[Suggestion] Add some more excitement to most areas

[Jumbo]

Add some more excitement to most outdoor areas. Here are some ideas:

1.Patrolling rare mobs that will spawn and walk a predefined route close to their kin (gnoll rare at gnolls, bandit rare at bandits etc.). Low chance of even spawning every X minutes, only 1 of each rare unit can be on the map at a time. Chance should be something like 10%. Drops similar to green drops in their areas or if in higher lvl areas some blue items.

I have two concepts for these units' strength:
A.These rare mobs are strong normal units equal in strength to 10x of their normal counterpart, but otherwise the same.

B.Special traits like in Diablo. A rare can be "fast" (+25% movement and attackspeed for example), tough (25% armor), brutal (damage 20%), all these things along with a generally stronger unit, but doesnt have to be the 10x as suggestion 1.

2. Travelling merchants: These are rare merchants that will travel from city to city selling things like: Pearl and such "uncommon" items, but also searing blood, basilisk poison and demon heart for very high prices only 1 per merchant perhaps. They travel on the roads, like from Riversdale to lumbercamp or Farm house to Mytargas etc. As with the rare mobs they have a low spawn chance. They can even be killed by the players to drop a gold coin, but this adds a small debuff to xp gained for the next 5 minutes called "Low morale". This simulates the RP aspect of "RPG", so the players can act like bandits =).

With these additions, a more lively environment will be created with the nice looking terrain of Gaias.

 

[Devlain]

I really, really love the idea of wandering merchants.
My only complain about patrolling rare mobs is that they could be VERY frustrating if your are just questing a difficult part of the game and then you are attacked by an oversized and overpowerfull mob xD

 

[S0ulseeker]

I kind of like this suggestion. The only issue I could personally see with patrolling mobs would be bugs with aggro and fight resets.

EDIT: but again I want D4! >.<

 

[BoxOfFaith]

This.. COULD be neat. I don't mind it.

Only issue is running into one of these while first entering any area could be annoying lol. Kinda like running into the Dark Savior on CoT when you first start. Just a pain in the ass .

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I actually plan to have some patroling mobs in D4 just to spice things up a little.

The idea of "rare" mobs isn't new. Maybe I will add some in 1.2B.


Traveling merchants are a bit of a headache, though. I think this would be hard to balance and probably devaluate the crafting materials. What prevents the player from just remaking until the merchant has the stuff he wants?

 

[S0ulseeker]

Only issue is running into one of these while first entering any area could be annoying lol. Kinda like running into the Dark Savior on CoT when you first start. Just a pain in the ass .

Oh god..the nightmares lol.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Zwieb if you go ahead with the idea of rare mobs, it should be something like..

Only 1 can be spawned at any given time.
They can only spawn after ~15 minutes on the map. (to prevent re-loading the map everytime one is found)
Spawns once every 15-30 minutes (randomly if possible, rather than every 15 minutes on the 15th minute)
Patrols a certain area of length for something like 1 minute before despawning? (unless engaged in combat)

With these restrictions they should still be "rare" but highly beneficial if they happen to be found.

Also I agree about the merchants, no real point in letting the materials be bought, they're meant to be a big reason why we do the dungeons .

 

[doubtful]

I remember myself suggesting about wandering creeps in Gaias but ofc i got no support.
In this world u have to be a pozer, an ass licker or a fancy retard for the majority to take you seriously. just puke.

 

[Jumbo]

Uhm... thanks for the insult Doubtful? I have made a similar suggestion like two years ago, but now is not then.

Zwieb if you go ahead with the idea of rare mobs, it should be something like..

Only 1 can be spawned at any given time.
They can only spawn after ~15 minutes on the map. (to prevent re-loading the map everytime one is found)
Spawns once every 15-30 minutes (randomly if possible, rather than every 15 minutes on the 15th minute)
Patrols a certain area of length for something like 1 minute before despawning? (unless engaged in combat)

With these restrictions they should still be "rare" but highly beneficial if they happen to be found.

Also I agree about the merchants, no real point in letting the materials be bought, they're meant to be a big reason why we do the dungeons .

I agree that elapsed game time has to be 15 minutes to prevent this farming. Also, about the rare ingredients, the merchant should only have 1 random ingredient and only a quantity of 1. So first sold, all gone. The price should be, like I said, very steep something like 1500 for basilisk poison. 3000 for Searing blood and 5000 for demon heart. People at those levels need gold for skills, so with such prices it won't be for everyone. Also, the bought ingredients should be bound to the buyer so that no trading/boosting other players is possible.


About the wandering rares: To counter the sudden ambush of a rare mob, let rare mobs have 2 movement speeds, one for when just patrolling (slow) and one when engaged in combat (normal). Maybe this is done with the footman shield toogleable? Dunno... Anyway, it would mean that you could see well ahead of an actual encounter where it is currently moving.

Basically, my whole idea for these "walking bots" is that it gives a break from all the AI staticness that comes with a game such as this. It forces us to be aware of what we are doing when we play, instead of just "2 gnolls, I kill them..... 3 bandits, I kill them", it will be "2 gnolls I ki... wait, the rare is coming, Ill stay back until it goes away/find another pack to kill". That kind of thing.

 

[Shamu]

I agree that elapsed game time has to be 15 minutes to prevent this farming. Also, about the rare ingredients, the merchant should only have 1 random ingredient and only a quantity of 1. So first sold, all gone. The price should be, like I said, very steep something like 1500 for basilisk poison. 3000 for Searing blood and 5000 for demon heart. People at those levels need gold for skills, so with such prices it won't be for everyone. Also, the bought ingredients should be bound to the buyer so that no trading/boosting other players is possible.

[...]

Basically, my whole idea for these "walking bots" is that it gives a break from all the AI staticness that comes with a game such as this. It forces us to be aware of what we are doing when we play, instead of just "2 gnolls, I kill them..... 3 bandits, I kill them", it will be "2 gnolls I ki... wait, the rare is coming, Ill stay back until it goes away/find another pack to kill". That kind of thing.

If you really want gold to buy items, you can always afk farm, if you can find a region with no rare spawn or one that you can easily kill solo.

Also, if they are rare, they have little to no influence on AI staticness. You have to be aware of nothing, because the probability of encountering any rare mob would be very low, especially when only one can exist mapwide for one minute every 15-30 minutes, as suggested above, which would literally add nothing, unless the spawns aren't limited as hard.

 

[Jumbo]

Well actually, I didnt mean one rare in total but a limit of 1 rare for each type of rare at a time. This means that a rare gnoll can be patrolling while a rare mountain beast is doing the same.

 

[Shamu]

Well actually, I didnt mean one rare in total but a limit of 1 rare for each type of rare at a time. This means that a rare gnoll can be patrolling while a rare mountain beast is doing the same.

Having them despawn after a certain period of time would still make them extremely rare and barely add anything to the game. There are enough regions with gnolls, for example, to make an encounter very unlikely, unless you knew exactly where the spawnpoint was (and it wasn't any random place where there are gnolls).

Having them despawn makes them too rare, I think. But then again, it really deends on how exactly they are implemented. The problem is, that if they are too rare, the impact on the game would be virtually inexistant.

 

[Jumbo]

Well despawning should only happen after a long time. Like 15 minutes or so with no combat. This is to ensure that long games don't automatically receive a rare unit after playing for hours, but that people have to either search for it, or be lucky. To me it adds a nice random effect to the environment. I obviously like this, but you seem rather pesimistic about it, which is only fair.

 

[Xonok]

Seems like one of those features that would be nice to have, but is not viable for a project of such small size. Makes me wonder if it could be possible for there to be an ORPG map that is being built as a community, not as a single talented/hardworking/lucky/whatever person.

 

[Shamu]

Well despawning should only happen after a long time. Like 15 minutes or so with no combat. This is to ensure that long games don't automatically receive a rare unit after playing for hours, but that people have to either search for it, or be lucky. To me it adds a nice random effect to the environment. I obviously like this, but you seem rather pesimistic about it, which is only fair.

Pessimistic if not carefully thought out. I don't mind having rare mobs in the game, I just think that if they are too rare, then it is a waste of effort. If they don't drop any outrageous loot, then they don't have to be very rare.