Life is Feudal Official Forum

[Cochus1]

Hello.

I have studied a game designer master here in spain. I had to elaborate various projects along the master and one of them is very similar to LiF. I probably wont develop it never so i think some of the ideas could be good for your game.

PLAYER'S DEATH

I'll start with the death feature. I suppose you would like to leave all kinds of magic out of the game, but the player's death is always a dificult topic.

I think the idea of resurrection isn't very immersive in the world you created so i'll suggest you other way:
If the player dont manage a singular character but a dinastic house, each time the player die it could be represented with the heir of the house being the new playable character.

Its only the metaphor. In the mechanics level it would be similar to your death idea (losing skills etc) but the player could chose to change the appearance and name of the new character or keep the same of the dead character.

SERVANTS (NPCs)

I dont like the idea of human NPCs that could be farmed by the players. But adding NPCs that could work for the players would avoid the player some ungrateful tasks (some players would hate to collect tomatos ) and add immersion and life-sense to the cities.

It would work in a similar way that strategic games like Settlers or Stronghold. Servants would receive a amount of money Exchange for their services and could farm, mining, build etc for the player.

Of course they only could work in the player's properties and the player should build roads between the working place and the storage place (its just for evade complex pathfindings and allow the player a higher control about the NPCs movement). If someone attacks the NPCs, they will just flee to the player's house.

And thats all for the moment. Sorry for my english i have to improve it yet .I you are interested i will provide more suggestions in the future.

Hope it helps you in your great game

[Ragtimer]

Hey,
I like your solution about dying and the way you justify your ongoing existence.

Of course I'd like to keep the death penality as it is and not to start wit a blank character. Let's say, your heir has received a part of your statistics (so you keep a part of your stats and suffer just a penality on it, depending on the mechanics that are already planned by the devs).

[Cochus1]

Yes that's what i meant. We can presume that they have beern formed in the same skills that the last leader of the house.

Other suggestion for make the death less hardcore could be a a captive's system in which when a player get defeated by other player, he can decide to offer a deliverance for his life (a specifil amount of money or a percentage of the defeated goods)

[Byrd]

I find the Servant idea quite interesting. It would also ensure for some population even on a scarecely populated server.

If say the player manages to reach a certain stage of development, serfs are unlocked. Further down the road, militia levies and later retinues. Would make for quite the addition to gameplay if a "Knight" could bring his own retinue to battle.

[Ragtimer]

No, no NPCs pls. This would spoil the atmosphere. And I don't think anyone will play a slave - even for a while - because you can port home or just die (since you don't have guaranties to receive your stuff back after work anyway)

[Famousbwd]

I like these ideas, npcs would be a hard one that would have to implemented carefully though.

[Byrd]

Indeed.

I'd only like to see them within game as

a) Serfs to help the player farm or mine (Much like the workers in the guild)

b) Retinue to be called to arms.

[Cochus1]

[quote="Ragtimer"]No, no NPCs pls. This would spoil the atmosphere. And I don't think anyone will play a slave - even for a while - because you can port home or just die (since you don't have guaranties to receive your stuff back after work anyway)[/qI would prefere a game without NPCs too. The NPCs farming is very unimmersive.

However, the kind of NPCs i suggest are for adding immersion. They are not here to fight (because it needs a very complex AI abd even with it they cant have the skill level of a player). The NPCs that I suggest only do easy tasks for the IA (go to A, work, go to B, work), having at the same time immersive and gameplay functions (I have played Darkfall and i can tell u that AFK players macroing for mining isnt immersive neither)

[Ragtimer]

This is a highly subjective point of view but as soon as I imagine an NPC working on the fields I just can't think of the world as alive.
Also: think about a situation: you work with your npc on a field - a stranger approaches you and attacks. You fight back but your NPC can't ... it just dies or runs away ... The mechanics just don't match. And as soon as NPCs are allowed ingame there will be cries to insert a healer npc, then a smith maybe ?? a miner? ah to hell with building - let's just spawn stuff

[Aeinola]

About the death mechanism. What about if you are always just injured? When you "die", you actually only suffer severe injury and are respawned to your home as healed (wake up after healing). You of course lose some skills/attributes as a penalty.

About the NPC's. I would say no thanks. IF there is going to be some sort of beginner friendly zone where you get started there could be NPC soldiers to keep order and they would attack all aggressors. I prefer not.

[Decoy]

I think having a shopkeeper npc for craftsmen who sell wares even when the player is offline is a good idea. They did something similar in star wars galaxies and it worked really well.

Player adds the item they want to sell to the npc's inventory and specifies the cost of the item by selecting from a list the items in game and specifying a quantity.

The purchaser interacts with the npc, selects the item they want to purchase and is prompted to input the specified cost.

[Baltasar]

About death: In this game, it is quite hard to built a house and even harder to create a family/dynasty. You spent ALOT of time before you reach a point where you can think about creating a dynastic house. Furthermore, you will most of the time be unprotected (no armor, no weapons and some won't have many allied players) and therefore it is easy to die. For example, a wolf kills you with 2 hits if you just wear some cloth. So if you spent like 1 week farming stuff and then accidently meet a wolf and die, would it be fair that this guy loses all his stuff, while someone with connections to "rich" friends could easily manage to form a dynastic house and therefore has some kind of "Life insurance"? I guess not... I suggest, that you only lose some stat- and skillpoints when dying. This way, death is still punishing, but it's not the end of everything. You just have to spend some time again to level up your stats/skills.

About NPCs: I do not like the idea. LiF is meant to be created entirely by players. Ofc collecting tomatoes is boring, but if no one would do it, tomatoes would be incredible valuable. If their are only a handful of people who grow tomatoes, then they could start monopolizing them and selling them for a high price. Therefore I think that every job will be done by the players, because every job has the ability to create a good fortune. Some people enjoy farming/gathering stuff, others do like the more complex tasks.

[Ragtimer]

I agree on the second part but the guy who spent a week playing and didn't make any friends should be more concerned about his safety than about his farming. Also, if you claim a hut (land or house) you will spawn there and if you die near your home you can go, kill the wolf and take your stuff back.

[Cochus1]

Baltasar. The change i suggest with the death topic does not affect the current game mechanic, it just change the metaphor of death.