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Thought on Conquest weapons

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Wazat Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 732 Location: Middle 'o the desert, USA |

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 1:38 am Post subject: Thought on Conquest weapons |

(sorry for long post, please bear with me) Weapon Storage I'm considering an idea that just occured to me. Originally I planned to have the player visiting the shop often to swap out weapons in order to adapt to the enemies he's facing and to fine-tune his offense. He would have to sell the weapon he didn't want and then buy the weapon he did. Likewise for shields. This would be expensive (since he can't sell it back for as much as it's worth), but the weapons would be fairly cheap.
However, what if when the player buys the weapon, he owns it forever. He can't have it equipped all the time, but he won't have to buy it from the shop again either (unless he wants two or more of the same weapon, for mods or extra ammo).
The player can carry 5 weapons with him into a level, and the rest he must store in a chest or check it in at the weapon shop (they'll store 'em for free). When you get back after finishing a level, or teleport back with a town portal, you can go to the shop and swap out your weapons with ones in storage. This means it's much cheaper for the player to change his strategy; however, the initial purchase of the weapon will cost a lot more than it does now.
Another advantage is that psychotically powerful weapons like the Flak Cannon, Na'mek and Railgun can now be very expensive and hard to buy. Right now I have to keep them cheap so the player could sell them if he didn't need them just then, and then buy them back at a later date. This idea will put a lot more value on weapons that are cheaper, and makes the more powerful weapons a better buy.
(all of the above also goes for shields)
This also gives a new role to MODs. Now that you own your weapon forever, you might still want to occasionally buy mods for it to change its function slightly. You can always pay a little to change it back, and it's cheaper to do so than to sell the modified weapon and buy back the original.
So, you own your crossbow for life. At some point you might want to buy the Fire mod for it, and later you might change it to Poison, and then later you're fighting monsters that you can't poison so you change to normal arrows, which are cheaper to buy and fire faster anyway.
Ye Olde RPG Elements
I also want to make it so that you have to level up a weapon in order to make various mods or other weapons appear. Leveling up the Crossbow by attacking enemies with it will open up the Fire Arrow mod, Poison Arrow, Piercing Arrow, and also unlock the Stake Launcher weapon at some time.
Leveling up the Green Standard armor will make Yellow Standard available, and leveling Yellow finally unlocks Red. It also unlocks Strength Shields, which must be leveled up to reach their full potential. Leveling up Precision armor increases the maximum bonus you can buy for it.
I don't want to take this leveling thing too far, but I've discussed the idea with my friend and I think it will help give every weapon and shield a place in the mod, and encourage the player to explore weapons they might otherwise ignore. It will also help balance the mod, so that the player can't just save up his money and instantly jump to a super-powerful shield early on.
I also someday want to make it so that the storyline places a limit on what's available in the shop too, so the player has to progress through the game before the stake launcher comes into stock at the shop (even though the player has already unlocked it). Performing some sidequests will reward the player with a weapon, modded weapon or shield that wouldn't be available yet otherwise.
So, what does everyone think of:
A) Making weapons and shields expensive, but letting the player store them forever instead of having to sell them back and forth
B) Introducing RPG elements such as leveling up weapons and shields to increase their damage and unlock more mods/weapons
Thanks, all!
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When my computer inevitably explodes and kills me, my cat inherits everything I own. He may be the only one capable of continuing my work.

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r00k Joined: 13 Nov 2004 Posts: 483 |

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 4:36 am Post subject: |

I think your on the right path, whereas u bought a level 1 sword yet u get to increase its potence via combat "in game" but later on that exp worth is valued for its resale as that +1 sword is only that. a dagger! But because u may have kicked allot of ogre ass its worth that much more to upgrade to a new weapon that is equal in current stats but allowed greater rewards/upgrades
what i mean is if you killed 1000 rats with that sword, its worth more in EXP than some1 who killed only 1, for resale/trade-in...
(sounds like a computer commercial huh? OR at least it should be!)
keep up the good work Waz and lets see some SS even if its the stats screen ;P

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Urre Joined: 05 Nov 2004 Posts: 1073 Location: Sweden |

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 11:01 am Post subject: |

That weapon storage stuff sounded groovy, me likes. Not sure about the whole leveling bussiness though, I kindof like the idea of different types of equipment, meant for various uses, rather than something being simply and definetly better than the other. I realise this would change the balance of your mod a great deal, but I wanted to get it said anyway.
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Wazat Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 732 Location: Middle 'o the desert, USA |

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 5:25 pm Post subject: |

No, no Urre, you're exactly right. I want each weapon to have a specialized use. The railgun is extremely powerful, but you're a damned fool to use it against someone who has Plate Shielding, Limit Armor or a Blink Shield (those shields and armors tend to nullify the usefulness of single-hit weapons). The Na'mek is deadly, but if you use it against someone with Precision armor and/or Response Shielding (both of which tend to reduce rapid-but-weak weapons down to 0 damage), you won't even phase the enemy.
The Flak Cannon is special. It fires a cluster, which many shields will treat as a rapid-fire attack, even though all the little bullets are hitting at the same time. Some shields have a duration (like Red Blink Shield and Red Plate Shield) that can deal with clusters, others don't care how the attack hits (Standard Shielding doesn't distinguish between powerful, rapid or cluster). However, if you shoot someone with a flak cannon and they have a green blink shield, that shield cannot stop the cluster - the first bullet will be blocked completely, disable the shield, and then all the rest get through. The player will eventually want to equip a higher form of that shield that is a little better-prepared for such assaults.
The leveling up idea says that the player will initially not have access to Red Blink Shields. But he does have Green Blink, which is good for blocking the first railgun hit or so, and nothing else. After that's blocked a certain amount of damage, it will unlock Yellow, which has some duration (it blocks clusters) and comes back online faster than green. Leveling up Yellow will finally unlock Red Blink Shield, which is very powerful against single hits, but still not very effective against rapid-fire attacks compared to other shields.
As an added challenge, the Flak Cannon also has an alt-fire grenade (which spits out a few pieces of shrapnel when it explodes too). This means the Flak Cannon fires both clusters and heavy attacks, giving it a huge advantage in getting around some of the enemy's defenses (if heavy attacks get through, use a grenade; if clusters get through, use the flak). Other weapons, like the railgun, are far more specialized.
The flak cannon is going to be a rarity, in that sense. For the most part, the player's arsenal and defenses are all pretty specialized and each weapon or shield focuses on one type of assault pattern. By combining different weapons and shields he hopefully has what he needs to take on just about anything he comes across - machinegun for fiends, stake launcher and grenades for zombies and ogres; Limit shield for ogre grenades and Hell Knight sparks, Precision shield for grunt machineguns.
And when he finds something he's not prepared for, he'd better be skillful enough to defeat it anyway - and have enough health & ammo - or else he'd better get out of there...
Hopefully I can get it all working very smoothly. Originally I planned to have it like this, then I started making the shields more general-purpose, and now I'm making them more specialized again...
And again, forgive Wazat for a long post...
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When my computer inevitably explodes and kills me, my cat inherits everything I own. He may be the only one capable of continuing my work.

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Wazat Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 732 Location: Middle 'o the desert, USA |

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:39 pm Post subject: |

I seem to have killed you all with my long posts... /me mourns _________________ When my computer inevitably explodes and kills me, my cat inherits everything I own. He may be the only one capable of continuing my work.

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Kools Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Posts: 37 Location: The Netherlands |

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:20 pm Post subject: |

Wazat wrote:
I seem to have killed you all with my long posts... /me mourns

While it's true that some of your pasts are too much for me to read completely, I must say I read your first post in it's entirety and both ideas sound great. This would add a depth to the game that even most commercial games in the shooter genre ever have. I say, go for it and keep up the good work!
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Wazat Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 732 Location: Middle 'o the desert, USA |

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:51 pm Post subject: |

Thanks! ^_^ I guess there weren't any casualities after all... /me quickly hides the body of Urre _________________ When my computer inevitably explodes and kills me, my cat inherits everything I own. He may be the only one capable of continuing my work.

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Urre Joined: 05 Nov 2004 Posts: 1073 Location: Sweden |

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 6:01 pm Post subject: |

/me rolls over in his grave _________________ Look out for Twigboy

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Tei Joined: 25 Oct 2004 Posts: 195 |

Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:03 pm Post subject: |

You post where actually very short with my standards. At the old good days a good email of mine was 100 k. I am much verbose than you.

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Entar Joined: 05 Nov 2004 Posts: 422 Location: At my computer |

Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 7:00 pm Post subject: |

Four words: We want another Conquest release! Err, wait... _________________ woh... feelin woozy... too much cider...
http://entar.quakedev.com
games fascination - My Game Development Blog/Journal

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Wazat Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 732 Location: Middle 'o the desert, USA |

Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 10:18 pm Post subject: |

Three words: YES SIR! errr... guess I'm just as bad. I'll work on polishing up Conquest for a release real soon. Right now I have a flash project for one of my classes that I have to finish first, but it is about time for another Conquest release.
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