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Tiamat
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 1:30 pm      Reply with quote

Well, my original idea for PRPI that wasn't implemented because I stepped out of development for reasons that aren't relevant here, was to implement scavenge nodes. My proposal, put as concisely as I can, was thus:

Get rid of the scavenging skill entirely. Instead, all raw materials are harvested from scavenging nodes that randomly appear in the wilderness. This turns scavenging into a dynamic adventure where players have to look for nodes, sometimes in unlikely spots. Harvesting required the relevant skill, eg. scrapped robot heap required mechanics. There could be a big scavenge node that spawns every X RL month with a miniboss monster for big rewards. You could also implement some objects designed to detect these scavenge nodes, like metal detectors.

---

However, this was just to fix scavenge. Additionally, you'd need to really rethink how you approach wilderness zones. For anybody that played in the Mars wilderness in ARPI endgame, I think the way we approached implementing wilderness hazards was on the right track. For example, the Mars wilderness was essentially desert, so we had dynamic sandstorms that'd blow across half the zone, and could kill you if you weren't paying attention. If you got trapped in a sandstorm, you wouldn't be able to see anything, defollow anyone you might've been grouped with, periodically damage you, and stun you when you entered the room. There was also the off-chance of quicksand, which could really kill any solo adventurer if they were unlucky. If you had at least one other person with you, your chances of surviving quicksand were dramatically improved. We also had a weather system that forced players to really think about when they wanted to go outside. The ideal times were dusk/dawn, where the temperature was temperate. Midday or midnight was the most lethal, as the cold or scalding heat would fatigue you and possibly kill you.

These methods force the player to interact with the wilderness and think about where they actually are. You could also add in fun minigames or areas just to explore for the hell of it, like the Mars excavation sites that were usually just flavor, but players seemed to enjoy a lot. (Hue hue taxidermy'd people).

This isn't even to talk about wilderness mobs (which Mars had none). I think the best way to approach mobs is to make all of them be meaningful encounters with mob progs. We did a lot of fun things such as "bloater zombies" that would set off a timer to explode and deal AOE damage in a room after reaching a certain hitpoint threshold. Those are good steps to making the experience funner.


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Tiamat
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 1:44 pm      Reply with quote

Re: Seer. You can't stop people from clumping up into big groups if there's enough people, but should that be the case, you should present enough challenges for big groups that no one gets bored. For example, give lagatos followers, whatever that may be, like baby lizards, so that newbies can also get in on the action. Or more shredder packs, whatever. Big groups should equal big rewards if the leaders are daring enough. The issue is that there doesn't seem to be a very big reward for going out with big groups except for the status quo of scavenge. Therefore the entire activity becomes mindless and routine.

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Throttle
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 1:45 pm      Reply with quote

We've always been discussing potential alternatives to the current scavenging systems. One of the ideas was a quota system where a room can only be foraged a certain amount of times per RL week. This would at least force players to go to more than the same one place.

The problem is that scavenging is too central to the game to just get rid of. It's also so important that people feel compelled to do it all the damn time. I think it's a great asset to the game to have a reason for people to go out that isn't just for the purpose of killing as many mobs as they can chase down, but it's surprisingly difficult to figure out a balance that discourages people from just living for the scav runs, and simultaneously doesn't compromise the true purpose of scavenging. Obviously we're never getting rid of scavenge entirely, nor are we making the wasteland easymode, but we're always trying to think of new ways to do it.

Some people want a tiered wilderness where the areas close to town are pretty safe and then get progressively dangerous the further out you go. The problem with this is that large groups would need to venture very far to find challenging content, but large groups also tend to be the ones that want to finish as fast as possible because the odds are high that a few people can't stay long, and also the roleplay is inevitably crap when a blob of twenty people is rolling about. It's really counterintuitive to make it so that the time of an excursion goes up in accordance with the likelihood that people can't/won't stay too long. Instead we're looking at making mid-level scavenging areas that aren't actually in the wilderness at all, but it might take some plot evolution before these are accessible.

It's also a matter of setting and realism. If it were safe for two or three people to stroll around the wasteland, why would people be huddled in Rust? If there was a sizeable area of scavengable ruins that didn't take a decent group of armed, experienced wastewanderers to safely access, how can there be rarity and resource scarcity? The wilderness really has to be very deadly in order for the setting to make sense, and that's why we'll probably have to keep it like that. We might look into ways to make it so lagatos don't practically lean against the town wall, but I don't think anybody should expect for the lunar plains to ever be safe territory for a small, unskilled and poorly equipped band of people.

As for sparring, we can't really stop people from attacking each other. Trash weapons will probably be adjusted a little in the future, but we can only do so much before it gets to the point of dictating roleplay, and we don't really want to do that, either. It's not so much that combat training is an abomination and an affront to everything the game is about, it's just a little sketchy for people in this setting to spend a lot of time intentionally getting hurt and put out of commission. People shouldn't worry about invoking the wrath of Holmes for sparring once or twice; it's the people who do it five times per day, day after day after day, that we really notice and remember. Especially when it comes time to do RPP reviews.


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Seer
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 1:47 pm      Reply with quote

I don't know how I feel about the sandstorm killing, though I never experienced it, so there's that. I think that it's a cool idea, but because people can be so limited in terms of when they can play it sort of combats with the idea of the game itself having ideal times to interact with the environment. I'd like to take time to discover things, hide out in a semi-safe area, have roleplay dominate my time out in the wilderness, not my worry about time limiters.

It seems like the mechanism is reflective of the reality of the environs, which is cool, but it seems like it would work as an antithesis to encouraging smaller party wander-play. I like mobs, they make me have to maneuver and choose how I want to confront or avoid them. Universal mechanics I can't do anything about besides be active/inactive at certain times in my availability to play the game make me cringe.

Scavenge nodes are cool. Varying them for what kind of skill you might have is really cool. I'd love to see people having to head to different areas to gain certain things, instead of everything being available everywhere. Have plants pop up for some reason in a certain area. Have a factory have the bits and pieces for Mechanics, Electronics. Have some area where hides are... because the predators that leave there suck the flesh off of the prey and leave the rest around.

Stuff like that would diversify the places people'd roam, make those areas important to different groups. Maybe there could be a mechanism where bandits or mobs overtake those areas should their nodes not be battled back (nests, dens, camps, whatever).


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Seer
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 1:54 pm      Reply with quote

Throttle wrote:
It's also a matter of setting and realism. If it were safe for two or three people to stroll around the wasteland, why would people be huddled in Rust? If there was a sizeable area of scavengable ruins that didn't take a decent group of armed, exprienced wastewanderers to safely access, how can there be rarity and resource scarcity?


I think there's a solution sort of already in the design. The wilderness can be hard mode. The people who want to do the small group exploring can go through the easymode of the sewers to the metro, and whatever else you'd want to plant deep down. And I don't think people really are asking for these explorations to be profitable in terms of objects.

Is danger the only limiter for scarcity in the setting? Good objects are limited by what can be found and crafted. Maybe getting to more interesting places in a moderate-level area requires a certain level of skill, and objects. Maybe it's a craft which can act as a sink for wealth. It could be a way to get crafters out. Then, once they're in, they'd need to have a certain level of moderate combat skill to deal with whatever is on the other side of that hole.

For whatever reason I just have MMO style instances in my head. We're all forced to do big raids currently. Find a way in the setting to make an five person run, and you'll make a lot of people (off-peakers, busy people, people who detest scavspam) really happy and engaged. And I don't think it's out of reach to devise a reason for it in the setting.

Edit: Er, to add what I mean about danger limiting scarcity: our characters are supposed to be representational of the best and brightest. Maybe their skills allow them to maneuver in ways and to places that the plebs can't. And with that in mind, it would be awesome to see the struggle with scarcity in the setting not limit the actual fun people have as players. Because the current remedy for scarcity is the twenty people scavs, and people are object hoarding regardless. It doesn't result in fun.


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Tiamat
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 2:05 pm      Reply with quote

Well, the sandstorms only killed like two people over the course of a month, and in both instances people weren't paying attention in the wilderness. :p I understand your concern about time limiters, and, to be fair, the penalties weren't terrible, but stacked up if you decided to just bake out in the sun/cold.

But to be more on topic, I don't think it's a matter of making the Moon wilderness less dangerous or more dangerous. It's a matter of figuring out how to incentivize different play-styles (if you guys wanted to support it). Players that enjoy close quarters, small group role-play don't seem to have as many opportunities to get into it, especially where the wilderness are concerned - which is my favorite kind of roleplay. But priorities, as I do realize there is always a shortage of willing manpower. :p


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Seer
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 2:08 pm      Reply with quote

Tiamat wrote:
[...] both instances people weren't paying attention in the wilderness. :p


(To remain off topic for a beat! I have babies and roomates in my house [where I also work], so I'll be the first to admit the need to space out for two, three, five minutes at any random time. Sad I need to be able to hidle up. I'd totally die otherwise.)


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Seer
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 2:41 pm      Reply with quote

Well, I had an idea in the bath. Danger = requires large groups = needs short time duration. Danger = limiter for scarcity.

In a situation where:

Time invested = limiter for scarcity, you could potentially design a system where individuals could access areas with desired profit, but it takes time. Now, finding a way to blow time for players in a meaningful fashion is an issue in most forms of game design. In this imagining you would have a run intend on taking say, two days in real time. Let's say the metro is a part of this system: people make it to the metro, use whatever objects to make it operate. Metro takes them to moderate danger setting. The craft to make it operate limits the party to six (because the size of the operating traincar) and requires a minimum of three (to dislodge the obstruction on the tracks).

Inside of this area there are quit spaces. People could wait for their party to reconvene, gives them reason to roleplay camping in super creepy quarters. It's another run's worth to the scavenge spot. There are small party sized threats.

The scav is useful but specific. One of the objects is a consumable required to make the traincar tun to send them back to the sewer area, right back into the safe area (as to remove the monotony of retracing steps at this end-of-trip point).

It'd introduce risk and the requirement to arrange provisions. Players would have to schedule times with their crew. It is necessary for those useful objects, but is limited in spamability because of the time requirement.

Thoughts?


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Tiamat
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 2:48 pm      Reply with quote

I like it, it'd be fun if scavenging was approached in this matter where you need to establish camps to work at an area to get goodies. Introducing virtual camps that have quit areas allows players to login to participate in the overall effort, role-play in smaller groups, and defend should monsters invade the camp.

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Seer
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 3:03 pm      Reply with quote

A few extra resolutions in my head:

There could be two or three traincars. Each takes a party to a different moderate level area. (I totally understand this as being potentially building heavy, but it would be easy to stage it and release new areas as they are developed). Each area has specific pitfalls and advantages (needs Mechanics, high strength or agi in the party, biologists/chemists/electricians to study/cure/hack through an obstacle, so forth). They could be tweaked depending on the desirability of its specific objects.

If a party has taken a traincar, it doesn't return until they complete their returning craft. It creates a closed experience. They lose access to radio channels save for if they set up a relay at the camp with radioparts/an electrician.

The limiter of two-three traincars serves to keep the game from just emptying out of available players on the main grid, secures more scarcity, and prevents twenty people from showing up anyway in the moderate level'd area.

Maybe the send-back craft has a timer which acts to strand parties. If people die, their remaining pals can use the send-back object, but they can expect to wait alone in that camp, hiding in some barricaded encampment, praying for rescue before they starve or are eaten/found by nasties.


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Featured artwork used on Parallel RPI given permission for use by original artists macrebisz and merl1ncz.