How combat looks and works

[Frenetic Pony]

If I'd ask all the developers on Project Eternity to do one thing, it would be to go and play Dota 2, and really look at how combat works and is represented in that game.

 

It's an isometric, overhead, somewhat tactical game with RPG elements. And yet it and it's other fantastically similar kindred have a vast appeal, to the point of being the larget hardcore games in history, combined they may have as many active users as Angry Birds does (a series with over a billion downloads!). And yet they sacrifice exactly zero in terms of gameplay complexity, and have been called rather intimidating to get into.

 

I'd say there's any number of things that Project Eternity could learn from these in terms of how combat could be built and represented. Here are my own observations:

 

The stats are very direct. You can look at "how often do I attack, how much damage do I do, how much health do I have, how much health regen do I get?" and all of that directly on your screen at any time. The way items and stats affect these thing is also incredibly clear and direct. Want to know what "Strength" does exactly, and how much you get per level, and how much you have? Just hover your mouse over it right there on games main screen. The items descriptions are pretty much, in as clear terms as possible "This give you X bonus damage, Y health, and has Z ability."

 

Absolutely everything from abilities to items to stats is made as easy to understand and look at as possible. There's no inventory screen, no stats screen, to understand what is what you look at it, or look at it and hover your mouse over it for half a second to see and explanation pop up. This is WONDERFUL. There's all these interconnecting things, all this complexity, and yet none of it is hidden or arcane or archaic. It's all right there as plain as can be made possible. And I'd love to see nothing less in Project Eternity.

 

 

The other thing I've noted is how combat works. Everything is as visually represented as possible. That means, you get a critical hit? You see that you get one via a red amount of damage you did appearing over the enemies head. You know you just got one, you know how much damage you did, it's not hidden, it's got a visual impact. Another example is a an area of effect "slow" debuff against enemies. It's represented as an ability via a floating symbol, and an area on the ground that turns to frost. So the player knows, at all times, what the area of affect is, that it's on, and the frost effect goes onto enemies when it works, so the player know who its affecting and that it's affecting them.

 

Just like with the stats, it's very visual, very direct, and as clear as possible as to what is going on and what is happening, and that's fantastic. No stats to look at, no things to puzzle out, it's made clear to you what happening.

 

The other thing to note with the combat is how geometric it is. Many of the abilities in these games are centered around movement, and line of sight, and area of affect, and how far away the effect gets. There's a lot of abilities centered around trapping enemies where they are, or slowing them, or otherwise making it so they can't retreat. There's all manner of variations on area of affect size, versus a target ability, versus etc. The point of which means to take the exact position and grouping of all enemies and allies into immediate and very impactful effect. The game gets a lot of mileage out making just positioning and movement speed matter a whole lot.

 

The other design feature of abilities is how they stack up with each other. You take, for example, and ability that grants a large "Critical hit" multiplier with a low chance FOR a critical hit. A smart player can say to themselves "hmm, alright, it then behooves me to combine that with trying to hit as fast and often as possible." While another ability might be give a critical hit chance far more often, but with a far lower multiplier. The same smart player would then say "It's now in my interest to get a large amount of base damage, to take advantage of that often occurring critical hit."

 

Things like that appear in many abilities, as they could appear in many (abilities/feats/skills) in Project Eternity. Things that work well, but work best when correctly put together with other considerations, giving players the clear incentive to take a bit of time to really consider how they're building their character.

[Sensuki]

While I really enjoy playing DotA and think it is probably the #1 competitive game around atm, ultimately Project Eternity is a different style of game and will borrow primarily from the infinity engine games. Plus I believe Josh and the team play League of Legends and not Dota (yeah i know right )

 

Last year however I did interview Josh and ask a question about the combat system in regards to WC3/DotA2 because it is a good example of a Real Time combat system.

 

http://www.cybergamer.com.au/article/3083/page-2/Interview-with-Josh-Sawyer-of-Obsidian-Entertainment/

 

 

While DotA 2 is relatively easy to understand, P:E will have far more complexity in many areas of the game, as shown by glimpses of the proposed armor systems.

 

DotA 2 has 3 animations for an attack (frontswing/attack/backswing), I think Project Eternity will only have one like the Infinity Engine games. However Firearms will probably have three (aim, attack, reload).

 

The damage will have a smaller damage range more akin to WC3 than D&D (for example Longsword does 5-8 damage instead of 1- but this decision is influenced more by common sense than anything else.

 

We will probably see statistics similar to D&D or Fallout-style I assume. I think Josh is going to try and avoid creating dump stats.

 

Hopefully abilities will be nothing like DotA as this game will not have timed-cooldowns

[Frenetic Pony]

While I really enjoy playing DotA and think it is probably the #1 competitive game around atm, ultimately Project Eternity is a different style of game and will borrow primarily from the infinity engine games. Plus I believe Josh and the team play League of Legends and not Dota (yeah i know right )

 

Last year however I did interview Josh and ask a question about the combat system in regards to WC3/DotA2 because it is a good example of a Real Time combat system.

 

http://www.cybergamer.com.au/article/3083/page-2/Interview-with-Josh-Sawyer-of-Obsidian-Entertainment/

 

 

While DotA 2 is relatively easy to understand, P:E will have far more complexity in many areas of the game, as shown by glimpses of the proposed armor systems.

 

DotA 2 has 3 animations for an attack (frontswing/attack/backswing), I think Project Eternity will only have one like the Infinity Engine games. However Firearms will probably have three (aim, attack, reload).

 

The damage will have a smaller damage range more akin to WC3 than D&D (for example Longsword does 5-8 damage instead of 1- but this decision is influenced more by common sense than anything else.

 

We will probably see statistics similar to D&D or Fallout-style I assume. I think Josh is going to try and avoid creating dump stats.

 

Hopefully abilities will be nothing like DotA as this game will not have timed-cooldowns

 

Thanks for that interview! But one of the things I'm saying is that, League and Dota get sooooo far, with Dota 2 especially have so many unique heroes and abilities, just on their relative simplicity alone. What's the point of all that extra complication, really? Making it as easy and clear to understand as possible, and being clever about how you construct things might give better results than twirling yourself, and players, around in circles with ever more complex systems.

 

Of course DOTA is a different game, a different genre than PE. Timed cooldowns might not be the best thing, weapons will actually be weapons instead of just adding damage to an attack or something. But I still think there's lessons to be learned, especially in making sure everything's as visually represented and clear as possible. I'm imagining mousing over a weapon in the inventory, and instantly getting the changes in damage and all other stats compared to your current weapon. Same with every other item.

[teknoman2]

i suppose it will be. in the old IE games, based on DnD 2, you had to have a calculator at hand to make calculations based on various stats to see what you could actualy do, and i dont think they plan on making it that complicated. complex and complicated are two different things after all

[TrashMan]

No. I don't want PE to resemble DOTA at all. Never.