VD, design philosophy for single character tactical combat?

[Mastermind]

Against multiple opponents? Do tell.

I beat the demo with pretty much just leg shots + kiting (assuming the enemy actually posed a challenge).

 

[Vault Dweller]

It DID have an effect, but a rather minor one. Floaters or Centaurs were very weak against flame damage but almost immune to other damage types.

Almost immune would be an exaggeration.

Centaur:

|dt normal =4
|dt laser =4
|dt fire =4
|dt plasma =4
|dt elec =1
|dt expl =4
|dt emp =0
|dr normal =35
|dr laser =20
|dr fire =15
|dr plasma =25
|dr elec =10
|dr expl =30
|dr emp =500

DT is almost the same. DR differs, but the difference between fire and laser is only 5%.

As for a game feeling a bit odd when travelling with an entourage (yeah I'm late to the party) in story heavy games - I disagree. Imo it was done very well in Torment. Maybe I just misinterpreted the term entourage though.

What I said was:

"The game is focused more on dealing with factions, establishing your own place in the world, and influencing events. A single character is better suited for this purpose. Serving someone and going around with your own entourage would have been silly."

It's not about traveling with people, but joining factions and looking after your own interests. In Torment joining factions was a very minor element that didn't affect the game much. In AoD it plays a larger role.

 

[Surf Solar]

It DID have an effect, but a rather minor one. Floaters or Centaurs were very weak against flame damage but almost immune to other damage types.

Almost immune would be an exaggeration.

Got me there. Remembered my earlier FO2 playthroughs where I often times hit them for ridicolous low damage. As said, they went to the right direction, but didn't push it far enough.
Though you should've picked the nasty floaters (which are as common as the normal ones), they have higher resistences:

As for a game feeling a bit odd when travelling with an entourage (yeah I'm late to the party) in story heavy games - I disagree. Imo it was done very well in Torment. Maybe I just misinterpreted the term entourage though.

What I said was:

"The game is focused more on dealing with factions, establishing your own place in the world, and influencing events. A single character is better suited for this purpose. Serving someone and going around with your own entourage would have been silly."

It's not about traveling with people, but joining factions and looking after your own interests. In Torment joining factions was a very minor element that didn't affect the game much. In AoD it plays a larger role.[/quote]

Jup, but imo companions can still add something, even if the games focus is on the PC, not a whole party. Companion XY only being available if you're in deep trouble with Faction ABC and so on. More like temporarily companions, but I've seen such a thing in the AoD videos already and appreciate - plus I've no idea what my actual point was now. :D

 

[MicoSelva]

Why? Do most RPGs feature damage types (other than physical/elemental)?.

Good ones do. :D

Do they?

Yes, they do.

Fallout has six damage types (if I recall)...

...which had no effect whatsoever. You were never given a reason to switch to a different weapon because the one you had wasn't very effective against your target (because of the damage type).

"No effect" is an exaggeration. Various damage types and resistances were not game-changing (except for robots and EMP damage), but they had an in-game effect. Could it be more significant? Of course it could, but that's outside the point of what we're talking about. Damage types are not "pointless" - they are "underused". Which means Fallout's approach should rather be improved upon, not removed altogether.

PST (and every other D&D-based game) has three for physical attacks alone (piercing / slashing / bashing), not to mention various elemental types.

Same applies. When did you have to choose between a slashing weapon or a piercing weapon? You can as easily play the entire game with a hammer as you can with an axe or a dagger/sword/ravel's fingernail.

Of course You could (except the sword part). Again, that's not the point. Take BG2 for example. Some armors got bonus/penalty against some types of weapons - not game changing, but still made me pick splint mails over chain mails every time. Selected items granted additional protection from certain damage types (Girdle of Piercing was far from useless, for example). Skeletons were all but immune (90% resistance) to piercing damage meaning You could shoot them with arrows half a day but switching to a hammer made short work of them. Some golems were resistant or even completely immune to some types of weapons, forcing You to seek suitable gear, which in many cases was less than optimal for Your characters.
All in all, not too much but still increasing the level of complexity and giving some (limited, admittedly) tactical options. I would really like to see a well-done system including this mechanic. Maybe someday.

Also most ARPGS and H&S games, which have Diablo-derived types of damage - usually at least four or five.

And in how many of them do you really have to think of what opponent you're facing and prepare the right weapon? I think D2 is the only action game that did it right (on higher difficulty levels). In most the fast nature of these games makes damage types nothing but flavor.

If You wanted me to admit that Diablo 2 is a game with a much higher complexity of combat mechanics than most other cRPGs then yeah, I admit it. Sadly.

As for breakable gear, I won't miss it much, but introducing breakable weapons would allow You to diversify various gear a lot more than it is possible now. For example, most armors would probably have weaker damage protection against piercing weapons, but piercing weapons would be the most fragile ones - easiest to break. Or maybe piercing weapons would get more chance to score a critical hit (or a hit halving enemy's damage resistance).

At the same time frequently losing your gear isn't fun.

Of course it's not. Us RPG players like to collect stuff and losing it is kind of contrary to that. :D
I see no problem with repairing the damaged stuff, though. Either by PC themselves or by some NPC craftsmen. This way breakable gear would actually contribute to hoarding, as You could repair Your acid-splashed masterwork uber armor, not decide between buying anew one or loading the game.

To be honest, I like the concept of different damage types and I regret not having them the most. However, I can't think of a game that did them right and in the absence of a template to follow, I didn't want to overcomplicate things. Maybe in our next game.

Well, that's exactly what I wanted to hear read from You. So, when is that game coming out?

It would also increase viablity of certain buils. For example, a brute force warrior with a large hammer would able to break opponent's weapons and shields if they try to block his attacks. It would be wiser to dodge his attacks, even if a block would have higher chance of succeeding than a dodge = new tactical options.

Not as simple and fun as it sounds. First, it means that we should give you an automatic pause during your opponent's turn to decide if you're blocking or dodging.

What is wrong in giving the player ability to react during enemy's turn? I do that all the time in P&P Warhammer (if only to decide if a character is going to dodge or block). I don't think it would be very hard to code too.

Second, it means that we should give you a lot more skill points to make this choice viable (if most of your points are in Block, then giving you a choice between Blocking and Dodging isn't a choice at all)

As for viability of dodging if You have all the points in Block skill, we are treading on another topic here - the character system itself. AoD encourages focusing on one defensive skill - either block or dodge. I've tried a build that used both skills a little, and it sucked, while my "dodger" who dumped literally 2/3 of his skill points into Dodge had some viability. Not the design I would personally go for, but if the game works this way I'll just roll with it. Don't want to start another discussion here.

in which case you can simply put all these extra points in Dodge becoming untouchable. Huge balance issue.

Not really. Diminishing returns would take care of that, I think.

It's easy to come up with a seemingly good idea, expecting the player to pick both skills to alternative, but then they don't, which breaks the system.

It all comes down to the combat system mechanics. Just make dumping all points into Dodge bad approach for the player. Apart from diminishing returns (for which I have mixed feelings), there are many other ways to ensure that. P&P Warhammer, for example allows You to dodge only one attack per turn. No matter how good You are at it, it will only save You once, so being outnubered sucks. This is a bit extreme, true, so how about a penalty to every subsequent dodge in the same turn? Should work.
Besides, there are a lot of situations that (greatly) reduce dodge chances. Fighting in a crowd, partial impairment of agility (like a net thrown), being shot with a bow or crossbow - better get a shield.

Third, we already have it to some degree with axes and shield splitting.

It's a start, true. That gives me some hopes for the future.

 

[Vault Dweller]

"No effect" is an exaggeration.

It's not. If I don't have a reason to change weapons/ammo, then different damage types have no effect on gameplay. At least that's how I see it.

Various damage types and resistances were not game-changing (except for robots and EMP damage), but they had an in-game effect. Could it be more significant? Of course it could, but that's outside the point of what we're talking about. Damage types are not "pointless" - they are "underused". Which means Fallout's approach should rather be improved upon, not removed altogether.

The problem is that making it work is tricky. By making it work I mean achieving that perfect balance where it becomes a praised feature, instead of an annoying one, which merely forces you to carry different weapons and change them every 5 min.

Since combat isn't the main course, I didn't want to pile up more problems to solve on our plate.

Of course You could (except the sword part). Again, that's not the point. Take BG2 for example. Some armors got bonus/penalty against some types of weapons - not game changing, but still made me pick splint mails over chain mails every time. Selected items granted additional protection from certain damage types (Girdle of Piercing was far from useless, for example). Skeletons were all but immune (90% resistance) to piercing damage meaning You could shoot them with arrows half a day but switching to a hammer made short work of them. Some golems were resistant or even completely immune to some types of weapons, forcing You to seek suitable gear, which in many cases was less than optimal for Your characters.

Which wasn't a big deal. I remember running into those golems in that girl's keep. I had no blunt weapons, but I found the flail of ages (which was probably there to help you with the golems), switched to it, and even though I had no proficiencies, I managed just fine, which didn't make me think highly of the feature.

All in all, not too much but still increasing the level of complexity and giving some (limited, admittedly) tactical options. I would really like to see a well-done system including this mechanic. Maybe someday.

I would too, so why don't you put some design together?

I see no problem with repairing the damaged stuff, though. Either by PC themselves or by some NPC craftsmen. This way breakable gear would actually contribute to hoarding, as You could repair Your acid-splashed masterwork uber armor, not decide between buying anew one or loading the game.

And that's the right direction, I think. Roguelikes do it well. Scrolls can get wet and damaged, acid can destroy your metal items, etc. This way it's tied to certain and avoidable challenges, not number of attacks.

 

[MicoSelva]

"No effect" is an exaggeration.

It's not. If I don't have a reason to change weapons/ammo, then different damage types have no effect on gameplay. At least that's how I see it.

Ok. Since I see it a bit differently, so we probably won't reach a consensus.

The problem is that making it work is tricky. By making it work I mean achieving that perfect balance where it becomes a praised feature, instead of an annoying one, which merely forces you to carry different weapons and change them every 5 min.

Since combat isn't the main course, I didn't want to pile up more problems to solve on our plate.

I think that, from the examples I know, BG2 did it best (but still not well enough) from a gameplay perpective. You could use Your favourite weapon(s) most of the time. It would work great in some moments and a bit worse in others - that's life. But You also had to keep a backup in case of some special encounters that could prove unwinnable without it. Now if only there were more than three such encounters in the game and were not all resolved by the same backup weapon...

[BG2] Some golems were resistant or even completely immune to some types of weapons, forcing You to seek suitable gear, which in many cases was less than optimal for Your characters.

Which wasn't a big deal. I remember running into those golems in that girl's keep. I had no blunt weapons, but I found the flail of ages (which was probably there to help you with the golems), switched to it, and even though I had no proficiencies, I managed just fine, which didn't make me think highly of the feature.

Well, that was the game's way of teaching the palyer about the damage resistance/immunity. Since that moment You probably always had a strong blunt weapon handy in case You met more golems, which was the point, I guess.

All in all, not too much but still increasing the level of complexity and giving some (limited, admittedly) tactical options. I would really like to see a well-done system including this mechanic. Maybe someday.

I would too, so why don't you put some design together?

My time as an amateur game designer is long gone and has not produced anything worth seeing, so I'll pass and place my hopes in ITS instead. :D

I see no problem with repairing the damaged stuff, though. Either by PC themselves or by some NPC craftsmen. This way breakable gear would actually contribute to hoarding, as You could repair Your acid-splashed masterwork uber armor, not decide between buying a new one or loading the game.

And that's the right direction, I think. Roguelikes do it well. Scrolls can get wet and damaged, acid can destroy your metal items, etc. This way it's tied to certain and avoidable challenges, not number of attacks.

I agree with "binary" destructibility of scrolls and other small and less durable items, but complex things like weapons and armor should have some kind of durability stat that will make them have at least three states (fully usable / partially usable / unusable).

 

[Vault Dweller]

I agree with "binary" destructibility of scrolls and other small and less durable items, but complex things like weapons and armor should have some kind of durability stat that will make them have at least three states (fully usable / partially usable / unusable).

And how do you sell it to the player? What makes this armor unusable? Even your chain mail armor has a few holes, won't you be better off putting it on? Unless you mean that an item simply falls apart after a number of hits and needs to be reforged.

Overall, it's fairly easy to add hit points to items, but then what? What happens when you start losing HP? Does the item's stats deteriorate or not? If yes, at what point (and speed) the item becomes useless? Then what? Would it force the player to use items of lower quality (I carried a bunch of shitty weapons in Arcanum's mines to use on golems)? If yes, it's counter-productive as the system would encourage the player to use his best weapons less, instead of enjoying using them.

If the speed of deterioration is too fast, it will annoy people. It the speed is too slow, the feature will be easy to ignore. What's the right speed then? How do you repair items? If you merely need to open another window and click a few times, the system is pointless. I guess you should need parts. Specific skills? Parts? If the parts are easy to come by (i.e. the Fallout 3 repair system) the system is kinda pointless.

So, like I said, getting it done is easy, getting it done right is the tricky part which might easily take a few months.

 

[Johannes]

In the combat demo I didn't find there to be too much to do in the combat itself. It did matter a bit who you attacked first, and whether you used the best (combination of) attacks or something worse, but this was fairly easy to figure out what to do, then it was in the hands of your build&equipment, and RNG and these seemed to matter much more than difference between attacking hammer guy or ax buy first. Just too formulaic, and the same fight usually always went more or less the same way, there wasn't any ingenious stuff to pull off when you get unlucky or just are outgunned - if it's a tough fight and I get an unlucky hit in, all I can do really is hope for a lucky streak of my own to catch up, it's too 1-dimensional. You're not responding to your opponents moves much at all.

If the combat demo was a multiplayer game, I don't see a lot of room to outplay an opponent who's familiar with the rules and not an idiot, winning that would come down to luck.

 

[Esquilax]

Sure, if AoD was purely a combat RPG, it would be decent but quite lacking based on the Combat Demo. There were a few things I disliked in that building a combat character boiled down to picking a weapon skill and picking a defensive skill, which wasn't that interesting.

However, to the Demo's credit, all of the weapons handle differently and have varying special affects. Bows can actually fuck people up for a change, unlike most RPG's. The Aimed attacks system was done pretty well and it isn't a clear-cut choice all the time. A very physically strong character can get a lot more out of fast attacks than a fast character with only average strength, for instance.

Likewise, an Aimed Attack on the arms is good against a heavy hitter who moves slowly - if he can only get in one fast attack in a turn, as opposed to say, a power attack and a fast attack, you're far more likely to survive. This tactic is useful against guys like the Ordu Swordsman or the Captain.

Head attacks are risky, but they have major payoff against guys like the Triarii leader. Nets are awesome for a Dex-fighter, but you can't use weapons like Scimitars if you want to have a net on hand, so there's some trade-off going on too.

Sure, it's not Jagged Alliance 2, but it's great for a game where combat isn't even the main attraction. At the very least, I think it's better than Fallout. Also, there are a ton of new features like acid, bombs, special attacks, etc that are going to be included in hte rest of the game. I'm also pretty psyched about how they're handling weapon synergies.

 

[Vault Dweller]

In the combat demo I didn't find there to be too much to do in the combat itself. It did matter a bit who you attacked first, and whether you used the best (combination of) attacks or something worse, but this was fairly easy to figure out what to do, then it was in the hands of your build&equipment, and RNG and these seemed to matter much more than difference between attacking hammer guy or ax buy first. Just too formulaic, and the same fight usually always went more or less the same way, there wasn't any ingenious stuff to pull off when you get unlucky or just are outgunned - if it's a tough fight and I get an unlucky hit in, all I can do really is hope for a lucky streak of my own to catch up, it's too 1-dimensional. You're not responding to your opponents moves much at all.

If the combat demo was a multiplayer game, I don't see a lot of room to outplay an opponent who's familiar with the rules and not an idiot, winning that would come down to luck.

Again:

"I think you might be surprised at the variety of tactics available. During testing, I lagged behind many of the other testers. Sometimes I'd try, say, one of Galsiah's builds and still fail badly. If the build was the same and he could win the whole arena and I repeatedly failed halfway through, that means the choices during combat were the difference.

It took me a while to get my head in the right place. Positioning can be important, sometimes a different weapon is better (faster, rather than more outright damage, for example) and so on. It's more subtle than most games and that took some adjusting for me." - Dhruin

"It amazes me that simply switching from one sword to another has a huge effect on how combat plays out. I honestly don't think I've ever even seen another system like this that pays such close attention to the distinct differences that weapon types have from one another and represents it with something other than a damage range...."

Considering that we have a large variety of attacks (more than most games, I'd say), each with its own advantages and disadvantages, saying that there isn't much to do in combat is at least incorrect.

Sure, if AoD was purely a combat RPG, it would be decent but quite lacking based on the Combat Demo. There were a few things I disliked in that building a combat character boiled down to picking a weapon skill and picking a defensive skill, which wasn't that interesting.

And what would you have preferred? Feats? Something else?

 

[Malakal]

I think that skills (what your character has learned), feats (special abilities that make him different from other mortals) and stats (defining abilities) should be enough.

But what this combat needs is more options. Like charging or more special attacks for special weapons.

 

[Johannes]

Yes you can play badly. But still the system is pretty easy to master, positioning might get more interesting on another battlefield, but on the open arena it was pretty simple to me, just count a bit and maximize the distance enemies have to walk to surround you with my swordsman.

And there's mostly just 3 truly different attacks if I remember right - different disabling attacks on arms and legs, the rest are more or less the same - they just deal damage straight up, just the expected dmg/ap value and variance change (pick the attack with just best EV usually, or if you're winning/losing pick low/high variance attacks if they don't have much worse EV than the best you have, not too much more to it iirc).

Playing a diverse character who has using nets, missiles, and different melee weapons all as possible choices during a single battle should be more intellectually challenging, but in my experience the character system encouraged putting your points into just 1 combat style a lot.

Then again good RPG combat is really rare, anywhere. Single PC combat can be done well though, see many roguelikes for example - though without the resource management aspect and excitement brought by permadeath they'd be quite straightforward too.

 

[Fryjar]

I don't think adding many additional attacks would be wise at this point, the amount of additional balancing, npc ai modifications to account and exploit tactics and needed animations etc. would delay the game even further.


That being said ideally I'd like to see a couple of additional options/mechanics as well:
a) A charge attack, which should also have a downside compared to a normal approach like lower defense (which provides with b) and a normal approach three clean options to initialize combat)
b) Unused action points should be added to dodge and block (with a cap)
c) A feint attack that lowers enemy defense for the next attack if successful

I think this would go a long way in providing options to tackle a battle in a defensive or offensive way. Optimally, you would then have three ways to tackle a battle as opposed to one right now:
i) Spam highest dmg attack combination per round as often as possible
ii) A defensive way to tackle a battle by sacrificing some attacks and relying on high defensive skills (not in currently)
iii) Providing with feint a way to break through high defense opponents and relying on fewer high dmg attacks that are more likely to hit. While one might argue that this doesn't expand the options compared to i), the main thing here is that this would provide a good way to reduce the amount of luck involved in battles against opponents that block the majority of your attacks and make combat a bit more predictable.

 

[Esquilax]

And what would you have preferred? Feats? Something else?

Well, the synergy system has gone a long way to adding the stuff I had in mind. I thought it was always a little dull that you were pretty much married to a particular weapon in the combat demo. I'm aware that you still get points in other weapons skills the more you invest in one, but there was never any reason for me to switch weapons. This allows for a bit more versatility if you invest points in it.

If I'm a dagger-wielding fighter and I invest some points in Throwing, I can now net dudes, I can whip throwing knives at guys to soften them up before I go in for the kill. Also, because the axe and the hammer are so closely tied in terms of skill points, I now have a pretty good reason to switch to a hammer if I run into any assassins using Dodge skill. Since Axe isn't so useful against Dodgers, I have a bit of versatility in that now I can pull out a nice hammer to take these guys out.

Alternatively, I'd think that perks at various skill plateaus would be kinda cool too. So let's say you've just hit 50, 75 or 100 Dagger Skill. At those levels, you can take a perk to make your abilities better (ie better armor penetration per hit, higher rates of skill increase for your most closely related synergy weapon, higher probability of criticals), for instance. That way, you can have a bit more variety for builds, because one person might choose to make a very specialized Dagger-fighter who is amazing at landing criticals, or a more versatile fighter with great Throwing skill.

It would also give more incentive to a player to push his weapon skill up to 100. Because you've set it up in a way where you've got diminishing returns (which I like), I may not find it worth the cost to invest in my weapon skill past 85-90. At that point I'll think, "do I really need those ten extra skill points? I'm already great with my weapon, investing ten more points is way too much costs for the meager benefit it provides. I think I'll just invest it somewhere else." There's a much more interesting trade-off this way, IMO.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I don't think adding many additional attacks would be wise at this point...

We are not considering adding any, unless the overwhelming majority will simply insist on more attacks when the full demo is released.

I think this would go a long way in providing options to tackle a battle in a defensive or offensive way. Optimally, you would then have three ways to tackle a battle as opposed to one right now:
i) Spam highest dmg attack combination per round as often as possible

I don't see how the suggestion will fix it this alleged problem. If spamming highest damage attacks is all you need to do to win, why would you need charging or feinting?

ii) A defensive way to tackle a battle by sacrificing some attacks and relying on high defensive skills (not in currently)

Doing what exactly? We already have counter attacks. Let's say we add defensive actions, so when you get your turn, you select a defence option that increases your chance to dodge/block and counter-attack. Why do you feel that choosing to do nothing, basically, is more exciting than choosing an appropriate attack?

iii) Providing with feint a way to break through high defense opponents and relying on fewer high dmg attacks that are more likely to hit.

You mean like fast attacks that we already have?

While one might argue that this doesn't expand the options compared to i), the main thing here is that this would provide a good way to reduce the amount of luck involved in battles against opponents that block the majority of your attacks and make combat a bit more predictable.

I don’t think that luck matters that much. When we were beta testing the demo, we added save/load last, which means that many people repeatedly beat the demo ironman style. It takes skills and shows that even though luck is always a factor, a good grasp of the system beats luck most of the time.