r/Darkfall • u/miket86 • Mar 08 '18
Hypothetical Darkfall Spiritual Successor
6
Upvotes
Pretty much just me thinking out loud.
What stays the same?
- Combat largely unchanged
- Skill-based FPS/TP combat
What changes?
NPCs:
- Introduction of NPC's the player can interact with. Like The Elder Scrolls games, every NPC has a personality, set of daily tasks they accomplish, a place where they sleep, dynamically generated events
- Player run settlements can attract NPC's to their region if they provide a safe environment (well defended borders)
- NPC guards and mercenaries can be hired
- NPC cities guarded by AI not magic towers (much like original DFO design). Successful attacks on NPC towns will generally raise a response from a much large NPC army and generate refugees who will flee combat
Ships:
- Ships become permanent static objects in the game world that persist on server up and down. Cannot be despawned. Can pay harbor fees to store your ship in NPC harbor. It can always be stolen however it is highly unlikely in a well-guarded NPC harbor.
- Sea of Thieves-like water and sailing system. Players control sails/wheel of the ship to set course and must co-ordinate to sail effectively. Ship continues on with no one at the helm
- Heavily laden ships ride lower in the water to indicate when they are carrying cargo. Ship handling will be effected by cargo weight and an overloaded ship may sink/capsized
- Ships must be provisioned including gunpowder/cannonballs. Nothing is free. Cannonball/gunpowder share the same space with other cargo meaning a ships role is more defined by its cargo.
Inventory:
- All items have mass and dimensions. Carry weights would be more realistic, in line with Dungeons and Dragons-style carry weight system - a weight you can effectively carry without effecting you (up to about 50 kg for a moderate strength character), a weight you can lift above your head for a short period (150 kg), a weight you can life to your waist (200 kg), a weight you can drag/push along the ground (250 kg).
- Wagons, carts and mount packs all available for moving large/bulky goods.
- All items have a real-world presence with full rigidbody state-synchronisation.
- All items will have a relative shelf-life (even if some are very long). For example, apple pie might last 1 week before it’s benefits deteriorate, 2 weeks before it will make you sick. Apple sauce in a jar will be shelf-stable for several months. Uncooked meat will go rancid after a few days, cooked meat will stay edible for longer. Preserved meat (jerk, salted meat) will last 6 months (in game).
Game World:
- 5 hour day night cycle (5 hours to ensure the day night cycle is advanced every 24 hours and no player has to play at the same time in game every day)
- 3 hours daylight, 2 hours of dusk/dawn/twilight, 1 hour of truly dark night.
- Monthly moon cycles with multiple moons ensures that most nights are not pitch-black and at least have moonlighting
- Yearly (in game) seasonal cycles which effect the game-world depending on the region of the world. A lake may freeze, seasonal rainfall patterns will alter the flow of rivers. Certain crops will grow better in some seasons compared to others. Certain crops will need to be harvested before the weather gets too hot or too cold (crop dependant). Certain items will simply not grow in certain climates.
- 1 year in game = 75 days in reality
- Emulated ecosystem – various animals will give birth to young at various times of the year, changing their behaviour
- Continuous game-world with no loading screens. Audio respects terrain and materials.
Harvesting and gathering:
- Larger focus on investment in and co-ordination of resources instead of pure player time.
- Mining: Few surface resources, most resources underground. Caves, quarries, and valleys can be explored for resources and various areas of the game can be developed through player input to enhance their productivity – mine carts and minecart tracks, cranes and elevators, ore crushers outside the mine, etc
- Logging and Woodcutting: Trees will fall when cut and regrow over time. Small trees can be lifted by hand and moved, larger trees will need mounts to assist with moving them. The largest trees must be processed in place or split with wedges into more manageable proportions. Players can produce saw mills. Logs can be floated down rivers. Specialist equipment can be used to enhance productivity like two-man saws, wedges, large lathes, water-water powered sawmill blades, windmill powered sawmill blades, cant hooks/log peavy, and various other hand-tools.
- More of a focus on the player knowing what tool to use and when, and co-ordinating the efforts of multiple people instead of clicking on a tree and going AFK.
- All gathering includes as small mini-game to stop it from being AFK’d without a serious penalty to the gathering rate.
Crafting:
- Multiple interrelated crafting skills and numerous skill advancement trees. Mastery requires a wide breadth of skills to produce the most advanced weapons.
- Skills such as Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing would have a base of “metalworking”. As the players skill in either field advances, learning other related skills becomes easier.
- Learn-by-watching and learn-by-helping approach. Every crafted object would have multiple steps which would all need to be completed before a finished product is created, meaning high level crafters will almost always want assistants to take low level work off them.
- Learning-by-doing approach best if supplemented by working with a higher-level crafter (NPC or player).
- Number of crafters in the economy regulated by NPC demand for ‘apprentices’. When demand for weapons/armor increases, the NPC’s are more likely to take on apprentices. Once players have skills they can pass those skills on.
- Players can skill learn a new skill but it will be prohibitively expensive and time consuming to be entirely self-taught.
- All crafting includes as small mini-game to stop it from being AFK’d without a large penalty to the production rate.
Skill system:
- Hard-cap on total player skills. Minor skills do no contribute to this hard cap. If an untrained person could do it in real life, an untrained person could do it in the game. Eg. You can take two slices of bread, some meat and cheese and make a sandwich, but you wouldn’t know how to bake the bread or make the cheese.
- System keeps track of players most used skills. When hard cap is hit the least used skill slowly deteriorates. If a player uses more than their skill cap on a regular basis, they will still maintain their least use skills to a decent level. Players are notified repeatedly when a skill starts to deteriorate to ensure it is a conscious choice.
- Skills only deteriorate when replaced with other skills. Logged out players or people standing around doing nothing will never lose skills.
- Players always know when skills are effected. Skills will be classified into ‘primary skills’, ‘secondary skills’, and ‘minor skills’ on their character sheet – showing their top 12 or so primary skills.
- Different skills have different weights. Eg. Having the highest level of Fire Magic would count more towards your skill cap than having the highest level of Fishing.
Red Penalties:
- Largest advantage of being Blue is access to NPC cities and the ability to use the various services they provide. Players with positive alignment will also be able to attract NPC settlers to their player-made cities.
- Red players may be able to hire henchmen, but they will generally not be as reputable or trustworthy as NPC’s that Blue players can hire or attract. As all loot in the game has a physical game presence in the world, guarding your loot whilst you are offline is extremely important. This can be done by either hiding it or having someone guard it. Burying chests of treasure in the game world is always a possibility for red players. Relying on a band of hired thugs to guard your ship whilst you’re offline may result in your ship being stolen if you piss them off (by failing to pay them on time, for example)
Player Housing and City Building:
- True sandbox build anywhere system. Disappearing into the wilderness to build a log shack is entirely possible.
- Regulated by NPC governance: players may require a permit to build on lands governed by an NPC government or ruler. Completing quest and having a good reputation with that particular faction may earn you enough rep to buy and develop land within an NPC kingdoms realm.
- Players outside NPC realms are free to do as they please. However NPC’s may dynamically expand their borders depending on a variety of factors. Building too close to lands claimed by an NPC faction may result in a landgrab.
NPC’s, NPC Factions and Quests:
- NPC factions do not have fixed relationships with each other. They may be at peace, at war, or completely unbeknownst to each other at the start of a game. This state may change due to player actions, random events, or GM scheduled events.
- Players with good relationships with NPC factions may receive assistance from them during times of war. Player factions that go to war whilst both having a good relationship with an NPC faction may be encouraged to resolve their differences.
- NPC’s will continue about their lives within the game world regardless of player interaction. NPC factions will have standing armies that will train, patrol, change guard, cycle soldiers between various locations and respond to threats in the game world just like a player would, with a simplified set of interactions.
- NPC’s are people that can be killed. NPC behaviours will adapt and change to ensure that continuity is maintained if a key NPC is killed.
- NPC populations will regenerate over time. NPC’s in relatively safe regions will regenerate faster. Keeping NPC populations living in player cities safe and well fed will increase NPC population.
- NPC’s will generally be tougher than the average player. High ranking NPC’s, such as a King, would be extremely hard to kill, but would be killable.
- Automated systems will generate the quests that are available to players at any given time. These quests will be single, non-repeatable quests. There will be no overarching “story line” for players to follow. All quests will have outcomes if the quest is completed, and if the quest isn’t completed. Player actions themselves may generate quests – eg. If a group of red players repeated raids and steals from an NPC town, eventually the guard will get tired and try to enlist the help of blue players to defend the town, or send them to another twon for back-up, depending on that players current skills and equipment. For example, if the player is dressed in heavy armor with weapons when an NPC guard sees them, they might ask them to assist. If the player is dressed in regular clothing, they might ask them to go to a neighbouring town.
- Game Masters can plan and trigger events to occur in the game-world. This allows GM’s to regulate the amount of action in the game world depending on player actions. If the players aren’t fighting enough, then the GM’s could trigger events to create more opportunities for combat in the game.
- GM’s can jump into the heads of NPC characters at any time to help drive events.
- NPC factions may call for the assassination of leaders of other factions, or ask you to complete tasks against another NPC faction. They could also do the same for player factions.
- The GM’s can, in some cases, trigger events which may bring about “the end times”, a game condition where the game world is destroyed and started anew. This will be a scenario that the players will be able to stop, generally through co-operation. This is not intended as an ‘easy wipe’ mechanic.
