Darkwind - Viewing Topic: Advance Warning of Rule Tweaks

Solf
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Serephe said:

Quoting for truth.

I just want to say that not everyone plays for the same reasons.

I, for example, play DW because I like tactical portion of the game. The 'inventory management' game being implemented right now is not going to do anything but detract from the game for me.

......................... vet
Posted Aug 28, 2009, 10:59 pm

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Solf said:

Serephe said:

Quoting for truth.

DW:Tactical was made for a reason. Still needs some work though.

......................... vet wv paintladder ww0,3,0
Posted Aug 28, 2009, 11:01 pm

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I'd quote for truth, but the truth seems quite obvious at this point.

......................... vet combatL1 wv cont0,5,0
Posted Aug 28, 2009, 11:59 pm

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My 2 cents:

There's so much here I'm not going to be able to cover everything, but first off I think the changes are too severe. My gut instinct is always to make these changes incremental. For instance, I think 3% permadamage is too much. I think 2% is about right. I may be right, or I may be wrong. But if the plan is to go from 1 to 3 percent why do it all in one jump? Why not change to 2% when the update happens then intend to jump the rest, say, 30-60 days later. It gives us more time to adapt to the changes and to see any unintended consequences. It also lets people see the changes in play, rather than just as numbers in a theoretical setting.

By the same token I think the garage and NPC skill changes are too much of a jump. A 6x jump in one update? Really? Couldn't go with "6x increase is planned... will go to 2x this update, 4x in one month, and the final stage in 2 months unless something shows the changes to be too severe".

Aside from my stage increment thing I think the permadamage is a little heavy. Only 3 breaches to 91%, which most vets consider far below usable. I think 2% per is fine, which gives 5 breaches to 90%. I like the idea of it being 1-3% really, with the chance for each weighted by how bad the damage was.

Also it is very important to know if worn weapons jam like damaged weapons or are simply less accurate. This will have a strong effect on the resale value of used rare weapons.

I don't like the garage changes due to the fact that 1) I think it reduces incentive to leave SS and 2) I think it has too strong of an effect on casual players (those that cannot play as frequently). I think the fees should be scaled so the first few cars are cheaper and it goes up from there. Harder to code, as Sam said, and much harder to make it easy for people to estimate gargage cost, but still necessary.

Also if garage fees are going to start becoming much more important they need to be more visible on the website than hidden in a button you only find if you scroll down. Perhaps on the vehicles tab the first line under the header should not be a car but the combined garage fee for that town (or everything if you have "show all"). Thus the fee would always be displayed, and you could hit the button if you want a per-car display.

I am also big on the non-money ideas Doc suggested and the other money sink ideas such as increased skill caps for new hires in other towns. You could make the skill boost non-munchy by having it based on the town (20 for SS, for instance) and also on how many gangers you have in the town averaged back over say the past month or so. So parking one guy in the town will not gain you much.

Another idea: Gangs build their own lockups. The town lockup will have the ever-scaling high rates as an incentive but "collectors" can spend X amount of $ to build, say, a 10 car lockup that may have little or no fees once built.

At any rate if you're going to make it cost even more to run outside of SS we need more incentive to leave SS again...

......................... vet combatL1 wv1,0,0
Posted Aug 29, 2009, 6:31 am

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JD: I was referring to being gone during MY beta for a post-apocalyptic game...which is NOT Dark-Wind.

If the fees had not been implemented during that time: then the lock-up fees are TOO HIGH...I'm down a couple hundred thousand...argh. Then I'm glad the change wasn't made or I'd be totally broke...if that's going to happen, I'd rather it happened with me having fun...not just sitting around.

......................... vet wv
Posted Aug 31, 2009, 5:50 pm

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4saken said:

I don't like the garage changes due to the fact that 1) I think it reduces incentive to leave SS and 2) I think it has too strong of an effect on casual players (those that cannot play as frequently).

Check out the Important Announcements thread on this topic: we are 1) reducing the difference between SS and the other towns, and 2) replacing most of the garage fee increase with a gates fee. These specifically deal with your main two concerns (which I think are probably the two most valid concerns that have been raised).

......................... marshal vet deathrce1 paintladder combat1 wv ped1 cont slay2013
Posted Aug 31, 2009, 6:05 pm

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So much for furthering the hardcore nature of Darkwind...

Ah, well, I suppose it might be necessary. But I really liked the initial suggestion from Sam and the RC.

By the way, Sam, it seem my weekly fees are actually LOWER than before, after you reverted the change. Is this intentional?

......................... vet marshal wv
Posted Aug 31, 2009, 10:04 pm	Last edited Aug 31, 2009, 10:05 pm by Ayjona

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Quote:

it seem my weekly fees are actually LOWER than before, after you reverted the change. Is this intentional?

You mean the total garage fees as listed on your vehicles page? No, they should be a little higher than they were a week ago.

If you're referring to the amount as listed in your Economy section, then that's unchanged as I haven't made the new fees live yet.

......................... marshal vet deathrce1 paintladder combat1 wv ped1 cont slay2013
Posted Aug 31, 2009, 11:31 pm

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Let me start by saying the community of DW is awesome. Even with it's differences, you can read in the posts the passion and the desire for positive changes that posters feel are in the best interests for everyone and the game in general. The diversity of players that we have has produced some great ideas in the forums and I look forward to their implementation.

My feeling about DW mirrors what some others have mentioned about the overall game concept and I think all of the changes that are upcoming should try and enhance what that vision is in the majority of the minds, especially Sam's.

DW is a place where people are trying to make their way in a tough world with unique challenges to succeed. Some people (players) play for the arena's. Racing, combats and deathraces are their favorite part of the game. Others like scouting and fighting for loot in the wasteland. Still others are in it for the transporting of goods themselves or escorting traders for money and buying and selling commodities from one town to another either to players or NPCs. Some people like the gang or camp management aspect and still others do a little of each because it's all good.

My ideas about the game run towards overall concepts more than anything and if they have merit, then by all means consider them and their implementation. I consider DW to be much like it's orginal inspiration and the embodiment of a table-top campaign I run with friends on Saturday nights at my house. An RPG enhanced Car Wars game in a post-apoc world much like The Road Warrior lived and fought in.

Now, considering this concept I feel that the bulk goods in the game need to have more relevance as some have suggested. The idea and current use of Lockup fees when considering the world of DW don't make much sense to me either. Can you imagine the people in charge of the place from wherever the gang of the Humongous came from originally before he found out about the refinery actually had the balls to ask that guy for money to store his cars there? Please, imagine this scene: He'd pull out that .44 mag of his and put one between the first guy's eyes and that would have been the end of that discussion.

If his home base would have been the town of SS, then I'm guessing as long as he stayed there and you were in good with the gang, SS would be a pretty safe place. He's hardly need any help with security though. If he held more power than the owners/bosses of the town than he would make sure that fuel was coming in for his cars and food and water were coming in for his people and stone/car parts/EPs etc. would be coming in to ensure the buildings were he stored his stuff were intact and that there were plenty of parts for equipment and vehicle repairs.

His gang was huge and nearly every two people had a vehicle and everyone had guns of some type. Most DW gangs that I know of have at least 40 people. I don't think it's unreasonable with the endless supply of pirate gangs, traders and bounty hunters that we encounter in the wasteland to loot enough cars to build up a garage to at least supply a car for every gang member and more if you got the time or the money.

Implementing a more relevant bulk goods concept would mean that all of the bulk goods commodities that a gang used would be provided by the gang itself or it would pay the going local rate of those commodities from the city where it was based. You run out of water for your gang, you start paying the local rate no matter what it is in that city. This goes for fuel, food, water, CPs, EPs etc. Paying much more for these things would be a great money sink with bigger gangs paying more and the best part is that it's OPTIONAL. If you don't want to pay, then ship the stuff in yourself. Let's not forget that your best gang members are going to require a little better than the standard fare of food and water just like they require more pay. Maybe high level gangers want steak and beer instead of bread and water and there's another place for money. Not so much that it's going to break anyone, but every little bit goes towards fixing the DW economy as it is now.

And as for paying lockup fees for the security of your stuff in a town, are we crazy? Are you telling me my 50 hardened gang of baddass wasteland warriors is gonna turn over the protection of our stuff to a bunch of town pansy-asses? You remember the movie High Plains drifter? As long as my people don't rape and pillage the town on a regular basis, the people of SS would be happy I was there because they know if someone comes calling on the town, me and my gang are gonna be there to defend the place, just like all of you would if you were based out of that town, too.

Paying for protection of my stuff is ridiculous with 50 armed gangers. And with nothing to do in between scouts and transports, their lazy butts are going to be building and repairing structures that house my stuff and the mechs are gonna work on our cars. This is where stone & scrap metal commodity goes. You got lots of cars, you need bigger buildings and more people to take care of them and consequently more stone/CPs/Scrap to use for the building and repair of structures as well as vehicles and equipment. It's like having a non-manufacturing camp in "your" section of town.

If cars take damage being out in the open, buildings would degrade as well. And here's what you do about the cars: Instead of using the local mechanic whose prices are about to triple, every mech in your gang in a given town is now the repair shop for your gang. Call it your "Chop Shop" and it repairs your cars, engines and weapons and BREAKS DOWN loot cars and equipment so you have the CPs, EPs and Scrap to do the repairs.

If your MR isn't high enough, you can't break down a car and you can't fix a car and the rarer a chassis, engine or weapon it is the higher the MR to break it down and the more scrap/car parts/EPs it takes to fix. If you are breaking down every third or every other car to keep your gang in bulk goods for buildings and vehicles, then you aren't making much even in a successful scout. Come home with no cars and you might not have the parts to fix the buildings or your cars and you are stuck with spending big dollars for all of that IF you have it. How's that for a more realistic post-apoc money sink?

If the Humongous didn't run the town, then I'm sure the town council or whomever was in charge where he was based would ensure that the people who lived in the town were taken care of so that the town wouldn't die and gangs would have materials to still take care of business. People will always organize for the greater good of the group and do what they need to do to see that the group is provided for and that means taking care of the bulk goods that a town that size would need.

Every town should have inexpensive, moderate and expensive commodities due to rarity. This opens up a whole new type of commerce for some people who dislike taking mail back and forth between towns for a pittance. They transport up 2000 bulk of food twice a week and sell to 5 different gangs at a tidy profit along with providing for their own needs. Forget buying bulk goods from towns unless you are in the seat of the source like Texan for fuel.

I can see gang consortiums working together to keep their costs down with the gangs in the places where food comes from bring that to the gangs where the fuel is and taking it back with them. And here's the potential for barter as well, I got 50 extra cans of fuel I will trade them for 100 of your food since they are the same bulk, with adjustments for major differences in purchase price figured in of course.

The gate fees is a very reasonable and easy way of providing revenue for the cities and makes sense even in a post-apoc world and serves it's purpose of taking more money out of the system and making it tougher to bank millions. It's almost like protection money for everyone that is allowed in to the town.

Now if you've gotten this far, thanks for your attention. I realize there isn't much hard detail in this post. I am not a detail person, I am an idea person. However, there are plenty of you that could work out the details of a system like this so that it works for pretty much everyone from newbs to vets and works to accomplish what Sam and others would like to see about rare items, gang incomes and stockpiles etc. As gangs get more stuff and bigger buildings to house it, you are talking about a non-linear increase in operating costs and that will go a long way to limiting the size of the stockpiles that people think are out of hand at this point.

Nuff' said.

......................... vet wv zom pvp1 ped1
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 4:22 am	Last edited Sep 2, 2009, 4:26 am by Crazy AL

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Crazy AL said:

Now if you've gotten this far, thanks for your attention.

It was a nice reading and an interesting approach.
To be considered IMHO.

......................... vet cont zom slay2013 marshal wv
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 8:14 am

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viKKing said:

Crazy AL said:

Now if you've gotten this far, thanks for your attention.

It was a nice reading and an interesting approach.
To be considered IMHO.

Yup read and reread your whole post, it's a really well explained and sensible, I would love to see the whole of evans going in that direction, if not all then just implemented in SV to test that theory out

......................... vet marshal wv pvp3 zom circuit2 pvp1 cont
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 9:27 am

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Crazy AL said:

interesting stuff

Nice ideas, for sure. The basic concepts are clear and well implementable. I'll think about this..

......................... marshal vet deathrce1 paintladder combat1 wv ped1 cont slay2013
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 9:39 am

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See announcement in Patch Notes (scripts v.260) - these changes are now live. I'm seriously considering AL's ideas though (and they combine nicely with other ideas for bulk goods and trade that have been percolating) - so we may well see garage fees and lockup fees reduced again fairly soon, to be replaced with more dynamic requirements for bulk goods.

......................... marshal vet deathrce1 paintladder combat1 wv ped1 cont slay2013
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 10:36 am

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*sam* said:

Crazy AL said:

interesting stuff

Nice ideas, for sure. The basic concepts are clear and well implementable. I'll think about this..

Lol just saw that there is no commodities in SV do we need to bring food and water to our gangsters?

......................... vet marshal wv pvp3 zom circuit2 pvp1 cont
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 10:37 am

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Quote:

Lol just saw that there is no commodities in SV do we need to bring food and water to our gangsters?

Not yet, but that's part of the proposal yes.

......................... marshal vet deathrce1 paintladder combat1 wv ped1 cont slay2013
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 10:39 am

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Al what an excellent post, thanks for taking the time to write it up, excellent points

......................... vet marshal wv community
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 11:53 am

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*sam* said:

You mean the total garage fees as listed on your vehicles page? No, they should be a little higher than they were a week ago.

Perhaps I'm just confused. But my weekly totals used to be around 15000, and now they are down to 10K. I know I lost one or two character with reasonably high wages, but 5000...

Anyways, Sam, with all these changes to the economy, think there's a chance of adding a "total weekly costs" figure somewhere (either in the weekly financial report, or, preferably, just below the "Money" entry on our gang page), that lists all automatically recurring costs (wages, lockup and garage fees, training fees, food & water for character, hospital fee, etc)? Of course, this can easily be deduced by looking at the financial report, but it is such an important calculation that I think it deserves its own entry.

Or is left out on purpose, micro-managing, hardcore-style?

......................... vet marshal wv
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 1:10 pm

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Quote:

Perhaps I'm just confused. But my weekly totals used to be around 15000, and now they are down to 10K. I know I lost one or two character with reasonably high wages, but 5000...

Since you mention wages, I assume you are talking about the weekly total in your "weekly financial report".

This financial report does not include any of the changes we have been discussing, since they have only today been made active and will come into effect for the first time tonight during the weekly update.

......................... marshal vet deathrce1 paintladder combat1 wv ped1 cont slay2013
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 2:26 pm

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Thanks for the positive feedback. Most of the individual points really aren't my ideas, just a consolidation of a lot of suggestions that I put together in my head and hoped to put down concisely. The more detailed financial page was something I was thinking about as well, perhaps breaking out the difference between race winnings and transport payments and if the suggestions get implemented, you would have other categories to consider with the chop shop activities, and food/water costs broken down by ganger category. Newb level gangers got 1 unit of food and water a week, mid-level gangers get 2, and high level gangers would get 3 for example.

There are some other fees to possibly include in the "chop shop". Fees that are paid to the town per car break down and equipment repairing to consider power from the town energy plant.

This system could be worked out for local medical issues as well. The First Aid skill seems like such an afterthought skill right now, consider this: Any injured gangers would go to your EMT gangers first unless they had severe injuries and so as long as you had some injured gangers in long term care with your FA people, you would get some FA town training for them similar to camp mechanic training. They might even be able to help gangers kick LIGHT addictions at double or triple the time that the Elms hospital would.

One of your town buildings could be a triage tent. Once your FA guy reached 100 (doctor?) and later 200(surgeon?), he or she could treat more severe injuries. Again, the town hospital would be significantly more expensive, the treatment would be much faster and the hospital would be the only place where people with spinal injuries or comas would be able to make progress towards recovery and Elms would still be the drug rehab clinic.

......................... vet wv zom pvp1 ped1
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 3:57 pm	Last edited Sep 2, 2009, 4:01 pm by Crazy AL

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*sam* said:

Yep, that I'm aware of

No, I compared my weekly total from last week, with my current wages + water and food costs + lockup fees + garage fees, as listed on the gang page, vehicle page, and lockup pulldown, respectively. Have these pages yet to be updated to reflect the new change?

......................... vet marshal wv
Posted Sep 2, 2009, 3:59 pm