Own
Moderator
Apparently this is on the menu post-Tai Ming. I can think of a few ways Arcadia could be done interestingly.
#1 - Ditch automatic town upgrading and automatic rewards completely. Instead, Arcadia is an overgrown meadow / ruin with little markers everywhere. Inspect each marker and it will tell you how much Overall Score you need to make a building there and what type of building can be placed there. If you have enough score to make a building there, it can have a little [!] above it's marker letting the player know.
#2 - Alternatively, just tell the lumberjack what you want built and handle it all through him with score payment.
#3 - Alternatively, acquire Building Permits by doing various quests / hitting certain score amounts / achieving certain things. Then upgrade them with score.
#4 - Each building has multiple levels it can be upgraded to, costing more and more depending on how many buildings you have built or upgraded in general. So when you first build the Hat Shop it might only have the Tai Ming hat salesman in it with Cat Ears / Beard / etc available for a few essence. Upgrade it to Rank 2 and Mr. Fabulous appears in the shop as well, adding the Turban and other hats.
#5 - Everywhere has a purpose. Tavern is mainly filled with quest givers and for attracting new people to your town. Park attracts new people to your town, adds flowers around and populates the park with friendly plant enemies as you do quests for Tai Ming's gardener / Luigi / Clint. The Mason's with Chiseler and Male-Chiseler let you spend essence to build different types of statues in places around town of your choice. The Fishing Pond gains new fishermen as you level it up, increasing your chance of bonus essence after each run. Etc.
Letting people decide the path they want to upgrade their town through seems like it'd be a lot of fun, instead of everyone hitting the same unlocks at the same score markers. I could be working on building up my Tavern and Pond to get quests and essence in my town, or hop into my buddy's town in co-op where they've been building up their Cosmetic Hat and Cosmetic Weapon/Shield Shops to buy from them. Fully upgrading the entire town would take quite a while, ensuring multiplayer variety.
#6 - People attracted to your town by upgrading buildings don't initially appear in town, but rather in the labyrinth in NPC rooms, each with their own requirement to free them from the labyrinth. Rescue them for a nice chunk of essence and get them to hang out around the town as normal villagers for the purpose of visual progression / aesthethics.
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Or maybe I'm off the mark and people enjoy automatic town upgrades at specific intervals of score? What do you guys like? I just know I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my town grow depending on who I recruited in the Suikoden series, and the various ways I could customize it.
#1 - Ditch automatic town upgrading and automatic rewards completely. Instead, Arcadia is an overgrown meadow / ruin with little markers everywhere. Inspect each marker and it will tell you how much Overall Score you need to make a building there and what type of building can be placed there. If you have enough score to make a building there, it can have a little [!] above it's marker letting the player know.
#2 - Alternatively, just tell the lumberjack what you want built and handle it all through him with score payment.
#3 - Alternatively, acquire Building Permits by doing various quests / hitting certain score amounts / achieving certain things. Then upgrade them with score.
#4 - Each building has multiple levels it can be upgraded to, costing more and more depending on how many buildings you have built or upgraded in general. So when you first build the Hat Shop it might only have the Tai Ming hat salesman in it with Cat Ears / Beard / etc available for a few essence. Upgrade it to Rank 2 and Mr. Fabulous appears in the shop as well, adding the Turban and other hats.
#5 - Everywhere has a purpose. Tavern is mainly filled with quest givers and for attracting new people to your town. Park attracts new people to your town, adds flowers around and populates the park with friendly plant enemies as you do quests for Tai Ming's gardener / Luigi / Clint. The Mason's with Chiseler and Male-Chiseler let you spend essence to build different types of statues in places around town of your choice. The Fishing Pond gains new fishermen as you level it up, increasing your chance of bonus essence after each run. Etc.
Letting people decide the path they want to upgrade their town through seems like it'd be a lot of fun, instead of everyone hitting the same unlocks at the same score markers. I could be working on building up my Tavern and Pond to get quests and essence in my town, or hop into my buddy's town in co-op where they've been building up their Cosmetic Hat and Cosmetic Weapon/Shield Shops to buy from them. Fully upgrading the entire town would take quite a while, ensuring multiplayer variety.
#6 - People attracted to your town by upgrading buildings don't initially appear in town, but rather in the labyrinth in NPC rooms, each with their own requirement to free them from the labyrinth. Rescue them for a nice chunk of essence and get them to hang out around the town as normal villagers for the purpose of visual progression / aesthethics.
---
Or maybe I'm off the mark and people enjoy automatic town upgrades at specific intervals of score? What do you guys like? I just know I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my town grow depending on who I recruited in the Suikoden series, and the various ways I could customize it.