Increasing Rewards
Reward structures that increase the size or quality of the specific rewards as gameplay progress.
Rewards tied are common in games as ways of acknowledging player successes, and many of these provide gameplay advantages. When these become larger in quantity or more powerful as gameplay progresses, these specific types of rewards can be classified as Increasing Rewards and can either be used to balance increased challenges or demands on resource consumption or be used to clearly indicate to players that they are in other parts of the overall gameplay arc of the games.
Contents
Examples
Many Tabletop and Computer-based Roleplaying Games, e.g. Dungeons & Dragons and the Diablo series, provide Increasing Rewards in the form of larger amounts of money and more powerful magic items the further along players get into the games with specific characters.
The abilities and units unlocked by new technologies in strategy games such as Civilization are Increasing Rewards since they do not only offer variety but functionally better gameplay abilities.
The reward for having military superiority over one's neighbor in 7 Wonders is increased for each age of the game. This provides a motivation for trying to win this competition in the last age even if one has lost all previous since the last one is worth more than the previous two together.
Using the pattern
Increasing Rewards is somewhat unsurprisingly a way to modify Rewards. The reason
Can Modulate
Ever Increasing Difficulty, , Predictable Winner
Potentially Conflicting With
Increasing Rewards are incompatible with Sidegrades since one assumes an improvement in quantity or quality while the other is defined by providing variation but not increase in power.
Narrative Aspects
Increasing Rewards may well be motivated by Narration Structures since many stories contain aspects of improvement in abilities of the main characters, and using the pattern is a way to let gameplay and narration move in tandem.
Consequences
Can Instantiate
with Ever Increasing Difficulty
Potentially Conflicting With
Relations
Can Instantiate
with Ever Increasing Difficulty
Can Modulate
Ever Increasing Difficulty, Narration Structures, Rewards
Can Be Instantiated By
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Can Be Modulated By
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Possible Closure Effects
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Potentially Conflicting With
Sidegrades, Predictable Winner
History
New pattern created in this wiki.
References
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Acknowledgements
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