Combat Provides No XP, Only Salvage/Loot

[Helphyre]

If we decide to go totally or partially salvage based, here is an idea on how to handle it in game.

Acutual mechs cannot salvage, maybe at some point down the line a salvage specific mech could be coded, but it probably should wait until after FTL is returned and used also for mining, but I digress.

Salvage could be handled by the ability to call in salvage drone. These are owned by the Corporations and players have to pay a fee to have the drone come in and clean up a carcass. Now then, these drones would have different tech levels and carrying capacities. The more they carry or the more sophisticated they are. the more it will cost you to hire. After all Corporations are all about making money and they would not want people giving them competition.

Also these would not be called it at any time, they would be able to be destroyed and would cost the player who called one in a pretty penny to replace, the better it was the more it costs you. This would mean you probably should make sure the battle is over before painting a tgt to salvage from.

The different levels of drone come into play depending on what you want. Obviusly size of the hold would be one factor. But the other more interesting factor would be the drone programming. A Tech lvl 1 drone would just grab what every random pieces it could. A Tech lvl 2 drone, you could spec get armor plating or get weapons. The levels would go up from there. Up to giving the drones an itemized list of what you wanted. Say get and Tech lvl 5 or higher weapon, then tech lvl 3 or higher engine component,.. and so on. These High-tech Drones would be expensive, but for those who just downed a formidable foe with great weapons it might be worth it.

It goes without saying the for newbies a small capacity, low tech drone would be next to free. And yes if you break a drone, and go into debt, you have to pay back the Corporation.

The items taken from salvage would be delivered back at your hanger. Once there you could go through your loot and decide what to sell and what to keep.


Now then, to help with coding, and to not have drones whipping all over the place, being as annoying as mosquitos in a Mississippi swamp, they would only move straight up and down on top of the salvage slowing as the neared the ground. This would allow others to attack them, and allow then drones to be instanced in and out above the game flight ceiling.


At some point it may be possible for for factions/clans/guilds/whatever to build their own drone factory and drones, not on the original planet, but after FTL travel comes back and players are out on other planets where, I am assuming, the Corporation control is not as strong. This would allow them to save on salvage costs, but calling them into poor situations probably will not have your friends too happy with you if you break their hard earned drones.


Any thoughts?

[CptnSlaughter]

To keep in line with the Hero system, I believe this would work nicely.

Winning a battle would only win you salvage/loot.   the act of battling - win or lose you gain CP/XP.   This falls in line with the idea of not always having to kill an opponent and supports the death penalty system.

Through actions, you gain CP/XP.  You gain CP by using your skills, piloting, engineering, etc.   but the points are not necessarilly applied to the skill you were executing.  Either the player chooses where to apply the points or a % applied of the earned points automatically gets applied to the skills actually used to gain the CP/XP and the rest the player applies where they wish.   For example, target practice actually makes you better at targeting. . . as it should be.

The difficult part will be figuring out the "frequency" of rewarding points so that character development is enjoyable - not too fast or too slow.

[SoulMiner]

building drones sounds like fun, hope we dont have to wait to long before players can build them.

[Xenodamus]

agreed but once again we come back to player created and controlled cities and corps 0:)

[Hamilton]

Well Drones will be easier to create by players.  No moving parts (animations) needed.  Could be as simple as a flying disc (though with some description of the shape and reason why).


Maybe that is the first thing we can get for players to create... along with buildings.



Ok, let's shoot for Mid-December as the beginning of the player creating content.
But before so doing, there will need to be three things done:
1 - A remote server for public use (in the works)
2 - WIP 2 up and running
3 - Documents for public use

[SoulMiner]

veary good news indeed. time for me to learn some new trade skillz.

[Helphyre]

Another idea I had that ties into karma and the instancing concerns with kill stealing is to base xp (if we use it) on damage instead of kills. The amount of damage done would provide the actual experience numbers. This would then be multiplied by a certain amount when the npc/player we killed or disabled. This idea follows that your mech might be disabled while the actual avatar is still alive inside. They could then use their ejection pod or get picked up by a drop ship sent by the corporation.

These rescue drop ships could be similar to the salvage drones I discussed earlier in that you could pay to have one come get you. If you could not afford one, then one would be assigned to you to come pick you up at their earliest convenience. Meaning that if you have no ejection pod or money then after a cool down period that forces you to wait hoping that players do not decide to kill you.

This would allow the player who disabled your mech to earn karma by not killing the avatar.

The experience multiplier would be a factor of the difficulty difference between the attacker and the attackee. So Player A kills something that is 5 lvls higher them him self he would get the damage xp times 1.25 (or whatever percentage break downs are decided, beta testing needs to figure out the balance here.) This would also work the other way if you killed something smaller than yourself damage xp times 75% if the thing you attacked was 5 lvls lower.

The experience multiplier would not take effect until the mech/tridecca was disabled or killed and would prevent other players from stealing all the xp. If player A did 90% of the damage and a scavanger player B hit the last 10% then, player A would get 90% damage xp times their multiplier and player B would only get 10% of the damage xp time their multiplier. This also means that if your tgt is damaged but gets away you get no xp....Sorry close only counts in carpet bombing and nuclear weapons.

This should prevent complete kill stealing. Obviously it would be nice if parties/squads shared xp so as not to penalize any support mechs that might not be doing all the damage. All this depends on if the xp system is implemented.

As a side note to the scavanger drones their should be a cool down time that only you the one did the majority of the damage could salvage from the kill. Thos who also did damage could have their chance after a certain time and then the corpse would become free game for any vulture that wants it.

Hopefully these idea help and give some solutions to the nessecity of instanced areas. Because I would prefer that FOA be as sandbox like as possible.

Comment away.

[SoulMiner]

i like the idea of gaining karma by disabling another players mech but not killing them interesting what bonus would this be worth ?? discounts buying from that NPC corp ? (they are in). What if there in a player corp what then, maby have it where each guild can see the karma they have between each other. Might make a difference in guilds declaring war on each other.

Reminds me of Knights and Chilivary, awsome add if possible
when the knight conseads defeat he raises his Helms Visor and streches his hand out with an open palm faceing down. (maby in FOA a mech pilot could do the same in a disabled mech by opening his cockpit and activating a becon or light).


good thoughts helphyre.

[Helphyre]

Karma I think should help several things but most of what I have read about links it to the cloning/generation ideas. The better your karma the less likely you are to have something go wrong when you die and your clone is respawned. Also if the perma-death/generational approach is taken with the game then karma could affect what bonuses your new incarnation would have. And isnt that the whole point of karma that if you are good then your next incarnation will be a successful one and if you are bad then maybe you will come back as a dung beetle.

 

[Agamemnon]

if you are good then your next incarnation will be a successful one and if you are bad then maybe you will come back as a dung beetle.
 

ROFL, Good one...good one......./ponders code scripts for spawning

[Sheperd]

"This game is Force of Arms.  It's about Mechs, and about fun.  It is not about easy mode, and it is not about how hard you have to grind to reach the maximum level." I voted would have to test, but what would be the down side?
I think it would give you a insentive to fight. I do like the idea that was given that win or loose xp is given i think you should gain more for the win of course but after all even if you get the Mech kicked out of you you still gain experiance fighting even if the expeiance taught you... WOW! what was I thinking that was the dumbest move I could have made.

[99x]

After playing a couple of Korean MMOs for way too much time, I have to say that grinding is the last thing I really want in a game.   Besides, won't money fulfill the basic function of xp in this game?  Better equips for targeting, faster mech response to control inputs, more powerful weapons mounted to ever-increasing tonnages of mechs. . .   all for sale.   Kapitalism!

Grinding for a craft system isn't honestly so bad - if you make a discrete and tangible step forward every time you craft something, it can really reduce the boredom level involved.

[Overshot]

Mechs require fuel to limit there functions , and energy...


why not have the avatars do the same ? over work get over exerted , then you're character needs sleep and fails to sleep ,then slowly starts getting sick , use stimulants to stay a wake get addicted to them . to keep you wake. but they cause like convolsions and shakes, blurry vision or other side effect type things.

and require food, and water ( god i hate that concept because it gets annoying if you played a game that requires it ) depending on how much work and stress you go under you're food bar diminishes , well an over time as well , have it able to adapt to how you live after all someone who works 12 hrs and eats twice then goes to sleep. wouldn't get hungry as often as someone who eats alot... would get hungry faster and require eating, dont eat you slowly start to starve , an go through stages of starvation. after all until the planet is fully suitable there supposed to live on supplies from ships. the same with water , if you work alot and sweat alot , you get thirsty faster , and have to use more water. or you become dehydrated.

so corps. would ration them , and people would trade food just like they'd trade gold in some cases. 

and have disease where people get sick and have to search out doctors , medics , medical drones , etc.

could add more depth into things like sieges to , 30 mechs besiegeing a town with 5 mechs and like 40 soldiers and support vehicles. they have to keep supply lines of fuel,water,food,medical supplies,ammunition ,repair kits, as well as money transports(though...there high tech wouldn't they just use credits and transfer them through digital bank accounts? that could be accessed from everywhere (that had electronic terminals and computers) . .

with everything limited due to the lack of supplies . people couldn't really grind after all the more you work the more you use , the more people will be without , eventually you end up with rioting .
 and in-fighting with in settlements.  people would have to balance out there work with the cities needs , and supplies.  and people would probably run you out of town if you didnt share the majority of what you mine.

because there giving you supplies to mine it , and with supplies being limited , cant waste it on non-contributing members of the settlement. so without skill gain , the grinder wouldn't see much point if he doesn't get to keep enough to really make any money. <depending on the settlement> because what little money he could make would have to go to food. and water. the same could be true of the mech pilots of the town a small town couldn't support very many . it'd mainly be a kinda betterment of the settlement type stuff , the mechs would be considered highly valued . in those smaller settlements. miners would be required since they couldnt afford large mining equipment.

plus they'd also need electricity and fuel for the tools. - unless there using more premitive mining tools like pick axes.  plus there'd be no skills really , just knowledge of the player knowing where to mine , and what rocks to examine and pick up. to get the most ore from, or the most durable wood , to make into support beams so the mine doesnt collapse.


As far as salvage and loot....should be something realistic...dont wanna kill some animal out hunting on foot(assuming there will be any animals and at some point can walk around hunting and tracking creatures for prized heads to mount on you're wall) and kill some form of alien deer , or giant bug dont wanna find a giant Mech head in its corpse :S when i go to carve it up for its head. or maybe stuff a Giant creature that tryed to eat me...
 

[Quinton0227]

First post! woohoo! *coughs* ahem.  .  .   sorry about that    anyways, I feel that the approach of not awarding xp based on killing a foe but solely on how long you've been in the game has several major flaws in it.    first it would reward players who can say log into the game and then sit in a corner overnight accruing xp if it is just time based.    If it is number of logins, what keeps me from abusing the system by logging in and out every 5 minutes?  Also if you combine the two, so that you have to be logged in for say an hour before you get your xp, then would'nt that encourage players to log out every hour?  It would be very difficult to enforce i feel.    Personally i've always thought that xp should be awarded based on the actions of the character.    For example say your in battle and you spot an enemy mech sniping from behind a ridge, he's almost at the max range for your longest range weapon and he's weaving all over the place.    You line up the shot and drill him in the cockpit knocking into next tuesday.    In that case (the impossible shot) I believe the game should award you exponentially more xp than just say walking up to someone and zorching them with a laser.    The idea is how much skill did it take to do what you did? or how risky was it? if you run across the battlefield taking fire the whole time to repair a another comrades' mech at considerable risk to yourself you should get a good chunk of xp as opposed to sitting in the back and waiting for the casualties to come in and fixing them then.    I wholly agree that xp should not be solely doled out based on how many people you've put 6 feet under.    I think it should be awarded each time you do something.  .  .   anything! shoot 4 lasers at a mech, miss with 3? you still get xp, your learning about your weapons, you won't get as much xp for a miss as a hit but there's still some to be had. 

As an alternative idea, why not give bonus xp from using different parts?  For example:  Light laser has a bar for 500 bonus xp, each time you fire the weapon you get some bonus xp, based on how close you came to hitting the target, or if you hit the target.   i.  e.   you can't stand in the forest nuking trees for xp.    armor plating would have a 1000 point bar that gave you bonus xp every time you took a hit, depending on it's severity, BUT only from an enemy, gotta fill all the abuse holes cause someone will find em.    The bars i mentioned represent your familiarity with the aformentioned equipment, and the numbers i put in the bars were just thrown out randomly.    As such, when it maxes out you are now wholly familiar with the item and can no longer gain bonus xp from it.    Thus this encourages players to switch out gear as opposed to having an "ultimate" combo.    And allows for players to say put on inferior gear because it has a bigger bonus xp bar.    Tell me you think, would love to hear thoughts about this

[Helphyre]

Quinton0227 I think you might have misunderstood a post somewhere I do not think that anyone has propsed getting any xp only for time spent online. Please clarify where you saw this?