Some Suggestions

[Ahura Pandaz]

Hi, just some suggestions I would like to throw out there.

Ice Shield Aura
The biggest annoyance I have is trying to tell when my ice shield is down, when in a large fight
you hear the sound of the ice shield going down, but have no idea if its yours or the dude(s) next to you
often times the info screen rolls to fast to see the blue message. This can be a real pain when using the
Axe and switching to shield, only not to even need it. Is there a better way to tell if its off??

Suggest- The little red model in the middle, is it possible to have it have a blue aura around it to show
you are shielded, now a quick look can confirm it's on.

Wolf Packs
I love the Pet wolf, I was thinking along the lines of a "unique" pack that the wolf can wear that can store
items for you such as potions and maybe a weapon or two. This could be a rare find.

Mana Circle
Like the HC scroll, except the caster looses all mana and it is transferred to other players, makes for
good teamwork (if you are a tank) in supporting the spell casters, also the mana circle can damage the undead.

Ice Wall
Needs a buff, never used, its too weak and does not cover enough area.

Firewall / Volcano and Bosses
I may get some crap for this one, but take islesofdread1 for instance, you drop firewall and every monster
and the boss are completely rendered harmless, its just way to easy. I suggest at least limit the time the boss is
spooked over the fire to make it somewhat more challenging. My first time playing that map, it was a complete
letdown to see how easy it was to kill him.

Random Uber Monster
Is it possible to make a random monster on a map at "random" times "Uber" much more health and damage?
It would add some fun and challenge to some maps when it does spawn, and even worse if its a Boss.
Does not need to drop anything just some extra points.

Armor -Party Auras
Its been discussed, but I also like the idea of adding a buff to some armor like AOB that adds a health trickle
or mana increase at times, need more team based items.

Thanks for reading.

 

[cartman-2000]

well the wolf pack probably couldn't store very many items, maybe 4-5 and would probably have to work a bit like the galat chest does.

 

[Dridmar]

well the wolf pack probably couldn't store very many items, maybe 4-5 and would probably have to work a bit like the galat chest does.

I don't think it would be worth it, perhaps if we had different pets then maybe. For example having a wolf carry 5 suits of armour, each weighing over 75 pounds, is just plain unrealistic. If anything this idea should only be considered when we have more pets.

Assuming this idea eventually makes its way ingame then the wolf should have severe limitations on what it can carry, potions, arrows/bolts, miscellaneous items and perhaps some of the lighest of armours and weapons.

 

[cartman-2000]

Firewall / Volcano and Bosses
I may get some crap for this one, but take islesofdread1 for instance, you drop firewall and every monster
and the boss are completely rendered harmless, its just way to easy. I suggest at least limit the time the boss is
spooked over the fire to make it somewhat more challenging. My first time playing that map, it was a complete
letdown to see how easy it was to kill him.

The effect does last to long, it should be a bit less time for those that are effected by it, like 30-45 seconds instead of about 3 minutes or so with some monsters.

Assuming this idea eventually makes its way ingame then the wolf should have severe limitations on what it can carry, potions, arrows/bolts, miscellaneous items and perhaps some of the lighest of armours and weapons.

You could put a weight limit of like 75-125lbs, and make a slowdown effect if you have to much weight on it, like you have for players, so you'd want to store lighter things in it.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Random Uber Monster
Is it possible to make a random monster on a map at "random" times "Uber" much more health and damage?
It would add some fun and challenge to some maps when it does spawn, and even worse if its a Boss.
Does not need to drop anything just some extra points.

This, this, and this.
Seriously, this would increase the replay value of every map in the game by a large margin if uber monsters could spawn at random (or even better, under certain conditions, like rain, snow, or nighttime).

If this were implemented it would be very easy to add a series of 'hunt' quests similar to Final Fantasy 12. Random NPC's in town maps could commission adventurers to hunt down fearsome beasties for a bounty of some variety.

To the devs: How difficult is it to add something like this to the game?

 

[The Man In Black]

Jelly was working on a dynamic quest system awhile back, which is pretty much the same thing. You'd talk to an NPC and he would need X returned to him. X was taken on map Y by bad guy Z. Two biggest problems with it be that we need to precache all quest monsters every single map and we need to have a special entity in each map telling the monster where to spawn.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Speaking of precaching files; is there any way to raise the 512 files limit or is it hardcoded into the Goldsource Engine?

 

[The Man In Black]

We would have changed it by now if we could have ;-)

 

[Jelly]

Jelly was working on a dynamic quest system awhile back, which is pretty much the same thing. You'd talk to an NPC and he would need X returned to him. X was taken on map Y by bad guy Z. Two biggest problems with it be that we need to precache all quest monsters every single map and we need to have a special entity in each map telling the monster where to spawn.

Wait... what? The monsters are all ready precached when the map loads, there's no need for extra precaching I think. At least not if we only spawn monsters all ready in the map, which was my plan. Anyway, when I get my desktop back up and running, I'll work some more and test the quest data system to better understand it for easier implementation.

 

[Thothie]

Yeah, that was the original plan, just spawn a variant of a monster already on the map.

You *can* spawn skeletons on any map - as pets they are always precached. The rat/wolf/bear model is also available, but you'd have to make custom wolves/rats/bears to use it, as the current monster scripts don't actually use that model.

You can use the game_master to spawn quest monsters, and manage it from there. You'll have to find pre-defined positions to spawn monsters by running around the map and typing xyz in console. You can then plug the desired spawn locations into the game_master and have it pick randomly among them. No need for a new entity or map edits then.