Evil Stormy Start v1.1

[The Diamond]

Arrr....its been a while, I know, but Cap'n Diamond's ship is a' mooring in these waters again, me 'earties.

And with it come further tales of grief and despair for new captains starting life on the Caribbean, fer development o' version 1.1 of the Evil Stormy Start is underway.

As rumoured once before, new 'captains' will be startin' with a 10,000 debt to the loanshark in Quebradas Costillas. There will also be some changes to the introduction with Malcolm Hatcher and the Stormy Start dialog, ter make wannabe pirates aware o' their new situation.

In addition, o'course, to the usual run o' problems ye face bein' shipwrecked wi' nowt but a leakin' dinghy, a cracked spyglass and a couple o' stones in yer pockets. Arrr, if it be good enough fer Jack Sparrow, it be good enough fer you, me 'earties!


Plus, this is also a chance fer me ter get some piratical feedback on the Evil Stormy Start mod. Like whether or not people use it, fer starters, and is there anythin' that'd make it better (hopefully that won't require hours upon hours o' code fixes)?

 

[morgan terror]

to answer the topic title, the quickest way would be to sail out to sea immediatly with the leaky bucket and get instantly hit by lighting. always happens. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mybad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="mybad.gif" />

i usually don't use the stormy start as i can get out of it just as easily as usual. it's not worth the extra effort for me.

 

[The Diamond]

Tis true, the mast of the Leaky Bucket is one of the Caribbeans' best lightning rods.

On the other hand, it means that the 'obvious' escape route of sailing out to sea rather than risk the bandits inland isn't quite as safe as you might think, when your ship is living up to its name. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

I'd be interested to know how you break out of the Evil Stormy start point easily, though. I have one or two preferred strategies, but they involve quite high risks at one point or another. If you're not saving and reloading to avoid disaster, I find survival can be quite a close-run thing.

Basically, if there are obvious loopholes to escape the Evil Stormy Start, I'd be interested in trying to close them - provided it doesn't unbalance the remainder of the game...

 

[morgan terror]

well, as soon as i've repaired my ship, which doesn't take very long, i usually do a pirate-hunting mission, which gives me a cutter most of the time, with which i can sail to another island (it's very hard to sail to another island in a tartane when you're on douwesen. you need to completely fill your cargo space with weat and rum, and then it's still a close call. but maybe i'm just a skinflint who doesn't want to buy too much food. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" /> ) and to the nearest dungeon. i probably have a high enough level by then to be able to loot it. the beginning, when you have to get a sword, is the hard part. after that, it isn't that diificult. however, i do know all the possible tricks to get out of the situation of course.

 

[The Diamond]

Hmm,

What this suggests to me is implementing a level cap on some of the more exploitative options. For example, no pirate hunting missions under level 10, say. Plus the shipwright significantly overcharging for repairs until level 10, etc.

Trying to prevent early dungeon-crawling is more tricky, unless the ability to block attacks is tied heavily to melee skill and character level, although that could risk making most early fights unwinnable...or to lock the doors outright, which seems a bit harsh.

It sounds to me, though, as if you escape the stormy start primarily through land encounters. Ironically, I'd intended land encounters to only play a small part, such as tactical looting, with the player spending their early career as a two-bit merchant until they became strong enough to consider piracy / privateering.

I'm already planning to amend the pickpockets who give you pearls, emeralds and diamonds to respect your level more. Currently, its fine to keep the interest going for a captain of a fleet, but far too generous to a shipwrecked sailor at level 1. However, it seems like I need to turn my attention to some of the other areas as well.

 

[morgan terror]

women often have a piece of jewelry on them, if that's any help.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Just a quick question: The Stormy Start mod is in Alpha 6 with a toggle, right? Does that work properly? Also: In Alpha 6 there is a block damage mode that damages the player for every block. That might make the fights harder at the beginning.

 

[The Diamond]

The toggle works fine, although there are some oddities if you select Evil Stormy and then don't use the Stormy Start option in Malcolm's dialog. However, this should be fixable.

The early fights are more deadly with Alpha 6, which undoubtedly helps things from this mod's perspective. I'm more interested in closing the obvious loopholes for the early game, such as someone pickpocketing 4 gold from you then giving you an emerald worth over 1,000. Hmmm.

 

[The Diamond]

Okay, I'm going to brainstorm out loud - please, anyone and everyone, feel free to chip in.

The more I experiment myself, the more I'm finding that Morgan Terror's strategy is a bit too effective at escaping the Evil Stormy Start. I'm not totally convinced that pirate hunting missions are without risk when you're attacking from the Leaky Bucket, but the rest is all too true.

My feeling is that Evil Stormy definitely needs to expand its scope to affect more than just the first twenty minutes of gameplay. I think the main idea will be to clamp down heavily on the effectiveness of 'easy' money-making schemes and then to generally look to lower the early rewards available across the Caribbean.


So, to summarise my current thoughts:

1) A pre-existing debt to the loanshark on Quebradas Costillas. Was originally planned to be 10,000, but I may lower that to 6,000 now that easy loot drops are going to be clamped down upon. As loansharks won't lend much money to the player in the early stages of Evil Stormy, this should prevent people simply island-hopping from loanshark to loanshark to build up the money to pay it off, although this could help to take *some* of the edge off...but what pirate isn't in debt in half the ports in the Caribbean?

2) Pickpockets will be less likely to be intimidated into giving you your money back / plus extra. When they *do* give things back to you, this will be more obviously scaled to character level and luck. I may decrease the chances of them pickpocketing, or include the evil twist of people pickpocketing you without you noticing at lower levels of luck <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/8q.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="8q.gif" />

3) Lowering the value of loot drops on corpses / chest loot for early level characters, perhaps using the traditional Evil Stormy method of scaling so that level 20 onwards becomes 'normal'.

4) Shipwrights will no longer be your friends. Repair costs will be heavily weighted upwards based on level / commerce. It will no longer be cheaper to repair at the shipwright for early level characters, so DIY will be the way forwards. In addition, if I can make sure it works right, characters of low level / commerce will get a poor return on selling or trading in their current ships.

5) Pirate hunting missions', etc. rewards will be more heavily scaled by player level / rank / relationship with the country in question. Players of low level / rank / relationship may not be offered the missions at all.

6) Merchant missions and other misc. missions will be scaled by player level / reputation. Unknown or weak-looking captains will command a much lower price. Untrustworthy pirates may not get the missions at all.

7) Blacksmith's costs will be raised. It seems ludicrously cheap to repair / improve early-mid weaponry with them.

<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="8)" border="0" alt="cool.gif" /> People offering to train you will be looking for more cash in return, which may vary by how skilled you are (ie, its cheaper to improve from 1 - 2 than from 8 - 9). In addition, books and items sold to increase stats will be scaled up in cost.

9) The variance between selling price and buying price may be extended to make profiteering harder for characters with low levels of commerce.

10) Winning at cards, etc. will be more difficult for characters with low luck. Level 3 will no longer be enough to guarantee a favourable return more often than not.


Any further thoughts? Any particularly easy ways of making money that need to be dealt with? Any stats that are perceived as more useless compared to the others (commerce, perhaps?) that could be given increased importance by working them in to some of the features above?