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Indivisible: Lab Zero's Action-RPG! (General Discussion)

The ringsels remind me of missle and health upgrades from metroid, at least with the idea that they're going to be hidden and you need to look for them.

I just hope if it is going to be that way there won't be some cryptic ones like in metroid of bomb a wall that looks perefectly normal. Got nothing against them being hidden but I just like in games the feeling of me exploring and thinking of where they could be would be more rewarding to a player than say bombing random walls.

But that's why I like the X-ray viscor in metroid it helps me locates secrets with said walls and intices me as a player to go back to previous areas and explore. Basically I just am really craving well treated curiosity exploring, which I'm sure I'll get.

However this does lead to a question (and albeit it's probably a given.) will there be a percent or number counter for completioniets like me? As opposed to say metroid where it shows your completetion number at the end of the game?
 
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Trying to do some math here. Including Honey, there are 29 revealed original incarnations. We aren't sure how many of them will be playable, but at a conservative estimate let's say 10. There's also some guest characters but again for sake of argument let's say none of them can be upgraded for whatever reason. Each incarnation has 4 levels of action and 4 levels of defense. Ravidrath just confirmed it will take multiple Ringsels for each upgrade; again, as a conservative estimate, let's assume "multiple" means "two", and that this never goes up (it doesn't take more Ringsels to get from level 3 to level 4 than from level 1 to level 2 or anything like that). Let's also assume there are enough Ringsels to fully upgrade every upgradable incarnation, because if it DOESN'T work like that that's bullshit (unless you can respec).

So, 10 incarnations times 4+4 upgrades times 2 Ringsels per upgrade is 160. For comparison, Super Metroid has a total of 85 collectables between missiles, super missiles, power bombs, energy tanks, and reserve tanks. Even with my conservative numbers there's nearly twice as many collectables in Indivisible than in Super Metroid. And some of the stuff in Super Metroid isn't even well hidden, it's just like, right there.

So I guess what I'm wondering is... how is Lab Zero going to hide this many collectables? Either the map needs to be way larger than Super Metroid, or a huge number of these Ringsels need to be freebies. Also y'all seriously expect me to fight a boss for a Ringsel when I need like a billion of them? The boss better drop like, 9 Ringsels or something.
 
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well it is said that ringsels are most likely going to be coming in packs. And boss characters that have ringsels are either going to have a ton of em, or a couple of them already charged.
 
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mcpeanuts said:
There's also some guest characters but again for sake of argument let's say none of them can be upgraded for whatever reason
I went to copy from the update page, but the info's no longer there o.o Did say som'in about not having to worry about "Lost Wanderers" or som'in to that nature, but it's not there anymore.
mcpeanuts said:
So I guess what I'm wondering is... how is Lab Zero going to hide this many collectables?
Update said:
Finding Ringsels
Ringsels can be found almost everywhere, usually off the beaten path. While there will be a few individual Ringsels, they’ll mostly come in larger bundles.

My question here is: How will we "charge" these things... More like, literally "How". I mean I know we charge em from attacking/defending, but do have to equip em, have em in the inventory, what else? Also will they all charge at once (at the same time)?
 
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Magma442 said:
remind me of middle and health upgrades from metroid

I fully expect one of them to come to life and attack us a la Super Metroid.

Kit Ballard said:
My question here is: How will we "charge" these things... More like, literally "How". I mean I know we charge em from attacking/defending, but do have to equip em, have em in the inventory, what else? Also will they all charge at once (at the same time)?
Probably get "X Attack Charge, Y Defense Charge" after every battle. Based on the blacksmith Incarnation, this "charge" probably represents the heat of her anvil for forging ringsels. Once one's charged, remaining exp automatically goes to the next.

Basically, as I understand it, ringsels = levels; you have attack levels and defense levels, and assign these to your party members to unlock attacks.
 
mcpeanuts said:
but at a conservative estimate let's say 10
The number we're usually given is 25, so the math actually becomes pretty insane.
 
Ringsels are actually more like the weapon/armor system for this game. And, yes, it's very intentionally designed to be Metroid-esque. But with the added step of "charging" them to tie them into battle and incentivize battle performance.

As for how they're charged, they'll likely be UI elements in the battle or post-battle UI, and they'll fill up based on how much energy you generate in battle. These are just example numbers, but imagine normal battles might fill like 20-30% of one Ringsel, and bosses might do 2-3 whole Ringsels. We don't want you to need to grind a ton to fill them all, at least if you're not button-mashing through battles.

Keep in mind that a lot of the RPG stuff in this game is meant to be streamlined. There's no money, no items to use, you don't "equip" anything except for party members, etc. Like, currently just about the only menus in the game are the Party Select UI and Options.

We debated another term to use instead of "level," since characters will also level up from use / experience, but couldn't agree on anything so went with a generic term. The next update on progression will talk about how leveling up, etc. will work.


AdenPhoenix said:
The number we're usually given is 25, so the math actually becomes pretty insane.

We're looking at 25 minimum, yeah. Not including guest characters.
 
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Wow I haven't been in this thread for a while

Part of my monthly budget is going to upgrading my pledge this year lol

Keep on rockin', Ajna
 
So we're charging 1 (technically 2 since there's attack and defensive ones) at a time? That sounds a bit tedious if we have to charge over 200 of em.. course not all at the same time, but when they start piling up from exploring/bosses, might be a bit of a grind. Specially when you want to max out as many people as you can (for completionists).
 
Kit Ballard said:
So we're charging 1 (technically 2 since there's attack and defensive ones) at a time? That sounds a bit tedious if we have to charge over 200 of em.. course not all at the same time, but when they start piling up from exploring/bosses, might be a bit of a grind. Specially when you want to max out as many people as you can (for completionists).

Those were just examples.

We definitely want to balance it so that it's NOT a huge grind. Maybe a medium grind at most, if you're not great at battling.
 
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Grind me into dust LZ

I wanna have to play for months on end
 
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Ravidrath said:
Ringsels are actually more like the weapon/armor system for this game. And, yes, it's very intentionally designed to be Metroid-esque. But with the added step of "charging" them to tie them into battle and incentivize battle performance.
I'm really curious how significant each boost from the Azure(Defense) Ringsels will feel during battle. From reading the update, my initial thought is that Crimson(Attack) Ringsels will immediately feel like the more preferred upgrade, since gaining the additional Actions will bring such a wealth of strategic options. Ginseng & Honey already look like a great example of that. More Actions would also mean longer combos to build meter with, which might ultimately outweigh the Iddhi gained from Blocking.

Unless enemies at the start of the game do Scribble Cat levels of chip damage (yikes), or reaching a Lv5 Azure upgrade makes your character nearly invincible while Blocking (whoa), it seems like it might be hard for some players to quantify the defensive benefits they gain after maybe Lv2 or Lv3. Will Azure Ringsels also affect a characters' Iddhi Drain while Holding Block? If so, that seems like it would be the most immediately apparent boost, since every player would probably like having more time to Block.

I just imagine it must be extremely difficult to juggle Offensive/Defensive upgrades for a game. I realized in a lot of games I've played, Defensive upgrades usually seem to end up in a weird situation where they're either those items you can mostly ignore, or they're so mandatory to complete the game that the devs have to practically giftwrap them for you after boss fights, or conveniently stock Shops/Bonus-Areas with new gear at every major climactic point.

I'd like to think that for Indivisible, you guys manage find a balance where even casual players could feel emboldened enough to bypass some Azure Ringsels if they wanted to, but not while being ignorant of the Azure's obvious benefits either.
 
Ravidrath said:
Those were just examples.

We definitely want to balance it so that it's NOT a huge grind. Maybe a medium grind at most, if you're not great at battling.
I'm cool with what ever you guys pick honestly. Just thinking out loud for some that might have that type of question.
 
KaboomKid said:
I'm really curious how significant each boost from the Azure(Defense) Ringsels will feel during battle. From reading the update, my initial thought is that Crimson(Attack) Ringsels will immediately feel like the more preferred upgrade, since gaining the additional Actions will bring such a wealth of strategic options.
Those aren't mutually exclusive. You search for upgrades, and if you happen to stumble upon blue one instead of red one you wanted more, your only choice is to deliberately not taking it. Which doesn't make sense since less useful bonus is better then no bonus at all. They are also required for character quests so you you'd probably want that.
 
Not-So-Saint said:
Those aren't mutually exclusive. You search for upgrades, and if you happen to stumble upon blue one instead of red one you wanted more, your only choice is to deliberately not taking it.
Right, I'm assuming that much, and I'm really making more of a general observation here than any kind of criticism. If Ringsels are handled like Super Metroid upgrades though, then a number of them will probably still be visible on the map, but just teasing players from obscure spots, and we'll have to find the hidden paths to reach them. In those cases, where the item is visible but obstructed, I'm just curious if most gamers will feel the drive to dig up that secret path for a Defensive item as much as they might for an Offensive one, or if they'll tend to take their Defense for granted until they finally get bodied by chip damage from a Major Boss.

Again, a lot of games typically don't have players search for important Defensive boosts as much as Offensive ones, so I think some players are going to need to make a mental adjustment from what they're used to. They won't be able to just rely on buying the best armors at the next shop, or get the Varia Suit for free after beating Kraid, they'll have to do a bit more searching.
 
There's more to defense than tanking: Counters, absorption, status resistance or immunity, chance of auto-rez or heals, enemy scan, more lenient windows for perfect Iddhi gain... As I see it, any miscellaneous non-attack, non-action buff could be "defensive." "Utility Armor" could be well worth seeking. "Haste does better DPS than Fireball," say the min-maxers. I'm sure Lab Zero can make defense interesting. Remember your Materia...
 
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This makes me kind of curious if the Zen run idea is still in play here.

Even in the prototype you probably had to eat a few hits to get out without killing and Mike talked about Paper Mario speedrunning and badge manipulation, but this makes it seem like your main defense gains still require actual combat XP on top of discovery. I would hate the run to become particularly RNG based in the late game if it's still planned at all.
 
KaboomKid said:
Right, I'm assuming that much, and I'm really making more of a general observation here than any kind of criticism. If Ringsels are handled like Super Metroid upgrades though, then a number of them will probably still be visible on the map, but just teasing players from obscure spots, and we'll have to find the hidden paths to reach them. In those cases, where the item is visible but obstructed, I'm just curious if most gamers will feel the drive to dig up that secret path for a Defensive item as much as they might for an Offensive one, or if they'll tend to take their Defense for granted until they finally get bodied by chip damage from a Major Boss.

Again, a lot of games typically don't have players search for important Defensive boosts as much as Offensive ones, so I think some players are going to need to make a mental adjustment from what they're used to. They won't be able to just rely on buying the best armors at the next shop, or get the Varia Suit for free after beating Kraid, they'll have to do a bit more searching.
Compare to Metroid. How many Missile Tanks do you really need? But no matter how much of a surplus you have, that still doesn't stop you from trying to nab every last shiny, does it?
 
Been thinking about it, and maybe the ringsels idea might be kind of dumb, especially the action one. It's grindy, puts you in a disatvantage when more incarnations join (you would have put the ringsels on your current incarnations, thus needing to find more, and who knows where), and basically you're just taking traditional levels and putting them as items: basically exp X char but one at a time. Worse than levels.

Just my two cents, hope I didn't come out as rude.
 
I don't think they're dumb but I think I'm missing the point. We were told pretty often character upgrades would be Metroid style so that grinding would not only be unnecessary but it wouldn't actually do anything for you. If I am understanding this they technically are Metroid-like upgrades but you still have to grind to fill them (even if it's a small amount) before you can use them so grinding is actually a thing you're just limited to how many you've found at any given time, which seems like it might not be all that restricting if you aren't rotating Incarnations that much and willing to explore.

It feels like they wanted both RPG grinding (but not an excessive amount) and Metroid upgrades and just went with both, but I don't understand how that benefits anything other than it means you HAVE to fight AND explore to upgrade your characters instead of either or. I guess that might be the entire point, that's a pretty blatant design choice, but as said, it makes me not understand how Zen run would still be a thing since it sounds like you can't upgrade your defense without fighting, meaning late game hits would probably be fatal. I know the combat is skill based but since there are stats and upgrades I am assuming they have to be useful to some degree.
 
AdenPhoenix said:
it makes me not understand how Zen run would still be a thing
I don't know Mike's stance on Zen existing, but he hates the idea of speedrunners avoiding all fights.
 
During the campaign period he said he would probably aim to do it for the full game. I understand that's not a promise, but as I stated earlier he brought up Paper Mario as an example for speedrunning this kind of game and badge manipulation specifically. I'm just not seeing how this works, and maybe it doesn't and that's that.

I still just find the Metroid pick ups you have to grind idea strange in general. That's not "bad strange", just strange. It does make it so you have to both explore and fight to actually upgrade, I understand that much.
 
Well if you look at Paper Mario speedrunning, they're able to beat the game with very little XP. A casual playthrough will want to power up those Ringsels, but I'm sure it's possible to go without if you're skilled enough.
 
missingno said:
I'm sure it's possible to go without if you're skilled enough.
Certainly, as I said, combat is skill based.

But that with how running from fights works you're still going to get hit from time to time, I'm just curious if you can afford that late game with no defense upgrades.
 
missingno said:
Compare to Metroid. How many Missile Tanks do you really need? But no matter how much of a surplus you have, that still doesn't stop you from trying to nab every last shiny, does it?
Well, in my first Super Metroid playthrough, I did not feel the drive to get every Missile Upgrade, especially by Maridia where they really teased you hard with a few of them. That was also my first time playing a Metroid, so I had no concept of 100% runs, the tactical importance of Missiles, or even their general importance to the franchise (I remember losing most of my health to the first room of Metroids in Tourian, lol). For some reason I also thought every weapon was going to cap at 150 ammo, so I was getting frustrated that I wasn't finding more Super Missiles or Power Bombs, which I thought were cooler. Like Not-So-Saint was talking about, I would still pick up Regular Missile Upgrades I came across in my (little) bit of searching, but I definitely started to ignore any openly visible ones that were tricky to reach.

In Super Metroid you can kinda get away with being ignorant like I was, since like you said, most of those Upgrades aren't that important for finishing the game. I don't see that being the case with Ringsels though. If the average dude is as ignorant about the importance Azure Ringsels as I was about Regular Missile Upgrades, he's probably going to have to learn his lesson the hard way eventually. I imagine the tricky part for LabZero, is making sure people with that mindset learn their lesson early, and quickly.
The Dave said:
There's more to defense than tanking: Counters, absorption, status resistance or immunity, chance of auto-rez or heals, enemy scan, more lenient windows for perfect Iddhi gain...
Oh, I'm not worried at all about Defense being interesting. What I'm mainly talking about is what the average gamer's perception of Azure Ringsels might be, which are focused on the benefits of Blocking. Will most gamers appreciate those better Blocking Stats enough to go after those Azures like they should, or will they think exploration should be secondary, let themselves die to chip damage 100 times, and walk away thinking the game is unbalanced? "Why did I die? I was blocking!"

That's part of what really excites me about this game though. Players will actually need to take ownership of their defensive skills and stats for a change, and actively seek out the Upgrades and Party Members that will improve their strategy. Even Healing items are off the table. There won't be any XP Grinding, Checkpoint Shops with the latest gear, Materia stacking, or Potion hoarding to fall back on if someone wants to play it sloppy and safe. However, that also means players will need to pay more attention to their team setup, their meter, and definitely how much damage they're taking in battle. We'll have to see how many of 'em are up for it.
 
Okay, but we have 25 incarnations. My main problems are: how many ringsels can you find in an area? How many can you give to an incarnation? Given all this I'm worried that cycling incarnations would be discouraged because newly recruited ones would have no ringsels if you used all of them on your current ones, thus the player either using a specific party for a long time up to the point where they need an incarnation that they neglected, or rationing ringsels up to the point where they fall behind enemies for fear of having a weak new incarnation.

Plus, this sounds like forcing exploration, not encouraging it.
 
ArgonBern said:
I'm worried
Well there's your problem.

ArgonBern said:
newly recruited ones would have no ringsels if you used all of them on your current ones
Characters can be introduced at the proper strength to be practical. Hell, Kain in Final Fantasy IV leveled up better outside my party than in it. Really wish the villain would've mind-controlled my wizard, she needed the training.

Plus, given the ties between plot and rewards, new characters can be introduced alongside ringsels for customization.

There's probably going to be a "base level competence" for following the plot, and then a final dungeon before which you can explore and grind to your heart's content. These things can be hidden anywhere, activated in any way- in random bricks, guarded by a mini-boss, an old family heirloom, behind the neighbor's clock next to the Elixer, etc.

I think tying attack and defense growth to performance is a pretty clever way to satisfy Mike Z's desires for "skill based rewards" instead of time-based progression while providing options for players who suck excessive Kirby fans like myself. Block really well, get more ringsels. Suck at blocking? Grind or adapt, accordingly. Or maybe use platforming to get defense ringsels to make blocking easier so you can level it up more easily through battle.
 
ArgonBern said:
this sounds like forcing exploration, not encouraging it.
Combat is skill based, you probably need some upgrades but I doubt it will actually "force" exploration if you master the systems. And when the game is rooted in classic JRPGs and Super Metroid why would you ever not explore?
 
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ArgonBern said:
Okay, but we have 25 incarnations. My main problems are: how many ringsels can you find in an area? How many can you give to an incarnation? Given all this I'm worried that cycling incarnations would be discouraged because newly recruited ones would have no ringsels if you used all of them on your current ones, thus the player either using a specific party for a long time up to the point where they need an incarnation that they neglected, or rationing ringsels up to the point where they fall behind enemies for fear of having a weak new incarnation.

Plus, this sounds like forcing exploration, not encouraging it.
Don't forget that Atk/Def levels need to be unlocked.

At the start you can feed chars only up to lvl 2. When you maxed out your preferred team, you'll end up with some leftovers. Now you have options: you can lvl up your backseat chars just in case they'll get more useful and have well-balanced roster; you can store leftovers for new char who you later will find cool/effective; you also can just wait till lvl 3 gets unlocked to maximize your favorites ASAP. And don't forget that maximum lvl is only 4. That's not much. If you're bent on maxing your favs, you'll hit the ceiling relatively fast I assume, after that, you'll get your leftovers.

Also there probably will be some pretty obvious easy-to-get ringsels, with which you'll be able to max out several characters and that would be enough to get you through main quest.

Also argument about skill-based combat still applies.
 
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If people are still on the fence about upgrading to a physical copy. I've done so for a physical copy of the game for PS4 and a digital for Steam.

But there is also going to be a retail version released too

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Just incase people are as clueless or behind the times as I
 
Wait, if we upgrade to physical, do we still get a digital beta code for steam?
 
Yes. The physical tier includes everything in the previous tier, you can even get them for separate platforms if you want.
 
I imagine it'd be pretty involved, but I would love for there to be a lot of ringsels with unique art assets with a short lore blurb associated with it, fleshing out the world and acting as a collection viewable in the inner realm. A more reasonable hope would be that each world region has differently styled crimson and azure ringsels, with a commonality of the action ones being red and defense being blue to avoid confusion about collecting an item that looks different but has the same function. Thinking further, the separate regions would also more easily serve hunting down missed ringsels if there were a counter (example: 5/19 found in desert area).

More importantly, I also share concerns regarding using a limited resource that upgrades characters possibly incentivizing players to use a limited roster. Tiering the upgrades is a good start to spreading the progression horizontally. I kinda imagine there might be some forced character usage for plot reasons too. It's possible limiting your party could be encouraged too, if your current party gave a unique enough experience that multiple playthroughs felt differently dialogue and story-wise. I also have a concern about relegating personal story quests until that character is level 4 in attack and defense, which sounds like mid to late game. It's possible they'll be woven in pretty naturally from a gameflow perspective, however the idea that once the tier 4 upgrades become available, having a lot of side stories just pop up as they're upgraded sounds somewhat arbitrary (even if the character feels strong enough to overcome their challenge now). Some players might not even encounter such an "issue" depending on how they're spending the ringsels.

I don't know what direction lab zero wants to take; I do have confidence they'll consider all sorts of things to give the best games they can. I'm looking forward to that growth and stats system update.
 
They could probably get away with making like 60 ringsel designs then have like 4 pallet swaps for each one. But that's a lot of work for something that may not be a great payoff to some players.
 
boboflesserdoom said:
I also have a concern about relegating personal story quests until that character is level 4 in attack and defense, which sounds like mid to late game.
Well, since these quests are optional and you literally required to have character in question maxed up, I think they can make these quests pretty hard assuming player is level'd up and ready for the challenge.
 
Not-So-Saint said:
Don't forget that Atk/Def levels need to be unlocked.

At the start you can feed chars only up to lvl 2. When you maxed out your preferred team, you'll end up with some leftovers. Now you have options: you can lvl up your backseat chars just in case they'll get more useful and have well-balanced roster; you can store leftovers for new char who you later will find cool/effective; you also can just wait till lvl 3 gets unlocked to maximize your favorites ASAP. And don't forget that maximum lvl is only 4. That's not much. If you're bent on maxing your favs, you'll hit the ceiling relatively fast I assume, after that, you'll get your leftovers.
Sounds like a good idea but it says that nowhere in the update.
 
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