The Mana World Forums

So, Frost and myself were talking the other day about an idea that we don't have the time or skill to produce ourselves, but we thought was too good to just drop. I will therefore post the basic concept(s) from our discussion for future consideration.

Frost: I'm thinking of a map where the path splits through one-way doors.
Frost: there's a battle on each side, and after you beat the boss you release the door to proceed.
Frost: I guess you need to send 2 groups in to do that part.
Frost: I think it would be fun to have a cave or something where you need to do that.
Kandiman: sounds like it would be fun
Frost: Just because I'm me, I would really push the roles, too.
Frost: Either have a mix of mobs on each side that requires mixed teams, or have specialized mobs to require specialized teams
Frost: for example, one side might have mage stuff like skulls and spectres and whatever, and the other side might have terranites and blue slimes or something
Frost: ice elements are awesome because they destroy archers
Kandiman: the question is, how do you force the 2 team thing at once..
Frost: 1-way warps to a scripted battle that requires all monsters in the map to be defeated
Frost: and have two separate areas in that map
Frost: after the battle, the final door is opened to the reward area or something
Kandiman: candor has a check to see how many players are in the area and if any are still alive...you'd need to write one to ensure that only x number of players can enter each door
Frost: I don't know as we'd need to cap the number
Kandiman: well, by NOT limiting it, you could have 20 ppl all go in one and nobody in the 2nd
Frost: I'd like to make something that will require skilled players to learn some new things
Frost: if nobody is in the second, they aren't likely to defeat the monsters that spawn on that side, and therefore never win. :p
Kandiman: heh...I really like the concept
Frost: if they hit the first map and all die to exit, the battle will reset
Frost: for that matter, if nobody is left alive in the first area, the battle will reset
Frost: I think there's a lot of potential for storyline in it, a fair bit of expandability, and it's a challenge we don't yet have in the game.
Frost: also, make it replayable and we might get more people return

There was further discussion surrounding ideas for rewards which I've edited out for brevity. To clarify on the map concept a bit (just in case it was hard to visualize), with some obvious consideration to making it look natural, the map would essentially be a single path that splits into 2 distinct paths (with a battle in each path) and then rejoining to a single path after both battles have been completed.

Obviously, feedback is welcome, along with suggestions for other concepts which may need refinement or a more skilled hand to implement.

Cheers,
Kandi

You will have to take care of communicating this properly to those players who do the quest for the first time. Most won't understand that they have to form teams and will instinctively follow the general rule that you have to keep the party together.

By the way: Do unwalkable tiles block archers and magic? You could separate the two battlefields by a thin wall so one party can see what the other is doing.

I do have some ideas for dialog which would help toward explaining the concept, but at the moment this is a very high level concept. I believe that backstory and explanations would be easier to deal with than the mapping and scripting portions. That said, I really like the idea of being able to see progress in the other chamber, if possible.

My basic idea is to introduce a battle that not only requires tactics and strategy (like Candor does) but requires real planning to succeed. I want a challenge that's more than "super-powerful character walks into a bar...and wins."

In other words, I'd like to see people actually plan "raids" ahead of time where they have to fill the necessary roles and coordinate tactics before entering the battle.

For example:

The "Ice Path" will look like the Nivalis caves and will spawn White Slimes, Blue Slimes, Ice Goblins, Ice Elements, Ice Skulls, and Yetis. That group will need a few warrior types to hold off the Yetis and survive slime hits, at least one healer mage, and at least one attack mage or powerful archer to kill the monsters quickly enough before the next wave appears.

The "Earth Path" will look like the Terranite caves and will spawn Mogguns, Earth Elements, Hyverns, Poison Skulls, and Terranites. Again, this group will need to deal with a mix of monsters which requires teamwork. I'd like to balance it slightly more against speed archers, though, because I still don't want one or two powerful characters to be able to let the others die.

The "Fire Path" will look like...I'm not sure. It will spawn Fire Skulls, Fire Goblins, Red Slimes, some monsters that deal heavy damage, and at least one that moves quickly to keep the archers honest. Mages can eat Skulls all day long, but they won't want to waste lightning on Goblins and Slimes. Raging warriors could deal with the whole mix, but only if a competent healer is there too.

The "Air Path" will look like...I don't know. It will spawn Wisps, Poltergeists, Spectres, JackOs, Butterflies, and some slower-moving monsters for warriors and archers.


Maybe condense the above ideas into 2 elements and rooms. Explain in the dialogue that both elements must be cleared before the players win. Each side needs a mix of characters, and everyone can see the other side but cannot assist. (It might be impossible to block healing, but we could design the battles so that multiple mages are still required.) Once someone enters a room, they are committed to that side of the battle. The battle is triggered on both sides at the same time, after which the warp ceases to work (as at Candor). The battle continues independently on each side until both battles are won or one team of characters is entirely dead (they lose). After both battles are won, all players enter the same room on the other side and get rewards.

This sounds like a really good concept and looks promising
I just thought, maybe the Chess tileset Crush was working on can be used here if of course, something has not been planned already for it, as I think this concept really depicts a dungeon theme.

http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... =8&t=15657

It would be really cool to see this idea along with Crush's dungeon in game, it would be very effective.

Thanks,

/\/

Crush wrote:By the way: Do unwalkable tiles block archers and magic? You could separate the two battlefields by a thin wall so one party can see what the other is doing.

Yes, for *most* things. Some important spells like #inma can pass through walls though.

(not applicable in this case, but the path can do something like this:
)[/size]

Heh. I really like this idea, especially if A. we give an item/money/exp for the first time a character does it, 2. Give boss points each time afterward, C. Implement a use for boss points.

Overall the concept is great. A team oriented repeatable battle that allows the class to shine sounds awesome.

Just an idea for the team work part... Maybe we could make the script choose one of the players every 5 minutes(+ or -) and make his/her survival a necessary condition for the team's success. It would pick someone randomly and announce the player's name so the others know who has to be protected. If the player dies, the team fails.