We continue our discussion on balancing the options available to players on any given turn, this week we discuss Special Character Encounters.
On their journey players will encounter NPC’s that aid players by creating unexpected opportunities and interrupt otherwise predictable turns by mixingup the gameplay.
Generally when players land on a standard square they will trigger a battle encounter; but 1 in 5 of these encounters will instead result in a “Special Character Encounters”. These main give the player a straight up bonus, or offer the player some sort of trade.
Similar to a 1-stage quest, these encounters only cost the player a single turn and don’t drain any battle resources. To ensure that players never feel like a turn is wasted by encountering a Special Character, a minimum value of 1 XG is set for these encounters.
However, in the ideal situation these NPCs can provide significantly more than 1XG value. For example the Artefact dealer (who sells players artefacts at a 1XG discount) might by chance offer a player the perfect artefact to compliment their strategy, providing significantly more than 1XG value.
As a result of this upwards variance, the average value of a Special Character Encounter is greater than that of a 1-Stage quest. If players could opt into engaging a Special Character every turn, players might gain an advantage by continually triggering Special Characters Encounters – however, these encounters are distributed randomly to ensure this strategy is not available.
Next week’s blog will describe some of the currently implemented Special Character Encounters.
Stay Bright AetherRen