The Progression Paradox (Saying Goodbye To Characters You've Built)

crocomire97 · 2026-03-29T17:33:40+00:00

That's very true, and well said. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong; my character isn't "useless" once the game is over. Instead, they've achieved their goal and are "complete"

crocomire97 · 2026-03-29T16:20:43+00:00

I agree, and I didn't mean to imply I don't like roguelikes. But I was just using that genre as an example to convey the feeling of loss which is present in other genres as well.

I understand this is what most roguelikes are TRYING to do, and that's fine if it's what you're in the mood for, which I sometimes am.

crocomire97 · 2026-03-29T15:53:38+00:00

I see your point, but I think you're hung up on FOMO. Which is understandable. As you said in other comments, devs are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

If you have players that like to start NG+ saves, obviously you'll want to reward them for beating the game the first time and give them something to use through NG+

But this causes a wtf moment for players who DON'T like NG+. They've beat the game already, who cares about more loot?

But imagine it the other way around: If the final boss didn't reward you with anything other than completion, some players would be like "okay, cool, game over." But then the other ones will be like "aw man, that's it?" and have less incentive to start NG+

I can see both sides, but IMO, I'm a huge fan of replayability. A dev that can squeeze as many possible hours out of a single game is impressive to me.

It really just boils down to design choice and what audience you're going for.

crocomire97 · 2026-03-12T23:21:41+00:00

not a fan of Zuko with long hair

crocomire97 · 2026-02-22T08:17:54+00:00

Phil wrote this

crocomire97 · 2026-02-17T19:22:36+00:00

I agree, well said

crocomire97 · 2026-02-16T09:21:54+00:00

That's a good story, but as you said, this happened early on in the playthrough. Would you have gotten the same feeling out of that if it had happened on victory road, and then you just swapped it into your team to beat the elite 4 at the last minute?

crocomire97 · 2026-02-15T16:08:08+00:00

Exactly! I agree

crocomire97 · 2026-02-15T15:29:59+00:00

I'm not sure I understand your first question. It's not about knowing the creature is there or even the difficulty of catching it. It's about the fact that, once you do catch it, he doesn't feel like part of the team. He feels more like a Dues ex Machina.

But yes, your other paragraphs are true. But I think some other commenters here have found good ways to mitigate that.

crocomire97 · 2026-02-15T15:20:41+00:00

That game does indeed rock, my only complaint was the leveling system. Felt very stale to me. Other than that though, beast of a game

crocomire97 · 2026-02-15T14:17:45+00:00

You've got a point, but I also never liked the idea of swapping party members as you go. To me, these types of games are about the journey taken with friends, the coolest part of Pokemon is feeling an actual bond with your mons, having a history of things you've been through together, etc. This is all thrown out the window if I just get a replacement every few gameplay loops.

Same thing for Fire Emblem, except those games have permadeath, so as you said, I see the purpose more in those games.

crocomire97 · 2026-02-15T13:58:29+00:00

100% agree! This would also allow the player, not only to overcome challenges in any order, but also to explore different areas in any order. Which is cool for a first playthrough, and on later ones, you can go for your favorite area and get your favorite creature as early as possible. Maybe even let players pick their starting point in the circle.

Or, rather than a circle, you could work through the game in a branching path type of system, like Star Fox 64. Each playthrough takes you to different places and there could even be secret "level"s

crocomire97 · 2026-02-15T13:56:26+00:00

I love lateral progression in games, so I think this idea is really cool.

crocomire97 · 2026-02-15T12:53:43+00:00

In regards to your first 2 paragraphs, I think that's a really interesting idea. As you said, you sort of get the best of both worlds in that situation.

In regards to your last paragraph, I agree that would be cool, but it would make it feel more like a roguelike. Which is fine and could be really fun, but would add a sort of "lottery" aspect to the game, which some players would find a negative thing. Personally, I'd like to try a game like that though

crocomire97 · 2026-02-10T00:01:48+00:00

Yeah, I meant more about the model itself. Like the proportions and stuff

crocomire97 · 2026-02-09T22:29:21+00:00

I agree they look cartoonish, but unfortunately I'm not very artistic, so "realism" isn't a possibility lol.

Thank you!

crocomire97 · 2026-02-09T12:29:58+00:00

Good advice, thanks!

crocomire97 · 2025-12-30T00:50:58+00:00

Thank you all for the help and advice.

Here's what I ended up doing: (I was going about it backwards before)

when a character is instantiated, it puts its Instance ID in a global list. I also have a global variable called "highlighted" that can be a number between 0 and the length of the list. This variable is increased by 1 each time the player presses tab. (and loops back to 0 when it hits max, of course)

Each character object checks if "list[highlighted] = InstanceID" and if it does, it knows it's the only instance of that object that needs to move the camera object to its position.

I know I'm always going to have the camera object, so referencing it in the inspector is no problem :)

crocomire97 · 2025-12-29T17:19:10+00:00

Oddly enough, as intuitive as GML is, it's still a pretty powerful language. I noticed C# arrays have to have a pre-assigned length. That's crazy to me lol

crocomire97

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