Game design ideas.

I've being working lately on some new concepts for my mod. Maybe some people here would like to read this, I'm also looking for some feedback.

Well, I'm not sure at all if they are new at all or not , probably not. In fact I took the chess score system as a departure, yes, chess in a western themed mod with team oriented gameplay.

I'm not a chess player, but AFAIK their score system gives lots of points to the player that wins a much higher ranked player, and the opposite. That proportionality is present in my design, player is awarded with experience points if helps his/her team doing something useful (killing an enemy or taking an objective at the moment). Objectives give a fixed amount of experience to all players, but killing other players is like chess. If you kill a much more experienced player (in game experience points) the reward in exp. points is also big. Weapons are also accounted, so less powerful weapon gives more experience because it's harder to use them. My formula is quite simple: ( exp points victim / exp points killer ) * weapon modifier = total exp. gained from a kill. This is implemented yet, there is a experience column in score tab, and death notices also tells how many experience points get every kill.

And the curious part is that all of this is closely related to old west. There were lots of famous gunmen, those who killed them got respect and experience points! Well, not exactly, but they got free weapons usually, and that's what I'm doing too. There are 2 teams and no classes, but people don't buy weapons like in CSS. Players use their experience as a measure to get available weapons. Every weapon, ammo, etc requires an amount of experience, and you can get whatever you want (there is no primary, secondary, etc.) It means if you want to assign your experience points to 6 cartridges of dynamite and 3 bowie knifes (blunt weapon, also can be thrown and picked again), you can do it. Next respawn you may change your experience assignment to other possible combination. Every possible combination from our err (12?) different weapons + extra ammo +suit protection is possible. However, some measures to avoid abusing should be implemented later, so sniper rifle or explosive arrows are restricted in some way. I'd like to use a real time pricing system so demand increase price of a weapon, but that's something I need to think carefully.

I expect all of this brings auto balancing to game. The core concept of experience usually brings imbalance, because player becomes more and more powerful. That's why I'm tweaking the experience acquired from kills and the weapon experience modifier, so losing team is favored in some ways. In the end I'm also looking from some progressive imbalance, I must tell.

And well, that's all folks. I'm looking for a fast paced game with some strategical thinking and teamplay. Hope our old west theme don't scare possible players, because such genres tend to attract only to genre fans.

That's what you say before playing, but I'm convinced this is going to make the game much more interesting. This is in fact a feature that isn't strictly related to fun factor, like weapons, map design, etc. Speaking metaphorically, this is not the meat, this is the sauce that will make good or bad that meat.

An example: I made a knife that can be thrown, lots of fun when you throw it to someone and get a kill. Well, now imagine there is an experience system that awards players in a proportionally inverse way to weapon power. The same weapons will offer much more fun.

But this isn't not about weapon balancing only, there is much more. This is a team balancing mechanism that could make games more enjoyable. Imagine you are in one of those games where you and your team suck, a horrible game. People on your team isn't getting almost no experience. What will happen in other mods: most of those people will leave the server. Would happen the same in O&L? I think no, that situation makes the game much more interesting for the losing team because the bigger experience difference is, the bigger are the chances low experience players get much more experience when killing enemy players. Don't know if I explained it correctly, but sometimes I even think this is revolutionary for a multiplayer FPS.

Thx for your input again RD

Experience is handled in a very simple way, really not too much explanation required: you get experience killing and capturing objectives, experience obtained through kills is proportional to victim and killer experience. Weapons act as a experience multiplier, the worst is the weapon the bigger is multiplier. I just need someone to translate my badly written sentences Maths won't be needed at all, player just need to know these basic rules and act in consequence. Do you want to get more experience in each kill? Tend to use weapons like bow, pistols, knife, etc.

Balancing here is related to our RPGish weapon system. Every player start with same experience points (25), they choose their initial equipment with those points. More exp.p. will be added during the map duration, experience resets only at each new map. That means a progressive imbalance during the game: more exp. gives you better weapons and then is easier to get more experience. There is needed a mechanism to slow down this vicious circle. That's the main purpose of favoring low experience players in the way I explained.

This is also very related to the old west like I said, imagine those high experience players are very dangerous guys with an high reward on their heads. If you kill them is quite logical getting that reward in some way, isn't it?

And seems there is some misunderstanding, experience in O&L doesn't mean better or worse skills in-game (like a true RPG), weapons will work the same on every player, just up to their real life skills. Experience just gives you access to better weapons, that's all.

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dunno if I read everything, but if you're killing and get better guns the more you kill, wont it make the server leaders have the best weapons and lead the server?

Yes, that's the idea, but there are a few features meant to stop "winning streaks". That should bring some balance to game, it's very important players are able to catch up or game would be almost decided in first round.

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R_Yell have you been looking in the SoW2 design document? Or just had a lot of fun with NS:Combat such as I had when I wrote the document?

I visited SoW2 site one time if I remember, but I promise this is first time I see that document Played NS in earlier betas, a bit only. One of the main reason I posted this here was that, I wanted to know similarities with other mods or games, so thx for commenting this.

Well, as far I can see, we could share just the surface with SoW2. I mean: getting experience by kills and objectives is very common stuff, that's even the mechanism present in that "unknow" game called CS if you change experience by money. How is done is the interesting part here. If someone doesn't show the opposite, my system is original: I'm accounting weapon used by killer, his/her experience and also victim's experience to create a unique value for each frag.

And second, usually experience is tied to "level up", I don't want to level up anybody in my design. I mean there won't be upgrades in the classical way, experience is used as a measure of how many weapons can be carried by a player. Let's say each weapon/extra ammo/armor "weights" X experience points, and the sum of all stuff carried cannot exceed player's total experience. This is interesting because players will have total freedom to decide what they are going to carry: better weapons or just bigger quantity of ordinary weapons? Let's say you have 40 exp. points: do you want to get a coachgun (double barrel) or spend them in a pistol, extra ammo, some dynamite, several knives? This makes sense because system awards with more experience points when you kill with standard weapons, so players are going to use those weapon across the game.

Ah yes, I remember playing some of those W3 plugins for CS, I didn't tried CS 1.6 so don't know what it was exactly, probably one of the first versions. Didn't knew how experience was got exactly.

About those plugins, the idea of getting skills is something I really don't like as I said. I remember people getting double health and damage than starting values. If someone joined in the middle of the game it was like being cannon fodder. However, starting with the rest of players and leveling up was funny.

I don't want to create "super players" with all kind of mighty powers, so there shouldn't be huge differences even in late game. ATM I want to stop experience counter when getting 100 points. The basic idea is making them choose equipment, not giving them everything at some late stage of the game.

The nature of this system isn't opposed to unfair advantages, they are there, but don't expect a massive boost, just that. Take that example: what would happen in CS if there weren't cheap but effective weapons (using them with some skill)? It'd terribly difficult to win a round after losing your money and the access to best weapons. There is also the option to save money, you know. I'm also offering some of those "balancing mechanisms".

So no opposed mechanics, don't know how to call it exactly. High experience players always'll have an edge, and some values could be tweaked with server vars so in the end admins would decide if they want more balance or imbalance.

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I think using XP to dictate weapon choice is something of a risky decision

Don't know, that's the only possible way for me here. If players want weapons they'll need to work for the team. Getting XP for kills tends to favor skilled players only, but there is also another way: capturing objectives. That can be accomplished easily by novice players because each capture zone works like DOD and similar games, so every team member inside the zone will get the same XP.

I started this concept with an equipment selection system in mind: give players complete freedom. So no primary/secondary weapon, almost no restrictions (there is only one ATM: dynamic price for some very powerful weapons). This is important because players will be able to create really unique loads (there are almost 20 items to choose from). Then I needed some kind of currency to complete the system, and well, at the moment I don't see any major flaws. There will be needed lots of adjustments, I'm sure, but all the betatest and post relase time is going to be really funny deciding how much expensive every item is.

I'm doing right now a crucial part: the equipment selection interface. Probably this could be a problem, because our mod is based on infinite respawns. Player will want to retouch its equipment quite frequently, probably after each death. So interface need to be hyper simple, very few clicks needed.