DS3's "new" combat system.

[Monokli]

self-heal should always be accessible freely, though a certain downtime is accepted. Don't ever want the character to run out of self-heals right? So unless orbs drop/fill like candy, then you can be screwed, which puts unnecessary hassle to the designers doing levels and loot, so it's generally a bad mechanic.

 

E-managements and Self-heals, and even complete orb revamping with empowered spells and stances prepared for combat would however no longer encourage power-hoarding like in DS2 (it is something I didn't like at all, though powers were an interesting mechanic in general.), and would be a better mechanic overall.

[C2B]

self-heal should always be accessible freely, though a certain downtime is accepted. Don't ever want the character to run out of self-heals right? So unless orbs drop/fill like candy, then you can be screwed, which puts unnecessary hassle to the designers doing levels and loot, so it's generally a bad mechanic.

 

No, its not.

[Monokli]

What positive quality can you find in it c2b? Frustrating the players? Frustrating the devs?

[Sannom]

What positive quality can you find in it c2b? Frustrating the players? Frustrating the devs?

 

Offering a challenge to the player by putting limits on his abilities and forcing him to pay attention to a certain number of parameters. That's not frustrating, that's what some players want. Why do you think that regenerating health has become the one thing linked to dumbing down those last years???

[Monokli]

What positive quality can you find in it c2b? Frustrating the players? Frustrating the devs?

 

Offering a challenge to the player by putting limits on his abilities and forcing him to pay attention to a certain number of parameters. That's not frustrating, that's what some players want. Why do you think that regenerating health has become the one thing linked to dumbing down those last years???

 

Free self-heals/mana-regen buffs with fixed recharge timers should be limited enough by themselves, but combined with the punch to fill method, can provide a skilful alternative. An energy refilling free skill with 8 seconds of recharge to refill one third of the energy pool and an extra sixth over time (One half) but you need two seconds to cast it should have enough drawbacks in combat, and should reward you appropriately. A free regeneration stance with a speed, armor, damage or energy penalty (you use up more energy per skill) to go with is limiting enough to provide challenge, and is more flexible than the current purplish orbs of awesomeness.

[C2B]

What positive quality can you find in it c2b? Frustrating the players? Frustrating the devs?

 

Offering a challenge to the player by putting limits on his abilities and forcing him to pay attention to a certain number of parameters. That's not frustrating, that's what some players want. Why do you think that regenerating health has become the one thing linked to dumbing down those last years???

 

Free self-heals/mana-regen buffs with fixed recharge timers should be limited enough by themselves, but combined with the punch to fill method, can provide a skilful alternative. An energy refilling free skill with 8 seconds of recharge to refill one third of the energy pool and an extra sixth over time (One half) but you need two seconds to cast it should have enough drawbacks in combat, and should reward you appropriately. A free regeneration stance with a speed, armor, damage or energy penalty (you use up more energy per skill) to go with is limiting enough to provide challenge, and is more flexible than the current purplish orbs of awesomeness.

 

Yes, but still no. Its not more flexible. I don't even understand what you mean by "flexible" in here.

 

Also please stop talking like your some kind of gameplay god and elevate whatever you say to be the "right" answer for design. Because A: You're not B: It's not.

 

Edit: What I'm saying is. Your opinion is totally ok. Saying its somewhat a superior system at every turn is not, especially because its in no context to how DSIII works and is designed.

Edited May 15, 2011 by C2B

[Monokli]

What positive quality can you find in it c2b? Frustrating the players? Frustrating the devs?

 

Offering a challenge to the player by putting limits on his abilities and forcing him to pay attention to a certain number of parameters. That's not frustrating, that's what some players want. Why do you think that regenerating health has become the one thing linked to dumbing down those last years???

 

Free self-heals/mana-regen buffs with fixed recharge timers should be limited enough by themselves, but combined with the punch to fill method, can provide a skilful alternative. An energy refilling free skill with 8 seconds of recharge to refill one third of the energy pool and an extra sixth over time (One half) but you need two seconds to cast it should have enough drawbacks in combat, and should reward you appropriately. A free regeneration stance with a speed, armor, damage or energy penalty (you use up more energy per skill) to go with is limiting enough to provide challenge, and is more flexible than the current purplish orbs of awesomeness.

 

Yes, but still no. Its not more flexible. I don't even understand what you mean by "flexible" in here.

 

Also please stop talking like your some kind of gameplay god and elevate whatever you say to be the "right" answer for design. Because A: You're not B: It's not.

 

Edit: What I'm saying is. Your opinion is totally ok. Saying its somewhat a superior system at every turn is not, especially because its in no context to how DSIII works and is designed.

 

Yeah there were some mistakes there(my bad), so to clarify it: I said I think (addressing your second point, thanks for reminding me | | ) that a system where you have a selection of free self heals you can choose two from by either being "in town" or at a specific NPC, gives you more options instead of taking them away, is more customizable, can easily be expanded, works anywhere even if the loot is crap (hence the less focus needed on fine-tuning drops each level ->faster development process), adds a new depth to combat, (Do I use my weaker self-heal skill or I punch mr skeleton #0264a5 for energy for the stronger heals). And saying again that if it is an additional option, then you are not forced to do this, and you can still go into a pack of Klasks shouting Xeria's name to gain energy that way.

 

If you however prefer the little more "laid back" playstyle of planning before attacking, you can conjure additional resources and thus you options for preparing the battlefield widens.

 

It's not dumbing the game down if done right (if done horribly wrong, then yes but otherwise no)! It's even adding more to the mix. It may not be the tree of specialties from DS2, but it makes health&energy management possible. An effort, yes, but possible.

 

And I am not a game designing god, never will I be, I'm just somebody who has been studying it for some time by now.

Edited May 15, 2011 by Monokli

[C2B]

What positive quality can you find in it c2b? Frustrating the players? Frustrating the devs?

 

Offering a challenge to the player by putting limits on his abilities and forcing him to pay attention to a certain number of parameters. That's not frustrating, that's what some players want. Why do you think that regenerating health has become the one thing linked to dumbing down those last years???

 

Free self-heals/mana-regen buffs with fixed recharge timers should be limited enough by themselves, but combined with the punch to fill method, can provide a skilful alternative. An energy refilling free skill with 8 seconds of recharge to refill one third of the energy pool and an extra sixth over time (One half) but you need two seconds to cast it should have enough drawbacks in combat, and should reward you appropriately. A free regeneration stance with a speed, armor, damage or energy penalty (you use up more energy per skill) to go with is limiting enough to provide challenge, and is more flexible than the current purplish orbs of awesomeness.

 

Yes, but still no. Its not more flexible. I don't even understand what you mean by "flexible" in here.

 

Also please stop talking like your some kind of gameplay god and elevate whatever you say to be the "right" answer for design. Because A: You're not B: It's not.

 

Edit: What I'm saying is. Your opinion is totally ok. Saying its somewhat a superior system at every turn is not, especially because its in no context to how DSIII works and is designed.

 

Yeah there were some mistakes there(my bad), so to clarify it: I said I think (addressing your second point, thanks for reminding me | | ) that a system where you have a selection of free self heals you can choose two from by either being "in town" or at a specific NPC, gives you more options instead of taking them away, is more customizable, can easily be expanded, works anywhere even if the loot is crap (hence the less focus needed on fine-tuning drops each level ->faster development process), adds a new depth to combat, (Do I use my weaker self-heal skill or I punch mr skeleton #0264a5 for energy for the stronger heals). And saying again that if it is an additional option, then you are not forced to do this, and you can still go into a pack of Klasks shouting Xeria's name to gain energy that way.

 

If you however prefer the little more "laid back" playstyle of planning before attacking, you can conjure additional resources and thus you options for preparing the battlefield widens.

 

It's not dumbing the game down if done right (if done horribly wrong, then yes but otherwise no)! It's even adding more to the mix. It may not be the tree of specialties from DS2, but it makes health&energy management possible. An effort, yes, but possible.

 

And I am not a game designing god, never will I be, I'm just somebody who has been studying it for some time by now.

 

Thanks

 

First off are you still talking about a regenerative form of healing or NPC healer? Because we have no information on the second. So this is based on the first.

 

How is it more customizable? What is the customizable part of it? What is it worth to have more options when it removes challenge or the options cancel each other out.

Where exactly is the connection to loot? Better defensive Equipment?

How does it add depth to combat when it removes tactical managing of health?

Also you would still do it. Thats called imbalanced options. Again, if there is a better direct way, why use the other?

Edited May 15, 2011 by C2B

[Monokli]

No NPC healer was mentioned: Only free abilities to heal yourself.

It is more customizable if you can chose only two from a number(n) of self_healing/mana_restoring skills, which allows for n!/((n-2)!*2!) different variations instead of only one as it currently is.

Connection to loot is the "health orb" which is a loot that restores some of your health when picked up.

It does not remove tactical health and energy management. While I said that these skills are free, I mean it in the sense of mana_cost/orb_cost free. Casting_time, recharge_time and applied negative effects are the real costs of them, and depending on how strong they affect you, using them will be a hard decision: vs regenerating boss for example you might not want to switch to your power recharging stance if it reduces your damage output too much.

If something is imbalanced then balancing it is favorable compared to removing the feature altogether.

 

Also what would I still do?

 

OFF: good night folks! school tomorrow. See ya later

[Monokli]

I'm back by the way!

[Sylvius the Mad]

The trouble is that as far as I can see, the only truly unique appeal the DS1/2 systems had (different not only from DS3 but BG/NWN/etc) is that it was, well, easy and unpunishing. Regeneration. Auto-attacking options. Generally very easy encounters. That's not necessarily 'bad' - but my point is that DS1/2 were unusually geared towards this kind of laid back gameplay, to the point that some people still reference it as a game that plays itself.

And while DS1 could be played like that, it could also be played to be more challenging. Playing a jack-of-all-Trades character made teh combat extremely difficult, as the encouters grew more powerful far more quickly than you did. Sacrificing power for versatility - somethng I think all games should offer - was entirely possible in DS1

 

If DS1 has a problem here, it's that versatility wasn't actually useful, so a versatile build was just a gimped build.

 

But you're right that DS1 was laid-back, and that the combat did tend to play itself. That was, I think, DS1's best feature.

I think it's difficult to expect that from DS3, especially when you want the game to be more fast-paced, actiony and when you put an even bigger focus on combat.

I certainly don't want that.

Even if you were happy with DS1/2, it's a lot more boring / tedious if you only have one character, a smaller selection of abilities and most of the time you're fighting rather than talking.

DS1 with just one character worked pretty well, actually, because a smaller party gained XP faster and thus had stronger members.

 

The game you describe, though, sounds more like NWN, which also had a sort of click-and-watch combat system, but the player only controlled one character.

 

And that was also a good game, so I don't really see the problem.

Every game sets its particular kind of 'pace'.

For all the newer games, that paces appears to be "way too fast".

The good part seems to be that DS3 has made sure that Easy mode is really very easy, and when you make mistakes you still have time to bounce back, and you have the time to try a few different things and see what you should do against said boss. Retreating, holing up in a corner and waiting for mana regen isn't the only way to play strategically - it's much more fun to be dodging the boss attacks, maybe take a few hits, but from those hits learn what you should and shouldn't do, without dying multiple times. And then they've put in the hardcore difficulty for people who do like a challenge (which is different from 'masochist' enjoyment: you can't really condemn people who enjoy difficult games as 'crazy' - that would be the same as me simply saying DS1 is only for idiots and you should learn to game. Point is that there are different types of gamers that want different things.)

Ideally, I want games without action-combat. I'd like combat to be stat-driven, and dice-driven, and have me issue all my orders while the game is paused.

Now, in the end, DS3 is nearly complete and it is what it is. So leaving aside whether it should have been designed more like DS1/2 to start with, I don't think the issue here is one of difficulty, or one of punishing / not punshing the player. I think the main difference will be one of pacing. And the good news for you, I suppose, is that from watching gameplay trailers (and there is speciffically one out there that we know is on Easy difficulty), you really dont have to jump and roll around like a maniac in order to not die. There's plenty of time and HP room to take a few hits, learn what works/not, make a couple of mistakes, and pick things up along the way then apply those solutions.

That's good news. Games with action combat tend to move so quickly that there's no time for players to experiment in a given encounter, because either the difficulty is too high and you die, or you don't die but everything else does so the combat is already over before you've learned anything.

[Ostgar]

So I haven't read the entire thread - just the first page because I got distracted

 

 

With so many factual statements about the combat system and game in general - I was wanting to know where I can go to buy it right now. Since obviously the game is already being played.

 

Sorry if I'm mistaken in this - I just read all these facts about how combat works, stated as it were from experience from a final product. So - really ready to start playing the game.

[Pidesco]

The game shows up in 30 days. Happy waiting!

[Ostgar]

The game shows up in 30 days. Happy waiting!

 

I probably should have put some /sarcasm stuff around my post. Seems crazy to me how much people explode at games that aren't out yet. Find the companies you like and trust them to do well - then when they launch - if they don't do what you think it should - then flame away and listen to no one else!

[Monokli]

I only exploded at points where the interviews/english previews were saying rock-solid what system we can expect. I still hate that they picked the worst aspect of the series and threw out all the best (or so it seems from now, opinions may or may not change when the game comes out).

 

I do these kinds of rants for fun.

[C2B]

I only exploded at points where the interviews/english previews were saying rock-solid what system we can expect. I still hate that they picked the worst aspect of the series and threw out all the best(or so it seems from now, opinions may or may not change when the game comes out).

 

I do these kinds of rants for fun.

 

I'd say other people would switch these two words. Opinions!

Edited May 20, 2011 by C2B

[Monokli]

I only exploded at points where the interviews/english previews were saying rock-solid what system we can expect. I still hate that they picked the worst aspect of the series and threw out all the best(or so it seems from now, opinions may or may not change when the game comes out).

 

I do these kinds of rants for fun.

 

I'd say other people would switch these two words. Opinions!

 

Lol! +1Win for you!