How would people feel about a new mode/mod where certain progression is locked behind parts of the story?

[Kyle Rick]

Basically a mode/mod where you don't know how to do certain things like casting metal, smithing on a anvil, working with iron bloom, and steel progression (Does not have to be metal tiers but it's the most forward way of progression and such, can be things like leather too.) but you learn how to do all of that step by step by NPCs/things as you progress the story.

Currently there is only 2 story locations, and from what I understand bronze is recommended for the first major location and iron for the second major location. There would need to be more steps to the story and such to really make it work but could see a mode/mod that makes you learn via story so it would be more immersive in a way instead of us magically knowing how to do everything, but also would give more of a reason to actually do the story stuff because otherwise I just wait to make steel tools/chain armour before rushing all the story content as the rewards isn't that worth it besides the Elk to travel far, would also fix progression in a way as I find it so weird that in my experience I go from leather armour to steel chain and nothing in between. (This is kinda a side complaint where once you find iron you have so much of it and progression becomes weird.)

Curious what other people think of this concept. I do like the idea of instead of just reading the handbook to learn everything the NPC or such teaching you the next metal tier actually shows you in real time how it is done, maybe giving you a ingot or tool of that tier after showing how it is done as a reward for quest progression as well.

[LadyWYT]

I don't think it really works very well as a gamemode, since many systems are intertwined and it would take a LOT of work to figure out how to lock everything into specific steps like that, in a way that the player can unlock without getting frustrated. At that point, the devs are basically trying to develop and maintain two different games simultaneously.

As a mod, I think it's fine, since practically anything goes with mods. That being said, it would be a lot of work to both build(for the above reasons) and maintain, since every single game update is likely to break a mod like this. For me personally though, it's not something I would use, since I hate progression systems like this.

[Kyle Rick]

4 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

For me personally though, it's not something I would use, since I hate progression systems like this.

Curious then how would there be more incentive to do the story then. I can understand not liking progression locked behind story but also it's just awkward doing it in the first place. I was wondering how fast I could rush the Elk mount if I really wanted to and see if it is more optimal to play that way as the Elk is very strong.

Would need to rush tin bronze for the pickaxe for the map, so I would assume you would have tin bronze weapons at least. I might look into that actually.

[CastIronFabric]

3 hours ago, Kyle Rick said:

Curious then how would there be more incentive to do the story then. I can understand not liking progression locked behind story but also it's just awkward doing it in the first place. I was wondering how fast I could rush the Elk mount if I really wanted to and see if it is more optimal to play that way as the Elk is very strong.

Would need to rush tin bronze for the pickaxe for the map, so I would assume you would have tin bronze weapons at least. I might look into that actually.

Personally I do not like stories in video games full stop.

That said, I do think locking knowledge behind books that can only be gotten from NPC is compelling game play. Although, I personally prefer a 'object oriented' approach to progression, meaning later games items are harder to make because the material to gain them are harder to get. With that said, I do not have an aversion of NPC holding books of knowledge. Stories however is like 3rd person view for me, I am not remotely interested. I will do a story if I have to get something or to have fun loot or to go to a cool location but the story itself I am going to save for movie time. EDIT: To be crystal clear when I say story, I mean the words on the page, the dialouge. I do not mean visting and exploring the story locations or the 'to dos'. I feel like that is important to be clear on.

Edited Monday at 08:02 PM by CastIronFabric

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Kyle Rick said:

Curious then how would there be more incentive to do the story then.

Well, if one enjoys stories, or otherwise wants to figure out what happened to the world...then that's incentive enough.  Most things in the game aren't gated behind story content, so players can play through it or ignore it at their leisure.

 

2 hours ago, Kyle Rick said:

I can understand not liking progression locked behind story but also it's just awkward doing it in the first place. I was wondering how fast I could rush the Elk mount if I really wanted to and see if it is more optimal to play that way as the Elk is very strong.

The story is currently the fastest way to get a mount in the vanilla game, but it's not the only way. It's possible acquire an elk without touching the story content at all, and I presume mount acquisition will become a little easier in the future as more tameable creatures are added to the game.

Incidentally, I'm not a huge fan of blatant progression locks in general, as what seems to be suggested in the original post. The best example I can think of right now that does this, is Valheim, where you have to pick up specific items to unlock specific recipes, and some of those items are rather rare. So if you end up missing an item, then it's easy to get rather frustrated when progress stalls out, because something is clearly missing but the game doesn't tell you what, or otherwise get frustrated when you finally pick up a thing and unlock something that would have been REALLY USEFUL earlier in the game but now no longer is.

There's also the aspect of games that favor designs like that tend to lock the player to a hard set of rails--that is, you're not going to be able to think outside the box and figure out a faster(if risky) way to make progress based on what you learned, or take full advantage of some lucky loot finds. You're also not going to be able to plan ahead very well unless you already know the game or resort to the internet, since the game actively hides stuff that you're "not supposed to know about yet". From a Vintage Story standpoint, it'd be like getting locked out of bronze entirely until you've done X things on the copper tier; it doesn't matter if you found surface tin or scrounged up the ore from a trader or ruins loot, because you're not allowed to jump ahead. Likewise, there's no reading through the handbook to see what you can make later in the game and plan ahead, because all that stuff will be hidden. If it's not hidden, then you have players getting frustrated when they find something they want to make and then can't because they missed some arbitrary step elsewhere and thus didn't unlock the recipe.

 

2 hours ago, Kyle Rick said:

Would need to rush tin bronze for the pickaxe for the map, so I would assume you would have tin bronze weapons at least. I might look into that actually.

The main purpose of locking the map behind the tin bronze pickaxe is to help ensure that players at least have the basic skills and equipment needed for venturing into the Archive. Tin bronze is probably the easiest bronze alloy to make(only requires two common ingredients), and if the player has the skills to make it to bronze then they'll probably do all right in the Archive. They might struggle a bit, but they're not going to get utterly steamrolled. It is entirely possible to find the Archive without the map though, and complete it with lower quality equipment, however, providing that kind of soft-lock on the story and otherwise making the Archive entrance difficult to find prevents more inexperienced players from stumbling across it by accident and dying to curiosity.

Basically, it's a clever way of keeping the player out of trouble without outright barring them from the location until they've completed very specific steps. 

[dakko]

6 hours ago, Kyle Rick said:

Curious then how would there be more incentive to do the story then.

What you've proposed could be fun.

However I also think this approach would spoil the replay value for me. I enjoy the 'setting up' phase of games and will play the early days over and over ad nauseum. I cannot relate to the concept of playing a game to 'complete' it.

For this reason, I would hope that implementation of your proposal would be an entirely separate mode (or mod, as you've said) in the same manner as we currently have the "Homo sapiens" mode. I do think that I would enjoy trying it out. I also suspect that (for me) it would be a one and done type experience.