[crossfire] What about a gameplay revolution?

[Andrew Fuchs]

2008/12/14 Nicolas Weeger <nicolas.weeger at laposte.net>
> 1) Don't give out stats to players. Don't give HP/SP/GR/ whatever. Only give
> hints about the health ("you feel very bad", "you bleed a lot") and such
> things ("with great effort you take the armor, but fall on the ground trying
> to put it on")
> Rationale: we're doing a game, not some financial computation. Also, players
> should feel whether they are ready to tackle dragons or are doing damage to
> an opponent, not merely check stats.
> Of course, internally, the game could (should) still use numbers/stats.

Possibly use visual indicators either in-game or on the player's hud.
An example for slowed movement would be a limping animation.

> 2) Make attack/defense and other things just numbers with the rule "the higher
> the better". Attack 50 vs defense 50 => 50% chance to hit (or something like
> that). No "is it wc which is better lower, or ac?"). In the same way, make
> weapons +1 just give some attack bonus, that's all.

No idea

> 3) Don't give so many powerful items. Have players actually create such items,
> with difficulty, so they need to take time (or buy it from other players).
> Makes a "craftmanship" or even alchemy skill much more interesting.
> Want a sword with fire damage? Go find a rare stone of fire or harness the
> power of a volcano to make such weapon.
>
> 4) Reduce loot a lot. Don't put chests everywhere just waiting to be opened.
> Have stuff randomly grow on trees or plants, fish from sea, mine ore to build
> items, find stones to build buildings, whatever.
>
> 5) Remove map reset. A player destroyed a map? Well, another needs to rebuild
> it ingame - or let an NPC do it. That costs money and time, that's fine. And
> no need to rebuild it the same way :)

If a player has already completed the dungeon and enters it alone,
alter the later parts of it to show that it has already been
completed. If they enter with a party and leave the dungeon with
artifacts they already have (we would need to implement some type of
item tracking system) add 'defects' to the newly obtained artifacts.
These defects would make the artifacts break and become less
effective.

I do agree that we should promote the craftsman skills more.



2008/12/15 Mark Wedel <mwedel at sonic.net>
>   I don't know if the problem is so much the amount of loot, or more the lack to
> spend it on anything.
>
>   I know there are some exceptions - guild houses go up for auction, and you can
> spend lots of money if you want your apartment a big bigger or quick exits to
> different maps.  But even many of those are one time upfront costs.
>
>   At some point in my adventuring, I just don't find anything in the shops to
> buy very often - I've gotten all the spells, the likelihood of actually finding
> any decent items in the shops is low.  So that money just piles up.
>
>   I think that is really the problem - unless there are more useful ways to
> spend money (needed for adventuring gear) it just accumulates.

An automated system that would allow a server administrator to charge
a rent or tax on guild houses would be nice. Possibly allowing
granular, per region, configuration. Rent for apartments could be
charged, but we would need to implement a system that would allow
players to recover items (except for built customizations) left in
their inaccessible apartments.

Another idea is if a player's items occasionally need to be repaired.
Requiring that powerful artifacts be maintained after some use or
time, potentially by very skilled and expensive craftsmen, would give
higher level players a use for their money. Consideration should be
taken for lower level players, who might come to depend on artifacts
which where donated to them. Done possibly by weakening the artifact
to a point where it is of little use to higher level players, but
still valuable to players at lower levels.

--
Andrew Fuchs