Josh Sawyer on Miss and Hit

[Valorian]

 

 

I do think that Valorian has hit on an important point about weapon-switching no longer being tactical and becoming more "reflexive" when armor type is known.

 

I am interested in hearing how this will be remedied.

Even if armor type isn't shown in a tool-tip, as soon as you deal damage, the damage dealt will tell you everything you need to know.

 

Are we going to see damage dealt per hit in the UI?

Of course. That's a basic information.

[PrimeJunta]

 

 

 

I do think that Valorian has hit on an important point about weapon-switching no longer being tactical and becoming more "reflexive" when armor type is known.

 

I am interested in hearing how this will be remedied.

Even if armor type isn't shown in a tool-tip, as soon as you deal damage, the damage dealt will tell you everything you need to know.

 

Are we going to see damage dealt per hit in the UI?

Of course. That's a basic information.

Do you have a source, or are you just making an assumption from the IE precedent and JES's liking for transparency in game systems? 

[Valorian]

 

 

 

 

I do think that Valorian has hit on an important point about weapon-switching no longer being tactical and becoming more "reflexive" when armor type is known.

 

I am interested in hearing how this will be remedied.

Even if armor type isn't shown in a tool-tip, as soon as you deal damage, the damage dealt will tell you everything you need to know.

 

Are we going to see damage dealt per hit in the UI?

Of course. That's a basic information.

Do you have a source, or are you just making an assumption from the IE precedent and JES's liking for transparency in game systems? 

Lulz, so you think you'll have to guess, blindly, how much damage you actually dealt when you hit a creature?

[PrimeJunta]

No, I don't know. That's why I'm asking. Not all games tell you that info, you know.

Edited January 20, 2013 by PrimeJunta

[TRX850]

I WANT A WALL OF NUMBERS.

 

Cos I'd like to see how combat works.

Edited January 20, 2013 by TRX850

[Arkeus]

Not really... that's what you have multiple fighters for.

Send the 2 hander after the heavy armor guys, while your sword-melee hunts lighter targets.

No need to switch 4 times in one battle...

Well, if you do use a 2-hander with crushing weapon against heavy armor guy, that still remedies the problem of "reflexive switching" :D

 

Do you have a source, or are you just making an assumption from the IE precedent and JES's liking for transparency in game systems?

Yes, Josh said there will bea combat log like in the IE games.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Arkeus

[PrimeJunta]

OK, thanks for clearing that up, Arkeus.

[PrimeJunta]

Thinking about this a bit more... besides or in addition to a wall of numbers, what other ways would there be to communicate this information to the player? How about sound? Suppose the sound for a hit consists of two components, a "clank" of a weapon hitting armor, and a "thunksquelch" of it doing unpleasant things to flesh. Could you mix these together dynamically so that the sound you hear would be a composite, with the loudness of each component determined by how much damage got absorbed or went through, and the total loudness determined by how much base damage the strike did?

 

I don't know squat about sound engineering so I've no idea if this would be workable in practice. Just an odd idea.

[TRX850]

Now we're talking! I've been studying filmmaking for a while now, and sound design is one of those tricky, but oh so rewarding elements to any media production.

 

The swish-fest in BG1 is half the reason we need new sound design relating to all these glancing blows and sliding-scale hits now.

 

Would it be too much to have colour-coded damage numbers appear above the head of the person wounded, a la NWN style?

[Valorian]

Btw. I do like that different types of damage have their strenghts/weakenesses against different DT values.

What I would like though, is that there's an option to specialise in a specific damage type for the sake of character concepts.

 

***

Since this thread is now about anything PE related..

 

I just watched the film "Howl" and one of the themes is the importance of interpretation/meaning of words. To get back to what Joshua (dunno if he prefers Josh?) said: "cooldownds in the sense that most people use them were never really in".

 

I'd like to explain what I mean when I say "per-encounter": after using an ability (or combination of abilities within a group) a set number of times (could be once or 3 times or more) they are locked out for the rest of the fight. No 30 seconds or any amount of time for them to become available again, after that, because that would be per-cooldown and not per-encounter.

Naturally, every ability has its own "cast time".

[Hormalakh]

Well, outside of reach and shields, that's why Halberds exist. They're 'reflexive', axe on a long pole, hammer and a spike. They literally exist to fulfill multiple roles depending on whats required or what best suits the situation. Like a big ol' swiss army knife. Since the spear stuff came up folks keep mentioning ancient time greece, romans, even throwing out some stuff like vast majority of vikings only had a spear...which is kinda incorrect.

 

Rome had trained and equipped armies. Shield, Spear, Sword. Sword acted as a backup. Vikings often had spears and had at least 1 backup, often an axe cause there cheap and extremely effective. Also makes a good tool. Anyway point is, outside of war and moving massive numbers like its a chess game, weapon IS reactive. That's how it should be. ****, tactics are reactive. Tactics are what you pull off, what you come up with amidst a confrontation. Some are extremely simple, some are a bit more complex.

 

Strategy is the larger picture, tactics is the smaller picture, the detail by detail thing. It's your reactions to whats going on, the quick plan, or the often times heavily rehearsed myriad of plans and picking said one to fit your situation. More simply Tactic - "a plan, procedure, or expedient for promoting a desired end or result." See a guy in heavy armor? Drop the sword, grab the maul. It's a tactic.

 

Tactics are almost always reactionary to what you see before you and your picking the option that'll give you the best results for your desired outcome of winning said confrontation. Keeping the sword would be poor tactics in that situation and I have no doubt I'll end up picking that option if I don't think I absolutely need to swap to a maul to win out. But to say its reactionary, reflexive or whatever other term you want to use and then turn around and say that means its not tactical? That's just kinda silly.

 

Sticking to just your sword

 

The thing is, it isn't really tactics if you always know what kind of armor your enemy is wearing before you even attack them. What I mean to say is, while I understand with humanoids and being able to see what kind of armor they have and basically remembering what kind of armor creatures have, there should probably be some sort of question like "should I spend an attack on switching weapons, (if the battle is long) or should I stick with my current weapon and finish this quickly.

 

Some sort of drawback for quick-switches would be a great way to make weapon/armor mismatches more of a decision/choice as opposed to some sort of boring/frustrating/useless exercise. It should take up perhaps a single "attack" so that switching up weapons isn't always necessarily the thing you want to do and is more dependent on the situations and less dependent on solely the armor your enemy has. That is much more tactical and I think more fun too.

 

As for your halberd example, I think that would be a good idea too to throw that in the mix. You'd have some weapons that you don't switch out, you just switch your attack type (change from crushing/piercing/slashing), but once again, these weapons aren't particularly "equally the best" at all three attack types. I would imagine a maul/club would be much more damaging (as a crushing weapon) than a halberd. But that doesn't mean you can't use a halberd to strike crushing blows.

 

Once again, you have a question to answer, and not a pre-solved problem. The question here would be "should I switch to a heavier weapon (maul) and risk the single attack or stick with this weapon and finish the battle?

Edited January 20, 2013 by Hormalakh

[Adhin]

My point was having knowledge doesn't magically make it not a tactical thing. I can understand the desire to want more choices in this regard and wanting some form of drawback to weapon switching, such as becoming vulnerable so perhaps moving your warrior type out of harms way so he can swap (think tactical retreats or advances in military where the squad does it in steps so someone is always covering everyone). That I get, but a lack of options doesn't make it not tactical, just kinda makes it boring on are end.

 

And that... yeah, if its boring its no good. Like playing chess with a 3 year old, I'd rather there be some risk involved in swapping to the better weapon for said challenge. Also I agree on the halberd thing! I think it should, ultimately, be a worse contender in general. I mean a swiss army knife kinda makes for a ****ty knife cause of all the crap it has. Its a ****ty pair of scissors while we're at it. I mean the only thing it 'really' does great is have a plastic tooth pick which is, generally, more resilient then a normal wooden one and has a special carrying case (a compact pile of crappy knives and other tools).

 

Even if there isn't a risk though I know I'll generally use the swords over the maul unless its absolutely necessary. End up relying on other party members to finish off stuff while he keeps stuff busy. Also if there are ever any elemental dmg on weapons, I doubt armor DT will effect that portion of the damage so by end game trash mobs I probably wont bother even more. As for how they could handle the swapping I'd say this is a great opportunity for them to have a very specific set amount of... weapon 'sets' and visually show the weapons, on your character all the time and then have sheath/unsheath animations for all of it.

 

Course that gets a bit complicate once we're talking about 2h pole-based weaponry as thats not something you just carry on your back with a sling heh. And 'dropping it on the ground' (while still keeping it in your equipped slots) would just be kinda awkward. Then again 2h polearms and spears could just be one of the things that appears outa no where but I doubt they'd wanna put that effort into all the other weapons and have halbers and pikes just not show up on you unless its your current equipped. At which point there fancy walking sticks if your not in combat.

 

Meh, well, hopefully they have some kinda period of inactivity while swapping weapons, preferably with some form of animation to accompany it.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Adhin

[Hormalakh]

Another thing they could do is "realism!"

 

seriously, though, instead of a time-down before yor switched weapon is available, maybe they have a "throw your current weapon down and unsheath your other weapon". You'd have to pick up your weapon after each battle (god this would be so annoying)...

 

nevermind...timed cooldowns better IMO

[rjshae]

 

Hey Josh, one more question: Is the game is going to have magic or special attacks that use touch AC or something similar? The idea here is to allow a character concept for a wizened old wizard who can't hit hard enough to damage but can get his hands on his enemies for touch attacks. Any thoughts?

If he had a functional attack roll. One of my peeves with D&D has always been "touch attacks", ranged or otherwise. If you wanted to rely on your attack roll then you probably wouldn't have rolled a class with the worst one. Personally, I've always avoided even bothering to learn those spells.

 

HERO/Champions had a nice approach to this problem: if you want to target a character with a ranged spell, then you had to do a ranged attack and suffer the chance of a miss. But you could pay a little more for the power (+1/2) and target the hexagon containing the character. That way you only had to do a ranged attack against a stationary, unarmored target--the area above that spot on the floor. The target, of course, could still apply any resistances to the effect.

 

Maybe something like this could be implemented as a meta-magical ability? I.e. you memorize a ranged targeted spell at a higher level and gain the ability to ignore the defender's dexterity/shield defenses? Like a "precision guided spell".

 

Alternatively there could be a separate combat skill for targeting spells & guns -- essentially line-of-sight weapons. (Crossbows too?)

Edited January 20, 2013 by rjshae

[IndiraLightfoot]

Rjshae: That is a very clever suggestion indeed, and it sounds fun too. It would fit the setting as far as we know it.

[Juneau]

I want to put the mathematics aside, put the roll of the dice aside and look at the RPG side of things...

 

 

Sword Fighting;

1) (I'm going from personal experience as I've done some Kendo *spa with a friend who is an instructor) - People miss their swings, not often when your that close but a well timed feint and back step and you've made them swing and miss.

 

2) You parry and block, quite a lot taking NO damage apart from maybe and I mean maybe a slight sprain in your wrist.

 

-

 

Archery - Go watch the olympics these people have high quality bows with sights and train non stop. They MISS, rarely but again they miss. and they stand their, focus, wait and shoot.

 

They don't have crazy arsed demon spawn hell hounds from Mars charging them down.

 

 

 

Now, let's discuss NEVER Missing, it doesn't happen and I honestly think it would spoil the immersion of the game to see that no matter what happens you can't dodge/avoid damage and neither can the enemy. May as well take a wall of archers and fire off focused headshots constantly and kill everyone before they can get close to you - Throw in some enchanted weapons that SLOW your opponents and wollah - wall of death that the enemy can't get close too - Keep back peddling peppering with arrows that never miss and apply a slow....

 

The idea of never missing worries me. I may not LIKE it when I cast off my final 2 spells, fire my final arrow and they miss BUT I adapt and deal with it.... Too never miss, heh even if it's only 1 damage, just comes down to staying alive long enough cos I know I can always win.

[C2B]

I want to put the mathematics aside, put the roll of the dice aside and look at the RPG side of things...

 

Then you're not talking about an rpg anymore.

Edited January 21, 2013 by C2B

[uaciaut]

On a slightly side note - if monks preffer to use no/light armor to make the best of their fighting abilities how are they going to survive in the front rows of the fights where they have tobe to do damage with their unarmed attacks or weapons? Will they get natural DT as a class specific bonus? Will they get AC bonus from wisdo to a degree that they have enough AC to become "evasion tanks"?

[TRX850]

Monks are often considered to be a "Decoy" type, which means their specialty is avoiding being hit.

 

Once monks are mid level (traditionally) they should have enough innate AC and unarmed damage potential to stand toe-to-toe with front line warriors.

 

It's a system that requires a lot of patience from the player, but the long term rewards are usually worth waiting for.

 

I tend to build DEX based monks myself, with weapon finesse that allows fists as "light" weapons. It's all about increasing AC and increasing BAB, because their natural fist damage ultimately out-scales melee weapons.

[Fearabbit]

 

I want to put the mathematics aside, put the roll of the dice aside and look at the RPG side of things...

 

Then you're not talking about an rpg anymore.

 

Taking a step back to see what it looks like in reality and then deriving a system from that isn't exactly unheard of.

 

He's also absolutely right in regards to archery. It would be stupid if archers always hit the target, but only do glancing damage. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do that, though. My guess is that bows have a very small "glance" range.

 

 

I also agree that it should be quite common to miss because your opponent evaded your blow. As long as evading burns stamina (but not damage), that seems like something you could easily add to the current system without creating too many "damage spikes".

[rjshae]

My understanding is that Josh's current melee system does allow for a rare miss. Hence, saying that archers will always hit their target contradicts this implementation. Logically, distance will reduce the chance for a hit, so that, based on the sliding damage window concept, that would seem to increase the odds of a clean miss.

[Juneau]

 

 

I want to put the mathematics aside, put the roll of the dice aside and look at the RPG side of things...

Then you're not talking about an rpg anymore.

role playing game. Where you role play a game. The game itself doesn't have to be based on mathematics and dice rolls. Admittedly it's a successful and established way of playing the game. You're there originally to role play - to imagine your that guy/elf/demon/space marine etc... taking on the evil doers etc.. etc.. Mathematics and dice rolls are not everything. Without the story, the immersion... It's just another spreadsheet. (dare I sat football manager?)

 

The idea of never missing to me - takes away a lot of the role play for the examples that I just give.

[J.E. Sawyer]

On a slightly side note - if monks preffer to use no/light armor to make the best of their fighting abilities how are they going to survive in the front rows of the fights where they have tobe to do damage with their unarmed attacks or weapons? Will they get natural DT as a class specific bonus? Will they get AC bonus from wisdo to a degree that they have enough AC to become "evasion tanks"?

 

Monks convert a portion of Stamina damage, pre-subtraction from their own Stamina total, into Wounds (their resource).  Their actual Stamina and Health are not higher than normal, but this class ability effectively makes them more durable -- until they have maxed out the number of Wounds they are able to absorb.

[TRX850]

Will monks have any form of spell resistance in P:E ? Or will this be more of a will power centric class?

[J.E. Sawyer]

We haven't worked out their higher level abilities, but Tim and I have discussed the basic idea of monks as attack absorbers/modifiers, so something like spell/magic resistance would not be out of line with what we're thinking.