Continuation of Konidias' Thread

[Kuza]

Originally Posted by Damix2

Who says just because we don't use YOUR slayer idea, there will be crappy items gotten elsewhere?

Jesus don't get so defensive.

Well it's not my original idea, nor am I claiming it to be. Secondly, Konidias asked for suggestions and I freely gave my input. I was speaking sarcastically since nearly everyone was disputing how "sweet" items would encourage cheating. I guess I was thinking too deeply.

Edit: Please don't start an arguement in this thread. It's solely for ideas and development.

[Amagius]

Originally Posted by Kuza

Well it's not my original idea, nor am I claiming it to be. Secondly, Konidias asked for suggestions and I freely gave my input. I was speaking sarcastically since nearly everyone was disputing how "sweet" items would encourage cheating. I guess I was thinking too deeply.

No, there wasn't any problem with having cooler items in slayer. You said that the amount of points would have to be insanely high, which would punish the normal people more than cheaters.

[Correction]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I'm excited to see so many people interested in reviving Graal 2001. This is my suggestion for addressing player killing. As I said, I haven't read the whole thread, so if something similar to this has already been suggested, sorry and get over it.

Each player is assigned a sort of point value that very much resembles AP, except backwards. Each time a player kills another, their points increase. [A special friend just gave me this idea, too, and I liked it alot. With each kill in a town or other widely populated area, players' points should increase more than they normally would in a generally unpopulated area. This is to simulate a sortof "witnessed murder," and also discourages PKing in towns, markets, etc.] I suppose points may decrease with time, and possibly even with death. These points serve three purposes:

1. A player's losses due to death are determined by their point status. A player with more points (someone who kills more often) may suffer more serious losses when killed than a player with less points (someone who doesn't kill as often).
2. I think a sort of bounty system would discourage excessive PKing. Bounties are determined by the top percentages of players' points. For example, the players whose kill points fall in the top 5% of those on the server (online and offline) will recieve 5 star bounties, which may be indicated by 5 icons (stars? whatever) beside or underneith their character to indicate their bounty level to other players. Then perhaps the next 10% recieves 4 star bounties, and so on...
   I also forgot to mention that players with bounties will suffer a relatively large kill point decrease with death. This is so that once a bounty is killed and reward is collected, that player is no longer a bounty target.
3. The third point I'm not sure is a good idea, but it can't hurt to throw it out there. Given the second point about bounty levels, perhaps a higher point level will also reduce players' reward recieved for killing bounty targets. This again would discourage players from mindless PKing because it would prevent them from collecting as much for killing bountied players.

I don't know what's already been suggested, but I noticed alot of dispute over how to handle PKers, and this was what first came to my mind. I hope it is taken under serious consideration.

[Kuza]

Originally Posted by Correction

A very good idea.

Man, that is ingenius! You just summed up everything. I think that's the perfect system. The bounty system sounds very cool. It would keep people from killing too many people because they'd become the target eventually. The hunter becomes the prey. Haha.

[Myomoto]

Originally Posted by Correction

-snap-

Wha'? Are we gonna punish PKers now? :/

[Kuza]

Originally Posted by Myomoto

Wha'? Are we gonna punish PKers now? :/

Posted for Roy (Correction) since his account is messed up at the moment.

Not at all, I'm trying to give them purpose. The problem that I see with Graal is that PKing is entirely mindless. I got online yesterday and was simply wandering around exploring worlds I hadn't seen before, and on two separate occasions I had people follow me like halfway across the entire map because they wanted to PK, thinking I was a newbie running scared ****, when the reality was that I simply wasn't interested in fighting at the time; they were just following me halfway across the freaking planet while I was out for a little explorational trek! PKers as of right now are really nothing more than annoying... they pick a spot and kill anyone who comes by, and nobody wants to deal with them because they're just not worth the time. With a sort of bounty system, there would be incentive for stopping and fighting back.
Every suggestion I've read so far is trying to set up point systems to encourage random killing. I was under the impression that the idea of Graal2001 was to make a sort of RPG environment, and if that's so I think we should stick with it in the case of PKers. A widely known and wanted murderer/thug isn't going to prance around town wearing his fancy PKer-only gear bragging about his kills! He's going to want to stay out of sight to avoid law enforcement.
If you still think that there should be a way to fairly fight others with incentive and without risk of loss, then sparring areas and dueling systems is an easy fix. Perhaps in certain areas (outside of unpopulated areas such as towns, markets, etc.) players can initiate duels with another player. If the other player accepts, then the two can fight each other without risk of loss. Once a player dies, both players' spar ratings are affected and the surviving player's health is returned to full and maybe he's rewarded a little something.

I'm just afraid that if you add in these point systems where PKers receive points for killing others and can spend them on rare items, it only encourages what we're trying to limit. I liked the bounty system because in RPGs I don't believe in restricting player action, but simply discouraging it. With the bounty system, it's still possible to just go on mad killing fests with your friends and have a good time with it (assuming that's possible - all I ever see it result in is everybody bickering over who is and who isn't a "newb."), it's just greatly discouraged that you do it around populated areas, and that you try to forcefully include people who don't want to be included.

[Kuza]

Arrow Fletching
Players will still drop arrows they have, but there will also be a variety of arrows which can alter the status of the targeted player. The arrows can also be “fletched” and cut into different arrow types by using tree bark which must be cut down. The type of wood is used with the arrow decides its attributes and strength:

Arrow Types
Arrows: Weak
Oak Arrows: Normal
Willow Arrows: Average
Maple Arrows: Strong
Yggdasil Arrows: Powerful

Arrow Attributes (must be Yggdrasil arrows and binded to chosen element)
Fire: Burns target and depletes HP slowly.
Ice: Freezes target momentarily.
Bolt: Shocks target and disables item use.
Stone: Drastically slows target’s speed down.

Bomb Engineering
Players will still drop regular bombs. However with the use of Zal technology and combined “gem dust” (found by mining different types of ores and crushing the gem into dust) a player can create better explosives. The bombs will do more damage and the radius will be larger.

Alchemical Schematics:
Topaz: mixes with “Galena” and “Minium”
Emerald: mixes with “Stibnite” and “Wismuth”
Sapphire: mixes with “Cinnabar” and “Calomel”
Ruby: mixes with “Cornea” and “Verdigris”
Diamond: mixes with “Gypsum” and “Brimstone”

Bomb Types:
Galium Bomb: explosion radius of 20 tiles
Stibuth Bomb: explosion radius of 40 tiles
Cinnomel Bomb: explosion radius of 60 tiles
Cordigris Bomb: explosion radius of 80 tiles
Gypstone Bomb: explosion radius of 100 tiles

[Correction]

A few more little things I'd like to see:

Fix up death! Remove the silly little jingle and put in a thud like a body falling down... another thing that would be pretty cool is randomized alternate death ganis! So that way people don't always spin around and fall on their face to the right... sometimes they may fall to the left, sometimes they may fall on their back, and sometimes their head may roll off, whatever!

I don't know what the current plan is for weapons, like whether you were just going to keep the classic sword and shield or if you were going to try to implement a fancy weapons system thing, but if it's the latter I thought it'd be pretty cool to be able to sheath and wear your sword when not in use. Maybe even supply the players with the option to wear it on their back or on their belt. It just always drove me nuts the way MMORPGs still have players whipping swords out of thin air! It's not that hard to slap on a scabbard when the sword is in use, and then replace it with a scabbard + hilt when the sword is sheathed.

[BAD IDEA]Kingdom-specific skills would be pretty slick. Like, I don't know what the general theme for each kingdom would be, but like if there's a scholar or mage type one they could maybe craft certain healing items or something? If there's a warrior type kingdom like Dustari was, perhaps they could have a frenzy type skill that allows them to attack faster or deal more damage, but also take more damage, or maybe they're the only ones with an active shield - a button that defends against all attacks from a single direction. If there's a thief type kingdom, they would totally need a stealthy skill... like maybe hiding in shadows or something. All these are simply examples, I'm just saying I think it'd be neat for each kingdom to have its own little special something so they can express themselves in the game with more than just a player tag.[/BAD IDEA]

I don't know what the current consensus is on bodies, or if this subject's even been addressed, but PLEASE, GOD, PLEASE USE THE OLD BODIES, or a variation thereof! Don't try to come up with any "better," taller looking people... The body design is fine as-is... just, some detail would be nice if you're really aching to revamp them.

Back to the swords: If you're using some sexy new weapon system and not the classic Graal swords, at least make them as uh... fluid. The swords on 2k2 and Maloria are just... I don't know, they look and feel all wrong. They're too slow, players hold them at funky angles, you're stationary for too long while using them, the range is screwed over... I'd really like to see something as close to the classic swords as possible... but the scabbards would still be pretty cool. Or not. Whatever.

Quests: Avoid fighting often or just altogether, simply because NPC combat in Graal is going to suck no matter what you do, for a number of reasons. Come up with some really clever puzzles and stuff... maybe even have sort of clue-chase type quests that span over the entire map, like an Indiana Jones sort of thing. Like, you may find a clue in some cave on one side of the map that leads you to another clue in the forest on another part of the map that tells you how to get into the spooky abandoned castle on another part of the map that holds more clues to more stuff.

Sorry that all my posts are sadistically long. I can only post like once every eight hours or something, so I've got to make each one really count.



RESPONDING TO KONI'S POST BELOW
Looking back, you're totally right. I got so carried away there.
I think alot of it was because Kuza and I were just throwing out random ideas for a new server on AIM, and I got on a role and just started thinking up crap... and then it leaked into this thread.
I still say scabbards would be a neat feature, but I can do without. And I'm sorry, I don't care how much apart of Graal the death animation is, I've always hated it and always will, so I'm going to be a stubborn ass about it.

[konidias]

Originally Posted by Correction

Idea...

It would probably be more effective to use a system like the spar rating. Killing newbies wouldn't do much of anything to your rating... Killing high rated killers would improve your rating. Getting killed by newbies would decrease your rating, etc.

A person who has a high rating would lose more points, but only if the person that killed them has a low rating. Make sense?

Then the "kill points" can be distributed depending on these factors. You wouldn't get any kill points when the server first opens, because everyone will have a default rating, and you get no kill points for those kills. But once the dominant PKers surface, if they kill eachother or you kill them, then kill points will be distributed. This will prevent people from killing an account over and over again for points via collusion, because you'll only get so many points out of a good pker account before you get nothing. After that, the person who let you kill them over and over will have to kill more people to get their rating back up, so that they give kill points again.

The give and take system will prevent abuse, I think. Sure you could sell kills to someone in order to let them get kill points from you, but you wouldn't have an unlimited supply, and you'd have to have a decent kill rating anyway.

I also think it would be neat if the kill points were to drop like gralats when you die, so that anyone could pick them up. Yes? No?

Let me know if you find any loopholes with this system.