top 10 changes for Planeshift (IMHO)

[Mr. GworthoX]

Hmmm...I\'m in doubt wether I\'ll post this now and here or not.
(No, I\'m not scared of a flaming Draklar I always love to laugh meself to death by reading his comments ).

No, I doubt cause I know the devs are busy, and every minute they spend reading here, is a minute wasted

But since I don\'t wanna blame myself later \"why did you never post it\" (and even more importend: I don\'t have anything better to do now ), I decided to post it.

GworthoX top 10 wishlist:

1) Slower down the respawn rate from monsters, to stop the monster camping. (that really stinks).
To compensate that, maybe the number of spawns should be increased a little.

2) Slow down the regeneration rate. (both hp mp as stamnia).

3) remove the /spawn command (or limit the use of it). /spawn is used too much by ppl who are to lazy to walk. Let GM\'s spawn ppl back when they are really stuck. (I\'m aware of the fact that ppl can then just die, to avoid walking back....but maybe if they loose something (like health or fame) they will avoid doing that.

4) Make the inside of the arena (so the battle place, not the tribune), a Free-for-All place, where everybody can kill everybody. (without challenging).
If you stay in hydlaa plaza without weapons, you get every 10 sec a challenge from some ***CENSORED*** that thinks he can get an easy kill. GO AWAY, fight in the Arena).

5) Make tefusangs harder to kill, or de-value the worth of the teeth. (the reward by killing a tefusang, is IMHO to much for the effort you have to do).

6) I really love an Age/usage system for all weapons, armor, tools and such thing. Everytime you use that item (example sword) there goes some points off. I have a broadsword with 100. If I succesfully hit somebody, I loose 1 point. If there are no points left, the Item is fully broken and cannot be used anymore. When loosing points, the Item also looses worth. an 100 point broadsword will be more worth then a 59 points one. The NPC (and when crafting is implementated, PC\'s also) must get the abillity to repair used/broken items. (of course at cost).
Thinking about it now....maybe its also good to loose points, by holding the weapon in your hand. ( this avoids everybody running around with a weapon in his/her hand when there is nothing on. (like standing with two longswords in Kada\'s taverne. Come on, use your mind. how can you drink the finest dragon-ale when your hands are sticked to your weapons 24/7 !!!)

7) Higher levels, cost more PP. (if you train from lvl 1 to lvl 2, it should cost much less then when you train from lvl 12 to lvl 13).

Stop selling basic stats. (like str, end, agi, int and so on). I loved the fact that now everybody is different. When you are able to buy the skills to a certain lvl everybody will become equal. (like lvl 150 with all 6 stats). I know it takes a while, but it goes faster then you think. You should be able to influence your stats a little during char creation, but after it: DONE. \"sry mate, you have to life with the fact that you are a weak elf.\" or \"you\'re a dwarf, they are not the smartest you know\"
If you will be able to keep buying stats, the only difference between a dwarf and an Elf will be the skinn. (I C to manny Elves that come to me say: \"Hi, wanna be friends? \" .......I\'m a F*cking Dwarf. I hate Elves. Dwarves Hate Elves, like.....welll............nevermind. (The RP capabilities of some players......I don\'t have that too high).
And last: the Idea of going to a shop buying stats. it\'s to dumb for words. Like you go and buy some intelect. No, IF......then give it like a reward for a certain quest. Not like buying.

9) Maybe a merchant skill, that is direct related to your Int en Char stats. (If you are smart, or good looking, you will be able to change the price a bit in your favour. If you\'re Dumb and Ugly....like me (<-- wanna flame this post, use this as a quote :p ), you get ripped of by the npc\'s.

10) a reputation system. If you are playing te Good, you can earn fame by solving \"the good guests\" hanging around (praying) in the Temples and helping others. If you play the evil, you can decrease your fame (read: increase your evil charisma) by solving the evil quests, stealing from others (pickpoketing) or hanging around in the Death realm for too long.



Euh, I don\'t wanna mention the usual things like : Crafting, ranged weapons, skins and a greater Deathrealm. I know they are already working on that. Asking for that would certainly only work on the bad nerves form the devs.

It can be that some ppl already asked for one or more of the points I wrote down here. In that case: good, that means I\'m not the only one thinking about that.

*looking in his pocket to check his financial capabilities*

\"hmmm....I\'m afraid I\'m not that wealthy to pay the devs to read it, so I hope that others do, and give there oppinion.
 

[provisionist1]

Xirius says pulling a Morpheus-type statement. Surprised but impressed

Yeah, good suggestions. I was a bit wary of the top 10 things cause\' all the newbies seem to like to do that, and it\'s the same stuff over and over. Anyways, these are my thoughts...

1. Slow down spawning, yes that might help, but unfortunately, I think it would simply make more people camp in the same place for a longer period of time. My suggestion would be randomise within a boundary the spawns (i.e. within a 20 pace section, or somewhere along a corridor in the sewers instead of a single spot. Also, though I am happy the rat spawning in the walls problem is fixed, there is a clump of about 20 of them now in a single spot, so maybe spreading out the locations would be the first thing to do.

2. Regeneration rate should be dependant on one\'s endurance, i.e. more endurance, more quickly one returns to normal

3. Definitely agree, lazy n00bs... (grrr)

4. Maybe, especially if you are inside one of the fighting areas, not as a spectator.

5. They did make Tefies a lot harder to kill (between 3.008 and 3.009), I used to be able to kill them, now I cannot. But 16 for their teeth is a little excessive yes... Actually what\'d work well would be for every tooth you sell to the merchant, a little drops off his buying price. For example, if you sell a single tooth, it\'s worth 16, but sell him a load of 50 teeth, and each maybe is worth 8? Something like that...supply and demand hence fluctuating prices.

6. Please check out my post... http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=4224&boardid=11&styleid=3&sid=00eec9c3a24ca7fec7dabbc966752674&page=2 But yeah, I agree with you here.

7. Definitely increasing price (but drop initial ones down a little, not too much though, maybe to 34 per training session), then raise to something like 100 each time when training from 50 to 51. It\'s already planned to have only a couple rare NPCs that can train that high I think, so yes, they should have raised prices for being in demand.

8. No, I disagree here. If anything, it should fall into differential pricing depending on the race, i.e. a Dwarf is charged less for strength than a Dermorian, but they train in magic cheaper than a Dwarf.

9. Definitely, prices realted to charisma, yep, I like it. Maybe add in a skill like bargaining: higher level, cheaper prices.

10. Possibly, only thing is there cannot be positives to being good and negatives to being evil. Simply differences...But is has to be balanced. There are already too many goodie-goodies in the game.

Cool,

Xirius

[zabeal]

1. A probelm with increasing the number of spawns, is what happens when no one is around? Lots of monsters spawn, and then it gets too crowded. So another option would be to increase the number of spawn locations, but have a limit of how many can be in an area at a time. Then, when a monster is killed, it would respawn randomly from any number of locations. You could even add in something so that a spot with a player nearby is skipped to really make camping hard

2. There will be ways to rest to recover more quickly.. but that is waiting for animations.

3. A solution that\'s been considered is to replace /spawn with /sucide. That way you still have a way out of any situation, but it\'s not a pleasnt way. I think however there should be spawn locations in each zone- and then when you come back from the DR you can get dropped off there too.

4 + 6 will happen with time. Not terrible important, don\'t you think?

7. Anyone who has raised attributes alot will notice they need more training... I think the same formula should be used for skills as well. Also, the practice require for most skills should go way up.

10. How about quests that show alliagnce to some group instead? For example, you need to to some small taks for the guards in order for them to trust you, then you can fight off some invadeders to be deputized as a city guard, and then you can go on other quests, etc. Of course, then the theives fo the city won\'t give you the time of day, where as others can get quests from them.

Good ideas to talk about  :]

[Mr. GworthoX]

to Zabeal ...


hmm.......I doubt that the Hydlaa north-gate guards are smart enhough to make a difference between a monster and a player. I mean, if you loose weapons, and only care about how to take your food with him......
But seriously, your number 10 sounds even better then mine ;-) so you have good and bad NPC\'s around. If you help the good, the good NPC\'s like you, and if you solve the evil quests, the Bad NPC\'s like you.

With point two, I ment: resting by sleeping (some state of)or eating/drinking, must recover you much quicker then just standing. Not even talking about the fact that you can Run-strafe and recover at the same time

To Xirus:

you\'re right about the topic.....but I quess whatever topic you name it, some always will disagree with it (thanx for the title. I dunno how much posts ppl have to make be4 loosing there newbie status.......JK).

I checked your post on #6 and : yes, something like that I ment.

About the 20 rats, I hoped they would really attack in groups, so ppl have to group to fight them. Grouping will increase the RP part of Planeshift. I know there will always be loonley Powergamers (I\'m afraid) but the grouping will make that less....at least I hope.
What you C now, is that ppl camp at a teffy and w8 till they can\'t carry anymore teeth. (some even get mad if you just stay there watching, and after half an hour, you get bored, killed one teffy and you get the command:\"Hey, go away, this is MY teffy\" I must always laugh about that, but if you think about it, it\'s deep sarrow.

Like in MB (yes, this newbie played MB) only .....euh.......well......new players, and ppl afk, where camping at a Xtall spawn. Just cause it wasn\'t worth camping. So it should be (IMHO) with monsters.

[BaurakSered]

1) I dont think that slower respawns are the answer to camping. I\'ve seen 3 people camp a rogue before each taking turns. Now if that isnt a long wait I dont know what is, and it didnt seem to bother anybody.

I think what really needs to be done is to give each Monster an area that they can spawn in. The area should be fairly large, so that people dont just camp a 20 x 20 area. An area roughly the size the the central square in the city would be about right in my opinion.

Also, balancing the monsters would go a long way to reduce camping. You\'ll notice that there are just a few monsters that are constantly being camped. to name a few:
.     1. an unusually weak Tefusang in the sewers for loot
.     2. an unusually weak Rogue in the forest that gives 5 PP and loot
.     3. a certain Trepor that gives 10 PP
.     4. a certain Rogue that gives 15 PP
And to a lesser degree:
.     5. a certain Bandit that gives 18 PP
.     6. the Gladiators in the Arena for thier loot
.     7. the Rogues in the arena for thier loot

2) The ability to rest, eat, sleep to recover would be great, and im confident that its already in the works

3) From what I understand, this should be fixed when the Death Realm is greatly expanded. This would discourage dieing because you would actually have to find your way out of the Death Realm. Unfortunately, the /unstick command will be necesarry until the game is stable enough.

4) maybe not the entire Arena, as players of many different levels go there to train. Perhaps certain areas of the arena could be free killing areas.

However, this wouldn\'t be very popular right now because almost anyone can kill anyone else in one hit, so, instead of a duel of strength and abilities it becomes a contest of who can hit first. and this  = no fun at all. Bare-knuckle fights on the other hand can be a worthwhile endevor.

5) I\'ll assume that you\'re refering only to the Tefusang in the serwer, which is WAY too easy to kill. Other Tefusangs in the arena and the wild are much harder to kill. Its ok to have stronger and weaker Tefusangs, Rogues etc. but perhaps the weaker Tefusangs and weaker Rogues would give a lot less experience, and drop things very rarely. *also see #1 where i talked about balancing the Monsters

6) The wearing down of weapons and armor is already planned, and partially implemented(the weapon repair and armor repair skills are there but not useable yet)

7) This is already implemented. If you train to the higher levels you will see this.

But it is true that the leveling system could be a little more balanced

8) My thoughts on this can be found here: http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=19357&boardid=11&styleid=3&sid=f294af8594c1f3981e7dfbe0f5515306&page=2

9) Im not sure if this has been brought up before, but it\'s nothing new to RPGs. Morrowind had an excelent bartering system that was influenced by your trading skills and Charisma. I would love to see a similar system implemented in Planeshift.

10) Ideally your fame would be determined by how well-known you are in the world of PC\'s. You would become famous or infamous depending on your actions and the type of character you portray in your RP\'ing. Hopefully as more and more things are implemented, many of the current NPC functions could be replaced by PC\'s such as training, and tradeing. This would create a natural \"human\" system of fame rather than a ranked \"computer\" system of fame.

I do agree that the alignments of good and evil should be more ballanced. It seems like we need to give the \"evil\'s\" more things to do, as of yet the game tends to produce more good characters than evil or chaotic ones.

[Bereror]

1) The problem with random spawn points or areas for it is that these randomly generated points can easily be underground or behind the walls. Soon all the NPCs would be unreachable for players.

Even if they spawn in a valid location and then walk (prefereably invisible for players) to their final (random) location, their \"walking experience\" as it is implemented right now quite often ends up behind the walls. Just take a look at the gobbles in the sewers.

An option would be a fixed number (at least 2) of valid spawn locations and the actual spawn point is then randomly chosen.

[BaurakSered]

Bereror

I think you\'re making this harder than it is.

When I said that each monster would be given an area roughly the size of the plaza in which to spawn, I didnt mean that we literally just expand that area outward in a circle from thier current spawn points.

How hard can it be to set up limits where the monsters can spawn? For example, the Rogue in the forest would be able to spawn in any place along the forest\'s path. His spawning area would look more like a long-curved area, not a big circle.  

Take a graph as an example, draw an overhead view of the map, then you only have to randomize x and y coordinates that fall within the limits you have set.

Here\'s a picture of how this would work:



and in simple logic it would be implemented like this:

Y = Random Number (min -50, max 50)
IF Y < -17 THEN X = Random Number (min -29, max -20)
IF Y > -17 AND Y < 8 THEN x = Random Number (min -29, max 15)
IF Y > 8 THEN X = Random Number (min 7, max 15)

The results are the the spawn point of the creature (X,Y) that will always fall inside the yellow spawning area

[Bereror]

You forgot the Z-coordinate  . We are in 3D world and none (almost) of the surfaces are flat. Your NPC would be underground or flying somewhere in the air.

To implement it in your way, there has to be a script for every single NPC with all the necessary conditions for that specific area. And if the map is changed (even slightly), all the scripts shall be changed as well.

[BaurakSered]

Almost every area of the Planshift world is 1 level deep.

which means that for any given X,Y Coordinate there is only one Z coordinate. The script would generate the X and Y coordinates and then all that needs to be done is apply the matching Z coordinate for that spot.
 
This is not difficult at all. As evidence of this concept, try getting the attention of any monster in a field... now run over a hill and the monster will follow you... it moves up and down the landscape just as you do.

To implement it in your way, there has to be a script for every single NPC with all the necessary conditions for that specific area. And if the map is changed (even slightly), all the scripts shall be changed as well.

Seriously.
You\'re basically replacing a set of coordinates:

Rogue spawns @ 183, 2065

with this:

Rogue spawns @ (generate random number within a specified area)

the calculation of two random numbers is done in a pair of proccessor clock cycles on the server. in a meer millionth of a second. Putting almost no load on the server. It\'s not all that complex at all. especially considering that most monsters are in open fields, so thier spawning areas would be a geometric rectangle. In this case the function would be absolutely incredibly simple:

Rogue spawns @ (random number (min 10, max 30), random number (min 10, max 30))


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The system you are proposing could be easier to implement, but would only be effective if there were ~20 valid spawn points for each monster. If you set up 2 or 3 spawn points then you will get 2 or 3 people, each guarding one of those spots, and the camping continues...

Even if you did set up 20 or so valid spawn points, then if the map changed, you might still have to change those spawn points to fit the map.

In any case I would prefer a completely random system.

To illustrate how you would set up the spawning areas in a field of Trepors for example:

this would be incredibly simple to implement, but it would make it impossible to anticipate the spawn point of the monsters