Right, here are my thoughts. Players already group together to
help each other. A few days ago I ran out of ammunition, and a
helpful player gave me coordinates to a few pile of loot.
Yesterday, I noticed that there was a massive swarm of zombies
near the bridge, and rather than fight my way through the group
of five zombies blocking my way to the safe zone, I used up the
rest of my ammo to hold the bridge. Luckily for me, somebody
cleared my way to the zone, but if they hadn't, my character
wouldn't have made it back. These are only a couple examples,
I've scene people working together all over.
On the subject of the guard, removing him would be a really,
really bad idea. For starters, he lets people regroup in a
zombie-free area. If he's gone, there is no way for people to
defend themselves if the server is not full of players. Also, if
a zombie gets in the zone, there is no way to kill it.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Bartlett" <[email protected]
To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" <[email protected]
Date sent: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:35:59 -0500
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Swamp: brainstorming ideas for expansion
andplayer limiting.
Your idea of one skill point per level (or more, depending on how
many
levels for each skill and how many skills there are is simpler
than what I
had suggested, so I'd support using your plan instead of mine.
One reason I suggested the safe zone idea is that there is
currently no
incentive for working together, no sense that the survivors
should be
working together for a common goal. Since the number of zombies
is
relatively stable, kill one and one pops up somewhere else,
there's no way
to deplete the enemies with a concerted attack. We aren't
working towards
anything other than our own advancement. I'd like to see the
game head in a
direction where players are forced to work for something other
than their
own good, where sacrifice might even make sense for the survivor
community
as a whole.
A safe zone restricted to what loot is donated would be a step
towards this
idea. Another step would be to change the spawning model to a
certain
number of zombies spawned per unit time, regardless of the number
already in
play. There may be times when life gets difficult as the zombie
density
increases beyond safe limits, at which point some concerted
attacks will
need to be brought to bear to lower the population. The safe
zone guard
should be removed, so that keeping the approaches to the fortress
open
becomes a player responsibility. (of course the zone has to be
sacrosanct,
zombies should never appear in the zone, though if they wander
in, that's
another issue to be dealt with by the players.
I know that we have missions to look forward to, and I am, but I
don't see
them addressing this question of group good vs. individual
achievement.
Unless there is a mechanical tie-in, i.e. something goes terribly
wrong for
everybody if a given mission isn't accomplished in a certain
amount of time,
then it's just another bug hunt, a fascinating one I will enjoy,
but it's
not high stakes except individually.
If others would enjoy having this aspect of play come into being,
I'd be
interested in ideas for how to mechanically make it happen.
Chris Bartlett
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Dakotah Rickard
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 10:49 AM
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Swamp: brainstorming ideas for expansion
and player
limiting.
I agree with everything except the safe zone being finite. In a
realistic situation, it would be, and I get that. It would also
mean
that people donating becomes more mandatory, but the trouble is
that
we have people who go play for a while and stop, taking stuff
from the
safe zone to start out and never giving back, and then we have
people
who play for days on end and use pretty much all the ammo they
collect. I'd rather leave the safe zone alone, though I do like
the
idea of ready weapons versus carried weapons. As for
specializations,
I think that each level should allow a skill point, rather like
the
skillpoints in most RPG type games. Yeah, eventually you get
someone
who has played enough to get every skill maxed out, but that's
going
to happen in most games. A wide variety of skills would be pretty
awesome. Also, the number of levels in a skill could be decided
on and
could be pretty high, meaning that even if you have, like, level
35,
you still aren't at maximum.
For example:
Quiet movement: which lowers your detection rate.
The different categories of weapons, either light, medium, and
heavy
or pistols, rifles, shotguns, light automatics, medium
automatics, and
heavy automatics as well as melee, grenades and such, medkit
boosts.
There's possibility there for about ten different skills, plus
you
might be able to do skills for accuracy boosts and damage boosts
in
conjunction with weapons, meaning even more skills.
THen you could have a skill whose sole benefit is a bigger health
bar.
My point is that specialization could be entirely based on
character
choice, making it even broader than the soldier, medic, sniper,
etc.
For example, you could put a bunch of skills into your different
weapons, or you could put a bunch in moving quietly and work
toward
sneaking in and killing zombies close up.
Signed:
Dakotah Rickard
On 12/13/11, Christopher Bartlett <[email protected]>
wrote:
The following are some concepts I've been playing with as
additions to the
game.
Skills. I don't know what future things are tied in to the
current
experience system, but an alternative to an overall level would
be to
subdivide experience by spending it on skills. Begin with an
initial
award
for a new character, and gain experience as normal, except that
dependent
upon the weapon you are using, the experience is added to the
pile for the
given skill, rather than as an overall level. Skills might
include medic,
(small award for healing yourself, larger for healing others)
pistols,
rifles, shotguns and heavy weapons. When grenades come into
play, then
grenadier could also be a skill.
Skill benefits might include more healing per kit for the medic
skill and
accuracy boosts for the weapon skills, not so that a miss
becomes a hit,
but
so that each hit becomes more damaging. What might be a graze
only doing
small damage would become a more damaging strike.
To balance this, death should cost experience points equal to a
third of
each skill category. Weapons at the zone should have level
minima as they
do now, but specific to their skill category. As levels will
advance more
slowly with the points being divided up, the minima should be
lower than
they are now for some of the heavier weapons.
Finally, when a character begins play for the first time, he/she
should be
issued a weapon to match his skill specialization. After death,
go back
to
the pistol, but give the newbie characters a little boost.
The advantages I see to this wad of modifications are that they
would
support character differentiation with mechanical
rewards/limitations. In
turn, this could encourage some very different playing styles
and
specializations, which would come into play when group missions
are
available. It would then become a good idea to have a sniper, a
couple
soldier types and a medic on your expedition. Each could
fulfill
particular
roles, to the benefit of the mission. Alternately, it creates
an
interesting choice say for the pistol specialist who is
confronting a
situation where a rifle might be more useful. Does he stick
with his
weapon
of greatest skill, trading range for accuracy, or does he pick
up the
rifle
and go at it?
To support these ideas, we'd need at least a couple more pistols
and
submachine guns, of which there are currently only one of each.
Add in,
say
an Uzi, tougher to break than the MP5 (they are legendary for
being able
to
fire under extremely bad conditions) and maybe a Gloch or
something with a
bigger magazine, and a Desert Eagle with six shots but more
stopping
power.
This would add some ammo types to the game as well, 9MM and .44
I believe.
Inventory. Players should have ready weapons and carried
weapons. Given
the nature of looting, it would be over complicated to limit the
absolute
number of weapons carried, but each character should choose two
ready
weapons which can be readily swapped. If they want to go to one
of the
carried but unready weapons, impose a delay in switching, and
the formerly
ready weapon becomes unready.
Example: Mad Dog Riley is armed to the teeth. Given his
specialties, he
choose the Benelli and the MP5 as his ready weapons. After a
firefight in
the church, he emerges, low on health to find himself confronted
by a
dozen
or more of the undead blocking his path to safety. Well crap,
thinks he,
I'm almost out of .45 rounds, and the Benelli is nice for
stopping power,
but I'm going to get overrun. Does he stick with what he has
ready, or
does
he take the extra time to unlimber the M60 for crowd control
purposes.
I'm also suggesting that the safe zone storage be finite and
change based
on
donations/withdrawals. So if no one has been donating .45 ammo,
you're
out
of luck if you need it for your MP5. To balance this, we should
be able
to
pick up more than one of a given weapon type, or else there
would never be
weapons available for purchase from the Zone.
The best games are about forcing players to make choices, each
of which is
high stakes. These points become the places around which the
story of the
game revolves. This is the idea that is behind every suggestion
I make
for
advances in the game. As it stands right now, I have to royally
screw up
to
die, even fresh from having done so and being out of ammunition.
I have
praised Jeremy for creating a game that rewards caution and
patience. I'm
looking forward to the missions to provide incentives to throw
caution to
the wind and dare the odds. I'd like to see every decision made
have
impact
on the character's future.
Chris Bartlett
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