Krayon and myself have slowly but surely been working on QELServ, recently with a focus on getting the "Melee combat mini-game", now known as "Lands of War" (LoW for short), ready. For my part, recent extreme disenchantment with EL has spurred me to get my ass into gear and complete my side of things.
I thought i'd post some thoughts and intentions here for comment and feedback on.
Also just a reminder;
This is not the "full" QELServ product, it's somewhat of an equivalent to EL's PK server, but more so
Melee Combat in general, including an emphasis on fun PvE.
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Death PenaltyThe plan is that upon death a player will drop from 1
slot in their equipped items, and from 5
slots in their inventory. Which slot will be randomly selected of course.
I specifically say
"slots" and not "items" because empty slots will be taken into the equation.
i.e. If a person had one of their equipment slots unused and 5 of their inventory slots unused, they could drop nothing.
Before anyone freaks out because it's not no-drops and there's no rostos, do remember, the best equipment in the game will be WAY cheaper than the best equipment in EL.
It wont take month(s) long projects to replace armor sets or whatever.
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Attack, Defense and Overall level capsThe plan is to cap Attack and Defense each at 100, and OA at 114 (which is att100exp + def100exp).
That said, it's extremely hard to predict how fast people will level (but one thing that's sure, it will be a bit faster than EL), so it may change, but the idea would be that it would take most players no more than 6 months to be at the cap, and a serious grinder probably quite a bit less.
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Team combat designed monstersI plan to have quite a few creatures designed for being attacked by teams of players.
Unlike in EL, the creatures of this purpose will be engage-able by fighters of varying level, and they will all feel as though they are actually contributing to the downfall of the beast, because they will be.
That said, these kinds of monsters will still be killable by a single player, but only with a lot of fleeing off to restore health
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No #reset, but will have attribute removal stonesI plan to not have #reset, but will have the 'designed for ganging / to be very tough' creatures dropping an abundance of attribute removal stones, so people will be able to change their builds without much trouble.
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Fighter types by attribute buildAs LoW won't have the pickpoint buying failing of EL, nor the extremely long character development cycle, and since OA exp will only be gained through combat, attribute selection is going to play a big part in how your character performs in combat, and what your strong and weak points will be.
There will be a very strong emphasis on creating fun Player Team VS Player Team and Player Team VS Environment activities, and those with team members of varying types of attribute builds who use good strategy will do particularly well.
i.e. you will decide your sub-class through your attributes, with one end of the scale being
'damage dealer' and the other end being
'tank', a team with only tanks or only damage dealers wont do as well as one with a mixture and/or some inbetweens.
All that said, there will still be single combat arena(s), and training solo is still expected to be 'the norm'.
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Different attribute system to the previous tech-demoThe attribute system in the previous tech demo is the one that will be used in the full QELServ (aka Timeless Era), but as 3 of the cross-attributes would be basically useless in LoW, i've re-designed the system... this system, ofc, still lacks the failings seen in EL's system (i.e. no attributes are blatantly OP, and thus no cap is needed).
The system for LoW will be as follows:
Physique:
Might (carry capacity)
Perception (damage dealt)
Coordination:
Reaction (dodging)
Matter (health)
Reasoning:
Dexterity (hitting)
Toughness (damage absorbed)
Will:
Dexterity (hitting)
Matter (health)
Instinct:
Reaction (dodging)
Perception (damage dealt)
Vitality:
Might (carry capacity)
Toughness (damage absorbed)
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Combat TechniquesWe plan to have what i'm calling "combat techniques". They're like a buff that affects your next combat roll (but only the single next roll). There'll be six of them and you'll use the EL client's quickspell bar (or the spells window) to perform them.
I expect they will be:
- Accuracy Boost
- Evasion Boost
- Armor Boost
- Damage Boost
- Lucky Hit chance boost
- Critical Damage chance boost
Performing one of them will use mana, and everyone will have the same mana (because no cross attribute is going to add more)... it will probably use all your mana, and then you can use a mana potion which will go onto cooldown.
The idea is that these wont be usable in fast succession, and timing and tactics in when and which to use will be key.
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Anyways, I wanted to post all this to get some feedback, see if anyone thinks of any flaws in it all that i haven't considered... and there's prolly some other stuff that's new since the previous tech-demo i should post that i've forgotten.
Also just thought i'd post it so people can get an idea of what LoW will be like and see that we've been further developing and designing the systems for the game.