[merged] Vancian Magic System and cooldowns

[Haerski]

Ideally the system is NOT about running back and forth from tavern to dungeon, it's about managing a limited resource.

Purpose for mana points and cooldowns are same

Barely, and in very different ways, especially where mana regen is involved. Cooldowns aren't strictly about limiting resources, but limiting the overuse of power moves/abilities in a short spawn of time.

Memorization is all about limiting your resources for a fairly large amount of time (i.e. "I'm entering this dungeon now and I know that if I don't want to make a boring travel back to town I'll need to use these resources carefully").

Mana is a limited resource in the sense that gives you a limit of spells you can use in a row, but doesn't prevent you to use, for instance, the same useful but inexpensive spell very often as far as mana is available.

 

So, if what you are trying to say is that every mechanic can find its place in a game, then I agree with you; if you are saying that they are essentially the same thing, then you are wrong.

DA:O had mana points AND cooldowns in same system and that prevented quite effectively you from overusing most powerful spells. Friendly fire was another thing they used to stop spamming of area effect spells´and those worked great. It's not about actual system; it's about how they implement them. Same goals can be achieved with much smoother and rewarding systems than Vancian.

 

...and when you fail to manage those resources, for example in situations where you don't know exactly what's ahead of you, it turns into running back and forth. At my first playthrough of every Infinity Engine games this happened at least couple of times and it was extremely frustrating every time.

That's just you playing poorly and/or exploiting the system.

If anything the problem with IE games was that they didn't punished/discouraged that kind of behavior hardly enough.

Resting in the middle of a dungeon should be far more dangerous and going back to town to rest should be far more problematic (i.e. you end wasting way too much time to end a timed quest or like in Dark Souls when you rest all minor enemies respawn with you).

 

Of course, developers usually don't like these punishing mechanics, despise how they make things much more interesting, because there are many people, even on this forum, that don't like to play to master the mechanics but "just for the story",

I don't know about you, but I play games for fun; not to get punished. I mean difficulty is always welcome, but punishment for playing poorly? Wow, you must be one of those hardcore fans then?

[Tuco Benedicto]

Right, but its not all or nothing.

No, it's not, i said it myself and never argued otherwise. You could easily pile up a cooldown system on top of a Vancian one(or variations, like the already mentioned Chaos Chronicles).

Still, I strongly disagree with the idea that every character should have something special to do every single round, for the reasons I already pointed.

It made Dragon Age painful to play without AI assist.

 

Beside, I'm not sure why playing a specific class as main character should be that relevant, in a game where you manage a whole party in any case.

Yeah, yeah, i know, they said that they plan to make the solo way viable, but that could mean a lot, not necessarily that a solo player can beat any fight. And let's face it: only sociopaths or people who's going for the fifth playthrough will go for solo in a game like this.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Tuco Benedicto

[Hypevosa]

So the fact that they use numbers that are representative of dice thrown on tables, rather than arbitrarily chosen ranges of numbers will make you not play the game?

 

if a player has 10 hp in D&D and takes 1d4 damage from an attack, is it not basically the same as them possibly taking 10-40 damage?

 

or am I missing what you mean by dice rolls?

I think he simply means the he doesn't want any random value. So just spells with a fixed amount of damage, no resist/miss/parry on chance, and so on.

That, or he simply doesn't understand what "dice rolls" stand for in a game like this.

 

But randomness adds chaos, hilarity, and replay-ability? Especially with a wild magic user it wouldn't be fun to have everything be perfectly predictable D:

[Wirdjos]

That's because you didn't have Nakia Nightshadow. You was fantastic. Could sneak under things normal folk couldn't. Had high charisma so was good for talking. Scouted. Lead enemies into ambushes. Did a lot more than locks and traps. Never became a pickpocket either. She was and is my favorite character ever. Played forum PbP RPGs with her. You just never had the right build.

 

I smile everytime I see you post now I that I know where your username comes from.

 

As for actual content, I think Vampero might be referring the way the dice rolls were so apparent that the whole thing felt rather mathematic. It kind of killed some of the enjoyment for me when I couldn't ignore that fact and encouraged me to reload til I 'got a good roll'. I realize dice throws govern any non binary system, I just don't like knowing it. Maybe he feels the same.

[Tuco Benedicto]

I don't know about you, but I play games for fun; not to get punished. I mean difficulty is always welcome, but punishment for playing poorly? Wow, you must be one of those hardcore fans then?

Your reading skill may be failing you, because I never said that a game should punish a player for the sake of it, I argued about more punishing ways to deal with those who try to *exploit* a system, which is very different.

 

EDIT: Also, friendly fire was NOT introduced by Dragon Age, neither it was its distinctive trait. if anything was heavily gimped in that game, compared to the IE ones.

In fact, in DA2 was even confined just to the highest difficulty setting.

And the game's ruleset was garbage, anyway. So i wouldn't really take it as model.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Tuco Benedicto

[ogrezilla]

Well, I guess you have to choose; either you meta-game or you "role-play"~

or they could try to fix the flaw in the game mechanics

[Merin]

In the old IE games rogues weren't DPS kings. You had to be invisible to backstab, and once you got off a single backstab, that was it. You became visible and your subsequent hits were normal weapon damage, and far less than what a standard Fighter could do per round. If you wanted to backstab again, you had to re-stealth, which was nearly impossible to do without magical assistance, and literally impossible to do in the same round as your previous backstab.

 

In IE games rogues were so unnecessary that I almost never had one. Locked doors? Knock spell. Traps? Run through them and heal the damage. That's how I played all my D&D cRPGs. Magic really made rogues absolutely unnecessary.

 

That's because you didn't have Nakia Nightshadow. You was fantastic. Could sneak under things normal folk couldn't. Had high charisma so was good for talking. Scouted. Lead enemies into ambushes. Did a lot more than locks and traps. Never became a pickpocket either. She was and is my favorite character ever. Played forum PbP RPGs with her. You just never had the right build.

 

I'm also ridiculously biased. I don't like playing bad guys or evil guys or even criminal guys. So games like GTA or Assassin's Creed are a lost cause on me. I've only ever played a "rogue" in 4E for tabletop, and that was a swashbuckling charismatic rake - no stealing, no lock picking, no stealthing, no back stabbing (unless, you know, it was flanking an opponent in combat)... so Rogue was something of a misnomer.

 

So everyone should take my "rogues are useless" with a grain of salt.

 

Again, this is even more why DA:O deserves praise from me for getting me to play a rogue (and an elf to boot) for my first time through the game!

[Gfted1]

Right, but its not all or nothing.

No, it's not, i said it myself and never argued otherwise. You could easily pile up a cooldown system on top of a Vancian one(or variations, like the already mentioned Chaos Chronicles).

Still, I strongly disagree with the idea that every character should have something special to do every single round, for the reasons I already pointed.

It made Dragon Age painful to play without AI assist.

 

Beside, I'm not sure why playing a specific class as main character should be that relevant, in a game where you manage a whole party in any case.

Yeah, yeah, i know, they said that they plan to make the solo way viable, but that could mean a lot, not necessarily that a solo player can beat any fight. And let's face it: only sociopaths or people who's going for the fifth playthrough will go for solo in a game like this.

 

Just so I understand your position better. You dont feel a caster should be able to cast every round, right? Does that extend to all classes? Should a healer be only able to heal every few rounds? Should an archer only be able to fire arrows every few rounds? Whats going on during the "down time"?

[Adhin]

You can't play the game with out metagaming, via its very definition. You can roleplay, or not, but unless you intend to never level up or look at weapon stats, good luck.

[Tuco Benedicto]

Just so I understand your position better. You don't feel a caster should be able to cast every round, right? Does that extend to all classes? Should a healer be only able to heal every few rounds? Should an archer only be able to fire arrows every few rounds? Whats going on during the "down time"?

i just think that, like for pretty much anything, there's some virtuous middle way that can be reached.

In a system similar to D&D NO, casters shouldn't be able to cast at every turn, exactly like a cleric shouldn't be able to waste his healing spell too frequently (this also prevents to design encounters around the "tank & spank" principle).

I'm not sure why you are trying to imply that what applies for a class should be true for every other one. That's not the case, and that's why party based games are awesome: they can offer interesting subdivision of roles.

Clearly a warrior "cleave" doesn't need to be set on a cooldown as high as a mage fireball, capable by itself to clean a battlefield.And clearly the guy that can clean the battlefiled in a very specific, unique circumstance doesn't need to be as active and as powerful as the other members of the party at any other moment.

 

Anyway, I essentially already described my ideal situation on a RTwP game when I pointed how BG2 is better than DAO: everyone in your party should essentially rely on standard autoattack (plus eventual use of passive traits if they fit), with the player deciding who's targeting who and moving where... And *then* on top of this very basic layer you should have a fair amount of very situational abilities for each character. The ability to interrupt a cast, to deal a big burst of damage on a cooldown, to use a daily ability and to cast very decisive spells from a limited, precious pool of resources.

[Living One]

Ideally the system is NOT about running back and forth from tavern to dungeon, it's about managing a limited resource.

Purpose for mana points and cooldowns are same

Barely, and in very different ways, especially where mana regen is involved. Cooldowns aren't strictly about limiting resources, but limiting the overuse of power moves/abilities in a short spawn of time.

Memorization is all about limiting your resources for a fairly large amount of time (i.e. "I'm entering this dungeon now and I know that if I don't want to make a boring travel back to town I'll need to use these resources carefully").

Mana is a limited resource in the sense that gives you a limit of spells you can use in a row, but doesn't prevent you to use, for instance, the same useful but inexpensive spell very often as far as mana is available.

 

So, if what you are trying to say is that every mechanic can find its place in a game, then I agree with you; if you are saying that they are essentially the same thing, then you are wrong.

(1)DA:O had mana points AND cooldowns in same system and that prevented quite effectively you from overusing most powerful spells. Friendly fire was another thing they used to stop spamming of area effect spells´and those worked great. It's not about actual system; it's about how they implement them. Same goals can be achieved with much smoother and rewarding systems than Vancian.

 

...and when you fail to manage those resources, for example in situations where you don't know exactly what's ahead of you, it turns into running back and forth. At my first playthrough of every Infinity Engine games this happened at least couple of times and it was extremely frustrating every time.

That's just you playing poorly and/or exploiting the system.

If anything the problem with IE games was that they didn't punished/discouraged that kind of behavior hardly enough.

Resting in the middle of a dungeon should be far more dangerous and going back to town to rest should be far more problematic (i.e. you end wasting way too much time to end a timed quest or like in Dark Souls when you rest all minor enemies respawn with you).

 

Of course, developers usually don't like these punishing mechanics, despise how they make things much more interesting, because there are many people, even on this forum, that don't like to play to master the mechanics but "just for the story",

(2)I don't know about you, but I play games for fun; not to get punished. I mean difficulty is always welcome, but punishment for playing poorly? Wow, you must be one of those hardcore fans then?

(1)Hint:there should be no such nonsense as overpowered spells.Cooldowns are a lazy way out for designers who cannot balance.Those who can don't use 'em.*

 

(2)How does even make sense 'welcoming difficulty' and 'disliking punishment' at the same time?

 

*edit:also,you say it's not about the system and then go on criticizing the actual Vancian system?The fact is that the system per se does matter just like the execution.And a cooldown system is inherently inferior in this type of game because it's an additional timing mechanic in a system where the pause function itself admits that focus on timing is getting limited in favour of different tactical considerations(pause is there so you can manage your party) and also because said timing mechanic is unrelated to the characteristics of the spells,being insead a tackled on counter(the time it takes for a fireball to cast and land instead is related).So,no cooldowns are not a smoother and rewarding system.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Living One

[Amentep]

Right, but its not all or nothing.

No, it's not, i said it myself and never argued otherwise. You could easily pile up a cooldown system on top of a Vancian one(or variations, like the already mentioned Chaos Chronicles).

Still, I strongly disagree with the idea that every character should have something special to do every single round, for the reasons I already pointed.

It made Dragon Age painful to play without AI assist.

 

Beside, I'm not sure why playing a specific class as main character should be that relevant, in a game where you manage a whole party in any case.

Yeah, yeah, i know, they said that they plan to make the solo way viable, but that could mean a lot, not necessarily that a solo player can beat any fight. And let's face it: only sociopaths or people who's going for the fifth playthrough will go for solo in a game like this.

 

Just so I understand your position better. You dont feel a caster should be able to cast every round, right? Does that extend to all classes? Should a healer be only able to heal every few rounds? Should an archer only be able to fire arrows every few rounds? Whats going on during the "down time"?

 

Even in a Vancian system there's only so many rounds the caster will be casting. Also the comparison to cool downs would be "an archer can fire every round but can only fire a Rain of Arrows once every X amount of time" not to just firing arrows.

 

I've never seen cooldowns used where the player didn't have some option for a regular attack with cooldowns only being on special versions of that attack.*

 

That said I'm not a proponent of cooldowns

 

*This may be due to limited personal experience, however.

[Gfted1]

I'm not sure why you are trying to imply that what applies for a class should be true for every other one. That's not the case, and that's why party based games are awesome: they can offer interesting subdivision of roles.

 

Im not implying anything, thats why I asked you to clarify your position.

 

Clearly a warrior "cleave" doesn't need to be set on a cooldown as high as a mage fireball, capable by itself to clean a battlefield.And clearly the guy that can clean the battlefiled in a very specific, unique circumstance doesn't need to be as active and as powerful as the other members of the party at any other moment.

 

But not every spell clears the battlefield. Some just hit one opponent, some put them to sleep, some force them to attack their friends. A player could choose to use their nuke on the kobold, but then its gone. A smarter caster would choose the appropriate spell for the circumstance. Choices. As far as I understand, you have arbitrarily decided that regardless of level, casters can level mountains and need to be artifically held in check.

 

Anyway, I essentially already described my ideal situation on a RTwP game when I pointed how BG2 is better than DAO: everyone in your party should essentially rely on standard autoattack (plus eventual use of passive traits if they fit), with the player deciding who's targeting who and moving where... And *then* on top of this very basic layer you should have a fair amount of very situational abilities for each character. The ability to interrupt a cast, to deal a big burst of damage on a cooldown, to use a daily ability and to cast very decisive spells from a limited, precious pool of resources.

 

In my perfect world casters would be like D&D sorcerers. You have a limited amount of spell you can cast of each level but you dont have to preselect them. Instead you will have a pool of known spells that can be cast at will, one per round of course, until you have exhausted those slots and then they must be replenished though some mechanic. IMO, that limits using your nuke 100% of the time while not forcing the caster into doing nothing.

[TrashMan]

On that note, I'd totally play a cRPG that literally was just a 3D representation of a PnP tabletop game as a tool for DMs to better visually represent their campaigns and connect their players across a larger area. Especially if it used a physics engine to let me throw dice, and move my little character several tiles. No really, if it were literally just the tabletop game on the PC I'd be all over that. Actually you can do that now, minus the 3D (and the physics engine for letting you throw dice one day . . . one day), I've played a few games like that with a group while . . . people watched. No literally there was a chat room and people were just watching us play and commenting . . .

 

It was a so weird.

 

An example of one such a virtual tabletop: http://rpgvirtualtab...ges/TTopRPG.jpg . . . well, it's a start.

 

 

Seconded.

I'd shell out 100$ without hesitation for something like that.

[Dr. Explosion]

I hope they do NOT include vancian magic; it's one of the few thing aboot D&D I cannot stand.

[Tuco Benedicto]

But not every spell clears the battlefield. Some just hit one opponent, some put them to sleep, some force them to attack their friends. A player could choose to use their nuke on the kobold, but then its gone. A smarter caster would choose the appropriate spell for the circumstance. Choices. As far as I understand, you have arbitrarily decided that regardless of level, casters can level mountains and need to be artifically held in check.

No, I didn't. What I decided, on the other hand, is that IF the caster has a spell that can "level mountains" it's a very fair game for him being *very* limited about how often he can use it.

 

In my perfect world casters would be like D&D sorcerers. You have a limited amount of spell you can cast of each level but you dont have to preselect them. Instead you will have a pool of known spells that can be cast at will, one per round of course, until you have exhausted those slots and then they must be replenished though some mechanic. IMO, that limits using your nuke 100% of the time while not forcing the caster into doing nothing.

...Which is exactly the same system I was advocating for, so far, when I mentioned Chaos Chronicles in three different circumstances.

Are you even reading my posts at all? Because I'm definitely reading yours before answering to them.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Tuco Benedicto

[Infinitron]

Some GREAT posts in this thread arguing in favor of the classic Infinity Engine experience and demonstrating its virtues. Keep it up, guys. We may not have another chance.

[TrashMan]

I mean skill picking as in when you level up, not selecting from spells in your wizardy spell book. Anytime you level up your starting to weigh options about what that'll mean 'for' your character and how it'll effect them. Your going outside of things to edetermine where they're going, your basically playing god with a fake thing. And yes, taking healing skill because he got better at it, is metagaming. USING it once he has it isn't.

 

Really? You're saing my own character wouldn't know a first thing about skills he can use? A trained fighter wouldn't know what advantages/disadvantages learing a polearm would have over learning a sword?

Don't be silly.

A character who lives in a brutal world has every reason to try to become more efficient at what he does.

 

 

 

 

 

As for the utility spells lemmy quote you from another thread 'you lack imagination'

 

Think about it this way, anytime you switch spells anything you casts effect disipates, and you can only do it outside of combat. This would make it so if you want those buffs, or those things that you'll be using in fights where its important.

 

So? You're out of combat. Who cares. You can re-buff.

 

 

As for your example? Folks can do that and did in BG via 'resting' instead. All im saying is (and a dev was the one who mentioned this) it's just a method of switching with out needing to rest for 8 freakin' hours everytime.

 

It's not hte same because you cannot rest everywhere and resting is dangerous and can get you killed.

 

and for hte love of god, take off your blinders and try looking at it wider than BG. Stop just thinking how game X did it. Try thinking how to fix whatever you think is broken.

 

Again - you can't rest everywhere. What now?

 

 

 

 

Also, I think the spells you listed as **** for a mage. I think theres generally more interesting utility spells that don't completely take over existing game skills like detecting traps, picking locks and so forth. That's probably one of the biggest issues I had with DnD, spells had a tendency in there overall expenasiveness to allow you to be that jack of all trades and generally be almost better then the specialists whos life revolves around it.

 

in conclusion, if you have a lockpick skill ANYONE CAN TAKE.. why the **** do you have a spell that also does that? It's just redundancy for the sake of moar-spellz and lowers the whole reason to have the skill in the first place.

 

Why NOT have a spell? And why should wizzard be able ot do anything (when specced properly)?

[mikayel]

I find it ever-increasingly hilarious (and simultaneously frustrating) that people keep using D&D Sorcerer and Bard casting rules in an effort to refute "D&D style casting". Look guys, if you don't know what the systems are or if you are only familiar with 2-3 games' style of magic systems, then maybe just stay out of the conversation?

[Merin]

I find it ever-increasingly hilarious (and simultaneously frustrating) that people keep using D&D Sorcerer and Bard casting rules in an effort to refute "D&D style casting". Look guys, if you don't know what the systems are or if you are only familiar with 2-3 games' style of magic systems, then maybe just stay out of the conversation?

 

They are against Vancian memorization "fire and forget" spell systems...

 

which D&D 3E's Bard and Sorcerer are NOT Vancian.

 

Pot, meet kettle.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Merin

[Gfted1]

...Which is exactly the same system I was advocating for, so far, when I mentioned Chaos Chronicles in three different circumstances. Are you even reading my posts at all? Because I'm definitely reading yours before answering to them.

 

To be completly honest, no, I did not read all of your previous posts. I just picked up on the conversation on page 16 without reading the previous 15 pages. I will try to look back at your earlier posts. What I am responding to is your reply to my first post:

 

Whatever verbage we feel like using, a mage character should be useful every "round". Firing off a spell and then being forced to plink away with your 1D4 sling while you wait for something to recharge is the epitome of suck.

I can't say I agree at all. That's exactly what makes Dragon Age so painful to manage with the AI completely off compared to Baldur's gate 2.

In Dragon Age you are constantly cycling through characters that have very short cooldowns, while in Baldur's Gate you usually set a generic target for each of your men and *then* when it's actually useful to do so, you pick some special ability/spell/item to use.

 

I read this as you advocating for a system where casters dont do anything until "the time is right". My position is that that would be boring for the caster players and there is no reason for them to wait around doing nothing, or auto attacking with their sling when they should be doing what casters do, casting. Not every spell is equally powerfull just like not every warrior ability is equally powerful. Not every healer is equal either. It could be easily argued that a cleric is even more powerful than a warrior. They can wear the best armor, buff themselves and other out the wazoo and directly call upon the divine power of their god at will. Assuming there is a similar type class in P:E, do you think they should be gimped too?

[qstoffe]

I would like a system based on fatigue. Here are som ideas I have for that.

• Casting a spell drains fatigue. Different spells drain different amounts. Optionally fatigue can be drained in more ways than just by spell casting.
  
• Resting is only possible at specific/safe locations (i.e. inns). Alternatively resting is limited. Maybe 1 use per day or until your limited food supply run out and you need to restock in nearest town. Optionally; resting in more dangerous zones only restores fatigue to a certain level.
  
• Fatigue affects spells in one OR more ways. i.e. casting time, effectiveness, % of spell failure.
  

I'm really excited about a system based on fatigue. I think a system like that could really aid in making this game more tactical. Were you feel your choices have bigger impact than the shortsighted and consolized cooldowns have.

Edited October 1, 2012 by qstoffe

[Infinitron]

But Gifted1, the casters aren't "players". You play an entire party, not just one caster. As long as the party as a whole has things to do, the player will not be bored.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Infinitron

[Tuco Benedicto]

To be completly honest, no, I did not read all of your previous posts. I just picked up on the conversation on page 16 without reading the previous 15 pages. I will try to look back at your earlier posts.

let me spare you the effort. I described the system here:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60372-vancian-magic-system/page__st__280#entry1217563

...and mentioned it again at least two times now.

 

About the second part of your post... What Infinitron said.

[Elerond]

But Gifted1, the casters aren't "players". You play an entire party, not just one caster. As long as the party as a whole has things to do, the player will not be bored.

But game gives player an option to go solo. Then if your main character is caster, then you get bored.