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.

[Sensuki]

Something like this (which I really don't like the idea of) is simply outside of the scope of Pillars of Eternity, as it is in no way relative to the IE feel of the game. Aside from that, the game is feature locked and probably 98% feature complete by now.

 

If you struggle with RTwP combat due to not being fantastic at micromanagement, there are a couple of things the devs have done to improve the combat feedback of the game:

 

Floating damage numbers above unit heads when they are damaged (can be toggled off)

Extensive auto-pause features - I don't remember the example clauses given (and the Something Awful Database is down right now)

Unique animations for things like special attacks

 

If you see a character going for a "deathblow" you can simply press the slow button, or the pause button and do that.

 

That said "Auto-slow" on it's own instead of Auto-pause is fair enough. I'm not sure if auto-slow is included in the auto-pause clauses.

Edited May 22, 2014 by Sensuki

[Gnostic]

Something like this (which I really don't like the idea of) is simply outside of the scope of Pillars of Eternity, as it is in no way relative to the IE feel of the game. Aside from that, the game is feature locked and probably 98% feature complete by now.

 

If you struggle with RTwP combat due to not being fantastic at micromanagement, there are a couple of things the devs have done to improve the combat feedback of the game:

 

Floating damage numbers above unit heads when they are damaged (can be toggled off)

Extensive auto-pause features - I don't remember the example clauses given (and the Something Awful Database is down right now)

Unique animations for things like special attacks

 

If you see a character going for a "deathblow" you can simply press the slow button, or the pause button and do that.

 

That said "Auto-slow" on it's own instead of Auto-pause is fair enough. I'm not sure if auto-slow is included in the auto-pause clauses.

 

I love RTwP, in my first play through of BG2 I did not even realize there is a pause function to queue command, I just thought like every other action game it only allow to pause by opening the inventory and drink potion. I have one heck of a time enjoying the urgency and satisfaction of being able to analyze the situation and give command fast enough, being in control enough to turn the tide of battle to victory. Yes I run away and visit the temple a lot of revive by party, but that does not diminish the fun for me.

 

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. We as 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.

 

I am not sure if it will be out of the scope of Eternity since they already have “Slow Motion” and “Zoom” build in. It is how to set a condition to trigger this function. If you like an “IE feel” then you can opt not to use this function.

 

If the developers had lock down the feature then fine, we will have to see how to mod this or lobby this in the sequel.

 

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. I will have to post this in the engine section to hope for a hint.

[Silent Winter]

That said "Auto-slow" on it's own instead of Auto-pause is fair enough. I'm not sure if auto-slow is included in the auto-pause clauses.

I hope it is - I got the impression that we were choosing between pause and slow (togglable in-game) - the auto-'pause' conditions should be easy enough to work with auto-'slow'.

[Bryy]

so I will post at both and let the admin decide.

Famous last words.

[Sensuki]

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.

Auto-slow options. The end.

[Quadrone]

I love RTwP, in my first play through of BG2 I did not even realize there is a pause function to queue command, ...

 

 

Opinion discarded.

 

 

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. We as 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.

 

I am not sure if it will be out of the scope of Eternity since they already have “Slow Motion” and “Zoom” build in. It is how to set a condition to trigger this function. If you like an “IE feel” then you can opt not to use this function.

 

If the developers had lock down the feature then fine, we will have to see how to mod this or lobby this in the sequel.

 

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. I will have to post this in the engine section to hope for a hint.

 

With all this talk it sounds to me like you just want some cinematic bullet time.

I really don't see the need/benefit of all of this when we, like Sensuki already mentioned, got conditional pause/slow triggers.

Who's the audience for this RTwP "evolution"?

[ljbo]

I haven't been able to find details about the "Slow Mode". Could somebody be so kind as to elaborate? Is it a mere slow motion or is there a twist to it?

[Elerond]

I haven't been able to find details about the "Slow Mode". Could somebody be so kind as to elaborate? Is it a mere slow motion or is there a twist to it?

 

It's only mode where combat are slowed down so that players has easier time to control their characters if they don't want to relay on pause and command queues so much. 

[ljbo]

 

I haven't been able to find details about the "Slow Mode". Could somebody be so kind as to elaborate? Is it a mere slow motion or is there a twist to it?

 

 

It's only mode where combat are slowed down so that players has easier time to control their characters if they don't want to relay on pause and command queues so much.

But then what will happens when somebody speaks while in slow motion combat? Slowmo animations run the risk of being a tad ridiculous too, don't they?

 

But well, it should be easy to implement, and if it pleases some players, good for them. Diversity is good when it does not spread development resources thin.

[Elerond]

 

 

I haven't been able to find details about the "Slow Mode". Could somebody be so kind as to elaborate? Is it a mere slow motion or is there a twist to it?

 

It's only mode where combat are slowed down so that players has easier time to control their characters if they don't want to relay on pause and command queues so much.

But then what will happens when somebody speaks while in slow motion combat? Slowmo animations run the risk of being a tad ridiculous too, don't they?

 

But well, it should be easy to implement, and if it pleases some players, good for them. Diversity is good when it does not spread development resources thin.

 

 

I don't think that they will slow sounds, music or voices down in slow mode. There is always risk that when you make animation run slower or faster that it don't look as smooth as it intended speed, but I don't think that such is issue for those people that want use slow mode. 

[AGX-17]

It's not objectively "good for aesthetics."

 

 

You know you can literally stop time with the spacebar in these games, right? Apparently not. Being able to stop time is a pretty remarkable feat even if its effects are limited to allowing thought processes on the part of the time-stopper.

 

 

Just mash the spacebar and you've got your precious slow-mo dynamic decapitation/blood fountain.

Edited May 30, 2014 by AGX-17

[constantine]

It's not objectively "good for aesthetics."

 

 

You know you can literally stop time with the spacebar in these games, right? Apparently not. Being able to stop time is a pretty remarkable feat even if its effects are limited to allowing thought processes on the part of the time-stopper.

 

 

Just mash the spacebar and you've got your precious slow-mo dynamic decapitation/blood fountain.

 

 

RAAAW -game paused-       WWWWWRRRR *sluu -game paused-     uushhh* -game paused-         (thumb)