THE DRAGON'S HOARD (WIP ARTICLE)

So I've been working on an article and what to know what you guys think before I finish and submit it/publish it outside of this forum. It's going to cover much more about boss rewards, as well as parts about puzzle rewards, dungeon rewards, quest rewards and endgame rewards.

Critiques, questions, anything I should add, anything you want to know about?


The Dragon's Hoard
A guide to rewarding great feats in RPGs

Every RPG has some kind of progression--it's the mainstay of the genre, after all. As you carve your way through the story and optional bits, you gain power. But how do you allocate this power when a player accomplishes something awesome? The general thought is to shovel fistfuls of it at the player, although there are much better ways to reward great feats!


Semantics
For the purpose of this article, these are the broad categories of power that I'll be referring to.

Currency is the simplest form of power. Whenever you gain Gold, Zenny, Septims, Ental, etc., you are getting a reward that is spent in order to purchase consumable boosts (potions, antidotes, fire scolls) or temporary boosts (equipment, stays at inns, ressurections).

Points are any sort of numerical progression that provide a power boost after sufficient acquisition. Points are usually permanent, or are spent to gain permanent power increases (currency is not a form of points unless it is directly used to purchase skills or attributes). Experience points, levels, ability points, skill learning percentages and job points are all forms of general points. Most of these already include 'points' in their name!

Equipment is the term used for anything that satisfies two requirements: the player must assign it to a character before it is effective, and it must not be gained by points but rather currency or chests. Equipment is a temporary boost! Along the path of the game, there is usually something even better out there that you can equip--a new sword, some fancier boots, hidden orbs of Blizzaja.

Information is extremely arbitrary and should be used cautiously. Anything that is not a tangible reward for the player (the three power boosts above) falls under the information category. When a player learns that bats are weak against fire, that is an example of minor information. If you tell the player that the Duke is a demon that controlled the boss you just fought and that the player now needs to seek out a way to stop the Duke, you are providing a major information-based power boost. Information is only rewarding the first time the player hears it, but is a neccessary reward.


Combat-based Rewards
Boss battles are typically a form of information-based progression with some sort of tangible power boost. The boost that the player gets is incredibly important--even if you have a wonderful and enchanting story, the player is going to get bored if she doesn't get to grow. After defeating above-mentioned Duke, she's going to want some sort of reward, damn it!

Note that while optional or mini-bosses generally aren't suppliers of story information, they should still adhere to the policy of REWARD THE PLAYER. Information isn't just cutscenes: as a commercial example, the mini-bosses in Etrian Odyssey 2 don't dole out any EXP. Rather, they let you pass through parts of the dungeon more quickly after you clear them out. This may not seem like information, yet it is! The facilitation of information-gathering is as valuable as a pair of Gold Earrings. If you increase the speed at which the player can go from point A to point B (and back!), do so. She'll love you for it.

The most common form of reward for bosses is an immense amount of currency and points. The currency is all well and good (maybe--we'll tackle that in the next paragraph), but points need to be carefully examined.