How to make non-combat skills really playable?

[MisterStone]

The three implementations I have seen in games are as follows:

1) You "U"se your skill on a map tile etc; if the skill is high enough (and you make a roll) it does something. I think perhaps the first game this was used extensively in was Wasteland, but maybe I am wrong.

ANyway, I like this approach because it is sort of like the old skool adventure games- (in Wasteland, Fallout, etc.) there is no blatant cue telling you to just use your skill on a given object or map tile, you have to try new things, and sometimes your creativity and observational skills pay off. The bad thing about this is that it sort of leads to developing a skill simply to make a thing in the game happen, which is kind of lame.

2) Dialogue trees, etc. When you speak to a person or interact with the thing (say a magical fountain) in question, you are given options in a chose-your-own adventure sort of way. Options are made available, or the outcomes are different based on your skills.

I think this is pretty good too, but it's not as adventure-game like as 1) because it's pretty obvious when you need a skill to achieve a certain kind of outcome. Except in the cases where an option does not even exist if your skill is not high enough, I suppose. Regardless, it's not really abuot the player trying things out or creatively solving problems, it about opening up things based on the player development path you have taken.

3) Non combat skills that are passive in nature but do things like make you pay less for stuff in shops, hear/notice things, etc.


I think the games the Codex likes generally incorporate 1 + 2 to a great extent; probably Age of Decadence is based on this. I wish #1 would make more of a comback, personally but it seems to be an exception rather than a rule.

 

[Sceptic]

"Player skill" is obviously a forbidden term around here. And the only proper way to make a true RPG is to avoid anything that's even remotely incorporated in a commercially successful title.

Not really. But if all we're getting from the commercially successful titles are cover systems, quest compasses, poor writing and the rest, then I'm sure you can understand our position. As for player skill, not it's not forbidden. In fact we highly encourage it in our action games, platformers, FPS, etc. We don't mind it that much in our RPG, unless it forces itself in at the expense of character skills having any effect whatsoever, at which point yeah we definitely don't want it to do that. Because, unlike you, some of us tend to define "RPG" as "character skill over player skill", not as "has combat".

 

[shihonage]

This thread raises a problem I'm trying to address.

I've been trying to make objects that are "pickable", "hackable", etc, involve a sequence of multiple actions, some of which are interchangeable.

As per this video from early June.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

@MisterStone: Nice breakdown of current ways of skill implementation. And yes, passive skills are somewhat cheap, "let's just give a bonus here and there and we're done!" And I too prefer the game letting me figure something out instead of picking from a set of given choices.

Because, unlike you, some of us tend to define "RPG" as "character skill over player skill", not as "has combat".

Where did I say that player skill should be more important than character skill? And where the hell did I say that "RPG=has combat" - this topic is about NON-COMBAT skills!

I'm not talking about realtime or twitch gameplay, immersion etc. Neither about dialogue trees vs abstraction. Just giving the player actually something to do, not only click a button and imagine the character having all the fun.

Isn't using intelligence in turn-based combat also player skill?
The game you want is creating/choosing your character and then only watch him/her act according to character sheet?

I'm tired of the pattern "next gen = evil" and "oldschool = good". Doesn't make you any more open minded than those "console kiddies" you laugh at. You know, blindly going against something stupid doesn't automatically make you clever, usually just stupid in a different way.

Somewhat similar to punks rebelling against mass culture, wearing genuine brand punk clothing.


Well, back on topic.

Involving player skill is fine as long, as it doesn't render the character stats meaningless? I think I can agree with that.

Now, what can the focus be? What should be enjoyable about the game?

-Stats: Building up your skill set and seeing their usefulness is the core. Flexibility of character development is the key. The only form of player skill acceptable here is thinking, no place for reflexes. Every task could require several different skills, the player figuring out the right combination., and the character sheet determining success of the execution itself.

-Story: Character development is needed mainly to shape your character in relation to the story. Mechanics can be simple, as long as they manage to complement the story requirements. Skill usage doesn't need to be that much interactive, dramatic effect is the key here. The need of player skill can increase this dramatic effect, but it shouldn't interrupt the flow of the story - attempting to pick the same lock for the 10th time can break the dynamics of an escape sequence, etc.

-Immersion: The more you feel like being there and doing what your character is doing, the better. Mere skill checks are a letdown here. As many abilities as possible should be shared between the character and the player. Inability to develop your character properly cannot be fully offset by your skill while performing various actions. On the other hand, skill with the controls doesn't need to be that crucial, as long as the activities performed don't feel "mechanical" and boring.

-Tactical combat: Now we're at the border of RPG and wargaming. Character system can be complex or simple, whatever it takes to offer enough possible situations and their resolutions. Non-combat skills are pretty much irrelevant, and only important if they affect combat as well, like some "scouting" and the distance you notice enemies from. Needless to say, player skill is restricted to thinking, same as in the first category.

Of course, in most cases some mix-and-match of these caategories is needed to achieve intended gameplay.

 

[DraQ]

Compare this to, say, lockpicking: click, skill check -> success/failure. Similar for all other skills.

(...)

Overall the complexity of non-combat gameplay is as if you'd decide a whole combat in one skill check comparing your character and the enemy. Doing that to combat would be an outrage, yet screwing other aspects in the same way is perfectly fine, we even don't know it any other way.

First problem. Lockpicking is not the entirety of stealth gameplay, and as such should not be treated as analogue of entire combat gameplay. If anything, individual instance of stabbing a lock with a lockpick is analogous to individual instance of stabbing a mob with your weapon - in most cases a single attack roll.

The entirety of stealth gameplay also involves sneaking around, avoiding/distracting guards, etc., in a well executed case forming a kind of stealth tactics analogous to combat tactics. Of course, a variety of stealth equipment and security measures to be defeated also helps, in a similar manner variety of gear and enemies helps make combat interesting.

Is there a game that lets you actually play a mage? Not a "fireball thrower" - a mage. Who studies mystical powers and learns to use them in his favor.

Morrowind?

To play a successful caster you'll have to spend a lot of time devising precisely tuned custom spells - spamming circinate fireballs, or spell spam in general will get you killed. Morrowind also offers a wide array of utility magic, usually far more useful than straight artillery spells.

Drawing symbols like in Arx Fatalis doesn't count as "simulated understanding of magic" in my book, but it is a step in the right direction.

No, it is merely an atmospheric take on gesture based interface. Might be a good thing, if used well enough.

Bethesdian minigames are as well, in a way. The difficulty is totally wrong (along with the awful philosopy "never let the player screw up"), but they are trying to let us actually lockpick, hack or negotiate. Adding some interesting skill influences on the course of the action could do wonders.

No, they are not and no, they don't.

First, bethesdian minigames let player skill override character skill making character skill redundant.
Second, the typical problem with minigames is that they suck. A minigame will generally take you out of the world and bear only passing semblance to the skill it stands for, especially if the skill can't be minigamized reasonably - see dialogue wheel. The best minigame can hope for is being relatively non-intrusive and the only purpose it can possibly serve is being an effective attention sink. Some games do succeed at those - locks&traps from Wiz8 were reasonably nonintrusive, System Shock series features decent puzzles and attention sinks, but bethsoft games are definitely not among those "some games". Being attention sink is downright impossible if minigame is handled in inventory time - even Morrowind's lockpicking was thousand times better in this regard as you a guard could sneak up on you when you were picking locks. As for non-intrusiveness, in my short and not-so-happy career of Oblivion player I chose to spam auto-attempt rather than enduring the minigame, even though I know a flawless method to solve it regardless of character skill, so yeah.

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I loved playing a Lizard Alchemist Assassin in ES:Oblivion, sneaking about gathering reagants, mixing them in my laboratory, and then sniping monsters from afar with my poisons and watching them collapse at my feet. The preparation was reminiscent of Ultima's magic system, and I enjoyed them both. I prefer Mages as the slower, more prepared Class, that yield great power and/or diversity of play for the patient and resourceful; as opposed to the Gauntlet mage.

With the exception of poisons, which were one of the very few actual improvements in Oblivion, the magic system was vastly inferior to that in Morrowind (which in turn was badly degraded compared to the one in DF in some areas, but significantly improved in others).

Yes, a reagant system is slow gameplay, but afterall, that's why wizards are so fucking old. Impatient Players can pick Barbarian.

Fucking this.

Regarding spell acquisition, I always liked building up a base. I would like if ALL spells could only be obtained from books (purchase, find, loot, coerce, defeat a rival wizard, author!). The PC would eventually build his own library of every spell he/she owned giving them the same satisfaction as a Warrior would seeing his swords and shields on display.

I like flexibility in general so I'm naturally reserved when it comes to categorical statements like "ALL spells". Still, it would be good if you had to research your magic, hunt for some grimoires, maybe even glyphs engraved in ancient temples. Also components, while perhaps not necessarily essential for all kinds of spells, could make magic much more interesting.

For Rogues, Witcher 2 hinted at a simple Stealth system of placeables on the floor to indicate tripping/kicking something, making noise (thus summoning guards).

Blah, just put random stray items around and make enemies noise sensitive. Would work in DeusEx.

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In Fallout, when you encounter an enemy, a rather lengthy minigame takes place.

Objection! On the grounds of argument being strawman.

This is not minigame, it's integrated with main mechanics and world representation, while typical minigame will use its own separate screen and usually be very highly abstract and not exactly to the point.

If you used some jpg as your example, then yes, combat is minigame in those, it usually plays out on separate screen not related to the actual world layout, uses WTF mechanics and so on.

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In order to make a skill like lockpicking interesting enough it would have to have major importance in the overall game. Like an RPG where you play a burglar that has to find better ways to break into and rob houses.
That burglar may only rarely encounter an armed citizen, where his shooting skills would come into play. And since armed citizens usually can't shoot for fuck, he'd even more rarely be forced to use his medical skills.
In this situation, various detailed ways of "lockpicking" or otherwise gaining access to restricted areas would make sense. Minigames shouldn't be the answer.

the alternative is to make the RPG party-based and add lots of locked doors :/
So you'd have to have at least one decent lockpicker with the party. Yeah well.

Negative. THE alternative is to flesh out several areas of the gameplay, like combat, stealth, etc. and allow different character/party builds find their own viable paths involving challenges they are capable of tackling.

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The three implementations I have seen in games are as follows:

1) You "U"se your skill on a map tile etc; if the skill is high enough (and you make a roll) it does something. I think perhaps the first game this was used extensively in was Wasteland, but maybe I am wrong.

Likewise, I like the #1 the most, mainly on the grounds that it is grounded in mechanics, unlike #2, but it needs major update - map tiles suck due to not being sufficiently detailed representation of the world. Things like weird impact of skills of grenade tossing in Fallout were consequence of this simple fact - when the basic quantum of space in your game is hex about a meter across and the only more detailed representation is when you aim for body parts, you don't have any sensible way to introduce skill when throwing explosives - bouncing them off walls, or aiming for small opening in cover is prevented by the coarse nature of play field, so you can only make character fail spectacularly in the most retarded manner.

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"Player skill" is obviously a forbidden term around here. And the only proper way to make a true RPG is to avoid anything that's even remotely incorporated in a commercially successful title.

Not really. But if all we're getting from the commercially successful titles are cover systems, quest compasses, poor writing and the rest, then I'm sure you can understand our position. As for player skill, not it's not forbidden. In fact we highly encourage it in our action games, platformers, FPS, etc. We don't mind it that much in our RPG, unless it forces itself in at the expense of character skills having any effect whatsoever, at which point yeah we definitely don't want it to do that. Because, unlike you, some of us tend to define "RPG" as "character skill over player skill", not as "has combat".

This.

Personally, I've always found the crusade against player skill moronic. The only way to eliminate player skill would be eradicating all interactivity, which is not a point. Yes, those are RPGs, but that also means they are RPGs.
However, this only works if player skill doesn't override character skill - minigames, as bethesda aptly demonstrated, are prone to violating this rule. Currently commercially successful titles tend to be excessively retard friendly, and this is where the needs of even most open minded codexian and mainstream developer ultimately diverge.

I don't mind even the larges concentrations of twitch based gameplay or anything like it. I do mind if being extremely good at this twitch gaming allows me to ignore my character build. Also, I do mind if twitching devoid of tactics or any thought still permits success.

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- attempting to pick the same lock for the 10th time can break the dynamics of an escape sequence, etc.

No. It's not the tenth attempt to pick the lock that breaks the dynamics here, it's the simple fact that player is allowed to take his time. Bad quest design yields bad gameplay yields bad storytelling.

-Immersion: The more you feel like being there and doing what your character is doing, the better. Mere skill checks are a letdown here.

Not nearly as much as typical minigames. Picture dialogue in Oblivion:

%charname is talking with a shopkeeper. Seeing the lady's reserved, suspicious attitude, he decides to try some subtle persuasion

WHAM!

LET'S PLAY THE WHEEL OF PERSUASION(TM)!!!!1

*clickclickclick*

NOW BACK TO OUR REGULAR SCHEDULED PROGRAM!!!1

errr... umm... nevermind.

So very immersive.

 

[Mastermind]

Morrowind?

To play a successful caster you'll have to spend a lot of time devising precisely tuned custom spells - spamming circinate fireballs, or spell spam in general will get you killed. Morrowind also offers a wide array of utility magic, usually far more useful than straight artillery spells.

If you are ignoring the enchant skill, yes. Natural casting in morrowind is nearly useless. It's far more effective to enchant something with a huge area spell (absorb life works best) and weakness to magic because casting spells from items has no casting animation and you can fire them off machinegun style. With the enchant skill maxed you'll be able to literally fire hundreds of high level spells that would otherwise drain your magicka in two casts machinegun style.

First, bethesdian minigames let player skill override character skill making character skill redundant.

No it doesn't. The skill (in oblivion) makes the minigame easier. That's the skill's role. If the skill's role was "allow the character to be able to lockpick higher level locks" you'd have a point, but that's not its role. Quite frankly, lockpicking and speech would both be fairly useless in oblivion even if they did prevent low skill players from higher level feats. First, there's the skeleton key which renders lockpicking useless as as kill. Then, there's spells. Alteration can replace lockpicking (this was true in morrowind as well) and illusion can replace speechcraft while having even more useful effects you can use as a bonus.

Furthermore, Bethesda minigames don't end at Oblivion. Fallout had two of them as well, one for hacking and one for lockpicking and in both cases the skill made the minigames easier, but unlike oblivion, if you did not have sufficient skill, you could not even attempt to hack/unlock a particular unit.

And last but not least, you could "bypass" difficult combat in Morrowind through proper application of player knowledge and intelligence. Enchanting an item (or just buying scrolls) and spamming high power spells can be done by any character regardless of his actual skills. I don't see why being able to bypass locks through player skill is such a big deal. One of the charms of games like Morrowind is precisely that you can easily perform feats that would get a newbie smoked in a nanosecond. It's called mastering a game. I never got close to mastering the lockpicking minigame in Oblivion, so the skill level is still a barrier to people like me, and I have no problem with people mastering it and finding it trivial regardless of their skill levels because I did the exact same thing in other areas in Morrowind.

Second, the typical problem with minigames is that they suck. A minigame will generally take you out of the world and bear only passing semblance to the skill it stands for, especially if the skill can't be minigamized reasonably - see dialogue wheel. The best minigame can hope for is being relatively non-intrusive and the only purpose it can possibly serve is being an effective attention sink. Some games do succeed at those - locks&traps from Wiz8 were reasonably nonintrusive, System Shock series features decent puzzles and attention sinks, but bethsoft games are definitely not among those "some games". Being attention sink is downright impossible if minigame is handled in inventory time - even Morrowind's lockpicking was thousand times better in this regard as you a guard could sneak up on you when you were picking locks.

I liked the speechcraft minigame, and loathed the oblivion lockpicking. Fallout 3 lockpicking is better but not particularly fun either, just functional. Hacking is fun but gets tiresome after a while since it's pretty time consuming.

As for non-intrusiveness, in my short and not-so-happy career of Oblivion player I chose to spam auto-attempt rather than enduring the minigame, even though I know a flawless method to solve it regardless of character skill, so yeah.

I do too, it's called the skeleton key.

It's like beth knew people would hate the minigame and gave you an I win button.

Oh, and I missed this:

With the exception of poisons, which were one of the very few actual improvements in Oblivion, the magic system was vastly inferior to that in Morrowind (which in turn was badly degraded compared to the one in DF in some areas, but significantly improved in others).

Morrowind had more spell effects, so if you measure complexity by that you are right. However, Oblivion's magic system was fairly balanced with manual spellcasting actually being useful and enchanted items toned down to a more reasonable level. Morrowind magic was broken as hell, with enchant and alchemy turning you into a demigod and manual spellcasting being relegated to a handful of utility spells like mark and recall.

 

[DraQ]

Natural casting in morrowind is nearly useless.

Quite the contrary, while enchanted items are definitely OP (which they should have remediated with casting delay and skill influencing the power of enchanted trinkets), the natural casting is still extremely powerful tool and weapon in right hands, and, unless you grind for money (not hard, unfortunately), you won't be able to create your trinkets of annihilation till late in game. It's just rather unforgiving, with shallow mana pool and casting delay.

First, bethesdian minigames let player skill override character skill making character skill redundant.

No it doesn't. The skill (in oblivion) makes the minigame easier. That's the skill's role. If the skill's role was "allow the character to be able to lockpick higher level locks" you'd have a point, but that's not its role.

If I can unerringly pick any lock with a single pick regardless of my character skill, taking the same amount of time, which isn't even relevant, since lockpicking is performed in inventory freeze-frame, then yes, the skill is completely redundant, as it doesn't influence the gameplay.

Alteration can replace lockpicking (this was true in morrowind as well)

Not quite. Alteration alone can't technically replace security in MW, as you'll also require TK or something like that to spring traps.

I liked the speechcraft minigame

 

[Mastermind]

Quite the contrary, while enchanted items are definitely OP (which they should have remediated with casting delay and skill influencing the power of enchanted trinkets), the natural casting is still extremely powerful tool and weapon in right hands, and, unless you grind for money (not hard, unfortunately), you won't be able to create your trinkets of annihilation till late in game. It's just rather unforgiving, with shallow mana pool and casting delay.

Not only is it not hard to grind for money, but it's not even real grinding since it just involves knowing where high priced items are and fetching them. And while it's possible that manual spellcasting is powerful (I never bothered with it to any real extent, i mostly kept it limited to teleportation spells), both artificial spellcasting and weapons are so much more effective that there's little point in using it, unless you're larping or abusing the permanent spell effect glitch or draining your skills so you can get free unlimited training (and it's pretty sad that it takes a glitch to put what should have been one third of the gameplay experience on the map).

If I can unerringly pick any lock with a single pick regardless of my character skill, taking the same amount of time, which isn't even relevant, since lockpicking is performed in inventory freeze-frame, then yes, the skill is completely redundant, as it doesn't influence the gameplay.

It's only completely redundant if everybody can do it. Not everyone (and i suspect, not most people) can do it. Just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it's easy for everyone else.

Not quite. Alteration alone can't technically replace security in MW, as you'll also require TK or something like that to spring traps.

You're right, I completely forgot about traps. Largely because I always picked atronach (the signs weren't very well balanced either, and got even worse in oblivion) and traps were more or less a non-issue. I would just spring them and in the odd instance where they would deal significant harm, reloading and trying again was not particularly time consuming.

 

[Sceptic]

Where did I say that player skill should be more important than character skill? And where the hell did I say that "RPG=has combat"

The former? you never said it, and I never implied you did. The latter? in the OP:

Basically all CRPGs share one thing. By far the most advanced aspect is combat.

"All CRPGs share one thing" makes it pretty clear you consider it to be the defining characteristic. I and others do not, hence my comment.

Isn't using intelligence in turn-based combat also player skill?
The game you want is creating/choosing your character and then only watch him/her act according to character sheet?

Sigh. Please reread what I said.

We don't mind it that much in our RPG, unless it forces itself in at the expense of character skills having any effect whatsoever

So no, I don't want to play a character sheet. However, if the only thing that matters in your game is how fast I click a button, it's not an RPG. Simple.

I'm tired of the pattern "next gen = evil" and "oldschool = good".

Did I even mention next gen and oldschool? BTW I absolutely despise the term "oldschool" as it has as much meaning as "epic" nowadays, what with things like DAO's combat system being called "oldschool" (herpderp).
As for older RPGs being better than newer ones, that's a pattern that I have unfortunately nothing to do with. You may want to direct your anger at developers instead.

Involving player skill is fine as long, as it doesn't render the character stats meaningless?

Erm... yeah that's what I said.

-Stats: Building up your skill set and seeing their usefulness is the core. Flexibility of character development is the key. The only form of player skill acceptable here is thinking, no place for reflexes

No, there is a place for reflex, AND for intelligence, AND for number-crunching. You CAN (and probably SHOULD) combine them all. You just have to get the right proportions. Pure number-crunching isn't a game anymore, pure reflex is an action game, and pure intelligence is a turn-based strategy game (think chess). Numbers regulated by player decision? there's your RPG. You want to add a reasonable dose of reflex? sure why not, you can get a good real-time RPG. Add more reflex? you're probably in action-RPG territory by now, which is fine if you do it intelligently and leave enough space for the RPG elements (there's a reason the Gothics get so praised around here).

There's a fundamental distinction that doesn't get made often. Yes we want character skill over player skill. "But combat requires intelligence!" or "You want your game to play itself!" are no valid criticisms for a simple reason: we want skill to determine the SUCCESS (or magnitude of success) of our attempts. WE still call the attempt. So, it doesn't matter how intelligent I am - if my character has no combat skills he'll get slaughtered. The game isn't playing itself - I get to make every single choice about what I want to do to TRY to do. BUT my character skills will determine whether the attempt succeeds or not. Same for dialog - I can pick the "charismatic" option but if my character is an ugly dumb fuck then the attempt will fail.

I stopped reading after the "story" and "immertion" sections as they kinda broke my brain.

First, bethesdian minigames let player skill override character skill making character skill redundant.

No it doesn't.

Yes it does. You said it yourself: char skill only makes the minigame easier. Therefore, even if your char with abysmal skill is trying to pick an impossible lock, and YOU the player has good reflexes, you can pick the lock. That's bad CRPG.

I do too, it's called the skeleton key.

It's like beth knew people would hate the minigame and gave you an I win button.

Yeah, but the key is only available at much higher level than you'd ever want to be thanks to scaling, so you're really doing something wrong if you have it. And even if there was no scaling it's still a pretty high level (what was it, 12?) so it's not an early to mid game win button, and until then you still have to put up with the minigame.

I don't mind even the larges concentrations of twitch based gameplay or anything like it. I do mind if being extremely good at this twitch gaming allows me to ignore my character build

Yep, that's precisely what I meant.
(epic post there btw)

 

[Mastermind]

Yeah, but the key is only available at much higher level than you'd ever want to be thanks to scaling, so you're really doing something wrong if you have it.

If you like your Oblivion popamole, yeah, but the scaling never bothered me all that much once I got over the "scaled quest rewards" rage, and I'd much rather play at level 60 than at level 1 even if playing at level 1 is considerably easier.

And even if there was no scaling it's still a pretty high level (what was it, 12?) so it's not an early to mid game win button, and until then you still have to put up with the minigame.

Level 10, which I consider early. High, to me, is 35+ since that's when all the content is pretty much unlocked.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

"All CRPGs share one thing" makes it pretty clear you consider it to be the defining characteristic. I and others do not, hence my comment.

Prevalent and defining element isn't the same. And I have yet to see an RPG where the combat system occupies less than 50% of the mechanics.
Also, if I considered combat to be the defining element, why would I start this topic in the first place?

Did I even mention next gen and oldschool?

Not directly.

I stopped reading after the "story" and "immertion" sections as they kinda broke my brain.

Care to elaborate?


I was trying to write down possible reasons of an RPG game being enjoyable. It is almost never clearly single one of these cases, but such a breakdown, as I hope, could help to see how to support certain elements, and what kind of game could benefit expanded skill gameplay the most.

This is not minigame, it's integrated with main mechanics and world representation, while typical minigame will use its own separate screen and usually be very highly abstracted and not exactly to the point.

Yeah, you need to look closely at the object you interact with. Many RPGs have a separate combat screen as well.
And some abstraction is inevitable, unless you want the player to actually pick a lock using specific controller or communicate with NPCs using microphone. Over the top, i know...
And I'm actually advocating integration of said elements deep into the main mechanics, and making them complex enough to become interesting activities.
Let's find out how to achieve it, instead of how bad it is so far.

No. It's not the tenth attempt to pick the lock that breaks the dynamics here, it's the simple fact that player is allowed to take his time. Bad quest design yields bad gameplay yields bad storytelling.

Agreed.


By the way, looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockpicking tells me that lockpicking on its own could be fun. Including time stress, danger of making noise (thus being restricted to certain, more difficult approaches), importance to infiltrate without visibly damaging the lock in some cases. You can have scenarios with plenty of time, but the need of absolute silence, other times the speed can be crucial... Yummy.

But the hardest element to make complex and flexible enough are social skills. We don't even have a really good combat AI so far - and it's the most primitive part of human behavior.

 

[DraQ]

This is not minigame, it's integrated with main mechanics and world representation, while typical minigame will use its own separate screen and usually be very highly abstracted and not exactly to the point.

Yeah, you need to look closely at the object you interact with. Many RPGs have a separate combat screen as well.

If those separate combat screens bear no relation to the location where the combat occurs, then yes, we have a minigame. Typically this happens in jpgs, which are not RPGs.

And some abstraction is inevitable, unless you want the player to actually pick a lock using specific controller or communicate with NPCs using microphone. Over the top, i know...

Excuse me, while I go back and retcon "abstracted" to "abstract"... there.

The problem with minigame mechanics is that it usually is some abstract game with little or no actual relation to the task performed - see dialogue wheel, or SS2 hacking.
It is a stand-in, an "insert actual task here" sign, not an in-game representation, it is therefore counterimmersive by definition.

By the way, looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockpicking tells me that lockpicking on its own could be fun. Including time stress, danger of making noise (thus being restricted to certain, more difficult approaches), importance to infiltrate without visibly damaging the lock in some cases. You can have scenarios with plenty of time, but the need of absolute silence, other times the speed can be crucial... Yummy.

That would be great .

But the hardest element to make complex and flexible enough are social skills. We don't even have a really good combat AI so far - and it's the most primitive part of human behavior.

That's why character writers are absolutely essential. Still, interpersonal relations and reactions can be modelled in simplistic manner, which can serve as platform further fleshed out in case of major characters, and in all cases covered with some human written dialogue. This platform alone won't create good NPCs that will stand up to closer scrutiny, but may at least automate them hating you if you kill their friends or family members, and such.

 

[DraQ]

And while it's possible that manual spellcasting is powerful (I never bothered with it to any real extent, i mostly kept it limited to teleportation spells)

Your loss - arguably the most fun way to play the game.

both artificial spellcasting and weapons are so much more effective that there's little point in using it, unless you're larping or abusing the permanent spell effect glitch or draining your skills so you can get free unlimited training (and it's pretty sad that it takes a glitch to put what should have been one third of the gameplay experience on the map).

First advantage of normal spellcasting is that you don't have to lug around dozens of trinkets and have them take up your CE slots.
Second, spellmaking is cheaper than enchanting and you won't enchant legendary artifact grade stuff by yourself without abusing loopholes.
Third, even the most powerful spell you can put on an exquisite amulet or ring, which are the most powerful trinkets that can be obtained with any certainty and in sizable quantites, would only take about half of magicka pool of high level, non-buffed, Atronach born mage of any race without magicka multiplier. Now, you can easily buff your mage with restoration spells (not discussing alchemy abuse here) to several hundred in int and wil/specific magic skills,
Fourth, recharging trinkets is more of a hassle than recharging yourself, even though they do recharge slowly over time.
Fifth, most spells won't benefit from extra rate of fire, as your typical deletrious effect doesn't stack with itself and takes at least 1s, the only exception is cumulative weakness to magicka which can be pretty powerful.

Natural spellcasting is pretty powerful and it is much more satisfying to defeat powerful enemies through carefully planned use of limited number of powerful, yet slow to cast spells, than just laying into them till they drop.

If I can unerringly pick any lock with a single pick regardless of my character skill, taking the same amount of time, which isn't even relevant, since lockpicking is performed in inventory freeze-frame, then yes, the skill is completely redundant, as it doesn't influence the gameplay.

It's only completely redundant if everybody can do it. Not everyone (and i suspect, not most people) can do it. Just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it's easy for everyone else.

Everyone can do this. You just spot the fastest drop of a tumbler and lock it on the next drop which will be slow.
Repeat up to 5 times.
???
Profit!

Even if it did require some super twitch skills, it'd still be a case of ignoring character build through superior twitchiness.

reloading and trying again was not particularly time consuming.

Neither particularly satisfying, nor significantly non-retarded way to play the game ever since it was introduced.

Yeah, but the key is only available at much higher level than you'd ever want to be thanks to scaling, so you're really doing something wrong if you have it.

If you like your Oblivion popamole, yeah, but the scaling never bothered me all that much once I got over the "scaled quest rewards" rage, and I'd much rather play at level 60 than at level 1 even if playing at level 1 is considerably easier.

Popamole or keep hitting (and dodging) goblin for 5' non-stop to make it drop, repeat for every goblin encountered - which is better and why?

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

This is not minigame, it's integrated with main mechanics and world representation, while typical minigame will use its own separate screen and usually be very highly abstracted and not exactly to the point.

Yeah, you need to look closely at the object you interact with. Many RPGs have a separate combat screen as well.

If those separate combat screens bear no relation to the location where the combat occurs, then yes, we have a minigame. Typically this happens in jpgs, which are not RPGs.

Come on! So the difference is whether the camera zooms to the object (while remaining within the current scene) or cuts to a separate detail?

But I have to agree with you about the amount of abstraction - combat wouldn't feel right if its representation was a game of Pong where the loser gets shot.
We all understand what is required in order to win a combat. After all, brute force is the most straightforward way to overcome problems.
Not so with other usual RPG activities. You will need to teach the player the basics of lockpicking in order to have it adequately playable. Basics of psychology will be needed for diplomacy.
Playing a thief simply because "it's cool, man!" won't be viable in such a game. Simple-minded players will be restricted to said barbarian. Sounds fair to me, but the potential audience is getting quite small.

 

[DraQ]

Come on! So the difference is whether the camera zooms to the object (while remaining within the current scene) or cuts to a separate detail?

No, the difference is when you run through some particular corridor, then the game cuts to a generic arena.

But I have to agree with you about the amount of abstraction - combat wouldn't feel right if its representation was a game of Pong where the loser gets shot.

Precisely. Same with dialogue wheel, or SS2s "connect three squares" hacking, except the last one was unintrusive and fast enough to avoid pulling you out of the game or pissing you off.

We all understand what is required in order to win a combat. After all, brute force is the most straightforward way to overcome problems.
Not so with other usual RPG activities. You will need to teach the player the basics of lockpicking in order to have it adequately playable. Basics of psychology will be needed for diplomacy.
Playing a thief simply because "it's cool, man!" won't be viable in such a game. Simple-minded players will be restricted to said barbarian. Sounds fair to me, but the potential audience is getting quite small.

I'd simply imagine combat parts as a combo of good slasher/shooter and tactics, stealth parts - Thief-like sneaker, etc. Only with each part failing horribly if you don't have the necessary skills.

 

[Mastermind]

First advantage of normal spellcasting is that you don't have to lug around dozens of trinkets and have them take up your CE slots.

I've never really used dozens. I still use normal spellcasting for some minor stuff, but from what I remember about half a dozen spells was all i really needed. one life stealing rocket launcher, one for levitation, one for opening doors, that 30 second paralysis amulet you get from a house telvanni quest, the 80% chameleon ring, and there's something else I'm forgetting.

Second, spellmaking is cheaper than enchanting and you won't enchant legendary artifact grade stuff by yourself without abusing loopholes.

I'll grant you this one, but there's so much money in morrowind that it barely matters. It's not like there's anything else to do with it, most of the good items are found, not bought, which means the overwhelming majority of your cash goes towards enchanting gear anyway.

Third, even the most powerful spell you can put on an exquisite amulet or ring, which are the most powerful trinkets that can be obtained with any certainty and in sizable quantites, would only take about half of magicka pool of high level, non-buffed, Atronach born mage of any race without magicka multiplier. Now, you can easily buff your mage with restoration spells (not discussing alchemy abuse here) to several hundred in int and wil/specific magic skills,

Without abusing alchemy you will never be able to cast a 50 area 100 life steal 100 magic weakness spell hundreds of times like you can if you use almalexia/vivec's soul. even a golden saint will give you 2-3 hundred casts. The enchant skill lowers the charge cost of using items so at level 100 the charge count becomes pretty much trivial. I even use low grade stuff to make powerful spells (like 100 open) that i don't use all that often and pretty much don't even have to worry about resources anymore. I don't see how a vanilla mage can possibly beat this.

Fourth, recharging trinkets is more of a hassle than recharging yourself, even though they do recharge slowly over time.
Fifth, most spells won't benefit from extra rate of fire, as your typical deletrious effect doesn't stack with itself and takes at least 1s, the only exception is cumulative weakness to magicka which can be pretty powerful.

I think it's the other way around(even though you barely even need to go out of your way to enchant items once your skill is at the upper levels), especially since I always use the atronach. With items you can just wait and they'll recharge on their own.

Natural spellcasting is pretty powerful and it is much more satisfying to defeat powerful enemies through carefully planned use of limited number of powerful, yet slow to cast spells, than just laying into them till they drop.

I don't disagree here (which is why I prefer Oblivion spellcasting despite the drastically reduced options in this area), but in terms of raw power vanilla spellcasting doesn't really hold a candle to enchanting. Even in oblivion using staffs for the damage is generally much more efficient than casting the spells yourself, though manual massive damage spells are still good if you want to ensure a quick kill.

Everyone can do this. You just spot the fastest drop of a tumbler and lock it on the next drop which will be slow.
Repeat up to 5 times.
???
Profit!

Not if you don't know about it (and I didn't until now).

Even if it did require some super twitch skills, it'd still be a case of ignoring character build through superior twitchiness.

Something you can do through scrolls when it comes to combat.

Neither particularly satisfying, nor significantly non-retarded way to play the game ever since it was introduced.

I never ES found security satisfying to begin with, so getting through it by abusing the save/reload feature suits me just fine. Anyway, if the trap kills you it's not really abuse since that's what the load button is there for.

Popamole or keep hitting (and dodging) goblin for 5' non-stop to make it drop, repeat for every goblin encountered - which is better and why?

I rarely bothered with melee at high levels. Melee in oblivion is like natural spellcasting: sure, you can do it, but why would you when there's a much faster way? When using spells it won't take you more than a few seconds to dispatch a lone goblin and even if there's a bunch of them it shouldn't take more than a minute to kill them all.

 

[DraQ]

First advantage of normal spellcasting is that you don't have to lug around dozens of trinkets and have them take up your CE slots.

I've never really used dozens. I still use normal spellcasting for some minor stuff, but from what I remember about half a dozen spells was all i really needed. one life stealing rocket launcher, one for levitation, one for opening doors, that 30 second paralysis amulet you get from a house telvanni quest, the 80% chameleon ring, and there's something else I'm forgetting.

And I do use dozens, besides, even if you use a single trinket, it still has to be equipped in place of something else.

80% Chameleon amulet is pretty OP, though.

I'll grant you this one, but there's so much money in morrowind that it barely matters. It's not like there's anything else to do with it, most of the good items are found, not bought, which means the overwhelming majority of your cash goes towards enchanting gear anyway.

Still, unless you metagame and go for the best stuff hidden away in the most obscure locations right off the boat (in such case you should consider doing something more productive than removing exploration from exploration based game - staring blankly at the ceiling and jacking off should suffice), the point when you can enchant yourself some WMDs is the point where you can steamroll stuff as a natural caster just as efficiently.

Without abusing alchemy you will never be able to cast a 50 area 100 life steal 100 magic weakness spell hundreds of times like you can if you use almalexia/vivec's soul.

And why would I need to, when several casts at most are perfectly sufficient? For have duty spellcasting you can always brew several mana pots, and between battles, you can rest, drink or absorb (if atronach).

I don't see how a vanilla mage can possibly beat this.

And I don't see how a normal sniper rifle could possibly beat a gatling based one. Yet, the market for gatling sniper rifles is suspiciously small. My point? Hundreds (with enchant within natural limits is usually no more than tens, but still) rapidly fired spells is complete overkill and doesn't give you any practical advantage except maybe hitting supersonic cliffracers. Which are scarce.

You'd make a better point arguing that you can do all that with just a single skill, then again, restoration specialist won't have much need for specific skills either.

I think it's the other way around(even though you barely even need to go out of your way to enchant items once your skill is at the upper levels), especially since I always use the atronach. With items you can just wait and they'll recharge on their own.

Well, the recharge rates are kind of slow, especially when the trinket in question is your main means of offense. With natural spellcasting, you just take quick nap (if you're not atronach-born), pop a potion for which you will always have the ingredients at the stage where superior fire power through greater enchantments is even an option, summon something to juice you up, or teleport there and back again to the nearest altar.

Natural spellcasting is pretty powerful and it is much more satisfying to defeat powerful enemies through carefully planned use of limited number of powerful, yet slow to cast spells, than just laying into them till they drop.

I don't disagree here (which is why I prefer Oblivion spellcasting despite the drastically reduced options in this area)

If you continue being insultingly stupid, sir, I'll have to ask you to leave.

How can treating a torrent of fireballs be like another sword be in any manner more satisfactory than magic actually resembling arcane arts?

Well, ok, you're the... entity, who thinks that Fallout sucks, and I should really have known better, but still.

Something you can do through scrolls when it comes to combat.

Scrolls are limited resource, lockpicks are not, unless they break, which they don't if you have mastered the art of twitching.

I never ES found security satisfying to begin with, so getting through it by abusing the save/reload feature suits me just fine.

So you got around the problem by making it even worse through generous application of tedium. What.

I rarely bothered with melee at high levels. Melee in oblivion is like natural spellcasting: sure, you can do it, but why would you when there's a much faster way?

Why would I do it either way, when there are so many better things to do than playing fucking oblivious?

 

[Mastermind]

And I do use dozens, besides, even if you use a single trinket, it still has to be equipped in place of something else.

80% Chameleon amulet is pretty OP, though.

The game isn't so backbreakingly hard that temporarily replacing a ring with another ring spells certain doom.

Still, unless you metagame and go for the best stuff hidden away in the most obscure locations right off the boat (in such case you should consider doing something more productive than removing exploration from exploration based game - staring blankly at the ceiling and jacking off should suffice), the point when you can enchant yourself some WMDs is the point where you can steamroll stuff as a natural caster just as efficiently.

You can never steamroll stuff as a natural caster just as efficiently, if only because I can cast my spell 5-10 times before you can do it once. And once I know where everything is, exploration is hardly exploration anymore.

And why would I need to, when several casts at most are perfectly sufficient? For have duty spellcasting you can always brew several mana pots, and between battles, you can rest, drink or absorb (if atronach).

Because an enchanter doesn't have to deal with all that tedium and he'll kill things faster due to his cast rate.

And I don't see how a normal sniper rifle could possibly beat a gatling based one. Yet, the market for gatling sniper rifles is suspiciously small. My point? Hundreds (with enchant within natural limits is usually no more than tens, but still) rapidly fired spells is complete overkill and doesn't give you any practical advantage except maybe hitting supersonic cliffracers. Which are scarce.

You get the practical advantage of killing enemies before they can lay a finger on you. Not to mention that unless there's friendly npcs around, you can literally deal with enemies without even breaking stride.

You'd make a better point arguing that you can do all that with just a single skill, then again, restoration specialist won't have much need for specific skills either.

That is another benefit, yes, but Morrowind combat is just filler that I'd rather get out of the way in the most brutally efficient way possible. Hence my love for enchant.

Well, the recharge rates are kind of slow, especially when the trinket in question is your main means of offense. With natural spellcasting, you just take quick nap (if you're not atronach-born), pop a potion for which you will always have the ingredients at the stage where superior fire power through greater enchantments is even an option, summon something to juice you up, or teleport there and back again to the nearest altar.

That sounds just as tedious as waiting. And you can always soul trap enemies in azura's star. soul trapping is just as trivial (if not more trivial) than making potions.

If you continue being insultingly stupid, sir, I'll have to ask you to leave.

You can BS all you want but magic was a lot better balanced in Oblivion. A natural spellcaster was a pretty desirable thing to be, unlike Morrowind where it was pretty much unnecessary tedium because it was outclassed by pretty much everything else.

How can treating a torrent of fireballs be like another sword be in any manner more satisfactory than magic actually resembling arcane arts?

Torrent of fireballs?

Morrowind had torrents of fireballs due to enchant. Oblivion has nothing that is as insanely broken as Morrowind enchanted items. And it's not "like another sword" anyway. Swords (and melee) is most effective when your weapon is enchanted for heavy damage and you swing it as fast as possible. Magic OTOH is most effective when you try to take out enemies with the most powerful effect possible. Torrent of blows vs one well aimed strike. The style's as different as it can get from this respect.

Something you can do through scrolls when it comes to combat.

Scrolls are limited resource, lockpicks are not, unless they break, which they don't if you have mastered the art of twitching.

So you got around the problem by making it even worse through generous application of tedium. What.

Generous application? Most traps were virtually harmless, and in the odd instance where it wasn't, i had a 50% (at worst) chance of absorbing the trap outright. Even when I had a decent security skill I would rarely bother with traps because it was simply faster to manually open the door.