KickStarter Dead State Pre-Release Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Jim the Dinosaur]

20-33, 10-25 urgggggggggggggggggggggggggggh

You know which game isn't going to be tactical: this one.

When did knowing the exact outcome of your actions become a synonym for tactics?

 

[Roguey]

20-33, 10-25 urgggggggggggggggggggggggggggh

You know which game isn't going to be tactical: this one.

When did knowing the exact outcome of your actions become a synonym for tactics?

Extreme randomization results in having your sound tactics fucked up more often through bad rolls. It also makes combat encounters more difficult to balance than necessary. Take the previous combat video for example; I believe Brian mentioned that they had to artificially inflate the health of the player characters because they kept getting one-shotted by shotgun criticals. Where are the tactics there? And what do we have here in one of those shots up above?

"Whoa! Anita's attack finds a weak spot in Female Corpse's armor, dealing 184 points of damage."

 

[Ninjerk]

picture

Lol, thanks for posting that. I read that one when I was a kid. I think you could die via riptide in that.

 

[Gozma]

The reason Sawyer hates randomization is because he designs for "match" (as in like a tennis match) save-and-reload games where failure just means the player will try the same scenario again. Heavy randomization works great in stuff like roguelikes (where it is a way to push you from plan A to plan B/retreat thinking and risk minimization) where there are stakes and gradations between pure win and pure loss. And Dead State (I typo'd Dad State... it was pretty cool, I should have left it) pretty much has to work like a roguelike/old X-Com if it is going to be interesting.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Extreme randomization results in having your sound tactics fucked up more often through bad rolls.

Sure, but that doesn't mean that the tactic becomes any less sound. Just that having sound tactics isn't a more or less guaranteed win.

Not that I necessarily disagree with you/Sawyer that small damage range trumps large damage range, but it doesn't necessarily lead to less tactical gameplay.

It also makes combat encounters more difficult to balance than necessary. Take the previous combat video for example; I believe Brian mentioned that they had to artificially inflate the health of the player characters because they kept getting one-shotted by shotgun criticals. Where are the tactics there?

This is a better point, but purely has to do with Brian's response. If you want more randomization, accept its consequences.

And what do we have here in one of those shots up above? "Whoa! Anita's attack finds a weak spot in Female Corpse's armor, dealing 184 points of damage."

Lulz, sounds like they made the same mistake as the Fallouts in tying armor bypassing to criticals.

 

[Roguey]

Sure, but that doesn't mean that the tactic becomes any less sound. Just that having sound tactics isn't a more or less guaranteed win.

This is not a good thing. Brian wants people to accept their losses instead of reloading because they're writing reactivity to companion deaths. That seems much less likely to happen if one unlucky crit can take any given person from full health to dead or if someone dies because of a series of low damage hits and misses.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Sure, but that doesn't mean that the tactic becomes any less sound. Just that having sound tactics isn't a more or less guaranteed win.

This is not a good thing. Brian wants people to accept their losses instead of reloading because they're writing reactivity to companion deaths. That seems much less likely to happen if one unlucky crit can take any given person from full health to dead than if someone dies because of a series of low damage hits and misses.

Don't think that's the case. Reloading the FO's every time you lose a buddy will make you insane. In IE games that's a lot more normal approach.

 

[tuluse]

I. Did. Not. Let. Ian. Die. Motherfucker.

 

[Ninjerk]

Fuck Ian's backshooting ass. Long live Dogmeat!

 

[Gozma]

Are there people that would reload after NPC X died in a probabilistic game but not reload in a determined one? I'm pretty sure someone that reloaded a thousand times to keep Ian alive would do it if combat were a game of checkers too.

 

[Infinitron]

Are there people that would reload after NPC X died in a probabilistic game but not reload in a determined one? I'm pretty sure someone that reloaded a thousand times to keep Ian alive would do it if combat were a game of Connect Four too.

Ah, but in a deterministic game, instead of trying again and again for a critical hit, those people would load a save from before the battle and go do something else. Or at least, try a completely different tactic.

 

[Gozma]

You caught me on an edit changing Connect Four to checkers...

I meant determined like chess is determined, as in you could win the same match you just played if you tried again, not like a ball rolling down a hill is determined to stop at the bottom of the hill

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Ah, but in a deterministic game, instead of trying again and again for a critical hit

who plays games like this

edit: weren't the FO's bugged as hell anyway if you saved during a fight?

 

[Gozma]

Like I feel in a game like X-Com I am MORE likely not to reload because of the probabilistic stuff, not less. I was wagering with my mans life, it would invalidate my experience to take the bets back and do-over. The game would lose integrity. Whereas in a deterministic game I can really reset things.

 

[Roguey]

Are there people that would reload after NPC X died in a probabilistic game but not reload in a determined one? I'm pretty sure someone that reloaded a thousand times to keep Ian alive would do it if combat were a game of checkers too.

It's my feeling that some people are more likely to accept bad consequences if it's a result of their own poor actions since the solution to that is to play better. If the RNG can kill anyone at anytime, then it makes less sense to accept casualties since you could wind up losing everyone and not seeing any of those numerous endings this thing claims it has.

 

[Gozma]

Probabilistic /= randofucks

Sorry to go back to roguelikes again but look at something like DC:SS, highly probabilistic yet skill differentiation (and thus context for "good" and "poor" actions) is extreme. You have guys that lose thousands of games without winning and guys that can streak 20 games in a row.

I dunno, maybe there really is an incorrigible segment of players that will reload if some probabilistic element was involved in a casualty, but I have no idea how the Venn diagram of that with people that will just always reload over anything overlaps.

 

[likaq]

We've got great news for those of you who won't be able to make it to PAX: Dead State was handpicked to be shown live as part of TwitchTV's Indie MEGABOOTH special!

Brian or Annie will be doing the talking, and I'll be driving the controls - so all of you will get to experience the demo as if you were right there with us at PAX! ...Of course, if you *are* at PAX, I will not forgive you if you don't come see us and try out the demo in person

TwitchTV's complete PAX schedule can be found here:
http://blog.twitch.tv/2013/08/everything-you-need-to-know-about-twitch-at-pax-prime/


I hope you'll tune in at 2:20 p.m. PST on Monday, Sept. 2nd and get an up-close-and-personal look at Dead State's demo!

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,3405.0.html

 

[taxalot]

This is going to be the first extended look we ever had at this game, right ? Dead State is the one Kickstarter I keep forgetting I backed up.

 

[likaq]

Yes. ~40 minutes of gameplay and talk.

 

[Roguey]

Today's the day.

Prediction: It makes Wasteland 2 look like a masterpiece.

Edit: It has Mike Laidlaw approval. But he likes everything.

It looks like only one person's bothered to take a picture.

Brian's gotten faaaaaaaaaaaaaat. He better watch it before Annie leaves him for someone less complacent.

 

[Haba]

Isn't Annie the one in the front of the camera...?

 

[Roguey]

Isn't Annie the one in the front of the camera...?

She's mostly covered up by the fat woman, yes.

 

[Haba]

Thanks for ruining the joke :/

 

[Trash]

Prediction: It makes Wasteland 2 look like a masterpiece.

Even the short and incredibly work-in-progress demo they already showed looked much better than the current Wasteland 2 footage.

 

[villain of the story]

If the RNG can kill anyone at anytime, then it makes less sense to accept casualties since you could wind up losing everyone and not seeing any of those numerous endings this thing claims it has.

If the RNG can kill anyone at anytime, then you shape your tactics around avoiding it instead of going into fights head-on in a survivalistic game. Sort of like ArmA; I doubt anyone who is into the series where you can die to a single bullet to the head practice savescumming on a regular basis. Unlike action heavy arcady games like COD series, surviving makes the whole experience. People adapt to different types of games.