A Concern Re: Removal of Settlement Stockpile in 1.04

[x4000]

MouldyK: yes, some various stats go up a bit now.  More on that soon in the release notes.  And: sigh.  This just in:

* Previously, monster health went up by 1x the largest number of players who had ever been together in the chunk of the monster (since the chunk was last loaded from disk).
** This made it so that, player per player, the same amount of damage needed to be dealt as if there was one player.  However, the perception has repeatedly been that it is better to journey solo rather than together, despite the fact that it is numerically identical and indeed tactically advantageous to stay together (given that you can flank monsters and they can often  only shoot at one of you at a time).
** As a concession to the perception, the multiplier is now 0.85x the largest number of players who have ever been in the chunk, so that now it's numerically advantageous to stay together as well as tactically so.

LayZboy: Suggestions are much more likely to get things changed in a way that you like rather than general grumbling.  Otherwise you're relying on my ability to guess what you're after, and I'm not that good a guesser.

[LayZboy]

LayZboy: Suggestions are much more likely to get things changed in a way that you like rather than general grumbling.  Otherwise you're relying on my ability to guess what you're after, and I'm not that good a guesser.

Okay.
Instead of removing the shared resources and implementing this system, why not just make it clearer on how the shared system works to avoid the so-called confusion.

[MouldyK]

Sorry if it was a bit moany about the multiplayer multiplier, but I think a change might be good if tested out and if we find it too easy after, then I will tell you and you can put it back up to x1 again.


I will now stop whining and let you finish up the changes before berating it.

[Murmur]

I just read through the current changes for the patch in question and I just want to say that personally, I can't wait. This sounds awesome, keep up the good work.

Don't know why but I felt compelled to register and say that.

[Mánagarmr]

I just read through the current changes for the patch in question and I just want to say that personally, I can't wait. This sounds awesome, keep up the good work.

Don't know why but I felt compelled to register and say that.

KEITH! Stop mindcontrolling the lurkers!

[x4000]

LayZboy: shared resources are already gone, and at this point I'm definitely not interested in doing a release without at least trying them out.  And if we ever did go back to some form of shared resource model, it wouldn't be like the one that we previously had.  Probably it would just give everyone a copy of whatever gets picked up or something.

Note that there are various things still not documented in the release notes yet, like catch-up spells (same idea as catch-up enchants) for new players being able to get in and up to speed immediately.

Also, really there are two points to the main system when it comes to MP:
1. Journeying together is better than apart.  Or at least neutral, rather than actively worse as before based on the math of pickups alone.  Is this co-op or isn't it?
2. Diversity between players is more fun.  If several players go off in different directions and all have different spells therefore, GREAT!  Then when they are journeying together they can better figure out how to work together rather than all being basically the same as one another.

Overall with these changes even for solo, another thing that we're shifting is moving away from "what's your favorite spell loadout" even being a possible thing to contemplate.  With partially-procedural spells, your favorite spell will change with each tier, thus making for a lot more interesting gameplay variety while still preserving a lot of choice (it's not like the crafting system is going away).  In the flow, it's like a whole new game.  Again.

MouldyK: No worries.  You weren't the only one, and that changed apparently needed to be made since people are so up in arms about it consistently.

Murmur: Cheers, thanks for the positivity!  That's always refreshing in a thread like this.

[keith.lamothe]

KEITH! Stop mindcontrolling the lurkers!

What, me?  I haven't touched the mindcontrol device in... ah, must've been the hybrids, their jar is tipped over again.

[tigersfan]

LayZboy: Suggestions are much more likely to get things changed in a way that you like rather than general grumbling.  Otherwise you're relying on my ability to guess what you're after, and I'm not that good a guesser.

Okay.
Instead of removing the shared resources and implementing this system, why not just make it clearer on how the shared system works to avoid the so-called confusion.

This is why we aren't really soliciting questions and such yet. It's not fully explained because it's not fully implemented. We'll get around to explaining it all, but, first we gotta get it into the game.

[Mánagarmr]

What, me?  I haven't touched the mindcontrol device in... ah, must've been the hybrids, their jar is tipped over again.

It's always those hybrids, isn't it? I'm starting to think you're doing that on purpose.


On topic: I can't wait to see these things in game. It sounds a lot more like I originally imagined AVWW. Keep it up and you'll get my feedback once I sink my fangs into the changes.

[Vinraith]

I'm trying to wait for any real comment until after everything's in and documented, but I have to admit that I'm really concerned that the collection/crafting stuff (my favorite part of the design) appears to be de-emphasized in favor of the mission stuff (probably my least favorite part of the design) in these changes. Maybe I'm wrong about that as I don't have the whole picture yet, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Bluddy]

I'm trying to wait for any real comment until after everything's in and documented, but I have to admit that I'm really concerned that the collection/crafting stuff (my favorite part of the design) appears to be de-emphasized in favor of the mission stuff (probably my least favorite part of the design) in these changes. Maybe I'm wrong about that as I don't have the whole picture yet, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

+1

I would like to see ALL missions give you side things like guardian power scrolls and perhaps settlement buildings, while crafting should be the main way to get spells. Also, reduce missions so I don't have 300 of them littering my map. 5 visible ones + the secret ones are more than enough.

The rest of the changes seem good so far.

[goodgimp]

A lot of these changes sound really nice to me. Looking forward to the remainder of the notes.

[Nanashi]

Really minor and stupid gripe - wouldn't "penetrating" be better than "cleaving"?

Cleave usually means to split apart in a slashing manner. And it's ambiguous, because to cleave ALSO means to stick together, meaning it's one of the only auto-antonyms in the English language.

[yllamana]

The multiplayer enemy health thing isn't perception, it's reality. To take the simplest possible example, if you're at the start of the game with another player and you run into a monster, the first player who hits it will knock it out of the way of the second player's shot. You also have some other issues - killing a monster in one hit is very different to killing it in two hits and affects how you play. What if you're fighting a boss and get split up? Suddenly enemies are charging towards you with double the health but you don't have double the instant firepower available.

On another tack, monsters move less predictably when you have multiple players around. Controlling your own movement is part of controlling a monster's movement in many cases, and having another player mucks that up. Having another player knocking a monster around from a different angle makes it even worse.

Naive doubling of the monsters' health just doesn't work because it ignores how health and the limit of health fits into the game as a whole. I'd put the multiplayer scaling as probably AVWW's single biggest multiplayer design flaw and I doubt reducing it by a bit will address it.

I also want to reiterate people's concerns re: missions. Some of them are fun but they're often the opposite of why I play the game: for the cool procedurally-generated world and exploration. I think I'd rather see the gameplay elements of the missions broken up and scattered through the explorable world instead of them being stuck in hermetically sealed exploration-free zones.

Anyway, holding off on talking about the crafting stuff other than that, but I think it'd be a mistake to dismiss people's concerns re: playing together apart. The game should let you do that too if you want to, and I think supporting that style of play, where the group can separate at a moment's notice if someone is interested in exploring somewhere, is important. Ideally it shouldn't make you feel punished for doing whatever it is you choose to do at any given moment - that's part of the fun.

[Bluddy]

I also want to reiterate people's concerns re: missions. Some of them are fun but they're often the opposite of why I play the game: for the cool procedurally-generated world and exploration. I think I'd rather see the gameplay elements of the missions broken up and scattered through the explorable world instead of them being stuck in hermetically sealed exploration-free zones.

+1 again.

I must've said this a hundred times, but the game's biggest strength is targeted exploration in random environments. If the missions could be seamlessly integrated into that exploration (and the random environments) rather than be discrete, the game would become significantly more enjoyable IMO.