User talk:Xelonir/Concepts

Concept Discussion

Feel free to comment on any of the concepts / point out problems / expand suggestions. Xelonir 07:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The Diet Consultant

→ moved from User talk:Linsey Murdock

Motivated by the discussion here I've been thinking about the problem of using sweets on multiple characters (without making the title account-wide) while using as many already existing game resources/mechanics as possible. So here's what I came up with, maybe it's doable (sometime after April, that is):

Create an NPC or two (using available graphics) who uses the Artisan mechanic to turn Sweets into their Diet versions, e.g. a Peppermint Candy Cane is turned into a Diet Peppermint Candy Cane which still removes all DP but doesn't give sweettooth points. The points are instead given to the character who exchanges them at the NPC.

Obviously this means a slight alteration to the Artisan mechanic (trading item A for item B plus giving ST points), don't know if that falls into the Voodoo category. But adding duplicates of items to the game and removing the ST points from the duplicates doesn't sound too complicated to me. Though it might be better to change the color of the Diet items' icons to prevent trade fraud.

This would at least help with the sweets, no idea yet what to do with alcohol and skills that have bonus X when drunk. --Xelonir 12:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That would be rather nice if you can pull it off, most of my characters have a decent amount of sweet-tooth points from using consumables that also give sweet-tooth points on top of their effect. If some solution can't be reached/done for any number of reasons, I guess that just means all my characters are going to be getting a sweet-tooth title down the road. XD — Jon Lupen 16:13, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

/ponder ... The problem with the alcohol is of course that the bonus effects from skills are directly linked to the drunk effekt. Therefore a secondary effect from alcohol would be required to do something similar (that effect could also be combined with an effect indicator that helps for timing alcohol).

Example: Alcohol provides also Spirit of Lyssa (1 or 5 points/20% or 100% depending on alcohol type). The skills would then have to be changed to "bonus X while under the effect of Spirit of Lyssa". An NPC (maybe Lyssa's Muse at ToA) would then exchange alcohols into a Lesser/Greater Vial of Lyssa + Drunkard points. The vials can then be used to create just the Spirit of Lyssa effect. --Xelonir 12:00, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem with that idea, Xelonir, is that it changes the drunkard title into points. Whether people are gonna use the ale one their title character, or another, wouldn't matter as anyone after the drunkard title would simply get the "Vial of Lyssa" items to get instant drunkard points. While I have nothing against that, it would mean "do it the long boring way or do it instantly." -- Azazel The Assassin\talk 19:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

That's true, Azazel, it would adjust the time spent on getting the Drunkard title to that spent on getting Sweettooth and Party. Xelonir 06:47, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

To me it sounds like a major issue to you, but a (very) minor one overall. That probably means it will take them more time than they think it's worth, and i won't be implemented. Doesn't mean that it isn't inconvienient for you though, but alas, that'the way it is. 145.94.74.23 08:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe that it's something that is in the interest of everyone who likes to play with more than just one character - and there's a lot of those. But of course it's up to Linsey to decide whether it's worth the time. Xelonir 10:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

But the sweets you're wasting are more than compensated by the additional income you recieve from having multiple characters - income you can use to purchase the additional sweets you need. 145.94.74.23 23:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

How exactly does multiple characters imply more income? It doesn't mean you magically get more gold while playing, any more than it means that you spend more time playing. If Player A plays casually for 3 hours on a single character, and Player B the same way on 3 different ones for the same amount of time, there is absolutely no reason to believe that Player B would somehow end up with more gold in storage. Besides, playing more than 1 character really means that you need to get through the starter area(s) more than once, that you need to quest and work your way to the difficult and more rewarding areas more than once, and that you need to spend more money overall on weapons, armour and hero equipment. After any given time of playing, Player A probably has more money left to spend on title points than Player B. -- Elv 09:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, actually, you do get more money. You can do each quest only once per character, so more characters means more quests, which means more quest rewards (and the rewards for the EotN quests are prety high, lockpicks and such). You can get 1 endgame item per character. More characters, means more endgame items. The treasures in Nightfall drop less valuable loot each time you open them, but that is determined per character more than it is per account (if at all). So basically, when comparing a few hours, it doesn't matter. But in the long run, completing a campaign 8 times with 8 different characters will yield a lot more gold than completing it 8 times with 1 character. Even if the difference were small (it is not, especially if you only invest in 1 set of cheap max armor), you get more than enough additional gold to compensate for the handful of sugar items you'll lose in the progress. 145.94.74.23 10:55, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

While your reasoning sounds logical on first glance, it has one big flaw. Playing N characters instead of just one means indeed N times the income from quests (though only the EotN ones and some in NF have decent rewards) - but it also means N times the expenses: buying skills, weapons, armor and runes, equipping heroes (again weapons and runes). Additional end game items = one item for one hero of that char. Nothing really gained there. And - something where I have to disagree with you - even if you don't buy an elite armor set there won't be much gold (if any) left once you've equipped a char and most of his heroes. Yes, there is a quest that gives you a Lockpick for a reward - which sells for what, 1k?

But for the sake of this discussion let's assume there is a positive amount X of gold left once a character has "finished" all campaigns. Then of course someone playing N characters has gained N * X gold. But what has the one-char-player done in the meantime? He could replay the storylines of course (and probably something around 4 * (N-1) times, since he can't replay the quests, only the missions). But honestly, who's doing that? The OCP will spend his time playing high-level content (DoA, UW, etc.), vanquishing, PvP'ing or farming - stuff that provides much higher rewards than the storylines. So while the multi-character-player gains his little amount X by playing one character through all chapters, the OCP makes multiples of that in the same time.

You are true, though, that there is additional "income" from the Nightfall treasures, but this decreases steadily and in no way compensates for the additional money the OCP has already made. It soon reaches a point where playing the game normally and just selling the drops to the merchant provides more gold per time invested than those treasures.

So in the end the OCP not only has all titles on one single character, he also has more money to spend. There's no "just buy the additional sweets" for people with multiple characters. If your theory was right my 10 chars should have made me very rich - but the truth is that right now I couldn't even afford to buy the sweets required to max the title on one single char, even if I used all sweets I currently have on that char. Xelonir 18:40, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

You only need 1 weapon, 1 set of armor and 8 skills to be able to play the game. Anything else is 100% optional. And as soon as you've finished a campaign, you can play anything on hard mode with all of your other characters too. Not to mention that except for DoA, it really doesn't take that much time to reach the elite areas. So one can come to the basic conclusion that, when all things come together, the OCP and NCP will have the same amount of resources, whith the difference that the NCP has more variety but his/her wealth is less focused. Because if we're talking about examples, then I can tell you that my wife, who has 8 PvE characters and doesn't farm, owns a Shiro'ken Assassin minipet and has around 500k, where I, who plays only 1 character with twice as much total play time (and also doesn't farm), am struggling to reach the 100k. 145.94.74.23 08:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Nobody plays the game with just 8 skills unlocked on any given character, though, so please, can we stay in the realm of realism? There's obviously some luck involved in the money-making process as well- you could be really lucky and get three drops worth a fortune, or you could be really unlucky and never get anything worth more than 40k. In my personal experience (and I'm someone with 3 accounts and about 20 PvE characters I play), single-character players on the whole have a little more money to spend on average than multi-character players. Most of them do in fact farm more than people who like the variety of various classes, and yes, because they don't equip more than one set of heroes and don't go quite as armour happy (they're not likely ever to get more than 1 FoW set, for instance) they do usually end up with a little more cash to spend. -- Elv 12:05, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I left the realm of realism to make a point, that you can go crazy with your cash, or save it for the things you really want. If you really want all of your 20 characters to wear expensive armor and have fully equipped heroes, then accept that you will have less money to burn. However, if you're playing a bit economically, you'll find that you can easily afford 2 full sets of maxed gear if you're just playing the storyline in Normal Mode once. You don't actually NEED that much more stuff per character. That's the beauty of Guild Wars compared to other fantasy games. So basically, imho, you're complaining about something that has been addressed already, in about the only way possible save for making everything free. But that's just me of course. 145.94.74.23 08:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The point is lost, though, if it's not what happens in reality, don't you think? I was underlining what is actually happening, not how I'd like things to be. I've long ago accepted that having this many characters will be pricy and will slow me down a little as I work to GWAMM, I'm not complaining. I'm quite happy working on more than one character. Before you start pointing fingers and accuse people of complaining, please try to look at what they're really saying. I've never said titles should be cheaper, or easier anywhere in this discussion. I've not complained about the cost or QQd about not having maxed out some title or other. I've only pointed out the flaws in your reasoning, and the reality of how a lot of people play. You're welcome to go back to the land of Far, Far Away, however, and make as many points as you like that are in no way related to reality. -- Elv 10:12, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I meant to use it as a simplification, to avoid making things to complex to understand. I guess you're right, the point was lost. So let me put it bluntly so you won't miss my point, more than enough compensation is given to those that wish to play multiple characters. When playing multiple characters, you get things that single character players don't get and vice versa. You don't need DP removers to play the game, and titles are completely optional. If you choose to spend more gold/items/time than neccesary on a character, then that too, is completely optional. So bottom line: no, I don't think overly complex things should be added to the game just because some people don't want to focus their efforts, but demand all the rewards for it regardless. 145.94.74.23 14:10, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

So what you are saying is that someone who spends 10k sweet points on one char deserves the title because he's "focused", whereas someone who spends the same amount of points on multiple characters does not deserve it? Because you see the riches of your wife and conclude that everyone with multiple characters must have similar amounts of gold and expensive items and therefore can easily afford all the sweets he needs? Great reasoning. Xelonir 18:35, 23 March 2009 (UTC)