Crafting System for Boosts

Unknown

Proposal
The major complaint I have about this game is that it's fairly one dimensional - it lacks many of the features from the original PQ. I wanted to find a way to fix that by adding a crafting mechanic similar to what was found in the original Puzzle Quest. For those that didn't play it, you would find runes throughout the world, and then in your castle (accessible from any city), you could play a mini-game with rules variants that would allow you to craft items. A similar mini-game existed to research spells from captured monsters.

For the initial introduction of crafting into this incarnation of PQ, the easiest target would be the consumable boosts. Instead of having the boosts drop from a fight, you could have the crafting materials drop (perhaps 7 different materials, 3 common, 2 uncommon, 1 rare, 1 super-rare). Each of the current boosts could be crafted from these materials, allowing players to craft the boosts they use most (or need at that moment). The rare and super-rare materials could be purchasable with HP and would be used for the "+1 to all AP" and "+10% to all Matches" boosts, thus preserving their rarity and monetization. I don't know about other players, but I often find myself using some of the "+10%" damage boosts only when it hits 25+, while other categories rarely get above 10 (e.g. +1 AP to Blue/Purple or Black/Green). Under this system, you could craft the ones you use all the time and never receive a "wasted" boost from an end-of-combat drop.

The actual mini-game itself would play very similar to what was in the original Puzzle Quest, with a few tweaks. Matching 4 tiles gives you a crafting tile (perhaps a beaker or a circuit board) and the goal of the mini-game is to match those crafting tiles eventually reaching some number, where the goal would be dependent upon the type of boost you were trying to craft. However, the original Puzzle Quest's crafting was quite unforgiving in that if you screwed up or got unlucky, you would lose upwards of 20 minute of work (for godlike items). To alleviate that, I would suggest the addition of "research abilities" which would be available based on who you bring into the lab (or more simply who is available in your roster). For a team-based approach, you could make the team-selection screen just be the "brainy" peeps as playable (e.g. IM35, IM40, Spiderman/Peter Parker, Dr. Doom, Hulk/Banner). The abilities wouldn't be game-breaking but rather meant to mitigate the risks of the original crafting system. Sample abilities would be similar to what is in the current bank of abilities:

• Destroy all environment tiles, generating AP
• Destroy all crafting tiles, generating AP towards required total.
• Create a 2 turn countdown tile that replaces 2 random basic tiles with crafting tiles

However, to create some risk, the environment tiles are now a "Bad Thing". Matching or destroying environment tiles creates instability in the system. For some relatively cheap amount of AP (say 9, so 3 matches), some negative ability occurs. Perhaps a 1 or 2 turn countdown (or 2x 2 turn countdowns) that will destroy some random blocks or will reduce your current crafting total. Also, a turn limit of say 30 turns will be in place (similar to what PQ2 offered for some of its minigames). Match 5's and certain abilities could increase the number of remaining turns, while certain negative abilities might reduce that.

And as per the original PQ, this system is easily modified / extensible for other things. Perhaps it could be used to unlockor upgrade additional rooms for your headquarters (should that ever happen), for the recruitment of hirelings/henchmen, unlocking alternative outfits, or (my personal favorite) the building and maintaining of vehicles (which I envision as semi-permanent boosts that have a durability and you play a mini-game to repair it).

Summary of Intended Goals & Benefits

• Add an alternative gameplay type, similar to what was found in the original PQ
• Add repeatable, non-competitive PVE content
• Make for a more interesting boost acquisition system
• Extensible: Could be adapted for recruitment of henchmen, construction of vehicles, or expanding your hideout
• The addition of "research abilities" makes crafting slightly more interesting and slightly less painful than the original PQ

Summary of Changes/Additions

• Have boosts (+1 AP, +3 AP, +10% dmg, etc.) be crafted instead of dropped.
• Have crafting materials drop from normal fights (alternatively, drop recipes and each time you craft, it consumes that copy of the recipe).
• Provide a PVE location (such as "Horizon Labs") under the Prologue tab to start the game type.
• Players would select which boost they want to craft using crafting materials they found previously in other fights.
• The crafting fight would be similar to the original PQ. A match 4 or 5 would create crafting tiles (anvils in the original PQ), which then need to be matched.
• Normal character abilities wouldn't be available, but special abilities would be available based on who is in your roster of heroes (i.e. the smart people).

That's it. Hope you enjoyed reading my dissertation. Time to go finish my subs in the simulator.

Unknown

But will I be able to make any two color AP/damage boosts?

Red/black would be Psyloke's favorite

a +1 ap +10% damage of the same color boost would be fun too

Unknown

Oh, I was just assuming the current set of boosts would be replaced completely. So it'd still be the same color combos, just an alternate way of getting them, with the major advantage being you could always craft (roughly) what you need.

Unknown

I really like the idea of custom color combos, though. I'd love to work up some blue-blacks for Dr. Doom (OK, red-blues would probably be better) or green-blues for Classic Storm.

Tangentially, this sort of crafting system would be a perfect fit for a standalone single purchase version of the game. It feels like a natural expansion of the original Puzzle Quest's subsystems.