11-02-2009, 10:59 PM
Related to my idea on crafting, how everyone can basically make everything at the start of the game and making 500 maces makes you really awesome at maces but doesn't directly make you good at making swords -- what if we took that idea and applied it to everything?
For example, you're fighting on the side of the dwarves against the orcs. You become really awesome at healing dwarves and really awesome and killing orcs. You encounter a vampire. To a large extent, it's suddenly like you're a noob again -- you don't know how to kill vampires. Maybe your skill with weapons gives you an advantage over a pure newbie but basically your character isn't good at fighting vampires because vampires are not like orcs. (In fact, even your defensive skills, like armor, may not work as well when faced when something you're not used to fighting -- you simply don't know how to move to most effectively counter a vampire while wearing platemail.)
Other games have sort of tried this idea but they did it more as a very minor bonus if you focused on killing one thing. I would make it a major part of the game. If you only kill orcs, then orcs are the only things you're good at killing. If you face a vampire, it's almost like you're a level 1 newbie again.
Similarly, you come across a wounded lizardman. Your skill at healing dwarves is of almost no use to you because lizardmen are too different. You're basically a noob again when you go to start healing lizardmen.
I was thinking that this could be an interesting way both to create localized communities and to keep the game fresh. You may be awesome at fighting your chosen tribe's traditional local enemies but an incursion by a new group might be like newbies fighting newbies -- neither group is particularly skilled at fighting the other (except maybe for that mercenary who wandered through earlier and happens to be really good at killing them because he used to live there).
I would also apply it to resource collection. Basically you enter the world and you can collect absolutely any resource, just not very well. There's nothing you can't mine, no fish you can't catch and no tree you can't chop down but you're not going to be good at any of it until you've spent a lot of time doing that one thing. That is, you can start collecting adamantine right away but this doesn't mean you're good at collecting iron. "Adamantine collection" and "iron collection" are separate skills.
Although there could be some logical crossovers created by putting things into groups.
For example:
Wood - oak / pine
Metal - iron / copper
When you mine copper, you become better at mining copper. You also become slightly better at mining other metals but you're still basically unfamiliar with techniques for mining iron and it's not teaching you a thing about collecting wood. If you switch to mining iron, it's almost like you're a newbie again starting to pick up a new skill. I'm basically taking the WOW style system and breaking it down even further so that every individual resource is its own skill, with no pre-reqs.
Similarly, NPCs may be grouped. Maybe we could get fancy with biological breakdowns but, for example:
Humanoid - orc, dwarf, elf
Reptilian - lizardmen, frogmen
Angelic - angel, demon
Mythical - vampire, werewolf
Becoming an expert at killing orcs might give you a basic understanding of killing elves, since they're both humanoids, but it might give you little or no knowledge about how to fight angels, lizardmen or werewolves. But if you only ever kill orcs, you will become a master of killing them but you'll only be mediocre at handling the first elf you have to fight.
Basically I was just thinking that in a "living world" game, we want a way to keep things "fresh" while getting away from the traditional level grind. Rather than power to 50 and be good at killing everything in the entire game, you're really only getting good at killing what's around you.
I would also do some kind of skill decay system so that if you go too long without killing orcs, you get "rusty".
For example, you're fighting on the side of the dwarves against the orcs. You become really awesome at healing dwarves and really awesome and killing orcs. You encounter a vampire. To a large extent, it's suddenly like you're a noob again -- you don't know how to kill vampires. Maybe your skill with weapons gives you an advantage over a pure newbie but basically your character isn't good at fighting vampires because vampires are not like orcs. (In fact, even your defensive skills, like armor, may not work as well when faced when something you're not used to fighting -- you simply don't know how to move to most effectively counter a vampire while wearing platemail.)
Other games have sort of tried this idea but they did it more as a very minor bonus if you focused on killing one thing. I would make it a major part of the game. If you only kill orcs, then orcs are the only things you're good at killing. If you face a vampire, it's almost like you're a level 1 newbie again.
Similarly, you come across a wounded lizardman. Your skill at healing dwarves is of almost no use to you because lizardmen are too different. You're basically a noob again when you go to start healing lizardmen.
I was thinking that this could be an interesting way both to create localized communities and to keep the game fresh. You may be awesome at fighting your chosen tribe's traditional local enemies but an incursion by a new group might be like newbies fighting newbies -- neither group is particularly skilled at fighting the other (except maybe for that mercenary who wandered through earlier and happens to be really good at killing them because he used to live there).
I would also apply it to resource collection. Basically you enter the world and you can collect absolutely any resource, just not very well. There's nothing you can't mine, no fish you can't catch and no tree you can't chop down but you're not going to be good at any of it until you've spent a lot of time doing that one thing. That is, you can start collecting adamantine right away but this doesn't mean you're good at collecting iron. "Adamantine collection" and "iron collection" are separate skills.
Although there could be some logical crossovers created by putting things into groups.
For example:
Wood - oak / pine
Metal - iron / copper
When you mine copper, you become better at mining copper. You also become slightly better at mining other metals but you're still basically unfamiliar with techniques for mining iron and it's not teaching you a thing about collecting wood. If you switch to mining iron, it's almost like you're a newbie again starting to pick up a new skill. I'm basically taking the WOW style system and breaking it down even further so that every individual resource is its own skill, with no pre-reqs.
Similarly, NPCs may be grouped. Maybe we could get fancy with biological breakdowns but, for example:
Humanoid - orc, dwarf, elf
Reptilian - lizardmen, frogmen
Angelic - angel, demon
Mythical - vampire, werewolf
Becoming an expert at killing orcs might give you a basic understanding of killing elves, since they're both humanoids, but it might give you little or no knowledge about how to fight angels, lizardmen or werewolves. But if you only ever kill orcs, you will become a master of killing them but you'll only be mediocre at handling the first elf you have to fight.
Basically I was just thinking that in a "living world" game, we want a way to keep things "fresh" while getting away from the traditional level grind. Rather than power to 50 and be good at killing everything in the entire game, you're really only getting good at killing what's around you.
I would also do some kind of skill decay system so that if you go too long without killing orcs, you get "rusty".