Hi People, here I have some ideas about QEL:
A.- I think it should be a multi-class game. I believe that what makes the game very appealing is that I can be whatever I want to be.
If I get bored in one skill I can always start developing “as a newbie” others skill in the game. If we fix classes or make some “no way back” fix on nexus in a manner that if you put “X” PPs on some nexus so then you can't put more than “Y” in other nexus it will eventually create a fixed class system that will end with the freedom of working on all skills (I love to be an all or semi-all rounder).
Of course, anyway you still have to be smart with your PPs because there is a natural cap because the most you level the most hard is to get a PP, so if you want to be an all rounder you have naturally to work well your PPs and work harder than only fighters.
B.- I'm not a fighter (just leveled to 49/48 A/D), but something that always annoyed me from EL combat system were:
1.- Why the **** is more efficient to train with a "bone" than with a sword? Just because the fight last longer does not mean it should give more experience. If I've done things well, have good armor/weapons and I can kill a monster with my same levels fast, then I'm good in what I'm doing and I should get good experience... Fortunately, I see in QEL this is on its way of being solved
2.- Monster just walk from one place to the other. They have no idea of what is happening around them until they walk besides a player (near enough to fell player's breath) and decide to attack the player. I think monsters AI should be improved a little. Monsters should be able to detect a player from distance and follow him if the player has lower levels than the monster, or the monster should run away a bit if the player has higher levels than the monster... Also some monsters should move faster than others and may be some monsters may run away from players (panic) even faster if the player has much higher level than the monsters.
I don't think some basic AI will be too difficult to implement, and will bring a lot to strategy to the monsters hunting. We can think also in a crossed attribute that make players move faster/ slower, and that may be will give a new depth to PK and monster chasing strategy. Also may be some creatures (animals) are unaware of player levels and don't run away or chase the player.
3.- Break rates: Items break just randomly, I support the the degrade rate I've seen here (
http://qelserv.quadronyx.org/forums/index.php?topic=76.msg417#msg417), and I think it's an excellent idea. If you sell or buy something you can check the usage rate and price will vary according and be negotiate between players according the degrade rate the item have... NPCs might even buy/sell with prices according with that degrade rate.
4.- CoL just sucks (well not CoL, but the way they are used): CoL gives you the advantage to have a lot of extra HP, but uses the slot of the helmet, so you use a CoL or a Helmet but not both, making most of the helmets useless because they make you choose between having 150 more HP or a helmet that gives you a may be meaningless (compared with +150 HP) +3 or +4 of defense. What will you prefer the helmet or the CoL? In EL the answer will mostly be the CoL, except you have one of those ubber super expensive hard to find helmets that gives you HP too. The CoL will always win, making most helmets useless (a fighter correct me if I'm wrong, this is just theoretical for me
).
5.- There should be much more items, and much more stuff to choose from. For example, weapons that gives you lot of damage, but low accuracy (That kind of things exists in EL if I recall correctly) and then you should be able to compensate the low accuracy with some weird ring that increases the accuracy. Or a weapon too powerful which is dammed and gives you some kind negative perk. The point is that should be difficult to choose what combination of weapons + items use, and some of they should give certain advantages and some disadvantages in a way that according to player strategies would be not so clear defining with assembly is the best. I remember a non multiplayer game (Baldurs Gate 2) in which it was REALLY hard to choose what armor weapon to use for a character cause of the small and subjective differences between two weapons or combination of weapons + armor + medallions + rings... I think in EL there is two kind of items, those that sucks and those that rocks (those useful and those useful). Which ones will you choose? Which one will cost more? (obvious).
6.- Fighters should be able to get PAYED for what they do. Like any other skill, it should be profitable, enough to at least train. May be some monsters at some level should be not so profitable (just like in mixing or harvesting or other skill) just to warrant that some gc will leave the game) but in general, a fighter should not to harvest lot's of items to fight ot PK, but also should not be able to farm gc killing some kind of monster AFK, every skill should have enough balance (yes I know it's not easy...)
C.- About the economy. I think the general idea in EL's economy is not bad, it just needs some adjustment.
For example, as a harvester/mixer I am (by the moment) it has never annoyed me the need to harvest tons of resources, as long as I can harvest them let me not say AFK but ALT-Tabbed (3-5 minutes in between) while doing something else. In fact that is part of the challenging (harvesting a lot), it's not annoying. Annoying are nuts things like mini-events. But if I have to see my char harvesting while I watch the grass grow, then it's not funny. May be some people play this way and socialize a lot while harvesting, but not me. But that is the appealing of the game, it should (with reasonable boundaries) let you play the way you enjoy the most...
Gold farmers... well, that can be solved with a balanced economy and with some rules (see mixing NPC pricing below)
1.- Gold farmers GET BANNED if caught. Is it hard to caught them? Yes, may be. Will all gold farmers be caught? No they won't (tough with time better strategies can be developed to caught them). But it does not matter... if you get caught you WILL BE BANNED no way back.
The only gc->$$$ allowed transfer should that ones when a player pays in gc to another player that pays $$$ to the some “EL shop like”, and that should be officially done in a safe way (to avoid scam) and in a regulated way by the game stuff. I mention the $$$ and the shop cause I don't know that $$$ perspectives will QEL have, but at least some way the server has to be payed.
Gold farming can also be controlled, may be not limiting to only 1 account from the same IP (no alts) to 2 or at most 3 accounts from the same IP logged at the same time. That way I may have 2 alts gold-farming, but no 5, or 10. And if it's really a big problem, I know people like to have alts logged at the same time, but I think it's better to allow only 1 character logged at a time than having an economy that sucks...
2.- I think that mixing needs some adjust. Doing mixing now just relates to mix thousands of item to just sell to the NPC and then continue mixing thousand of items just to level something, and willing that some day you will have enough levels to mix the good and useful stuff (and there is not much good and useful stuff, many items are just useless, see A-5). I thing that (useful) mixable items should be spread along all the level path, in a way that it does not matter if you have level 60 or level 80, but any way you can mix something really useful that you can use and sell to other players. My idea of fun is not to polish like 60k sapphires just to be able to get to level 60 and then perhaps being able to mix with reasonable risk a MoL, or may be a CoL. I would like to be able to mix very useful things at ALL levels.
I think XP given by the items mixed should be determined by the level of the item you mix and your level (like currently is in fighting).
For example, if you try to mix a level 20 item and you are level 20, the mix will give you 20 xp, but if you mix the same item and you are level 40 it should give you just 10 xp. And if you risk a bit and mix a level 40 item when you are level 20 then it will give you 40 xp. Of course, mixing items with higher level than you have will bring the risk of failing/loosing the item. This is just a general idea, and I know it has to be worked out, but the idea is to force the mixers to risk a bit instead of mix thousands and thousands of the same items. What do would a mixer prefer to mix 10.000 FEs at some xp rate (that will decrease every level you gain) or just 1.000 MEs that will give more experience (but a bit more risk).
Of course, the mixable items should be well distributed along the level path to don't have holes. Also I think the ingredients should be a bit more difficult (or risky or more ingredients) to get the higher the level of the mixer, so you will need to harvest more or less the same (may be a bit less, but just a bit) to make the 1.000 MEs, than to make the 10.000 FEs.
I think the challenging of mixing and leveling it is hard enough, I believe it should not be more easy or more hard. You really have to play hard and a lot to level something like crafting to level 60, and that is a good thing. If the game had been easier I would probably bored and quit long time ago and if the game had been harder (which is happening with the mini-events) I had quit long ago too...
3.- Related harvesting and mixing I would like to share something I've posted in the mini-events thread:
Yes seems that some people prefer easy lupines for earning gc over other resources, in fact, I've seen lot's of players and guilds make lot's of money that way. I don't know, but I really think that it's not the way it should be, I honestly prefer to do/mix/harvest other things, what's the point of farming tons of flowers to get just gc? What is the experience involved there? But that is just my humble opinion, so lupine->gc farmers please don't flame me. By the way, I've harvested tons of lupines but to make WEs and potions.
About the idea of capping the amount of resources NPC buys I think it looks like a good idea... But I think this one would be even better:
Instead of a cap, let's make the NPCs buy each harvestable a bit cheaper than the last one (1% cheaper or something like that)
For example, at the beginning (for a newbie) the NPC will buy the first 10 lupines at 10gc each (so wow, a nice way for newbies to make 100gc, good and motivating start). But the next 10 lupines, it will be bought from the NPC at 9gc, and this way over and over, until the price decays too low to be profitable (something like 0.01gc each lupine).
This can be done in a per resource/per player basis (I don't know if it's implementable, but as a SW developer I think it should not be really big deal). This way, each new resource you can harvest will give you a nice amount of gc (which would be a great incentive to harvest new stuff), but with the time, the most you sell some item to the NPC, the less the NPC will pay for that item... The price can increase with time, for example, if a player more than X months does not sell lupines, then the NPC will buy again at 10gc, and the decay process begins again.
I think this will certainly stop gold farmers, because no matter how many alts you have you can't get high amounts of gc selling harvestable to the NPC. Well in theory you can have hundreds and thousands of Alts, but come on, you should be able to ban some one with more than 15-20 chars, don't you? Also in theory you can cycle trough almost all resources in game, but the amount of gc you can make this way will have a well defined ceiling. This won't hurt newbies cause they will get reasonable amounts of gold at the beginning from harvestables which might motivate them to keep playing (Easy at beginning, hard once you are hooked).
This of course should help a lot with inflation, cause the amount of gc entering in-game from the NPCs with out something in exchange would be a good thing.
Of course, gold farmers can always sell some harvestable (like silver ore) instead of gc in exchange of $$$, but this way is still a much difficult way of getting $$$ for the gold farmer because it will be related to the demand of certain harvestables that will for sure be much more limited than the demand of gc, especially when most of the gc buyers seems to be fighters (I believe, not completely sure). I don't know, this last point have to be evaluated well to see if the strategy might be effective.
I think the decay-increase prices from the NPC should apply not only to buy/sell raw material but also to goods. This will help to control not only the gold farmers but also should motivate the mixer to risk a bit and mix higher level items (see C-2). Of course, may be the decay rate should be less drastic for the goods than for the harvestables or leveling mixing with our loosing tons of money would be impossible...
Well, that is all I can think at the moment, sorry for the long post (I've just realized I've wrote 4 OpenOffice writer pages)
Best Regards,
dmi
PS: I have some knowledge and some experience programming, senior in Java and junior in C++. I have not so much (non-AFK
) free time, but if I can help with small well focused and well directed tasks just tell me.
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