Post by Warrior on Sept 17, 2020 22:42:58 GMT -8
V I R U S H O R D E U P D A T E
Beta Version
At long last, an updated version of the Virus Horde is fully completed. Unfortunately, the Plugin Size Limit was reached, so there was a lot of last minute re-adjusting that had to go on, including a lot of technical explanations being cut out (as well as a good portion of the planned Virus Roster).
As of this post, all ongoing Virus Hordes are closed and being moved to the archives. The prototype thread covers all of the new features, so no need to repeat that here. A Tutorial for utilizing the new system will be kept in the new board as well.
Some new additions and updates may be added later, but the size limit is a pressing issue at the moment, so it will need to be addressed before more expansion is considered. (A separate plugin is the likely solution, just making them work together smoothly is particularly challenging).
The New Horde consists of 3 Difficulty Tiers, 27 Viruses (with Rare variants) and 4 Mega Viruses, versus the old 11 and 3 respectively. The Locked Mystery Data Rewards table is still under construction, so in the meantime, these work as temporary "exchanges" instead.
Difficulty Tiers
- No Tier
- The "Basic Horde"; V1-3 friendly, may even be solo-able by a decked V6
- Recommend bringing a group still, for good measure, until the virus stats are better realized as a community
- No Mega Viruses spawn here, so no looming threats; Megalian is the place holder for them
- Z Tier
- A step down from the old "Mega Horde"
- Stacked V11's might be able to solo if their rolls are good
- As the quest now implies, having a good stock of chips goes a long way
- Otherwise, bring friends to help hit weaknesses and kill the viruses quickly
- Mega Viruses are much much stronger; their stats are lower here as a means to introduce their mechanics, but still very unforgiving and what many would call "unfair"
- C Tier
- Very significant Stat Buffs to make it more High-End challenging
- Weaknesses are a bit more strict
- Even v21's may struggle with the raw stat checks, but a fully decked one may be able to solo
- Groups of v21's should be fine and ideally somewhat challenged by this difficulty
- Only one new Mega Virus, but the old ones have similarly inflated stats to really test your limits. The new one is more of a puzzle-type, but without instant-deletes like "The Ultimate Fighter", so rejoice.
The following Mission/Quest changed have been applied
- Virus Buster (Updated)
- Z License Exam (Updated; Previous Z License owners keep them)
- C License Exam (Added!)
- B License Exam (Added!)
Last but not least: the "Allowance" System that will be used to regulate access to this feature (and others) will be explained in its own section below.
ALLOWANCES
As a means to encourage the primary features of the site from being overshadowed by the sub-features such as these, you can't simply spam the Virus Horde or Boss Arenas to grind your way up without any interaction with other players. Additionally, "Allowances" will reward site-benefiting tasks later on as further means of encouraging members to volunteer.
You'll see more of this feature later, but for now, you can simply earn Allowances by "playing the game", as it were, and these sub-features can be considered "mini games" with very useful rewards to go with them.
What is an Allowance
- Basically just a member-specific "currency" that you "spend" to enter the Virus Horde or Boss Arena
- Spending 2 Allowances will "buy" your pass for the full Virus Horde, rather than only a limited number of waves at a time
- The Boss Arena will implement this feature later, but for now is still simply time gated
How are Allowances earned?
- By completing a Stats Fight, you get +1 Allowance
- By completing an RP Fight, you get +1 Allowance
- By participating in a closed Story Thread, you get +1 Allowance
** These are not retroactive
** Stat-Battling the same Member cannot yield more than +1 Allowance per week
** Same for RP-Battling, but you can do both without counting against each other
** Abuse cases will be penalized (IE: "Drive By" posts in story, Minimalism, etc)
** Staff may reward additional Allowances for closing particularly long Story Threads
You get 4 Allowances for reading this.
How long can I hold onto Allowances
- You can collect as many and hold onto them for as long as you want
- Allowances earned by one Navi may still be spent on another Navi's feature entry
- Events will not be gated by Allowances; if anything, they'll provide Allowances
Should I track my Allowances
- It's not required, BUT, when spending your Allowances, you must state where they are coming from
IE: "Faith challenges the Virus Horde. Spending 2 Allowances from:
1 - Stats Fight (Navi vs Navi)
2 - Story Thread Closure (Thread Name)"
But... why?
- Short Answer: so the rewards can be good without encouraging you to ignore the parts of the site that actually keep it alive (playing with other people).
- Bringing other people with you into these side features is a very desired outcome as well, just ideally without it becoming a "hypercarry" situation. The perfect world would be "we had to work together to make it through this", with some one-off cases still inevitably existing. Obviously hypercarrying isn't going to be punished, just less incentivized to be "the way to do it".
- The previous route of Time-Locking these made it far more of a grind and didn't really benefit the site in the grand scheme; gating access by activity-producing tasks would hopefully make it feel more like a reward, and the earnings from the higher-end of it will hopefully be tuned to be desirable as well, but it's in the early stages right now.
- Rewards for playing with other members (even simple cost reductions for entry) will be improved over time as well
Q&A
- If you have any questions, feel free to ask in this thread
- Questions asked will be tracked in this post
On The Horizon?
Boss Arena update is, of course, still in line. All of the new tools I've learned to use from this project will greatly benefit that one as well, and knowing my limitations going in should help consolidate things to fit more into that one.
Before that, though: it's been almost two years since the last Battle Chip update (believe it or not), and some tuning is in order for that Plugin (the intent is that you can just call the whole Chip by its name rather than still having to type out its effects and whathaveyou).
A little bit of expansions on that front in the form of Mega Chip and Giga Chip upgrades are planned as well.
Sometime during all of this, another "Allowance-gated" feature will be implemented as well that has a bit more relation to Story Mode.
And that's all in terms of my ongoing projects. The Virus Horde will see expansion when I'm able to figure out ways around the size limitation (or when Proboards does their next update, which can only be so far away from now).
Any feedback/ideas/opinions on the side features are greatly appreciated.