Came across an amazing suggestion in the steam forum, how awesome would it be if they added an endless survival mode DLC to the Banner Saga. I took many of my ideas from an awesome survival-type game I played, FTL.
In other words, its essentially a full-on Oregon Trail mode, or continuous travel mode (battle, event prompts, towns) with no story.
-----------------------
Essentially, you'd be playing continuous battle after battle vs AI Dredge or Humans/Varl bands, no need to add any story, this is about an unsung band of vikings trying to survive during the end of the world, and just see how far in days you can survive till. Don't have to tie it in with the saga 1 story at all, you can even have the same character templates but be able to re-name your units to avoid story confusion and a more personalized party (I'd probably rename my hunter to Rook though)
Give us a selection of some base character classes, and let us choose which ones we want in our party of 6. And then let some of the classes be unlockable depending on how far we got in the survival mode (Day 40 unlocks Grudgewielder, Day 50 unlocks Hardcore difficulty, then 20 days in Hardcore mode unlocks Eagle Eye, etc.). Unlocks are very important to replayability and playing a survival story over and over, as I had found out in FTL.
You play battle after battle, and once in awhile in travel you come across a town instead of a battle, where you can replenish supplies and buy items for newly upgraded units. Same as SP, just change the renown/supplies rate (1 renown for 1/2/3/4 supplies) for each market, and have randomly generated item selection at each market.
If you are too slow and fall behind in travel, because you are resting too much from sustained injuries, you run the risk of the Bellower catching up to you and have to fight a harder fight (sort of like how you always have to outrun the rebels in FTL/Faster than Light - or else you have to fight them). This is the overarching doom mechanism, you'll either die from starvation (lack of supplies, lose your entire population) or die from injuries (units will be unable to fight if they have injury requiring rest of 5 days, having to rest means risking threat of Bellower).
If your entire party is incapacitated or your entire caravan dies, your journey ends at Day X, your personal best should be recorded on the DLC's main screen in some little way
---------------------
Logistics: Not sure how easy it'd be, but I noticed many of the AI fights were already newly generated AI placement,e.g. having to restart a battle again you faced the AI being placed in different spots (the only static one was Bellower I believe). You can set the first few AI fights as easy difficulty, then medium, then ramp it up to Hard. you could re-use some material from the Dredge battles in SP, I would not mind having "the Tower" battlefield or even use Factions maps. For vs. Human/Varl AI battles, you can build on the Training Tent module and use that for creating some battles.
Other ideas for Survival mode:
-Global leaderboard accessible at main menu to compare to friends/past personal achievements
-Have random event prompts occur during travel, like in Saga, which can remove/give you an item, supplies, or a new character. This could be one way to unlock a character class for Survival mode.
-Be able to buy mercenary units from Market (although it would cost a lot of renown)
-Be able to have 2 items equipped per Unit for more customization
-Use the map, have it mark your entire progress through the journey and estimated last location where Bellower was seen on the map as well. Then you can know how far until next known town (but also have newly discovered towns/markets in between)
Reply With Quote
Perhaps this could be formed as a "race", where the parties (the players) try to reach the same destination, and they get to beat each other over it along the way! Your fights could be either PvP or PvE (vs AI), where it actually matters how fast you play and how competent you are. For example, finishing off the enemy in X1 minutes (or turns) gives you a +Y1 day advantage in this "race", while suffering X2 casualties gives a -Y2 day penalty (for recovery). You get to choose whether to go for PvP or PvE battles but, obviously, PvP battles are the most rewarding. Being too far ahead ("first") could trigger random & hard PvE battles to slow you down and increase the competition. Actually, all this could serve as an alternative Factions Tourney, or simply as the "framework" for it. Imagine that its a weekly festival in Strand, to form bands and having the one who first reaches Godstone Z be the champion.
Originally Posted by Arnie
