Question

[linksword916]

redacted

 

[zeus9860]

Actually, the mod was still active not long ago, then valve released a doom update for half life, which made everyone quit because they were having issues.
The few who are still around are ones who didn't get those problems or somehow managed to fix it with patience + trial and error.

Also, that grinding business being too easy, you don't want to play the game without this xp, trust me. I rather have it easier than harder to grind, because last i checked, i spent hundreds of hours to get 900 hp in the old days, when people got around 1k in a week or so, yeah its annoying but it's necessary for the people who are stuck at some point and can't progress further because the grinding business is tedious.

Though i do think that the bonuses should have played differently, it should have been based on the map's level requirement or player title level, something along those lines. The higher the level, the more multipliers you get for bonus xp, would make sense to have a 10% bonus per level starting at level 11 (first 10 are regular), a level 40 player/map would end up with 400% value in xp, discarding the fact that we dont need multiple players for bonuses if such system was implemented.

 

[Thothie]

Is Source dead? I'm starting to get quite bored with how MS:C is now.

Coming along like molasses in Siberia, but there's hope we'll at least have a HL2 map pack to show sometime soon.

As for the rest...

If the game's too easy... I'm tempted to make a client side command that makes you take 300% damage, and dish out maybe 25% damage, that has no advantages, save one: Your title gets changed to HARDCORE, all caps. I dunno, maybe give you HARDCORE points every time you slaughter a boss with more than three times your HP under that system, or something. Hell, I could make it really cruel and setup a real hardcore mode where your character's wiped should you be slain by a non-hazard.

But no, no involuntary character wipes - have gone to great pains to avoid that. If anything, I'd like to let the first two dozen or so levels sweep by faster, to get more folks in the same level range more quickly, if not for the fact that there's eventually that level wall with nothing to do but twink effect. Might be more viable when we have end-game levels.

One major, more serious, scripting plan I was considering, but haven't discussed, as I've not had time for squat lately, is a continuing main line quest, that progresses slowly from area to area and tier to tier in a sort of slow rolling quest line, in order to give a better sense of progress and continuity. It'd be really hard to work out, as there'd be some higher math involved in figuring exactly how many of X mobs someone has to kill to reach the next stage, be able to handle the next boss in the storyline, etc.

 

[Orochi]

Those damage modifiers are actually what Skyrim's Legendary difficulty modifiers are, exactly. Do eet.

 

[ZunWasOkayGuy]

i wanna be HARDCORE.
like all my characters that were instagibbed by undead stygian dolls in Diablo 2 HC.

 

[zeus9860]

Actually, making a hardcore mode would shut up some people around in this community (maybe even me or cause me to flame more instead) :roll:

But those values are kinda retarded, given that stuff in ms:c is full of hacks, it would end up terrible.

Something like 25% less protection, 25% less damage, 50% of stamina bar cut off, boss death penalty is double, etc... That would basically cut level 40 players back to 30 (not in terms of hp/level, but in damage instead) if we cut everything by 25% in "hardcore mode", providing a tougher time for the player... Then you could apply rewards for these players, like having them collect a key and open a chest in a town to collect 1 "hardcore" item/title of their choice.
Also this could give some use to that one hostile sorc town aswell...

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

It's not that the game is too easy. It's that the game just plain sucks. Very little thought was put into balancing the game, almost all content was added on a 'whenever someone makes something' basis and consequently, anything and everything that could be added was added. And now we have problems like this.

Adding in a hacky 'hardcore' mode for msc is one of the lamest 'quick fix' ideas I can think of. Why don't we actually try to make a game for once?

If anything, I'd like to let the first two dozen or so levels sweep by faster, to get more folks in the same level range more quickly

This kind of shit is ridiculous and makes me want to quit mapping for this mod. The only good content for this game is in the first two dozen levels. After that everything goes downhill rapidly; every map plays out the exact same way. The loot starts to look like gaudy, ugly reskins of morrowind equipment, too. Why would you want to usher everyone, as fast as possible, into the part of the game that has had the absolute least amount of effort put into it? Is it so we can just get to level 60 and you can finally be done with this mod?

If we aren't ever going to make an effort to fix this broken mess, we should just call it quits now and stop developing for msc all together.

We need to use our current high level players to test new gameplay mechanics, then rebalance this game from the ground up and then introduce a character wipe. Nothing short of that will save this mod in the long term.

 

[Thothie]

Well, before ya quit, be sure to send the map sources you took hostage back.

There's never gonna be a character wipe, I try to avoid making fundamental changes to the base game play, and I'm of the opposite opinion as to where our better quality maps lay.

 

[zeus9860]

What oyster is trying to say most likely, is that maps seem to be broken, gameplay wise, and you can see that often in the higher level maps, since they are all about dungeon raiding anyways... The last map that got me hooked up with interest was sorc_villa itself, and you know why i say that. It's not a dungeon raid, plus the hostile side of the map was fun, could have been better if it weren't for the stability issues that this game has.

Lower level maps, there are quite a few of them that are very nice and "attractive" to any player in general, i do agree on that, maps like isle, thornlands (bloom on makes it worth camping there), idemarks tower, and so on. Higher level maps, might look good but they are also broken to the core, where gameplay goes from exploring an open world map to a straight to the point dungeon raid map with hardly anything to look at.

The xp bonuses should have been calculated based on the players level or map's level range, or average level on the server of all players combined. Players can skip the first 30 levels in less than a week these days, that's wrong as most of the low/med level stuff is getting discarded too fast, focusing on the highest level maps as soon as possible.
I know that players have to level up and catch up with the rest, but they should explore maps while doing so, and i've seen quite a few new players when the last patch hit, getting to 600/700 hp in the first week after the release, and farming the new items with us, veteran higher levels.

And to contradict what oyster said, i'm against the creation of lower level content in this game. It's not just because of this reason, but the lower level tier and the medium level tier are already flooding with content, higher level tier is catching up aswell, now the "extreme" aka very high level content is scarce. I'm in favor that most content now focuses for level 30 and above, both maps and weapons (excluding spellcasting, this needs new spells eventually). Maps that focus on lower/med level tiers from now on, should only be safe zones, places such as friendly towns.

 

[MS:C community]

I'm of the opposite opinion as to where our better quality maps lay.

Out of curiosity: What makes a map a good map, in your opinion?

 

[Thothie]

Gods, where to start... I prefer maps with a variety of environments and tasks, which we're short of, but is also sometimes difficult, given the resource limitations. Maps that minimize faffing about, don't waste space, and provide a definite sense of progression, preferably with multiple goals requiring team work, or at least favoring it, all while providing some degree of aesthetic immersion. Most of the maps we have that combine those features are on the higher end.

It's true, some of the high end maps seem a bit linear, but most of the lower end maps are just as linear, and the few that seem less so, just provide the illusion of free roam by allowing access to goal areas from more than one direction - which helps for replay variety and immersion, but not so much so for viability. Sadly, large, progressive, and aesthetically pleasing, are hard to combine under this engine, especially at the higher levels, where stability increasingly becomes a major issue. Hunderswamp and Shender are perfect examples of beautiful map designs held back by various engine limitations (though Shender could have had a lot more going on, if not for the insistence that every wall be angled, and every chamber be huge, maxing out the alloc blocks).

I'd like to see more maps with original and unusual game play mechanics (seems we really only have three types of maps at this point), but I know that'd almost invariably result in more reliance on yours truly. >< I wish my plate wasn't so full, so I could spend more time writing up script tutorials and references, in hopes that someone could take the load off, and/or mappers would get more creative themselves, instead of relying on me to code up their idears, but alas - tis the MSC development catch-22 that's been ongoing for so long... and with everyone trying to die on me and mine, I've hardly had any MSC time at all lately.

The mappers do have more control and opportunities to create than they've ever had before though, that's for sure. It always amazes me what Crow managed to pull, back in the day, with only a basic understanding of entities, no access to the script system, no ability to request them, and no inside info, having to rely entirely on backwards engineering. I suppose what we're seeing these days is the inverse of the usual hammer problem - when you have too many tools, you sometimes forget just how many problems a hammer can actually solve.

 

[Charles445]

I find by far the most interesting part of MS:C, and the reason that I find myself returning to it, is the sense of exploration.

The amount of detail that many mappers put into their environments is staggering, not in how pretty it looks or hard it is to kill the seven bosses in a row, but in how they hid a secret cave behind that bush there, or how you never noticed that crack in the wall before.

The secrets and surprises in many MS:C maps is more rewarding and entertaining than most other games I have played. Maps like isle, lostcastle_msc, the_keep, helena, keledrosprelude2, chapel, and thornlands all have a strong support for players who want to explore every nook and cranny.

Maps don't have to be about presenting all of its content up front. Much of the joy is found in uncovering what's buried, whether it be a new enemy, a hidden chest, or even map credits.

Also, an important part of exploring these maps to their fullest is being able to use your tools to your advantage. When certain important tools are removed (rats and skeleton fun), much motivation is lost, and once accessible secrets become unreasonable, if not impossible to get to.

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

I find by far the most interesting part of MS:C, and the reason that I find myself returning to it, is the sense of exploration.

The amount of detail that many mappers put into their environments is staggering, not in how pretty it looks or hard it is to kill the seven bosses in a row, but in how they hid a secret cave behind that bush there, or how you never noticed that crack in the wall before.

The secrets and surprises in many MS:C maps is more rewarding and entertaining than most other games I have played. Maps like isle, lostcastle_msc, the_keep, helena, keledrosprelude2, chapel, and thornlands all have a strong support for players who want to explore every nook and cranny.

Maps don't have to be about presenting all of its content up front. Much of the joy is found in uncovering what's buried, whether it be a new enemy, a hidden chest, or even map credits.

Also, an important part of exploring these maps to their fullest is being able to use your tools to your advantage. When certain important tools are removed (rats and skeleton fun), much motivation is lost, and once accessible secrets become unreasonable, if not impossible to get to.

Yeah, what he said