[Role Playing Game] Shells of Asaria - Intense action paced oRPG (-save/-load)

[Masterja]

Hey guys! I have been working on a project for the past few weeks, and although it is still in early alpha, I wanted to ask fellow hive members what do they think of my project so far.

Please forgive poor quality of the video. Sadly I don't have a good microphone nor a fast computer.

What makes this map so special?

I enjoy playing RPG games, however, most of those games have a lot of grinding involved to level up. While this is fun at times, I feel as so many good maps have wasted potential because combat is so mundane.

This map is similar to other RPG games as far as class advancements go, but the main difference is combat (and way of leveling). You do not regenerate HP in this map! This is offset by the fact that every enemy attack in the game can be evaded. The only way of regaining health is to pick up Power-ups (these simple runes restore both your, and your nearby friends health bars).

Okay, so how do I gain levels? Grinding?

Nope! Those power-ups I mentioned earlier do not only restore health. Instead, they also give you gold, experience, and sometimes items. And a bit less popular gift - power-ups spawn enemies. So to restore health, you have to fight more monsters and possibly lose even more health! Don't worry though, if you have decent reflexes, you can beat the entire game without losing a single health point

And how many different heroes can I play?

You start the game with one of four basic classes - Warrior, Acolyte, Apprentice or Thief. At certain levels, each of those classes can then be further upgraded into 3 more classes. Then, those 3 classes can each be further upgraded into 3 more. And so on...

By the completion of map, I estimate there will be 90-ish different heroes. The fun thing is - hero abilities are NOT fixed. You choose from a variety of class abilities. There should be 500-ish different abilities by the very end (in the current state, there are 115 abilities and 20 heroes).

Are there a lot of enemies?

Depends on the way you look at it. There are about 50 different enemy types which might not seem as much, but remember - every enemy has different types of attacks, movements, abilities and strategies required to defeat.

Examples:

Grunts - These are simple enemies that require you to be constantly moving when they attempt to swing at you.

Raiders - These are a bit more complicated enemies. They charge at you, and if you fail to side-step correctly, you will instantly lose 20% of your health (which I repeat - cannot be regenerated)

Captains - They fire a mini-gun at you, requiring you to stay back and keep running out of the bullet's way. They should only be attacked when reloading.

Kodo beasts - They charge at you in similar fashion to raiders, but if they hit you, you are launched into air, in direction they hit. You don't want to be thrown into an angry mob, believe me!

The real beauty of this all is that you will rarely ever fight a single enemy head-on. Usually, mix of these guys attempt to kill you. That requires you to quickly adapt your strategy or face the certain death.

Pff, how hard is it to think of a strategy when you notice 3 different enemies ahead?

Haha, yeah no. You don't notice anything ahead. There are NO pre-placed enemies on map. Enemies spawn around you when you enter certain scripted areas (basically 90% of the map) or pick power-ups. You have very little time to make plans, as enemies usually kill you within 2 seconds if you are stationary...

Dude, this seems too hard to be fun!

It actually is not that hard. Enemies are easily evaded, and you usually kill most of enemies in a single strike (while some more advanced ones require longer fights). Besides, there is "local" difficulty system - each player sets their own difficulty at any point of the game.

Please share your opinions, critiques and suggestions guys, I would really like to see how community views such map-type.

Thanks in advance,
Masterja

 

[Masterja]

Here are some pictures if you are interested.

New Images

Old Images 1

Old Images 2

 

[boyls187]

I've watched the video.. Seems pretty cool and interesting!, good luck with you project man! Can't wait for the official release

 

[Masterja]

Thanks, I'm glad you like the idea!

Added some pictures if you are interested. Oh, and since I didn't explain it very well - quests are also a way of leveling. They are longer than usual, some quests require you to do 3-4 things in a row, and you can sometimes influence quest ending based on the way you finish quest (so Light/Dark side is a thing, and it affects your last class upgrades).

Also, professions, minigames and dialogues will be added later on. I'm planning on spacing them out, adding a new thing for player to toy around every 10 levels or so. I like the feeling of slow start gradually ramping up instead of throwing it all out at once.

 

[Nordmar]

I read the description of the map and it sounds indeed very interesting. But then I saw the screenshots and they are a huge turn off. The terrain looks very boring and also the map looks quite small? I think you get more responses if you redo the terrain, maybe import some custom models.

I also think that the puzzle idee is good but your implementation is bad because once you solve it..you know how it works and can redo it over and over again and get free gold.

 

[Masterja]

I'm glad you enjoyed the idea, that was the part I was worried about the most. Terrain and other things can easily be fixed, but idea is the pillar on which everything else rests.

Terrain is a bit empty in centers of rooms, that's true. The reason for that is that one has to maneuver a lot in every direction possible. If there were a lot of things in the way, it would be hard keeping track of feet and enemy projectiles. They could get lost in colorful terrain and strike when you least expect, which is one of the things I try to avoid. There are so many ways to die already

I will try to make it a little more aesthetically pleasing though.

Map size is currently half-filled 190x190ish (of which tutorial chugs a good portion), but game contains only "early game content". By the time you finish everything current map has to offer (5 minutes tutorial plus 30-ish minutes of gameplay), you don't even reach first town.

I am hoping to reach at least fully created 300x300 before releasing, with 10 hours of gameplay or more. I don't want to get ambitious yet though, a lot of things need fixing!

Puzzles and secrets can be memorized, but they offer once-a-game bonus, unlike other power-ups. Spending some time to solve a puzzle earns you 30-90 gold bonus (equal to 5-10 power-ups) which isn't a lot at all. Finding every secret in a dungeon usually yields 15% of that dungeon's loot.

I think I will release alpha version in its current state for those of you who want to check it out. It might be a bit easier than explaining everything in comments

Regards,
Numox

 

[WhiteFang]

I'm glad you enjoyed the idea, that was the part I was worried about the most. Terrain and other things can easily be fixed, but idea is the pillar on which everything else rests.

True.
Anyway,good luck with the project

 

[Silva]

I visited after reading "Intense action paced OPRG" and wasn't disappointed. The idea is great!

The terrain needs work tho, I recommend you see this

Terraining tutorials

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...-hives-terraining-section-184427/#post1779895

Looking forward for the beta mate

 

[Masterja]

Thanks for the replies guys, I am extremely gladdened by the fact that you actually like the idea . Thanks for motivating me to work harder.

Alright, I guess I have some terraining to do!

Regards,
Numox

EDIT:
Added 5 images of improved terrain. I hope this is a bit more pleasing to the eye.

 

[Silva]

I like the swamp and the underground terrains, they look neat.

Try to add more doodads to it, custom ones at that. Also, I can see that your terraining skills suck (sorry to say that) just as mine. Try not to use a lot of blizz cliffs, it ruins the beauty of the map a lot of times. Instead use the rise/lower tools to make cliffs, high/low grounds. That's a personal opinion.

 

[Masterja]

Damn, I'll have to hire someone to do the terraining for me it seems. The problem is I can't add too many doodads, they eat up space and it is vital for gameplay that map remains very open. My only bet is to keep adding small details (flowers, grass, shrubs) at the very edges of open regions.

Blizzard cliffs are actually very important part of this map, I usually prefer to mess with raise/lower terrain function, but the restricted vision that comes with blizzard cliffs is just too useful (there are a lot of secrets in the map, and a lot of them are based on running through walls). Besides, map is huge, and custom cliffs with lots of pathing blockers would just increase strain on computers.

Alright, back to the terrain until it looks decent enough!

 

[ultravegan]

I really like how this looks and feels. +1