Life expectancy: is it needed?Life expectancy: is it needed?
Vael Victus 
"See you, fantasy monster game."
Posts: 2201
08/28/2009 11:15 | I was sent a mail suggesting that I only take away life expectancy if the user is playing that day. So then in that case, it would hardly ever go down and the stat would be even more purposeless. I'm now wondering if we need it at all.
Pros:
forces people to splice when they probably should anyway
adds challenge
encourages coming back to the game... though probably in a not-very-nice manner
balances monster types when coming out of the egg
Cons:
annoying, not good for casual people
removing it would make the layout cleaner just that much by removing a stat
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MonBre is an unlisted game of Tinydark Studio.
Personal Website: vaelvict.us |
Belichko Debelichko
"One vision, one purpose!"
Posts: 87
08/28/2009 11:19 | Well without it, the chimera will be too good maybe. CJ was using workers lately, but now that they don't gain stats by working, chimera monster is the only choice. On the other hand.. it already is the only choice, so maybe it could be removed and that won't change the balance much.
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Vincent Kane
"Hello, everyone!"
Posts: 2
08/28/2009 12:11 | Honestly it kind of breaks the game entirely if you just take it out completely, hence why I suggested only aging if you log in or perform an action with any monster that day. Being a more casual player, I just don't like coming back to the game after going off and doing something else and basically having to start from scratch. If you took it out entirely though it would pretty much make splice ratings redundent, a lot of newbies would probably never splice because they'd see max level adn go hey, why splice my monster and start over? since I doubt everyone reads the entire reference and would only know very basically what it was, and food, work injury and game overs would lose a lot in translation. If you just make your monsters age when you log in and play that day, you keep all that without having to think of new penalties, but it doesn't totally destroy the casual playstyle.
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Demi Lune
"The what now?"
Posts: 909
08/28/2009 12:15 | People would probably splice when their levels get too high and stats start costing too much, although I'd say there should be a certain level where you're told you should consider splicing to make the costs go down. Otherwise we might get people who are all "hurr durr why do stats cost so much" and never know they should splice.
On the other hand, there are already monsters way too strong who will breeze through any content you add in no time at all, and without life expectancy that would be even more common. Life expectancy forces people to splice, which tends to lower stats unless you've trained two monsters equally, but makes it easier to gain them back.
I don't know, really... I can live with it, I could live without it, but I'm not sure what the end result would be of taking it away. So yeah, I dunno.
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But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun. |
Vael Victus
"See you, fantasy monster game."
Posts: 2201
08/28/2009 13:25 | So far I think I'll just go with Kane's suggestion. We'll see for some more input.
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MonBre is an unlisted game of Tinydark Studio.
Personal Website: vaelvict.us |
Garr Slayer 
"It's a good day."
Posts: 702
08/28/2009 14:10 | I think what kane is suggesting is similar to the freezer.
While the monster is in the freezer it doesn't age and when it gets taken out it starts to age again.
The food is linked into this too. The whole purpose of having food is to have healthy monsters, why bother feeding them if it won't matter?
But, it sounds difficult to code, how will the system know when to start freezing? Would it be like when you log off and on and the system knows that there are new messages?
I'm logging on often and if I knew I wasn't coming for a bit I'd leave the game ready and there's that vacation mode too. It would be a different story for new players though cause , they wouldn't know to leave the game ready.
Sigh, the conflictions and complications.
Hope my 2 cents are worth something in these hard times.
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When life hands you a lemon, it's up to you what to do with it.
Half of anything is better then a whole of nothing. |
Vael Victus
"See you, fantasy monster game."
Posts: 2201
08/28/2009 20:45 | I think making the monsters still eat the food, but just not taking away the life expectancy, will be best for Kane's situation. Still as you point out, there is vacation mode, and Kane really "should" to be the best he can be, log in every day and quickly sending the monsters to work. That was the point of work: you don't want to explore, but you still want to advance yourself. If I cared about a game, that's what I'd do. Speaking of which, it's time for Farmville on facebook.  ;
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MonBre is an unlisted game of Tinydark Studio.
Personal Website: vaelvict.us |
Demi Lune
"The what now?"
Posts: 909
08/28/2009 21:45 | How does life expectancy get taken away? I don't think it's just plain days, but I forget what exactly it is.
If it were just every 24 hours bam you lose a day, then a system like that would be easy. If the monster works or is sent exploring, it sets a variable and then at the end of the day any monster who has worked/explored loses a day of life expectancy.
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But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun. |
Killer Killer
"die, die, die, die, die, die!"
Posts: 824
08/29/2009 02:17 | You can lose some by starving your monsters or by getting hurt at work, I think.
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The rule of wildlife: Survival of the fittest.
If u want a challenge, I'll kill u with1swipe!
Die die die!
Your life is mine for the taking! Ha ha ha!
Stomp all over 'em like they was cookie crumbs!!! |
Garr Slayer
"It's a good day."
Posts: 702
08/29/2009 10:31 | Ah Demi, so like a system that deducts exploring or work hours from life?
And, how about if there is no food you loose twice as much or something?
I don't know, it's going to take some thinking if a change is to be implamented.
And, yes Killer, but a skill negates injury damage and I think Demi is not asking but, giving a suggestion.
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When life hands you a lemon, it's up to you what to do with it.
Half of anything is better then a whole of nothing. |
Vincent Kane
"Hello, everyone!"
Posts: 2
08/29/2009 19:32 | Its not that I don't care about the game, heh, I just don't log in every day. I don't log into any game every day, and I don't care that much about advancement. I'd rather advance through a game slowly than be forced to log into a game every single day just to get anything done or be forced to start from scratch. Sure there's work and whatever you can do other than exploring/grinding, but to be honest I don't care about any game enough to log in fanatically to do anything, its just a game, you should play whenever you have time or you have nothing better to do. That's my philosophy on any game. so I'm a much more casual gamer than most people. I only made this suggestion because it determines how quickly I'll end up getting things done and how quickly I'll lose patience with other things. I imagine most people can live with the game as it is now, and that's fine. Just wanted to throw this out here and see what people think. There's no reason to change the game the way it is now if people like it, I'll still play regardless of what happens.
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Garr Slayer
"It's a good day."
Posts: 702
08/29/2009 22:24 | Don't worry Kane, he's thinking about others too.
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When life hands you a lemon, it's up to you what to do with it.
Half of anything is better then a whole of nothing. |
Vael Victus
"See you, fantasy monster game."
Posts: 2201
08/29/2009 23:10 | Garr knows me so well. Garr, why don't you come into IRC some time?
Anyway, that is fine, vince; I shouldn't have said "care", but you know what I mean. This system, if I put it in place, will not subtract life expectancy if the player has not logged in for over 2 days. I think that is fair, and also it stops people from whittling away and so if they want to come back to the game, oh no, my monster is practically (or actually) dead.
Demi: no, we just have an "inactivedays" entry in the database. The query is like (if inactivedays <= 1) SET life = life - 1. That happens every 6 hours.
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MonBre is an unlisted game of Tinydark Studio.
Personal Website: vaelvict.us |
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