I am going to limit the charge speed of any spells like Army Summon where charging too fast makes them hard to use.

Levelling up for Merlin is just...bad idea. The experiance system should be deleted for Merlin.

Just Merlin or all wizards?

Just wizards or all magical characters?

What? Everyone should level up! Even graves should level up for being good at being dead!

Leveling up sounds like a good idea and can add more elements of gameplay to mr3

Steve: just leave the experiance to enemies and summoned creatures.

I don't agree. It doesn't make sense if Merlin can't level up but other wizards and magical characters can.

I like the idea that Merlin part of the world.

I think it would be cool if when Merlin leveled up you had some choices in what he got better at like speed, max power, charge speed ect. I really mostly don't like the idea of a "generic Merlin" that would all have set values for a level 7 Merlin. I liked the potions because they allowed for a degree of customization as part of your strategy.

p.s. Of course I would like to customize troops as well :)

Eh, I dunno, Sketch. Maybe Merlin could learn new things (i.e. attacks or something) at higher levels, but even then, we don't want it to get too user unfriendly.

I was thinking that customising your Merlin would be an option. Like if you don't mess with him all the stats from level ups are assighned generically but you can choose to have a quick small blast Merlin or a slower Max Blast Merlin if you wanted too.
You know all it would take is just 4 or 5 sliding bars that won't let you pass a point unless you slide another bar back to give you more "free" power points.
I just think it would be any easy way to extend the replayability and have more potental strategies to try.
I suppose I am a bit more of a "tactical gamer" than a "shoot em up" sort of gamer on most days.

I have a sort of resistance to that idea, not because it's bad but because when you play a game where it possible to customize things, you feel like you're not playing it properly if you don't.

i want to keep things fairly simple for the player, but make the underlying world complex.

a note on how merlin (and all characters) level currently:

each level gains
- extra walk speed (equivelent to green potion)
- extra strength (more damage on melee, more range and damage on ranged)
- extra hitpoints

and randomly chosen one of the following:
- bigger initial blast size (equivelent to purple potion)
- faster charging (equivelent to blue potion)
- bigger max charge (equivelent to red potion)
- increased mana regeneration (lessens the cooldown time)

So the way that Merlin levels could be quite different from game to game.

I see how it would play differently but you wouldn't have much control over him.
What if you gained white potions when you leveled up and you clicked on another color potion to turn white potions you collect into another potion type?
That would be fairly simple.

(Note: I believe someone already had an idea for a potion that let you choose what other potion to level up so not my original idea)

Wow, 12 soon to be 13 comments and only 2 votes.

Your comment on 'potions let you customise him' or whatever the wording was: they don't really; you always try to get all the potions in the game (or none of them, if you want to play it that way), so you'd end out the same each time. With this system, it's different each time, so it's better.

Oh yeah, and you can't really vote on this, as you can't tell whether voting 5 is supporting levelling up, or supporting not levelling up.

Firestorm: Here's how it could be done
1: Bad idea
2: Don't really like it
3: Don't mind
4: OK
5: Good idea

Oh firestorm but it does. Depending on the route you take you have different strenghs at different places on the map. Of course at the final battle most people would have gathered all the power-ups. Of course you are refering to my earlier suggestion not the white potion types.

I disagree with sketches idea. Like Steve said, its good to keep the actual gameplay simple. Also, since when does merlin levelling up make potions obsolete??! potions give an ADDED boost on TOP of levelling up! saying that levelling up makes potions obsolete is like saying walking makes escalators obsolete - u can already walk! Anyways, i like the levelling up, espescially since Steve is making sure that the charge speed doesn't get too high for army/monster summon spells.

Thnx for looking,
MR ROX!

*cough* I am no longer mindless, but am not Sketch's comment protector!
If you want to objct, you'll have to go through me!!!




Err...I live on Mars.







Hopefully he'll believe that, else I'm toast....I still can't walk properly, let alone run...

Er...I meant I am his comment protector...someone fix that.

lol
Your logic is flawless now people will have to go to Mars before they can object to my suggestions.

I agree that it's a bad idea to let Merlin level up. I'd much rather have potions. Merlin should level up with no effects instead, because then it would just be a sort of landmark.
Plus, I wouldn't like the idea of killing something with Merlin and getting no experience. This would encourage Merlin not killing anything and letting his level-able troops do the work.
So I think the solution is to kill stuff with Merlin and, even though stars appear, they have no effect on gameplay.

Well, it's not flawless...becuase...I...err...can't think of a reason for it not to be flawless...nvr mind...

Sketch: Agrees with evilishies
Then Sketch decides not to talk about himself in third person for a while.

Darren said to Sketch in an exited tone "Hehe..." then began skipping insanely, much to the worry of his family and neighbours.

What I have done in the offline version (you see in Demo 0.09) is start Merlin off requiring more exp to reach the first level. I can adjust that number so that during the course of the full game, Merlin could go up say five levels. Not enough to seriously affect the gameplay (you would still need the potions) but it would also mean that his exp wasn't wasted.

So you are planning to cut Merlin off so that the troops would end up being a higher level than Merlin?

*Rolls up newspaper and goes insane on top of Steve*
No! Bad! No Merlin limit! At least not that low! I am "now" compltely insane...bwah-ha-ha!

I think steve meant make him level up slowly.

Yea, maybe, but he said "during the course of the full game, Merlin could go up say five levels"

yeah, due to the extremely slow levelling of him (though I'd guess 5 levels was an exagguration)

IT HAD BETTER BE!!!

I think Merlin should go up the same number of levels as other thingamajig troops, but the benefits are spread across a much larger range of levels. I mean, there are less benefits for level gained, so maybe over the course of the game he will have benefits amounting to about 5 levels, even if he's level 20 or something.

I mean, that's the safe road, since having the main character seem weaker then his allies in any way is a seriously bad desicion, rpg-wise. He should at least appear to be as strong.
It would be kind of annoying with old-school MR-ers to kill tons of their enemies with Merlin, then see some warrior they summon level up past him in about two screens.

Well, I see what you're saying... Ok what about if merlin simply starts off at a higher level. Like he's already level 20 when he begins (reflecting the years of being a wizard plus completing MR1 and MR2).

I like the idea of him starting at a higher level if he was going to level up just a few times over the course of the game. At least then you wouldn't feel inferior to your troop that you could easily destroy.

What if he starts at a fairly low level eg: 5 or 10 because the other levels he would have earned have been taken away by Ulin as punishment for reaking havoc...havok...?

I like the idea of him starting at level 20

Sketch: Agrees with firestorm

Umm...wouldn't that be a little...err...easy?
From my expierience of level 20, it's kinda...tough...

No, his starting stats would be normal, but that would be considered lvl 20 for him (i.e. level 0 would have practially no health, and do virtually no damage, if it was actually possible to get level 0 when you start at level 20)

exactly as firestorm said.

? Wha?

He means that Merlin would start at level 20, and level slowly.

I know, but if level 1 had little health, how can new summons survive?

Only level 0 merlin would have little health, but level 0 merlin wouldn't exist. New summons would have whatever health their level 0 forms are set to. Think about it.

A level 20 for Merlin is the same as a level 0 for other troops, basically.

Oo. Why not just have him level one, then?

Because steve is only going to have him level up a few times and it would be weird to have your troops at level 12 and your still at level 2 but are so much more powerful than your troops.

I don't like the idea of leveling up only a few times...

i like the idea of him starting lvl 20 and lvling up slowly...
Thnx for looking,
MR ROX!

I don't mind that, it's the only a few levels bit...

maybe as he lvls up when he summons things they are at a higher level(new summons) liike the same level Merlin is at.

wow, html formmating works in the DB...

Not the same level, but yes...

I don't think that Merlin being a higher level should make his troop summon spell summon higher level guys from nothing.
I really liked the new demos balance of if you kill all the enemies your troops won't level enough to stay alive long enough.
Is it just me or did the arrow speed speed up?

Yes, the arrows speed up as the units level up. They become stronger so can fire further and faster.

Merlin starting out at level 20 would seem kind of weird if it was the same as level 0 for other characters. It would be like Merlin wasn't as good as the other characters until he hit level 20. I like how it is now.

I suppose this would be the right place to put this:
On the demo if you get the energy blast then go to the goblin hero you get like 8 levels and become extremly fast and able to take out all the enemies by yourself. Worth checking out at least.

Why can't I find the hero?

I checked: he's NOT THERE, or so it would seem...

He's not there? I thought I found him! He looks just like a regular goblin but he kills you in like two hits. He has two huge stars and one middle-sized star.

It could have just been a regular goblin that levelled up by killing my army summons without me noticing, though. I think that's what happened cos he was in the middle of the map, which is odd, I thought he'd be at the end or right after that choke point where you can only go through one way.

After I reached the screen with Energy Blast I started putting my mouse over all the Goblins.
All level 0.

He isn't at the energy blast screen he is like 1 up and one right if I remember right

Who is online?

I couldn't find him there...

Oh, you mean from the start...HE'S NOT NOTICABLE ENOUGH!!! I ONLY JUST FOUND HIM, HAVING SLAUGHTERED HIM/HAD MY MEN SLAUGHTER HIM 100S OF TIMES!!!

He should be a different color or something.

Lol, have the goblin hero wear a cape?

Anyways, I changed my mind now. I like Merlin leveling up, as long as his "leveling upness" is the same in the newest demo, where he levels up slower.