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Post by Omni on Oct 4, 2010 14:36:51 GMT -5
I'm completely with Bacon. I like to have a lot of extra reserve items just in case I need them, so I basically stock up as much as I can with every item type that I can, so more healing items just mean a more-cluttered inventory/shortcut bar. Though at least FableQuest has me using the health items (I usually need just about all of them). In most games, I tend to do this. Same with money. I hardly ever buy stuff in RPGs because what if I get something better for free later and stuff like that, but with the rate I'm consuming healing items in FQ it's almost impossible not to use all my ore. Not to mention there's no buyable equipment. I think about the only case where I wouldn't stock up on some items is if I'm late into the game and the smaller healing items just aren't doing it for me anymore, and even then I may keep some tucked away in my inventory as backup in case the bigger heals run out. |
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Post by Strife on Oct 5, 2010 1:47:53 GMT -5
How is that a problem? Sounds like strategy to me. :UAt any rate, I really like idea A, but idea C sounds like a fun one to implement, too. Actually, all three of them could be pretty neat. Is it out of the question to implement them all? Well, C would kinda cancel out B, but A and C could potentially go together, yeah. :3 *stomps foot* No on proposition A! XD While making sandwiches would be fun and amusing, I don't like the idea of trading in more HP for a more cluttery inventory/need to make ecen more expensive mixing items. Stocking up on bread was difficult enough for me, I don't want to be forced to stock up on sandwiches now. XD Actually, it wouldn't be all that tedious later in the game. The player will be earning larger amounts of ore, to the point where they could just stock up on bread at the store instead of making it themselves. From there, making sandwiches would take just about as much time as making bread did earlier on. As far as being able to maker larger amounts of bread through item mixture, I could have the shop in Otanis increase its supply after the Solar Temple is complete. I'm completely with Bacon. I like to have a lot of extra reserve items just in case I need them, so I basically stock up as much as I can with every item type that I can, so more healing items just mean a more-cluttered inventory/shortcut bar. Though at least FableQuest has me using the health items (I usually need just about all of them). In most games, I tend to do this. Same with money. I hardly ever buy stuff in RPGs because what if I get something better for free later and stuff like that, but with the rate I'm consuming healing items in FQ it's almost impossible not to use all my ore. Not to mention there's no buyable equipment. I think about the only case where I wouldn't stock up on some items is if I'm late into the game and the smaller healing items just aren't doing it for me anymore, and even then I may keep some tucked away in my inventory as backup in case the bigger heals run out. xDDD I remember you showing me that comic, yeah. But that does make sense. ^^ I have a theory... Going back to my previous statement about possibly giving Ikkin another speed boost: If I do, monster attacks would of course become easier to dodge, which would reduce the amount of time the player needs to spend crafting food items, since they're not getting hit as often. I'm still undecided on the matter though, since the issue was only brought up by a single person outside the NTWF. xD; |
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Post by Killix on Oct 5, 2010 8:37:40 GMT -5
Actually, it wouldn't be all that tedious later in the game. The player will be earning larger amounts of ore, to the point where they could just stock up on bread at the store instead of making it themselves. From there, making sandwiches would take just about as much time as making bread did earlier on. As far as being able to maker larger amounts of bread through item mixture, I could have the shop in Otanis increase its supply after the Solar Temple is complete. The Solar Temple was the area where I became tight on healing items, and while bread was useful, I couldn't stack very much of it. XD I preferred the larger supply of smaller healers. Oh. XD Well, I personally had no issue with inventory clutter. *shrug* XD If my inventory was full of healing items, I felt safe. I never leave for a new/tough area without my inventory crammed full of healing items. That comic Omni linked to - that's me. XD I do agree that A and C would go well together. |
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Post by Pacmanite on Oct 6, 2010 2:42:56 GMT -5
First off, congrats on scoring that awesome interview with Klikcast, you did great and it really gives a sense of how exciting this project is coming to be. As for the healing item clutter, I usually have pretty much all the shortcut keys filled up by the time I'm approaching the Solar Temple rerun. I tend to stock up on as much healing supplies as I can, maxing out my apples & eggs and making several corn bread loaves. When I'm hurt, I use my apples up first, because they're the easiest to replace, and then my eggs, and if they've both run out then I use my bread, because it's annoying to have to replace the bread. The problem with expecting the player to just buy the ready made bread is that... well, I'm a bit of a stinge. xD My ore gets used up a lot in the game, as it always seems worth converting it to healing items, so I try to maximise the amount of healing I can get out of the money I have. So that means although I could theoretically afford to buy my apples, I usually go wandering about somewhere and pick them off trees. I don't know why I do that... I guess I didn't see it could be more efficient to spend that time chopping bushes for ore, and use the ore to buy apples. I'm more like, "Hey! Free apples! Must take!  " Maybe the main thing here is that the maximum amount to hand-pick apples is 15 and the shop stops selling them when you get 8 in your inventory... I suspect if the limits were the same I'd break my habit of favouring gleaning over spending, once ore became more plentiful. That sounds like a convenient and fast way to add food into the health pool. But the problem that arises is that you might want to hold on to certain food items for mixing purposes. Herbs heal a little bit of health, but they're more useful in potions. And eggs are good for making bread later. If you wanted to keep those ingredients from being gobbled up, you'd have to avoid using the "activate" command. If the skill requires manna, then that does tend to deal away with the potential issue that the player could use two sets of health stuff. But then, if the inventory is the "normal" health supply, we end up with the same situation we had at the start, don't we? And if I'm panicking in the middle of a fight, I really want to have my manna in good supply because I need manna to use powerful sword attacks, so I'd usually refrain from this skill and mash the inventory shortcut keys instead... |
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Post by Killix on Oct 6, 2010 6:57:27 GMT -5
I did the same thing as Pac. Shopkeeper: Buy some apples? Me: You wish! *runs off to go smack trees for 15 minutes* That sounds like a convenient and fast way to add food into the health pool. But the problem that arises is that you might want to hold on to certain food items for mixing purposes. Maybe you could have a checklist that you could select which types of items get gobbled? - I dunno, if I were in a situation where I was about to die - I'd use up that mana to restore my HP to full. And once I'm out of the danger zone, I can safely use mana restoring items. |
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Post by Strife on Oct 6, 2010 16:40:34 GMT -5
First off, congrats on scoring that awesome interview with Klikcast, you did great and it really gives a sense of how exciting this project is coming to be. Thank you! ^_^ As far as food ingredients go, that's definitely what I was aiming at. Smaller food items can help out in battle, but the player would have a choice about whether to use them immediately or save some of them for item mixing during their next visit to town. I did the same thing as Pac. Shopkeeper: Buy some apples? Me: You wish! *runs off to go smack trees for 15 minutes* That sounds like a convenient and fast way to add food into the health pool. But the problem that arises is that you might want to hold on to certain food items for mixing purposes. Maybe you could have a checklist that you could select which types of items get gobbled? - I dunno, if I were in a situation where I was about to die - I'd use up that mana to restore my HP to full. And once I'm out of the danger zone, I can safely use mana restoring items. xD You have a point about apple harvesting. Perhaps I should increase the shop's apple stock after the thieves in the Forbidden Grotto are dealt with? Would certainly make it easier to mix red potions in bulk. As for a mana-based skill that uses reserved HP... I'm wondering if Sev would have any influence on what I go with. Once he's obtained, he basically behaves like an extra life to the player since he can revive Ikkin and prevent players from having to restart from their last save point. This makes me wonder: What if the player needs to "feed" Sev in order to give him enough power to revive them if they fall? After feeding him a certain amount, he'd outright gain the ability to revive, and any additional food given to him after that would increase the amount of health Sev restores after the revive takes place. So, for example, if the player feeds Sev 5 eggs, and then dies at some point, Sev would revive the player with 5 eggs worth of health. In this case, Sev would essentially be the reserve HP system I've been talking about. As an alternative to the above, Sev could have his own EXP bar, and feeding him would gradually increase his strength. Possibily in addition to the above. x3 I'm wondering if this would be an incentive for players to empty out some of their shortcut keys by feeding smaller food items to Sev, while leaving the more potent healing items for themselves. |
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Post by Killix on Oct 6, 2010 16:52:48 GMT -5
That sounds like an interesting, and pretty good solution to me.
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Post by Ikkin on Oct 6, 2010 21:47:49 GMT -5
Wait, so if Sev's revival ability requires you to feed him for it to take effect, does it mean that would take the place of his energy bar? So, instead of having to wait for his energy bar to fill up for another revive, you could just feed him more food?
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Post by Strife on Oct 7, 2010 0:43:38 GMT -5
Wait, so if Sev's revival ability requires you to feed him for it to take effect, does it mean that would take the place of his energy bar? So, instead of having to wait for his energy bar to fill up for another revive, you could just feed him more food? I could make it work like that, yeah. ^^ I'm not sure if I mentioned it in this thread yet, but basically, Sev would have an energy meter that fills up whenever the player deals damage or gets hurt. Once the energy bar is full, the Summon Sev skill can be used without any mana consumption. If I go with the idea of giving him his own EXP, then feeding him would increase both his energy and EXP. Then, optionally, any additional energy he gains from food after his meter is full would increase the effect of his revive skill. What I'm hoping for is a system that would encourage players to dump all of their smaller healing items into keeping Sev energized, freeing up space in their shortcut keys. In the middle of a huge fight, the benefits of giving Sev that extra boost of energy in order to wipe out all of the monsters should outweigh the benefit of chowing down a few extra healing items. x3 |
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Post by Pacmanite on Oct 7, 2010 7:00:07 GMT -5
Wait... how long would the energy bar stay in its excess state? I can imagine myself just stuffing Sev with food when I'm at a town before entering the dungeon, and then replenishing my inventory of mini-healing items at the same town, and entering the dungeon with many shortcut keys filled with inventory items. But I guess if I was in the middle of a dungeon and knew a big fight was coming up, I would probably get Sev to gobble up most of my petty healing items and reorganise those shortcut keys.
It sounds like a cool mechanic, though, giving Sev EXP as well as regulating the Summon Sev skill with energy. I like the way that the energy bar gets affected by damage being dealt in fights, so that the more active the player is in killing monsters the more often they'll get to Summon Sev.
Actually, one thing did bother me about assigning the fireball magic skill to the shortcut keys. It's kinda awkward to reach for the number keys to use an attack, since the attacking keys are clustered around the space bar and "x", and in a fight you sometimes need to jump around with "Ctrl" to quickly dodge enemy attacks too. But the numbers are way up on the top of the keyboard. It's not much of a problem when I use the number-shortcut for a healing item, since I like to move Ikkin away from the thick of the fight to give me a bit of time to glance at my keyboard, move my hand away from the attack keys and press the right button. But if I was using more complicated magic skills that required me to pay attention to the fight and time the casting well (to get my aim), then it gets kinda scary because I worry I'll press the wrong button while my eyes are supposed to be paying attention to the screen.
If you're planning to add more magic skills, I think that annoyance would be greater than the annoyance of having a shortcut menu cluttered with food. Moving my hand away from the jump command and my normal attack makes me feel vulnerable. (while having lots of food displayed on the shortcuts makes me feel safe. xD) If it comes down to it, of course I could do away with a minor food shortcut slot... but then filling up the slots with multiple magic attacks that I might accidentally confuse or mistime because they're all clustered so far away from my normal hand position would not be a very attractive prospect either. In that case I might feel I want to avoid putting too many magic skills on the shortcut menu.
Might I propose that maybe the c,v,b,n, keys could be made into shortcuts for the magic skills instead, and the inventory shortcuts could remain the way they are on the number keys? If it'll cause too much clutter on the game's display to show a whole second set of shortcut assignments, then you could try splitting the current shortcut display of 1234567890 into 123456 cvbn, with the intention that players use the letters cvbn for magic skills and bombs, and the numbers for health potions.
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Post by Strife on Oct 7, 2010 7:09:16 GMT -5
Actually, I have already implemented a solution to that problem, Pac. ^_^ All you have to do is to is bring up the pause menu, go to Options, and click on Controls to adjust your keyboard controls. You can assign any of the shortcut keys to any button on your keyboard.
As for the duration of Sev's excess energy... I'm not entirely sure, but I think it might be good idea to have it slowly decrease over time, as an incentive for players to feed him in dungeons where they think they're at the highest risk of getting killed.
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Post by Pacmanite on Oct 7, 2010 7:54:38 GMT -5
Actually, I have already implemented a solution to that problem, Pac. ^_^ All you have to do is to is bring up the pause menu, go to Options, and click on Controls to adjust your keyboard controls. You can assign any of the shortcut keys to any button on your keyboard. As for the duration of Sev's excess energy... I'm not entirely sure, but I think it might be good idea to have it slowly decrease over time, as an incentive for players to feed him in dungeons where they think they're at the highest risk of getting killed. Ooh, I didn't realise that. I played around with reassigning my fireball to the letter c and it's working very well indeed. I guess Sev becomes a sort of health carrier for dumping those minor health items on before big battles, if that's the case. I wouldn't put too much food on Sev in case I don't need his revive and the food boost just peters away afterwards... but it sounds like a good backup plan, particularly if it's my second try at winning a hard fight, and if I do end up taking minor health items off my shortcut keys and leave them lying deep in the inventory, at least I can find a time and a way to make use of them even though they've dropped off the shortcut keys. ^_^ |
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Post by Poldon on Oct 11, 2010 12:38:51 GMT -5
Anyone else having trouble with the game occasionally and randomly crashing? I have a sneaking suspicion that it's something to do with the fact I'm running it in Vista, but I thought I'd ask anyway.
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Post by Killix on Oct 11, 2010 13:17:16 GMT -5
Anyone else having trouble with the game occasionally and randomly crashing? I have a sneaking suspicion that it's something to do with the fact I'm running it in Vista, but I thought I'd ask anyway. *points back a few pages* Yes. Fablequest crashed so much that it impaired my testing ability by a good percentage. XD |
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Post by Omni on Oct 11, 2010 13:17:57 GMT -5
Anyone else having trouble with the game occasionally and randomly crashing? I have a sneaking suspicion that it's something to do with the fact I'm running it in Vista, but I thought I'd ask anyway. Yeah. It seems like everyone has that problem. We're really not sure what's causing it, but OS doesn't seem to be the cause. I run XP and I get the crashes. Strife also runs XP and he doesn't get the crashes. It may be awhile before the mystery is solved. |
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" Maybe the main thing here is that the maximum amount to hand-pick apples is 15 and the shop stops selling them when you get 8 in your inventory... I suspect if the limits were the same I'd break my habit of favouring gleaning over spending, once ore became more plentiful.
