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Other => FOnline:2238 Forum => Archives => Suggestions => Topic started by: zamp on May 15, 2011, 10:55:02 am
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Now hear me out before shooting the whole idea down.
Here's what I suggest;
You could see other players/npcs/caravans/etc. on the world map as nodes. Small round "static" circles, like the junkyard for example, but the green ring moves based on the owner of that node. (Player moves, so does the node)
Each player would "carry" one node with him. (Even if people are following, this would just increase the visible power of the encounter)
All of the nodes are invisible until the owner of a node (party leader) does a succesfull perception/intelligence/outdoorsman check; the check takes into account both node's owner's SPECIAL and skills. Sneak could be used as a "defensive" skill, to make your node less visible to other players/npcs.
Only nodes inside the scouting area (Scout perk increases area by 1) can be seen (they still need the special/skill check tho).
Vehicles would make you hard to spot but would also negate all skill bonuses. Also someone on foot can't catch someone driving a car but if someone is stupid/clever enough to ram into a player with a car the car is taken with him into the encounter.
If an npc sees an enemy node it will perform an action based on the simple AI rules; merchant parties wont attack deathclaws and will try to run away (move away from the node) but NCR army will attack them (head straight on to the deathclaw node).
Whenever two nodes collide on the world map and one of the node's owner sees the other node both parties enter an encounter (Same as random encounters now, but populated by the nodes owner parties).
Each node has a dynamic stat, Power set to them. Whenever someone spots another node they will do a per/int/outdoors check and decide a power value for the node. When a player hovers over the node on the map he'll see tooltip/message that is the same as succesfull outdoorsman check on random encounter atm.
There would be no random encounters (except special ones I suppose) in the game what so ever anymore. With this system npcs would multiply in the nodes and if the node size is too large (5+ molerats for example) Another node/group is created.
NPCs such as a molerat need to eat something so I assume they would try to find ants and eat them.
There would be some seed zones that would always have a few "hidden" NPCs available so they won't totally run out. Also different types of NPCs tend to stay in their own location unless they run out of food.
Whenever a caravan leaves a town he'll purchase some equipment from the shops and take off. Players could enter the caravan nodes and hitch a ride or raid them. Whenever a player is inside an encounter it stops on the map.
When a caravan reaches it's destination he'll sell off the items.
Basicly this will just shift items back and forth from town to town. The more items/cash the caravan has the more power it has. Although sometimes caravans won't leave if they're underpowered (no slaves/mercs in town) or no friendly towns are nearby.
If a caravan is running low on power it'll replenish it by purchasing mercs. (Removing money & items from caravan and turning them into slaves/mercs based on the town the caravan is in)
Here's an example:
(http://zamp.koode.org/junk/misc/fonline_idea_map_1.jpg)
Lets say NCR army (Power 8, 8 people) is in zone 31,29. NCR party leader has high perception and outdoorsman and has the Scout perk (would be useful and not just some shitty perk nobody wants).
There is a Marauder party (Power 3, 3 people) is in zone 32,29.
(http://zamp.koode.org/junk/misc/fonline_idea_map_2.jpg)
NCR party leader does a succesfull skill check and spots the marauder node.
(http://zamp.koode.org/junk/misc/fonline_idea_map_3.jpg)
NCR party starts to move towards the marauders.
(http://zamp.koode.org/junk/misc/fonline_idea_map_4.jpg)
NCR party encounters marauders and as there are no players involved the server does a quick combat calculation and decides on the outcome. (This will reduce server load but still make the world seem dynamic, which it would be with this system)
NCR party has power 8 and all 8 are wearing "high end" gear. Clearly they win.
Marauder party dissappears and NCR party continues with power 7 (one of them was critically shot in the eyes and his head exploded
(http://zamp.koode.org/junk/misc/fonline_idea_map_5.jpg)
Example of what player might see when hovering a node.
And here's a mockup of a large area if you could see everything in the map. Nodes are colored different to differentiate NPCs/players. In game they could all be same color since you could easily just mouse over them to see what there is.
(http://zamp.koode.org/junk/misc/fonline_idea_map_mockup.jpg)
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The worldmap wasn't designed for multiplayer purposes, forcing such interactivity on it isn't necessarily the best solution.
As much as I hate the worldmap being a safe haven, this would lead to worldmap powerbuilds relentlessly hunting everyone and everything without rest. A beginner player with low level couldn't do anything because he would be chased down and shot instantly. It wouldn't even be that surprising if players camped the respawn square, hunted down and shot everyone who came from there.
Players would adapt to it by alting and metagaming, as usually. Example: high od and PE stuff mule.
If very high outdoorsman, sneak, perception and perks didn't matter so much, it'd be more fair.
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It wouldn't even be that surprising if players camped the respawn square, hunted down and shot everyone who came from there.
Guarded town control would expand beyond just the town itself. When someone kills a player on the world map and someone (guard, ncr army etc) sees the encounter the aggressor would be flagged pk for a while and the npcs would hunt him down.
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I like this. It's awesome.
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Excellent idea, zamp. It just would make the game more convenient, so I don't see why this couldn't be implemented. Though there should be some limits for visibility of other encounters. For example, it should depend on the player's perception and outdoorsman-related perks.
Also, avv is right about low-levels, so they can have some kind of protection against that kind of "tracking" until they reach some level.
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Guarded town control would expand beyond just the town itself. When someone kills a player on the world map and someone (guard, ncr army etc) sees the encounter the aggressor would be flagged pk for a while and the npcs would hunt him down.
What about unguarded area spawns? For example Redding-Reno spawn has no patrols around.
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Very well written suggestion.
I was dreaming about this since I started playing 2238.
Excellent idea, but it would obviously need a lot of work and balancing. Yet it is worth it, in my opinion.
I would love to see more player-to-player encounters on the worldmap (not only in towns as we have now). And it wouldn't need a whole new system, just some small adjustments. Zero amount of interaction with other players while traveling is bad for the gameplay.
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A completely reworked map system similar to Mount & Blade? I like it.
Even better if you included the effect of inventory weight & party size on travel speed that is also in Mount & Blade.
Unfortunately that would still not prevent this scenario:
A scout alt with 10 PE, 300% outdoorsman, a roach, and a radio chasing a player on the world map and then distress calling to a leader alt with a full party of 100% combat builds.
When someone kills a player on the world map and someone (guard, ncr army etc) sees the encounter the aggressor would be flagged pk for a while and the npcs would hunt him down.
It has been discussed before and there are too many variables to consider to let the AI handle wasteland justice. Unless the NPC group was huge this would likely just be used for encounter farming.
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How should this look ingame? Overpower'd Awarness or what? Just keep searching, it isn't needed to change that.
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How should this look ingame? Overpower'd Awarness or what? Just keep searching, it isn't needed to change that.
yes it is needed to change that
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one of the best suggestions i never seen. it has some problems, but still being realizable
tough actually you can predict the movement of newbs and little guys in the wastes....they always go to mine, go to his little tents all in the left of NCR ot to his cave at the right of NCR or the lvling ground were you find a lot of molerats.....
It is really hard to imlplement and as Avv point it will be alted, like everything else, first of all we need a solution to the alting, and i mean NO ALTING, only two chars by IP, if there are two players in the same IP, sorry youre screwed it sounds unfair, but its needed. just look at it 90% of the suggestions are discarted because alting.
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It is really hard to imlplement and as Avv point it will be alted, like everything else, first of all we need a solution to the alting, and i mean NO ALTING, only two chars by IP, if there are two players in the same IP, sorry youre screwed it sounds unfair, but its needed. just look at it 90% of the suggestions are discarted because alting.
The problem in this case is that if skills, stats and perks have any effect on how easily you are caught, seen or able to catch others on worldmap it automatically encourages alting and minmaxing.
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The problem in this case is that if skills, stats and perks have any effect on how easily you are caught, seen or able to catch others on worldmap it automatically encourages alting and minmaxing.
Then just give everyone equal chances to see encounters , players on WM. Like for example everyone has equal chances to find a gauss pistol nothing affects it , nobody can abuse that. Would still make this game more fun and interactive outside towns.
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Unfortunately that would still not prevent this scenario:
A scout alt with 10 PE, 300% outdoorsman, a roach, and a radio chasing a player on the world map and then distress calling to a leader alt with a full party of 100% combat builds.
Yeah it should need to be limited somehow... For newbies it could be made so that for the first 5 levels you're "totally" invisible, 5% chance of being spotted by others on the map.
After you level up some and hit let's say 10 you'll still have newbie protection / 2, given that you have no skills or special that modify the chance you'd have 50% chance of being spotted.
At level 21 you only have your skills to protected you.
This would at least help newbies get on their feet but it would still allow "exploiting" with alts.
And the fix for exploiting is that everyone has the same chance of spotting others with a minor change based on skills and special. 10 PE, 10 INT, 300 OD, gives only 25% more to the chance of spotting.
Which means that a 10 level player with nothing allotted to OD would have roughly 75% chance of being spotted.
A 10 level player with OD ~100% and PE/INT 5 would have roughly 40% chance of being spotted.
This could be modified to find the sweet spot for how much affect skills and stats have in spotting/defending.
Another fix could be to just make spotting static. The closer you get to someone else the better chance you have at spotting them.
0.2 zone away has 95% chance (almost on top of you)
0.5 zone away has ~50% chance
1 zone away has ~30% chance
2 zones away has 0% chance
And yet another fix would be to use both systems. Basicly better skills/stats just increase the area you can spot people in (also increases chance, since area is linear, further away less chance etc.)
And the fix for camping spawns would be to make the spawns toss you into the map by random (Pick random location at least 5 zones from your death location and inside 15 zones)
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Then just give everyone equal chances to see encounters , players on WM. Like for example everyone has equal chances to find a gauss pistol nothing affects it , nobody can abuse that. Would still make this game more fun and interactive outside towns.
That's the best alternative. OD, perks and stats could then be used on whatever utilities outside pvp and players.
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I have only one thing to add to what zamp and others said before. I'd like to suggest to make a chance to be spotted depending on your outdoorsman skill and level (as it was said already). So, if you're combat character which sacrificed everything (including outdoorsman) to be most proficent in combat, then it should be very easy to find where you're going.
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Then just give everyone equal chances to see encounters , players on WM. Like for example everyone has equal chances to find a gauss pistol nothing affects it , nobody can abuse that. Would still make this game more fun and interactive outside towns.
NOOOOOO you all dont get it, we need to eliminate once for all the posibility of make a lot of chars.
NO MORE ALTING
And if that means that the game will become a war against proxy and infinite ways of exploiting, yes that what devs and GM will do.
Its our only chance of make the game fair and skills useful.
PD: Dont ban exploiters, do like in Hlalo3 respawn one dev (in this case a GM) in front of that guy with a gravitational hammer and blow him up, then do that with IA all the times he try to get into the game. but dont ban him.
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The worldmap wasn't designed for multiplayer purposes, forcing such interactivity on it isn't necessarily the best solution.
As much as I hate the worldmap being a safe haven, this would lead to worldmap powerbuilds relentlessly hunting everyone and everything without rest. A beginner player with low level couldn't do anything because he would be chased down and shot instantly. It wouldn't even be that surprising if players camped the respawn square, hunted down and shot everyone who came from there.
Players would adapt to it by alting and metagaming, as usually. Example: high od and PE stuff mule.
If very high outdoorsman, sneak, perception and perks didn't matter so much, it'd be more fair.
Agree on that, the game would become completely different, I would rather like to see the world map completely removed and replaced by maps connecting towns and other locations.
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NOOOOOO you all dont get it, we need to eliminate once for all the posibility of make a lot of chars.
NO MORE ALTING
And if that means that the game will become a war against proxy and infinite ways of exploiting, yes that what devs and GM will do.
Its our only chance of make the game fair and skills useful.
PD: Dont ban exploiters, do like in Hlalo3 respawn one dev (in this case a GM) in front of that guy with a gravitational hammer and blow him up, then do that with IA all the times he try to get into the game. but dont ban him.
I believe you're the one that doesn't get it, alts are part of the game and will continue to happen...forever, this may be a "mmo" game but with how the atmosphere is people don't trust each other enough, having only 1 character would be fairly boring, (btw your a hypocrite considering you name your alts on your profile, don't say no alts when you have several) You are not the chosen one, you should not be able to excell at everthing so having a class system in this game is fantastic but playing purely a crafter/shitty combat build or just a pure combat build and not having the chance to switch around is just a terrible idea.
Now back on topic, i love the idea and thanks for the pictures so everyone could easily understand it.
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I would rather like to see the world map completely removed and replaced by maps connecting towns and other locations.
:O complete world of Fallout
I don't think it's doable (would take a lot of people to do it), and in fact you can hide everything on WM, while in one big world you'd hardly add random encounters, rare encounters, bases, cars, tents....
Hope something is changed though, because worldmap and cooldowns are as exciting as watching pool of water dry out.
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alts are part of the game and will continue to happen...forever
Are you talking about alts as support characters, which are getting used from time to time (for example to craft something), or you're talking about multiboxing, which means launching more than one window in the same time? First part could be eliminated by making the game more balanced, where real player-to-player interaction are encouraged. Second will be impossible after the server update to revision 189 or later.
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Talking about support alts not dual logging which i would state if i had been, How would that be stopped by making the game more balanced? If by balanced you mean god characters that can do everything then yes, that could stop it but considering I doubt many players really want to be stuck on playing only one build without having a god character (BG burster/SG sniper gets boring after awhile) I don't see how player interaction would help it.
I'll just edit this so i don't crowd up the topic, At BP, How is "Ability to do most of the things by a single character, NOT a jack of all trades? Once again i stated that having these "God" chars may very well kill alting but i believe that's pointless, Also how will a player be a good sniper/burster at the same time? You can be a good sniper and a mediocre burster, but not good at both without sacrificing important perks. There's a reason why almost all MMO's have builds, they are needed plain and simple. Without alts most builds will probably look too similar for the game to be any real fun.
Also, the comment about domination having non-combat characters, of course without alts that's going to be their ONLY character how many people do you truly believe will play a character who sucks at fighting? Then they are stuck with that character when they find he is boring or they have to delete? That seems awful.
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Don't know, probably you didn't thought about it much. But alright, I'll explain:
P2P interaction means:
1. Ability to craft the very best items only by more than one character (dual log shouldn't work, otherwise it's useless).
2. The most interesting quests (in terms of the story and reward) should be available for the teams only.
3. Domination will be only available for the teams (all types of characters will be involved including non-combat)
Balance means:
1. Ability to use any character, so it would be effective
2. Ability to use any gun, so it would be effective too.
3. Ability to do most of the things by a single character (It doesn't mean being a Jack of all trades, though).
4. Encouraging the using of a single character.
Most of these changes are planned, so I'm feeling less or more ok about it.
P.S. Sorry for going to the off-topic.
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Most of these changes are planned, so I'm feeling less or more ok about it.
It wont happen soon, following what Lexx siad:
"What I can say is that domination will most likely not make it into the next update. While the system behind it is as good as done (as far as I know), we still are lacking lots of (tactical) maps for it.
The update for npc factions will be rather small as well. What we worked on the past weeks have been mainly changes to the follower system, various quests and a new quest editor (and other stuff here and there), while the editor took the most of the worktime. I wanted to write a blogpost about it already some time ago, but never got the time to do so, due to a new job which occupies most of my free time now."
:/
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Small suggestion - maybe not people walking on world map as dots only to make world map squares - hexes in different colours. I mean for example if some hex on WM cordinates - 1002:1001 is often in use is red coloured, places when noone was in last 30mins are normal like now, etc. but I dont realize is it possible to do?
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to boost chance to encounter other player on wm u should change size of "squares" on worldmap. Without changing travellspeed and other shit , just change size of squares 2/3/4 x times. And chances grows propotional.
Other suggestion - if idea from 1st page is liked - to eliminate situation of creating haven for s8 (low level/blueuits killers), make all those red dots/players on worldmap only visible for 21lvl chars. - so only 21chars can be seen and only 21 chars can find other 21 chars. That would eliminate the threat of constantly killing bluesuits by bluesuits hunters.
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as it turns out squares and the squares Right by the square your in are possible to drop in encounters... I tested.
Basically:
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Lets say you're in the middle, you can encounter player encounters in all of the following that are near you. there could be more too it, I only can truely confirm the right left top and bottom you can still encuonter from middle, but diagnolly (Right word ehh?) I have not tested.