ADV Shaping (Battle Gamma & Co.)

[MagmaDragoon]

[Just curious - they can be shaped by the player?

 

And all the other, strange creations (like "energized Artila", "Oozing Thand", etc...)... You would like to be able to shape them?]

 

[...!]

 

What an idea! What about change the shaping-creation system? Instead of simply click-and-shape what about a mini-game? Something like a logic-game: put all genes in correct order to obtain normal creation, or try to change genes positions for amazing effects! Maybe, you can still shape normally during travelling, but if you go in a shaper lab, with adeguate skills (here another function for shaping skills!)/equipment (resarch notes, shaping equipment or other) you can try to create something new! And if you make something good you can choice to "record" (maybe the "records" can be limited, or maybe you need some rare items) it and being able to shape it during traveling! Maybe you can discover secret creations! And maybe make them strong or special by using items on them during shaping! Man, maybe you can be able to shape a new pack-creation or a creation-humanoid that can use equipment... And new quests like: "Shape a secret weapon"...

 

Comments?

[Maimonides]

Quote:

Originally written by MagmaDrakoon:
Just curious - they can be shaped by the player?

They cannot.

[Major]

Quote:

They cannot.

Sure they can.
Well... If you edit scripts.
Side note: If you want me to I'll show you how to make ornks into Battle Gammas. (So you can create them.)

[tridash]

Shaping vats allowing you to make the more exotic creations would definitely be interesting.

[MagmaDragoon]

Quote:

Originally written by Major:

Side note: If you want me to I'll show you how to make ornks into Battle Gammas. (So you can create them.)

No, thanks, it was just a question.

[Major]

Quote:

No, thanks, it was just a question.

Wise choice.

[Grain of Salt]

This seems cool. It would certainly add some reason as to why the player can shape in the middle of an enemy fort, but other shapers apparently require labs. Discovering new creations would be awesome and add replay value.

 

However, a minigame would need to be more than just lining up genes. Bleh.

[Igor]

It does sound like a neat idea. And perhaps your experimental creatures should have a greater chance of going rogue to make up for their uniqueness/superpoweredness.

[Suspicious Vlish]

I think G4 NEEDS to allow the PC to shape Battle Gammas. Personally, I think that an additional 'upgrade' needs to be added to each Creation type (eg, Battle Alpha/Beta/Gamma, Vlish/Submission Vlish/Terror Vlish, etc).

[MagmaDragoon]

Sorry for revive this, but I want more opinions on the ADV Shaping, expecially with the two GF Masters, Delicious Vlish and Slarty.

[Archaeolagent]

I am not a Master. I just have too much time on my hands (something that will be changing shortly)

 

What's to discuss, really? Jeff's already said there will be new creations in G4. It seems very likely that they will be mid-rank creations -- having a fifth tier would be silly, and the first tier is well balanced for the beginning game as is.

 

Or maybe there will be a fourth class of creations.

 

Regardless, a Battle Gamma would be retarded. We already have a pile of battle shaping creations that are exactly the same except for essence cost and level. We don't need yet another one.

[MagmaDragoon]

Quote:

Originally written by MagmaDrakoon:

What an idea! What about change the shaping-creation system? Instead of simply click-and-shape what about a mini-game? Something like a logic-game: put all genes in correct order to obtain normal creation, or try to change genes positions for amazing effects! Maybe, you can still shape normally during travelling, but if you go in a shaper lab, with adeguate skills (here another function for shaping skills!)/equipment (resarch notes, shaping equipment or other) you can try to create something new! And if you make something good you can choice to "record" (maybe the "records" can be limited, or maybe you need some rare items) it and being able to shape it during traveling! Maybe you can discover secret creations! And maybe make them strong or special by using items on them during shaping! Man, maybe you can be able to shape a new pack-creation or a creation-humanoid that can use equipment... And new quests like: "Shape a secret weapon"...

This is what I mean for ADV Shaping.

[I_am_a_Minotaur]

Battle Gamma wouldn't be retarded. It could be the highest level creation for loyal shapers. They would have high damage, high chance to stun and high HP.

[Archaeolagent]

No, it wouldn't.

 

Battle Gammas already exist. They have statistics just like every other character in the games. And the only different between Battle Alphas, Betas, and Gammas is base level. That's it.

[Student of Trinity]

Why do I think of a Battle Epsilon as being extremely tiny?

And why am I so sure that they always travel in a pair with a Battle Delta?

[I_am_a_Minotaur]

Yes it would be like an advancement of the battle beta. It should probably have a slight advantage though. Like a higher chance to stun. And higher damage.

 

That would make it a perfect combination with the oter creation I thought of.

Quote:

At the end of the loyalist ending you were leading an army of strange humanoid creations. Maybe these will be like smaller, weaker Battle Alphas but they have high dex & parry so they are hard to hit. This might make a reasonably useful battle creation. It would have to have less chance to be hit than Rots though, because otherwise no rebels would use them.

[Grain of Salt]

Trouble is, it's not very interesting. I'm sure a leveled-up Clawbug has slightly different statisitcs than a battle alpha, but they still play the same.

[Lilith]

So given that everyone seems to agree it would be a good idea to do so, how do we differentiate battle creations from each other? A greater variety of elemental attacks and resistances seems like it would be a good start -- just because they fall into the role of melee brutes, doesn't mean they can't be diverse. Rotghroths are already based around an element; why can't some of the other battle creations follow suit?

[Delicious Vlish]

Battle Alphabets should be immune to stun. I mean, they are GIANTS for crying out loud. Heck, their mass alone should allow them to shrug off almost anything.

 

Bugs should have poison, and lots of it. Their discription even says they should have poison. They do not. Plated bugs should have massive armor values and resist almost anything thrown at them, at the cost of some loss to hit. My Bug Baron was bitterly bummed out by his bogus bugs. Also, being insects with very little brains and only impulse centers, they should be immune to charm and mental effects.

[Dikiyoba]

Thahds are good the way they are, because they are so basic.

 

Battle betas should be able to do way more damage to an opponent than battle alphas. A far better melee attack should be the reason to spend the all extra essence on them.

 

I'd rather be able to create stinging clawbugs than plated clawbugs. It would be interesting to give it high dexterity, extra AP, and a poison attack but give it only low armor. That way it would be good at hitting and doing damage, and good at avoiding being hit, but when it did get hit, it would get hit hard.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Firecage]

this idiea is great...i hope they put it into gf4.

[MagmaDragoon]

Quote:

Originally written by Dmknoiygba:
...I'd rather be able to create stinging clawbugs than plated clawbugs...
Dikiyoba.

Where is the third person?

Anyway, I think the the main problem of the Battle Alphas is, as Delicious Vlish said, that the mass of these creations don't affect something. Being immune to Stun is a good example.

[Student of Trinity]

Plated Bugs are cool because they get 10 AP. That makes them such a pain as opponents, because they can run so far and still attack you and because it's hard to stun them enough that they can't hit once. So in principle it ought to make them good on your team.

 

But I've just never been able to get much use out of melee creations, except for Glaahks, with their good stunning and decent health. Melee creations are fine as enemies, because those are supposed to die, and there are lots more where they came from. But on your side, ranged attacks are just too important. They compete fine for total damage with melee attacks, and they are much more flexible.

 

So how could you beef up melee creatures on your team? Maybe give them some regeneration, like your enemies, so they don't get ground down so much. But the idea I like best is just adding the 'locked in combat' feature of A4 (the AP penalty for stepping away from an adjacent enemy). This would let you use melee creatures to tie up enemies, especially if it were extended to making it harder to launch a missile attack when an enemy is adjacent. Getting your melee creations (or your melee Guardian) to grips with your enemies would then dominate the battle.

 

Even better, if the engine could possibly swing it, would be for adjacent allies to be able to mitigate the effects of an adjacent enemy. Then if a rogue Battle Alpha had your Vlish in a grapple, you could bring up your own Battle Alpha to bust the Vlish out. You would use melee creations to lock down your enemies, and to prevent enemy melee creations from locking you down. It should still be possible to get by without melee creations, but employing them should become a very attractive option.

 

There could also be a pumpable skill that would boost creation melee ability: some sort of combat leadership, not implausible. And maybe just lowering the essence cost, so that it was cost-efficient to make melee dudes, and to evolve them up in order to keep replacement melee dudes up to par with experienced missile-launching survivors.

[Suspicious Vlish]

Perhaps similar to Baldur's Gate II, the Shaper could engage in 'Wild Shaping'. Merely a random blast of magical energy, and you can possibly get any creation from the game. It could be something crap (Slimy Worm) or something awesome (Ur-Drakkon). Of course, your chances of getting something awesome would increase in relation to your level.

 

Wild Shaping could also have a good chance of harming you, or creating a rogue creation.

 

A little bit of randomness + unpredictability always makes a game more fun!

[Delicious Vlish]

Plated bugs can't hit the broad side of a barn. They have an exceptionally low to hit rate. Especially so in G3, they are worthless.

 

G3's Bug Baron cheated and got Glaahks.

 

Something else I thought of, but seriously doubt it could actually be implemented because of the game engine, is knockback for the Alphabet Mob. Something that big, when it clobbers you, is going to knock you around a good bit. Heck, one of those big guys could pick up a servile and kick them like a football right in to the next zone.

[Archaeolagent]

Implementing the 'slowing' move away feature of A4 would be a great way to restore the value of battle creations. I'll second that.

[Suspicious Vlish]

The 'slowing' mechanism is a great idea. Or you could implement the mechanism used for breaking melee in Exile. The opponent gets a free swing.

[Archaeolagent]

Hmm. On second thought, it is a great idea, but it still needs to be accompanied by battle creations having better attacks than other creations. A vlish's melee attack is close to as good as a clawbug's, arguably better because it poisons; unless something makes clawbug attacks better or vlish attacks worse, slowing won't make me use clawbugs, it will just make me change how I use vlish, who are still superior.

[Grain of Salt]

How about we replace the Vlish's melee attack with a weaker one and use the current one for Clawbugs?

[Delicious Vlish]

The other idea is to introduce a second attack somehow in creations. Sort of a rarer secondary attack that they have a small chance of using.

 

With a clawbug, you could, say, somehow allow for a multi target attack (Which the Guardian also needs) like a pincer swipe or a claw crush. To have those big pincers and never use them is such a shame.

[*i]

Quote:

A little bit of randomness + unpredictability always makes a game more fun!

Sounds like save/load abuse time.

But seriously, I do think Vlish need to be depowered quite a bit. Their attacks should do minimal damage, but bestow nasty status effects (heavy stun/curse for normal and terror for the advanced) instead. This would make it hard for a Vlish to kill anything, but it would make their role more of a support one adding to the tactics.

Clawbugs could have a chance to poison in addition to their normal attack, that would make them a bit more effective.

Battle Betas need something special, perhaps 20% resistance to all damage or something sweet like that making them harder to kill. I do like the idea of stun immunity for the battle alpha, beta, gamma class.

Drakons pretty much suck right now. My suggestion would be to allow them to shape random low level creations that disappear after a while. These creations would act more as summons and not be under the player's control, but it would be useful to have more free Fryoas and such.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally by Delicious Vlish:

 

Quote:

G3's Bug Baron cheated and got Glaahks.

Well, glaahks look buglike, at least.

 

-----

 

Originally by *i:

 

Quote:

Sounds like save/load abuse time.

Agreed. If anything random were added to the game, it would have to be set up so that the player can't immediately reload and get something different. After all, anyone who had the patience to get the complete Geneforge 1 easter egg will sit and reload until they finally get the battle gamma they are after.

 

-----

 

Originally by MagmaDragoon:

 

Quote:

Where is the third person?

It's there. You quoted it. In fact, you remind me of the adage "A broken clock is right twice a day" because you keep pointing out the first-person in my points in the hope that I messed up my gimmick.

 

Unfortunately, Dikiyoba has somewhat arbitrarily decided that MagmaDragoon is not a broken clock, but rather a clock that is always 27 minutes and 33 seconds behind.

[MagmaDragoon]

 

Quote:

Originally written by *i:

Drakons pretty much suck right now. My suggestion would be to allow them to shape random low level creations that disappear after a while. These creations would act more as summons and not be under the player's control, but it would be useful to have more free Fryoas and such.

This would mean that Drakon have in theirs genes the ability of shape. No, I wouldn't like it. I suggest, instead, a more powerful attack that scare the player (and more endurance). They are Drakons, big, tall, strong: why don't fear them?

[Suspicious Vlish]

Knockback is a great idea. They implemented it in D2, I don't see why giant creations can't smack their opponents back a few paces.

[*i]

Quote:

This would mean that Drakon have in theirs genes the ability of shape. No, I wouldn't like it. I suggest, instead, a more powerful attack that scare the player (and more endurance). They are Drakons, big, tall, strong: why don't fear them?

You do realize that in GF2, Barzahl created the Drakon with the ability to shape other creatures, that's what makes them so powerful, dangerous, and unique. They are the only creation with the ability to make other creations and has been well documented. Letting the player use a "summon" like ability would be consistent with the storyline.

I agree, a more powerful attack would be neat, but any other creation could get better attacks. I could say the same thing about Battle Betas and such. I'd say let them use their ability to shape. What you get should probably be dependent upon the intelligence stat.

[I_am_a_Minotaur]

You should be able to buy creation shaping for your Drakon. Like it starts out with only create fyora, but you can buy say.... create glahk for it and then it would be able to create a glahk.

[*i]

That might be going a bit too far. I'd say keep it simple.

[MagmaDragoon]

Quote:

Originally written by *i:

You do realize that in GF2, Barzahl created the Drakon with the ability to shape other creatures, that's what makes them so powerful, dangerous, and unique. They are the only creation with the ability to make other creations and has been well documented. Letting the player use a "summon" like ability would be consistent with the storyline.

I see. Drakons must be more powerful, and shaping is consistent with the storyline. Right.

Quote:

Originally written by *i:
That might be going a bit too far. I'd say keep it simple.

Agreed.

[Dikiyoba]

The only problem with drakons being able to shape is that the shaped creations will be too weak to do much. A newly-created, ordinary fyora cannot attack or defend well against an eyebeast.

 

On the other hand, drakons could shape the more powerful charged creations, which would make charged creations more interesting as well.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Delicious Vlish]

Allow Ur Drakkons the ability to shape Pyro-Creations, like Pyroroamers or PyroDryaks... Hahahah!

 

No worries about the creations staying around all that long, and there is a very real danger to you.

[Archaeolagent]

The AI is annoying enough without giving it the ability to *directly* kill you by accident

[Delicious Vlish]

As far as advanced shaping goes... I want to shape war bred serviles to do my bidding. And have them armed with batons and blades.

[Mike Montgomery]

Quote:

Originally written by MagmaDrakoon:
[QB]Something like a logic-game: put all genes in correct order to obtain normal creation, or try to change genes positions for amazing effects! Maybe, you can still shape normally during travelling, but if you go in a shaper lab, with adeguate skills (here another function for shaping skills!)/equipment (resarch notes, shaping equipment or other) you can try to create something new! And if you make something good you can choice to "record" ...
QB]

I like this original suggestion. Like most mutations, a random mutation would with very high probability result in disability or death. But perhaps certain research notes could contain clues based on countless hours of research by others. And by obtaining sufficient clues and solving (like a logic puzzle) one could come up with a gene pattern with an enhanced ability of some kind.

There could be several different advanced abilities to find. It could be like having clues from 6 different logic puzzles intermixed. First one would have to make sure of what puzzle each clue went with, and then when sufficient clues were obtained, solve the puzzle. The puzzles would have to be randomized at the beginning of any new game in some way, so that a spoiler would not be useful.

For example, a gene pattern in one game might be:
DDAABCD, for a different game CCBBDAC. (Each letter gets substititued for another in the pattern AND relevant clues.)

Sounds like a lot of work for the designer, but sounds like a lot of fun, too!

[MagmaDragoon]

Thanks, Mike. I know that would be a lot of work for the designer, but I don't like the attual idea to click-and-shape.

[*i]

Quote:

Originally written by MagmaDragoon:
Thanks, Mike. I know that would be a lot of work for the designer, but I don't like the attual idea to click-and-shape.

I'm fine with "click-and-shape" for the basic creations, it keeps the game quite simple. I would, however, not be opposed to some sort of alchemy thing for more exotic creations.

[Randomizer]

When you try for augmented creations, you should have a good chance of getting it to turn rogue like in GF1 with the Sholai researcher killed by the beta. Of course save/reload would eliminate any bad result so Jeff would need to make it hard to get to the point where you learn enough to try augmentation of creations,

[MagmaDragoon]

Well, maybe the "game" can be very simple for basic creations, for don't annoy the player.

 

And maybe, shaping "normal" creation would be easy, but try to power-up a creation or create something new would be more hard (You would need a recipie, maybe).

 

Quote:

Originally written by Randomizer:

Of course save/reload would eliminate any bad result so Jeff would need to make it hard to get to the point where you learn enough to try augmentation of creations,

This is normal... Another thing that could eliminate bad result would be a "ADV Shaping Guide".

[Archaeolagent]

Random results on that kind of scale = really, really bad. It would be one thing, though, to have a really complex algorithm that seemed sort of random, but where the same input always gave you the same output. That would encourage empirical experimentation, rather than just magic 8 ball save-reloads.

[Dikiyoba]

I don't really like the idea of having a random chance or playing a game to create a good creation. It feels unnecessarily tedious somehow.

 

Needing find a Shaping vat or needing a few special items or ingredients before being able to create a powerful creation makes sense, though.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Zeviz]

Puzzle games are fun. Irrelevant puzzles that pop up in the middle of an RPG aren't. Especially if the puzzle is either poorly connected to what my character is supposedly doing (like asking player to arrange genes in a pattern when the character is casting a spell), or so hard that I have to go online for answers (like puzzles in some BoE scenarios).

 

The "find notes that you show to person A, who gives you instructions that can only be deciphered with help of person B, whom you have to find in a dangerous remote area" kind of puzzles work better in RPGs if done well. However, if done poorly these can also get quite tedious.

 

As for randomness in a game, any random elements have to be decided at the start of the game, to avoid save/reload problem. So each game would be unique, while each reload within a given game would produce same result.