Bloodlines Site Updated

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Translation: Gunshot randomization, "swimmy" sniper scopes, and so on at low skill levels, rock-steady accuracy and mild amounts of auto-aim at high skill levels.

Its a way as good as any other. Fallout gave you low hit percentages to hit when your Weapon skills were lower, and higher percentages when they were higher. DX did this in a graphical way coupled with damage amount. Sure, gunshot randomization when you were suffering it yourself blows, but you see an increase of weapon steadiness and overall effectiveness, regardless. Though i honestly don't remember my avatar in DX using auto-aim (though enemies did which was enfuriating )

 

[Shevek]

Deus Ex did not require a super amount of player dexterity. Typically, players went up against few enemies at any given time (unless you insisted on going buck wild) in comparison to more twitch based FPS games (since it was more of a stealth shooter in this respect). Perhaps a "lock on" feature akin to the Genesis' Shadowrun would have been nice but Im not a FPS expert (its the last FPS I have played and I had extensively played relatively few previous) and I managed to do just fine in Deus Ex. Additionally, the variable point buy system in Deus Ex and the overall phenomenal skill balance made it damn near impossible to gimp your character. You could max grenades, melee and hacking (one of my fave builds), have very few twitch abilities in real life, and do just fine. Even if you have horrible twitch skills and chose a ranged weapon skill to advance, there was an excellent range of weapons/ammo choices to accomadate numerous play styles. If you maxxed rifles and cant hit the broad side of a barn typically with the assault rifle, you can use one of the shotguns, for example. Hell, it didnt take phenomenal twitch skills to snipe someone in Deus Ex either. With enough rifle skill (or a properly modded weapon), it was just a matter of getting them in your crosshairs and clicking fire. Moreover, if you had m4d twitch skills, you COULD do well even if you didnt have super high skill in a weapon (though it took a bit more patience and proper use of weapon mods). While I concur that the marraige of FPS and RPG is not for everyone (hey, purists dont often brook hybridization of their perspective genres) and that the marraige of these two genres could lead to issues if the design was not top notch, the System Shocks and Deus Ex are excellent games and attacking the viability of FPS/RPG's seems odd to me in the light of the quality of titles in this hybridized 'genre'.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I agree with the overall above statement. Also my usual build in DX was Lockpicks, Electronics and Computers. I would just take my Stealth Pistol, use weapon modifications on it and never kill anyone except the required three people (Anna, Gunther and Strong).

 

[DrattedTin]

I believe they said Celerity slows everything else down in singleplayer, and in multiplayer it just makes you really fast.

 

[Chadeo]

Hey SP (and anyone else who agrees with that logic) don’t you need a fair amount of strategic skill in a typical “classic” turn based rpg? I am getting my butt kicked all over the place in ToEE and my wife flat out refuses to play it because she can’t get past the moat house. Granted turn-based does not –have- to rely on strong strategic skills, I would claim that fallout is a nice example, but there is still a level of skill that is required.

Now it might be fair to say that for the typical fps interface the level of reflex skill needed is far greater than the level of strategic skill needed for a turn-based game, but I still think the trade off exists. I also could understand how a fps game could have strategic elements involved, but they tend to be very minor when compared to a turn based game.

When one talks about a “role playing game” that has the “role” placed back in it, I think about the quality of the dialog and the ability for the world to react to the choices I made as a player. The actual combat system, and its reliance, or lack there of, on player vrs character abilities is not one of my central concerns. A Diablo with the world of Arcanum would be one cool game in my mind. All of the currently attempted FPS/RPG games fail not because they are FPS but because they lack in some other area.

I agree though that any time you see the fps interface, one must be rather skeptical as it never seems to be done right. The danger is that the time and effort will be spent on the combat aspects of the game and the actual “role” elements of the game will be toned down to make up for it. So be skeptical, but I think it is a bit silly to dismiss as lacking any game that does not allow for turn, and character skill, based combat.

The argument over which is more fun for you is entirely different, and I make no claims supporting either side in that discussion. I am only arguing that the choice does not have to change the “role” aspects of the game.

Personally I love the opening video for Fallout and always get a little sad that the view point changes as soon as it is over. That cave looks nice and spooky =)

P.S. My avatar! *injects rhombus with multiple super stim-pacs*

 

[Elwro]

Personally I love the opening video for Fallout and always get a little sad that the view point changes as soon as it is over. That cave looks nice and spooky =)

My first thoughts exactly! I thought that maybe I'm gonna play something EOBlike!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

t for the typical fps interface the level of reflex skill needed is far greater than the level of strategic skill needed for a turn-based game, but I still think the trade off exists. I also could understand how a fps game could have strategic elements involved, but they tend to be very minor when compared to a turn based game.

Even in FPS games, you need to use your brain - like you said though, not as much. In Dues Ex, you really can't just go running in to the middle of an enemy strong hold, shooting everyone and running around like a general idiot. You kill one, then move to the next, typically. You plod slowly through so the situation doesn't build beyond what you can handle. But what you can handle in an FPS is also based on your skill and reflexes and how well you know you can use them. So, we're talking about using both mental and physical attributes here, as opposed to relying more on the character's statistics.

Tactical games do require tactical thinking, sure. You just can't remove everything from the user. However, first person games tend to remove a lot more emphasis from the character's abilities than isometric. That's the problem I have with them.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Tactical games do require tactical thinking, sure. You just can't remove everything from the user. However, first person games tend to remove a lot more emphasis from the character's abilities than isometric. That's the problem I have with them.

Unless you delve into the realm of turn based FPS, like alot of the Might and Magic and Wizardry series. But then, I guess it's not really an FPS at that point, so I just burnt calories typing this for nothing.

 

[Kortalh]

While I hardly consider EverQuest an RPG, I'll use it's game engine to demonstrate that it is quite possible to do a first-person RPG.

The two major concerns that I've seen...

A: Running, Jumping, and other dexterity-based skills are based on the player's ability, not on the character's stats.

In EverQuest, there was a set speed that all characters would run. While the Dexterity/Agility had nothing to do with this speed, some spells did. If you had the spell 'Snare' cast on you, you would run extremely slow. If you had the spell 'Spirit of Wolf' cast on you, you would run extremely fast.

Bloodlines could easily do the same thing, only based on how many dots you have in Dexterity, rather than what spell you have cast on you. You only have one dot in Dexterity? You run really slow. You've got six? Well, then you can run really fast.

As far as jumping goes, look to Morrowind. If you have a low jumping skill, you only jump a few inches off the ground. If you have a high jumping skill, you can jump over an entire building. Base this on the Dexterity ability rather than a jumping skill, and voila.

B: The character's stats for shooting are negated by the player's ability to shoot.

In EverQuest, all you had to do was target a monster, press the 'Ranged Weapon' hotkey, and the arrow would fly. Whether it hit or not was based on your character's skill with archery, not on the player's ability to aim at the creature.

In Bloodlines, the targetting system could be different, but the ability to hit the enemy could be the same. Maybe there will be a CD-sized invisible ring around your crosshairs. If any part of an NPC is within that ring when you click the mouse, it shoots - using your skill to decide whether it hits or not. If there are multiple NPCs in the circle, it assumes you're targetting the one closest to the crosshairs.



Since nobody knows whether Troika is using those sort of things or not, it's not really fair to bash the game simply because of your own personal speculations.

With all that said, I would rather have it in a Fallout-style view, myself... I've always liked watching the action from a god perspective.

 

[Rhombus]

P.S. My avatar! *injects rhombus with multiple super stim-pacs*

*dies of the over dose*

 

[Psilon]

In EverQuest, there was a set speed that all characters would run. While the Dexterity/Agility had nothing to do with this speed, some spells did. If you had the spell 'Snare' cast on you, you would run extremely slow. If you had the spell 'Spirit of Wolf' cast on you, you would run extremely fast.

Bloodlines could easily do the same thing, only based on how many dots you have in Dexterity, rather than what spell you have cast on you. You only have one dot in Dexterity? You run really slow. You've got six? Well, then you can run really fast.

Unfortunately, the problem with that approach is exemplified by Morrowind. Unless you put a point into Speed with every friggin' level or get the Boots of Blinding Speed, you move really, really slowly. So slowly, in fact, that even getting around in Balmora or Vivec is an exercise in frustration.

Players do not want to spend their finite spare time plodding from one side of town to the next. You can't really have a teleport-to-this-building feature without effectively removing subtle encounters. (Think of Sandra and Johnny in Deus Ex, rather than Frank kicking the farmer's ass in Fallout 2. Stuff that you wouldn't necessarily see if you did a direct route at warp nine.) That means the walking speed needs to be jacked up.

But wait! We don't want to make combat dependent on player reflexes rather than player stats, so things have to be slowed down somewhat. Now, though, if I suddenly drop in speed, I know something's taking aim at me. Appropriate for Spider-Man or Daredevil, perhaps, but not ordinary humanoids.

Really, I'd rather see Dexterity implemented as speed boosts, since I have decent FPS reflexes, as well as adding stuff like auto-dodging. Assuming you code to avoid leaping into lava and jumping into backstab range, I think a Dex-based autododge on the scale of Unreal Tournament's dodgejumps could work. Similarly, you could make enemies take penalties to hit while you're running to simulate ducking and weaving.

 

[Megatron]

As far as jumping goes, look to Morrowind. If you have a low jumping skill, you only jump a few inches off the ground. If you have a high jumping skill, you can jump over an entire building. Base this on the Dexterity ability rather than a jumping skill, and voila.

I think the only reason I play Morrowind now is so I can cheat enough to get high jump and speed then just fly around shooting fireballs at people.

The minimum speed is too slow though, I don't see why anyone would want to rp a really slow person who couldn't do much?

 

[Kortalh]

Well another alternative that, for some reason, I just didn't think of while posting... it's rather obvious, though.

I do think it would seem more realistic to limit or boost someone's speed based on their dexterity, but maybe only slightly. Just enough to make an obvious difference between 1 dexterity and 5 dexterity. People that have invested that much experience into getting 5dex *should* get the added bonus of being able to run around the city faster than people that haven't.

But on top of that, add the same type of combat for the NPCs as is put in place for you (they'd pretty much have to, anyway... it's hard enough balancing one ruleset with itself, but balancing two with one another is probably impossible). This gives the added bonus of taking away that "the npcs are cheating" feeling that you get in a lot of FPS games. In UT2K, every now and then an npc would shoot me with a non-scoped gun from all the way across the map, while I was doing jukey maneuvers left and right. Using the VTM ruleset, the difficulty would be 10 to pull off that sorta stunt... if the NPC did manage to hit you, it would be incredible luck rather than the un-natural skill of a computer-controlled player.

I think the only reason I play Morrowind now is so I can cheat enough to get high jump and speed then just fly around shooting fireballs at people.

The minimum speed is too slow though, I don't see why anyone would want to rp a really slow person who couldn't do much?

Hehe... yeah... I've been known to whip up a character with the ability to leap halfway across Balmora in a single jump (From the roof of Caius Cosades' house to the river), then land on the ground, slice a guard, and jump up to a rooftop... takes a while, but eventually you either get ambushed by a buncha guards when you land, or you take out the entire city.

 

[Megatron]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/previews/vam ... lines1.php

another preview with some screenshots