All Posts by Kolepech

I went to Indiana Jones last week.... ticket and snacks were just over 20.00.  I was there for just over 2 hours. Works out to about 10.00 an hour.

I pay 30.00 for a 60 day game card for WOW. I play about between 5 and 10 hours a week ( on the weekends mostly ) for a total over 2 months of 40 to 80 hours.  Thats 75 cents an hour or less.  I'm not sure about anyone else, but I think thats a fair price to pay for a decent game.  I don't feel pressured to play since its only 75 cents ( my kid takes more than that from my pockets for his piggy bank most nights.

I'll pay a fee as long as the games are worth it... 75 cents is a pretty good deal to me.... I'd hate to think what its worth to a hardcore gamer...  1 or 2 cents an hour, if that.  

Balancing skills would be alot harder I would think....

Adamantine pointed out that both the " Cleric " type player and the " Paladin " character are both using the same heal... so you come along and raise the mana cost to balance it with some other spell.

The problem is that now while the Pali is ok, since he uses his mana during the fight only for that heal spell.  The cleric on the other hand has cast a few heals, and now is short of mana for a rez...

So you might have adjust the cost of the ressurection spell.... or boost the health return of the heal?  

 or give people more HP so less heals are used... or maybe boost armors ability to reduce damage taken...

You might have to adjust the mana return rate...

Point is that with classes there are set combinations of spells working together. You know the purposes of the classes involved ( healer for the cleric , holy warrior for paladin ).  There is a smaller number of  abilities that need to be considdered to balance the heal within those two classes.

Hrmm. that was alot longer than was neeeded, but I talk to much normally, so... whatever. Blame it on being awake for the last 15 hours with bedtime still 4 hours away.

active prime time players is what the graph is showing... I guess I dont count, since I dont play during primetime hours... so maybe you should add one more?   Oh... make that 2 more... my wife doesn't play during prime time... or her brother... or the three guys I work with....

Hrmm. maybe a graph showing total paid subscriptions would be a better indicator? 

But I would imagine you wouldn't like your "proof" anymore, would you...

 frontier1859.com is the only one I know of... though if you find another let us all know

I was talking to a friend of mine last night about gold buying and selling in MMO's... He doesn't play them, and didn't understand how some people buying gold could affect how others enjoy the game.

I explained that people buying gold in WOW have more money to pay for Auction House items. The item sellers then raise the prices since thier auctions sold at the old price... the Gold buyers end up raising the price for those that actually work (in game) for thier money...

My friends suggestion was this: 

      Make it so you can't give money or items. Everything has to be traded or bought. Items all have a set vendor price.

      Give every item a base trade value, and a percentage of variance based on the item rarity.

      Silk cloth could have a vendor value of 5 copper. The trade value could be 25 copper with a 20% varience since its common.  Silk cloth could be sold in the AH for 20 to 30 copper per piece...

       This means that for a player to "buy" 10K in WOW Gold, you would have to give the person items of equivilent value. It could be cured ham steaks if you want, but something HAS to change hands...

Thoughts or comments?

Druz, i just sent an email to you with a buddy key... hopefully you were still interested... if not, hopefully you will pass it on to the next person in line.

Kolepech

You start off by saying no levels, skills, or experiance, but thats not entirely true... Skills and abilities are just gain in another method... constant "Find the ... " quests.

I think it could work if you added in

Find the Travelling Carnivals strongman to gain some strength.

Find Tarvin The Ape Man to gain some dexterity.

Etc etc...

Second because of the forums mentioned... you need it to be very dynamic.  Make 10 strength trainers. Have 3 stationary ones, the rest are all wanderers or spawn and despawn periodically. The static ones train the first point or 2 then send you looking after a random trainer next ( I might have to find Gorthag the Giant  for my third point, while you might have to find an Ogre named Tiny...)

Make it so that Gorthag spawns in one of 12 spots randomly.. despawning when he trains someone, and appearing in another zone shortly later. Every patch/update, make 12 new locations.

The same could be done for skill trainers, trades recipes sources, general abilities (riding, navigation etc).

There would need to be something more to the game than this tho... I'm a casual player and I'm not going to log in if I only have 5 or 10 minutes to play and I know I have a 45 minutes run to the next trainer. And since during the week I get 5 to 10 minutes at a time I'd only be able to achieve anything on weekends... not worth my subscription.

I'll admit that I'm not a PVP type person.. I actually am rather horrid at games. I like them, so I play them... I'm just not good at them.

But skill based and PVP does not have to be a problem as long as things are balanced.  I would imagine this would be how it should be done (IMHO):

- Level should just be an indicater of how many skills you have. If you have 1 rank in Wood Cutting, 1 rank in Swords, 1 rank in Navagation, you are level 3. So is the guy that has 3 points in Wood Cutting, and the Guy with 3 ranks in swords. There is no difference between combat skills, trade skills, and other misc skills.

-Skills would be part of a set. Each set has several skills within it as well. you can gain ranks in either the Set or a specific skill. (Bar slider - 0 to 100% goes toward the set).  Daggers is a Set. Hamstring,  would be available when the set reaches 2. Backstab when the set reaches 10.  Using a normal dagger attack uses the ranking of the set... Hamstringing a fleeing opponent uses the hamstring rank, plus the daggers rank.

- Everything you do gives experience. Baking bread, skinning a rabbit, exploring an area new to you, helping build a town wall. Experience goes toward the skill that you're using.  Carpentry goes toward carpentry. However, each skill would have an attribute that is used as well... carpentry would also help build strength.  You help build a town wall, 9 houses, a barracks, 3 guild halls, and a bakery... All are large projects, your skill would go up 3 points for each project (total 45points) and your strength would go up 1 for every 5 projects ( 3 strength). You also bake 10 loaves of bread in the bakery... small projects would cause your  Cooking to go up 1 point per project... baking goes up 10 points. Baking requires closely following a recipe, and delicately measureing ingredients, so your  agility goes up 2 points.

-you gain a Rank (used to determine success or failure) every 100 points.  Baking 30 bread loaves,  30 batches of muffins,

-Every now and then (say at levels 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, andevery 50 after) you gain a skill poiont that lets you start a skill you didn't have before... its kind of a jump start on something... you still have to use it to inrease it.

-Health is not a skill... you gain 1 HitPoint (HP) every time you get a skill

Now that we know how the skills are gained, and improved lets look at a "Balanced PVP" system.

Say player ONE has an aggressive side... he wants to go out and kill as many people as he can. He gets a dagger and throws his level one Bonus into Daggers1 skill. this gives him 1-3 damage with a dagger.

Player Two knows that he's going to be travelling into rough areas. He uses his level 1 bonus on BodyDevelopment1 (a 5 hp inrease). To defend himself in the rough areas he will travel, he gets a dagger. He has no skill in it, so it only does 1 point of damage. ( he doesn't how to properly hold it, wield it, or what areas best to target, etc)

All players start witgh 10 HP, so One has 10 hp, and Two has 15. They meet each other and One attacks.

Fight : Both players hit ( neither has armor, or dodge skills) we'll assume that all attacks are average ( 2 points for ONEs attacks. no 1's no 3's) One drops to 9 points, Two drops to 13 hp.... plain to see that  in 7 "rounds" Two will have 1 hp left, and One witll have 3 left... fairly close, but in Ones favor.

Imagine 9 levels later...

One having put  all 10 points into daggers now does 10 to 23 points of damage ( weapon skill raises base and cap damage by 1 ie  1 to 2 damage increase) One also now has 20 Hp.

Two has diversified a bit more. He has spent 6 points on armor (1 point allows cloth to reduce damage by 1... 5 points reduces armor by 5. It also opens the use of leather, which reduses damage by 3 per point, so his 6 points reduces armor by 18.) Two has put the remainer of his points into BodyDevelopment... each giving him 5 HP. ( 10 base, plus 10 levels plus 4 bodyDevelopment 20 = 40HP)

Fight Time : it will take Two 20 rounds to kill One since he still has no daggers skill.  One will hit for an average of 16 points, 18 of which is negated by armor,  This means that only some of the attacks by One will bypass the armor...   roughly 30% (if I'm right ) will hit... of those 30% the average damage would be about 2...  therefore  it would take about 18 rounds for One to kill Two... Still fairly close, but in two's favor.

Imagine One decides to attack a couple of Noobs... Brothers Three and Four...Both  are level 5

Three  has gone offensive, quite like One... he's put 5 points into daggers (Damage is 6 to 13, average of 9) Three has 15 HP

Four has gone the tank route, and has put everything into armor. 5 points gives him 15 damage reduction.  Three only deals 1 damage per round with no daggers skill. Four has 15 HP.

Fight time:

Only about 35% of one's attacks will damage 4 because of the armor.  Of those the average damage would be about 4... therefore about 4 rounds would be needed for One to kill Four.

During those first 4 rounds, Three hits for 9 points per turn dropping One from 20 to 11. Four futher hits for 4 points bringing One down to 7.

Now One needs to turn on Three... One deals an average of  16 damage to Three... and three only has 15 HP... Three is dead. However, at the same time, Three deals his average 9 damage to One... One only has 7HP left and One is dead as well... Thats an ever fight...

Because the skills add in a simplistic way,  I think a well balanced PVP skill system could work... infact, I think it could work very well...  if the levels are roughly even... and cumulative then 10 level 1's = 2 level 5's = 1level 10.

I think that a Noob town of 10 level 3's could successfully defend themselves against a single character in his mid to high teens... by successful I mean still have enough players to continue building the town... and remember that it would be easier for Noobtown to recover the loss of 6 level 3's then recover the loss of 1 players losing his level 18... when the 18 gets back to 18 he might find a town of 10 Noobs... but this time it could be 6 level 3's and 4 level 5's  and if the numbers work like I hope, then our poor level 18 is now facing  38 levels... and in going to have a bad day...

One thing to note... Armor would be a visible sign of your Ranks in a skill... but thats about all... a /con system would tell you rough level comparisons... ("bout the same"level for -1 to +1 level from yours and "a little weaker"  for 2 to 5 levels lower, and "quite a bit weaker" for 6 to 10 levels lower) Otherwise that guy that meets you in the street with the beautifully crafted short sword... might be a level 18 Swordsman... or a level 18 Blacksmith, or a level 18 Baker... you would have to take your chances...

Umm... sorry for the length of the post...Someone should have said "shut up"