Post by randomg on Oct 22, 2012 12:06:04 GMT -5
Crafting system:
Splinters:
Right now, we do nothing with splinters, they just sit there. I had a couple ideas for how to collect them, what they would do, and how to craft.
This is a work in progress, so it's going to be pretty rough right now.
A while ago, I heard that splinters could potentially be used for crafting. I think this would be awesome, and in a game about exploration, with tanks that should be somewhat equal, I think the best way to add craftables is as consumables.
Background Info:
Right now, we have 6 different splinters. Maybe the first 3 could be fairly common, and used as 'base' ingredients. I would think offensive, defensive, support/emplacement would work. These would decide what type of consumable you're crafting.
The other three could be modifiers. Say, Duration, Range, and Potency. Potency will be a special case, I'll get to it later.
Since the cycle of the world is not infinite, the splinters shouldn't be, either. Rob suggested that crafted upgrades expire after a certain amount of time, say 24 hours - I agree that they should expire, but I think it should be measured in ingame time, in keeping with the 'pick-up and play' mentality. You shouldn't feel pressured to log in just because you're sitting on some awesome mats. Crafted items should last, say, 30 minutes from the ingame crafting time - splinters should have much longer shelf life, but they should still expire. I'll also get to that again shortly.
Players should be able to carry, say, 3 items at a time. They could appear as clickable icons across the bottom of the screen, to the right of lenses. Clicking the item would activate it. The items I have in mind would last anywhere from instant use, to one minute, to 10 minutes, I think it depends on how large scale the battles are going to get. Some could even last until world reset.
Crafting should be cooperative. The consumables should help everyone, and as a result, everyone should be able to bundle together to create them. To accomplish this, I think each town should have a 'Workshop' building. Sitting in the workshop, players could select a plan for the item they want to craft. The available recipes would appear in a menu, and upon selection, the applicable resources would be pulled from the crafter's inventory. If they didn't have enough to complete the item, it would be posted up as a 'Work in Progress', with the progress and the name of the owner under it. Other players could view the list of 'works in progress' for a given town, and contribute to them as desired. To limit spam, only enough recipes to fill the character's inventory should be postabale, and posts should expire after 5 minutes. Unused materials would be returned to the contributor's inventories. This could lead to an exploit where players stash huge amounts of resources in recipes to avoid decay, and I'm not sure how this should be handled, or whether it would be an 'exploit' or a 'tactic'. Players should be able to select which resource they want to donate, so they don't mistakenly give away valuable resources they want to put towards their own equipment.
The list of available recipes at a given town could be dictated by the Research Level, the level of the Town, or the number of labs in that town, I'm not sure which. They could all boost different aspects as well, who knows. I haven't given that much thought, but I don't think all recipes should be available from the get go. Maybe adding Labs could unlock more recipes, and every 3 levels or so of Research, recipes get a global buff. Too much diversity in consumables might be too confusing for new players.
Perhaps the decay rate of materials could be reduced by building more Extractors, or the global drop rate increased. This would give them purpose beyond 'furthering the game'.
Crafting Materials:
The first three materials should drop fairly commonly from Ground Bases, Super Tanks, and the Tank Generators(name?), maybe mapping Offensive:Super Tanks, Defensive: Tank Generators, Support/Emplacement: Ground Bases. Given the current rate of play, I think a degrade rate of one every 5 to 10 minutes would be okay - you should have no problem accumulating them, and they should be used fairly quickly for little powerups.
These materials would set the general type of consumable, and they would also serve to increase its potency to a certain degree. Say, a basic defensive recipe would simply be a health potion or shield regenerator, and cost 1 or 2 splinters to make. You can only carry three, so it wouldn't be super overpowered. At say, 5 splinters, maybe you get a shield and health regeneration. At 15, maybe you get a second bubble shield.
Duration and Range could drop from the standard enemies fairly rarely, and commonly or 100% from buffed monsters or events. Maybe different events would be more likely to drop one or the other. They should last 4 to 8 minutes depending on balance - you should be able to stock a couple, but they should be used with a little more urgency.
They're pretty self explanatory - they modify basic recipes to be stronger or more effective for groups. Following the item above, maybe duration would simply add time to the regeneration, and range would just be the area in which units were effected.
Potency is, I suppose, the super splinter. It would either give recipes an instant upgrade, or it would be required for that truly powerful item. It should drop rarely from event level enemies, currently drill towers, and it should only last 2 or 3 minutes before disappearing. No messing around; you pick this guy up and it's time to make your assault. Following the example above, this could push those regen items into an invuln, maybe even for a minute or two, depending on how rare they are and balance. These should really feel like the jackpot.
Crafting Recipes:
I'm going to add these a little later, I need to think on them some more. For now, I'll just define the categories. A fourth may be added, I'm not sure(I say that a lot, don't I?) I'm really considering an 'emplacement' base type splinter, but I don't know if seven different kinds is too many.
Offensive: Grants offensive buffs to your tank and the tanks around you, pretty straightforward.
Defensive: Grants defensive buffs and heals to your tank and the tanks around you.
Support/Emplacement: Has effects on areas of the ecosystem: for example, an area of effect that prevents monsters from respawning or entering, creating a safe haven. Also potentially creates turrets or lookouts, assuming ranging enemies might eventually attack bases while players are away.
Note that these could potentially be combined. You could have a recipe require S/E splinters and Defense Splinters - it could create a healing or shield buff turret. You could create an offensive turret that shoots at whatever it sees, or a turret that acts as a decoy player, doing no damage but preventing events like drill towers from respawning while you head back from town after death. Eventually, if global teleport is removed, a waypoint emplacement might be useful, that lasts for 10-20 minutes, so you could explore, or one that makes your tank teleportable.
I'll add a recipe grid soon, but I don't plan on having it full, that would be too complicated.
The possibilies are endless, and I think this could really spice up gameplay, and in turn allow for much more dynamic enemies. I hope this was useful, or at least sparks some other kind of crafting idea. It's not perfect, I'll probably expand it some more.
I would love to hear feedback or other ideas, as well
Splinters:
Right now, we do nothing with splinters, they just sit there. I had a couple ideas for how to collect them, what they would do, and how to craft.
This is a work in progress, so it's going to be pretty rough right now.
A while ago, I heard that splinters could potentially be used for crafting. I think this would be awesome, and in a game about exploration, with tanks that should be somewhat equal, I think the best way to add craftables is as consumables.
Background Info:
Right now, we have 6 different splinters. Maybe the first 3 could be fairly common, and used as 'base' ingredients. I would think offensive, defensive, support/emplacement would work. These would decide what type of consumable you're crafting.
The other three could be modifiers. Say, Duration, Range, and Potency. Potency will be a special case, I'll get to it later.
Since the cycle of the world is not infinite, the splinters shouldn't be, either. Rob suggested that crafted upgrades expire after a certain amount of time, say 24 hours - I agree that they should expire, but I think it should be measured in ingame time, in keeping with the 'pick-up and play' mentality. You shouldn't feel pressured to log in just because you're sitting on some awesome mats. Crafted items should last, say, 30 minutes from the ingame crafting time - splinters should have much longer shelf life, but they should still expire. I'll also get to that again shortly.
Players should be able to carry, say, 3 items at a time. They could appear as clickable icons across the bottom of the screen, to the right of lenses. Clicking the item would activate it. The items I have in mind would last anywhere from instant use, to one minute, to 10 minutes, I think it depends on how large scale the battles are going to get. Some could even last until world reset.
Crafting should be cooperative. The consumables should help everyone, and as a result, everyone should be able to bundle together to create them. To accomplish this, I think each town should have a 'Workshop' building. Sitting in the workshop, players could select a plan for the item they want to craft. The available recipes would appear in a menu, and upon selection, the applicable resources would be pulled from the crafter's inventory. If they didn't have enough to complete the item, it would be posted up as a 'Work in Progress', with the progress and the name of the owner under it. Other players could view the list of 'works in progress' for a given town, and contribute to them as desired. To limit spam, only enough recipes to fill the character's inventory should be postabale, and posts should expire after 5 minutes. Unused materials would be returned to the contributor's inventories. This could lead to an exploit where players stash huge amounts of resources in recipes to avoid decay, and I'm not sure how this should be handled, or whether it would be an 'exploit' or a 'tactic'. Players should be able to select which resource they want to donate, so they don't mistakenly give away valuable resources they want to put towards their own equipment.
The list of available recipes at a given town could be dictated by the Research Level, the level of the Town, or the number of labs in that town, I'm not sure which. They could all boost different aspects as well, who knows. I haven't given that much thought, but I don't think all recipes should be available from the get go. Maybe adding Labs could unlock more recipes, and every 3 levels or so of Research, recipes get a global buff. Too much diversity in consumables might be too confusing for new players.
Perhaps the decay rate of materials could be reduced by building more Extractors, or the global drop rate increased. This would give them purpose beyond 'furthering the game'.
Crafting Materials:
The first three materials should drop fairly commonly from Ground Bases, Super Tanks, and the Tank Generators(name?), maybe mapping Offensive:Super Tanks, Defensive: Tank Generators, Support/Emplacement: Ground Bases. Given the current rate of play, I think a degrade rate of one every 5 to 10 minutes would be okay - you should have no problem accumulating them, and they should be used fairly quickly for little powerups.
These materials would set the general type of consumable, and they would also serve to increase its potency to a certain degree. Say, a basic defensive recipe would simply be a health potion or shield regenerator, and cost 1 or 2 splinters to make. You can only carry three, so it wouldn't be super overpowered. At say, 5 splinters, maybe you get a shield and health regeneration. At 15, maybe you get a second bubble shield.
Duration and Range could drop from the standard enemies fairly rarely, and commonly or 100% from buffed monsters or events. Maybe different events would be more likely to drop one or the other. They should last 4 to 8 minutes depending on balance - you should be able to stock a couple, but they should be used with a little more urgency.
They're pretty self explanatory - they modify basic recipes to be stronger or more effective for groups. Following the item above, maybe duration would simply add time to the regeneration, and range would just be the area in which units were effected.
Potency is, I suppose, the super splinter. It would either give recipes an instant upgrade, or it would be required for that truly powerful item. It should drop rarely from event level enemies, currently drill towers, and it should only last 2 or 3 minutes before disappearing. No messing around; you pick this guy up and it's time to make your assault. Following the example above, this could push those regen items into an invuln, maybe even for a minute or two, depending on how rare they are and balance. These should really feel like the jackpot.
Crafting Recipes:
I'm going to add these a little later, I need to think on them some more. For now, I'll just define the categories. A fourth may be added, I'm not sure(I say that a lot, don't I?) I'm really considering an 'emplacement' base type splinter, but I don't know if seven different kinds is too many.
Offensive: Grants offensive buffs to your tank and the tanks around you, pretty straightforward.
Defensive: Grants defensive buffs and heals to your tank and the tanks around you.
Support/Emplacement: Has effects on areas of the ecosystem: for example, an area of effect that prevents monsters from respawning or entering, creating a safe haven. Also potentially creates turrets or lookouts, assuming ranging enemies might eventually attack bases while players are away.
Note that these could potentially be combined. You could have a recipe require S/E splinters and Defense Splinters - it could create a healing or shield buff turret. You could create an offensive turret that shoots at whatever it sees, or a turret that acts as a decoy player, doing no damage but preventing events like drill towers from respawning while you head back from town after death. Eventually, if global teleport is removed, a waypoint emplacement might be useful, that lasts for 10-20 minutes, so you could explore, or one that makes your tank teleportable.
I'll add a recipe grid soon, but I don't plan on having it full, that would be too complicated.
The possibilies are endless, and I think this could really spice up gameplay, and in turn allow for much more dynamic enemies. I hope this was useful, or at least sparks some other kind of crafting idea. It's not perfect, I'll probably expand it some more.
I would love to hear feedback or other ideas, as well
