From nicolas.weeger at laposte.net Sun Mar 18 16:39:37 2012 From: nicolas.weeger at laposte.net (Nicolas Weeger) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:39:37 +0100 Subject: [crossfire] Quest-based leveling? Message-ID: <201203182239.43538.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Hello. I'm wondering whether it'd be nice or not to have some "main quests", maybe related (like Scorn's nobility quest), that would enable a player to level through them. The idea being that instead of leveling, one would do the quests, and level almost like a side-effect. Of course that'd require quite some work to rebalance things, and write many quests. Especially since one can imagine quests forbidding to do others, variations, and thus. How does that feel? Regards Nicolas -- Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 490 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. URL: From leaf at real-time.com Sun Mar 18 17:46:04 2012 From: leaf at real-time.com (Rick Tanner) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:46:04 -0500 Subject: [crossfire] Quest-based leveling? In-Reply-To: <201203182239.43538.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> References: <201203182239.43538.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Message-ID: <4F6665AC.3070109@real-time.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 > The idea being that instead of leveling, one would do the quests, > and level almost like a side-effect. So what you propose a player would only gain exp when the complete a "milestone" in a quest - such as recover an item, slay a specific monster, etc.? Instead of gaining exp for all the monster slaying, item identification, and other skills - it would only be when the quest objective is reached? I had a brief experience with a game system like this. The things that made it not very enjoyable (in my experience) was some of the following: Would need to find a group to solve a quest, only to have a person leave early or a bad member/player and the whole group would not achieve the objective - thus no exp. Server crash in the middle of a quest (especially a multiple hour one), would have to start over with no exp gained yet. Could not just quickly log in for a few minutes or hour or less and make progress after level 5 (might have been 10?) Would have to set aside multiple hours in order to play in order to accomplish something. This game also made changes so that money and item rewards were only obtained when quests were completed. Side tangent, but just an FYI. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iD8DBQFPZmWshHyvgBp+vH4RAllzAKC82YWUGEXg0xZfDadNSNkHecbzLwCaAzgN LUt47ZFN31qsAtKipvtMqmI= =I7AW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From kbulgrien at att.net Sun Mar 18 17:51:52 2012 From: kbulgrien at att.net (Kevin R. Bulgrien) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:51:52 -0500 Subject: [crossfire] Quest-based leveling? In-Reply-To: <201203182239.43538.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> References: <201203182239.43538.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Message-ID: <201203181751.52587.kbulgrien@att.net> > Hello. > > I'm wondering whether it'd be nice or not to have some "main quests", maybe > related (like Scorn's nobility quest), that would enable a player to level > through them. > > The idea being that instead of leveling, one would do the quests, and level > almost like a side-effect. > > Of course that'd require quite some work to rebalance things, and write > many quests. > > Especially since one can imagine quests forbidding to do others, > variations, and thus. > > How does that feel? It sounds like an intriguing way to bolster the game play experience for people who aren't as much in to the hack/slash/grind. It also sounds like a lot of work, though probably not the kind of work that makes balancing the rest of the game harder, so probably not a big deal. Conceptually this kind of thing could feed a class... dunno... bard, adventurer, or something, and the class could make one of the less used races more valuable by having pluses to questing (vs fighting or magic, etc.). Then again, I'm not sure the recent half-way done "balancing" and adding new features is the way to go with crossfire. There seems to be a lot of new code but little follow through that may not really do much for the game. There seems to be a huge split in whether people actually want to play "trunk" over "branch". It might do the project good to figure out why people have trouble with trunk and work on resolving those things. I'm not saying that working this kind of enhancement is bad per se. It could be a way to actually put into use some of the features added over the past few years. It does, however, seem important to at least mull over the problem of why branch seems to be preferred by a segment of the game-playing population. I think I'm much more for this than for a lot more sweeping changes to established crossfire characteristics that are very hard to balance for fun and whatever else. From mwedel at sonic.net Sun Mar 18 23:25:13 2012 From: mwedel at sonic.net (Mark Wedel) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:25:13 -0700 Subject: [crossfire] Quest-based leveling? In-Reply-To: <201203182239.43538.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> References: <201203182239.43538.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Message-ID: <4F66B529.3040804@sonic.net> On 03/18/12 02:39 PM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: > Hello. > > > I'm wondering whether it'd be nice or not to have some "main quests", maybe > related (like Scorn's nobility quest), that would enable a player to level > through them. > > > The idea being that instead of leveling, one would do the quests, and level > almost like a side-effect. > > > Of course that'd require quite some work to rebalance things, and write many > quests. > > Especially since one can imagine quests forbidding to do others, variations, > and thus. > > > > How does that feel? Many other games do include experience as a reward for quests. That doesn't necessarily make it a good approach (nor bad), but does imply that others have thought of it and considered it an OK approach. What is not clear from the above (and some followups suggest this confusion) is whether these exp reward are in addition to the exp one gets from killing the monsters, disarming traps, etc, or if this is basically replaces the way a characters gets experience. If this is additional reward, then this in some ways makes the game easier - you are getting all the same experience as before, and now get more when that experience is associated with a quest. So this in some ways makes things easier (how much is hard to say). If this is a replacement, then I think this is more complicated - one has to make sure there are enough quests (or the quests are repeatable) to be able to gain sufficient exp. It also means that maps which are do not have a quest really just become places to hunt for items/gold. A middle approach could be taken - the exp one currents gets from killing monsters and other tasks is reduced by some amount (exact amount hard to say) because a character now gets exp from the quests. The amount of reduction and the reward for quests would likely be determined based on the targeted mix for quest vs non quest exp. For example, if the target is 50% quest, 50% non quest, then exp from monsters, etc is reduced by 50%, and the reward for the quest is 50% of a level (presuming 1 quest per level - 25% of 2 quests per level, etc). I'm presuming (but could be wrong) that in all cases, the reward is some amount of exp, and not a percentage of a level. Otherwise, a player that holds easy quests until late in the game gets potentially a lot more exp for completing those quests. From crossfire at suckfuell.net Tue Mar 20 11:55:15 2012 From: crossfire at suckfuell.net (Jochen) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:55:15 +0100 Subject: [crossfire] Quest-based leveling? In-Reply-To: <4F66B529.3040804@sonic.net> References: <201203182239.43538.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> <4F66B529.3040804@sonic.net> Message-ID: <20120320165515.GA11558@suckfuell.net> On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 09:25:13PM -0700, Mark Wedel wrote: > On 03/18/12 02:39 PM, Nicolas Weeger wrote: >> >> I'm wondering whether it'd be nice or not to have some "main quests", maybe >> related (like Scorn's nobility quest), that would enable a player to level >> through them. >> >> [...] >> > > What is not clear from the above (and some followups suggest this > confusion) is whether these exp reward are in addition to the exp one > gets from killing the monsters, disarming traps, etc, or if this is > basically replaces the way a characters gets experience. > > [...] > > A middle approach could be taken - the exp one currents gets from > killing monsters and other tasks is reduced by some amount (exact amount > hard to say) because a character now gets exp from the quests. The > amount of reduction and the reward for quests would likely be determined > based on the targeted mix for quest vs non quest exp. For example, if > the target is 50% quest, 50% non quest, then exp from monsters, etc is > reduced by 50%, and the reward for the quest is 50% of a level (presuming > 1 quest per level - 25% of 2 quests per level, etc). > Reducing exp from monsters in general might scare away those players that do like hack&slash over questing. That "middle approach" is IMO a good approach that could be activated selectively for "quests" that deserve that name, e.g. by setting a map value to the fraction of exp that's gained immediately as before. The rest of the original exp could be added to a "quest experience pool" for that quest in the player inventory. When the player reaches a goal or milestone in a quest, that pool could be flushed to the player exp. That approach would still yield the same amount of exp for players that do hack&slash through a quest *and* finish it. Jochen From nicolas.weeger at laposte.net Wed Mar 21 14:17:29 2012 From: nicolas.weeger at laposte.net (Nicolas Weeger) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 20:17:29 +0100 Subject: [crossfire] Quest-based leveling? In-Reply-To: <4F6665AC.3070109@real-time.com> References: <201203182239.43538.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> <4F6665AC.3070109@real-time.com> Message-ID: <201203212017.35790.nicolas.weeger@laposte.net> Hello. > So what you propose a player would only gain exp when the complete a > "milestone" in a quest - such as recover an item, slay a specific > monster, etc.? > > Instead of gaining exp for all the monster slaying, item > identification, and other skills - it would only be when the quest > objective is reached? Sorry if my proposal was not clear, apparently some other people felt that confusion :) What I had in mind was not to change the experience system, stop gaining exp for slaying monsters, quite the opposite. I'm proposing to add quest "lines" that would let a player through enough maps to gain some levels. Imagine you start a new character, and do the beginner house. Then you end in Scorn, search around, hear about a quest ("grandpa Malone lost his walking stick"). While doing it, you explore some specified maps, obviously kill monsters, and when you finish the quest, you realize you gained some levels because you killed monsters. Right now we have a "kill all monsters, loot treasure" game, mostly hack&slash. I'd like to add the option (option only :)) to plya like "futfill quests, and because you kill monsters and use skills, gain levels, unlocking other quests". So adding some accomplishment to the game. I hope this clarifies my previous mail :) Regards Nicolas -- Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 490 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. URL: