dadevvtsvre
Sponsor
Well, this thread is more for "quick" ideas that shouldn't really have a whole thread to themselves, so if it's not terribly long then go for it.
The Quick Ideas/Concepts Thread
- Thread starter dadevvtsvre
- Start date
beterbomen
Member
Ok, this is my idea: The game takes place inside an RPG. It used to be a normal game, but now some of the caracters have broken free and are now trying to free theyre world from the control of the game. That's it in short. What do you think?
silver wind
Member
Of topic: nice avatar, Dadevster. 
User Defined Auto-Battle
Auto-battle (battle menu option) makes your party battle on its own, but based on YOUR actions during previous battles.
The party members are monsters, which normally don't use battle strategy. However, while watching the 'trainer' they learn.
Let's say the actor's HP <10%, and player selected 'Mass heal'. If he does this 3 times (during several battles), that actor learns to use Mass Heal at low HP. If he later uses 'Ultimate heal' 3 times, it'll overwrite Mass Heal.
During Player vs Player battle, both sides are forced to use Auto-battle. Therefore, while the battle is controlled by AI for both players, they can affect the battle, by training their party to do certain actions! The data is saved for each actor separately, so you can train one to be a 'healer' and other to attack non-stop.
How it will be done:
There are a few conditions- "when", and 3 results for each- "what to do".
During certain condition, select a random result out of the 3.
So, if the player did the same thing 3 times, it's 100% the AI does the same. The results are updated each battle, like the Mass Heal example.
By default, AI is: On each condition, try_a_different_skill x 3
So.. any ideas? opinions?
EDIT: This is connected to my post about offline PvP battle, btw.
beterbomen, where is the player in all this? Does he fight against the rebelling characters?
User Defined Auto-Battle
Auto-battle (battle menu option) makes your party battle on its own, but based on YOUR actions during previous battles.
The party members are monsters, which normally don't use battle strategy. However, while watching the 'trainer' they learn.
Let's say the actor's HP <10%, and player selected 'Mass heal'. If he does this 3 times (during several battles), that actor learns to use Mass Heal at low HP. If he later uses 'Ultimate heal' 3 times, it'll overwrite Mass Heal.
During Player vs Player battle, both sides are forced to use Auto-battle. Therefore, while the battle is controlled by AI for both players, they can affect the battle, by training their party to do certain actions! The data is saved for each actor separately, so you can train one to be a 'healer' and other to attack non-stop.
How it will be done:
There are a few conditions- "when", and 3 results for each- "what to do".
WHEN: * Danger (low HP, foe inflicts high damage),
* Foe_resist (actor does damage< 5% on average)
* Status (1 for each status, except internal-use statuses)
* Normal (none of the above conditions)
WHAT: * use_certain_skill, * try_a_different_skill,
* use_defensive_skill (heal, status, up your states), * use_offensive_skill,
* use_skill_of_certain_element
During certain condition, select a random result out of the 3.
So, if the player did the same thing 3 times, it's 100% the AI does the same. The results are updated each battle, like the Mass Heal example.
By default, AI is: On each condition, try_a_different_skill x 3
So.. any ideas? opinions?
EDIT: This is connected to my post about offline PvP battle, btw.
beterbomen, where is the player in all this? Does he fight against the rebelling characters?
beterbomen
Member
silver wind":sub5yl1i said:
Nope. She's the one who's leading the uprise. The game is the main enemy.
Zekallinos
Sponsor
@silver wind
What if the player uses an irregular pattern? Assuming the enemy has no weakness or resistance, the player may just randomly cast spells. Does your AI include spell alternance? Or if it uses the same spell, because it doesn't change anything and it's the one on top of the list, does it register in the AI? Have your considered that the actions differ if you are with teammates? A cleric may only heal when in party, so the AI will never know what kind of attacks it will use on 1v1.
The concept is good. I'm not entirely sure it is worth the effort though. You said the player wouldn't be able to participate in those battles. That means it doesn't make the game more fun, really. Your battle system needs to be simple, really, or else there are too many external factors that come in play.
What if the player uses an irregular pattern? Assuming the enemy has no weakness or resistance, the player may just randomly cast spells. Does your AI include spell alternance? Or if it uses the same spell, because it doesn't change anything and it's the one on top of the list, does it register in the AI? Have your considered that the actions differ if you are with teammates? A cleric may only heal when in party, so the AI will never know what kind of attacks it will use on 1v1.
The concept is good. I'm not entirely sure it is worth the effort though. You said the player wouldn't be able to participate in those battles. That means it doesn't make the game more fun, really. Your battle system needs to be simple, really, or else there are too many external factors that come in play.
Zekallinos
Sponsor
Magic and science
Alright, pretty much every game needs some magic at one point. They may or may not explain what the magic actually is, how it works, how it affects you, etc. I think that magic, along with your characters and setting, needs its own characterization too.
So I've got the concept for potentially realistic magic. It's not stuff doable in the real world, of course, but it should be at least a little believable, using mainstream physics.
Consider E=MC2. If you didn't know, the formula states that Energy and Mass are the same thing. But since Energy is equivalent to Mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light (huge number), a paper clip gives you roughly the energy unleashed in an atomic bomb. And isn't magic energy?
What is exactly is magic?
Fire : Thermal energy.
Ice : Lack of thermal energy. Pressure energy or so. It can be achieved roughly using the cycle of compression-decompression.
Thunder : Electrical energy (more precisely, electrostatic). That is, the movement of electrons through one corpse to another.
Water/Earth/Wind : Kinetic energy. A tsunami is a huge mass moving, same for an earthquake.
Light : Light energy. The movement of the light particles, photons.
So magic fits with science, to an extend. But remember the rule that nothing is created, nothing is destroyed. How can mages gather enough energy for magic? How about by converting mass (could be the particles in the air, that would be enough) into energy?
Mana
How to achieve such a thing though? Now we enter really the real of fantasy, since if it was that easy, believe it that we would have heard it in the news for weeks.
The first thing is, it's not an easy thing. We don't want the to nuke each other. Most mages would be, at best, able to transform a rock into a fireball (while a rock normally contains an atomic bomb). My idea is that they would use something else. Either another force that is neither energy or mass, or a particle.
Aside from proton/electrons/neutrons, there are at least twenty other subatomic particles. What is the manipulation of one of such particles would allow the mass-energy conversion? And mana represents the amount of such particle one has?
About particles. There really are mysterious particles like that. Example : the graviton, responsible for gravity. Well, it's theoretical, but apparently, since the particles are so rare it makes gravity a super weak force (compared to electromagnetism and all). Apparently it's because they never stay in one dimension for too long. So mana particles could be somekind of cool force that flows like a river, like wind, but in four or five dimensions instead of just three.
Game context
Of course, the characters know nothing about that. Especially since they live in a non-science-fiction setting. All they need to know is that with enough mental discipline, they can manipulate a stream of mana they can feel to transform a pebble into a fireball.
In a personal context, I really need to explain magic one way or another. Magic won't just be the flashy spells only seen in combat, it will probably play a major part in the plot. Major as in, factions fighting to obtain a more powerful magic or so. As far as I have planned, a majority of the population knows at least basic magic (even if all they can do is lift pebbles, not having trained since it's useless for their everyday lives). So what the factions may be fighting for could be the understanding of how magic works. Where does mana come from. And all that. I'll likely need teleportation at one point, too, so the concept of a fourth degree of freedom (dimension) to get from one point to another in space without having to go anywhere in between those two points is necessary.
(Another less complicated variant would be simply that mages gather raw lifeforce energy from plants and all, then transforms it into another kind of energy. But that is a little classical, boring.)
Alright, pretty much every game needs some magic at one point. They may or may not explain what the magic actually is, how it works, how it affects you, etc. I think that magic, along with your characters and setting, needs its own characterization too.
So I've got the concept for potentially realistic magic. It's not stuff doable in the real world, of course, but it should be at least a little believable, using mainstream physics.
Consider E=MC2. If you didn't know, the formula states that Energy and Mass are the same thing. But since Energy is equivalent to Mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light (huge number), a paper clip gives you roughly the energy unleashed in an atomic bomb. And isn't magic energy?
What is exactly is magic?
Fire : Thermal energy.
Ice : Lack of thermal energy. Pressure energy or so. It can be achieved roughly using the cycle of compression-decompression.
Thunder : Electrical energy (more precisely, electrostatic). That is, the movement of electrons through one corpse to another.
Water/Earth/Wind : Kinetic energy. A tsunami is a huge mass moving, same for an earthquake.
Light : Light energy. The movement of the light particles, photons.
So magic fits with science, to an extend. But remember the rule that nothing is created, nothing is destroyed. How can mages gather enough energy for magic? How about by converting mass (could be the particles in the air, that would be enough) into energy?
Mana
How to achieve such a thing though? Now we enter really the real of fantasy, since if it was that easy, believe it that we would have heard it in the news for weeks.
The first thing is, it's not an easy thing. We don't want the to nuke each other. Most mages would be, at best, able to transform a rock into a fireball (while a rock normally contains an atomic bomb). My idea is that they would use something else. Either another force that is neither energy or mass, or a particle.
Aside from proton/electrons/neutrons, there are at least twenty other subatomic particles. What is the manipulation of one of such particles would allow the mass-energy conversion? And mana represents the amount of such particle one has?
About particles. There really are mysterious particles like that. Example : the graviton, responsible for gravity. Well, it's theoretical, but apparently, since the particles are so rare it makes gravity a super weak force (compared to electromagnetism and all). Apparently it's because they never stay in one dimension for too long. So mana particles could be somekind of cool force that flows like a river, like wind, but in four or five dimensions instead of just three.
Game context
Of course, the characters know nothing about that. Especially since they live in a non-science-fiction setting. All they need to know is that with enough mental discipline, they can manipulate a stream of mana they can feel to transform a pebble into a fireball.
In a personal context, I really need to explain magic one way or another. Magic won't just be the flashy spells only seen in combat, it will probably play a major part in the plot. Major as in, factions fighting to obtain a more powerful magic or so. As far as I have planned, a majority of the population knows at least basic magic (even if all they can do is lift pebbles, not having trained since it's useless for their everyday lives). So what the factions may be fighting for could be the understanding of how magic works. Where does mana come from. And all that. I'll likely need teleportation at one point, too, so the concept of a fourth degree of freedom (dimension) to get from one point to another in space without having to go anywhere in between those two points is necessary.
(Another less complicated variant would be simply that mages gather raw lifeforce energy from plants and all, then transforms it into another kind of energy. But that is a little classical, boring.)
silver wind
Member
The result-list saves the skill/s the player used last- 3 at a time.Zekallinos":sv91mjqr said:
If there's no pattern, the list has 3 different skills. The AI selects 1 at random. If the player uses them at random, all skills have an equal chance of being used, as they all go in &out of the list.
if you always use skill 1, it's always used(3 results are 'skill1'), and if you never use skill 4- it's never used. simple and effective.
* I intend to use it for enemies AI too (give them a set AI, with when+what) so it's worth it.
* The system is as simple as: save the skill used this turn, to the AI in the right condition . Then when using the AI- find the first condition that applies, and select a random result out of 3. (except when there's a pattern of defensive/offensive/certain element skills)
* participating: What if I let the 'host' battle normally?
Nope. o.o; But you could train him with the same party you'll use in PvP..
YES. Give that text to an NPC, it's awesome.
What do your ideas good for, if your players don't know them? Is it a sin in an RPG to know a bit science.. :P
@Zekallinos - I like the "science of magic" idea. It is something that I have given a little thought to myself, and ironically, I also figured that manipulating a particle unique to the game world would be an appropriate explanation. I like the idea and the fact that the gameworld has this much detail behind its existence. It makes the world seem more "real" in spite of people flinging fireballs at each other and stuff.
Zekallinos
Sponsor
silver wind":xfn39agh said:
I can't just start with technical terms and expect the majority of people to understand. Especially the general audience. So I'll just show the tip of the iceberg, and put the rest in a triva facts file or something. I will mention the matter to energy conversion, without E=MC2. Particles without naming them (no protons/neutrons/magictron). Just particles. The thing I need to be the most careful when implementing is the concept of higher dimensions. Most people can't picture more then three.
beterbomen
Member
I just worked out a "Study of Power", about the forces that drive and balance a world. I'm going to use it in making my worlds. It's kinda long. Anyone interested?
beterbomen
Member
I was going to tell it anyway. It go's like this: A world revolves around 3 forces: Magic, Physics, and Spirit. Magic is the energy of a world, the kind that people refered to as magic long ago, changing seasons and stuf. Physics are the laws of a world, like gravity. They keep the world form falling apart(in reality). Finialy, Spirit is the soul of a world, the conciseness that binds all things. Spirit "makes things suseptible to the other 2 forces, while conciseness gives them the choice to reject them." This makes cooperation of the 3 forces posible. If the forces are ballanced properly, Harmony excists, but because they are also conflicting with each other, this harmony keeps isappearing and reappearing. This flikkering creates a cicle that in turn "balances out the impossibilities, flaws and improbabilities in a world." This makes it posible for the world to excist. Without this "Greater Balance" "a world would simply collaps under its own contradictions."
That's it.
That's it.
silver wind
Member
A word of advice: when you write text for your game, do it in a Word document, so you can see if you have spelling errors. I counted 10+ in that post. It's a small effort, and if you don't, people will look down at your game.beterbomen":3br7c3qh said:
Now, about your idea. I could sum up it up in 1 sentence: there are 3 forces in the world which balance each other. Good. What does this have to do with your game/world design? It's not bad, but you'll need to develop the idea more.
Zekallinos":pyn7ga28 said:
Very sensible. Just introduce what is needed to understand what is going on, when it is needed, or when you want to foreshadow. Get too technical and in my opinion, things get mega bogged down.
@beterbomen - I pretty much second what silver wind said about the spelling. It drags down what is otherwise an excellent piece of text.
I am guessing that the whole "harmony / disharmony" thing is the key to a story - the pursuit of harmony unending, in the process breaking down the natural order? If you go down that road more power to you, you could get a GREAT sympathetic villain out of that. I also like the idea that a cycle is needed to balance out the unlikely and the impossible elements, and that the whole thing is a natural process. Very clever and well thought out.
The only thing that I do not quite understand is Spirit simultaneously making things susceptible to the other powers and also letting them reject one another, although the paradigm does go together nicely with the idea of the cycle between harmony and disharmony - would I be correct in thinking, then, that susceptibility and rejection are the two elements that power the movement toward harmony and disharmony?
Meanwhile, I have been toying with an idea of my own, once more. Encounters this time. I was thinking to implement random encounters after all, but with items to slow the occurrence / make them more frequent (for training purposes). Due to the way that I am coding them, I could easily add in an early warning when an encounter is incoming, allowing the player to cancel them, at a cost (reducing a Wild Arms-style cancel counter, to the point where you cannot cancel if you get to 0, for example).
I have been thinking about the best way to balance the encounters, to give control over what you can and cannot just freely reject / ignore. I was thinking of having optional bosses in certain areas, who once defeated, would raise your overall ability to cancel encounters - or perhaps just give you the choice to turn them off when you are in those areas? I'd still like to throw in the idea of canceling a battle before it starts, but I'm not sure if an outright "off" switch when you're good enough to beat this optional boss (and hence, every other monster in the dungeon) would be the better route to go. Either one is nice and easy to do, I should think.
silver wind
Member
I like your idea, players will enjoy having control over encounters, especially if it's earned by their hard work-beating a boss. Just make sure it makes sense in the game.
my 2 cents:
You could add a 'magic shield' or a magical item which makes you invisible. Show an aura around the player, which fades off slowly. When it's gone, enemies appear. Or, show it as another bar in a HUD.
my 2 cents:
You could add a 'magic shield' or a magical item which makes you invisible. Show an aura around the player, which fades off slowly. When it's gone, enemies appear. Or, show it as another bar in a HUD.
In game explanation is no problem - the enemies you face in random encounters are creatures that have bled over from another reality as a result of the big villain's invasion. The items could be explained initially as "somehow warding against monster encounters", and then later on when you figure out what is going on with the monsters, "preventing monsters from crossing over the dimensions nearby".
The bosses that you defeat are the "Alphas", the creatures who command the most fear / respect from the other monsters, so defeating them weakens the monsters overall hold on the area (and lets you negate encounters completely / cancel more easily).
The bosses that you defeat are the "Alphas", the creatures who command the most fear / respect from the other monsters, so defeating them weakens the monsters overall hold on the area (and lets you negate encounters completely / cancel more easily).
beterbomen
Member
Sol_Fury":6mm7ypih said:
About the spelling, I'm sory. English is not my first language.
About the spirit thing: Spirit is made up of two parts: Spirit and conciseness. It's Spirit that makes thing susceptible, while conciseness gives them the choice to reject the other forces. Those things don't have to do that, of course. But you're prety close. Only it's not just spirit that couses rejection/acception between the forces. Magic and Physics also often collide, cousing even more imbalance. I should have said that earlier.
I didn't quite get what you ment with the: "the pursuit of harmony unending, in the process breaking down the natural order? If you go down that road more power to you," part. Just to be clear, true Hamony can not be found, because it would break the cycle. Did you get that the first time? If you did, i didn't write this.
Well, from reading your earlier post, I guessed that true harmony would be either incredibly rare or just not happening. But I figured also that despite the fact that it is impossible, someone is bound to try and do it, regardless of the actual damage done to the rest of the world.
It's the kind of thing villains and well-intentioned turned tragic heroes tend to try to do.
It's the kind of thing villains and well-intentioned turned tragic heroes tend to try to do.
beterbomen
Member
I have to correct myself here. True Harmony CAN be found, just not ETERNAL Harmony. There can be Harmony, and it can last a fairly long time, but it can't last forever.
I thought about what would hapen if someone would try it. If someone would succeed in balancing out the Ring of Power, there would be Eternal Harmony, but the effect of that would be that the world would start to collaps. That would bring such a dissaster that it would break the Harmony, starting the cycle back up. Unfortunately, the effect of such a dissaster would distroy almost everything, sending what remains back to sqeare one.
I thought about what would hapen if someone would try it. If someone would succeed in balancing out the Ring of Power, there would be Eternal Harmony, but the effect of that would be that the world would start to collaps. That would bring such a dissaster that it would break the Harmony, starting the cycle back up. Unfortunately, the effect of such a dissaster would distroy almost everything, sending what remains back to sqeare one.
Eriol Clowphengire
Member
Story [More of a Back-story] (actually, this is in the works, and based off from Baldr Force and .hack games/anime)
<PLAUSIBILITY?>:
In a non-distant future (around year 2015), a new MMORPG was developed by Vexel Entertainment. At first, the game was tried in a typical MMO computer game, but the developers in South Korea decided to be different. That's the time where Japan's Exa-Stream Technologies got along with Vexel Entertainment, where they placed their new portable virtual reality gears to the test.
Twenty staff members from Vexel and Exa-Stream tested the game, now utilizing Exa-Stream's VR system, and it worked yet it required optimization and MMO play-style adjustments, where it involved reducing tasks involving pressing keys on keyboard, not unless if they are to chat by text.
*They may have reduced keyboard control dependencies but a mind-boggling problem sparked, when three of the Vexel Entertainment employees tried to PK each other freely in the game. One died in the game by being sliced 'n diced by the other character, while the next character got toasted by a heavy energy blast cast by Mage player. Only a female employee survived, the other two players were crying in pain, though the attacks in the game reflected on them.
~~*A possible theory for that case would be: This has to do with the human body receiving data feedback from their player character. The brain receives various forms of signals containing "player status data". In other words, what the character experiences, the user feels the character's pain.~~
<PLAUSIBILITY?>:
In a non-distant future (around year 2015), a new MMORPG was developed by Vexel Entertainment. At first, the game was tried in a typical MMO computer game, but the developers in South Korea decided to be different. That's the time where Japan's Exa-Stream Technologies got along with Vexel Entertainment, where they placed their new portable virtual reality gears to the test.
Twenty staff members from Vexel and Exa-Stream tested the game, now utilizing Exa-Stream's VR system, and it worked yet it required optimization and MMO play-style adjustments, where it involved reducing tasks involving pressing keys on keyboard, not unless if they are to chat by text.
*They may have reduced keyboard control dependencies but a mind-boggling problem sparked, when three of the Vexel Entertainment employees tried to PK each other freely in the game. One died in the game by being sliced 'n diced by the other character, while the next character got toasted by a heavy energy blast cast by Mage player. Only a female employee survived, the other two players were crying in pain, though the attacks in the game reflected on them.
~~*A possible theory for that case would be: This has to do with the human body receiving data feedback from their player character. The brain receives various forms of signals containing "player status data". In other words, what the character experiences, the user feels the character's pain.~~
Crystalgate
Member
This problem really shouldn't have taken them with their pants down. You getting stabbed by a knife and your character in WoW getting stabbed by a knife triggers different brain activities. However, if the virtual reality is somehow connected to a human so that your avatar getting stabbed gives your brain the same feedback as if you were stabbed in real life, someone would have suspected it will be a problem. Tests would have been made in which you sting someone's avatar with a needle or something and then gradually raise the amount of virtual damage rather than jumping straight into killing.
A second problem is that the game shouldn't give the player this kind of feedback. When your character is hit by a sword, the player will see the sword strike animation and see the damage represented in a numerical value. The brain shouldn't interpret that as actual injury.
The idea of exploring what happens to the body if the brain artificially receives signals of injury seems good and all. I can however not see if happen the way you described. Also, where does the player enter the picture? If this problem appeared when the employees tested the game, it would have been fixed before the game was launched.
A second problem is that the game shouldn't give the player this kind of feedback. When your character is hit by a sword, the player will see the sword strike animation and see the damage represented in a numerical value. The brain shouldn't interpret that as actual injury.
The idea of exploring what happens to the body if the brain artificially receives signals of injury seems good and all. I can however not see if happen the way you described. Also, where does the player enter the picture? If this problem appeared when the employees tested the game, it would have been fixed before the game was launched.