PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Gravalden on August 21, 2005, 05:35:53 am
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I personaly have ran into alot of higher lvl player that stand right next to where a monster will spawn. Not letting any one else have a go at it.. Now i am not saying every one does this, there are those few that do let others have a go at the moster. But there are the ones that won\'t let anyone have a go, and will not group up...
I figue if there is a way to make the monster\'s spawn sight be randomized with in a limited area. This will cut down, if not rid the plane shift world of the spawn owning..
I ask this why?
For quite some time i have watched people spawn own a much lower lvl monster for hours. Just to get the rare loot that might come up. Leaving the lower lvl people with fewer monsters that they can actually kill with out bug exploiting.. But the bug exploiting is another matter altogether.
I feel this would make the plane shift world a much better place, cuting down on people becoming mad at each other. it would also make the higher up players search other places for diffrent monsters..
If any one else has any thing to add please fell free....
Gravalden....... also my ingame name
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hmm.. i say make no spawns like you said, monsters should have random spawn points get it??? and if they kill a player they could have a level.
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Black_rose, your posts make very little sense, as usual o.o
Spawn camping is a very annoying problem, I definitely agree. I think randomizing the spawns would help greatly - at least players will have to run around instead of idling, and it becomes an exciting race of who-reaches-the-mob-first. I believe DaveG once suggested that in the sewers, rats \"spawn\" (or climb, rather) out from the ends of sewer pipes that currently only serve a decorative purpose, then scurry around in random directions. It\'s a more realistic suggestion, and perhaps some other elements of the landscape could serve for spawns outside the sewers as well. DaveG also suggested that if a player stands near the spawn point, the critters would become aggravated and refuse to come out ;) I liked it.
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Hmm that wat-in the pipe idea is very nice. I like it alot.. But what bout other monsters?
Mabye in the arena the monsters would come out of a cage in the wall, and in the ruins ulbrnauts would come out of a cave..
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wouldn\'t the camp spot(s) just move to a sufficient radius around the exit / spawn point so as to allow the mob to come out? (esp since there would be far fewer spawn points?)
not to mention the abuse already thrown at players that wander into spawn areas.. not to mention gett\'n your attack on a rat before someone iwht maxed agility? doesn\'t happen.
it seems things would probably just get more territorial. .. hmmm, maybe the same for random..
but random can mean many things.. maybe it is just that each mob has at least 2 positions in very differnt areas of the map / dungeon? would make everyones chances of finding stuff very err... random-ish ..
/me licks finger and puts it up to test the winds and says \"hmmm.. random-ish\"
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Hmm... I don\'t even have to post anymore... Karyuu does it for me. :P
My pipe spawn suggestion might shrink the number of spawn points, true. But, when the rats exit, they\'d scurry off and scatter off to parts of the sewers without rats. And since they wouldn\'t exit a pipe anywhere near the smell of a dead friend, camping near the pipe wouldn\'t be that useful.
People will always camp. We just want to take it down from a boring, monotonous, annoyance to a \"realistic\", \"natural\", (note the quotes... giant one-eyed rats are not real...) part of the game. If teams of players go hunting with a strategy to outsmart the rats, in my opinion that\'s great! We have players working together and using intelligence to hunt. Granted though, if the hunt ever gets to easy, we\'d need to make the rats smarter... :D
Though, on the subject of \"hogging\" a mob, the situation is far less clear. Your character may simply not be the sharing type, or just might not feel like it at the moment. They shouldn\'t be forced to share stuff. The problem is that the kill-protector is way too strong. Touch a monster and it\'s yours... I think the thing needs to go, frankly. I\'d much rather have the forcing be at the end, with experience and loot assignment. (though, we\'d need some way to settle fights between players... and that\'s another thread... or another forum for that matter) And, higher-level players sometimes hog mobs out of laziness/greed and sometimes lower-level players just think they are. There are sometimes some newbies that think they can take on something that they really can\'t, and some people flat out ignore them. The only real solution to the host of problems associated with hogging mobs, is to remove the ability to hog mobs. This stupid kill-protector annoys me more and more every day............
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People camping spawns is annoying and rather unrealistic to me. I remember DaveG\'s suggestion and it is a good one. But like Pwxyzg said, this would mean there would be a defined radius around the pipe that you could not be in so rats would exit. Players who like to camp would sit themselves right outside this radius after they\'re figured out what it is.
Random popup points for monsters seem less believable, but wouldn\'t suffer this same fate. Maybe there\'s a workaround though because I like the rats/pipe thing (arena mosters/cage, ulbernauts/cave, etc).
I think Black_rose meant that if a monster happens to kill a player, it would \'level up\", and actually get harder to kill and thus serving for a challenge for stronger players. This should have a limit though, because a killer rat stronger than an ulbernaut doesn\'t make sense.
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No definite radii... Too exploitable. The spawning rat would look for the smell of a dead comrade. In other words, if a rat just recently got killed going off to the right (before reaching his destination in an un-occupied area of the sewers) he\'d go left instead. If all directions had met with failure recently, the rat would leave through a different pipe. If the sewers are so crowded, that every single pipe was camped, from all sides, then rats would dig new holes in areas that \"just happened\" to have no players around... :P (aka, spawn where no one\'s looking)
The pipe spawns would just be the ones for people to see... Some totally random spawns in un-seen areas would be perfectly fine in my book. So long as no one sees a monster pop into existence, it\'s all good. :D
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I would hope that this becomes somewhat less of a problem once there is more to do in the game. At this point, your choices are:
kill monsters
mine
stand around and chat
If you want to increase your stats, the only productive way of doing it is killing, as mining takes way too long and ore is worth next to nothing at this point. So you need to kill monsters, and lots of them, to get trias an PPs to advance.
And I\'m not talking just about PLers here; even to get just a few levels in your weapon of choice, and then to buy some decent equipment, takes a fair amount of killing. If you don\'t want it to take weeks, you pretty much need to stake out a spawn point and go at it.
Of course, that doesn\'t mean you have to be a jerk about it; you don\'t need to spend hours in the same spot, and if someone wants to group with you, let them in and go find some bigger monsters you can handle together.
Back to my original point: Hopefully when there are more things to do, people will find other ways to amuse themselves. If I could mine some iron, sment it into steel, and hammer the steel into a sword, then I wuldn\'t have to camp out at a spawn point for 6 hours so that I can afford to buy the sword.
Or I might not want to buy a sword in the first place. Maybe I set up an apothecary shop: I dig up herbs, I purchase other ingrdients from players and merchants, I make potions, then players come to me to buy them. At this point, this option is unavailable (like a host of others), so I do what most other players do: I kill lots and lots of monsters.
There will always be players who camp out at spawn points and act like jerks. But in the future I think the majority of those will either find something else to do in-game, or get bored altogether and move on to the next game.
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Originally posted by Karyuu
Black_rose, your posts make very little sense, as usual o.o
YOU REMEMBERED ME!!!! no one ever remembers me...
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I noted recently a technique in use by campers that ties up an NPC for hours. For lack of something better I will refer to it as rotation camping.
It works like this:
A group of 4 to 6 campers will surround a valuable NPC and they allow no one else to join their group. All but one of the campers attack the NPC and the spoils are split among the attackers. When one of them gets full, the odd camper immidiately replaces him while he goes to sell his loot. Once the loot is sold, he returns to await the next camper who gets his fill in order to replace him. So it goes in rotation and the NPC is tied up for as long as they want him.
Suggested solution:
Placing a limit on the number of times a player / group (number of players in group times limit) could loot a specific NPC. After this limit is reached, the player / players in the group would have to visit another NPC in a different area in order to reset the no loot limit. You could put the limit reset on the group itself, but then there would not be anything to stop the campers from disolving the group and regrouping on the campsite.
(Dev\'s, I respect both your abilities and your dedication and I am truly grateful for you providing this great community / game for me to play in. But... (you knew there was one coming...:) ) the camping issue is one that is sapping the life from your creation and giving it over to the pwr lvlers and pkers of Runescape style tradition. The fact is, that the great wipe we had all hoped for to level the playing field has only benifited the cheats and opportunists. Honest players are worse off than before the wipe.
That the camping issue has not been solved and the plaza remains a killing zone for newcomers endangers the realm itself. Indeed, some I know have left the realm never to return, disgusted over what is happening to it. I strongly urge you to fix this problem before the next great wipe/update.)
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The rather organized camping system you described, while annoying to those not in the group, is not evil or anything. Just too easy. Looting bans are a bad idea, and would serve no real purpose. Just because it annoys you, doesn\'t mean we should write bans against it into the code...
What we need to do is make the spawns such that this sort of thing isn\'t so easy. All I\'m really looking for here, is the need for hunters to have to ~move~ and put effort into the activity. At far least, I want PLers to have to do more than just stand in one spot and press the attack key and loot key every so often. At best, I\'d like everyone have to put in some thought and effort to do battle in this game.
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Talking about putting some thought into battles .. I \'ve found a way to make a fight a bit more interesting recently.
What I do is equip myself a good old fashioned claymore and a nice shield. Then when engaging any enemy I start out in full defence and try to switch to bloody attack just when I am about to take a swing. As soon as I made my attack I go back to full defence and attempt to repeat this. That way I get minimum damage while doing maximum damage to my opponent.
Now I was thinking perhaps this could be implemented in some way so we needed to actively attack and defend. Perhaps some sort of signal, a sound or an arm going back to prepare for a strike which would then give the player a few seconds to press an attack key. If this isn\'t done the attack will fail or be less significant and the same with defending. Weapon skill levels would make sure you \'d have more time to press the right buttons or give clearer signals and a more syncrone fighting style making it easier.
A system like that would definitely make fighting less of a drag than it is.
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First of all... last I checked shields still don\'t work...
Secondly, yes... I\'d love to have some kind of real-time aspects added to the combat system. But, we want to keep the game dialup-friendly, and that would drastically increase the amount of data sent back and forth.
Thirdly, hmm... odd idea with the stance uses, and it\'s almost a bug... though not quite...
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Originally posted by Black_rose
Originally posted by Karyuu
Black_rose, your posts make very little sense, as usual o.o
YOU REMEMBERED ME!!!! no one ever remembers me...
I remember you too...
Originally posted by Black_rose
well of course rs is worse then ps,
p is 2 letters above r (pqrs) meaning we are better,
from an old thread I created about spoonscape for people who where asking questions about it.
I think if people are camping, and a certain spawn point determines that JoePublic has killed 90 out of the last 90 spawns, and is still there, the next spawn should be an Ulbernaut which kills JoePublic then walks out of the area into the ruins outside hydlaa, or just disapeers again... :D
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Originally posted by Jakob
I think if people are camping, and a certain spawn point determines that JoePublic has killed 90 out of the last 90 spawns, and is still there, the next spawn should be an Ulbernaut which kills JoePublic then walks out of the area into the ruins outside hydlaa, or just disapeers again... :D
HAHAAH yes, that would be hilarious. But I dunno, wouldn\'t make much sense? :D
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Originally posted by Jakob
I think if people are camping, and a certain spawn point determines that JoePublic has killed 90 out of the last 90 spawns, and is still there, the next spawn should be an Ulbernaut which kills JoePublic then walks out of the area into the ruins outside hydlaa, or just disapeers again... :D
Actually... last I heard, ulbernaut spawns were one of the main things camped... :P
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I never said that rotation camping was evil or against PS rules, but it certainly doesnt seem fair or honorable...unless of course you are one of the campers.
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Don\'t know.. I mean at least rotation camping is sharing.. I\'ve been part of those and we talk and laugh, but We always though 6 people round 1 monster was quite enough and stretched and we didn\'t want any more. We did share though. And when the numbers were few we did let people in, as long as they were courteous and honest
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Originally posted by DaveG
First of all... last I checked shields still don\'t work...
I realize they don\'t work, which is why I am making them work by switching stances. Yes of course I could just as well equip two claymores and use the same tactic but where is the realism in that :P
Thing is with anything faster than claymores it becomes a bit too hard to use well though.
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Originally posted by DaveG
Actually... last I heard, ulbernaut spawns were one of the main things camped... :P
Yeah, but this is an Uber Ulbernaut with twice our maximum stats, and is impervious to attack from other members of the group... :D
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In my opinion there are a few thing that should make hunting monsters more interesting
1. Randomise spawning points
You simply can\'t camp when you never know, where the next monster will appear.
Also different monsters could appear in the same spot. So let\'s say you found an area with lots of rats. Nice. But suddenly a Gobble/Rogue/Fanatic/Tefusang/... appears and you would have to flee... :D
2. Amount of monsters should depend on amount of players in an area.
There have been times, when you run around in the sewers, (I\'m still to weak to hunt anywhere else...) where there are so many players, that it is hard to find something to kill. So why not letting spawn more rats and other stuff when more players are around and reduce the spawn rate when the number of players in this area decreases.
3. Randomise the strength of a monster
No I don\'t think there should be \"killer-rats\". But why not give monsters a kind of variation? So the Strength of a rat could be randomised between 10-20, the Strength of a Gobble vary from 25-45 (just choosing a few numbers to make myself clear ;) ). Do the same with something like Defense or the amount of Hitpoints and you would get a wide range of monsters that are different to fight against.
Also the amount of experience you can get from fighting a monster could depend on it\'s stats.
4. create some \"events\" (not only against spawn camping)
Let\'s say the rats have had a nice time down in the sewers. They found a lot to eat and to few people killed and reduced their number. Now all of a sudden there are so many rats, that the whole sewers are crowded (or they even crawl out and try to find some more food in the city...). The players would have to gather their Strength and work together to reduce the number of rats back to a harmless one.
Or for the people who are more interested in mining: When there is a new area to be discovered there could be a massive huge stone that blocks a path to this area. Now everyone who has a pickaxe would have to work on this stone and after a (high) number of /dig commands the stone will become smaller and smaller until it is gone and the new area can be discovered. This can also be used to make an event inside of a mine where there is an accident and some players are trapped until others come to free them...
*getting more and more ideas for events so better stoped wrinting before I completely get off topic*
PS: please excuse me if I made spelling or grammar mistakes, as english is not my naural language
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#1 was already discussed; read the rest of the thread, and the other one this is based on. (http://planeshift.oodlz.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=17646&boardid=11)
For #2, I agree with you, but in the opposite direction. :P More people would scare off the rats, not attract them. (to continue using the rats example) But because this would get annoying, I\'d just like the number of people in the sewers to not affect the rat population by anything other than people killing them off.
For #3, I don\'t like random stuff. Along those lines, however, what I\'m thinking is that the newly spawned monsters could be smaller and weaker. (also allowing them to scurry by without being attacked easier) They would grow with time, and get stronger. Rats would have a max size similar to what they are now, but a max strength that\'s a little higher. Ulbernauts, on the other hand, could just keep getting bigger and stronger for ~much~ longer... :D
At #4, yes, events and such would be nice. But, that\'s a bit more down the road.
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Randomized Spawnpoints would help, but if PS wanted to be really different and \"nip\" this kind of thing here is my idea. I propose a timer. Once you kill \"powerful enemy A\" you have to wait \"X\" hours to do it again, that way everyone gets a turn, there is no camping and those previously commiting those acts will either stop or leave PS. Either way the community wins.
The only drawback to this is trying to keep the code for this kind of thing from being buggy, I can only imagine someone screaming \"I waited 3 hours for this thing and It told me that I can\'t kill it!!\"
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I propose a timer. Once you kill \"powerful enemy A\" you have to wait \"X\" hours to do it again,
Yes, but that\'s massively unrealisitic.
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Might work for a Boss-like Leader mob within an area of smaller minion mobs, somewhere in a remote corner of an environmental setting, but for your everyday common creatures that yield common materials and items, this isn\'t going to work. Not only is it unrealistic, as Rerogo said, there is no way to explain it in RP terms.
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If the spawn you want is camped.... find another. If it\'s just a matter of someone else being faster than you, switch one hand to melee, and create an attack shortcut:
/target_clear
/target_next_nearest_npc
/attack
What kind of spawns are you looking for? If it\'s just money, clackers are a good bet. For equipment, I know of two mercenaries in the upper arena.... the gladiators and rogues can be a bit much to handle, except for the one in the forest.
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I meant for it to only apply to \"Boss type\" creatures, to keep someone from killing lower level creatures would be as you said, very unrealistic.
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Neryam, what you discribe is group hunting, an exciting and pleasureble activity in the realm. It\'s purpose is neither to \"own\" an NPC to the exclusion of everyone else nor to occupy an NPC for hours on end. Often it also involves role play.
Rotation camping is greed and power driven. Role play is non existant in a rotational camping situation. Unlike group hunting it DOES seek to deny the use of an NPC to others for considerable lengths of time. Some may not see a problem with this (go find another NPC) but the number of npc\'s are in fact limited and the number of campers grows with each day.
Honest players and RPers suffer because they don\'t spend all their time sitting on top of an NPC and many are worse off than before the wipe. Because they have developed their techniques in earlier versions of PS, the cheats, rotation campers etc. seem to have prospered even more than before (I know of one that went from 35 dam pnts to 187 dam pnts in one day using rotation camping). Needless to say to those that view PS as more than a killing field, this is discouraging. So unless the Dev\'s want PS to consist of power levelers and PKers like a certain other game, they need to address this problem ASAP.
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Two more things to consider with (more) random spawning:
1) It would be more realistic if players couldn\'t see the
monsters appear out of nowhere.
2) Care would need to be taken not to spawn them in
places where they could be \"trapped\" physically.
3) Possibly they should disappear after a while if they don\'t encounter players. This could help with issue #2.
Xanthan
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Xanthan:
1) Read all of this thread and the other thread (http://planeshift.oodlz.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=17646&boardid=11). I already said that, many times.
2) That\'s an AI/collision detection glitching issue. Another matter entirely, though valid.
3) If you don\'t look at them, they\'ve allready disappeared... :P They do need to be active without others around, to allow for some wandering here and there. I don\'t think it\'d be realistic to leave an area and come back to see that nothing has changed.
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Originally posted by Sensotaka
Neryam, what you discribe is group hunting, an exciting and pleasureble activity in the realm. It\'s purpose is neither to \"own\" an NPC to the exclusion of everyone else nor to occupy an NPC for hours on end. Often it also involves role play.
Rotation camping is greed and power driven. Role play is non existant in a rotational camping situation. Unlike group hunting it DOES seek to deny the use of an NPC to others for considerable lengths of time. Some may not see a problem with this (go find another NPC) but the number of npc\'s are in fact limited and the number of campers grows with each day.
Honest players and RPers suffer because they don\'t spend all their time sitting on top of an NPC and many are worse off than before the wipe. Because they have developed their techniques in earlier versions of PS, the cheats, rotation campers etc. seem to have prospered even more than before (I know of one that went from 35 dam pnts to 187 dam pnts in one day using rotation camping). Needless to say to those that view PS as more than a killing field, this is discouraging. So unless the Dev\'s want PS to consist of power levelers and PKers like a certain other game, they need to address this problem ASAP.
Ah good then :))
I don\'t know.. I don\'t think even for \"bosses\" the timer thing would work.. I mean it\'s not like that in real life.. How bout just taking off the \"you must be grouped wtih blah blah\" and having experience given per blow? That would totally nullify spawn camping as in the don\'t-share-with-anybody area, and them implement the random-point spawns.. Or mabye a single \"spawn-area\" would have a few different creatures that can appear, you knever know whether a rat, a rogue or a tefusang would crawl out of that hole..
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The different creatures idea is great, but it should work only in spawns of stronger monsters, becouse otherwise it would be too hard for new players to play.
A new player can usually kill only rats or maybe gobbles too and suddenly a mercenary(or worsest... ulbernaut) appears... and kills him/her/it with few blows.
but other possibility is that the randomness of spawns should not differ more than 3: in sewers: rats, gobbles, weak tefusangs and rogues (edit: forgot fanatics), and so on...
I mean that spawns would not be to widely randomsized
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This is my first post and, in fact, I\'ve yet to play the game as I can\'t seem to get a registration email back despite several resends. On top of that, I\'m on a Mac and understand that the latest update currently is bugged for them.
Regardless, I\'m looking forward to participating in what looks like a great project.
Firstly, isn\'t the current spawn camping situation mostly a function of the lack of things to do in the game currently? That\'s the impression I get from reading these forums. If that is the case, I wonder if the expansion of hunting areas & quests over time will solve this problem? Presumably, some not-yet-achieved balance between the number of players on a server and the available activities will eventually be reached.
Secondly, I\'m seeing two different approaches in this thread: 1) Loot \"timers\" & 2) Mob rotation. I don\'t know just how realistic the loot drops are in PS but from what I\'ve read, you could kill a rat and find a sword as you can in many games. How the rat swallowed it or lived for so long with it sticking out of it\'s side has always been one of the mysteries of MMORPG\'s. :) Short of creating a realistic loot table based on what a particular mob might truly be in possession of, this is how it\'s likely to remain.
At any rate, I have seen in some MMORPG\'s that mobs simply decrease their spawn rate if they are being \"excessively\" farmed. Alternatively, they might also decrease the value of their loot drops. Neither of these will stop farming if there isn\'t something more lucrative somewhere else to send the campers to....and then how long do the folks who weren\'t in the farming team have to wait until the \"normal\" spawn and/or drop rates return? MOBs with \"built-in\" radar who can sense when players are or are still in the area would be needed to make this a true deterrent. They might even need to keep track of players by name to avoid people learning the \"Radar\" range and simply moving out of it to get a reset.
As for MOB rotation, this is the way a real ecology would function. Granted an MMORPG can\'t have a truly real ecology simply due to time constraints. However, Nature does fill a vacuum when man creates it by forcing other, stronger predators to increase their territory as a food source is depleted or by filling that void with a lower species which is no longer limited by it\'s predator. Both of these are chain reactions which ripple up and down the food chain.
Too great a farming of one species would typically have dual effects in any fixed location-the next higher mob would start turning up when it\'s food supply was depleted AND the next lower one would also increase in numbers as it was fed on less. If this approach were implemented in the game, with the two species increasing on opposite sides of the area, two problems might be solved. One, the campers would have to move on as the higher mobs moved in and two, those being left out of the camping would have something to kill now as well...the lower creatures. If the area stopped being camped, the growth of the originally hunted species would restore the balance.
In a situation where one species was being excessively farmed and no other players than the campers were around and all the species, high, middle and low were aggressive, the campers would find themselves overwhelmed in short order.
Mechanically, how is balance restored? The same way mob\'s pop up they could simply unpop. Without creating tons of holes and caves of various size for mobs to emerge from, the \"poof\" factor of mob birth is a fact of life...and creating actual dens for mobs to pop from just increases camping.
The part of an ecological solution that I can\'t quite get my mind around is the possible down-side effect in gameplay terms.
Would you want the effect to truly \"ripple\"? If it did and a sufficently high team started farming species D, then species C & E would show up or show up in larger numbers and with faster respawns. If the original farm team was high enough to deal with species E, would species F start showing up as well after a while? (and species B too!) Would the arrival of additional teams start to create a cascade effect causing that area to became untenable for all players as the amount and level of mobs became unmanageable?
On the one hand, if spawn areas are tightly defined so there wasn\'t species addition in adjoining areas, players nearby would not be effected by the cascade, unless they were forced to pass through that area for some reason. On the other hand, players would certianly be aware of the potential situation long-term farming would cause so how would they deal with it? Would they \"exploit\" it and if so, how? Could the effect be used to grief other players? Or does the cascade solve the camping problem plain and simple and the de-spawn when the original species respawns provide a \"soft-landing\" cool-down timer to encourage campers to go somewhere else?
Perhaps I\'ll have a better idea once I actually get to play PS!
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The different creatures idea is great, but it should work only in spawns of stronger monsters, becouse otherwise it would be too hard for new players to play.
A new player can usually kill only rats or maybe gobbles too and suddenly a mercenary(or worsest... ulbernaut) appears... and kills him/her/it with few blows.
but other possibility is that the randomness of spawns should not differ more than 3: in sewers: rats, gobbles, weak tefusangs and rogues (edit: forgot fanatics), and so on...
I mean that spawns would not be to widely randomsized
Yes yes, would only be in a range but there would have to be at least a fair range so once in a while a newbie would have to run away and cant just sit there spawn-camping :D
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I don\'t know just how realistic the loot drops are in PS but from what I\'ve read, you could kill a rat and find a sword as you can in many games.
Much more realistic than this. Only the human mobs drop weapons(unless they are bugged). The rats, clackers, tefusangs, and most likely trepors and ulbernauts drop objects like meat, teeth, tails, and skins, all of which they could legitamately come into possesion of.
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After leaving this thread I had no idea it would spark so much debate. That being said I would like to put my two cents in as it were...
after readying every one of your posts. This is what I think....
1. The idea of making the monster change each time a spawn comes up is a really good idea. But there would have to be limitations on it (i.e ulbernuts should not spawn in the sewers) This would give rise making monsters only spawn in a given enviroment (i.e a rat would be able to spawn any where, More offten in places with larger numbers of people like citys and fewer in the open landscapes) Love the idea I think with alittle more debate we can come up with a problem free way of doing it. To address the idea that started this thread. Make the spawn sites with in a given area making monster free zones and non-monster free zones, thes zone should be placed with in the landscales in such a way to keep the monsters from geting stuck in the landscape. This is just a matter of placing a number of spawn sites in a given area that only work when the monster or monsters for that area have been killed and not placing one of the spots in a place where a monster could get stuck.
2. The idea of making a monster spawn from a given place (i.e pipe in the wall, a cave, a hole in the ground, ect...) Sounds good but still poses the spawn camper problem. About giving the monsters a sence of smell, And making them stay inside the spawn point if a fellow monster had been killed with in a given area around the spawn point. This would take a revamp of the already working fine monster AI same goes with the hunger or anger idea, Making the monster numbers go up after a number of kills. That would also pose other problems such as server lag (i.e to meny monsters takes up to much server space making game play chopy) Which would cover the make the monster number rise with the number of players in a given area if there are over 100 players in one area there would have to be 100 monsters there as well taking up server space.. We don\'t want to make the programers work harder then they have to. We also want to keep game play as smooth as we can. although all of thes ideas were wonderful and well thought out but they all seem unrealistic in a space saving way. To me
3. Some of you seem to have gone off topic, To the people that are guilty of this there are threads that cover those topics... You all know who i am talking about...
4. Making the loot drops as realistic as we can (i.e a rat can\'t loot a sword) I\'ll stick to the rat as my example, You would be able to find hides, eyes, hearts and every thing else you would normaly find on a rat. But some times you might be able to loot something small like a ring or a crystal that the rat might have eaten or even undigested food. Thought that sounds nasty it would be realistic..
In closing I would like you all to keep coming up with ideas and posting them. I to will have meny more ideas to come. please feel free to out your ideas into the mix thats what it is all about. untill we can get thes changes made to the game we will have to deal with it and SHARE please. Because we all know there is a lack of other things to do in the game at this point. But that will be addressed bt the programers in due time.... I hope....
I know that might be alittle more then 2 cents but what the hell keep the change...... :P
Thank you
Gravalden
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yes i saw the typo right after i posted it but we all can look past that...... can\'t we..... If we can\'t whats the world coming too
Thank you
Gravalden
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I had another thought...
Say a higher lvl player we will call him X kills a much weaker monster then him, At this point X would get the exp for killing the monster and the loot that might be on it. Now my idea is to make monsters that are much weaker then X give him no exp at all and no uncommon or rare loot. this would make the spawn camp of a weaker monster for loot pointless. Because if you just stand there killing this much weaker monster and get no reward for your work whats the point in staying there. Baseicly I am saying place a limit on how weak your kill can be before you don\'t get any more exp or loot..
Its just a thought....
Thank you
Gravalden
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me == cross-linking monkey
CLICK HERE (http://planeshift.oodlz.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=18686&boardid=11#11)
Same genre of topic, and this post has a few things along these lines. (the no loot/exp for killing weak stuff thing is already in there)
BTW,
Please don\'t double post. Use the edit button to append a new message.
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There\'s been several fantastic idea\'s that I\'ve seen in this dialogue so far, and I know how much work any of those would be, anyways, I\'ll offer my two cents worth now:
We all know people camp spawn points, heck even I\'ve done it, but I try to share and if I can, I group up.
As a rule of thumb, I leave the group when it gets too busy and look elsewhere.
Now, One thing I have considered revolved around something I believe I heard before in this dialogue:
a person manages to obtain so much loot from a monster, after so much, it\'s loot drops in value until it stops yielding anything, or gives worthless loot along with minimal Progression Points.
You then have to make so many kills elsewhere to reset this (meaning you have to run around a bit).
Another option would be similar to the mining deal:
You get loot from the monster once, you then have to kill/obtain loot from another monster before you can get anything from the first.
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What do you think about something like the following system?
Every spawn point (or a set of spawn points in a small distance to each other) represents a lair.
Every monster \"knows\" to which lair it belongs, and every lair has a population value.
Every time a monster belonging to a lair is killed, the population value goes down.
If a lair is left alone, it\'s population value will slowly increase over time (e.g. by one every 10 minutes or so).
So, what\'s this value good for?
I would say that it should determine things like the time in which new monsters are spawned (value = 0 means no spawn at all, value = 5 means one monster per hour, value = 10 means one monster every 30 minutes and so on), and maybe how much the loot of the monsters belonging to the lair is worth.
Each lair could keep track of the monsters belonging to it, so that a maximum number of monsters belonging to a particular lair can be set. (e.g. if there are 10 living monsters belonging to lair A, it\'s spawn point(s) will not longer produce new monsters until one of the lair A-monsters is slain).
Off course, there should be a maximum the population value can\'t exceed.
If the server could handle this, you would have
- a dynamic aspect in the world (one time more monsters here, one time more monsters there)
- the campers would be forced to move elsewhere after some time
Perhaps they would even move earlier if the spawn rate of a lair seems too low for them, so others could come.
I don\'t know if this is a good idea, just wrote what currently was on my mind.
Hmm... an additional idea: there could be quests to fight monsters of a particular lair until it\'s population value has dropped to a low value...
Sorry for the long post. Hope the idea isn\'t too bad.
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I actually like this idea, and it could be combined with the monster-out-of-pipes-and-crack-in-walls method, where the more people in the lair and the more damage they are doing, the slower the spawn rate..
Yes I like that alot.
But what about creatures like Rogues? And I don\'t really think Ulbernauts live well in a tightly-knit community :P
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Count
Love the idea. Making an area in to a lair is a very very good idea, well thought out too :P
Thank you
Gravalden
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Yes, I agree. A few ideas for dynamic ecosystems have popped up here and there. Requiring spawns to be \"births\" or \"hatchings\" would help keep population levels better.
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I had a thought about the monsters...
I see no baby monsters.. By this I mean Trepor larva and Consumer larva and ulber cubs or tuf babys what ever you would call them......
All the modelers would have to do is just make the existing models and make them smaller. Now with the stats that thes monsters would have would be 1/4 the stats of an adult monster of its type.
Loot would be the same just smaller (i.e ulber cub claw)
Now the real debate on this idea would be... How much would the loot go for. Because in some cases the baby parts are worth more then the adult parts in real life..
exp. Baby monsters should yield no exp or pp what so ever..... cuz well how hard is it to kill a baby..... I know that was sick and morbid but it got my point across.
Again just another thought tell me what you all think about it..
Thank you
Gravalden
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Originally posted by Neryam
But what about creatures like Rogues?
I thought somebody already mentioned, that mobs like Rogues, Gladiators, Mercenaries etc. should be more inteligent.
Players could challenge them, like in the case of PvP, by using /challenge or verbally (insulting ? ;) ) :
Player: /challenge
Thug: \"Go away, I\'m not in the mood.\"
or
Player tells Gladiator: \"You! I don\'t like your face.\"
Gladiator tells Player: \"Come here, I\'ll fix yours.\"
or
Mercenary to Player: \"You have trespassed my personal area. Defend yourself.\"
Inteligent mobs could accept or reject challenge, server could roll dice and/or examine player\'s stats to decide, if the fight should be started:
Newbie tells Rogue: \"You fight me.\"
Rogue tells Newbie: \"Go away, weakling. I don\'t wanna kill ya.\"
Newbie tells Rogue (20th time): \"I am telling you i\'m strong, fight me\"
Rogue tells Newbie: \"Well, if you want it so badly...\"
or
Powerbie tells Thug: \"Defend yourself!\"
Thug tells Powerbie: \"I beg You, don\'t harm me!\"
Basically, they would be like current \"inteligent\" NPCs with ability to fight.
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wired
question would you be willing to do the programing for this..... By this i mean that would couse the programers to have to work twice as hard as they are working already... I love the idea but to spare the programers to much work on a \"HOBBY PROJECT\" which planeshift is, this seems to be FAR to much work..... I agree that the monster AI and npc AI does need to be reworked a bit but for the time being it works just fine... this would also cause all kinds of player problems (i.e players complaining that they can\'t kill a monster cuz it does not want to fight them.) As it stands the way we fight monsters is fine... Not giving the bandit, rogue...ect a choice in whether they get attacked or not is really up to the player that wants to take this monster on... Because I personaly have taken on ulbers and won.. with liberal use of my potions shortcut..... So that proves some one that is weaker then a monster can actually can beat a much stronger monster...
If they choose to take on a stronger monster and die well then that is their own fault. we should not give the monster ability to decide who they will or will not fight..
Thank you
Gravalden
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Originally posted by Gravalden
wired
question would you be willing to do the programing for this.....
I\'d love to, if I had a time... but unfortunately I have not, that\'s why I\'ve posted it in \"Wish list\" forum, in this specific thread. I can\'t judge, how hard it would be to program. Let developers choose the ideas, which suit their aims and abilities. Anyway...I love the idea ...
Thank You for supporting my wish :)
As for the last part of Your post - I thought, the question was: \"How to make spawn owning less attractive\"... If mob denied to fight, there would be no reason to camp at spawn point... Am I wrong ? And, if mob denied to fight (in other words - it choses player to fight with), there would be no reason to call GMs etc.
Thank You for replying, it does not happen very often to me ;)
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Yes wired I did go off topic a bit but I could not help it they got my brain working..... which is soooooo rare ever sence i got married... But thats another matter:P
and I feelyour pain on not geting replyed to I really do but back to the debate at hand...
yes there would be no reason to camp the spawn site but this would also make more problems then its really worth...
Giving the monsters the ability to govern wither or not to be attacked is kind of redundent cuz people would not only complane about it more offten then not people would stand there trying to kill the monster and it would keep saying no over and over again and when it does finely accept the fight with use of a potions shortcut the weaker player could beat it... that would make people go wait a minute.... it said no i\'m stronger then you i will kill you.. and find it not only pointless that the monster was saying that but become bored with the game cuz they have to sit there and wait till it will actually fight them.......
Thank you
Gravalden
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I jsut have to wonder if the whole \"problem\" of spawn camping won\'t solve itself as more of the world is opened up and populated with monsters. Presumably, some of the higher level mobs will move up to higher levels and the lower ones will \"expand\" to fill up the lower levels.
Am I wrong about this migration being part of future plans?
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this is my 2 cents 8o)
what if monsters would only spawn if they were not in the field of view of any player?
this would solve 2 problems at once, first the monsters wouldn\'t be seen apearing from nowhere (just make the spawn areas near somewhere that could explain the apearing of the monster
and it would also solve the problem o camping, all the players includin the ones not in the group should be all facing the other way for for the monster to spawn, this would automaticly distribute the players, as they would have to go else where to find mosnters
and make the monster test for looks after random times, they check to see if anybody is seeing, it will spawn or not and randomize the time, after the random time period passes it checks again, and so on
the random time would make the campers frustrated, as they would not know when to look there again, if they look at the wrong time the monster would not spawn and they would risk the random time to be reset to a long time
and also to recycle monsters the same strategy with few alterations could be used to the disapearing of the monsters if they wondered for more than N minutes without being seen by a player he would disapear, as for the monsters stucking, perhaps divide the world in several smal areas ( 2x2 meters squares for example) if the monster stay on one square for more than N minutes he would be \"aimed\" to the previus square and go in that direction, and if he still don\'t manage to reach that square in less than Y minutes its colsion detection, perhaps based on a cylinder , would get more and more insensitive, smaler radius perhaps, untill themonster has its colision detection deactivated if necessary to reach th previus 2x2 meters square
ofcourse that the time the monster stay in the same place would not count if he is attacking
I am just not sure of the processing cost of checking the field of views of several players, perhaps a proximity or motion detection could be used instead
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I am all for anything that makes monsters more like monsters and less like toast. I like the unseen monster spawn. looks like it would be the same as DaveG\'s idea only with a very large radius and a random timer.
However, we do need to level some how. It might take hours to find a mob this way. As you explore you would be continualy reseting the moster spawn timers. With enough roaming players you might never see a Mob.
To compinstate for the reduction in Mobs, I would want a training ground. Where I could spare with NPS with a wooden sword or some such thing. The sparing would let you gain skill but not loot.
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\"Hi, can we share?\"
\"Hello, can I try one?\"
\"Heya, could you tell me if there is somewhere spawn of similar creature?\"
That\'s the code I suggest newcomers to compile...
Regards.
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Wouldest that be said better as...
Greetings citizen, I wish to help you on your rat killing quest!
or
Hail! I seek the one they call \'rouge\' might you tell me where I can find him?
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players should not have to ask another player if they can kill something..... plain and simple.
the only way to fix this is to make it so no one knows where the monsters spawn... i.e randomizing the spawn points is the only way to fix the spawn camp problem... Because if you have to ask some one if you can kill something they have power over that monster and no player should hold power over a spawn point...so if no one knows where the monster will spawn no one will ever have to ask to kill a monster ever again....
Thank you
Gravalden
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well, my idea don\'t necessarily exlcude others, depending in the necessity there would be diferent spawn and combat rules on diferent areas
nad on the possibikity of not having an spawn arrea free for spawing form having toomuch people, the variables could be dinamic, time could increase, or the number of monsters pooling that area could increase, the sensibility of tge watching detection could decrease, perhaps making the spawn point need to be in sight for more time to activate triger the to not spawn and reset reset, making the random time in between sight checks smaller, and possibly lots other possibilities I have not thought about
as it would be a very complex process,due to it involving the human interaction and reactions, it would probably require some fine tune on it till it becomes ususally self-regulable,I believe that most people would go look else where for monsters if they stay somewhere too long without seeeing one, and the news would spread that that area was not good for hunting and more people would go else where, asenough people leave for look for monsters elsewhere the number of monsters would slowly increase in that area, it would be somehwta alike a living ecosystem, too much predators around and the prey would become sparse, less predators and the number of preys would increase
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I am trying to invision your system, but I keep haveing the same problem. I fear there will not be enough spawns for leveling. However since this is a Tech demo, I wish the Devs would experiment a bit
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TiagoTiago
i see your point on making the spawns not do anything when some one is around.. but derwoodly does have a very good point on the fact that there would be to few spawns in a given area for lvling and or questing... (i.e some one killed the monster.... about 3 minutes later when the monster is about to spawn some one runs thru the area not knowing a monster spawns there .... BAM reset of the timer cuz the system will think hes watching the spawn... got to wait another 3 minutes or what ever the times might be for the monster to spawn....)
The root of my idea with randamizing the spawn points is you keep the same number of monsters in a given area (i.e ojroad) when one is killed the spawn point moves to another place all togather (i.e you kill the rogue on the forest path to the magic shop 30 sec later he pops up in the ruins or some where in the vastness that which is ojaroad..) this would keep people moving around endlessly to find monsters to kill... making better use of the stamina system and forces people to become very familar with the landscapes and or labyrinth. this would have an impact on player knowage over all making the game have to be that much more vast.
which would cause the programers to make things BIGGER :P hehehe
Thank you
Gravalden
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Making a few different servers could help as well, as there would be the same amount of monsters on each one
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It has been said, many times, that there will only be one PlaneShift world. (even if that world spans multiple servers) But yes, a larger world would help too. Overcrowding is a big issue.
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Quote:
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Originally posted by Gravalden
wired
question would you be willing to do the programing for this.....
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i would gladly code if i knew how... or if i knew what base PS used, then i could look it up or if it was something i knew, which i doubt it is C++ or VB...
I love the lair idea, the pipes and crackes idea, and the Cubs/Baby/Larva idea... im not saying any others werent good... i just clicked page three and picked up where i think i left off...
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from what i have read its all done in crytal space for the 3d and 2d render and C++ for the programing.... which should really read all the C++ books mt father has laying around...... but right now i\'m trying to figure out crystal space......
see the pipe/crack/hole idea relys heavyly on the maps.. having to have lots of places for the monster to come out of... then the programing end with the timers and the radises and every thing that gos with it...
as soon as i figure out crytal space i\'ll jump head long into making tons of world maps... i normaly make maps for 3d shooter games but i\'m sure it would be alot easyer to make a rp map due to the fact that you don\'t have to activate anything like doors or elevators... but i will add moving objects like a clock tower with a working clock or windmills or the ramdom log floting on a river or something..... but tho i do alot better with mazes...:P hope you all like LONG and complex mazes...
that is if i figure out CS....
Thank you
Gravalden
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I vote for Gravalden\'s original Idea, I myself was about to post about the same thing but I found this thread
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I personally like the idea that certain monsters belong in certain areas, and that spawn camping is quite frustrating, especially by higher level PCs vs lower level monsters.
Some of you might be familiar with the term \"aggro radius\". If you\'re lower level, a higher level monster would be attracted to you because of your larger aggro radius.
My proposal is create a \"fear radius\" for PCs. A higher level character will have a higher fear radius, making a spawn run away from it. The more mobs the PC kills, the larger the radius it becomes, and the more these monsters run away from them, the chase becoming a pain. This would force the player to move on to mobs more their own level.
Possible exploits for this might include grouping with a lower level PC for the lower level PC to maintain \"aggro\" and have the higher lvl PC move in for the kill. In this case i would have either the group damage averaged among players.
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That\'s a good idea, to avoid that problem with grouping with a lower level player you could not make a aggro effect just fear. So if you have a High level player in a zone, doesn\'t matter how much low level players are there, the weaker NPC would still run.. so if the High level player wants to kill it he will have to pursue it leaving the place. Probably before he came back there were already some NPC to kill in that area and low level players killing them.
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I think it is too expliotable. NPC mobs artifical intelegence is not smart enough to be able to figure out when a high level player is trying to scare them off on purpose or attack them. Fear is a powerful weapon that should be an ablity or spell.
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Originally posted by derwoodly
I think it is too expliotable. NPC mobs artifical intelegence is not smart enough to be able to figure out when a high level player is trying to scare them off on purpose or attack them. Fear is a powerful weapon that should be an ablity or spell.
sorry, but I can\'t get what you mean by exploitable?
as I understand that npc fear idea seems like a good idea, perhaps not so specificly to spawn owning, on that topic I have already given some of my sugestions a while back, but more generally if a char buffs up too much the smaller npcs would surelly be frighten by him, even if he is not looking, most animals irl ususally are reasonably good evaluatng if they should fight or fly to live to fight another day, but I have an adicional sugestion, don\'t make it so binary, \"safe or not\", if there is 10 \"weak\" guys in one direction their \"risk factor\" would be added togheter making them as frightning as one \"tougher\" guy, if on one direction there is a tough guy, but in the other direction ther is a \"tougher\" guy the monster would tend to go in the direction of average orverall safeness
but of coure a group of tough guys could group in a hunting pack and scare a simple rat around till it is surrounded, with no way to flee.
I really like the idea of using some basic baysean calculations (they seem to fit many real life decision making simulations real nice) if the odds of staying in place or moving in one direction and surviving are less than moving away in another direction it would be realistical to flee (of course, add some random over or under self-confidence and perhaps a gray area instead of a pure if bigger than N then run, and perhaps even some gradation on the running speed based on how much bigthe risk it is (or it think it is) running, and perhaps even based on the distance to the said risk.
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Originally posted by Karyuu
Black_rose, your posts make very little sense, as usual o.o
First off, Karyuu and everyone on this forums, stop being such bitches. Everyone\'s always like \"omg go to school, omg you suck\" I know i\'ll get flamed for this, but everyone is always telling each other to go to school or something.That was a waaaay off topic post, i\'m surprised you made it to mod with an additude like that. As this is pretty much an off topic post, however. But i\'m serious, these posts are annoying, plus you make yourselfs hippocrites by critizing other people about offensive posts like these.
It might be true, but it\'s no reason to put that out in the open.
Second off, I think spawn killing is annoying. Random spawns should be added, but I think it might not only be spawn killing but also not enough monsters...
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Curious that you failed to quote the rest of my post, which had a lot more meaningful content :) And also if you could decipher Black_rose\'s post better than I, and search through the poster\'s history and decipher everything else, I would be grateful. Sometimes it\'s just really hard to understand what a poster is trying to say. Besides, I would\'ve thought that my smiley/emoticon thing lightened the mood.
\"These posts are annoying,\" you say, while quoting a single sentence :) Maybe you should lighten up.
*edit* Way to go - your edited your last post and marked it a prime target for deletion.
PS: I wasn\'t a mod when I made that post :)
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Spawn owning and camping can be solved very simply: randomized spawning within an area and spawn competition. Even if spawns remained where they were, if kill-stealing could be a non-issue, it would solve many things.
Yes, high agility avatars would be able to beat you to the attack, but so would better players. This creates a training session of learning how to beat someone to the attack. Another answer is to randomize the spawns within a broad location. The final answer is this: there are more monsters that drop nothing ever. Randomize what monsters are dropping and where. Have a sword drop from a Tefusang(granted not a high level weapon) because the low level players are trying for high level monsters because theyve learned about the weapons dropping here or there.
Have it so that the higher the level of monster, the higher of level weapon will drop. Players will then level to get better swords for themselves and to sale to others. This will allow players to progress in a more competitive environment without increased frustration.
Kythag
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That\'s not satisfying to me. A tefusang randomly appears infront of you. Or worst yet, a gladiator! Why? What\'s the logic? It doesn\'t make sense.
There has to be a better way.