FeelTheRads
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2008
- Messages
- 13,716
Ah, cooldowns, best running incentives that there are! Great innovation, helped keep many a character in tip-top shape!
What combat system would you find acceptable though? There seems to be a lot of shitting on different games but no one is pointing out a system that they actually think is good.
I understand Dark Souls has its fair share of flaws but I think it managed to do what so many '' modern rpgs '' fail at repeatedly , its a combat system that more or less successfully marries real time action with some classic RPG elements.
As for TW2 criticism , i completely agree. Combat in this game is absolute trash, especially on Dark difficulty. Maybe this was a bug when EE first released but i remember Letho was 1 shotting me in act 1 even though I had the best gear possible, I beat him by running around him for 30 minutes waiting for igni to come of cooldown.
Some basic indicators would have helped a lot. Like when you miss a somewhat transparent MISS text could appear on the enemy, slowly fade up, and after about 1.2 seconds fade away. Readjusting the Hit-to-Miss ratio could help too. For example; an auto 1/10 chance to hit would've made combat a lot better.I think Morrowind, NWN and combat systems like this have more potential than a straight real-time action combat system. But Morrowind shows that a lot of people don't like abstractive combat. "I'm swinging and it looks like my sword is hitting the enemy but they aren't taking damage! This sucks!" But really it was just a heavily abstracted combat system that wasn't all that different from Baldur's Gate or any RPG that is dice and stat-based, i.e. pen-and-paper style mechanics. The "problem" was that the first-person view combined with the pnp mechanics confused people.
What combat system would you find acceptable though? There seems to be a lot of shitting on different games but no one is pointing out a system that they actually think is good.
I think chance can be good so long as it's positive. Maybe it can help you when you're in trouble, but will never sink you when you should win. Would be interesting though to see some deterministic turn based combat in CRPGs.The problem with RPG combat has never been about "realism" or the like, it has always been a gameplay issue. And in this regard the gameplay issue can largely be gauged by the prevalence of this fucking thing in the underlying mechanics:
Bottomline is that random chance that is not properly limited is detrimental to any type of gameplay. Any fighting game would be ruined by a Morrowind style random chance to hit. Chess would be shit with a random chance to capture. The dice are the mortal enemy of skill, tactics and strategy.
Well, there are degrees, but overall random chance must be mitigated so it can never interfere with skill, tactics, and strategy. Positive chance would be something like randomized events and encounters that present the player with a self-contained situation to solve. Negative chance is something where doing something is a question of chance, ie ultimately I would say skill checks checking a value rather than value+random number is a better way of doing things.I think chance can be good so long as it's positive. Maybe it can help you when you're in trouble, but will never sink you when you should win. Would be interesting though to see some deterministic turn based combat in CRPGs.The problem with RPG combat has never been about "realism" or the like, it has always been a gameplay issue. And in this regard the gameplay issue can largely be gauged by the prevalence of this fucking thing in the underlying mechanics:
Bottomline is that random chance that is not properly limited is detrimental to any type of gameplay. Any fighting game would be ruined by a Morrowind style random chance to hit. Chess would be shit with a random chance to capture. The dice are the mortal enemy of skill, tactics and strategy.
Telepath Tactics is an SRPG that is mostly deterministic, and is pretty good.
Some basic indicators would have helped a lot. Like when you miss a somewhat transparent MISS text could appear on the enemy, slowly fade up, and after about 1.2 seconds fade away. Readjusting the Hit-to-Miss ratio could help too. For example; an auto 1/10 chance to hit would've made combat a lot better.
It also takes more work to make the systems deep AND fun AND bug free. More work is more money. You yourself should understand this. You mentioned in hte DF thread about how it avoided graphical development to focus on its world simulation. Everything takes time to make. Most games struggle mightily to meet their design goals and usually fall far short on release.I think the real underlying issue with all these terribad action combat systems is that the publishers/developers are so damn afraid of making anything that requires practice to get good at, or has some complexity that might scare off people. Anything with more than 2-3 actions to learn.
It is conceptually very easy to create an interesting action combat system. You just have to look at realistic medieval styles and simplify them for games. The core principle would be countering. You would watch the opponent and respond to his actions with counters. He goes high guard, you go low guard, he thrusts, you parry to the side, he slashes, you parry vertically, etc. The opponent would counter what you are doing offensively. The difficulty of the opponent would determine the complexity of his attacks and the quality of his counters. This alone would already create an excellent system with maybe just 8-10 different attacks/counters. If you want to get fancy, you could also introduce chaining, where certain attacks/counters flow into others quicker/easier.
But almost no one wants to do this because they are so afraid of losing players due to learning being involved. So everything is dumbed down until there is no fail state.
Neal Stephenson tried this with Clang and failed pretty hard.tldr: Writers research their topic before writing about it, otherwise they look pretty stupid. Game designers need to research the stuff they design as well.
But then the level designers would have had to think about combat, and the combat designers would have had to think about level design, and in a project that large it's just too many cooks in the kitchen! You've got to keep your developers separated into groups, each with their own lead, or how will you manage everyone's 401k's and stuff?it's been said a million times how Dark Messiah's combat could have salvaged Skyrim.
A short tutorial that basically tells a new player that a low skill score in weapons or magic could mean a lot of misses in combat, so build accordingly.
I think in general RPGs that use complex stat systems would have survived and been more common today if they were explained better in-game. Not just a huge text wall, but maybe some interactive or even fun way of explaining the stat system concepts to the player would really help.
RTFM is all ppl need. Failing that, experiment. RPGs that use complex stat systems are not common today because the devs themselves are dumb, the players dumber.
I'd like to think ppl don't need a tutorial to tell them that sort of thing.
Dai-Katana
Dai-Katana
I get the sarcasm, but this is important. Level design and Combat are an integrated problem. Even in Dark Messia, probably due to lack of resources the only way they could exploit the kick+spikes combo. I wonder given a full reign to the developers how that game would look .But then the level designers would have had to think about combat, and the combat designers would have had to think about level design, and in a project that large it's just too many cooks in the kitchen! You've got to keep your developers separated into groups, each with their own lead, or how will you manage everyone's 401k's and stuff?
The average age of RPG players is getting older, so people have less time to read a manual
Manuals are read on the crapper. No time to take a dump these days?
Unless you have bowel trouble, I don't think reading an actual manual (opposed to a 5-page booklet) is a quick enough process to be done on the toilet. I say this as someone who reads quicker than most.
Neal Stephenson tried this with Clang and failed pretty hard.
I don't even remember I posted that.Dai-Katana
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but it might derail the thread quoting it, so here's a /salute for valiant effort.
In the off chance it's irony, to my recollection, both ways of typing it are considered appropriate. Daikatana / Dai-Katana.
edit: never held one.. have a katana though, proper one too. Light as a fucking feather.
Manuals are read on the crapper.
RTFM is all ppl need. Failing that, experiment.