Game News Combat In Oblivion: A Rebuttal to Penny Arcade

[Saint_Proverbius]

You could use that argument if you wanted. On the other hand, most of the time you'll be getting into combat situations in interiors -- dungeons, caves, dwellings, the plain of Oblivion -- which are places you can't take your horse anyway. And there are some exterior areas where horses aren't allowed either, like some cities and arenas. So while it would have been very nice to include mounted combat, the situations where you'd want it aren't a huge huge part of the game.

Horses love underground areas. I hear the Preakness will be moved to the New York subway because horses love it underground.. And there's the slot machine thing in New York.

 

[Hazelnut]

Oblivion features

Hi MSFD - thanks for all the writing you're doing on this site and others to keep us all informed. Although it does make it harder to wait - but it's only another 6 months... :shock: yay. I usually lurk here, but I have a couple of queries that I'd like to throw out for discussion / see if you can enlighten us on ...

1) I think that you've already stated that time is accelerated in Oblivion (15mins game = 30secs real??) - why is this? That is something that really bugged me in Morrowind and often meant I was doing loads of things at night because the time passed so quick. I'd prefer to have a 1:1 (or 1:2 would be ok) time ratio so that when I set out to do something it's still day (or night - whichever is appropriate) when I get there / half way through task etc. Surely this will be more important in Oblivion with the enhanced sneak system. e.g go for a night raid and day dawns half way though due to accelerated time - you get seen and slaughtered. Also would be interesting to make the wilds dangerous at night because it's so hard to see things approaching esp. in forests. This would mean that unless you wanted to be unseen you'd travel by day and sleep at night (and not just when your health needs repleneshing) Just my thoughts - probably too late for the game, but maybe not if the day/night cycle isn't tied into things too hard. It's be nice to be able to change it without breaking anything.

2) It's been stated that there will be no hit location in Oblivion. This doesn't bother me for melee, but for ranged it does. I found ranged combat a real letdown in MW - you got maybe one shot at a target which often missed (early in levels) or did small damage, before the enemy charged you. I'd like to be able to shoot an arrow into someones head and they are dead before they knew I was there, not "oh, an arrow seems to have piereced my brain.. lets go and hack at the archer since I still have 2/3 my health". Will there be functions in the CS to allow modders to implement this?

3) Are wearable quivers gonna be in Oblivion or will the mod community need to do an Ob version of Quivers? I re-did the Quiver scripts for Farrp's famous mod so they didn't make the game chug BTW, and will happily do it for Oblivion, but it'd be nice to have them in from the start.

4) The CS will have the "procedural forest generation" with it won't it? I tried doing a forest for MW using all the different tree models I could find. I managed 9 cells and it ran slow and looked rubbish, but was a real forest (i.e. you could only see bits of sky when you looked up) - took me two weeks and kinda put the nail in the lid of my mod project which needed forests... so pretty excited about Ob's forests!!


It all sounds great to me, but then I loved MW - even with it's massive restrictions, I found I could fill the gaps with my imagination (a bit like a book or D&D gaming) and have some great adventures.

Cheers,

Hazelnut.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

1. The time scale is a system variable, so you can modifiy it with a console command. We speed things up so that you're not constantly using the Wait or Rest functionality while waiting for timed events to happen.

2. Yeah, it seems kind of odd for archery to not have location specific damage, but then when you remember that success in combat depends largely on your character's skill, it makes sense. It evens things out a bit more between someone who's more skilled with a mouse or controller and someone who's not.

3. Quivers behave like weapon sheaths in Obliivion-- if you equip arrows, you'll see a quiver on your character's back that matches the type of arrow. They're not separate objects.

4. Yeah, it was a pain placing everything by hand in Morrowind. Now you can generate regions very easily, but still go in and fine-tune the areas by hand afterward. It's a pretty cool system.

 

[Hazelnut]

Thanks for the reply! :D Much apreciated.

1. The time scale is a system variable, so you can modifiy it with a console command. We speed things up so that you're not constantly using the Wait or Rest functionality while waiting for timed events to happen.

Excellent, as long as it doesn't break things (quests etc) then I'm more than happy to wait. ;-) I think maybe you could do this in MW - can't remember why I didn't...

2. Yeah, it seems kind of odd for archery to not have location specific damage, but then when you remember that success in combat depends largely on your character's skill, it makes sense. It evens things out a bit more between someone who's more skilled with a mouse or controller and someone who's not.

Hmmm, I thought it was the damage that was skill dependent not the hit success in Oblivion?? From what I've read anyway. Although I can understand that for ranged the hit chance should probably be skill related since aiming with a mouse is a bit easier than with a bow. I understand that things have to be balanced - I think that's actually what I want with the location damage. I found that in MW a character that wanted to use archery with a sword just as a close quarters backup would simply not have time to get off more than 1-2 shots before the mob was in your face stabbing at ya! Maybe the better AI will mean that mobs will take cover rather than charge into arrowfire.. hehe. That might work, but I don't want to end up in the same (unplayable) situation where an archer either gets very good with a melee weapon (I mean much better than the bow) or does a lot of running backwards fast while trying to shoot the singleminded mob! I still reckon that hit locations (which realistically, unless your an aboslute master of mouse/controller, would only help for the first stealth shot since once they are moving aiming for the head would cause too many misses) would dramatically improve the potential of ranged characters avoiding this kind of inbalanced buffoonary... hope that helps anyway. I probably have nothing to worry about since you guys have made such brave decisions like no xbows & mounted combat to ensure that what goes in is good quality. (it's kinda ironic when ppl knock beth for not having xyz, whilst simultaneously knocking MW for the lameness of some aspects.. I'm a developer [not games] and I know the triangle!! Pick any two!)

3. Quivers behave like weapon sheaths in Obliivion-- if you equip arrows, you'll see a quiver on your character's back that matches the type of arrow. They're not separate objects.

Fantastic. Will the number seen in the quiver reflect the number equipped/availible? Not neccessarily accurate above N arrows, but I loved popping into 3rd person using the Quivers & Fketching mod and seeing if I was getting low on arrows. Any plans for fletching?

4. Yeah, it was a pain placing everything by hand in Morrowind. Now you can generate regions very easily, but still go in and fine-tune the areas by hand afterward. It's a pretty cool system.

Yep - I was really hoping you'd go that way after MW, kinda like the best of both MW & DF paradigms. I assume Dungeon generation is still completely by hand? Probably best after DF dungeons...

I pray you guys hit your dates!
:D

Thanks,

H.

 

[Volourn]

MAJOR UPDATE: Oblivion is gonna suck. :D

 

[Drakron]

I just hope we got back to Daggerfall in relation to clothing, I hated MW brown undies.

 

[space captain]

MAJOR UPDATE: Your momma sucks dick for pocketchange. :D

 

[Naked_Lunch]

You seem to know many intimate facts about Volourn...

 

[space captain]

i stole all your detailed files

 

[Hazelnut]

MAJOR UPDATE: Oblivion is gonna suck. :D

Hmm, nope I don't think that feature is gonna be in the game you know!

I don't think any kind of relationship stuff is going in the game, so you'll just have to get a girlfriend/boyfriend for that kind of thing...

or hire a pro!!

 

[Claw]

Hmmm, I thought it was the damage that was skill dependent not the hit success in Oblivion??

Yes, and that was his point exactly. It's the character's skill that determines the damage dealt, not the player's skill at aiming with the mouse. Or in other words, you can just imagine that your character aims at the vulnerable spots automatically according to his skill.

 

[Hazelnut]

Hmmm, I thought it was the damage that was skill dependent not the hit success in Oblivion??

Yes, and that was his point exactly. It's the character's skill that determines the damage dealt, not the player's skill at aiming with the mouse. Or in other words, you can just imagine that your character aims at the vulnerable spots automatically according to his skill.

Most elequently and succinctly stated sir! :D

I do see the point, and putting it like that definitely helps put it into a Role-playing context - I think the success in avoiding the kind of scenarios that I described may simply lie in balancing the dmg done by equivalently skilled PC's with equivalent level equipment so that archers have a good chance of using their skill as a main skill from the start instead of finding they've become a swordmaster out of neccessity. Kinda like balancing lvl 30 marksman skill vs. lvl 30 swords skill so that they're both equally effective.

EDIT: Actually, thinking about this even more, I hope that skill, distance, motion of the NPC, NPC awareness of the PC etc will be taken into account behind the scenes, rather than where the cursor is pointing - that would be much more RPG like than hit location damage. So if you're pretty good with a bow and are not too far away, and the target doesn't know you're there and is standing still, then the damage done should sometimes be multiplied as you succeed in sending an arrow through their left eyeball!!! :twisted:

I look forward to seeing how archery pans out in Oblivion. I hope the character I have in mind plays well.

 

[crpgnut]

@Hazelnut: Aha! Another nut

I agree with your hopes for the archery skill. I'm hoping to play a non-melee character. My wannabe character is going to specialize in magic and I'm hoping to go with bow as my only weapon skill. I see myself as a Breton alchemist/treasure hunter. I want to master alchemy and some spell schools while leaving melee for the barbarian races. To me archery was practically useless in Morrowind. You only get one shot, maybe two, before the enemy closes on you. Either bows have to do a ton of damage or the system has to change from what we saw in MW. I'm anxious to see what Bethesda comes up with. We already know that we can put effects on arrows via alchemy so I'm really thinking this will change how effective an archer can be.

 

[Fez]

As an aside, horses and ponies are happy enough underground, they used to use them for pulling minecarts.

So are we getting BUMP-MAPPED NIPPLES in this edition? Think of the game's roots! Think of the fans! You know you want it. Don't let us down.

 

[bryce777]

As an aside, horses and ponies are happy enough underground, they used to use them for pulling minecarts.

So are we getting BUMP-MAPPED NIPPLES in this edition? Think of the game's roots! Think of the fans! You know you want it. Don't let us down.

Well, it is nice of them to construct dungeons that are 12 feet tall and dont have any doors or stairs or walls to climb....

 

[Fez]

What? They did? Why would you be climbing over doors and walls inside a dungeon? You strange person.

 

[Fresh]

Im certainly not getting Oblivion if they fail to implement bump-mapped nipples. Im sure ya'll feel the same.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Get with the times, !HyPeRbOy! -- it's NORMAL MAPPED nipples now. Bump mapping is SO DX8.

 

[Shagnak]

Yeah man, whatever. Just give us the nipples d00d!!!

Saint promised me that you would include them, and you don't wanna let us down, k?

 

[crpgnut]

I'm truly sorry to report that though half of the 1000 NPCs are female, they are all Indians and do not have nipples. They are collectively reffered to as the Indianippleless 500 :D

 

[Fez]

A life without nipples is a life not worth living.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

What if they do implement nipples, but are those huge ass pancake nipples? You wouldn't do that to us, would you MSFD?

 

[Fez]

I nominate Naked_Lunch as the Director of Nipples at Bethesda. Under his glorious guidance, I am sure we would be satisfied with the nipple quotient in Oblivion.

 

[Sol Invictus]

As long as they're more like Devon nipples and less like Alley Baggett nipples. Alley Baggett nipples are larger than 50 cent coins.

 

[Shagnak]

I've seen Baggett's nipples, but who is this Devon you speak of?
I need some nipple education dammit!

I nominate Naked_Lunch as the Director of Nipples at Bethesda. Under his glorious guidance, I am sure we would be satisfied with the nipple quotient in Oblivion

I concur!!

And I nominate myself and Fez as chief nipple testers. And Sol cos he sems to know which models have the best nipples! Let's get to it!