PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: NewPie on September 20, 2003, 08:52:45 pm
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Hmmm .. i just thought that there could be monsters affected by weather if there is weather in the game.
There could be something like Storm wolves. If there is lightning, they get stronger than they would normally be.
Then there could be monsters affected by darkness and light as well.
At least this would be pretty unique
well ... continue this topic with your ideas.
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I like that idea. Fire monsters could get weaker if they were caught without an umbrella as well.
Congratulations on using your first post for something useful, pie.
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When it snows, ice creatures could get stronger, like a when a shadow gets heavier if there\'s low light. If it\'s something really severe like a blizzard or something simillar all or the majority of the [inster type here] creatures could \"turn to stone\" or something because their inner fire has been \"chilled out\" :P and once the storm stops they come back to life.
Could be interesting; you cast a ice like spell on a fire creature when its snowing out and it turns into stone. :D *shatter*
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It could also be cool if some creatures were sensitive to daylight, like vampires who have to stay out of the sun.. Or creatures that turn to stone if exposed to it, then they would search for cover, and you couldn\'t encouter them at the same place as in the day..
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I like that idea. Trolls, for example, would turn into stone in daylight and would stay like that until nightfall. Would be useful if you weren\'t up to fighting, you could lure them out, or use a light spell, or stand at the cave entrance with a mirror.
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I like this idea. As a not-so-avid-yet-still-reads-the-book reader of Sun Tzu\'s Art of War , the chances of victory are determined by knowing yourself, knowing the enemy, knowing the terrain, and knowing the weather. Of course, it was mainly for commanding armies, but lets just apply similar rules here. Maybe not rules, but if you catch my drift then you\'ll probably know what I mean.
Perhaps the weather can also affect monsters \'inderctly,\' as in not in whether they live in sunlight, but things that aid their speical attacks, things that harm you, things that demoralize people, and so on. Speical attacks would be casting spells, spitting, roaring, and so on. Thw wind would affect those things. For example, a roar that sends enemies fleeing. If the wind is directed at the enemy, then they\'ll probably flee. If it is directed against the raorer, then the creatures on the roaring creatures side would flee. Or there could be creatures that \'ride\' on the wind.
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I think status implementation should be done. I mean if there\'s a water based creature, rain should obviously help it.
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I think this concept should be very kewl and think the devs shoudl look inot how much of this elemental based stuff could be done! and maybe even different reaces being elemental! like for instance the demon guys could be strengthened by fire!
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Races probably should have a base element alignment, but elemental alignment tables could be modified with enchantments, equipments, and for spellcasters the types of magic they use. But yeah this is another good use for having an elemental alignment table in the game.
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Originally posted by Wedge
Races probably should have a base element alignment, but elemental alignment tables could be modified with enchantments, equipments, and for spellcasters the types of magic they use. But yeah this is another good use for having an elemental alignment table in the game.
A very good Idea IMO to have the magic users be altered by the type of magic they used, thus a Red way user would be more aligned to the kind of elements he uses.. And A dark way caster would be more aligned with death and darkness (or the like)
I\'d love to see my mage gradually change appearance from the newbie starter char to a pale skinned, malefic looking person...!! (or perhaps even skeletal! :D) I\'ve always wanted to get a lich character!! :] :P
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And dark player will be affected by light, holy weapons...
looks like a generalisation of some race-effects. But why not? I like detailed games. This should probably not be a high-priority feature..
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i already said it (on a different occasion) and i\'ll say it again:
great idea!!! this would REALLY make things more interesting ...the phrase \"hurry, the sun will set!!!\" gets the original scare-effected sound to it, as it did eons ago :D ...you have one great mind ...please stay at the treecastle forums, i think we\'ll need your ideas a bit more :]
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There was some talk of doing this in the past, but in reality it is very premature to say this will be in.
Here are some of the highlights.
Caster mana cost for spells dependant on weather and location
Elemental creatures regeneration rates (HP, mana, fatigue) governed by conditions
Character creation choices for reduced effectiveness in X weather types and or conditions such as season, day/night, possibly by race as well.
Character creation choices for increased effectiveness in X weather types and or conditions such as season, day/night, possibly by race as well.
Weapons and armor with elemental conditions could be affected as well.
Many of these things would need to be tested and seen as to effort Vs. use, and/or if there is a way to simulate the same thing but make it much simpler to do?for example storm giants being stronger in places where it storms more often, compared to storm giants in places where there is average stormy weather?
Stats adjusting based on game world clock as opposed to ?day or night? and creature types just having different refresh rates based on location as opposed to what is going on in said location. Same for mana and such.
While in many cases it would seem almost identical to players, it would not be identical, but the effort involved is much larger for it to be more true?
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What about monsters that are affected by their proximity to the Azure sun crystal? As you go up in levels they gain strength, or perhaps they\'re affected by different types of crystals that spawn in certain areas...
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umm ...
here is an example
[Storm rat]
Normally weak creature but has ability to gather electricity. Gather electricity makes it able to cast two different spells .. lightning bolt or shield of electricity. It could zap you once with bolt or cast shield to harm u with small damage and get protection when u hit it.
or another example with another kind of creature
(Bloomflover)
When it is sunny, Bloomflover can gather sumbeams and strenghten itself dramatically (takes time) or to use attack like Razor Dance or something like that to harm you
Those two are peaceful and will attack only if you attack first.
My imagination failed me so i used bad examples.
Comments ???
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I don?t want to sound too condescending, but at the moment you don?t make creatures this way.
You first figure what level of difficulty you want them at. And to add in flavor you add the random ability to do the things mentioned is weather is storming. And then you give them some of their characteristics. If it has electrical power, it will try to maintain range and shoot, if forced into melee it will use a damage shield on it?s self, the damage shield overrides if it has opponents both in melee and at range. And then you can say low- to mid range creature.
Also a question of balance comes in, if the creature is a low end creature, yet when it has it?s powers it can take on high end characters, we have problems. Creatures should only be able to tip the balance in their favor over their normal hunters, not clear them out.
If you leave it as you do in a paper and pencil game then you loose all concepts of them acting on their own as needed, so you really need to give their style and methods into an on or off setting. What triggers what and what does not.
While it sounds less then creative, well the flavor comes in giving slight variables and covering up the obvious. The more on and off switches you have the more organic the AI seems to be. But if you have too many then the creatures may not act in a semi predictable fashion, or any number of other things, so it is a balance. The true art of Game AI is that the AI acts exactly like the programmer intends and is predictable by him/her, yet the player can never quite get a handle on how it will act, he can make an educated guess, but every battle is a bit different.
This is meant to be constructive criticism; your above example is very much what this allows us to do, with weather and or environmental variables affecting creature stats.
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The true art of Game AI is that the AI acts exactly like the programmer intends and is predictable by him/her, yet the player can never quite get a handle on how it will act, he can make an educated guess, but every battle is a bit different.
I sort of disagree with this. The art of game AI is to make mobs which fight in ways which are not obviously stupid and not always the same, but which result in mobs that are still possible to kill and still possible to affect through players\' good use of tactics.
- If mobs simply acted randomly, every fight would be different but there would be no sense to it and it would rapidly get boring.
- On the other hand, if they were the perfect fighters and were not surmountable that would also not be fun. For example, if a mob is untauntable and he goes after your mage with the low HP, your mage is going to die every time. Making a mob respond to taunts maybe isn\'t the way to make a really smart mob, but it is a way to give other players the opportunity to save their mage.
We can never forget that making unkillable mobs is easy. Mobs in reality are there to be obstacles and rollercoaster rides for the players--cannon-fodder, not proof of how 1337 the AI programmers are.
- Just my opinion,
Venge
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I agree with you vengeance.. I\'ve played a lot of mmorpg\'s and they have all (sooner or later) made it, so that the mobs would react to taunts, and not go for the weakest HP char.. And that\'s a good way to save the gameplay for mage type chars, since playing a mage is hard and teaming up with others is always great :D
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Vengeance
I am not clear in how does anything that you stated contradict what I have stated in this?
I think you are assuming vast variations in how the monster acts each time, I did not mean it in that way. I meant that you don?t want it so that (eq example) you pull the orc from tent 2 you know that the orcs in tent 1 and 3 won?t come over to beat on you. The AI should leave a bit more chance then that.
Creatures have character traits, they do X a lot more often then Y, and they never do Z.
They will also have weaknesses and foolish things that they almost always do, like their main caster may be really good at heals, but he will only heal at the end of combat, or when noone is attacking him, and his friends won?t defend him.
In this case a well rounded group of monsters or MOBs are actually less then the sum of their parts, players learn to have one player attack the healer and then they no longer must worry about him healing.
I never stated anything about making the ultimate challenge to the players.
I am almost positive that we agree on this, but I could be wrong.
In how the programmer intends the AI to be is where we seem to have a difference, I am assuming he wants the creatures to be beatable, but if that is not the intent, well that is his prerogative. In many single player games, part of the puzzle of a certain part is that you can not defeat something in combat, so you must do something else. In persistent worlds this is more complex and not as desirable, as it is more annoying to die 20 times then it is to reload a saved game 20 times, until you learn your lesson.
But tell me if we still have a difference here :-)
(this is a great example of the dev team in discussion mode, arguing over something we are not sure we agree on and having to explain the point to verify if we actually disagree or not)