Dear Lum

Discussion in 'Avatars & NPCs' started by Poor game design, Nov 27, 2015.

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  1. Womby

    Womby Avatar

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    Cupid :)
     
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  2. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    Yes, I'm aware. But that's kind of a thin relationship.

    It's like if we said, Here's your Lion Head Shield because you chose the path of Courage! Here's your Tin armor because you chose LOVE! Here's your Straw robes because you chose Truth!

    Now run down that yellow brick road until you find the Oracle!
     
  3. redfish

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    Well, not archery in particular, but being a ranger -- tending after the forest and caring for the animals, etc. ;)
     
  4. Rampage202

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    So that's a definite "no" to letting us into the starting areas with practically no skills at all as an alternative? (yes I realize this would be an unadvised option to new players)
     
  5. redfish

    redfish Avatar

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    Its really about the ranger archetype.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_(character_class)
    "A Ranger (also known as Hunter, Archer, Scout, or Tracker) is an archetype found in many fantasy fiction and role-playing games. Rangers are usually associated with the wisdom of nature. Rangers tend to be wise, cunning, and perceptive in addition to being skilled woodsmen. Many are skilled in stealth, wilderness survival, beast-mastery, herbalism, and tracking. Archery and (often dual-wielding) swordplay are common to rangers, though there are many instances where rangers use a variety of weapons, skills, and sometimes magic or have a resistance to magic." ...

    "In Dungeons & Dragons, rangers typically worship a nature god or goddess, and they take a role similar to druids by protecting nature and slaying foul creatures. Rangers gain offensive bonuses against certain creatures through the choosing of a "Favored Enemy" (such as giants, dragons or undead). They may also gain defensive bonuses within certain terrains through the choosing of a "Favored Environment" (such as Desert, Forest or Urban) that stacks with their "Favored Enemy"; this further illustrates their cunning. In addition, rangers have access to divine magic and an animal companion to aid them in battle. Rangers tend to prefer the company of fellow rangers, and they are extensively trained. However, good rangers will often act as the guardians of others - whether appreciated or not - by repelling "evil" forces and protecting the weak."

    http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/Ranger
    "Off the western shore of Britannia lies the fair island of the rangers. Venturing far from their retreat, they are found throughout the realm, though, the mystic forest of Spiritwood or the solemn keep of Empath Abbey, where they pray for enlightenment, are favoured stomping grounds. Guided by the virtue of Spirituality, they seek to improve the conditions off all throughout the land. Rangers are well-versed in woods lore, and are known to fiercely protect what ever forest they call home, but also make an ideal companion in any excursion to the far off reaches of the land. Their Spirituality gives them mystical strength, making them proficient magic users"
     
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  6. Drocis the Devious

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    That's a good point, I hadn't thought of that. But doesn't that suppose that Mages and Warriors can't love to the same degree? I don't get it.
     
  7. redfish

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    I think it would be more that rangers exemplify love more than the other two, sort of like how mages exemplify truth, or warriors exemplify courage. More about archetypes and filling a role than about what is in the person's heart.
     
  8. Drocis the Devious

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    That's probably something we should spend some time explaining more in the opening scene. @Lum

    ...and then we should give players a choice of the skills they want. Cause the current choices are stinky. :)
     
  9. smack

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    I too would want the gypsy questions to have meaning and impact. I'm wondering if there's still other ways to serve this purpose yet not create the skill point anxiety that some folks are having. Certainly the result of what we just answered isn't entirely contained to the assignment of skill points and there's more to it than that. But currently that's the only thing players see and thus harp on.

    Dude, spoiler tag man. You just spoiled the game. :p
     
  10. Sir_Hemlock

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    'face palm' :p
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2015
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  11. Bubonic

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    Well, I would love for that to be the case. It would be nice if there were deeper meanings to it. But I think the problem also has a lot to do with tying the initial gypsy encounter to skills, as opposed to attributes like was done in the original Ultimas.

    My suggestion:

    Have the gypsy questions affect the attributes, not skills. Players get X amount of points to spend on skills - and the more they skew their answers toward one of the 3 main paths of truth, love, or courage, the more points the player gets to spend.

    This would eliminate the parts that don't really make sense; give players the freedom they want; give the gypsy questions real weight; AND still keep the original Ultima feel.


    Just my two cents.

    @RichardGarriott
     
  12. Lum the Mad

    Lum the Mad Developer Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    I agree!

    I disagree very strongly. I think the last thing we want new players to worry about is "how do I manipulate strength/intellegence/dexterity".


    And how would this not cause people to feel "forced" to only choose questions down one "path"? We already have people feeling that the minor level of skill points given during the tutorial are "wasted". This would just increase that.
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2015
  13. Lum the Mad

    Lum the Mad Developer Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Correct.
     
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  14. Lum the Mad

    Lum the Mad Developer Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    I agree but in practice it simply results in a player deleting their character and starting over. Which also renders the entire thing null and void AND places the onus on the player for doing so.
     
  15. Lum the Mad

    Lum the Mad Developer Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    If you are an experienced enough user to think "fire magic or blades is smelly" then you are also experienced enough to know that you can work up new skills to that level in about a half an hour.
     
  16. Drocis the Devious

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    Yep, about a half hour. Of course that's a relative half hour that impacts the rest of your character development as XP becomes harder (for normal people) to obtain playing solo and using alternative builds. By about the time you hit level 35 and have undoubtedly expanded beyond just two skills (like blades and fire magic, for example) you'll be thankful for that half hour's worth of XP you don't have to farm and grind out for yourself.

    But as a developer I wonder if you have experienced this first hand? I can't imagine that you have time to just sit around killing things in an effort to level up to 70 or above? I would think that you have a significant XP modifier or you just make yourself level 70 or 100 at will, and skip all the repetitive motion. Or maybe you don't and you've played solo without plate armor and without tamed pets using only magic and no healing spells in an effort to put yourself in my shoes? Again, that half hour may seem trivial to you, but to me it's significant and it represents part of a much larger problem. The grind in this game is not fun but it's required for PVP.

    I'm also curious how making some players arbitrarily spend an extra half hour that other players don't have to spend is good game design. It doesn't seem like it's the ideal to me, especially for new players.
     
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  17. Lord Andernut

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    Here's an idea: Give all players a skill level of 10, or whatever, in a basic attack in each tree. Have the questions set you on a path and give you a default deck/skillset for that path.

    Players can follow that path or they can adjust their skills on entering the world after playing a little instead of feeling obligated to delete their character for the skillset they wanted. They can then follow the opening Truth/Courage/Honesty questline they would like as the Mage/Warrior/Ranger they might prefer.

    Then the questions preserve their integrity on setting you on a certain path and the player keeps the flexibility of choosing how to build their character.

    (Ultimately, it doesn't matter to me - it doesn't take long to level any of these skills up).
     
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  18. Drocis the Devious

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    And about that half hour. :)

    These are the starting blade skills for the path of courage:
    [​IMG]
    It's hard to tell how long it really takes to level up to these starting skills, exactly...

    We have a 4x modifier in play. It took me about 6 or 7 minutes to level (only) the 1st tier blades up to level 30 just swinging at a practice dummy. So take away the modifer, does that mean that it takes 30 minutes at launch? I don't know.

    I do know that it cost GOLD to buy the other skills (500 gold in this case) that I wouldn't have if I picked another path. And gold doesn't just grow on trees, especially for new players that are soloing. Then there's the fact that you have to go train in these skills and the trainers will be all over the map and you might have to perform quests just to have them train you! So there's travel time, don't forget the random encounters and control points that new players don't do well with, carry the 3, and I don't know what that equals but it's not 30 minutes worth of time.

    I'd say even for an experienced player like me, we're talking HOURS and not minutes, just so you can have the starting skills that you WANT and not the starting skills that you could care less about.
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2015
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  19. smack

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    I had a similar thought as well. Another idea: to get rid of the skill point anxiety, just give them all three sets of skills regardless of whichever weapon they end up with, as skill point allocation is perhaps a small consequence of your answers to the virtue questions. If they like the one they were assigned, the other skills will naturally decay. If they switch to one of the other two later, there's not much, if any to regain, as the decay is negligible anyways, especially compared to how little time it would take to regain.
     
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  20. Bubonic

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    Ok, well, easy fix. DO the opening questions have a deeper meaning which affects gameplay later on? Surely you can give us that info without giving anything away. ;) And if the answer is yes, then that renders what I am about to say below also Null. And Void.

    But how is this different from players worrying about "how do I manipulate my skill tree"? And if the answer is "it isn't different", then that begs the question: Why spend time and resources on developing a mechanic such as this which has no real impact?

    On another note, why is letting players worry about their STR/INT/DEX bad? After all, awareness and manipulation of base attributes has always been a staple of RPGs. At least, until games started holding people's hands. :)

    It isn't about "forcing". It's about rewarding commitment with building a character. The more a player commits to a path, the more skills they have acquired in their character's life up to this point.

    I can see how this would be the case. However, I would point out that a player re-creating their character isn't necessarily a bad thing. Again, the glory days of RPGs had players re-rolling characters all the time. If I'm not happy with my character, I might re-create it... but I'm certainly not going to give up on the game because of it.
     
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