Arena: fight other players' characters

[NEHZ]

So yeah, I've conquered the arena. Now my char is the next boss! New char came in, beat it. Now my first char is still alive in a save file, but can't do anything. At all. He just walks around in the arena while technically already been beaten.
How about letting characters that won in the arena challange other winners from the vault? Not for points or anything (as folks would just choose the weakest to farm) but just for the challange? See who can get the toughest char in there!

[eliotn]

So yeah, I've conquered the arena. Now my char is the next boss! New char came in, beat it. Now my first char is still alive in a save file, but can't do anything. At all. He just walks around in the arena while technically already been beaten.
How about letting characters that won in the arena challange other winners from the vault? Not for points or anything (as folks would just choose the weakest to farm) but just for the challange? See who can get the toughest char in there!

The problem is that it would be controlled by the AI, which is weaker than a player controlled character. Then the goal would merely be making the deadliest combo for the AI to exploit.

Having multiplayer ToME PvP would be cool, but it could be hard (having time limits for turns, security issues, transmitting data). Maybe some of the existing multiplayer functionality could be utilized.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

As for multiplayer, that'll be vetoed. However, something that came to my mind was being able to download a character dump of characters that you could fight in a (seperate) arena mode. Perhaps allow the characters creator to alter the AI setting dictating how it would behave. (The computer is horrible about controlling certain characters/abilities) I'm sure it would turn into great bragging rights to say that your character that you beat the game with was unbeatable, at which point someone could download the character dump, load one of there OWN character dumps (no risking the character) and the two could duke it out.

Anything close to what you were envisioning?

Edit: Ninja'd, written before the above post.

[NEHZ]

The problem is that it would be controlled by the AI, which is weaker than a player controlled character. Then the goal would merely be making the deadliest combo for the AI to exploit.

Having multiplayer ToME PvP would be cool, but it could be hard (having time limits for turns, security issues, transmitting data). Maybe some of the existing multiplayer functionality could be utilized.

AI was what I was counting on. These kind of games don't work well with direct multiplayer
Sure, the AI won't be as good with the characters, but that doesn't mean it won't be fun. Seeing what the AI does with player made characters is all part of the fun.

Perhaps allow the characters creator to alter the AI setting dictating how it would behave.

Hadn't even thought about this. If this were to be implemented you really can make a though boss. It could even give insight on what tactics work best for the AI so that some behaviour can be changed in the main game.

Anything close to what you were envisioning?

Yup. TOME has an online and sharing functionality beyond what I've seen in most similair games, which I believe makes it perfect for this kind of indirect multiplayer.

[Grey]

I think it would be awesome, which is why I've suggested it before ;) How I envisage it:

- When you win the Arena you unlock the "Arena Deathmatch" campaign
- Winner saves are automatically uploaded to the ToME server
- Starting in the Arena Deathmatch campaign you choose one of your existing Arena victor saves
- It randomly draws a match from the uploaded victors of others
- There'd be an online leaderboard of which uploaded saves are top, and who has managed to beat them

There would need to be some controls on cheated characters. No add-ons allowed etc. Maybe the leaderboard thing is best removed to stop people taking it too seriously. Overall the idea is you get to pit yourself against similarly powered characters built by other players. There'd be all sorts of AI meta-gaming to it I imagine, determining which powers work best in the hands of the computer.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I think it would be awesome, which is why I've suggested it before How I envisage it:

- When you win the Arena you unlock the "Arena Deathmatch" campaign
- Winner saves are automatically uploaded to the ToME server
- Starting in the Arena Deathmatch campaign you choose one of your existing Arena victor saves
- It randomly draws a match from the uploaded victors of others
- There'd be an online leaderboard of which uploaded saves are top, and who has managed to beat them

There would need to be some controls on cheated characters. No add-ons allowed etc. Maybe the leaderboard thing is best removed to stop people taking it too seriously. Overall the idea is you get to pit yourself against similarly powered characters built by other players. There'd be all sorts of AI meta-gaming to it I imagine, determining which powers work best in the hands of the computer.

No addon's mostly works just to prevent cheated char's/classes from stepping in, though those with global effects probably shouldn't be a problem... but how'd you'd regulate that is beyond me. (What's legitamate, what isn't, etc...) Good way for the unlock sure, but I'd kind've envisioned being able to do this for ANY modes winner, and being able to use ANY of your winning characters. (So your campaign game-winner could be used in the 'deathmatch mode' against another characters uploaded game-winner.) Imagine the epic fights between 2 titans with great equipment loadouts who both toppled the endgame. 'My mage is better then yours!' 'Put your staff where your mouth is!' *second spellblaze ensues* I like the idea of recording wins/losses, though leaderboard could go either way. Meta-gaming to ai would be expanded by offering some sort of interface where the owner of the character could adjust how the ai for that character worked. (I don't know how it's intrinsically handled, but the normal ai seems to behave in a certain pattern, surely there's some way to adjust that pattern short of code diving, and attach the adjustment to the character dump.) That way it's not just arena winners. Perhaps divisions based on winners for campaign, winners for arena 60, winners for arena 30? Might be best to leave ID out for the moment, though two epically overpowered ID characters could be... epic See above comment about second spellblaze, add a third and fourth.

[IvenGray]

The problem is that it would be controlled by the AI, which is weaker than a player controlled character. Then the goal would merely be making the deadliest combo for the AI to exploit.

We can accept the fact that AI-controlled characters are weaker. And we can make the challenge "surviving as many fights as possible" instead of "beating the strongest character".

Here are some thoughts:
When a character win the campaign or the Arena Mode, he will have two options of death - Infinite Dungeon or Valor Graveyard. ID is ID. And Valor Graveyard is a place where characters fight the ghosts of past great warriors till the end of their lives. Characters fight them one by one without enough recover time, so it's only a matter of time when they will die. And only those who have fought well enough in the last moments of their lives will be allowed in some Zowngarde and become one of the ghosts.

And the points are:
1. Only the characters that have died in the mode will be allowed into the characters dump. Or perhaps only the characters who have died well (survived 3 to 5 rounds at least, for example).
2. Because of Ancient warriors' deformed existence, they can't fight as well as before their deaths, thereby explains the weakness of AI-controlled characters.

[jarnoid]

I was thinking of an arena mode where you start a level 1 character and it loads at random a character of equal level from the characters vault (probably needs to check for addon compatibility). When you beat an opponent you gain an experience level and the opponent drops all equipment, you get some time to rest and then it loads another opponent. You win at level 50. I'm sure there are already a lot of characters of different experience levels stored on the servers and this is an experimental way to make use of them.

No need for leaderboards, actually it would be better if it doesn't become competitive in any way. For extended value when you beat this mode your character no longer has permadeath, and you could use him any time to take another match against random level 50 character. It would just be a different way to experience the arena. I really like boss fights in Tome and it would be like a random "pseudo-pvp" mini boss one after another.

It's not balanced but that doesn't mean it couldn't be fun

I apologize for bumping an old thread