More Ways To Spend Essence: Upgrading NPCs.

Own

Moderator
You have an awful lot of NPCs in your town who aren't contributing anything and you run out of ways to spend your Essence pretty quickly once you buy the three perks you want. Let's fix these problems together. Maybe Arcadia might need a new screen to the left or below, if all of these become popular enough.

Mumrik: In exchange for Essence, you can purchase individual songs to customize Arcadia with, along with choosing your basic floor music and boss battle music. Or maybe just Arcadia itself for simplicity sake. Songs only show up once you encounter them in Story Mode or Arcade Mode.

Ex: 1 Essence for Startington, 3 Essence for Pumpkin Woods, 10 Essence for Marino Bossfight.

Mr. Plott: In exchange for Essence, you can unlock individual bosses you have encountered in Arcade Mode to practice against. Stuck against that particularly hard boss and can't survive long enough to figure out how to fight it? Just have a few bouts with it in Plott's Arcadia Arena! Killing bosses awards nothing. You get a number of Skill and Talent points equal to what you would have on average when reaching the boss in Arcade Mode.

Example - 2 Essence for Bees, Vilya or Helloweed. 4 Essence for Gigaslime, Black Ferrets or Zoo.

Maybe you have to fund the creation of an arena building first? Or you use the Receptionist lady for this instead of Plott?

Fisherman: In exchange for Essence, he will offer several fishing related services. Examples,

For # Essence, he will add a small fishing pond to Arcadia. You can't keep the fish, but it will add something to do while waiting on friends to get ready between multiplayer runs. Or maybe after you catch a certain number of fish worth a certain number of points, you can trade them in for an essence. Like Wimp is 1 Point, but Frankenfish is 20 Points, and 100 Points in fish can be traded in for an Essence. Something slow enough to not be a better alternative to just running the Arcade, but still something to pass the time with.

For # Essence, he will give your rod a special upgrade that can be toggled on / off if you talk to him. This upgrade will display what you're currently fishing up, allowing you to cancel it if you desire.

Mr. Fabulous: A few ways Mr. Fabulous could work.

1) He sets up shop in town and allows you to pay # Essence (depending on the rarity/value of the gear) in order to purchase the last hat / facegear you died wearing as a permanent cosmetic item in Arcade Mode. Meaning, if you died wearing a Green Slime Hat and want to wear it cosmetically, you pay # Essence in order to have a cosmetic copy of it in your cosmetic hats section, as 'Fake (/Cosmetic?) Green Slime Hat'. This would give people who like hat collecting plenty to do, as well as better customize players who want a unique style in multiplayer games. I know I'd love to wear a Winter Knight Helmet forever. :)

2) He randomly shows up in the HP orb transition room before new floors, offering to transform one of your hats into a permanent cosmetic item for # Essence. This would potentially destroy the non-cosmetic version of the hat? Or not?

Chica: Tends to the chicken coop in Arcadia. Chica is essentially an Essence dump for the long game, when you have nothing else left to invest your Essence into, so you will forever have something to shove it into. You give her 1 Essence, you can get 1 Egg by talking to her before every Arcade run from then on, which sells for 10 Gold. You give her 2 more Essence, you now get 2 eggs for a total of 20 gold. 3 more Essence, another egg, total of 30. So you've invested 6 Essence to start with 30 gold in sellable eggs. Maybe hitting certain numbers of investment could upgrade Arcadia's chickens, turning them blue, green, black, silver or shining gold. Or it could upgrade the appearance of the coop, too.

Lumberjack: Can carve shortcuts to get you deeper into Arcade Mode while bypassing the early floors, but not with as much equipment as you would normally receive, or as many levels and a vastly lower score. Carving a shortcut costs (10 Essence * the number of the floor you're skipping), and must be done in order? So 10 to make a shortcut to floor 2, 20 to make the shortcut to floor 3, etc? Furthermore, you have to have beaten that floor at least # times?

Or maybe he, like Mr. Fabulous, appears in the HP orb transition rooms to receive payments of Essence over time. So he stays on floor 2 to allow you to pay # Essence # times in order to create a shortcut there, then he moves on to floor 3. After that you can talk to him in town to determine what floor you want to start from.

Choosing a shortcut and going into the Arcade Mode has you walk into a room with a large pinata in it, which bursts with enough EXP to get players to a decent level for that floor and an adequate number of random items for each player.

Candy: Has an assortment of cursed brews that make your game more difficult, but increases the score (and therefore Essence, assuming 100,000 score = 1 Essence?). Similar to the Temple in Bastion, where you choose to worship the gods to make your game more difficult. Unlocks new brews the more Essence you give her. Examples,

Flimsyhand Brew - Shield permanently has 1 HP, no matter what shield is equipped. Anything that isn't a Perfect Guard will shatter it. +10% to Score at the end of run.

Vitalhex Brew - Your HP and EP are completely blacked out, or always display as being 0. You never know how close to death you really are. +5% to Score at the end of run.

Blindball Brew - The spore effect of the Autumn Season Hydra is permanently on, leaving you only a circle of visibility around you. +25% to Score at the end of run.

Flamefoot Brew - Every step you take leaves behind a trail of ghostly fire - one that only harms YOU if you walk over it again. Lasts for # seconds, or doesn't vanish until the room is cleared? +20% to score at the end of run.

Slipstep Brew - Every step you take is akin to walking on ice. +15% to Score at the end of run.

Will post more ideas on how to splurge on Esssence and upgrade NPCs later, unless this is a bad idea and unlikely to be worth considering. :p
 

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
Luigi: Has a pair of old gardening shears, which despite his best efforts and intentions can't seem to make a dent in them bushes.

For 500 essence he'll finally retire and stop making that god damn noise!
 

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
For # Essence, he will give your rod a special upgrade that can be toggled on / off if you talk to him. This upgrade will display what you're currently fishing up, allowing you to cancel it if you desire.

That's honestly a pretty sweet suggestion for a rod upgrade in Story Mode as well! :D
 

KoBeWi

Jumpkin
Mumrik: In exchange for Essence, you can purchase individual songs to customize Arcadia with, along with choosing your basic floor music and boss battle music. Or maybe just Arcadia itself for simplicity sake. Songs only show up once you encounter them in Story Mode or Arcade Mode.
Or he could also give "Song Packs", which would alter all of the songs.

Fisherman: In exchange for Essence, he will offer several fishing related services. Examples,

For # Essence, he will add a small fishing pond to Arcadia. You can't keep the fish, but it will add something to do while waiting on friends to get ready between multiplayer runs. Or maybe after you catch a certain number of fish worth a certain number of points, you can trade them in for an essence. Like Wimp is 1 Point, but Frankenfish is 20 Points, and 100 Points in fish can be traded in for an Essence. Something slow enough to not be a better alternative to just running the Arcade, but still something to pass the time with.
The pond could contain one random equipment piece, with which you could start your next run.

Chica: Tends to the chicken coop in Arcadia. Chica is essentially an Essence dump for the long game, when you have nothing else left to invest your Essence into, so you will forever have something to shove it into. You give her 1 Essence, you can get 1 Egg by talking to her before every Arcade run from then on, which sells for 10 Gold. You give her 2 more Essence, you now get 2 eggs for a total of 20 gold. 3 more Essence, another egg, total of 30. So you've invested 6 Essence to start with 30 gold in sellable eggs. Maybe hitting certain numbers of investment could upgrade Arcadia's chickens, turning them blue, green, black, silver or shining gold. Or it could upgrade the appearance of the coop, too.
Chicken pets? They could act somewhat like Frosty Friend, but couldn't be revived.
Alternatively, Secret Chicken Boss for Story Mode.

Lumberjack: Can carve shortcuts to get you deeper into Arcade Mode while bypassing the early floors, but not with as much equipment as you would normally receive, or as many levels and a vastly lower score. Carving a shortcut costs (10 Essence * the number of the floor you're skipping), and must be done in order? So 10 to make a shortcut to floor 2, 20 to make the shortcut to floor 3, etc? Furthermore, you have to have beaten that floor at least # times?
That would be my favorite. Shortcuts should be permanent and you would always start with 0 score (you gain much on higher floors anyway). You need to reach the floor to make shortcut there and it's only for first floor of each area. You start with exp similar to what would you gain getting there, but no eq. You can upgrade shortcut for more Essence to have a better start.

Luigi: Has a pair of old gardening shears, which despite his best efforts and intentions can't seem to make a dent in them bushes.

For 500 essence he'll finally retire and stop making that god damn noise!
Make him change his shears for lawn mower XD
 

TheAngryPanda1

Green Slime
Luigi: Has a pair of old gardening shears, which despite his best efforts and intentions can't seem to make a dent in them bushes.

For 500 essence he'll finally retire and stop making that god damn noise!

Would grind out the essence for this in a single day to stop the mad gardener! :p
 

Own

Moderator
Additional NPC upgrade suggestions:

Shady Merchant: Several ways to handle this guy, similar to upgrading shops in the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.

A) Every time you come across one of his shops, you can donate an Essence to him, up to a certain amount of times per area. Donating Essence increases the number of items he can have for sale, or simply add rarer loot into his pool of items. Encounter him 5 times on Floors 1-2 and donate an Essence each time, his wares for floors 1-2 increase. More Essence or more visits for 3-4 and so on.

B) You can donate gold to him instead. 250 gold on floors 1-2 to increase their stock permanently, more on floors 3-4, etc.

C) Shady Merchant appears somewhere in Arcadia, maybe hiding behind a building. Giving him # Essence here will first increase the number of items he has for sale, then add rarer items into the pool floor by floor. Donate 5 Essence here and floors 1-2 get iron swords and the 2-handed sword improvement, more Essence and floors 3-4 might get carrot swords and such in the shops, floors 5-6 might get Witch Hats, 7-8 those +30 MagAtk accessories.

Could also add other items up for purchase too, like quivers that hold +5 arrows over your current maximum for this run or potions.

Oak: Oak serves a similar but different purpose in Arcadia to what he does in Story Mode. Oak manages the Arcadia 'petting zoo'. The purpose of which, aside from having a lengthy timesink to further add to your town with, is to allow players to train their attacking and shielding abilities in Arcadia in a safe way.

So you pay Oak an Essence and you get an Apple. When you get to a room where a Green Slime is the last enemy available, you may use your Apple to engage in a DDR minigame with it similar to Story Mode. Failure to complete this minigame results in taking damage, making it something that can't be infinitely repeated in a single run. When you tame the Green Slime it's automatically sent to the Petting Zoo in Arcadia, at which point you can go back, purchase a Golden Carrot for Two Essence and tame a Rabby if you desire. Three Essence, a Honeysuckle to tame a Bee with. Four, a Watering Can for Bloomos. Five, a fragile porcelain plate for Boars. And so on, and so on.

At the petting zoo, either every enemy you tame is in one large area inside the petting zoo or - if they would lag the game - they're all sectioned off in different rooms by the floors they appear on. So one would room have Slimes, Rabbys and Bees, while another would have Boars, Bloomos and Red Slimes.

All enemies in the petting zoo remain passive until struck by your weapon, 'petting' them, dealing no damage similar to a chicken. At this point they become aggro to you and try to attack you normally, likewise dealing no damage if they hit.

If you Perfect Guard a specific enemy (3-5?) times in a row without taking a normal hit on you or your shield, they permanently level up to the elite versions of themselves in the petting zoo and you gain a +1% chance of their card dropping in Arcade Mode. Perfect guard the elite (3-5?) times and you gain an additional +1%, as well as maybe something else? I don't know. For enemies like the Crystal, maybe you just whack it about 10 times each to get it to pay out, since you can't perfect guard something that doesn't attack. :p

I especially like this one because it would teach players how to master their shield use in a safe setting, provided they're willing to invest Essence and taming into it.

Luigi: Maybe you pay Luigi a certain number of Essence to trim open a path and clearing west or south in Arcadia, allowing these additional NPCs a chance to appear and set up their own building?

Clint: Clint is a farmer and as such he, well, allows you to farm additional Essence. In a somewhat unconventional way. Among his crops are Goddess Flowers, each one that refuses to grow or bloom until it's Task is completed.

'Tasks' are randomized miniquests / achievements. So when you first get Clint, he has one small patch of farmland with a single Goddess Flower sprout in it. You could examine it and it might pop up any one of these example Tasks,

'Complete any 10 floors without taking damage'
'Achieve 25 S-Ranks'
'Slay 50 bees'
'Complete 5 floors without swinging your weapon'
'Complete 5 floors without using your shield'
'Ignore 20 Health Orbs'
'Successfully complete 5 Biship challenges'
'Herd 10 chickens'
'Perfect Guard 10 different enemies'
'Successfully fish 10 times'

Progress on a Task causes it's flower to grow, completing it causes it to bloom. Harder Goddess Flower tasks bloom with more Essence. After collecting the Essence from a bloomed Goddess Flower, another sprout will be planted when the player starts their next run, or maybe immediately.

Clint could maybe be upgraded with Essence to add more plots of farmland and more Goddess Flowers, more exotic ones that generate far more difficult Tasks and reward more essence.

Instead of tasks that persist across multiple runs, you could instead handle them a bit more challengingly. You pay Clint 1 essence to plant a Goddess Flower sprout in every available patch of land you've expanded to, and in return you get a Task for each. These tasks apply specifically to your current run, and the Essence can be claimed upon your return to Arcadia if the Task is completed during that run, otherwise the old sprouts wither and new ones can be planted. In a way, you're paying 1 Essence to gamble that you'll be able to do these randomized sidequests during your run and get back more Essence.

But if that method is chosen, the Tasks would have to be things that could be realistically done within one run, so maybe those above would need to be shrunk some.

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I don't know how much you guys intend to expand Arcade Mode, if you intend to make it something that players, Youtubers LPers and Twitch streamers can sink hundreds of hours into like the Binding of Isaac or if you intend to leave it at it's current single screen. :p Maybe these suggestions are a bit much, I don't know. But Arcade Mode is ridiculously addicting and most everyone I've seen has sunk far many more hours into it than they have the Story Mode. Giving them things to toss all that Essence towards across all those hours of play and properly building up their town would be wonderful. :)
 

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
I don't know how much you guys intend to expand Arcade Mode, if you intend to make it something that players, Youtubers LPers and Twitch streamers can sink hundreds of hours into like the Binding of Isaac or if you intend to leave it at it's current single screen. :p Maybe these suggestions are a bit much, I don't know. But Arcade Mode is ridiculously addicting and most everyone I've seen has sunk far many more hours into it than they have the Story Mode. Giving them things to toss all that Essence towards across all those hours of play and properly building up their town would be wonderful. :)

We certainly don't want Arcade Mode to feel like "just an afterthought", since as you say it's not uncommon that people spend more time on that than they do in Story Mode! Development time wise, Story Mode gets more, of course, since it's there we create everything that goes into Arcade Mode, but we do intend to increase the breadth of Arcade Mode and not simply length. It's just tough to find time with everything that's competing for our development attention!

I can't say anything definite regarding all the ideas in this thread (except that they are good suggestions), but I do agree on the premise that there needs to be more Essence sinks (some day we'll add that molding!) and also that NPCs have a quite limited role.

Regarding the size of Arcadia, I honestly can't remember where our original stance was on that, but I'm personally not opposed to expanding it, I think.

Right now, though, our development plan is a bit biased towards Story Mode, and we're putting most of our efforts into making progress there. When I'm done with Temple of Seasons (Arcade), we'll do the Gold Charges on the currently existing skills and then soldier on with the next part of the story. If the production goes smoothly up until after the third temple, that's where I see a good opening for doing significant Arcade Mode changes.
 

Own

Moderator
Regarding the size of Arcadia, I honestly can't remember where our original stance was on that, but I'm personally not opposed to expanding it, I think.

I hope you guys do allow for a little expansion, the current screen is almost completely filled up. :p A single screen and a few buildings isn't much of a town to build up. One of my favorite things about games like Wizorb is that you can literally build up an entire town that feels full throughout the course of the game.

Anyhow, more NPC function ideas~ (These are fun to come up with, even if they're not used. :) It's interesting to look at an NPC and wondering what purpose they could have outside of Story Mode.)

Muffin: Works nearby to Candy, serving as the 'Easy Mode' variant to Candy's 'Hard Mode' serving up a list of treats players can toggle on for an easier time. Only Muffin or Candy's treats or brews can be active at once, no mix-and-matching. Having a quest active also probably disabled both treats and brews. Using any of Muffin's benefits would maybe prevent you from obtaining a high score, or some other disincentive to ensure people do eventually transition away from these 'soft' cheats and back into the normal difficulty?

Healthy Honeybun - Each enemy killed regenerates (1-2?) HP. -5% to ending score.
Gentle Gingerbread - No chance of enemies being Elite. -5% to ending score.
Rich Raisinbread - Enemies drop more gold and have an increased item drop rate. -10% to ending score.
Macho Muffin - All forms of damage dealt increased by 10%. -10% to ending score.
Fortune Cookie - Enemies have a +2% of dropping their card. -5% to ending score.
Dashing Doughnut - HP orbs at the start of each floor restore ALL missing HP. -25% to ending score.
Boosting Brownie - Start at level 1 with an extra Skill Point and Talent Orb. -5% to ending score.
Bruising BonBons - All bosses start with #% less HP. -10% to ending score.

Kim: Probably not an idea that will be considered too much, given that I don't know if it meshes with your vision for Arcade Mode much, but in games like Our Darker Purpose, The Binding of Isaac and other action-based randomized room combat roguelikes, you can find unique items in rooms that do things. For example, in Isaac you can pick up a useable item that creates a severely damaging explosion all around you in exchange for some of youe hearts. In Our Darker Purpose you have an item that, when activated, temporarily creates a slowing field around you.

Kim would be the scientist that you upgrade with Essence to allow special item rooms to rarely appear in the Arcade, or useable items to appear in chests. Once you beat a boss # times, you can give Essence to Kim to unlock a useable item based on that boss in an appropriate area within the arcade.

An interesting balance for useable items in Arcade Mode might be like how old action-fighter games used special abilities. These items are powerful, but every time you use them they drain some of your HP - but don't count as taking damage. Use them to survive a hard room, or do you just make death come that much sooner?

Examples,

Vilya's Eyepatch - Press and hold down the button this is mapped to gain a targeting icon akin to Earthspike or Meteor, but with a much more swiftly moved targeting icon making it difficult to precisely aim. This can target anywhere in the room, no maximum range. Releasing the button quickly flings your character over to that location, ignoring slime effects, ice effects or anything in the way. Drains 10 HP per use.

Slime in a Bottle - Creates a puddle of slowing green gunk around the player for the duration of this room, slowing down any enemy that passes through it. Drains 10 HP per use.

Baby Gigaslime - Upon use a regular slime-sized whirling version of the spiked Gigaslime shoots out and whirrs towards the nearest enemy to small deal damage and knockback for # seconds, before popping. Drains 35 HP per use, only one can be out at a time.

Cursed Pumpkin Spice - Upon use, summons a swarm of bats that circle around the player for # seconds. Any enemies that touch them take a stream of weak damage akin to the Pumpkin King's, then fly off in a random direction, damaging anything in their path. Drains 30 HP per use.

Sinister Seeds - Upon use, creates a wreath of golden thorns around the player that last for # seconds, preventing enemies from passing through them to get to the player - but likewise preventing the player from getting out. Drains 15 HP per use.

Phaseman's Arm - Behaves like a skill / spell. Upon use, fires a single red orb out. Hold to charge, a pink orb is launched that explodes into red orbs. Hold longer, a green orb is launched that explodes into pink orbs, then into red orbs. Drains 10, 35 and 100 HP respectively.

GUN-D4M's Beam Cannon - Press and hold, release to blast a beam up, down left or right. You're locked into that direction until it ends, but can slowly move around. The longer you hold, the more damage the beam does / the wider it is / the longer it lasts? HP drained depends on how long it was charged, rapidly eats through much HP.

I dunno if Arcade Mode necessarily needs useable items like the other games it the genre, but it's a neat idea to use HP as a resource. :D

Astrid: Adds more Mystery Rooms (like fishing?) to the Arcade upon receiving Essence. You don't know what's in a Mystery Room until you enter it, and the rooms that are unlocked when giving Astrid Essence are completely random. Unlocking more Mystery Rooms could increase the maximum number that could be generated each level to two or three? Examples,

Shadowthorn Room - A maze of prickly damaging thorns are in this room, with plenty of dead ends. You can only see a small circle around yourself, like the Autumn Dragon's blindness. 1-3 chests are hidden in this room, for the player willing to explore it and risk damage. Opening all chests breaks the blindness and the thorns. Can be exited immediately.

Monster Nest - A room filled with a large number of one specific type of enemy of the area, including one elite - the alpha. Kill everything here for a prize. Can't be exited until you or everything is dead.

Monster House - A staple of Mystery Dungeon / Roguelike games. Similar to the Present/Gift battle, the Flying Fortress island battle or the Knight/Wizard room battle, enemies spawn into the room when another enemy dies until the player has killed # enemies. Alternatively, they come in waves where after the first is killed, a second and then third appear? A constant battle with no breathing room. Kill everything here for a prize. Can't be exited until you or everything is dead.

Blood Shrine - Does random beneficial effects when inspecting it, at a cost of HP. Gain a skill point, a talent point, a bonus to any one stat, a random card, Essence, a large EXP bonus, a score bonus or just spawning some elite monsters. Activates only once. Can be exited immediately.

Mystery Shrine - Does REALLY random effects. +Atk -MagAtk, +CritDmg -CritChance, -Atk +AtkSpd, randomizes one of your equipment slots into a different item, curses you with a swarm of bats that will swoop in and out at you in every room for the rest of the floor, wipes your skillpoints and rerolls them at random with 2 extra points added, etc. Activates only once. Can be exited immediately.

Archery Practice - Similar to Story Mode? Awards a number of prizes determined by how well you score, or offers a better prize depending on how well you score. Activates only once. Can be exited immediately.
 
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