Ideas for Immersion

[thapelo]

As much as the game is loved i feel there needs to be some constructive criticism so that when the next iteration of the game comes out hopefully in 2-3 years we can see a true masterpiece.

 

Here are some ideas i have for how the game can further improve its immersion

 

-Lifeless Enemies: I find it anti-immersive to sneak into an area and find enemies standing doing nothing waiting to be triggered by my miraculous  arrival. Enemies need to at least move around an area to make it seem as if they were doing something before i arrived. This is especially worse when you find a troll/ogre and a black ooze next to each other doing nothing but waiting for me to turn the corner and activate them

 

-Lifeless cities: Similar to what was mentioned above i was a bit disappointed with the NPC count and lack of activity in the great city of Defiance Bay. When i first arrived I expected to see lots of NPC's moving about and some chatter in my headphones of a buzzing market place like in "The Witcher 3", but infact i walked into a city where NPC's stood around waiting to be activated, where areas that were supposed to be buzzing with life only had about 3-5 houses which is really unrealistic, i don't want to enter every door but at least the city should be hand painted to appear to be massive in scale, with NPC's appearing to be alive in the city. With the availability of the "next gen" era, I think Isometric RPGs with their hand drawn backgrounds have the potential to be the biggest in scale. I get that the artists cant draw out an entire world but if we are going to subdivide Defiance Bay into smaller areas then those smaller areas need to be on a much grander and livelier scale.

 

-Lifeless forests: Same comment as the "Lifeless enemies", sneaking up on a pack of wolves waiting around lifelessly for me to aggro them is not realistic. Take from how "The Witcher 3" did it, where enemies don't walk into beaten pathways, so keep the pathways safe but once we venture off the beaten path then we should have a bit more dynamic encounters with Trolls actually walking into our parties path through the forrest, or walking right into the path of a pack of wolves that have just killed an animal.

 

-Companion Death: Something strange happened to me 2 days ago, i was on a quest to help Kana get a certain book in the Endless Path, while on the mission "Kana" died, murphys law lmfao, but I heard a sad scream from one of the party members when he died, I wanted more of that, when the combat ended and I had avenged Kana by killing the Ogre that killed him I expected to hear more from the party members that had spent many camp nights with Kana, but there was nothing, we just looted his booty and moved on. I think some form of animation/story or chat between the characters should get triggered when the last of the enemies in that encounter falls that will bring some emotion to having lost a fellow comrade especially while actively trying to complete a quest for that comrade

 

-Taunting: Wouldn't it be cool if when playing as a ranger for example you shot the last arrow that killed the last enemy in an encounter and you heard your ranger scream "Boooyaaa thats the last time they ever cross us" or some kind of finishing taunt, or a move by a barbarian that ends with the last enemy getting dismembered. I know I often celebrate barely scraping by an encounter, i think my characters should too

 

Thats what i have for now, maybe you guys agree or disagree or even have more ideas that i may have missed, let me know what you think

[transfett]

After reading through my comment I recognized you might find the following lines offensive.  Also, I exaggerate and aggravate because I cannot find the definite positive impact you promise with your suggestions. Please do not take offense.

 

Remember that PoE is an isometric game where you can not actually walk up to someone and tip his shoulders.

Your proposal to make Persons have daily routine requires lots of extra work. You need bigger or more maps where there is enough free space, so the species can freely rotate between those places. You need to rework the managment of the time dimension so, like in the witcher, you actually have any sense of time. (e.g. you cannot even see where the sun is)

 

Once the work is finished, what is the benefit of all this? The maps are overdimensioned, travelling time and loading screens have doubled. There are dummy npcs everywhere and you keep trying to put them apart from each other until you find the one you have been looking for. He then tells you, he does not have time and you should come back later (whatever...). You now decide to kill Raedric (which you did not visit yet), only to find out after two days of travel in actual in-game time, that he is on vacation in the Valian Republics and won't come back until in two months (At this point I cannot think of anything that would actually convince me there is some "life" going on).

 

Even if you plan to ambush someone in his daily routine (some scenario I just made up), this plan fails at even gathering the necessary information. Then you do not know how long it will take him. Not to mention 99% of players are not patient enough for this. In most cases it might heavily screw over encounters. In case of wilderness areas: I think it would just pump up the maps. They consume lots of RAM and take a long time to be made ready for release (they already have been obsidians most tedious, time-consuming part of game development).

 

tl;dr this game is based on maps and not open-world

 

Regarding companion deaths: This is an experiance that most players harshly avoid. I dare to say not even one single player seriously intends to go through that. Yet you have a really nice idea and the game lacks responsiveness of that kind exactly.

 

Your last point is a cool idea and would definitely flavour the game.

Edited June 22, 2015 by transfett

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

 

To me, to improve on immersion requires a little more scripting so I'll expand on that, but I think it's totally do-able. There are a few things I'd like to see added or increased, and a few things to decrease as well.

 

1. The game is 99% combat oriented. While this isn't a bad thing, I think it would be more immersing if there were more options to get through a situation without combat. Just like how there are a few encounters in the game that you can avoid combat with, by talking through it (the Ogre, Incantha, etc). While I'm not saying every encounter should have the ability to "talk your way" through it, it would be interesting to have more options other than straight up combat and if the options were based on the part, and not just your main character's stats, that would make it a little more interesting. And you don't need new stats or anything to make this work. Simply associate them, just like how the game already does. If you are a mighty character, you would have more "might" displays in dialogue to get you through and your success depends on how much might you have (maybe make it a roll vs a DC, so that you don't auto-succeed dialogue options just because you min/maxed to might 23 early on, you know, but maybe make that roll easier for someone with might 23). Like wise, more dialogue options based on the skills, like Lore, Mechanics, Survival, etc. There's a ton of potential options here available that would be more interesting in the long term of the game, so that you can play the game immersed in a character that isn't just focused on combat in some way, or tanking in some way. Heaven knows few are "balanced" with a bunch of 12's and 14's for stats! But it would be more interesting if there were more dialogue and puzzle solving situations, where the stats could be more useful and not a means to build a tank or combat oriented character.

 

2. If the characters chattered amongst themselves more, that would be good. This happens in a lot of RPG's these days, even the old Baldur's Gate series and all. When the characters chatter and strike up dialogue here and there, it's interesting, and helps the party seem like they are a band and not just silent characters who do what you tell them to do. This is a simple fix because you just add script & sound options that trigger during non-combat moments, and at scenarios.

 

3. Trinkets, odds & ends, pets, etc. They're already in the game! But they don't do anything nor display any where. What's the point of collecting pets in the game, if they just take up inventory space. It would be neat if they showed up in non-combat areas and hung around the party. We all have these cats for example. It would be interesting to have these pets actually show up and to be able to interact with them a little bit (nothing over the top, just the option to pet or feed, etc, maybe a few fun side quests that are meaningless but interesting; that could be scripted into existing locations in the game).

 

4. Maps with lots of NPC's should be more interactive. More interesting things to find when "scouting." People should have random dialog. Instead of scripted dialog with soul stuff, there should be a few more that are actually interactive. For example, there's tons of support names on NPC's, and it would be interesting to use them for something. Make them matter a little more. Give people a reason to want to talk to them to see what they can find out (even if it's just dialog, if not, maybe a we more scripting to allow for very uneventful side quests so that you can build reputation and play more with characters that way). More places to go, in a city, too would be interesting. Not just 1 or 2 houses with names. But random estates, houses, markets, etc. Opportunities to simply explore and find interesting things that correspond. Also, interesting things for rogues (wink wink).

 

5. Now for combat, to make it more interesting and less of just a chore (lets face it, at a certain point, especially if you're somewhat skilled at how the game and engine works for combat, combat becomes a joke and you have to crank up difficulty to make it at all interesting), it should be a little more variable. There's few dangerous foes early on. And even then, it's too easy to just tank and range nuke nearly everything in the game. It would be more interesting to have more variety of foe classes. I'm not against having a room of undead, but a few more caster type characters and some behavior scripting to make the fighters more interested in attempting to go after who deals the most damage (within reason of course) so that you can't just choke-block-tank an area and nuke from behind as simply. If the enemy casted more interesting spells at you, it would change things up. For example, your tanks can take on everything, but what if the enemies hit them with things that really effected their Will or Reflex saves more often and not just focusing on Deflection for the majority of things? And on that note, it would be more interesting if tank-oriented characters had more abilities to control the crowd, other than knock down and/or other things like pulls. Granted, now we're getting into MMO level stuff, so I won't get too much into it. But basically it would be more interesting to have more variable combats. I mean, I can camp in a cemetery with active undead and it's no problem. You can camp within eye-sight of a Dragon, and it's no big deal. I feel like I should fear some combats, rather than just look at them as kind of chores to do before I get to get back to the script and story to figure out what's going on. I guess I'm looking for a way to make the combat matter and not just be something that must always happen before every major thing in the game. Don't get me wrong, I love a good fight. I also like meaningless fights here and there just to show off power, but it would be interesting to actually fear a fight and have to think about it, and not just pre-buff and walk in and do it like it's nothing. Surprise fights would be more interesting making you care more about placement and buffs ALL the time, and not just when you know it's coming. Would also stress more balanced characters too for people who are more interested in that.

 

6. User/community content production would be a big deal to me. Being able to have mods/maps to expand the game. I know it may be very difficult, but this would be key to a longer immersive game. Imagine if it were like Neverwinter Nights and you could download a new "mission" series and nearly play a whole new campaign? That would be really cool and inspire you to want to develop a character more. It also gives the user the opportunity to tell the story and make missions too. I know this is taking things to a different level, but this would be superb to have community production as an option.

 

Very best,

[thapelo]

@transfett: Great explanation, i prefer when people actually disagree to something and explain why they disagree instead of just plain trolling and bashing. As far as the NPC's dynamically doing stuff in the cities/forests I didn't mean that the NPC could travel outside of a certain radius, even if they were restricted to a certain radius where they would do things for example in skyrim alot of the NPC behavior is just outside their homes, so they never really walk 10 meters away from a given point making them easy to find when the player is looking for them. As far as the RAM implication is concerned are we 100% sure that a game like this uses up more RAM than an old game like SKYRIM with its big cities, 3D models, large textures and NPCs? One of the reasons i brought up such "out of the box" ideas for an isometric game is because I dont believe games like this should be so stuck on the blueprints of their grandfathers (BG, Icewind Dale), I think there is room for innovation as long as its not destructive like what happened with Dragon Age 2 and somewhat DA:I

 

@MalVeauX: I agree totally with your ideas, like i said the potential for innovation is there and people who love these games love them because they want to be immersed in the game.

[transfett]

I have little expertise in how a game uses computer resources. On my Vista Skyrim runs "relatively" smooth.  PoE works until you get to Gilded Vale, which cannot be loaded because I do not have more than 3 GB. It think it has something to do with the different camera movement. In Skyrim textures can be loaded dynamically in different qualities whereas in PoE your camera might jump over any distance any moment.

[Fardragon]

[Flashback]

 

Thorin sits down and sings of gold.

 

[/Flashback]

 

 

 

It's not a new idea to try and get NPCs in computer games to be more "realistic" by moving around according to a schedule or some form of rudimentary AI. But what are you trying to do, create an Everyday-life-in-fantasyland-simulator, or tell a story? I know in real life people I need to talk to are never where I expect them to be, and I waste ages running around looking for them. In stories, the characters who advance the story are always encountered exactly where they need to be in order to advance the plot. 

[Nonek]

I prefer the term internal consistency to immersion, because immersion is largely subjective while the internal consistency of a setting is not. This is one area where modern games have undoubtedly degenerated, look at Ultima VI and VII over twenty years old now, a living world where every npc had a daily routine, that fitted with his character and gave insight into his life. This enriched the gameworld, made it more than a simple theatre upon which the protagonist performs, and gave life and agency to the npc's you interacted with. This was the high point of the RPG genre for me, and since then they have markedly degenerated, streamlining, dumbing down and jettisoning content and features in favour of the core experience.

 

Well the core experience has been achieved and surpassed, RPG's now are barely alive combat and conversation simulators, and anything beyond that is scorned as busywork, not part of the core experience or too difficult and frustrating for the player to bother with. Of course this is nonsense, young children can deal with multiple systems and RPG veterans certainly can, but the harmful streamlining narrative endures. It is saddening to see this degeneration championed and celebrated.

 

What is the result: A lifeless world, lifeless characters and and an unbelievable, dead setting where there is virtually no interaction with anything. My character carries cart loads of equipment without even equipping a backpack, it is illogical and harms the internal consistency of the setting, perish the thought that I must pick and choose what I carry, that it must be a strategic choice or that the game behaves in a realistic manner. When I go in a tavern I cannot sit down on a seat, order a meal and watch the populace visit and leave the place as the hours change, because there is no change or verisimilitude in the places at all.

 

Of course the argument against this verisimilitude is the usual pathetic and childish one: Dragons exist and fly so anything is possible! No, fantastic elements are governed by their own rules, and serve to reinforce the mundane as fantastic elements are supposed to. A Wizard and his spells have rules and stipulations, the unstoppable power to change all creation and render anything possible is not within his power, if it were he would be a god or something more and beyond worrying about this small world in the void.

 

I would personally like to see as many features, content and as much reactivity and logical restrictions as the setting can handle. If this means a smaller game with far more detail packed into each area, alive npcs who behave realistically, far less identikit loot to haul about, and far more reactivity to our actions, then that is a good price to pay and an example of streamlining done correctly.

 

Of course this is merely my opinion.

[Fardragon]

In a PnP RPG, you can say "you wait for six hours until Bertram arrives home". I'm not particularly keen on a CRPG that requires me to wait six hours real time...

 

 

If I want a real Life simulator, I can go to work...

Edited June 23, 2015 by Fardragon

[Nonek]

What RPG has ever had a one for one time passing system? The answer is hardly any, and no one has asked for that at all. In almost any RPG you could pass time as well, Fallout allowed one to do so twenty years ago, if a game doesn't then that is another mark against it in my opinion.

 

Edit: I'm not asking for a real life simulator, i'm asking to roleplay someone else in a heroic fantasy or similar piece of escapism, with a game world that makes sense, has logical restrictions and has more of a scope than simply combat and conversation.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Nonek

[Fardragon]

It doesn't do much to increase "immersion" if someone gets up, has breakfast, goes to work, goes to the inn, comes home, and goes to bed, all in the space of ten minutes.

 

If you aren't going to have them go about their business in real time, I see no reason why they shouldn't always be encountered propping up the bar in an inn.

[Nonek]

The npc's function according to the time passing rules of the gameworld, like they did in Ultima twenty plus years ago. This adds to the verisimilitude of the world and its internal consistency. No game will have a day pass in ten minutes, and no one would want it to or has asked for this.

[View619]

1. Vastly improve enemy vision ranges; if I can see enemies and don't have some measure of improved stealth/long range vision then enemies should be able to see me. This is one of the features from IE games that should be included in POE, imo.

Allow resting to fail if done with enemies around. It shouldn't be guaranteed safety to rest in the wilderness when Lions, Spiders and other nasties are prowling.

Give shopkeepers a limited inventory and gold limit, unless it's something like food items from an Inn or potions from an Apothecary.

Individual stealth mechanics so players (and enemies) are able to engage with a part of their force, then flank with the other for backstabs and other effects.

[Fardragon]

The npc's function according to the time passing rules of the gameworld, like they did in Ultima twenty plus years ago. This adds to the verisimilitude of the world and its internal consistency. No game will have a day pass in ten minutes, and no one would want it to or has asked for this.

If time doesn't flow at a realistic rate, I don't see how it adds to "versimilitude". 

 

If you want to create a world simulator, like a Bethesda game, or some MMOs, I can see why you might want to wait around twiddling your thumbs, or go hunting for some NPC in the marketplace, but in a game that's about telling a story, I don't see why it should have anything that wouldn't be included in a novel or a movie.

[Nonek]

 

The npc's function according to the time passing rules of the gameworld, like they did in Ultima twenty plus years ago. This adds to the verisimilitude of the world and its internal consistency. No game will have a day pass in ten minutes, and no one would want it to or has asked for this.

 

If time doesn't flow at a realistic rate, I don't see how it adds to "versimilitude". 

 

If you want to create a world simulator, like a Bethesda game, or some MMOs, I can see why you might want to wait around twiddling your thumbs, or go hunting for some NPC in the marketplace, but in a game that's about telling a story, I don't see why it should have anything that wouldn't be included in a novel or a movie.

 

 

1. Time would flow at a realistic rate, just not a one for one implementation of real time, that would be boring and hardly any game does that and no one has asked for it. It worked in Betrayal at Krondor, it worked in Baldur's Gate, it worked in the Witcher, it worked in Ultima and the Underworlds, in short a realistic time passing system works and is proven to, and in my opinion aids internal consistency.

 

2. Games are not movies or novels, they're interactive, and if you want to be just told a story then go and read a novel or watch a film. Making an internally consistent gameworld is not solely the domain of Bethesda or MMO's who have not yet matched the Ultima's from twenty plus years ago. This is just an artificial division that has arisen as games have degenerated, one can have and should ideally want both.

[Nakia]

I fail to understand the problem with time in PoE.  It takes a game hour roughly 4 mins real to pass.    One Eora day would take roughly 1 hour and 45 mins real time to pass.  Resting and travel are based on the conventions from the IE games.   Time moves much faster and that is the way it should be IMO otherwise I would die of boredom or go back to playing Skyrim.  

 

PoE like the IE games is story based which is why I backed it.  It is an interactive story where my character does make a difference.

[Nonek]

I have no real problems with the time passing rate in Poe other than it being a little too truncated, and never said I did, one needs simply read my posts. However i'd like RPG's to start implementing living worlds like we saw in games twenty plus years ago, and have various other internally consistent features added, rather than abstracting everything until the world feels as artificial and nonsensical as most modern RPG's.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Nonek

[Gromnir]

immersion: the crpg baby rattle.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[EdwinP]

Wow, lots of good ideas here.

 

NPC Dialogs - more variety would help - especially if it took into account a PC's reputation and the latest events - I.e. news about the Smithy, the Miller, or the giant bear. Hey, in some cases some NPCs might run away when you try to talk to them.

 

Resting in the wilderness - random encounters while camping in the wilderness is a good idea.  This chance for this could vary by encounter map - from 0% to 100% (i.e. 20% in the wilderness, 100% in an undead infested graveyard (I.e. you should really find a crypt to rest in and bar the doors shut). The chance for a random encounter while in the wilderness could be reduced by 5% per survival skill level.

 

I would also like to see the merchants close up shop after hours.

 

Inventory limits - yes, now you can carry everything. I would base the limit on the party size. Larger parties can carry more. Smaller parties less.

Edited June 23, 2015 by EdwinP

[tinysalamander]

Resting in the wilderness - random encounters while camping in the wilderness is a good idea.

 

PoE has quite a number of battles as it is.

[rjshae]

Witcher 1 had some really nice little environmental touches that added greatly to my sense of immersion: groups of birds that take flight as you approach, town folk who take cover when it rains, an intoxicated quest following a night of drinking, a decent amount of people moving about the settlements, and just the somewhat shoddy medieval look to the buildings and contents. Those small details can make a big difference.

[thapelo]

Witcher 1 had some really nice little environmental touches that added greatly to my sense of immersion: groups of birds that take flight as you approach, town folk who take cover when it rains, an intoxicated quest following a night of drinking, a decent amount of people moving about the settlements, and just the somewhat shoddy medieval look to the buildings and contents. Those small details can make a big difference.

That's exactly what I mean....some people are resisting the ideas of immersion because they cant ever picture the isomtric RPG innovating....then again nobody from 1999 would ever imagine that a small polish company would release possibly the greatest commercial RPG (Witcher 3) by building on all the innovations of previous RPG titles. I mean if you look at the Witcher 3, they had a simple formula which was to take ideas that had already been done before and just do them bigger and better.There is no reason why Obsidian cant stand on the shoulders of Baldurs Gate and innovate instead of  sticking to tradition to please the purists. I mean even now there are some gamers that dont like what Obsidian has done with the combat mechanics just because it doesnt copy the D&D mechanics from Baldurs Gate

[Fardragon]

Witcher 3 is certainly "commercial", but it aint "greatest" or an "RPG".

[Skolinkinlot]

I prefer the term internal consistency to immersion, because immersion is largely subjective while the internal consistency of a setting is not. This is one area where modern games have undoubtedly degenerated, look at Ultima VI and VII over twenty years old now, a living world where every npc had a daily routine, that fitted with his character and gave insight into his life. This enriched the gameworld, made it more than a simple theatre upon which the protagonist performs, and gave life and agency to the npc's you interacted with. This was the high point of the RPG genre for me, and since then they have markedly degenerated, streamlining, dumbing down and jettisoning content and features in favour of the core experience.

 

Well the core experience has been achieved and surpassed, RPG's now are barely alive combat and conversation simulators, and anything beyond that is scorned as busywork, not part of the core experience or too difficult and frustrating for the player to bother with. Of course this is nonsense, young children can deal with multiple systems and RPG veterans certainly can, but the harmful streamlining narrative endures. It is saddening to see this degeneration championed and celebrated.

 

What is the result: A lifeless world, lifeless characters and and an unbelievable, dead setting where there is virtually no interaction with anything. My character carries cart loads of equipment without even equipping a backpack, it is illogical and harms the internal consistency of the setting, perish the thought that I must pick and choose what I carry, that it must be a strategic choice or that the game behaves in a realistic manner. When I go in a tavern I cannot sit down on a seat, order a meal and watch the populace visit and leave the place as the hours change, because there is no change or verisimilitude in the places at all.

 

Of course the argument against this verisimilitude is the usual pathetic and childish one: Dragons exist and fly so anything is possible! No, fantastic elements are governed by their own rules, and serve to reinforce the mundane as fantastic elements are supposed to. A Wizard and his spells have rules and stipulations, the unstoppable power to change all creation and render anything possible is not within his power, if it were he would be a god or something more and beyond worrying about this small world in the void.

 

I would personally like to see as many features, content and as much reactivity and logical restrictions as the setting can handle. If this means a smaller game with far more detail packed into each area, alive npcs who behave realistically, far less identikit loot to haul about, and far more reactivity to our actions, then that is a good price to pay and an example of streamlining done correctly.

 

Of course this is merely my opinion.

 Totally agree. It blows my mind to think back when i was 12 I was experiencing the peak of RPG's but it seems to be the case. Just glad I got to grow up with the greats I suppose, though I had really hoped things would have continued to improve. Obligatory console defamation sentence here , etc etc.

[Fardragon]

gah

Edited June 25, 2015 by Fardragon

[Messier-31]

town folk who take cover when it rains

 

Just make it rain in PoE.

 

C'mon, devs, seriously.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Messier-31