Hormalakh

Hello. How are you? That's good/not good depending on how you are. Josh Sawyer answered a few questions on the latest update and the topic of possible death animations was brought up. Some people were ecstatic (actually just me) and some people didn't like it one bit (not me). Anyway, obviously I come with a bias, but I was still interested in knowing what you guys thought. The question is this: If you have enough resources to choose one, would you spend them on increasing your attack animations above the basic attack (one attack animation per weapon) or would you spend it on implementing (EDIT: varied) death animations? A few things: Death animations show at the end of a fight. Attack animations show during the fight. I am considering death animations for both the player and enemies. Here are some examples of death animations: Here is where I make my arguments: That's all I could come up with. Once again, obviously I'm biased. Here is what some other people have said in defense of multiple attack animations instead of death animations. I diasgree with them.

Click the top left "switch" looking button to get it in "code mode." It's what I've been using.

konami code must do something....

Calm down Tauron.... Be calm brother. Dye shops. You buy dye and color your armor. Wait I already said that. I meant tattoo shops. You can change your characters look mid-game if you wish. Want to grow out a beard? Sure! You can! Want to put on a few tattoos? That's fine. Laser removal of old tattoos that are reminders of your past mistakes? Come down to Ye Olde Tattoo Parlor!

Hi squeakycat. I wouldn't dare claim that I "know" more than anyone else here. I'm just a regular gamer like everyone else here. I was just trying to express my thoughts about the linked idea. I am a big fan of the IE games too, and I've tried to look at those games without wearing rose-tinted glasses. Especially having replayed those games fairly recently (a couple of months ago) I have a fairly good idea of the things I enjoyed playing again, and the things that stuck out as fairly annoying. Really, I just try to speak to my own experiences and let the designers take what they will (or won't). At the end of the day, this idea of XP and how it's going to be dealt out will very unlikely be influenced by these posts. I don't see one overwhelming voice decrying the design choice and ultimately this will fall to the designers' own decisions. I liked the old way. I'm willing to see a new way.

It doesn't have to affect spellcasters solely. I mentioned the broken armor/weapon for an overkill with a melee weapon as well, didn't I? If I didn't, I'm mentioning it now. If a melee fighter overkills an enemy, they either get broken armor/weapons or lose a few "fragile consumables" (thinking potions here, not scrolls). Really, these are just ideas. I'm sure if Obsidian doesn't deem this worthwhile for the initial release, there will be mods that will likely do these things in the future. Just as long as OEI sets it up in a way for it to be done easily (easily moddable, that is).

Death animations really do bring back memories. It's such a great way to keep games as classics. BTW where are you getting moonstone from? I want it! gog? nevermind found it.

How about having destructible chests and doors, but they have negative consequences (losing out loot and enemies hearing you)? Then the theif class isn't obsolete.

Will you know each objective before you start? Once you start giving experience for such finely grained objectives you're limiting playstyles, aren't you? For example, what if you just searched and found the jungle yourself? Would you suddenly lose out on that XP? Having larger objectives would allow several different play-styles to originate organically. It's also less hand-holding ("ok first do this, then do that, then do this.") That smacks too much of linear quest creation.

There is some risk in using powerful spell-like abilities. With enemies that drop little to no loot a spell can make short work of them. Loot-heavy enemies usually need a "gentler" beating. My proposition is not to make quest-items or super rare items destructible. Only consumables and non-magical weapons/armor. If repairing is implemented in the game, I wouldn't mind broken weapons/armor. In paper sounds good. In practise? Not so much. Take for examble Imprisonment. 9 lvl spell,no save etc... It was the most useless spel in the game.If the opponent was hard enough to merrit 9lvl spells to defeat him he would carry good loot. What then? You use Imprisonment in bears,goblins or something? it has long casting time so its quicker to hit the goblin with a single sword strike or a magic misile. Same with Disintergrate. i have never played a game where such abilities worked well Points taken. I used imprisonment to hold off bigger enemies or to split them. I'd imprison the big dude, kill off the little dudes then cast freedom and kill the big dude. Still, your point stands.

There is some risk in using powerful spell-like abilities. With enemies that drop little to no loot a spell can make short work of them. Loot-heavy enemies usually need a "gentler" beating. My proposition is not to make quest-items or super rare items destructible. Only consumables and non-magical weapons/armor. If repairing is implemented in the game, I wouldn't mind broken weapons/armor.

Another game with nice death animations: This one is an isometric game so ... it's more relevant!

I'm liking the sound of that. Just a few different types for specific damage types I think would be plenty. For example: Slashing - cut off limbs Bludgeoning - crush head down to neck Piercing - Impale completely through torso Firearm - Blow a visible hole completely through target Fire - Incinerate to ashes (FO: NV laser style) Cold - Freeze solid and shatter Electricity - Convulse wildly while coursing with electricity Acid - Melt down to puddle (FO: NV plasma style) Poison - Choke and gag, convulsing, and collapse obviously, I'm just spitballing of the top of my head here. A few of these existed in the Baldur Gates. Frozen and petrify especially. You forgot petrify. Also would be interesting to see game mechanics based on this idea. Burned up consumables (scrolls), broken armor/weapons, acid burning through wands. BG also did this with petrify/frozen. Just keep the ultra-loot intact and a variable number of lower-level loot could be destroyed (maybe when "overkills" happen?) Moonstone (a really old game that I played as a kid) had death animations that I still remember. Anyone remember the Baloks biting your head off and chewing it as blood spurted from your neck? I couldn't find any death animations on youtube, but here's a nice memento of the good old days. Edit: FOUND THEM! https://www.youtube....h?v=6co2BsNEssA - Burned to a crisp https://www.youtube....h?v=y650FwFGAAA - Eaten by dragon https://www.youtube....h?v=uvS4uhVXkmM - Dragged to death b Mudman https://www.youtube....h?v=nt0rbp8h3BI - Beheaded by axe https://www.youtube....h?v=9qhODhw0QHM - Head bitten off https://www.youtube....h?v=O2FsqXONFQg - Stomped by Balok https://www.youtube....h?v=t5-dvMGi9F0 - Hung by ratmen https://www.youtube....h?v=uf2gxe6etjk - Squished by troll https://www.youtube....h?v=fUEKeR_hE4A - Impaled by Trogg https://www.youtube....h?v=A1zpGVM8vl8 - Impaled by warbeast Ahhh... the good old days. I miss this game.

In a lot of previous IE games, if you overkilled an enemy, they would display an interesting death animation, and sometimes loot would be destroyed. This was done with BG2 (I can't remember if other games did it) with "frozen enemies" and enemies turned to stone. But not with burned enemies and many other status effect spells (acid). BG1 had broken armor/weapons due to the Iron shortage. However, if you killed your enemies with lightning bolts, fireballs, or other "status effecting" spells, there was no effect on the items they were carrying. What if certain deaths caused loot destruction as well. I'm not talking about special loot (like magic weapons +5), but rather basic armor and weapons, consumables (scrolls, wands, potions, gems). Imagine killing a whole bunch of goblins all at once with one singular fireball. They burn to a crisp. It would be interesting for a random number of their loot to either be destroyed (paper scrolls burn) or "broken". Different deaths cause different damages. Overkills with weapons break armor. Overkills with fire (fireballs) burn up scrolls, damage armor, etc. Overkills with ice break armor, weapons. Overkills with acid burn through armor, consumables. etc etc. Discuss!

OMG OMG OMG OMG! YEAHHHHHH. I'm going to be shooting fireballs up my enemies butt all day now. Smells toasty! Death animations: do it! Think more in terms of Fallout 1/2 instead of Fallout 3.

I prefer to withhold judgement until I've actually seen something. Anything really. At this point everything is conjecture and nothing is real.

It's the job of the devs to do this. That is to say a lot of us make our arguments while trying to look at the problem from the designer/developer's perspective. That is why some of us come to similar conclusions to the devs.

one thing that came to mind when considering this is that a lot of times, we do not know what kind of loot is located in chests. but in a lot of older games, it was fairly obvious where the "good loot" was on enemies. Named enemies usually had good loot. common ones usually didn't. as long as OEI makes it a point for players to realize that it isn't always so easy to determine which enemies have good loot drops (only the bosses have good loot, etc) then it still becomes a decision when it comes to fighting mobs. there is a risk of handling a fight and not gaining much from it.

Thanks Adam.

-snip- Not to mention that this doesn't disincentivize against "double-dipping" in XP points. For a singular quest, it doesn't disincentivize against doing the combat for the XP and finishing the quest and then going back and picking up all the lockpick xp that you missed (for the same quest). The locks don't matter anymore, but the XP is just sitting there. Anyway, off-topic.

My intention was to restrict discussion to stealth, because I thought that's a pretty hefty subsystem in and of itself and I wanted to keep things focused. I also wanted to avoid the quest XP/combat XP/task XP flog. That has clearly failed completely. Might be worth another try later after the whiners have finally gotten tired of whining about things no longer automatically going "ding!" every time they hit something so it falls down. Perhaps try another thread with the broader scope after things have calmed down abit? Fair enough. In regards to the derailing of your thread, I suggest ignoring the posts that have no relevance to your topic at hand (including mine). Reviewing your first post and the meat as quoted below a few questions arise. 7- Should stealth spells like "invisibility" be "insta-wins?" Perhaps invisibility spells should either go up the spell tier or have much lower durations. These spells should likely be in tiers that never become "cooldown tiers." 6- I imagine these would be invisibility potions. Maybe invisibility potions are the only way of becomign invisible? 3- The problem with "chance spottings" is the reload frenzy/spamming with any highly random/volatile skill. If a failure occurs, the player is more likely to reload and try the same tactic again until he gets a "lucky saving throw."

Hey PJ. Thanks for this thread - I really like the ideas here but I wanted to add one thing. Why make the discussion strictly about two dichotomies: stealth and combat? There are other playstyles too. The "talk yourself out of situations", the "sneak", the "fighter", and a few others that I'm not creative enough to consider. It would be nice to consider design decisions for all playstyles with your ideas in mind: namely, that most decisions should have a failure chance and a variable risk/reward structure. Moving away from insta-wins on dialogue would be one. Making sneaking a risky endeavor would be another. This is to say I really liked your ideas about sneaking and would be interesting in hearing other similar ideas for other game mechanics: dialogue, alchemy/crafting, etc etc. Although, I have a sneaking suspicion that Sawyer is on the same page as you and I on this. A lot of this will really have to be game-tested so that obvious degeneracy is spotted and "adjusted."

Well folks thanks for the lulz. See you around.

Thats all, no more, no less. Perhaps you should go clean out your shorts from that fit. Wow a moderator too. Thanks for responding to the points I made. I take it that you have no more points to make because I have addressed them? you're welcome.

It is an option and it's the best one for every combat heavy part of the game. The reason you *want* to kill all those obnoxious "sameish" enemies is they might start running amok in the streets of Hollywood breaking the Masquerade which equals your player characters death (and the extinction of his race as well). The game system built into the game however does not reflect this. That was all in bold in my previous post so you could realize that. I didn't read your whole post. I have made it a point not to read long posts anymore. That's why I quoted a certain section of your post. I did go back and re-read the bolded portion. I would say that that would be an example of poor game design. If the game states a reason as you why you want to kill enemies and then doesn't follow through with actual repercussions, that is an example of "degenerate gameplay." You wouldn't want to kill those sewer enemies if you could get out of it because the game hasn't made a consideration for them. Similarly, in IE games you would always want to rest after each fight becasue the game hasn't made a consideration for "rest-spamming." Unless you'd like to LARP your game. Which isn't a problem. I won't make a judgement on that - whatever players find fun. From the game design standpoint though, your example is the fault of the developers, not the players.The fault wasn't the lack of combat XP, the fault was not implementing what they said they would with the "overrunning of enemies." E: this is what I meant earlier about sugar-coating combat. In such a scenario, the lack of gameplay elements stands in starkly as a failure. If you sugar-coat it with XP, players dont' care as much. But is the problem really solved or are developers just sticking a band-aid on the main issue and obfuscating it?