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Post by Damian on Jan 6, 2016 10:25:18 GMT 10
Scott raised the idea of introducing the concept of Notoriety. The premise being that as you progress through the game you become more notorious and feared by humans. Initially I dismissed the idea, but after giving it some thought and hearing his arguments I think it makes sense and it could be quite gratifying. Necromancers are unpopular among the citizens of the world and the Holy Order of Tyrus openly hunt and kill them. While there is no real change in the behaviour for members of the Order, other citizens have potential to have different reactions. We can even have some fun with the rank names: - Unpopular - Citizens may curse at you or spit at you as you pass them in the street.
- Contemptible - Citizens may throw rocks at you.
- Feared - Citizens seek the nearest guard.
- Infamous - Citizens flee blindly screaming. (Shadow Of Mordor does this brilliantly)
- Supreme Evil (Muhahaaaa) - Citizens collapse in a gibbering mess.
The reason I initially dismissed the idea is because simply altering citizen behaviour is too shallow to be of real value. Game Design 101 states features and mechanics should stack with other mechanics to increase their overall value and justify the cost of development  The problem is that these types of "Reputation" systems usually make more sense when the player has a choice to be good or bad e.g. Mass Effect and Paragon/Renegade points. In Mass Effect the player is awarded Paragon/Renegade points when they select certain dialogue or perform certain actions. This in turn alters your relationship with NPCs and unlocks special choices in dialogue. This gives the player the power of choice and an additional degree of control which provides "Agency" (the player feels in control of their avatar's decisions, relationships, destiny, etc.) 8-|8-| In Lord Of Decay you have no such choice. We do not provide branching dialogue so unlocking dialogue options or weighting dialogue options with Good/Evil does not apply. You are the "Bad Guy" and you can only hope to get badder. There is no way to be a nice necromancer in Lord Of Decay. That's kind of the point! With that in mind how can we extend the concept of Notoriety so that it provides a similar level of agency without going to the effort of creating an extensive two-way reputation system? I have some ideas  First, Notoriety will be awarded based on performed actions only i.e. completing quests. Increasing Notoriety will: - Unlock Main Quests/Side Quests - Some NPCs will refuse to give you quests unless your Notoriety is high enough.
- Unlock Steam Achievements - Reaching a Notoriety rank grants an achievement.
- Unlock More Steam Achievements - Completing quests with a Notoriety requirement grants an achievement.
- Enables Inventory Items - Some inventory items will not be equippable unless your Notoriety is high enough.
I really like where this is heading. Feel free to suggest new ranks/names and other ways the Notoriety can be used in Lord Of Decay. |
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Post by Darth Cameroth on Jan 10, 2016 21:31:46 GMT 10
I believe there could be a notoriety system for The Order of Tyrus. I recall reading that there are other necromancers, and the Order wants to get rid of all of them you included, but perhaps depending on how horrible and infamous you are they might put more effort into bringing you down. For example perhaps they might send more troops to areas where you have been active if you have caused enough trouble up to the point where rather than reinforcing areas they send threatening forces to actively seek you out and destroy you and your dark minions. But rather than this being a global notoriety it would be based on certain areas and this notoriety level would decrease if you made trouble elsewhere. Also i propose a 6th rank: Dark Messiah. Your Evil and success is known very well throughout the land. It is common knowledge that resisting you is impossible and citizens might give themselves to you in hopelessness or even attack fellow citizens or even guards in the hopes that they will gain favor with you and shall be allowed to live (which they probably won't).
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kole
New Member
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Post by kole on Jan 11, 2016 13:04:20 GMT 10
Sounds like a good idea & I really like the idea of certain quests only being open to you if your Notoriety is at a certain level. However, I may need a bit of convincing for certain Inventory items; although perhaps it depends on the context of item & how it'd be used.
As I understand it at the moment, it seems to only be beneficial if you raise your notoriety level, so there's only 1 viable "direction" to head toward as you'll be rewarded for each new tier. It feels a bit like a leveling system. Perhaps it would be interesting if the Notoriety reputation branched a bit in order for the player to have a bit more customization. For example, there could be specific branches of notoriety (Fear, Corruption, Plague, etc.) & depending on how you complete quests/tasks (or what spells you use) your notoriety branches a bit. Possibly opening up different quests, items, & unique ways characters will interact with you. (Ex: Fear = NPCs run away in horror & leave 1 random item, Corruption = Weekly tax collection from a local populace, etc.). Perhaps this is easier to say than actually implement in the game, but it's an idea that interests me.
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Post by Damian on Jan 14, 2016 10:41:23 GMT 10
I believe there could be a notoriety system for The Order of Tyrus. I recall reading that there are other necromancers, and the Order wants to get rid of all of them you included, but perhaps depending on how horrible and infamous you are they might put more effort into bringing you down. For example perhaps they might send more troops to areas where you have been active if you have caused enough trouble up to the point where rather than reinforcing areas they send threatening forces to actively seek you out and destroy you and your dark minions. But rather than this being a global notoriety it would be based on certain areas and this notoriety level would decrease if you made trouble elsewhere. Also i propose a 6th rank: Dark Messiah. Your Evil and success is known very well throughout the land. It is common knowledge that resisting you is impossible and citizens might give themselves to you in hopelessness or even attack fellow citizens or even guards in the hopes that they will gain favor with you and shall be allowed to live (which they probably won't). Why didn't I think of that?! Yes! I think you should encounter more hunting parties of The Order of Tyrus as you gain Notoriety. These hunting parties should include more powerful characters relative to your Notoriety Rank too. There are skills in the Death skill tree that will allow you to raise more undead more quickly so that these hunting parties do not become a real chore to mop up. I've been thinking of how we could add dynamic events that respond to the player to make gameplay more varied and satisfying. This is a good start. Yes! A localised Notoriety for a village/city also makes sense. Increased patrols and guards posts of city guards and the Order should be increased the more you harvest souls at a particular location. This solves a balancing issue we have had. Souls are used to reanimate the dead and also as a currency system. Villages/cities will be populated with endlessly spawned civilians with the intention that you will always have souls to harvest and you can never truly run out of souls. While this protects the player from an "Assured Failure Condition", without some mechanic to limit the player from waiting in one location for civilian respawns, it would be possible to harvest countless souls and essentially cheat the game. Your Dark Messiah rank sounds like an awful lot of fun to watch, but it conflicts with some confuse/beserk skills. |
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Post by Damian on Jan 14, 2016 11:16:41 GMT 10
Sounds like a good idea & I really like the idea of certain quests only being open to you if your Notoriety is at a certain level. However, I may need a bit of convincing for certain Inventory items; although perhaps it depends on the context of item & how it'd be used. As I understand it at the moment, it seems to only be beneficial if you raise your notoriety level, so there's only 1 viable "direction" to head toward as you'll be rewarded for each new tier. It feels a bit like a leveling system. Perhaps it would be interesting if the Notoriety reputation branched a bit in order for the player to have a bit more customization. For example, there could be specific branches of notoriety (Fear, Corruption, Plague, etc.) & depending on how you complete quests/tasks (or what spells you use) your notoriety branches a bit. Possibly opening up different quests, items, & unique ways characters will interact with you. (Ex: Fear = NPCs run away in horror & leave 1 random item, Corruption = Weekly tax collection from a local populace, etc.). Perhaps this is easier to say than actually implement in the game, but it's an idea that interests me. I think I have muddied the waters with a Notoriety Rank impacting other systems. There will be a Player Level, Necromancer Guild Rank and a Notoriety Rank. The way I presented a Notoriety Rank does sound a lot like a leveling system. The branching you mentioned is already included in the leveling system that enables the player to choose spells and upgrade stats e.g. Intelligence, Will, Strength, etc. I'll cover this in another dev log. I love the idea that fear could make citizens drop items. Maybe each Notoriety Rank earned increases the chance that a citizen could drop a random item. I find it fascinating that you want to dominate the citizens. Everybody else seems to just want to wipe them out and harvest their souls  Sadly I do not think domination/corruption will work in Lord Of decay for two reason: - Souls are currency. Gold is of no use to necromancers so they trade in souls.
- Citizens are like soul farms. They exist to provide a way of harvesting souls so that you can reanimate the dead and allow you to buy/sell items at the Necropolis
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Post by Darth Cameroth on Jan 14, 2016 14:39:48 GMT 10
Your Dark Messiah rank sounds like an awful lot of fun to watch, but it conflicts with some confuse/beserk skills. Oh shoot i didn't know about the confuse/beserk skills. Have you covered them yet? If so wanna shoot me a link a point me in the right direction (or maybe i could just look myself.) Anyway i would love to have a look at the skills. |
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Post by Damian on Jan 14, 2016 14:42:25 GMT 10
Your Dark Messiah rank sounds like an awful lot of fun to watch, but it conflicts with some confuse/beserk skills. Oh shoot i didn't know about the confuse/beserk skills. Have you covered them yet? If so wanna shoot me a link a point me in the right direction (or maybe i could just look myself.) Anyway i would love to have a look at the skills. It was impossible for you to know because we have not really talked about skills yet. We're still nailing down the skills and spells, but I'll post a dev log at a later time. Probably won't until after we get this Pre-Alpha release out the door. |
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Post by Darth Cameroth on Jan 14, 2016 19:52:51 GMT 10
Awesome well i look forward to that dev Log. As for the Pre-Alpha will we be seeing any video's of it anywhere. I know that it be anywhere near the final product (well probably won't as a pre-alpha) But i would love to get an extended look at the state of the game so far.
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Post by Damian on Jan 26, 2016 8:58:25 GMT 10
Awesome well i look forward to that dev Log. As for the Pre-Alpha will we be seeing any video's of it anywhere. I know that it be anywhere near the final product (well probably won't as a pre-alpha) But i would love to get an extended look at the state of the game so far. There is no video that is specific to the Pre-Alpha as such. We will make trailers and gameplay videos a little down the line. There is only 5 more days until you can get your hands on the Pre-Alpha. Hang in there. Sorry for the late reply. |
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Post by Darth Cameroth on Jan 26, 2016 23:35:13 GMT 10
All good you are busy working on this amazing project after all. Unfortunately i'm not part of the pre-alpha group i got here after the contest. But i'll happily wait for the trailers and videos that come later down the line.
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Post by Damian on Feb 3, 2016 15:44:23 GMT 10
All good you are busy working on this amazing project after all. Unfortunately i'm not part of the pre-alpha group i got here after the contest. But i'll happily wait for the trailers and videos that come later down the line. I appreciate your enthusiasm. We'll be opening the second wave of the Pre-Alpha test in the next couple of weeks. Be on the lookout for information on how to get involved. |
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Post by Darth Cameroth on Feb 3, 2016 20:31:42 GMT 10
Oh i shall defiantly be on the lookout.
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