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AoD demo discussion.

obediah

Erudite
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
5,051
Jasede said:
I think Qwinn & Toxic raise some very good points. I am from the school that didn't really enjoy Fallout's TB combat, mainly because it was so simple - but I didn't mind it either. Encounters were brief and the gory animations made it entertaining to watch and satisfying.

The big appeal of Fallout's combat to me was what it wasn't - frustrating. None of the the RT "DO THE FUCK WHAT I SAY YOU PIECE OF SHIT GAME!" or RTwP "Should I spend 30 minutes jumping UI hoops to carefully pwn every random encounter, or just let the AI run through it in 15 seconds and reload if it goes badly". And if something was challenging it was because of how I built my character, which is a nice touch.

AoD seems the same, far too simple to be memorable, but a fun little puzzle system that is comfortable to grind through. The easy answer is to expand it to a party of 4-6 and bam! all of the current pieces of combat become a nice big puzzle to work with. The devs have no interest in this, and instead ooked inward for complexity. However they can't go any further or they end up with a TB street fighter - which would make a neat flash game, but isn't an attractive combat system for an RPG (to me at least).

To summarize, minus the bugs and interface issues, they delivered what they set out to make.
 
In My Safe Space
Joined
Dec 11, 2009
Messages
21,899
Codex 2012
Fallout combat was often pretty frustrating due to its randomness.
It had too much concepts mixed together - rising HPs that made a lot of people too tough, at the same time there were unpredictable critical hits that could kill/maim even a toughest, best armoured character, etc.

I'd prefer if Fallout would have more from GURPS - no additional HP on level, damage multipliers for vital areas and damage thresholds for crippling eyes, limbs, etc.
 

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
Joined
Oct 27, 2006
Messages
2,878
Location
San Isidro, Argentina
Big Nose George said:
sheek said:
Eldritch said:
Aw hell yeah AoD combat/teaser demo! The sporadic lurker/poster comes here expecting a "2009-Year In Review" article and gets something even better to bitch about instead. That is, constructive bitching, of course, which is the spirit of rpgcodex and definitely not christmas.

At first it was a bit frustrating, but you learn to deal with the stuff like the bugs and the crashes and the game short fusing your power supply while crashing, overheating your rheostat-lamp plugged to the same multiple plug causing a weird electrical reaction creating an EMP shockwave taking out all the lights in the neighborhood incinerating the brightly-lit christmas tree melting the little angel on the top mutilating santa who just came from the chimney chilling in your restroom in his red underwear. These things are to be expected in early builds especially if you're dealing with an indie.

Finally it starts getting exciting and fun once you've figured out what to do and you're trying out the cool stuff, experimenting a bit etc. But then you realize, dude, this is a one-man turn based tactical combat system and somehow it's even slightly more simplistic than its already simplistic role model granddaddy Fallout's system it's obviously emulating or aiming to improve upon or taking examples from or whatever there aren't that many turn based tactical stuff using APs where you're strictly commanding a single duder. Of course, I'm not just basing this assertion on the fact that there ain't no option(s) for groin shots in this game, why can't I shoot people in the dick with a heavy crossbow this is like elementary stuff that just had to be included etc.

Tactical turn based combat usually works best with "squad-based", "party-based" games for a reason and I'm not talking about "companion based" mind you, you should be fully commanding all the dudes you're traveling with pre-generated or not, being able to issue some simple commands doesn't cut it either. The variety of the short term and more importantly long term decisions built up from your turn-by-turn decisions can be implemented as complex as it gets which has the potential for stimulating some neurological activity other than boredom from repeating the single most sensible stuff in almost all circumstances ad infinitum until you win. (shoot them in the... why, in the eye of course! That's where it hurts the most! Don't do anything else because it's either fairly useless or arbitrary!) This is why we get so much fun from playing Jagged Alliance and Blood Bowl because there are so many tactical shit you can take your time deciding with multiple elements on the table to manage AND you've got your long term strategy to worry about in the long run meaning gawd knows how many more turns you have to duke it out against all odds to pull through as gloriously as possible. Always playing it safe spamming the safest, the most obvious thing to do at every turn at every level to win makes you lose because there is no such "ultimate" thing in these games. There are multiple good tactics for different situations of course but they are anything but obvious and requires some level of thinking. That's why dumb people don't like them, read the YouTube and the Piratebay and the 4chan comments on Blood Bowl/JA2 and you'll see.

Due to the sheer tactical complexity the best amongst such games usually keep it small scale without legions of stuff to command and fight against, right? Because you've got all the time in the world to play with the amazing plethora of meaningful stuff to do because y'know it's liek turn based...and...tactical?

It just doesn't feel right when you've got shit tons of more tactical options when commanding a solo character in ToEE for example which is meant to be played with a party of five to seven characters than Age of Decadence where you have command over strictly one character. This goes for the encounters too since you can't realistically fight thirty enemies unless you're dealing with a Stephen Hawking clone brigade with 3% to hit. 3 HP and 1-3 dmg with a DR of 3 (electric wheelchair) or whatever. Why can't we get the stuff like St. Toxic briefly listed ITT for a one-man TB combat system? We could have things like stat altering combat stances affecting the long term battle geared towards more gambling or less gambling with your chances you're willing to take after assessing the threat priority. Taking combat stances or perk-like abilities that could give me certain penalties and bonuses for a turn or two like a charge-attack stance giving you the ability to bullrush a dude discarding/halving the movement AP and gives bonus to damage proportional to the amount of the unblocked, straight line of distance between you and the enemy causing a massive to hit % bonus for your enemy/enemies next turn leaving you much more vulnerable to attack. From the start of the battle I'm thinking that Ordu Archer will cause me a lot more trouble in the long run so instead of playing it safe I charge-attack the archer hoping to knock him down- do as much damage as early as possible to him leaving myself much more vulnerable to his swordsman buddy earlier in the fight because I'm thinking the Archer is more trouble for my character in the long run and even maybe my choice of defense against the swordsman kind of melee fighter is better than taking shots from an Ordu Archer with a composite longbow. I can't really foresee if this gamble is gonna work for me in the upcoming turns instead of playing it safe in the normal move-attack kind of fighting but I'm glad I have a choice other than the normal move-attack fighting. I might turn out right or wrong for bullrushing the Archer like a maniac leaving myself more vulnerable to the swordsman earlier in the fight but I want to be able to take that chance goddamit. Gambling more should be able to turn out better than playing it safe in certain situations. Seeing all your options clearly, utilizing everything from terrain, line of sight to a more varied way of spending your APs forces the player to do a lot of long term planning deciding a course of action whether it's gambling for a plan based on a foreseeable outcome fucking owns. This goes beyond simple number-crunching and assburger char-build planning. A lot more distinction between weapon types would also be welcome which could make way for even more defined fighter archetype stuff like an awesome legionary style higher AP consuming tower shield bashing techniques best used with a low AP consuming short gladius than the other kinds of longer one-handed blades for example. This is like the C&C of tactical combat and the good designer is the one that can throw around a lot of choices with tactical consequences that actually matters. Seems familiar?

In games with a good tactical TB combat some players will always be able to read a combat encounter a lot better than others and take down an opposition that would be too much to handle for others and simplistic stuff like taking out the mutie with the most dangerous weapon with the help of the Awareness perk finding it out like in Fallout just doesn't cut it. If you keep it too simple without a lot of variables to deal with everyone will figure out the most sensible thing to do for almost every single situation and spam it in a conditioned manner like Pavlov's Dog on crack because either there's no other way to win or the other choices are too arbitrary or too obvious. There are tons of games with boring combat like this. Even Fallout combat was kinda like this. You don't just "figure it out" and repeat the absolute same thing in good tactical TB combat. That's why there are so few of them universally praised around here. "It's good for what it is!" doesn't count either, this game is supposed to kick some ass and chew bubblegum while pissing on all the mainstream crap people got sick and tired of. This combat ain't bloody enough for an indie revolutionary attempt and surely not enough to actually impress a lot of the veterans who has seen it all played it all and got fed up.

Having an extra layer of tactical decision making during combat sure wouldn't hurt. Actualizing a more complex combat system for a one-man TB game with a lot more stuff to do is even more necessary precisely because it's TB, and because it is extremely small scale compared to a squad based game desperate for more stuff we can fuck around with our single dude/dudette. Single character TB combat systems have a lot of room to tolerate really ridiculous amounts of complex tactical options unlike the unnecessarily "complicated" paradox studios stat-porn games assburgers feel intelligent playing with the stupid arbitrary, meaningless options just put there for the sake of complexity. But a single-char-TB game like like AoD can consume layers upon layers of "teh complexity" and be better from it. Otherwise it's really fucking boring meaning it would grow old real fast after a while. Why not remedy that by improving it accordingly? C'mon mengs you can do a lot better than this...

If a game doesn't need much thought to win then a TB system is a gigantic waste... It being simply "Turn Based" isn't enough to make it "good", TB is simply a tool which should be milked to its fullest potential for tactical awesomeness because it's TB and because it can. It simply enables complexity. Keeping it simple while keeping it TB is making it lame. This is especially true for a single-man TB combat that is slightly more or less simplistic than Fallout. Fallout combat was fun, but Fallout combat sucked. People don't praise Fallout primarily for its combat system. Heh, on the other hand, a lot of people don't curse it for being "bad" either because it's stylish and humorous and Fallout 1 wasn't exactly drowned in combat. I for one didn't care much for it and even found it p. boring at times, especially in FO2. Hey, I haven't read that LP thread at ITS I don't exactly know how much combat the game has. Even if it's really thinly spread, it's still no excuse for not making it a lot more fun while playing since some of the character classes are bound to spend a lot more time in combat than others. I guess I'll play the Grifter or Merchant first if you guys aren't improving the combat. I always wanted to play as an evil jew merchant named ARIEL EDENGOLDSTEINOVITZ anyways... :pollyanna:

I focused on the combat (which is not that terrible but not really good either) cuz it's the "combat demo" but my impressions on the art, interface, lore and the writing, atmosphere and especially the awesome indian/persian/turkish/roman/hellenic/dacian/nordic weaponry was positive from what I've seen here. Don't listen to the f-word haters VD, vulgarity is the heart and soul of post-apoc. Who would expect people to mind their manners in an age of decadence anyway? They're obviously all decadent sonsa bitches not beholden by some civilized world stopping them from crashing down the f-word like a mothafucka. Didn't they curse a lot shouting "COCK!!!" and "JUNO'S CUNT!!!" in the Rome tv-series instead of fuck? That's HBO improvisation for you. Just saying.

Qwinn.
Are you schizophrenic?

Are you really from Mordor?

Do you really have a big nose... George (if that's your real name!)?
 

Big Nose George

Educated
Joined
Dec 5, 2009
Messages
666
Elhoim said:
Big Nose George said:
sheek said:
Eldritch said:
Aw hell yeah AoD combat/teaser demo! The sporadic lurker/poster comes here expecting a "2009-Year In Review" article and gets something even better to bitch about instead. That is, constructive bitching, of course, which is the spirit of rpgcodex and definitely not christmas.

At first it was a bit frustrating, but you learn to deal with the stuff like the bugs and the crashes and the game short fusing your power supply while crashing, overheating your rheostat-lamp plugged to the same multiple plug causing a weird electrical reaction creating an EMP shockwave taking out all the lights in the neighborhood incinerating the brightly-lit christmas tree melting the little angel on the top mutilating santa who just came from the chimney chilling in your restroom in his red underwear. These things are to be expected in early builds especially if you're dealing with an indie.

Finally it starts getting exciting and fun once you've figured out what to do and you're trying out the cool stuff, experimenting a bit etc. But then you realize, dude, this is a one-man turn based tactical combat system and somehow it's even slightly more simplistic than its already simplistic role model granddaddy Fallout's system it's obviously emulating or aiming to improve upon or taking examples from or whatever there aren't that many turn based tactical stuff using APs where you're strictly commanding a single duder. Of course, I'm not just basing this assertion on the fact that there ain't no option(s) for groin shots in this game, why can't I shoot people in the dick with a heavy crossbow this is like elementary stuff that just had to be included etc.

Tactical turn based combat usually works best with "squad-based", "party-based" games for a reason and I'm not talking about "companion based" mind you, you should be fully commanding all the dudes you're traveling with pre-generated or not, being able to issue some simple commands doesn't cut it either. The variety of the short term and more importantly long term decisions built up from your turn-by-turn decisions can be implemented as complex as it gets which has the potential for stimulating some neurological activity other than boredom from repeating the single most sensible stuff in almost all circumstances ad infinitum until you win. (shoot them in the... why, in the eye of course! That's where it hurts the most! Don't do anything else because it's either fairly useless or arbitrary!) This is why we get so much fun from playing Jagged Alliance and Blood Bowl because there are so many tactical shit you can take your time deciding with multiple elements on the table to manage AND you've got your long term strategy to worry about in the long run meaning gawd knows how many more turns you have to duke it out against all odds to pull through as gloriously as possible. Always playing it safe spamming the safest, the most obvious thing to do at every turn at every level to win makes you lose because there is no such "ultimate" thing in these games. There are multiple good tactics for different situations of course but they are anything but obvious and requires some level of thinking. That's why dumb people don't like them, read the YouTube and the Piratebay and the 4chan comments on Blood Bowl/JA2 and you'll see.

Due to the sheer tactical complexity the best amongst such games usually keep it small scale without legions of stuff to command and fight against, right? Because you've got all the time in the world to play with the amazing plethora of meaningful stuff to do because y'know it's liek turn based...and...tactical?

It just doesn't feel right when you've got shit tons of more tactical options when commanding a solo character in ToEE for example which is meant to be played with a party of five to seven characters than Age of Decadence where you have command over strictly one character. This goes for the encounters too since you can't realistically fight thirty enemies unless you're dealing with a Stephen Hawking clone brigade with 3% to hit. 3 HP and 1-3 dmg with a DR of 3 (electric wheelchair) or whatever. Why can't we get the stuff like St. Toxic briefly listed ITT for a one-man TB combat system? We could have things like stat altering combat stances affecting the long term battle geared towards more gambling or less gambling with your chances you're willing to take after assessing the threat priority. Taking combat stances or perk-like abilities that could give me certain penalties and bonuses for a turn or two like a charge-attack stance giving you the ability to bullrush a dude discarding/halving the movement AP and gives bonus to damage proportional to the amount of the unblocked, straight line of distance between you and the enemy causing a massive to hit % bonus for your enemy/enemies next turn leaving you much more vulnerable to attack. From the start of the battle I'm thinking that Ordu Archer will cause me a lot more trouble in the long run so instead of playing it safe I charge-attack the archer hoping to knock him down- do as much damage as early as possible to him leaving myself much more vulnerable to his swordsman buddy earlier in the fight because I'm thinking the Archer is more trouble for my character in the long run and even maybe my choice of defense against the swordsman kind of melee fighter is better than taking shots from an Ordu Archer with a composite longbow. I can't really foresee if this gamble is gonna work for me in the upcoming turns instead of playing it safe in the normal move-attack kind of fighting but I'm glad I have a choice other than the normal move-attack fighting. I might turn out right or wrong for bullrushing the Archer like a maniac leaving myself more vulnerable to the swordsman earlier in the fight but I want to be able to take that chance goddamit. Gambling more should be able to turn out better than playing it safe in certain situations. Seeing all your options clearly, utilizing everything from terrain, line of sight to a more varied way of spending your APs forces the player to do a lot of long term planning deciding a course of action whether it's gambling for a plan based on a foreseeable outcome fucking owns. This goes beyond simple number-crunching and assburger char-build planning. A lot more distinction between weapon types would also be welcome which could make way for even more defined fighter archetype stuff like an awesome legionary style higher AP consuming tower shield bashing techniques best used with a low AP consuming short gladius than the other kinds of longer one-handed blades for example. This is like the C&C of tactical combat and the good designer is the one that can throw around a lot of choices with tactical consequences that actually matters. Seems familiar?

In games with a good tactical TB combat some players will always be able to read a combat encounter a lot better than others and take down an opposition that would be too much to handle for others and simplistic stuff like taking out the mutie with the most dangerous weapon with the help of the Awareness perk finding it out like in Fallout just doesn't cut it. If you keep it too simple without a lot of variables to deal with everyone will figure out the most sensible thing to do for almost every single situation and spam it in a conditioned manner like Pavlov's Dog on crack because either there's no other way to win or the other choices are too arbitrary or too obvious. There are tons of games with boring combat like this. Even Fallout combat was kinda like this. You don't just "figure it out" and repeat the absolute same thing in good tactical TB combat. That's why there are so few of them universally praised around here. "It's good for what it is!" doesn't count either, this game is supposed to kick some ass and chew bubblegum while pissing on all the mainstream crap people got sick and tired of. This combat ain't bloody enough for an indie revolutionary attempt and surely not enough to actually impress a lot of the veterans who has seen it all played it all and got fed up.

Having an extra layer of tactical decision making during combat sure wouldn't hurt. Actualizing a more complex combat system for a one-man TB game with a lot more stuff to do is even more necessary precisely because it's TB, and because it is extremely small scale compared to a squad based game desperate for more stuff we can fuck around with our single dude/dudette. Single character TB combat systems have a lot of room to tolerate really ridiculous amounts of complex tactical options unlike the unnecessarily "complicated" paradox studios stat-porn games assburgers feel intelligent playing with the stupid arbitrary, meaningless options just put there for the sake of complexity. But a single-char-TB game like like AoD can consume layers upon layers of "teh complexity" and be better from it. Otherwise it's really fucking boring meaning it would grow old real fast after a while. Why not remedy that by improving it accordingly? C'mon mengs you can do a lot better than this...

If a game doesn't need much thought to win then a TB system is a gigantic waste... It being simply "Turn Based" isn't enough to make it "good", TB is simply a tool which should be milked to its fullest potential for tactical awesomeness because it's TB and because it can. It simply enables complexity. Keeping it simple while keeping it TB is making it lame. This is especially true for a single-man TB combat that is slightly more or less simplistic than Fallout. Fallout combat was fun, but Fallout combat sucked. People don't praise Fallout primarily for its combat system. Heh, on the other hand, a lot of people don't curse it for being "bad" either because it's stylish and humorous and Fallout 1 wasn't exactly drowned in combat. I for one didn't care much for it and even found it p. boring at times, especially in FO2. Hey, I haven't read that LP thread at ITS I don't exactly know how much combat the game has. Even if it's really thinly spread, it's still no excuse for not making it a lot more fun while playing since some of the character classes are bound to spend a lot more time in combat than others. I guess I'll play the Grifter or Merchant first if you guys aren't improving the combat. I always wanted to play as an evil jew merchant named ARIEL EDENGOLDSTEINOVITZ anyways... :pollyanna:

I focused on the combat (which is not that terrible but not really good either) cuz it's the "combat demo" but my impressions on the art, interface, lore and the writing, atmosphere and especially the awesome indian/persian/turkish/roman/hellenic/dacian/nordic weaponry was positive from what I've seen here. Don't listen to the f-word haters VD, vulgarity is the heart and soul of post-apoc. Who would expect people to mind their manners in an age of decadence anyway? They're obviously all decadent sonsa bitches not beholden by some civilized world stopping them from crashing down the f-word like a mothafucka. Didn't they curse a lot shouting "COCK!!!" and "JUNO'S CUNT!!!" in the Rome tv-series instead of fuck? That's HBO improvisation for you. Just saying.

Qwinn.
Are you schizophrenic?

Are you really from Mordor?

Do you really have a big nose... George (if that's your real name!)?

I have something big alright, I'll show you too but only if this is your real photo!
1ny82x.jpg

Hairloss is a bitch though, I know myself.
 

hal900x

Augur
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
573
Location
A good place to own a gun.
How are the chances for a special effect (bypass/knockout) on called Torso/Head attacks calculated? Any way to mitigate them with stats/skills/gear, or are they fixed percentages?
 

Elhoim

Iron Tower Studio
Developer
Joined
Oct 27, 2006
Messages
2,878
Location
San Isidro, Argentina
Big Nose George said:
Elhoim said:
Big Nose George said:
sheek said:
Eldritch said:
Wall of Text
Are you schizophrenic?

Are you really from Mordor?

Do you really have a big nose... George (if that's your real name!)?

I have something big alright, I'll show you too but only if this is your real photo!
1ny82x.jpg

Hairloss is a bitch though, I know myself.

Yep, that's me alright. I never had much hair, though, and luckily I'm still having the same amount as in that picture, which is like 3 years old.
 

hal900x

Augur
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
573
Location
A good place to own a gun.
Considered editing my last post but it's been there too long.

I'm still kind of confused on critical hits versus critical strikes, but if I read the readme correctly, then I continue to be baffled as to how The Butcher effortlessly put critical strike after critical strike on me, when I was wearing the highest possible vsCritical gear (135/110 I believe).

Anyway, if it wasn't a great engine I wouldn't have tried to kill the butcher approximately 60 times with the same build, and likewise the Triarii after. I'll definitely buy it. But if you really think that all combat builds are equally balanced, then you probably think pigs fly out of your ass too. Unless I am just lucky in getting some kind of engine bug.
 

relootz

Scholar
Joined
Sep 9, 2009
Messages
4,478
The Butcher has to be bugged. He does critical after critical and breaks my shield almost every time.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,376
Location
Djibouti
relootz said:
The Butcher has to be bugged. He does critical after critical and breaks my shield almost every time.

I think that's how he's supposed to act. The arena master even tells you that hiding behind a shield is useless against him.
 

hal900x

Augur
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
573
Location
A good place to own a gun.
He's supposed to break the shield, as any other axe wielder can easily do. But the critical strikes are a separate issue(The crit resist on armor outranks the crit resist on shield in this case), and the problem. We are wearing extremely high crit resist gear and yet it's essentially non-functional against his strikes.
 

relootz

Scholar
Joined
Sep 9, 2009
Messages
4,478
I killed him! Finally. My to hit was indeed to low, so i put the 20 points i got in sword and it went from 25 to 50. Then i bought the meteor gladius (which apparently was new) and charged him with a couple of extra shields in the bag. He broke 3 shield and i only narrowly killed him by using aimed attacks on the torso.

The guy has imbalanced gear. Great helmet and armor and a good weapon makes him really though.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
hal900x said:
Considered editing my last post but it's been there too long.

I'm still kind of confused on critical hits versus critical strikes, but if I read the readme correctly, then I continue to be baffled as to how The Butcher effortlessly put critical strike after critical strike on me, when I was wearing the highest possible vsCritical gear (135/110 I believe).
That's my mistake. All aimed attacks, passive weapon traits, and proper critical strikes' text stats with "Critical Strike!" Then the text differs, but the players see Critical Strike!. I'll fix it. For now read the descriptions. If it says bypass the armor, then he used aimed attack: torso. If it says disarmed, then he targeted your arms. Etc.

Anyway, if it wasn't a great engine I wouldn't have tried to kill the butcher approximately 60 times with the same build, and likewise the Triarii after. I'll definitely buy it. But if you really think that all combat builds are equally balanced, then you probably think pigs fly out of your ass too. Unless I am just lucky in getting some kind of engine bug.
They are balanced. I played the demo yesterday:
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/in ... l#msg41015

Killed the butcher in the first fight.

"I made a blocker (stats: 9, 9, 6, 8, 4, 4), invested in 3 skills: swords, block, critical strike. Overall, the barbari weren't too hard, the ordu were tough, died twice, always attacked the archer first, didn't even take a shield to the butcher, bought a nice 2-hander for him and killed him in the first fight, reached the triarii, fought 7 battles (to test properly and avoid lucky strikes), won 4 times. Tactics - charge the axeman. Had only one spare shield, btw. Used meteor gladius.

My skills when I went to fight the triarii were sword 175 (with equipped gladius and tower shield), block 150 with shield, cs 71."
 

quasimodo

Augur
Joined
Oct 11, 2006
Messages
372
obediah said:
Jasede said:
I think Qwinn & Toxic raise some very good points. I am from the school that didn't really enjoy Fallout's TB combat, mainly because it was so simple - but I didn't mind it either. Encounters were brief and the gory animations made it entertaining to watch and satisfying.

The big appeal of Fallout's combat to me was what it wasn't - frustrating. None of the the RT "DO THE FUCK WHAT I SAY YOU PIECE OF SHIT GAME!" or RTwP "Should I spend 30 minutes jumping UI hoops to carefully pwn every random encounter, or just let the AI run through it in 15 seconds and reload if it goes badly". And if something was challenging it was because of how I built my character, which is a nice touch.

AoD seems the same, far too simple to be memorable, but a fun little puzzle system that is comfortable to grind through. The easy answer is to expand it to a party of 4-6 and bam! all of the current pieces of combat become a nice big puzzle to work with. The devs have no interest in this, and instead ooked inward for complexity. However they can't go any further or they end up with a TB street fighter - which would make a neat flash game, but isn't an attractive combat system for an RPG (to me at least).

To summarize, minus the bugs and interface issues, they delivered what they set out to make.



Pretty much this. The combat is good enough for a single character RPG where combat is not the only way to problem solve.
 

relootz

Scholar
Joined
Sep 9, 2009
Messages
4,478
Vault Dweller said:
"I made a blocker (stats: 9, 9, 6, 8, 4, 4), invested in 3 skills: swords, block, critical strike. Overall, the barbari weren't too hard, the ordu were tough, died twice, always attacked the archer first, didn't even take a shield to the butcher, bought a nice 2-hander for him and killed him in the first fight, reached the triarii, fought 7 battles (to test properly and avoid lucky strikes), won 4 times. Tactics - charge the axeman. Had only one spare shield, btw. Used meteor gladius.

My skills when I went to fight the triarii were sword 175 (with equipped gladius and tower shield), block 150 with shield, cs 71."

VD. The tiarii's chance to break your shield is just too high. The 2 support fighters do it a lot of times.

Edit: Just played it again. The Axe guy had 3 turn to attack, he broke my shield every turn. :roll:
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Then fight without a shield, kill the axeman, then equip a shield.

The chance to split a shield isn't custom. It's tied to the axe skill, which is 200, if I'm not mistaken, so his chance to split your shield is 50/50.
 

Eldritch

Scholar
Joined
Dec 29, 2008
Messages
705
obediah said:
Jasede said:
I think Qwinn & Toxic raise some very good points. I am from the school that didn't really enjoy Fallout's TB combat, mainly because it was so simple - but I didn't mind it either. Encounters were brief and the gory animations made it entertaining to watch and satisfying.

The big appeal of Fallout's combat to me was what it wasn't - frustrating. None of the the RT "DO THE FUCK WHAT I SAY YOU PIECE OF SHIT GAME!" or RTwP "Should I spend 30 minutes jumping UI hoops to carefully pwn every random encounter, or just let the AI run through it in 15 seconds and reload if it goes badly". And if something was challenging it was because of how I built my character, which is a nice touch.

Not a very good example because the gap between "letting the AI handle it" and "jumping UI hoops" is much bigger than you'd think for handling combat encounters in games with better RTWP combat. Try "letting the AI handle it" in IWD:Heart of Fury mode or even at some parts of BG2 and you won't even have a chance to reload if things go badly because it'll always go badly. You might have a point if we're talking NWN2:OC combat. Good RTwP games with a good UI/fluid gameplay can still be challenging outside of char. build number crunching despite the intrinsic simplicity of the system itself. Depends a lot on the encounter design too. System alone has got little to do with that. It's about making it fun instead of boring. "Making it fun" must be like a multidisciplinary science or something.

AoD seems the same, far too simple to be memorable, but a fun little puzzle system that is comfortable to grind through. The easy answer is to expand it to a party of 4-6 and bam! all of the current pieces of combat become a nice big puzzle to work with. The devs have no interest in this, and instead ooked inward for complexity. However they can't go any further or they end up with a TB street fighter - which would make a neat flash game, but isn't an attractive combat system for an RPG (to me at least).

To summarize, minus the bugs and interface issues, they delivered what they set out to make.

Yeah, combat can be made tedious or fun with any given system in relation to the game as a whole and there has to be ways for making combat more fun with some nice touches here and there especially if some of the characters are supposed to depend on combat to resolve conflicts a lot more than others. You're thinking combat should be kept as much easy n' smooth to get over with as possible in a crpg... Well, some people would like it very much if AoD combat could be a lil' bit more fun without being an overcomplicated JA clone. Combat is not that much of an unnecessary flavor element considering the time some builds have to spend with it during the entire game, might as well extract a little more fun and challenge during combat instead of just getting over it as quickly as possible. There has got to be ways for making a one-man TB combat system less boring. Groin shots? The ability to shoot people in the dick with a crossbow might sound arbitrary at first but the existence of much more body part specific damage dealing/condition inflicting choices can make it more fun especially if certain armor and weapon types would also be distinctualized depending on the type of wound they can inflict better.

Come on man, you can't discard adding stuff like shield bashing, a more active AP consuming defense/movement phase and more distinct fighting styles as making it a TB Street Figter mini-game sequence. Almost everyone are asking for these things here anyway and the rpgcodex gives a lot more fuck whether there's shield bashing or not than having higher resolution choices. That was a bad deadline(?) C&C choice (as expressed by Elhoim) made by Iron Tower.

Attention everyone: Please don't turn this into a "Take your self-important masturbatory suggestions and shove it, shitbags!!1!1 The game is never going to come out with all this shit for brains moaning. YEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!!1!!!111" to look edgy and kewl because they chose higher resolutions over more combat options because apparently the combat is "good for what it is" which is something not everyone has to agree with...
 

relootz

Scholar
Joined
Sep 9, 2009
Messages
4,478
Vault Dweller said:
Then fight without a shield, kill the axeman, then equip a shield.

The chance to split a shield isn't custom. It's tied to the axe skill, which is 200, if I'm not mistaken, so his chance to split your shield is 50/50.

Isnt it based on your shield skill to? It would be retarded to factor only his own skill in as someone with a high block skill should be able to deflect blows in a way that they dont break the shield.

Will there be iron shields in the final game (as in cannot be broken)?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
28,024
Yes.

Basically, shields must be destructible because a blocker has two lines of defense: shield, which blocks attacks completely, and heavy armor, which absorbs a lot of damage. If shields were indestructible or if you could greatly reduce the chance of splitting, the blockers would be practically invincible.

In comparison, a dodger relies only on dodging. Light armor wouldn't stop much damage, so dodgers die fast if you hit them several times.
 

Melcar

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
35,205
Location
Merida, again
The Butcher easily goes down with a against a dodger or a CS specialist. If you bring a blocker to the fight, you're better off buying a two handed weapon and the heaviest armor you can afford.
The Triarii are a piece of cake too. Killed them on my first try with my heavy armor CS specialist. Took a few tries with my dodger. With the blocker I think I got lucky because my shield never broke.
The ones I had a harder time were the assassin dude and Carbo. I only beat the assassin with my CS specialist after a few reloads and luck, the dodger and blocker just wouldn't hit him (neither could he, so that made the fight long and boring). Carbo I could only beat going naked into the fight (dodger);neiher the blocker or the CS specialist last long enough (eventually beat him with the CS guy, but after several reloads and luck).
The only one I have managed to beat the guys at the end has been with a dodger. The CS guy comes close, but doesn't have enough HP to withstand the fight; the blocker just gets butchered.
I'm going to try a CS crossbowman now.
 

relootz

Scholar
Joined
Sep 9, 2009
Messages
4,478
Vault Dweller said:
Yes.

Basically, shields must be destructible because a blocker has two lines of defense: shield, which blocks attacks completely, and heavy armor, which absorbs a lot of damage. If shields were indestructible or if you could greatly reduce the chance of splitting, the blockers would be practically invincible.

In comparison, a dodger relies only on dodging. Light armor wouldn't stop much damage, so dodgers die fast if you hit them several times.

Fair enough, i just think the chance to split a shield should be reduced if you have a high block skill.
 

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