[REWARD IDEA] Favor Points

from Demigod Forums

*** New Edits Added to Bottom of Post 05/05/09 ***

I posted this before, but I think it get overlooked, I was thinking it would be kinda cool to utilize the "Favor Points" aspect of the game in order to, instead of just offering items, unlock different color skins for our current 8 demigods. These skins could cost a LOT of favor, so players have something to work up to that seperates their demigod from a (for lack of a better term) newb, my example was, we take the Black/Red Unclean beast we have, and we change the red areas to green, black areas to brown, and give a purple tint to some of the details, makes him look more sickly. What do you guys think about this?

In my opinion a little bonus cosmetic upgrade, rewarded for dedication and playing for a while is always a nice "Something Special" for dedicated players and fans.

Maybe even if subtle changes could be made to the new skins, the rook instead of being a tan (sandy mud and brick) castle, with human like towers atop him, you could skin him with a black skin, and more chaos based castle structures on top, instead of the sun orb, a nice reb orb sitting up their like a blood orb.

I also think that even though some concerns about the current small number of 8 demigods was raised in a few other postings, these subtle changes would still differentiate the two characters. Almost having a Light & Dark version of each demigod. In this manner, I have put some thought into it, it would only require additional art, but balancing, ability, and stats would be left unchanged.

Heres a few of the ideas,

Current ------- Re-skin & Description

Rook (light verison) ------ Necropolis (dark version)  New skin would be black bricks, with the blood orb or a green orb of souls, instead of a trebuchet a catapult that launches corpses, instead of normal arrows, flaming arrows

Unclean Beast (dark version) ------ Keeper of the Wastes (Light version) think of it as a Sphinx type creature, all the green diesease that the unclean beast would launch could be changed to tan, sand clouds.

Torchbearer (dark version) ------- Stormcaller (light version)  More of a wind/electric version of the TB, instead of chaos looking armor, more royal Knight armor, fire spells reskinned to a wind color, almost ethereal, frost reskinned to electricity, freezes could look like a continuous stream of lightning going around the unit

Vampire Lord (dark version) -------- High Lord Magus (light version) A robbed clerical mage type, large magical property would justify the hovering effect. Instead of a swarm of bats maybe a surge of energy, or bite would be a Magical Essense drain.

Regulus (angel) (light version) ------- Valganis (demon) (dark version) Instead of torn angel wings, give him bat like skeletal structured wings without flesh yet to prevent constant flight. Hooves and the whole nine yards of a demon. Instead of the crossbow use a bow and arrow contraption or something?

Sedna (light version) ------ Maldar (dark version) It would have to look like a skeletal knight atop a firey steed that could bring up the dead souls to heal living allies. Summon yeti would summon hulking bone constructs.

Oak (light version) ----- Decay (dark version) I dont think much would need to change here, color scheme, maybe red fire eyes under the helm, and give him a mace instead of an Axe or a large sword. Wouldnt have to re-skin any of his skills.

Queen of Thorns (dark version) ----- Priestess of Desire (light version) more of a character that teeters on the dark/light border, stay with the theme of insects and vines, only instead of thorns have flowers, and instead of beetles carting her around on a rose have catapiller or grubs cart her around on a venus fly trap.

 

Thoughts ? Again, although Art is a huge time consumption i think minus the balancing, new abilities, and all that comes with creating a NEW demigod, these new skins could be rewards for A LOT of favor points. Its sort of a nice specail way of saying "This guys been playing a long time, lets give him basically a NEW demi god, that follows the same overall format of an old one"

*** Edits/Updates ***

So I was thinking that these wouldnt take the place of the actual Favor Item slot, it would just be something you could purchase for say, 50,000 Favor Points per skin. This would make it like a long term goal, and this would add such a variety to the game. Pantheon could then list all 8 Demigods for selection. Just in each of their respective light and dark forms. In order to unlock them in custom/skirmish though, the favor points would need to be utilized.

I'd really like to see something like this get some attention. That an a nice Icon oriented rank system for playing games so we have something to work for long term. Thing of how Warcraft 3 had it so that 25 wins / 150 wins / 350 wins etc. got a neat picture next to their name.

- Mord

3,093 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from Demigod Forums Top

I think those would be really cool, but I think it'd be better not to change the looks of the abilities (except for colors of them) As that would lead to confusion as You'd be casting Fireball but your character would be shooting wind out. Good ideas though.

Reply #2 from Demigod Forums Top

This is a very, very good idea if you get to a time in which new content is being limited by programmer / design time, rather than art / sound asset time, as you could easily double the number of skins without worrying about balance or code concerns (aside from the initial code to swap it, which would be a one time investment).

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Demigod Forums Top

This was in before Scathis left:-( Actually he had far bigger plans, using the favor points do buy things not only for Demigods but also for your buildings(in the time Castles were still in) Alas, it was not meant to be.

Reply #4 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Resist_The_Dawn, reply 1
I think those would be really cool, but I think it'd be better not to change the looks of the abilities (except for colors of them) As that would lead to confusion as You'd be casting Fireball but your character would be shooting wind out. Good ideas though.
End of Resist_The_Dawn's quote

Very valid point with the abilities. I hadnt thought of the confusion via the actual names of each skill. I am glad you guys are into this idea though.

Quoting lifekatana, reply 3
This was in before Scathis left:-( Actually he had far bigger plans, using the favor points do buy things not only for Demigods but also for your buildings(in the time Castles were still in) Alas, it was not meant to be.
End of lifekatana's quote

Not sure who "Scathis" is, but I still dont see why this cant happen. To be honest, I see users create reskins for characters in other games within a week maybe two. An actual company could probably bang out 8 new reskins within a few months time.

-Mord

Reply #5 from Demigod Forums Top

I like the light/dark idea, it promotes staying to 1 side for the pantheon stats page. 

I personally would like to see TF2-like death cams, such as if you die by a demigod, your screen rewinds a bit so you can witness the act.  With favor points, you can buy the option of adding captions that would be associated with a certain attack.  For example, if you're the rook and you kill with one of your hammer attacks, captions could read "TOMBSTONED GG" on your victim's screen, but if you kill by another means such as your archer shot a flaming arrow, it could say, "PEW PEW", provided you paid for both with favor points.  That would give you a lot to do with favor points that dont affect the balance at all.  And if you want to double the possibilities, add a caption that would occur only if you killed someone in the same manner as before.  For example, death by rook's hammer would say, "TOMBSTONED GG" the first time, but the second time would say, "I thought I said, T-T-TOMBSTONED".  Plus, less waiting time for players in death, hurrah!

p.s I imagine captions flashing on my screen for added epic effect but thats just me.

Reply #6 from Demigod Forums Top

I think someone has played a little too much DOTA above me :) my bells are ringing with hearing M-M-M-Monster kill and First Blood lol... stolen from unreal tournament of course. It appears that this reskin idea is being absorbed well by the community, maybe we can get a Dev/Mod opinion of if this could be implemented?

-Mord

Reply #7 from Demigod Forums Top

An added advantage of this would be that every Demigod could now be played on either side, Light vs Dark. And then they could create unique minions for light and dark and Everything would look right. I really like this idea!

Reply #8 from Demigod Forums Top

Anything that lets you spend favour points on something doesnt effect gameplay just as a little "bonus" would be awesome. But yea, making them cost A LOT of favour poins would be good too so it takes people a long time to reach the goal.

Reply #9 from Demigod Forums Top

I am all for being able to spend favor points on cosmetic changes.  I will never bother but I know a lot of people will.  Same models with different skins would not take much time to do and would make people happy.

 

Sammual

Reply #10 from Demigod Forums Top

I like this idea.  One of my favorite things to do in Dawn of War II is create my own skins.  I think it would be cool to have a different skins for the demigods and i like the idea of having a light/dark skin also.  They dont need to change the animations or anything just the colors.  I think it would be a nice bonus incentive for long time players.

Reply #12 from Demigod Forums Top

I feel like the favor items should change to unlockable as well. So people have something to aim for and can use them a lot more often. Of course we need to change the price of those.

Reply #13 from Demigod Forums Top

Updated the post with some information and some new ideas.

- Mord

Reply #15 from Demigod Forums Top

Bingo Bango, sounds like a great idea to everyone. Can we get a little Stardockian Support?? Frogboy? Yarlen? someone give us a little Hey that is a nice idea, we can throw that out their to GPG??? :drool:

 

- Mord

Reply #16 from Demigod Forums Top

You're onto something here, something that probably planned from conception by Stardock, but they had more pressing issues to worry about (as we've all seen) and some form of this has to be implemented in the future.

Favor items really aren't too expensive, and plus once you get the few items you plan on using most of the time there's no need for them. Some kind of cosmetic customization bonus or other long term goal that players must "grind" for keeps everyone playing. But, stardock may not want that kind of feature in this game, which is already great without it.

Reply #17 from Demigod Forums Top

Appears that with the lack of all additional content for this amazing game (yes I said an amazing game) that these ideas could possibly be adopted by a talented group of modders? Reskins wouldn't take nearly as long as new Demigods... Obviously this isnt happening on the offical scale, I think we would be lucky to get a new set of favor ITEMS let alone these cosmetic perks...

 

- Mord