Story Suggestion: Rethinking Origin Stories

[Dusty00]

In another suggestion thread, we've explored ideas of making Story mode more interesting and provide more replay value. I want to present 4 goals as an overview to the suggestion:

1. Add a layer of skills involved to clearing the origin mode.
2. Make origin story a path for players to learn how to play that character.
3. Make origin story a path to grow that character.
4. Provide an option for in-app purchase to support developers.

Now, the specific ideas to achieve the 4 goals above:

• Origin story mode becomes the default way to level up a character. As you play through each node, you gain EXP, unlock skill nodes, and acquire Specials/BBs.
• You are locked to using that 1 character for the entire journey of the origin story. In certain nodes, the game loans you NPCs to assist you in the fight.
• Basic/Advanced/Expert levels can be relabeled to match each character tier: bronze, silver, and gold. Bronze (basic) only allows Bronze tier characters to enter, and the same for silver and gold.

Let me try to map out the user flow for this game mode step-by-step in the following example.

1. You are new to the game.
2. You clear the initial tutorial.
3. You clear basic level of main story mode. You are given a few relics and pull your first bronze characters.
4. You take your Bronze Peacock Rerun and enter Origin Story, basic mode. The game tells you that you can only enter this mode with a level 1 character, no existing upgrades, no skills equipped.
5. The game prompts you if this is the character you want to raise. You say yes. It locks this character card to this mode.
6. The first node in the first map teaches you the basic moves. Tap, swipe, launch. Basically a review of the tutorial but for this character. Upon completing this node, your character's Signature Abilities are unlocked.
7. You enter the 2nd node. This node teaches you about your character's Signature Abilities. You try it out and clear the node. Upon completion, you are presented with 3 special moves (bronze for this scenario since you are using a bronze character) in which you can choose only 1.
8. You enter the next few nodes. Each node you clear again presents you with a special or BB to choose from. Each progression also slowly unlocks your skill trees.
9. By the end of the first map, your character should have unlocked the entire branch of special moves and signature abilities.
10. Upon clearing the first map, your character levels up to lv10.
11. You enter the next map. The second map focuses on basic combos for that character.
12. Again, for each node you clear you either unlock something in you skill tree and/or can acquire specials/BBs to swap out.
13. By the end of the second map, your character should have unlocked the entire skill tree (all branches) and you've had a chance to try out all the specials and BBs.
14. Upon clearing the second map, your character levels up to lv20. The game prompts you to decide what specials and BBs you are keeping.
15. You enter the 3rd/final map. Each node introduces one or a combination of status effects so you can learn how to deal with them with your character. Some nodes can also require you to team up with other characters (matching the stories, so if you are playing Peacock, Big band is the obvious partner).
16. Some of the these nodes should require you to execute staple combos for that character in order to clear. What better place to learn combos than in story mode? You can even build it in as part of the story (I'm thinking about Valentine's story mode where she progressively grow stronger and inherits stuff from her last hope teammates.)
17. Upon clearing the 3rd/final map, your character levels up to lv30.
18. You get a message from the game congratulating you for raising this character card to a level ready to compete in Prize Fights and other game modes. You get to keep a lv30 character card with all skill trees unlocked, and 5 moves that you've tried and liked.

It's free to play the origin story for each level once. If you want to go through it again, you will need to pay X amount of theonites to reset the origin story so you can use it to raise another character card. The amount you pay would be proportional to how much you'd normally have to pay to unlock the full skill tree and keep 5 moves. I'd imagine it being rather expensive for a gold character, but still worth it. Maybe there would be a limit to how many times you can reset origin story mode, something like once a week.

I think this would streamline the learning process for new players, preparing them to learn how to play the character while enjoying the awesome origin story. It also puts the focus on "playing" rather than "managing resources and materials", because the game prompts you to optimize your character in a progressive manner.

Even for veteran players, it's a good incentive for them to revisit origin stories when they acquire a new variant that they want to play. Got a new character from relics and don't want to carry them all the way to lv30 and wait for a specific day of the week to get moves from daily events? Pay some theonites and you'll have a lv30, fully unlocked character card ready to be used for Prize Fight or even Rift battle!