Captain Shrek

I would say that the first option is "point"less. The last two have been implemented well in many games, but finally the Point buy options create a standard model which can be used easily and may even be necessary to design a balanced game. The Q&A system sounds great and interesting but its failure to capture user preference may be noticeable. Not all ideas are interpreted in the same way and psychology is still MOSTLY a pseudoscience.

Oh you mean stuff like rapid cooldowns? Or do you mean Spell spamming?

Err.... excuse me?

I can't see how DA:O is any different from PE except of course the story. It has the similar setting and similar mechanics. We have to see if romances and sex-slaves are in or not. That is all.

Hmm. That is a curious opinion. What do you think of Combat in Diablo?

Did anyone claim that? Where? yes, metiman did. he keeps supporting that view too And for the record, I disagree with the notion that switching from TB to real time even reduces strategy or tactics. All I have said, just for clarificaiton since this point keeps coming up, is that it is INCONVENIENT to handle a lot of option in RT. It is inconvenient to do it for RTwP when you have a large party.

Did anyone claim that? Where?

Most chess programs are LEAF EVALUATION. Meaning an energy function is minimised wrt given number of steps. heuristic programs are available but seldom used. And of course we haven't figured out how to make perfect Heuristic programs. That means that it is not the fault of the computer which is perfectly capable of processing such a st of commands if we can't deliver them. As I said, I am talikng in an absolute sense. I think I am not interested in this I know you know argument. You have failed to understand a simple point: That I am talking about the capacity of computers not the currently available algorithms. To understand that simply consider that you can't beat the toughest fights in most games in the first go on an average. Now ask yourself how you win them. Tactical possibilities that are available to YOU (player), you mean. No doubt. That is exactly what I mean by easier. That you can now access these possibilities that were otherwise difficult to access earler without pause. Read the OP for all references.

@Althernai Hi. I do statistical simulations each day that are impossible by human standards even to imagine. What you are probably referring to has a statistical name. It is called Heuristics. As I said, you need to cripple the AI to defeat it. Humans are benefited by their Knowledge base. If you allow computers to have a heuristic data base as well (completely reasonable with a neural network, nothing fancy there) you will never win. To be precise, even the computer vs human chess games DO NOT HAVE HEURISTICS. They are crippled. But still they defeat humans. Read that again. I am talking in an absolute sense. I can demonstrate that your average PC will never allow you to win if you make the AI heuristic. It has more than enough memory to hold many iterations from a gamplay ensemble, so many that we can't match it. Again put in neural net and allow it to learn and bingo! you will lose. We cripple it by not allowing it to learn. This kind of heuristic + branching AI is not present in games becuase they are games. They are meant to be winnable (mostly) and devs do not care enough about these issues (Why should they?). Ganz falsch. I have clearly stated in OP that Pause does make the game easier.

I admit defeat. Now let's be friends!

It is a good idea. But I would modify it slightly like: damage accrued = standard weapon damage + 1/2 ( difference in Hit and AC) This way the system won't become overpowered causing ridiculous damage to easy to hit enemies.

Better yet, volly I assume your favorite combat type is from DA2, am I right or a mi Right?

Hi volly, my dearest pretty princess. Read the very first line of that post. @caerdon I can't see where all this unnecessary opposition is coming from but I will try to address it at least where I can hope to. As I see it I am using the military definition of strategy and tactics: Strategy as grand scale decisionmaking and tactics as small scale resource limited decision making. Feel free to tell me what is a better definition. There is this thing called reading comprehension that allows you to link between different parts of a textual study to see how they interact with each other. I believe that I have included very clearly a reason why there may be rounds in a game that is real time. Check it out! Your enthusiasm to bash me seems to get better of you. At no point one length of consideration time has been considered better than others. I am clearly allowing that different people are attuned to different kind of games and thus games should be tailored to suit their audience. Weird ideas your sweet little heinie. Are you still in the 20th century? We have moved o baby. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_chess_matches uh oh. Hold action.

How do you know there are no rounds? Did the devs actually say this at some point of time?

Hi. I understand that RTwP has been confirmed for this game. But it might still be instructive to consider what are the weaknesses and strengths of each type of combat style. I am posting as essay here on these comparing these two based on arguments built from scratch. This was first posted on RPG codex some time back on a similar issue. Feel free to comment. Since we are talking about video games, please understand I will not associate the following discussion to games in general although a lot of these arguments wills till hold there. RTwP and Turn based are time-keeping devices in games. To understand the motivation of putting them in a game requires a set of tools that include a vocabulary and some concepts. First definitions: Let's define the following: Ideas: Tactics as positioning units and queuing actions for an event. Turn: Defined in those games where actions of units happen independently of each other and in a sequence determined statically or through an initiative roll. Round: When a game is NOT turn based then every unit takes a certain amount of time to finish its action. If all actions available to the unit are made to take the same time and simultaneous actions are allowed for multiple players, we call such an action a Round. Deep: Providing a large array of tactical options. When the actions are neither turn based or round based we will call then animation-time (AT) based actions. Genres: Adventure genre: Concerned with exploration, puzzle solving and interaction. ( Strategy: Resource management and tactics (e.g. HoM&M, JA) Action: Twitch based gameplay (do not involve tactics as defined above but rather instantaneous decisions e.g. Gothic games) Now to concepts. Good tactical games: The word tactical is quite broad. It can be used for any genre you can think of starting from action to strategy, but not so much in adventure. But to be qualitatively considerate it applies best to strategy genre. RPGs can be a mix between strategy, Adventure and action and then some other elements (typically tiered/leveling mechanics). Depending upon how much part of each had entered the RP game, the level of tactics required changes considerably. Games that focus on tactical combat require certain amount of 'consideration time' before action is taken. Thus, it makes sense to choose a time-keeping device for a game with respect to the number of tactical decisions available and the depth of such decisions. i.e. If the characters in the game under the player control can take a large number of possible actions and the same holds for the enemy then it makes sense to choose a time-keeping system that allows larger consideration times. Computers by default are always faster than the player. If in a continuous time keeping system with deterministic mechanics, such as Round based or AT based, the computer is given free reign, the player will NEVER win. Thus difficulty for these games is always artificial, in the sense that evenly matched characters in the game will always be biased towards computer victory. In evenly matched turn based games, where the results of actions are purely deterministic, the game will always have a fixed outcome (if there is no starting move bias) of draw if the player is an expert. Otherwise the computer will always win. Only in a game which has mechanics with random component to it, can a player have a chance to win. Games are (almost always) created to be winnable. Thus they always must have some level of artificial difficulty/ease. In order to retain element of challenge in tactical games, they are made to be restrictive in terms of strategies that can succeed. The typical aim of the game is to force the player to create/explore/discover winning strategies. Intuitively speaking, a game that allows a large variety of strategies and a significantly large variety of winning strategies is to be considered good because it provides more quality content overall. I will refer to two of these quantitative ideas often in this discussion: 1) Total number of allowed strategies (TS) 2) Ratio of winnable strategies / losing strategies (RS) I am hoping that it is obvious that the quality of games can be evaluated with these two numbers. The first is obvious. If the second number is in the range of (1/9 , 1/4) it will be better. Of course some might prefer even lower rate of success, but then TS must go up to compensate for lower values of RS. Please understand, this is a highly simplified descriptor of the real system, since the actual number of losing strategies in typical strategy games are infinite if the player is an idiot. Thus a certain level of smartness is assumed. Also, we are talking aboutRPG games that do not usually involve a large number of units in action (number of units < 10 ). If the number of units exceed 10-20 then the game is a pure strategy game and much more complex to discuss without further simplifications. We are discussing only games that provide some arbitrary level of challenge. Games that are un-challenging by this arbitrary standard are casual games. Unfortunately I am unable to enforce a condition of challenging onto you since there are people around who find combat of DA: O challenging. But it is always possible to create an artificial and relative scale by referring to one example. In this case we will make the combat of Witcher 2 as the example since it can offer ridiculously large amount of posterior pain from all circles for the common enjoyment of all. Also, it is important to consider at all points that games need not be realistic. i.e. it is not a priority of the design to make games realistic. The priority is rather that they are made to be fun for the intended group i.e. you don't make strategy games for action oriented players. After this has been achieved realism can be the topping but never the base. Alright. With this framework in mind we can now analyse how gameplay is affected by time-keeping. Actual Discussion: It should be clear by now that games do not always need to be strategic in nature. There are those who rather prefer playing purely twitch based games (genre of action). There are others who prefer more slow paced games (genre of strategy). Real time keeping can exist for either genre while turn based time keeping can only exist for strategy games. First let's discuss the TB system since it is the easiest to wind up: For a well designed game TB system automatically implies deep mechanics. Without the depth the game would become bland. This is a two way necessity (TB <-> Deep Mechanics) since if the developer wants to provide deep mechanics to the player, he should also allow the player the time to consider them. Thus a game with deeper mechanics ideally should be TB so thatTS are actually realized within the game. It now makes sense to state that games with large number of party members require a closer attention when each member has a large array of options. Since a battle is dynamic with the enemy also strategizing it is important to adopt to the situation. Now with larger and larger number of teammates it is progressive harder to maintain control of all actions. A game that has so many options but does not require you to use them is of course badly designed since its RS is too high for non-casual games. So just to be clear, if the party is made up of two guys with two options each (attack or defend) then there is little reason to make the game turn based. Real-time games: There is a large video games audience that plays games just to vent off steam. There is also another audience that plays games to vent of steam and feel like a little tactical challenge and a listening to a good story every once in a while. Real Time RPGs are typically oriented for the latter. Please do not misunderstand: these games DO require strategizing. But not strategizing the way tactical has been defined in this post. Thus an action game which necessitates preparation before a battle (potions, choice of weapons etc) is smart but not tactical in the same way as a game with party members with distribution of differing skills. The distinction is purely artificial to facilitate a clean division. I will claim that such games are best played with few party members (1- 4) and have less combat options per action. Sound heretical, but to me, it is a good design decision with the time-keeping system in mind. A game that offers 10 options per action and is real time driven without pause would make no sense to have all these options, because to win you'd either require to cripple the AI severely or have a hand-eye coordination + genius of batman. This is so because the Computer has instantaneous, absolute and precise control of its units, while a human being can meaningfully control one unit at a given point of time. Thus what he can do, the AI can do better. Crippling the AI risks the game becoming casual (although some level of crippling is always necessary). A Real time system with Pause introduces some level of fine control over the actions of the units. It now allows to issue orders, all the while synchronizing them periodically thus preparing for long term combat. AT based games that do not use a standard time-keeping devices, lose synchronicity faster since the units end their actions at different times thus forcing tighter control over action. That is why I presume a Round based system becomes necessary. It is interesting to note the apparent inspiration of the idea of a round from the idea of a turn. Round is a one sided time-keeping device that allows greater synchronicity or at least a temporal scale for the player to control his units. Even if individual units are not synchronized, rounds act like mini alarms giving the player a breathing space. The problem with them is of course again the AI and the number of options. Those who play NWN2 see this often. The Units if left with even slight freedom start acting up with their 'in-duh-viduality' by casting nuking spells or AOE spells on their own party, running heedlessly into enemy Area of Free Attack zone or buffing themselves up un-necessarily. It is of course sometimes necessary for Units to act on their own. But since the correct balance between automation and tactics is hard to achieve (or you'd have skynet) these things typically do not work out as expected. The solution to that in IWD was that AI was overall too dumb and relied on strong but small 'organised' (scattered but balanced) mobs instead. But again this is a sub-optimal solution. There are indirect ways to take care of these issues: The first is to exploit the idea of the Round as a time-keeping device. Since Rounds are required to create synchronous and provide 'consideration time', by making everyone's rounds last longer it is possible to make the game more controllable. This automatically reduces the game play speed, which again has to be balanced with gameplay so that it is not overtly slow. Interestingly DA:O to DA2 transition is the travesty of this idea where slow round speeds were replaced with bad AI and restricted spamming to compensate for the lack of tactical combat to achieve faster game mechanics. Another way of dealing with the problem is small parties. With a single player character or two player character parties, it becomes easier to get a handle on the situation and micromanage effectively. Three is where probably the line is crossed although this may be a little preferential. Conclusion: Thus it makes sense to have both kinds of time keeping devices for games as long as they are being developed for the right audience. Video games are a relatively nascent form of expression and will require a lot of guidance and experience that can only come from developing and playing bad games. It is the ability to identify the exact ingredients and the context of the elements that create poor games that will save gaming as a whole from Bioware and co.

Hi. In my mind there are two important parts associated with implementing a system of magic in (video) games. 1) Mechanics based balance 2) Narrative / Lore considerations Since we are playing a game, there is no doubt that the former always trumps the latter; that is to say that you have to balance the system before you can invent a cool lore. This made clear, we can now proceed onto some intelligent discourse. The first question is what to call magic: I would claim that magic is something that is not a physical skill i.e. it is not a mental skill (Diplomacy, alchemy) or a strength or (solely) agility based skill (like weapon handling or thievery). Magic means evoking something un-natural by definition. Please, I am talking about the magic as the staple of fantasy setting. There are other views of what magic is; I am not concerning myself with them. Thus magic is doing what no normal person can do with normal means. There are again two facets of this "magic": 1) Magical items 2) Magical skills By magical items I indicate objects that grant (negative/positive) bonuses on usage or consumption. This may or may not intersect with Alchemy which is a mental skill. These items will impart traits to the user that will (or should) alter their skills one way or another (drastically) beyond their capacity without any obvious ability to do so. By magical skill I mean the capacity to invoke effects that are paranormal through incantations or sigils or glyphs or similarly esoteric products (ingredients). It is obvious to me and so should it be to you, that only magic that can change things significantly in the game world would be respected. For example a spell to shave belly hair is neat but has no consequence on gaming experience. Same holds true for magical items as well. Ring of back itching +3 is not a very useful item unless for the sake of hilarity. Good. Magic need NOT be visually spectacular always. It can have visually unappealing results. That is okay as long as the above condition of usefulness is satisfied. Secondly, magic needs to be at least as powerful as Physical skills in the game IF the game allows a pure "magical" path. This is a balance issue. Finally, magic must be at least capped to some level without allowing a play to win spell. The same holds for Melee/ranged/rogue skills as well. Again a balance issue. As long as these three points are satisfied, a good storyteller can now design lore to surround and "explain" magic. Here is where the real discussion starts: Let me tell you what I think about magic. To me, magic is essentially something that is overpowered by definition. It has to be so, because otherwise it would lose its awe-inspiring nature. This does not imply by necessity that magic be rare. But it OUGHT TO BE RARE, because without its exquisite scarcity it would stop being interesting. This is a narrative point of view which allows the story to become seamless. If magic is both powerful and common, e.g. existence of teleport and resurrect spells or even something as simple as fireball spell being 'easy' once per day cast, I for one, would be hard pressed to find a meaningful story that I can relate to. But that seems a bit contradictory to the earlier necessary claim that magic should be balanced wrt Physical skills. Because balance would require magic to be cast at least once in a while. To resolve this dilemma, there has to be a system in place which will stop you from becoming super-powerful during a game and at the same time give you options that are not easily exhausted just because magic is rare. There is another problem associated with the issue that deals with whether the game is single player single character game or a party based game. I am certain that the former forces you to choose a system of magic that is based on ideas like regenerating mana or easily acquired ingredients (time (vancian) or spell components). I will not consider these games because they do not confirm to my view of magic. This is a relative choice and I welcome you to have your own views regarding them. Now there have been quite a few implementations of magical systems for party based games. I will not bore you with recounting them. Rather I will give you my version of an ideal system: In order to have a balanced yet rare magical system , I propose that the caster lose something with every cast. Not a (at least quick) regenerating thing, mind you, so that the game can be turned into a waiting game. But something that will be difficult to acquire. I am not going to support stamina or mana as a resource since if one has somewhat powerful spells that heal and another spell that hurt, then it would become a rinse and repeat game of cast 1 and cast 2. Instead this resource that one loses should be rare reflecting the difficulty to cast spells. To counterbalance the rarity, increase the number of options (spells) that each require different resource (or more practically a mix and match) thus always giving the player a tactical choice. This way the player can always either act as a nuker or a buff-caster. There is no doubt in my mind that the above system only works well for party based games where the Spell caster can choose a role according to his options while being flexible about the role itself. He can effortlessly switch from one role to another as a particular ingredient becomes available and thus be crucial to conflicts in the game, never feeling useless and never making the magic system feel over the top.

We do not have a spellcasting system designed. This is not something we have to "change" because the majority of what we have developed for things as complex as the spellcasting system are ideas. It's three weeks into a fundraising campaign to make this project. I cannot tell you what final form the spellcasting system will take, what elements it absolutely will or won't have. All I can tell you is the sort of goals we have and general ideas of things I'd like to see and avoid. I'm trying to create the feeling of strategic spell selection and tactical spell use in D&D while avoiding the constant rest spamming that was so prevalent in the games I made. There are probably a number of ways to solve this problem. I have some ideas on this, but we haven't settled on them. I want to tell people about general ideas and opinions I have, but I don't think spending a day trying to design the system in the forum is going to produce good results. Sorry Josh to bother you again. But I had some wall of text that might add a little value to this entire discussion we had. I hope you will be able to find some time to go through it.

Practically speaking, that's how a lot of players handled enemies like the black dragon in Chult in IWD2 (well, with reloading). A high-level sorcerer in IWD2 (or tabletop) could chain cast a fair number of Acid Fogs or Hold Monsters, but they'd have to be pretty high level, and I think that while those spells are really powerful, they don't compare to the save-or-die family spells. Well not directly but they are at least as bad if not worse like some of the save or die and if you survive then worse; get nerfed variety. But we are diverting. The point is that the wizard can then no longer have any spell which will be meta-effect like hold since that will always mean instawin with spam since you would have many such spells (unless the decision is to cut spell variety so that player can't use them). To avoid that and introduce some challenge I can see that you will have to force nerfed damage spells. Which are fine in my book as long as the combat is balanced, right? EDIT: And I must bid good night! Thanks for your time. I hope it was well spent.

Not particularly. What I've been consistently saying is that in the IE games, most players did regenerate their spells (through rest) after the end of combat, if not after the end of one combat, usually after two or three. We have some players in this thread insisting that they never do that. I'm not doing to dispute them, but I certainly know what I've watched players actually do (rest constantly and backtrack to rest constantly). I don't know why you would assume that. There are hundreds of spells in A/D&D that run the gamut of power between Sleep and Wail of the Banshee, even at high levels. That may be so Josh, but we can't allow access to any of those which are area effect and able to kill, can we, otherwise the combat would be over in a second. Consider the spells like Fog of acid (? weak memory, excuse me) or hold monster. If I could just SPAM THOSE it is more than enough to crush through enemy defenses. All I need is a variety in such spells so that I don't have to cast the same thing but still give me an easy victory .

Isn't the incentive that the fight goes much easier when you scout and select your spells prior to engaging the enemy? Whether you're going to get AS back immediately after the fight or as soon as you can/choose to rest, the enjoyment comes from having AS before you start the fight and using it in a tactically excellent way. Scouting is what gives you the buffer of safety to make those preparations. I must disagree. Save +Load gives you best tactical advantage. Why scout and do all that tedious hiding in the shadows when you can simply reload from... dare I say a checkpoint? oh. my imagination fairy just bit me. Why not autosave just before an encounter is about to happen? This will save me loads of trouble and tedium!

Well, that is a good question: should spells of that power (mass save or die, enormous damage sink summons) be in the spellcaster's arsenal, period? I know some players do want "omnipotent" (to use one poster's words) wizards. Oh boy, am I one of them. So I assume that wizards will be casting standard buffs and magic missiles only and not anything DnD worthy in order for of this system to work. Would it be a bad idea at this moment to consider other systems where more powerful but otherwise limited wizards are allowed? That does seem too spectacular from a balanced game point of view, that I must agree.

Not in the way you're thinking of it. Alright. So let us assume for the present that heal is not the issue. What about Summoned creatures, one shot kill spells (Wail of the Banshee?) something even worse like Shadow simulacrum which you can spam per battle? I am hoping such things are completely absent then, other wise I foresee a clear trail of munchkin crumbs in my merry adventurous path along the game . Since I am sure that the combat will have challenge, I must be wrong! But still I would assume that combat is no more so difficult as I can always use all my powerful abilities repeatedly through-out the dungeons! That makes me joyous!

I don't believe you are sincere. I am most sincere Josh. Honest! The amount of time that a spell level lockout should last isn't something for which I have a solid answer. It could work in a manner similar to 4E where the end of an "encounter" resets the lockout on the majority of abilities, but "combat" states in engines is something that, in my experience, is often triggered on/off in weird ways. If a lockout lasts for something like 30 seconds or 45 seconds, that lockout will likely last longer than the remainder of the combat, but not so long that the player would have a compelling incentive to "spam stand", which I agree is bad. Whether the answer is a timed lockout or a combat state-released lockout, I'm not sure. I think health and hit points can be handled differently because the player always has a high incentive to avoid as much damage as possible for all of their characters. I.e. conserving health is (almost) always in the player's best interest, but conserving spells may not be. That automatically begs the question Josh, that does the party have a heal spell, no? Because as I see it resetting all your spells post combat => heal heal heal. EDIT: And that's just the first of many I can think of to be honest.

Locking out access to an entire level of spells once you have exhausted the castings you have available to you at a given level (as a 3E sorcerer would) means that you have to use spells from your other spell levels. This creates a tactical challenge during combat, especially for spells at levels where you do not have many castings available (i.e. typically your highest). Allowing them to regenerate literally instantly means that there is not a tactical consideration; you should just use the most powerful spell for the situation over and over again for the duration of combat. The feeling of challenge is a balance between enjoyment and frustration. It is not the same for every player, but it is almost always at some midpoint between those two emotions. My goal is to use a variety of mechanics to find balance points that appeal to this specific audience, varied as it is. I think that instant health regeneration errs to much on the side of ease for this audience. Not really Josh. You are probably too busy to get this question correctly. Sorry to intrude on your busy schedule like this. But your reply has little do with what I said. I haven't yet said a single word about the difficulty or tactics WITHIN the combat. All I am asking is why this artificial Cooldown time? Why not instantaneous regeneration POST combat?

I must have missed your post. A large number of the people in this thread are talking about a type of spell cooldown I've never suggested for PE (cast a Fireball, unable to cast Fireball again for 30 seconds). I which case Josh kindly consider this: As I understand (correct me if I wrong you) your issue with resting is stemming from the tedium of pausing in combat and wasting time between battles to do nothing. The solution you suggest is to instead allow for a cool down time which will replenish ALL your spell outside of combat, so that you can carry on to the next battle. The obvious question should be: why even a cool down? Make the regeneration instantaneous! There is a very popular example of this model named Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2. They make it even less tedious! The health (sadly only meaningful resource in that game unlike RPGs) regenerates instantly. Why not do that with project eternity as well? I mean that is the least amount of tedium right?