[PREVIEW] Valgards Fate

[cable729]

Okay, so I have been working on this idea for a long time, and now I'm going to see what the community thinks (before dirk gets too far, he may want to change his plans)

Q.) What would happen to this game if infinite levels, a storyline, quests, armor, 4 attack buttons, a unique stat system, bosses, and permanent spells were added?

A.) The best thing since sliced bread!

FIRST, runes, gj on that dirk! I think those should be kept and permanent spells should be added.

SECOND, onto the infinite levels and storyline: I think that, instead of having 50 levels with a short storyline, why not have a long storyline that stretches over thousands of levels, for example:

SKIP OVER THE QUOTE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ, IT ISN'T THAT IMPORTANT

-lvl 1-20 valgard leaves town for war
-lvl 21-50 valgard is sailing
-lvl 50 valgard and his crew plunder a ship (boss)
-lvl 51-60 valgard is thrown off the ship and has to swim to shore
-lvl 61-99 valgard fights for food and life
-lvl 100 boss (monkey? lol)
-lvl 101-175 valgard sails back home ashamed
-lvl 176-180 valgard finds traitors in his home city
-lvl 181-199 valgard fights the traitors in their hideout
-lvl 200 valgard fights the leader
-lvl 200-205 valgard is crowned prince and rewarded great treasure
-lvl 206-250 valgard heads off to sea to discover who he really is
-lvl 251-255 valgard is kidnapped
-lvl 256-300 valgard is in the brig of a ship and is starving (weaker and fights rats for food)
-lvl 301-324 valgard fights the crew
-lvl 325 valgard kills the captain
-lvl 326-350 valgard sails to new land
-lvl 351-400 valgard spots no land and is thinking of turning around
-lvl 401-500 valgard finds land and searches for treasure
-lvl 501-650 valgard finds an ancient city
-lvl 651-800 valgard finds an entrance to the underside of the city
-lvl 801-825 valgard finds a shrine but is careful going to it because he has already sprung many traps
-lvl 826-849 valgard discovers the secret of the shrine
-lvl 850 valgard uses the secret and battles the evil side of him
-lvl 851-1000 valgard ventures past the shrine to find an underground netropolis
-1001-1500 ect.
-1501-2000 ect.
-2001-3000 ect.
-3001-5000 ect
-5001-7500 ect.
-7501-10000 ect
-10001-15000 ect
-15001-25000 ect
-25001-40000 ect
-40001-75000 ect
ect

This was just random making up, but, as you can see, the space for each part of the storyline increases as valgard levels up, which allows for a storyline, rich gameplay, and infinite leveling

ANOTHER MAIN POINT is that some levels will be designed, while most others will be random. There will be many different tilesets, so no need to get bored of looking at the game!

THIRD, QUESTS!!!! A heavily discussed topic in this forum, quests are a must. There will be predesigned quests, and randomly generated quests. Not only will there be "gather 10 of these" and "kill 10 of these", other kinds of quests could be added, like explore this region, or smash these barrels until so and so drops (those were bad examples, but there can be many other types of quests). There could also be quest chains that result in better rewards.

There can also be epic quests. These could stretch for levels and levels and have you kill a boss(s) at the end of (or anywhere else along) the quest chain.

FOURTH, armor is almost a must for any RPG.

There should be different rarities of items (common, rare, unique, epic, legendary, and artifact?)

You might say, why would we want armor when we might be going through 100's if not 1000's of levels? We'll be replacing it constantly!

The answer to that, my friend, is a unique system of item decay. As you grow in level, your items will become of less use to you, and thus decay (at say, maybe 10% of item stats diminished per level after the item starts decaying?). But if an artifact decayed at the same rate as a common item, what would be the point of putting in hours of work getting the better item? Simple, different item rarities decay faster/slower:

Rarity: Starts decaying after x levels
Common: 1
Rare: 5
Unique: 10
Epic: 25
Legendary: 100
Artifact: never decays (although there may be a limit of one per character)

There doesn't need to be many slots: maybe a helmet, chest, boots, gloves, and a ring would suffice.

FIFTH: How does FOUR, count 'em, 4 (four) buttons + movement + pause sound?

Pretty good, huh?

Does it sound better if you could map anything (anything), including attacking, spells, potions, or runes to it?

I thought so.

Having more buttons will only make this game more rewarding the more you play it, and more interesting. If you're wondering how I fit in 4 buttons, 1 pause button, and 4 movement buttons WITHOUT TOUCH onto ONE tiny zune, here's how:

BINDING 1: play
BINDING 2: back
BINDING 3: center
BINDING 4: click in the direction that valgard is facing (maybe only used for attacks, since that conflicts with moving)

MOVEMENT: duh... touch pad

PAUSE: hold

SIXTH: FINALLY! STATS!!!

I'll give you the rundown on this LEGENDARY system

1. There are 4 stats: Vitality, Strength, Dexterity, and Magic.
2. They add up to 100 (before item bonuses)
3. You start with an even split at level 1 (25 of each, to get to know the game and decide which path you will take; although it's a possibility to do randomization of +-10 points for each)
4. You can spec into a stat tree for even more power and customization!
5. You can sub-spec in two talents, one in vitality, and one in magic
6. For the sub-specs, each point you put in either of the two talents that have sub talents allows you to spend 2 points in that sub-category.
6. There is 1 special talent in each stat that doesn't directly affect combat, but can improve other aspects of the game
7. There is rollover of stats into talents: 10% of your stat is added to each of your talents in that stat, and another 10% into the special in that tree.
8. For each level you gain, you are refunded 1 point from every stat, and allowed to respend it. Similarly, if you are refunded a point from either Resistance in Vitality or Magical Specialization in Magic, you are refunded two points to spend in either of those two talents.

And here is the stat system: (special talents are italicized and in caps)

VITALITY - increases HP (health) and HP regeneration.

-ABSORPTION: increases damage absorbed by a shield by 2% per point
-RECOVERY: increases health gained from spells and effects by 2% per point
-ADEPTNESS: increases experienced received by 1%
-RESISTANCE: increases your resistance to different damage and effects
-Melee: reduces damage taken from all melee damage and effects by 1% per point
-Ranged: reduces damage taken from all ranged damage and effects by 1% per point
-Magic: reduces damage taken from all magic damage and effects by 1% per point
-LUCK: increases chance for something to happen (drop, rare boss, ect.) by (1 + x/100) % the original effect, where x is the amount of points spent in this talent

STRENGTH - increases damage done by weapons.

-BLOCKING: increases chance to block with a shield by 1% per point
-CONDITIONED: increases movement speed by 1% per point
-HEAVY HASTE: increases attack speed by 1% per point
-DEADLY FINISH: increases melee critical strike damage by 2% per point
-BRUTE STRENGTH: gives a 2% chance to break a lock, wall, ect. per point

DEXTERITY - increases damage with one handed weapons, chance to dodge, and chance to parry.

-AMBIDEXTROUS: increases damage with off-hand weapons by 2% per point
-DIRE STRIKES: increases melee critical strike chance by 1% per point
-SPEEDY HASTE: increases one-handed melee attack speed by 1% per point
-DEFT ATTACKS: increases melee and spell hit chance by 1% per point
-PRECISION: gives a 1% chance to avoid traps, automatically point out secret paths, and pick a lock per point

MAGIC - increases MP (mana), MP regeneration, and damage done by spells and runes.

-PARANORMAL SWIFTNESS: increases spell casting speed by 1% per point
-DYNAMIC SPELLS: increases spell critical strike damage by 1% per point
-PERILOUS MAGIC: increases spell critical strike damage by 1% per point
-MAGICAL SPECIALIZATION:
-Holy: increases damage and healing done by holy spells, and allows for more advanced holy spells to be learned. holy spells include extreme damage to undead, very good healing, and buffs.
-Unholy: increases damage and healing done by unholy spells, and allows for more advanced unholy spells to be learned. unholy spells include summoning of undead, life draining, buffs, among other fiendish spells.
-Elemental: increases damage and healing done by elemental spells, and allows for more advanced elemental spells to be learned. elemental spells include lesser healing, summoning of elementals, fire, frost, earth spells, and buffs.
-INTELLIGENCE: 1% lower requirements by items, spells, runes, ect. per point


HP/MP/DAMAGE SYSTEM:

-hp/mp/damage will increase a lot as you level, until you hit a set level (maybe 1000?), and it starts to barely increase
-use explained in the QA directly below:

Q.) WHY would I want this stat system?

A.) I'll give you many reasons!

1. It is an incredibly unique system, different from all the rest
2. It allows for infinite progression in the game
3. It pairs with the clever HP system to make this game ready for wireless/multiplayer gameplay
4. It allows for INFINITE customization. Some examples:
   • experience booster
   • healer
   • undead farmer
   • drainer (unholy with life steal)
   • super hit points with a little magic for some spells and buffs
   • 2-handed strength with cric from dexterity
   • super luck for good drops
   • super intelligence for no requirements
   • super casting speed for all instants
   • strength/dexterity for faster attack speed
   • many, many more! (come up with your own!)
5. It goes with Dirk's original idea of having no classes
6. Tired of one spec? no problem, no need to make a new character as a new class to fulfill a different role! Just level up a bit and shift around your talents!
7. It's intricate, yet simple
8. With the hp/mp increase per level decreasing after a certain point (maybe 1000), hp and mp won't reach near infinite proportions, and thus: less memory usage (lower numbers to compute) and no level limit will need to be set, since 100 more levels won't mean a drastic boost in power.
9. It's a damn fun to use system!

SEVENTH (wow this is taking a while to type - 2+ hours so far)

BOSSES, yes we want bosses : p. Well, not only should there be bosses in random levels, as well as rare mobs, and epic predetermined bosses.

I think that it would be fun to have to, say, dodge fireballs, or, smash a switch to drop a rock on a boss. These would be the hardest bosses (the ones where we need the environment to help), but you could also program in some randomly occuring ones like this.

EIGHT AND LAAAAASSTT!!!

So finally we come to permanent spells.

Runes are great, as someone with low magic would be able to use runes (although costly) as a replacement of spells and buffs.



Did you really read through all that? Or just skip down here?

Either way, I want to thank the Zune community (especially DiNoGames) for contributing so much.

Please tell me (AND Dirk) what you think of my ideas, and hopefully some (if not most or all ) will get implemented!

Thanks again! Cya!

[Locke]

Holy crap that's long...my eyes hurt after reading all that. >.>

[zombii Matt]

damn an entire page taken up by 3 posts

[cable729]

so..... what do you think? cmon? didn't you read the end???

[Seb]

I would suggest against using the back button as an attack button.

[Heyaaronn]

lol cable nice for posting that and all, but dont you think for one guy to make all that it would take a year like seriously allllll that. yeah you have good ideas but be realistic, how big would this game be?, how much work would have to go into this?, and who wants to play a game with 75000 levels? Yeah i love games i can play for hours but i just dont see any fun with that many levels. Also dirk has part of his game done and hes been working on it for a while to use your ideas i think he might have to start off from scratch
On the upside your storyline was pretty good i liked it alot. and the third forth and sixth part would be sweet to be put in this game

[Ricardo Dawkins]

LOL. Cable, we love your enthusiasm, but come on dude...that would be huge. Maybe Dirk should license the Valgard source code so you can make your ULTIMATE OBLIVION FOR ZUNE.

[sir justin]

To....Cable

oh wow cable....First of all....that scares me to see how much you wrote. second of all, that would take an intense amount of programming, way more then one person can do. third of all....think of all the memory that would take, Dirk is having problems now with the Ram.....4th of all....WTF, where the heck did you pull those ideas out of?

[itsnotabigtruck]

I'm not a big fan of the infinite leveling idea, but weapon decay sounds great.

It could be implemented by adding a half-life to each item. High quality items have high half-lives, while bargain equipment decays quickly.

[mrgoodnight]

OMG Cable lol
sounds good tho

[Moocow146]

Originally Posted by itsnotabigtruck

I'm not a big fan of the infinite leveling idea, but weapon decay sounds great.

It could be implemented by adding a half-life to each item. High quality items have high half-lives, while bargain equipment decays quickly.

λ

[Mitch]

@Heyaaronn

What exactly is in the textbox when you get the error, it helps if you tell him what kind of exception it is throwing.

What do you have installed for Microsoft .Net Framework? XNA? Get that info from Add or Remove Programs list please.

@Moocow

DiNo did the entire game, he just hasn't done everything to the dungeons that he needs too, some of which he has done to the outerworld.

[brenttiscool15]

So how far can you actually go in the preview version?

[Moocow146]

Thank you, Mitch, I'm not sure when I asked a question though

[kizza]

I like some of your ideas Cable, very thoughtful of you. I like the idea of all the different quests, and different tilesets, although perhaps having/making so many levels is beyond Dirk's and the Zune's capabilities. Zune would have problems with memory, and Dirk does have to live his life, to balance that and putting all your ideas into reality would take him a very long time indeed...
Nice ideas though, i'm sure that Dirk will appreciate your input muchly

[Heyaaronn]

@Mitch
i have Microsoft xna framework redistributable 3.0
and the error box goes like

Error signature
Event Type: clr20r3 P1 ccgame.exe

a