PCRPG Wants Your Gameplay Ideas

[Particle]

Hello!

I'm looking for gameplay modification ideas for PCRPG.  Feel free to post a neat new idea you'd like to see or comment/build upon someone else's ideas posted here.  I'd like to start extending the mod a little more to make the game more enjoyable for seasoned players as well as deeper for newcomers.

Here are a few examples of things I'm exploring--feel free to build upon them as they aren't laid in yet:

- Custom RL Names.  Currently debating if this would be enjoyable for players.  Also, how to regulate them raises some questions.  I'm currently thinking about making it to where this is an ability that is granted to certain players via an unmuggable & untradable item.  Some sort of medallion perhaps.  It could be sold or traded with some NPCs for something else valuable perhaps.  I dunno--expand upon this idea.

- Cleave.  Implemented  Slashing special skill, kind of like what bash is to bludgeoning.  It would cause extra damage and perhaps a lasting effect on enemies like "bleeding" for a period.

- Penetrate.  Piercing special skill.  Sorely in need of a synonym that conveys the same idea.  Unsure of what special effect to apply other than bleeding.

- Thorr's Hammer.  I wrote this item a long time ago, but I never put it into the game.  It is a special pick axe that will randomly mine multiple units per swing.  How many max would be dictated by the user's skill in mining or some other governor perhaps.  I'm not sure if I want to implement this item without creating some new money sinks in-game to make use of the extra coins.  Once a person is wealthy they lose the feeling of specialness associated with acquiring a long-sought weapon, armor, etc.  That leads us to:

- Economy.  I need ideas for reform on this one.  We need a better balanced economy where there are more reasons to spend money than ways to make it, thus keeping scarcity of items a possibility.  Most RPGs work this way.  Our economy system just isn't as mature.

[Lidge Farkley]

Economic Scarcity can be controlled in many ways.  Here is one:
*item damage system (items degrade over time, hence needing new ones or to repair old ones to not-as-high-quality)  This is very controversial due to the ways it can be implemented and the freedom from item repairs/damage being things a lot of people may enjoy.

One implementation idea:
-add an additional 2 lines of code tag to each itemdata code.
-an additional 4 functions (more or less, depending on what you want).

-*-tag 1 would store the item material type (or whatever name); cloth, leather, plate, chain, shield, etc...  I suggest declaring each variable as a number so that this may be expanded to allow additional item types in the future... like type 7 could be for dragonscale items and have a lower degradation rate in a separate itemdamage determination function, for example.

-*-tag 2 references the character profile to see how many points of durability are left on a given item.

-*-function 1 determines if a certain item interaction would cause damage to the item. (checks item types against each other.  This could also be expanded upon to provide for damage against the attacking as well as defending equipment; a piercing weapon may become damaged by plate mail where a bludge weapon may damage plate mail with out taking damage to the bludge weapon.)

-*-function 2 would determine and apply the amount of damage to be done to an (or each) item if in fact function 1 passes the check.

-*-An additional repair skill could be added (because you obviously can't "smith" leather/cloth armor) which would be referenced by function 3 to determine the effectiveness of a repair (repair would effect cloth/leather items; smith would effect metal items).  This could replace the "mystery skill from an older version of TRPG" skill spot.

-*-function 3 would activate when an item is repaired.  It would check to see what type of item is being repaired. It would change the items max durability points as a percentage of the old total, modified by the repair or smith skill (or both). It would repair the item to the new max durability spec value.  This would need to be stored in the character file, by the weapon checking the character profile for information on the item.  This could create issues for obvious reasons; what if player has more than one of an item? how is each item given a unique way to be identified? why not just drop an item to clear your character item data, then pick it up again to have a repaired item?  These questions could be answered with a dynamic ID swap file which keeps track of each item in the field until it is sold to a store where upon it would be cleared from the list.  When an item is purchased from the store, a new ID with the "brand new" attributes would be generated and added to the swap file.  A field dropped item data would leave that characters profile and be appended to the ID swap file and if some one picked that item up it would be swapped from the swap file back to the character profile.  This would limit the swap file size.  This would also make larger character files, but could keep the actual item info loaded in to the server memory a bit lower.  Obviously, ID's could present other issues, but I do not know how many because it's been ages since I have messed with any of that stuff!

-*-function 4 would apply a daily degradation to all worn items, logged in or not, which activates at the beginning of every real day while the server could be locked for 5 minutes as it restarts.  It checks the server date stamp against the system date and if it finds that the day has advanced it scans all player files and degrades their max total by a percentage based on their item type for items on the player (but not in storage.. don't know?)

Over all, it's not simple and might not work with this engine, but it has a lot of potential for interrupting the economic structure to have actual use.

Also, I would remove the dust quest because it is counter intuitive to gaining actual experience points in a conventional manner and uses massive amounts of money... which might be better controlled with a general reduction in money availability as you suggested.

Barter over infinite money:
In my mind, a true barter system seems more reasonable to implement and could generate an actual closed system where there is a maximum amount of each item kind.  When an item is dropped and "expires" from being on the ground too long, it could simply be recycled in to a store.  Similarly, when gems are collected and sold to stores they could be on hand in the store for a week or so, then go back in to the mining spikes.  The economy would have no money but would have a given value for each item say... "worth in stone" or something.  Anything could be traded at a store provided that it met or exceeded the barter value in stone of the items that the person wanted to trade for.  Really I think a barter system has obvious benefits and also has the ability to close the market up, so long as the implementation gives players a reason to get rid of items and there is not a storage system for items.  All items in the game could effectively be traded to any store for any items in that store, provided that the "weight in stone" was the right value.  To account for deficiencies in barter prices, the store bot could sell with in a range that varies, some times taking items for more and some times for less.  Items that are unique to certain locations would only be bartered there.  This system would need a lot of fine tuning to keep it unbreakable, though.

Anyway... you know me.. I could babble on and on about anything.. hah!
:-)

[Corona]

- Thorr's Hammer.  I wrote this item a long time ago, but I never put it into the game.  It is a special pick axe that will randomly mine multiple units per swing.  How many max would be dictated by the user's skill in mining or some other governor perhaps.  I'm not sure if I want to implement this item without creating some new money sinks in-game to make use of the extra coins.  Once a person is wealthy they lose the feeling of specialness associated with acquiring a long-sought weapon, armor, etc.  That leads us to:

I'm not sure how relevant this is......

But after like my 2nd week playing.....TRPG started entering my dreams.... like literally, after I slept. That is a first.

Nothing else I'd ever seen was like it.

And the admins of the era tended to #clearchar first and ask questions later.

So my very first "PCRPG" dream I ever had was of some admin (pecker i think) hitting me with a special pickaxe admin weapon that drained SP..... LOL.

Any first pcrpg dreams? Anyone?

[Dyre]

I have a few ideas, but they generally involve drastic changes...  Like reworking the leveling system, the way skills work, etc...  I really like the idea of individualized classes over the current "blurred line" system.

[Lidge Farkley]

So Corona wants PCRPG to be injected directly in to his mind while he is sleeping and Dyre needs to give more details about how skills work.

Was my blabbering too much to deal with?
hehe..

[Dyre]

Well, I don't want to bother suggesting things that probably will never see the light of day, primarily because it would involve a server reset, or a new server altogether.

[Kyrie]

To fix the money system:

Increase the effectiveness of the weapons and make damage more dependent on your skill in a particular weapon category.
This means you won't have to buy weapons as often, and you can then set the prices on weapons to be much higher.
To encourage people to buy new weapons, make each weapon faster than the previous one (and slightly more powerful, perhaps).

Give each weapon a minimum RL requirement. Even to the point that Anchets would require god and maybe something like ~100 million coins. That may be extreme, but the idea is to make weapons more expensive and force players to keep earning money to buy new weapons.

Currently, by the time you're RL 2 or 3, you have every weapon you need already, and plenty of money to buy more. But that first remort takes a long time because the weapons are almost prohibitively expensive for new players (and extremely cheap for long time players).

By allowing players to use the same weapon (or maybe two weapons) for their first remort or two, you can reverse that so the new players have a chance to make some money before needing a ton of coins.

Also, remove claymores and you remove a lot of the excess money.

[Avast]

zones and pking abilities based off this
<0:  Ghost
0-99:  Normal, classic RL names
100:  Transient
101-200:  Titan
201-400:  Avatar
401-600:  Elite Avatar
601-800:  Demigod
801-1000:  Elite Demigod
1000+:  Ascended One

the game should have brackets so that new players will want to get involved more


example,
<0:  Ghost
0-99:  Normal, classic RL names -bracket
100:  Transient - fits with titan i guess
101-200:  Titan - bracket
201-400:  Avatar - bracket - a few zones just for themselves, and their house pking abilities only fall within their bracket, they can not attack people out of bracket, so people who are rl 201-400 only
401-600:  Elite Avatar - bracket
601-800:  Demigod - bracket
801-1000:  Elite Demigod - bracket
1000+:  Ascended One - hkleajhajha

maybe a bracket for players rl 50 and lower

maybe this could be divided up a different way, but i think ive got the point across, the idea is to make the brackets challenging but not impossible for someone to pk. as is now it is impossible for any new player to get decent at the game without mass AFKing (which is arguable what makes the server slow and boring) till they are god+

this will promote people joining a house, create a bit of fun drama and interest, and make the game more of a challenge.

it is no fun attempting to pk a person who is 300 remorts above you, it's probably impossible, even if you are a superior dueler and can dodge the majority of their attacks, you might hit them 8 to 1 times but the 1 time they connect you are lck'd out. (this is not an exagerated example, i have had these kinds of duels before, i have even done this 3v1, technically dominating the duel but still losing because the opposing characters are so much higher than me in rl)



if you put back in a viable option for low rl ppl to get active in a house they will make their own groups of friends and play - as is the only groups of friends on the server are the ones that consist of the dominant players who have been playing for the last 2 years. in fact over the years i have only ever played trpg when i have had a group of friends to play with, whether its 5 or 6 guys from tribes arena, or my whole team from shifter (we ran dark realm if anyone remembers that server) and i am sure many other people have had the same experience, like clan orb.

a few more zones wouldn't hurt either, i like the idea of the well but because i am just higher than rl 30 i have never got to use it and very rarely see anyone in it, maybe if you make the rl cap for it 100 it will be a good alternative to the uberzone.

i think dividing pk brackets and zones by the god class name changes would get some new interest going.

i have at least 7 people who i play base with that like trpg but have no interest in playing because they think the idea of grinding constantly vs a group of players that has been doing the same thing for the past 3 years is pointless, and id have to agree. i am sure many other people feel the same way, i know on www.tribalwar.com there are lots of people who feel this way too.


y would i want to grind when i could do it easier in EVE or WOW

the thing that attracts people to trpg is that is it is TRIBES based. it;s not competing vs wow or guildwars or whatever the average basement dweller plays these days, it's supposed to let you do things that those games cant.

cutting off dueling and house drama is like taking 90% of the fun out of the game for the majority who play.

it's lame just trying to set up all the scripts i need just to be able to play normally all because i had some rp from wayyy back when


the biggest point here is that the server is not required to clear characters at all, in fact this should eliminate that need forever

i am so smart

[Kyrie]

Bleeding appears to do the same damage regardless of how much damage the actual Cleave attack does.
It might be nice to increase that damage either A) based on the HP of the attacked target (so lower level targets would have an interesting chance to actually kill higher level targets). or B) increase the bleed based on how much damage the cleave does.

[Corona]

The problem with making Tokath server-side is that all of his scripts have been designed to run from the client-side. Some of them require only minor adjustments to make server-side, while others would need to be completely re-coded. I do agree with you though.

Tokath does currently "sell" quests, though you need Particle Points, not coins, to buy them. More details are here: http://points.pcrpg.org/quests.html

Removing rusties is generally the first defense against the item limit, and should be done in PCRPG.

[Kyrie]

Particle, doesn't your behind the scenes SQL work allow you to circumvent the item limit?

[Particle]

The item limit is a Tribes problem.  I could store storage accounts with 55 million different item types in it on the storage end, but Tribes's inventory GUI starts forking up when too many ItemDatas are in.

[Dyre]

This is a bit extreme, but if the resources are available, how about a second server for the higher RL players?  After a player hits RL 50, they have the option of moving to the other server...  After 100, they are moved automatically.  Once moved, they cannot return.  Not only would this provide a less contested area for the lower players, but the new server could also act as a sort of "test" server for the veteran players when trying out new features and such.  Think of it as a classic and an advanced realm.

[-ShaNNaRa-]

Remove rusties and other useless items -   lots of room for new things!

[Avast]

This is a bit extreme, but if the resources are available, how about a second server for the higher RL players?  After a player hits RL 50, they have the option of moving to the other server...  After 100, they are moved automatically.  Once moved, they cannot return.  Not only would this provide a less contested area for the lower players, but the new server could also act as a sort of "test" server for the veteran players when trying out new features and such.  Think of it as a classic and an advanced realm.

then there would be even less people to play with, this makes no sense


particle, what do you think of the remort level bracket thing?

i've talked to a bunch of people and they all seem interested.