Forums: Suggestions

I’m not sure if anyone has suggested some sort of quick/fast auto battle for when you run into those lower level encounters you just walk through but still take time? You could watch it play out and interrupt it at will to take control again?

Some games have this option – Wizard’s Crown (ah the C64 days huh Sheck?) had a non graphical version that just showed the Status of each of your guys – so maybe a Turn Order style screen that shows both the monsters and your guys?

It would be an alternative for those times you have to travel overland or you’re too cheap to ather it… =)

I had the idea of making repeatable missions (as soon as we can make missions repeatable) that allow you to escort some vessel of a transport company on the land-route… basically my idea was that this would cut the whole journey (several locations) down to one “in transit” location, where an encounter may or may not happen. The idea was to allow only players with a certain base level to take this option, and for the battle that may occur to match that minimum level to make them slightly more interesting…
Don’t know where that idea got swamped again.

That’s a cool idea too, but I was thinking more for the “random” battles that happen when you enter an area…I’m currently walking between Martis and Hopitan and have run into 2 “random” battles and groaned when the second happened – it was 2am and I wanted to get to start the coil pt 2 last night… that led me to this thought. Even though it may only take 5-10 minutes to get through it, it’s more like a “chore” than fun. I think that’s what makes me give up on games after awhile – it’s the “chore” type of things that have no value. Missions, even though a type of “chore” are still interesting because they promise unique rewards and a moving of the story line. Random battles are just that – random and somewhat uninteresting. Maybe there are some who like them? So maybe a “random battles” option in our profile options?

OR another idea just occured to me – why not have an intro to each battle where you can basically intimidate the other party? That way if you are high enough level and some lowly unemployed miners decide to try and mess with you then you can make them aware of their poor judgement? Or just make it automatic … “the miners saw your calm, battle ready demeanor (translation: you’re going to kick their $!*) and decided to wait for easier pray, melting back into the craggy mountains”. “Creatures” definitely have this innate sense (most do anyways), so the automatic thing makes sense.

OR lastly, just have each “territory” (for lack of the proper term for each “step” you take between cities) check your average melee and/or metatherics and if it’s a certain level don’t even bother generating random battles? That might be the easiest programmatically?

If someone really wants a fight – there’s plenty of places to “go hunting” =)

P.S. still in the aforementioned battle – but probably because I’m yacking too much on the forums :)

Exactly that’s what my idea was aiming at:
Instead of going “Road West of Martis”, “Mid-Road”, “Somewhere East of Hopitan” and “East of Hopitan” you could simply go: Martis → In Transit → Hopitan. Instead of four chances of a random battle, you’d have one, and if you have it, it’d be a more interesting battle (as an escorted transport vessel is likely to attract stronger foes…)

Travel will always have to be either expensive or take a while. Otherwise, everything will continually play out in Hopitan. Not only the market, but why should we bother adding new areas then? We could just make new huntable areas around Hopitan, one exit away, for travelling convenience. Exit A: Bears, Exit B: Pirates, Exit C: Maddened Tribesmen. Just outside the door.

Apart from that… use fire+plant or fire+stone on your characters. Brushfire/Lava, on all characters, works wonders in cutting the time taken for these battles.

Yeah, I understand how frustrating the low-level encounters can be. Of course, you can always flee those battles – and if you have 2500 gold and nothing to spend it on, what do you care if you lose a little? ;)

The main reason I haven’t provided a way to avoid those battles (intimidation, etc) is that some day, when I get mining and crafting implemented, I’d like to think that some players will be transporting raw materials from the middle of nowhere into town and selling them to crafters or using them for crafting themselves. The value of transporting goods in from the mountains would drop significantly if you could just walk through without running into any trouble.

I mentioned in another thread the possibility of adding a “default action” (actually two, one default attack and one default defensive action). Maybe in addition to that, there could be a way to select an “auto-act” option during a PC’s turn, and that PC would just use their default actions automatically, using simple AI for movement. Once you select auto-act, you’d relinquish control of that PC for the rest of the battle, and every time their turn comes around, they would just act. So the most you would have to do is set each PC to auto-act during the first round of battle, then watch it play out. Sure, they wouldn’t have the most optimal tactics – but when you’re PCs are level 70 and fighting some NPCs at level 35, it doesn’t matter.

Of course, we’d have to make it so that any PC in “auto-act mode” does not ever gain skill levels – so no chance of auto-training up skills that way.

Exactly that’s what my idea was aiming at:
Instead of going “Road West of Martis”, “Mid-Road”, “Somewhere East of Hopitan” and “East of Hopitan” you could simply go: Martis → In Transit → Hopitan. Instead of four chances of a random battle, you’d have one, and if you have it, it’d be a more interesting battle (as an escorted transport vessel is likely to attract stronger foes…)

That might be interesting. I’d have to think more about it – but it would be cool to make a battle map that puts you inside some kind of vessel with enemies all around the outside :)

I agree with the “no danger” concept of travel. I guess what I’m saying is that fighting a bunch of low level creatures which offer you no challenge is a bit…uh…boring? A waste of time?

SO, I do like the transit idea – one encounter of stronger difficulty. or maybe random encounters that are scaleable to your level? You meet some REALLY nasty unemployed miners ;)

Along the cargo transport concept – you could make a map where the “vessel” is actually an unmoveable multi square “PC” that is attackable by the monsters – and when you leave the battle if your “vessel PC” is at 80% health you’ve lost 20% of your cargo? That could be cool. You’ve got to keep the bad guys away from your goods instead of just trying to kill them. It will be harder to focus on just killing one bad guy. The AI will auto select the vessel PC as it’s prime target. Hmm, sounds interesting. You could also tie it into Kranodor’s “one trip” concept – might be easier to program that way?

I think the idea with transportation is not bad, you could also implement some kind of stage coach transport system between the aether flow. For a fee you can move with that vessel from one city to the other with the possiblilty for only one random attack. These npcs should be weaker than those you would meet if you aren’t a passenger but the guard of the transport, in that case you’ll get the fee instead of paying it.

…which sums up pretty much how Sheck intends to do this. ;) Well, at least the last plan I know. Still a bit into the future, that, but that’s about how it’s meant to go. (Actually, it’s a bit more complex, but the idea of either guarding or using the transport is in there.)