Game mechanics

From Trinity Reign Wiki

All of the items presented below are proposals, not actual implementation. Feel free to comment and improve.

Contents 1 Attributes 2 Skills system 3 Class system 4 Sign system 5 Guild system 6 Faction system 7 Journal system (quests and events) 8 Chatterbot NPCs 9 Law and Punishment 10 Character Creation 11 Divinity Affinity System 12 Business System 13 Crafting System 14 Vitality System 15 Combat System

Attributes

Attributes are traits that characters will have from character creation or purchase through the ingame XP and Skill Point system. Some of these attributes are unchangeable, others can be buffed/debuffed, will rise and drop at "random", or can be increased by buying with XP.

Note: This list is not exhaustive and some things on this list may disappear forever.

• Vitality - unchangeable
• Regen - change with buffs
• Fortitude/Concentration - change with XP or buffs

• Acrobatics (Agility/Reflex/Speed) - change with XP or buffs
• Bodybuilding (Strength/Natural defense) - change with XP or buffs
• Intellect (Intelligence/Empathy/Manipulation/Ingenuity) - change with XP or buffs
• Fine Motor Skills (Dexterity/Precision/Efficiency) - change with XP or buffs

Modifiers: These are conditions on your character that will temporarily change how your attributes effect your character's actions and skills.

• Familiarity - change with quests, item usage, and combat
• Confidence - change with success or failure
• Mood - change with User select, environment
• Health change with debuffs (injuries, sickness, curses)

Skills system

The character's skills determine his class and how well he can complete various actions in the world of Ura. A skillset is built by players first entering the game via choices made in Character Creation. These include Race, Age, and various events in the character's life. All skills are primarily progressed through spending earned XP and using a preset number of Skill Points.

Not all skills can be mastered at once, it will simply not be possible. Players can train plenty of skills, but will only be able to have as many skills as their Skill Points allow. It is more worth it to focus on a couple of related skills and rely on other skilled players for other parts of the game than to try to be slightly good at everything. For example, warriors should focus on skills that will supplement their strength and skills in combat. If they want a hand-crafted weapon, they should contact a person who has trained extensively in crafting so they can get a well-crafted, long-lasting weapon. This system should allow for dependence on others in the community, which is an essential aspect of an IMOW as well as MMORPGs.

Characters will not be locked into skills they gained. As further explained on the Skill Points page, skills can be dropped so that other skills can be learned.

It is also important to note that we are flirting with the idea of Permadeath. Permadeath is exactly how it sounds; when your character dies, he is gone. That's it. We realize how unpopular this could be among a large community, and so we've thought of a limited version of permadeath. In this system, people who have progressed very high in a certain skill, will have the option of being able to vastly increase their abilities in that skill, but in exchange, they must accept permadeath. This will limit the amount of "Masters" there will be in Ura at any one time, as well as ensure characters who have incredible powers will be mortal. Again, the choice will be fully up to the player in how they want to develop their character.

Skills will be divided into trees containing similar skills. You must get lower level skills before unlocking access to the higher level skills. An example could be Ranged: Sling -> Crossbow -> Longbow

...

Class system

As of now, we will have no set class system. It is possible that based on the skills you manually choose to develop for your character, you will get a title class, but this would be purely aesthetic and not dictate what skills you can or cannot develop. As i like to put it, Your skills dictate your class, rather than your class dictating your skills.

Sign system

Astrological signs are relate to the phases of the three moons seen from Ura. The moons are believed to be the three homes or domains of the three Gods as made by the Creator. Urans believe that the phases of the moons can directly affect many living things in Ura. For example, the astrological sign of a character may determine special powers or abilities as well as personality traits. Also, wild animals may become stronger, more docile, more fertile etc.. depending on the current phase of the moons.

Guild system

First draft

Trade Guilds - These are the ‘Unions’ of TR. Most will be NPC run, though there may be options in the future to allow players to start trade guilds. There are many of these Guilds in TR, each covering its own trade and area. They work much like the guilds in single player RPGs such as Oblivion. Examples of guilds would be Blacksmiths of Vaern, Miners of the West Field, Or Cloven Road Traders. Each city or area will have its own set of guilds, so the blacksmith guilds of neighboring towns may be in competition with each other. There may even be more than one of a type of guild in a single city, creating friction and competition. People who join these guilds will have the benefit of cheaper and faster training, lower cost materials and tools, or access to guild-owned properties (mines, farms, or buildings such as large smithies) for doing their business. Some guilds may not even allow you to do business in their area unless you join them. To offset the benefits, Guilds generally also charge a periodic membership fee, and you are not allowed to join competing guilds. Your character MUST have (or be training) skills and work in that trade in order to join a guild.

Houses – These player-run organizations can be compared to royal houses, lords, nobles, ‘families’, etc. Any player or group of players may start a house, though few will be successful. The leadership can be anything from a single dictator to a democratic council. Leaders can be deposed. The goal of Houses is to procure power over other Houses by any means necessary. ‘Power’ is gained through number of player (and perhaps NPC) members, land owned, Trade Guilds loyal to them, and most of all, pledged loyalty from other Houses. Anyone who has played the game of Diplomacy will understand how the loyalty of other Houses factors in. Starting a House can be a dangerous thing. Larger Houses will often vie for the loyalty of small Houses, which can quickly create either allies or enemies when choosing, or in some cases, not choosing sides. The method of gaining loyalty in Trade Guilds and other Houses varies somewhat. Since Guilds are run by NPCs, you must use game mechanics to procure this loyalty. This can be done by several methods.

• 1. Offer protection of the Guild’s interests. This will create ‘quests’ for your House based on keeping the Guild safe, to build its power base, or to undermine its competitors.
• 2. Buy its loyalty. Some Guilds will ally with the highest bidder. Some will not and will be insulted by the offer.
• 3. Threaten with force. This tried and true method will work in some cases, but must be handled delicately.
• 4. Ask nicely. You never know when just asking the Masters of a Guild would be the best method.
• 5. Control its assets. If you own the land the Mining Guild uses, they don’t have a lot of choice but to ally with you, though it may cause resentment.

Loyalty is not permanent, so you have to be careful. In some cases, you can profit from the Guild’s loyalty, such as offering protection, threatening, or owning the land. In others, such as buying the Guild’s loyalty, you may have to pay ‘upkeep’ to keep them loyal. You have a small amount of control over the Guilds that are loyal to you. Examples would be price influencing for your House or those of another House, limiting (or not) the trades of non- or other Guild players, etc. However, if you make a Guild go against its set principals (such as making a friendly, open Guild block non-Guild people from doing business), its loyalty will drop and eventually it will start looking for ways out of the deal. Keeping power over Guilds is greatly about keeping them happy (or afraid) with your leadership.

(just some thoughts of mine: i don't like how Houses have to have power by having more players. This will, absolutely lead to House-leaders spamming people or going for quantity over quality.)

Faction system

Factions are best described as an NPC's beliefs. Any NPC may belong to several Factions. For example, an NPC farmer near Vaern will probably belong to Farmers, Vaern Citizens, Lower Class, etc.. Actions of each character will have either positive or negative effects on various factions. A character's faction ratings will affect how NPCs will react to them. If you're in good standing with a Merchant faction, it is possible that you'll receive a discount at some stores, or something similar. Essentially, for every faction you gain standing with, you'll lose some standing with another.

Some obvious examples of Factions would be the three sects of the Trinity Religion.

Journal system (quests and events)

The journal system will cover quests, with auto-entries. Users will also be able to write Journal notes for each quest.

How it works:

Every player character will have its own journal. Most of it is automated, whenever a quest is activated, or steps of it covered, there will be auto-entries. The entries will say what has been accomplished so far and what needs to be done from there, in case the player forgets. Of course, for every quest he will be able to add his own notes as well, perhaps intermediary steps.

Example:

Player talks to NPC, selects the answers he wants. He will be asked to do a quest, which he can accept or not.

In any case, entries will be added to the journal log, each journal entry, pre-set with a value.

 No.   Title                      Quest step text
* 1    Quest added                Talked to X who gave me quest Y
* 10   Accepted or denied
* 20   ...
* ...  ...
* 100  Quest completed
* 110  Quest not accepted
* 120  Quest failed

Chatterbot NPCs

So, if we have static dialogue and selectable answers, the NPCs will probably be pretty bland. Well not necessarily. If we want conversational NPCs, we can get those too, but smart NPC + quest NPC may be thinking a little bit too far. Nothing is impossible, but it's a very high goal, probably not achievable in the beginning.

Proposal: have 2 sets, separate

• Quest NPCs - with pre-designed answers, quest steps etc.
• Chatterbot NPC's which won't be able to do/give any quests, but they will use some of the code of the talking bots on the internet (there are a few open source ones). Provided they are given a good vocabulary to begin with and then locked for editing, they will be the kind of bots which players will be able to talk to almost in the same way as to a human being. They will be "smart", but won't contain any quest triggers in their speech. Just informational NPC's, perhaps disguised as sages, archmages, kings etc. Could also be used for randomly generated 'crowd' NPCs.

Law and Punishment

A major key of Trinity Reign will be balance. Since our current plan is to have general open PvP, we recognize a need to punish those who would abuse such a system (running around and killing everything, etc..) in order to maintain some semblance of order. It is also important to allow for people to RP "evil" or unlawful characters as this will add a layer of depth to TR. Though if one wants to be a killer, they should know in advance that they will not be able to just stroll into any city while being a known murderer.

In TR, killing another person, just as in real life, will be a very big deal that holds many consequences. If a crime is detected, the local NPC guards within a certain area will be notified of who to look for during a certain amount of time. During this time a criminal can be caught by NPC guards. If this happens a player will have a few options:

• Pay a fine depending on the severity of crime(s)
• Persuade the guard to let you go (will be based on various skills and attributes as well as crime(s) committed plus some other things.
• Attempt to run. This is a dangerous option as it involves fighting the guard. Guards will be tough to beat, and this will only raise your "wanted level" among NPC guards.
• Go to jail. This will occur if you lose the fight with the guard in option 3, or you can simply choose to go straight to jail. Upon going to jail you will lose all of your stolen items, pay a fine and must complete a series of quests to exit. Also, upon exiting jail, your character may have trouble finding jobs/quests from NPCs who are lawful among many other things. On the other hand, Jail will open doors that people who have not gone to jail would never have.

Let's describe some examples...

Stealing: People can steal in various ways in TR. One way is pickpocketing which obviously uses stealth and various other attributes. If successful, a pickpocket will not be suspected immediately by NPC guards, but there could possibly be a delayed effect.

Mugging: Muggings would occur when playerA attacks playerB. When playerB's health drops to a certain point, they become unconscious for a certain amount of time. During this time playerA could choose to leave the player alone, attempt to take some items, or kill the player. Each option obviously would have its own consequences of varying degrees. Assuming the option to take some items from the unconscious player is selected, a roll will take placed based on playerA's skills and attributes as well as those of playerB. If successful, they run of with an item or two, if not, they won't.

Killing: Using the same example above, let's assume playerA kills playerB. Assuming no one is immediately around when the killing takes place, playerA is able to get away freely. However, as soon as an NPC guard, or even player character comes across the body within a certain amount of time, they will immediately notify all NPC guards within a certain area for a certain amount of time. Obviously, for killing, more guards would be notified for a longer amount of time than a pickpocket would warrant.

We also have plans for player characters serving as bounty hunters. These players would have access to a list of known criminals, and could seek them out in Ura. Upon being caught, a player would have options similar to that of an NPC guard catching up with them. Bounty hunters would receive a reward for catching a criminal.

Character Creation

Character creation is extremely important for obvious reasons: it determines every aspect of a character, from skill set, to appearance, and even history. With this in mind, we set out to create a flexible creation system that would cater to casual and intense gamers alike. To help describe the process of character creation, I'll attempt to describe each step of the process based on the different screens players will see.

A quick and incomplete visual mock-up of Character Creation can be found here: [1]

Screen 1: Choose Race. Upon selecting 'New Character' from the previous menu, the player will be presented with a screen for selecting their race. Each race will be represented at the same time with side-by-side concept art portraits. Extra information could be given upon hovering over an image. Clicking one of the images progresses to the next screen.

Note: The following steps may be interchangeable, as history will greatly affect what your character can look like, just as appearance can affect what your history can be.

Name and appearance. This is pretty self explanatory. We'll have a rotating character which the player can edit based on race, height, weight, skin, hair, etc etc etc.... Add a nice first and last name, and we're off. There will also be the option of birthday. The month in which a character is born affects him/her in many ways, and for the sake of character creation, may add or remove the availability of certain events.(this birthday/astrology aspect could be it's own page in the char creation process too...)

History Screen. Here, there will be a timeline. The x axis will be years, and the y axis will be the daily schedule for each year (or group of years). Players will be able to place events, jobs and milestones onto this timeline. These will translate directly into the ingame skill tree. They can choose to stop placing events at the age they want their character to be, thus granting access to historical events, such as "Was at the Battle of the Frogs" 30 years ago. This greater age may affect your character appearance options, so be careful if you want a young looking character. All of these events will have effects on the stats and skills of the character when he is spawned in game, as well as NPC factions and location based items. Alternatively, players can choose to go directly to a skill tree and pick exactly what they want.

Also, players who wish to get in game ASAP can select the Quick Creation option and just grab a "classed" character make minor changes, and spawn almost immediately. In this scenario, the player can choose from several templates for history. They then can customize the history/events/age to their liking, and move on.

(need to finish)

Starting location. Based on various choices made in Character Creation, every player can choose between several starting cities. Some choices won't be available to certain characters for many reasons including but not limited to choices concerning race, history, as well as various supply and demand elements as decided by Developers and the community. (For example: if one area is very populous and another is lacking, we may choose to artificially inflate the population so as to even things out across the continent.) Starting location is important to players as it will come with positives and negatives that will affect the character in innumerable ways like NPC affinity, as one example.

Review. After choosing the Home City for their character the Player will be directed to the final screen which will provide a review of all of the choices the player has made, but at a glance. This will include but is not limited to the avatar, starting city, race choice and starting age. Once confirmed, the player then can connect to the server and begin play. This page, as well as the detailed history, will be available for players to review at any time once they have started the game.

Possible Screen: Roleplaying Elements. This is a possible screen catering to roleplayers. It would be somewhat similar to the history screen, but with less direct impact to stats and skills. Items like life goals, vices, and weaknesses could be chosen here. Examples would be chronic drunk, where you would not be able to pass a tavern without getting a few drinks, or fear of heights, preventing your character from going near cliffs or anywhere high. It would really be for the serious roleplayer that would like real handicaps when playing. Other things may be your character's favorite colors or items, having which would be a small boost to confidence. It could also give the player access to special quests to help 'overcome' a severe handicap.

Divinity Affinity System

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS INFINITY SYSTEMZ!!11 LOl11!

Great question, and a great place to start. Affinity shows which God has the most affection for you at the current time. An Affinity bar will be displayed showing you which God likes you the best. If you draw more towards Iantha, she is most likely to come collect you when you die. Be weary though... Dargon might still appear and claim your soul to make you look at the beauty of pure evil.

Affinity is influenced by three secondary stats: Charisma, Beauty, and Devotion.

UtM- Too complicated! Let's break it down to the simplest form for now. I suggest more along the lines of the following, mechanics-wise. We can make the actual story more complex, but the base code could work based on the following simplified version.

Iantha likes people and things that are pretty. She is very vain and wants things of beauty in her realm, and does not care if the people are good or bad or rich or poor in life. She will not like you if you destroy 'pretty' things. A lovely flower is worth more to her than a lump of ugly gold.

Dargon likes people who do bad things, just because he is a jerk who likes suffering. He does not care if you are rich, poor, pretty, or ugly.

Bovel likes people who are rich or have a lot of things or move a lot of the previous. He does not care what you look like, or what you do as far as good or bad. The lump of gold is all to him.

If you are pretty, rich, and evil, it is a crapshoot as to which god is going to grab you up when you die. If you are ugly, poor, and nice... it is also a crapshoot, but the gods will not be as happy when they send their minions to collect your so

Gaining favor will give you small bonuses to certain stats to help you be more so what that god likes. It may help you in certain magic spells, or grant you unique abilities. It can also effect quest paths and DM events.

Business System

We would like to give players the ability to set up businesses. There are, however, plenty of questions, both logistical and theoretical, that need to be answered.

To start, it should be possible for any one person to start a business. How does one go about this? Well, i'd say the interested party should have to go to a city center type of building and register their business there. This would probably cost a moderate price, maybe depending on the level of business. (For example, do you want the right to just set up a limited but mobile stand, or a set storefront in a bustling downtown area?) This business permit would maybe only be valid for x amount of time (3 real months, for example).

Once the business permit has been acquired, the player can then set up their business. Obviously, there will be a ton of flexibility in business, but let's assume they'll want some employees. This way, they don't have to be online in order to make money. Owners can hire other players as well as NPCs to work for them. NPCs can be hired for a set rate (maybe based on NPC skill or something..). These NPCs will complete tasks or simply keep the business open while the owner is offline or doing other things. Owners should beware, some NPCs may end up stealing money for themselves. Other players can be hired in various ways, and are paid either through commission or percentage of overall profit. (Hourly wages are probably way to difficult to sort out...) Human employees can have their permissions edited via a business page. This will give the owner full control over who can edit inventory, prices, open/close the shop, and other related tasks.

There can also be Businesses that provide a service, for example, repairing weapons.

Crafting System

The following is a list of features that have been suggested for the crafting system. It is possible that not all will be used, and this list is NOT exhaustive. This is just a collection of proposed ideas.

The basis of any crafting system is combining raw materials, knowledge, and physical tools to make a more refined product. Crafting is generally thought of as a way to make weapons and armor, but it can apply to other trades such as Alchemy, Cooking, and even spell-crafting (if we so choose). So I think it's important that we consider these other trades as we move forward in our discussions.

Raw Materials: These are self explanatory, as they are materials you can get with relative ease out in the world. Whether it's mining ore, picking herbs, or chopping wood, players will end up with a raw material that will need refining in order to be combined with other materials to make a newer, more refined product.

Knowledge: Knowledge can refer to two separate things. First, it refers to the skills that the players must possess in order to physically craft something. Some things may be too difficult to make for a novice craftsmen because they simply don't possess the skill to create it. In addition, the player must also possess the knowledge of what they are going to craft (ie. a blueprint or recipe. This refers to the concept Moon made http://youtu.be/pjwg7KzQBlE). Blueprints can be made by players and traded/bought/sold, but they can only be used if the players has the right skills.

Physical Tools: In order to combine raw materials into a finished product, a player will need physical tools like a forge, hammer, alembic, mortar & pestle, knives, etc..

Quality: Quality will play an immensely important role in crafting. The quality of the raw materials, the quality of the knowledge (this refers to both skills and blueprints/recipes), and the quality of the tools used all determine the quality of the finished product.

Vitality System

In TR, we combined the typical three MMO bars of Health, Mana and Stamina into one bar called Vitality (VT for short). Vitality is basically your character's limit to endurance. Or, in other words, it is how far you can push your character before he drops dead. All characters of all levels will have the same general amount of Vitality. However, stats will change how fast you use it. To the right is a visual representation of how Vitality would work. It is not how it will look in the game.

Every character has a base VT regeneration rate. This varies with the level of the attributes and skills for every character. Every action (combat, acrobatics, casting a spell) will lower a character's VT instantly. Other things like wounds, extended running, or mental exertion will cost VT over time. If the sum of all of these conditions is greater than your character's regen rate, then your character will begin to lose VT over time.

So, let's say Player X has an VT regen of 10VT/sec. Swinging a sword will cost about 2VT. Add in jumping around and dodging a foe, and you are using up 12 VT/sec. The end result of this scenario is your character losing 2VT/sec.

Wounds will cause Bleed, which obviously puts a steady, non-recoverable drain on your Vitality. Bleed will continue until you fully heal the wound (medical skill). Small cuts are not much bother until you get a lot of them, but a single deep wound can be mortal, draining all of your vitality in a second.

Low Vitality: The lower your vitality becomes, the harder it is to do the same tasks. You want to be careful about wearing your character out. In most situations outside of combat or sports, this should not be much of an issue.

Death and KO. A vitality of 0 means your character is dead. There will also be a soft limit on how much vitality you can use before passing out. If your limit is 90%, then your character will pass out when you have 10% VT left. Fortitude will effect exactly how much vitality you can use before passing out. It is entirely possible to run your character to death if his fortitude is strong enough.

Combat System

At the moment, the main crux of the TR combat system will revolve around a queued system of actions, or Action Queue (AQ). Essentially, players can attain skills through character progression, and then use those skills in combat -- queuing up a certain amount of moves ahead of time. This system will have a real-time feel to it, as players will have to gauge the opponents tactics and respond accordingly, possibly removing queued skills and adding different ones on the fly.

The system will feature a "Stance Slider" that will adjust a character's mindset (and body position?) during combat. A more aggressive stance will allow for more intense damage while limiting the character's defensive capabilities and vice-versa. Stance will also affect the success rate of various skills -- for example, attacking skills will have a higher success rate in an offensive stance, whereas defensive skills will suffer. Being able to adjust this slider mid-battle should add a layer of depth to combat.

Skills or moves can be added or removed in real time during combat via a simple and intuitive system. This will allow for maximum flexibility for players as the battle rages on and evolves over time. Players will also be able to set a default stance as well as default attacking and defensive skills. These defaults will automatically enter the queue if the player does not input any orders.

Combos, or chained skills, can be acquired and employed in this system. Combos can be very effective tools for turning the tide during battle, but if misused, they can negatively affect your momentum. Every skill, including combos, will take a certain amount of time to play out before the next move can be initiated. For example, an Unarmed Jab would most likely take less time to execute than a Bludgeon attack with a Heavy Axe. Once a skill or combo has occurred, the next skill will then be initiated. But combos will take considerably more time to execute, and thus, must be used carefully. If timed wrong, a combo can easily afford enough time to your opponent to react and counter while your character continues the combo. However, if timed correctly, a combo can be a quick and effective way to gain the upper hand in a battle.

The queued system forces players to KNOW their character and the skills they have at their disposal. For this system, as with most of TR, knowledge is power.