Simulated Exploration

[Xela]

Lets discuss...

We want it to:

- Have travel time to and from with an option to set up a teleporter to the location (for a price).
- Offer loot and gold.
- Offer items.
- Have hazards.
- Teams in the same location helping one another.
- Meet other teams?
- Locate/Capture chars/rchars.
- Build reports:
    *Single Event Report(s) to display in the guild.
    *General Report (Job ND report upon return).
- Manageable Risk (of Death vs Moar loot).
- Fighting Mobs.
- Fighting other teams.

Added to the original list:

- Daily Camping.
- Check button to attack other teams for loot.
- Unlocking areas on conditions (for quests/events).
- Area and Main Area bosses.
- Rescuing stranded teams.


What else? This is an area from our previous version:

Code: [Select]

{"id": "Burial Grounds - lv 2",
"area": "Northern Route",
"desc": "Inner area of the overgown burial site, where barely any sunlight reach through the trees and where the dark presense feel the strongest.",
"unlocked": false,
"travel_time": 1,
"mobs": {"Dark Mage": [5, [1, 0.2, 2],[1, 1, 1]], "Phantasm": [10, [1, 0.2, 2],[1, 2, 2]], "Skeleton Warrior": [50, [1, 0.3, 4],[2, 3, 3]], "Skeleton": [20, [1, 0.2, 3], [3, 3, 3]]},
"hazard": {"health": 0, "mp": 5, "vitality": 0},
"unlocks": {},
"cash_limit": 120,
"items_limit": 0,
"items": {"Woodcutting Axe": 0.05,"Short Bow": 0.05,"Leather Cape": 0.05,"Dagger": 0.05, "Huntsman Hat": 0.02,"Scarf": 0.02, "Short Sword": 0.22,"Leather Armor": 0.22,"Silver Necklace": 0.2,"Leather Boots": 0.22,"Leather Gloves": 0.22,"Linen Cape": 0.22,"Tanned Leather Boots": 0.26,"Tanned Leather Gloves": 0.26,"Obsidian Choker": 0.22,"Rogue Cape": 0.08,"Running Boots": 0.06,"Bullwhip": 0.1,"Ornate Gladius": 0.1,"Claws": 0.2,"Spiked Collar": 0.22,"Long Sword": 0.24,"Minor Reflector": 0.07,"Slave Shackles": 0.08, "Bone Knife": 0.2,"Darksome Trophy": 0.2},
"img": "content/gfx/bg/locations/fg_areas_burial_2.jpg"
},

[Xela]

Switching to SimPy, we at the very least should use units like KM (from the city). I wanted that initially but it was too costly to setup in terms of code, now SimPy is taking care of that stuff.

[DarkTl]

- I don't remember what mean mobs values in the old SE. At very least we need to set levels range and chances to encounter. The game probably should build parties by itself.

- Events, sometimes unique, sometimes generic. Like, "you found a chest" with 5% probability which with 50% will be a mimic and a random weapon from a preset otherwise, as example of generic one. I suppose there should be a file for events, every event will have a name, and these names should be tied to locations.

- Camping every day or almost every day to restore some vitality and stuff? Probably as an event too.

- Fighting other teams seems interesting, ie they attack teams that don't belong to MC if you allow them to. A bad way to get loot 
Maybe not to death, characters just lose all items if defeated.

- Perhaps battle reports? I showed you those screenshots, every battle there has its own report if player wants to look at it.

And what are cash and items limit fields?

[DarkTl]

- Maybe better support for areas that are part of one big area. In your example Burial Grounds - lv 2 is a part of Burial Grounds. I imagine there could be a possibility to move between unlocked levels.

- I recall you had to beat low levels to unlock high ones in the old SE, that's what unlocks and unlock fields are for. However, there should be support for advanced conditions, for example during a quest. I suppose either there should be flags checks, or simply some function that locks or unlocks location X when you call it.
As an example of non quest advanced conditions + unlocking, some secret area could be found with 20% chance if someone in the team has 50+ int.

- There is the chance to encounter mob in a battle, and there is a chance to actually encounter a battle. In some deep areas there should be more enemies ie higher chance to initiate a fight, and the other way around in other areas. Basically a chance to find enemy groups.

[Xela]

- I don't remember what mean mobs values in the old SE. At very least we need to set levels range and chances to encounter. The game probably should build parties by itself.

Those are increases in power from base difficulty level of an area and encounter chances (I think). I will soon get to that code and see what's what, those values are prolly documented somewhere, either in the code or on forum.

We'll have all of those things and game is already capable of building mobs but I'll prolly use range levels you've added to them as well.

- Events, sometimes unique, sometimes generic. Like, "you found a chest" with 5% probability which with 50% will be a mimic and a random weapon from a preset otherwise, as example of generic one. I suppose there should be a file for events, every event will have a name, and these names should be tied to locations.

Ok... I think these will work just like any other events in the jobs, I'll cook up that system once core code for SE is up and running (maybe after interface is adapted as well).

- Camping every day or almost every day to restore some vitality and stuff? Probably as an event too.

Excellent... I did not think of this (or I have long time ago but failed to code it without SimPy).

- Fighting other teams seems interesting, ie they attack teams that don't belong to MC if you allow them to. A bad way to get loot 
Maybe not to death, characters just lose all items if defeated.

Ok, this will be a thing then I like the idea as well.

- Perhaps battle reports? I showed you those screenshots, every battle there has its own report if player wants to look at it.

Yeah, we already have those (click test BE logical on Main Screen).

And what are cash and items limit fields?

Limits on finding gold directly and limits of item prices for items that can be found in SE in general but not in the items lists (usually very generic items, maybe all loot as well, I don't remember).

- Maybe better support for areas that are part of one big area. In your example Burial Grounds - lv 2 is a part of Burial Grounds. I imagine there could be a possibility to move between unlocked levels.

We'll have to add something like "sub_area" or "local_area"... why would you want to move between levels? There is only so much that we can relay to the player effectively and you're sending your crew to explore an area and they go somewhere else, I am not sure that I like that idea.

- I recall you had to beat low levels to unlock high ones in the old SE, that's what unlocks and unlock fields are for. However, there should be support for advanced conditions, for example during a quest. I suppose either there should be flags checks, or simply some function that locks or unlocks location X when you call it.
As an example of non quest advanced conditions + unlocking, some secret area could be found with 20% chance if someone in the team has 50+ int.

I think that we already had such support, even if not, we will have that for sure.

- There is the chance to encounter mob in a battle, and there is a chance to actually encounter a battle. In some deep areas there should be more enemies ie higher chance to initiate a fight, and the other way around in other areas. Basically a chance to find enemy groups.

This we already have I think, I'll get back to the issue once I found the post or comments in code or just read the code that generates mobs/encounters.


====>>
I also want some difficult to beat pit bosses with great loot (+ One area boss with unique item per area)... not sure if it is for Beta or final but we need those. It's not difficult to code so I really, really want this for Beta

[DarkTl]

Hm. Limits of item prices seem reasonable.

As for gold, most gold probably should come from events, like finding chests and caches. And these events will have their own limits, I suppose.

Another way is by beating intelligent enemies, like some humanoid mobs and other teams. I think we could add drop_gold field to some mobs indicating range of gold they can drop when defeated in SE (not arena).

[DarkTl]

- Bestiary should be tied to SE to reveal encountered mobs. Possibly show how many mobs of every type were killed in total.

- Enforced camping for days if health/vitality is close to 0 without restoration items.

- Rescue teams to help a team in need, or collect loot and items remained after team was killed.

Should be enough suggestions for beta 

[Xela]

As for gold, most gold probably should come from events, like finding chests and caches. And these events will have their own limits, I suppose.

Maybe... not sure about this one, feels like there should be a generic gold method that is always working and events on top of that, would have been my first instinct anyway.

Another way is by beating intelligent enemies, like some humanoid mobs and other teams. I think we could add drop_gold field to some mobs indicating range of gold they can drop when defeated in SE (not arena).

Maybe a difficulty scale from 1 to 10... and everything else calculated from there. I fear that this will become into unmanageable, impossible to balance sh!tstorm otherwise, although maybe I am just tired, tis been a long day + I am still planning to write some code tonight.

[Xela]

- Bestiary should be tied to SE to reveal encountered mobs. Possibly show how many mobs of every type were killed in total.

- Enforced camping for days if health/vitality is close to 0 without restoration items.

- Rescue teams to help a team in need, or collect loot and items remained after team was killed.

Should be enough suggestions for beta 

- Counter is a decent idea but unlocking info on defeat by none MC... 50/50 about this one.

- We'll see, there are other decent ways to do this.

- I love the rescue team idea...

===>>
We can lay out stuff that is not meant for beta as well I guess, so we take that into account.

I am heavily leaning towards adjusting jobs/simpy system to enable running tests and give out rewards in real time instead of when the final report is built. It makes more sense but will also require good deal of extra code.

[DarkTl]

- Inventory may be limited in SE, making inventory management super important. The more potions you take, the less items you can bring, unless the team used or dropped them. Also prevents taking 1000 full restoring potions which would make SE a cakewalk most of the time.
- The max duration of expedition may be based on amount of provisions. Meaning the longer the expedition, the more money it costs. But also meaning you can increase the duration if you willing to spend more money.
- Every team has a leader which makes decisions, probably based on stats and MPTraits. In case of her death team only can return back to the base.

[Xela]

- Inventory may be limited in SE, making inventory management super important. The more potions you take, the less items you can bring, unless the team used or dropped them. Also prevents taking 1000 full restoring potions which would make SE a cakewalk most of the time.

Always hated capacity crap of any kind...

- The max duration of expedition may be based on amount of provisions. Meaning the longer the expedition, the more money it costs. But also meaning you can increase the duration if you willing to spend more money.

Yeap, that we can do post beta I think. I was also thinking about expeditions to other lands, over seas and etc.

- Every team has a leader which makes decisions, probably based on stats and MPTraits. In case of her death team only can return back to the base.

Teams always have leaders (first one in is the leader).

[DarkTl]

Always hated capacity crap of any kind...

That doesn't really solve the issue with taking 1000 full healing potions.

[Xela]

That doesn't really solve the issue with taking 1000 full healing potions.

I do not see an issue, having 1 000 000 potions does not ensure a victory in BE. It is very costly and if balanced correctly, it will plainly cost more than the rewards received from the area if characters are not up to scratch.

If you're concerned about this, we could merge this into idea where we introduce "provisions" concept that will have finite capacity but I don't want it to extend to carrying stuff, that would just be yet another balancing cluster fuck we'll have to worry about.

[Xela]

Ghm... what about events (of any sort)? What goes where?

My thoughts atm:

- ND Building/Business report: General business info, teams exploring, teams back from exploration, workers idle, workers resting and so on...
- Job Report upon return: Every little detail of what has happened.
- Guild GUI:
*This one is a bit confusing... we obviously want all combat + battle reports here. All special events? All encounters and char/rchar capture events... what else?
- Main/Sub Area info: Items/Mobs/Counters and all of that crap.

=====>>>
Man... this is a lot of code/logic/tracking

[DarkTl]

Wait. I already have a universal countermeasure, all potions can have a cooldown. In fact those for restoring vitality already have it, because it was too easy to use them instead of rest. Even if it's one day, you already cannot spam potions all the time.
Battle reports should be separated from others, since they are not very important as long as you won. In my example you actually should select a fight to show its log.

We don't show what kind of items you can find in SE areas, it's too easy. Just mobs, probably their levels.

We probably should show only basic things about SE at the next day screen, ie a team is in trouble (rescue needed), died or returned. Other stuff could be inside the guild.

Events in the game I used as example are happen in real time, SE there is a side minigame, exploration goes parallel to the main gameplay. Meaning there is no difference between report upon return and events log, the game just adds events to the log as they happen, and stops doing it when exploration is finished. The log remains until team begins a new adventure.
Even though we don't use real time, it changes nothing for this concept.