Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Gaspard]

The way I understand it score is purely cumulative.(Get points for going to the next level, destroying bots and machines, etc)
Wouldn't it be cool to see the score grow under your eyes?
Is there any reason it isn't done?
The only problem I see is that it may be possible to know your alert level by seeing your score, although since I don't know the specific mechanics I can't tell for sure.

[Kyzrati]

True it's purely cumulative; no points are ever deducted (and no it wouldn't give anything away like alert level). Theoretically score could be updated and shown as you play, but I feel this detracts from the feeling of immersion that everything works towards creating. I guess I could stick it somewhere among the F1 menus/pages, where I've ended up sticking other "anti-immersion elements," though there's not really a good place for it.

Probably the closest I've wanted to get to that, among the already planned features, is a way to take a snapshot of your progress at any time (this was another player request), although that was intended to show other aspects of progress and state rather than score, mostly for sharing with other players and making stories easier to tell.

In any case, I think knowing your exact score at any given time could change the experience for the worse. As I see it, score is currently somewhat overemphasized because your route through the world is more linear, whereas in the future stories will (optionally) play a much greater role in the experience.

[Gaspard]

I hadn't thought about the immersion factor...
It may take away from immersion, but I've played several games displaying your score, and it didn't affect me until I was trying to get a high-score having finished the game.
High-scores are pretty much a way to make a game repayable IMO.
I was requesting it because I had a really hard time knowing what contributes the most/least to the score.

Ex: I just got 6000-ish points in a very combat oriented run.
The run before that I got 2000-ish with about the same tactic.
Both times I died at around the time those programmers show up.(Death on both runs: something blows up, no cover left , attempt to flee a huge swarm of bots while losing everything!)
When did the score increase that much? I know the reason of my deaths, but I have no idea what made the difference- was it the additional machines exploded, just plain more destruction, or are programmers worth many points? Does overkill damage contribute to score? Etc.

In any case, I think knowing your exact score at any given time could change the experience for the worse. As I see it, score is currently somewhat overemphasized because your route through the world is more linear, whereas in the future stories will (optionally) play a much greater role in the experience.

Once the game is done, and the player knows all the possibilities, I bet he'll try maxing his score.(Like most games with a score actually)

You could make it a toggle option which is only available if you finish the game once. (I haven't managed that yet, need to play more :p)

The main problem I have right now is the "BAM YOU DIED, HERE IS A SCORE WHICH YOU SEE FOR THE FIRST TIME!" feeling you get.

[Kyzrati]

I was requesting it because I had a really hard time knowing what contributes the most/least to the score.

All score components indicate their number of contributing objects except for one*, so I assume your referring to "Value Destroyed". That one is actually extremely simple--there are only three ways to add numbers to that score (originally there was only one, but I recently added machine-related factors since they contribute to your threat):

• +X points for destroying a robot, where X is the value shown in its name. E.g. an "H-66 Slayer" will net you 66 points.
• +25 points for disabling a machine.
• +40 points for sabotaging a machine.

The latter two are generally done by accident--you don't go around blowing those up on purpose (although explosive ones can be useful, and will be even more useful in the next release!). So the vast majority of your score simply originates from those numbers you see in robot designations.

Kill more tougher robots = higher score.

Remember that all the other score components implicitly show you how much they're worth, For example, Evolutions (2) for 1000 means you get 500 points each time you evolve.

(*There's also "Bonus" but that's a new one currently just for giving extra points for reaching the surface.)