Update #29: Fulfillment and the Pros and Cons of Nostalgia and Realism

[Gyor]

Also non armour clothes should have advantages too for some situations, like social bonuses and disguises like in New Vegas.

 

I also liked the 4e Avenger's armour of faith which was a class feature that acted like armour, basically like a spiritual force field protecting the character instead of armour. Priests and Monks should have some kind of Armour of Faith as an option they can invest in.

 

I also find it interesting that he refered to the armoured wizard as a build and I'm curious as to how class builds function.

[Gyor]

Actually, Lightning laughs at two inches of rubber. You may be safer in a full metal armour if it acted like a faraday cage. But that's a little OT.

 

Really I was tought as a kind your safer from lightening if your touching or on top of rubber, like in a car with rubber tires. Rubber does not conduct electricity vary well.

[Diotisalvi]

Nor does air.

 

My quote was from the famous Lightning Safety Sheet of the National Weather Service.

 

 

MYTH: Rubber Tires Protect You From Lightning In A Car By Insulating You From The Ground

TRUTH: Lightning laughs at two inches of rubber! Most cars are reasonably safe from lightning. But it’s the metal

roof and metal sides that protect you, not the rubber tires. Thus convertibles, motorcycles, bicycles, open

shelled outdoor recreational vehicles, and cars with plastic or fiberglass shells offer no lightning protection.

Likewise, farm and construction vehicles with open ****pits offer no lightning protection. But closed ****pits

with metal roof and sides are safer than going outside. And don’t even ask about sneakers!

 

Sorry again for the OT.

[Quadrone]

Hmm, kinda surprised to see several people saying this is a "good update"... found it to be rather disappointing to be honest.

A small bit about the way armor is handled in other games but without an answer on how PE will be handling it.

Or to be more precise, I feel as if this update is some sort of placeholder since the actual PE relevant info in it is nowhere near enough to warrant making this an update.

[Keyrock]

Hmm, kinda surprised to see several people saying this is a "good update"... found it to be rather disappointing to be honest.

A small bit about the way armor is handled in other games but without an answer on how PE will be handling it.

Or to be more precise, I feel as if this update is some sort of placeholder since the actual PE relevant info in it is nowhere near enough to warrant making this an update.

So would you rather they not update us until such info is ready, which could be months? Or would you rather they rushed the mechanics so they could update us often and have concrete facts for us?

 

I thought it was a "good update" because it shared insight into the considerations they are making when thinking about how to implement mechanics. I find that kind of stuff more interesting than "here are the mechanics, period."

[Flatfingers]

Very nice to see design thoughts being exposed for discussion. Armchair designers, ho!

 

Armor design, I'd suggest, needs to hit several goals. It should be: simple (both to implement and to understand/use), consistent with other core systems, evocative of the lore, and generally reasonable as a system for gear-based personal defense.

 

Lore guidance is a little tough to see, but from what's been revealed about the world so far it sounds like its objects are meant to feel physically plausible (leather, chain, plate, etc.). They should also help tell stories about the places and people of the world and their histories.

 

All these things taken into account, I suggest the following as high-level design policy: objects should should be usable by anyone, with two types of modifiers:

 

* current quality (poor/good/fine, etc.) alters effectiveness

* special benefit(s) dependent on the stats or skills of the equipping character

 

1. This would apply to all objects, so it's gameplay-consistent. A specific weapon's base speed and damage could be reduced by poor quality, but it might be improved by a bonus to damage against chain mail if the equipping character has a Strength stat of 12 or higher. A pair of plate mail gloves might confer a bonus to spell-casting speed for characters with the Acrobat skill so that a magic-using character who emphasizes dexterity might want to wear them.

 

An important element of this design is that objects don't impose negative effects. This isn't necessary as (after the early game) there will be "opportunity costs" applied in choosing one item over another. Wearing plate gauntlets with a speed bonus means you don't get the damage bonus from a pair of leather gloves. That's enough to create interesting choices for players, and helps to keep the implementation and usage of objects reasonably simple.

 

Another point is that this system doesn't impose class restrictions. A restriction system says, "O foolish wizard, your Strength is too low to even equip this claymore!" A benefits system says, "Sure, you can equip this sword... but you won't get the cool damage bonus because your Strength isn't high enough, and you won't get the efficacy bonus for your spells that you'd have if you equipped this staff instead." In the latter system, anyone can use anything (which satisfies both the simplicity and plausibility design goals), but in practice they won't -- they'll pick the objects that best match the attributes of their character.

 

It's worth noting that this approach could be applied to magic use as well (as implied above). Some objects could enhance spellcasting. And spells themselves could be both usable by anyone regardless of class (which seems to be a design choice already made) and could have bonus effects determined by the stats or skills of the casting character.

 

Other modifiers are possible: bonuses in particular locations (underground, cemetaries) or environmental conditions (nighttime, raining), or against particular weapons/armor or enemy types. It's a judgment call whether these would add value beyond the increased complexity to implement and use.

 

Finally, I note that the bonuses model aids in roleplaying by keying game objects and mechanics/actions to character attributes. The kind of gameplay a character experiences will be conditioned by his personal development choices -- what happens to you depends on who you are. Isn't that what a good roleplaying game should offer?

 

Thanks for taking the time to consider these ideas!

[Hormalakh]

Hmm, kinda surprised to see several people saying this is a "good update"... found it to be rather disappointing to be honest.

A small bit about the way armor is handled in other games but without an answer on how PE will be handling it.

Or to be more precise, I feel as if this update is some sort of placeholder since the actual PE relevant info in it is nowhere near enough to warrant making this an update.

 

Actually you misread. The update wasn't about how they've already addressed these issues. It's about what questions they think are important in ALL mechanics. Armor was the example given by Josh, but he will be doing the same sort of thought process with all the other systems. He wanted us to get insight into how this is done from Obsidian's perspective. Then he gave us questions that they intend to answer with the armor system. You can therefore get an idea of how they will be tackling the other issues as well.

 

It's very important because it tells you what things the developers are lookign at and especially what questions they believe we as commentators can make to help guide them as they make the game. They are most likely still in end stages of pre-production right now and probably haven't actually started fully developing everything.

 

Give it time.

[nikolokolus]

Hmm, kinda surprised to see several people saying this is a "good update"... found it to be rather disappointing to be honest.

A small bit about the way armor is handled in other games but without an answer on how PE will be handling it.

Or to be more precise, I feel as if this update is some sort of placeholder since the actual PE relevant info in it is nowhere near enough to warrant making this an update.

 

There's a reason it's called pre-production. These are the issues the developers are wrestling with. The fact that they're exposing this high level design stuff is almost unprecedented in game development under the traditional publisher model.

 

If you want concrete descriptions of the nuts and bolts of game mechanics then my advice would be to ignore the project for about six months.

[Quadrone]

Hmm, kinda surprised to see several people saying this is a "good update"... found it to be rather disappointing to be honest.

A small bit about the way armor is handled in other games but without an answer on how PE will be handling it.

Or to be more precise, I feel as if this update is some sort of placeholder since the actual PE relevant info in it is nowhere near enough to warrant making this an update.

So would you rather they not update us until such info is ready, which could be months? Or would you rather they rushed the mechanics so they could update us often and have concrete facts for us?

 

I thought it was a "good update" because it shared insight into the considerations they are making when thinking about how to implement mechanics. I find that kind of stuff more interesting than "here are the mechanics, period."

 

Oh? Those are the only two options? Either I want rushed BS or I don't want anything at all? Please.

All I want in the updates is a little more content that's related to PE, which during the Kickstarter didn't seem to be a problem.

[nikolokolus]

It is related to PE. These are the kinds of discussions being had right now behind the curtain.

[japol]

In regards to the example of armor tiers given in the update:

 

''Should something like hide armor be supplanted/made obsolete by leather as an "improved version" ?

 

My answer is Yes,an advanced version of an armor should make the previous one obsolete because :

1)When selecting the barbarian class you know right from the beginning the pros and cons of it and they should remain largely unchanged.ex. for the benefit of rage ,you cannot wear plate mail without losing the ability -period.

2)It will make finding new gear as exciting as it should be.Since this is not Diablo or Torchlight ie. lootfest ,finding new gear will be fairly rare.So,in the event that you will,it should always be exciting and not something like ''ok,i found a better armor but i am really torn between the one i wear and the new one because they are potentially equally useful in all situations''

 

''does that effectively kill the visual concept of the rough-hewn rawhide-wearing ranger or barbarian?''

 

No it doesn't because as i said thats what class choice is all about in the first place,pros and cons and how a certain class will do something significantly different than another one in a given situation.

One way that this problem can be solved is to allow the player to add one or two enchantments in any armor for the appropriate amount of gold.For example add some fire resistance,bludgeoning resistance or whatever.In any case,not too significant of an enchantment so that the armor cannot be potentially better than the one of a higher tier.This way you can personalize your armor,cover some weakness of your character and at the same time not feel like you are handicapped against the other plate mail wearing classes,since you have something that they don't in their ''vanilla'' form.

 

As for the other two questions raised from the update ,in regards to armor naming :

Having a ''+1,+2'' is more intuitive and faster for the eye to check and choose between.On the other hand,giving different names to the more advanced armors gives the opportunity for more engaging artwork and lore.Maybe you could name the armors like in the example and at the same time keep the original armor type in all armors to be read somewhere on the item item description.For example,when you get the Lamellar armor,player should be told that it is an advanced form of a Scale Vest in the ''Item Type'' description.

Edited October 31, 2012 by japol

[Keyrock]

Hmm, kinda surprised to see several people saying this is a "good update"... found it to be rather disappointing to be honest.

A small bit about the way armor is handled in other games but without an answer on how PE will be handling it.

Or to be more precise, I feel as if this update is some sort of placeholder since the actual PE relevant info in it is nowhere near enough to warrant making this an update.

So would you rather they not update us until such info is ready, which could be months? Or would you rather they rushed the mechanics so they could update us often and have concrete facts for us?

 

I thought it was a "good update" because it shared insight into the considerations they are making when thinking about how to implement mechanics. I find that kind of stuff more interesting than "here are the mechanics, period."

 

Oh? Those are the only two options? Either I want rushed BS or I don't want anything at all? Please.

All I want in the updates is a little more content that's related to PE, which during the Kickstarter didn't seem to be a problem.

Did you really think that the amount of content and information, and the frequency of the information, would continue at the pace it was during the Kickstarter campaign after the campaign? Did you think that they just magically had an endless stream of information ready to go perpetually? It only makes sense that Obsidian divulge all the information they had ready during the campaign as a way to stir up interest and contributions. Now that the Kickstarter campaign is over all that information has been divulged and the new stuff will trickle in more slowly because they are in the process of planning these things out, settling on mechanics, fleshing out the world, etc... All these things take time and effort. Again, I personally really like it when they let us in on the thinking process and the considerations they need to take into account.

[Quadrone]

It is related to PE. These are the kinds of discussions being had right now behind the curtain.

 

True, of course.

Perhaps I'm just spoiled by the nice updates we had throughout the Kickstarter. Had hoped that now with one week between each update that kind of quality would continue.

[nikolokolus]

It is related to PE. These are the kinds of discussions being had right now behind the curtain.

 

True, of course.

Perhaps I'm just spoiled by the nice updates we had throughout the Kickstarter. Had hoped that now with one week between each update that kind of quality would continue.

 

I don't know how to respond to your characterization of "quality." The kickstarter updates were about the evolving scope of the game; a time of excitement and expanding possibilities. Now they're rolling up their sleeves and trying to put those lofty and nebulous goals into concrete terms, that requires a lot of thought and deliberation.

 

You can be underwhelmed if you like, but my advice would be to appreciate this unique opportunity to peak behind the curtain- this just doesn't happen every day!

[Starkillr]

This is a good topic and I think I'm going to echo some of the statements already made here.

 

First, a tiered system is a must. Why? Without a tiered system, you end up with a system like Dragon Age 2 where a really awesome weapon you got at the beginning of the game is eclipsed by a "Longsword" later in the game and is subsequently eclipsed by another "Longsword" even later. This happened because they had the gear stats ramp up with what part of the game you were in and completely disassociated the naming convention/type of gear from any tier. Not only did this make loot incredibly boring, but very confusing as well. Players should feel like the "progression" in loot is very clear and understandable.

 

Second, I think having descriptors as you mentioned such as "fine" or "superior" in addition to cultural/material descriptors are fantastic. Even descriptors for magically imbued gear is great. I would avoid the boring +1, +2 stuff. The key is keeping them consistent (i.e. a fine version is always better than a "non-fine") and making sure the art for those items is reflective of the descriptor (dragonscale armor looks like you pulled it off a dragon and made it into armor). So if you kept the variety of base armor types relatively low, but increased the variety of "descriptive" armors within each type, I think you'd create a lot of options for players and player builds. Also, I hate picking up armor that's called masterwork chainmail and it looks like regular chainmail. That's not fun. Whether it's a simple effect you apply to the existing art or new art altogether, picking up that new piece of gear and seeing how it changes your character is one of the key enjoyments of any game.

 

Third, making armor have some form of natural affinity, either to stealth, dodge, armor, spell casting, or anything else, will be key to allowing you to make trade-offs on various armors and keeping certain armor types viable. For instance, maybe some sub-race of elf is well known for armor that makes the wearer dodge better (simplifying the description, obviously we'd expect you guys to come up with a cooler and more colorful reason) and another boosts your magic resistance. With enchantments being added to the game, players have a lot of flexibility in creating their own jigsaw puzzle of armor type and abilities, so I don't think you guys should feel overly burdened with worrying about whether a barbarian wants to keep wearing a POS hide armor from the beginning of the game. We all know that's just not practical and a player can certainly do that, they should just expect their barbarian to get the crap kicked out of him at higher levels.

[wanderon]

Hmm, kinda surprised to see several people saying this is a "good update"... found it to be rather disappointing to be honest.

A small bit about the way armor is handled in other games but without an answer on how PE will be handling it.

Or to be more precise, I feel as if this update is some sort of placeholder since the actual PE relevant info in it is nowhere near enough to warrant making this an update.

 

I'd say it's a good update becuase this is early production and they seem to be looking for our input by telling us which way they are considering going - one might guess thats becuase they actually care about getting our input. Would you rather they not announce anything until their decisions have been made and its too late to change them?

 

Tell us what has been decided instead of telling us what they are discussing?

[Hormalakh]

As for the weekly updates during the Kickstarter as opposed to now, you do realize that they had been working on this idea for at least a month before even starting the kickstarter right? There was a lot of planning going on without us knowing about it. Now that we're all caught up with what they've done so far, we expect them to have just as much stuff as if a month had gone by and they had figured everything out. It's only been two weeks since KS was over. Give them time. Lots of time. And be grateful for what you get.

[sodaTwo]

If find it slightly worrisome that so much time and effort are put into fixing stuff that is not broken. The more I hear about revisiting and reinventing every single thing, the more I worry that this might slide into a gigantic fantasy heartbreaker.

Edited October 31, 2012 by sodaTwo

[Hormalakh]

If find it slightly worrisome that so much time and effort are put into fixing stuff that is not broken. The more I hear about revisiting and reinventing every single thing, the more I worry that this might slide into a gigantic fantasy heatbreaker.

 

I have somewhat similar concerns - but perhaps some of these things truly are broken. I just hope they get the **** tested out of them to make sure that they are true to the feel of IE games.

[Urist_McDorf]

you shouldn't be punished mechanically just because taking the more optimal choice doesn't fit your idea of the character.

Well then what makes something "optimal" if you're not punished for not using it? Either there's an optimal choice and you are implicitly punished for not using it, or there's no optimal.

That's kind of my point. Ideally, there's no optimal and all the choices have merit. In practice, that's almost impossible to achieve (and I'm speaking from experience as a game designer, albeit a rather hedge one), and so you should probably pick the optimal choice for your build. And my point is that when you want to wear, say, hide, because that look suits your character, but plate is more optimal for you, you should be able to wear plate while looking like you wear hide. Perhaps you refluff it as something like wearing heavy hide in your head, I dunno.

Alternately, you could have appearance kits for categories or armour - like tier III heavy could look like adamantine plate, or a set of dragon scales, or a bunch of rune-covered stones glued together with MAGIC or something; but they'd all have the same stats and so you aren't screwed over for picking the stones just because a barbarian in plate would be sillier-looking than that.

[Cantousent]

If find it slightly worrisome that so much time and effort are put into fixing stuff that is not broken. The more I hear about revisiting and reinventing every single thing, the more I worry that this might slide into a gigantic fantasy heatbreaker.

I actually have a different view. I don't mind them tinkering with ideas, but sometimes the solution is no better than the problem. Sometimes the remedy kills the patient. Now, in regards to armor, I believe, since the devs are building up the system from scratch, it makes sense to rethink old ideas and try to improve on the system. Same will go for magic, weapons, and all sorts of other ideas. It's not like they're taking the Dungeons and Dragons system and trying to make minor fixes. They're looking at a variety of systems and trying to formulate the best approach for a brand new system of their own devising. ...On the other hand, what I'd like them to do is look at all those systems and keep in mind that complexity for its own sake is not a solution that fixes something that is not necessarily a problem. From what I've seen, Sawyer keeps an open mind about these things. He's not trying to make changes just for their own sake or as a way to prove 'ownership.' He's thinking through and trying to come up with what he believes will be the best system possible. I know I'm putting words in his mouth, for which I beg pardon, but I think that there's good evidence that he listens and sorts out different ideas.

 

So I wouldn't fret too much about the fact that they're revisiting ol' tried and true ideas because that's what they'd have to do to create a working ruleset in their new universe. Start worrying when you see them discard working ideas just because they have something to prove. At that point, I'd completely agree with you.

 

EDIT: I can't write a post these days without leaving out words that change the meaning. :Cant's scowling icon:

Edited October 31, 2012 by Cantousent

[LadyCrimson]

Agree with Cant.

 

I'd write more, but ... I think I'll leave it at that. I love this update tho, largely because of how it's inspired the community to give a lot of nice input/ideas.

[Keyrock]

If find it slightly worrisome that so much time and effort are put into fixing stuff that is not broken. The more I hear about revisiting and reinventing every single thing, the more I worry that this might slide into a gigantic fantasy heartbreaker.

I personally have thought for years and years that the D&D concept of Armor Class was antiquated and heavily flawed, so in this case I believe they are fixing something that is broken. That's just my personal view though, I'm sure some people think the D&D Armor Class system is perfectly fine, they're entitled to their opinion.

[ZarathustraDK]

Very interesting discussion going on, lots of good info has been laid out.

 

Here are a couple of my observations on the subject:

 

1. We don't want the +1 mode of progression concerning gear, that seems to be a universal opinion.

 

2. We want any character to be able to wear any piece of armor, because you would be able to do that IRL. How you perform in that armor depends on other stuff, but putting it on should be possible, even with the lowest of low INT.

 

3. There's an inherent problem in integrating armor from different time-periods since some/a lot of the newer armor outclasses their predecessors in every aspect. This could be remedied by a tiered system where a piece of armor is graded by it's age (historically old leather-armor=low-quality leather-armor, historically young leather-armor = higher quality leather-armor). "But what about different armor-TYPES?" you say, well read on...

 

5. (proposal) DON'T USE armor-types. The classic leather, chain-mail, scale-mail, plate-mail etc. mechanics/types were brought into AD&D and BG because it was used as a nifty way of shaping which general armor-types COULD be worn by the different archtypes of classes; it was (simplified) made to specifically prevent mages from using plate and shoehorn them into the classic Gandalf-image of mages as old people with robes and wizard-hats.. Well, we've already stated in 2 that we want mages to be able to wear plate even if it does them no good, so we don't need different armor-types.

 

What to do then? How do we restrict armor in regards to the player so they don't just make a full plate-mail-*whatever class* by deafult?

 

I'd say the answer to that question would be attribute-requirements. It takes a certain amount of strength to wield full plate mail compared to cloth, so of course it should be part determinant for it. You could also use different attributes like DEX or INT as a determinant for special pieces of armor (how about a magical piece of armor that refuses to stay on if you're too stupid?). Basically what I'm saying is: Yeah you can wear this full plate mail if you're a mage, and you'll be able to move in it if you're strong enough, however that STR is gonna come out of something, and your other stats may suffer if you decide to spend the points in STR.

 

The above makes sense, without having the armor somehow refuse to stay on your body because it telepathically can sense your education-record.

 

6. How to avoid making chain-mail/studded leather obsolete?

As have already been pointed out, different armor-types are useful for different things. Full plate is bulky but good against some types of weapon, chainmail is flexible and good against other types of weapons, leather-ware maybe confer worse protection than the previous two but it's much lighter so you can move faster, cloth is even lighter but offers relatively little protection. So mix and match, but make sure the buffs/debuffs conferred are %'s of something, don't go "Oh, you're wearing plate so you can't cast mage-spells" or "Oh, you're wearing plate, so you can't attempt a pickpocket", just make the casting time longer and increase the failure-rate of pickpocket respectively (or something else that does not exclude classes entirely from doing what they're trying).

 

Basically what I'm saying is: There's a reason why I wear cloth to work, "leather/chain" to the paintball-field, and kevlar to war; it's because it confers an advantage on me for the given task. Identify the advantage of a given armor, buff that particular armor (and/or nerf the remaining armors) accordingly.

 

Final notes

I think a lot of these headaches are derived from the fact that we want different classes, but yet we want them to be able to do everything. We want to have our cake and eat it too. Classes necessitate restrictions on what is possible for them to do, and that affects armor too because it can impact our impression of what a class is supposed to be/look like.

 

I say scrap the cast-iron classes and armor-types and just call it "a character" and "armor" respectively. Let physical attributes determine what a character can wear, and let his/her path (xp-gain, "soul", spells allowed by INT, perks, etc. determined/chosen/expanded upon throughout the game) prod the player into determining which suit of armor suits his/her situation the best.

[rjshae]

That's kind of my point. Ideally, there's no optimal and all the choices have merit. In practice, that's almost impossible to achieve (and I'm speaking from experience as a game designer, albeit a rather hedge one), and so you should probably pick the optimal choice for your build. And my point is that when you want to wear, say, hide, because that look suits your character, but plate is more optimal for you, you should be able to wear plate while looking like you wear hide. Perhaps you refluff it as something like wearing heavy hide in your head, I dunno.

Weapon and armor technology advances over time, so there will inevitably be some varieties that are more beneficial than others. I don't see a problem with that being reflected in the game. But, depending on the region of the world where you are located, the more advanced armor and weapons may not be readily available. The local armorers and weaponsmiths may not even know how to produce it. You might even suffer some initial distrust for looking like a foreign invader, so perhaps armor could even have a cultural aspect?

 

Making plate mail look like a barbarian's breechclout doesn't seem terribly useful. Mayhap that should be left for the modders?