The Ur-Quan Masters Home Page Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
December 05, 2024, 04:19:37 pm
Home Help Search Login Register
News: Celebrating 30 years of Star Control 2 - The Ur-Quan Masters

+  The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum
|-+  The Ur-Quan Masters Re-Release
| |-+  General UQM Discussion (Moderator: Death 999)
| | |-+  Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« previous next »
Pages: [1] 2 3 Print
Author Topic: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.  (Read 6767 times)
Aya Reiko
Zebranky food
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 36


Bewitching Smile Amethyst


View Profile
Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« on: March 09, 2007, 07:47:50 am »

Here's an idea I've brainstormed for the main game. 

When selecting 'New Game', you are then taken to a menu with the options of 'Normal' and 'Hard Mode'.  'Normal' is normal game settings.  'Hard Mode' has all enemy ships fighting on 'Awesome Cyborg' skill level and the game starts one year later than 'Normal'  (so you have one year less before the Kohr-Ah starts cleansing).  Maybe a few other changes to make the game more challenging...

Is this a good idea?  Is it even possible?
Logged



Cedric6014
Enlightened
*****
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 701



View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2007, 08:28:14 am »

I think changing combat AI to Awesome is a good idea.

But there's not much point changing the events clock - that doesn't necessarily make it harder - it would only do so for first time players. ONce youve played it - you know ehrer everything is and you can clock it in 2 years. And lets face it, for a first time player the wonder of discovering the vast universe at your leisure is  the best thing about the game
Logged

Play online melee here! http://irc.uqm.stack.nl/
Novus
Enlightened
*****
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 1938


Fot or not?


View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #2 on: March 09, 2007, 09:00:24 am »

When selecting 'New Game', you are then taken to a menu with the options of 'Normal' and 'Hard Mode'.  'Normal' is normal game settings.  'Hard Mode' has all enemy ships fighting on 'Awesome Cyborg' skill level and the game starts one year later than 'Normal'  (so you have one year less before the Kohr-Ah starts cleansing).  Maybe a few other changes to make the game more challenging...

Is this a good idea?  Is it even possible?
I think I suggested something similar a while ago. Adjusting the Kohr-Ah death march time is easy, and changing the AI to use in full game shouldn't be too hard. Other possible changes I can think of right now to make the game harder include higher crew and/or fuel cost, more or faster enemy fleets in spheres of influence and removing the free ships some races give you.
Logged

RTFM = Read the fine manual.
RTTFAQ = Read the Ur-Quan Masters Technical FAQ.
Valaggar
Guest


Email
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #3 on: March 09, 2007, 02:22:50 pm »

Changing the cleansing date is pointless.
AI to Awesome is not much, since anyway the AI is S-T-U-P-I-D.
And the removal of certain hints would work only for first time players.
Plus, such a thing would reduce the immersion.
Novus' suggestion with more and faster battlegroups and more expensive fuel and crew is a BRILLIANT idea, though.

Besides that, the only way to change the difficulty is to design a stronger AI.
Logged
Novus
Enlightened
*****
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 1938


Fot or not?


View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #4 on: March 09, 2007, 03:17:20 pm »

Besides that, the only way to change the difficulty is to design a stronger AI.
There's been a lot of discussion about that, but it's not going to be easy.

Here's an (impractical but interesting) idea: use the netplay facilities to provide an opposing human player for each (full game) battle (switching to AI if no one is available). This could mess up game balance, but it would make the battles a lot more interesting (except from the viewpoint of the poor sucker who has to play against a horribly overpowered flagship).

That last part suggests an additional thing to make the game harder: weaken the flagship. I suggest cutting down combat speed (or possibly decreasing the maximum thrusters, slowing it down in HyperSpace too) and removing the high-powered weaponry from the game completely (the Melnorme never sell it).

To make things even more interesting, how about having mixed Hierarchy battle groups? While this wouldn't always fit the plot (for example, the Yehat revolution and Thraddash offensives don't make much sense with a large amount of other Hierarchy ships around), it would make the battles much more varied (and harder, since you can't always apply the right ship against each enemy).
Logged

RTFM = Read the fine manual.
RTTFAQ = Read the Ur-Quan Masters Technical FAQ.
Aya Reiko
Zebranky food
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 36


Bewitching Smile Amethyst


View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2007, 01:01:08 am »

When selecting 'New Game', you are then taken to a menu with the options of 'Normal' and 'Hard Mode'.  'Normal' is normal game settings.  'Hard Mode' has all enemy ships fighting on 'Awesome Cyborg' skill level and the game starts one year later than 'Normal'  (so you have one year less before the Kohr-Ah starts cleansing).  Maybe a few other changes to make the game more challenging...

Is this a good idea?  Is it even possible?
I think I suggested something similar a while ago. Adjusting the Kohr-Ah death march time is easy, and changing the AI to use in full game shouldn't be too hard. Other possible changes I can think of right now to make the game harder include higher crew and/or fuel cost, more or faster enemy fleets in spheres of influence and removing the free ships some races give you.
Don't forget to up the Module/lander costs.

Another idea, though I'm not sure if it would make much of a difference, is to have hostile fleets have more ships within them.

If possible, have hostile fleets appear dead ahead of your fleet, so, unless you change course, you will almost likely run into them.
Logged



Valaggar
Guest


Email
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2007, 08:22:27 am »

Quote from: Aya Reiko
If possible, have hostile fleets appear dead ahead of your fleet, so, unless you change course, you will almost likely run into them.

Fleets appearing only ahead? Good idea! And you turn to avoid them, but run into another battlegroup... Har! Har! Har!

Quote from: Aya Reiko
Another idea, though I'm not sure if it would make much of a difference, is to have hostile fleets have more ships within them.
I fear that such a thing would LOWER the difficulty since more enemy ships mean more RU. Only if they're also smarter...
Logged
countchocula86
*Smell* controller
****
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 345


Culture 20!


View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2007, 08:36:53 am »

Maybe under this 'hard'  mode, ships don't produce RU, and maybe minerals are reduced in value too, to make it overall harder to do.
Logged

I like to think you killed a man. It's the romantic in me.
Spektrowski
Frungy champion
**
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 77



View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #8 on: March 11, 2007, 09:47:39 am »

Just off the top of my beak Smiley
Increase the price of Melnorme's technological upgrades.
Make "Evil Ones" on Spathiwa really evil and mean (to a certain degree).
Cancel the feature of using 'Caster to summon Melnorme in Hyperspace.
Increase the Portal Spawner and emergency escape unit's fuel usage.
Increase the number of Mycon ships guarding the Sun Device.
Have Zelnick actually FIGHT admiral ZEX on his upgraded VUX ship (increased thrust and turn rate, maybe) and a small fleet of VUX after delivering the VUX beast.
Have a small (5% or so) chance that any ship in your battlegroup would be acting weird (badly responding to controls, firing randomly etc.) after you get Talking Pet aboard the flagship. Before such "weird" battle, get the Talking Pet on the screen saying "The Umgah restored my intelligence, but they'd also tweaked something in my mind, and I'd become playful and humourous. I decided to have fun with some of your ships. HAR! HAR! HAR!" or something.
Logged
Koowluh
*Smell* controller
****
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 382



View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #9 on: March 11, 2007, 10:38:57 am »

- A similar suggestion to acquiring RUs: move a few of the high yield systems away from Sol.

- Enemy shots do more damage, yours do less. One or two hits from a dreadnought and you'll be sucking vacuum.

EDIT: to clarify this one a bit. If you took 1 crew off per shot, you'll now have to shoot (and hit) twice to take a crewmember off, effectively making battles twice as long (or whatever variable you wish to use)

- Enemy ships have a higher refuel capacity, increasing their Rate of Fire -> more damage delivered.

- When entering combat, randomly remove 1 or 2 ships from the fleet to choose from: they're on "shore leave." Fwiffo needs a break here and there too you know.

- Make Hyperspace/Truespace/Quasispace twice as long to traverse. The time limit will press more on you then, making it so that you actually have to plan a bit more. Combine it with less/randomly scattered RUs and you got a challenge.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2007, 10:45:47 am by Koowluh » Logged

I hate drugs. Air is the worst one. Breathe it once and you're hooked for life.
Novus
Enlightened
*****
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 1938


Fot or not?


View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2007, 11:18:43 am »

- When entering combat, randomly remove 1 or 2 ships from the fleet to choose from: they're on "shore leave." Fwiffo needs a break here and there too you know.
Minor variation: How about having Spathi ships warp out at random before combat if the opposition is too scary?
Logged

RTFM = Read the fine manual.
RTTFAQ = Read the Ur-Quan Masters Technical FAQ.
Megagun
Enlightened
*****
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 580


Moo


View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2007, 01:17:58 pm »

Myself, I'm rather opposed to "price changes" or "value changes", for various reasons, one being that a true SC2 player would still know where all homeworlds are, etc. So in an ideal situatio, homeworlds and artefact locations should be randomized. Unfortunately, that will cause problems because of the speech (you *do* want starnames to be randomized, too, otherwise it's a 'search for this star to win'-game..)

Still, here are some of my other ideas (some of which *do* include value changes)

-Add random Ur-Quan Kzer-Za attacks in Sol. This would keep the pressure up for you a bit. Make it so that at the start of the game, none appear, and about a year into the game,  more Kzer-Za will appear at more regular intervals...
-Replace Sol to a more difficult location, such as one near Ur-Quan space, or one at the bottom left near Pkunk/Ilwrath space.
-Increase the ammount of Slylandro Probes, decrease severely the RU profit for destroying them.
-Decrease the effect thrusters and turning jets have on your Flagship a bit. This will remove the 'I am faster than everything so you can't touch me!' thing a lot of people are going for early in the game.
Logged
Koowluh
*Smell* controller
****
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 382



View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2007, 01:22:34 pm »

- When entering combat, randomly remove 1 or 2 ships from the fleet to choose from: they're on "shore leave." Fwiffo needs a break here and there too you know.
Minor variation: How about having Spathi ships warp out at random before combat if the opposition is too scary?

You mean "strategically redeploy " ? Sounds good, but I would not make them run from each and every enemy. Let's say you'd only make them run from the enemies with a larger rating than themselves.

Another one that I thought of: limit the amount of modules on your flagship. Let's say you can only have 1 gun, or 2 crew/mining pods or only a certain amount of dynamos/shivas. This idea goes much like giving the flagship less thrusters and/or traversing hyperspace/quasispace taking a lot longer.

Personally, I am not too fond of making the flagship sluggier. It would only mean that the game would become more a drag than actually more difficult. I'd seek solutions with upping the enemy ships instead of downing the player's (and yes, I may be contradicting my posts a bit here, but then again my suggestions weren't all fun fun either).

(I see that Megagun posted while I was writing my reply, but it seems we are on one line here)
Logged

I hate drugs. Air is the worst one. Breathe it once and you're hooked for life.
Valaggar
Guest


Email
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2007, 03:12:38 pm »

Yes - greater prices, less income, less modules, a smaller fleet, cowardly Spathis, more, faster and larger enemy battlegroups that spawn just in your way, better AI, no income from scavenging enemy ships, more aggresive Bio Data  Grin, etc. etc. And a difficulty level customization option.
And for the puzzle part of the game, besides less hints, map randomization is just what we need. With random names.
But then, how can the hints be made? Simple: "On a direct line that passes through our star and Epsilon Muscae" remains the same, as the similar hints, so the randomizer places the equivalent of Beta Corvi on that line.
But when the Melnorme guide you to Beta Aquarii, for example? Especially since the star has another name now.
Perhaps they just say something like "coreward" or such a thing? Speech is not a problem, for small segment and for the Melnorme splicing works (as I did with the "Missing Dialogue").
Logged
Aya Reiko
Zebranky food
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 36


Bewitching Smile Amethyst


View Profile
Re: Concept idea, Main Game difficulty setting.
« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2007, 09:53:25 pm »

Quote from: Aya Reiko
Another idea, though I'm not sure if it would make much of a difference, is to have hostile fleets have more ships within them.
I fear that such a thing would LOWER the difficulty since more enemy ships mean more RU. Only if they're also smarter...
[/quote]
Unless, of course, the salvage RU is halved also.
Logged



Pages: [1] 2 3 Print 
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!