Testing 168: Tweaks, Fixes and Performance!

News Releases
21

Could these event by any chance be triggered by certain conditions? For example;

  • Last raid was X amount of days ago (I’d say once per week to avoid the novelty wearing off. The music in Boundless is superb, but you made a wise choice to have it play after long intervals; it makes the moment seem that bit more special - I feel these events should be treated similarly)

  • X amount of players within a certain proximity of one another. It would be a shame to have the weekly raid happen when there’s nobody around.

  • Settlement Prestige rating (or classification) is above X. The scale of the raid could depend on the size of the settlement. I can see it now - Great Cities having shelters, keeps, towers and walls in place in preparation for such events!

These mob swarms were so much fun. Even though they were technically an exploit, I believe most of us weren’t there for the experience or loot (although nice), we were there for the action and comradery.

One more suggestion;

  • Bosses - have the raid culminate in a battle against a tough opponent. Perhaps even have themed waves followed by a named opponent, for example; a thousand Spitter’s follow by their fierce and terrifying leader ‘Pseudo’s Bane’!

Edit; another suggestion;

  • Changes in weather and music. @Scratchnwiff made a comment about Helms Deep in his video which got me thinking; wouldn’t it be ominous if the music took a sudden turn and atmosphere began to change?

I don’t know if you’ve played Kingdom, but during certain nights the sky goes blood red, and eerie music begins to play before the onslaught. I think that game captured the dread of swarming raids perfectly.

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22

Awesome!!! Loving this and so many other fixes.

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23

I would suggest making it kinda of random (so like maybe the game will check on a fixed timer on a probability of a swarm spawning) but tied to if there are enough players in the vicinity at that time. When the swarm is happening maybe sound of an alarm (like horns or something) that something is up and players in the vicinity should be on the alert. And, maybe have a boss mob always in the said swarm.

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24

Regarding the raid:
The suggestions with taking into consider the amount of player present is good (making sure that at least a handful of players will experience the raid). However, I think this will dishearten those people living in timezone where few players are playing on their free time (me!). People working at night shift also comes into mind. Their free time is when people are sleeping. lol.

I’m thinking at least give an announcement on the day that there will be random raids happening probably 4 times throughout the day. To justify why we knew ahead of time that multiple raids will be happening, we can probably say it as “The spitters waged war against blah blah” or “Multiple spitters were seen meeting inside the forest. Grab your gears and prepare for defense!”. :grin:

A plus to this is we can maybe add is to the weekly objective so at least we have this epic raid to keep us busy for the week.

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25

Or have a certain rare gem change colour when vast swaths of enemies approach, like Sting from Lord of the Rings.

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26

That could be interesting, if it was part of builds, both of these quoted things could serve as “warning” indicators.

I think it really should depend on prestige and amount of players in an area as suggested here.

My issue with features like this in general, is that at the end of the day, if I’m building or something, I do not want to be interrupted with a potentially frustrating experience:
imagine I’m low on health because I’ve been having “work accidents” and a swarm comes up to me at the end of a bad day and kills me when I’m carrying all the tools I use for building.

That would be an incredibly frustrating experience for me, and if a similar situation ever got close to happening again (and I recognised it), I would just exit the game before anything happened.

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27

Change in the weather? Or the markings on the creatures themselves?

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28

I believe that’s the best case for making these events rare. Also having an indicator would allow players like yourself to take shelter, put your tools away, or join the fray. I think most people would be able to deal with a single raid per week, and the hunters among us would have something to look forward to.

That to me is a better idea than something you carry; something you build. Either a prop or block that changes colour based on the ‘threat level’.

That’s a thought. Enemies that are part of a swarm or pack could be marked differently. An Oort scout could kill one and know it’s not alone - then head back to the city to warn the others!

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29

How bout when a settlement reaches X prestige, the mayor can craft “THE GONG”. The gong can be placed showing a communities willingness to participate in raid events. On raid day the gong could resonate a tone, lulling nearby mobs. The mobs will gather around the gong which will have an indicated time for the start of the event. This could allow players to build arenas and such.
Gong should have it’s own beacon effect that protects a large enough area so players can’t build structures that exploit the effected area.

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30

Agree! In-game mechanic would be better than announcements.

Change in weather would be great also. It’s like their full moon version of werewolves. :joy:

If we go with the markings in the creature, I believe a better one would be to have the NPCs do a warcry on a certain area indicating that they are calling their brothers for a battle! Might give more impact on how grave the situation is just by hearing their cries outside the city’s wall. I kind of imagine foreign explorers visiting the city running around screaming “I heard angry spitters on my way here!” haha

2 Likes
31

My general idea for the creature extreme spawning or raid
Would be to have it be set both as a player activated event and random occurrence, both of them will have the same effect, but to varying degrees. I will further explain my points above them below.

What do I think should happen when the event occurs?
Features I would like to see implemented when the event occurs would be:

  • Distinct weather
  • Distinct ambient sounds
  • Distinct creatures cries for help or war
  • Distinct tinted creatures
  • Mark on the compass to indicate where the event is happening

It could be all of the above a mix or just one, which would be determined by the engine and dev’s decision.

Player controlled event
It would work like a Gong like someone mentioned above, producing a sound that reverberates, it could be stronger or weaker according to the shout skill or the settlement’s or guild involved (with prestige or something else). Difference would be, we could have a visual representation of the state at which one could activate the event, we could have a big gem in the sky (shining brightly while the event is happening, and having a pale look after, and looking charged while it’s not filled), get charged, and when it’s filled, the major or someone or importance within the settlement could activate it.

The gem will be charged by player interaction within the city, be it through footfall generated or the tax collected, having a max activation of once a week and having the need to not only be charged, but have a minimum amount of players nearby or signed in for the event. The event happening inside the settlement or nearby is something I’m not sure about yet.

Depending on how prestigious or big a settlement is, the event will have higher rewards and creature spawning, making a better settlement and more active economy much more important.

Random Ocurrence
It could be produced at random intervals and be more prone to occur on highly active areas, with an active economy.

It would hold special prizes that player activated won’t have and have a special call to players nearby, hunters and explorers could have a wider radar, making it so they’re much more prepared to go and participate.

This will help cover the need for single players to participate, while they could always join player activated ones this is another option to have on the table.

Mobs
We could have varying creatures, ancient variations and bigger versions that drop collectible resources to make displays or furniture out of. Purely cosmetic items that could be well valued by traders, crafters and hunters, making trading and economy much more important.

5 Likes
32

I’ve noticed that on the Testing, distance to worlds in warping is mentioned as parsecs.

But if we can see a world in the sky of another world, then that distance would likely be closer to a few light-seconds/minutes? If any planet was even half a parsec away, we wouldn’t even see a dot… :cold_sweat:

(And yes this is a bit pedantic but thought I’d mention it :bow:)

Edit2: Also found this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud :grin:

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33
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34

I’ll bug it - I did do an astronomy degree so did wince bit at that :slight_smile:

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35

So wait, we can effectively bookmark our home/favorite mining location ect.? Awesome!

Edit: I think bookmark is a poor choice of words… more like a “Return” or “harthstone” ^^

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36

i think he’s talking about how the portal that you select a destination from in the sanctum will close if you don’t walk through it within the allotted time frame :slight_smile: they changed it so that it will remain open indefinitely while you are in the sanctum, but once you leave you’ll have to still go back to the sanctum and reopen it the same way :stuck_out_tongue:

37

Aww =( but they said permanent!

Lol oh well… would be a cool feature xD

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38

One thing I noticed on the testing was that pretty much all crafting xp was 1 per output item. But surely it could at least be partially proportional to the complexity of the item? Making a copper hammer for example could give 4 or 3… that would make it 30 if you mass crafted; not a whole lot for the time/resources it takes, but certainly not as insignificant as 10.

My point is that if crafting xp for more complex items is the same as for less complex items, people will still feel incentive to just mass craft a lot of cheap/high-output items, if they want to be grindy with their xp. Crafting a stack of stones will still give 50 xp in the current testing environment, but will take only 40% of the time to make 10 copper hammers, not taking into account the resource complexity and the time to gather that.

I guess you could argue that the components of the hammer in this case also award xp, to an amount that in the end is greater than 50 xp from the stone, but the total time invested and thought required vs a simpler spammable item (like sticks, even!) will not feel rewarding, in regards to xp.

Before, was crafting xp too high in general? Most certainly. Should it be so low across the board? Probably not…

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39

Goorts are tougher than spitters to kill now. They also do hella damage compared to spitters. Is this the future of goort-kind?

40

What the heck is a goort 0.o

1 Like