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[WillowLuman]

I want a crafting/survival game that's actually challenging after the first few days (but you can survive that long) without needing bad combat like Don't Stave.

Maybe something similar in difficulty to the Robinson Crusoe board game, but with more options (which, I understand, screws with the balance). Needing to think about "stockpile food" or "build shelter so a storm/animal doesn't wreck your stockpile" in that game keeps it challenging most of the time.

Preferably first person and multiplayer, but whatever.

Honestly, Minecraft has been the best I've played so far at providing something challenging to do for a good long while. I mean, I guess Subnautica can be challenging throughout. Ark has a ton of combat and you're almost certainly not getting many days in without a few respawns.

[EnigmaticHat]

I want a crafting/survival game that's actually challenging after the first few days (but you can survive that long) without needing bad combat like Don't Stave.

Maybe something similar in difficulty to the Robinson Crusoe board game, but with more options (which, I understand, screws with the balance). Needing to think about "stockpile food" or "build shelter so a storm/animal doesn't wreck your stockpile" in that game keeps it challenging most of the time.

Preferably first person and multiplayer, but whatever.

7 Days 2 Die.  Its like minecraft but you never need to use blocks to climb (and the interface kinda discourages it because its not immediately clear how you would do that), every 7 days a huge zombie horde attacks you that gets larger every time.  There are health concerns beyond hunger, some of which involve injury from combat, but on the other hand efficient farming is locked behind skills some players might not take for a while.  So you have to strike a balance between playing it safe and still accruing resources to survive.

Hey, you did say no *bad* combat.

Beyond that... honestly, and I feel your pain on this one because the combat put me off to Don't Starve for literally years before I came back to it, Don't Starve has one of the best difficulty curves of any survival game because of its season system and the way the world is designed to eventually force you into the more challenging underground biome.  Most other survival games are like Subnautica, where you learn to survive at first but then it becomes a side note to exploration.  Although Subnautica does build some cool potential situations out of your limited oxygen supply.

The best I've got for you is Rimworld and Oxygen Not Included, which are both single player colony management games.  But I have starved in both of those games after 30+ hours on a colony, so there's that.  Rimworld has combat, ONI does not (what the interface calls combat could be better described as hunting).

[Iduno]

I like Arkham Horror LCG. I also like Shadowrun.

I want a Shadowrun card game similar to Arkham Horror card game, except probably allowing you to somehow generate a character instead of playing one of the pregen named characters. Maybe some sort of Metatype + Background + Specialty system. Or positive/negative qualities if you want to be similar to the tabletop. You could do something like Mystic Vale did (put these 3 clear templates together to make your card) for characters if you don't feel like using paper or making it computer-based (card games on the computer is getting to be a thing everyone is doing now).


Also, 7 Days 2 Die and Minecraft sound like what I was looking for. I'll have to try those out. Thanks.

[Sirus]

I have this fantasy strategy/RPG game in my head that I have to get written down in text form.

What I want is this bizarre cross between X-COM, Battle for Wesnoth, Age of Wonders, Final Fantasy Tactics, and scaled-down Dominions.

X-COM-style randomly generated, unique soldiers that can be renamed and die permanently. They also need to be able to be equipped on an individual level.
Battle For Wesnoth-style unit progression. Recruit newbies that can promote into more advanced classes.
Age of Wonders-style army customization. Don't just limit yourself to human units when playing as humans - acquire an Elven village and mix elves into your ranks! Capture an orcish stronghold and add orcs! Stuff like that.
Final Fantasy Tactics-style job classes. Yes, your mage has done fine work, but his strength growths have just been too good to keep him as a squishy rear-line spellcaster. Hand him a weapon instead and let him go battlemage.
The Dominions one is a bit harder to explain. I don't want whole armies duking it out, not really. What I want instead is small squads of these individual units, maybe six per squad, with the ability to organize them into formations. Combat would be squad-vs-squad level, though there should be a larger map upon which squads maneuver when not engaged in battle.

Other things that would be important: elemental affinity, which mildly determines stat growth. Think natures from Pokemon, though affinity would also determine a mage's spell list. Also important would be Squad Unity, a stat that goes up when units fight in the same squad for a while. Mixing them around would lower Unity until they can mesh with their new squads. Unity would allow units to perform special actions; like a tanky unit intercepting an attack aimed at a squishy comrade, or a couple of mages combining their spells for greater power and new effects.

[AzyWng]

How easily would these units die? Old XCOM fast (Where, even on the easiest difficulty, early game is filled with one-hit kills), New XCOM fast (Fewer instadeath circumstances, I think?), or Fire Emblem fast (very few luck-based deaths by comparison?)? Or some other speed entirely?

[Sirus]

Probably closer to Fire Emblem. It should be possible to pull squads back in order to heal wounded units (barring unlucky critical hits or the like) unless you carelessly have them go up against enemies with hard counters.

EDIT: On second thought, it should probably be closer to Nu-COM. Still letting individual soldiers become highly badass, but offering enough turnaround at low levels to encourage frequent recruiting sessions and serving as an adequate player punch when a seasoned veteran bites the dust.

[xaritscin]

an MMORPG based around Hearthstone's universe and gameplay designs. kind of like a second WoW but with a different way of handling things and way in the future:

1. game only has 9 classes (the original ones) at start: i was considering Death Knight and Demon Hunter as a potential subclass you can unlock that overrides your original class but with Monk the thing gets blurry so i guess they would be added as official classes later in expansions

2. no talents: instead of having a set amount of specs each class would learn a set of "Core" skills while leveling, with new spells and habilities being added on each patch or by doing special non-limited content

3. leveling experience goes until lvl 60: this is a tricky thing, i never enjoyed the constant idea that each expansion puts the bar higher in terms of level and thus one had to grind the whole content to reach those extra 5-10 lvls. my brother argues that limiting it to 60 makes the game very casual but i disagree in favour of adding something else.

4. Proficiency replaces Masteries and Skills: the old WoW had a Skills tab which showed your progression regarding certain equipment and professions, this could be the alternative to the remaining 40 character lvls, with players obtaining full experience on their class at lvl 60 but having to refine their skills at their selected equipment up to lvl 100. each leveling milestone adding some kind of benefit so you are incentivized to reach the top.

5. a much larger, detailed Azeroth:

the world depicted in Hearthstone is one where there doesnt seem to be Horde and Alliance anymore, having become more of a globalized society (including the participation of races that are merely trash mobs in the original MMO like the Murlocs, Quilboars, Gnolls, etc) so it could be taken deep in the future compared to current WoW. to further differentiate it from the leveling based zones of the old game this Azeroth would be at least 3 times larger and reflecting the respective geography they are supposed to depict in the setting. each of the old zones being a literal region you can sink into for hours/days and with their own content.

6. leveling is done at the start and not along:

the idea of this version of WoW is that after the disband of the Horde and the Alliance many of the people in Azeroth just returned to their homeland or settled in the now unclaimed regions to form societies of their own or work with the locals, eventually forming political limits of their own. the starting main quest would revolve about the player graduating from its class before getting the required papers to leave the country as an official Adventurer. this means that the whole 60 levels would be obtained solely in their race's territory before venturing out to the unclaimed zones (kinda sounds like in Wakfu where each nation is composed of several regions you have to explore).
 
7. conflict is driven by players and not by the narrative:

the two large blocs of Azeroth despite all their past grudges and vendettas had to stop their wars for the survival of the planet as a whole but this didnt stop conflict from rising as minor territorial claims. now that the world has new political borders with new nations on top of it the heroes of old have been replaced with daring Adventurers seeking fame and fortune working as mercenaries, some of them still working for their country of birth be it in solitary or in guilds. with no more big bad guys threatening the cosmos, most of the carnage has moved towards local territorial disputes that date back to the old times of the Horde vs Alliance war or completely new regions that are being used as buffer zones (with world PvP) by the countries that are entrenched in the fight.

8. more races to pick from: from a story and balance standpoint is understandable that the original MMO didnt have as much options to pick but this wouldnt be the case anymore. i dont think all the races in the setting would be eligible for this but some of them seem pretty consistent for being playable (Tuskarr, Ogres, Naga, Vrykul, perhaps Murlocs), perhaps im too used to the ways of Dwarf Fortress Adventurer mode and its long list of beastmen but it would be fun.

9. more emphasis in faction allegiances: i think that was missing a lot in WoW, not only you were hardcoded to be enemy of the other main faction but you also had this reputation grind just for a tabard and a few items, i think each Nation and independent faction should have its own benefits.

10. epic questlines: i like to call these "Adventures", they consist of specially long questlines the player can undertake to obtain special habilities/spells or items, kinda like the Legendary quests. these would be obtained from different sources like class hall leaders, faction leaders, rare encounters, etc.

11. dungeons and raids: dungeons could be run while leveling but the meat would come from doing them at max lvl as they would get upgrade with new content, raids would be max lvl only so there would be plenty of stuff for max lvl characters to try on each expansion

12. expansions would add horizontal content rather than vertical: instead of focusing on leveling, the content unlocked by the expansions would open previous areas that were unavaliable in the world map and would also unlock new locations for players to check on, some of them on the main leveling curve, the others at max lvl. much like how there's new cards coming to the CCG and also new adventures to check on that are a challenge even for old players

13. Battlegrounds, World PvP and Arenas:

BGs would still be present as a sort of PvP content for Twinks and New Players looking to practice in teamfights. World PvP would be avaliable by enabling PvP on your character and participating in Warzones (the previously mentioned regions that act as conflict drivers between factions), these Warzones would also provide content for guilds in the form of a capture the Garrison mechanic which would allow them to lay claim on a zone which provides them with extra stuff avaliable during the campaign. Arenas would also be present and they would have a similar system to the one in Hearthstone where items, spells/habilities and other stuff from certain expansions would be enabled/disabled on each season.

[JoshuaFH]

Game idea I had tonight, that feels like it's been floating in my subconscious for a long time now and only just come to the surface:

This is a combination of two different elements: Everyone's familiar with Pokemon, the idea is a 'capture and make'em fight' style of game.
+
People familiar with Final Fantasy X will remember the story element where monsters in that game were supposed to be the souls of deceased humans that refused to move onto the next life, and so became monsters. In FFX this idea is honestly wasted, as it doesn't go anywhere and is just a bit of background lore.

My idea is that your main character is a "Summoner + Exorcist" in a fantasy world with a Buddhist-style cyclical death and rebirth system governing humans' lives, with a canonical physical afterlife-world that deceased human spirits are supposed to travel to in order to prepare for being reborn again in the living world. However, of course, there's a bad habit among bitter, resentful, and malevolent people's souls not wanting to travel to the afterlife and so linger on, taking on the form of monsters that are bereft of their original humanity, and have elemental affinities and abilities commensurate with the personality and abilities they had in life.

You'd have a mentor in the beginning of the game to explain all this to you, and your job as a Summoner is to find Spirits like this, beat them down, capture them, and take them with you on your journey, battling with them to get their anger out, and nurturing them to restore their humanity, and once they've leveled up enough, they take on their human form again and regain their sentience, they thank you and accede to being exorcised, leaving your party and going to the afterlife where they can continue the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

As far as gameplay and game balance is concerned, as opposed to Pokemon or other RPG's where the designers make the safe assumption that you are linearly increasing in strength throughout the game and therefore all the challenges in the game are structured in a linear 'weakest first -> strongest last' that nearly all games conform to, the balance here is that the game is making the assumption that your Spirit Monsters are always going to be powering up, hitting their power cap, and then they are forced to leave your party, reducing your party's overall strength over and over and over down to a baseline level that you can only ever momentarily rise above, and so all the areas and challenges in the game are designed with this in mind; all the areas are started assuming you have nothing or almost-nothing, and end on the assumption that you have a fully powered up party that is appropriate to that area, before you get knocked back down in power in preparation for the next area; mirroring the idea of death and rebirth in the gameplay.

Of course, it would be aggravating if your Spirit Monsters were always just leaving randomly, especially before a boss, so gameplay-wise your Spirit Monsters would only leave upon beating a boss or other big challenge; where it would feel appropriate to say goodbye after a climactic moment of catharsis.

Earlier when I said "Take on their human form again", aesthetically speaking, the final 'evolution' for all Spirit Monsters is becoming a ghostly Jojo-style Stand user, with the monster that they 'were' being their Stand. The idea is that the humanity of the person they used to be in life has overcome the bestial hatred that consumed them to turn them into a monster, and now they have control over that bestial power in addition to their abilities they had as a human. They stay with you at this point, and only after defeating an area's boss do they reach full "Self-Actualization" to borrow an idea from Maslow's pyramid, and then they transcend to the afterlife; leaving you to venture to the next area and tackle that area on it's own terms, gaining new Spirit Monsters and repeating the process.

Pragmatically speaking, I'm thinking there'd have to be hundreds of generic human sprites or models, so while the Spirit Monsters themselves could be identical (as the corruption of hatred always reduces humans to a baser state), the resulting fully leveled up and actualized human that springs from it could be unique (or seem unique, at the very least) to give the player a memorable experience with every single one they train up. I'm thinking there could only be maybe 100 or so different voice lines or somesuch in addition to the human's models, the Spirits would have to be largely mute, leaving the player's imagination to fill in for what trauma had tied them to the world and what exonerated them enough to proceed to the afterlife.

As another game balance element, every Spirit Monster would have it's own 'lifespan', so there'd be some Spirit Monsters that have short lifespans that are very strong to start with, but they Self-Actualize very quickly and can only stay with you until the end of the area they are appropriate for; other Spirit Monsters would have long lifespans, starting very weak but they stay with you for a long time undergoing a large amount of growth and a number of different evolutions before they Self-Actualize and transcend. For example, the 'starter' that you get at the beginning would stay with you for either most or all of the game, itself being appropriate in strength for every challenge the game throws at you, and only Self-Actualizing and transcending at the game's penultimate climax.

Storyline-wise, I'm thinking there could be a sudden and bizarre uptick in conflict around the world, with wars breaking out and communities breaking apart, creating a global upsurge in these resentful Spirit Monsters' population and power. In addition, the religious group that is responsible for the recruitment and training of these "Summoner + Exorcists" (I haven't decided on an appropriate name) is itself suffering a spiritual crisis and schism in ideology that is itself creating more conflict and resulting in an all time low for the number of Exorcists that can handle this Era of Strife. This necessitates your character to make a worldwide pilgrimage to quell these Spirit Monsters and to try to set right a world that has gone wrong.

The finale of the game would have you venturing into the 'physical afterlife', similar to Dante traveling down into hell, but at this point all of your Spirit Monsters have been forced to Transcend and leave your party, so at this point you're traveling alone when up to this point you've always had company. As you travel down, you meet again the many rivals and villains that have instigated all the conflict in the world, and it seems like you're helpless against them, but one by one all the fully Actualized Spirits jump to your aide, as this is where they've all canonically gone when they've Transcended, and what seemed like a hopeless struggle at first becomes a heartfelt reunion with all the Spirits you've met and parted with along your journey joining you again for this final showdown.

I think that'd be really cool.

[Iduno]

Of course, it would be aggravating if your Spirit Monsters were always just leaving randomly, especially before a boss, so gameplay-wise your Spirit Monsters would only leave upon beating a boss or other big challenge; where it would feel appropriate to say goodbye after a climactic moment of catharsis.

Maybe have different requirements for different monsters? Angrier (more powerful) monsters need a larger catharsis. Trash monsters that you refill your ranks with to capture more powerful monsters might just need X fights, or a fight against a monster Y more powerful.

I think that'd be really cool.

Agreed.

[JoshuaFH]

Of course, it would be aggravating if your Spirit Monsters were always just leaving randomly, especially before a boss, so gameplay-wise your Spirit Monsters would only leave upon beating a boss or other big challenge; where it would feel appropriate to say goodbye after a climactic moment of catharsis.

Maybe have different requirements for different monsters? Angrier (more powerful) monsters need a larger catharsis. Trash monsters that you refill your ranks with to capture more powerful monsters might just need X fights, or a fight against a monster Y more powerful.

I'm not in a good headspace as I write this, I'm sorry if it comes off as rambling.

The way I'd like to balance the experience in my head, is that I'd want to get that perfect balance of "Expendable vs Indispensable".

For example, Pokemon gets the balance wrong, there's hundreds of mons, and you can only use a small handful, and only a select few get to be in your final, endgame party. The rest languish forever in your box, forgotten. That's way too far towards "expendable".

In the other direction, you have Fire Emblem, where every unit is a highly individualized and characterized unit with pages of dialogue and romance choices and depending on what game it is a nigh limitless number of different directions you can go for growth and skill building... and you lose your opportunity at seeing any of that if a random dice roll doesn't go in your favor. That's way too far towards indispensable. (I'm not talking what is strictly necessary for completing the game, that is always a surprisingly small number of characters for FE; I'm talking about how it feels to be using and caring for those characters on a visceral level).

So in my hypothetical Spirit-mon game, I'd want to focus on making that finale sequence the strongest it can be, and that revolves around those Spirits that come to your aide being both numerous enough in fill (and re-fill, as I'm thinking the final battle would be big enough to rotate through your roster a couple times) your roster; and memorable and individually unique enough to give the player a profound sense of glee at seeing an old friend returning to help them.  To ensure that this roster is the right size and the right strength, the game mechanics would have to at the earliest point force the player to assess their options, and then commit to a selection for a given area, and those ones are the only ones to transcend.

I'm thinking there'd be no 'box' definitely, these are meant to be the spirits of people, not pets. You'd probably have a much larger Party to make up for that, but curious players wanting to test out all their options would fill that up pretty quickly regardless, and I'm tentative to say that it'd be preferable to the story to not even allow releasing your Spirit Monsters for space, as these aren't meant to be toys you throw away when you're bored with them...

And, over and over, I run into what is my biggest mental roadblock when designing a game in my head: that I have a massive personal preference for story and flavor over gameplay. This is decidedly not good game design, in fact it's pretentious and is the death of otherwise good games.

Oh well, it's not like I had any intention of expecting something like this to get made someday, or even making it myself, it's just a "Game I wish existed" cause I can only wish for the fundamental contradictions in its design to somehow be resolved.

[notquitethere]

I think this idea has a lot of potential. The main difference between this and Pokemon is in Pokemon you can't and do not want to catch every pokemon: some belong to other people, others are just extraneous. If you're an exorcist then surely you want to exorcise every spirit and this means collecting all of them to allow them all to actualize.

Off the cuff, I can think of a way around this: each area has a specific number of spirits. But these spirits can't be captured as easily as just defeating them: they could have a number of different manifestations which much be destroyed first. These anchors would mostly be monsters, but there's be scope for other story things (like possessed houses, loved ones etc.)

For example, rather than the greedy merchant dying and reincarnating as a rooster, something has gone wrong and his spirit has warped into 7 monstrous roosters that need to be defeated before his rooster-soul can coalesce into a mega rooster boss fight, which leads to the rooster being captured and his spirit improving and refining until he leaves you.

You could also fight the spirits of corrupted exorcists-- when you defeat them, their trapped spirits are able to ascend on their own.

[JimboM12]

Had this thought as i was going to bed after playing a lot of re2 remake: a game where you play as a new DC villian. Original, i know.

The basic idea is its set in the injustice universe after the batman ending of 2: so a lot of villians are out of the fight, joker is dead, harley is a good guy, supergirl is part of batmans clique, the good guys won.

So whats a new gang boss to do other than try his luck?

It plays a lot like saints row or grand theft auto, with some of the godfather game rolled in, with a sprinkle of vice city stories. You run around, extort businesses, claim turf, set up crime enterprises, standard crime sandbox stuff. Combats hardcore, guns are lethal, melee combat is a standard melee engine with customizable fight moves and grabs. Theres a lot of weapons (both melee and ranged) and they can be customized with all kinds of stuff like silencers, laser sights, barbed wire on bats, etc.

Heres the hook for the game: batman and his new justice league will actively hunt you down as you grow. If you commit too many crimes, kill too many police or more than a couple innocents, batman or another hero will chase you down, re2 remake mr.x style. Your awesome custom guns? Useless as batman pulls his cape up to deflect incoming fire. Or useless as they just ping off of supergirl. Or harley swats them away with her bat. So you need to run or hide. They will not stop hunting you like this is skyrim and you just shot them with a cardboard arrow, they will actively follow and check potential hiding spots for a good long while. The only way to shake them is to lose them for a while and cool off in a safehouse or blend into a crowd and slip into a bar or something.

Thats not even the worst of it, what the justice league cant do vigilante style, theyll do legally: occasionally (or often if youre too aggressive) bruce wayne will buy the businesses or buildings of places youre extorting to shut your business down.

How do you defend against these super freaks? With super freaks of your own!
Use all that wealth you arent blowing on custom guns or blinged out cars and hire the remaining super villians!
If bruce wayne is trying to buy one of your extorted fronts that hides a more profitable backroom operation, send bizzaro to wreck the city, putting a hold on things as bruce has to both fight him as batman and donate money for damages. Or roll around with cheetah who can hold off harley long enough for you to get away clean and then get away herself. These bodyguard moments are oneoffs only, youll have to rehire cheetah in a few days after the heats cooled off.

In time, that wealth may open technological doors that let you even the playing field with the justice league. Supergirls on the scene after you sprayed some opposing gangmembers with lead? Use a kryptonite laced bullet that cost you half a mil. It wont completely kill her but shell be out of the fight until another hero comes and even then she'll be off her feet for 2 ingame weeks.

The justice league arent the only threats either... but ill leave it here for now.

[Iduno]

Had this thought as i was going to bed after playing a lot of re2 remake: a game where you play as a new DC villian. Original, i know.

The basic idea is its set in the injustice universe after the batman ending of 2: so a lot of villians are out of the fight, joker is dead, harley is a good guy, supergirl is part of batmans clique, the good guys won.

Batman is in Resident Evil?

[JimboM12]

Yes

Edit: less snide, i mean injustice 2. It has 2 endings and batmans ending, absolute justice? i think its called, is the good ending. Look it up on utube if you need a good basis for what im talking of

[Trekkin]

SS13, but set in Alpha Complex. Everyone is antags all the time.