2026-09-15 11:53:50
Anonymous:
Align resumed design work and confirmed expedition choices
hold the flood/open decisions.md ..
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# Hold The Horde — Open Decisions
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This page lists the questions in the design that need an owner decision, as of 14 September 2026. Each entry says where things stand, what the problem is, and the options with their costs. Entries are ordered by how much of the rest of the design depends on the answer.
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This page tracks the questions raised by the outside review of 14 September 2026. Some need an owner choice; others are work for the design team. Each entry explains the problem and the alternatives. The expedition-renewal and combat-growth choices were answered on 15 September; their remaining design work is described below.
The suggestions come from an outside review and are not decisions. When the owner answers, record the answer in the [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief), then update or remove the entry here.
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## 1. How an expedition ends
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*Design*
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**Direction selected.** Combat areas refill with enemies for each new expedition, whether the previous return was alive or through revival. Permanent changes, including unlocked doors and joined rooms, remain. Physical carried property comes home, and temporary combat upgrades reset. The complete answers are in the [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief).
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**Where it stands.** Three rules were set at different times. Everything the astronaut carries comes home on death. Temporary combat upgrades end on every return, alive or dead. A living return leaves the station as it was, with defeated crowds still gone; death reshuffles the unjoined rooms and brings new crowds. Each rule works on its own.
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**What this fixes.** Repeated trips no longer have to cross permanently spent encounters at starting power. Fresh opposition must also provide a fresh opportunity to grow before the next major challenge.
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**The problem.** Together they break the loop. A second trip into a region starts at base power and walks through corridors that are already empty, with nothing to grow against until the next fresh fight, which is farther away each time. [Progress](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Progress) records this as unsolved: "Repeated returns can push fresh combat farther away; that design problem remains open."
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**Remaining team work.** Place renewed crowds around permanent changes without reopening completed seals or undoing discoveries. Show how the second and third expeditions differ in goals, routes, build choices and discoveries, rather than repeating the same opening fight. Explain the reasons to push onward or return with what the player has found.
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Dying costs nothing and brings new crowds, so the efficient move is to die on purpose when far out with a full pack. Rooms change neighbours only at death, so joining the whole station turns into a run of deliberate deaths. [Station Assembly Example](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Station%20Assembly%20Example) counts up to "thirty-nine requested shifts" and says of a final deliberate death: "That is the accepted cost."
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**Separate open choice.** A way to request a station shift while alive remains a proposal for the late joining puzzle. It was not selected by the enemy-renewal answer. No new death penalty has been selected either.
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**Options.**
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- **A. End every expedition the genre way.** Extraction or death, and the crowds refill either way, as in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor or Returnal. *Cost:* loses the feeling of having made a corridor safe; walking home becomes less different from dying.
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- **B. Keep living returns, but let crowds drift back.** The layout and joins stay, but bodies move into emptied rooms from neighbouring sources, so the next trip meets resistance on the way out. *Cost:* needs a believable drift behaviour and tuning; a cleared route is only mostly safe.
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- **C. Give death a small cost that is not loot.** For example, a day passes aboard, a survivor's project resets, or canisters come back empty. *Cost:* the owner rejected loss mechanics as frustrating; this reopens that.
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- **D. Allow rearranging the station without dying.** A machine, lever or survivor project requests a reshuffle of the unjoined rooms. [Station Assembly Example](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Station%20Assembly%20Example) already names this "living realignment action" as the alternative. *Cost:* the shift becomes a tool earlier and loses a little mystery.
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**Suggestion.** B and D together. B keeps all three rules and fixes the empty walk; D removes the deliberate-death puzzle. A is the safer choice if a pure genre feel matters most.
**Where it stands.** A temporary upgrade comes only from resolving a crowd stage: clearing everything a source released, or sealing its opening after the release began. Sealing before the release gives safety and access but no upgrade. Running away gives nothing. Killing enemies faster than they arrive keeps a lane clear but earns nothing while the source still feeds. [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules) expects three to five choices in a sustained trip. On 10 September the team asked the owner whether to switch to regular growth from kills, with larger transformations at milestones, and recommended it. There is no answer yet.
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**The problem.** The cleverest move in a room, sealing a door before the crowd comes, pays nothing. Killing a hundred enemies changes nothing until a stage counts as resolved. Growth arrives slowly for the genre and feels awarded by a referee rather than earned in the fight.
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**Options.**
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**Direction selected.** Temporary combat power grows regularly through fighting, with larger transformations at major horde milestones. This replaces the stage-only award proposal; the choice is recorded in the [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief).
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- **A. Regular growth from kills, with milestone transformations.** The team's recommendation. Small upgrades come often; transformations come when a major surge breaks. *Cost:* more interruptions for choices; needs a meter and pickup design.
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- **B. Keep stage rewards, and pay for the early seal.** Sealing before the release gives the same choice, or a defensive one, so no clever move pays nothing. *Cost:* still slow for the genre; a short trip may earn one choice.
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- **C. Both.** Kills visibly strengthen the installed part that made them, while stages still offer choices. *Cost:* the most design work; the growth has to show on the equipment.
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**What this fixes.** Fighting a substantial crowd can change the build before the entire release is resolved. Each expedition can rise from an ordinary rig toward a spectacular combination, including on a familiar route.
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**Suggestion.** A now, C later. Answering the existing question lets the combat pages settle.
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**Remaining team work.** Design the growth meter or other reward presentation, choice frequency, transformation conditions and reward for avoiding a fight or sealing a source early. Show what the player notices and how each growth step changes the next decision. Avoid frequent menus breaking combat flow, or a familiar farming loop becoming more rewarding than discovery.
- **A. Lower the ambition to what the genre supports.** For example, 10–15 hours to the apparent credits and about 30 to the real ending, with secrets beyond. *Cost:* a smaller promise, and an honest one.
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- **B. Keep the ambition and change the content model.** Survivorlike hours come from replayable runs, not hand-built rooms. If expeditions become runs (decision 1, option A) with a large part pool (decision 3, option A), ninety hours becomes plausible. *Cost:* the game moves toward roguelite and away from authored mystery.
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- **B. Keep the ambition and change the content model.** Survivorlike hours come from replayable runs, not hand-built rooms. Renewed expeditions are now selected (decision 1). A larger part pool (decision 3, option A) could support replay, but neither change establishes ninety hours of worthwhile play. *Cost:* the game moves toward roguelite and away from authored mystery.
- **C. Measure before deciding.** Build one region, time ten expeditions and scale up. *Cost:* no reliable estimate until the prototype exists.
**Suggestion.** A as a working figure and C for the real answer. Pick a content band only after decisions 1 to 4.
