My Suggestion

[KiLLeR]

Hi,

Some of the suggestions are already postet by other users, but
that's my complete "wish-list":

1. There should be a well developed crafting-system, so that you could
hunt deer, chop wood, mine stones and ore and so on. Then you
could manufacture speers, shields, swords and so on.

2. There should be the posibility to build a hut (in the beginning, with
some wood and stones), then extend it, let slaves work for you,
they should collect the wood/stones/whatever for you, so that you
are able to build a big and wonderful castle.

3. If you go to a town of the faction you are in war with, you could
choose if you want to get in peaceful and deal some grain or s.th.
else or if you want to attack the castle (and free some prisoners).
There could be walls around the castle where the defenders walk
on and the enemy archers can fire from. (perhaps towers)

4. Weapons: I liked the post I read wich sayd something about scimitars
with their blades that are better on horseback-fighting.
And to add some realism: All the weapons with wooden parts
(Lances, quarterstaff, axes...) should have energy like the shields
so that the get broken if you block too many attacks with them.


That's it for now, if I get new ideas, i'll post them.

What's your opinion to my suggestions, would they be realizable ?

- KiLLeR

 

[Skyrage]

1, 2 and 3 I like, but I personally feel should be left for later...crafting etc tho, should be something that is threaded upon carefully...the world doesn't have the slightest dynamic economy, and without it I'd see manufacturing/crafting as a high risk of being equivalent of having the moneycheat...would need lotsa features here to make this whole area a risky buisness and worthwhile of having...

4 however is something that I'd really wanna see...lances etc specially should break really fast...

Make lances and all wood-type items that you joust/charge with break after a few hits, make them way cheaper to buy, and give them a huge damage boost. Lances etc are a means to soften the enemy up after the first initial charge before resorting to steel and due to the nature of these weapons and the insane forces behind then, they would usually break even after the first charge.

O ya...and a charging polearm attack should definately be unblockable no matter what if hit frontally...

 

[Ilex]

4 however is something that I'd really wanna see...lances etc specially should break really fast...

Make lances and all wood-type items that you joust/charge with break after a few hits, make them way cheaper to buy, and give them a huge damage boost. Lances etc are a means to soften the enemy up after the first initial charge before resorting to steel and due to the nature of these weapons and the insane forces behind then, they would usually break even after the first charge.

O ya...and a charging polearm attack should definately be unblockable no matter what if hit frontally...

Very true. Even if the lance (greatlance,joustinlance) would not break (as it usually would) and you wanted to switch to another weapon you would have to throw the lance away, for it is too big to be put in the "backbag". Charging polearm attack should be blockable IF blocked by a shield, but only to certain limit. The holder of the shield would drop/fall to the ground and receive damage (still stings A BIT when you get struck by a lance eventhough you blocked succesfully).[/u]

 

[corksacker69]

what id like to see instead of a crafting system for the player, is a dynamic economy with each different city playing a part, where each city produces resources from other resources, and ships it off to towns on caravans. resources would consist of all the merchant items that are in the game, like linen and wine/ale, that are naturally spawned on the world map and gathered, or crafted out of other resources. military units wouldent just be spawned out of nowhere, but rather be created out of resources. if a faction gets its trade routes interupted, then it wouldent be able to produce or maintain military units, dulling its power. this means that atacking a factions economic support or just killing its patroling military units would actaully have the effect of weakening a faction.

i proposed a conceptual system like this, describing it in detail , but it probabley was too complicted. ill maybe do a better write up of it and post it again.

 

[Narcissus]

what id like to see instead of a crafting system for the player, is a dynamic economy with each different city playing a part, where each city produces resources from other resources, and ships it off to towns on caravans. resources would consist of all the merchant items that are in the game, like linen and wine/ale, that are naturally spawned on the world map and gathered, or crafted out of other resources. military units wouldent just be spawned out of nowhere, but rather be created out of resources. if a faction gets its trade routes interupted, then it wouldent be able to produce or maintain military units, dulling its power. this means that atacking a factions economic support or just killing its patroling military units would actaully have the effect of weakening a faction.

i proposed a conceptual system like this, describing it in detail , but it probabley was too complicted. ill maybe do a better write up of it and post it again.

That is a great system and a great concept!

One problem I see is that unless the game will actually be geared towards 'winning the war' and 'defeating the opposite faction' ... then it could seriously hurt gameplay. The reason I think this way is because whichever side gets the initial advantage ... that faction will have a very un-balanced advantage. Side 'A' wins a few battles (whether you helped them or not is a moot point) and interupts side 'B's economy. Side 'A' creates more units and side 'B' creates less. Side 'A' attacks again and soundly defeats side 'B' (due to greater numbers) ... hurting their economy even more. Over and over and eventually side 'A' has 100 times the men that side 'B' has and the war is pretty much over.

If that is the final goal of the game then your idea has merit. Otherwise ... there would need to be a large number of rebalancing factors added in.

Narcissus

 

[corksacker69]

One problem I see is that unless the game will actually be geared towards 'winning the war' and 'defeating the opposite faction' ... then it could seriously hurt gameplay. The reason I think this way is because whichever side gets the initial advantage ... that faction will have a very un-balanced advantage. Side 'A' wins a few battles (whether you helped them or not is a moot point) and interupts side 'B's economy. Side 'A' creates more units and side 'B' creates less. Side 'A' attacks again and soundly defeats side 'B' (due to greater numbers) ... hurting their economy even more. Over and over and eventually side 'A' has 100 times the men that side 'B' has and the war is pretty much over.

If that is the final goal of the game then your idea has merit. Otherwise ... there would need to be a large number of rebalancing factors added in.

thats why a system like this would be very difficult to balance, much less implement, but it is one of those few things that the game needs to be truly finished. under such a system, with no player intervention at all, the world would continue to grow, and the citys would trade with each other, while factions at war would not be too agressive towards each other. when the main player character intervenes in the world, depending on what he does, thats where the factions start noticably growing and shrinking, and the balance of power starts to change.

as for the final goal of the game, maybe there could be several, and one could be choosen when a module is made using the mod tool.

 

[Narcissus]

The scope of an idea like this is huge! Sounds good to me ... but it'll take an immense amount of work to see it done correctly.

The possibilities with a full-blown system like what you suggest are far reaching ...

EDIT: Back to the thread topic ... ... ideas 1-3 sound great to me. The crafting especially makes me excited. I would LOVE to see some in-depth crafting and skills that compliment that. A complete merchant that just hires gaurds to protect him while travelling to sell his wares could even be a fun possibility in an open-ended system like M&B.

Narcissus

 

[Instag0]

Good ideas! I think it would be great to add some type of housing, crafting, and castle siege systems. Though, having items with wooden parts that break often could get annoying- but if the crafting system allows you to repair your own items, that'd be alright. The wooden weapon breaking concept definately needs a bit more thought put into it for it to work well compared to the other concepts.

 

[corksacker69]

programming-wise, a dynamic economy where citys keep track of there own resources and such, and trade/create new resources out of resources they have, wouldent be too hard to implement. now, i have thought about this, and i am a 2nd year programming student with about a year of practical OOP experience, so i kinda know what im talking about.

 

[Narcissus]

programming-wise, a dynamic economy where citys keep track of there own resources and such, and trade/create new resources out of resources they have, wouldent be too hard to implement. now, i have thought about this, and i am a 2nd year programming student with about a year of practical OOP experience, so i kinda know what im talking about.

I am a 0th year programming student with slightly less than no years of practical OOP experience, so I will grudgingly admit that you might have a 'bit' more knowledge on the programming side of the idea!

If you say it wouldn't be hard to implement a dynamic economy ... tracking, using, and developing resources ... and everything else that would be involved then I have to take your word for it. I would think it would be a very complex and hard task ... but as I said above, I have no real idea ... just assumptions.

Narcissus

 

[corksacker69]

well tracking each resource and determining what you do with the resources is just an algorithm, a detailed sequence of steps that a computer follows to do somthing specefic. because each city in the game is the same as any other city except for the number of resouces and other things, the algorithm would be the same. whats tough is twinking with the numbers to make sure things happens to way you intended. like, if a city gets resource x, what does the city do with it? trade it? stockpile it? use it create another resource? this needs to be decided by different factors. for example, if a city is under seige, it is more likely to conserve and stockpile food instead of use it to create other resources. this, and all other possible scenarios need to be considered and factored into the final decision as to what to do with that resource x. this is AI, and is very difficult to program.

 

[Narcissus]

corksacker69, you now have me completely confused.

I said that I thought it would take an immense amount of work to do such a thing.

Then you said that it wouldn't be hard at all and that you know this because you are a programmer.

Then I said I wasn't sure and since you are a programmer, I'd have to take your word for it.

Now ... unless I'm mistaken ... you are saying how hard to get it right is?

Isn't that what I was saying before this whole exchange? Please don't take this as confrontational ... but the above is surely how I percieved the conversation and I'm baffled. Are we agreeing or disagreeing?

Narcissus

 

[nightrunn3r]

It makes perfect sense to me. corksacker is contradicting himself, but not really, so narcissus is wrong. But on the other hand, Narcissus is right, so Corksacker is right about the difficulty level, but not about the contradiction. And therefore, E=MC2.

 

[corksacker69]

they dont teach us very much writing, so im sorry if iv confused you. what im trying to say is, the system wouldent be hard to code, at least parts of it, because it would be fairly straightforward. whats hard is making the city AI do things the way you intend it to when its time to make desicions.
thats a whole different ballgame.

 

[Narcissus]

Errr ...

M'k ... *smiles alot*

Yup ... *nods a bunch*

Whats that behind you? ... *instant you look away I make a dash out of the conversation*

Sorry, friend ... my lack of computer programming (I think thats my problem anyways ) leaves me perplexed. I retreat from this battle, as all smart fighters do, to battle another day.

Narcissus

 

[Johann67]

Difficult? Naah. Just make it an agent-based system, and simple rules would suffice.

 

[Wanderer]

AI's an old hobby of mine. I'm not familiar with the FPS pathfinding (I haven't messed with it since RTS) that's common in today's highspeed games, however, the code for a self-balancing economic system wouldn't be difficult, just highly time consuming, bulky, and an interesting (to me, most would find it frustrating) logistical problem.

The system itself, as Narcissus said, would be simple. It's a couple of variables stored in an array along with a few tables of information holding value, production rates, and similar information.

The objects to control the economy wouldn't be horribly difficult either.

The decisions on balance, the creation of the balance, and the integration as an intelligent body into the game, there's the time consuming part.

I don't see it as viable for M&B I unless Armagan abandons combat as complete, or pushes out his internal launch dates.

 

[Eird-Way]

If the two factions are beating the crap out of each other, I don't see how their resources could get out of hand.

A simple dynamic economy is exactly what the game needs. Each faction captures cities, mines iron, builds weapons, and trains troops. Caravans generate income through trade. Bandits and soldiers keep everything in check.

w00 for you forum guys and your wanting of something awesome. You are all right and good.

 

[Narcissus]

Don't get me wrong ... the thought of a true dynamic economy in this game gives me 'warm and fuzzies' ... I just think it would take too much time and effort on Armagan's part to apply that to the game. The balancing issues alone could take a very extended amount of time and work.

If I'm wrong ... then I will be happy about it.

Narcissus

 

[Wanderer]

If the two factions are beating the crap out of each other, I don't see how their resources could get out of hand.

Simple... my influence.

It's the snowflake theory. The difference in an avalanche is a single snowflake. In a straight out system, any minor advantage, constantly achieved, will unbalance the system out of proportion to the cause.

Allow me an example. Dynamic system for goods, and caravans. I camp my troops outside an enemy city. The caravans are scared of me, so they run away... never getting to the city. Unless some random war party comes down and kicks me out, this city starves to death... because it's getting no resources to build new troops.

So, the source city for whatever this city buys at high prices is getting less money. The target city is getting no money because no caravans are getting in and out. I'm affecting two cities with one, but that's only the start of the avalanche.

With less troops, the equality of cities allows one city on the other side to be a 'free army' city. All odds eventually balancing out, this 2% gain will being to snowball. As extra footmen are constantly thrown into the mix, and with no similar reduction of income on a permanent level from one of their cities, the other side gains yet another 2%, making this simple, minor act, a 4% gain. This makes it 54%-46%. Nearly 8%... from a snowflake.

So, we balance this. We make it so the caravans are now reporting to war troops when they've been forced to run, say x times, from the same city. Or, if a caravan can't reach a city in, say, 4 days, a war party runs the route and finds the problem (starts at source city, goes to end city).

A) You need to create the triggers for each theoretical possibility.
B) You need to create a prioritization system for the theoretical possibilities, and therefore a decision system to determine which ones take priority.
C) You have to create a prioritization system as to which troops are going to clear you out of the way of the caravans.
D) You have to create a trigger system to trigger determination of failure of the war party (I'm going to kick the crap out of the first set...), and then response, along with re prioritization (do you abandon the town, is it worth a war party to recover a town, what's the trade, etc...)
E) You have to create a response situation for the caravans if it's been determined to be abandoned. (Stop sending caravans, re assign those caravans to a less-valuable route, so on)
F) Return fire evaluations. With the knowledge that a powerful enemy force is camped in your lands, do you then return the favor, knowing that your scouting/war parties will not meet it...

These are merely the items necessary for the logic for a single encounter that could occur in reaction to the dynamic economy. Without it, I'd expect that my enemy would break within 60 game days if I chose to abuse their caravans. 5 days to get all men at arms and knights, to avoid all war parties. Pick three relatively close cities, and run a circuit. It would basically obliterate the trade from 2 cities, figuring 1 city's worth would get through. Should standard combat continue, that overload would wreck the entire game.

I would LOVE to see dynamic economy. I don't believe it's viable here without major work. I'd also be more then happy to help with specifics, discussions, and revues if Armagan was interested in a complete requirements spec of what would be necessary if he wanted to pursue this without severe game unbalancing.

If anyone can see a way out of the logic trap I see being formed, I'm extremely interested.