Sorry I haven't posted recently, I'm currently on a trip to a family reunion and haven't had very good net access on the road or at my previous hotel. Since I have another long day on the road tomorrow I'll start posting a few of my old EQN Proposals and Points to Ponder documents. The following was mostly written right before Landmark Alpha was launched. Given what they have said since I don't think much of this will be in EQ:N, but perhaps some of the ideas will still be usable, or someone might make a game that does use this.
---------- Size & Weight - An EQN Proposal by Thornbrier
I remember in the good old days of playing Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 one of my groups favorite spell sets were the ability to grow and shrink our party members and our enemies. This presented so many possibilities in very few spells, they were an exceptional utility. It also made our racial sizes really matter. I will discuss how a similar system could be implemented in EQN.
Voxel World
Finally having a Voxel World means size should determine how large a hole needs to be for your character to move through it. A massive ogre is going to need to destroy more of the mountain side to progress than a small ratonga. Being a mighty ogre also means that when they dig into the mountain, they take a larger bite than a weak ratonga. And those larger legs on the ogre should also mean they are able to cover more terrain in a flat out run, able to effortlessly vault over low rises that the ratonga must either navigate around or spend time climbing using their excellent climbing claws. The ogre might accidentally run right past their target if they don’t slow down soon enough, but the ratonga would be noticing every detail. Humans, not designed for such a size might need to use a nearby chair to jump up to a table they had just been eating at when their pixie friend plays a joke on them. One method of getting around the ‘slower movement’ might be to acquire speed potions that grant you a set speed regardless of size (note, it is possible to use one that is set slower than your natural speed, so be careful what you drink).
Mass
I’m very glad that the devs have stated that materials will have their own mass and toughness, steel will be harder to break than dirt and will be thrown differently from an explosion, the same should be true of characters. When a force knocks us back light characters should be thrown farther than heavy characters. If my Hurricane Strike throws a human several feet, a pixie should go much farther, while a massive minotaur should barely be moved a foot, and a true giant wouldn't even be phased by the effect. We know these functions exist in the engine, it’s just a matter of attaching the required data to the objects and abilities.
Larger characters should deal more damage with physical attacks and have more hitpoints while they are larger. Spells would not be affected much by their caster’s size. However, some skills are a combination of physical and magic. If a minotaur has a flame stomp the area and damage of the core stomp would shrink or grow with the minotaur’s size, but the fire damage would be unaffected (though, the AoE, starting from the edge of the foot, would end up having a smaller/larger radius).
One thing that all of this means is that those MASSIVE battle bosses don’t need to be programmed to be stronger, they just become stronger by virtue of their size, and their arena being designed to accommodate that size.
Hit Box
A small creature would be harder to hit with non-aoe attacks given their small hitbox. If your ogre is the size of a barn than only the most inept attacker would ever miss. That large hitbox comes in handy for blocking attacks from striking your allies or even just blocking a path. This would generate the ‘active tanking’ rather than ‘taunt tanking’ spoken of for getting rid of the holy trinity.
Detection
Relative sizes should play a vital part in whether or not a creature notices you unless their senses are quite sensitive. No one will miss the giant stomping toward them from far off, but the little froglock hopping through the barbarian camp could easily go unnoticed for quite some time.
Racial Size
Obviously, I’ve been talking about these races as being comparatively different sizes, but how big? In D&D the called it Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Colossal, Gargantuan, but that won't quite fit a voxel world. I would think that when you are choosing character appearance you would set your height in 1x1x1 cube voxels within the range for that race. Pixies might range from 2 to 4 voxels tall. Perhaps Ratonga can range from 4 to 7, humans from 8 to 12, while an ogre would be more like 18 to 23 voxels tall.
Weight
When increasing or decreasing a character’s size keep in mind that double the height is not double the weight, it’s roughly eight times the weight. So, a 6’ tall 180 pound person doubling in height becomes 12’ tall and 1440 pounds.
While this could be fudged for a game world (since large things like the giant golem seen in the announcement video would not be supported by the earth under it) it should still be impactful, maybe four times instead, our 12’ human only becoming 720 pounds. For simplicity sake, I would not recommend altering the weight of items in backpacks. We already suspend disbelief that we can carry the tons of equipment and mats that we do in those dimensional pockets, lets keep it that way.
Terrain
The devs said they are trying to balance the physics, but it is possible in this engine. This includes the structural integrity of the terrain to withstanding weight and damage as well as rolling structures and water dynamics.
Some parts of terrain should care about the weight being applied on it. Perhaps a sheet of ice, a bridge, or a tree branch, these should all break if too much ‘weight’ is registered there.
Creatures might have ‘tremorsense’ allowing them to ‘see’ based on a weight threshold moving on the ground they are on. Similarly some pressure plates might only trigger (both positive and negative) based on having enough weight applied. The characters size and their gear would determine how much their total weight is (though Fae, Pixies, magic carpets, and other perpetual fliers wouldn't be considered to ‘weigh’ pretty much anything).
Changing Sizes
Some spells would be Preparations (ie, out of combat, not on the hot bar). I see these coming in two forms. One is basically permanent until removed by a debuff ability or turning it off out of combat. The other is a triggered removal or activation.
Example: As an Elemental Defender Ratoga (who has also multiclassed to Ritual Weaver) I might cast a ritual that sets me permanently to 20 voxels tall (yeah, a huge rat), and a triggered ritual that sets me to 3 voxels (only a little smaller than my default of 5). Sneaking in while small, as soon as I attack the trigger goes off, dropping my second spell, so I suddenly go from 3 voxels to 20. During the fight I keep using Elemental Defender Combat Arts that temporarily increase my height by 2 voxels each for 15 seconds, stacking only 5 times until I reach the PC maximum of 30 voxels. My physical attacks appear MASSIVE, as large as a PC can get them outside of scripted events, while my magical effects appear tiny by comparison. The enemies, having a spellcaster of their own, do the smart thing and dispel my ritual. Suddenly I shrink to only 15 voxels tall (5 natural + 10 from the Elemental Defender CAs). Given the 15 second limit on each instance of the buff and my low mana regeneration I keep fluctuating between 13 and 19 voxels for the rest of the fight.
Permanent/Long Term size change should be ‘absolute value’, simply setting a party member’s size, whereas temporary changes should be +/- either an amount or a percentage.
Putting it All Together
A character who wants to be rather tanky might cast a growth spell on himself and summon a Vanishing Chest (a chest that can hold your bags for you and gives them back later) which he tells his companions to put all of their bags into or to activate their flight/hover or shrink abilities before a fight because most of the mobs in this next area are blind but have tremorsense and he doesn’t want the enemies to know where anyone but himself is located. Sure the enemies will still throw attacks out where they feel they are getting attacked from, so keep moving as you fight, but it keeps most of the focus on the HUGE fighter in the center of the room that keeps pounding the ground making lots of tremors for them to ‘see.’
This could also be used on enemies, if the enemy is too heavy to throw into the air for your slam attack, shrink it, or maybe their quick movements through the caves holes are making them hard to hit, grow them so they can’t fit in the holes any more. But remember, you are exchanging the advantages/weaknesses of the sizes, not purely ‘debuffing’ them, and the smarter AI should be able to take advantage of the change. Perhaps the enemy is standing over a thin sheet of rock over lava, you could have your team move in to add their weight to the rock to break it, or you could use a Combat Art spell to grow the enemy larger so their own increased weight breaks it, or use some kind of explosive attack to break the sheet at range, but regardless, keep watching out so your own team doesn’t fall in. Because that swarm of small enemies might skitter over the thin rock just fine as long as they stay spread out, but your large Warrior is going to drop right in as soon as he steps out there. Many ways to accomplish the same goal all depending on how you wish to play.
Alternatives
It should also be made clear that being big should not be the only way one can tank. Magic items and class abilities might be used to modify a character's base HP Percentage which would not stack with the Size modified HP Percentage, just using the better of the two. Same thing goes for modifying physical damage, run speed, detectability, jump height, and every other aspect modified by size, except the point of where your character ‘ends’ for self-centered AoEs like a fire aura, (get things that increase the range of the aura instead) and the hitbox for blocking attacks from hitting allies. One some classes this last point will call for a different strategy of tanking, other classes might have the tank putting up shields and barriers rather that don’t change in size with them rather than relying upon their hitbox. I will be proposing two ranged ‘tanks’ who use similar but different mechanics that would not be changed by their size, but using a classic example: a Paladin might raise a pillar of holy light around themselves which stay for a time that cause massive damage to any enemy creature which moves through it and slowly regenerates allies within them. Through the course of the fight they are caging in the enemy with these pillars, and whenever they raise their shield it grants them a 20 voxel high by 15 voxel wide magic barrier that moves in front of them regardless of their own size (if the barrier’s damage is all used it will take time to recharge, but otherwise it recharges each time it is brought back up, so proper timing of when to drop it is key). In this way, even a 1 voxel character could tank using their magic.
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Well, that's the first EQN Proposal from the past with very little edits since way back when. I'll be putting up a few more of these this next week.
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