Other > General Game Discussion

Gave it a try, again

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Solar:
Timeouts will always be there because without them the game breaks.

The problem comes from the fact that you should be gathering for crafting while you do something else and "playing" while your final item cooldown ticks down ... or using crafting to supplement other means of income.

Even as it is now, its perfectly possible to play for extended periods without having to craft anything at all, but hopefully the focus will shift away from it as a "main" feature as more gets added in and it occupies the secondary role it should do.


Also, I think its a bit of an exageration to call it our main focus, one of the main moaning points of some players, perhaps, but only a small proportion of total time worked on the game I think ;)

BubbaBrown:
I'd venture that a majority of timeouts aren't needed, but instead a diminishing returns system could be put into place.

Example setup for diminishing returns:  For each instance of an item made, the experience received is a percentage of the base experience.  This percentage is reduced for each instance of that item.  This makes realistic sense, since a smith wouldn't gain as much from making the first incarnation of an item as they would the 10th and so forth.  Also, it would not only encourage variety in production, but would deter characters for sole production as they'd get burnt out and unable to progress by simple production after a certain point.  In an organization, would means that the master crafter would be encouraged to take on harder production, while the secondary and lower crafters would still be encouraged to take on the less items.

Also, a chance of crafting failure could be introduced that would increase with consecutive production over a period of time with a recovery rate for time away from crafting.  This way you are never completely out of options, but might have a few false starts or wasted materials if you really need that extra item.  This crafting failure could be expanded to make getting higher levels of skill more useful and logical.   

This chance of failure could easily balance out any surge of raw materials that would be gotten from elimination of cool downs on gathering.  If needed, more advanced items could have greater material requirements and more intermediate items and steps to take advantage of the failure rate.  This way, producing a single item doesn't suffer a penalty, but mass production suffers the same problems of mass production in real life such as waste and inefficiencies.

With gathering resources, despite the maps being instanced on a random draw, there are ways to prevent over-production.  The world map is already divided into sections areas that influence the types of maps that are instanced.  What could be done is to apply resource counters and content statistics to each of these areas.  As gatherers remove resources from the area, these counters will go down.  Over time, they'll recover at a set rate depending on the regions.  Areas suffering depletion will generate maps with less resources or objects that will not generate resources when a gather attempt is made.  This encourages people to brave the wastes to find better gathering grounds, but also brings up the mechanic of groups and factions maintaining territory and patrol it to keep "the rabbits out of the garden".  Also, the weight of raw materials is pretty hefty and with travel times (and opportunity for an ill fated death), the amount flowing in isn't going to be that fast that quickly.

One points mentioned is that gangs would have one guy be the crafter and everyone else be combat orientated.  That actually makes sense.  Even in realistic terms, most towns and organizations usually have their master crafters working for them to keep the rest of the group supplied.  This might not be for everyone, but some people actual like to dynamics of a good crafting system and the puzzle of management that comes with it.  Also, this might make more advanced and dedicated crafters respected.  For example, Ragnarok Online has a system in place where the most skilled craftsmen on the server received bonuses on any items they made.  This not only made their items highly desired, but made sure they no one pissed them off.  This is probably ridiculous overkill for FOnline, but it is something to keep in mind during the design process.

FOnline is about PVP everywhere and anytime in the end, but for this to work you need to have a good infrastructure to support it all.  Never discount the variety of economics in any given system.  Economics isn't limited to monetary or goods.  Time budgeting is a big thing to consider in any game, too.  The problem with cool downs is that they are a very stiff penalty for actions of any kind.  The goal of cool downs is to limit the average usefulness of any skill or ability.  The best practice by many other games is to apply cool downs on skills that are fairly binary in nature:  Resurrections, Simple Buffs, etc..   These are usually abilities that can't be broken down into more granular bits.

But, this average usefulness limitation could be done in other ways.  With First Aid, I made mentioning of limiting the usefulness and introducing a possibility of failure as a means of replacing the cool down.  With the proper tweaking, both ways can be equal routes to reducing the average usefulness of the First Aid skill.  I'd argue the route without the cool down would be less frustrating and with players more willing to accept the limited rates of heal and possibly of accidentally injuring themselves.  Now, some would point out that if could be a means of generating XP by injuring and heal yourself or everything getting together for big sadomasochistic group healing sessions.  This is could be negated by introducing temporary diminishing returns of XP and increased failure rates for overuse in a time period. 

This is of course my opinion and I come from the game mastering school of "Let them try, but let them take the consequences, too."  I would much rather have the ability limited in effectiveness, rather by an arbitrary time limit.  This is why Weakening needs to be reworked or reconsidered.  The cost of losing your items, being respawned in a random area, having minimal HP, and then having to brave the wastes without the proper equipment.... That's a pretty harsh penalty and will slow down even the best players for a bit.  Taking away the abilities you have spent time and effort in honing to help yourself get back to fighting strength again is too much.  I would much rather have less effective skills and taking a risk by using them then not having anything at all.  There's a certain gambler's appeal to be had by taking your life into your own hands at whether you end up accidentally killing yourself or gaining enough HP to make the trip back to a town.

"Always give them a chance to take their chances."  The problem with cool downs you are stuck more often than not with nothing to do.  There are arguments that you can do other things while you wait.  That is true to a certain point.  Unfortunately, you are apt to run into more cool downs.  No equipment for killing?  Go craft.  Can't craft?  Go gather.  Can't gather?  Go shovel shit.  No shit?  Shit outta luck.  It's quite easy to have your game experience interrupted consistently 2 to 5 minutes at a time.  This can actually result with actually having less than 15 minutes of actual active game play per hour spent.  I have worked in Information Technology and it is all about "hurry up and wait."  It's not exactly a fun experience when you only are repairing one computer or server.  For those that suggest watching a movie to pass the time between cool downs...  I want to the PLAY the game not wait to play it.  Now, if that the type of game play FOnline is shooting for, then more power to you all...  It's not for me.

Since this is a non-commercial project, I would again urge the developers to take advantage of open source licensing or some exposure of the code to the public.  I've got a masters in computer science with experience in parallel processing, OS design, networks, and databases.  This project interests me and wouldn't mind looking over the code to see how it all works.  Also, I'm a jobless bum right now, so I'm bored out of my mind at the moment.  Anyway, there are plenty of untapped human resources that could be made use of if the project was more open.  Imagine all the bored systems admins with access to servers and network bandwidth, the professors needing a new project to toy with in between semesters, and the senior software developers with years of industry experience who need a break from the mundane office applications they are stuck programming right now.  Of course, this is thinking a little too idealistic, but gaining the attention of the obsessive experts for a little while can aid a project greatly.

If anything, having people make their own servers will allow for greater testing of ideas and methods of running the game.  Instead of conjecture, you'll be able to cite examples of ideas gone bad and why they aren't on the main server.  Also, questionable concepts would be allowed the ability to grow and develop with the good concepts being adopted by everyone else.  I can almost see something similar to the golden age of the MUD's, MOO's, MUSH's, and MUCK's.  It would be an interesting experiment to say the least.

Yes, I want to get rid of the cool downs.  And yes, simply getting rid of cool downs would break the game.  What I am suggesting is to replace them with a different system that would be more finesse and subtle, but effectively limits the same as the cool downs without the psychological annoyance and game play stuttering effects.  What would you rather see as the usual conversations?

Dude 1: "Made a laser pistol."
Dude 2: "Cool.  How long do you have to wait for the next one or ammo?"
Dude 1: "65 minutes."
Dude 2: "Sucks."

OR?

Dude 1:  "Damn, got done making a batch of laser pistols."
Dude 2:  "How'd it go?"
Dude 1:  "Made about 3 or so before I started fucking up left and right.  I pissed away too many parts trying to push myself it."
Dude 2:  "If you are going to seriously craft that stuff, you really need to get your skills up first."
Dude 1:  "I know.  I even had to travel halfway to Broken Hills from NCR to find a place with enough Ore to even make the metal parts."

I know the focus of the posts seems to be on crafting, the economy, and skills.... but you need all those in good working order to allow for rest of the game to flow well.  You can't have decent combat without good armor, weapons, and drugs.  You'll still have combat, but it'll be comparable to the aristocrats keeping the lowly peasants from even getting a foothold to fight back and taking what pittance they have managed to gather for themselves.  I guess the best way to explain it is there is a significant disparity between the classes of players right now.  When equipment determines whether or not you'll even survive the simplest random encounter, you need to make sure people can at least get the basic materials quickly enough.  Otherwise, they'll be stuck in towns, dying constantly while they try to get everything together, and only to lose it all again... and have to repeat again.  If the process doesn't flow well, it get more annoying each time.

Bartosz:
Dude 1(after leveling his skill up to a point where failure is rare):   "Ok, got done making a batch of laser pistols."
Dude 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10: Ok, now give em to us, we're going hunting.
Dude 1: Sure, take them all, I'll make others in no time.

Solar:
Dev 1: "Why are there so many Laser Pistols on the server?"


As I say, timeouts are needed, however you want to dress them up, the end result is the same.

gordulan:
what about a cd reduction for lone wanderers i mean you could make a perk you earn automatically when you hit lvl 10 or so and are not in a faction yet and lose it if you join a faction and are not able to get it if you've been part of one.

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