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Crypts of Avaritia - design discussion and feedback

Durwyn

Prophet
Joined
Oct 29, 2006
Messages
1,132
Location
Erewhon
Regarding the hunting skill it will work in a way that the more efficient you are (higher skill level), the more meat you can get of a killed animal. The only places to find food is in in habitats, some few plants and to kill animals/creatures. Since survival will be a big part of the gameplay I do feel that it is needed to be able to hunt to some degree.
I'm cool with that, however I strongly encourage you to adapt the ADOM style for food. I don't know if you're familiar with it, basically different monster corpses or edible things found in the dungeons could have different effect on you, plus it'd get rotten if hauled for to long. Don't know how complex your game systems will be, but with survival as the key phrase, the game can only benefit from some anxiety before every meal.
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
I'm cool with that, however I strongly encourage you to adapt the ADOM style for food. I don't know if you're familiar with it, basically different monster corpses or edible things found in the dungeons could have different effect on you, plus it'd get rotten if hauled for to long. Don't know how complex your game systems will be, but with survival as the key phrase, the game can only benefit from some anxiety before every meal.

I will look that up, seems interesting, thanks!

My current implementation is that animals and some creatures will be able to give you meat, if eaten raw you have a chance (depending on creature) of getting poisoned/sick unless your poison resistance is high. I plan to have more than one type of illnesses that each require a certain antidote, although I currently only have one implemented. To lessen or even extinct chance of poisoning you must cook your food by a fire, this is already in the game. The same goes for water, if you take it from a non-clean source you have to boil it by a fire to clean it, otherwise you have a chance of getting poisoned/sick unless your poison resistance is high yet again.

Regarding the rotting over time this seems like a nice idea, might be quite easy to implement since it is similar to degrading equipment with usage. A nice thing to add to that system is that once you cook your meat you can only save a certain percentage of the raw meat since the rest is rotten, so the longer you wait the less you can use which seems reasonable.

The actual enemies/creatures that allow scavenging meat will be pretty limited since many creatures are magic in nature and hence are not made out of flesh. Though I do admit it would be rather gnarly to eat some centaur meat, will add very high chance of poisoning if I use that option :D
 
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Durwyn

Prophet
Joined
Oct 29, 2006
Messages
1,132
Location
Erewhon
Though I do admit it would be rather gnarly to eat some centaur meat, will add very high chance of poisoning if I use that option :D
Again by all means play ADOM if you haven't, even if you're not into roguelikes. Just go south to the first unending dungeon and dive in the awesomeness. I have a certain roguelike vibe from your game which gives it charm.

You can have multitude of imaginative usages for this kind of mechanic, especially that you have the foundations for it. For ex. eating a demons flesh might give you unearthly strength for a price of summoning his "older" brothers on random to decimate you. Just giving hints.
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
känns som en blandning av Daggerfall och Thief.

fortsätt.

Man tackar! Actually I use Thief for inspiration on the graphical side (and gameplay wise of course, in Thief you are no Superman and need to be careful, just like I intend to do things) and a lot of other older games. They are really good at capturing the essence of how things look and feel with simple means, and since I am no pro that seems just the way to go for me, plus the fact that I really like the old school 3D-graphics. I played Gothic the first time 2 years ago and thought it looked beautiful, still thinks Quake looks awesome etc.
Daggerfall is also a very big inspiration mechanics wise, that and Arena really has some nice stuff going on.
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
Though I do admit it would be rather gnarly to eat some centaur meat, will add very high chance of poisoning if I use that option :D
Again by all means play ADOM if you haven't, even if you're not into roguelikes. Just go south to the first unending dungeon and dive in the awesomeness. I have a certain roguelike vibe from your game which gives it charm.

You can have multitude of imaginative usages for this kind of mechanic, especially that you have the foundations for it. For ex. eating a demons flesh might give you unearthly strength for a price of summoning his "older" brothers on random to decimate you. Just giving hints.

Since my time is limited I might not be able to try it out, I will however read and look at some videos to get the feeling of it, so thanks for the tip!

I will keep it in the back of my head, but I probably won't be beyond the fact that it may cause certain illnesses depending on type of meat. The reason being that enemies are randomly spawned/placed at pre-set locations, but once they encounter you they move. And with multi-level tiles it will be very hard to create non pre-placed "random" events such as spawning demons once you have killed and eaten a certain enemy. I might be able to solve with areas that check for food effects on the player when entering a area, and if active spawn the appropriate response in form of enemies. But with so many mechanics already in place and planned my one man wolfpack is in need to limit the game somewhere :)

I have a horde mode planned as well for the people who wants to focus on a more Hexen-like gameplay style and just kill stuff, in that context it might be more appropriate.
 
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r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
Been working on some new stuff, mainly the bows which are now in the game. The video pretty much sums most of it up, might have forgotten some stuff as always.



- The three types of arrows (so far), iron, fire and water. The bow is also being picked up.
- The way the bows work is that the lead hand (equipped hand) tenses and aims the bow, the other hand (as in mouse button) releases the arrow. So you do not have to shoot the arrow even if the bow is aimed and ready, just release the button and the bow is lowered.
- The normal stuff with fire and water items/magic, water put out fires, fire ignites fire.
- Forgot to do it, but you can pick up the arrows again unless it hits an enemy, then they are used up.
- Time to do some mining, picking up the pickaxe. Also picked up some other stuff, mainly the shield which now positions better. The view is blocked on purpose to give a sort of penalty when the shield is active. The shields have passive and active armor rating, active being much higher. Might change to only apply armor value when shield is in place.
- Give the wall a few wacks and it will crumble, if your level is to low there will be a message saying that you are not experienced enough to dig here (I am maxed on everything in all videos).
- The rock passage is just a test of new texturing and modeling techniques, looks way better than before at least, will do a ton of these more organic shapes and put in as details to cover the plain rough geometry.
- Some other graphical stuff, I have experimented with simple volumetric lighting, looks pretty OK but with some tweaks will look even better.
- Just showing that the bow can be equipped in any hand and function accordingly.

Will continue to work on graphical stuff and some gameplay programming, check in for more updates!
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
Could this game turn out to be an AoD killer? Quite possibly!

Don't know if serious, but if so that is some serious flattering right there, thanks! But I think these games are worlds apart in terms of gameplay, so there will be no killing from my part at least :cool:
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
So a new feature has found its way into the game, the grappling hook. Not sure if it make the final cut though since it can easily become too powerful compared to the rest of the equipment, but with some proper balancing I think it will be fine. I really love the sense of freedom and the possibilities for exploring it gives.

The bow has now been improved with a zoomed mode while aiming, makes it look and feel better as well as functioning better, all in my opinion of course. But before it just kind of hanged in front of the player, now it feels more intimate and realistic.
You can now also see that the arrows are possible to pick up after being shot into a wall or other stuff except enemies.
I also show of the grappling hook and use it while climbing/jumping between parts of a lava pit. And as a reminder, this is in no way a final implementation, just a quick and rough test of the concept.

 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
I have done some tinkering lately to improve a lot of stuff, been working on attributes and skills and the effects of those. Since that work is not completely done, I give you a video of some other stuff meanwhile.

In the video you see:
- Improved graphics settings, a lot of Unity games just use the default quality settings but I think it is important to add as much as possible, so I have added most of what Unity offer.
- FOV settings works for those who like to tinker with that, I just think it looks weird :cool:
- Just demonstrating the new stuff on the character, if you are close to a wall the weapons/hands will move back a bit to make it more realistic, since I use 2 cameras to avoid clipping you got some scale issues before and the weapons looked tiny since they were actually far through the wall...
- The player can now lean slightly around corners just to peek before entering a room or whatever.
- Like mentioned before you cannot climb while having your hands equipped, to solve that I added holstering/sheathing of weapons.
- Some results of the attributes and skills are shown, in this case reflexes and luck that is used for the calculation of avoiding enemy attacks, this is still being tuned and my stats are maxed out as always, but you can see that you sometimes will evade the enemy attack even if you stand still.
- Now to get some sleep, we fin a cozy little shelter where we can rest our eyes a bit, the problem is that its location is unsafe... There will be 5 different states the sleeping place can have; dangerous, unsafe, uncertain, safe, secure. All have different percentages per hour of you being discovered, so a longer nap at a unsafe or dangerous place will probably end in an encounter with a enemy. A secure place will be just that, so sleep tight in those places.
- You get woken up by a enemy that passed by and made some noise, time to fight for your life.
- Since you were still tired, you take another 1 hour nap, this time nobody finds you. (If it looks edited, that is because it is. Those damn just kept popping up... Need to pick a better place to sleep next time.)
- Some floating platforms that are static, while jumping on stuff like that you can use the shadow as reference on where to land.
- Some new arrows, one for each magical element. All enemies have different resistance/weakness to different elements, this can be used to your advantage if the player knows those weaknesses.
- A little refinement to the aiming, looks a bit better in my opinion.
- Again, pick up arrows that weren't shot at a enemy. Had to fix some bugs with that but now it seems to work dandy.

- And lastly something a bit different, the generation of the dungeon. I have now made it possible to input words (strings) instead of integers which can be way more fun. As you will notice there is not much variation (except the width and length of the floor that is shown) since there is only one tile to draw when the algorithm is taking a random tile, this will of course be changed once the work with adding content begins.




And I would also like to ask the codex of their opinion on something. Perception in the game is supposed to determine if enemies and hidden stuff is nearby and tell the player, but I am not sure which way is the best to go.

1. The first option is system where all hidden objects/enemies get a rating from 1-10 (the same as all skills), if the player perception level is higher or equal to the object/enemy, the player will be prompted everytime, that is 100% discover rate if equal to or above in level..
2. Option number two is to have no ratings, only set a object/enemy to discoverable. Then the player perception skill level determines a chance between 0-100 % chance (0 skillpoints give 0%, 10 points give 100%) to discover this object every time the player is close to the object/enemy. The potential downside to this is that the player can "spam" the skill by going back and forth in a area hoping to discover anythings that might be there. But on the other hand it is more like throwing a dice than the first option.

So what do you say? How does other games do it (both pen and paper games and computer games)?
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Guest
Bro, this looks fucking cool.
I've been swamped a bit lately, and couldn't follow your project closely.

Keep up the good work!
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
Bro, this looks fucking cool.
I've been swamped a bit lately, and couldn't follow your project closely.

Keep up the good work!


Thanks landsman, you are my number one fan at the moment so the words are heartwarming :hug:Add the obligatory not gay clausal of course...

Anyhow, I have been slacking a bit lately as well I am afraid, felt pretty burnt out after night after night doing this and then going to work, been sick and in zombie mode at my real workplace because of that. But I am the right track again but will try to avoid that type of crunching during the work days, but sometimes you are just in the zone :cool: This past week I have rebuilt the dungeon generation algorithm once again, now I generate less predictable levels/floors since they are no longer in a pure square configuration. The stairs down to the next floor is also placed totally in random (well not really random since you set the seed, but I think you get the idea...) so the player does not now which way to head towards, previously the stairs up was always in the west and you would head to the far east to find the stairs down (which was stupid and I always planned to replace that, was just harder than I thought...).
Now I get something that looks like this:
newDungeon.jpg


Will probably evolve this system since it is much more flexible now, but I think it works well at this point.

The ideas for the upgrading system has been made, will probably look something like this (never mind the stupid silhouette and general order of things) :
inv2.jpg

inv1.jpg

I will work on some GUI stuff the coming weeks (inventory handling and upgrading skills etc), as well as balancing and implementing rules that depends on stats, I have perhaps implemented 50-60% but some things like repairing of equipment etc I think will take some time. Will also tinker on weapons generation and degrading conditions.

That is something i would like some feedback on, what do you think is the best way to handle breaking of weapons/equipment?
- Linear degrading with usage (so 100 hits means that the weapon is done with for example)
- Chance of partial degrading at every strike (when hit is registered of course)?
- Skill dependent? (a skill like "handling" or "precision" or whatever, universal on all weapons and equipment)
- Something else way better?

And I will also repeat my last question:
I would also like to ask the codex of their opinion on something. Perception in the game is supposed to determine if enemies and hidden stuff is nearby and tell the player, but I am not sure which way is the best to go.

1. The first option is system where all hidden objects/enemies get a rating from 1-10 (the same as all skills), if the player perception level is higher or equal to the object/enemy, the player will be prompted everytime, that is 100% discover rate if equal to or above in level..
2. Option number two is to have no ratings, only set a object/enemy to discoverable. Then the player perception skill level determines a chance between 0-100 % chance (0 skillpoints give 0%, 10 points give 100%) to discover this object every time the player is close to the object/enemy. The potential downside to this is that the player can "spam" the skill by going back and forth in a area hoping to discover anythings that might be there. But on the other hand it is more like throwing a dice than the first option.

So what do you say? How does other games do it (both pen and paper games and computer games)?

I have pretty much settled on a system #2, but I really would like some input.

That's all for now!
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Guest
That is something i would like some feedback on, what do you think is the best way to handle breaking of weapons/equipment?
- Linear degrading with usage (so 100 hits means that the weapon is done with for example)
- Chance of partial degrading at every strike (when hit is registered of course)?
- Skill dependent? (a skill like "handling" or "precision" or whatever, universal on all weapons and equipment)
- Something else way better?
I think:
1. Degrading must be with a slight random.
2. Skill depending is also a must, since a noob with a chainsaw will fuck it up pretty quickly by doing stupid things unintentionally, for example.
3. There must be a chance of reducing the degrading. Like, you hit the stone with the axe, but you accidentally made the axe sharper (I think you can call it a 'diagonal hit').
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
That is something i would like some feedback on, what do you think is the best way to handle breaking of weapons/equipment?
- Linear degrading with usage (so 100 hits means that the weapon is done with for example)
- Chance of partial degrading at every strike (when hit is registered of course)?
- Skill dependent? (a skill like "handling" or "precision" or whatever, universal on all weapons and equipment)
- Something else way better?
I think:
1. Degrading must be with a slight random.
2. Skill depending is also a must, since a noob with a chainsaw will fuck it up pretty quickly by doing stupid things unintentionally, for example.
3. There must be a chance of reducing the degrading. Like, you hit the stone with the axe, but you accidentally made the axe sharper (I think you can call it a 'diagonal hit').

Thanks, I think you are on the same track as me mostly.

Maybe something like this:
- All weapons have a unique material, this determines the total amount of "hits" with breakage it can withstand (e.g. iron sword gets 50 "hits", titanium 100 "hits" or whatever).
- Your skill in the used weapon type determines your handling, so a higher skill means less chance of actually degrading each blow.
- A hit that makes damage to the weapon can be critical or normal, depending on chance, so a weapon can be damaged one point or several points. Modify the chance with "Luck" attribute?
- The condition in percentage is shown on the weapon, if it reaches zero the damage output is reduced with 90% or so.

I am thinking out loud here, but at least something in this direction I think will be implemented, will look into more games and also hope for more comments.
 

Bitcher1

Cipher
Joined
Jan 9, 2012
Messages
263
1. The first option is system where all hidden objects/enemies get a rating from 1-10 (the same as all skills), if the player perception level is higher or equal to the object/enemy, the player will be prompted everytime, that is 100% discover rate if equal to or above in level..
2. Option number two is to have no ratings, only set a object/enemy to discoverable. Then the player perception skill level determines a chance between 0-100 % chance (0 skillpoints give 0%, 10 points give 100%) to discover this object every time the player is close to the object/enemy. The potential downside to this is that the player can "spam" the skill by going back and forth in a area hoping to discover anythings that might be there. But on the other hand it is more like throwing a dice than the first option.

So what do you say? How does other games do it (both pen and paper games and computer games)?

Hm, would it be possible to have option 2. but with the 'dice roll' taking place only the first time the player comes into the vicinity of the trap/secret so as to prevent the kind of exploit you described?
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
That is something i would like some feedback on, what do you think is the best way to handle breaking of weapons/equipment?
- Linear degrading with usage (so 100 hits means that the weapon is done with for example)
- Chance of partial degrading at every strike (when hit is registered of course)?
- Skill dependent? (a skill like "handling" or "precision" or whatever, universal on all weapons and equipment)
- Something else way better?
I think:
1. Degrading must be with a slight random.
2. Skill depending is also a must, since a noob with a chainsaw will fuck it up pretty quickly by doing stupid things unintentionally, for example.
3. There must be a chance of reducing the degrading. Like, you hit the stone with the axe, but you accidentally made the axe sharper (I think you can call it a 'diagonal hit').

Thanks, I think you are on the same track as me mostly.

Maybe something like this:
- All weapons have a unique material, this determines the total amount of "hits" with breakage it can withstand (e.g. iron sword gets 50 "hits", titanium 100 "hits" or whatever).
- Your skill in the used weapon type determines your handling, so a higher skill means less chance of actually degrading each blow.
- A hit that makes damage to the weapon can be critical or normal, depending on chance, so a weapon can be damaged one point or several points. Modify the chance with "Luck" attribute?
- The condition in percentage is shown on the weapon, if it reaches zero the damage output is reduced with 90% or so.

I am thinking out loud here, but at least something in this direction I think will be implemented, will look into more games and also hope for more comments.
I was thinking the other day that for systems where you want a high rate of turnover for weapons (relatively speaking to something like Blizzard would do where you can repair an item into perpetuity) you could have weapons of a certain material be guaranteed for a certain number of hits and then have an increasing chance of breaking completely after the threshold is reached (e.g. Iron Dagger is good for 20 hits, and on the 21st hit it has a 5% chance to break, increasing in chance to break with each hit and maybe Steel weapons would get 100 hits and degrade more slowly but be far more scarce).
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
That is something i would like some feedback on, what do you think is the best way to handle breaking of weapons/equipment?
- Linear degrading with usage (so 100 hits means that the weapon is done with for example)
- Chance of partial degrading at every strike (when hit is registered of course)?
- Skill dependent? (a skill like "handling" or "precision" or whatever, universal on all weapons and equipment)
- Something else way better?
I think:
1. Degrading must be with a slight random.
2. Skill depending is also a must, since a noob with a chainsaw will fuck it up pretty quickly by doing stupid things unintentionally, for example.
3. There must be a chance of reducing the degrading. Like, you hit the stone with the axe, but you accidentally made the axe sharper (I think you can call it a 'diagonal hit').

Thanks, I think you are on the same track as me mostly.

Maybe something like this:
- All weapons have a unique material, this determines the total amount of "hits" with breakage it can withstand (e.g. iron sword gets 50 "hits", titanium 100 "hits" or whatever).
- Your skill in the used weapon type determines your handling, so a higher skill means less chance of actually degrading each blow.
- A hit that makes damage to the weapon can be critical or normal, depending on chance, so a weapon can be damaged one point or several points. Modify the chance with "Luck" attribute?
- The condition in percentage is shown on the weapon, if it reaches zero the damage output is reduced with 90% or so.

I am thinking out loud here, but at least something in this direction I think will be implemented, will look into more games and also hope for more comments.
I was thinking the other day that for systems where you want a high rate of turnover for weapons (relatively speaking to something like Blizzard would do where you can repair an item into perpetuity) you could have weapons of a certain material be guaranteed for a certain number of hits and then have an increasing chance of breaking completely after the threshold is reached (e.g. Iron Dagger is good for 20 hits, and on the 21st hit it has a 5% chance to break, increasing in chance to break with each hit and maybe Steel weapons would get 100 hits and degrade more slowly but be far more scarce).

So in your case the weapon will not salvagable if it breaks completely? That is pretty interesting...

To be able to repair you will have to have skill points invested in repairing, have a matching lump of material and find a workbench or a forge oven. Depending on your skill you have either a chance of succeding and repair your weapon/equipment or fail and destroy the material (but the weapon in still in the same condition), at least that is the idea. So repairing will not be super easy since there is a lot of things that needs to come together.

Updated thoughts:

- All weapons/equipment have conditon/number of hits of 0-XXX depending on material, weak materials (at least in the sence of the grading in the game, may not be related to actual real life material) have fewer hits, more durable weapons more hits. I already have a probability function for materials when generating weapons, I think the most rare material gets picked in 5 out of 10000 times or something like that.
- Each hit rolls the dice and gives a chance of breaking, this chance is modified by the skill in that particual weapon class.
- If damage is done to the weapon, roll the dice to see if it is of critical nature. This is modified by luck. If critical, deduct 5 points, if normal deduct 1 (numbers wil have to be balanced of course).
- If the weapon condition reaches zero there is no penalty in damage output, but instead increase the chance of permanent damage (might have to add negative values to the condition scale).
- If a weapon is permanently damaged the damage output is reduced with 90-95% or perhaps even 100% (the latter is perhaps better mechanics wise since it is a harsher penalty but makes less sence in reality since a broken sword will still hurt if swung at ones head. The downside can however be if the player finds the best weapon in the game and destroys it but still uses it since it might still be better (output more damage) than some other low level weapons, thus defeating the idea of forcing taking care of ones weapons.
- When repairing a weapon that has a condition of 0 and up, you will only need one successful attempt, if a weapon is damaged beyond that (negative values) you will have to reapir it with several successful attempts (depending on how damaged it is). If it is totally destroyed you can not repair it.

How does that sound codex?

And another thing, how do you guys feel about pausing the game when in menus? At present the game is only paused when you are in the main menu and change settings etc, when in-game and looking through inventory or upgrading skills time progresses in real time (the mouse-look does not work but you can walk). The idea is to force the player to be prepared BEFORE an encounter and put more stress on the player while in combat. Otherwise you can just browse through the inventory, change weapon etc while in combat (paused combat that is) which many games do and I think that makes the game loose some tension.

Thoughts on that issue?
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
Maybe you could salvage some of the ore or something, but the idea is to force the player to make decisions about durability, rather than just choosing the best DPS number until the durability counter drops to 0 (this is just tedium and a way to steadily pull some other resource out of the game economy, typicallly monetary). Yes, that steel longsword does really good damage, but do you really want to try to fight a slime or an acid-spitting beast with it (e.g. slime will eat the sword, acid corrodes it) and risk losing it completely?

Point by Point:
- All weapons/equipment have conditon/number of hits of 0-XXX depending on material, weak materials (at least in the sence of the grading in the game, may not be related to actual real life material) have fewer hits, more durable weapons more hits. I already have a probability function for materials when generating weapons, I think the most rare material gets picked in 5 out of 10000 times or something like that.
Good.
- Each hit rolls the dice and gives a chance of breaking, this chance is modified by the skill in that particual weapon class.
So if I'm a player that knows how this system works, once I get a good quality weapon in my highest skilled weapon group it discourages me from ever switching to a weapon of a different class. What are you adding to the gameplay by disincentivizing using different weapon types?
- If damage is done to the weapon, roll the dice to see if it is of critical nature. This is modified by luck. If critical, deduct 5 points, if normal deduct 1 (numbers wil have to be balanced of course).
- If the weapon condition reaches zero there is no penalty in damage output, but instead increase the chance of permanent damage (might have to add negative values to the condition scale).
- If a weapon is permanently damaged the damage output is reduced with 90-95% or perhaps even 100% (the latter is perhaps better mechanics wise since it is a harsher penalty but makes less sence in reality since a broken sword will still hurt if swung at ones head. The downside can however be if the player finds the best weapon in the game and destroys it but still uses it since it might still be better (output more damage) than some other low level weapons, thus defeating the idea of forcing taking care of ones weapons.
Sounds like a lot of work (for you) for something player will likely just toss for another dungeon drop (unless it isn't trivial to acquire equipment, mind you I haven't been following your development with a magnifying glass).
- When repairing a weapon that has a condition of 0 and up, you will only need one successful attempt, if a weapon is damaged beyond that (negative values) you will have to reapir it with several successful attempts (depending on how damaged it is). If it is totally destroyed you can not repair it.
Spam clickfest? Can a negative result on repairing further damage the weapon or is there a resource cost for repairing (e.g. have to go find iron ore/shavings/whatever for each repair)?

And another thing, how do you guys feel about pausing the game when in menus? At present the game is only paused when you are in the main menu and change settings etc, when in-game and looking through inventory or upgrading skills time progresses in real time (the mouse-look does not work but you can walk). The idea is to force the player to be prepared BEFORE an encounter and put more stress on the player while in combat. Otherwise you can just browse through the inventory, change weapon etc while in combat (paused combat that is) which many games do and I think that makes the game loose some tension.
Pausing in inventory pretty much kills the tension in Deus Ex. I think you should keep it real time.
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
Maybe you could salvage some of the ore or something, but the idea is to force the player to make decisions about durability, rather than just choosing the best DPS number until the durability counter drops to 0 (this is just tedium and a way to steadily pull some other resource out of the game economy, typicallly monetary). Yes, that steel longsword does really good damage, but do you really want to try to fight a slime or an acid-spitting beast with it (e.g. slime will eat the sword, acid corrodes it) and risk losing it completely?

- Each hit rolls the dice and gives a chance of breaking, this chance is modified by the skill in that particual weapon class.
So if I'm a player that knows how this system works, once I get a good quality weapon in my highest skilled weapon group it discourages me from ever switching to a weapon of a different class. What are you adding to the gameplay by disincentivizing using different weapon types?
- If damage is done to the weapon, roll the dice to see if it is of critical nature. This is modified by luck. If critical, deduct 5 points, if normal deduct 1 (numbers wil have to be balanced of course).
- If the weapon condition reaches zero there is no penalty in damage output, but instead increase the chance of permanent damage (might have to add negative values to the condition scale).
- If a weapon is permanently damaged the damage output is reduced with 90-95% or perhaps even 100% (the latter is perhaps better mechanics wise since it is a harsher penalty but makes less sence in reality since a broken sword will still hurt if swung at ones head. The downside can however be if the player finds the best weapon in the game and destroys it but still uses it since it might still be better (output more damage) than some other low level weapons, thus defeating the idea of forcing taking care of ones weapons.
Sounds like a lot of work (for you) for something player will likely just toss for another dungeon drop (unless it isn't trivial to acquire equipment, mind you I haven't been following your development with a magnifying glass).
- When repairing a weapon that has a condition of 0 and up, you will only need one successful attempt, if a weapon is damaged beyond that (negative values) you will have to reapir it with several successful attempts (depending on how damaged it is). If it is totally destroyed you can not repair it.
Spam clickfest? Can a negative result on repairing further damage the weapon or is there a resource cost for repairing (e.g. have to go find iron ore/shavings/whatever for each repair)?

And another thing, how do you guys feel about pausing the game when in menus? At present the game is only paused when you are in the main menu and change settings etc, when in-game and looking through inventory or upgrading skills time progresses in real time (the mouse-look does not work but you can walk). The idea is to force the player to be prepared BEFORE an encounter and put more stress on the player while in combat. Otherwise you can just browse through the inventory, change weapon etc while in combat (paused combat that is) which many games do and I think that makes the game loose some tension.
Pausing in inventory pretty much kills the tension in Deus Ex. I think you should keep it real time.

Let's see if I can type this down in a understandable manner...

1. The idea is not to discourage the use of others per say, it is more to make the player choose how they wan't to play and actually have consequences to the choices in gameplay. The reason for having a skill for each weapon class is that the player will not have to waste a lot of points in the strength attribute if they want to use melee weapons, this can in part be done by specializing in one or more weapon class. So if a character specializes in accuracy (attribute that influences damage done with bows and crossbows) and skill in weapon class bows but still wan't to use axes for example it can be done. And If a melee/strength attribute heavy character wants to boost a special weapon class even more that also can be done while still staying in character. And that means a non combat specialized character wants a way out of tricky situations then by all means boost up your skill in swords just in case.
Another thing about this is steering away from melee characters which are often the best/easiest way to play. Since there are many types of weapons it would be somewhat disadvantageous if a strength character can master them all since that would increase the chance of finding a weapon that is good for the character. By having part influenced by strength and the rest by skills in weapon classes it is pretty much impossible for one character to master them all and some form of choice will have to be done.

The above paragraph is somewhat of a mess but I hope you get the idea.

2. Programming wise I think it really fast and easy, so that does not bother me. And the weapons and resources will not be that easy to come by, my goal is to place everything in some form of context, like corpses you find that has some equipment (old adventurers, will also have notes/diaries that the player can read to get information on how to live, what plants/herbs to use when poisoned etc) or in goblin dwellings etc. Think Gothic 1 where you did not get new (good) weapons that often (but in my case it will get a bit more often due to the nature of the game).

3. Spam clickfest is a valid concern, but I hope it will not lead to that. Yes there is a cost to repairing and resources will be scarce, so the ore/material used to repair weapons/equipment is not something you acquire every ten seconds. That will hopefully lead to hard decisions such as do I want to waste my material on this weapon or hold on to it for something better, do I really want to carry around this heavy ore in my backpack instead of food etc.

The other approach is to directly couple the repair skill with the results you get when doing the repair, as in 1/10 in repair skill fixes 10% damage on the weapon, 10/10 in the repair skill fixes 100%. Then it just a matter of finding the material and you know the exact outcome. This system has its advantages since it is very transparent and simple. But it totally removes the thrill of chance that the other system can give you, a character with a low level in repair skill still have hopes of fixing the weapon completely, so maybe the player will try just this one time...

I think it is a fundamental difference in game mechanics, one modifies chance for the better, the other system improves the outcome in a predictable way, both has it's merits but I think most role-players like the element of chance. I could be wrong of course.

4. Agreed!

Thank you very much for the feedback!
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
Big update incoming in the next week or so, but for now I have these simple pictures:

inv1.jpg

inv2.jpg


Just shows the reworked graphical part of the inventory and equipment handling. You can now toggle the inventory when it is not needed. Also cleaned up the layout and I think this is actually really close to what I would like to use in the end, must update the upper part where you select window though, still looks like crap. But it is easy to overview, gives relevant information and looks ok. Simple yes, but I don't have time, knowledge or desire to go crazy in photoshop (or GIMP in my case).

The slot name/name of appropriate equipment to place shows when the pointer is hovering the square.

Under the hood i re-wrote 90% of the inventory and equipment handling, the old system was a free asset from the unity asset store and was great for a total beginner, but after a while I could not handle the stupid choices and nasty programming so I finally scrapped it and wrote something I think is better.

I have begun writing the crafting(potions, explosives and such)/cooking/repairing system and have the basics done, will work on this the coming week/weeks.

Comments? Suggestions?
 

r3jonwah85

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
211
Location
Sweden
Got the crafting/potion prototyped faster than I thought, so I actually had time to do a small update video.



In order of appearance:
- Picking up some items that will be used later (placeholder graphics in many cases in case you wonder what the white blocks are, the same goes for icons in the inventory)
- New menu/options for opening doors. All doors that are locked by a lock (can also be locked by a trigger/latch, remote trigger or puzzle) can either be opened with the correct key type (iron, bronze, silver and gold keys) or be lockpicked (if the player is skilled enough).
- First door is lockpicked.
- Second door is opened with key.
-We find a water source. Here you can take a sip or use the water for various things. In this case we just fill up a empty bottle, but yiu will also have to rinse/clean eatable plants/vegetables. If you do not clean your vegetables you might catch a disease such as hepatitis (working on diseases at the moment).
- Take note that water sources can be clean sources or contaminated sources. The player does not now if the source is clean or contaminated, so to be sure you must boil the water. The same goes for meat in the game where Trichinella and other stuff might be present. Bur the player will at least know if the meat is rotten.
- Equipping a rock (use your imagination on the visuals).
- Picking up lost of other equipment.
- Throw the rocks, this will be useful for tricking enemies to check out movement/sound and thereby luring them away from their position if the guard something. It is implemented but not working 100% all the time so some more work is needed.
- Equipping a weapon and a shield, picking up arrows and move stuff around in the inventory.
- Equipping torch and light it up to demonstrate a critical function, swapping weapons between hands. This is very important since once you unequip a torch that is burning it will have to be ignited again, now the player can move it to another hand without having the need for igniting it again. Might sound like a minor thing but is crucial for immersion and realism.
- Find a fire source check out the possibilities. You can cook/craft items but also close wounds if you have no bandages to fix them. This will close the wound but also inflict some health on the player.
- Combine some water and salvia just to demonstrate how to make potions, in this case we create a minor healing potion. Recipes use a base ingredient at the top and then one or several other components to make something new. The recipe is sensitive to the order which ingredients is added, this makes it possible to make more complex recipes (and lessen abuse or trial and error, the combinations simply become to hard to find).
- Demonstrate the new way items are consumed, they have to be dragged and dropped at the use "button". This lessens the chance of accidental use of stuff.
- Just random messing around in the inventory.
- Video ends.

And one issue I want some input on, do you think that a failed attempt of crafting something always (or with chance) destroy the ingredients? Or should the ingredients only be consumed/used with a successful attempt? I am leaning on the first one because it seems appropriately punishing, but it might be pain in the ass to implement since not all ingredients should be spoiled, for example containers such as bottles, that means some property has to be added. Might be worth it though...
 

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