Hello you lovely deviants,I wanted to share with you the "Frustration" Mechanic. I've wanted to do something around your Protagonist's... "seed" for a while, And I think I finally have it!Right now I am calling it "Frustration" - To quickly summarise it, you will be able to build up this frustration amount when you are out exploring in combat zones - and when you return to the village, you will be able to "deposit" your frustration for rewards. And the higher tier of frustration the better chance for better rewards, or luck when triggering mechanics.The GIFs I plan to share show a visible frustration meter just for purpose of demonstrating what it does, not what it would actually look like in the UI
Also The numbers and rate of build up are just arbitrary right now - just for demonstration purposeLets Begin!How will you build up frustration?
Once your Lust Meter reaching its maximum - you will start to build up your frustration. (Your lust meter is in pink in the bottom left)
However, the frustration will only build if you are moving. If you stand still, it will begin to deplete as you can see below (think of it as you collecting your composure) - so you can't just stand still and build up this frustration. There is also a cap that will change and increase as you level up, because you will get better at maintaining and managing this.
Additionally, if you release your Lust, your Frustration will deplete even quicker - I made it deplete very quick just as a point, it would not be this quick, otherwise you couldn't use the lust mode at all.
This Frustration amount will only finalise once you settle in a safe zone/non combat zone - but there is a slightly failsafe because you may accidently trigger a safe zone - so you will have a brief few seconds to go back without it finalising.In the below you enter a safe zone (indicated by the street sign, and the fading UI) - and see the total lock to 301 - but you come back out of that zone, and it has still not finalised.
To finalise the Total, and get your Tier - you would enter the safe zone and stay. This will drop your total back to Zero, and give you a "frustration Tier"This could be, Empty, T1, T2, T3, T4 (I may think of more fun names) Which would be based on the total and how close to that total you are. So in the below you can see the character waited in the safe zone, and their total reset to 0 and they got Tier 3
This will store a reference to that T1 until it is either used in the village, OR you exit to go out exploring again - you must release your frustration whilst in the village, or you will lose it if you go out adventuring and it will reset. You cannot horde this.
Below is you going back out before using your lust, the Tier resets to Empty
So what do you do with this "Frustration"
I plan and hope to incorporate it for most Vendors and named NPCs in some capacity - but i have not finalised that list. But I think it will be a good foundational mechanic for increasing reward chances, or reward quality, or if you get timed bonuses to extend the length of it.The main plan is to iron out the base purposes and rewards/purchasable goods from Vendors and named NPCs, then leverage that to incorporate the frustration bonuses.
This is a mechanic that i do intend to deploy, but I did have one main question I wanted to ask you.Should the Frustration Amount you gather whilst you are out exploring be visible, or should it be like a surprise when you go to "deposit" it.What i mean by this is, if it were visible, you could track the total and which tier you are up to whilst out adventuring - so it would be more predictable and manageable. or, would you prefer the mystery of not knowing so when you deposit its kind of like a nice surprise of which Tier you hit?