Balancing Stealth vs Combat

[PrimeJunta]

@SqueakyCat - Yeah, that's a nice example. I'd expect things to work more or less that way.

 

Also, my cat says hi to your cat. Maybe they're long-lost cousins. (Also condolences to Valorian's cat about that accident. I trust it'll grow out.)

[Valorian]

: Just no.

 

1 Moving while stealthed uses stamina. It regenerates when standing still.

 

So all you have to do is stand still and regenerate you precious stamina back?

 

In combat you don't have the luxury to stand still and regenerate stamina while monsters are pounding on you.

 

Next.

 

Combat is complex, it involves: positioning, deciding which abilities/spells to use, selecting optimal targets, timing, combining actions...

 

Sneaking involves moving your character around.

 

Next.

 

When you fail in combat the consequence is death. Even if you win, there is this little problem of health drainage.

 

When you fail sneaking, you can always draw your weapons and have a second chance.

 

.

[Amentep]

1 Moving while stealthed uses stamina. It regenerates when standing still.

 

So all you have to do is stand still and regenerate you precious stamina back?

 

In combat you don't have the luxury to stand still and regenerate stamina while monsters are pounding on you.

 

I'd say that using stealth in any form has to reduce stamina. Maybe it drains less when you're not active, but the "stealth button" is really encompassing a lot of different things - from hiding in shadows to controlling breathing and should always require "stamina".

 

Next.

 

Combat is complex, it involves: positioning, deciding which abilities/spells to use, selecting optimal targets, timing, combining actions...

 

Sneaking involves moving your character around.

 

Sneaking involves: positioning, deciding if you want to risk throwing a stone to make a noise on the opposite wall in order to distract the guards, selecting optimal travel paths, timing travel between guards...

 

Next.

 

When you fail in combat the consequence is death. Even if you win, there is this little problem of health drainage.

 

When you fail sneaking, you can always draw your weapons and have a second chance.

 

When you fail in combat the consequence is retreat or death.

 

When you fail at sneaking the consequence is retreat or fight with diminished resources (which has retreat or death as its failure)

 

But if you succeed in combat you get the reward of extra loot (from bodies) to go along with environmental loot.

 

If you succeed at stealth, you get the reward of environmental loot.

 

Greater risk = greater reward?

Edited January 17, 2013 by Amentep

[Valorian]

1 Moving while stealthed uses stamina. It regenerates when standing still.

 

So all you have to do is stand still and regenerate you precious stamina back?

 

In combat you don't have the luxury to stand still and regenerate stamina while monsters are pounding on you.

 

I'd say that using stealth in any form has to reduce stamina. Maybe it drains less when you're not active, but the "stealth button" is really encompassing a lot of different things - from hiding in shadows to controlling breathing and should always require "stamina".

 

Next.

 

Combat is complex, it involves: positioning, deciding which abilities/spells to use, selecting optimal targets, timing, combining actions...

 

Sneaking involves moving your character around.

 

Sneaking involves: positioning, deciding if you want to risk throwing a stone to make a noise on the opposite wall in order to distract the guards, selecting optimal travel paths, timing travel between guards...

 

Next.

 

When you fail in combat the consequence is death. Even if you win, there is this little problem of health drainage.

 

When you fail sneaking, you can always draw your weapons and have a second chance.

 

When you fail in combat the consequence is retreat or death.

 

When you fail at sneaking the consequence is retreat or fight with diminished resources (which has retreat or death as its failure)

 

But if you succeed in combat you get the reward of extra loot (from bodies) to go along with environmental loot.

 

If you succeed at stealth, you get the reward of environmental loot.

 

Greater risk = greater reward?

 

1. Stamina regenerates easily. Health does not. Does sneaking degenerate your health?

 

 

2. Yeah, sure. After throwing the rock while sneaking, you can even enter in a deep state of cogitation and ponder about the option of calling the Angel of Death to distract your foes by kissing or touching them (that's another tactical option - kiss or touch).

 

 

3. Sure you can run away in both cases. But it's easier to run away if you're not directly on top of your enemies and if some of your party members aren't already eviscerated, right?

[Amentep]

1. Stamina regenerates easily. Health does not. Does sneaking degenerate your health?

 

Why does it have to drain health to equal; I'm not talking one to one scenario here.

 

If a combat path requires a party to expend health potions, stamina potions, armor repair kits, and wetstones to repair after a quest and the stealth path requires a party to expend stamina potions, skeleton keys, smoke bombs, trap disarming kits, noisemakers, stealth potions, sound damping gel...

 

...which one paid the most in consumable resources to complete the quest?

 

 

2. Yeah, sure. After throwing the rock while sneaking, you can even enter in a deep state of cogitation and ponder about the option of calling the Angel of Death to distract your foes by kissing or touching them (that's another tactical option - kiss or touch).

 

Again I'm not thinking of stealth as "press a button and run", but something more complex if its going to justify itself as a legitimate path at the same level as combat. And that means having to make a lot more choices and using a lot more resources than in the IE games. A valid distraction system - like throwing noisemakers - should be part of something like that (and noisemakers should carry risk - yes they may distract one guard, but also put others on alert).

 

3. Sure you can run away in both cases. But it's easier to run away if you're not directly on top of your enemies and if some of your party members aren't already eviscerated, right?

 

That entirely depends on the situation doesn't it? If you're in a wide open plain and the stealth party is 30 ft away (whereas the combat party is enbroiled in the fight) - sure. If you're in a dungeon and in taking the stealth path you've put yourself in a corridor where you've been spotted and the alarm raised from being spotted has alerted enemies in front of and behind you, versus the combat party being in a room with one set of antagonists...not really.

 

But even if its easier to run away, you still have greater risk = greater reward. The combat party is going to get XP and 2 times the loot of the stealth party.

Edited January 17, 2013 by Amentep

[Gfted1]

PrimeJunta - Here is an example of objective based experience Labadal gave last month (post #26):

 

http://forums.obsidi...ce/page__st__26

 

It's what ultimately made me rethink my position on combat experience. Something like this is workable for me. You're still getting incremental experience and not just big chunks, and it accomodates people who prefer not to fight and solve conflict in a different manner.

 

Even Gifted1 thought it was a good example.

 

At the end of the day we just don't have enough information on stealth/diplomacy to even form an educated guess so everything is pure speculation at this point. Maybe Josh will shed some light next Tuesday.

 

O/T: Valorian, my avatar wants to know what happened to your cat -- did he put up a good fight with bleach bottle, but ultimately lose? Condolences.

 

Heh, that is an excellent example. I dont necessarily care about things changing. Sure, I personally like kill experience but Im not married to that mechanic. What I rail against is the assinine concept of "degenerative gameplay" and if I have to work within the confines of such a system I want the playing field to be level.

[PrimeJunta]

@Gfted1, funny then that you're still not even able to use the term correctly, given that you've put so much energy into railing against it. #strawman

[uaciaut]

To put it in a way that doesn't stray too much off-topic: i think it makes sense for stealthy chars who focus on finding stealthy solutions to their encounters to naturally improve on this aspect, same for fighting. If none of these (fairly big as it seems) aspects have an impact on my XP, and thus levels, than i'm improving myself from said levels in these aspects by doing something completely unrelated to them, which doesn't really sound all that logical to me. Ideally you'd want scarred veterans to become better at what they do (fighting) and the experience they gain outside of fighting to sustain them bot at crushing skulls AND at doing other things with their time (like being better diplomats, idk).

 

Technically you have to commit to one type of resolve at one point with this (which is okay) because it's not like you can keep solving things with combat while using your otherwise earned XP to level up your stealth so you can suddenly swith to a shadowy type halfway through the game (unless you want to become considerably weaker at combat because your opponents will improve in that regard and you'll stay low).

Though i suspect there's more to be heard on this aspect anyway so i look forward to more information before trying to go more in-depth about it

Edited January 17, 2013 by uaciaut

[Valorian]

Amentep, you're going to explode from all the conjecture.

 

Throwing rocks around as a tactical option during sneaking to put it on the same complexity level as combat? Come on..

 

 

If you don't/can't lose health or die while sneaking, as a direct consequence of sneaking, it will always be inherently more advantageous than combat.

 

And if you do lose health while sneaking.. Why the hell would you lose it?

 

Note that a trap can maim you regardless if you choose to sneak or not.

[Hormalakh]

PrimeJunta - Here is an example of objective based experience Labadal gave last month (post #26):

 

http://forums.obsidi...ce/page__st__26

 

 

Will you know each objective before you start? Once you start giving experience for such finely grained objectives you're limiting playstyles, aren't you? For example, what if you just searched and found the jungle yourself? Would you suddenly lose out on that XP? Having larger objectives would allow several different play-styles to originate organically. It's also less hand-holding ("ok first do this, then do that, then do this.") That smacks too much of linear quest creation.

[SqueakyCat]

Hi Hormalakh - Hey, I'm just one of thousands of backers who knows zero about game design/development, but does know what they've liked in the I.E. games.

 

I've always liked the quest/combat experience model because my characters grew at small, incremental amounts over time. Josh has discussed quest/goal experience but not given any really specific examples (that I can recall anyway). The example I linked was just someone's hypothetical example of one possible scenario. It made me rethink my position because this would be an alternative that would also result in smaller incremental progression. It's just a personal preference -- nothing more, nothing less.

 

Whether they utilize something like this or not - who knows? Either way, I'm putting my faith in the team to make a game with great combat and a compelling story which, ultimately, is why I backed the project.

 

I rarely post anymore (just read everything) so I'm not going to enter this discussion. I posted the link since PrimeJunta was discussing something similar (and I wanted to inquire as to the apparent mishap with Valorian's cat).

 

I'll leave the details to people who know a great deal more than I.

[Hormalakh]

Hi Hormalakh - Hey, I'm just one of thousands of backers who knows zero about game design/development, but does know what they've liked in the I.E. games.

 

I've always liked the quest/combat experience model because my characters grew at small, incremental amounts over time. Josh has discussed quest/goal experience but not given any really specific examples (that I can recall anyway). The example I linked was just someone's hypothetical example of one possible scenario. It made me rethink my position because this would be an alternative that would also result in smaller incremental progression. It's just a personal preference -- nothing more, nothing less.

 

Whether they utilize something like this or not - who knows? Either way, I'm putting my faith in the team to make a game with great combat and a compelling story which, ultimately, is why I backed the project.

 

I rarely post anymore (just read everything) so I'm not going to enter this discussion. I posted the link since PrimeJunta was discussing something similar (and I wanted to inquire as to the apparent mishap with Valorian's cat).

 

I'll leave the details to people who know a great deal more than I.

Hi squeakycat. I wouldn't dare claim that I "know" more than anyone else here. I'm just a regular gamer like everyone else here.

 

I was just trying to express my thoughts about the linked idea. I am a big fan of the IE games too, and I've tried to look at those games without wearing rose-tinted glasses. Especially having replayed those games fairly recently (a couple of months ago) I have a fairly good idea of the things I enjoyed playing again, and the things that stuck out as fairly annoying. Really, I just try to speak to my own experiences and let the designers take what they will (or won't).

 

At the end of the day, this idea of XP and how it's going to be dealt out will very unlikely be influenced by these posts. I don't see one overwhelming voice decrying the design choice and ultimately this will fall to the designers' own decisions.

 

I liked the old way. I'm willing to see a new way.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Hormalakh

[PrimeJunta]

Will you know each objective before you start? Once you start giving experience for such finely grained objectives you're limiting playstyles, aren't you? For example, what if you just searched and found the jungle yourself? Would you suddenly lose out on that XP? Having larger objectives would allow several different play-styles to originate organically. It's also less hand-holding ("ok first do this, then do that, then do this.") That smacks too much of linear quest creation.

I was thinking about that actually. There are basically three options:

 

(1) Award XP every time you trigger something marked as [Objective] for a quest. 

-> upside: rewards exploration, which is a Fun activity

-> downside: doesn't make sense in context ("Hu? I got 200XP for walking up to this windmill? WTF?")

-> downside: if there are mutually exclusive quests in the game, encourages XP farming by tripping Objectives of quests you're not going to accept

(2) Award all "retroactive" XP belonging to a quest when completing it, even if you tripped some of the Objectives before it was active

-> upside: fair in a Communist kind of way (you're rewarded for your benefit to society)

-> upside: makes devs' jobs easier, since player XP totals will vary less

(3) Only award XP for "active" objectives

-> upside: encourages focused gameplay, more strongly aligned with in-game goals

-> upside: fair in a capitalist kind of way (you're only paid for work you're hired to do)

-> downside: discourages exploration

-> downside: makes devs' job a bit harder since player XP totals will vary more

(4) Some compromise between (2) and (3)

 

Consider the farmer's daughter quest again. Suppose we made the daughter herself also a questgiver. So if our party was just dickin' around, beat up the bandits, broke open the windmill door, and killed the orcs, they'd find her at the top of the mill. She could ask them to please escort her to [Farmer]. In this case, they'd only trip the objectives [ExitWindmillWithDaughter] and [ReturnDaughterToFarmer], worth, what, 600 XP. That missing 400 XP that [ReachWindmill] and [EnterWindmill] would've given will have to be dealt with somehow. 

 

My inclination would probably be to go with (2), although on a gut level (3) appeals to me more, but that may be because I wear such nice shiny jackboots and want to force everybody to play My Way.

[TRX850]

>> I wear such nice shiny jackboots and want to force everybody to play My Way.

 

I'm sensing deja vu here...

[Osvir]

Let PrimeJunta be immersed by his own ideas, in my opinion those are the best. Those who complain about them don't understand them. Lots of good stuff in this whole thread, but is it the solution? In my opinion, not the complete one.

Quest-Based Experience is something different from Active Experience.

If you want to get better at guitar you either play guitar yourself or are very aware of how the guitarist is playing in front of you and you are trying to suck up as much knowledge as possible. Now, I wouldn't want a game where you get experience for looking at someone playing guitar because A, too convoluted, B, not desirable in my opinion.

You don't get better at playing guitar by going up to a windmill, unless the guitar is what is always on your mind and you are somehow reflecting the Windmill back to being a guitarist.

You have great thoughts for a Character/Class Experience (The Spiritual Experience). Traveling to America was Character Experience, but did I get better at playing guitar? As a whole, yes. More material for songwriting (which, is another type of experience) and I played guitar maybe 2%-3% of that entire journey. I learn more about myself in a Quest-Based Experience, which may be related to music, drawing, intellect, knowledge and so on. Philosophical Experience.

When I'm playing I get better, when I am traveling I get better. That's two different types of experience.

EDIT: However, if I am doing the Quest for a Guitarist Faction, then there's a chance that I am more inclined to get experience in guitar-playing (in a way PrimeJunta is suggesting). Or if I decide myself "I am going to learn how to play Guitar by looking at this Windmill", yes it sounds odd and fluff butI bet if you reflect on anything there's something to be learned from it. This is just trying to make some sense of what experience is.

Experience = Learning.

@PrimeJunta: Do you get experience at those points depending on how you've progressed to this point or do you get experience because you saw the Windmill for the first time? One playthrough you take everything down before entering, combat experience. Another path you are sneaky and stealthy, stealth experience. That sounds all good.

But how do you manage it? How do you not misstep your bounds? "****! Got noticed by the Guards!" = No stealth experience?

An easy fix, although a tad bit "meh" as well, is Faction-Based Experience. You went with the Soldier Faction, you'll be awarded Combat Experience at Windmill, whilst joining the Thieves Guild gives you sneaky experience. You could perhaps even get different skill-sets, depending on which faction you choose to follow.

Of course, you could play Soldier Faction in a Thieves Guild kind of way, would you get combat experience or sneak experience? I say, parameters that control what has happened when you enter the Windmill earns experience. The Factions are simply "proposed" paths by design. In my opinion you should be able to play as a Thief even if you are in the Soldiers Faction, and earn experience accordingly.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Osvir

[PrimeJunta]

@Osvir, lots of questions there. Some thoughts about them.

 

First, I'm not a big fan of the "improve by doing" mechanic (improving your stealth by being stealth, improving your combat by fighting etc.). Realistic in a sense, perhaps, but also hugely prone to abuse. The Elder Scrolls series works this way, and it's by far the most exploitable cRPG system I've played; the incentives are totally wacky in it. Specifically, "learn by doing" encourages pointless busywork even more than action-XP, whether from combat, stealth, lockpicking or whatever. When I was playing Morrowind, I was jumping whenever traveling anywhere, 'cuz that's how I improve my athletics skill. Must've looked like an idiot.

 

XP is a completely contrived mechanic; it's a high-level abstraction representing "stuff you've learned," which allows you to decide specifically what you've learned, regardless of how you got there. It really doesn't make much sense from a simulationist/realist point of view, but it makes for good gameplay. So as I said earlier, I'm all for XP-less cRPG's, but Project Eternity isn't it. So I wouldn't want to split up XP into "sneaky XP," "fighty XP," or "musical XP." 

 

However, I like your idea of associating affiliation with advantages in specific subsystems (e.g. thieves' guild members gain advantages in sneaky kinds of things, warriors' guild in fighty kinds of things etc), but I don't think XP is the way to go here. Perks or access to special equipment would be more appropriate and less fiddly I think.

 

So the "no stealth experience?" question doesn't arise under this system, since I'm only awarding XP for reaching objectives, regardless of how you reached them. You get your XP however you got past the guards -- by fighting, sneaking, intimidating, or bribing, if that's what's allowed in that particular quest.

 

"Do you get experience... because you saw the windmill?" See above: I addressed this in my reply to Hormalakh. In brief, I think the least problematic compromise would be to award XP for active quest objectives only, but then bump up the bonus when completing a quest to make up for any objective-XP you missed by e.g. killing the bandits before the quest was active.

[UpgrayeDD]

"Do you get experience... because you saw the windmill?" See above: I addressed this in my reply to Hormalakh. In brief, I think the least problematic compromise would be to award XP for active quest objectives only, but then bump up the bonus when completing a quest to make up for any objective-XP you missed by e.g. killing the bandits before the quest was active.

So the reward for doing all objectives and no objectives in a given quest would be exactly the same?

[PrimeJunta]

 

"Do you get experience... because you saw the windmill?" See above: I addressed this in my reply to Hormalakh. In brief, I think the least problematic compromise would be to award XP for active quest objectives only, but then bump up the bonus when completing a quest to make up for any objective-XP you missed by e.g. killing the bandits before the quest was active.

So the reward for doing all objectives and no objectives in a given quest would be exactly the same?

See above. If I was the dev, I'd probably playtest this and see how players respond. 

 

Note that there's no way to complete a quest without completing any objectives, since completing it is an objective in itself, and I would expect it would have the highest individual XP reward. From a certain POV you will have completed all the objectives in any case, even if you completed some of them before they were active. It depends on how you look at it -- if you're a Communist you'll want to reward the player for work done whether he did it before being hired or after; if you're a capitalist, you'll only want to reward him for work done after you hired him, and consider anything he did before that point a freebie.

[Helm]

It shouldn't take much longer until PJ realises that quest/objective only xp is fundamentally flawed (for PE).

 

It's amusing to see him constantly run his head into a brick wall.   That brick wall really is a nasty one.

[Jobby]

I can see where your coming from PJ and i agree on most points, for example lockpicking a door you have the key to for the experience is a stupid mechanic and should be avoided, however upon reflection i don't think combat xp needs to be avoided, although if there is combat xp there needs to be rewards for avoiding it, even if those rewards are not directly linked to character development, but rather your standing with other factions.

 

Say you could avoid killing any thieves or being spotted when stealing something for a quest for another faction, the thieves guild then shouldn't dislike you which could allow you to do quests for them also, thus decreasing the combat xp gained but increasing the total quest xp available.

 

This is however rather complex for a cRPG but it would be wonderful to see imo.

[TrashMan]

First, I'm not a big fan of the "improve by doing" mechanic (improving your stealth by being stealth, improving your combat by fighting etc.). Realistic in a sense, perhaps, but also hugely prone to abuse. The Elder Scrolls series works this way, and it's by far the most exploitable cRPG system I've played; the incentives are totally wacky in it.

Now why do peoele always bring up Elder Scrolls whenever Learn-By-Doing is involved?

 

It's liek there aren't game who did a GREAT LBD system.... Like Jagged Alliance 2.

Yes, you can make a unabusable system that works great.

It's not that difficult really.

 

In fact, the only real abuse I can think off was punching cows...but since there were only a few cows, it didn't amount to much.

[TRX850]

XP for cow-tipping? I'd like to see the animation for that, if nothing else.

[TrashMan]

It shouldn't take much longer until PJ realises that quest/objective only xp is fundamentally flawed (for PE).

 

It's amusing to see him constantly run his head into a brick wall.   That brick wall really is a nasty one.

 

Well, he should learn from you.

After bashing your head so many times, you learned the value of a HELM.

[PrimeJunta]

I've no doubt you could make an un-abusable learn by doing mechanic. Haven't played JA so can't comment on that.

 

But it would no longer be XP based, and that IMO would take things too far from the IE archetype.

[Helm]

 

 

It shouldn't take much longer until PJ realises that quest/objective only xp is fundamentally flawed (for PE).

 

It's amusing to see him constantly run his head into a brick wall. That brick wall really is a nasty one.

Well, he should learn from you.

After bashing your head so many times, you learned the value of a HELM.

No, I wasn't bashing my head into the monitor while I was playing Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape, just because they all used combat xp.

 

But as I can see from your response, you must have done this quite often, which is probably why you have failed to read the front page: Miss classic cRPGs [with combat, quest and diplomacy xp] like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment? So do we! Introducing Obsidian's PROJECT ETERNITY.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Helm