PART TWO - MMOPRG input - Endgame

[Fez]

As soon as you put healers in you are obligated, unless the healers are redundant, then you have a useless class. Either way it sucks. We want to move far away from the Holy Trinity Of MMOGs.

 

[Avé]

Wounds: Can be healed by stimpacks/medkits

However, even when fully healed, wounds have a degenerative effect on your stats/abilities, until you return to a town/village/whatever & rest.

The degenerative effect gets more pronounced, the more stimpacks you used without resting.

 

[Fez]

Wounds: Can be healed by stimpacks/medkits

However, even when fully healed, wounds have a degenerative effect on your stats/abilities, until you return to a town/village/whatever & rest.

The degenerative effect gets more pronounced, the more stimpacks you used without resting.

A "bandaged" state? JA2 and a few others had something similar. It might work.

 

[Avé]

Wounds: Can be healed by stimpacks/medkits

However, even when fully healed, wounds have a degenerative effect on your stats/abilities, until you return to a town/village/whatever & rest.

The degenerative effect gets more pronounced, the more stimpacks you used without resting.

A "bandaged" state? JA2 and a few others had something similar. It might work.

Yup, however, in JA2(if i recall correctly), Green = health, red = wound(more wound = more hp lost over time) and yellow = bandaged.

Bandaged wasnt HP, and didnt act like HP, if you had 1 hp out 101, and the other 100 was bandaged, and took 1hp dmg, you died.

What I'm suggesting is similar, however it works in reverse, the first time you get stimpacked/bandaged, your health goes to 100.

The second time, it goes to say, 92%, and the other 8% is bandaged.

Etc, etc.

 

[Balor]

Sounds exactly like Kult - Heretic Kingdoms.
However, it's rather strange - not having doctors just for sake of NOT having them.
I find your logic flawed.
And besides, why 'class'? I recall it'll be a free-form development game. Stop thinking in AD&D . Everyone will be able to learn some medicine. And the more advanced doctors have better things to do then escorting hapless adventurers - like making drugs (all kinds of drugs ), performing plastical surgery, etc.
Anyway, again, why don't you attack something that does not make sence? Having a doctor in a party - does make sense. Having 2 doctors patch a tank on the fly - does not, I agree. But I guess it will not go this far.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I definitely agree that this game should be single-player friendly. You mentioned Guild Wars - they do something else I want to add in an expansion - i.e. bring along AI teammates who round out your party.

Id really like to mix JA2 and Rainbox Six in a way - the idea of going and hiring mercs with certain skills based on the jobs you know you need to do...and then perhaps controlling them when you take them into an instanced mission.

Thats not to say you would NEED to hire them...the game would be soloable...but Id love to give you the option.

I can definitely see this as a feature with VERY strong potential. I think that something along the lines of KOTOR2's or better yet, Republic Commando (upcoming tactical team-based FPS) NPCs would be a great thing to implement in an MMORPG. Tabbing between AI NPCs would be a terrific way to solo the instanced missions.

If you don't like tabbing, which is quite messy in comparison to having real AI, I'd go with Republic Commando's implementation of team mates. Each team mate on the party carries his own strength, like the guy named "Fixer" is a technician who can hack through consoles and locked doors or arm automated defenses. And then there's the sniper guy, who takes up defensive positions with his sniper rifle, and so forth.

You can do all of these things by yourself, but you can order your teammates to perform these actions for you while you and the rest cover them as they perform their duties. Each 'toggleable' console, turret, item or 'usable' crate (for defensive purposes) has a glowing icon decal on the ground. When you move your mouse cursor over it you can press a one of the buttons on your keyboard to issue a command (F1 to F4), which will cause the corresponding NPC AI to perform the task. Alternatively, you can go up to it yourself and press the E key to unlock the door or hack the console or whatever.



---

This gives me another idea. Instead of controlling a single character in the game, how about giving each player a very small party of characters, say 2 or 3? Add the AI from Republic Commando with the ability to issue commands, and the ability to tab between party characters and you'd have just created the best, and most innovative MMORPG to date.

As far as the holy trinity...consider it DEAD. Now...the problem is coming up with a fun and semi realistic way to play the medical person in a p-a game. I mean I had thought of the tech side person being able to apply nanites - but thats too scifi. I need something that works in a half Mad Max present day and half-Bladerunner future day.

Any ideas?

Well, if you go with my above suggestions, every player could have a medic-oriented character in his party. My suggestion is to allow for players to have parties which consist only of characters with different classes. Each character should have two classes: a main class and a secondary class. There should be many classes to choose from, so a player can be both a medic and a gunman. So that way, you can't have more than 1 gunman, in a party, or 1 medic, for that matter. However, that should only apply to main classes, so you can't have a party consisting of 3 gunmen with a medic secondary. On the other hand it should be possible to have 3 characters with different main classes, but all with medic as their secondary. I don't know, though, it sounds like it would be hard to balance, so you'd have to work things out. However, even if you don't implement multiple characters, you can simply make it so that each character has a main class and a secondary class that way players won't be screwed if they pick a main class with no healing abilities.

On the other hand you could always go with a classless system and deal with skills alone. This would work with my 3-character party idea, too. Quite well, in fact, and probably easier to balance out.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Wounds: Can be healed by stimpacks/medkits

However, even when fully healed, wounds have a degenerative effect on your stats/abilities, until you return to a town/village/whatever & rest.

The degenerative effect gets more pronounced, the more stimpacks you used without resting.

Guild Wars has a system like this. It's called the death penalty system and here's how it works:

When you start an instance, you have 0% death penalty. When you die, you gain 15% death penalty. This 15% death penalty deducts 15% of your total life and your mana. Every time you gain 250exp, your death penalty is reduced by 1%. The maximum death penalty is 60%, so you can keep dying all you want and it'll stay at 60%, but it's horribly bad, because it means you'll die much faster, and be unable to fight boss mobs. You won't be able to use your spells/skills (requiring mana) as much, either.

The death penalty goes away when you leave the instance. Overall, it works perfectly, and it is only a pain in the ass for a short period of time.

I plead for you not to implement any item/exp/money loss, because that drives casual gamers (and me) away. The game should become more challenging if you die, but it shouldn't fuck you over. If you don't base it on instances the way Guild Wars does, it should be possible to just go to town and 'rest' for a very small amount of money to make your Death Penalty dissapear. In World of Warcraft you have to wait for an hour for death penalties to go away, and on top of that it can go up to as high as 90%, and that really sucks because it ruins your mood (on top of already dying) and disrupts playing time, especially if you had something planned that evening.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

Rex:

Ressurection sickness lasts, at the most, 10 minutes now. It comes with a 75% reduction in all abilities. You also lose 25% durability on all items. That is if you decide to ressurect at the spirit healer instead of doing a corpse run. Although I havn't heard of it, from personal experience, there is a durability loss on your equipment irregardless if you ressurect at the spirit healer or do a corpse run.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Ah, you are correct. The durability is a serious pain in the ass. When I used to play during the beta, there was no durability system, and things were much more enjoyable (and casual gamer friendly). I hope there isn't a durability system in the game DarkSign is developing. If there is, I hope items don't 'break'. They should just be 25% less effective. For instance, a weapon that does 10-100 (example) should be reduced to 7.5-75 damage. 100 armor becomes 75, and so forth.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

Maintenance of equipment is just one way in dealing with the dreaded inflation that hits MMORPGs. It is ment to take your in-game money so you don't run off buying every money sink and every skill and having enough left over to order a banquet fit for the queen.

Another thing to add. Just two words.

Auction house.

 

[DarkSign]

Definitely there will be an auction house. Theres going to be a town called Swindler's Gultch that will be The Hub of the trading world. P-A bazaar meets Mos Eisley (sorry for the SW reference - it wont look like Mos Eisley).

Im even thinking of putting in an NPC at each major town who will "courier" things to and from SGultch for a price. Remember the UT2K4 map where you were on a moving transport? There might even be (once in awhile, a randomly generated) transport that could be raided / defended.

@ Exit: There will be temporary death penalties - perhaps 20 mins. Which can get increasing worse, but not terribly worse.

As far as item repair, Im thinking it wil be in, merely to combat inflation and penalize you for getting killed. The wastes are harsh...what can I say.

Thanks for saying that it would be a truly innovative MMO experience to run the NPC mercs that way. The downside is Im thinking of doing that part as an expansion. Who knows. We'll see what time and money we get for the project.

Dojo? You said you had more ideas? (hand to forehead peering into the distance)

 

[Balor]

Hmm, time for serious bashing!
I mean, in Russia, if you'll admit that you are a casual gamer and start pulling the sheets - you'll get eaten alive :twisted:. "Casual gamer' is a pejorative in this parts. Oh well, we Russians are considered weird anyway...
But back to the point.
Exit, don't you think that, concerning dying, the best 'idea' of all would be just making all players completely invulnerable? Now THAT would be casual-gamer frienly! All fun, no stupid and boring dying.
And concerning multiple PC chars under your command... it's more then a bit off. It's MMORG, not RTS, for God's sake! Hiring other chars is ok... but how would I associate myself with entire group? I'm not THAT schizophrenic!
Puff. Ok, steam pressure - normal. Back to the standard operating mode:
What ticks me off in most MMORGs (or MUDs) with no permadeath or 'resurrect-only' - is complete lack of comprehensible explanation of "How the hell do I get back from the dead?!".
Talking about 'breaking immersion'. Is it so hard to think up some logical explanation, consistent with setting ruleset, that describes how do I get back from the dead and describes the penalties of it.
Like, in Lukianenko's "Line of Dreams' there was a mechanism that detected a signal from a neural net in a human brain (that was emitted one's he's dead), and, provided the dead sod had account in the aTan company - he'll get resurrected by molecularly duplicating his body (based on latest scan in this facility), and getting all his memory (that he had at the point of death) restored.
Nice explanation for immortality, right? You'll lose some money (in source book - quite a lot) and all progress (or loss, for that matter) in stats, but get instantly resurrected in a safe area.
Of course, you stuff would be have to be retrieved... but, for real 'casual-gamer friendliness' it's best to make players completely immortal - as God mode. Talking about 'carebear paradise'.
Newbies can get a few 'free' resurrection at first.. but then - they are on their own. And besides, I've already proposed a few means to lessen the probability of actually being killed, that make game more logical and realistic in the same time - like being knocked out by default, not simply killed, harsh IC penalties for wanton PK, more logical behavior of most creatures - after all, absolute most of them would attack humans only when defending, and fight to death only when cornered, etc.
So, instead allowing players to drop down like flies (and wanton PK) with no penalty for dying, much better to make some penalties for dying, (like gold penalty for resurrecting, as I described), but make it harder to actually die, especially by accident (which sucks, I agree).
Btw, an other idea - have a device implanted that, once you'll die, will start to stimulate brain and heart, and release a great doze of all kinds of regenerative components, that will allow you to 'rise from the dead' a few minutes afterwards (if you would not chopped to pieces, burned, consumed or somehow annihilated by other means).
Now, how to prevent excessive corpse looting:
Simple. DNA-encoded weapons (at least, those that really of any value), and custom-fitted armor. Of course, you'll be stripped from cash, ammo and other valuables... you'll be stupid enough to carry with you into an area where you are prone to be killed and robbed... but unless you are VERY stupid, that will not be losing much.

 

[Balor]

Oh, about the repair - did I already mention about repairing taking same parts that are required to make the item? Not sure... oh well, will not hurt to repeat, if so:
It’s the most logical solution toward repair, since repairmen will not get money 'out of nothing' this way, and will control amount of uber gear in existence - like, if you have some really rare rifle you can own everyone around with... but no spare parts... well, tough luck in owning everyone after all. (Even if it uses unified ammo - like common energy cells)
Anyway, there should be 3 states of wear - real wear (metal fatigue, etc, cannot be repaired - only replacement of parts), distortion - that can be hammered back into shape, so to speak, and soiling - that you can simply clean, but will accumulate in time, especially in sandstorms or similar harsh weather conditions... or when you are crawling in mud too much.

 

[Avé]

DS, maybe your next thread should be "Economy - Checks and Balances".

As for dying and respawning, it's hard to put in any sort of plausible system(or at least a system that doesnt ruin the immersion), that lacks magic and technology(both of which give easy ways outs)

 

[Balor]

Well, since the world is PA, we DO have some advanced technology, right?
Of course, 'it's just a game' explanation works well... but it also perfectly works at changing player's mindset towards the entire game, not just 'respawning' - so, we have lack of role-play (even 'passive'), immersion and lots of grind as a logical outcome of this.
Btw, lemme define grind as I understand it (just in case I'm wrong):

Grind - improving your stats the fastest way, usually be repeatedly doing one thing - only to achieve the result. The process itself is often considered boring, but 'once I get to level X, real fun starts'.

Reminds me of kids wanting to become adults as fast as possible... and inevitably regretting that later.
Not much can be done about THAT, though - that's general people's mindset. Perhaps that will change... in time. Long time, most likely.
But, anyway, I have an other idea - well, it's mostly Hewitt's idea - random storylines for each player.
I've already proposed backgrounds for characters (great stuff by itself, will increase immersion a great deal), and how about most of those backgrounds being connected with some sort of 'global quest' you MAY try and solve - like:
* murder of your parent(s) (standard stuff, see Conan),
* some guy who saved you from certain death and disappeared (perhaps leaving some strange object behind) - and you intend to find him out.
* trying to flee from some bandits whose crime you witnessed, etc...
And it all eventually resolving into something greater.
That quest will be 'fed' to the player in small portions, Hearhead-like, and failing of those should not (at least, not always) mean that you'll not be able to finish it - only make the process longer and harder.
Of course, other players may stumble on your (and you on other's) 'quest' events, and that have to ruled out... but yet, it will game much more interesting and unpredictable.
I wish you contact STALKER AI team and help each other out .
Contacting Hewitt is a good idea too, I guess.
Like Human shield said:
“MMORGs need less dumb AI”.
Of course, having humans play NPCs (especially allowing them to alter their scripts, create and customize macros and triggers) is a good solution... but you cannot get a human ‘behind’ every monster - that’ll be fun, but hardly possible.
After all, it’s work that will have to paid, (talking about what separate work from games ) and not a lot of people will be able to qualify to be such ‘monster’. (Patience, imagination and simple maturity is one of requirements... not to mention a lot of time, since I doubt that would be high-paying work). So, good AI is essential for MMORG no less (or I’d say, much more) then pretty graphics.
And a good rule of the thumb - each event, item and character should have purpose and background in the game. EVERY one. The bottleneck rule applies here - the stability of the structure is measured by its weakest part.
Of course, players make a good job of that themselves (stupid names, leet speak, ‘Help I’ve been PKilled!’, etc)- but it can be battled.
Design flaws do not tend to fix themselves.
Btw, a way to fix stupid name, and add a bunch of other interesting stuff:
(Straight from our MUD) Don't show player names by default, but allow players to name other player anyhow they want, or depending how the other player introduces (not with some sort of special command, but just with saying "My name is ..."). But alias to say so, and an other to name the player in question based on this say will not hurt, tho.
If you don't like his/her name for some reason, or want to nickname - choose an other.
No one else will know how you call other people. (Unless you'll say it out loud).
And btw, for people who CRAVE to be leet - make account names completely up to fantasy of the players (no bad language, of course).
But names will have to be inchar. Just simply encourage other players to notify game administration that this one is introducing by a name '31337 haX0r' - with notification to stop that practice and, if this will continue, muting (rendering unable to speak) for some time, up to a ban (not permanent, tho).
The naming process should be simple - just select a char, then write in a name (or vice versa) - and from now you you'll see the nametag of this char.
To be continued.

 

[Balor]

Now, of fame and glory.
When you'll complete a quest, you'll get a bit more famous, and get a bit of reputation, eventially gaining enough fame to be recognized automatically.
Simply killing stuff left and right will do the trick too... that you'll be recognized as a killer. Live will be rather... difficult after that.
Btw, the NPC reaction (I've mentioned good AI already, right?) should be, in case you are excessively evil or good, rather pronounced - like respectful murmur, people giving way in respect , cheering on occasion, and perhaps asking for an autograph if you are good.
If bad, you'll be looked askance, cursed, people part around you (but in fear this time), guards will start to hunt you down, etc.
Also, this system should be based on city->country/nation->continent scale. Yea, like in Fallout. You can be hero of one city, but in other you'll be only heard about, at best, and completely unknown in other country/nation.
This way, gaining good reputation (or bad one, but that'll be rather risky) will be very rewarding in terms of 'coolness', + discounts, + exclusive quests, etc.
And then, gaining reputation is much more varied then training skills. Btw, in some quests, you may not need to use your character skills at all (think puzzle ones). And inchar reputation (with NPCs bowing to you in respect, and newbies dropping jaw seeing that) is much more fun then just being known as a good PvPer OOC (and see below).
Each type of quest, no matter how often repeated, should NOT give same amount of reputation each time it is completed.
Simplified example:
You get a quest to kill a rat. You complete it, and gain a few reputation points (marking you as a person you can take on a rat). You complete it an other time - very insignificant addition to reputation/fame - like, people see that you really did kill it, not stumbled on a corpse by chance. And next kills do not add anything to reputation/fame - since you already known as 'scourge of rats'.
Same goes to killing wolves, trolls, dragons.
When you'll kill a dragon, you'll get quite famous... but after you'll kill 10 more you'll not get 10x times famous after you killed the first one - only a bit more.
Well, killing each dragon in vicinity of different towns may be smart, but again, there is a limit you can raise your reputation with repeating competition of a same quest.
Also, reputation should be connected with quest type (see my idea on quest types):

* If it was kill quests - you'll get marked as 'Slayer'.
* Protect quests - Protector.
* Cure quests - Healer (you if you think that no doctor ever became famous... remember Bible :D)
* Infiltrate quests - Legendary spy.
* And world-famous scientist go without questions - who don’t want to become as famous as Einstein?
(Btw, negative reputation should also be different, like killer, thief, spammer , etc).
So on. This will allow ‘pacifist’ type players to attain fame w/o running ‘Bring ten wolf tails’ quests.
Also, some people (depending on personal preferences - see, profession) may react differently toward famous people.
Like, Slayer will be more feared then respected, Spy may arouse disdain in warriors, Healer loved by pretty much everyone, etc.
This way, getting your reputation up (provided that there would be a LOT of quests of each type, and semi-randomized to boot):
A. Would take long enough (so, you can have a purpose in your life w/o resorting to simply maxing your skills/eq and PvP for a good time)
B. Be non-repeative (since completing identical quests a few tmes in a row, at least in one place, would be pretty much pointless anyway... except for reward, but wouldn't it be better to gain BOTH extra fame and reward?).
To sum it up:
Each your action (completed quests included) should be evaluated on it's worth in fame and reputation, and sphere it the reputation should be added (fighting, healing, spying, etc).
Instead of negative reputation, player should be allowed to build reputation of a thief or a killer.
If action's fame/reputation score is equal or below your current one, no gain in that field for you. Go for more difficult quests.
More difficult quests require you to have prerequisite fame/reputation, not skills. You may, after all, simply command a few hirelings to do this job - but since it's you who paying them, and you volunteered for the job, you get the glory. (But hirelings may refuse to work with someone of low fame, or particular reputation, no matter how much you’ll pay... well, unless you’ll pay a fortune, at least.)
Same is true in case of you joining the party of high-levels. It will be the leader who'll get the most glory. That's how it works in RL, and is good for balance reasons.
I’d say it is worth implementing.

 

[Sarkile]

permadeath+post apocalypse = teh win!

Really, that's pretty high up there on the things I hate about MMOG's. I know you wouldn't sell for shit though with everyone bitching about their dead characters, but not being able to come back to life instantly adds a level of excitement to PvP.

 

[Fez]

On a purely picky side-point, your formatting is insane Balor. What gives?

Just no pointless grind, it is the cheapest and shittiest way to stretch the game out. It's worse than sending someone to the other side of the map to get the blue key.

 

[Balor]

Yea, my formatting sucks. I guess I should work on that.
But about 'shitty way'...
Well, it depends on how good are those quests.
If 'send someone for the blue key' - right you are.
If something along the lines of Fallout or Planescape... I guess you are not.
While hoping for the latter is rather... way too opitmistic (kinda like going to Las Vegas with 100$ and desire to become as rich as Billy G., heh), but something between with inclination towards Fallout and P:T will be rather good.
Beats simple grinding for the sake of it anyway.

 

[Balor]

Btw! An other idea! (Perhaps it was addressed somewhere already, but anyway).
Why not have such quests where positions would be open on the both sides, so to speak?
Like, you may get a quest to find a bandit... and that bandit will turn out to be a PC griefer.
Or you will be given opportunity to defend a caravan... and other player will get a quest to rob it with a few bandit NPC... etc, etc.
Btw, if PCs and NPCs will be made in a way that they will be non readily identifiable from each other (see naming system suggestion), you'll be into some nasty surprises :D.
Hmm, it leads me to idea of a player-run quest board, with messages like:
'Bring 100 iron ingots', 10 gold for each.
'PK victim seeking a qualified hitman.'
"Will sell a rat tail for 1000000 gold'... oh, damn newbies. (I'd say make a fee for placing each proposal to block out something like that. And the longer it will hang, the higher the fee.).
Etc. (I'm sure that was developed somewhere already - too glaring, but I'd suggest anyway).
Preferably made like a DB with search options (we have tech, after all?).

 

[Hajo]

Hmm, it leads me to idea of a player-run quest board, with messages like:
'Bring 100 iron ingots', 10 gold for each.
'PK victim seeking a qualified hitman.'

The latter one begs the question if there should be police and judges, or if self-administered justice is the proper way to do it. Usually it ends in endless cylces of revenge.

 

[Balor]

Yea, right you are. But we are talking about PA here, right? There might (or, I'd say, must) be law-keeping forces in the major towns, but in the Wastes... you are on your own.
Anyway, it depends on setting. And besides, it's just a somewhat humorous example.
(See at above and below 'posts' ).

 

[Hajo]

The bulletin board idea is good. It could be useful in any kind of MMORPG.

The lack of justice is IMO a common problem in many MMORPGs that why I mentioned the point. It's correct, than in this particular setting lawless areas are part of the seting, and therefore it's ok.

But IIRC I heard of hiring hitmans and assassins even in the online version of "The Sims" which ought to be a more peacuful and lawful setting?!

My knowledge is all second hand, my internet connection is still to expensive to play online fo r hours - will hopefully change soon, the order is out already. Then I can really talk with you about the problems and features

 

[Fez]

A bulletin board would be useful, but I don't know how you'll handle the inevitable abuse of it.

Try to keep the game feeling brutal. I don't want to float through fairy lands when it's supposed to be a gritty every-man-for-himself PA type world.

Oh yeah, try to keep this kind of crap out of your game too. There are too many games that revolve around this already.

 

[DarkSign]

LMFAO...

*falls out of chair*