[crossfire] What about a gameplay revolution?

[Mark Wedel]

Nicolas Weeger wrote:
>>   Likewise, if the game was much more an adventure game, then maybe not
>> having stats would make more sense (by adventure game, I mean games where
>> the focus is on exploration and solving puzzles, like say myst, and not
>> killing things).
> 
> Maybe that's somethine we should consider - remove some hack&slash aspect, 
> make the game more strategic, have more time to think about what you want to 
> do next.

  That's a bit different game.

  I do think too much emphasis of the game is really hack and slash.  Or maybe 
hack and slash with no real purpose.

  Most RPG's do tend to have a lot of combat - that is sort of the basis of an 
RPG vs adventure game.  But lots also have some purpose - get this item from the 
bottom of a dungeon, kill that nasty boss creature, etc, and these get tied into 
some basic storyline or quest.

  Some of the crossfire dungeons do fit into some framework of 'go do this and 
get some reward'.  But a lot are just you come accross some dungeon, go in, and 
kill everything in sight, and there happens to be nice reward at the end.

  Crossfire is an RPG game at its heart - its not an adventure game (like myst), 
so combat will be a part of it.

  And while puzzles are good, and more puzzles would be welcome, they are also 
not as repeatable as hack and slash.  What I mean by that is that in crossfire, 
you could play a fighter and do dungeons and get that character at high level, 
and then decide to try a fireborn - while defeating monsters the first time with 
a fighter would give me hints on how to do it with a fireborn, it is a bit of a 
different experience.  However, for the puzzle, once you know the answer, that 
is it, and the next time around it could be really easy and now just an 
excersize of running around and doing the steps.

  I personally don't find much replay value in adventure/puzzle games that much 
for that reason - the fun was figuring out the puzzles the first time around (or 
finding places, whatever), but RPG's do have some level of repeatability.

  The combat rebalancing is slowing down combat, so does give player a bit more 
time to think, which is a good thing.


>>   I think WC is the only thing that violates that rule, correct?  And the
>> reason it does so is because it was based on the old AD&Dv1 version of
>> THACO/AC (or so I believe).  I'll note that AD&Dv3 actually fixed that -
>> higher the AC, the better.  Likewise, the idea of WC basically went away -
>> instead, you just have a bonus to hit.  Ends up being very simple - if d20
>> + to hit >= AC, you hit.
>>
>>   Making that change in crossfire is IMO a good idea and would be really
>> easy to do - one could easily enough write a script to go through and
>> replace wc X with hit_bonus 20-X (with the script doing the calculation). 
>> Likewise, a similar change for AC could be done (new_ac = 20-X)
> 
> Actually, I was more thinking like: if attack == defense, 50% chance to hit. 
> Attack > defense => more than 50%, capped to eg 90%. Attack < defense => less 
> than 50%, capped to eg 10%.
> Maybe not linear progression, but that can be adjusted (and 50% is some value 
> I didn't think about, can be adjusted).
> 
> Also, you could have 'sword +1' => +5 bonus to attack, or +10, something like 
> that.

  That all works.  I'm not sure if it is worth while going to a percentage 
system  - then you have other oddities like a +1 sword really gives a 5% bonus 
(so why don't you just make that a +5 sword, etc).  But this sort of goes more 
into the details - I think the general thing of higher numbers is better just 
makes sense - explaining WC and AC is always odd.

> 
> 
>>   Agree.  Too often in maps/quests, the final reward is some artifact type
>> weapon.  It would be more interesting if these were components or pieces to
>> make up really good weapons.  And ideally give out very few static rewards
>> (meaning that you always get item X from some quest - make it a treasure
>> list of maybe 10 different items, etc)
> 
> What about something like you need to do 10 quests to have all pieces needed 
> for a powerful weapon? Each quests only gives one piece of the weapon, 10 
> needed.
> But that still doesn't address the issue of map camping or leveling up.

  Yeah, there are different approaches.  If players craft their own weapons, 
then one could find different components that give different bonuses - instead 
of the existing armor improvment logic, maybe you find something that gives it 
5% of fire resistance, or +1 str, etc.  And you can go and choose how to combine 
those different pieces together.  Maybe as a way to burn up money, you have the 
empty weapon sold in towns.

  For example, for 100 GP you can buy a sword that can hold 3 of those 
enchantments.  If you want a sword that hold 10, it is 2500 GP, etc.  At low 
levels, you may not be finding many of those enchantments, so not a big deal.

  Map camping is probably a different problem - I'm not sure it can really be 
solved as it relates to loot.

> 
>>   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.
> 
> Many things can be thought of. Apartment rent. Weapon/armor reparation. 
> Potions to buy, or ingredients. Or lessons to level up or improve a skill.

  Yep - many of those would need more discussion to sort out details.  I think 
potions would be one area with new combat that are more usable.

  Pricing them is key - I think in the past, some potions, while useful, were so 
expensive for what you get that it isn't worth it.  A magic power potion could 
be an example - getting back all your mana instantly can be nice, but how much 
value is there to it if you can just step to the previous map and wait 10 seconds?

  It may also be that potions based more on effects that last - the fire 
resistance ones are good example - those are valuable, but no found often enough 
in shops.  But other cases would be instead of something just giving you back a 
bunch of mana or hp, increasing the regeneration of those for say 5 minutes 
could be quite useful, and something players might consider worthwhile.

  I think finding/making things for players to buy may be one of the easier 
aspects of the game.

  But I was thinking about the general loot factor, and had some other quick 
thoughts:
- There isn't any standard for what is appropriate treasure.  The map making 
guide says something along the lines of treasure appropriate for difficulty. 
But what the hell does that really mean?  Likewise, if I make up a new monster, 
what is appropriate treasure for it?
- Even within existing monster archs, treasure isn't consistent - humanoids 
generate a lot of treasure (orcs, goblins), where other stuff doesn't.  This 
means that from a player point of view, you go to where that treasure is - you'd 
rather fight orcs than birds because of that treasure difference.  This could be 
fixed in a few ways - while humanoids still need some number of items for their 
attacks (like bows, etc), it doesn't mean that they are things that the 
character could get - one could say that the vast majority of those items are 
worthless crap and have no value (a club is just a stick someone picked up after 
all).  So now instead of every orc dropping a pile of stuff, maybe every 4th orc 
drops one item type of thing.  Drastic reduction in treasure - it also means 
that when you do get something, it is at least a little bit more exciting.

> 
>>   How do you handle dungeons?  Once someone does the goblin quest map, no
>> one can ever do it again (who is going to repopulate it with monsters, etc)
> 
> Have some algorithm regenerate the map at some point, in a different shape?
> Mostly, make the world dynamic, with population variations and such (you 
> trashed many orcs? hard for them, not many to see around - will become again 
> visible later on).

  I guess it depends on what problem is trying to be solved here.  Most games 
have maps that are repeatable at some level or another - simply because 
otherwise you need a huge set of maps.

  And as a new player, I'd get turned off pretty quickly if I logged in, and 
have a list of a few beginners dungeons I could explore, only to find that they 
have all been cleared out.


> 
> I think one current aspect of the game is 'everyone wants to be a hero'. If we 
> want to keep this, of course we need to level up or such. If on the other 
> hand we want something else, then maybe not everyone needs to be a hero :)

  As per note a ways above, depends on the type of game.

  My personal thought is that in an RPG, everyone _can be_ a hero.  It doesn't 
mean you have to play that way - if one wanted to play a low key character who 
goes and makes items, that is fine.

  But I think we also need to identify what the core focus is.  I think I'd 
prefer a game that is more limited in what you can do (say is much more hero 
orientated) but does a good job at it vs a game that lets you do a much of 
different things (Be a farmer) but doesn't do a very good job at any of those.

  Reason?  If I'm going to choose to play something, I'll choose the one that 
does the best job at it.  If there is some game that is really good on the non 
heroic stuff about farming, and I wanted to play a farmer, I'd probably do it on 
that game vs a game which doesn't do a very good job.  Simply on the basis that 
the game that does a really good job is probably more interesting to play.

  Now crossfire could be really good in many different areas.  But that is also 
many different areas that then need work, balance, improvement, etc.  And there 
has to be enough demand of that feature to warrant that work as well as ongoing 
maintenance.  If we had farming code, and virtually no one used it and it had 
various bugs, we'd probably just pull that code rather than try and fix the bugs.

> 
> 
> 
> One other point that was briefly discussed on the list: currently we lack a 
> content and gameplay leader (not necessarily the same person, but well, maybe 
> easier).
> Basically we need someone who can drive the game in some direction, and decide 
> things ("yes, those maps are great, accepted", "could you add some more 
> background story, please?", "no, those maps don't feel at all the spirit, 
> rejected", "this item is too powerful and needs adjusting").
> 
> I'll admit I don't really feel qualified for this role, as I'm not totally 
> sure of what I want the game to be :)
> (but I could think of some things).
> But IMO we definitely need someone, else we'll just not go anywhere, the game 
> will be a disparate assembly of various parts without coherence.

  I agree with that.  Driving work forward is hard - IMO, the person doing the 
driving also has to do a fair amount of work.

  I think figuring out the direction isn't that hard - we've done things like 
that before.  The hard part is actually seeing the work through.