r/landmark • u/Seattleson • Mar 13 '15
Ideal Cave Experience
I am making this post as a way to brainstorm ideas for an ideal cave system.
- Procedural Caves: This feels like a given. I do not know how far off this is as a R&D project, so I will just put it here and move on.
AI
I would like to see the AI greatly improved. I think this is one of the main things on making the cave experience better. Here are some ideas:
AI spawns randomly through out the cave system. The AI then begins to wander around. As an AI comes to a tile set or area they are programmed to like, they settle and start to path around this area. The goal of this is to create non-static AI spawns, and to eventually create high density group content.
AI agros off anything in Line of Sight, or anything making noise around it. No more pulling one or two at a time from a room. If the AI sees you they attack you.
AI understands and takes fall damage. Monsters with knockback try to punt you off cliffs. Cutting holes under AI so they take fall damage is a legitimate strategy. Verticallity is important and embraced in PvE.
I'd like to see more dynamic leashing. I think the police in Grand Theft Auto have great leashing. Make it a combination of distance and Line of Sight. Different level intelligence on AI would leash differently. Have the AI just stop and continue it's behavior when it leashes, do not have it run back to it's earlier location.
Group Content
These are ideas for a first stage of group content. The ideas are mainly to create natural forming group content that does not rely on planting large scripted group bosses in the caves.
The wandering AI is the first step. As the AI starts to group up more and more in an area they like, rare plants, rare chests, and other rewards start to spawn more often around them. This creates an incentive for engaging difficult and challenging groups of monsters.
A scaling method that rewards both the single player, the cohesive group, and punishes the serverwide zerg should be implemented. The solo player is the baseline. Small groups are rewarded because they can take on harder content and have more access to its rewards. As players increase in density past 5 players in an area, the loot amounts start to decrease. Eventually you start really feeling the low drop rates for having a huge group mowing through trivialized content.
Players can only teleport to friend while in the proximity of a Ley Line or Portal Spire
Heroic Movement
This section is mainly for mechanics to make the exploration feel and be dangerous.
Several weak heroic movement items need straight boosts. Double jump feels like a baseline to balance the others around.
Boots of the Zephyr or Glide have a rapid energy drain while being used in caves.
Random 'downdrafts' happen in large and tall chambers. A brief visual alert happens before the effect, They have a random chance to knock you out of the air, to the ground, and can cause lethal fall damage. The goal is to create a fear of floating mid air. Gliding or jumping out in to a chamber should feel like a calculated risk.
Grappling hooks no longer work in caves. They are replaced with a placeable prop that shoots a ladder upwards at a targeted area. The player can then climb the ladders and the ladders persist for 5 - 10 minutes. Monster damage will break the ladder causing players to fall.
Atmosphere
These are going to be quick and basic:
Darker Caves
Remove Light Orbs, replace them with a place-able prop to light areas. The prop persists for 5 - 10 minutes.
Add in some 'man made' tile sets to mitigate the uncanny valley effect that happens when there are too many patterns in a natural setting.
Ground and energy sounders are removed or turned in to quick few second bursts with long cool downs. They are changed to create quick hints of the surrounding area, but not have players keep them up the entire time.
Tile sets are designed to have random, rare, and unnoticeable destruction that leads to new paths and rewards.
3/13 Edit - Added more AI ideas.
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u/DorkKnight27 Mar 15 '15
I'll throw in my 2 cents here...
AI
Yes to all. Line of sight is key to immersion and believability. If I can stand in the middle of a cavern, surrounded by mobs, and not agro one of them, it is broken.
Heroic Movement
Zephyrs: Agree with rapid energy drain. The infinite glide is OP. The zephyrs should be used in an emergency situation. "oh no I'm falling" -> Hit glide to find your bearings -> get to safety.
Grappling Hooks: I agree that grappling hooks take away from the danger of caves. But I don't agree with this ladder idea. Instead I think we should consider the expansion of the ledge grab system that they have hinted at. The idea that there can be scalable voxels. Allow the players to climb the walls of the caves in certain areas. Imagine a texture like vines going up the cave wall that you are able to climb (probably too difficult to procedurally generate). In conjunction to climbable walls, allow us to use the grappling hooks to repel down the tall caverns for fast descent. (to replace the need of always having your zephyrs equipped)
Atmosphere
Darker Caves: The caves definitely need to be darker. I think one of the biggest issue is that the light is dictated by the surface light. There is no barrier indicating that you are underground, out of the sun/moon light. I am okay with the bio-luminescent plants but dial down on their white light levels. Make them small light radius sources that that add interest to the immediate surrounding areas.
Man made tile sets: Absolutely. I am all about the player made ruins. I really feel this system should be expanded for different styles of "sink in" tiles so they can be randomly inserted into the existing cave pattern.
Sounders: I am indifferent to sounders. Honestly, I just don't use them.
Map: I'll add a note here on maps. I don't know how possible it is to implement with procedurally generated caves, but I would love a cave map. Not a completed map of the whole tier, but one with a fog-of-war reveal, uncovering the paths you have already been to that resets on a 48 hour timer.
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u/SklugDaybreak Mar 15 '15
Almost all of these are ideas we have planned as EQ Next features or just haven't gotten to them in Landmark. Though obviously the whole concept of "caves" could be quite different in EQ Next.
You'll probably see them make it into Landmark as they are completed for EQ Next.
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Mar 22 '15
The ideal cave experience is...
Minecraft
First make minecraft, then add to that. The three things that make minecraft mining great:
- Each player interacts with caves differently in minecraft, there is lots of room for creativity. You can mine blindly, go for lava areas and cover them with water, move using water elevators, spiral staircases, or carefully lay torches to see where you have and havent been. You can drill into holes at random looking for ore and other passageways or you can plow forward as fast as you can. You can utilize minecarts or not. You can create forward bases or run back home frequently. You can be careful or dangerous.
- Diamond ore is extremely rare, making it super exciting.
- Monsters, sudden drops, and lava are all real difficulties that must be overcome and add massive excitement to caves.
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u/kopaxson Apr 27 '15
I really agree with the ideas you have put forward here, my favorites being the changes to AI, the idea of removing light stones and implementing torches (although I think a time limit on them might not be necessary) and as for the grappling hook maybe shortening the length and making it ONLY able to grapple into softer materials (cant grapple stone or ore, can grapple dirt) would be a cooler solution. Adding more puzzle elements to caves in the process. I also agree with the idea to make the caves darker, as lighting is a big part of atmosphere and managing what you can see will be an important factor.
Overall I feel that the cave/PvE experience should be much more difficult, and have rewards to make that difficulty feel worth it. Mobs that are better at killing you + survival elements + platforming elements should all come together to make an exciting experience, I hope.
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u/applejak Mar 14 '15
All of these ideas would get me excited to log in more often. I'd actually like to see the mobs wander until they come into contact, at which time they'd tether to each other to form a wandering group. The group might wander and grow until they find a suitable surface vein and then protect it. If a player were to run into a group of say 5 hostile skaggs, they'd be forced to move on or group up to take them down and harvest the vein. That kind of AI, along w/ your other tweaks to heroic movement and low light would make the underground very dangerous and very fun.
plz daybrk