoid by keeping some personality trait sub-80.

Yes you can recruit an existing elmsoul character or make a character you don't care about a loner to eat the events- but it's easier to forget to do that and get stuck with it than any other transformation, and has screwed up a few of my promising recruits, hence my annoyance.

Also worth noting my irritation has little to do with "looking inhuman" or the green streaks- I have themes in mind for most characters and elmsoul is incompatible with many.

But again mostly just me griping given half an opportunity more than proposing any change.

[DNLH]

Originally posted by Syrris:

As for the granting power coming back and removing it, that seems really unlikely. The vast majority of them are granted as gifts by beings that see them as such. Taking them away (if that's even in their power - I doubt that it is) would be a punishment in their eyes.

Well, I was talking mainly about the granting power coming back with a quest to do for the character, the ability for the character to declare that 'job's done, so I'm done. With you' afterwards was just an added possibility.

And yeah, Elms are suspicious bunch and should be treated with caution.

[Worldwalker Games]

(The splinter event is getting a rewrite in an upcoming patch that will include an actual opt-out)

[ZmProwler]

i had an idea that might help with some of the maiming problems I see, one is that if you started a fighter/warrior and the player was started it but all of the limbs move them from actually being able to do things in combat that they have done for so long, maybe if at some point we could add a skill or ability that allows the mystic to still use infuse or add a way that allows them to go further in to the abilities and make more use of them like fire person can no longer be burned and that the fire damage moves up as you lose a lot of your items as you lose all the limbs that stuff can be worn.