38% (5)
15% (2)
46% (6)
0% (0)I'm really having a difficult time figuring out how I want to do this. Every player has a list of 'verified' keywords, which is added to when they hear something from an NPC, however, I'm not sure if I want to actually add to a players book.
I'll elaborate on each option:
[Learn keywords automatically once they are heard?]
This, seems to me, is one of the worse choices. It just encourages players to click through an NPCs conversation, not pay attention, etc etc, so learning is all handled automatically (which, I don't think can be considered learning).
[Make keywords very obvious in conversations, but players note it themself?]
A sample line of text would be:
NPC says: Hey, did you know you can put KYNE at the end of your spell to make it more powerful?
This would add 'kyne' to the verified list, but the player himself would have to add the keyword (and optional description) manually to the book. I feel like this encourages paying attention, but might get annoying after a while.
[Make players have to pay a lot of attention to learn keywords?]
This would make players read a lot more, and there wouldn't be any hints in the text (well, obvious ones). A sample line would be as follows:
NPC says: You whippersnapper! Back in the day, I had to go uphill both ways, through the gust, and eventually, when we got to our school, we found it was replaced by a forest! Then we had to ignil our way out of that forest, before it ate us alive! Yeah, you young'ins got it easy nowadays.
(If you didn't catch it, 'l' was the keyword that was appended to 'igni')
I feel like there *could* be a positive mix between two and three, but I'm really still struggling with this. I wanted to have it done this weekend, but I realized I had zero plans for how I wanted to do it.
Poll: Should Mantra players..
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Jan 28 2011, 4:11 pm
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Fantasie Productions
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Of course you would go with Option Three, you would not only make people think but raise their natural awareness IRL making them better people all in all! Practice makes perfect so NUMBER 3!
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Making keywords obvious doesn't mean they are easy to find. If the NPC that says "KYNE is a keyword" is hard to find, "KYNE" is automatically hard to find.
I'm not sure how you want the game to work, but from a game design perspective it seems to make more sense to automatically record keywords. If the player can enter any keyword they'd like, my second Mantra character will immediately know all keywords that my first character knew just because I happen to remember them all. | |
Forum_account wrote:
Making keywords obvious doesn't mean they are easy to find. If the NPC that says "KYNE is a keyword" is hard to find, "KYNE" is automatically hard to find. That's true. I had just been thinking that most of the NPCs would be located around in a town, but not that it would be hard to find, just that you would have to talk to the locals to gather information on the area, keywords, other things. I'm not sure how you want the game to work, but from a game design perspective it seems to make more sense to automatically record keywords. If the player can enter any keyword they'd like, my second Mantra character will immediately know all keywords that my first character knew just because I happen to remember them all. I had thought of that when I went through this. One of the downfalls of Rudra no Hiho was that you could add any spell, any set of keywords, etc, to your spellbook at any time during the game. This game also used MP. If you had enough MP, you could cast the most strong spell right away, provided you looked it up. I didn't want to use MP, so this made it harder to figure out. I eventually settled on a 'tier' system, in conjunction with the 'verification' system. The tier system is pretty simple in what it does -- when you write spells in your book, you have to be using holy ink (which is conveniently only located in churches). The ink has a tier associated with it, and if any part of the spell is too powerful, the spell will fail (although, this behavior should change to just exclude anything that is too strong). The verification system is why I let you enter keywords to begin with. You don't know if they'll work, and you're welcome to enter as much gibberish as you'd like -- it probably won't work. Once you successfully craft a spell using an unverified keyword, it becomes verified (but still has no description, so it could still not be understood what it does). Alternatively, if you hear something from an NPC (because they're just so gosh darn smart, and don't lie either, .. so cliche now that I think about it), it is immediately considered verified. I had hoped that these two systems would prevent what you mentioned, but I'm just not sure what additional measures might have to go into place yet. I'm still trying to push out a more playable demonstration of the game. | |
There are other ways to find keywords than just hearing them from NPCs.
That sounds like a reasonable way to limit what keywords you can use. However, I had in mind something like this: the player is given a choice (ex: fight to defend the castle or run away and let it burn) and they'll learn different keywords based on what they choose. A tier system wouldn't prevent you from learning both provided you knew what the other word was. Maybe for some crucial key words you would need special ink. When you find "mystery ink" you take it to an NPC who tells you "oh, this ink is for the ____ keyword". The only way to attain that keyword is with that particular mystery ink. | |
Yeah, I suppose I hadn't thought of too many 'inventive' ways to learn keywords. I remember (from Rudra) reading them in books, finding them on stone tablets, and a few other ways. I might have to slow down and think a little bit more about this now.
I also agree with the choices concept. It's something I had planned to implement for Light and Darkness, but it could easily be extended to some keywords. Some could be class-based, some could be event-based. Thanks for all the ideas! I'm gonna revise some pages in my notebook now, haha. | |
You don't necessarily need inks for specific keywords. You could have "light ink" and "dark ink" which are necessary for "light keywords" and "dark keywords" but these inks are found in limited supply.
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Of course; It would get a bit tedious if you needed specific inks for each word.
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i say do a mix between the 3rd and 1st one make you have to read it closely and you have a master scale to master the new spell and once you master it you can just put in the keyword
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@shade: You might want to look at my previous description of how the spell creation process works. There's not really a reason to 'master' a keyword, because it's all just writing.
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choosing between the first two and the third options is the difference that would've been between Morrowind and Oblivion.
As such, everyone (still) feels that Morrowind had the most compelling and fun storyline and quests, mostly because you had to WORK to get through them instead of just referring to a magical journal and an all-knowing compass. | |
Taking all of this into consideration, I've decided to opt for the third approach. Not only is it by-far the easiest, but it also makes the most sense. Thanks, all.
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