..Well, it's time to have a chat again...
Another interesting and fun IBT is coming to a close, but don't despair it's time to prepare for IBT#4! yay!!!
So get out the pen and paper, put on your thinking cap and lets start developing.
Those who have been following along from the beginning will know I'm a firm believer in giving everyone's ideas a fair go and that's what Steemit is all about.
IBT is for all Steemians, created by Steemians and I'm even thinking why not run by multiple Steemians (vs. just myself).
I have some ideas for the next one - some tech devy, some to improve game play, some just outright bizarre.
..but for now I hand it over to the IBT/Steemit community, what do you want?
Some general things to consider:
- How can we make it better?
- What parts were most fun and you wouldn't want to change?
- Was the whole thing totally rubbish?
- How do we attract some Upvoters for bigger prizes?
Nothing is sacred, there are no limits, let it all out!!
Please reply below with your IBT feedback and with any ideas for improvement below
Cheers and Beers!
lordnigel
Special thanks to @spaceginger for his artistic skills with the Interactive Battle Tournament Image above. Other images were captured from the abandonware game lands of lore or taken by me.
Collectively, I think the playerbase learned a lot and got a lot of data. I've got quite some feedback to provide, enough that I think it will be better if I split each topic of discussion into a different comment. For my first comment I'm going to address the issue of flow/pacing.
It felt like that in this tournament the battles were too rushed and came too quickly. The consequences of this were in my opinion, quite significant. Multiple players ended up forgetting to do things and went on to the next stage before they should/could have, while other players who were slower to respond and complete their gameplay activities really fell off the pace.
Assuming that the next tournament follows a similar structure, I'm going to suggest that the solution to this would be to post no more than one battle per day. That will allow slower players to not fall too far behind too quickly, and it will also give you and anyone else auditing the time to double-check and make sure that no player is rushing into the next stage before they should (as well as risk potential future winnings in the process for invalid gameplay).
Also, there needs to be a more organized way to see who has progressed to where. To address this, I'd like to suggest a new rule be added that requires a player who is successful in battle to make a comment stating that they are leaving the current stage before they move on to the next. Doing this will also address the cross-stage loophole that I found and tried to use (albeit in the end all it really did was allow bunny fluff to advance one more stage). And just in case, you might as well add an official rule that combat on a particular stage (PvP or PvNPC) can only occur between those players and NPCs who are actually still there.
I think that's about it on the topic of flow/pacing. My next comment will deal with loot.
Sweet some good ideas there, and yeah definitely the posts came a bit to quick. It also made it hard for me to help people...Definately some way of tracking where people are at...hmmnn let me think a bit, certainly people could self declare, but i wonder if there is a cool way..
At the time I was thinking how will I keep the campaign map upto date as once 7 days are passed, I can't update it anymore...Ideally need some way to deal with that..I guess I could split the map up over two posts OR have less stages, either way means a re-design of the map (which I was hoping I didn't have to do - trying to have a generic repeatable campaign map), mainly as if i need a new one have to get someone talented to create for us..and is allot of hard work I'm sure..Some thought provoking ideas & great feedback - keep them coming :)
Hmmmm... in that case, would it be sufficient to do this... ?
Day 1 - stages 1 and 2
Day 2 - stage 3
Day 3 - stage 4
Day 4 - stage 5
Day 5 - stage 6 and final boss
(I'm getting sleepy now so no further feedback from me for a bit. I will get that loot feedback posted within the next 24 hours though.)
No worries, yeah past my bed time also....i will think on also and have a chat to artist, maybe splitting up over 2 not worse thing ever or perhaps an entire rethink when taking into account tracking people....will sleep on mate :)
The biggest thing for me would be if you tag the players in the round posts. That way, ginabot could let me know when it goes up.
With the upvote, you could buy 1k Steem and send it to me. I promise to upvote IBT religiously!
Haha Some interesting ideas which benefit the player(s).
1K Steem...hmn true I did say Nothing is sacred, so I'll consider (probably not for long though lol!)
Any ideas about game play.. did you like the campaign map?
I like the map, it was useful when I was catching up on rounds. This was my first time, so it took me a few rounds to understand what was happening!
Maybe another idea would be to schedule posts around the 24 hours, so you don't favour any time zone?
Fantastic! thanks bengy. Will take note of ideas and mark for consideration.
If you think of more come back :). I also give at least one more opportunity for people to comment before i start a new IBT.. a post where i basically outlay what i'm gonna go with and do a final sanity check (plus raise some prize money).
Please keep an eye open for this as well and comment, would be appreciated.
P.S. You did really well in IBT#3...
Cheers for now
I must say, This round turned out much better than I could have thought.
The introductions of the items was awesome!
However....
I don't think they should stack.
They should be used for only that round.
Or It can be in inventory and the player must use it.
It did make for an interesting game. That is for sure!
Hey man, some goods point with items -I have asked some of our resident IBT bot programmers if an automated way of tracking inventory is possible and I provided a particular way I think it could be achieved..however it's allot of work and may not be possible (jury is still out).
I tend to agree though, if it can't be automated, then we need to keep each stage a bit more independent and it makes sense use it or lose it for the round :). It will also make it a bit easier for people to follow and hopefully self manage :)
I died really early in this tournament but I have to say that it is a great idea and was much fun :)
I don't have very much constructive critisism because I think everything was mentioned before. But I wanted to say that I really liked it :)
Hey snap,
Yeah i think like items comment, maybe we have life points per round and everyone can play each round regardless as long as you have enroled..some more thinking to do :)
Thanks for the good feedback as well (everyone who put in something will be appreciative of such comments).
Cheers
IBT#4 is running, yay!! Enrolment timez..
Ok, as promised... the discussion about loot.
I think the current stacking rules are actually fine, as is the process of pickpocketing (for thieves). I see pickpocketing as a choice for a thief to make as to whether or not they want to be the aggressor/attacker against an NPC, except that instead of trying to inflict damage they want loot instead. As with any other aggressor activity in the IBT, that should come with risks (in this case, the prospect of picking up a bad item and not having the option to decline said bad item).
Gobbo loot is a different story, since Gobbo is always the aggressor/attacker and the player is always defending if they choose to engage. Consequently, there should be no purely bad items to drop from Gobbo -- maybe there can be Gobbo-exclusive mixed effect items (both positive and negative stuff on the same item) and/or risky items (that increase the risk and potential reward to the player). In addition, players should have the option to decline Gobbo loot (just like they can decline PvP loot when defending) if they don't want to take on the potential negative effect.
Also, players who got to the boss battle in great shape (with huge passive bonuses relative to other players) did so thanks to great luck. And as we saw in this IBT, that caused at least one player to engage in kamikaze PvP because they had no items to carry through. All that tells me that in order to counter the potential imbalance due to the differences of loot luck between players, there needs to be some sort of desperation item that offers its user one final chance at glory. This item can be a Gobbo-exclusive as well.
So here are examples of Gobbo-exclusive items that I would propose:
risky dice -- Passive effect: 3 becomes 0 and 4 becomes 7 on dice rolls, effectively making the die 0, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7. This would apply to the roll of each 6-sided die and the effect is applied before any other effects, including passives (except for the "desperation item" which I'll get to later).
bipolar dice -- Passive effect: +2 (or +1) to player's roll on odd-numbered stages, -2 (or -1) to player's roll on even-numbered stages. This design assumes the final boss battle to be "stage 7".
Boombox of Doom -- The single-use "desperation item". If a player chooses to use this item, the boombox will play a song and attract a Gobbo who would throw a die like normal. It also attracts a mercenary character (e.g. an assassin) who will kill the Gobbo immediately. The player's goal then is to match the dead Gobbo's roll, so it's effectively a 1 in 6 chance. (All modifiers to both player and enemy are voided for the matching rolls.) If they successfully match, the mercenary becomes the player's ally for the current stage and instantly defeats that stage's enemy, counting as an automatic first roll victory regardless of what else the player did on that stage. (If this is during the final boss battle, that is good for an instant IBT win.) The cost of failure is the mercenary turning against the player, resulting in the loss of all life points and immediate elimination from the tournament.
So overall, I think loot changes only need to be made on the Gobbos' side. Give Gobbo a separate loot table with no purely bad items and allow the player to decline Gobbo loot if they don't like the potential risks.
Some great ideas - need to re-read a bit later, but from first pas..
Gut feel, but definitely not ruling anything out :)...
-Gobbo with non-negative items I think is a very good idea.
-Items that stack, probably stick with....but thinking they won't carry across stages (unless I get more interest from bot designers for a inventory).
-The risky/last ditch dice is interesting...has me thinking alittle about classes and dices specific to classes. For instance if your a warrior you could go, hey I want to do a jab roll...or say your desperate you can roll a diff dice that is more like a wild blow...the wild blow has less chance to hit, but if it does you Smack for a much higher dice roll. So like, instead of having a typical six sided dice have a quick blow 1 - 6 dice always hit, and your hit strength is pending number....if do Smack die, it's a 6 sided dice, but instead of having one to six, 3 sides say "miss" and the other 3 say "7, 8 , 9"....Shall think on some more.@gobbo
Gobbo sneaks in and steals all the dice.
He laughs like a jerk and throws a die.
The sneaky git rolls a 5.
IBT has been probably my favorite contest I have been a part of on Steemit to date. I have participated in 2 of them so far and they keep getting better. But I do have a few suggestions from this last tournament regarding the new item system. I loved the introduction of items, but it feels that item acquisition is highly in favor of thieves. With that being said, I have a couple of suggestions I feel could help with this.
1st is regarding the thieves’ pickpocket. Right now thieves can use this skill without restriction. The only negative being the possibility of receiving a negative item. I was thinking maybe you could implement a system that would imply using pickpocket would require skill. For that I have two thoughts, one being a player managed system, the second being an automated bot controlled function if possible.
Player managed: Require a dice roll of 4, 5, or 6 to be eligible to use the pickpocket function. The player would have to attack the Foe first and if the dice roll is 4 – 6 they could then use pickpocket if they chose. If the player used the function with a roll of 1 – 3 then this would imply a failure and the player would lose one life point.
Bot Function: I’m not sure if it is possible but I was thinking to maybe add a dice roll to the pickpocket bot. Rolls of 4 – 6 would be a success and the player would get their item. Rolls of 1 – 3 would be a fail and the player would lose a life point.
The loss of a life point for failures may be a bit excessive though considering the negative that is already in play with this. The possibility of getting a negative item when you pickpocket should be enough to make people not want to pickpocket at every opportunity.
2nd is regarding item acquisition for the other 2 classes, Wizards and Warriors. Right not the main way to get your hands on some items as one of these classes is through Gobbo, well the item store as well but their stock is limited. This sneaky lil git has a tendency of not coming around when you’re really looking for him. I only have one suggestion when it comes to Gobbo.
Bot Function: I was thinking to have Gobbo automatically summoned if the player rolls a 1 or 2 against the foe. I’m not sure if it is possible, but I was thinking this could be added to the coding of “rollthedice” bot.
I think this would help warriors and wizards acquire items as well since it seems that items are ultimately what gives players the edge to do well.
Nice there are some great ideas here - yeah, your right the thief class did feel very OP...keep in mind a Wizard actually came equal first. Still I agree..the concept of a roll to see if your successfully pickpocket works good. What we could do is even not have a thief class at all and give everyone the chance to pickpocket...So a Warrior, Wizard and I don't know say a Ranger..
I think Gobbo popping up auto on a particular dice roll is a good idea, and im sure it could be worked out...I think need to be just one number of something...so say you roll a 1. which is a pretty crap number, bang! gobbo comes at ya. IF you win against him you get a positive item and get to roll again or something...thus not leaving you bashing your head at screen after seeing the 1 haha. but yeah of course if gobbo beats you, you still lose a life point anyways and must try again...something like this.
With all these great ideas i'll do a kind of summary post soon and maybe get people to upvote what they like best...
..Also before I sleep.. thanks for the nice comments, as the main organiser and on behalf of those who helped, contributed things, played etc, its great to know people like it and it's adding value to steemit! this is the feedback that makes it worth it - you did so well and must be part of IBt#4 - cheers :)
Hello, new here. This roleplay game has been highly recommended :D (I've heard I can enter with dragon xD )
I'd just like to ask for the old set of rules to understand what's going on or when the new game begins to have a list the new people joining.
Hello your welcome to join when the enrolments start for IBT#4. If you want to see how it played out last time, just look back through my posts.
Heres a quick movie: https://steemit.com/contest/@lordnigel/uxek6zj7
Unfortunately I can't provide you a list of people joining, but they will all be on the enrolment post and if you want to play just enrol your dragon then.
The latest updates are here: https://steemit.com/contest/@lordnigel/interactive-battle-tournament-ibt-4-is-nearly-here-are-you-ready
Thank you very much! Looking forward to it :D
Hey, that was pretty awesome!