Game News Colony Ship RPG Update #3: Development Timetable, Systems Changes

[Lurker King]

Learn By Doing will always seem gamey, because it is the definition of gamey. Because the vast majority of people do not actually learn by doing. They learn through teaching.

They learn through both. Without pratice to fix your mistakes and improve your execution, you are nothing, whether in sciences, sports, arts, etc.

What was exactly the problem with the combat design in AoD? I thought that most of the fights were challenging enough and there was practically no filler combat.

The problem was that it is the combat of VD's game, and for some codexers, everything he does is shit. Obviously, they can’t accept the fact that he is now a developer due to a “my-neighbor-can’t-do-important-things syndrome”, or they are just butthurt for his views about games.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Learn By Doing will always seem gamey, because it is the definition of gamey. Because the vast majority of people do not actually learn by doing. They learn through teaching. - First, they are taught by their family. Then by their family and teachers. Then by teachers and friends. Then by mentors at work (or through books and computers, if they're a nerd). Always, there is the expert teaching the skill. First people are taught, then they practice what they are taught in a controlled environment, then they go off and implement what they've learned in a real situation. Very rare is the individual who learns spontaneously, who invents a way to use a skill purely through trial and error.

We aren't talking about learning spontaneously. You start with 1 point in every skill so you're familiar with the basics (i.e. was taught). Then you have to increase the skill by using (aka practice, which is 90% of skill development in 'real life'). You split it into taught-practice-implement what you learned which makes it sound like practice is a short phase when in reality years of "implementing what you're taught" would still fall under practice.

Let's say you want to make databases. You can still learn by using (using a database and making changes, minor at first) but let's say you want to be taught by an expert. So you take a course, put together some db in a controlled environment, then off you go to implement and dazzle the world with your designs. Are you an expert? No. You're still a novice with some skills and understanding of the subject matter. Keep practicing your skills and in a few years you'll become very good at it but not before. Maybe in the future when we can upload knowledge Matrix-style things would change but today learn by doing is the vital, most important part of acquiring a skill.

 

[ArchAngel]

Can you implement proper realistic inventory that has both weight and space limits based on stuff your characters are wearing (belts, backpacks and such). Think how UFO did it (or how Xenonauts has)? Also different AP costs based on which area of the body you are taking stuff from during combat. And penalty to using one handed ranged weapon if you got something in other hand.

 

[thesheeep]

Let's not forget that the traditional skill system itself is very abstract, except it has become a second nature since we learned it playing previous RPGs. Same with HP, armor, every fucking thing man. Sure, you could say, all unfamiliar systems have a higher barrier of entry for the player (which is why we always get the recycled fantasy stuff), but that doesn't by default make the "effort" / "skill pool" system bad.

Certainly all systems are abstractions, because they have to be.
But there is a difference in the abstraction levels.

The usual skill systems we are used to are not too far "out there".
Your skill is checked each time you use it, your skill level - as well as the environment - determines if/how you will succeed. Actually, that isn't even abstract, that is just a very weird description of real life.
Abstraction comes in as soon as we slap a simple number on the skill level and derive simple to use formulas to use those numbers in. But that is still "close enough" to actual life to grasp it intuitively, no matter if you grew up with that or not.

If some system tells you that you can only talk to someone X times per (time unit), now that will net you some perplexed faces, and for a reason.
Just imagine the situation on a PnP table: Some new player, playing a talkative character, wants to talk himself out of a nasty situation. The GM has to stop him, though, because he is out of... talk charges? Every PnP player can certainly imagine the discussion starting already.
Now, obviously, your suggestion might not be meant for PnP, but the discussion to justify such a thing would be pretty much the same.
And if the only reason for a game mechanic is "because balancing", then something is fishy.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Can you implement proper realistic inventory that has both weight and space limits based on stuff your characters are wearing (belts, backpacks and such). Think how UFO did it (or how Xenonauts has)? Also different AP costs based on which area of the body you are taking stuff from during combat. And penalty to using one handed ranged weapon if you got something in other hand.

- I think restricting by weight is enough. Restricting space doesn't add anything new but forces the player to manage inventory space. Xenonauts isn't an RPG (meaning that you don't find loot and haul it back manually), so it's not the best example.
- Belt should contain quick-use items not extra space

 

[ArchAngel]

Can you implement proper realistic inventory that has both weight and space limits based on stuff your characters are wearing (belts, backpacks and such). Think how UFO did it (or how Xenonauts has)? Also different AP costs based on which area of the body you are taking stuff from during combat. And penalty to using one handed ranged weapon if you got something in other hand.

- I think restricting by weight is enough. Restricting space doesn't add anything new but forces the player to manage inventory space. Xenonauts isn't an RPG (meaning that you don't find loot and haul it back manually), so it's not the best example.
- Belt should contain quick-use items not extra space

Oh well I tried. My dream RPG would have such an inventory system and players would need to make hard choices all the time (just like in PnP). I was hoping you are hardcore enough to implement this but I guess I will keep waiting.

 

[Elhoim]

Oh well I tried. My dream RPG would have such an inventory system and players would need to make hard choices all the time (just like in PnP). I was hoping you are hardcore enough to implement this but I guess I will keep waiting.

That would definitely fit a different type of game, most probably one with a big focus on travelling (preparing for a long trip, balancing supplies vs equipment vs speed of movement, etc). Here it would detract from the focus on the game.

 

[ArchAngel]

Oh well I tried. My dream RPG would have such an inventory system and players would need to make hard choices all the time (just like in PnP). I was hoping you are hardcore enough to implement this but I guess I will keep waiting.

That would definitely fit a different type of game, most probably one with a big focus on travelling (preparing for a long trip, balancing supplies vs equipment vs speed of movement, etc). Here it would detract from the focus on the game.

Only way I can see it detracting if you are making a diablo like RPG whose main purpose is to pick up as much loot as possible. What I described would work in almost any RPG including such as Baldur's Gate.
Of course most players don't like inventory tetris and that is its main detraction, and why I consider it a hardcore thing to implement.

 

[Elhoim]

Only way I can see it detracting if you are making a diablo like RPG whose main purpose is to pick up as much loot as possible. What I described would work in almost any RPG including such as Baldur's Gate.
Of course most players don't like inventory tetris and that is its main detraction, and why I consider it a hardcore thing to implement.

In order to have hard choices on what to pick, the setting around it has to support that. If travelling back and forth from a location to a trader is easy (like in AoD, for example, in which you can open the map and click-travel), it's only a matter of the player's tolerance on going back and forth to pick up all the loot. In the CSG, while it's a big ship, it's a small place, travelling around it's not time consuming and any limitation would be circumvented by the back and forth. In any of these games, it's an annoyance instead of an interesting "hard choices" mechanism. For me, hard choices would be as I said in a game in which travelling to distant locations and vendors has a tangible gameplay effect, so the limits and choices on what to carry have an actual positive impact on game decisions. For example, travelling to a distant dungeon consumes supplies, you need space for them, carrying too much makes you slower and tired faster, it's hard to get out of the dungeon, and while you are travelling around it you need to consider carefully what to take or not. Basically, you can't shoehorn any feature in any game without a structure to support an interesting gameplay mechanism.

 

[ArchAngel]

Only way I can see it detracting if you are making a diablo like RPG whose main purpose is to pick up as much loot as possible. What I described would work in almost any RPG including such as Baldur's Gate.
Of course most players don't like inventory tetris and that is its main detraction, and why I consider it a hardcore thing to implement.

In order to have hard choices on what to pick, the setting around it has to support that. If travelling back and forth from a location to a trader is easy (like in AoD, for example, in which you can open the map and click-travel), it's only a matter of the player's tolerance on going back and forth to pick up all the loot. In the CSG, while it's a big ship, it's a small place, travelling around it's not time consuming and any limitation would be circumvented by the back and forth. In any of these games, it's an annoyance instead of an interesting "hard choices" mechanism. For me, hard choices would be as I said in a game in which travelling to distant locations and vendors has a tangible gameplay effect, so the limits and choices on what to carry have an actual positive impact on game decisions. For example, travelling to a distant dungeon consumes supplies, you need space for them, carrying too much makes you slower and tired faster, it's hard to get out of the dungeon, and while you are travelling around it you need to consider carefully what to take or not. Basically, you can't shoehorn any feature in any game without a structure to support an interesting gameplay mechanism.

I understand your reasoning but I don't agree with it. It is same as people that complained how supplies in PoE were pointless because you could always go back to Inn and rest and get new ones. That is true, but most players will not do that. You make a game for those people, not for the few that have mental problems and obsessions.

In your new game when you are deep in some enemy territory, will be able to easily leave it and get to a shop? Or will it take as long as that action would take in BG or PoE? Because if it will take more than few minutes to do that and get back to where you were most players will not do that and others will quit doing it soon.
Even in aRPGs players quit trying to sell everything after a while and then after a while even quit picking up and selling other less valuable stuff (like magic items).

So by making a game where most players will get to use this mechanic to choose what is needed now, what would be cool to take along and sell later and what can they do without you are giving players another choice that will influence their minute to minute gameplay just like it did in UFO or Xenonauts. Choosing what and how to equip my troops and then seeing effects of that during combat is very satisfying. It is as much a character building choice as choosing skills or spells or feats. And in a cRPG where you can also pick up stuff after battle to take back and sell or choose to use (compared to UFO where if you win mission everything is always taken back) gives players even more c&c around this and makes it even bigger integral part of character development.

New Torment is partly doing this with how cyphers work but a game that makes all your equipment as much a part of your character as skills/feats due to restrictions would be awesome. Also being able to tinker and tweak all you have in a way would make it even cooler.

 

[orcinator]

What was exactly the problem with the combat design in AoD? I thought that most of the fights were challenging enough and there was practically no filler combat. As regards the pace, I don't believe that you can increase it (unless you practically blur the animations by pushing an animation slider to the extreme) considering that we are talking about turn-based combat.

Like a lot of CRPGs It gives you a lot of options but in practice the only ones that matter are made on the character screen while the actual combat boils down to picking the one attack that gives you the best AP/THC/damage combination and using it until all the enemies are dead + throwing in the occasional debuff/stun if the THC isn't too low (which it often is and makes them unreliable in harder fights) + maybe using items if the enemy is particularly tough. There's also little in the way of positioning beyond finding a choke point when outnumbered (often annoying since you have to wave your mouse around each potential spot to know whether the tiles around it are impassable or not).

As for pacing, while the fights where you're alone aren't that bad, the combat is rather slow since you have to wail on each enemy for several turns before they're dead and this really becomes a problem since the game loves to throw you in fights with allies on your side and those boil down to trying to kill the dude in front of you as fast as possible while watching the 6-10+ other NPCs slowly wail on each other and hoping RNGesus favors your side (but also lets the guy with good gear die).

 

[Lurker King]

Like a lot of CRPGs It gives you a lot of options but in practice the only ones that matter are made on the character screen while the actual combat boils down to picking the one attack that gives you the best AP/THC/damage combination and using it until all the enemies are dead + throwing in the occasional debuff/stun if the THC isn't too low (which it often is and makes them unreliable in harder fights) + maybe using items if the enemy is particularly tough.

And this is bad because..

As for pacing, while the fights where you're alone aren't that bad, the combat is rather slow since you have to wail on each enemy for several turns before they're dead and this really becomes a problem since the game loves to throw you in fights with allies on your side and those boil down to trying to kill the dude in front of you as fast as possible while watching the 6-10+ other NPCs slowly wail on each other and hoping RNGesus favors your side (but also lets the guy with good gear die).

I agree. The fights and combat animations should be faster.

 

[orcinator]

And this is bad because..

Well it's not good.

I agree. The fights and combat animations should be faster.

It's an inherent problem with turn based combat and you either need to design the combat and encounters so I'm not just watching NPCs take their turns for 95% of the battle. Decadent Colony Ship will have a party and also, but if there's some zombie type enemy that comes in swarms and has slow animations...

✡ ✡ Should have gone with RtWP combat or made an ARPG ✡ :D

 

[Tigranes]

Just need a fucking '32x' option

 

[Elhoim]

Just need a fucking '32x' option

We are including a 4x option for the next update.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Never had a problem with AoD's 1x combat speed. Just throwing it out there.

 

[Elhoim]

I can't play in anything lower than 2x.

 

[Irenaeus III]

I really like the animations and the suspense in every attack. I replayed several long fights many times in different playthroughs. Like I said, just throwing it out there. Guess I'm in the minority.

 

[Excidium II]

I don't like playing with sped up animations either.

 

[agentorange]

Didn't even know there was a combat speed setting. I didn't mind it at default.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Original sin speed was much more infuriating

 

[Jaedar]

I'm kinda worried increase by use will become very limiting. Didn't pick any of the alchemy options in the first settlement? GG, you're stuck on alchemy 1 the entire game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It won't be done in a linear manner. There will be skill books that give you learning points, low-level opportunities to practice your skills, etc. While maxing a skill will require dedication, developing a skill to a decent level will be doable even if you skip half of the options.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Don't forget someone training you, like many times in AoD.

 

[Vault Dweller]

That too.