Nemesis Arcs

Okay. This is actually a suggestion we see fairly regularly in the S&I forums... I'd actually like to go over why it hasn't and probably won't be done. Or at least probably won't be done WELL.

To allow players to create an interesting personal nemesis who is interesting and maintains continuity of character between story arcs we'd need some baseline customization of origin, appearance, goals, intelligence, and personality.

Customization of appearance is, really, unimportant to the "Story" of the villain. So putting that entirely in the player's hands with a "Nemesis Character Generator" seems like no big deal. Basically it involves copy-pasting the character generation method to a different, specific, output. No biggie.

However the other four pose the greatest issue.

Let's start with Origin. Origin, in the best system available, would dictate what enemy groups and maps are used in any given arc. If your Nemesis is a Magic character he or she would likely work with or against the CoT, Tsoo, Banished Pantheon, etc for his or her different arcs. And would interact far less with non-magical groups. Similarly a Natural hero might work with the Warriors or something. So that's 5 options which alter storyline fairly heavily.

Goal. Different nemeses have different goals. Not all villains want to rule the world. Some just want to steal things, others want to destroy the world. Let's just stick with those three options: Conquer, Destroy, Steal. Well now we need a "Path" for each origin. So that's 3 more options which alter storyline very heavily. And require 15 arcs to cover each version.

Intelligence. Not all world conquering villains are brilliant masterminds. Some are average men with amazing charisma to lead armies. And still others want to rule through brute strength instead of rationale. So three levels of the Nemesis's intelligence would be needed to show differing levels of sophistication. Slow-Witted, Brilliant, and Average. Three more options to heavily influence arcs. We're up to 45, now.

Personality. This one is the easiest to "Customize" for each particular mission and creates the least amount of alteration to the plot itself, after Appearance. Personality represents the way the character interacts with the player character one being sighted or captured. It changes only the NPC's text, rather than the plot of the arc. Let's go for 6 different personalities. Flirtatious, Brutish, Self-Righteous, Effete, Detached, and Magnificent *******. That's 6 more options.

So we wind up with a list of 45 arcs. That's -enormous-. For storage purposes it becomes 270 missions. Most of which are only -slightly- different.

Natural > Brilliant > Effete > Thief
Natural > Brilliant > Flirtatious >Thief
The only difference between these two arcs would be in the text on meeting the NPC. But unless such text could be cataloged in a procedural list (feasible) they'd take up the same amount of space.

So either 45 arcs with a procedural cataloging indexed by NPC designation or 270 individual arcs. And that's for -one- level range and only heroside. Meanwhile you've got to mirror it and expand it to multiple level ranges.

So let's go for 10-20, 20-25, 25-30, 30-40, 40-45, and 45-50 with the possibility of a level 50 "Capstone" arc. That's another 5 arcs required. 225 arcs -with- the procedural cataloged text, 1350 without it. And that's still -just- heroside! Villainside you'd likely have the Crusader, the Avenger, and the Protector as goals and the arc motivations would be of the character's design, I imagine, with the Hero rushing in to stop them. Think of the villainside dark mirror arcs for an idea of what it would be like.

450 arcs in order to give both sides the full experience of having a single foe chasing them throughout their career. 2700 without the procedural catalog tech. A personalized entity with motivations, intelligence, personality, and appearance picked by the player.

That's not to say it -isn't- worth the effort to put it into the game. But this change is just -so- massive that it would need it's own expansion.

So while I would -LOVE- to see a Nemesis system implemented, I realize how time-consuming cost-ineffective it would be. The greatest benefit of the Nemesis system, outlined herein, would be the "New" feeling of running multiple heroes and villains from 1-50 to see all the new content you can. It would take at least 90 to see all the mission arcs -without- seeing all of the "Personality" texts.

-Rachel-

The only thing I'd also suggest is to make it optional; some people design their own, playable, character nemesis. If it was optional, that'd be cool. Andm glancing at the suggestion, it looks good so far.

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Exactly, Diggis. The idea itself is ... Fantastic. It's expansive and beautiful and could lead to great storytelling.

Heck! You could create a few hundred more permutations by having "Team Up" arcs in which supergroups can select which of their nemeses (collectively) will work together for a story arc from a Mission computer, and then launch into a whole new experience as your personal villain joins up with the personal villain of another SG mate to wreak chaos and havoc.

They could even expand it -further- by having "Personal Villain" tagging in the madlibs that form our Newspaper and Radio missions. Every once in a while your personal nemesis could show up with an origin-specific group as the boss at the end of a randomized mission.

But. All of this is based on the initial customization, which would be far too much work for a "Random" named boss you fight once in a while. They'd need storyarcs involving the enemy in order to justify their use. Enter the 450 "Baseline" arcs ranging from 1-10 missions each (depending on plot) and you wind up with a massive undertaking which would add hugely to the overall content total for the game, increase replay value dramatically, and take away every content generating developer for months if not years at a time.

The only plausible solution to create these storyarcs in a way which allows the Developers the chance to create other content at the same time would be to enlist the help of the playerbase, volunteer writers, and so forth. But that is a massive legal undertaking in and of itself.

And overall it's probably just not worth it. Especially since some players (like Techbot Alpha) wouldn't want to use such a massive and involved system.

-Rachel-

Don't we have a mission architect for this sort of thing already?