Suspense, Tension and Enemy Strategies

[Alexjh]

Apologies if this is already a thread that I've missed.

 

This is not necessarily I think Project Eternity *has* to have by any means and perhaps an isometric game isn't the best or easiest place to do them, but more something that I think most RPGs haven't really managed very well (with the notable exception of Vampire:Bloodlines) and this is using a lack of / the tantalising sense of combat to create suspense. One thing that I find in a lot of RPGs is that they can very much be "enter room, fight monster, enter room fight different monster" in a pitched battle every time. What I'm suggesting is in some instances have the fight not be obvious, and even have setups designed to trick the player. Music/sound effects would probably play a big part of this as otherwise

 

A few examples of the sorts of things I mean.

 

1) (blatantly pinched from vampire: bloodlines) You are in a cursed ruin. As you proceed through various things in the environment seem to be after you with a malevolant will of their own, but you aren't presented with any actual opponents to face, but are left with the feeling you might be at any second until the climax of the storyline.

 

2) You are in an area of thick mist - while you can't see very far, you catch brief glimpses of creatures flanking / surrounding you who only actually attack when you are already weakened. Perhaps you only hear them.

 

3) A single opponent engages you and then flees, you pursue only to fall right into an ambush.

 

4) (blatantly pinched from Lord of the Rings) you are travelling through some long empty dungeon, and you occassionally hear skittering around you, but you are only attacked if you cause noise to draw the monsters out of the depths.

 

5) You are informed by someone that a distinctive and dangerous looking being is hunting you, and overhear conversations that it has been seen on the roads. This foe doesn't attack you in a predetermined place, but catches up with you in a random place depending on some hidden mechanics, forcing an organic encounter.

 

6) You end up facing a foe who you lack the means to kill, and must merely slow it down before it reaches its actual target to allow for evacuation/preparation.

 

These are just a few random examples and by no means the only ones possible, but the general gist is I think it'd be quite interesting to see encounters that work on a variety of themes rather than just the trudging forward and killing anything option.

 

What are peoples thoughts on this?

[Osvir]

Well there is this one here but it seems yours is more fleshed out

 

Collection of Topics that have been discussed in (Gameplay & Mechanics). Tried to categorize it as best I could.

[Space_hamster]

Uh, oh, I may be saying the wrong words here, but, as encounters go....I really, really liked the overland map concept of ....you know. Storms of Zehir. Random encounters work fine enough, but (ahem) the game mechanic seemed to favour a certain build for the protagonist. Namely, the ...(hihi) Bard/Ranger/rogue! A crazy build, but since the game was mostly about finding stuff in the overland map, or avoiding encounters you did not want to find, it served its purpose. This problem should be, ah, solved if they are to implement it in PE.

[Pipyui]

I like where this is going. I never really played cRPGs much for the gameplay, because encounters always ended up being the same - very inorganic. Mixing things up a bit would be a challenge for the devs, but a really fun addition if they pulled it off.

[Alexjh]

I think if you were going to do some ideas like this it'd be interesting to have certain classes be better at certain quests than others - so in regards to those examples I gave, a priest might be able to force the mystic presense to manifest earlier, a ranger might be able to tell you what is tracking you in the fog and what to do about it, a cipher might detect the ambush and so on. The problem with SoZ was definitly that it favoured very specific classes for its ability mechanics, while I think generally speaking there should be a spread across all classes of little bits and bobs where they provide an advantage.