Build 11 Tweaks

[Jason]

oKierons's post about new mods got me thinking about some tweaks we might make in build 11.

Having played through build 11 three times, and enjoyed it immensly both times, I would like to offer some suggestions for tweaking certian aspects of the build.

1. The reputation "issue" has already been discussed in qt least 2 threads. It seems easy for rep to fall precipitously. offer more than one level,

2. NPCs cower for know reason. Sometimnes after vice city combat, and sometimes when no combat as occured tavren keepers, loansharks, and merchants, duck, cover, and cower and won't speak to you, even if rep is fine. Clement even did this in the greenford prison after the taking of Greenford. Reverting to a previous save usually fixes it.

3. Blades and pistols. I think there are now too many blades and pistols acquired in the game. We get them from our dead enemies, ( GREAT innovation) and chests are full of them. My suggestion is to either, take them out of the chests altogether, or if posible, put only the occasional fine blade of pistol in the chests. In that way chest would contain items and really rare personal weapons.

4. Booby traps, another great inovation. I wonder if we could make this a little more intersting by allowing the player to "see the boby trap" and choose to A. disarm it or B. pass the chest. Finally I think if a booby trap explodes the chest should then be inoperable premanently.

5. Prices. Have been tweaked are gernally appropriate. Two that should looked at are: Fine Wine over 1800 and Bottle o Rum 495, barrels of rum are much less expensive. Also drinking them affects your health, " you are cured from poison" .

6. Changing colours dissussed in a spearte thread and fix found by Kieron.

7. Could we put some treasure on the island with the temple in addition to the artifact?

These ideas are offered in the spirit of imporving this already great game a little more.

 

[CatalinaThePirate]

Hey Jason, yes these are good thoughts - there's a solution to #3 - turn off the "Weapons Mod" in BuildSettings.h - it gets rid of the absolute FLOOD of weapons and turns the weapons in the game somewhat back to normal... <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />

 

[Kieron]

good ideas jason <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="^_^" border="0" alt="happy.gif" />

#1 - yeh, should get onto that soon... there's a catalan expression <i>em fa una mandra</i> which i learned pretty soon after arriving here in barcelona. the nearest english equivalent is 'i can't be bothered' hehe <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="^_^" border="0" alt="happy.gif" />

#2 - the player character has an invisible "meter" going on with each group of people in the game (douwesen people, redmond people, oxbay people, etc etc). if you upset a group of them (like by attacking someone), the meter goes into the red, meaning that the 'soldier' types will attack you (or if for some reason they are unarmed, they will just run up to you and stand there <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="^_^" border="0" alt="happy.gif" /> ), and the 'citizen' types will cower from you. it takes quite a while for the meter to go back to normal - and you have to stay out of sight of any of that group of people for that to happen. does that explain why the npcs cower? actually, there seems to have been originally a plan to have this meter visible on the screen, i wonder if the workings for that are buried in the code anywhere...

#3 - i agree. i think maybe you should get the occasional potion or bit of money from dead enemies - VERY occasional, and becoming rarer as your level increases - but weapons should only be found in treasure chests. (you might imagine they get broken when you defeat the enemy <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="^_^" border="0" alt="happy.gif" /> )

#4 - maybe once your luck skill is over a certain level you should be able to 'see' the booby trap, but not at first.

#5 - do you mean those prices are too high, or do you mean those should be the prices?

#6 - all done and implemented <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="^_^" border="0" alt="happy.gif" />

#7 - i dunno, to implement treasure really you need chests or some sort of receptacle for the treasure. unless there happen to be some locators in the location models, we can't just add treasure lying around, unfortunately.



a little idea of me own: little flags on the character screen to show the nationality of the character (so you know if he's going to attack you if you sack him, hehe <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="^_^" border="0" alt="happy.gif" /> ), plus little flags on the ship screens so you know what nation the ship was built in (so you can see the difference in the stats of ships built in different nations).

 

[alan_smithee]

My own two pence:

1) I do hope the rep problems get fixed. Unless it's just an error in my own game right now, my rep pretty much drops to evil at random and no amount of `church-giving` will fix it. It limits me to dealing with QC alone, and because I have more money than the entire island I can't sell them more than one captured ship at a time.

2) I find that too, and it kind of makes me want to hack the `lily-livered` cowards to bits. A `sort-of` similiar problem of mine is when some pickpocket steals all my money, and I can't retrieve it through dialog, nor does the location allow me to draw my sword and reclaim it by force. This is usually in the house locations, and only sometimes does it let me draw my sword after raiding a chest, so maybe those settings can be changed to let me draw my sword no matter what.

3) I prefer getting weapons from enemies than out of chests, and I think it makes more sense. I remember playing the game before I knew about the build, and wishing I could take someone's sword after I kill him.

As well: Someone may have mentioned in another thread that there ought to be a limit on how much stuff you can carry at once. Maybe a limit on items, though wearable things like rings would be excempt; and you could buy extra satchels to give you greater carrying capacity. This would simply send you to your ship's cabin more often to store your booty, and I think it's a feature in the A&M mod.

And I really hope there's a blacksmith's shop soon. You could hand him a badly worn sword and some steel ingots you've picked up, and have an `improved-quality` sword to keep or sell for more money (see my comment about prices).

Or you could get some `extra-special` swords through him only available by gathering different metals and jewels from chests for him to work with.

4) Some doors should be harder to get into, too. Maybe if your rep stinks, all house doors are locked, so you have to force your way in -- and get attacked if you're seen.

5) No comment, except that I'm awfully tired of piddly crap items that don't fetch you much dough. Having a limit on the items you can carry would make it easier for me to just leave that crap behind.

You should also be able to just drop items, as you can cargo. I hate having quest items in my inventory that I can't get rid of after their use is gone.

6) ?

7) If not treasure, I've already mentioned somewhere I'd like to see a ship graveyard off its coast, among other possibilities.

 

[Kieron]

hey alan,

very cool idea about a blacksmith's. there are blacksmiths' shops in some towns already, i.e. houses with the fire going on outside (i can picture in my head the ones on oxbay and redmond, and douwesen i think) - we could easily add a shop there, and have all swords and guns bought from there instead of the normal store.

also a very good idea about needing particular materials for particular swords. i remember a `book-based` rpg (you know the ones where it said "turn to #733 to go left, or #482 to go right" etc etc) called 'fabled lands' where if you were a wizard you could collect rare items and take them to a special shop to get better magic wands...

about getting weapons from dead enemies, i just think it's silly the way you end up with an inventory absolutely chock full of swords just from going through one dungeon... maybe you should <i>occasionally</i> win a sword from an enemy, and it should be a very good sword, but it should have to be reworked by a blacksmith before you can use it, maybe...?

 

[alan_smithee]

Yeah, I know those places. They need just the right interior, too; I've been trying to use the one with a picnick table against the back wall beside a stone fireplace with a grate on top and rusty metal chute above it. But I couldn't "skin" anything good into it, like chains or an anvil or even stuff hanging from the walls... maybe the model can be edited.

Oh, a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book? Rad. Great way for kids to die horribly gruesome, random deaths.

And yes... no more worthless swords from dead guys. In reality, I wouldn't bother taking a sword off someone unless I knew I could use it or sell it for a lot. Could we make dead bodies stick around longer before they vanish, so we could search them like chests after a fight and pick and choose what we want?