More than killing?

[Lee]

Hi everyone, I'm relatively new to both the game and this forum (I'm only level 8), but one thing that's already struck me is that the only way it seems to be able to make any real experience is to kill things. Lots of things. If Andor's Trail is genuinely aiming to be a role-playing game, there should be more rewards for the RP aspects of the game.

I know quests and dialogue are probably the biggest consumers of development time, but I don't think you'd necessarily need to flood the game with new quests. I have some proposals:

• 1) More XP for completing a quest
  
  2) Introduce quests that respawn or quests that never complete. For example, the potion merchant in town might need a constant supply of ingredients. Each 'quest' might be to deliver a certain number of a random type of monster body parts (of locally spawning monsters). Each time the character completes one quest, another spawns - maybe requiring slightly more ingredients and\or slightly more exotic monster parts. Additionally, rats could respawn in Mikhail's garden, messages or objects could always need couriering between towns, etc. - an endless supply of quests that steadily scale in difficulty (e.g., rats get bigger and tougher, messages need taking to more distant towns, etc.). An alternative to the mindless monster-killing would be attractive and provide some variety when the main quests have completed.
  
  3) Reward XP for the first time you explore a new area (i.e., go off the edge of a known location). The farther the new location\dungeon from your starting village, the greater the XP award.
  
  4) Award an XP bonus for the first time you kill a specific creature, but then just a normal reward thereafter.
  
  5) Introduce a tiered XP reward for killing monsters - if a creature is rated 'normal', you get a standard XP award, but if it's 'easy', you only get a quarter (and if it's 'very easy', nothing!). Conversely, you get more XP if you kill a creature that's 'hard'.
  
  6) Other members of the forum have already posted about smithing weapons and armour, brewing potions, cooking food and maybe introducing woodcutting or other labour skills - if introduced to the game, these things should be worth experience points, too.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts - to give the game its due, it's one of the best Android games I've played. I just love (proper) RPGs too much and am always a little disappointed by how computer-based implementations tend to fall short of the full gaming experience, but a few simple tweaks could make this game a whole lot more engaging (and challenging!). I'm not just talking about getting married, buying shops and houses or introducing economics\relationships to the game, just a bit more balance for those of us that get bored of senselessly running around in a murderous rampage.

In another forum post, I think someone mentioned about more in-game commentary when you walk over paper or past engravings and to have historical events, legends and key NPCs in the world revealed in tiny snippets (also worth XP ) would be great - especially if it builds up a rich narrative\story\epic history in one of the 'about' screens. I have some creative writing skills and would be happy to help with something like that, if there was an interest. There could even be unidentifiable potions that have some random RP element - for example, temporarily transported through time to take part in an epic moment of the world's history or spawn a revealing dream sequence the next time the character sleeps, etc. Obviously not all such 'unrecognised potions' would have positive RP effects and there would be risks involved in drinking such a brew...

I hope this post is taken in the spirit in which it is intended (i.e., genuinely constructive) and not misconstrued as a criticism of the game - I am, after all, really enjoying playing a FREE game and have no expectations that any computer game would yet be able to simulate a the a full role-playing game. Although nor should that mean that I don't want to see it improved or be involved in its development.

Well, level 9 beckons and, hopefully, level 10, so I can start regenerating - maybe then I'll be able to kill a basilisk without having to drink 3 potions!!

Cheers everyone,
Lee

[last_pawn]

+1 Lee

I agree and am a big fan of the repetitive quest idea. Although I don't want to see boring errands, an honest job here and there would be interesting...

More scaling would be required if "very easy" monsters don't give XP. I have a balanced char, and White Wyrms and Rats are both very easy. Perhaps the baseline should be normal, with only one hit kills being very easy and two or three hit kills being easy. everything else scaled up from here. Although I recon some XP should be gained from every kill.

Personally I'd like to see Oskar retain all of the narrative input to this game, mostly for constancy but I believe a game should have only one GM, even if 1000 people contribute to development.

[Pyrizzle]

1) More XP for completing a quest

I agree the rewards for finishing the quests should be greater, expecially if the quest is more challanging.

2) Introduce quests that respawn or quests that never complete. For example, the potion merchant in town might need a constant supply of ingredients. Each 'quest' might be to deliver a certain number of a random type of monster body parts (of locally spawning monsters). Each time the character completes one quest, another spawns - maybe requiring slightly more ingredients and\or slightly more exotic monster parts. Additionally, rats could respawn in Mikhail's garden, messages or objects could always need couriering between towns, etc. - an endless supply of quests that steadily scale in difficulty (e.g., rats get bigger and tougher, messages need taking to more distant towns, etc.). An alternative to the mindless monster-killing would be attractive and provide some variety when the main quests have completed.

I really like this idea and hope we add something like this in the future, maybe a daily quest that can be done once a day? or even quests that request for you to go gather X amount of Item y to compleate

3) Reward XP for the first time you explore a new area (i.e., go off the edge of a known location). The farther the new location\dungeon from your starting village, the greater the XP award.
4) Award an XP bonus for the first time you kill a specific creature, but then just a normal reward thereafter.

I don't any real point to these. I think the xp rate should remain the way it is.

5) Introduce a tiered XP reward for killing monsters - if a creature is rated 'normal', you get a standard XP award, but if it's 'easy', you only get a quarter (and if it's 'very easy', nothing!). Conversely, you get more XP if you kill a creature that's 'hard'.

The biggest problem i see with this is that when players play until high levels eventually all monsters become rated "very easy", that would eventually create a cap on the level a player could reach

6) Other members of the forum have already posted about smithing weapons and armour, brewing potions, cooking food and maybe introducing woodcutting or other labour skills - if introduced to the game, these things should be worth experience points, too.

As much as i love the idea of being able o build things that you may need, i feel like this would take away from the game. People would be staying in place more as compared to now where everyone explores more.

Thank you for your imput, we always love to hear from the players.

[Lee]

5) Introduce a tiered XP reward for killing monsters - if a creature is rated 'normal', you get a standard XP award, but if it's 'easy', you only get a quarter (and if it's 'very easy', nothing!). Conversely, you get more XP if you kill a creature that's 'hard'.

The biggest problem i see with this is that when players play until high levels eventually all monsters become rated "very easy", that would eventually create a cap on the level a player could reach

I don't think it would - it would just mean that to get more XP, you'd have to do quests, which would continue to dole out XP. It means the really high levels would be a real challenge to obtain. I don't necessarily see a level cap as a problem if the reason you're killing the creatures is for other rewards (legendary items, etc.). In a proper RPG, the goal isn't to get the numbers on your character sheet as high as possible, although this is, unfortunately, the trap into which most (if not all) computer-based games that call themselves RPGs fall. I think Andor's Trail has an opportunity whilst it's still in development to stand out as something a little bit different from all the others and encourage a slightly different style of play.

And I accept the point that not all 'very easy' monsters are particularly easy. Maybe we'd need a new category of monster, like 'trivial' before they don't grant XP? I'm only level 10 at it tells me that Basilisks are very easy, but I can assure you they're not! LOL! Whereas Catacomb Rats have a maximum damage of 1 and so can't even hurt me - currently 'very easy' but should probably be 'trivial'.

Have fun,
Lee

[sdevaney]

1- This is on the to-do list.
2- Worth talking about during the next meeting.
3- Players should naturally want to explore the land; you are trying to find your brother after all.
4- I can't put my finger on exactly why, but it just doesn't feel right. Why should first contact with a mob be worth more than any other encounter after?
5- Monster difficulty is set vs your player characters stats so I don't see a way this works out evenly for everyone across all builds.
6- I doubt any complex skill based creations like armor or weapons, but cooking meat, gathering things for potions...maybe.

[Sarumar]

+1 to Lee,
Welcom to the forums. You have some intresting ideas.

This game is in progress (beta) and IMO new ideas are welcome. IMO current exp systems are good one, please dont decrease amount of exp - for next level i need over 2,3 M exp

[lady black]

I like ideas 1, 2 and 6, but agree with Sarumar about not decreasing XP from kills, and I only need 0.62M to get to level 108.