For reasons unrelated to the previous post, I ended up doing a lot of object work in the last couple of days. I discovered that the linkages between rarity, and the bind/artifact/rare flags were not just overly complex, but in some cases really inappropriate. It took several hours and multiple tries to work out all the details, and we now have a much better rating system for flags and rarity.
The general summary is that binding is much weaker, artifact and rare are stronger, you get an extra artifact per rack, and rarity is being deprecated.
Rarity I was the most surprised about; there were literally thousands of objects with rarity on the game. I wrote a function to remove it from everything that didn't strictly need it; this cut the number down to under a thousand. It's still a useful mechanic to have on certain special items, but having it on this many of them really doesn't seem appropriate. Rarity will also be a major issue with a larger player base, and we need to use a new mechanic for a lot of these things.
Weakening the bind flag caused issues with a lot of equipment that was built to take advantage of binding. A good chunk of it was in newbie areas, where I myself used it to get fairly powerful equipment to low levels. On the other hand, a lot of the other binding objects were problem objects that needed to be adjusted anyway. We've had a problem with bind flag overuse for a while now, and this helps address that.
The addition of another artifact flag is a major change, but it comes with a caveat: one artifact flag has to be bound, while the other must be unbound. A similar restriction is in place for rare flagged items.
This seems to be a really interesting idea. The bound objects are slightly more powerful but cannot be sold; the unbound objects can be sold and will serve to keep the equipment market functional. The fact that builders must build both bound and unbound equipment should help with equipment diversity and address some of the concerns that players have about "everything becoming bound".
All in all, I've been getting a lot of positive feedback on it. I know it's inconvenient for builders to update things (I make a point of it to personally take my share of pain from the older areas), but so far the consensus seems to be that it's worth it.
Showing posts with label objects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label objects. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Objects - rarity and timers - TL/DR
There are several different types of 'powerful' objects, with various limitations, that can be built on Alter Aeon:
Rarity based: Only a certain number of the item can be on the game at once. The limit is a long term (multiple week) average, so there may be none or there may be a lot of them on at any given time. If the long term average is too high, the item stops loading.
Binding: The object binds to whoever picks it up, preventing trading and selling. There are usually a low number of these per zone, between 0 and 3. The building code warns if there are too many of this in any given zone.
Artifact: One artifact is allowed per zone. Artifacts can be much more powerful than normal equipment.
Rare: Two rare items are allowed per zone. Rare items can be a bit more powerful than normal equipment.
Timered: The item has a timer and will at some point self destruct.
Each of these four classes can be more powerful than normal equipment, and as names like 'artifact' suggest, sometimes they can be very much more powerful. Some of these different classes interact with each other, making the calculations and code messy; for example, Rarity and Binding contribute to make Artifacts more powerful, but only to an extent.
This complexity in itself is problematic, but there are two other major issues to consider as well:
Rarity based: For any 'good' and useful piece of rarity equipment, it is obtained repeatedly until it is well past its loading limit. If the item is also Binding, it can't be traded and eventually it begins loading again as players stop playing the game. If it's not Binding, players trade occasionally (one or two trades per year) for the few pieces that exist, and it never loads again.
Timered: Noone will ever use the item. If it's not permanent, people aren't interested.
Rarity doesn't make any sense if all it does is give a small number of players a monopoly on an item; for them it's not rare, it's just a part of their set that noone else can ever get. For everyone else, it's so rare as to be impossible to obtain.
Timers on the other hand are the opposite end of the spectrum. Regardless of how good it is, people won't use it if it's timered. There seems to be some small exception for this with timered enchanted equipment, but I suspect this is because the timers are really long and the equipment doesn't self destruct when the enchant wears off.
Timers are of course, the obvious natural mechanic for controlling rarity based equipment. If something is limited load, simply make its duration in-game finite. This would guarantee turnover and make the item available to more people.
One final thing to consider is the way that timers currently work: they're not based on real time, but rather some amount of game time. You get an item, and you know it'll time out after you've used it for a while, but you never quite know when without checking it each time. If you log off for a week, you're likely to forget about it and suddenly find an important item vanishing unexpectedly in the middle of a battle.
This leads to one possible improvement: RL timered equipment. You have something, but you know exactly how long you have it for. Having something say "This will expire at Mon Apr 19 11:33:15 2010" is very different than having it say "This item will last for two RL days of game time, which could be two months from now if you don't play very often". It also has a built-in sense of rarity attached to it.
I like it.
Rarity based: Only a certain number of the item can be on the game at once. The limit is a long term (multiple week) average, so there may be none or there may be a lot of them on at any given time. If the long term average is too high, the item stops loading.
Binding: The object binds to whoever picks it up, preventing trading and selling. There are usually a low number of these per zone, between 0 and 3. The building code warns if there are too many of this in any given zone.
Artifact: One artifact is allowed per zone. Artifacts can be much more powerful than normal equipment.
Rare: Two rare items are allowed per zone. Rare items can be a bit more powerful than normal equipment.
Timered: The item has a timer and will at some point self destruct.
Each of these four classes can be more powerful than normal equipment, and as names like 'artifact' suggest, sometimes they can be very much more powerful. Some of these different classes interact with each other, making the calculations and code messy; for example, Rarity and Binding contribute to make Artifacts more powerful, but only to an extent.
This complexity in itself is problematic, but there are two other major issues to consider as well:
Rarity based: For any 'good' and useful piece of rarity equipment, it is obtained repeatedly until it is well past its loading limit. If the item is also Binding, it can't be traded and eventually it begins loading again as players stop playing the game. If it's not Binding, players trade occasionally (one or two trades per year) for the few pieces that exist, and it never loads again.
Timered: Noone will ever use the item. If it's not permanent, people aren't interested.
Rarity doesn't make any sense if all it does is give a small number of players a monopoly on an item; for them it's not rare, it's just a part of their set that noone else can ever get. For everyone else, it's so rare as to be impossible to obtain.
Timers on the other hand are the opposite end of the spectrum. Regardless of how good it is, people won't use it if it's timered. There seems to be some small exception for this with timered enchanted equipment, but I suspect this is because the timers are really long and the equipment doesn't self destruct when the enchant wears off.
Timers are of course, the obvious natural mechanic for controlling rarity based equipment. If something is limited load, simply make its duration in-game finite. This would guarantee turnover and make the item available to more people.
One final thing to consider is the way that timers currently work: they're not based on real time, but rather some amount of game time. You get an item, and you know it'll time out after you've used it for a while, but you never quite know when without checking it each time. If you log off for a week, you're likely to forget about it and suddenly find an important item vanishing unexpectedly in the middle of a battle.
This leads to one possible improvement: RL timered equipment. You have something, but you know exactly how long you have it for. Having something say "This will expire at Mon Apr 19 11:33:15 2010" is very different than having it say "This item will last for two RL days of game time, which could be two months from now if you don't play very often". It also has a built-in sense of rarity attached to it.
I like it.
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