Options menu cleanup

Game Talk The Drawing Board
21

Honestly I think skills should have a main stat in which it abides by. Electronics & computers for example would be int based etc. Then have skill rust be completely based on stats in which then those stats would base on the cap of those skills and how fast they rust in terms of how high the stat is for those skills.

Of course this way if something were to majorly change with not being able to set the options to how everyone wanted and were happy with then least people could still make character builds to how they want there character to be as in a brute, tech specialist or just the average joe but could not be both at the start.

Not a perfect idea but I think you get the point I am trying to make of course.

22

I can see intelligence and perception being related to retaining skills and learning skills, but I don’t see how your strength or dexterity could have a primary role in retaining skill.

However I would like to see there be stat based skill caps concerning how high you can raise a skill.
Currently, a guy with 4 intelligence could become an expert at computers, and a guy with 4 perception can become an excellent marksman.

23

Skill caps work OK in LCS. Probably something to do with the whole “squad” thing: the Founder only realy needs to persuade one other person…and it can snowball from there.

In Cata, where it’s you against everything, it kinda helps to be able to excel as needed.

24

[quote=“KA101, post:23, topic:2490”]Skill caps work OK in LCS. Probably something to do with the whole “squad” thing: the Founder only realy needs to persuade one other person…and it can snowball from there.

In Cata, where it’s you against everything, it kinda helps to be able to excel as needed.[/quote]
Yea, I’d be okay with a skill gain multiplier rather than a cap, but having anything other than intelligence effect skill rust seems awkward.
If you’re clumsy and weak, I can’t see you learning martial arts rapidly, just like if you’re clumsy and half blind I don’t see you learning firearms rapidly, with enough effort you could probably become great at either though.

25

I’ve never really agreed with Kevin’s realism outlook, and I still don’t here.

Give people options. The devbase is 100 people strong, so even they’re not going to agree. I thought the game was open source?

Somebody’s going to want the option for everything. Make it less unwieldy by making the more important options sorted against the more miscellaneous ones. Make it actually look good.

26
y Some of them make balancing the game impossible, like disabling skill rust, because one set of players has strictly limited skill levels, but another has no such limit.
Thus an advanced options section,where it's known changing stuff there can break balance.

Personally I see no balance issue in turning off zed revival, especially with a new option to control the amount…

But apparently people’s opinion do not matter; return of the living dead respawning zeds are now manditory, and the game has just become more annoying and less fun for half the people in this post.

27

Exactly. Why make the game less fun for anyone? Give options for as many things as we can. It’s open source, so even if we took away options (what?) people would still submit tons of pull requests to get them back in.

It’s just stupid dumb.

28

Sometimes devs lock in on their ideas. (Memories of GlyphGryph & HP Ignorant come to mind.) Perhaps the options add a lot of extra code here & there. Haven’t looked.

Yeah, I like more options. I’m still unhappy that Dynamic is (allegedly) “broken”. Played fine, last I played. I like having zeds being as available as anything else.

FTR, I play with respawns and with the recipe list fixed. Never tried the other setting: I get a build I like and tend to park there. Unilaterally changing it to the other setting isn’t pleasurable, but wev.

I’m fond of Moar Options–but suspect a rollback isn’t going to happen. :-/

29

Did they already take options out?

Well, there goes all my interest in playing.

30

Two options: whether to sort crafting recipes by fixed-list or by whether you can actually make them (now by make-ability only) and whether zeds respawn (now they do and no changing that).

Sorry to hear that, Kilozombie. FWIW I haven’t actually played much since joining the RP, so feel free to stick around even if you aren’t playing.

31

Yeah, same on the not playing bit, but after all these updates I’ve been really intrigued.

32

Zombie revival is literally one ‘if’ in the code, plus the option itself.

Unfortunately some people think offering choice means their way might be wrong, best sweep alternatives under the rug. Or something, I have no clue what the motivation for this is. It’s not technical, and it’s not balance. It’s “this is a feature of zombies, therefore no”

[quote=“i2amroy, post:17, topic:2490”]1) Skill rust is planning on being completely reworked. Once the system is reworked then “skill rust” per say will be a completely different mechanic. At that point if we do have an option then it’ll look quite a bit different then now.
2) Dynamic spawn is the old option. Once we have static spawn set up enough then it will be removed.[/quote]
These are valid technical reasons (though it’s feasible to make a mongroup for dynamic spawn zeds, linked to an option, as an additional feature.)

If there’s a change at a fundamental level to something like sklll to make it better and ‘rust’ irrelevent, of course it shouldn’t be held back because it would take away the option.

This does not apply here.

[quote=“KA101, post:11, topic:2490”]I regret that Kevin feels that he knows (or ought to know) what I should enjoy more than I do. I believe that every option is a way to make the game more responsive to its player.

“Option=dev team fail” is probably the single worst thing I’ve ever heard from a Cata dev. D:[/quote]
QFT. A game that can offer versatile tweaks means more replay value, a happier userbase, and better modding. Take morrowind for example…it’s still popular because modding offers a way to change the game.

22:08 < GalenEvil> I’ll need to update my world options now I guess to reflect the new lack of the zombie revival option :smiley:
22:08 <@kevingranade> yes, please don’t bring that back :stuck_out_tongue:

Except playing a game populated by george romero / zombieland / wwz / 28 days later zombies. That is now forbidden.

a: The option to control zombie spawn numbers makes balancing alot harder
b: The devs do not have to balance every single option. A simple move to ‘Advanced’ and a small “This game is designed with these options left as is, changing them will affect game balance and difficulty” warning: problem solved. If people want to deal with the resulting balance issues, fine. If people want to play in ways that other people don’t like, let them…judging by this thread, this isn’t one or two people that will be annoyed to no end by having this forced upon them.

Even you agreed this isn’t black or white…

I’ve had zombie rez off (barring tests) since it was introduced. It will continue to be an option in my local copy, along with quite a few other things.

[quote=“kilozombie, post:29, topic:2490”]Did they already take options out?

Well, there goes all my interest in playing.[/quote]

A fork might.

33

I feel pretty hurt. Instead of there being a group desicion, a few devs are coming and saying “no this is how it will be” and that’s not how an open source game should be.

34

As for the whole ‘less choice is better mentality’:

That says it all.

35

Technically that is exactly how an open source game works, since every pull request is judged by a group of people who decide whether or not it should be included in the mainline and if it fits into the lore/idea of the game. The key for open source instead lies instead in the fact that you are allowed to make your own fork with a different group of devs saying how things should be; and if that’s what you decide to do then more power to you, it’s an open source game after all.

As is we are sad to see you go, but feel free to hang around the forums; we are always willing to hear new ideas and suggestions, regardless of whether or not they are eventually implemented.

22:08 < GalenEvil> I’ll need to update my world options now I guess to reflect the new lack of the zombie revival option :smiley:
22:08 <@kevingranade> yes, please don’t bring that back :P[/quote]
Please don’t twist my words out of context. That statement referred to the upcoming ability of a player to have a more in-depth control over the worlds created and the ability to have multiple worlds with different settings, both of which are still planned.

Similarly GalenEvil’s statement referred to the fact that his pull request modified the options files; without modifying it his PR would undo what had just been merged, a thing that would create conflicts when merging in his new features (since both his PR and this one would have been trying to change the same thing in different ways).

36

I’m unbearably angry right now. You’re ruining the game. This is one change I am 100% against because it is REMOVING features- features that people really WANT AND LOVE. What the fuck is wrong with you?

37

Here in US Eastern it’s 3:30 AM or so. I suppose I could say more…but I’ve already disconnected from the IRC and really should be getting some sleep. Will hold off for now.

38

22:08 < GalenEvil> I’ll need to update my world options now I guess to reflect the new lack of the zombie revival option :smiley:
22:08 <@kevingranade> yes, please don’t bring that back :P[/quote]
Please don’t twist my words out of context. That statement referred to the upcoming ability of a player to have a more in-depth control over the worlds created and the ability to have multiple worlds with different settings, both of which are still planned.

Similarly GalenEvil’s statement referred to the fact that his pull request modified the options files; without modifying it his PR would undo what had just been merged, a thing that would create conflicts when merging in his new features (since both his PR and this one would have been trying to change the same thing in different ways).[/quote]

That was not intended to be twisty or out of contexty; as a player I consider revival a pretty vital option. It honestly fits better in world gen, and makes sense there. But…if there’s to be a metric ton of options in world gen, why is this implicitly not allowed?

I personally would love a scenario that entails larger cities with more zeds in them (or better yet a variety)…but only if they stay down. The next week, I might want reviving zombies…but unlikely, since it’s incredibly annoying to me personally.

I’ll agree with you on that. But open source apps tend to be versatile, so it’s easy to confuse the two.

However if this is supposed to be a game with -one- set of rules and lore (unlike Morrowwind / Oblivion / etc), then there’s gonna be some clash with the very idea of making it moddable. Zed revival is just one variable, hard coding it sorta negates the possibility of any WWZ or Walking Dead mod (headshot is enough for those) or even Night of the Living Dead (they don’t stay down for hours and get back up, and decap, while not ‘fatal’, effectively neutralizes them).

39

I can see intelligence and perception being related to retaining skills and learning skills, but I don’t see how your strength or dexterity could have a primary role in retaining skill.

However I would like to see there be stat based skill caps concerning how high you can raise a skill.
Currently, a guy with 4 intelligence could become an expert at computers, and a guy with 4 perception can become an excellent marksman.[/quote]

Yeah, this is what I was meaning as to where it depends on how high you can raise a skill depending on how high that stat is in junction to what it abides with. As for strength, I can only see it affecting the melee/unarmed skills for example but since those skills have multiple bonuses then I can see why that would be a problem.

Dexterity would go with most of the skills as since it’s real meaning is your skill in doing tasks and such with your hands or just in general. So every so many points of Dexterity would increase a skills cap level by 1 that would pertain to most of the skills anyway so like a bonus. Where as the actual stat the skill is based on would increase it by 2 or so instead as an example for so many points instead of the 1 bonus.

Probably should have cleaned this up more but not much time to type it out but should still make sense how I put it hopefully haha.

40


Made an ‘advanced option’ option, to store options that the main devs consider unbalancing or non-maintainable. It includes a disclaimer of such (which I can make red if desired). Toggling the option toggles the advanced option tab, and resets all options within to default, so it’s effectively a switch for supported or unsupported mode.

…

Semi-off topic, the options in general would be alot easier to navigate if they were split into page categories and alpha sorted. Also the tabs themselves would possibly make more sense as ‘general’ ‘interface’ ‘gameplay’.

Example:
[interface]
– input –
Move view offset
(etc snip)
– graphics –
Allow bold backgrounds
Display offset
(etc)

Advanced could be toggled with ‘a’ and automagically appear as the final page category