Hello, all you amazing people! It's your stock trader Despi, here to do some speculation!
Let me make it clear right now that I love Hollow Knight's gameplay. I love its perfect mix of combat, platforming, exploration and the fine quality of each of these elements.
There's no doubt that the game offers plenty of challenges. Besides 100% completion there's the 3 Colosseum Trials, the Path of Pain, 5 Pantheons (plus bindings), and the Hall of Gods. But where the game falls short, in my opinion, is a reward for these challenges. Sure, the Colosseum is required for the Hunter's Journal and the achievements, just like the Pantheons, but what do you get for them? Journal entries and a cutscene that you could have looked up on YouTube.
This is something that I'll bring up constantly, and I have thoughts about designing gameplay rewards for these challenges (like charms or permanent abilities) that would be immediately available upon starting a new game, but for now I think a good place to start would be in showcasing the items listed in these Journal entries: the Hunter's Mark, Seal of Binding, Weathered Mask, Void Idol, and the Delicate Flower. And what better way to showcase them than to display them in an abode of your own?
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Base Building
Yes, I'm talking about you being able to build a home in the world of Hollow Knight. I don't think an extensive base-building mechanic is necessary (this isn't Fallout) BUT I believe being able to establish some sort of cozy hut would be nice. Let's face it: sometimes I'm just tired after a long day of grinding out the Pantheon of Hallownest only to die to Absolute Radiance and I'd like a change of scene - a calmer and more relaxed kind.
This would also be key to the other feature I mentioned in the title - world-invading - but we'll get to that in a minute.
First off, where would the player set up such a house? The indisputable answer is Dirtmouth. It's a safe hub location next to a number of vendors and at the entrance to the Kingdom, perfect for the player character. In it you could show off the challenge rewards you've earned, like putting the aforementioned items on pedestals the background.
But surely that's not all the player would be able to show off? What's the point of having a house if all you're able to do with it is exhibit five items, three of them virtually impossible to get?
I also came up with giving this house two underground floors, both of them trophy rooms. The first one would be bestiary-themed, with you able to hang up the skulls of slain beasts on the walls. The organization would be predetermined, but upon killing any beast you'd automatically collect their skull and store it in your inventory until returning to your hut and leaving it there. Some good examples would be Great Hoppers, Stalking Devouts, and Primal Aspids.
In the second room you would hang up the weapons of other warriors you've come across in your path. This could be the nails of Husk Warriors or Great Husk Sentries, the claws of mantis warriors/traitors, or even the blades of Colosseum Fools. I'm sure many people would like to hang up Markoth's nails on their wall, and I myself wouldn't complain about doing the same with Galien's claw scythe. All enemy weapons are fair game, including those of Hornet, the Nailmasters, Sly, and the Hollow Knight/Pure Vessel. Wouldn't hurt to throw in a Radiance sword as the crown jewel.
Here's a (crude) diagram of the home's structure.
And what about decoration?
The player might be able to pick up special items from certain areas - a mushroom from the Fungal Wastes, a gem from Crystal Peak, moss from Greenpath, flora from the Queen's Gardens, a honeycomb from the Hive, those pink bubbles from Fog Canyon, furnishings from the City of Tears, pearchitecture from the Ancient Basin, or a buzzsaw from the White Palace. These items would be like a "texture pack" for their home and would adorn it with the appropriate theme.
But a cool way to decorate the player's home would be with paintings, the art taught to us by Master Sheo. After acquiring Great Slash, Sheo would offer to teach us how to paint. By granting us the ability to take in-game snapshots of whatever was in the screen at the time, excluding us, Sheo would teach us how to paint it. The first paintings would be crude and rough but by taking further lessons our art would become more refined and detailed. The "lesson" itself would just be a quick cutscene like when learning a Nail Art, and we could quickly max our skill out. We take a snapshot at any time, come back to Master Sheo's hut, paint the picture, and carry it back to Dirtmouth. The player would store and manage a small number of snapshots through a special menu tab, and the painting itself would be a simple artistic filter over the snapshot.
My initial intention was to have us simply hang our paintings on the house's walls, but it occurred to me that we could even sell our art. We could only hang up a few pictures but we could paint and store a whole lot more, having our home also serve as a shop. After learning how to paint we'd set up a sign indicating our home is open for business, and while we're inside, NPCs would periodically enter to make purchases. Paintings would yield more Geo if made with a higher skill level but also depending on NPC and illustration - a warrior like Sly would buy a scene of the Colosseum of Fools or a boss fight while an observer like Cornifer would buy a serene landscape.
Paintings wouldn't be the only thing you could sell. You could sell bestiary information in the form of copies of your Hunter Journal, more expensive the more complete it is. The player could also sell their completed maps to Iselda, who'd make one-time payments for each fully explored area.
But the most interesting products we could provide are weapons and their respective services, taught by none other than the Nailsmith himself.
After acquiring the sharpened Nail, the Nailsmith would offer to teach us how to sharpen nails. Following the Channeled Nail he teaches us how to strengthen nails, and with the Coiled Nail he teaches how to forge them. Even though our skill's focus would be nails, I'm tempted to apply it to other weapons as well, like lances or scythes. You could forge a new weapon out of Geo (it is metal after all) or you could use weapons you find throughout the map or pick up from slain enemies. Similar to Sheo's case, all weapon-related actions would take place in the Nailsmith's hut, which you could use during or after his stay there. Then you just take the finished product back to Dirtmouth to sell it.
Do you guys think charms can be duplicated?
I'm actually still debating myself on this one, but what if we could sell charms as well? By giving Leg Eater, Salubra, and Sly a Delicate Flower each, they taught us how to make their products? In Leg Eater's case how to repair them as well. Imagine that conversation. "Greetings, pale one! I found this broken charm down in the caverns, in the hands of a poor demised fellow. Do you think you could fix it for me? It's bound to be more useful in my hands." Ugh.
Anyways, what's the game timescale we're talking about here? All this sounds like it would take up a decent portion of gametime. How soon would we be able to get a house, and how? What about pretty soon?
Dirtmouth is almost completely abandoned with a lot of empty houses. Elderbug could offer hospice in any of those homes fairly early in the game, maybe even out of gratitude for having rescued Sly. That way we make the most out of collecting tropies, finding décor, and even selling products. This would allow the player's home to be a calm respite from the Kingdom's challenges and a project you work on throughout the entire game rather than a last-minute enterprise.
I have always enjoyed collectibles in video games, especially with cosmetic or gameplay items, and I think these would be neat ways of implementing such a feature to Hollow Knight.
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World Invading
"All right Despi, stop fooling around.
Hollow Knight has no need for base building. Decorating a home? What are you, five years old?
When are you gonna talk about something actually interesting? You brought up world-invading. What's with that?"
Okay fine. I'll talk about the world-invading. Which is in the same discussion as the base-building because I imagined these two features complementing each other.
To be honest, I got the idea from a very popular game that came out recently, but its name escapes me at the moment. I think it's called Black Souls? Obscure Souls? ...Shade Souls?
Anyways, this single-player game has a feature in which players can invade each others' games to duel and to obtain items. And in an already difficult game, many people find PvP combat thrilling and rewarding. So I thought, why not add it to Hollow Knight?
World-invading would be possible through dreams. The premise is that the invading player is dreaming and the host player is being "haunted" by their own dreams, with the invader manifesting as a ghostly Dream Boss. This is actually where the player's house comes in - by resting in their home's bed, the player begins dreaming and goes online to be connected into someone else's game. This is simpler than having to buy and consume a special item every time you want to invade and still keeps the game benches as checkpoints.
Of course, the invader wouldn't just pop into any person's game. Because there's no leveling in Hollow Knight it's a bit difficult to determine just how exactly players can be paired, but I think we can set some basic requirements. Hosts must have acquired the Dream Nail first - this gives them some time to get basic upgrades and lets new players get used to the game. It also makes lore sense because only then can players see and interact with ghosts.
Some players might not want to deal with invasions, and that's fine. Which is why they'd be opt-in rather than opt-out. To accept invasions the player would equip a 0-notch charm called Insight, which brings them online. This way you can change your PvP preference at (mostly) any time without compromising gameplay. Insight can be found in one of the rooms below Seer's den after receiving the Dream Nail. To keep things simple - and a little bit easier for the host - a player wouldn't be invaded while in a boss fight or with a loose Shade.
Thus an invader drops into the game of a player wearing Insight. They would appear as a ghostly grown version of the Knight, like Broken Vessel's spirit. They spawn in Dirtmouth, for reasons I'll explain shortly, but could instantly teleport over to the host's location. Once meeting the host, the invader can do one of two things: One, end the invasion but grant the host Essence and a unique valuable relic (2000 Geo), for people that like to take it easy and help each other out. OR two, you go about the REAL MAN'S way and challenge the host to a duel, upon which you're both transported to a Dream Boss arena. There the invader takes on a physical appearance and the battle can begin.
Like I previously mentioned, the host player is unchanged but the invader will take the form of a Dream Boss, which obviously requires some reworks. Instead of having an health bar based on hits, the invader has a normal numerical health. This could actually be based on the invader's normal HP - I'm thinking their health should be how many default masks they have x 100. Thus a starting invader has a health of 500 while a maxed out player would have 900. We could use this as a standard to pair players together - connect them if they have the same max HP, but I feel there may be too many unknown variables at play. What do you guys think?
As for the invader's attacks and abilities, they'd be basically the same as their normal moves. They can attack with their nail in all 4 directions at the same base speed, perform Nail Arts if they have them, and cast spells. The invader's nail length would be the same as Broken Vessel's. A basic nail strike does 1 mask of damage regardless of the invader's nail upgrades but all Nail Arts do two masks of damage and take two seconds to cast, unless the invader has acquired Nailmaster's Glory in which case the cast is only one second. Cyclone Slash would still let the invader slowly float down and might even make them invulnerable against nail attacks. Arts won't boost the invader's nail length. Unupgraded spells do only one mask of damage but upgraded spells do two, but Desolate Dive/Descending Dark wouldn't grant I-frames. The player still has the Mothwing Cloak and Monarch Wings, if they've acquired them. I don't think it's a good idea to let the invader keep Shade Cloak, but if they can it would have to be on a drastic cooldown, like 5 seconds. And it couldn't be activated while the player charges a Nail Art so it isn't triggered by Dash Slash.
Other than that, I've designed a few major differences between normal combat and fighting as an invader. First of all, you're no longer stunned or receive I-frames when you take damage, since you have a normal health bar now. You also wouldn't take contact damage from the host but they can take contact damage from you. You can't focus or acquire Lifeblood masks from the environment, and you no longer have the Dream Nail.
You also no longer collect Soul from nail strikes, in this case by hitting the host Knight. Not that you need to since you can't focus. Instead, you slowly generate a spell charge every five seconds, which you can save or spend to cast a spell. You can save anywhere from 3 to 6 spell charges, depending on how many Soul Vessels you've obtained. There should definitely be a cooldown between spells so you don't massacre hosts by instantly spamming all 6 charges on Descending Dark - a three second cooldown sounds fair. Spells should also have a brief cast and telegraph rather than activate instantly - base spells would take a full second to fire but upgraded spells can do so in half a second. And Howling Wraiths/Abyss Shriek should produce an area-of-effect all around the invader rather than aimed straight up, perhaps the size of the normal Abyss Shriek.
But the most troublesome mechanic to include in invasions would be charms. What charms would a player be allowed for an invasion, if they were allowed charms at all? Honestly, I'm tempted to just ditch the entire charm system for invaders as it seems far too complicated to implement. I mentioned reducing Nail Art charges if the invader had already acquired Nailmaster's Glory, but that was just a quality-of-life buff. I really don't think invaders need charms.
The invader will give Soul if hit with the nail and can be staggered - for the same duration, conditions, and limit as Lost Kin. The invader can also be Dream Nailed for Soul at any time. I was thinking that perhaps the invader could choose a quote from a list of available lines for Dream Nail dialogue? That'd be neat, especially if you unlocked a new line with each victory.
Speaking about victory, if the host wins they receive 400 Essence and a unique relic worth 2000 Geo, sellable to Lemm. But if the invader wins, they steal a portion of the host's Geo (maybe half) and ALL their relics. The invader loses nothing if they're defeated. The invasion automatically ends upon the duel's conclusion or if the invader takes the pacifist route and gifts the host with their items, without the need to duel. And obviously there needs to be a penalty for either party exiting the game during an invasion - if the host leaves, all their relics and half of their Geo is given to the invader. But if it's the other way around, the host receives the Essence and relic and the invader loses all their relics and half their Geo.
Before I wrap up this discussion I just wanna share a thought I had about world-invading that I thought was cool, and a little funny.
The reason I suggested having the invader spawn in Dirtmouth was so that they could break into the host's home. By using Desolate Dive they'd break down the door and then they could just wreck everything inside. I mean, everything there is replaceable and those big items (Void Idol, Hunter's Mark, etc) wouldn't be affected, but I thought it'd be hilarious if after getting destroyed by an invader, you come back home to relax but discover someone ruined your house and destroyed all the products you were trying to sell. I mean, you COULD end the invasion as soon as you walked in and just leave your host with the relic, like a nice person doing a nice deed. You could, hypothetically, do that. But where's the fun?
BUT the host could defend their home against invaders by acquiring the Seal of Binding from the Path of Pain. Once you get the Seal you set it on the pedestal and it permanently activates to protect your home, preventing invaders from gaining access. Neat, no?
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So that's my thoughts on base-building and world-invading in Hollow Knight. I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had writing it.
I'm currently hard at work on that foresight post. It's shaping up nicely but needless to say it's a big part of the lore that involves many topics.
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
Thanks to u/FoldingPapers for his screenshots
Link to my other discussion posts
Submitted December 14, 2018 at 05:57PM by Despi47 https://ift.tt/2BhKx77
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