The 'Sidian Tyranny thread

[Nonek]

Yes modern game design, fairly sickening isn't it?

 

Edit: Hiding ones helmet meant something very different in my day!

Edited August 20, 2016 by Nonek

[Hurlshort]

It's not exactly a difficult button to implement.  

[ShadySands]

I just want to play this

 

Give us release date!

[Gromnir]

Yes modern game design, fairly sickening isn't it?

 

Edit: Hiding ones helmet meant something very different in my day!

isn't this reactionary as 'posed to modern?  a toggle for friendly-fire IS modern, so obsidian figurative telling players to man-up and not cast fireballs at their own party or burn is sorta the opposite o' modern, yes?

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Nonek]

It's not exactly a difficult button to implement.  

 

I don't know the implementation difficulty, in my opinion friendly fire should be mandatory however instead of just removing it like Tyranny has done.

 

I sometimes wonder who exactly is giving the feedback that mandates such things should be removed? Are they using inept or utterly inexperienced QA testers?

Edited August 20, 2016 by Nonek

[Infinitron]

What does it mean to have "mandatory" friendly fire? Pillars of Eternity has lots of area of effect spells that don't apply friendly fire. It's not a simple toggle, you have to rebalance all spells and decide which ones are friendly fire and which ones aren't.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Infinitron

[Hurlshort]

Exactly.  Friendly fire is very complex system that affects gameplay and balance.  A helmet toggle is not comparable.

[MidiOgre]

They probably could just reset the filter or whatever is telling the game to not let spells or abilities deal damage to friendlies though.
Surely would be rather unbalanced this way but I'd take unbalanced friendly fire over no friendly fire at all (not even on Path of the Damned!) any day of the week.

[Nonek]

Hear, hear. Games are already sadly lacking in any kind of punishment or long term strategic thinking for the player, this removal of a tactical element is just another step in that direction.

[ManifestedISO]

I just want to play this

 

Give us release date!

 

Day of the Dead, November 1st, falls on a Tuesday this year. Coincidence?!

[Bartimaeus]

Exactly.  Friendly fire is very complex system that affects gameplay and balance.  A helmet toggle is not comparable.

 

See: Fireball vs. Horrid Wilting. Fireball is awesome for being a level 3 spell. Horrid Wilting is pretty good for a level 8 spell that has mildly increased damage (1D8 per level instead of 1D6), same area of effect radius, but doesn't hurt friendlies.

[Nonek]

What does it mean to have "mandatory" friendly fire?

 

That it is always present in the game for the spells that are described as affecting everything, such as Fireball, rather than being toggle-able or removed entirely. This seems obvious.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Nonek

[Labadal]

Friendly fire makes combat a little more mindless, imo.

 

With it on, you have to actually consider the positioning of your characters.

 

Not having it is not a dealbreaker for me but it does make you have to think less.

[ManifestedISO]

I don't know anything about them, but I wonder if the combat companion-combo mechanic just wouldn't work well with friendly fire turned on. 

[aluminiumtrioxid]

In my opinion, if you're a wizard who can break the rules of physics over your knee as you please every day of the week, you must be either a/ really lacking in ****s to give or b/ just plain ****ty at wizarding to be unable to selectively target your enemies with whatever apocalypse you're conjuring out of literal magic with your literal force of will.

[MidiOgre]

No Friendly fire makes combat a little more mindless, imo.

 

With it on, you have to actually consider the positioning of your characters.

 

Fixed that for you.

[Nonek]

I'd imagine that unleashing physical forces through sheer willpower would be hard enough, but also modifying whom they affect in the midst of combat would be spectacularly difficult, and certainly not something available at every level of proficiency. I'd prefer progression and the satisfaction of achievement rather than being catered to and having everything handed to me at the beginning, though I realise that's an unpopular view in this age of walking simulator non games and "storybook" modes.

[Bartimaeus]

In my opinion, if you're a wizard who can break the rules of physics over your knee as you please every day of the week, you must be either a/ really lacking in ****s to give or b/ just plain ****ty at wizarding to be unable to selectively target your enemies with whatever apocalypse you're conjuring out of literal magic with your literal force of will.

 

Um...except in D&D, arcane magic is a learned practice that requires mastery in controlling the Weave, and for most arcane spellcasters, that means relying on using written spells that do a very specific thing. To make Fireball, a very basic (yet powerful) elemental spell, ignore friendlies, I would imagine it would require a complex rewrite of the spell which would probably knock it up a few levels. So really...I can't much see the argument.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Bartimaeus

[Humanoid]

Friendly fire makes combat a little more mindless, imo.

 

With it on, you have to actually consider the positioning of your characters.

 

Not having it is not a dealbreaker for me but it does make you have to think less.

 

And this is why I embrace the lack of friendly fire. I've no interest in managing party members at all, and so by extension I don't want to care about where they are. Given the option I'd prefer the game be additionally balanced for genuine solo play, but based on my experience with PoE that seems to fall in the too-hard basket. I'm only in it for the eeeeeevil dialogue choices, the rest of the game is incidental.

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike applying proper tactics in videogames, which should be obvious enough given my love of XCOM. But I prefer my RPGs and my tactical squad games to be completely separate, I haven't tended to enjoy the hybrid approach at all.

[Vaeliorin]

Honestly, I'm not particularly upset either way.  When there is friendly fire, I tend to not memorize spells that cause friendly fire (I can count the number of times I've cast fireball in the IE games on one hand), though that's less of an issue when I can actually see where I'm casting, as opposed to having to guess.

 

Sometimes, though, I just want to have fun with spells that just don't really work well with friendly fire turned on (hello, Walking Bomb from the DA series...) so I have, on rare occasions, turned off the friendly fire in games that allow it.

 

All that said, I'm much happier with friendly fire in turn-based games as opposed to real time (granted, I prefer turn-based in general because I think it's ridiculous that you can screw up and position your party such that an AoE gets dropped on you by the enemy, but still manage to scramble everyone before the spell goes off and avoid all the damage in most real time games.)

[Heijoushin]

Casting a fireball behind enemy lines, or Aganazzar's Scorcher in a line from the side was quite satisfying back in IWD. 

 

On the other hand, in Pillars, the "non-friendly fire" area of spells that you got from a high int score was also super useful. It helped make spells like "flaming hands" (or whatever the pillars equivalent was called) more practical (without a non-FF area, it's hard to use such a close quarters spell without putting your mage in danger

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

In my opinion, if you're a wizard who can break the rules of physics over your knee as you please every day of the week, you must be either a/ really lacking in ****s to give or b/ just plain ****ty at wizarding to be unable to selectively target your enemies with whatever apocalypse you're conjuring out of literal magic with your literal force of will.

 

Um...except in D&D, arcane magic is a learned practice that requires mastery in controlling the Weave, and for most arcane spellcasters, that means relying on using written spells that do a very specific thing. To make Fireball, a very basic (yet powerful) elemental spell, ignore friendlies, I would imagine it would require a complex rewrite of the spell which would probably knock it up a few levels. So really...I can't much see the argument.

 

 

The argument is that when the rules of magic are completely made-up and arbitrary (which they are), there is nothing saying it can't be an inherent attribute of spells that they ignore friendlies. And, from a mechanic perspective, as Infinitron pointed out, it's just easier to balance around (not to mention that this particular knife cuts both ways, and I'm pretty sure it's much easier to program AI to use spells to maximum effectiveness when it doesn't have to take friendly fire into account - therefore battles can become inherently more tactical since the AI can use the resources it's been given more efficiently).

[Bartimaeus]

All of that I will readily agree with...but in D&D, it is not an inherent attribute of spells, and the reasoning as to why it isn't seems like it was thought out and makes sense (to me, anyways), hence the counterargument. For a new game with a totally new spell system, yes, O.K., fine.

 

Truth be told, I think I am very unlikely to like this game's ruleset at all to begin with, if Pillars of Eternity is any indication, so it really hardly matters. D&D 2nd & 3rd/3.5 hold a special place in my heart, and these seemingly half-baked and identity-less (compared to D&D) systems just ain't gonna satisfy my desire for a BG-like game, so whatever.

[Nonek]

Ha, regression rules eh? Personally i'd prefer that physical forces like fire, lightning and such still hurt anyone caught in them (as physics seems to work exactly the same in every other respect) rather than companions being special, though i'll be keen to read the reasoning behind this dumbing down. Placement being a core element of tactics I don't think that AI will improve because of removing friendly fire, that's counter intuitive nonsense.

 

Edit: It would be nice to see advanced AI in action, feints, fallbacks to fortified emplacements, leading into ambushes, using environmental hazards (where physics is still working of course,) etcetera. However if it's just the same old run towards melee, or use long range attacks then i'll be calling shennannigans on this particular claim of more efficient AI.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Nonek

[Bartimaeus]

I actually have to disagree, based on extensive playing of Baldur's Gate. Oh sure, YOU'RE throwing Fireballs at groups of enemies left and right because you have perfect control over where your characters are, and you have tools (stealth, invisibility, Wizard's Eye, reloading, etc.) to see where enemies are in advance, which makes it even easier to use them if you decide to play it smart and cautious. But how often did the game ever actually throw a Fireball at YOU?  It was pretty darned rare...and when it happened, they usually blew up many of their own dudes, most of whom are much weaker than your characters and are seriously injured or straight up killed by it. Even worse, if you know whom they're targeting (and the game tells you in the battle log as well as visually sort of), you can even use it against them by rushing that character into their midst while they're still casting it, causing them to blow up themselves and any allies they have in the area. So, in theory, I agree with you...but in practice, the player is generally just too smart/has too many tools to really be effectively caught by something like a Fireball, if the AI even had the tools to cast it properly to begin with...which, even using AI-enhancing mods, it really just doesn't. It's extremely difficult to program proper fuzzy logic that the AI can use to make intelligent, cost-effective decisions dependent upon the exact scenario like a human player would...and like a human would in real time.

 

As a side-note, most (although not all) spells like Fireball are not a "pure physical/elemental force": they are magical in nature, and consequently subject to magic resistance in addition to the normal elemental/physical resistances, and therefore may work differently depending on the exact nature of the spell. That's the in-universe explanation for D&D, anyways.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Bartimaeus