Gameplay Revision

     After reviewing the demands of the mechanics and where my priorities lie, I have determined that some pretty radical changes are in order. The core gameplay is that of combat, exploration and progression. Having complex characters in town and such a heavy focus on the story do not benefit the core game loop, but rather are polish. Being a single developer, I haven't the resources for such polish. The character generator will still be used to create the main story related characters, but I think most NPCs will be in town and they will talk among themselves and such, but the focus is not really on them. In the game, the goal is to accrue sufficient power to stop Raum, the god driven into corruption by betrayal and power. There will be magical powers to be had representing each of the 7 gods. As the player fights to the points where these powers lie, they gain XP which can be used to upgrade skills and magical powers. Skills include melee, ranged, dodge/run, block, ect. They also will gain materials that can be used to create and upgrade weapons and pieces armor, each with its own varying stats. This creates dynamic experiences for the player by allowing them to choose what combination of gear, skills and magic they want to focus on. The shrines at which they player will aquire the magical powers are placed around the map and must be found through exploration. As the player gains XP and upgrades their gear, their power increases. Once their power reaches a point, they must face Raum. Being the case, the player will must use and upgrade the magical powers they find early on, as they don't know what they will have later and they will need this power to progress. This will make the player get used to using all of the magical abilities through various play-throughs. As the final battle draws nearer, there will be aesthetic indications in the game world to indicate the shift. The landscape will darken, NPCs will become confused, trees will die, ect. This will be accomplished by having two similar tilesets and having the darker one, overlayed atop the original set, have an opacity related to the percentage of the players power (determined by the amount of materials+XP) until Raum.
     Next I need to determine if there will be factions, quests, how the enemies will work, be balanced and progress. I think that I want to have the enemies not be scaled, but rather have various areas where their power differs. If this is the case though, what is the player's inclination to fight the more powerful enemies instead of only fighting the weaker ones and saving their XP until Raum comes so that they can use the optimal magical power / ability combination. I want there to be a trade off between using your XP early on to fight powerful monsters to get [something...] and saving your XP until later to use a more optimal strategy as you will know which magical powers you will get (greedy vs optimal).