Author Topic: Spawn points - respawning  (Read 9573 times)

Offline Achillies

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Spawn points - respawning
« on: September 29, 2011, 12:05:59 pm »
Hello,

Generally, I'm loving the game. However one thing that is really really getting on my wick is the fact that I can clear a room of respawn points. Open a door to another room, find it's a dead end and then less than 10 seconds later walk back through the same door to find all the respawn points back again.

For me it's a bit of a 'what's the point?!' I can cope with no reward for destroying minor enemies and spawn points but for the respawn points themselves to come back just from changing from one room to another and so soon. Well it's more than just slightly annoying!

Hope you consider this feedback. I'm sure you are going to have much success with AVWW. It's much better than I thought even at this stage!

Cheers

Anthony
« Last Edit: September 29, 2011, 12:07:36 pm by Achillies »

Offline x4000

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2011, 12:15:31 pm »
There's been much discussion about spawn points -- the respawning of them is based on the fact that if you're re-trodding places you've already been and there's no monsters, then the game is boring.  You're just wandering around.  Not that there is a huge amount of backtracking, and you do have an interesting point on the length of time thing.  It's possible we might need to make it so that it takes a bit longer; right now you have about a 10 second window to come back before they respawn.

There's also the issue with boss rooms, where people could run out of a room, heal, and then come back in and take advantage of that.  So with boss rooms I really think it needs to stay working the way it does to prevent the exploits that are otherwise inevitable.  But for NON boss rooms... well, one way to go is that in building interiors not have them respawn at all.  That would differentiate interiors more from undergrounds and exteriors, anyway, and would probably solve most of your frustrations because "only going into rooms briefly" is pretty much something that only happens with interiors if you're using the map... I'd think.

Thoughts?  I'm particularly interested in thoughts from folks with frustrations like yours on this issue, because trying to balance it from both ends is important and I need your perspective.  Knowing the above on what else I'm also trying to accomplish with the mechanic in general, what do you think?  I'm leaning toward just making a simple change so that non-boss-room interiors don't ever respawn their monster nests and leaving it at that.

By the by, drops from trash mobs are coming. :)

Thanks for the kind words on the game!
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Offline Achillies

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2011, 12:25:01 pm »
Thanks for your quick response!

I was talking about interiors you are correct. I'm ok with the respawn points coming back after say 5-10 mins. That would mean if you are in a particularly big environment then it's possible you would re-tread the same path after that amount of time, and it's feasible for you to encounter mobs again after that time. Fine with underground or other locals respawning at a different rate. It would make each area have it's own feel, and that would be awesome!
« Last Edit: September 29, 2011, 12:27:21 pm by Achillies »

Offline BobTheJanitor

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #3 on: September 29, 2011, 12:33:38 pm »
I think making them non-respawning except for boss rooms would at least be a step in the right direction. At the level I'm at, at least, destroying one with fire touch takes a pretty huge time investment. Often I don't see the point to doing it in the first place, but I like the option in case future changes necessitate it.

On a totally different tangent, if the point of monsters is to make it more interesting to traverse areas without just feeling like you're running through the big empty, perhaps another option would be to have many fewer but much stronger monsters, rather than the rather minor annoyances that they are currently. That way instead of there being a bunch of trash that you constantly jump over, you instead simply have the constant threat of a big bad coming down and smashing you, which builds interesting tension even if you never actually see it.

That just gave me another interesting idea. You could have a building with nothing in it except a boss that follows this logic and stalks you from room to room. Maybe he's the only thing in the whole building. Maybe the point is to find his spawner and destroy it, which then makes him vulnerable to attack. And then once you kill him you can get access to his cache of items secreted away in the building. Maybe add sound effects when he's nearby, and if he sees you he chases you for a few rooms until you give him the slip. Of course that would require adding in the ability for monsters to chase you across room transitions, which I know I've seen suggested elsewhere already. But that's a way that you could make empty room travel interesting without needing to have lots of little baddies around to get in the way.

Any way, as usual I'm wandering off on flights of fancy in answer to a simple question. No respawning spawners, good idea.

Offline Achillies

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #4 on: September 29, 2011, 12:36:56 pm »
Great ideas Bob...

Particularly the big bad mobs rather than lots of little ones. Variety is good... Some areas with lots, others with less bigger ones. each leads to there own strategy. I like it lots...

Offline x4000

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #5 on: September 29, 2011, 12:39:11 pm »
You bet, a lot of variety of things are coming.  I suppose we can just make it only respawn monster spawners in boss rooms and see how that goes.  Then people feel like they are accomplishing something, too.

And in terms of having "big bad" stuff that stalks you in general, that would be interesting to do and would keep the tension there, that's for sure.
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Offline TechSY730

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #6 on: September 29, 2011, 12:45:04 pm »
You bet, a lot of variety of things are coming.  I suppose we can just make it only respawn monster spawners in boss rooms and see how that goes.  Then people feel like they are accomplishing something, too.

And in terms of having "big bad" stuff that stalks you in general, that would be interesting to do and would keep the tension there, that's for sure.

But wouldn't that mean anywhere that isn't a boss room/area you could clear out forever, and have the empty wasteland that you were trying to avoid?

Wait, didn't you mention that the monster spawner "death state" is not persisted, so once you get far enough away such that the area is no longer being kept track of in RAM, it would come back whenever you come back around to that area?

Offline L00cK

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #7 on: September 29, 2011, 12:51:03 pm »
how about the spawnpoints come back after u end ur current turn in the strategic map.

Offline x4000

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #8 on: September 29, 2011, 01:03:50 pm »
But wouldn't that mean anywhere that isn't a boss room/area you could clear out forever, and have the empty wasteland that you were trying to avoid?

Yeah, that's what would happen.  But players are already able to level all the objects and trees, so that's really going to happen anyway.  And there's rarely a reason to return to someplace if you've killed all the monsters there, anyway, thanks to warp scrolls.  So warp scrolls have really made a lot of this stuff with monsters being absent not as much of a worry as it otherwise would have been.  I think the satisfaction that folks would get out of being able to permanently "save" an area would be worth the wasteland effect, the more I think about it.

Wait, didn't you mention that the monster spawner "death state" is not persisted, so once you get far enough away such that the area is no longer being kept track of in RAM, it would come back whenever you come back around to that area?

It is persisted, it just creates new ones if there are fewer than there should be when you next load it off disk.

how about the spawnpoints come back after u end ur current turn in the strategic map.

That could work, but I think then that gives a disincentive to turn turns.  And in multiplayer, if someone is playing the strategic mode while others are running around exploring, then that could be really frustrating with your monsters spawners coming back constantly because of what someone else is doing in a settlement far away. :)
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Offline Terraziel

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #9 on: September 29, 2011, 01:08:39 pm »
There's been much discussion about spawn points -- the respawning of them is based on the fact that if you're re-trodding places you've already been and there's no monsters, then the game is boring.  You're just wandering around.  Not that there is a huge amount of backtracking, and you do have an interesting point on the length of time thing.  It's possible we might need to make it so that it takes a bit longer; right now you have about a 10 second window to come back before they respawn.

Why not just replace indoor spawn points with X monsters (depending on room size), so instead of a small room containing 2 spawn points it just contains 2 monsters, which would be much less irritating to clear out, to combat the boredom angle I'd say the obvious time to reset spawns (based on my suggested model) would be on leaving the building.

Offline x4000

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #10 on: September 29, 2011, 01:14:32 pm »
Hmm, for building interiors that could indeed be an interesting way to go.  Just monsters, but no monster spawners.  And then leave the monsters spawners alone elsewhere.  I think I'll try that as a first step.

EDIT: Although, actually, that would cause a lot of troubles with serialization and such, which I'd rather not get into.  I think I'll stick with the monster spawners not respawning except in boss rooms, actually.
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Offline Dizzard

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2011, 01:16:02 pm »
the respawning of them is based on the fact that if you're re-trodding places you've already been and there's no monsters, then the game is boring

Would killing enemies so very much weaker than yourself be fun though? (Most of the time I'm trying to conserve my magic so I'm not killing monsters wily nilly) It seems more like an annoyance when they no longer offer a challenge.

Maybe it could be based on the clock and not just moving from one screen to another though. Something along the lines of the spawner is gone for a week or maybe a bit less like a day or so (ingame time) and then after that it comes back.

EDIT: Actually, I was thinking about it and it likely would be boring just because there's nothing moving around....it would be barren. Although you could always replace evil monsters with friendly animals/creatures once the level between the enemies and you becomes so great that there's no longer a threat. Then you could interact with them in a different way (like train them as some sort of pet companion system or catch them to use on your farm for greater produce)

Yeah I'm heading off on a big tangent here. :p
« Last Edit: September 29, 2011, 01:35:23 pm by Dizzard »

Offline Professor Paul1290

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2011, 01:46:05 pm »
I think perhaps the ideal, but probably vastly more complicated, solution would be to eventually make it so buildings would re-populate with enemies coming in from the outside, out of boss rooms, or perhaps even the occasional "nest room". That way the buildings would repopulate but the enemies would be taking a reasonably predictable route to get to the room they want to hang out in. This would make things like traps more useful in keeping rooms clear for longer when needed and open up more opportunity to interact with the enemies in general.

I'm guessing that would probably be a real long shot as to whether it would be feasible or not, but it would be super-wicked-awesome-cool.  :P
« Last Edit: September 29, 2011, 01:49:55 pm by Professor Paul1290 »

Offline zebramatt

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2011, 01:56:44 pm »
I'm relatively easy on the issue at the moment.

Once mobs get micro drops it'll shake the whole thing up again, I'm sure.

Offline orzelek

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Re: Spawn points - respawning
« Reply #14 on: September 29, 2011, 01:58:20 pm »
With current respawning policy thrash has one point - cost you health or time and mana.

Considering amount of building exploring you need to do (potions? not mentioning books) it's a simple choice depending on two things:
- time on hand - if you are in hurry you ignore trash completely
- which type of potions you have more - you chose to use resource you have most

I'm not entirely sure that adding smallish rewards for trash will change this tactic much. Making them not respawn would mean that it killing trash would be viable for rooms you know you'll need to travel through few times. Or in mazes/evil rooms when there is a reason to actually explore those.

I find buildings with small rooms very valuable now - you can go in, search rooms and go out with loot without much hassle and with small resource costs. You need to explore larger ones only if you actually want to look for something like books.

One more tangent not covered here is that monster spawners are now guaranteed in every room - this doesn't make them more interesting. A bit of randomness could be more fun. Especially with both other changes which would mean that trash is there or not and killing it can give you something small for the effort and it won't respawn.

 

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