A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet series

[TheOysterHippopotami]

So, for the past long ass time I have been working on a 4-5 map 'gauntlet' series of sorts. It's actually not a traditional gauntlet series like lodagond but a freeroam gauntlet series. There is a linear quest line that players can choose to follow, or they can simply explore, travel where they wish, or pursue minor quests from various NPCs. At this point, I am very close to being finished.

I will not release any specific details about the series right now, but I will say that the series consists of towns and dungeons. The town maps are to serve a very specific purpose, and it is this that I need the communities opinion on.


In this series town maps are to act as 'save points' and will be strategically placed around dungeons for the sake of convenient travel. This will be accomplished by renting a room at the local inn or tavern. Once the player has rented a room at the inn he can now freely vote to the map in question. However, the player is not allowed to rent rooms in more than one town at once.
For example, let us assume for a moment that we have two towns. Town A and town B. If a player rents a room at Town A, he is now allowed to "votemap town_A" whenever he wants. However, if the player travels to town B and rents a room there, he is no longer allowed to vote to town A. He can only vote to town B (unless he travels back to town A and rents a room again, in which case he can no longer vote to town B).

As a mapper, this one tiny restriction opens up boundless creative potential. I can hide bosses, quests, rare monsters, scripted events and treasure chests in close proximity to each save point. I can also hide them in far away places or anywhere in between.
Everyone I talk to prefers the early game in MSC, where exploration is the primary game mechanic. If a system like this is implemented in my map series, it will take that exploration factor to a whole new level. If this system isn't implemented it means one of two things. Either A) Players can vote to whatever map they wish whenever they wish, which will completely obliterate any sense of exploration in this map series (hell, it won't even be a map series at that point) or B) Players cannot vote anywhere and will be forced to navigate through four maze-like maps every single time they want to run any of the quests, find any items or fight any bosses/monsters.

Also, bear in mind that option A is not actually an option. Under no circumstances will I allow for the current map voting system to be used in my map series. Knowing this, what system would you guys prefer to see in this 'gauntlet' series?

 

[Thothie]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Well, while I can't arrange this, at least not dependably... There's also the logic fail here. If I rent a place in, say, Gatecity - why does that suddenly cause, say, Underkeep, to kick my arse out? Do they just hate each other that much? I paid for the place - it shouldn't eliminate my ownership of the last place I paid for. It just seems an artificial and illogical way to cause the player more trouble than need be.

In any case, your only reliably functioning options as a mapper in this game are open vote (ie. most maps) and gauntlet flagged (ie. requires having arrived from a connecting map).

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Well, while I can't arrange this, at least not dependably... There's also the logic fail here. If I rent a place in, say, Gatecity - why does that suddenly cause, say, Underkeep, to kick my arse out? Do they just hate each other that much? I paid for the place - it shouldn't eliminate my ownership of the last place I paid for. It just seems an artificial and illogical way to cause the player more trouble than need be.

In any case, your only reliably functioning options as a mapper in this game are open vote (ie. most maps) and gauntlet flagged (ie. requires having arrived from a connecting map).

That's a shame, I really liked the intuitiveness of Oyster's idea. I really wish you guys could implement it into the game.

 

[PedroBear]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

^ PedroBear Agrees.

 

[Thothie]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

I fail to see where it's in anyway intuitive, quite the opposite, really.... If I rent a house in Deralia, I can no longer votemap for Edana, and, conversely, if I rent a place in Edana, I can no longer votemap for Deralia? But, meh.

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

I fail to see where it's in anyway intuitive, quite the opposite, really.... If I rent a house in Deralia, I can no longer votemap for Edana, and visa versa? But, meh.

It'd add an actual use for Inn's in maps, anyways.

 

[Thothie]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Well, it'd make sense if renting a place didn't cancel your previous rental, causing you to have to go back and rent the place again, defeating the purpose of renting an inn in the first place - although it's a moot point, as it would likely fubar either way.

 

[PedroBear]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Is this a fight I smell? :3

 

[jon50559]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

What if you use the clock on FN to give the player the room for something like 24-48 hours, or even shorter if necessary?

Then eventually they'd have to fight back through the maps to get a room again, and then once they've fought there again, can select a map to go to at their leisure, and that process would repeat again and again.

 

[Thothie]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Is this a fight I smell? :3

Just sayin'

Lest there be some world wide conspiracy to prevent you from renting more than one room anywhere on the planet at a time, thus preventing the point of renting a room anywhere, as you'll just have to travel back anyways.

 

[jon50559]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Sorry, forgot to mention in my post that yeah if you used the FN time the player could rent all the rooms he wants, they'd just expire after the time ran out.

 

[PedroBear]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Damn! No fight?...Fine...

 

[Thothie]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Sorry, forgot to mention in my post that yeah if you used the FN time the player could rent all the rooms he wants, they'd just expire after the time ran out.

That'd be logical, at least. Sadly, not any easier to implement.

 

[PedroBear]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Just do it!!

 

[Supercoke]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

I fail to see where it's in anyway intuitive, quite the opposite, really.... If I rent a house in Deralia, I can no longer votemap for Edana, and, conversely, if I rent a place in Edana, I can no longer votemap for Deralia? But, meh.

that's why it would be everyone best interest o REMOVE the votemap system. like how we discussed on the source version.

 

[Supercoke]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

I'm all for this. It may not be the easiest shit to code ever, but it can and has been done before.

 

[Thothie]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

I fail to see where it's in anyway intuitive, quite the opposite, really.... If I rent a house in Deralia, I can no longer votemap for Edana, and, conversely, if I rent a place in Edana, I can no longer votemap for Deralia? But, meh.

that's why it would be everyone best interest o REMOVE the votemap system. like how we discussed on the source version.

Yes, because sitting through up to 70 map transitions to get to one place would be just grand.

 

[PedroBear]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

It just might be.

 

[Supercoke]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

I fail to see where it's in anyway intuitive, quite the opposite, really.... If I rent a house in Deralia, I can no longer votemap for Edana, and, conversely, if I rent a place in Edana, I can no longer votemap for Deralia? But, meh.

that's why it would be everyone best interest o REMOVE the votemap system. like how we discussed on the source version.

Yes, because sitting through up to 70 map transitions to get to one place would be just grand.

wouldn't be too bad, as long as there wasn't a certain lighting effect that broke alot of the games textures on multiple reconnection.

and who said there was going to be 70 maps to walk through to get to one? that's what a *hint* train or railway system *hint* that can be implemented to counter such issues. mabey even a little guy you can tell and pay to take you somewhere by magic, idk.

 

[PedroBear]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

^ Win.

 

[Thothie]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Outside of the disconnected maps, there's nothing forcing you to use the votemap system - if you don't like the votemap system you *can* walk.

Personally, I prefer to spend more time playing than waiting for maps to cycle over, so go ahead and walk, and leave it for the rest of us.

 

[Supercoke]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

If I recall correctly, there was a discussion about players leveling up to "wall level" very fast. one of the suggestions was to remove the votemap for the source version, to add a well needed drink of more realism and better overall gameplay to this parched mod. might also be the reason I'm kinda againts using exploits and what-not. but whatever.

 

[Supercoke]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

let me see if I can find that thread for you...

can't find it...

..... fuck...

 

[jon50559]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

Back when the game was 11 maps the system wasn't terrible, but now it just isn't feasible. It's also too late in the development cycle to just re-implement the feature, since the game was NOT designed around it. There are too many maps spread around too large of a game world, with too long of a wait between map changes, and too much instability to count on so many map changes.

TL;DR
IT'S A SH*TTY IDEA

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Re: A discussion about gameplay mechanics in my 'gauntlet se

that's why it would be everyone best interest o REMOVE the votemap system. like how we discussed on the source version.

Now here is an idea I can get behind!

Yes, because sitting through up to 70 map transitions to get to one place would be just grand.

I'm not sure where you are getting an idea like this from. "save point" maps would be placed strategically so that you didn't have to walk through tons of maps. Only a tiny handful before you reached the next town.

and who said there was going to be 70 maps to walk through to get to one? that's what a *hint* train or railway system *hint* that can be implemented to counter such issues.

This is a great idea. There should absolutely be a 'caravan' npc in town maps that allows you to pay to travel to far away maps. Although, I'd like to see that used in conjunction with this 'save point' idea.

As for it being hard to implement, why can't it work similar to every other quest in this game? And by that I mean, when you rent a room, it saves something to your quest data which acknowledges that you have rented a room on map A. If you vote to map A without having that quest data saved, it will not let you spawn or force you to spawn inside of a box that prevents access to the rest of the map.
If you go to map B, the moment you talk to the inn keeper it erases that quest data. You can then rent another room in map B.
Why can't it function exactly like the 'destination' quest data (. quest d)? There would be a spawn point *inside of the inn itself* and the only way to access that particular spawn point is if it is saved to quest data, just like the only way to access lodagond-4 is if lodagond-3 is saved to quest data.

Outside of the disconnected maps, there's nothing forcing you to use the votemap system - if you don't like the votemap system you *can* walk.

The problem is, this severely limits what can be done with the gameplay. With the vote system as it is now, there is absolutely no way to have exploration oriented gameplay across more than one map. The reason why every single map in this game (save a small handful) follow the terribly trite 'lodagond formula' is because the current mapvoting policy leaves no room for creativity. I think this thread makes it pretty clear that I'm not the only who is sick of this formula, either. And that's precisely why I took up mapping in the first place. This game needs a change, drastically, and I got sick of waiting for it. If I don't step up to the plate and try to make a difference, maybe nobody will. And that's not something I'm willing to accept when it comes to MSC, which has so much unrealized potential.

Back when the game was 11 maps the system wasn't terrible, but now it just isn't feasible. It's also too late in the development cycle to just re-implement the feature, since the game was NOT designed around it. There are too many maps spread around too large of a game world, with too long of a wait between map changes, and too much instability to count on so many map changes.

It's true that it isn't really feasible with the game as it is now, which is what a compromise like this is for.