PoE - A game for Road Runner only? "Pausable Real Time Combat"

[Gairnulf]

One thing that I prefer on an aesthetic level is to take that one-attack-per-several-seconds and split it up into smaller, lesser attacks that occur much more frequently, but end up with the same DPS, etc. So that, instead of just having people swing, then stand around for 3 seconds, or swing REALLLY slowly for that same interval, what you have is people going *swing, parry, thrust* in the same duration.However, if you do that, unless it's just one attack with extraneous animation for visual feels, you have to recalculate and tune some things. I mean, if you split each regular attack into 3 (just for example... the exact numbers could obviously differ), you'd have to cut the base damage by 2/3, or everything would die 3 times as quickly. AND, if you did that, you'd have to adjust the DT average. So, I dunno... there's a lot to change with that. BUT, I actually prefer "regular" attacks to be more constant like in an actual fight. But, again, more from a "feels" standpoint, and less from an actual mechanics standpoint. Mechanically, it's a lot easier to do the more infrequent-yet-significant attacks.

Although I like the idea, it carries balancing problems, for example, imagine how much more important would interrupts become if ypu can cancel 2/3rds of an attacks's damage. Also, if you are going for equal chance to interrupt every weapon's melee attack, then you'd need micro-animations for the now broken down "old" normal attacks which would all have to be of equal length. Also, you'd ideally need to arrange the order in which the micro attacks animations play so that all weapons have a shorter animation play before a longer one, etc, to put them on equal terms regarding interruption chance. And I don't even want to think how would all of this reflect in the combat log...

Edited November 19, 2014 by Gairnulf

[Lephys]

Although I like the idea, it carries balancing problems, for example, imagine how much more important would interrupts become if ypu can cancel 2/3rds of an attacks's damage. Also, if you are going for equal chance to interrupt every weapon's melee attack, then you'd need micro-animations for the now broken down "old" normal attacks which would all have to be of equal length. Also, you'd ideally need to arrange the order in which the micro attacks animations play so that all weapons have a shorter animation play before a longer one, etc, to put them on equal terms regarding interruption chance. And I don't even want to think how would all of this reflect in the combat log...

Oh yeah. That's exactly the kinds of things I'm talking about. When attacks are going off 3 times as quickly/often, it changes a LOT of stuff. This approach works best when other design decisions are already made differently. Like in an MMO, when your active abilities are often on a separate timer from your "auto-attack." In that situation, it's just kinda silly to have a 4-second delay between weapon strikes, instead of much-more-frequent attacks that simply do less damage, etc.

 

But, in a cRPG like PoE, it affects an awful lot of things that you don't really want it to. It might be possible to tune around those side-effects, but... it becomes pretty tricky, and probably not worth it.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Although I do not believe it is currently in the Backer Beta, last week I increased global recovery times by 20% and added a recovery delay to all creature armor so they operate more at the pace of party members.  Many creatures were also significantly reduced in overall speed*.  Most notably, spiders, beetles, and various spirits (shadows, shades, etc.) but other creatures as well.

 

I don't think there are many players in this thread who are new to this style of game, but there are many such players on our team.  We did our play week last week and the new players picked up the mechanics pretty quickly.  We definitely can do a better job of communicating what's happening through visual and audio language (and tutorializing mechanics overall), but the slower combat pace and Glossary helped a lot.

 

* E: movement speed, specifically.

[Gairnulf]

Although I do not believe it is currently in the Backer Beta, last week I increased global recovery times by 20% and added a recovery delay to all creature armor so they operate more at the pace of party members. Many creatures were also significantly reduced in overall speed. Most notably, spiders, beetles, and various spirits (shadows, shades, etc.) but other creatures as well.

 

I don't think there are many players in this thread who are new to this style of game, but there are many such players on our team. We did our play week last week and the new players picked up the mechanics pretty quickly. We definitely can do a better job of communicating what's happening through visual and audio language (and tutorializing mechanics overall), but the slower combat pace and Glossary helped a lot.

I'm very curious to try them out then. My feeling is that a slowed down combat and a more convenient to follow combat log will make combat easier to read for mostly anyone, even without the cooldown halos over characters' heads. I'd be curious to try a game without them, as I suspect they are confusing me more than they are helping me. Edited November 19, 2014 by Gairnulf

[nipsen]

but the slower combat pace and Glossary helped a lot.

 

I really wish you had tried that first, before normalizing the combat stats of all the classes.

[Karkarov]

 

but the slower combat pace and Glossary helped a lot.

 

I really wish you had tried that first, before normalizing the combat stats of all the classes.

 

In all fairness it is probably considerably easier to tweak a stat than it is to change combat speed.

[Lephys]

 

but the slower combat pace and Glossary helped a lot.

I really wish you had tried that first, before normalizing the combat stats of all the classes.

 

Hindsight is 20/20. 8\

[Captain Shrek]

 

 

but the slower combat pace and Glossary helped a lot.

 

I really wish you had tried that first, before normalizing the combat stats of all the classes.

 

In all fairness it is probably considerably easier to tweak a stat than it is to change combat speed.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, it does not take a genius to realize that slower combat/movement speed helps in a real time game. 

 

In fact, many of the backers had realized it several MONTHS ago, even before the beta went live. I think I could try and find my own posts which pretty much sum up the problem here. After the first builds were out, it was the first thing that most people noted. It is a travesty that this issue took more than 5 iterations to fix. 

[Namutree]

 

 

 

Unfortunately, it does not take a genius to realize that slower combat/movement speed helps in a real time game. 

 

In fact, many of the backers had realized it several MONTHS ago, even before the beta went live. I think I could try and find my own posts which pretty much sum up the problem here. After the first builds were out, it was the first thing that most people noted. It is a travesty that this issue took more than 5 iterations to fix. 

 

Dude, I'm just glad it got fixed.

[nipsen]

Hindsight is 20/20. 8\

 

Yeah.. not actually the case, even though people often seem curiously confident about the random second option they never get to actually try in practice.

 

Also, I hate to say it - but I did actually tell you on beforehand. Multiple times. There were a few other people on the beta-forum early on who said the same thing as well. That the system underneath the visual representation may very well make sense, and that the objections people had to it were dumb as f***. I mean, not extremely well informed, since we didn't completely know what the system was in the first place.

 

 

 

but the slower combat pace and Glossary helped a lot.

 

I really wish you had tried that first, before normalizing the combat stats of all the classes.

 

In all fairness it is probably considerably easier to tweak a stat than it is to change combat speed.

 

..there's a speed factor function in the game already. And I think "we" probably expected from the beginning that the combat flow and speed of the "crisis" resolutions would be tweaked first. Things like making the interrupt and engagement actions artificially last longer than the ruleset technically dictated, things like that.

 

Anyway. If making the attribute system (parts of the ruleset) completely stop influencing combat in any meaningful way - if that didn't actually make the combat any easier to grasp. Because - get this - the actual visual representation of the mechanics governing the game is a bit irregular. And since the fundamental abstractions of the ruleset still govern the game anyway.

 

Then that does hang together in a semi-reasonable fashion, yes? The idea that no matter how simplistic a design is made, you can still make the game mechanics difficult by making the visualisation of it complex.

 

I mean.. This makes a tiny bit of logical sense, yes? Sort of intuitive? That you can make anything you do seem extremely complex if you fidget around enough and complicate every little bit of it with great ceremony?

 

Specially over the idea that if you gradually simplify the foundation of the rules until it stops having ANY FUNCTION AT ALL, that the UI somehow will automatically become perfect and easy to grasp? Like, I guess, expecting a rambling politician to suddenly start making sense if you task them with explaining how Lego pieces work.

 

*sigh*

[CaptainMace]

 

Like, I guess, expecting a rambling politician to suddenly start making sense if you task them with explaining how Lego pieces work.

 

You'd be surprised.

[J.E. Sawyer]

To put this in perspective, we are are talking in the beta forum for a game that has yet to be released.  The beta process involves finding both functional bugs and making balance adjustments.  Making balance adjustments prior to bugs being fixed in a system is often counterproductive.  It can obfuscate functional errors and, once the functional errors are fixed, requires revision to the adjustments that had already been made.

 

PoE's combat had a number of functional bugs connected to timing and recovery.  There were problems with loops playing for incorrect time values, animation playback speed, inconsistent hit reactions, and a lot of errors with how Recovery time was being calculated, adjusted by armor and other factors, and depleted.  Yes, three months ago I could have adjusted global Recovery.  I would have been adjusting it in a system where Recovery wasn't calculated/played back properly to begin with.  One of the small but significant benefits of leaving global Recovery at 1.0 was that it gave testers and programmers a very easy way to calculate the expected Recovery from an action with all appropriate modifiers. They could then use it directly with what they observed in game to see if things lined up.

 

All of the known major errors with animation playback speed and Recovery have been fixed (there are still problems with reloading crossbows, arbalests, and firearms, though), so making adjustments to things like global Recovery, casting loop lengths, and even the Recovery values on armor types and creatures can be done with a lot more confidence.  It doesn't mean we're done tuning them, but it does mean that what we enter in the editor has a more consistent effect on what's happening in-game.  If we need combat to slow down even more, we can adjust that.  If we need to slow down or speed up individual actions or characters, we can also adjust that.  We're still in beta and that's why this process is ongoing.

[Lephys]

Anyway. If making the attribute system (parts of the ruleset) completely stop influencing combat in any meaningful way - if that didn't actually make the combat any easier to grasp.

You have a very, very strange definition of "meaningful," it would seem. Trust me, I have preferential qualms with the attributes as well (Might is strength AND magic?! Ahhhhh!), but...

 

A) I understand them, even if I don't expressly prefer them, and

B) That has nothing to do with whether or not the effects of attribute values affect significant combat factors.

 

@Josh:

 

Maybe if you were to hire a dedicated forum liaison, to simply read every single qualm people have, and say "Yes, we totally have qualms with that, too, but for various reasons, we are not yet making a change to that, specifically," people might understand it?

 

I don't know why people assume that, if you're not actively posting about it at the moment, and/or it's not going into a new build within the next 24 hours, you (the whole dev team, really) are simply 100% in love any and all specifics of the current build, and consider it complete. *shrug*

Edited November 21, 2014 by Lephys

[Lord Wafflebum]

To put this in perspective, we are are talking in the beta forum for a game that has yet to be released.  The beta process involves finding both functional bugs and making balance adjustments.  Making balance adjustments prior to bugs being fixed in a system is often counterproductive.  It can obfuscate functional errors and, once the functional errors are fixed, requires revision to the adjustments that had already been made.

 

PoE's combat had a number of functional bugs connected to timing and recovery.  There were problems with loops playing for incorrect time values, animation playback speed, inconsistent hit reactions, and a lot of errors with how Recovery time was being calculated, adjusted by armor and other factors, and depleted.  Yes, three months ago I could have adjusted global Recovery.  I would have been adjusting it in a system where Recovery wasn't calculated/played back properly to begin with.  One of the small but significant benefits of leaving global Recovery at 1.0 was that it gave testers and programmers a very easy way to calculate the expected Recovery from an action with all appropriate modifiers. They could then use it directly with what they observed in game to see if things lined up.

 

All of the known major errors with animation playback speed and Recovery have been fixed (there are still problems with reloading crossbows, arbalests, and firearms, though), so making adjustments to things like global Recovery, casting loop lengths, and even the Recovery values on armor types and creatures can be done with a lot more confidence.  It doesn't mean we're done tuning them, but it does mean that what we enter in the editor has a more consistent effect on what's happening in-game.  If we need combat to slow down even more, we can adjust that.  If we need to slow down or speed up individual actions or characters, we can also adjust that.  We're still in beta and that's why this process is ongoing.

Thanks for this. I love the insight as to how you guys work. 

[Gairnulf]

To put this in perspective, we are are talking in the beta forum for a game that has yet to be released.  The beta process involves finding both functional bugs and making balance adjustments.  Making balance adjustments prior to bugs being fixed in a system is often counterproductive.  It can obfuscate functional errors and, once the functional errors are fixed, requires revision to the adjustments that had already been made.

I can say I know this from experience. I had set out to rebalance Europa Universalis IV for better historicity in the late 15th - mid-16th century period, and this was in september-october 2013, while they were still releasing patches of their own, adding features, adjusting AI, fixing, rebalancing things... I gave it up and spent more time researching (learned a lot of stuff for the period though) while waiting for an upcoming expansion dlc to be released. They released it but I had lost interest by that time, which was good, because they released another expansion recently and I would have gone mad If I had to scrap my work again. So yeah, rebalancing stuff while features are still being added is like writing with a stick in water.

 

All of the known major errors with animation playback speed and Recovery have been fixed (there are still problems with reloading crossbows, arbalests, and firearms, though), so making adjustments to things like global Recovery, casting loop lengths, and even the Recovery values on armor types and creatures can be done with a lot more confidence.  It doesn't mean we're done tuning them, but it does mean that what we enter in the editor has a more consistent effect on what's happening in-game.  If we need combat to slow down even more, we can adjust that.  If we need to slow down or speed up individual actions or characters, we can also adjust that.  We're still in beta and that's why this process is ongoing.

I understand this as "this is not the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning". (I'm prety sure it was Churchill, not Gandalf who had said it.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Josh's last post in this thread certainly whetted my appetite for the next patch even more. What I really like to see and feel is the combat being something that I can handle. Since I rarely pause, at least for trash mobs, it would need to meet that RT criterion. Also, I'd love to see movement of our baddies moving at a more reasonable speed. If I pause, un-pause and then quickly pause again in an action-packed game like DA:I, no creature in those action-heavy games can match the ferocious velocity of PoE enemies, and that's just feels wrong for an isometric IE-inspired, party-based CRPG.

 

Fingers crossed that combat will feel right before X-Mas and New Year's!

Edited November 22, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Corvayle]

 

I understand this as "this is not the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning". (I'm prety sure it was Churchill, not Gandalf who had said it.

 

 

Churchill, after the battle of El Alamein:  "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

[nipsen]

 

Like, I guess, expecting a rambling politician to suddenly start making sense if you task them with explaining how Lego pieces work.

 

You'd be surprised.

 

..at what? That the politician is as ramblomatic and unintelligent as before, but that people nevertheless seem to connect with the moron?

 

See, here's what really happens. The target demography - in this case, people who like Lego... Who, as you might imagine make out a broad demographic slice in terms of age, while at the same time being more specific in terms of the "stronger" gender, but without being exclusive - something which makes Lego a sort of Holy Grail in terms of appeal in for example a certain specific country on the planet with lots of stars and stripes in their flag. Incidentally, this is how political action committees choose which issues to focus on: which issue can be addressed in a superficial way and engage the most significant people, without also alienating a too large group of other people.

 

..anyway. So the target demography, people who like Lego -- they already know what Lego is all about. So when the ignorant oaf of a PR-creature starts talking about it, the demography starts to think that he's making sense. Finally, they say, a politician who cares about Lego! I've never heard a single sensible thing fall out of this soul-less husk they hatched out of a tank last election season -- and yet, now I'm somehow starting to believe he understands me! Clearly, this creature understands building things from the bottom up!

 

It never fails. And I say that from own experience. See, people who fall for this are very often neither unintelligent or uneducated. But it's so easy to adopt the idea that a sense of familiarity is better than an explanation that actually makes sense.

 

To put this in perspective, we are are talking in the beta forum for a game that has yet to be released.  The beta process involves finding both functional bugs and making balance adjustments.  Making balance adjustments prior to bugs being fixed in a system is often counterproductive.  It can obfuscate functional errors and, once the functional errors are fixed, requires revision to the adjustments that had already been made.

So are you, or are you not, going to rewind the changes to the stats, now that you know you would have to remove might/per/int/ altogether to make the system "easier"?

 

I mean, it seems like an easy choice if you take the feedback seriously. Either you replace the stats with something one-dimensional and boring - something so familiar and homely you can practically feel the bark in your arse, and no presentation is necessary.

 

Or you simply accept that since the stats-system itself is not the source of the difficulty, that you would take the presentation of it to the player seriously (and expect it to be possible to present it well), and put the old system back.

[Sensuki]

Are you sure that's not a foregone conclusion nipsen?

[nipsen]

That the extremely subjective and superficial impressions about the game-flow changed, when the game mimicked a few things from the old and familiar system, you mean?

 

Even though nothing changed mechanically with the actual combat rounds, outside of the fact that all characters were made pretty much identical, regardless of the stats, and the stamina drain can be timed with a watch?

 

I suppose you could have foreseen that. And I'm sure that is the reason why they did it in the first place.

 

So no, it's not as if it's a done deal here. Will Obsidian make something creative and interesting, and take advantage of the fact that their customers traditionally have appreciated that approach - or will they continue to pander to shrill fans even to the exclusion of their own designs, in an attempt to make EA look daring and innovative in comparison? I wouldn't know! It's completely up in the air.

[Gfted1]

I hope they keep the new system.

[Lephys]

If I pause, un-pause and then quickly pause again in an action-packed game like DA:I, no creature in those action-heavy games can match the ferocious velocity of PoE enemies, and that's just feels wrong for an isometric IE-inspired, party-based CRPG.

None except for those accursed tall, spindley demons that friggin tele-burrow under all your peeps. I wish everyone had some sort of action-roll ability with a cooldown, just so I could actually get the hell out of the way before they throw my Mage to the ground, . Of course, I probably just need to react better/faster.

 

 

@Nipsen:

 

... Seriously, dude. Seriously... Let it go. The stats aren't how you want them to be. You'll live.

 

I've seen you type almost more words than I do in a week, in countless posts about this in the last month or so, and yet what I haven't seen is any actual objective description of how everything is ruined "because stats!". All I've seen are your claims upon claims upon claims that it is so, as if it's just a given and needs no explanation. Well, I dare say it does.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Lephys

[nipsen]

Well, I dare say it does.

 

About what? How a tiny group of internet noisers managed to push Obsidian to blunt a really good system, for no other reason than that they had decided the existing one needed to be tweaked? That was what wasn't explained - what was wrong with the original system. The best attempt at explaining it was, like me and other people have pointed out, based on sound mathematics, but unfortunately flawed reasoning. You do not get gameplay balance by giving each party member a 50% chance to hit, as any Gamemaster can tell you instantly.

 

And now that you know the existing combat flow has the same flaws that prompted the original insistence that the ruleset had to be changed - now that you know how slowing down the combat units and tweaking the way the interrupts work makes the combat playable, in a way that normalizing the stats did not. Then you also know why I dislike Obsidian pandering to internet noise.

 

Because the result of it here is that the same gameplay problems exist as before to some degree. While now the rulset is also boring and normalized. Or said in a different way: not only is the combat not that fantastic, but the ruleset is also not interesting enough to bother with working around the flaws.

 

If you think that's going to be a great sell when the game launches, then prepare to be disappointed, I guess. But outside of that - I don't get why you guys make yourselves so dumb that you sabotage something in front of you like this. Something you helped launch with the kickstarter, that you're invested in. Something immediately in front of you that you have the opportunity to affect. That you're encouraged to take part in shaping to some degree. And you're still doing your very best to:

1. Make the forums unfriendly to anyone without the same opinion as you.

2. Ensure that in the end, an argument only is convincing if it's dittoed enough, because market and sales and things.

and

3. Insist, on a daily basis, that anything that smacks of cleverness and originality is probably a bad idea.

 

I don't get it. When the kickstarter launched, did it say: "Help us make a game that is exactly like all the other games out there, that publishers fall over themselves to finance! Pay us money, and we will make sure that we're going to make the most derivative mush you have ever seen in the history of videogames! Also, we're going to mindlessly pander to the Baldur's Gate and old Bioware community, because these guys know their romances from their flying tentacle beasts!". 

 

Did the kickstarter page say that?

[Sensuki]

Who was the tiny group of internet noise makers? All I know is that it wasn't me.

 

Edited November 25, 2014 by Sensuki

[Namutree]

 

Well, I dare say it does.

 

About what? How a tiny group of internet noisers managed to push Obsidian to blunt a really good system, 

 

It wasn't a really good system. Granted the new system isn't good either.