I am currently doing my own playthrough of Icewind Dale 2 and I am noticing a few game mechanics (mostly UI) that I really think hold up and are superior to NWN2 (played Storm of Zethir recently). These mechanics actually make the playthrough much more relaxed and gives it a more tabletop feel IMO.

1. RTS feel to the map controls. Scrolling on window edges and ability to scroll to places where you party is not. Party is not always "centered" on the map. (Camera follows you everywhere in NWN2)
   
2. Minimap. You can double click on any point on the minimap and then click to have your party move there.
   
3. Fixed view. Not only is developing for a fixed view less time consuming, I honestly dont find the moveable camera that useful in a party based game. When playing NWN2, I generally like to keep the camera at a tactical view and I hate when it changes orientations during transitions.
   

 

What kinds of mechanics do you think are superior to perhaps modern iterations and would like to see again in PE?

The view in PE won't be locked I don't think.

 

I do like the feeling of the screen panning in the IE games, the ToEE scrolling was terrible in comparison as there was a lot of input lag. Whatever scrolling system the IE games used was perfect, as was the scroll speed bar in the menu.

 

The ability to action cancel if you make a mistake (like 2hp wizard misclick attack on a monster), in the IE games you did this by issuing a move command, I'd like that to be the case again, although like Warcraft 3 perhaps a stop shortcut would work too. Hopefully if you queue actions you don't have to carry them out, and can cancel/override actions mid animation.

 

The ability to move through your own party members in IWD: HoW, BG2, IWD2 where if a static player controlled unit was in the way and not undertaking an action, the moving unit could pass between them. Obviously with 10 years of technology a better system will be able to be implemented. Hopefully characters don't get stuck like in BG1

 

Similar character selection scheme. Left click on a character (or within their circle) to select, shift click to select multiple characters, right click to deselect/shift right click to deselect. Left click to move/attack/take action once character is selected (NOT RIGHT CLICK PLZ)

 

I agree with the overview map control as well, to move forward in areas I'd already explored I went to the menu map and selected an area of view. I do hope they include a large map screen like that in the game. I'd be fine if it was like Titan Quest where you can toggle the map and move with it on. I'd also be okay with a Warcraft 3 / DotA 2 style minimap (anything less is too small) but I think it would take up too much of the screen and not be the ideal solution.

 

More to come I guess.

Mostly to me it's the embedded mechanics that are more suitable and conducive to the feedback and input mechanisms suited for the PC.

 

Drag/point/click of a RTS. Not surprising since the Infinity Engine had its origins as a RTS engine.

Indeed. Please keep an RTS feel to the controls and camera movement!

"You must gather your party before venturing forth"

The view in PE won't be locked I don't think.

 

why would it be not locked? the backgrounds are prerendered art assets... so I guess you will not be able to change your camera view...

or do you mean locked in the sense of not-scrollable? ok that would be stupid ^^

I am currently doing my own playthrough of Icewind Dale 2 and I am noticing a few game mechanics (mostly UI) that I really think hold up and are superior to NWN2 (played Storm of Zethir recently). These mechanics actually make the playthrough much more relaxed and gives it a more tabletop feel IMO.

1. RTS feel to the map controls. Scrolling on window edges and ability to scroll to places where you party is not. Party is not always "centered" on the map. (Camera follows you everywhere in NWN2)
    
   
2. Minimap. You can double click on any point on the minimap and then click to have your party move there.
    
   
3. Fixed view. Not only is developing for a fixed view less time consuming, I honestly dont find the moveable camera that useful in a party based game. When playing NWN2, I generally like to keep the camera at a tactical view and I hate when it changes orientations during transitions.
   

 

What kinds of mechanics do you think are superior to perhaps modern iterations and would like to see again in PE?

 

 

1-That thing has to be optimized. I have 2 monitors and I play fullscreen on the main monitor, leaving the secondary monitor open on Teh Internet™. This cause the right edge of the windows to be unresponsive when I try to use it to move the visual.

2-There was no minimap in the IE games. There was a full screen interactive map.

Just look at my sig

Just look at my sig

They still need to experiment in the attempt to fix the Sleep-Button mechanic, because that is kind of broken (the other day I was able to sleep 18 day straight with a single use of the button, in a goblin populated cave in IWD).

They still need to experiment in the attempt to fix the Sleep-Button mechanic, because that is kind of broken (the other day I was able to sleep 18 day straight with a single use of the button, in a goblin populated cave in IWD).

 

It's only matter of tweaking random encounter chances, sleep interruption probability and restricting sleep in some really non-logical places. It's fine-tuning to me, not experimentation.

The view in PE won't be locked I don't think.

 

why would it be not locked? the backgrounds are prerendered art assets... so I guess you will not be able to change your camera view...

or do you mean locked in the sense of not-scrollable? ok that would be stupid ^^

they mean the second. though his example of NWN2 isn't true as you could unlock the camera in options. Though I do think it had a limit of how far you could scroll it.

Drawn portraits and the ability to import your own! I dislike 3D portraits in modern RPGs and loved the poster like portraits in the infinity style character screen.

Don't know if there is a statement about this yet.

they mean the second. though his example of NWN2 isn't true as you could unlock the camera in options. Though I do think it had a limit of how far you could scroll it.

 

Yeah we mean the Dragon Age isometric view, locked on a character.

I don't care too much about mechanics and its small aspects, just that it is not broken in core places like arcanum. Turn based and real time at the same time was garbage.

If i get new interesting storyline and rich conted, any nice logical mechanics will be ok.

Edited October 18, 201213 yr by void_dp

Magic Users having to find scrolls to inscribe them into their spell-book in order to know new spells, instead of just suddenly and magically "knowing" new spells on level up.

The view in PE won't be locked I don't think.

 

It will most surely will. 3D NPC models with 2D pre-rendered background. Fixed camera (no rotation) if that is what you mean (EDIT: sorry, saw some other replies. it seems that OP does NOT mean that :-D)

 

So for scroll-able camera - ye, i think it's a must really.

Edited October 18, 201213 yr by cealicu_ca

Really upset that the gamestop deal for the D&D ultimate pack was no longer 18 dollars, oh well it was well worth the 44 dollars I spent. The online play is actually a lot better now than it use to be, unfortunately it had such a rough start that hardly anyone plays it online. After starting it back up and playing it again for the first time in a long time, some of the things I really enjoyed was the camera controls. The three different camers modes they had exploration, strategy, can't recall the third one. And how you can distinctively adjust how each different mode worked in the options menu. This is something I would like them to keep in PE.

Ah... example of wrong mechanic in late IE:

Learning\erasing the same scrolls gets tons of experience.

Not an IE mechanic, but one of the few things I liked about Dragon Age were the spell combos. It would be nice to see something similar in PE.

2-There was no minimap in the IE games. There was a full screen interactive map.

 

This.

I think that minimap is no use for 3rd person isometrical view, which itself is minimap already.

It only for first person games.

Ooh, there was this skill in IWD2, Spellcraft I believe, which allowed you to see which spell your enemies were casting.

I really liked the ability to create party formations and to re-order the party. Was it ToEE that allowed you to build your own custom party formations? Something like that would be nice because most of the formation options were less than optimal.

I don't need nor particularly want a mini-map, but RTS controls schemes definitely seem like the way to go. I'm doing a simultaneous replay of NWN2 (MoTB) and Baldur's Gate 1, and in terms of useability of the interface, it's hard to top that RTS feel.

 

 

As an aside, It had been some time since I'd played any of the NWN2 games and I don't remember fighting with the controls this much ...

As an aside, It had been some time since I'd played any of the NWN2 games and I don't remember fighting with the controls this much ...

I never undestood all those complaints about NWN2's camera. All it took was some adjusting in the options.

iirc, I used strategy mode, unlocked the camera from being fixed on my character, made sure the camera didn't rotate when moving the cursor to the edge of the screen, and set the scrollerwheel (when pressed) to rotate and change the angle (which went nicely with scrolling for zooming).