One of the things that takes a lot of time is tweaking the spell and skill trees to make the classes more fun to play. The various factors I have to balance are a lot more restrictive than you might expect:
1) The spells and skills within each group, for example "mage fire spells", should have proper dependencies. Greater Fireball should probably be dependent at some level on 'basic fire magics'.
2) The spells and skills within each group, for example "mage fire spells", should be separated by similar level differences, to spread the group out across a level range. If there's too much clumping, there's dead zones where you don't get a new spell for a long time, then suddenly get a bunch followed by another dead zone.
3) Spells and skills for the entire class should be evenly distributed across the entire level range, again to limit dead zones and make sure players have something to learn at every level. Necromancer is a good example of how to do this; every three levels, you get 5-6 spells and skills, from level 1 up to about level 28. Mage is a good example of how not to do this; there's 6 spells between levels 2-4, 12 spells between levels 12-14, and 4 spells between level 26-28. Mage is currently very clumpy and needs more work.
4) Low level spells and skills should be useful and interesting. Having a spell like 'ventriloquate' below level 10 makes no sense at all; newbies will think it's actually useful (it's not) and waste practices on it. It's ok to put useless stuff at higher levels, because high level players are more likely to do research before wasting scarce practices on something.
5) Really high level spells have to actually be useful, even if it's a specialized use.
The above generally result in me spending a lot of time staring at various views of the spell lists for each class. You have to keep an eye on groupings across level ranges, while making sure you haven't done anything dumb to the dependency trees for each group, and making sure you don't move useless things into the low level ranges.
And even though it may not seem that way, the above are actually really important. It seems to give you more to do, and you know that you get important, useful stuff even at low levels. I've certainly noticed a difference with my characters.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Christmas Expansion - Update
We finally got everything done and installed, and it went off pretty easy. The biggest hitches were minor display bugs in explorer points, with a few minor typos and what not elsewhere.
One of the things that surprised me was the time breakdown for the various spells and skills. We only added 12 of them this time; here's a rough time estimate for each.
Level 25 mage skill 'melt' - approximately 6 hours. This skill was in multiple pieces, as it can operate on multiple targets. Not much debugging time required.
Level 27 mage skill 'spell lore' - approximately 1 hour. This was a very easy hook into the spellcasting code.
Level 6 cleric spell 'faith shield' - approximately 4 hours, most of it testing and design, trying to figure out how to not break anything.
Level 31 cleric spell 'breath of life' - approximately 5 hours. Required several debug passes to get the math right, largely because I wrote the core of it while I was very tired.
Level 33 cleric spell 'area heal' - approximately 2 hours, because this reused a lot of well-done code from 'area refresh'.
Level 34 cleric spell 'astral bridge' - approximately 16 hours. The spell itself only took about two hours, but before I could implement it I had to completely rework the waypoint code. Refactoring and updating the old code took the bulk of the time, and it broke waypoints for a lot of players.
Level 32 cleric spell 'group waypoint' - approximately 2 hours, because the astral bridge and other waypoint code was already in place.
Level 8 thief skill 'listen' - approximately 4 hours.
Level 29 thief skill 'fast talking' - approximately 3 hours, had to come back and extend its use into other thief skills that didn't have the facility before.
Level 26 warrior skill 'cleave' - approximately 5 hours. Ran into an irritating bug where cleave would cause a death which would cause an autocleave which could cause a death which could cause an autocleave...
Level 32 warrior skill 'whirlwind' - approximately 3 hours. The event handler for this was very straightforward.
Level 8 necromancer spell 'bone blade' - approximately 2 hours.
Explorer points - about 10 hours. This had a lot of hooks for display and interfacing, which usually takes a lot of time. Multiple debug passes.
Various achievements - about ten minutes each when done in groups.
There was also a lot of infrastructure and other work that went on to enable all this; between bug fixes, infrastructure, and design, the times above are perhaps a third of the total.
One of the things that surprised me was the time breakdown for the various spells and skills. We only added 12 of them this time; here's a rough time estimate for each.
Level 25 mage skill 'melt' - approximately 6 hours. This skill was in multiple pieces, as it can operate on multiple targets. Not much debugging time required.
Level 27 mage skill 'spell lore' - approximately 1 hour. This was a very easy hook into the spellcasting code.
Level 6 cleric spell 'faith shield' - approximately 4 hours, most of it testing and design, trying to figure out how to not break anything.
Level 31 cleric spell 'breath of life' - approximately 5 hours. Required several debug passes to get the math right, largely because I wrote the core of it while I was very tired.
Level 33 cleric spell 'area heal' - approximately 2 hours, because this reused a lot of well-done code from 'area refresh'.
Level 34 cleric spell 'astral bridge' - approximately 16 hours. The spell itself only took about two hours, but before I could implement it I had to completely rework the waypoint code. Refactoring and updating the old code took the bulk of the time, and it broke waypoints for a lot of players.
Level 32 cleric spell 'group waypoint' - approximately 2 hours, because the astral bridge and other waypoint code was already in place.
Level 8 thief skill 'listen' - approximately 4 hours.
Level 29 thief skill 'fast talking' - approximately 3 hours, had to come back and extend its use into other thief skills that didn't have the facility before.
Level 26 warrior skill 'cleave' - approximately 5 hours. Ran into an irritating bug where cleave would cause a death which would cause an autocleave which could cause a death which could cause an autocleave...
Level 32 warrior skill 'whirlwind' - approximately 3 hours. The event handler for this was very straightforward.
Level 8 necromancer spell 'bone blade' - approximately 2 hours.
Explorer points - about 10 hours. This had a lot of hooks for display and interfacing, which usually takes a lot of time. Multiple debug passes.
Various achievements - about ten minutes each when done in groups.
There was also a lot of infrastructure and other work that went on to enable all this; between bug fixes, infrastructure, and design, the times above are perhaps a third of the total.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Alter Aeon Christmas Event
Every year for Christmas (and for a bunch of other holidays), we do something special. Usually this amounts to in-game events to open new areas, or for special prizes, things of that nature. This year, in addition to the usual things, we'll also be adding something else: a bunch of new code.
For each of the five classes, we'll be adding a few new spells and/or skills. A lot of this stuff is high level, but it's also focused more strongly in some classes than others. Cleric is probably the class that benefits the most, but it's also been the class with the least amount of scaling. Necromancer doesn't get much new stuff, but it does get a few critical reworks of existing spells and skills that didn't work out as designed.
Adding new spells and skills like this is always a hassle. Coming up with new stuff is hard, because it has to be useful, interesting, and above all preserve the physics/theme of the game. There's no point in just adding a bunch of lookalike damage spells that are successively more powerful.
There's also the problem of integrating new things into the existing spell and skill trees. One of the major things about this release is that there's been a lot of reworking of the spell and skill trees for the various classes. Thief, warrior, and cleric have all seen pretty significant changes to their skill groups, primarily to make space for the new additions.
There are a few other things I'll mention, such as new achievements, but since we're keeping the actual spells and skills under wraps until Christmas morning, I'll stop here.
For each of the five classes, we'll be adding a few new spells and/or skills. A lot of this stuff is high level, but it's also focused more strongly in some classes than others. Cleric is probably the class that benefits the most, but it's also been the class with the least amount of scaling. Necromancer doesn't get much new stuff, but it does get a few critical reworks of existing spells and skills that didn't work out as designed.
Adding new spells and skills like this is always a hassle. Coming up with new stuff is hard, because it has to be useful, interesting, and above all preserve the physics/theme of the game. There's no point in just adding a bunch of lookalike damage spells that are successively more powerful.
There's also the problem of integrating new things into the existing spell and skill trees. One of the major things about this release is that there's been a lot of reworking of the spell and skill trees for the various classes. Thief, warrior, and cleric have all seen pretty significant changes to their skill groups, primarily to make space for the new additions.
There are a few other things I'll mention, such as new achievements, but since we're keeping the actual spells and skills under wraps until Christmas morning, I'll stop here.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Alter Aeon Necromancer Class
There's been a lot of talk on this blog and the Alter Aeon Forums about a new Necromancer class. Official work on it started about a year and a half ago, and up until about three months ago pretty much everything that was done was under-the-covers structural stuff.
Once all the infrastructure was in place, I started hitting spells and skills really hard. In the last three months I've implemented about 50 new spells and skills, some with rather exotic (compared to other spells and skills) features.
And finally, two days ago, the first ever Alter Aeon class expansion was officially unveiled. Necromancer is now live on AA!
Some of the available spell and skill groups for necromancers involve:
- creating animated entities of various sorts
- raising your own undead
- summoning demons for fun and profit
- using dragon teeth as powerful spell components
- blood skills involving your own blood
- controlling undead and demons
- soulsteal and other spirit-based spells
As always, a full spell at skill list can be found on the Alter Aeon Spells and Skills pages.
One of the crowning features of the new class is the minion system, which allows high level necromancers to create and manage several minions at once.
The class plays very differently from any of the others, and is looking like a great addition to the game. There's definitely still some balancing issues remaining, but for now it's looking extremely solid. Further, it's downright fun for me to play. I wish I had more time to do so.
Once all the infrastructure was in place, I started hitting spells and skills really hard. In the last three months I've implemented about 50 new spells and skills, some with rather exotic (compared to other spells and skills) features.
And finally, two days ago, the first ever Alter Aeon class expansion was officially unveiled. Necromancer is now live on AA!
Some of the available spell and skill groups for necromancers involve:
- creating animated entities of various sorts
- raising your own undead
- summoning demons for fun and profit
- using dragon teeth as powerful spell components
- blood skills involving your own blood
- controlling undead and demons
- soulsteal and other spirit-based spells
As always, a full spell at skill list can be found on the Alter Aeon Spells and Skills pages.
One of the crowning features of the new class is the minion system, which allows high level necromancers to create and manage several minions at once.
The class plays very differently from any of the others, and is looking like a great addition to the game. There's definitely still some balancing issues remaining, but for now it's looking extremely solid. Further, it's downright fun for me to play. I wish I had more time to do so.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
We're Famous!
Ok, not entirely famous, but it's a start. We have our first reviewed and edited article on an external web site:
Mudding Communities Are Alive and Well in Alter Aeon
The site BrightHub is a large site with articles about nearly everything, and people who act as dedicated editors to make sure that articles pass a minimum sanity check before being posted.
This is important because articles like this can be used to bolster notability in Wikipedia, and get AA out there to a much larger audience. Stop by and take a look, and spread the word if you've got any friends that might be interested!
Mudding Communities Are Alive and Well in Alter Aeon
The site BrightHub is a large site with articles about nearly everything, and people who act as dedicated editors to make sure that articles pass a minimum sanity check before being posted.
This is important because articles like this can be used to bolster notability in Wikipedia, and get AA out there to a much larger audience. Stop by and take a look, and spread the word if you've got any friends that might be interested!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Necromancer Class Open Beta
The necromancer class is officially in beta test on alteraeon.com, port 4000. There's basically no rules on this port, other than to respect others, and give testing priority over anything else. So if someone's trying to run a real test, don't screw with them. One additional note: pk balance is completely off, and I have no intention of fixing it until the mob balance is halfway sane. Don't submit bug reports having to do with pk balance issues.
Pretty much everything is implemented except for the Demonlore skill tree, and what I'd call four problem spells/skills:
Lvl 16 consumption
Lvl 16 bone wall - already have wall spells
Lvl 21 flesh wall - already have wall spells
Lvl 27 skeletal dragon - already have craploads of minions
Consumption was supposed to be some kind of corpse eating thing to recharge your undead, but so far with the way they're working out that doesn't make much sense. The wall spells are really problematic, as I have to come up with something very different from icewall for them to make sense. And for skeletal dragon, well, the last thing we need is an even more powerful minion.
The Demonlore tree is problematic because I can't really see any interesting way to make it different from the 'Raised Undead' skill tree. The both create various minions, using control and soulstones, and have the same kinds of skills. I really hesitate to just make a skill tree that's effectively a different mob type copy of some existing tree.
Beyond that, things appear to be going well. The class seems to be quite a bit too powerful for now, but at the same time all the testers are five-class level 33, so perhaps I'm seeing a side effect of that. I think in the long run, the only real way to get legitimate test data is to boot in the code and see what people do with it for real.
One thing I am really surprised about is just how terrible most people are at testing. I have one tester that typically sends me 20 messages overnight with comments and questions about the class; the remainder have yet to send me 20 questions total for the entire time the port has been open.
As a result of this, I probably need to rethink my beta testing strategy. Maybe the thing to do is to autoupdate everyone on login so that their levels come out in some mangled, pre-determined format; for example 32/27/22/17/12, with the classes picked at random. I think having everyone be 5x33 just leads to people seeing what it's like to have that many levels.
Pretty much everything is implemented except for the Demonlore skill tree, and what I'd call four problem spells/skills:
Lvl 16 consumption
Lvl 16 bone wall - already have wall spells
Lvl 21 flesh wall - already have wall spells
Lvl 27 skeletal dragon - already have craploads of minions
Consumption was supposed to be some kind of corpse eating thing to recharge your undead, but so far with the way they're working out that doesn't make much sense. The wall spells are really problematic, as I have to come up with something very different from icewall for them to make sense. And for skeletal dragon, well, the last thing we need is an even more powerful minion.
The Demonlore tree is problematic because I can't really see any interesting way to make it different from the 'Raised Undead' skill tree. The both create various minions, using control and soulstones, and have the same kinds of skills. I really hesitate to just make a skill tree that's effectively a different mob type copy of some existing tree.
Beyond that, things appear to be going well. The class seems to be quite a bit too powerful for now, but at the same time all the testers are five-class level 33, so perhaps I'm seeing a side effect of that. I think in the long run, the only real way to get legitimate test data is to boot in the code and see what people do with it for real.
One thing I am really surprised about is just how terrible most people are at testing. I have one tester that typically sends me 20 messages overnight with comments and questions about the class; the remainder have yet to send me 20 questions total for the entire time the port has been open.
As a result of this, I probably need to rethink my beta testing strategy. Maybe the thing to do is to autoupdate everyone on login so that their levels come out in some mangled, pre-determined format; for example 32/27/22/17/12, with the classes picked at random. I think having everyone be 5x33 just leads to people seeing what it's like to have that many levels.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Potions and Herbs and Spells oh my
After what feels like more than a decade, we've finally updated the system for brewing potions. The old system was pretty hard to deal with from a code standpoint, and didn't give builders a lot of options. From a player standpoint, the old system didn't really allow for invention or thinking about your potions.
The new system changes that by adding affinities for ingredients, where different spell components are more likely to brew particular spells or spell groups. Players get the ability to actually influence what comes out of the brew, as do builders who can set those affinities if they want.
The new code also uses a staged algorithm for the PRNG such that I can add and remove things chunks of the algorithm without causing major damage. We can also tweak the probabilities on specific brews and components now if necessary.
As with any change, there's been some complaining about this, but it's largely been well received. It helps that there's information about how the new system works; I updated the brewing article on the AA articles page with a bunch of new information. Here's the link:
The Art of Alchemy
People have managed to brew quite a few interesting things so far. You can find the list of public potions brews as the Alter Aeon Potion Recipes web page.
The new system changes that by adding affinities for ingredients, where different spell components are more likely to brew particular spells or spell groups. Players get the ability to actually influence what comes out of the brew, as do builders who can set those affinities if they want.
The new code also uses a staged algorithm for the PRNG such that I can add and remove things chunks of the algorithm without causing major damage. We can also tweak the probabilities on specific brews and components now if necessary.
As with any change, there's been some complaining about this, but it's largely been well received. It helps that there's information about how the new system works; I updated the brewing article on the AA articles page with a bunch of new information. Here's the link:
The Art of Alchemy
People have managed to brew quite a few interesting things so far. You can find the list of public potions brews as the Alter Aeon Potion Recipes web page.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)