BSM Rank and Class System

[Kyle]

MoreDread,

I wish that I had a more complete understanding of the cgl process myself. It leads me to ask questions like...

...if one maxes out the cgl level, will it impact one's ability to level up with the spending points method? I'm guessing that it wouldn't. The cgl level may be maxed, but one is still able to earn points and spend them.

Without doing any math, you may still be right that there aren't enough points being awarded in a timelier fashion. I can't say for sure because my hands have been tied from doing testing due to the porch work.

But at least I got the primer painted on yesterday.

One thing that needs to be kept in mind is the maximum attribute cap that R@S placed of 255. Again, without knowing for sure, I'd imagine that having Parameters and Skills at that high a number would make one's character virtually a god (where's the fun in that?), so R@S' leveling up setup may still work well in the bigger picture (which, again, I haven't been able to experience yet).

I hopped on to chat last night, but no one else was on. I logged in at 23:00 hours your time. Hopefully soon we can all bump minds on that thing!

[R@S]

I'm a bit tired after a very long day, but I'll try to explain it as best I can.

When you start a new game, after the vanilla skill distribution system, you'll get the opportunity to re-arrange the Parameters as well. This is the only opprtunity you'll ever get to decrease any stats, so the dialog changes mentioned dint make much sense to me. And these dialogs are "fixed", you can browse them as much as you like without having the "too long dialog tree" CTD.

Since you get 3 Skill points and 3 Parameter point to spend at every level up, this will be enough point at each level without the rick of a CTD. And I plan to remove the cheaterlvl function as soon as the testing of the system is complete, so no CTD by cheating either. In the meantime, please exit the Kill Book dialog when you sense that it's getting close to the limit, the point will still be there to spend afterward.

The level system is not tied to the CGL of the game, it's completely independent from it and is based on kills. After 20 kills you'll get to level 2, at 30 you'll get level 3 and so forth until you reach level 9, which requires 100 kills to avhieve. All the other levels also requires a 100 kills, and there are 100 levels. In the end, if you've killed 10550 enemies you would have had 300 skill points and 300 parameter points to spend. And I can also reward the player a few more points by adding it to the reward system in quests, making the total even higher.

Since I now have a new game progression variable, I can ignore the hard-coded CGL's and have things available at player class level instead. I could also have special shops available, selling stuff dependant on what class and level you have achieved, circumventing the entire vanilla CGL's.

[MoreDread]

aaalrighty then!

[Kyle]

*the following is sung to Eric Carmen's awful classic "All by Myself"--go here if you're into REALLY bad music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4WQf...eature=related

*

I'm on Mibbit
all by myself
I'm on Mibbit
all by myself

Two nights in a row,
how long can a man go?
Being on Mibbit
all alone!

I'm on Mibbit
all by myself
Ohhh-ohhh!!!
I'm on Mibbit
all by myself...

*sniff-sniff*

[Kyle]

Now, on a more serious note...

Sounds to me as though R@S has his brain wrapped pretty tightly around the whole point-earning/spending aspect of the game. His plans sound pretty solid to me.

It's weird that there could be a day where the cgl-system won't even be a part of the thing anymore!

On a certain level, that makes sense. I'm trusting that R@S is going to cook something up that's understandable and far more organic and less "forced" than what's in 7.62mm by default.

R@S, one of the things that I've been thinking about is that 7.62 is missing some "flavor" objects that could be used tactically, and what I mean by that is stuff like an abandoned, rusting van whose side door is open, and part of the wall on the other side of the cab has been blown away, either by an auto accident or an explosion or... Anyway, the point is, this model could be spawned randomly nearly at any location, "fit" in to its surroundings, and offer the Player and the AI an object that would offer concealment/cover, and allow people to fire rounds from the opening.

Crashed helicopters with open crew bays, dilapidated shanty huts, abandoned construction (large piles of cinder blocks with rotting boards, with weeds growing wildly through them, a half finished building that's been vandalized, a now-useless cement mixing machine, etc.), even a fishing trawler with a huge hole running through its belly and sides (that was one POWERFUL hurricane!) could appear anywhere, not look out of place, be randomly spawned, and offer up terrain that could be used by the Player/AI.

Is this kind of thing doable, and would MoreDread be interested in doing work along these lines, or...?

Time to go.

[R@S]

MoreDread
I'm not so tired today and think I understand your suggestions better. Are you thinking of having the dialog screen stay at the same page after a point has been spent? That could easily be done I think, unless it's one of those shared ones from the starting dialogs. i'll look into it.

Kyle
If you had been there a little earlier we would've met, I think I logged out around that time. I only have 2 more days of double shifts, then I'll have more time to spend online and wont have to hit the sack so early.

I've moved some quests around, the Koan quests has been moved to Crazy Bob so that they aren't that important anymore. I think i'll start on the new missions this weekend, I now have a lot of new maps to use for them. I think the chat will be very helpful in their development, Dodger and I made some pretty good ones that way. I hope y'all will help out with the process.

[MoreDread]

yea thats pretty much what i meant...

i just tried to come up with an idea that would be a little more user friendly and at the same time at least put some delay on the ctd thats caused by cluttering the conversation window.

its true that when playing without the cheat you probably won't make it happen during normal gameplay. but some people like to save their points for later and with a max of 300 points it could happen. also theres the 'character creation' where you could theoretically move an infinte amount of points around.

thats why i added that only the skill you are currently raising/lowering should be updated with the new value and shown, and not the entire skill list.

for example: ( '<' is the question '>' are your choices and '->' is the one you pick)

< you have 0 parameter points and 0 skill points what kind of statistic would you like to change?

> parameters
> skills
> nothing, i'm done with the character creation process.

-> parameters

-------

< physical or mental parameters?

> physical
> mental
> back

-> physical

-------

< which parameter would you like to change?

> HP: 100
> energy: 100
> strength : 80
> agility: 70
> dexterity: 50
> stamina: 80

-> stamina

-------

< your current stamina is: 80, you have 0 points left to spend on parameters

> raise
> decrement
> back

-> decrement

-------

< your current stamina is: 79, you have 1 point left to spend on parameters

-> decrement

-------

< your current stamina is: 78, you have 2 point left to spend on parameters
etc.

-------

that way you wouldn't have to display the list of parameters for every single point you add/remove and you could more easily adjust a character to your personal needs without getting a ctd (as it is now, i'm crashing after removing and then adding 30-50 points)
also note that i put the list of the parameters only in the players response, marked by '>' and not the actual conversation window.
that should also reduce the cluttering of the window quite a bit, as only the one you pick gets printed to it.
now i don't know if you can actually show the value of the players statistics in the response. if this is possible then i think it would be the most effective way to do it. if not you might still do it that way, but include the choice to have your stats printed to the conversation window...

< which parameter would you like to change?

> HP
> energy
> strength
> agility
> dexterity
> stamina
> show current parameters

also i have divided the parameters into physical and mental because as we know, you can't fit them all into the same dialog, and this would allow making a somewhat informed choice without having to look at the first half of it, and then have 'more' as a response to see the other half, i just pulled physical/mental out of my a$5 ... you could use class/nonclass or something else, whatever you prefer. the main idea is that you don't have to view the whole list upfront to make your choice.

on a sidenote: i didn't have much luck in getting the model exported yet... i have spent some time making a new one from scratch with less polies on it to rule out the fact that a too high poly count may be causing the crashes. i should be able to finish it and try again tomorrow.