PrimeJunta

@Valorian: thank you for conceding the debate so gracefully.

Uh, Hiro. Are you seriously claiming that "pretending to be weaker than you are" is something you've never, or rarely, encountered in fact or fiction? "Witness the power of this fully operational battle station" ring any bells?

Coming from you, that's high praise. :salute: Reactivity is the thing I like about it too. If a world changes based on your decisions, it feels more alive. The most important way this happens in cRPG's is through quest triggers, obviously, but I still think dynamic systems can significantly enrich the experience. Reputation mechanics, for example. I see this idea as very similar in many ways. If the "jack of all trades" party was the resulting optimal outcome then I agree, it would not have been a successful system. I think some care would need to be taken to ensure that there isn't a single obviously dominant strategy to play against the system, but I think the same thing applies to character and party mechanics in general. While (IMO, as always) classes ought to be roughly similar in value, they don't have to be exactly balanced, just not obviously unbalanced. Same thing for party strategy here. I also don't think this system would fit well in a game where you have no party pool to draw from, i.e. where you only have the party you travel with and that's it. That would severely penalize specialist parties since they would be the most vulnerable to being countered, and you would have no way of changing strategy mid-stream. However, if you have more NPC's than party slots and can swap them in and out, then I think it could work nicely -- it would encourage you to swap between party members from time to time. In P:E I understand you'll be able to send NPC's off on quests to gain XP on their own, which would prevent them from falling behind too much even if you don't adventure with them while avoiding the (IMO jarring) system of having everyone level up at the same rate even if all they've been doing is play pazaak in the Ebon Hawk. Again, this obviously wouldn't work for every game -- the player, would need to have sufficient tools to work with the effects of the mechanic, and there would have to be a solid in-world justification for it. It would also have to be transparent enough that you have an idea of what's going on. But I think that if done well, it could add significant flavor. It might even be possible to mod something like this in, even at a very rudimentary level where it only responds to your party composition. That would be a good addition. You could hook any number of things to the base mechanic -- script triggers, quests feeding back into it (e.g. spies), special encounters feeding into it (e.g. armed recon), and so on.

So you'd be OK with changes in encounter composition if it's done through quest triggers, but not if it's done through an independent subsystem? I'd certainly not be opposed to doing it through quest triggers; just from where I'm at the independent subsystem would provide similar dynamism with much less work -- it'd be doing its thing in the background, and the only thing the scripters would have to do is flag which encounters are subject to adjustment by it, and what the brackets within which the adjustment happens is. Again, the system I have in mind isn't all that dramatic; I wouldn't want to have it completely change encounter composition, simply to adjust it to a moderate extent. Swap out a few magic-using units for a few ranged units, or vice versa, or perhaps equip the melee units with slashing instead of bludgeoning weapons, or vice versa, whichever is more effective. The kind of stuff that would be quite tedious to script in on a case-by-case basis.

I like the idea of an evil or desperate king raising an undead army for a war, with the leftovers still wandering the world. It's pretty clear that we don't know everything about the origins of undead at this point, by the way. Several of the undead monsters that have been presented clearly aren't part of the fampyr to skeleton chain. I'll be interested to hear what the lore for them, and others, is.

@Chilloutman, there are shamans, chanters, and druids -- albeit not under that name -- plying their trade right now, coexisting with the Internet and atomic weapons. I've even met a few. Just sayin'.

Do you have any such mechanism in mind? I agree, it would be entirely possible to ruin this by making it too heavy-handed. What I had in mind was adjustment within brackets. So if the encounter designer makes a "base" encounter consist of two orc shamans, four orc elite archers, and four orc elite grunts, at an extreme you might see four orc shamans, two archers, and four grunts, and at anohter, one shaman, two archers, and seven grunts. Fairly subtle, yet enough to make a tangible difference.

In a reputation system, you see, we're talking about your party gradually accumulating like/dislike points for various factions; you lose points for some factions, but get some for others. They react to your reputation when you interact with them. There's no "best way". It's pure role-playing. I see. Is this a general preference? I.e., are you opposed in principle to any system which, if played optimally, gives your player advantages in beating the game? Or does it apply only some systems and not others? If so, which ones and why? Also, could you give me an example of a game with a reputation system that provides you with no tangible benefits, i.e., is role-playing only? I can't think of one off-hand.

But why shouldn't it? Why is the way you interact with people fair game for a reputation system, but your party composition and favorite tactics not?

@Valorian, I notice you're arguing against the subsystems I specifically removed from my example, rather than the core idea. I find that both characteristic of your style, and illustrative of the strength of your position. Consider the idea an extension of the reputation system. If you get a reputation for fielding mages, the opposition will start fielding mage-killers. So, once again, why is it bad if reputation systems are good?

Then why don't you like this system? They're very similar, only this one is simpler to implement.

I was, but I removed them from my "at its simplest" example. No reason you couldn't add some, though, e.g. have the AI default to an aggressive script if it determines that it's more likely to work against your hitherto-observed tactics. Yup. It's known as "armed recon." You make contact, then scram once you've found out what the enemy response is. What's your opinion on reputation systems, party influence systems, and alignment/karma systems, by the way?

Funny, I strongly preferred AUJ to DoS, but not for those reasons. I thought DoS was overcooked. I would've enjoyed it more if they had cut most of the action sequences and left only the highlights; as it is, what should have been climactic scenes just got lost in the general jumble of it. AUJ had more quiet moments which made the actiony bits stand out more and ultimately have more impact. Don't worry about LotRO, I haven't ever played an MMO and have no intention of starting.

@Valorian: (1) This system would have no impact at all on combat AI. It would simply determine the composition of the units that appear in combat. The simple crushy/shooty/zappy model would already introduce variety that wasn't there before. Naturally you can take it much further, if you like, with finer-grained profiles for example. (2) In the sketch I proposed, there would not be a separate subsystem for intercepting spies. Instead, we have a quest with bog-standard triggers feeding into party_profile, and an end-state check for encounters without witnesses. Both are dead easy. You don't have to like the idea, but at least do try to base your objections on what's actually in it rather than something you made up on the spot, m'kay?

I haven't played LotRO and don't intend to. I'm pretty sure mopey and whiney isn't what Tolkien intended either. Tragic is hard to pull off well; it's all too easy to turn it into maudlin or unintentionally comic. I'd still like somebody to film the Narn i Hîn Húrin though. Or hell, even the entire freaking Silmarillion from the point of view of Maedhros -- from the rape of the Two Trees and the vow of Fëanor and his sons, to his final crime and suicide after the fall of Melkor. As to the unearthly beauty, it can be done on film, although IMO it hasn't been done much in these cynical times we live in. I won't name any films because they're personally very meaningful to me and I don't want to have them shredded here as someone surely would, tastes and the Internet being what they are.

It is an invitation to game the system. That's the point of a gameplay system. Jeez! And yes, I do contend it would be a relatively low-hanging fruit. At its simplest: (0) Categorize units as crushy, zappy, and shooty. (1) Track who shows up at each battle, how they're equipped, and what abilities they use. (2) Adjust party_profile based on this data (e.g. 20% crushy, 40% shooty, 40% zappy). This happens incrementally over time, and does not automatically track the latest encounter. (3) Adjust enemy_encounter_profile to counter party_profile (e.g. 20% zappy, 40% crushy, 40% shooty). Each encounter would have a pool of shooty, crushy, and zappy units to draw from, and final composition would be determined by the current party_profile. This would already be an interesting-enough system to play against. To make it more interesting, add intelligence-gathering subsystems the player can mess with. For example, if (encounter is in remote location) and (encounter has no survivors) then (don't adjust party_profile). Or write up a quest where the questgiver is also an enemy spy, will have observers following the party as it performs the quest, and will try to pump the party about what they did afterwards. The party's actions will determine how party_profile is adjusted based on this. And so on. But no, this isn't hard, compared to standard stuff like, oh, I dunno, writing branching quests, or coding up a character class with talent trees and what not -- and it will make replays a good deal more interesting as the encounters will be different.

...yet they're the ultimate failures. They see all their works come to naught, and they themselves are doomed to fade away. That's kind of the point.

@JFSOCC I would've made an even smaller intervention: I would just have spread out the questgivers geographically more, with the tougher quests available from people who are further away from the areas you first visit. There were suitable locations; there's no compelling reason IMO so many of those things had to start in the Copper Coronet or the marketplace.

^^^ This is why I play most games a few years after they came out. The ones that are still around are worth playing, and they cost peanuts.

I wasn't actually thinking of scaling at all. I was thinking of changes in enemy tactics and group composition. Suppose you have three categories of units, crushies, shooties, and zappies, where shooties counter zappies, zappies counter crushies, and crushies counter shooties. If you've been fielding lots of shooties, then you'll start seeing the enemy group composition shift towards having fewer zappies and more crushies. They'd still be the same overall strength. The strategic deception you could pull off is to convince the enemy e.g. that you don't have any zappies, then break them out at a critical moment. Yes, that would be pretty lol. That wasn't me. That was AlO3. I would do that differently; instead of scaling the boss encounter in power, I'd change it in composition. If the boss encounter is with Baron Invidius, <minion> and <bodyguard>, I'd have <minion> be Archmage Necrosius, Champion Invictus, or Master of the Hunt Oriol, and <bodyguard> consist of a mix of elite shooties, crushies, and zappies, depending on what you had done up to that point.

Guilty as charged. I do have trouble grasping the concept that strategic deception is not strategy if it produces the desired result. Especially as this strategy involves a meaningful trade-off -- you're making things harder for yourself now in order to gain an advantage later. Same thing as, oh, dual-classing in BG2. You commit to a stretch of seriously underpowered play in order to get major advantages later. Do you consider that exploiting a flaw in the AD&D character system, or playing strategically? If the latter, how is it different from playing against our hypothetical strategic AI?

Keeping your most powerful weapons secret until they're needed is not strategy. OK, glad we got that cleared up.

See post #85.

:sigh: Playing a system designed to be played is not degenerate. It's called "playing the game." What we're discussing here is a gameplay system -- a layer of strategic intelligence to the enemy AI, with associated intelligence-gathering subsystems. It is designed to introduce a new element into the game. It is intended to be played. A strategy is only degenerate if it involves exploiting a flaw in a system in a way to gain a massive and unintended advantage. For example, in the IE games, setting a trap and then luring the enemy into it is not degenerate. It's tactics. However, exploiting a flaw in pathfinding which stops the enemy from reaching you so you can plink it to death with arrows is degenerate. Whether the layer of strategic AI allows degenerate strategies or not depends on how well it is designed and implemented.

Which would be a way cool strategy. Also something entirely believable -- keeping your best stuff in reserve and not letting the enemy find out about it makes total sense. Seriously, I want this feature. It would introduce a whole new gameplay element without all that much effort. Of course you can game it -- that's the point. To make it fun the intelligence-gathering methods would have to be believable, and it would have to be possible to interfere with them in many of the ways listed here -- not using your most powerful abilities until they're really needed, not allowing enemies to escape the battlefield, identifying and squishing spies, dealing with recon... perhaps undercover enemy spies would actually try to recruit you to do stuff for them, posing as your usual questgivers, mixed among the other sidequests. Damn, this has possibilities... and it would fit great into an IE-style game.