Back in the day when I still had my legendtamer account, and when SO wasn't a donors only, essentially a really long time ago. I had made a suggestion call "Tower of Torture". Basically its a tower with rooms filled with monsters. Example There would be a drop off to a room which is fill with blobs on the first floor. There would be a solid "wall" monsters blocking the way the next floor. To advance you'd need to kill the wall monster because they are solid and cannot be walked through. Of coarse the monsters in the room will be attacking you all the while so it would be smart to kill them first before moving on to the wall monster. After the wall monster is dead you will be able to advance to the next floor via one way platforms. Each floor harder than the last, with the topmost floor being filled with tough monsters and possible a monster only available at that floor. No spawn points are available along the way. There would be another one way platform to the a empty open floor (that you can fall off the tower to the bottom).
This idea was very popular back in the day, before SO was donors only. However, it was popular mainly because the clans liked the idea running through the tower and possibly competing against other clans in the run through and possibly having clan wars at the open top floor. Because there are no spawn flags, death would mean starting over from the beggining. And once you drop off the drop off point before each room, there are no places to hide from the monsters till you advance to the next floor. Another source of its popularity was that the lvl 99s could cure their "after completion" boredom by improving their clear time of tower (since there is virtually no reason to play after you hit lvl 99...)
Since there aren't that many clans and no clan system yet, I don't know if this idea would be popular again. Still I remembered it and I think it'd be a shame not to attempt to revive the idea.
I love this idea! Would be awesome to have this as a party quest or as you said a guild quest. Damn I'd play 24/7 again, haha.
I suggest a level requirement, because if we don't have a level requirement everyone will only fight monsters in the tower and the rest of the world will be deserted.
Either that or the monsters in the tower don't give exp and drop items except for maybe the boss monster at the top.
Hm, I like it a lot. For clocks level requirement, I suggest level 70 or 80.
I don't really think it should be named Tower of Torture though, because torture doesn't really fit, you are just fighting a lot of monsters that can overwhelm you at higher levels. Perhaps Tower of Terror? Because being overwhelmed with a whole bunch of monsters in real life is quite terrifying if you ask me.
But all in all, I'm glad you decided to revive this. Sounds pretty awesome. I am kinda wondering what it would look like.
Well, you could essentially let any level inside, but make it so you only get exp for comepleting the whole thing. How about that?
Or give experience per level, with increasing amounts of experience for every level that you clear. At the end you get a box to smash wich can drop rare items as well as normal items and coins.
Whats to stop other people from leeching? Whats that, FoG is going up the tower, me and my agi and mehness are gunna follow, dodge about, and go up as he does.
I have an idea. There should be a NPC right outside the tower holding some sort of sign-up board. You can't enter the tower by walking in. Instead you must click the sign-up guy to open a list of players that are gonna go into the tower. Up to I think 10 people can sign up at once. If a player who signed up leaves the sign-up room, his name will be removed from the list. After a certain amount of time all the people who signed up waiting outside the tower will be automatically transported into the tower to start the quest to the top. While a group is in the tower, people can sign up for when the group comes out. When the group comes out, the next group who are waiting get to go in, but the waiting group still has to wait a little after the previous group leaves before they can go in, allowing the monsters inside to respawn. This cycle is similar to the cycle of a ride in an amusement park.
Also, when a group completes the tower, all the people in that group can't go back into the tower for a whole hour, giving other people a chance to go. This also goes for the people who died trying to get to the top. If a person in the tower dies, he will be transported outside the tower and won't be able to go back in for an hour.
Quote from: 11clock on July 10, 2010, 08:08:02 PMWhile a group is in the tower, people can sign up for when the group comes out. When the group comes out, the next group who are waiting get to go in, but the waiting group still has to wait a little after the previous group leaves before they can go in, allowing the monsters inside to respawn. This cycle is similar to the cycle of a ride in an amusement park.
Why wouldn't it just be instanciated? One group goes in, the next group goes in too but neither group sees eachother, and they both see different sets of monsters. This is the perfect situation for an instance.
It depends. If you're trying to limit people in the tower so that it isn't used over everything else, you'd want less groups in the tower at once. I'd say go with how many people are online. 100+ = 2 groups of 10, 200+ = 3 groups of 10, etc. Thus there will be at most 20% of online in the tower, for the most part.
~Aqua
Limit the number of people in it by making it extremely high level (not having a level limitation, but making it full of extremely high level monsters) and making other areas just as good.
Quote from: Lingus on July 13, 2010, 12:49:07 AM
Limit the number of people in it by making it extremely high level (not having a level limitation, but making it full of extremely high level monsters) and making other areas just as good.
I thought it's supposed to be simple on the few few floors and it gets harder as you go up. Like blobs on the first floor and Chuck Norris on the top floor. This way the low levels can at least clear some floors, but they don't get near as much rewards.
That's fine... then just don't make the lower levels any more interesting than outside the tower. Or make it only slightly more interesting. Or the difference is that you have to get a group together to survive. So people who are soloing, or just with a couple other people not really in a group, wouldn't want to go to the tower.
There's plenty of ways to balance this while still keeping it an instance.
Tower of terror works fine.
Well once you kill the wall monster, other people can get through until it respawns, like your friends and clanmates or even enemy clan members.
About the leeching exp, people are gonna try that whethor not there is exp to get, just for the sake of getting to the top. Like I said, the topmost floor is empty and there is no turning back, just a (long) drop to the bottom. The floor before that (where the bosses spawn), if they suck then chances are they're gonna die and have to start over without the person they were leeching off of (whom would still be on a higher floor).
All monsters would give exp. and drops. The tower is a test to see how far you get and how quickly you can clear each room. Drops and exp. would essentially be your reward. Of coarse you could just skip to the solid wall monster blocking the way to the next floor, but it'd be kinda hard to kill a stationary monster with high vit and defense (and immune to knockback) with a bunch of monsters trying to claim your life... So the tower is a noob killer.
The sheer numbers of monsters alone make it difficult. And your stuck on flat ground against them. I mean I dunno if anyone can solo 1 DS without having to run and heal, so I don't think any1 would be soloing the likes of 2 DSs or even 3 without having a place to avoid them. You'd have to have a friend or two. at least for the higher floors.
It does get harder as you go higher.
The inspiration of this idea came from the game Legend of Zelda Twighlight Princess's Cave of Ordeals. VVVVV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDdOuvhpiWM&feature=related
As you can see the lower levels start off easy. But:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVuWAA_CPKE&NR=1
it gets harder the farther you go.
See what I mean?
I hope this'll clear things. A noob can enter and he can leech but if it's drops and exp he's after he may not live long enough to get them. Then when they die, the players they were leeching off of are higher up the tower and they'll have to start over without em. If they're lucky they might get a few kills... or none at all.
There is a wall monster at the entrance and exit of each room. Monsters do NOT respawn until the wall monster allowing one to advance die and respawn. Once the wall monster respawns all the monster respawn quickly. Remember there's a rest area before each room. But once you leave that area there's no turning back, you must either:
A.) advance to the next rest area by killing the wall monster blocking the way
or
B.) Die and start over.
Hope this helps. I'm glad you all like it ^^. Other ideas to add or take away to/from this idea is welcome.
I see how that works. So basically each level of the tower would be sectioned off by this "wall monster". Once one level is cleared and that group goes up to the next level, another group would be allowed to start up on that level. I'm just not seeing how it would work if the two groups are right on top of each other.
If the group below is killing faster, and they defeat all the monsters and the wall monster, and the group above is still on the next level up, would the group below be allowed to move on? Or is that where the "rest area" comes into play. I guess that could work like an airlock of sorts. They would defeat the wall monster, they would go up to the rest area, the level below would respawn. Then they would have to wait in the rest area until the group above defeats the wall monster.
I guess that would be a pretty simple way of having it all in the same room as the rest of the world. Though, I'm not sure that's necessarily easier than having an instance. In that case, you'd get a group of people into the bottom floor of the tower. Essentially the starting room for the instance. Once everyone who wants to go is there, someone activates some switch or something and everyone in the room is "transported" into the instance. From that point on only those people will affect anything in that instance of the tower. Everyone's spawn flag could be set to a flag at the very bottom of the instance. Monsters would not respawn so if someone dies it would be easy enough for them to catch up to the group (unless the group skips ahead leaving monsters behind). Once they get to the top and defeat the big boss there, they could activate a switch and leave the instance (or maybe there would be a way to leave the instance by other means in case part way through someone wants to leave.)
No need to worry about other groups or anything. I'm not sure on all the programming aspect of this, but I imagine it wouldn't be very difficult to have instances of a separate room. And this would completely eliminate any frustrations that would arise from a high level group following a low level group who are working their way up the tower slowly leaving the higher group twiddling their thumbs while they wait.
I think there are many ways to get this idea to work. We could probably make it work exactly like the cave of ordeals. Rather than a tower that goes up, it could be harder the more you go down.
The does seperate groups of different starting times. It's a place you rest before you enter the next room, to heal hp and stamina before attempting to take on the next challange. One would have to wait for the entire group to finish if they want start off well. That is time consuming, enough for the lower level group to advance to their next rest area. People with high vit and stam would be able to heal faster, but they may find it more time consuming to kill the monsters, compared to a group that has high str and agi, which could kill monsters faster but heal slower than the high vit and int group.
The wall monster at the entrance of the next room has relatively less hp than the one blocking the exit to it. A few hits and you'll be able to go from the rest area to the next room.
So its, room(strong wall monster), rest(weak wall monster), room (strong wall monster).
The shutting off of the spawns while the wall monster is still alive allows groups with low str kill the wall monster and not be overwhelmed by a constant spawn rate of monsters.
The weak wall monster at the beggining is to allow players to get to the next room without wasting too much stamina (and to prevent players from jumping back from the room into the former rest area, since the weak wall monster is situated ON the edge of the drop off of the next room so it cannot be attack once you pass it and it respawns).
Wall monsters are solid, immobile, non-attacking monsters. Their vit and defense depends on the whether it's blocking the entrance or exit of the room. If a wall monster spawns on you, you die then and there, though you are given some warning before then do so as their solidity does not take effect for a full 3 seconds. If you are making contact with the monster after that time is up you take calmitous damage damage (1 hit Ko). This is to prevent people from staying inside the wall monster. Should remind one of the thwomp from the mario series eh ;)?
The resting outside the rest area is possible but hard, since there are monsters in the room.
One can choose not to advance to the next room. But be warned no monsters will spwan (and there for no exp and drops are gained) until the wall monster blocking the exit is defeated and it respawns. Another note is that you can stay in the room after killing said wall monster and fight the monsters that respawn, but remember the wall monster guarding the exit has quite a bit of health and defense, and one would use up more energy than they need to refight the monsters (and gain drops and exp) and is simply more convinient to move to the rest area.
Higher level groups may not need to wait for the lower group if it is allowed for the higher groups to join the lower groups (and possibly pass them up).
Another idea is to have clans wars when the room is cleared. Where the winning players get to advance on. That might work too.
There are a lot of methods of manifesting the tower of terror...
This all seems needlessly complex. The whole wall monster thing.
Also this:
Quote from: TheLegendTamer on July 15, 2010, 06:49:03 PM
The wall monster at the entrance of the next room has relatively less hp than the one blocking the exit to it. A few hits and you'll be able to go from the rest area to the next room.
I did not realize the entrance would have another wall monster. That means the group below would be able to catch up with the group above and overtake them. I thought you would have a solid wall that would not allow that group to pass until the wall monster at the end of the level was beaten, and all the monsters on that level respawned. This does eliminate groups having to wait, but it introduces further issues.
I guess I just don't see the point of inventing all of these ways of separating the levels off from the other levels, but then having it still possible for groups to intermingle at some point along the way. It seems like all of what you are trying to do would be handled by having this tower be an instance.
You mention things such as clan battles. It would be great to develop instances similar to this except do things like have 2 towers and make it a race to the top, or start at two opposite ends of a map and they have to fight to the middle, or do capture the flag or hold the point missions... it's pretty endless what you can do with clans. Developing this tower idea with the mindset of having one clan/group able to overtake another clan/group just doesn't seem the best fit. This is perfect for a single group instance where they get to the top of the tower/bottom of the dungeon and defeat the boss at the end.
Thanks lingus. But forgive my ignorance, what does instance mean?
Speaking off the boss Boss at the top of the tower, should it have a high drop rate or low one? My initial idea had it have a higher drop rate than usual but with a larger amount of possible drops. I'm not entirely sure, but group or not, it would definitely be horrible to have to go through the tower and not get a single drop. I think that if all other floors fail to yeild a drop, then at least the boss should almost garuntee those who clear it one good drop for their troubles. Another thing I'd like to hear is what do you guys think the boss should be? I don't want an SG to be the last boss but if you guys want it to be then I'll agree to it too :D.
Another thing is, how many floors the tower will have and what will appear on each floor. I was thinking that towards higher floors one would face combinations of monsters not possible in any other region of the game, like BAs and DSs at once. Stuff that players aren't normally used to seeing.
An instance is typically a section of an MMO world where you are completely separate from everyone else in the server. Essentially, only the people who joined the instance with you will be able to interact with you during the time you are in the instance. If another group joins that same dungeon at the same time, they are in a separate instance of the dungeon than you. They see a different set of monsters, etc... It allows a group of people to go through a section of the game world without being interrupted by anyone else in the server. And it allows anyone else in the server to do the same thing at the same time without having to wait for another group to finish.
In terms of Gamemaker programming (keep in mind, I know little to nothing about GM, and I'm not sure how much you know about it) this would be a separate "room" (I believe it's called) from the rest of the SO world. Every group that enters that room would have a different instance of the room with their own set of monster spawns.
Moving on:
Quote from: TheLegendTamer on July 16, 2010, 05:26:27 PMSpeaking off the boss Boss at the top of the tower, should it have a high drop rate or low one? My initial idea had it have a higher drop rate than usual but with a larger amount of possible drops. I'm not entirely sure, but group or not, it would definitely be horrible to have to go through the tower and not get a single drop. I think that if all other floors fail to yeild a drop, then at least the boss should almost garuntee those who clear it one good drop for their troubles. Another thing I'd like to hear is what do you guys think the boss should be? I don't want an SG to be the last boss but if you guys want it to be then I'll agree to it too :D.
I agree with you here about drops. The boss at the end is definitely the icing on the cake. You fought all this way and killed an uber hard boss monster. It would be utter crap if 99 times out of 100 you get basically nothing but exp and gold. The boss should definitely drop some decent stuff. But, perhaps some really elite stuff would drop more rarely.
As far as what the boss should be. Defintely something unique to this exact location. Like some Evil King of the Tower. It should only spawn here in all of the SO world. Otherwise, why go through the trouble right?
And for the rest of the tower, there should probably be some regular monsters, but it's probably going to be a large enough area that certain unique monsters to the tower should be thrown in. For instance, the skeleton is unique to a small area around the temple. I don't see why there shouldn't be at least 5 or so monsters unique to the tower. Especially if there are around 5-10 levels. There could even be mini level bosses, or perhaps a half way mini boss. Again, 1 monster unique to that location would be the most interesting.
When I first introduced the idea I had suggested was a sort of Hydra as either a midboss or final boss but no1 really answered to that suggestion. Though some suggested (I think) that it should be boss with a trick to damaging it like those bosses from the zelda and mario series. Like it's a flying boss or something. I think that'd be neat.
Yea, I remember the suggestions about there being boss-style bosses in SO where there are stages that you have to attack different things or it follows different patterns. Pretty cool idea I think.
I don't know what specifically the boss here should be. I'd leave that up to the creatives. I'm guessing monster design is mostly up to the artist.