Roadmap.md

Tower of Death

Goal- Defeat all opponents How- Projectiles, AoE or close combat

General Design

• Tower
  • Tower With Multiple Floors
  • Each Floor has a shared (all players can get) "upgrade" Room
  • Each Floor has a boss Room with a single upgrade (first to defeat can only get it)
  • Each Floor has an exit Room except the final floor
  • Each Floor is associated to an Element
  • All other rooms are scattered with enemies to defeat and obstacles to overcome
  • enemies in rooms each recieve damage and deal damage based off the element of the floor
• Player
  • Each player has an Adrenaline Counter
    • it gets increased by almost or hitting attacks
    • it gets increased by almost or getting hit by attacks
    • it constantly decreases
    • Adrenaline scales "Running" Speed and Attack Cooldown (netSpeed = baseSpeed*Adrenaline)
  • Each player has an Energy Counter
    • it gets spent by doing "attacks"
    • it gets spent by "running"
    • Energy constantly increases
    • Energy Can go into debt which divides adrenaline intake (netIntake = baseIntake/debt)
  • Each Player has a starting Element (which is chosen in a hidden manner)
    • Players initially deal damage with that element
    • Players initially recieve damage with that element
  • Each Player can gain Armor and a Weapon
    • These may change their element to receieve and deal damage (respectively)
• Elemental
  • Is meant to simply be a rock paper scissors game
  • Something as simple as Electricity Loses to Fire, Fire loses to Water, Water loses to Electricity
  • Player can gain new armor that changes
• Areas that can be modular
  • Minions
  • Room Generation
  • Weapons/Attacks
  • Types of Defenses

How to have a minimum Game Play Time

• direct combat initially would takes a long time to actually defeat opponents
• "upgrades" found on each floor allow you to defeat opponents faster making exploration more valuable
• direct combat takes away from energy for speedy exploration, making combat less valuable initially
• Cooperative possibly

How to have a maximum Game Play Time

• Due to bosses only giving a single upgrade a peice, one player will be factually more powerful than others
• The is no healing in the game making every peice of damage count, early scuffles may end up game winning
• Combat is meant to get out of control the longer players are in it
  • Adrenaline increases reducing cooldowns making engagements faster and faster
  • When players are in debt, the player that has harnessed the most Adrenaline is likely the victor
  • One person may eventually decide to retreat but will likely have to control a very highspeed character

How to always have a Chance

• Both players see at all times currently equipped items
• While one player may be in the lead going after bosses, another player may farm minions or find secrets
• The Boss Rusher will likely be more powerful however be lacking in the elemental metagame, forcing them to run a bit longer to find something of equal or greater value
• Combat is meant to be heavilly skill based (but what does that mean?)
  • Each weapon will have different timing puzzles (or enable them)
    • One may allow stronger strikes so long as you are doing it to the correct beat
      • too early, it will be weaker
      • too late, it will be weaker
    • On may open up small windows of opportunities to hit critical strikes on a hit opponent
    • Other Weapons may allow a players opponent to get opportunities on the player
      • However, this downfall is mitigated by a raw increase in power
    • The longer a player waits the more damage will be dealt
    • Callousing
      • it will subtract more from damage as it is hit more often
      • Similar to adrenaline, this effect eventually fades
  • In general combat should be very spacially designed
    • Buffs that activate in close quarters situations
    • cover multiple angles by staying connected to a trip rope
    • pokes give an annoying amount of superiority
    • radial/aoe attacks allow for far less precision (especially as things get faster pace)
    • Homing and projectile pathing
  • High amounts of math complexity is also important
    • dividing Armor - Essentially a health "increase"
    • Capping Armor - All attacks can only do a maximum amount of damage (good against bigger attacks)
    • Subtracting Armor - All attacks have damage reduced by an amount (god against many small attacks)
    • Sui attacks - Take damage to deal more damage per hit
    • Multi-hit - A single hit counts as multiple

What allows a worse player to still enjoy their time

• Each floor has "upgrade"'s thats both players can recieve allowing a sense of strengthening
• Searching a floor is not linear, allowing a worse player to get lucky and look in the correct places
• There is a rock paper scissors element system that allows players to get an upper hand
• "Adrenaline" can be gained from Small scuffles. "Adrenaline" allows for faster exploration and faster combat. This make both players have the desire to get into a scuffle allowing the worse player to enjoy combat without feeling too much punishment.
• Enemy Minions Are generally quite a bit weaker and though each has a unique strategy to take it down. This allows a worse player also gain feelings of success

What allows a better player to still enjoy their time

• Defeating an opponent without reaching the final boss is possible. This gives a better player the feeling of dominance
• Getting into Scuffles is necessary for speedy exploration, however each damage applied counts and there is importance to knowing when combat is wasting time rather than gaining
• There is a rock paper scissors meta game in regards to character selection
  • In the Beginning attempting to be the "cat" so they can do whatever they want
  • In the middle with weapons and armor where they must choose between defeating floors or keeping the best
  • Armor is more to counter opponents choice no matter how good it is
• Combat is heavilly skilled based
• There is a point where a player must balance a few decisions during every exploration situation
  • Go for the boss - Most simple win condition
  • Attempt to kill early - Usually means they will waste more energy on scuffles and possibly go into debt while opponent likely will ignore the other party
  • Try to get lucky and find some solid armor/weapons

How to still keep things awkward/weird

• Its important to keep things a bit awkward to allow the game to evolve by itself
• If too much is planned, too much will obviously be better than everything else or appear boringly balanced
• Cooldowns may decrease, however timings may not making a player have to decide what produces higher damage output
• some timings will be literally be impossible at low adrenaline
• The players will likely have to drive by attack minions to maintain adrenaline if they are boss rushing
  • This essentially weakens them for other players to pick up the kills easily
  • waisting time on kills may alllow opponents to catch up
• Upgrades aren't always what you want them to be
• I like "commitment" based gameplay and attackers advantage. If a player is committed to be predictable, I'd like to reward them for it. Its up to the other player to prove the stupidity in commitment which can be easier said then done in some cases