PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Wormtail_ on January 30, 2004, 07:35:59 pm
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I apologize if this idea has been stated before, but anyway...
Perhaps there can be a certain meter (or something similar) that makes your character become disgusted at all the hacking and slashing they are doing. It is not realistic if people kill a bunch of others and do not feel even remotely regretful (unless they are incredibly sadistic). As people gain experience in combat, they would, of course, get more used to killing, but most would rather not kill for trivial reasons. Of course, there may be a few bloodthirsty races that could be exempted from this idea, but assuming that most other races are not, they probably would rather not kill if they could help it.
Why do characters kill monsters ingame? To gain experience, money, and items. Those things could be gained in methods other than killing. Also, when you destroy a monster, the resulting corpse could smell so disgusting as to make your character retch. Looking on the realistic side, most people would rather not kill if they could help it, and gain exp./money/items in other ways. In other games, the only way to gain those things is to kill monsters.
The main point I am trying to get across is that characters could probably feel extremely disgusted at all the killing they were doing at first, and get used to it later. If such an idea were to be implemented, then people would be forced to use methods other than pure combat to gain money, experience, and items.
What do you think of this idea? Is it horrible, or somewhat feasible?
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Although your idea is thoughtful, Im not sure its a good thing for the devs to consider quite yet. Giving avatars emotions and facial expressions would be time consuming work! We are still waiting for any combat at all from these guys.
But I must admit, I am kind of tired of slaughtering monsters and bunnies by the dozens. Maybe monsters could still hold a heavy threat to all levels somehow...
Maybe you should join the \"Hippie Way\" :)
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i dont think there can be a meter for that wormtail. really its up to the player who is rping. you cant just make a universal meter for that kinda thing...
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Hmmmmmm - you could have a universal \"morale\" meter and have customizable variables that affect it - I\'d say this is a post CB project thought - it sounds like polishing to me. Good idea though, I like it.
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It sounds good. Maybe if they are an elf they dont like killing the most because the love nature. And the Humans dont like it but it doesnt bother them as much but it still does. Or if the have joined the Green? way(is there a green way?) and they are an elf they hate it.
Also people might not want to go further if they are sleepy or they are too hot and sweaty. Just an idea.
I think it would be fun. Should the meter be too hard? its just a morale meter isnt it?
But if we do this it will be just up to collecting crystals and chatting :D But collecting crystals and chatting is fun isnt it?
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I think what whemyfield was talking about is evil people who LIKE to hack and slash. To do the meter you could just choose a certain # of things that affect your morale at the beginning of the game (you have to take a few of them - option boxes maybe?)
*Too much Hack and Slash
*Not enough
*I NEED ale!!!!
*Books, books, books - studying is COOL you newb!
:D
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how about an option to forsate it, i plan to play a sort of phycopath :)
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A random idea...
If your \"disgust\" goes up too much, any time that you try to rest you get nightmares or something and only get half the rest that you should. Disgust could be neutralized by sacrificing stuff to Talad, or meditation or something.
Hmmm... I guess evil characters wouldn\'t be disgusted as much. Making your character \"good\" or \"evil\" would be a bad idea though. Hypothetically, if you had an evil character, doing ritous things would sicken them, and give similiar effects.
On the topic of other ways to train, perhaps you could have friendly swordfights with a friend to train. These wouldn\'t be meant to do damage... but accidents happen. It would be very cool to be able to have mock-fights with people for training.
Definately a post-CB idea, but it is a good idea nonetheless.
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Great idea, although I don\'t know if there should be a meter for disgust, I think there should definatly be things to stop every player in the world just killing every monster they see on sight, it\'s just not realistic.
About the Hack and Slash people that wouldn\'t like the game like that anymore, let them go play hack and slash games then, this is an MMORPG ;)
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i dont see the point in the
you see an overgrowen swamp demon twice the size of you charging at you with an axe. its either die or defend yourself. you slay the demon. feel regretfull?
the only effect this would have on you is feel a bit frightened and shocked or feel like your invincible (ego trip :rolleyes: ) or feel tired and want a beer :D
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How do you feel after two straight days of killing the same swamp demon over and over? (You have no beer)
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I think it has already been made clear that Planeshift will focus on RP\'ing. Thus, the game will be more focused around the community, questing, and overall storyline rather than endless hacking-and-slashing.
In the future, there will undoubtedly be so many ways to make money/gain experience that it will make you dizzy. Remember, we all (including the devs) want a game that is fun and doesn\'t require hours of endless rat-bashing (unless you feel that you\'re more \"in character\" when doing so).
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I hate hack-and-slash but I do not agree with the disgust idea. My character is evil and only cares about himself. So killing a few hundred cute little cuddlies wouldn\'t affect him. Disgust is something that needs to be rp\'d, you can\'t force it on a person, as everyone has a different level of disgust.
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this idea is simply impossible to implement. What if someone roleplays chaotic-evil char? You won\'t be choosing alignments in Planeshift so it\'s up to thy roleplay. But how easy it\'ll be when char that is supposed to love destruction, suddenly starts to feel disgust to it?
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Hm, perhaps instead:
You only get experience for killing x number of monsters/ppl an in-game day...
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I already explained how to handle an evil character (although I agree with Xandria that you could get away with not implementing this idea at all in PS) - You state at the beginning of the game what affects your morale. If you\'re evil - doing nice things makes you feel low - for instance, \"I haven\'t slaughtered a village in weeks....\"
It is by no means impossible.
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In any case, the race of your character, as I stated in the beginning of this post, affects whether your character is a maniacal psychopath or not. Such as if it is Undead (I know they aren\'t in PS, but that\'s not the point), they are amoral sadists while Elves, on the other hand, are empathatic friends of nature. And as SnowWolf states, the actions of your character very early on affects their level of disgust, and when they are disgusted or not.
The experience level could be the meter that decides how disgusted you are when you kill. If you are extremely experienced, you tend to not care as much, I think. If, on the other hand, you are not that familiar with slaughtering monsters, you do tend to regret slaying creatures.
Hm, perhaps instead:
You only get experience for killing x number of monsters/ppl an in-game day...
That would work a little, but I am in disagreement with it. Realistically, people get exp. whenever they do something, and realistically, there are no rules for gaining experience. While this would cut down on the killing for experience, it will not cut down the killing for items/gold.
I already explained how to handle an evil character (although I agree with Xandria that you could get away with not implementing this idea at all in PS) - You state at the beginning of the game what affects your morale. If you\'re evil - doing nice things makes you feel low - for instance, \"I haven\'t slaughtered a village in weeks....\"
I suppose that stating at the beginning of the game is actually in the character creation screen...
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I have no prob with MMO\'s where you kill monsters... I just thing it would be better if it was something like you and 4 of your friends tacticaly ambushing a dragon... not you alone in a cave steping on rats and geting minimal exp...
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A little off topic but I\'m a huge fan of tactics....
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I just noticed something while fiddling around in the char. creation again:
class=\"Mental\"
info=\"Resistance to monsters, situations and places that cause fear.\"
cost=\"2\"
/>
class=\"Mental\"
info=\"Easy to frighten, malus on resistance to all fear attacks.\"
cost=\"2\"
/>
This isn\'t really disgust, but still very closely related to it..
PS. online version of the advantages.xml can be found here (http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/planeshift/planeshift/rules/advantages.xml?rev=1.5&view=markup)
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Hmm, perhaps ranks similar to \"Coward\" and \"Fearless\" could be used. Such as \"Sadist\" and \"Green/Easliy Disgusted Person.\" There is a difference between fear and how much you can handle before you cannot handle more. Someone can be easily disgusted but fearless, or a coward and a sadist. An example of the latter is a mugger, the former...
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I think a moral-meter is a great idea.
Perhaps someone knows jagged alliance 2? This is a round-based tactical with such a moral-meter. In this game you have to hire mercenaries to fight a guerilla-war. The point is: At first, every person has a neutral moral. Whenever you wins a fight, the moral goes up. Is the moral neutral, it is not certain that the mercenary wants to stay. Is the moral excellent, he stays definitely. But with every lost fight and whenever someone from your side gets killed, the moral lowers. At a certain point, it is most likely that this person is leaving and will never join your group again. The moral also effects what the persons are saying.
In JA 2 the personality of the char is defined at a character-creation in form of a questionary (Question:\"You are robbing a supermarket, what do you take with you? [a knife] [a nightvision-goggle] [...] By choosing nightvision, you will probably get night-tactics and so on). When you choose some weird answers, you \"get insane\". This means, you go franzy at certain points (doing a automatic-fire at a person at a distance of 2m etc.)...
In PS the moral could be also realized over the char-creation. So the \"childhood-experiences\" could also affect the psychological tendencies as the race.
By playing a psychopath, all \"good\" things could disgust him, such as healing animals, helping innocent people...
Also when the char is insane, at certain points, the player couldnt stop a fight or move, also the fighting-style could be set on \"just aggressive\" or even on an extra style \"frenzy\" (this style should have some great advantages, as it is a great disadvantage for the player not beeing to intercept or to choose the fighting-style).
Back on topic: At first the moral-meter should take the char-creation into account, but also the customization to specific actions as fighting, cooking or building.
I mean, there are many ways to gain xp. So anybody could train his fighting-skills without actually killing a monster (especially with sparring as stated above).
When a char is killing a monster for the first time, his personality is crucial what effect the killing has on his moral. With time, the personality looses his weight.
A mad char could hate cooking and could be disgusted of picking mushrooms, for example.
How to implement it? I think, the certain actions and abilities should have a meter, how \"good\" they are. The more something is \"good\", the more it is bad for a psychopaths moral. A psycho could even be happy to see a groupmate die...
The moral itself could effect the gaining of xp by doing specific actions. Something you dont like, you wont learn.
Another effect could be an \"internal voice\", when the char speaks to himself and certain actions related to it.
Moral could also affect the reaction from npc. The more you are happy, the better the reaction.
What do you think of it?
Bye,
amogorkon
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Frankly I can\'t see this system work well, at least not if the game gives the player great flexibility, which is something it definitely should do.
There are always uses for skills that are contrary to their \"common\" use.
Take lockpicking, for example. Evil, right? What if you or a friend of yours has lost the key to their home, though, and you pick the lock?
Also, how can you assign what may or may not disgust a maniac? An Elf? A mass-murderer?
The maniac might love picking mushrooms, but may also get the creeps off it.
The Elf might like picking mushrooms, but only if at least half of them remain unpicked. Not to mention that elves may also become careless, just as any other race can become throughly nature-loving.
The mass-murderer might love killing people with certain attibutes, or people in general, but hate doing harm to animals. Or just love destroying life.
Thus, the moral meter would have to be 100% customisable by the player, and also adjust by itself according to what the player does.
Disgust at killing does wear off eventually if you do it a lot. I would like my char to express emotions, but OTOH, if they are not 100% aligned with what I RP them to be, it would be detrimental to my RP.
However, as has been said, this is something that would best be classified as \"polish\", and as such I\'d say that we should get a lot of emotes once the animation editor is done, but let the application of them be handled by the player, at least until everything else is in place.