|
Journal
Jul 31, 2007 22:43:12 GMT -6
Post by Kija on Jul 31, 2007 22:43:12 GMT -6
Kija
(7-31-07)
I am currently working on the new battle system. A lot of the damage and status setups have been finished. I still need to do some tweaking on the statuses, and then update it to work with melee attacks as well.
I have also started on a way to enable the search function again by using a seperate server to host the main logging information that should prevent any string limitation problems screwing up the game. You will be able to use the search function on the main server, which will then send the command information to the other server, and return the log text neccesary. Aftering thinking over different ways to do it, the file route so far seems to be the best option. I will be starting some tests using the method, and then implement the full functions after it is successful.
(8-6-07)
I have done more work on the search log. All of the send and receive functions seem to be in order, as is the topic setup for it. After I finish the player logging system for saving and logging, I should be ready for tests.
I had attempted to make another crash tester using a dummy mob. But, the dummy mob seemed to be unaffected by the crash when sending in the input value. Hopefully we can find something that works.
For those also starting journals, you can simply reply to this thread and post in a similar manner describing your current plans and the progress on them.
|
|
|
Post by Mahn on Aug 1, 2007 7:32:23 GMT -6
Mahn(8-1-07) I guess I am up next. Right now, working on a better way to stable the hosting computer, upgrade it with more RAM, and busy coming up with ideas to surviving without Food Stamps, for now. (8-1-07) Right now, the hosting computer hasn't had any downtime at all and when I checked the RAM chips last night, collecting dust and really dirty inside the computer. The computer does need a complete cleaning cycle soon. The small fan blowing otuside the computer on the back-end, to help cool down the computer, is also collecting dust. Plan for this problem is next payday, take a day and clean the computer out. (8-1-07) I should be able to pick up some 1gb RAM chips CHEAP, come beginning of the year using the income tax return money, for my other computers. Which, would leave six 512mb's, old RAM chips form the other computers, for the hosting computer. Although the hosting computer, only has like 1-3 RAM chip slots; So the RAM compacity would be spanning about 1gb - 1.5gbs of RAM. A major upgrade then what we have now. (8-1-07) Surviving without food stamps on our level, does get kind of hard. Right now, my budgetting is managing to keep the bills paid and some food on the table. Not really "well-rounded" but enough to get by. Hardly any free money for anything else, really. I'm pulling out loans left and right, I got one and the wife got one. Good news is, we are taking the rest of the papers we need to the DHS office today(8-1-07), so hopefully we are eligible for food stamps again. (8-14-07) Well, denied for food stamps. What a shame. (8-14-07) Planning everything in order and Income Tax money coming the beginning of the year. Also working on setting things up since, I will be going into the "Management Program" for Wal-Mart. Going to become an Assistant Manager of a store. Still short on money at the time, but we will make it. Always do.
|
|
|
Journal
Aug 1, 2007 13:26:12 GMT -6
Post by Takahashi on Aug 1, 2007 13:26:12 GMT -6
Takahashi
- Since I'm working in tandem with Rand, pretty much all of my list depends on what he is also working on. Currently, that should mean:
-= 7/31/07 - 8/1/07 =-
Working on the updated class system, entailing the 'base' classes alongside what combinations of their three skill trees result in a particular 'advanced' class. As an example, a Black Belt who works on skills and improvements to things like willpower growth and Mantra's power (all of which are in the same skill tree) would eventually be able to move onto Monk, a class that mixes traits from Black Belt and White Mage.
Working on a more varied spell system, including which school of magic certain elements are closest to. Black Magic gets fire/ lightning/ice/energy (Psychostorm, Nuke), White Magic gets cure/light/positive (Fast, Restore and Boost as examples) /protective (Barrier and Shield; spells to reduce the success rate of poisoning/paralysis/mute), Grey Magic gets dark/poison/negative (Weak, Slow) /offensive (Debarrier, Sleep, Lock and Stop). A 'black' mage isn't limited to the four schools of black magic, since they get a bit of Positive magic (Boost/Dispell) as well as some Protective (Barrier) and Offensive (Lock, Stop) magics. Due to the customization aspect, restrictions will be in place before a player can add a certain spell or general enhancement (added range, a longer duration, etc). This one may end up being primarily my responsibility, where I bounce ideas off of Rand and he points out mistakes/oversights/improvements.
Working on a more varied weaponry system. Various types of sword (short sword, fencing sword, two-handed sword) as well as various types of other weapons (daggers will, at the very least, come in slashing and piercing varieties while clubs will come in bludgeoning and puncturing types for starters, etc). Each weapon type will have traits; slashing daggers will share a few traits with piercing daggers, but each type of dagger will also have unique traits. Short swords may have mobility/attack speed related advantages over a two-handed sword, even if they both weigh the same. Like with spells, a requirement system would be established; more refined short swords might require training in order to utilize, as would the use of middle swords for a Thief (normally restricted to short swords and all dagger types). This one will likely end up being where I defer to Rand and just give suggestions and modifications while he lays out the entire concept.
Class abilities will be a joint effort, much like the class layout is. Once Rand and I have the layout set, we can start the process of throwing weapon masteries and skills like War Cry into the various classes. In the case of players who customize, general requirements for a skill or mastery will be necessary, just like with weaponry and magic; you can't learn how to deflect blows with a shield and counterattack until you've learned how to deflect blows in the first place.
Due to needing a class skeleton in place, the class layout is our main priority; fleshing out a list of spells, weaponry and skills will come second (and in no particular order; Rand and I might take a break from our magic and weaponry work to figure out which skills should go where, or we might work together to get some magic/weapon work out of the way, and so on). It's coming along rather well; most everything starting out is in place except for set names for some of the skill trees per class. Once we have the trees named and their roles established, Rand and I will be able to start plugging in existing spells and skills, then determine where new skills/spells will go.
-= 8/10/07 - 8/11/07 =-
I've a flimsy skeleton set up for magic types in general, although until I get it to a point I'm satisfied with, only fire magic has been fleshed out. There will be a base magic spell per type. Status magic will be an exception, since there are several different ailments/enhancements and not all of them can (or should) be neatly sorted into a single type. There will be three traits per spell type that can be improved, with certain types having a lower/higher cap on how much a trait can be improved compared to another type. There will be a cap on how many improvements can be done to a spell; I'm currently thinking of having a limit of four improvements. This could mean four improvements to a single trait, two to two traits, three to one trait and one to another, one to two traits and two to the third, etc.
The first trait is range; the higher this trait is, the greater area of effect the spell will have (Fire 1 + range = area Fire 1 without a reduction in spell power but with a higher MP cost; base spells no longer are guaranteed to have beyond single-target possibilities). The second trait is power; a point into this trait improves the damage of the spell (Fire 1 + Power upgrade = Fire 2, more or less). The final trait is longevity; a point into this trait improves the duration of a spell, or changes it into one that has recurring/persistent effects (Fire 1 + Longevity = a single-target attack that does its damage once per round for three rounds).
At certain levels (and/or at certain points in a skill tree), a spell caster will learn skills related to these traits. As an example of how it could break down, suppose a Black Mage gains the ability to improve their magic once alongside getting the ability to improve range at level 5. This would let them decide between a single target spell or an AoE spell. Around level 8 they gain the ability to improve longevity, letting them cast Fire 1, a range-boosted Fire 1, or a Fire 1 spell that does its damage every round for a few rounds. At level 10, they gain the ability to improve power (effectively around the time they'd first learn Fire 2 in the current system), allowing them to either use their Fire 1 spell, their range-boosted Fire 1 spell, or their 'Fire 2' spell.
When the skill trees come into use, it could be the place where further improvements to range, power and longevity come in. Levelling itself is where the actual points used for improvement are gained. As noted earlier, there will be a cap of four points, and how far a player can augment range, power and/or longevity will depend on their class as well as the element itself. A Red Mage will have access to more RPL (range, power, longevity) combinations than a Ranger, a Blue Mage will have more than a Red Mage in terms of black magic but not white magic, and so on.
With this point cap, the total number of combinations that could be made per element is 35 (one that uses no points, three that use one, six that use two, ten that use three and 15 that use four). This may prove to be troublesome, since it would mean hundreds of spell possibilities, and that's not accounting for any reasonable dual/triple/quadruple/whatever element combinations. Figuring out how much variety is necessary is my primary stumbling point. Once I get a reasonable 'limit' in place for the elements, I can get to work on designing the spells for other elements like ice, lightning, wind, light, dark, curative, poison and earth.
That said, the early and rough draft of what fire magic might shape up as under an expanded/customizable system looks a little like this:
-= 8/15/07 =-
Since BYOND 4.0 allows us to use icons bigger than 32x32 without divinding them into chunks of that size beforehand, I went ahead and started the process of putting together the various jigsaw puzzles in the various icon files. So far, Nexus' orb, the two standard castle icons and all large monster icons have each been put together into a single 64x64 icon. Once I track down the rest of the divided icons, I'll fix them too.
-= 8/18/07 =-
Minor update on the icon front. I think I've tracked down all of the icons that needed to be put together, but I'll double check later today to be sure. I made separate icon files depending on size; a few are 32x64, a few are 64x32, one is 64x96 (Voleron's Spire) and the rest are 64x64.
-= 8/30/07 =-
Minor update to the magic system, but the majority of my work the past few weeks has been fleshing out things with Rand. Fewer spells per element, alongside a limit on how many levels of a trait a magic type can have. Notably, no type of magic gets more than one level in longevity aside from Cure and Poison; status magic by nature has infinite duration and as such needs no longevity trait.
-= 9/6/2007 =-
I've made a minor amount of progress in regards to magic. Instead of just theorizing what kind of effects a type of magic can have, I've attempted to put those effects to work in the game's engine. Some were successful (simple modifications to Ice 1, Lit 1 and Fire 1 to enlarge their AoE or creating a Cross Strike effect), but most were not (basically everything else such as diagonal AoEs, 'ripple' AoEs where damage is done in rings instead of a single block of AoE, 'wandering' AoEs where a spell may spread to a different spot on the battle field at round's end, etc).
Odds are that I'll have to defer to someone like Kija for creating more advanced AoEs when the time comes, or settle for simple AoE options that nonetheless would give a character choices beyond 'hit one thing, hit a row of things, hit a column of things, hit a 5x5 area, hit everything'.
-= 9/30/07 =-
Not much new to report. I came up with basic spells for every element (cure, dark, fire, ice, light, lightning, magic, poison, status: immobilizing, status: negative, status: positive, wind) and refined a few of the fully fleshed out spell sets (fire, ice, cure). I also started work on a modified system of level TNLs. So far there may be a few formulas to work on; TNLs for levels 1 through 40 are lower than they are now by about 25%.
Currently a player would need roughly 8.9 million XP to reach level 40. Under the test system I've put together a player would only need a little over 6.4 million. At this point the old system changes the total XP needed for another level to be 1.19 times the previous total amount until level 55, at which point it becomes 1.3 times the previous total. My system uses formulas earlier on, starting at level 11, and changes the formula every ten levels (11-20 = 1.3 times, 21-30 = 1.25, 31-40 = 1.2, 41-50 = 1.175, 51-60 = 1.15, 61-70 = 1.155, 71-80 = 1.16, 81-90 = 1.17, 91-100 = 1.185, 101+ = 1.2).
So starting at level 41, the gap between the old and 'new' TNLs starts to widen. By level 55, where the old system transfers to a 1.3x model, the amount of XP needed is almost twice that of the 'new' system (~142 million total XP needed for level 56 in the old system compared to ~78 million in the new system), with the difference rapidly growing level by level. The old system requires a player to have over a billion XP in order to reach 64, where as a player doesn't need that much until level 74 under the 'new' system. By level 100, the difference is staggering; a player would need to have around 19 trillion total XP to gain another level, while under the 'new' system a player would need around 76.4 billion total XP.
As such, if the playerbase were to be transferred over to the new system, those at level 41 or lower would not see much of a change; they might gain a level, or they may just come closer to gaining one. Those above that level though may find themselves gaining several levels; as an extreme (i.e., the highest level player in the game), Dye would jump from level 63 to 72. Players in the mid to upper 40s would gain a few levels; a level 45 would become a level 47, and so on.
Overall, all players will have reduced TNLs per level. The point in the game where most of the tedious grinding springs up (late IC onwards) would see the biggest changes, making it take less time to get the levels needed to move from Monastery to Geyzer to PoP. Basically, those who put in a lot of time and effort would end up seeing more of a return than those who have recently started or those who aren't yet to the point where grinding is required, even if they took their time getting through IC.
|
|
|
Journal
Aug 1, 2007 17:58:01 GMT -6
Post by Rand on Aug 1, 2007 17:58:01 GMT -6
[glow=red,2,300]Rand[/glow]
Pretty much as Sir Brown Bear has established. New weaponry, perhaps new armour as well, will need to be thought of...though luckily my old memories and much more recent books will flesh most of that out for me.
Along with that, figuring out skills and passive abilities for these various weapons, along with perhaps a few class-related things. A mastery system for each is a must... whether it'll come in the form of each type of weapon or general mastery will depoend on what skill or trait you're talking about. Also, some classes may be better proficient naturally than others with a certain weapon-type. i.e. Red Mages will be better off with Fencing Weapons, etc, and thus can hit the highest there while not being restricted just to that.
New magick will be a must, as Red Magic itself right now is mainly stealing from the ledgers of the white and black. New spells like that Siphon need to be created.
The ability to parry attacks with weaponry or block with a shield//bracer will be worked in right alongside weapon masteries in terms of skills to attack.
Sidenote: I will be posting a change for the Drain magicks, as I feel they're entirely too powerful save for the Red Mage class, which wont need as much HP from Drain largely than a Blackmage would anyway. I suggest halving Drain 1's willpower formula, and maiking Drain 2 have Drain 1's current formula, perhaps even make it Willpower x.75 Drain 3 can be either 1x or 1.5x, depending how things go for further testing, but it really does need to be done just as much as the age-old Cure formula reformat was.
|
|