Improving

e.sport / tournament&show – page 8

Today, I’m chewing on my Phase 2 – and in particular all the things I’ll have to imagine for the characters to improve their skills.

In most games, it’s all about improving the character’s experience – by making them fight most of the time – and that’s a well-honed mechanism that I’m certainly not going to question – my goal is to propose a game-link, not a revolution in video games either.

So it will be a question of proposing minor quests, each of which will allow you to improve your experience in a skill, and then you go up a level – the classic scheme.

It will therefore be a question of having a maximum of NPCs, which will allow training in discretion – for theft as well as for the eventual death of the two owners – which will have voices powerful enough to wake up drunkards and which it will only be possible to eliminate by absolutely mastering discretion and stealth killing.

It will take card players – to practice cheating the game
You will need official papers to forge – to train to be a forger.
It will take some despicable but charming characters – to train in seduction.
Clap-Trap will have to be dealt with – because I haven’t talked about it yet – but it will be there – and since the character is not discreet, it will have to be managed.
You’ll have to practice making hats and shoes – because we don’t do enough stupid things in video games – even though we already do a lot.
You’ll have to practice building a big crate – to send each other on trips far, far away: yes yes, making nails, sawing boards – yes I liked this DLC from Skyrim, and Minecraft, and Terraria
Lying with persuasion should be practiced.
You’ll have to carry stones – because in the poor, that’s all you have to carry, and it’s hard enough as it is, and you’ll improve your strength.
You’ll have to practice listening at doors – because you’re not going to pick up secrets by asking people if they have secrets – and then you can play a little bit more than in most games, where you just have to be in a good position to hear – I wonder if making a small cone to hear better wouldn’t be amazing – and I can tell you: it will be amazing.

In Mrs. Ugly’s seduction register, you will have to succeed in: making a pretty bouquet of flowers with flowers stolen from somewhere, making a pretty gift wrap with poor quality paper and just string – no scotch; identifying which objects she would love to own and going to fetch them; singing a love song….
In Mr. Ugly’s seduction register, you’ll have to make him believe that the horror you put in a bottle is the best quality vodka – so find a bottle and a horror to put in it; invent new recipes for vodka, no, there’s not only tarragon in it; make him a jacket that hides his flaccid torso; manage to be his personal barber with a badly sharpened razor…

I don’t even mention the classics: running, jumping, climbing.
The characters from the Borderlands game will have to be allowed to acquire skills they don’t need except for this episode.
What would be great would be if the characters in Borderlands could share their skills with the characters in the play: for example FL4K, the animal-friendly robot, will have to learn stealth, charm, cheating – on the other hand, the characters in the play who arrive with high skills in charm and cheating will learn from him to tame very wild animals – which could be very useful for: making two owners chased by bears disappear forever / wrapping a slightly venomous snake in the arm of whoever you want etc etc etc

At this point in the game, players will still be relatively free and relatively solo – so they will be able to choose which skills to particularly improve.

It’s up to us to consider whether we leave the possibility to improve everything (and there will inevitably be players who will spend all the time necessary to do so) or whether we impose a choice of a maximum number of skills to be improved.
I think imposing a choice increases gambling – and the risk of making the wrong choices.
So I like it.
But it has to be thought out very precisely, otherwise we’ll have complete teams with the same skills put to the maximum while the characters in the play don’t go for the same resolution of the major quest. (I’m clear? – to me – I’m very clear)

In phase 2, the teams will be in the process of building themselves – and thus building themselves according to the central character of their team.
This is the moment when they get acquainted with the stakes of the play and their competition – so asking them so quickly to choose their skills to improve is a bit lame.
No, it totally sucks.

So that’s an idea that’s been abandoned for the moment – and in most games, you can increase everything, it all depends on how much patience you have and how much time you spend.

And then… there will be the objects necessary for the realization of phases 3 and 4.

To have the material to make shoes, hats, boxes of nails of adulterated vodka of tawny cages, tulips, vases, papers, strings – in short all your bric à brac : finding or making knives,
Fabricate false evidence
Opening a safe without a pass
Find hiding places &
hiding your objects – so that, since Sea of Thieves, I dream about it. Have you played Sea of Thieves? If so, you’ll have noticed that you spend your time collecting very nice chests, skulls so strange that they don’t look like skulls anymore and they make a thunderous effect in your boat, chickens, snakes, pigs – in short, a lot of things, not to mention the various objects contained in the chests.
And you can’t keep them – you’re a pirate who has no island for his treasure. I know the reasons – but it’s horribly frustrating. With a game of e.sport, there are no ‘reasons’ anymore, because everyone is on the same card – they play together.
As a result, it becomes possible to create caches – to plunder the caches of other teams – in short, to play the pirate game thoroughly and uninhibitedly.

Usually your character wears all of these – these are the quest items and it’s rare that it’s possible to steal from you.

If we propose a limit of things to wear – we almost effectively impose the need to find relevant hiding places.
And there, my famous trick of temporary invisibility offered to each person becomes really very very useful.
Since this is Phase 2, his job will be expanded, so that everyone can prepare “his” ground in his own way.

And here we have a huge novelty: the terrain will not be neutral at all at the start of phase 3, the teams will have had the opportunity to prepare caches for themselves and traps for their comrades. This can result in a totally dreadful Phase 3 – and that’s good for a show – don’t say no – it exists, especially in the multiplayer parts of Minecraft. I’m telling you, I’m not inventing anything – I’m playing with what already exists and isn’t exploited enough – or not exploited at all.

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Featured Image : from Sea of Thieves – by Rare