TrashMan
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Stuff like drinking, using enviroment objects, sleeping...all of that can technicly be added with a bit of scripting and randomization Actual AI is a bit trickier. Have hobogoblins act like the organized, militarized bunch that they are. Let the mform a shield wall and chuck javelins at you. Let their commander yell orders. Have dragons use their abiltiy of flight to butcher you from the skies and keep away from your swords and axes, laughing all the way at the stupid human that challened it. Have sea-dwelling creatures try to drag you into the water, where they have the natural advantage. In other words, the devs should think about how a specific enemy would act and then implement it. Is it cowardly? Organized? Smart? Animalistic? Patient? What abilities does it have? Have the enemy act as one would reasonably expect - do that and there's no need for HP bonuses and excessive scaling. -
I'm in a similar boat. Been modding for years - 3D models, 2D sprite art, texturing, map-making, scripting, writing, balancing.. heck even did a bit of music. Worked on a LOT of various mods. Even helped a few proper projects (like UFO: AI, Infinity). Freelanced a few models for a real game development studio. I'm a decent all-rounded, but balancing and 3D modeling are my real forte. Now I work as a Junior DBA and IT (a little bit of everything really...but to be honest I'm not that good at it) and I do wonder what it would be like if I really worked in a gaming industry. But from a little personal experience I can tell you it wouldn't be quite as interesting - working on what other people tell you insted of doing your own stuff is a big difference.
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Josh Sawyer on Miss and Hit
TrashMan replied to Hormalakh's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Wait..so this basicly means that no matter how good I am or how good I'm armored, a tiny gobling with a stick will still do damage to me, EVERY time? I don't get it. Why are the rare instances of critical hit/miss considered UNFUN? It's partially what made many PnP rPG sessions so great. Those unforgettable strings of good luck and defiance of all odds and those strings of bad luck where you had to use every thick in the book to survive a seemingly average random encounter. :( :( :( :( -
The minimum necessary to get the proper feel IMHO. Now, what is the proper feel and what constitutes minimal may be debatable. But frankly I don't see a problem with complex calculations. Modern computers have CPU power to spare. Use it. If On-line multiplayer games can get away with that, that singleplayer games should have no problem whatsoever. If we are talking about complexity towards the player (micromanagment), it can be automazied a fair bit too. Let's say that the PC automaticly changes stances and uses different types of attack (thrust, swing left, overhead chop, pommel strike, etc...) and parries depending on his lvl and skill rank with the weapon. Let's also assume that each type of attack or parry has different properties (different damage or armor pen). The more skilled with the weapon, the better will a NPC/PC perform in a logical fashion (without resorting to just attack bonus stacking)
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I'm talkign about PERSONAL power. Take LOTR movies as an example. Think Aragorn. Norman human being with normal human physical limiations. No lifting 10 tons or swinging super-sized swords. No punching dragons. For other types of power - like political power - that's something that would be interesting to see. RPG's and fantasy games are often so fixated on personal power and bigger NUMBERS instead of depth. Kinda an interesting train of thought. For a game ot be interesting, do you even need ever increasign power? Think Sam Fisher - he's no more durable or stronger at the end of hte game than he is at the begining. HE becomes more "skilled" as the player becomes more skilled (playing smart) and as he gets new gadgets that increase his options.
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So? Yes, you are undefeated (unless the developers add in unwinnable encounters), but do you really need anyting else than the pwoer of savel/load? What's the point of being Superman and get new amazing powers whenever? It's boring. A normal guy securing a victory trough blood and sweat and cunning is a bajjilion times more interesting than a demigod pimpslapping people around. So not really "special". Lucky? Skilled. Yes.
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No, the idea is that they know guys by reputation. "You are the guys that beat that clan of hill giants and cleared the next province over of bandits, and killed that Dragon... we're all going to die, ahhh!" And how do they know who you are in the first place? I don't recall Twitter and Facebook in the middle ages, nor a realistic depiction of your face being plastered everywhere.
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A bit too abstractly for my tastes, as it just lacks the neuances of real combat and it doesn't really work that well. Besides, I really want to see hits completely negated by armor. Not even 1 point of damage. Can you "abstract" everything with just one value? Yes. Shold you do it? Nope. Let's not forget that was abstract everything if we want. For example - take World of Tanks. Distance and angle of a shot, as well as shell armor penetration and armor thickness in the hit zone all determine what will hapen. Position your tank properly and there's a high chance enemy shots will bounce off. Could you have made the game without all those equations and just used armor and penetration? Yes. Would it have made a better game? Hell no.
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Even a stab would do crushing only if it failed to penetrate the armor. Let's imagine a very thin mithril shirt, can't stab through but it'll still hurt when you deliver that 300 pound strike. I'd say yeah, sharper weapon does more cutting and less crushing... if the hit penetrates. Against a strong hauberk, it makes no difference how sharp the blade is, if it still fails to go through. Against plate? If a piercing attack doesn't go trough, it's usually because it was deflected - hence no crushing damage at all. If a sword/dagger stab isnt' deflected but fails to penetrate field plate, all it will do is create a small dent and iritate the wearer, since the force will be distributed across the rigid plate. Which is what made plate so good. Non-rigid armors were at the mercy of crushing force.
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Anyone watched Tytania? A bit slow paced for a Space Opera, but I found it good.
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Yeah, now I remember something I disliked in damage types. Let's assume you slash with a sweihander, the mail stops the attack so you do no damage? Lets assume you slash with a pole the size and weight of a sweihander, it's crushing so it does damage despite the mail? Same weight, same size, but the other is sharp so doesn't work. It'd work better if it was a dull blade? All weapons should have a crushing damage component derived from weapons weight and dimensions. Maybe that could "kick in" if the armor penetration of piercing and slashing component fails? Or somethign. You make a good point. Technicly, a zweihander would do do crushing damage with each slash (but not with a stab). The sharper a weapon, the more it cuts and the les it crushes. so for example: - slash: 1-6 salshing, 1-6 crushing (a shaper version would do more slashing and less crushing) - stab: 2-12 piercing - pommel stike: 1-10 crushing - reverse chop (holding the sword by the blade and striking with the pomel/handguard) - crushing/piercing
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Different weapons can realistiy deal multiple type of damage. They may not be AS good as sonme other weapons, but they can. Example: - the warhammer ... blunt/crushign damage with one end, and it usually has a spike on the other for piercing damage - zweihander - slashing with the blade, piercing with the tip or the sharpened handguards, blunt with the pommel or the blunted handguards Now, there's two ways that this can be done - damage type done is automatic (most effective) or decided by the player. Or something in between, where damage type is randomized, with a prefference - because you can't always deal the perfect blow, so you settle with any hit whatsoever The weapon does X damage and the damage can be of type A, B or C, depending on the enemy and weapon (some weapons can only deal 1 type of damage) The weapons does X chrusing and Y slashing and Z piercing (all at the same time) The weapons does X chrusing OR Y slashing OR Z piercing (only one at a time) Setting every character to prioritize a specific damage type might be to micro-intensive... or not. A character automaticly trying to deal more blows with damage type A might be better. So your character swings a zweihander and deals X slashing damage. Not very effective sicne the enemy is in plate, so his next attack is a stab, using the zweihander as a spear he deals Y piercing damage. However, due to moving and parrying/dodging, he can't consistently deal piercing damage (Or can he?), so for his next attack he pommel strokies the enemy for Z crushing damage. Something like that.
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Each time comes with it's own problems and it has it's own pro's and cons. To say that every time period is the same and that everyone is jsut effected by nostalgia would be incorrect. But it would also be incorrect to say that everything was better before. Some thing may have been. Do I think humantiy is f***** it'self up? Yes. The unhealthy lifestyles, the pollution and all the other problem make it hard to be an optimist.
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Stories. Skill, luck nad numbers determine the outcome of any fight. And while you may have skill, luck and numbers won't be always with you. I don't want to be a special snowflake. Leave the ego-stroking for kiddies with short attention spans and low self-esteem. So no. There is no word in a dictionary sufficient to illustrate how much agaisnt this I am.
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Practicly every RPG out there has huge power levels and you end up decimating armies. I'm sick and tired of it. I want a setting/world I can get lost in. You want an escapist fantasy that strokes ones ego. I realise you and I want different things and in the end one of us will be dissapointed, because you can't have both. If there is one thing that can make me not want to buy PE and forget it ever existed, it would be PE turning into Dragonball.
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Which is part of the reason I didn't like the "soul" power idea. I don't want to be "powerfull" in that broken sense. How you portray power can differ. For arguments sake - let's say that you don't get a single HP per level. You don't get various stat increases, no bonuses to attack, defense or wathever. The only thing you get is skills/feats (and an attribute point or two, but their impact would overall be minimal since you'd only get 4-5 during the game... so while attribute points can influence stats, there wont' be any huge changes) In other words, characters become more flexible. They get more tactical options insted of more damage/DPS. They don't really strike that much harder at lvl 20 then they do at lvl1 (discounting better weapons, but their scaling would be toned down too) Yes, it should. You do not engage a dragon in a direct fight anymore than you attack an Abrams tank with your bare hands. Huge, powerfull monsters should require preparation and tactics, not raw power. Dragons have lost all of their allure to me, given how overused and how easily killable and uninteligent they are. As Spoony said - an intelligent dragon would never land - it would roast you from the sky, chase you down and kill you. So you have to trick/trap/ambush it. Not necessarily. 2-1 odds when high level should be doable. 3-1 would be pushing it. So a party of 6 could take on 10-20 low level enemies. And what exactly is the problem with fighing fewer enemies? Or having NPC allies to even the numbers? I am. Qunatity has a quality of it's own. Being outnumbered/outflanked SHOULD ruin you day.
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Personally, I'm for specific resistance/damage reduction values for specific armors AND weapons having the option to deal multiple damage types (if applicable) Something like field plate would have redicolously high resistance/DR from slashing and high resistance to both piercing and crushing. A chainmail/splintmail armor would offer little almost no protection against crushing, but would be good against slashing and piercing. and so on.
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So we will be able to loot everythnig that isn't bolted down wihout any problems? No weight/volume limits? I am dissapoint.
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HMmmm...one little nitpick regarding weapons - some weapons can deliver more than 1 type of damage. For example, greatswords would be used to pierce agaisnt armor...you can even use them as blunt weapons.
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Cheap. And there's no reason why the progression of power should be big, or why the PC should be powerfull at all... well, other than ego stroking. I really don't want to see power scaling such that at high levels entire armies are needed to bring you down. Anything more than 10 lvl1 guys, and the power scaling has already gone out of control. I mean what - do enemeis have scouters? Bandit: "OMG! His powur lvl! IT'S OVER 9 THOUSAAAAND!" Frak the chap, shallow portraly of power trough stright up stat increases. Challenge should be mantained always. Enemeis should be SMART about how they fight. I don't care if you're a lvl99 super-samurai-swordmaster ... unless you moveat the speed of light AND have eyes on the back of your head AND the enemies line up to fight you 1-by-1, you're not getting out alive out of an ambush staged by a dozen run of the mill bandits
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Oh, there are 2 ways an ending can leave you feeling the blues: 1) You want more and you are sad it ended, 2) You didn't feel like the ending accomplished anything or answered important questions The first one is good, the second isn't.
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Finished watching Darker Than Black. Good, but the ending leaves me feeling unsatisfied.
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egads! You saw trough me! RUN AWAY!
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I don't get it why are so many peopel fixated on POWER progression insted of character/story progression? F*** power...especailly the cheap and shallow representation of it trough buffing stats to redicolous levels. The best games I played were those without redicolous pwoer levels or thosue without any leveling at all. There's your perfect balance right there.
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BG2 Vs NWN2 crafting
TrashMan replied to Malekith's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Does he automatically have to be the best at both fighting AND magery, just because he's capable of high-quality smithing? Also, where does he get the time to, I dunno... gain 10-times his initial health in hitpoints? How does a Rogue go from barely being able to hide from a cow to hiding from Shadow Demons? Abstractions in the time requirements for character progression in an RPG are highly favorable to 300-hours of swinging a sword at a combat dummy just to go from "Extreme Novice" to "Starting to Slightly Approach The Ceiling of the Novice Bracket." It is that retarded abstraction that I hate. I don't want to see redicolous skill levels or power levels (but unfortunately I probably will).
