Lukos Software

Thanks for the quick reply! I'm glad to hear that you like my ideas!

One thing I'm considering for replacing consumables is adding equippable items that can cast a given spell a certain number of times per day. The day only changes when the player is outside any dungeon, so it would give the player a finite number of uses of that spell on any given excursion. Maybe that would be able to mimic the resource management aspect of consumable items without forcing the player to waste time replenishing them, or allow the player the ability to farm them. The only ones that would be charged and usable for that day would be the ones they were wearing at the end of the previous day, so there would be no sense in stockpiling them, unlike healing potions. Do you see any problems with that idea?

I want to keep it limited. At no point in time should the player character's equipment be more important than their abilities. Somewhere around 1-3 spell enabling items sounds about right to me. I'm going for 26 magic spells, and 26 non-magic skills in the game (so one of each type can be associated with an alphabet key for easy use). Maybe I should go with 2 rings, one on each hand for that? What do you think?

If you're at all interested, I've posted a bit on what I'm thinking of and what I want to do with player skills here: http://www.roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=611.0

Originally I was thinking of making item spells an enchantment any piece of equipment could have, but I think that that would inevitably lead the player to carrying around two full sets of equipment - one that they cast from, and then another with passive bonuses that they use once the first set is exhausted for the day.

Anyway, I'll do my best to avoid the Final Fantasy problem you mentioned of thousands of meaningless battles between any two meaningful points. Just due to the nature of what I'm doing, "windshield kills" as you called them will be possible, but I'll try to render them harmless. The player shouldn't get any benefit from them, because enemies that are lower level than the player will give no experience points whatsoever, and I'm going to make enemy-dropped equipment be much lower quality than the equipment that's generated lying around the dungeon floor, so there won't be any sense in farming for items.

I think it's strange, by the way, that you say Mage Guild has gotten criticism for how little character growth you get over the course of the game. Sure you're not steamrolling enemies by the thousands, but I've always thought that the way your character's playstyle changes, and the new tactics that open up over the course of the game are far more meaningful and interesting than what you see in, say, Angband, where you start out hitting bad guys with 100 hp for 10 damage, and later progress to hitting bad guys with 1000 hp for 100 damage.

Anyway, I'm going to make the supply of gold in the game finite - no randomly generated enemy will ever drop any. I think this will give me more freedom to make interesting, powerful items available for sale. Normally in a roguelike, that would mean that the player would have the option to make the game much easier if only they have enough patience to earn them through grinding. What I'm going for with this is having the player make the decision whether to buy an item now that will make their current problems much easier, but that will cut them off from getting a much better item later on, or to save up to get the best possible items later in the game.

Do you see any potential problems with these ideas? Do they sound like they would make for a fun game?

Thank you again for your time.