Project Focus

Given the overall design principles here is what I'm planning to focus on for Rogue Fable IV.

Combat

Smaller Encounters

The typical combat encounter will generally be a bit smaller with more powerful and complex individual enemies. I feel that fights with more than about 5-6 enemies tend to become very messy. It is difficult to keep track of enemy abilities, maneuver around so many opponents, focus down priority targets, and avoid taking damage from so many sources. These large fights tend to devolve into a lot of kiting and choke point use just to break the swarm up into something manageable, not to mention using stairs or long retreats through the dungeon to lose agro. Larger fights will definitely still occur especially when the player blunders into a second group while already engaged, but they should be a novel and challenging exception. I want fights with even 3-4 monsters to be challenging and if a wandering monster or two joins the fight this should be a serious problem.

Mixed Encounters

Enemies will tend to come in mixed groups in which each monster type has drastically different abilities, defenses, threat level and target priority. Monsters will be designed to complement each other, interact with each other in interesting ways and support each other. Some initial ideas:

1. Tanks: they are very dangerous if they can actually reach you and are difficult to kill but their slow movement speed makes them easy to avoid. I can imagine a lot of them getting various movement abilities on cooldown so that there is a bit of a tempo in which they suddenly rush you but then revert to slow ponderous movement. Since they are relatively easy to avoid and take so long to kill these will often be the lowest priority target to actually kill.

2. Attackers: there are various sub-categories: archers picking away at you, fast melee rushing you, casters nuking you etc. Monsters that cast various curses or debuffs would also fall into this category. A relatively high priority target to kill quickly.

3. Supports: healers, buffers, commanders that blink their allies towards you etc. I'd want to really push these guys power level so that they are almost always the highest priority target. In extreme cases in difficult sub-zones it might actually be required to kill them first if they are putting huge shields or heals on their allies or reviving them. 

4. Summoners: if left unchecked these guys should basically overwhelm the battlefield with their summons. Not only should there be many more types of offensive summoned creatures but there should also be stuff they summon that is supportive in nature. Think a stationary shield generator, healing totem or magic boosting spectral tome that gets summoned in the enemy backline and effects all allies until its destroyed or 'poofed' but killing the summoner.

5. Controllers? not sure what to call these but consider enemies that summon walls of fire, cold, force etc. lock doors behind the player, cause water to deal damage, summon tornados etc. Basically enemies that somehow effect the battlefield itself limiting the players movement options. Charming the player to prevent retreat or fearing the player to prevent advancing or even summoning stationary totems that apply these effects would also fall into this catagory.

6. On Death: enemies that have some effect applied when they are die. So consider a commander that enrages all his allies when he dies, a support that casts some giant buff, or even an enemy that applies a short but devastating curse on the player. You probably do not want to kill this guy first when all his allies are still alive.

7. On Ally Death: enemies that have some effect applied whenever their allies die. This could effect themselves like a butcher that gains damage as each ally dies or as with 'On Death' above it could effect his allies or curse the player. You probably do want to kill this guy early in the fight.

8. On Hit: we already have damage shields but consider enemies that have some effect every time they take damage. A berserker that just keeps gaining attack every time he is hit or a battle priest that casts an AoE heal on his allies every time he takes damage. The exact nature of the effect will influence the priority but you probably want to hit this guy hard and fast rather than chipping away at him.

9. Over Time: an enemy that has some effect that occurs every [x] turns after he becomes agroed. Technically this already exists in the sense that enemies regen health and cooldowns over time but consider the Doom Knight that has already been implemented whose damage continues to increase the longer he is agroed. The presence of one or more of these in a group is a hard counter to any kind of long drawn out kiting.

I really want to push these ideas hard so that every enemy 'does' something seriously impactful. Based on the principle of Elemental Design each enemy should do one or maybe two things but do them extremely well. They should be dangerously one dimensional with complexity arising from their presence in various mixed groups. This should be pushed to absurd levels in the deepest parts of the dungeon or in specialized sub-zones. Of course all this added complexity will be mitigated by the generally smaller fight size and of course there will still be 'trash' enemies that just sort of get in the way. I'd like to get to the point where a standard late game fight might be a single giant ogre that will crush you if he reaches you, a shaman whose heals are powerful enough to negate all but the most extreme damage output, and a summoner that is going to quickly flood the fight with allies. This 3 monster encounter should be quite challenging. A huge amount of complexity, tactics and player skill will be figuring out what the actual priority is when its often unclear.

Longer Encounters

Individual fights should generally be a bit longer to give time for more advanced tactics to play out. The player should definitely not be able to regularly one shot critical hit a group of unaware enemies with a single fire ball and end the fight before it begins. Mana and cooldowns should also be tuned so that the player cannot simply burn all his resources in a few turns, win the fight and then rest to recover. Of course I still want to the combat to feel quick and snappy so I don't want normal fights to bog down too much. Rather this is more in regards to limiting the player from winning fights in the first few turns. 

Movement and Positioning

I think the focus on movement is one of the most unique mechanics that has emerged during the course of the Rogue Fable series and I'd like to lean into this. In a fight the player will be running away from some enemies while running towards others. This might suddenly change when an enemy goes berserk, begins channeling a spell or changes state in some way. There will be many more enemy abilities that the player can avoid through movement and there will be more enemy abilities that restrict the players movement in some way. The player will often want to take cover temporarily to break line of sight and negate a curse or to hide from an enemy that is suddenly channeling some massive damage output. The layout of the levels will be much tighter and varied on a smaller scale (see Level-Generation) so that a few steps in any direction should lead to some change in terrain.

Non-Regenerating Health

The biggest single change to the combat that I'm currently trying out is non-regenerating health in which the player must use consumables, fountains, level-ups and the newly introduced healing shrooms to regain hit points. This should make every fight, even the easy ones, much more meaningful. Skillful play will always be rewarded in every fight since it conserves this critical and ultimately finite resource. Learning to efficiently time and use every source of healing will become a core meta skill and the player will need to learn when to push forward into new encounters even when not at full health.

Non-Damage Abilities

There will be a bigger emphesis for both the player and monsters on powerful, impactful abilities that do not simply deal damage. Fights should not be won or lost based purely on a formula of damage output vs hit points. Considering the greater focus on movement and positioning alot of abilities may be based around either moving around or moving the opponents around. Also considering the slightly longer fights, there will be a lot more abilities that help recover resources mid fight or otherwise get their value over time.

Dungeon Levels

Smaller Levels

Levels will generally be a bit smaller in terms of number of open tiles though maps will remain 40x40 to give freedom for lots of varied shapes. Rogue Fable IIIs levels tended to have a lot of empty rooms, long featureless corridors and even whole segments of the level that were just auto explored through and never came into play. I think the need to constantly auto-explore should be viewed more as a design flaw rather than a feature. Careful monster placement will keep the whole level from agroing at once but the player will need to be much more careful, particularly upon first entering a level, to avoid getting overwhelmed. Once engaged, there will not be nearly as much room to endlessly kite enemies and the smaller map size should keep the whole level 'in play' during all fights. You should never be far from a previously discovered fountain, choke point, shroom patch or piece of advantages terrain.

Denser Levels

Level architecture, object placement and terrain will all be much denser. There will be a lot more 'clutter' in the levels and a lot less empty rooms. Areas of uniform terrain be they open floor, large bodies of water or huge patches of vines or rubble should all be smaller. The idea here is that a few steps in any direction should always change the terrain giving the player more of a reason to move around. Related to this is avoiding symmetry so that different sides or corners of a room or level have different terrain. Finally, long featureless corridors should definitely be avoided.

More Terrain Interactions

Lots of ideas here, some examples:

• Totems, statues or obelisks that cannot be killed but generate an aura that effects everyone in range with some kind of beneficial or detrimental effect. Could also just buff enemies or curse the player.

• Similar idea but with special floors. Floor that speeds characters up, slows them down, causes them to regenerate or have some other status effect. Cursed floor in The-Crypt that immediately revives skeletons killed on it. Elementally attuned floor in The-Arcane-Tower that boosts spell casting. Floor that damages characters casting spells or attacking while standing on it. For The-Iron-Forge in particular I'd like a bunch of different floors that interact with the clockworks. So floors that speed them up, repair them, reduce their cooldowns etc. Keeping in mind the ideas from 'Denser Levels' these floors should not simply uniformly fill an entire room but rather should come in patches or patterns to keep movement and positioning interesting.

• Moving terrain like popup walls that cycle up and down, doors that open and shut, mine carts that roll around, force fields that blink on and off etc.

• Various beneficial shrooms with lots of different effects for both the player and monsters that trigger when stepped on.

Aesthetics and Flavor

A lot more purely aesthetic assets to really make each level feel like a definite 'place'. This is somewhat related to sub-zoning but basically an experienced player should be able to quickly visually identify the type of level they are on just by the set dressing.

Sub-Zones

Overview

For every zone, I want to create a bunch of sub-zones, each with a strong cohesive theme, that each contain a focused subset of content and unique level generation. For every level in the zone a sub-zone will be randomly selected and some sub-zones can extend across multiple levels. Many monsters, bosses, items, terrain features or special level modifiers will only spawn in a particular sub-zone and so as the player descends through the dungeon every level should be a unique and focused challenge and experience. This partitioning into sub-zones is how the bulk of the new content will be implemented. Rather than just having ton of new content per zone spawning in a noisy mess it will be split into cohesive blocks. In Rogue Fable III you passed through 5 levels of Orc-Fortress before reaching the boss level. In Rogue Fable IV this might look like:

1. Gate House - difficult to 'break' the level without agroing the whole thing

2. Training Hall - melee focused with centrally located totems that buff them

3. Arena - special mechanic with waves of enemies rising on platforms or released from behind gates

4. Prison - lots of gates and doors that are locked behind you by wardens or open and close on timers.

5. Ogre Caves - hulking ogre tanks of various types supporting hoards of wolves in relatively open terrain.

6. Spirit Cave - the ogre shaman boss.

In subsequent runs a different set of sub-zones will be chosen for these levels.

Focused Challenge

Some of these sub-zones will be fairly generic but many will have very specific and tightly designed challenges, unique mechanics and special enemies that appear nowhere else. Every time the player enters a new level he should be asking himself 'what type of level is this and am I prepared for it'. The deeper into the dungeon and the further from the main dungeon axis the more specific these challenges should become. Many winning runs should end with lots of individual levels on the fringes left uncleared due to some incompatibility with the players build. Of course these are the levels with the best rewards so there will be a tension here. Some examples:

• Rethlits Restless Pursuit: A crypt level with an unkillable ghost that phases through walls and chases you the entire time until you find his tomb at which point he animates his corpse and you get a mini-boss fight.

• The Core of the Core: nearly the whole floor is lava, big clouds of fire float around the level and occasionally the whole level floods with fire except for a few safe spots.

• Yendors Health and Safety Disaster: an early side level. A storage room filled with rats. Rats spawning from their nests, rats in the crates, rats bursting from the walls. If not cleared early on it gets sealed up and hidden from the health inspectors.

• The Dusty Tomb: instead of the Mummy king simply spawning in the open desert there is a level or two of undead filled tombs.

• The Summoning Tower: an arcane tower level that continuously summons in monsters around the player until a portal is found and destroyed.

• The Crystal Caverns: a whole level of reflective enemies of various types.

Branching

Zones will branch out more, particularly deeper in the dungeon with multiple paths and optional side levels. There will be some logic holding this all together so a zone might branch into two differently themed sub-zone branches and each of these branches may have additional side levels related to their overall theme. The game will not be open world but there will be a bit more of strategy layer as far as choosing which levels to clear and in which order.

As an example, consider The-Arcane-Tower beginning with a few fairly general levels: an entry level with some impressive architecture followed by a library level with  varied spell casters. It then branches into a path with several levels built around animated constructs, golems and statues all with very high protection. The other branch could be built around fire themed creatures and casters. Each branch would end with an appropriate boss level and there could be a one off side level for the construct branch that is totally populated by animated crystal enemies with high reflection.

Ranked Mode

Along with standard play, Rogue Fable IV will introduce a ranked mode with the typical SR score and Bronze, Silver, Gold etc,ranking brackets. Starting at Bronze the players SR will rise or fall based on wins and losses. There may be some system of partial victories so that less points are lost depending on depth or level reached and there may be rank floors to prevent too much falling back. Bronze games will be identical to the standard game mode but beggining in Silver, one or more game modifiers will be randomly selected at the games start. This will occur before character creation since the modifiers may influence the players choice of character. Higher ranks will have more modifiers and at the highest ranks some of these modifiers may be marked as hidden. Types of modifiers may include:

• Restrictions on class/races. To climb to the highest ranks, players will need to master the whole roster of character types.

• Various penalties on the player character such as reduced attributes, slower mana or speed point regeneration, various vulnerabilities etc. Obviously this may heavily influence the players choice of character.

• Modifiers effecting either all monsters or some sub-class of monsters. Examples include: all ranged characters have max range, all melees hit 50% harder, all casters have half cooldowns, all spawners spawn twice as fast and have twice as many charges, all bosses have 50% more HP.

• Dungeon modifiers for example: extra hard version of one of the end game zones, insertion of some extra hard sub-zones, insertion of some extra hard gate levels (possibly early on). Since the player knows at the start of the game whats being inserted (unless hidden) this may also influence character choice.

• Various events or triggered effects such as summoning monsters when drinking potions or reading scrolls, temporary curses when leveling up, having Yendor smite you to 50% HP every time you descend levels etc.

• Some sort of global challenge such as completing the game in [x] time or [y] turns or not being able to spend more than [z] talent points.

Many of these modifiers will only be selected above certain rank thresholds, with some truly devastating stuff waiting in the highest ranks which will of course have multiple modifiers. The idea is that the early ranks should just be a bit more challenging and require a bit of adaptation while the highest ranks are going to require a real 'sit down and think about it strategy' to actually succeed and require a true mastery of even the most obscure bits of the games systems.