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KlatuSatori

Alpha Team Vanguard
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  1. Like
    KlatuSatori got a reaction from Michaelc in Bounty Hunting   
    Bounty hunting is an activity that many players find alluring but there aren't really any games that do it well, at least not PvP bounty hunting.
     
    The problem with bounty hunting is that hunters expect to be reasonably well-rewarded for their efforts, but a reasonable reward does not usually scale well with the damage inflicted on the victim - death simply isn't costly enough in most situations. If a victim discovers that there is a bounty on her head, she might let a friend kill her so they can split the reward.
     
    Reducing the reward won't work because hunters just won't bother putting in the effort. The consequences of dying can't really be changed either for many reasons that go well beyond the scope of bounty hunting.
     
    I think the answer lies in redefining bounty hunting to fit the game world, and in keeping with the features that have been introduced so far, my idea is essentially to allow players to define what it means.
     
    Similar to the Market Unit, there will be a Bounty Unit, which players can set up in their own self-styled Bounty Offices. If an entity (i.e. player or organisation) wishes to place a bounty on another entity, they go to a local bounty office and set up a contract. The contract is defined by the entity setting it up. Some of the options available could be availability, i.e. who can claim the bounty, a certain amount of damage inflicted in pure currency, specific items being destroyed or stolen, number of times killed, reward, how the reward is granted, etc. Entities could even specify that the body (or head...?), or other item belonging to that entity be delivered to the Bounty Unit for collection as a trophy.
     
    Example. Player A has decided that he wants player B to suffer for reasons unknown and unimportant. He places a bounty at a local bounty office of 1000000credits. The contract states that for every time player B is killed, 50% of the monetary losses he suffers as a result of the death are paid out from the bounty up to the 1000000 total of whatever remains.
     
    Another example. Player C wants player D out of the picture. He puts a bounty of 100,000,000 credits to be paid out in full to the first entity who kills player D causing a respawn at least Xkm away from the office. (This may involve necessarily destroying one or more resurrection nodes, though perhaps a more reliable way to do this would be to include a resurrection node's destruction as part of the contractual obligation, i.e. the bounty is only released to the single entity who both destroys one or more specific resurrection nodes and then subsequently collects and delivers player D's head).
     
    This obviously isn't a polished idea and it depends largely on what other features and mechanics the devs have in mind, but it's a start and I thought I'd throw it out there and see what people think.
  2. Like
    KlatuSatori got a reaction from Dreamstar in Diversity of Battles and Wars   
    I think this is a very important game design issue that needs to be addressed and re-addressed.  How to avoid the single strategy that more numbers = win.  Now, there is nothing wrong with the zergling strategy - it should be as viable as the next and I don't think the game should prevent organisations from adopting it.  The problem occurs when it becomes the onlycounter to itself.  A game that has only one viable strategy is either broken or boring.  The key is in providing variability and making combat complex enough that the difficulty in leading players into a battle becomes exponentially higher with larger and larger groups.  Here are some specific features that I think would ensure that wars and battles remain dynamic.  Each topic could probably have an entire thread to itself so I'll try to be brief.   Friendly Fire If you accidentally shoot your guildmate, he is shot and takes no less damage than an enemy would have.  Ideally, this would be implemented by making projectiles, missiles, lasers, etc actually have to travel to their target, and if they hit something else on the way, then so be it.   Manual Targetting If weapons have some kind of auto-targetting feature, it should be sub-optimal and unreliable.  If there is some way for weapon designers to increase auto-targetting effectiveness it should come at a large cost of compromising with damage, range, mass, etc.   Bigger Means More Complex There should be nothing from stopping players building a massive mothership with thousands of players and dozens of capabilities, but piloting and maintaining such a ship should be extremely difficult, and the ship itself should have weaknesses and be very far from invulnerable.   Terrain This is less of an issue on planets as there will always be hills, forests, mountains, rivers, etc, etc that make natural choke points and affect what kind of tactics will be most effective.  In space it is less obvious, but equally doable.  Have vast regions of space encompassing multiple star systems that are saturated by nebulae.  Include dense asteroid clusters, regions of space that are more rocky, planets with immense rings.  There could also be regions affected by strong gravitational fields caused by black holes or neutron stars, and many other possibilities, and they could all be intertwined and overlapping.  Each of these features would have some effect on travel and/or weaponry and defences just like "normal" geographical features do.   Terrain on the battlefield and on the meta-scale creates opportunities for inventive leaders to shine and take a larger force by surprise.   Resource Distribution My thought on this is to avoid static, infinite, and clustered sets of resources, particularly high-end resources.  If there is a portion of the map that contains a lot of one particular type of resource then this will encourage "turtling" and make the acquisition of more players unto a single organisation easier.  At the same time, a perfectly even distribution means trade between regions is less profitable, perhaps even not required, so this is a tough topic.  One option is to have resources be finite at their given sources, but to have sources re-spawn elsewhere in the universe keeping the meta-game dynamic and ever changing.   Arms Diversity and Rock/Paper/Scissors/Lizard/Spock Something that DU already has going for it is that all ships will be designed by individual players/organisations so we should expect a lot of diversity.  However, there are bound to be certain a types of weapon and defences that can be mounted.  I like GalCiv's system of having weapon types lasers/missiles/projectiles and their corresponding defences shields/point defence/armour.  In addition to that, adding in mines, mine sweepers, cloaking devices, stealth detection, more and less effective propulsion systems, hangars for carrier capability, and Death Star type weaponry are all elements which can be included, each with their own advantages and drawbacks not just on the battlefield but in including them in a given ship design.  And that's before mentioning ground weaponry (although I'm sure there will be a lot of overlapping) and the possibility of space-ground/ground-space interaction in battles.  This kind of diversity provides more opportunities for inventive leaders to do something special against a superior force.   Now, with these elements I believe it becomes much more difficult to adopt a zerg strategy.  A massive army/fleet necessarily requires a practical chain of command, training drills, and disciplined soldiers who have been briefed by competent commanders who have a plan and can think on their feet.  The more players in the fleet, the more difficult management of it becomes and large numbers of inexperienced and undisciplined soldiers will be a liability.  Knowing and understanding the terrain gives a kind of "home advantage" for smart generals, and appropriate use of a variety of different kinds of ships/weapons, or having intelligence on the enemy's new ship designs could be put to devastating use.   A quick note: we tend to think of a blob as lots of little ships, but in DU a blob could be a single super-massive ship with hundreds or thousands of players on board.  In this thread when I say "zerglings" I mean massive numbers of players, but not necessarily massive numbers of ships.
  3. Like
    KlatuSatori got a reaction from Syreus in Marriage and Relationships   
    My initial reaction to this was that it doesn't really have a place in this kind of game.  On the other hand, assuming it is a purely aesthetic feature that costs very little development effort to include, it's not really much different to other aesthetic features.  Even hardcore players interested only in racking up kills or credits take time to make their avatars look cool, or spend time/money on clothes, or decorations, or an interesting bio description.  If the ability to marry were an extension of those kinds of "fluff" features then I wouldn't be opposed to it.
     
    If it were implemented I would go even further than some others have and say that there should be no limitations on it at all.  Players should be able to marry any gender/race, or marry more than one other player, or enter into multi-person marriages, get divorced, etc.  Marriage should not have any financial impact whatsoever; there should not be a marital estate or complicated divorce proceedings - one person wants to get divorced, they click divorce and they are divorced, nothing else happens.
  4. Like
    KlatuSatori got a reaction from TranquilClaws in DevBlog - Rights & Duty Management System (RDMS)   
    I had pretty much the same question.  Computerised locking mechanisms and vehicle controls automatically becoming unresponsive makes sense, although I do believe there should be some scalable, non-trivial means available to "hack" such systems.  Besides that, a payment not being rendered should flag up a warning and nothing else.  To use the dev blog's real world example; if a citizen of a country decides to break a law, there is nothing stopping her/him from doing so.  She/he can break the law.  It is up to law enforcement or other citizens to a) notice that a law was broken, discover who broke the law, and then c) bring the perpetrator to justice.  I think this kind of freedom allows for more emergent gameplay.
     
    Regarding the system of roles, duties, management outlined in the blog; it all sounds incredibly well thought out and in keeping with the sandbox mentality.  Would this same system be used for short term contracts as well as long term contracts and internal politics?  Like a payment being released from entity A to entity B once an entity B fulfils some task?
  5. Like
    KlatuSatori got a reaction from Dreamstar in Concept : Blackout   
    I agree keeping a character that is flagged as "in combat" spawned in game and limp even when the player has logged out is essential in this kind of game.  The body and vehicle the the body is in remain in game until their timer runs down and during that time they can be killed by the enemy.
     
    Jails and the ability to keep another player captive is an interesting concept.  Captors could try to extort money, or they could have deeper motives: information, vehicles/building designs, tags/functions, or even getting a legate to vote a certain way.  Most of the time the captive player will commit suicide, but if the captors plan carefully at a time when death would be more costly than complying, it could work.  I think I like it.
     
    On dead player bodies, some players might like to keep them as trophies (not me, honest...), but yes, if a body is left alone it should definitely despawn after a few minutes.  Massive graveyards commemorating huge battles might be cool... until the next empire comes along and builds a metropolis on it.
     
    Sorry if this isn't entirely on topic but you brought up some cool talking points.
  6. Like
    KlatuSatori got a reaction from Dreamstar in Questioning Fleet Role: Carrier   
    Personally I'd like to see a carrier that uses some combination of stealth, speed, and range to defeat a battleship. Battleships are all about firepower and armour, carriers should use that against them. Carriers should try to fight a one-sided battle, where lots of small, difficult to hit bombers bombard the battleships while they cannot hit the carriers because the flight range of the bombers is too high and the carrier is either too fast (not amazingly fast, just faster than a slow hulking behemoth of a battleship) to catch, or hidden away somewhere behind a moon or something. Add in some fighters to protect the bombers from smaller ships and to do some screening, maybe throw in some supporting cruisers and you've got a force to be reckoned with.
     
    Of course, there'll always be a counter. Battleships should be accompanied by battlecruisers and cruisers, either of which should be faster and more powerful than a lone carrier caught with its trousers down.
  7. Like
    KlatuSatori reacted to Comrademoco in Bounty Hunting   
    Also, dont forget about mobile nodes. I do plan to have one installed in my ship, for sole purpose of exploring.
     
    In regards to bounty hunting, say I have a 1M credit bounty on my head, the bounty hunter can get a notification that I have a nearby node on my ship, giving him the option to target that 1st then proceed with the bounty.. This will allow, as you guys have mention... Increase the effectiveness of bounties.
  8. Like
    KlatuSatori got a reaction from Comrademoco in Bounty Hunting   
    I think the devs want to make sure that nodes can't be used for teleporting about, which is a valid concern.  But it could be that "your" nearest node is simply the nearest node to you that you have been given the tag for (which may also have a duty on it, like a flat or regular fee).  I think that would be a good balance.  You wouldn't want to give out the power to use a single node to too many people as if someone dies it will need to charge up again before you can use it (and then you will be teleported to a further node if you die before it is re-charged).
     
    I really like the implications of this, because it means organisations will want to set up lots of them for their people, or there may even be "Resurrection Node Rental" corporations.
     
    I actually wouldn't mind potentially losing your position when exploring far from home.  It makes the game universe bigger and the risk/reward of deep exploration greater.
  9. Like
    KlatuSatori got a reaction from Astrov in Bounty Hunting   
    I think the devs want to make sure that nodes can't be used for teleporting about, which is a valid concern.  But it could be that "your" nearest node is simply the nearest node to you that you have been given the tag for (which may also have a duty on it, like a flat or regular fee).  I think that would be a good balance.  You wouldn't want to give out the power to use a single node to too many people as if someone dies it will need to charge up again before you can use it (and then you will be teleported to a further node if you die before it is re-charged).
     
    I really like the implications of this, because it means organisations will want to set up lots of them for their people, or there may even be "Resurrection Node Rental" corporations.
     
    I actually wouldn't mind potentially losing your position when exploring far from home.  It makes the game universe bigger and the risk/reward of deep exploration greater.
  10. Like
    KlatuSatori reacted to Dreamstar in Radials for communication   
    Many of the growing community here have been talking and thinking about how to communicate with our teams quickly.
    The idea of voicechat is great, but complicated.
     
    Not yet knowing how groups may or may not work makes it difficult to formulate this concept. Either way, If there was an option to hold down a button, maybe the letter T on the keyboard, causing a radial menu to appear at the mouse with a few options that you pick to put on the radial hotbar.
     
    The functionality could be altered in several ways, depending on whats realistic to implement into the game.
    Spatial chat only Party chat, (i.e. 5 man group) Raid chat Prompt pre-recorded voice the developers put in to speak. Just an example : Jim the Industrialist/ Builder repair man is down in the guts of the ship trying to fix parts as everything is blowing up.
    He might be in a random pick up group. or with friends. Maybe their Teamspeak server went down. Everything is going bad. He pushes T and mouses over "Reactor Critical" and clicks. In his group chat an automated message shows up -Reactor Critical, Abandon ship!" which could or not prompt a voice command to the group with a similar message.
    Jim also usually joins group as a repairman, so he set his hotbar up to include messages related to ship parts, Engines Down, Hyperdrive Down, Reactor Critical, et cetera.
     
    Allowing players to put in their own text is a double edged sword I would personally stay away from.
    Would likely need input delays / cooldown timers to prevent abuse / spam.
    A possible advantage of a system like this, is that with a single game world, I believe there will be many Players, French most likely, Germans, Americans, Russians, Japanese, and so forth; Messages could be written in many languages so if a silly american like me can only talk like a baby in french, at the very least I will click Reactor Critical and it could show R?acteur Critique for the person with French set at their primary language.
  11. Like
    KlatuSatori got a reaction from LassiPrine in DevBlog: From Barter to Market Economy   
    I understand you've decided on a single currency, but I'm curious. Did you ever consider having no default currency and giving players and organisations the ability to create their own currencies? This could add a great deal of depth to the economies of the game and to diplomatic relationships. Admittedly it would complicate the market interface. Buyers and sellers would have to declare which currencies they can pay in / accept.
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