A Few Advance Notes On Geneforge 4
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Monday, February 27 2006 07:12
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quote:Percentage chances just don't work. Save-and-reload has been a customary option for far too long, and most gamers these days -- even those who don't identify with Red Mage -- will use it without thinking, especially in the case of annoying effects like attacking friendly characters. I agree with SoT. Giving the canisters positive AND negative effects on your stats, as well as positive AND negative effects on the story, would make them WAY more interesting. And they desperately need to be more interesting. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 4256
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written Monday, February 27 2006 07:29
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It could be that encounters with a certain set of random(or preset)characters could only end in hostility. That would kill the load_save addiction. -------------------- "Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are false'." Posts: 564 | Registered: Wednesday, April 14 2004 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 6632
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written Monday, February 27 2006 11:14
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quote:Do you mean random but set at game start/area load? I totally hate that. Preset encounters, same for everyone, would be neat though. Posts: 50 | Registered: Monday, January 2 2006 08:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Monday, February 27 2006 14:16
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I'd rather have preset encounters than random percentages when dealing with direct canister effects. It seems like preset encounters would be easier to incorporate into the storyline, as well. Dikiyoba. Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 5550
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written Wednesday, March 1 2006 10:54
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If you have helpers in this game like G3, what I would like to see is a little more character development. Greta and Alwan were sooooooo blatant. Also, maybe something other than the "Bob" system could be used. Its only really been discussed in terms with Avernum, but Geneforge does it too, and I would'nt mind something new. Last note, make melee useful again. The damage reduction makes it just pitiful. -------------------- Q: What is the sound of one hand clapping? A: The sound of someone getting smacked upside the head. Duct tape is like the force. It has a good side and a dark side and it binds the universe together. Don't worry Alorael, custom titles are overrated. Posts: 154 | Registered: Saturday, February 26 2005 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 3618
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written Saturday, March 4 2006 13:50
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In terms of Shaping, I've always wanted to be able to make turrets. Think of the strategy implications of a stationary creation: the player would have to place the turret well, and lure the monsters into its range. I also wouldn't mind the ability to create support creatures: a vlish variant that heals nearby allies or removes bad effects, an ornk that can be eaten for energy, maybe even something that blesses allies (it would give Guardians a way to eventually take advantage of some spell effects without getting spells...). The high-level battle creations are pretty redundant. I'd like to see a golem, with more defense than a battle alpha but not as strong an attack. (Ah, here's an idea: reagents that can be used during Shaping to improve creations. Kind of like augmentation of weapons: give a creation a poisoned stinger, or extra speed, or a tougher carapace, by Shaping it with the proper ingredient...) Posts: 33 | Registered: Thursday, October 30 2003 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 3513
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written Monday, March 6 2006 15:26
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I really want to see more crafting, but not so much with trivial items like wands of fire (not worth using a stick for). I also want a greater variety of low-level creations, possibly even a new catagory of creatures aside from Fire, Battle, and Shaping. Starting every game with a fyora is ... meh. -------------------- Nobody appreciates me. It's all "Igor! Fetch some wine!" "Igor! Clean up this experiment!" or "Igor! Bury this in the garden, we're leaving town in 10 minutes!" —Alorael, who tried to become a deivore once. The priest gave him a funny look after the third wafer. Posts: 301 | Registered: Thursday, October 2 2003 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 6581
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 05:41
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I want to the Fire, Battle, and Magic Shaping abilities have more influence on creations. For example, after a Fyora is shaped, I can make it more strong with boosting Fire Shaping. I also want to see equipment for creations and followers! -------------------- Download Geneforge 4: Rebellion You have 6 posts. Nobody cares what you think. - Thuryl Wikipedia may be your friend, but UBB is not. - Dikiyoba Posts: 1310 | Registered: Tuesday, December 20 2005 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2759
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 12:24
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I agree about shaping skills. At the moment there are too many special artifacts that you equip for making creations and then remove immediately. This feels a bit artificial. The player's investment of skill points in shaping skills should be worth more. One possibility would be to decouple a creations chance of going rogue, or getting scared when wounded, from its intelligence skill and link it instead to the PC's shaping skill in the relevant category. The disadvantage with this is that intelligence >2 then becomes meaningless for creations that don't have a missile attack. Another possibility is that your creations act sooner and have more APs the higher your shaping skill - justified by the idea that better shapers can control creations' movements more closely. Acting sooner is currently linked to dexterity but could easily be unlinked. Any AP increase would have to be done cautiously, for instance level 8 shaping gives (a chance of?) +1 AP, level 12 gives (a chance of?) +2 AP. I conjecture there are not many players who currently take their shaping skill above 8 when playing normally (for myself, I'd rather spend the points on intelligence). A further possibility is that higher shaping skills should influence the creations' armour or resistances. AFAIK at present the only way to increase a creation's resistances is to buy endurance for the creation or to equip special items. I'm not going to suggest anything radical like lower essence cost for creations, or a new third tier of creations, because this would alter the balance of the game too much, and I don't think Jeff would want to do that. Hmm, I'm sure I didn't start out to write at such length... -------------------- "I can't read this thread with that image. But then, that's not a complaint." -Scorpius Geneforge 4 stuff. Also, everything I know about Avernum | Avernum 2 | Avernum 3 | Avernum 4 Posts: 1104 | Registered: Monday, March 10 2003 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 13:33
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In line with my oft-expressed interest in explaining the many different ways creations get made (viz., birth, PC's 'crackle-poof', vats, etc.), perhaps there could be Shaping labs where PCs with high enough skill could make special creations. These creations would only be makeable there. They might even need time and special ingredients to grow, so that there could be a whole mini-string of quests that would gain the player something like a Battle Gamma, say. (Well, something better than a Battle Gamma would be nicer, but I leave that to someone else to specify.) Perhaps these special creatures would not need personal Essence to maintain. Perhaps there could be a door that only such a creation could open. Stuff like that. It's sort of an obvious combination of the Shaping ability and the Crafting ability, so I imagine Jeff will consider something along these lines at some point anyway, if he hasn't already. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 6754
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written Wednesday, March 8 2006 21:28
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I really enjoyed the "cutscenes" in GF3. With Litalia and her fading shade are the only examples I can recall. Simple. But dynamical. Day. Night. Rain. Snow is nice. Just needless visuals with no effect would be, super. Also, I've always had an intense urge to play a rousing game of "Boardgame" or "Dice." Them guards get bored. Now here's a more radical idea. Jeff's decriptions of Shaping have always been vague, but I get something like this: the Shaper releases essence from his or her body, concentrates, and extends a little magical energy to direct the essence. Bam, new Creation. My idea: you have to actively do something skillful to shape. So maybe if you have crappy Shaping skill, you can still do a good job. I can't imagine how you would control Shaping. Sort of a mini-game thing that's so hard to incorporate it's probably not worth it. But cool. I'm sleepy. -------------------- One of these words is mispelled. Posts: 284 | Registered: Tuesday, January 31 2006 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 6581
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written Thursday, March 9 2006 03:55
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quote:I would like movies and cutscenes. I think that a benginning movie and an ending movie, after the cutscenes like GF3 ending, could be nice. I agree with board game. A like the idea of a minigame for earn some money. -------------------- Download Geneforge 4: Rebellion You have 6 posts. Nobody cares what you think. - Thuryl Wikipedia may be your friend, but UBB is not. - Dikiyoba Posts: 1310 | Registered: Tuesday, December 20 2005 08:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 6670
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written Thursday, March 9 2006 08:54
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Sigh. My BoA scenario is set in Avernum where hard-working crystal miners are trying to get enough money to pay for the trip to the surface. Then I play A4 and find this is similar to Grindstone. Then I come up with the cool idea: convert the barriers into monochrome and use them as fog. JV, stop reading my mind and stealing my ideas! :) -------------------- IF I EVER BECOME AN EVIL OVERLORD: No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head. Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, March 9 2006 08:56
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Wear an AFDB. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4574
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written Friday, March 10 2006 16:13
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For some reason I've been hooked on the shapers creating a time travel device in the beggining.A rebel and a loyalist get through in the beggining. You decide whether you're the rebel or loyalist. You go through the portal and arrive on Sucia Island, the time is at the beggining of GF1. Your job if you are the loyalist is to kill everyone. A side thing would be to spare the Obeyers. If you're the rebel your job is to kill the loyalist, BUT Jeff probably has the plot worked out already. Another thing I just remembered is that before GF3 came out I said something about a a Shaper Partner. I'd like to think that Jeff actually liked my idea and put it into GF3. Of coursewith some changes. -------------------- Constitutional monarchies are the in monarchies. Posts: 1186 | Registered: Friday, June 18 2004 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 6754
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written Saturday, March 11 2006 16:57
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I was about to laugh with you, Pizzaking, but then noticed the serious tone of your post. Minigames would give GF4 a Zelda-ish feel, but in my opinion, the Zelda series is the best out there. Something about Shaping has to be done. It's not terrible, but a little too easy to "cheat." Shaping skills only affect the Creation's Shaping, so as Micawber pointed out, it's simple to equip a few nice Shaping artifacts (like the Black Crystal Talisman or Essence Chitin) and make powerful creations. When you get your fighting gear back on, your skill may be insufficient to even make the same Creation, much less a well-supported one. Another thing I want to explain -- Mr. Vogel don't let me put words in your mouth -- I've noticed people complaining, "how come Lord Rahul can make as many creations as he wants and I can only make seven? I'm way stronger than him!" Or someone mentioned that "serviles can't be independent because they keep essence from the Shapers." These aren't like laws of the Geneforge universe. It's playability. General Greiner's army can send creations two miles west, according to one of the Shapers there. But for you, that'd be sending it into another zone, and it'd be largely impossible to implement this. There are workarounds to such problems (if they can so be called) I thought up, and will probably be regarded as stupid ideas. I'm going to list them anyway, for those interested: Losing essence from Shaping is alright, but the inability to get it back, I find just ridiculous. I would lower essence capacity for all classes, and not let the Creation "leech" any essence. Shaping is described as tiring; completely depleting spell energy would be reasonable. However, this motivates players to shape hugely powerful creations with loaded skill points, then refill essence and repeat. See below for remedy. Some creations are described as particularly willful, like battle alphas, and later on, drayks and eyebeasts (On a side note I don't like the idea of Shaping drakons, much less controlling them). Shouldn't these Creations be more likely to "go rogue?" Why not assign each Creation a "rougue tendency" variable? Say a battle alpha has a rogue tendency of 10. For each skill point the alpha gains, its rogue tendency will increase a point. The Shaper gets a "Creation control" variable that determines whether or not you can control a battle alpha. Suppose your Battle Shaping skill is 4 and your Leadership skill is 6. A reasonable formula is ctrl = btl*ldr; this scenario gives the Shaper a Creation Control of 24. You can make a battle alpha with up to 14 skill points. As soon as your cumulative creation rogue tendency exceeds your creation control, the toughest creation has a good chance of going rogue at any given time. It may motivate your other creations. This would, however, make Leadership much more valuable. Maybe a new Creation Control skill could be implemented. This would even solve the "cheating" with Shaping artifacts; you'd have to keep them on, or you'll get beaten up by wild rogues. Other, unrelated comments: Classes (guardian, shaper, agent). General skill groups (fighting, Shaping, spellcasting). As is, we have three preset choices: -Good at fighting and some Shaping -Good at Shaping and some spellcasting -Good at spellcasting and some fighting I'd love an agent that's good at shaping, or a guardian with magic skills. Having weaknesses (read "certain, more expensive skills") is not for me. GF4 may look like this (again, I'm speaking for myself only): -Warrior: good at battle -Mage: good at magic -Servile: good at espionage* *leadership, mechanics, luck, maybe even stealth since Jeff mentioned it And any class can learn to Shape eventually, since you apparently can't play as a Shaper. Inspired in the last 30 seconds, a stealth skill would be good for stealing stuff. Larceny is too easy if you can get someone to leave (I always crowd the Barzite shopkeepers with Creations, then shut the door behind them and loot the place). People should probably notice if you rob them. Unless, of course, you're really stealthy. Then they can just be like usual, "what the hell happened?" So far, MOST people don't notice if you walk into their bedroom, then walk out a few pounds heavier. That's assuming too much stealth. Or if you're super stealthy, you can kill people without an alarm going off or turning a town hostile. I mean, realistically if you stab sick, quiet Torsten to death in his little house the whole town can't notice ... heh-heh-heh. Your stealth might enable you to overhear conversations, through walls, or to not be noticed by guards. All that good stuff. How about class advantages? Like, if you're a warrior type, you could get selected for a quest, "Get rid of rogues" because you seem more capable. But a servile might not get much respect from other people. Or perhaps a mage may be sent to look for ingredients. Your class should probably also determine your starting location ... a servile, born intelligent but still able to choose rebel or loyal ... a mage, in a laboratory or school ... a soldier, in an army or garrison. All eventually coming to the same place, but maybe only your class can visit your starting point. It adds replay value, of course. Crafting. I love that. Make a skill for it, like mechanics. Have it deduct spell energy and essence. But the wands and stuff were a little too trivial to be worth making. Crafting your own canisters would be pretty cool ... for 10 crystals, a ring of puresteel, and a chunk of essence, you should be able to level up in an ability (like a spell or creation). Stationary creations. Even if it's not realtime, making some spawners, turrets, or spincores in enemy territory should have some debilitating effect on the enemy. Didn't Phariton make pylons? You could defend a city with them. Wild Creations. Largely the same deal as above. Remember the servant mind in GF1 that was Creating things to harass Zhass-Uss? What about creating a bunch of crazed thahd mutants and loosing them into the wild? It shouldn't affect any of your ability to Shape loyal creations, since as soon as the wild creation is out there, you don't have to worry about it. Comparable to Litalia's efforts with the warped spawners and rogues and stuff. Pack animal. That "Create Ornk" in GF1 could be more than a joke. Someone -- I forget who -- suggested this very thing elsewhere. I'm usually frustrated anyway by having to drop off items. As long as you don't take them out to use in battle, ornk would be good pack animals. But you'd have to keep them fed or something, so it doesn't get too easy. "That's all I have to say about that" -- Forrest Gump -------------------- One of these words is mispelled. Posts: 284 | Registered: Tuesday, January 31 2006 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 4278
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written Sunday, March 12 2006 15:21
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Along the lines of stealth... You know those unstable reptiles that follow you and bite you until they explode usually causing a deadly chain reaction? What if you could create an "Unstable Assasin"? you would tell it to target a servile/shper/whatever, and it would walk up to him/her and blow up... silently so no one around would notice. hopefully the damage is enough to kill them, otehrwise you'll have to send more than one. And if you fail to kill them in one shot of course, everyone becomes aware of your actions. I apologize if this was already posted in one of the above TLDR's -------------------- Pathological Jerk Jerking at Spiderweb since 1999 Posts: 143 | Registered: Sunday, April 18 2004 07:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Sunday, March 12 2006 15:36
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A silent explosion. Hmm... Dikiyoba. Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2339
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written Sunday, March 12 2006 15:56
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I just remembered that I once had a Geneforge dream (creepy, huh?) where there were good and evil creations that actually evolved the more experience they got. I remember a tiny, wimpy, pure EVIL slug-thing that turned into a hulking death juggernaught if it got enough experience. There were also human companions who could shape, as well. A very interesting dream (which was NOT inspired by Pokemon. I have been clean for a long time). But, would it be possible for your creations to actually evolve instead of just getting improved by you? That would certainly be an interesting feature to add. I also like the idea of exploding assassins. As for canisters, I think they should have a Skribbane effect, as in if you haven't used one for a long time, you begin sweating profusely and lose some health and spell energy. But the effects of the canisters themselves shouldn't be reduced. [ Sunday, March 12, 2006 22:34: Message edited by: Zephyr Tempest. ] -------------------- -Zephyr Tempest, your personal entertainer Posts: 1779 | Registered: Monday, December 9 2002 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Sunday, March 12 2006 19:44
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ZT, you've clearly been watching Pokemon too much lately, and by "too much" I mean "at all". -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 6834
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written Monday, March 13 2006 09:15
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damn I think these dreams are contagious I just had ne that involved EVE online and GF.....scary Posts: 13 | Registered: Sunday, February 26 2006 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 4278
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written Monday, March 13 2006 10:49
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^ Doesn't anyone have normal dreams? Like, just a dream about playing melee for hours? -------------------- Pathological Jerk Jerking at Spiderweb since 1999 Posts: 143 | Registered: Sunday, April 18 2004 07:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Monday, March 13 2006 11:15
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No. I had a dream about my school getting blown up by aliens and a dream about a vampire in Wizard of Oz, but no melee fighting dreams. Dikiyoba. Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 6222
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written Monday, March 13 2006 13:25
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quote:you can already make pyroroamers. it is my understanding that if they are absorbed, they explode as if they had died normally. apparently, the explosion does not activate combat in any way either. Posts: 109 | Registered: Sunday, August 14 2005 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 4278
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written Monday, March 13 2006 16:34
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^ Awesome glitch, if true. -------------------- Pathological Jerk Jerking at Spiderweb since 1999 Posts: 143 | Registered: Sunday, April 18 2004 07:00 |