Interview The Amazing Fate Interview

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Fate; Travis Baldree; Wild Tangent

Here's <A href="http://www.rpgcodex.com/content.php?id=120">our interview</a> with <b>Travis Baldree</b> about <A href="http://www.playfate.com">Fate</a>. For a sample of it, keep reading this news post.
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<blockquote><i><b>8.)</b> Fate offers shrines/altars with random outcomes occationally in the dungeon. Can you tell us a little bit about them? What they do? What are the advantages and disadvantages of characters using them?</i>
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Most of these are inspired by the classic Telengard, which had Shrines that you could donate money at to receive stat bonuses. There were also Thrones that you could pry the gems out of. In addition to Magic Anvils, they add little moments of risk to break up the dungeons - should I or shouldn't I? The rewards can be pretty amazing, but the penalties can really stink. I think that sort of permanent-effect risk is part of the fun of roguelikes.</blockquote>
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Prying the gems out of the statues is my personal favorite in the game. I rarely ever get the gems, but I get to kick something's ass. That's okay with me.
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[LlamaGod]

Q: Why is IVAN so much better?

A: Because Fate is poopoo girly stuff

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Why level caps are bad:

There is no effective limit to the dungeon levels - you can just keep heading downward. There's a PRACTICAL limit, as your character's level caps at 99. Eventually, you just won't be able to handle the tougher creatures, and will have to call it a day - or really tweak your magical loadout.

I mean, is it really so hard to make an experience level system based on a calculation of XP points required to reach the next level, rather than hard-coding all the XP levels (Making the arrogant presumption of course, that this is what's holding it back)? Seriously though, unlimited dungeon with limited skills is just totally fucked.

It might be enough to make me buy it though. I thought there were only 48 levels... Unlimited is cool. Provided they fix the level cap to go unlimited as well.

The descendant stuff has got me interested too. I really should read more about this instead of just playing it. Heh.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I have to agree with DarkUnderlord there, capping skills in an endless dungeon will just make it so the player will reach a point where exploration will be made impossible. This tampers with descendants a bit, as no matter how many improvements they carry over, their level will always be capped so it seems like only the novelty of it remains.

I think a better way to do this would be to have the first character you play cap at a given level, but let its descendant cap at a higher level, and so on. This would make playing descendants much more interesting and actually have a better purpose. Not only does this prevent players from reaching near endless levels on their first run, it would increase replayability by making each descendant reach a little farther down into the dungeon levels, instead of just making it so one player eventually will have very little power and reasons to keep adventuring.

 

[Travis Baldree]

The main reason for the level cap was twofold -

1) After a certain point, numbers stop fitting in boxes

2) It's a lot easier to balance if you know where the endpoint is.

A level cap of 99 should last you until about level 150-180 I'm guessing as far as dungeon depth - which is 3 or 4 times the depth at which you 'finish' the game, so hopefully it's still a good chunk of extra play.

Travis

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yup, you'll have to go really, really, really deep in the dungeon to nail that cap. At around level 50 of the dungeon, the character I retired was level 23. At the start, I was levelling up really quickly. As I kept going, the level ups came at a slower progression per dungeon level. You'll probably want to retire and have a descendent before you get that deep in the dungeon.

That said, is renown capped as well? I'm guessing it is, but if not, you can still keep going on the bonuses from that alone.

 

[undead dolphin hacker]

Q: Why is IVAN so much better?

A: Because Fate is poopoo girly stuff

Q: Why does LlamaGod like IVAN so much?

A: Because he's assfucking a swedish male bodybuilder by the same name.

 

[Whipporowill]

Oh yeah, a lot of people here are named Ivan, really. You must be confusing us with Russia or something, comrade.

 

[Jed]

What is IVAN anyway?

 

[Baley]

Iter Vehemens ad Necem AKA IVAN

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Dark Disciples is ten times better than IVAN.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Anything called Ivan is automatically teh gay.

 

[Jed]

I've been playing the demo all morning. Great game for a Saturday morning, and I'm having a lot of fun.

A couple of small nitpicks, though:

Potions don't stack.

When leveling, you can only raise skills. If you put 2 points in sword, then wish that you'd put 1 in sword and 1 shield, too bad.

Aside from that, this is a great indie game. Maybe I'm missing something, but I just checked the webpage and I can't find any information regarding the demo limitations. Anyone know off the top of their head?

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

You can only level up to character level 6, and can only descend down into dungeon level 3.

 

[Jed]

Thanks. Just so I can feel dumb, where does one learn this?

 

[Spazmo]

By playing the demo and finding oneself unable to go past character level 6 or dungeon level 3.

 

[Jed]

I meant in advance.

Sigh... I'm on level three now...

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I meant in advance.

We read forums and read posts of those that did it before us

 

[Jed]

I'm so out of the loop...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

When leveling, you can only raise skills. If you put 2 points in sword, then wish that you'd put 1 in sword and 1 shield, too bad.

When levelling, you get two skill points and five attribute points. However, when your renown raises a level, you get four skill points to distribute.

Also, if you have the gold for it, you can have the mistrel in town write a song about you which automatically raises your renown one level. So, basically, you can buy skill points. Doing quests is the best way to raise renown, though.

Renown also determines what elite/legendary items you can use.

 

[Jed]

Yeah, I was complaining more about if you raise a skill during leveling, you're stuck with that choice immediately, whereas with most games you can raise or lower to your heart's content until you finish the leveling process and only then are the choices finalized...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Oh yeah, it would have been nice if there were a minus button in addition to the plus button.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yeah that bit is like Diablo/Diablo 2. It's easy to screw up. It should allow for a 'grace period' where you can opt to add levels to your skills or detract levels from them, and nothing is finalized until you hit 'accept'.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

It should allow for a 'grace period' where you can opt to add levels to your skills or detract levels from them, and nothing is finalized until you hit 'accept'.

Like Divine Divinity's skill system?

 

[Jed]

Or Avernum... or Fallout... NWN... or most any cRPG with skills...

Still a minor thing, though.