Hardcore Characters?

[Baaleos]

Has anyone played diablo 2 before?

I was wondering if anyone would ever want hardcore characters in nwn.



Hardcore Characters are basically where if they die, even once, their character becomes unplayable.

The idea is that it is more realistic, and players who manage to play in this mode, get additional rewards.


I am tempted to add an optional hardcore mode for my players, and just wanted to know if you think such a thing would be welcomed by the nwn veterans, assuming the players got equal benefits from the change.



Eg - Maybe give them access to better equipment, or increased drops or something, in exchange for their 'singular' lives?


Would be easy enough to install such a system,


//This goes into the ondeath script
int IsHardCore(object oPlayer)
{
//Script to look for local variable
//If present, execute the custom death script - has the delete character bic script in it.
}

//on login run this - to load the hardcore setting onto the character - It is quicker to check a variable on a character, than in the database
void LoadHardCore(object oPlayer)
{
//SQL Query here to load from database whether or not the character is flagged as hardcore, if yes then we set the LocalInt on the character for Hardcore to be a 1.

}


Also - Treasure scripts, that use a % modifyer, can be altered to detect the 'hardcore'yness of a player, and if they are hardcore, increase the % of treasure drops by 5%-10%.

[ShaDoOoW]

of course and you event don't need nwnx
_________________
Community Patch / NWNX Patch / NWNX Files / NWNX Connect

[Baaleos]

true
The perma death can be scripted to use nwnx or non-nwnx.
For non-nwnx
Kill the player when they log in - Problem with this approach is that players could resurrect them. Unless I added spellhook to resurrect, and told it to kill the player again, if they are hardcore and dead.

However, deleting the character via nwnx also eliminates the hassle of players sending me messages saying
'Please make me alive again!!'. Lol

Instead they would be saying
'Please make me un-deleted again!!' Lol


It is do-able either way, but I think most people use nwnx these days, so it makes sense to make it nwnx compat.

[Asparius]

I would solve this problem by booting dead character OnEnter and regular cleaning of servervault - no need to instantly delete it, when player cant play... and it is simple to do.

One note though - in Diablo 2 timeout limit was about 5-10 seconds. in NWN it is 60 seconds (I asked if it can be lowered, but no response ), so every disconnect gives players a good chance of dying.

There's also PvP / PK problem, again Diablo has some strict rules for PvP (you could attack others only if turned hostile, that was possible in town only , and killing - outside only. When a way was found to circumvent this (via hacks like tppk), it practically killed team HC playing.
NWN allow to attack even without turning hostile...

[Baaleos]

Good Point

So another words, PVP would be the main issue. Not much can be done for Disconnects unfortunatly.



PVP could be solved through the death script.

Eg - GetLastKilledBy(); - If the object returned by this is a player, then we dont instigate the Hardcore Rules - and the player stays alive.

This would solve the PVP problem - Could even make the script more advanced by adding in a toggle switch of sorts, allowing players to choose whether they want to be pvp-killable or not. Doing so could give them an even greater bonus to treasure find. Eg - 25% more likely to get better loot.
Obviously the trade off is that being killed by player or monster means insta-death and no chance of playing on that character again. Unless they have a special item that grants a one shot spare 'life'.

It seems pretty do-able.
Also - the GetLastKilledBy() can be used to eliminate the possiblity of friendly fire deaths.
Eg - If the killer is in same party as the dead player, then the death was likely an accident - so we can choose to enforce hardcore rules or not.

[Asparius]

One more thing: PvP can be done with means like summoning balor without protection from evil, paralyzing and luring monsters to paralyzed etc.