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Posts made by WolfsQuill
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RE: Little Ideas
@pricelessshingle54 why, thank you. thank you very much.
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Little Ideas
Hey, guys! I actually typed this out in a Word document instead of straight onto the forums, because this is the result of a lot of musing and wondering. Basically, this is a collection of all my questions and ideas that Iâve had for Fractured! Since I typed it out while I was thinking (although I went back through for editing) some of it might sound a bit stream of consciousness. Anyway, start!
Swimming
I donât mean full-on swimming with underwater worlds or anything, even if that would be cool, because I do understand that would be awkward with the way the camera and movement works. But, I had several ideas for how water or deep rivers could affect gameplay.- First is the obvious. Casting a lightning/electricity-based spell at a pool of water or a drenched person would cause more damage, whereas a fire spell would cause less. We saw a bit of this in one of the gameplay teasers.
- At minimum, my initial idea was this: letâs say youâre running away from an enemy, whether that be an NPC or another player (for this example, letâs say an Infernal) and you come across a deep river. You know thereâs a bridge further up the bank, but youâre low on health and that puts you at greater risk. It would be really cool if, instead of having to run to the bridge anyway, you could jump in and swim across the river. But since an Infernal has an affinity to fire, diving in may cause more harm and would encourage the pursuer to either give up altogether, or head to the bridge.
- And then I thought, what would those penalties be? Maybe something like a âDrenchedâ state, which makes you move slower since your clothes are heavy, an âUncomfortableâ state caused by the âDrenchedâ which makes you fidget and causes a penalty to stealth, and/or if youâre in a cold area a âChillyâ state which could progress to âHypothermicâ if you donât warm up. On top of that, you might still be being pursued so lighting a fire may not be in your interests. On the other hand, the âDrenchedâ state could increase your resistance to fire and (if Tracking becomes a thing- more on that later) muddles your scent so itâs harder to find you. Also, soaked clothes tend to be darker, so it could another âDrenchedâ perk could be a boost to⊠camouflage? At night?
- Breaking it down by race is a bit harder. Beastmen were the most difficult for me. I figured that their fur would give them a boost against âChillyâ, but fur tends to matt when itâs wet, so maybe the âUncomfortableâ state would have a steeper penalty. Also, fur/hair doesnât dry as quickly as skin, so it would make sense that the âDrenchedâ state remains longer. Humans are sort of my neutral ground that Iâm basing things off of right now. Demons are more difficult. I figured the Infernals would take heavier penalties for being âDrenchedâ, but may âdry offâ faster than the other races. Also âChillyâ wouldnât really affect them as much, or maybe it would just progress slower. The Vampires and Nightmares are kind of iffy for me at the moment.
Tracking
This one actual occurred to me as I was writing out the Swimming portion, but here we go. I figured that if weâre going to have a full hunting system, tracking would already be in there, but it couldnât hurt to add in my two cents.- As far as natural wildlife or NPCs go, Iâd imagine thereâd be footsteps that we could follow and little âsparklingâ clues to interact with that would say something like âthese branches have been broken recentlyâ which would indicate the quarry was in a panic/hurry, while ârecentlyâ would indicate they were close by.
- I also thought that, if we do get Animal Taming, there could be specific animals that would aid/add abilities to tracking. Like a bird that could guide you from the sky, or a hound of some sort that could track scent. (This is where Swimming comes into play. Since walking/swimming in a river can cause a scent to literally be washed away.) It would also make sense if there were strong smelling plants (or even feces) that a player, or even the quarry, could roll in to hide that scent.
- The issue with this popped up at the words âdynamic RPGâ. If this is an honestly living world, then- while there may be a certain degree of âset pathsâ that any NPCs take- it would make sense if the NPCs varied their routes, backtracked, or veered off in random directions. For example, while tracking a wild beast of some sort, what if you thought it was heading for its den, but then it smelled some weak prey and went that way instead. If this was a case, youâd need a reliable way to track the quarry. The most obvious idea is âfootstepsâ, but asking the engine to generate and keep all those footsteps active on the map all the time just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Plus, what if we through in the ability to track other players. There would be chaos!
- So, my solution is a âhunterâs visionâ of sort. A hotkey or ability to focus your senses to âilluminateâ the tracks in the immediate area, while it would be up to the player to actual identify what is relevant. That would keep tracking in cities difficult and mean that any/all tracks could âexistâ in the world, without having to be generated and there for everyone whoâs on all the time. And yes, I was thinking in terms of the Witcher 3âs âWitcher Senses.â (Although fun fact: if you look closely in the Witcher 3, youâll see that those tracks are actually there for you to see without your senses.)
- I would imagine there would be ways to improve your ability to pick out which specific trails you were looking for. Animals would be easier in that each species could have distinctive prints, but tracking a human on Syndesia would be more difficult, so perhaps you could âlearnâ how to correctly examine tracks and then, for a short time, those particular set of tracks would be a different color to help you spot them. Although, Iâd imagine that any form of teleportation would simply be a dead end. Itâs kind of hard to track that, but perhaps someone experienced in arcane arts could manage.
- And, of course, Iâd imagine your race would affect how good at tracking you are. Beastmen would probably be the best trackers by virtue of theyâre walking, talking animals, and perhaps demons could have the best night vision? But maybe they have difficulty with animal taming, which is where humans would have an advantage over the demons. Whereas for the Beastmen, Animal Taming for the sake of tracking is a bit redundant, with a few exceptions such as birds.
Village/Town/City Sieges
Less of a full thing and more of a question. In the Housing & Towns Q&A, it was pointed out that a blacksmith would not fight as well as a trained guard during a siege, and that- since NPCs improve skills over time- it wouldnât be very wise to risk your highly trained blacksmith. My specific wonder would be if we could create safe houses in the middle of town, or somewhere defensible. Essentially, simply a reinforced building where all non-combatant NPCs could take shelter, rather than have them simply cowering in their homes where they could be picked off. Also, someone I know had an interesting question. Are any buildings taller than the others? If so, can we place archers on those taller buildings and sort of âstackâ the town that way; with the taller building towards the middle?
Well, thatâs all for now. Maybe Iâll dream up something else later.