MrChumble
17-04-04, 16:02
The Pre-DoY Neocron Wishlist
-----------------------------------
These are the changes I'd make to Neocron, Pre-Dome of York, if I had the time, money, skill and access to KKs sourcecode. It's just a Wishlist. Perhaps KK will like one idea and go with it, maybe they'll hate the lot, perhaps it just doesn't fit with their neocron vision, or it might be just what they need.
This is MY list. I've stated where relevent what I want changed, why I want it changed, and how I'd change it. I don't go into excessive detail, this is more a concept level doc, details could be hashed out easily enough if KK are interested in any of the changes.
There is bias. I play on a server with a small population (I have chars on most servers, but I don't use non-pluto ones much). I'm a carebear many would say, and this is certainly a label I'm comfortable with. I want to PvP when I want to PvP, and then I want it to be dynamic and exciting. I've played all classes, although I don't currently have a pistol or rifle PE.
Where possible I've tried to keep to ideas that would be easily and quickly implemented. There are exceptions; I'm not going to miss out an idea I like just because it's unrealistic to expect, and I may include ideas that seem straight forward to me but are in reality extremely time-consuming to implement.
What is Neocron, and why make changes?
---------------------------------------------
From the neocron homepage:
Neocron is the world's first and only MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) that brings you a dense Cyberpunk atmosphere. It is also the first MMORPG that looks, feels and is almost as easy to play as a 3D first person shooter.
Ok so it's an MMORPG, and FPS gaming comes in there somewhere. I'm sure KK have their own answer to the question "what is neocron?"
I'm going to coin the term MMORPFPS (or steal it if someone beat me too it). Neocron has roleplaying elements, and the core of the game is FPS in both PvM and PvP flavours.
Decisions regarding gameplay should always keep this in mind.
The aim of these changes is to improve play at low and high levels, to extend the playability for high level players, to bring PvP into the domain of the un-capped, to reduce the impact grief players have on the game, and to bring about a PvP/OP war system that's fluid and exciting.
Changes to Being a Newbie
--------------------------------
MC5 has improved the situation for newbies, and the DoY forced tutorial should also make things better. Current issues are:
Suggested setups during character creation have no relevence to the in-game experience
Initial lack of direction on entering the gameworld
Lack of funds for inital experimentation
Poor equipment/hard to get equipment
Bad advice from existing players
Early bad experiences caused by existing players
First impressions last. The first 30 minutes of any game needs to draw the player in and show them a reason to keep playing.
Suggested changes:
The initial suggested setups for players during character creation should be revised to have relevence to the game. If no suggestions from Player Setup section are adopted the character creation should emphasis specialisation, focused points usage, pure combat or tradeskills. If Player Setup suggestions are used, creation should be trimmed to 3 or 4 suggested jobs. In either case all points should be re-distributed to reflect reality in game. Resist Psi should be removed completely.
The player should be required to take a mission before leaving MC5. This should be simple, and productive. For example: Player must locate their faction HQ, find a contact person, and agree to serve the faction. In return they should be rewarded with some starter money and an appropriate gun/drone/spell of high quality. The NPC should note that shop bought equipment is often substandard so it's better to get things built.
Starting equipment should be of reasonable quality, shop bought equipment should varily in quality inversly to tech level, thus noobie equipment would be serviceable (avoiding "my gun won't hit anything" problems) whereas high level equipment should effectively require rebuilding.
The LE should be mandatory until overall rank 10. This will allow the player to settle in without being ganked (they can't PvP at that level anyway). Missions could then be contrived to send noobies into 'hot-spots' where they can see the PvP etc that they can aspire to.
Changes to Leveling
--------------------------
Suggested Changes:
- PvP in caves should not be possible, or carry extremely severe penalties.
- Increase difficulty of high level caves.
- Reduce barrel power.
- Introduce mid-level caves, re-use some worm & swamp caves.
- Lower rate of exp gain from level 50+
- Introduce harder Boss/Large Mobs {see also Rares & Items & Player Setup}
Changes to Player Setup
------------------------------
The existing professions in character setup suggest that variety and experimentation were primary goals of the character system. Over time specialisation has become required, new items have been introduced to encourage and, in the case of PvP, force specialisation.
Being forced into one thing lowers the scope for experimentation and exciting new combinations of items and skills. The game rapidly becomes sterile, with the same forces matching up against each other in endless repetition. The divide between the super-capped players (with capped stats and all required equipment) and everyone else grows. Ultimately players leave the game because it has become boring.
Suggested Changes:
- Remove specialisation.
- Lower the requirements for all weapons so they can be capped at lower levels, with fewer points.
- Reduce power of all weapons and spells {see also Rares & Items}.
- Reduce number of PA's and make them generic to all classes.
- Reduce bonuses from PAs.
Changes to Rares
-----------------------
Rares should be exactly that, rare. They should confer a small advantage, not be a requirement.
Suggested Changes:
- Remove all but one or two rares of each weapon type.
- Reduce stats on all rares to make them on marginally better than non-rare counterparts.
- Reduce rare part drop rate significantly.
- Increase significantly the number of rare items, such as armour, belts, implants. They should be fractionally better than non-rare counterparts and drop with same frequency as current filter heart 2.
- All leveling caves should contain a Boss Mob, which has a low possibility of either spawning, or dropping a rare. Current titan armour mob is good example, if it spawned a little more regularly.
- MC5 chips should replace, not be in addition to, PSI Core/SF/SS/Marine/RI chips.
Changes to Factions
--------------------------
I think the changes in DoY really cover this well. There is little I need to add.
Suggested Changes:
- Reduce rate of SL recovery {see also Outposts}
- Increase SL hit for killing neutral or allied faction runners
- Add small SI hit (6%~) for killing Allied runners
Changes to Epics
-----------------------
To help prevent Epic Gatherers
Suggested Changes:
- Make epic rewards faction specific, as like CA PA
- Adjust epic rewards so they are of similar value
- Add a time element to Epics (game or real-time) so it's impossible to do multiple epics in one day
Changes to Outposts and warzones
---------------------------------------
On pluto there's an agreement that no clan will hold more than 5 ops. It's voluntary, fragile, but working very well. At high levels OP wars are one of the main reasons to play, however the system is not good at all, forcing short dull fights, zergs and ninjas. A lot of work needs to be done by KK on this front. OP wars should be easy to begin and should last more than five seconds. More akin to UK2k4 Onslaught than one round of CS played every 3 days.
Suggested Changes:
- Allow each clan only five OPs. This adds a strategic element and forces factions to work together if they want to hold large swathes of the map. Tested on pluto, works.
- Re-open all GRs to all runners. Owning clan still goes into UG. UG still locked.
- Decrease SI penalty for GRing into a warzone.
- Reduce death SI penalty when GRing out of a warzone after death.
- Make vendor killing an entirely neutral event. No SL loss, no Faction Symp loss, nothing.
-
The virus idea suggested in these forums was pretty good a this respect. The attacking clan would have to set a virus inside the OP terminal, and from there a timer starts to count backwards. When the timer is over the OP can be hacked, and once it is hacked its defences become inmune to any virus for another period of time.
The same clan can only set 'X' virus per RL day.
Changes to PvP & summary
-------------------------------
This is really just a summary of the above :)
- Let noobies experience the game without being ganked
- Let people level in peace (or enforce penalties on people who stop them doing so) in certain places
- Remove specialisation, encourage experimentation and diversity
- Re-work items and rares to allow PvP at lower levels
- Make rares rare and not required
- Reduce effectiveness of rares
- Increase diversity of rare pool (ie more non-weapons, fewer weapons)
- Adjust weapon qualities to make things easier on noobies and more expensive for high rank players
- Re-think the op war system to make it more strategic overall, but more dynamic and fluid while fighting
-----------------------------------
These are the changes I'd make to Neocron, Pre-Dome of York, if I had the time, money, skill and access to KKs sourcecode. It's just a Wishlist. Perhaps KK will like one idea and go with it, maybe they'll hate the lot, perhaps it just doesn't fit with their neocron vision, or it might be just what they need.
This is MY list. I've stated where relevent what I want changed, why I want it changed, and how I'd change it. I don't go into excessive detail, this is more a concept level doc, details could be hashed out easily enough if KK are interested in any of the changes.
There is bias. I play on a server with a small population (I have chars on most servers, but I don't use non-pluto ones much). I'm a carebear many would say, and this is certainly a label I'm comfortable with. I want to PvP when I want to PvP, and then I want it to be dynamic and exciting. I've played all classes, although I don't currently have a pistol or rifle PE.
Where possible I've tried to keep to ideas that would be easily and quickly implemented. There are exceptions; I'm not going to miss out an idea I like just because it's unrealistic to expect, and I may include ideas that seem straight forward to me but are in reality extremely time-consuming to implement.
What is Neocron, and why make changes?
---------------------------------------------
From the neocron homepage:
Neocron is the world's first and only MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) that brings you a dense Cyberpunk atmosphere. It is also the first MMORPG that looks, feels and is almost as easy to play as a 3D first person shooter.
Ok so it's an MMORPG, and FPS gaming comes in there somewhere. I'm sure KK have their own answer to the question "what is neocron?"
I'm going to coin the term MMORPFPS (or steal it if someone beat me too it). Neocron has roleplaying elements, and the core of the game is FPS in both PvM and PvP flavours.
Decisions regarding gameplay should always keep this in mind.
The aim of these changes is to improve play at low and high levels, to extend the playability for high level players, to bring PvP into the domain of the un-capped, to reduce the impact grief players have on the game, and to bring about a PvP/OP war system that's fluid and exciting.
Changes to Being a Newbie
--------------------------------
MC5 has improved the situation for newbies, and the DoY forced tutorial should also make things better. Current issues are:
Suggested setups during character creation have no relevence to the in-game experience
Initial lack of direction on entering the gameworld
Lack of funds for inital experimentation
Poor equipment/hard to get equipment
Bad advice from existing players
Early bad experiences caused by existing players
First impressions last. The first 30 minutes of any game needs to draw the player in and show them a reason to keep playing.
Suggested changes:
The initial suggested setups for players during character creation should be revised to have relevence to the game. If no suggestions from Player Setup section are adopted the character creation should emphasis specialisation, focused points usage, pure combat or tradeskills. If Player Setup suggestions are used, creation should be trimmed to 3 or 4 suggested jobs. In either case all points should be re-distributed to reflect reality in game. Resist Psi should be removed completely.
The player should be required to take a mission before leaving MC5. This should be simple, and productive. For example: Player must locate their faction HQ, find a contact person, and agree to serve the faction. In return they should be rewarded with some starter money and an appropriate gun/drone/spell of high quality. The NPC should note that shop bought equipment is often substandard so it's better to get things built.
Starting equipment should be of reasonable quality, shop bought equipment should varily in quality inversly to tech level, thus noobie equipment would be serviceable (avoiding "my gun won't hit anything" problems) whereas high level equipment should effectively require rebuilding.
The LE should be mandatory until overall rank 10. This will allow the player to settle in without being ganked (they can't PvP at that level anyway). Missions could then be contrived to send noobies into 'hot-spots' where they can see the PvP etc that they can aspire to.
Changes to Leveling
--------------------------
Suggested Changes:
- PvP in caves should not be possible, or carry extremely severe penalties.
- Increase difficulty of high level caves.
- Reduce barrel power.
- Introduce mid-level caves, re-use some worm & swamp caves.
- Lower rate of exp gain from level 50+
- Introduce harder Boss/Large Mobs {see also Rares & Items & Player Setup}
Changes to Player Setup
------------------------------
The existing professions in character setup suggest that variety and experimentation were primary goals of the character system. Over time specialisation has become required, new items have been introduced to encourage and, in the case of PvP, force specialisation.
Being forced into one thing lowers the scope for experimentation and exciting new combinations of items and skills. The game rapidly becomes sterile, with the same forces matching up against each other in endless repetition. The divide between the super-capped players (with capped stats and all required equipment) and everyone else grows. Ultimately players leave the game because it has become boring.
Suggested Changes:
- Remove specialisation.
- Lower the requirements for all weapons so they can be capped at lower levels, with fewer points.
- Reduce power of all weapons and spells {see also Rares & Items}.
- Reduce number of PA's and make them generic to all classes.
- Reduce bonuses from PAs.
Changes to Rares
-----------------------
Rares should be exactly that, rare. They should confer a small advantage, not be a requirement.
Suggested Changes:
- Remove all but one or two rares of each weapon type.
- Reduce stats on all rares to make them on marginally better than non-rare counterparts.
- Reduce rare part drop rate significantly.
- Increase significantly the number of rare items, such as armour, belts, implants. They should be fractionally better than non-rare counterparts and drop with same frequency as current filter heart 2.
- All leveling caves should contain a Boss Mob, which has a low possibility of either spawning, or dropping a rare. Current titan armour mob is good example, if it spawned a little more regularly.
- MC5 chips should replace, not be in addition to, PSI Core/SF/SS/Marine/RI chips.
Changes to Factions
--------------------------
I think the changes in DoY really cover this well. There is little I need to add.
Suggested Changes:
- Reduce rate of SL recovery {see also Outposts}
- Increase SL hit for killing neutral or allied faction runners
- Add small SI hit (6%~) for killing Allied runners
Changes to Epics
-----------------------
To help prevent Epic Gatherers
Suggested Changes:
- Make epic rewards faction specific, as like CA PA
- Adjust epic rewards so they are of similar value
- Add a time element to Epics (game or real-time) so it's impossible to do multiple epics in one day
Changes to Outposts and warzones
---------------------------------------
On pluto there's an agreement that no clan will hold more than 5 ops. It's voluntary, fragile, but working very well. At high levels OP wars are one of the main reasons to play, however the system is not good at all, forcing short dull fights, zergs and ninjas. A lot of work needs to be done by KK on this front. OP wars should be easy to begin and should last more than five seconds. More akin to UK2k4 Onslaught than one round of CS played every 3 days.
Suggested Changes:
- Allow each clan only five OPs. This adds a strategic element and forces factions to work together if they want to hold large swathes of the map. Tested on pluto, works.
- Re-open all GRs to all runners. Owning clan still goes into UG. UG still locked.
- Decrease SI penalty for GRing into a warzone.
- Reduce death SI penalty when GRing out of a warzone after death.
- Make vendor killing an entirely neutral event. No SL loss, no Faction Symp loss, nothing.
-
The virus idea suggested in these forums was pretty good a this respect. The attacking clan would have to set a virus inside the OP terminal, and from there a timer starts to count backwards. When the timer is over the OP can be hacked, and once it is hacked its defences become inmune to any virus for another period of time.
The same clan can only set 'X' virus per RL day.
Changes to PvP & summary
-------------------------------
This is really just a summary of the above :)
- Let noobies experience the game without being ganked
- Let people level in peace (or enforce penalties on people who stop them doing so) in certain places
- Remove specialisation, encourage experimentation and diversity
- Re-work items and rares to allow PvP at lower levels
- Make rares rare and not required
- Reduce effectiveness of rares
- Increase diversity of rare pool (ie more non-weapons, fewer weapons)
- Adjust weapon qualities to make things easier on noobies and more expensive for high rank players
- Re-think the op war system to make it more strategic overall, but more dynamic and fluid while fighting