Shandalar - Feature Requests
Modification of the Shandalar "food" mechanics (new)
There are some issues with the "food" mechanics in Shandalar that make it almost irrelevant from a gameplay point-of-view, in my opinion. If feasible, maybe these could be revised, at some point.
The way I see if (and, please, correct me if I'm wrong), the concept of food in Shandalar works along the lines of:
1) Food is lost proportionally to distance traveled (possibly gained instead, if you have the correct World Magic and are in forest terrain);
2) You can buy food in villages and towns (at a mostly fixed cost), but can't sell it;
3) If food reaches zero, the only penalty is that one walks slower;
4) There is no penalty for having any arbitrarily large amount of food (other than the very rare possibility of losing half your food, in a random event, if i recall correctly).
My problem with the system is mostly regarding points 3 and 4. Point 3 implies that it is possible to play the whole game without ever buying food, which shouldn't be possible. Point 4 implies that (and I assume everyone does this, but I can't be sure) as soon as the player has enough money, they will go to a village (where food is cheaper), buy 300+ food and they'll mostly never have to worry about buying food ever, which makes the whole system/mechanic almost pointless from a gameplay perspective.
I would say that point 4 is even more troubling than point 3, since at least there _is_ some kind of penalty for having little food.
Possible ways of "fixing" point 3 (basically by adding more penalties) include:
1) Making the player lose a manalink, when they reach zero food;
2) Teleporting the player to a random place in the map;
3) Make player lose a fraction (or all) of their gold;
4) Make player lose a random card;
5) Combination of any of the above.
The logic within the game's world would be... if you run out of food, you faint. Which means that you can be robbed and transported elsewhere without noticing
Regarding point 4, the ways of fixing would probably involve some form of penalty for carrying too much food. The underlying game logic is that, if you have more food, you are more likely to eat more, lose more and have more food spoilage. In this sense, I think point 1 should be modified so that food loss is dynamic and dependent on the amount of food carried.
In practical terms, a possible way of implementing something like this is: rather than having a constant food loss rate (let's call it "k"), you would define a maximum and minumum food loss rate (k_max and k_min, which correspond to the food loss rate when food=infinity and when food=0), along with a reference food value (food_ref, i.e. the food level at which the rate of food loss is halfway between the maximum and the minimum). Then, the rate of food loss can be dynamically calculated as such:
loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * (1 / (1 + (food_ref / food)))
rather than..
loss per distance unit = k
This would imply that:
When food = 0... food loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * 0 = k_min
When food = 1/2 * food_ref... food loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * (1/3)
When food = food_ref... food loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * (1/2)
When food = 2 * food_ref... food loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * (2/3)
When food = inf... food loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * 1 = k_max
All these parameters (k_min, k_max and food_ref) could be different depending on difficulty level: k_min should increase slightly with increased difficulty, k_max should increase significantly with increased difficulty and food_ref should decrease slightly with increased difficulty.
Furthermore, I would recommend also changing point 2, so that food costs are more dynamic (e.g. food in villages should cost between 5 and 15).
What all these changes would entail in terms of gameplay is that the player would have an incentive to carry a reasonable amount of food at all times (never too little and never too much) and would force the player to pay more attention to the cost of food in each village (stocking up whenever they find a village where food is cheap). This effect should be exacerbated on higher difficulty levels.
I just leave this here as a proposal and to let people comment and brainstorm on it, as I imagine implementing this is not trivial. Also, I assume that some people would not like these type of changes to the game, so I guess making the changes optional (and configurable via .ini file) would be the best, if any are ever to be implemented.
The way I see if (and, please, correct me if I'm wrong), the concept of food in Shandalar works along the lines of:
1) Food is lost proportionally to distance traveled (possibly gained instead, if you have the correct World Magic and are in forest terrain);
2) You can buy food in villages and towns (at a mostly fixed cost), but can't sell it;
3) If food reaches zero, the only penalty is that one walks slower;
4) There is no penalty for having any arbitrarily large amount of food (other than the very rare possibility of losing half your food, in a random event, if i recall correctly).
My problem with the system is mostly regarding points 3 and 4. Point 3 implies that it is possible to play the whole game without ever buying food, which shouldn't be possible. Point 4 implies that (and I assume everyone does this, but I can't be sure) as soon as the player has enough money, they will go to a village (where food is cheaper), buy 300+ food and they'll mostly never have to worry about buying food ever, which makes the whole system/mechanic almost pointless from a gameplay perspective.
I would say that point 4 is even more troubling than point 3, since at least there _is_ some kind of penalty for having little food.
Possible ways of "fixing" point 3 (basically by adding more penalties) include:
1) Making the player lose a manalink, when they reach zero food;
2) Teleporting the player to a random place in the map;
3) Make player lose a fraction (or all) of their gold;
4) Make player lose a random card;
5) Combination of any of the above.
The logic within the game's world would be... if you run out of food, you faint. Which means that you can be robbed and transported elsewhere without noticing
Regarding point 4, the ways of fixing would probably involve some form of penalty for carrying too much food. The underlying game logic is that, if you have more food, you are more likely to eat more, lose more and have more food spoilage. In this sense, I think point 1 should be modified so that food loss is dynamic and dependent on the amount of food carried.
In practical terms, a possible way of implementing something like this is: rather than having a constant food loss rate (let's call it "k"), you would define a maximum and minumum food loss rate (k_max and k_min, which correspond to the food loss rate when food=infinity and when food=0), along with a reference food value (food_ref, i.e. the food level at which the rate of food loss is halfway between the maximum and the minimum). Then, the rate of food loss can be dynamically calculated as such:
loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * (1 / (1 + (food_ref / food)))
rather than..
loss per distance unit = k
This would imply that:
When food = 0... food loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * 0 = k_min
When food = 1/2 * food_ref... food loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * (1/3)
When food = food_ref... food loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * (1/2)
When food = 2 * food_ref... food loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * (2/3)
When food = inf... food loss per distance unit = k_min + (k_max - k_min) * 1 = k_max
All these parameters (k_min, k_max and food_ref) could be different depending on difficulty level: k_min should increase slightly with increased difficulty, k_max should increase significantly with increased difficulty and food_ref should decrease slightly with increased difficulty.
Furthermore, I would recommend also changing point 2, so that food costs are more dynamic (e.g. food in villages should cost between 5 and 15).
What all these changes would entail in terms of gameplay is that the player would have an incentive to carry a reasonable amount of food at all times (never too little and never too much) and would force the player to pay more attention to the cost of food in each village (stocking up whenever they find a village where food is cheap). This effect should be exacerbated on higher difficulty levels.
I just leave this here as a proposal and to let people comment and brainstorm on it, as I imagine implementing this is not trivial. Also, I assume that some people would not like these type of changes to the game, so I guess making the changes optional (and configurable via .ini file) would be the best, if any are ever to be implemented.
Last edited by quatrocentos-e-vinte on 27 May 2015, 12:33, edited 2 times in total.
Comments
Posted by stassy » 29 May 2015, 05:00
Maybe those penalties for 3) would be applied to a speedrun or dungeon crawler run, but they are a bit harsh imo
The most logical consequence for being foodless would be to have life penatly, like max life reduction, or a poison Asp like debuff starting at each round (the most extreme case would be, like a poison rpg debuff, a -1 life per step until life=1, but this could be rather kept for a hard mode run, like a Challenge mode).
Though in the Magic world, especially in Shandalar, you are a magician that can summon dwagons, lightning bolts and teleport anywhere and yet not being able to create apples...
The most logical consequence for being foodless would be to have life penatly, like max life reduction, or a poison Asp like debuff starting at each round (the most extreme case would be, like a poison rpg debuff, a -1 life per step until life=1, but this could be rather kept for a hard mode run, like a Challenge mode).
Though in the Magic world, especially in Shandalar, you are a magician that can summon dwagons, lightning bolts and teleport anywhere and yet not being able to create apples...
Posted by quatrocentos-e-vinte » 29 May 2015, 09:02
Your idea is so much better than mine, stassy 
use the food as a way of messing up the "card game" part of the game, rather than "rpg" part of the game...
I particularly like the idea of adding a Nafs Asp effect (call it 'Hunger' or whatever) every round, when the character is "foodless": it helps to show that, though you can't "create apples", you can always use mana to quench away your hunger
alternatively, something that scales with difficulty, like:
1) Easy: every turn, Nafs Asp effect with 20% probability
2) Medium Low: every turn, Nafs Asp effect with 50% probability
3) Medium High: every turn, Nafs Asp effect with 75% probability
4) Difficult: every turn, Nafs Asp effect with 90% probability
...since, yeah... you never know when hunger strikes
Oh well... one day, maybe
use the food as a way of messing up the "card game" part of the game, rather than "rpg" part of the game...I particularly like the idea of adding a Nafs Asp effect (call it 'Hunger' or whatever) every round, when the character is "foodless": it helps to show that, though you can't "create apples", you can always use mana to quench away your hunger
alternatively, something that scales with difficulty, like:1) Easy: every turn, Nafs Asp effect with 20% probability
2) Medium Low: every turn, Nafs Asp effect with 50% probability
3) Medium High: every turn, Nafs Asp effect with 75% probability
4) Difficult: every turn, Nafs Asp effect with 90% probability
...since, yeah... you never know when hunger strikes
Oh well... one day, maybe
2 Posts
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Ticket details
- Ticket ID: 585
- Project: Shandalar
- Status: New
- Component: (unknown)
- Project version: (unknown)
- Priority: Normal
- Assigned to: (unassigned)
- Reported by: quatrocentos-e-vinte
- Reporter's tickets: List all tickets
- Reported on: 27 May 2015, 12:27
- Last visited by Korath » 01 Aug 2015, 03:08.