Best Of
Re: The Ideas Thread
Definitely what I was going for with the third option, and of the four i think it's the most fun.
Ikchor
2
Recommended Playing Time 10/19/2019 - 4pm Eastern
Events are unfolding this October, and the cult of T'rath continues to spread its passionate message across the Sector. While players have been participating throughout the month, we will occasionally plan to run things on a larger scale to provide more grist for your roleplay.
As such, there is a recommended playing time scheduled for this coming Saturday, October 19th, at 4pm Server Time (eastern time). We won't spoil any surprises, but if you log in around then, you'll probably see or hear something!
Click here to see when the event will be occuring in your own time zone! (Thanks for the tip, @Sairys!)
See you then!
As such, there is a recommended playing time scheduled for this coming Saturday, October 19th, at 4pm Server Time (eastern time). We won't spoil any surprises, but if you log in around then, you'll probably see or hear something!
Click here to see when the event will be occuring in your own time zone! (Thanks for the tip, @Sairys!)
See you then!
Eukelade
7
Re: The Ideas Thread
Several ideas about windup attacks, and hopefully a way to make them not be such a headache for players new and veteran alike. No idea how feasible any of these ideas are, but it would change things up significantly:
1) When a mob does a windup, whether it lands or is interrupted, it goes on cooldown for a brief time. This to me feels a bit more natural as it clearly takes a lot of of effort for the mob to do this attack, so it shouldn't be able to just chain them for eternity, this is a room-wide cooldown, so multiple copies of the same mob can't all decide to launch their player buster attacks all at once, cause there is no way you're escaping that fast enough.
2) It cannot instantly kill you, it just knocks you from whatever your current health is to a critical 2-5%. You're not dead, but you're damn close. Kind of like the black headcrabs from Half Life 2. Call it an emergency function of your wetwiring maybe?
3) Mobs can only launch a windup attack if they've suffered enough damage to "piss them off", and maybe gain brief invulnerability while charging their attack? (just so you can't focus fire them down when you see it) Any interrupt bypasses this still. I'm more interested in the enraged attack than the invulnerability as temp invulnerability has the potential to get stuck. Which would be bad.
4) If multiple mobs are stacked in the room, any mob's windup attack scatters the other mobs out of that room when the wind up happens.
1) When a mob does a windup, whether it lands or is interrupted, it goes on cooldown for a brief time. This to me feels a bit more natural as it clearly takes a lot of of effort for the mob to do this attack, so it shouldn't be able to just chain them for eternity, this is a room-wide cooldown, so multiple copies of the same mob can't all decide to launch their player buster attacks all at once, cause there is no way you're escaping that fast enough.
2) It cannot instantly kill you, it just knocks you from whatever your current health is to a critical 2-5%. You're not dead, but you're damn close. Kind of like the black headcrabs from Half Life 2. Call it an emergency function of your wetwiring maybe?
3) Mobs can only launch a windup attack if they've suffered enough damage to "piss them off", and maybe gain brief invulnerability while charging their attack? (just so you can't focus fire them down when you see it) Any interrupt bypasses this still. I'm more interested in the enraged attack than the invulnerability as temp invulnerability has the potential to get stuck. Which would be bad.
4) If multiple mobs are stacked in the room, any mob's windup attack scatters the other mobs out of that room when the wind up happens.
Ikchor
2
Re: Recommended Playing Time 10/3 at 6pm EST
Thank you all for your feedback on the ongoing event. The key word here is ongoing, so please don't count your wins and losses just yet...
Ilyos
1
Re: Man, I love sci-fi.
To be fair, not all fantasy games are created equal. Choices like global player communication are decided beforehand and are probably one of those choices where you're weighing the fantasy theme you wish to go with against accessibility for your players. There's fantasy games out there where you cannot access the ability to tell/globally communicate unless you have access to a mystical item. This item is not handed to you at the start of the game, nor is it even bound to you should you happen to lose it.
That being said, yeah. I agree. There's much about sci-fi that fits the syntax a lot better. I like that I am not scratching my head about how my mindsim communicates with everything, I may not know intimately how it's doing it, but I can at least approximate a few things about it.
Even the fact that I don't need to wonder how I'm lugging around seven hundred corpses after a lengthy bashing session like it's nothing - granted holding all the junk from said bashing session is certainly something - yet I cannot pick up a fully assembled cannon, unless it is in kit form, which weighs exactly the same. Certain bits of "I should be able to do this" get sacrificed for a different kind of logic in fantasy settings in my experience.
For me this means I can lie awake at night wondering other things, like how fast are ships going at 3000su. What's an SU? Standard Unit? Ship Unit? Space Unit?
What are all these measurements, and can I reasonably translate them to something in our science? I would say "our universe" but Starmourn is set in the Milky Way galaxy, just in some undisclosed location away from Sol and several hundred years into our future. I can contemplate this and anything else that I suddenly find intriguing. I'm not looking for a hard science answer, by the way, I fully expect whatever hamfisted process I walk Starmourn's measurements and units through to result in numbers that just are not possible. This is a game, after all.
What are all these measurements, and can I reasonably translate them to something in our science? I would say "our universe" but Starmourn is set in the Milky Way galaxy, just in some undisclosed location away from Sol and several hundred years into our future. I can contemplate this and anything else that I suddenly find intriguing. I'm not looking for a hard science answer, by the way, I fully expect whatever hamfisted process I walk Starmourn's measurements and units through to result in numbers that just are not possible. This is a game, after all.
And yes, I could just handwave everything away with "nanites" but, if you can't tell by now, to me that's not fun.
Ikchor
1
Man, I love sci-fi.
One thing that always bugged me about my first real main character in Achaea is that I class-hopped like mad because I wanted to try everything out. It didn't really fit the RP as well in that world and while that didn't matter at the gamewide level, it always bugged me personally that I couldn't narrow it down and stick to one thing. (This was before multiclass. Multiclass would have saved me so much money early on...)
Here, I took my nanoseer and made him a scoundrel within a month of multiclass which sucked, but at least class-wise, it makes more sense. For a little bit there I felt like the one thing I wanted to do RP wise was stay the same class, but then I realized people make drastic career changes these days, so how much easier would that be in the far future?
And then once I actually started playing again and started using the augmentation options to change Xiru's appearance, it really hit how much fun the mechanical advantages are here. It really suits my RP style, which can be quite fickle even as I'm trying to tone it down.
I'm curious as to whether or not anyone else has things they really appreciate about the sci-fi genre that just wouldn't fly or wouldn't fit as well in high-fantasy muds?
Here, I took my nanoseer and made him a scoundrel within a month of multiclass which sucked, but at least class-wise, it makes more sense. For a little bit there I felt like the one thing I wanted to do RP wise was stay the same class, but then I realized people make drastic career changes these days, so how much easier would that be in the far future?
And then once I actually started playing again and started using the augmentation options to change Xiru's appearance, it really hit how much fun the mechanical advantages are here. It really suits my RP style, which can be quite fickle even as I'm trying to tone it down.
I'm curious as to whether or not anyone else has things they really appreciate about the sci-fi genre that just wouldn't fly or wouldn't fit as well in high-fantasy muds?
Xiru
3
Re: Dynasties! HUH! What are they good for?!
Initially I came in here intending to slap down the idea of dynasties functioning as a guild. I've done it before, and I still stand by that attitude. Instead I want to suggest something - hopefully - mildly constructive that doesn't basically turn your hard earned dynasty into a mini faction (cause the factions may still have some niggling details but we're still in beta and there's bigger fish to fry).
Arts: Pertains to designs, maybe get a fixed discount on submission (not free like the artifact) and a larger markup on the royalty payouts for registering designs for third-party usage.
Bonus: Increased/unlimited dynasty design storage (if that isn't already the case), and automatically unlocks the ability to use it?
Military: This one I am hesitant to envision, as anything to do with combat is invariably going to be mandatory, but here goes. Obviously a bashing XP boost, increased marks/influence gains from cosmpiercer payouts, better bounty hunting, and with maybe a reduced cost to cloning?
I'm not sure what kind of hoop to have you jump through to get these specializations. As I wrote those few ideas out I had some faint ideas come to me like:
- Admin approval based off listed dynasty info (No writing up a crafting/designing dynasty and getting a Major investment in Military for the utility of an XP boost. Yes, you may thematically be designing military gear but that doesn't necessarily mean you're a soldier yourself)
- Maintenance cost of some kind, maybe marks and commodities
Dynasty specializations.
This is probably going to take some time before this gets implemented, and I'm just throwing out ideas as they come to me but it draws on the idea of guild bonuses.
Your dynasty gets founded - or if already founded, you just retroactively get the option - and you get to pick from a list of things to invest in. One major, one minor let's say. Major grants you the full buff, whereas minor is 60% strength?
Choices are (and again I'm just pulling choices off the top of my head):
Industry: Encompasses mining, refining, and manufacturing (Dynasty level economy specializations basically)
This is probably going to take some time before this gets implemented, and I'm just throwing out ideas as they come to me but it draws on the idea of guild bonuses.
Your dynasty gets founded - or if already founded, you just retroactively get the option - and you get to pick from a list of things to invest in. One major, one minor let's say. Major grants you the full buff, whereas minor is 60% strength?
Choices are (and again I'm just pulling choices off the top of my head):
Industry: Encompasses mining, refining, and manufacturing (Dynasty level economy specializations basically)
Reduces the penalties for non-specialized activities (IE, you don't get as big a smack if you're a miner and opt to pick up some refineries).
Bonus: Increased personal storage - Can store up to 500 globally of each commodity/material before getting charged, incentive to go to those better refineries out in the boonies somewhere.
(I'm not sure what kind of bonus here, honestly)
Bonus: Increased personal storage - Can store up to 500 globally of each commodity/material before getting charged, incentive to go to those better refineries out in the boonies somewhere.
(I'm not sure what kind of bonus here, honestly)
Arts: Pertains to designs, maybe get a fixed discount on submission (not free like the artifact) and a larger markup on the royalty payouts for registering designs for third-party usage.
Bonus: Increased/unlimited dynasty design storage (if that isn't already the case), and automatically unlocks the ability to use it?
Technology: Increased research gain on mods, more parts gained (again not as powerful as the artifact options but still worth using) along with increases to hacking XP gain.
Bonus: Increased mod drop rate, affects only mods.
Bonus: Increased mod drop rate, affects only mods.
Astronautics: (working name) Reduced shipbuilding costs, increases to shipmod research/part gain (when that becomes available), increased captaincy XP gain, and your ship operates just a smidge better maybe? Better turning speeds, faster capacitor/shield regen. I dunno, something not wholly game breaking but at the same time completely worth the effort.
Bonus: Better junk from incursions, double charge on ammo??
Military: This one I am hesitant to envision, as anything to do with combat is invariably going to be mandatory, but here goes. Obviously a bashing XP boost, increased marks/influence gains from cosmpiercer payouts, better bounty hunting, and with maybe a reduced cost to cloning?
Bonus: ???
Social: Little more nebulous as it pertains more to group mechanics more than anything else. Increased XP/influence gain from quests, increased group bashing XP (only applies if you are in a crew and picking this locks you out of the Military option, and vice versa), reduced cost to write and publish datashards, and shorter performance cooldowns.
I'm not sure what kind of hoop to have you jump through to get these specializations. As I wrote those few ideas out I had some faint ideas come to me like:
- Admin approval based off listed dynasty info (No writing up a crafting/designing dynasty and getting a Major investment in Military for the utility of an XP boost. Yes, you may thematically be designing military gear but that doesn't necessarily mean you're a soldier yourself)
- Maintenance cost of some kind, maybe marks and commodities
- Player/dynasty level and player activity requirement, this dips too low, you lose your specializations.
- Tying your dynasty to a faction, limited slots in the faction to do so.
Ikchor
2
Re: Quality of Life Wishlist
Consider things with 24-hour-interval cooldowns to have, instead, slightly less. Quests, arte powers, wildernesses, etc. For those of us who like to have routines, 24-hour things make this difficult. Also, consider mod shipments: 6 days and 12 hours, rather than 7 days, so I know I can reliably do them every Sunday.
[IMPLEMENTED for wilderness]
Re: Dynasties! HUH! What are they good for?!
What I like:
-Commodity storage. Really good idea that allows a group of players to cooperate and create commodities together. Right now it's only practical on a faction level, but giving dynasties similar functionality will really enliven the game's economy, I think.
-Quality of life/RP fluff things: titles, alliances, logos, etc.
Like but with stipulation:
-Ships and stations. The former is easier to implement than the latter (especially if it works by lending the ship to a specific person for a time), but both should be introduced no earlier than shared ships and stations for factions.
Don't like:
-Dynasty credits. Too much of an incentive to recruit people en masse and then benefit from their credit purchases, and also a pressure to make folks join a dynasty because otherwise their credit purchases will be "wasted".
Cubey
2