constant spawning

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eggmceye
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constant spawning

Post by eggmceye »

pros:
* makes maps harder
* makes map sharing easier (does it really?)

cons:
* makes endless grinding easier (is this a con?)
* unrealistic


slight adjustment:
I've thought about making spanwers NOT spawn when a player is nearby. This removes a large element of danger. This would be nice, but is it a good idea?
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Post by Grodst »

Pros:
sharing= certainly helps in the newb dungeons! Have yet to hear a peep about folks having to wait for rats/goblins to respawn.
harder= sure, all for that. Whatever makes maps more challenging seems to make folks happier.

Cons:
Grinding: Not sure 120 sec is fast enough for smaller places to be abused. Folks already recycled deepest pit in old times. It will be "abused" by folks just hanging out, but the sensor stopping nearby spawns should "fix" this.
Unrealistic: Hmmm, my opinions usually are.

PD seems to make partying mandatory in advanced areas with 120 respawn on. Soloing is just begging fate to smack you!
Best "lvl cap" I can figure out to implement w/o whiners.
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Dudle
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Sounds good...

Post by Dudle »

I like the respawn rate. However I could see it being hard on noobs trying to clear maps or doing quests. I think the spawn fix would be good after all - medding and getting jumped by the room you just cleared a moment ago would suck.

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Post by Keighn »

Hard to say, but one thing is for certain and that is that the spawning will certaintly make any maps I make much more interesting.
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Post by Gulnar »

Spawns off when player is in range=good idea. I don't see any drawback to this. Less danger, but I think players would prefer that.

*makes maps harder: Yes, if respawn in range is left in. Otherwise, shouldn't make a difference

*makes map sharing easily: Practically speaking, map sharing may not happen much. Keighn and I have shared River's End in PD, but if players can negotiate a sharing agreement, they should probably just party. Still, respawn does allow the possibility of sharing, but makes reverse clearing rule obsolete/unenforcable. There will probably be player conflicts over hunt grounds either way.

*makes endless grinding easier: perhaps a con with regards to egg's vision for the game. Probably a net positive for an MMORPG, as far as most players are concerned, even if MMORPG model is flawed.

* unrealistic: meh, I don't care. That's Keighn's bugbear. Any respawn is unrealistic, but Fallout wouldn't work as a multi-player game.
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Post by eggmceye »

ok then:

next update keeps always spawn (120sec) + no spawning if players within 7 sq
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Post by Aristarch »

I have never had a problem with map sharing - basically there is a lot of space to go and have fun, so why to quarrel? Unfortunately players tend to stick to a certain location they consider superb(there is a strong preference to Mino Halls amongst players). I've heard a discussion once; apparently there are players who would enjoy a square empty room with repeatedly spawning monsters if only they would lend them experience fast enough.

This fast respawn strongly favours stationary hunters, who just walk circles on the map, not exploring further. It's easier to clear a 3 dragon spot then walk there killing one at once as fast as they respawn. If you went further, you would have to face all the 3 spawned already on the way back.
I'd say slower respawn would encourage exploration.

The faster respawn means also players leveling faster and it's already a problem they are sometimes too powerful.
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Post by eggmceye »

yeh that is generally all true.

What you have to consider when designing a game is what you want the players to do, and what message you are sending (often inadvertently) them.

When spawners always work, regardless of players on the map, it suggests farming & grinding, even tho the intent is to provide something to kill and share.

When there is map clearing (and mind there was never perfect map clearing, as some maps are spread across levels - eg mino halls is 4 or 5 separate maps, so some levels would start respawning) - it suggests completing a level - even tho the message seems more to be "I WAS HERE FIRST :cry:"

I think I would rather suggest the latter: that was the orig intent in EUO - I liked the cleared levels of corpses in Diablo and that was how it used to work. But Diablo effectively uses instancing, which is a little bit 'too hard basket' (only becuase of the mapset nature of euo) for euo. The other thing I don't like about instancing (apart from many technical difficulties) is the fact of non-shared levels. I know that is the point of instances - more for everybody, but it is completely unrealistic - even more unrealistic than the idea of a spawner itself.

So in the end what do you do? it is not bad for the time being and long term effects are yet to be seen.
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Post by Catherine »

Old spawners used to refill one mob at a time, I think (?) - remember a discussion why having multiple smaller spawns > one central large one for making mobs appear (mongbats in this case). New code seems to 'pop' them all at once.

I'm with the latter 'feel' you mentioned, as its more familiar, and insta-pop is far too much like WoW / MMORPG camping. e.g. kill, wait 15 mins, kill, .... nth kill.


Since you can do timers now, perhaps a nice feature would to have maps 'tick' on player entrance. e.g. Player enters, has tick = 0. Mob respawn declines as her tick increases, and its not reset by TPs, until another TP is made.

Still cheesable by parties, but if kept a game-mechanic secret, would lead players to finding sitting there wondering why farming just those red / fire dragons wasn't working, and 'subtly' encouraging them to move on.
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Post by scglass »

As far as I am aware, boss monsters (and their loot) are a random spawn. They were once highlighted, like diablo bosses, but this encouraged easy identification and farming and so they now appear just like every other mob.

This makes boss monsters a nice surprise when you find them, but nerfs the idea of having key boss monsters as they could be easily farmed.

I still think boss mobs would be a great idea and so I've been trying to think of a way in which boss monsters (and their loot) could consistently spawn in a fixed location but be tweaked in such a way that they would only drop their boss loot if some pre-requisite conditions had been met on the level, i.e. their loot drop was conditional and script based.

For example, bosses could drop their loot if certain...:
* minimum number of mobs killed while on that map
* pre-requisite "mini-bosses" killed elsewhere on map
* invis-items or "keys" in the inventory obtained from solving puzzles on the map
* locations or areas are visited on the map
* minimum or maximum party size
* minimum or maximum level range
* minimum length of time has passed since that player killed the boss (hours? days?)

The aim is to still have a tough objective / boss which would drop good reward loot but would only drop loot if certain pre-requisite conditions had been met.

Any thoughts or ideas on this?
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Post by Keighn »

I'm curious about environmental spawners. Take a look at Ultima III. When in Exodus' Castle Death there were blasts of red magic that randomly occurred anywhere inside the castle that could blast the entire party for a certain amount of damage. These are obvious not traps and can't be avoided by rogues. Perhaps a feature like this (with text option and damage variable and whether it is set/area/all over the map) could be implemented.

Currently, it is pretty tricky to make certain areas that aren't farmable by players that are extremely high level. When I heard that people were already farming firedragons I was a tad surprised. I've had to run from them each time thus far (though my highest level is only 77). While I do love a completed map perhaps another set of variables for spawners to set them to either respawn while on map/certain distance away/any distance even near would make maps different and put control more in the maker of the map than just as a flat out game mechanic for all maps. The timing could be also be set at a different variable (at the fastest perhaps when PD had an extreme respawn & the slowest somewhere around 10 min.)
Scglass wrote: I still think boss mobs would be a great idea and so I've been trying to think of a way in which boss monsters (and their loot) could consistently spawn in a fixed location but be tweaked in such a way that they would only drop their boss loot if some pre-requisite conditions had been met on the level, i.e. their loot drop was conditional and script based.

For example, bosses could drop their loot if certain...:
* minimum number of mobs killed while on that map (I still see farming as a possibility with this one)
* pre-requisite "mini-bosses" killed elsewhere on map (Explain a little more on this.)
* invis-items or "keys" in the inventory obtained from solving puzzles on the map (This is very interesting IMHO)
* locations or areas are visited on the map (Another good idea)
* minimum or maximum party size (Sounds good)
* minimum or maximum level range (Also good)
* minimum length of time has passed since that player killed the boss (hours? days?) (And this is cool too.)

The aim is to still have a tough objective / boss which would drop good reward loot but would only drop loot if certain pre-requisite conditions had been met.

Any thoughts or ideas on this?
I take it that these boss mobs that are modelled after diablo or similar games would include the "Boss" and a set of mobs guarding the boss.

I imagine this would be completely independant of our current "boss mobs" that have no guards. Unless you're talking about a whole set of fields to be filled in that cover from a single boss with no guards to perhaps a mega boss with multiple mobs of varying size.
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Post by Rusty76 »

I think there is a problem with the current spawn rate for monsters and chests. There are a couple of locations with several high level chests that players regularly cheese (come in with a TP, sneak around hidden and take the boxes, then leave and come back in 3 minutes or less when the chests respawn) This allows them to very easily collect lots of gold (about 7K per trip), lots of high lvl treasure maps (lvl 14,15 at least one per trip) and enchanted jewelry items (1 in every 15-20 trips) It's fine to have a decent treasure area but it's not fine to find it every 3 (or less) minutes. I think that the chest respawn time should be seriously increased, something like 30 minutes. The monster respawn time should be increased as well. It makes it hard to lure monsters if you got them respawning behind you. The monster respawning should either go back the way it was, or be increased to like 30 minutes. This would help encourage players to explore new hunting places instead of just grinding in the same place over and over. I know people have been grinding in KTOS alot recently, and I have been guilty of doing it on Rusty as well as cheesing the chests. But does it make sense to be able to stay in one area and just kill dragons forever? Does it make sense to keep visiting a treasure room every 3 minutes to find it's been magically refilled again?
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Post by Grodst »

Good point on the chests. Pretty upsetting to get told I can't go somewhere and hunt because a guy wants the chest respawns left alone. Meaning they are so bad about it that they kill the monsters selectively to leave all chests open for looting while stealthed.
VoT and Duorgon seem most cheesed places.

As for monster respawn rate, I love it. Seem to get more people to hunt with me than ever. Only spots not seeing much action anymore would be the bally parts of DF and Bally alley in Pendragon. Those are once again elite spots for only the sturdiest of heroes.
KToS issue would be easily solved by replacing a few of the Basilisk spawners with Fire Dragon ones. Instant fix for solo grinders being there for hours upon end.
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Post by Ulric »

What if the chest respawned every 3 minutes like now but the numbers/types of items in the chests are determined by the amount of time since the chest has spawned.

If chest has been spawned:

3 minutes ago = gold
1 hour ago = gold + any item
5 hours = gold + any item + readyable item
24 hours = gold + any items + readyable items
7 days = gold + 1 unID item.
...

Where :
gold = some calculation based on the time.
any item = potions/maps/usable stuff/...
readyable items = any item that can be readied by a player non-magical or magical.


This would cause players to search for chests that have not be opened in a long time. Grinding for chests would be useless.

Calculating the items and gold may take some thinking but other wise I think it would work well.
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Post by Rusty76 »

I like that idea alot. I think it would definitely prevent the cheesing and promote exploration.
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Post by Keighn »

Yeah, it is pretty cheesy. I love doing it myself. I was looking at the Edit modes on the EUO keyboard printout and viewing the current layers game me an idea.

Currently there are as follows:
Terrain Layer
Features Layer
Items Layer
Spawners Layer
Monsters Layer (Not used)

Well, obviously having chests on the Spawner layer is the problem. There is only a couple of suggestions that I believe could fix this.

1. a. Leave it in the Spawner Layer
b. Have each Spawner customizable when set (i.e. Time for often respawn. Distance from to be Respawned (thus you could still make spawners where monsters reappear right next to you). The 3rd field would be sort of an on/off switch. 0 - you can be on the map and it will respawn according to the above 2 fields 1 - the entire map must be left alone for 5 minutes (someone entering during the timer countdown resets the timer back and a new 5 minutes must past).

2. Is sort of an addendum to the above but with far more layers in maped. These layers are:

Terrain Layer - (anything you generally walk on like water, floor, bricks, mountains, etc)

Obstacles Layer - (anything that can be activated or blocks like, Walls, fountains, waterfalls, towns(buildings), fences, barrels, bookcases, tables, etc.

Items Layer - The rest of the general items that are marked as furniture, including treasure chests. Currently anything with ftr(whatever) cannot be picked up and is "hooked" to the ground in a sense. I propose that Items can be:
a: "hooked" and not picked up - treasure chests are always like this but can be picked/untrapped. Othewise the chests function like the Custom Spawner Layer in Example Option 1:

Code: Select all

1. a. Leave it in the Spawner Layer
b. Have each Spawner customizable when set (i.e. Time for often respawn.  Distance from to be Respawned (thus you could still make spawners where monsters reappear right next to you).  The 3rd field would be sort of an on/off switch.  0 - you can be on the map and it will respawn according to the above 2 fields 1 - the entire map must be left alone for 5 minutes (someone entering during the timer countdown resets the timer back and a new 5 minutes must past).
Features Layer - Works as our current features which include the lua scripting with steps/activate features.

Monsters Layers - Works like the old Spawners from before constant spawning. Maps must generally be left alone for a certain amount of minutes with noone entering before the dungeon begins to reset monsters.

Spawner Layers - Works much like our current Spawner for monsters but naturally can be customized by spaces away and time in seconds/minutes before monster respawns.

NPC Layer - For Placing important NPCs, and generally NON-ATTACKABLE people which includes merchants.

Probably too much of a hassle but it is just a suggestion after all.
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Re: constant spawning

Post by Rusty76 »

I've been thinking about the constant monster spawning and I think it should go back to the way it used to be. The way people play the game has changed significantly since the change. Players don't go through and clear areas anymore, they find a good spot and camp there. I've spent hours just grinding the shadow warriors for drops and XP and I know I'm not the only one that does. Another thing is that you can't clear a safe spot in an area that is dense with monsters because it will spawn monsters in it the moment you leave it. So when you run back to that spot for safety there's monsters there waiting for you. Also if you lure monsters away to kill them lots of times the spot you just left has respawned and you get double teamed when you try to go back. I really think the old way of spawning was better than the constant spawning. It kept players exploring or trying different maps and things were less random. It also gave players a sense of satisfaction to be able to say they "cleared" a place, something that is not possible with the constant spawning. I think the old spawning was more realistic and lends itself to better gameplay than the constant spawning. It's your game Egg and ultimately you should do what you want with it, I just felt like I needed to say something is all.
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Re: constant spawning

Post by Keighn »

Egg originally put it in due to the debate/complaints about people arguing over hunting grounds or who was where first. I have mixed reaction with it. I made a suggestion about various holidays where perhaps monsters spawned more on certain days than others. It is certainly worth taking a look at IMHO.
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Re: constant spawning

Post by Djanno »

Maybe in the past it was too slow but now I think the respawn rate is a little too quick.

As to long term effects, I think it is speeding up how fast everyone is gaining levels and getting items from bosses.
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