Exploit the “Slow Motion” RTwP to integrate some TB strength.

[Gnostic]

I am sorry as I do not know this should be at the engine or mechanic section so I will post at both and let the admin decide.

 

Short Version
Exploit on the slow motion function to let the game zoom on a character and play in slow motion the animation that deal the killing blow or successfully perform a feat of awesomeness, or was beaten to near death. Finishing the action the camera can zoom back and run in real time.

This is good for aesthetics and helps the information crunch of which character need attention or further command.
People have the option to skip that all if they want.

 

If possible Unity Engine can do a playback of the animation.

 

Long Version
One of the advantages to TB is that you get the information/aesthetics of each event at the moment it's resolved. RTwP makes it hard to track this as multiple events is played together constantly. Active pause of the player may be out of sync and miss some events. Auto Pause may not let the player know what is causing the pause unless the player look at the text breaking the flow.

 

In no way I am stating TB is better than RTwP as both system have their pros and cons, I am stating how to improve the RTwP so it's weakness can be shore up and exploit some strength of the TB.

 

Eternity already will implement a Slow Motion Function, so why not take advantage of it a step further to exploit it's strength?

When a character do a deathblow, a great feat of strength, or under great duress, the game will go into slow motion and zoom in the particular character so the player can enjoy the animation or take action like switching target, run or heal. After the action ends the camera will zoom back and run in real time again. This function is skip-able with a button.

 

If there are multiple such event happens at once, the latest character event will play into the player attention and the other character portrait will flash if they have a event that require the player attention.

 

This function will be optional and customizable. In customizable, the player may not want to see the victory animation of the character triumph over a lowly rat but want to see the victory over a giant, so the player can select this function to happen only against strong opponents only. Or based on level, filtering out victory animation on foes 5 level lower than the character.

The player can select if they want to see a really smart move from them like a fireball defeating 20 rats with good positioning and luring. So they can select the option to see animation if a character action affect 5 foes. The player also can choose to see the animation of a costly skill (determined by mana / ability level / casting length / cool down time)

 

The player can set to slow down / pause and zoom in to a character under 25% health, finished action, stunned / blinded / feared.

 

As such the game can enjoy the benefits of faster combat and more manageable information gathering and more satisfactions of the aesthetics animation. The developers also do not need to code a lot as this function just build on the slow motion function.

 

If they want to take it up a notch higher they can do a playback / reverse time like prince of Persia Sand of Time, but I don't know how much work the developers need for that.

[sesobebo]

Exploit on the slow motion function to let the game zoom on a character and play in slow motion the animation that deal the killing blow or successfully perform a feat of awesomeness, or was beaten to near death. Finishing the action the camera can zoom back and run in real time.

no.

just, no.

 

 

 

nope.

Edited May 22, 2014 by sesobebo

[Gnostic]

 

Exploit on the slow motion function to let the game zoom on a character and play in slow motion the animation that deal the killing blow or successfully perform a feat of awesomeness, or was beaten to near death. Finishing the action the camera can zoom back and run in real time.

no.

just, no.

 

 

 

nope.

 

Errr...... can you be a helpful a bit and enlighten a dimwit like me why not?

 

What I am aiming now is how to make RTwP better, instead of derailing TB lovers of their distaste in game model that require to make quick decision against a timer, it will be more productive to discuss how to make RTwP enjoyable for a wider range of people. RTwP supporter or game lovers should help to make RTwP better instead of locking down RTwP into one model only and block progress.

 

TB has evolved to Continuous TB, Phase TB, Simultaneous TB, Opt to skip animation in TB, Speed Up option in TB, Auto Resolve TB.

 

RTwP evolution is pretty stagnant since BG, still auto pause function and customizable AI script. I am happy that in Eternity RTwP evolution started again and is including Slow Motion RTwP. Maybe we will even see Reverse Time / Replay RTwP like Prince of Persia Sand of Times. Now I try to initiate a discussion how to exploit the Slow Motion RTwP to best effect.

 

If Eternity does not have this function then the next best thing is to mod this or at least try to.

 

On how to mod this, we can reuse the build in Slow Motion and Zoom function, just choose when to trigger them.

 

On when to trigger, I suppose the text display of the game engine will recognize the death of a foe, so we can use that to trigger this function, but it will be after the victory animation of a character, only the defeat of a foe be recognize. I imagine this will be the limitation and we have to make do with the defeat animation of a foe.

Then if we want to filter out that only strong enemies will trigger this function, we have to do a average party level check vs level of foe, only when the level of the foe is higher than the average party level can this animation be triggered. We also can do a foot print check. Giants, Dragons, Golem and other tough enemies should have a larger footprint so we can endorse this function against enemies with a footprint larger than X (human?).

 

Character with less than 25% health, stunned, dazed will warrant this function and the camera will zoom in to them. But for foes, we must know the location to zoom in. I hope the game engine will register both the death of a foe and the location of the death so I can mod the place to zoom. Optimally we should zoom to a dying foe as close as possible to watch the animation, we are limited by the engine we have to settle for a lesser zoom, like 75% zoom and out to 100% zoom to attract attention.

 

Maybe the developer or an experience Modder has a better way to overcome the limitation than a novice Modder wannabe like me. Without the actual code of the game this is all theory crafting on how to mod this. Any developers kind enough for giving a hint?

[sesobebo]

my disagreement with Your idea has nothing to do with TB or RTwP. what i object to is the proposition to hijack the controls from the player for such a superfluous reason as "[playing] a feat of awesomeness". in the best case this would get really old really fast; in worse cases it would make the game unplayable. wanting it as an option only shifts this from appalling to bad.

 

gameplay shouldn't be subjugated to graphics - it should merely be enhanced by it.

 

 

 

 

 

i also don't get the reasoning how this could gap the RTwP to TB divide. things would still be happening simultaneously and not in turns. slowing down the time won't change that.