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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 26 Oct 2007 03:30 PM |
| So... why exactly should pick pocketing be reduced to NPCs? To reduce inter-character friction? I would argue that is a very large catalyst of inter-character role playing. |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 26 Oct 2007 03:44 PM |
| Really for the same reason combat is generally reduced to NPCs. Players shouldn't go picking a PCs pockets for the gold and xp regardless of their characters motives. |
"Absolute precision buys the freedom to dream meaningfully." - Donal O' Shea: The Poincaré Conjecture. |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 26 Oct 2007 03:50 PM |
Personally, I don't think it should. Not for Vives and especially not for Vives2. It's just as part of the game as anything else, even if it is an action rarely taken. Pickpocketing raises a lot of issues as it is, both for player-player interaction and player-world interaction.
Player vs. Player rules prevent excessive pickpocketing, which is good. I could state a lot of reasons why it should be limited and against why it should not be - from an RP perspective as well an OOC one.
Player vs. World is even more tricky. Interaction between a Player and an NPC is hard to create in a persistent world. I can find reasons why pickpocketable NPCs can be a good thing, and reasons why it can be bad - the biggest issue that stands is effort vs. benefit. Would spending time customizing scripts for NPCs be worth the effort for the sake of one skill?
I'm more curious if it is possible to give XP based on the use of certain skill checks, rather than specific cases. For example: a trap in dungeon Scary was scripted to give 50 XP and does so, but a different trap at dungeon Freaky was never scripted and thus never gives XP. If it were possible to make a general script that says: a character who successfully disables a trap receives an amount of XP calculated by the DC of the trap - the more he disables a trap of the same DC, the less XP he receives, much like fighting the same monster. If such a thing would be possible, it has the possibility to allow rogues to actually reap the potential rewards available to that class; it also nullifies the need to customize every trap to give XP. Then again, I don't know if making a script like that is possible - I can certainly see the benefits if it is. |
WickedArtist: I think he needs a proper elf.
WickedArtist: A christmas elf!
Tasra: Any sort of elf that actually smiles ;o
Gasp! Scandalous!!! |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 26 Oct 2007 03:59 PM |
| How about a script that rewards every skill? xp for law, xp for appraise, for animal empathy the lot? |
"Absolute precision buys the freedom to dream meaningfully." - Donal O' Shea: The Poincaré Conjecture. |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 26 Oct 2007 04:05 PM |
How about a script that rewards every skill? xp for law, xp for appraise, for animal empathy the lot?
That's pretty much what I meant. I only gave disable trap as an example. It'd be nice to see something like that, though I'm aware that there are limitations involved that I'm not quite familiar with.
Naturally, I don't think all skill rolls deserve an XP reward. Just like you don't get XP for successful breathing The point is moot, since none but the scripting gurus are aware of the work and possibilities involved in something like that. |
WickedArtist: I think he needs a proper elf.
WickedArtist: A christmas elf!
Tasra: Any sort of elf that actually smiles ;o
Gasp! Scandalous!!! |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 26 Oct 2007 05:15 PM |
Ideally I suppose we would want something like:
xp gained = DC of the skill check (or result of the opposing skill check) *plateau level/2*character level.
In theory I suppose this could cause problems with people repeatedly opening stores to gain xp, but I for one couldn't be bothered.
The point is moot, since none but the scripting gurus are aware of the work and possibilities involved in something like that.
Sadly true. |
"Absolute precision buys the freedom to dream meaningfully." - Donal O' Shea: The Poincaré Conjecture. |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 27 Oct 2007 01:02 PM |
Pickpocketing is a PvP thing, I guess, and it is a heinous crime, if the character is caught by another character. And it's also generally limited to 1x / character / day, otherwise it would be known as griefing. Let me assure you, there are rarely pickpockets around, because eventually, everyone gets caught, and when caught, it's a very hard situation to survive with dignity and relationships intact ;o
Cora used to pp quite a lot... and never once got caught in the act. (ok, ok, ...rarely ever got caught)
however, mostly I did it on PCs she was on good terms with... and then if it was something other than gold, she would hand it back to them with a smart arsed comment about how they should be more careful, or "you might be needing this in the future", or something along those lines...
Connovar was her favorite target, cause he'd allways laugh when she handed him something of his back with a smirk.
If she HAD ever got caught in the act, it was a pretty similar situation to when she was returning items that she had gotten away with... she'd just be a smart arse about it and compliment the target for being good enough to catch her, and that she was just keeping them on their toes... etc. etc.
and everything was fine.
As to the whole pickpocketable NPCs thing... in my mind it would only serve one real purpose... as a source of income for a thief.
because, yeah... you can't really role play getting yourself out of the situation if you get caught. The NPC is going to just attack you.
so ppable NPCs certainly aren't going to be for RP reasons.
So if you wanted to play a loose fingered rogue type who was too afraid to go out adventuring to get income from some dungeon somewhere, and would rather stick to the city, where it is much safer, to lift a few coin purses...
And then, to add to your dreaming about attaching scripts to skill use... specifically pickpocketing, I think it could be cool to have it work like it does in Morrowind.. if you get caught stealing something, a dialogue instantly pops up saying you have been caught and you can either go quietly, or resist arrest and try to run or fight your way out. if you go quietly, you get taken (teleported) to the nearest imperial fort I think, or wherever "the man" opperates from, and strip you of a bunch of your items (supposedly the ones that you have stolen, though morrowind has issues in that respect in that it often takes things that you "stole" from bad guys.. which shouldn't count... or how would they know that you stole that gem from some guy on the other side of the island, four weeks ago...)
But that would require even more scripting.. |
"I'm not closed-minded, you're just WRONG." - Bucky Katt
My characters n portraits |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 04:52 AM |
Would spending time customizing scripts for NPCs be worth the effort for the sake of one skill?
That's one of my current peeves with Vives. Because it has grown organically over the years, the ability to add something like this into the game is very difficult.
For V2, it'll be much easier. And yes. Rogues (that's "Rogues", not "Rouges") should be allowed to benefit from a PP skill (but not at the expense of other PCs). A successfull PP skill against a creature should give xp to rogues. Thanks for reminding me.
I'm more curious if it is possible to give XP based on the use of certain skill checks, rather than specific cases. For example: a trap in dungeon Scary was scripted to give 50 XP and does so, but a different trap at dungeon Freaky was never scripted and thus never gives XP. If it were possible to make a general script that says: a character who successfully disables a trap receives an amount of XP calculated by the DC of the trap - the more he disables a trap of the same DC, the less XP he receives, much like fighting the same monster. If such a thing would be possible, it has the possibility to allow rogues to actually reap the potential rewards available to that class; it also nullifies the need to customize every trap to give XP. Then again, I don't know if making a script like that is possible - I can certainly see the benefits if it is.
Not only is is possible, it will be done in just about that way. |
Purpose in life: finding better ways of allowing players to kill themselves. Repeatedly.
--
"...Cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good."
--
<@James42> Lawful good isn't in your vocabulary, it's on your menu.
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 04:53 AM |
How about a script that rewards every skill? xp for law, xp for appraise, for animal empathy the lot?
That's a bit harder, but we will do it where we can. |
Purpose in life: finding better ways of allowing players to kill themselves. Repeatedly.
--
"...Cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good."
--
<@James42> Lawful good isn't in your vocabulary, it's on your menu.
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 04:55 AM |
ooo...
BKatt: interesting ideas from Morrorwind.
Perhaps "locked" city doors can have a generic script for handling that kid of thing |
Purpose in life: finding better ways of allowing players to kill themselves. Repeatedly.
--
"...Cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good."
--
<@James42> Lawful good isn't in your vocabulary, it's on your menu.
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 05:23 AM |
How about a script that rewards every skill? xp for law, xp for appraise, for animal empathy the lot?
Depends on how it's used. One of the things I've been trying to work on for a while is a conversation/quest system. Once done, it will make it easier to:
* Implement static quests with multiple checks, states and outcomes
* Make skill checks in conversations, and reward xp for them
* Make complex conversation trees reliant on race/class/alignment/gender/etc, so every PC gets different conversation options for every NPC
* Make an opinion system like The Wanderer (and other modules by BGP Hughes) has
The thing to realise is that scripts are fired based on events. So a generic "skill" reward system isn't possible; what is possible (and we will do) is reward:
* Disabling traps
* Opening locks
* Successful skill checks in conversation
* Skill-dependent triggers (the ones we have IG at the moment are a bit buggy and seem to always fire, even if it would be impossible for a PC to successfully make the skill check)
I may have missed some in that list... not sure what's happening with PP yet, because it is difficult and mostly hardcoded, so I'm leaving that to Uncle Paul to tell you peeps about.
That list is just for skills, by the way. Other xp rewards that are available now will still be in place. We're not taking anything away, but we are fixing some things and adding others.
I highly recommend playing The Wanderer; the skill/attribute checks and opinion system are really, really well-implemented. Of all the hundreds of modules I've downloaded and played off NWVault, it easily has the best mechanics out of all of them, and feels more like an open-ended PW than a single-player module. |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 08:02 AM |
| For the PP skill, I'd rather see them get XP from PPing a PC than anything else. Because if a rogue got XP for PPing on an NPC, then you'd see people just constantly running around PPing on NPCs, with the only thought of "Well, if I fail, I'll just have to run a bit", whereas a failed PP attempt on a PC has much, much more dire consequences. |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer > V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 09:32 AM |
Like any system that provides XP by "farming" it can be abused. However, our "fix" for this involves providing rewards that "decay" over time (much like combat xp does now). You will still get XP from PP NPC ZZZ, but each time you do it, you will get less and less (where's the challenge eh?)
However, they will stil get XP. Rogues shouldn't need to enter combat to earn XP, nor should any other non primarily oriented combat class.
- Paul |
Purpose in life: finding better ways of allowing players to kill themselves. Repeatedly.
--
"...Cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good."
--
<@James42> Lawful good isn't in your vocabulary, it's on your menu.
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 09:38 AM |
Paul/Fictrix - this sounds groovy and I really see the benefits of building new here!
All - Something that has come up in the past is skills like bluff, intimidate and persuade, which some people buy into, some people don't. Opinion on the forums here seemed to be that these skills didn't mean much on an RP server. But I suppose now is the time to bring this up once more. ...assuming that these skills are a part of NWN2, which I haven't seen yet.
I don't agree that these should be ignored, that skill points are wasted on them, or that players should just RP a politician/diplomat/confidence trickster without investing their precious skill points in these areas. Do the DMs/builders/scripters/imagineers care to weigh in? Seems like the opportunity is here to elevate these (and thus diversify play on the server, at least where scripted stuff is concerned).
We killed this horse sometime last year I think. I've got that discussion in mind. Just thought we could beat on it a little more here in this hijacked thread. |
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"It means lying in the ground with dirt on your face and holding your breath forever."
-Burt Reynolds, "The End" |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 11:16 AM |
Renter I agree with you.
In Vives1, a few conversations take advantage of social skills. One with Pork in the Broken Mask comes to mind.
I am brainstorming some conversations and quests for Vives2 now and whereever appropriate I am using a social skill check. Ara likes the idea, and so we'll see where this goes. Ultimately it is up to the real builders to decide how they use any of this material.
One idea that has influenced me so far is that not every bit of text or conversation needs to be seen by every character. Sometimes a social skill check is needed to convince an NPC - and how you convince them shades their response. It is jarring for an NPC to always reveal their secrets to a stranger, right?
Another concept that I am trying to apply is that a knowledgeable observer sees more than an ignorant one. This may apply to the lore skill or perhaps some custom system that tracks V2 knowledge. In anycase a special description should reveal more or less information depending upon a character's level of knowledge.
I am hoping that through these more diverse descriptions and conversations that we can increase the depth of the world. A side-effect I suppose is an improvement to the replay value of the quests, and more easter eggs for explorer type players to discover as they look at the same old area with a new character. |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 12:56 PM |
The problem of using and providing xp for using these skills is one of building.
Someone has to sit down and plot out all the possible conversation paths
For example:
PC says something to NPC:
- option 1 - butterflies and kittens thing
- option 2 - meh thing
- option 3 - curdle your blood thing
Then we have to take into account the skills:
- option 5 - diplomatic thing
- option 6 - bluff thing
- option 7 - intimidate thing
Then what about PC stats?
- option 8 - intelligent thing
- option 9 - wise thing
- option 10 - charismatic thing - just because ya like me
Then, for each of those options, we'd have to decide on the appropriate responses and the possible rewards, penalties
e.g.
first group - alignment shifts
second group - skill use, xp!
third group - innate talent, you get to continue the plot
It gets pretty messy pretty quickly and ends up being a lot of work. Take a look at some of the main companion NPC dialog trees in nwn1:any or nwn2:motb. Gah!
So, when we do our static quests, we will try to put some of this in, but it is a lot of work, more work than scripting, more work than creating things (except for perhaps outdoor areas now). It's going to depend on the person who writes up the quest.
- Paul |
Purpose in life: finding better ways of allowing players to kill themselves. Repeatedly.
--
"...Cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good."
--
<@James42> Lawful good isn't in your vocabulary, it's on your menu.
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 01:32 PM |
So, when we do our static quests, we will try to put some of this in, but it is a lot of work, more work than scripting, more work than creating things (except for perhaps outdoor areas now). It's going to depend on the person who writes up the quest.
*rubs temples*
Tell me about it.
*has yet to release a complete quest* |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 02:15 PM |
| Is the hard part in actually writing out the quests, or is it the scripting? Because if it's writing out the conversation charts, you could probably conscript players to do that here :P |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 08:40 PM |
Is the hard part in actually writing out the quests, or is it the scripting? Because if it's writing out the conversation charts, you could probably conscript players to do that here :P
The scripting, by comparison, is trivial.
The writing, by comparison is the hardest, most time consuming part.
As for asking the players, it's been done by asking the players to help write up area descriptions - you'd think that'd be much easier to do then whole, or parts of dialog trees yes? Unfortunately, we've had almost 0 response.
So no, that's unlikely to happen.
If a player comes up with a suitable quest, and has the various options defined, then implementing it will be easy.
- Paul |
Purpose in life: finding better ways of allowing players to kill themselves. Repeatedly.
--
"...Cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good."
--
<@James42> Lawful good isn't in your vocabulary, it's on your menu.
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 08:46 PM |
| Hey, ya gotta toss it out there from time to time, otherwise you ARE certainly going to get 0 response. I'm sure now that this has been said, a few people will try and mull over some quests and write them up. If they won't, I at least will do one or two ;) |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &amp;gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 28 Oct 2007 09:18 PM |
I think it is very difficult for players to write V2 quests as you don't have access to the lore nor do you have any idea what the world is about. But if you are given access to the lore it will spoil V2 for you.
Catch22.
Feel free to write away. Sketched outlines will be fine for what you have access to. If you can come up with a conversation tree that we will work the V2 lore into where appropriate, that would be great to.
*Goes back to writing a five page conversation for NPC number 2. Has not figured out when he'll have time to run another adventure in Vives1.* |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &amp;gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 29 Oct 2007 07:18 AM |
There are always a more generic variety of quests Don't worry, we're not stupid, we really can attempt to work around what handicaps we're given, even if we are just lowly players. |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &amp;amp;amp;gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 29 Oct 2007 03:08 PM |
With regards to the xp system, perhaps it would make sense to include: *constant/character level as a factor in all xp gain functions.
This would make it unnecessary to recalculate the current size of the xp pool as additions were made to the module. Characters would gain less xp as they gained levels regardless of the number of areas available to explore, the number of enemies they can fight etc.
There would still have to be a minimum xp gain for each type though. |
"Absolute precision buys the freedom to dream meaningfully." - Donal O' Shea: The Poincaré Conjecture. |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &amp;amp;gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 29 Oct 2007 03:53 PM |
thats a good way of setting a low limit to advancement. There will be a glass ceiling for all characters if you do that past which almost no one will level.
Or alternatively you make the constant larger than one which makes leveling at low levels very very easy.
I don't like how the math works out here. |
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Re: Mask of the Betrayer &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; V2 Crafting
Posted: 29 Oct 2007 04:36 PM |
The constant would be larger than one, but would vary according to what the xp reward was for.
The rest of the function should be greater for more difficult tasks and more dangerous areas so that this prevents fast xp gain for high level characters doing very easy tasks. Not for high level characters doing extremely difficult tasks and killing very dangerous monsters.
It could also replace the reduction in xp for doing the same task several times, allowing low level rangers to level up by fighting their favored enemy, rogues by practicing their skills, spell casters for casting their spells. etc.
PS. What do you mean math? Its mathematics, maths if you must; not mathematic. :-| |
"Absolute precision buys the freedom to dream meaningfully." - Donal O' Shea: The Poincaré Conjecture. |
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