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Other => FOnline:2238 Forum => Archives => Suggestions => Topic started by: Badger on April 17, 2011, 02:15:42 pm
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I hate encounters. Breathe deep, and say it with me. You do too. You know you do.
I consider all that time spent spawning and then dashing offscreen like a post-apocalyptic Benny Hill wasted. I think, in their current form, random encounters don't enhance the game at all - they're something to be avoided, grinded or farmed.
Encounter difficulty means nothing - if I have to head over to Navarro I'll just strip down to my undies and keep running into certain death until I get there. If I encounter a patrol, I wouldn't stand a chance anyway - I'd just get shot by Enclave murdervision, respawn, and do it all again. If the enemies aren't ranged, then all you have to do is run - regardless of RT or TB.
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Edit - MY IDEA:
Let's say Encounters are divided into City/Desert/Cliffs, like it is now. Then divided into encounter levels 1-3, 4-7, 8-12, and so on. Low levels would encounter rats, ants, and a badly equipped raider or two. Mid-level would have small groups of marauders, slavers, molerats. High levels would encounter floaters and supermutants. Everybody is fighting things they should be able to handle - high levels don't have to fuck around with rats, low levels don't get destroyed by super mutant laser eyes.
I think you'd also be able to keep more of a handle on what gear people can easily obtain. If you're level 8, NPCs are wielding magnums and assault rifles and they're only gunning for you - no more NCR Army vs. Super Mutants to pick the remains.
Combined with Rat's handsome new encounter map style further down, I think we'd be onto something.
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yeah cool, but duegons were suggested already
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Encounter difficulty means nothing - if I have to head over to Navarro I'll just strip down to my undies and keep running into certain death until I get there. If I encounter a patrol, I wouldn't stand a chance anyway - I'd just get shot by Enclave murdervision, respawn, and do it all again.
If you need to get to Navarro, then you'll do that with a reason, not just to say "hello" to enclave guard and then go back. So this reason usually contain an item that you carry with you, which you can't put in your undies, so if you'll die you'll lose it.
If the enemies aren't ranged, then all you have to do is run - regardless of RT or TB.
I've used my talent in drawing and made an art:
(http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/9171/zz2v.png)
Critters spawn in case of 1 vs 2 vs 3 encounters, players will be spawned at other side of map. This way it'll be impossible to run away from critters in RT, and may be you'll take some hits in TB. Of couse TB and RT encounter fleeing are very different. If make TB location leaving identical to RT (you can't leave encounter if last turn someone attacked you or you attacked someone, so you need to skip one turn without attack/being attacked and only on the next turn you can leave), then it'll be harder to leave encounters in TB too.
Edit:
Also incase of only one player in encouter, pack animals and NPCs shouldn't go berserk, but keep thier pray from escaping, by 50% of pack attacking target 30% of pack going on hexes between target and exit grid and 20% of pack attacking once and running on all other APs in direction of grid and then joining other 50% on the next turn, while other 20% from those 50% joining those 20%.
If there're more than 1 player on encounter, then if it's animal pack, they must choose the weakest one as food, if intelligent NPCs, then someone with better equipment on him and his hands (armor+weapon), because he's a threat.
Also incase of low HP, pack animals going into those 30%, and healthy animals replacing wounded, so healthy will be fighting, and wounded will be keeping pray from escaping.
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I've used my talent in drawing and made an art:
I actually really like that - but it would require the game to throw encounters that the player has a chance of being able to handle. How difficult would it actually be to create a system that does that?
Let's say it was divided into City/Desert/Cliffs, like it is now. Then divided into encounter levels 1-3, 4-7, 8-12, and so on. Low levels would encounter rats, ants, and a badly equipped raider or two. Mid-level would have small groups of marauders, slavers, molerats. High levels would encounter floaters and supermutants. Everybody is fighting things they should be able to handle - high levels don't have to fuck around with rats, low levels don't get destroyed by super mutant laser eyes.
I think you'd also be able to keep more of a handle on what gear people can easily obtain. If you're level 8, NPCs are wielding magnums and assault rifles and they're only gunning for you - no more NCR Army vs. Super Mutants to pick the remains.
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It's often been said that level scaling is not wanted.
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It's often been said that level scaling is not wanted.
booo. Why not? Besides it not being 'Fallout'.
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In fact, encounters do have a kind of level scaling already: The more players, the more mobs.
The problem I see with real levelscaling is low level players going into an encounter and other players joining in then. Or using distress call to bring their big lvl21 friends who then pwn the shit.
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The problem I see with real levelscaling is low level players going into an encounter and other players joining in then. Or using distress call to bring their big lvl21 friends who then pwn the shit.
Bleargh, good points. But I wouldn't say they're drastic enough to completely ruin level scaled encounters. I mean, the same could be said of PvE dungeons or any other feature that will include dangerous creatures. You could always start a high level NPC faction quest/go to a high level PvE area, then bring along your low level buddies for a ride. Unless you introduced level limits on those too. Which I would be fine with, actually.
Edit: How about distress calls are only available when there's no NPCs left alive/the encounter only contains human players?
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Edit: How about distress calls are only available when there's no NPCs left alive/the encounter only contains human players?
Then the feature loose most of his original point. It's called "distress call" because you are supposed to use it when you need help...
But well, level scaling is already existing in area division way: At anklav, or SF, harsh encounter, near klamath, easy encounters...
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Then the feature loose most of his original point. It's called "distress call" because you are supposed to use it when you need help...
How often do you think that's what it's actually used for? Whenever people I know use it it's just to rendezvous after a group breaks up. I doubt it's often used mid PvE fight.
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The problem I see with real levelscaling is low level players going into an encounter and other players joining in then. Or using distress call to bring their big lvl21 friends who then pwn the shit.
Can you explain how bringing high level friends with distress call would negatively affect game experience or balance?
In real world if you had really experienced friend, he'd probably teach you a lot, so powerleveling with friend is not huge problem if you have things like XP based on damage done (eg. 50% xp for downing just 50% of critter hp at the time of it's death)
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In fact, encounters do have a kind of level scaling already: The more players, the more mobs.
I'm just curious: if there are so many huge shitloads of NPCs in one NCR Army enco when encountering them alone, how many are there when you travel with a big group? :O I don't imagine. Encountering them alone makes the map look small already.
Or that scaling must be in a very small scale.
(This post is actually a hidden suggestion to nerf the NCR army encounters ;f)
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And lets say I want to get magnums/shitty gear, or I want to make some easy cash from getting those, I would be stuck with minigun wielding freaks which I cant kill due to the fact I lost my gear in a TC...
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It's funny.
People knock magnums, and while there are certainly some bad things about them (the range isn't so hot, they can suffer versus armor) they are also handy if you want to pop weak critters, and not use your precious ammunition on a rat. They are also good for "human" vermin, like low level raiders, and bluesuits. You can just butcher bluesuits with a magnum. They do healthy damage, and will almost always kill a poorly or unarmored player below a certain level if you shoot pop them once or twice and get a crit.
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Another sterilized generic MMO? No thank you.
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Another sterilized generic MMO? No thank you.
So it's better for gameplay to just have easily escapable encounters that players have absolutely no interest in/chance of defeating?
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Counterquestion - where the encounters significantly better in FO1/2? What was their purpose? What did they do better? What not?
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The encounters in Fallout 2 are just filler-trash, while the ones in Fallout 1 made more sense / are more reasonable (and not as often + more unique). It's impossible to fill the 2238 worldmap with many unique encounters.
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Yeah, I don't remember much encounters in FO2 where you meet small tradergroups that you can join for walking to Shady Sands etc, remains of old battlefields, a guy singing old celtic folksongs etc. Biggest Fail are always the ones with two groups fighting where you just wait till one finished the other to loot their weapons. Although not as dramatic like in FO2, it exists in FOnline aswell...
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I think it's pretty dramatic in 2238. If I could, I would replace all this crapfest with something more unique, but it's just impossible to do this in an MMO without getting it to become super repitative.
When I replayed Fallout 1 again, after years, I have been seriously impressed by the encounters, because I didn't remembered them anymore. Compared to Fallout 2, it's just a totally different system and feeling. It got me when I have done a caravan run with the Crimson Caravan and met "Raiders" .... which have been ghouls, armed with spears(!). You will never find something like that in Fallout 2.
Another example being the maps-- no trees, no broken up desert ground, some parts of the worldmaps are solely desert sand (which inspired me to change the maps on the whole desert plains area on the westcoast).
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Counterquestion - where the encounters significantly better in FO1/2? What was their purpose? What did they do better? What not?
Not particularly - half the time I just had to rely on the fact that when you hit the exit grid, so does your entire group. The one good thing about them was the difficulty curve - there was some kind of path the devs expected the player to take, and so you're going up against stuff you can be expected to handle. In FOnline, you're trying to find someone's dead husband for 500xp in the Boneyard while dodging super mutant lasers.
I figure encounters are by nature repetitive and kind of inherently a flawed idea, but I also think tying it to level is the only way you're going to be able to put players up against stuff they can be expected to defeat - the only way I think you can make encounters even vaguely enjoyable. The world is too vast and the quests are too dotted around the map to create a kind of expected path for the player to take.
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Well, a possible alternative would also be to remove all humans from the normal encounter system, so you would only encounter animals of various difficult. Human encounters then would be placed into the "special encounter" category and therefore become more rar. Then it doesn't matter that much anymore, if they are too weak for you or not- if you meet them, you kind of earned the shit they got. But if I remember correct, we tried something like this already long time ago. Though it was timer-based, which gave bad results after very short time.
As 2238 is an MMO with a big world, where players can spawn on already three different places, there isn't really any room for a "dotted path" through the games area. Also I think the worldmap buildup isn't suited for having such a difficult curve. And "fixing" that would mean to make yet another gigantic overhaul... It's just not what we can stem in the moment, considering we already have "TC overhaul"(?), "car overhaul", "caravan overhaul", "crafting overhaul", .... Soon we get to a point where it's faster to ask what isn't in some overhaul project.
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When I replayed Fallout 1 again, after years, I have been seriously impressed by the encounters, because I didn't remembered them anymore. Compared to Fallout 2, it's just a totally different system and feeling. It got me when I have done a caravan run with the Crimson Caravan and met "Raiders" .... which have been ghouls, armed with spears(!). You will never find something like that in Fallout 2.
Another example being the maps-- no trees, no broken up desert ground, some parts of the worldmaps are solely desert sand (which inspired me to change the maps on the whole desert plains area on the westcoast).
Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. The *feel* is just different. But I doubt most of our players would admire the beauty of encounters more true to the original, instead you'll read "omfg weak ass monsters, lol, where the fuck is my lewt!11, lawl I just shoot this guy in the face, wtf y is that guy singing, that's gay lol". ;D
I figure encounters are by nature repetitive and kind of inherently a flawed idea, but I also think tying it to level is the only way you're going to be able to put players up against stuff they can be expected to defeat - the only way I think you can make encounters even vaguely enjoyable. The world is too vast and the quests are too dotted around the map to create a kind of expected path for the player to take.
Give it time, when eventually more stuff to do and varied material shows up.
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A simple reason why i am against the OPs suggestion is: I am lvl 21 i want to craft Leather Jackets/Armors. I simply cant hunt geckos and brahmin anymore because they are too low tier for me so im reduced to alting or trading.
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A simple reason why i am against the OPs suggestion is: I am lvl 21 i want to craft Leather Jackets/Armors. I simply cant hunt geckos and brahmin anymore because they are too low tier for me so im reduced to alting or trading.
Or we just have tough geckos. And brahmin are more a resource than an enemy critter, I figure you should have as much chance to encounter them as you do broc flowers.