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 Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:14 am
So the new tutorial will grant new players three rings as opposed to the one ring currently being given. So what three rings should new players recieve? The rings fall under the three categories:-
1) Attack
2) Buff
3) Healing
So fire away.
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Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:18 am
hack, div, and wish (especially wish T.T) xDDD
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Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:27 am
Personally I feel the rings should be granted to new players keeping two things in mind:-
1) We're all born alone in this world - Most people are gonna start zOMG! for the first alone and as such would be best off with rings that focus on soloing.
2) We start out small - There's little incentive for a new user to try out the various rings if they're awarded Solar Rays from the get go.
Keeping that in mind, my three suggestions for the new rings would be:-
1)Attack - gunz, gunz, gunz Let's face it. Not too powerful but not too weak, Good stam usage with quick cooldown, ranged so that new users can finish VG animated without much damage in return and the ability to AOE in tougher situations all make this a great starting ring. biggrin
2)Buff - Teflon A little bit of everything while not providing too much of everything? Soudns good to me. 3nodding
3) Healing - Bandage Not really any competition when it comes to solo healing.
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Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 9:41 am
The focus should be less "starting small", and more "starting simple" - that is, if you're giving players pre-selected rings, they need to be generalised rather than specialised. This gives players a chance to get accustomed to the systems, and allows them to specialise as they so choose later on.
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Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 10:24 am
Red Kutai
The focus should be less "starting small", and more "starting simple" - that is, if you're giving players pre-selected rings, they need to be generalised rather than specialised. This gives players a chance to get accustomed to the systems, and allows them to specialise as they so choose later on.
Believe it or not, I actually was gonna make a separate post about having a multiplayer ring set of slash(maybe), diagnose and a randomized buff being awarded to the player. zOMG! is afterall a game that has its premise around crewing together to beat animated. The problem is zOMG! is an easy game to play and is largely soloable till SS. That and the difficulty of finding crews and bad attitudes of existing players all made me decide to go with the "safest" route and not necessarily the "simplest" or "smallest" one 3nodding The reason I'm pushing for pre-assigned rings is for the dilemma that I suffered when I first began playing zOMG! Fact of the matter is that you can't appreciate a ring until you've used it. The descriptions don't do much to convey the feeling of using the ring and quite frankly I doubt they ever can. Heck! This problem is even worse for buffs. I wanna try and avoid any confusion that might be caused by being presented so many rings and more importantly any misgivings that might arise out of the feeling that a player might have about having chosen a wrong ring in case they're not happy with it later on. smile And while I agree about the need to avoid guns, bows and other real world weaponry, I'm hoping the new tutorial will do a good job of clearing any misunderstandings that people have about the true nature of the rings while also explaining the role of buffs and healing. biggrin And omg! I'm so sorry for editing your post! D: I wanted to quote it but ended editing it instead. And now I can't seem to retrieve your post contents crying
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Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 11:32 am
Silk Kanishk Red Kutai
The focus should be less "starting small", and more "starting simple" - that is, if you're giving players pre-selected rings, they need to be generalised rather than specialised. This gives players a chance to get accustomed to the systems, and allows them to specialise as they so choose later on.
Believe it or not, I actually was gonna make a separate post about having a multiplayer ring set of slash(maybe), diagnose and a randomized buff being awarded to the player. zOMG! is afterall a game that has its premise around crewing together to beat animated. The problem is zOMG! is an easy game to play and is largely soloable till SS. That and the difficulty of finding crews and bad attitudes of existing players all made me decide to go with the "safest" route and not necessarily the "simplest" or "smallest" one 3nodding The reason I'm pushing for pre-assigned rings is for the dilemma that I suffered when I first began playing zOMG! Fact of the matter is that you can't appreciate a ring until you've used it. The descriptions don't do much to convey the feeling of using the ring and quite frankly I doubt they ever can. Heck! This problem is even worse for buffs. I wanna try and avoid any confusion that might be caused by being presented so many rings and more importantly any misgivings that might arise out of the feeling that a player might have about having chosen a wrong ring in case they're not happy with it later on. smile And while I agree about the need to avoid guns, bows and other real world weaponry, I'm hoping the new tutorial will do a good job of clearing any misunderstandings that people have about the true nature of the rings while also explaining the role of buffs and healing. biggrin And omg! I'm so sorry for editing your post! D: I wanted to quote it but ended editing it instead. And now I can't seem to retrieve your post contents crying
Mod powers in Guilds are a generally confusing condition, no? I've very nearly done likewise in my own Guilds on several occasions - part of the reason I've come to rely so heavily on the 'Preview' button. sweatdrop
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The issue that you refer to with an excess of options is definitely worth considering, and is probably the single soundest argument against allowing players to choose their own starting rings. Moreover, the current in-game descriptions for the rings are much too technical for new players to read through effectively (they utilise terms that are never even explained in-game). We would definitely be working against those obstacles if we were aiming to allow players options, but I think the benefits of doing so really would be worth it.
The reason I think we'd be able to is - quite simply - that we're pre-selecting the options they have before them. If we were attempting to offer them every ring all at once, the nuances between them would make the decision nearly impossible for an uninformed player. But limiting them to three choices for each ring type, and choosing what those options are purposefully to make the decision easier, allows us to offer the option without being overwhelming.
Mantis deals good, quick damage. Solar Rays allows you to attack from far away. Heavy Water Balloon can handle many enemies at once. By focusing on what separates each ring from each other - rather than by on their objective statistics - makes the decision much, much easier. Balance and ensuring that each ring has its own niche to fill will be something we would have to - and should - work on before we can manage it.
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As an alternative, if we're set on pre-selected rings... Perhaps there's another option; and one that solves another slight problem that the ring system needs to overcome at the same time.
What if the rings that we gave new players were as unspecialised - that they were intentionally basic. What I'm considering are new proto-rings that can be 'refined' into actual rings, by certain NPCs. In this case, it would ne an "Unidentified Attack", "Unidentified Heal", and "Unidentified Buff", each of which provide very basic, very general, and essentially underpowered effects. Those rings will serve you fine throughout the tutorial, at the end of which a character will offer you the chance to 'identify' them, giving you the few basic options we've mentioned - giving you a chance to experience the gameplay some before expecting you to make decisions about it.
The other problem this could be used to solve is the issue that random drops don't work well with the ring system. A new player who enjoys using ranged attacks and healing can easily receive Rock Armor and Hack as his first ring drops - and there's nothing such a player can do about it. What's more, the game actually encourages them to equip and upgrade these rings they don't enjoy, because that's what's necessary to progress your character. How unfortunate.
Replacing the current 1/40 drop system with a system for dropping 'Unidentified' rings which could be refined as the player likes makes a lot better use of the variety of the ring system. Additionally, it eliminates 'Last Ring Syndrome', which is a cause of serious frustration even among experienced players. Additionally, it makes Salvaging less frightening, as specific Rings become much more easily replaceable. As a matter of balance, we could consider reducing the drop rate on those proto-rings significantly, and I'd also consider making them a bit more enemy-relevant - aggressive enemies drop 'Unidentified Attacks' more often, et. al. - as players seem to expect that.
For the sake of clarity, 'Unidentified Rings' would not be able to be Upgraded with orbs, wouldn't have a charge level, and thus would be treated as an empty slot (the same as a CL 1.0 ring) for the purpose of CL calculation. This would be a good excuse for the initial tutorial section not covering Upgrading or the Null Chamber, as it's very, very difficult to incorporate that appropriately until players reach the Village Greens - letting Leon cover that whenever he first offers to identify rings for you would be an obvious choice.
Just a thought, though; one that kills two birds with one stone, as it were. I'm not really attached to the idea yet (particularly because names like 'Unidentified Attack Ring' aren't very resonant, and pretty boring), but I suspect there's some potential in it if the idea were... Refined... xp
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Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 9:14 am
Red Kutai
The reason I think we'd be able to is - quite simply - that we're pre-selecting the options they have before them. If we were attempting to offer them every ring all at once, the nuances between them would make the decision nearly impossible for an uninformed player. But limiting them to three choices for each ring type, and choosing what those options are purposefully to make the decision easier, allows us to offer the option without being overwhelming.
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As an alternative, if we're set on pre-selected rings... Perhaps there's another option; and one that solves another slight problem that the ring system needs to overcome at the same time.
Hey! That's a pretty good idea. biggrin Giving the player a choice from pre-selected choices. emotion_dowant Plus the player can even choose from a ranged, melee and AOE attack ring to suit their playing style. Might be a good idea to offer them all three rings for the duration of the tutorial and have them choose one at the end as per their liking. The same with healing too giving them a choice between bandage and diagnose. Buffs is slightly tricky though since you have so many and the point is that each new player starts out with a buff that is hopefully different from another new player's. Of the top of my mind, I'd suggest having tef(debatable) as a buff assigned for the duration of the tutorial only to explain how it works and the benefits of buffs in general. At the end of which the player would be assigned a random ring and it's benefit could be explained although without demonstration. And the idea of proto-rings sounds interesting to me although I had a hard time wrapping my head around it. sweatdrop Are you implying for example that a proto-attack ring would work like a weaker sword,(Perhaps have a mantis animation) but the player would then be able to choose which ring he wishes to convert it into? I think an example would be nice. Nevertheless, I still am suffering from last-ring syndrome on my mule for months now so this definitely might be an idea worth considering. xd
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Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 1:05 pm
Silk Kanishk Hey! That's a pretty good idea. biggrin Giving the player a choice from pre-selected choices. emotion_dowant Plus the player can even choose from a ranged, melee and AOE attack ring to suit their playing style. Might be a good idea to offer them all three rings for the duration of the tutorial and have them choose one at the end as per their liking. The same with healing too giving them a choice between bandage and diagnose. Buffs is slightly tricky though since you have so many and the point is that each new player starts out with a buff that is hopefully different from another new player's. Of the top of my mind, I'd suggest having tef(debatable) as a buff assigned for the duration of the tutorial only to explain how it works and the benefits of buffs in general. At the end of which the player would be assigned a random ring and it's benefit could be explained although without demonstration.
Well, to be quite honest, rings could use some re-balance before this happens anyway - the issue of differentiating buffs is just one facet of the problem. While the difference between buffs like Keen Aye (deal more damage) and Rock Armor (take less damage) is pretty obvious, the fact that every buff is also a fantasic 'support' ability makes a third category less obvious. Personally I'd suggest making the two previous buffs single target (and I'd even consider making Rock Armor 'Self Only'), and then offering a third buff (Coyote Spirit, or something) with its primary selling point being that it's a full Crew buff, for 'support' players. Actually, if Knife Sharpen is ever reworked into a shorter-duration damage buff (as I'd like to see done), it would make a good alternative to Keen Aye, as the difference in durations would be another good distinguishing factor.
As for healing, some rebalance would be necessary to remove uncomfortable overlap between Bandage, Diagnose, and Wish, and to make them more distinct. There's probably a better place to discuss such adjustments in-depth, but it's relevant to the tutorial process in that if we're going to showcase the awesome systems that zOMG! has to offer, we need to fix them to where they're presentable.
Quote: And the idea of proto-rings sounds interesting to me although I had a hard time wrapping my head around it. sweatdrop Are you implying for example that a proto-attack ring would work like a weaker sword,(Perhaps have a mantis animation) but the player would then be able to choose which ring he wishes to convert it into? I think an example would be nice. Nevertheless, I still am suffering from last-ring syndrome on my mule for months now so this definitely might be an idea worth considering. xd
Yes, it's something of a rough concept - it deserves quite a bit more polishing before it'll really feel like a comfortable option. Plus, using terms like "proto-attack" hardly serves to make the point moreclear. I suppose I was sort of 'thinking aloud' at the time, eh? sweatdrop
The basic concept is that rings would initially drop in an 'unidentified' state - these 'unidentified' rings would have basic, underpowered functionalities of their own, but could be 'identified' or 'refined' into the rings that we're currently familiar with. The animations for these would be a little difficult - I'd suggest something simple and nondescript, like a white or gray gloved hand (classic tutorial fare, anyway) poking or flicking enemies, and pantomiming other gestures for buffs and healing. It's important that the animations be nondescript, particularly when the rings are concepted as 'unidentified'.
As I said, though, it'd require more polishing before it'd be worth legitimately considering, and since it's only tangentially relative to the tutorial process, I imagine there might be better places for entertaining that notion, as well... sweatdrop
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