I recently watched an interview on YouTube between Darth Microtransactions and Adam Jackson (Diablo 4 Lead Class Designer). One problem that Adam brought up about ARPG’s is a “Cursed Problem” ARPG’s have with designing “One Shot” events such as the story campaign versus repeatable content where they need to design the repeatable content to be “fun” to do hundreds of times.
My answer to this concerns the story campaign specifically and the solution has already been invented with Soul’s like games. The solution is to have side characters that have a journey you can take them through. Some side characters can conflict with other side characters so you really have to make a choice on which side character to support through there journey.
Depending on your choice, you get different rewards depending on your choices you make. Does the player help the side character to the end of their journey? Do they change their mind and support another side character that conflicts with your initial side character choice? Do you kill one of the side character’s part way of their journey through to get certain rewards you wouldn’t normally get otherwise? Maybe Side Character A lets you have access to two exclusive dungeons during their journey, but Side Character B lets you have access to two completely different dungeons on their journey. These are all choices that players need to make in a Fromsoft game. All this creates variety in replaying the campaign.
Another thing that creates variety in the campaign is having alternate endings. Alternate endings in conjunction with side character’s journey with your character really help provide great replayability value. Maybe you save the day and become the hero, or maybe you side character you chose to support lead you down a different path and there is horrible consequences to the area.
How can this translate to an ARPG campaign? Having interesting side characters with their own motivations, backstory, and decisions as well as unique endings for the base campaign experience can be translated to the equivelant of separate games. Think of the end of an ARPG as closing the chapter on that area you journeyed through, regardless of ending and side characters you supported. In an expansion, you start a new campaign with all new side characters and the conclusion of that expansion could have its own alternate endings. Maybe a side character you supported didn’t conflict with the next expansion story so their journey can continue in next expansion. The point is that an expansion is really not just expanding the existing world but it essentially a sequel to the base game. If you think of this in terms of an ARPG as Dark Souls, expansion 1 as Dark Souls 2, and expansion 2 is Dark Souls 3, the way ARPG’s campaign can become fun repeatable content is made clear. Especially with dark fantasy settings and enviromental storytelling.
That is all well and good, but how are players supposed to group up to do content if the choices they made created disparities between what each player has access to? The answer to that is to have the party leader’s world progression what other party member’s zone into. The party leader’s world is now canon for all party members as long as they are grouped up. The party leader can still interact and make advancements with their side characters, however the other party members won’t have access to their side characters while grouped up. Additionally, you could have certain main city hubs either be uneffected or effected by choices but not to a significant degree so that you can still run into other players that are in different progression states. When the party disbands, the party members return to their worlds progression at the same moment they left and joined the party.
What will it take to make? This is just my personal opinion, but the more Side Characters, the more repeatable the campaign becomes. I would say minimum roughly 5+ side characters with their own model, dialog, backstory, and personal loot they can drop at certain stages of their journey. Also I believe it would require reserving or creating 1-2 pieces of unique content exclusively for choosing them as your side character. That content would need content exclusive rewards. I would also say that as far as alternate endings go, you don’t necessarily have to have an alternate ending for every side character. That being said, having a good ending, bad ending, and 1-2 alternate path endings where things are neither good/bad or where the side character becomes the “hero” of that area campaign instead of you.
I think this would be an interesting way to approach this particular “Cursed Problem” in ARPG’s and would make replaying the campaign over and over again far more enjoyable. I think the amount of content needed to make this viable would really only amount to a major patch (or Seasonal Patch) and would greatly increase replay value of the base campaign. I would like to know the community’s thoughts on this as a potential solution.
