let me turn it around then, what if i said to you “i think that the game should only have 5 blocktypes with 2 colors of each block” would you think that would be enough for a game like this? No ofc not! I dont think the game will use tab target combat, im actually pretty sure they wont, but that doesnt mean they have to resort to “just spam leftclick to win” what makes combat interesting is interesting encounters and the ability to make skill builds you can fight with, i feel that an appropiate combat system would be something where you can pick 6 skills out of a variety, all would be skillshots ofc. Enemies should also do more than just attack you, but they seem like they are also working on that. so im not worried.
i used GW2 as an example of “not only endgame matters” neither do i think it should in Boundless, i think that the best part would be the journey through the levels/tiers, being able to fight titans and protectors and a variety of creatures. There will ofc also be exploring and i really look forward to seeing awesome player made cities, structures and shops. i dont DENY that there will be building elements in the game and that creativity will definitely shape it up to be an awesome game.But sandbox MMORPG doesnt mean that its JUST a sandbox, after all there is also the MMORPG part of it. It’s work all around, indeed, but they have some pretty cool ideas.
lastly. Again The tiers is the gameplay loop made by the developers
Also dont worry about posting longer posts, its nice to see you put some effort and thought into it
First of all 6 skills wouldn’t work on a controller at the same time as the normal controls like in minecraft unless there was a dedicated button to switch to a combat mode or automatically switching on initialisation of combat perhaps, forgoing the need for such a button. The reason it is basic is because it’s something to iterate on, those are minimum expectations and more is better I wouldn’t hate it or love it.
A skill system is something I would love but is dependent on execution, something similar to dragon age inquisition or borderlands. You said all skills are skill shots, so I’m assuming all skills are combat oriented ones (in your view?). There are other options(to a skill system) if you want to go down that route, and even if you do it’s quite hard to change if you ever want to so the devs should be adamant that this is what they want. We must also understand how much work we ask the devs to do if they choose to implement such a system.
Off the top of my head my take on a skill system is this. I would implement a class system with unique skills to each class. If you want to change class you can through a new character or some price.
The classes would be the typical Mage/Swordsman/Archer with a possible fourth Mechanic (combat oriented of course) with more classes down the line which then can specialise in certain areas to turn into different classes, for example a mage could specialise and turn to specific elements or styles of play, becoming a healer or a mage of manipulating enemies. For each specialisation there could be 10 or so skills with different variants/tiers. Some specialisations may have to be unlocked through difficult combat trials.
Then comes the question of how do you make something “difficult”, using large numbers doesn’t help and other options require a lot of time and work. I think what you want is a mix, but it is a big ask. If the devs want to try it they can go ahead, but I can’t imagine MMO combat which is engaging and difficult that won’t be taxing on the devs.
You can’t really sum up this kind of thing in a thread so I think I should probably stop and leave it up to the devs.
This idea of combat is demanding from the devs, it is a good idea (end result) but not that reasonable (to ask of the devs) in my opinion.
In a vote the vast majority voted “I would like to mix and match my own class” over “i would like to pick from a preset of classes” But yeah, combat mode switch i also think is neccesary, that is one thing trove got right though and i could easily imagine such a system.
Its pretty great you mentioned controllers, its not something i often think about but i also see that they would have to make some kind of clever system if we need better and more specialized combat.
Basically you mentioned 3 classes, imagine if instead of having those 3 classes it was just 9 skill lines which would have been in the 3 classes anyways. some sort of mix and match class system which gives freedom of choice. This would also give the choice to make BAD builds ofc, but that is part of it in my opinion.
They promised that they would mix MMORPG and the minecraft ish sandbox elements, sadly they have mostly focused on the building for now. The entire meat of the game is going to lie in their progression system, like how you progress with everything. im a big fan of “learning by doing” so to level up swordsmanship you have to earn X amount of exp while using sword for example. i feel that building in the sense of placing blocks shouldnt be restricted, but on the other hand there should also be building blocks which has to be crafted from specific mats, dont think you should be given everything by start.
Mix and match could work on one hand but does have consequences if not executed well.
Experience always felt a bit tacky to me, I’m not against it but if it were there it would be something I would put up with.
There is also the typical problem of stacking blocks and firing from above at enemies. There are ways to fix that but it would also affect other aspects.
Yeah this and a few other block abuse problems is why i would highly recommend a “switch to combat mode” so you cant just physically block creatures, but these things are really tricky.
Hard to keep track of the conversation here, but I’ll just throw out this:
We’re constantly developing our the ideas and concepts we share. Often as we progress with a design, like the ‘Tiers’ system, we make changes or decide they’re not right entirely. The previously shared Tiers concept is something we’ve dropped for now, so it may not always be helpful to quote me…!
Nooo. mah Sword art online game! i still hold to it sounding awesome. but again its really hard cause basically all your wearables you are always like “everything is equally good” which would mean no progression. Hopefully that wont be the case, i know you have been working on progression for what… 3-4 ish months now? any chance you can talk about it?
I´m really glad that you dropped that concept. I also think that it wasn´t really fitting to B<.
The imo bad part about it was that it would have forced you to play on other worlds for the sake of getting to a higher tier, even if you´d have really liked the world you are currently on.
Sticking to the word “tier” as indicator of progression I´d say that every world should have several (all) tiers the game offers. A world map with that system could, for example, look like this:
With the difficulty increasing from green (where new players spawn and the capital is located) to red (where creatures are scaled up to a point where they can only be beaten by cooperating groups of players). This should, of course, be a gradually change without strict “borders”.
To incorporate titans into this system I think that they should follow certain paths (like the black spiral) and not randomly float around. Following the spiral the titan would spawn in the redzone of a world where it is the hardest to beat but also gives the best loot and then start to slowly follow its predefined path towards the center. During this journey the titan becomes continuously weaker (runs out of fuel etc.) but also the loot gets worse.
This could lead to a pretty fun race for the best loot as you would have to decide to engage the titan now and risk to fail or wait a bit until it gets easier but risk that a better group might raid it before you have the chance to.
Yeah that too. another thing i also considered was this
this is also counter productive, for as you say if you REALLY like a world then wouldnt it suck that there are places you would get your butt handed to you and you wouldnt really know WHERE those places would be? But on the other hand (good part about his idea) it would feel like there is a sense of dynamic branching out. not sure if that makes sense in words but like you start in the middle and then the further you move the harder it gets, so you have to look for places that are somewhat in your “tier range” so to say gear wise. on the other hand this would lead to certain spots being overpopulated on every world and also remove the “reason” to go to other worlds.
Yeah well that would be the point? You are forced to move through different worlds so you see more than one place, this exposes the players to more different worlds and increases the chanc of people going to live somewhere else than the first 2 worlds they find.
Dunno, it could be completely disconnected from the “geographical” world generation and just be like an additional layer in the world generator (like the heightmap) that determines the scaling of the creatures that spawn inside of it and the ore distribution.
Well as you progress you would “unlock” those places and become able to explore even more of you beloved world.
An indicator for the difficulty would definitely be necessary. Preferably directly on the creatures in an optical way (remember the concept of the corrupted ground basher? )
Yeah cities around/in the capital area and lone outposts in the harder regions. Sounds like a reasonable distribution for me.
That´s exactly the point. People that want to explore different worlds will/can do it anyway. People (like me) that like to pick a world and stay there for 90% of their (online)time are not forced to play against their prefered gamesytle.
It will not change your gamestyle to move to a different world for the amount of time it takes to find the rescourses you are searching for, the only change of Playstyle between tiered worlds and your idea is that you need portals to do tiered worlds.
You would under all circumstances be forced to move out in through the circles which would mena new biomes not seen before because increasing difficulty would mean new biomes or modifications to existing ones.
Not necessarily, the “geographical” generation of a world and setting the “difficulty map” could be two completely independent steps while making a world. So as you would travel through the world you would notice as much change in the biomes as you do in the current worlds. Just the creatures and ores would change. (I also mentioned that the process of increasing difficulty should be gradually not step-by-step. Meaning that as you travel “outwards” you would not instantly switch from “blue” to “purple” creatures but notice a continuous increase of the density of “purple” creatures spawned).
Not winging though, I’ve been working on progression since Christmas and currently have about 20 sheets, thousands of lines and hundreds of formulas and I think we’re approaching a good system that caters for the two.
