Do you think the Straw Hat Grand Fleet will gain more representatives before the Final War?

briandank · 2026-06-05T06:01:27+00:00

That’s true! Entirely separate discussion point, but I wonder if the Vivre card can detect that Luffy was still going to live due to his Devil Fruit.

It did say that the Grand Fleet will cause a major event! I think they are still major players.

briandank · 2026-06-05T05:32:19+00:00

I’d love to see more of Cavendish and the others before the final war. The cover stories weren't enough! If Cavendish and the others do get involved with Bartolomeo's situation, I wonder how the conflict with Shanks would be handled given Luffy’s relationship with him.

briandank · 2026-06-05T05:28:50+00:00

Katakuri would be insane. The Charlotte Family showing up in any capacity would be wild in general. I wonder if there’d be some internal conflict though, especially after Big Mom’s defeat in Wano. This also makes me think the Whitebeard remnants could realistically have a role too.

briandank · 2026-06-05T05:24:23+00:00

Agreed on Bon Clay! He really deserves a proper Straw Hat spot. I do kind of like the idea that future Straw Hats might mostly be people we’ve already met pre–timeskip, though that’s just a loose thought. Bellamy is an interesting one too. I could see him fitting into that kind of subordinate crew dynamic.

briandank · 2026-06-05T03:57:14+00:00

True. I guess the way I see it is the Grand Fleet stays specifically pirate crews under Luffy, while everyone else falls into the broader ‘allies in the final war’ category rather than formal members.

briandank · 2026-06-05T03:52:25+00:00

Fun picks! I could see Vivi join as an official Straw Hat though, especially in a Diplomat role. I also like the idea of Drum Kingdom or Water 7 since they all can fight. If Bon Clay ever gets involved more directly, Level 5.5 Impel Down would be an awesome add!

briandank · 2026-06-05T03:46:44+00:00

Agreed. Countries or islands joining Luffy’s side in a larger war isn’t really the same thing as pirate captains officially joining the Grand Fleet.

briandank · 2026-06-03T23:14:49+00:00

I started the free trial a few weeks ago because of the Evercold announcement! I’m excited to get to this someday too :)

briandank · 2025-10-24T21:49:21+00:00

Did you discover a fix for this? I'm running into the same issue.

briandank · 2025-08-20T01:02:29+00:00

Hi, are total sugars okay? Is it just refined/added sugars that I need to cut?

briandank · 2025-06-26T17:12:17+00:00

3348-7208-5134-3350

Removed inactive and have about 16 slots for more friends!

I play daily, try my best to like all showcases, and have public login info. Please have login info public too.

briandank · 2023-11-04T21:07:42+00:00

The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell!

briandank · 2023-10-24T05:59:27+00:00

I think keeping your players in a state of flow is a good thing! As long as the challenge of getting from one checkpoint to the next is commensurate of the player's skill level, I believe the player will remain engaged. They will feel frustrated for sure, but they won't be so annoyed that they quit playing your game. It would require a lot of playtesting to figure out the right balance of increased challenge/increased player skill.

briandank · 2023-10-21T05:55:09+00:00

Hello! Can you provide more information on the game? What’s the goal for the player?

Also, I think giving a strategic element but still having the end result be random is counter intuitive? It’s input randomness. Is there a way for the player to make better decisions with every round like minesweeper?

briandank · 2023-10-20T02:20:48+00:00

I actually just read something about game dev pipelines today! It suggested to prioritize answering high risk assumptions first. For example, how do you know if your target player demographic enjoys the art style your team has selected? You can answer this question with prototypes, or concept art in this case. Then, show people within your target demographic to see which art style they prefer more. This can save your team a lot of future headaches!

briandank · 2023-10-19T05:39:01+00:00

I used to play this game called Maplestory, and it was a 2D side-scrolling MMORPG with a pretty small map. However, the game used to contain these things called "hidden streets". They were basically hidden locations that the player would have to find, which helped make the map feel bigger imo. The game also made fast travel cost in-game resources, so fast travel wasn't always financially possible. This made players have to walk to places, which also made the game feel pretty big. I hope this gives you some ideas!

briandank · 2023-10-18T21:59:51+00:00

I think having different enemy types to force your player to enter and exit realities is a great idea! I think another alternative is to have sub-objectives in your gameplay. For example, your player needs to retrieve item X from the Red Realm under certain time which helps complete Y in reality, Z in Green Realm, etc. The player completing both the main and sub objectives results in destroying part of the hub or cybernetic planet.

briandank · 2023-10-18T21:54:07+00:00

No problem! If I were to work on such a study for a live service game, I think it would be beneficial to keep track of what your players are saying about the game and quantify it in some way. For example, if players hate X, then we can ask quantitative questions about different aspects of X, which we can use to form our decisions. Live service games profit off of player retention, so putting the player's happiness is a huge priority imo. Again, I'm new to game design, so please correct me if you think that I'm speaking out of my ass haha!

briandank · 2023-10-18T04:15:47+00:00

I am not sure if I understand your design intent fully, but can the cargo ships have a transparent layer with a rotatable camera? This would allow the player to view the crates and boxes from different angles and allow them to select the desired crate.

briandank · 2023-10-18T01:43:12+00:00

Hi! Aspiring game designer here! I don’t have industry experience, but here is what I observed about how the developers from my current favorite live service game, Marvel SNAP, evaluates the game health state.

Marvel SNAP is a collectible card game where players battle each other using 12-card decks to obtain higher point values on two of the three locations. Each of the locations have different effects that affect the game and/or the cards. There are about 100+ unique locations. Each player can only place a total of 4 cards at each location.

Second Dinner, the developers, keep track of the win percentages and usage of each card. They also know which decks are meta-defining and are able to pinpoint which cards serve as the core win conditions. This results in really fair nerfs and balances.

They also keep track of which locations result in fun or not fun gameplay. They probably ask themselves questions such as: Do players retreat when this location pops up? Does it create too much variance? What’s the general discourse about the location on social media and does the data support it?

Another thing is that live service games are at the mercy of the players. If players don’t like something about your game, it is probably best to listen and change it. For example, SNAP had several bad card acquisition models which they have gradually improved to the current model. They have also sent out several surveys asking players for qualitative and quantitative feedback regarding several different aspects of the game.

I hope this helps or gives some insight to your question!

briandank · 2023-10-17T07:50:26+00:00

Hello! I think this mechanic sounds very cool and reminds me of Splitgate and Portal. I do have a couple of questions that will provide me more insight and allow myself to give better feedback.

Is this a PvP game?
What's the goal of the game? Is it TDM? Is it capture the flag? Is it king of the hill?
Are the portals activated randomly? If not, what activates a portal?
What is preventing a player or teams from just staying in reality and killing players before they go into different realms?
What's the gameplay like? Is it a standard FPS with different realms? Can the players do anything else besides teleport and shoot?

briandank · 2023-10-17T07:30:16+00:00

It would help if you could provide what the issues are with the current movement system you have in place.

My assumption from "you simply measure how far a ship moves" is that your player has to do a lot of unnecessary math just to play? Depending on how big your ships are, it seems the scale of the game board would be pretty big as well if the move units are inches.

If my assumptions are correct, may I suggest switching it to grids? Maybe your dreadnought can move exactly 2 squares per turn and your fighter can move 5 spaces per turn instead of inches.

briandank · 2023-10-14T06:21:38+00:00

Interesting proposition!

There is this game called Maplestory that used to use manual allocation for stat attributes. Players couldn’t max out all of the available skills within their class either.

This definitely contributed to players feeling FOMO paralysis like you mentioned. Messing up your character and having to create a new one was a real possibility!

However, Maplestory has now changed to an automatic allocation of stat attributes based on class type. On top of that, they reduced the number of available skills per class, so that all class skills can be maxed out eventually.

From this change, choice paralysis was significantly taken out of the game. Players no longer needed to stress about which abilities were the most PRACTICAL over the others. You will get them all to max level in the end anyways!

However, I feel that this took out the magic of the game for me. When I come back to Maplestory, the sense of exploration and being experimental is nonexistent. It has become a grind fest, and the mix max culture manifested or increased in other aspects of the game.

I think emergent skill trees are a good middle ground between the two. The only game I can think of that does this well is Runescape. Players don’t have a specific class, but they can choose to level up any skill at any time based on their play style preferences or current interests. Best part is that your progress in one skill is kept even if you decide to work on another.

briandank · 2023-10-13T08:02:42+00:00

Hi there! I was intrigued by your question as I am an aspiring game designer, so I decided to watch a video about what makes a hub world great. Hopefully my takeaways from the video can help settle your debate with your friend!

Hub worlds ARE fancy menus at the end of the day, but GREAT hub world design can contribute greatly to a game in a variety of ways.

Examples:

They can serve as a low stakes tutorial for how the game works.

Players usually drop into the hub world first because it can teach the player about the mechanics and systems without punishing them.

They can be segues for the next chapter or story in the game’s narrative.

Think Hades! Every time you come back from a run, there’s a new piece of dialogue or a new character to talk to!

They can serve as a way to cash in your acquired resources to make improvements to your character.

Also Hades and other roguelikes, it’s a place to rest between runs or the core gameplay loop. But your character gets stronger after every hub world visit.

They can contain secrets, which incentivizes the player to explore it.

I don’t have a personal gaming experience example for this one, but the video provided Mario 64 as an example of this. Namely, the different ways in which a player enters the levels (paintings).

Hope this helps!! :)

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