Game News The New World Update #18: Systems Overview, Second Iteration

[Infinitron]

Tags: Colony Ship RPG; Iron Tower Studios; Vault Dweller

The latest development update for The New World is a comprehensive systems overview - character systems and item mechanics, to be exact. We've had an update like this before, but this second iteration is far more concrete and in-depth, with a glimpse at the math behind the game's attributes, a first look at the feat system, a description of the game's unique weapon AP cost scheme, and more. Here's an excerpt:

Feats:

We didn’t have feats in AoD, so it’s an uncharted area and there are many ways to handle it. For example, Fallout had a traditional setup where you get crap feats like Toughness at level 3 and literally killer feats like Slayer or Sniper at level 18 (53 feats overall, although most guides think that only 6 feats are must-have). DnD favors prerequisites: to get Whirlwind, not only you must have higher INT but also Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack, which is a lot of feats you may or may not need to get the one you really want.

We started with a Fallout-like setup and about 80 feats (everything we could think of and then some), then removed all filler, reworked the rest and ended up with exactly 40 feats. We ditched the level requirements, leaving the stat and skill requirements for 12 feats. We will do our best to balance them and make sure they are all useful (at least to certain builds) but the list looks pretty good so far.

We’re aiming for 10 levels, meaning you get 10 feats out of 40. Some examples:

Lone Wolf (no party members): +10 to evasion, +5% CS chance
Adrenaline Rush: +10% CS chance, +20% CS damage when 5HP or less
Second Wind: +2AP on kill
Gunfighter: +25% chance to trigger a reaction attack
Overclocked: Double the implants' bonus, reduce HP by 15
Eye for an Eye: Chance to trigger a reaction attack equal to damage taken (stackable with other bonuses)

So the idea is that you don’t work your way up to killer feats but gain abilities and increase your bonuses. No single feat on its own will make you a killing machine. Take reaction fire, for example (think AoD’s interrupt and counter-attacks rolled into one). Your chance to “react” is determined by your PER, your weapon’s bonuses (revolvers have the highest bonus), and feats. Much like AoD’s passive bonuses that make a noticeable difference between a novice with a spear and a master capable of holding his enemies at bay, there will be a noticeable difference between a character with 5% reaction chance and 50%. Same goes for criticals or bonus AP or other stats and abilities.

Weapons:

As mentioned previously, there are 3 main categories (melee, firearms, energy) corresponding to 3 different damage types (melee, projectile, energy). Each category has different sub-categories to ensure that you have enough tactical variety. For example, if you’re a boxing enthusiast, you can go with brass knuckles, push daggers, and combat gloves, including power gloves if you want to put your energy cells to good use.

If you like pistols, you have 3 types of weapons to choose from:

• Long Barrel – best accuracy, range, and penetration, THC bonus with aimed attacks, relatively low rate of fire
• Multi Barrel – best grazing and critical range, very short effective range (basically, an “up close and personal” pistol), capable of firing two barrels at once
• Revolvers – compared to the other two, it’s an average pistol that doesn’t excel at anything but doesn’t have any drawbacks either. However, it does have the highest reaction fire bonus and the highest rate of fire (on average)

Now about rate of fire: so far it takes 4AP to aim and fire a pistol. We’ve experimented with different attack costs (like 4 to 6AP for pistols but decided against it for now). Thus the main factors that determine the overall rate of fire are the magazine and reload speed.

A crappy long barrel pistol requires a reload after each shot, which raises the actual attack rate to 6AP. A mid-range pistol can be loaded with 3 bullets, which drops the attack rate to 5AP. A semi-automatic pistol a-la Mauser can take ten 9mm bullets, which reduces the “adjusted” attack rate to 4.3AP. To be clear, the actual attack rate is still 4AP and the adjusted rate represents your ability to fire 10 times without reloading (versus firing 6 times with a revolver and then reloading).

There are 5 ammo types, each with its own modifiers in terms of damage, penetration, and critical chance/damage.
​

Also included in the update are character screen UI snapshots, inventory item images and some cool character concept art. This update is the latest and greatest on The New World, so check it out.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Before you start complaining, high STR unlocks a feat reducing your attack speed with two-handed weapons, so it’s not a dump stat.

Just what I wanted

 

[Iznaliu]

what's with Infinitron and ITS spam

He needs to keep the front page moving.

 

[Diggfinger]

High hopes for this one. Looks awesome.

Just tried AoD for the first time. Conversations/paths insanely varied depending on skill checks and I am getting slaughtered in every combat encounter, so seems like Im on the good track.

 

[Bohrain]

High hopes for this one. Looks awesome.

Just tried AoD for the first time. Conversations/paths insanely varied depending on skill checks and I am getting slaughtered in every combat encounter, so seems like Im on the good track.

Just bought it too. After getting slaughtered by the alley bums on my merchant I decided to avoid combat entirely. Works out for the character it seems, but I think a game needs some sort of change of pace between running around and talking. Torment had pretty awful combat, but I think it made you more eager to read the next bit of lines. It's not a huge issue since the game is well written in a sense that the text is strikingly concise and Vince & friends actually arsed to go through the thought process of what people would actually say if they wanted to lie to given this and that bias and so forth, instead of making every parcel of text a frankenstein of RPG tropes. But for example in the case of T:ToN, the game had too much purple prose and next to no combat, which made me drop it in less than 10 hours in. If I'm reading non-fiction or a piece that is considered a classic I can force myself to go forward to an extend, since I consider it a learning experience, but when it comes to poorly written walls of text in fiction there are always alternatives.

 

[Lurker King]

Vault Dweller, I know you have your peculiar way of doing things, and that you wanted to talked about the combat system in this update, but you could release the description of each feat, so that we can try to come up with new ideas for additional feats. You could also release the description of each filler feat you discarded, so that we can try to improve some of them, etc.

I also hope you are going to add feats that have a mechanics of their own and allow you to interact with the game world in a different way, like empathy in FO2. Another idiotic question: do you think that you have the artisticpower manpower to make illustrations for each feat?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vault Dweller, I know you have your peculiar way of doing things, and that you wanted to talked about the combat system in this update, but you could release the description of each feat, so that we can try to come up with new ideas for additional feats. You could also release the description of each filler feat you discarded, so that we can try to improve some of them, etc.

It wouldn't serve any purpose at this point. The feats are untested and represent nothing but a general direction (which is what this update was about). Once the combat demo is released, you'll be able to make specific suggestions based on the actual gameplay.

I also hope you are going to add feats that have a mechanics of their own and allow you to interact with the game world in a different way, like empathy in FO2.

Not planned right now but let's wait until the full demo is out.

Another idiotic question: do you think that you have the artisticpower manpower to make illustrations for each feat?

Not planned at the moment. Our resources are limited so if we add feat illustrations, we'll have to remove something else (portraits, slides, etc). Roughly, 40 feats = 20 portraits.

 

[Tigranes]

10/40 sounds like a lot, especially when you have a party. Won't that basically mean every character individually will be able to pick every feat they could possibly want for their build type, while the player will also experience every feat they could want over a single playthrough? From the descriptions, it's not like the feats were culled in a way that gets rid of 'flat bonus' feats and leaving only 'new mechanic' feats.

Given that feats don't really have a strong sense of progression to them, is the point instead to chain feats with each other & with your other character improvements to achieve significant impact, e.g. multiple feats that give bonuses upon kill so you get your second wind AP and then another feat gives you bonus damage after tasting blood? Otherwise, how will you avoid the feats seeming boring and negligible?

 

[Vault Dweller]

10/40 sounds like a lot, especially when you have a party. Won't that basically mean every character individually will be able to pick every feat they could possibly want for their build type...

In theory there should be a lot more than 10 good feats for every build.

...while the player will also experience every feat they could want over a single playthrough?

If it's a flaw it's the same flaw as experiencing different classes in a party-based game.

Given that feats don't really have a strong sense of progression to them, is the point instead to chain feats with each other & with your other character improvements to achieve significant impact, e.g. multiple feats that give bonuses upon kill so you get your second wind AP and then another feat gives you bonus damage after tasting blood?

That's the idea. You don't become a killing machine when you pick a killer feat but build your character into a killing machine one feat at a time.

 

[Tigranes]

Seems like you're wanting character builds in general to require a lot more hard choices than typical "I'm a speedy melee dude, I can ignore all the CON and PER stuff and just get the best evade/speed perks", if you want half of the feats to be important for every build. Indeed, if this were not the case, the kind of feats you listed up there really wouldn't do the job. Curious to see how that comes out over the dev cycle.

I like my super late game feats but the 'chaining' sounds great to me.

 

[Iznaliu]

Seems like you're wanting character builds in general to require a lot more hard choices than typical "I'm a speedy melee dude, I can ignore all the CON and PER stuff and just get the best evade/speed perks", if you want half of the feats to be important for every build

This has been what new-age RPG development is about. See: Pillars of Eternity.

 

[Diggfinger]

High hopes for this one. Looks awesome.

Just tried AoD for the first time. Conversations/paths insanely varied depending on skill checks and I am getting slaughtered in every combat encounter, so seems like Im on the good track.

Just bought it too. After getting slaughtered by the alley bums on my merchant I decided to avoid combat entirely. Works out for the character it seems, but I think a game needs some sort of change of pace between running around and talking. Torment had pretty awful combat, but I think it made you more eager to read the next bit of lines. It's not a huge issue since the game is well written in a sense that the text is strikingly concise and Vince & friends actually arsed to go through the thought process of what people would actually say if they wanted to lie to given this and that bias and so forth, instead of making every parcel of text a frankenstein of RPG tropes. But for example in the case of T:ToN, the game had too much purple prose and next to no combat, which made me drop it in less than 10 hours in. If I'm reading non-fiction or a piece that is considered a classic I can force myself to go forward to an extend, since I consider it a learning experience, but when it comes to poorly written walls of text in fiction there are always alternatives.

I agree AoD is overall well written. Dont know what to think about the occasional F-bombs, but Im sure Vault Dweller's meticulous research proved that people talked like that in the Roman empire days

 

[Daedalos]

holy fuck, dat update tho.

Loving the perspectives on feats and character creation. And I'm definitely feeling the concept art of armors and weapons and ammo.

Awesome work, Vince! With this pace, game should be out no later than late 2019

 

[Lurker King]

Vault Dweller, each equitable item will be visible in the character model, e.g., goggles? Some implants will be visible on the character model?

Do you think it would be possible to make more than one member of the party do a combined attack? They could unlock combo attacks as feats and forfeit their actions to make a combo. It seems a waste that in a party turn-based game they can't combine their attacks.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vault Dweller, each equitable item will be visible in the character model, e.g., goggles? Some implants will be visible on the character model?

According to Ivan, everything except the implants, but we don't have the armor models yet so let's file it under 'too early to say'.

Do you think it would be possible to make more than one member of the party do a combined attack? They could unlock combo attacks as feats and forfeit their actions to make a combo. It seems a waste that in a party turn-based game they can't combine their attacks.

Combine how? JRPG style? Anyway, no combo attacks of any kind. The simplest reason - such attacks would require extra animations and Ivan is overloaded as it is.