Map Progression
I’ve been thinking about story progression in terms of maps and tile sets.
There are specific tile sets I want to build. Some just because they sound fun, some because I want to cover various elemental themes (sorta wu xing).
Let’s say I shoot for 12 tile sets in this game. Alternating between “overworld” and “underworld” areas (almost) where the overworld areas feature a town and the underworld areas feature quest targets and bosses.
- Grasslands (feat. a pioneer village)
- Dark Forests (wood boss)
- Badlands/Ruins (feat. a gothic/zombie village)
- Dungeons (metal boss)
- Mountain Passages (feat. a mountain village)
- Caves (earth boss)
- Tundra (feat. a frozen fort)
- Ice Palace (water boss)
- Desert (feat. a trade post)
- Fire Temple (fire boss)
- Sky Bridge (feat. a handful of powerful NPC allies)
- Villain Fortress (end boss)
Assuming I aim to have about an hour of main-quest content in each tile set, that’s a decent 12-hour story with plenty of changes of scenery. There can be side quests and optional maps too. Numbers are minutes:
- 000-060 Grassland
- 060-120 Forest
- 120-180 Ruins
- 180-240 Dungeon
- 240-300 Mountain
- 300-360 Caves
- 360-420 Tundra
- 420-480 Ice Palace
- 480-540 Desert
- 540-600 Fire Temple
- 600-660 Sky Bridge
- 660-720 Villain Fortress
Also, assuming early levels go by faster than later levels. Approximately:
- Level 1 for 10 mins (000-010)
- Level 2 for 20 mins (010-030)
- Level 3 for 30 mins (030-060)
- Level 4 for 40 mins (060-100)
- Level 5 for 50 mins (100-150)
- Level 6 for 60 mins (150-210)
- Level 7 for 70 mins (210-280)
- Level 8 for 80 mins (280-360)
- Level 9 for 90 mins (360-450)
- Level 10 for 100 mins (450-550)
- Level 11 for 110 mins (550-660)
- Level 12 for 120 mins (660-780)
Conveniently this means the player would be level 12 when on the 12th map.
This fits the equipment curve as well (where max level items are about level 14)
Applying time spans to maps, here are the expected creature and treasure levels for each map.
- Grasslands level 1-3
- Forests level 4-5
- Ruins level 5-6
- Dungeon level 6-7
- Mountain level 7-8
- Caves level 8
- Tundra level 9
- Ice Palace level 9-10
- Desert level 10
- Fire Temple level 10-11
- Sky Bridge level 11
- Villain Fortress level 12
The actual XP amount per level will be adjusted once content is in place. Here’s a rough estimate. Currently I’m using XP per kill is the enemy’s level. Estimate about 10 kills per minute (assume some downtime dealing with loot etc, and also assume large quest reward xp).
| Level | Minutes | XP to Next | Total XP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 | 100 | 100 |
| 2 | 20 | 400 | 500 |
| 3 | 30 | 900 | 1400 |
| 4 | 40 | 1600 | 3000 |
| 5 | 50 | 2500 | 5500 |
| 6 | 60 | 3600 | 9100 |
| 7 | 70 | 4900 | 14000 |
| 8 | 80 | 6400 | 20400 |
| 9 | 90 | 8100 | 28500 |
| 10 | 100 | 10000 | 38500 |
| 11 | 110 | 12100 | 50600 |
| 12 | 120 | 14400 | 65000 |
| 13 | 130 | 16900 | 81900 |
| 14 | 140 | 19600 | 101500 |
| 15 | 150 | 22500 | 124000 |
| 16 | 160 | 25600 | 149600 |
| 17 | – | – | – |