Monster deaths - not just respawning/reseting

[Callan S.]

One of the things that I kinda liked in the tute is how the monsters would die forever. In a way it's not practical for a game that is going to go on even for a few days, let alone one that goes on for an unforseeable time.

What I was thinking was to have the notion of adult and young monsters, with young having fewer hitpoints (and perhaps worse stats if you want to get complicated). You start off with a population of monsters, say like 5000. Each time you kill one it obviously reduces by one.

First off, the more of that population that is below it's start value the more of a chance you will run into a young version of a monster rather than an adult. Like if 2500 are left, perhaps you have a 50% chance of encountering a youngling.

But eventually they'd all run out, right?

Okay, here's an idea I like - instead of say, reseting the value all the way back to 5000 each week (or month or whatever cyclic time period), what happens is that say after a week you double or triple the remaining population (if there were no adults left, treat it as if there were one or X amount left). Most the population can go back to is 5k again.

That way although you get more monsters to fight, the past affects the future, instead of doing the usual mmorpg thing where everything just goes back to exactly the way it was after five minutes time.

So every monster killed would actually have an ongoing effect on the future, because of that breeding rate. Rather than the old 'oh, I killed all the monsters ten minutes ago, but now they are all back again as if it never happened...wow, aren't these persistant worlds great?'

[PaxBritannia]

There are 2 ways to do this:

Every individual creature has its own entry
Every creature species have its own entry (But then you can't have the hp saved(if you half-kill something, it will not save))

You could also have breeding of the creatures, maturity times, age of infertility, etc.The population would be non-redundant and exponential aka: if too many or too less creatures get killed, then the population would spiral out of control.

It the game is centered around the creatures, then if would work.

If not, I would think of it as a waste of server processing. You would also need crons or similar.

Pax.

[Callan S.]

I think you've read a really complicated idea into what I said?

It doesn't involve an entry for each monster, just the one monster entry used over and over in fights and one entry with that monsters stats to show current population. And I'm not interested in recording half kills or whatever hp damage, just killed or not. Also there is no spiraling out of control - I said the max amount is 5000 in the example - it can't go over. Finally the whole thing is processed once a week or even a longer cyclic duration. Honestly I was thinking of using a script I ran manually, once a week.

I'm not going for super fine simulationism of creature population? I'm kind of baffled by a responce that adds alot of complexity, then dismisses the idea because of the complexity added?

[hallsofvallhalla]

build your game around these spawns. Like events, hey players they goblins have breed heavy this year and we need all players to help kill them off. THe pop limit has been moved to 8000 this week....

hey players we have a group of dragons this week flying in from the south, stop them before they raze all the towns, pop limit moved up.

Hey players seems a group of kobolds raided the kings treasury, most died escaping but the ones that did not have loot!, pop limit lowered but loot level raised!

[PaxBritannia]

I kinda do that sometimes.

But I really don't see the point in doing that.

Unless encountering is forced and there is no flee, who cares if there is a million goblins?

Another way to partially save kills is to take an average hp and then update the average. But then hp would vary by less than 1 if there are a lot of creatures.

Sorry if I did it again.

Pax.

[hallsofvallhalla]

if the players do not care if there are a million goblins then you have failed the design. You have to make them care. There are 5,000 goblins that must be killed by weeks end or they will raid all shops. If 30% or more Goblins remain alive by weeks end all player owned shops will lose 20% of their inventory from raiding, all NPC shops(inns,weapons, ect) will raise their prices by 25%.

You have to make them care. Invest them in the story.

[PaxBritannia]

"Invest them in the story"

But I get what you're saying and I agree.

Pax.

[Callan S.]

I think if you've chosen to play in a game where you essentially do alot of fighting, whether the next monster has 75% the normal health of normal is something that'll matter to you. And also killing it and by doing so, influencing the fate of whether hundreds of others players will encounter a weaker foe - well, I find that 'world' effect interesting. I thought that's why people are attracted to mmorpgs, not simply because of massively multiplayer, but because their actions might have an effect on a massive number of players?

In the end, without messy brain surgery, you can't force anyone care about anything. But you can make a game that makes you care - and likely your not a unique snowflake and some other people out there care about it too. I care about whether the next monster is a youngling/has less hp, and I care about me influencing the fate of many other players. I'd imagine I'm not the only one.

[PaxBritannia]

Unless the game is the type where people grind. I hate those.

You just click attack, then attack, then attack. Then next battle, attack, then attack, then attack. In those types of games, getting a weaker opponent doesn't really matter. Then again, the whole game doesn't matter to the person playing it.

Pax.

[Callan S.]

Well, I'd imagine they'd like it because it takes less time to grind.

But in my game if you make the wrong move at the wrong time the monster gets triple damage on you. And I've made the wrong move when playing it, so I know you can't just fall asleep while clicking. That and you need to win x battles in a row otherwise you go right back to zero battles won.

But it depends - with the right phrasing space invaders, pac man or quake live could be called grinding. Personally I think the game needs a level of uncertainty as to whether you complete an actual objective (an actual objective, not just a number incrementing by Y amount). The less uncertainty, the closer you are to grind. And including player skill adds an interesting uncertainty.