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Preview Dungeon Siege II Designer Diary #1

Sol Invictus

Erudite
Joined
Oct 19, 2002
Messages
9,614
Location
Pax Romana
Tags: Dungeon Siege 2; Gas Powered Games

<a href=http://www.gamespot.com>GameSpot</a> has posted their <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dungeonsiege2/preview_6119056.html>first Designer Diary</a> with the Lead Designer of <a href=www.gaspowered.com/>Dungeon Siege II</a>, Kevin Lambert who has a lot to say on the subject of combat and gameplay in the upcoming title:
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<blockquote>Speaking of gameplay systems, I thought I'd talk a little bit about the party combat in Dungeon Siege II. We've made a major decision since the original Dungeon Siege to move away from a fully autonomous party and to focus the combat around a single character within the party instead. Along with that focus, we continue to provide lateral control over the rest of the party, for certain specific kinds of interaction.
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Out of all the party members, the player only has full primary control over one character at a time. Furthermore, that character will never act on his or her own. With the rest of the party not under your direct control at the moment, you can set the artificial intelligence to one of a few preset behaviors. With a simple key press or click of a button, you can tell the rest of the party to hold their ground, to take an aggressive stance, to mirror your every move, or to regroup and guard your selected character. It's easy to switch your focused character at any time, so, for example, if your mage is the most important character in your party in a specific combat situation and you're currently focused on your melee character, no problem.
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The combat mechanics have evolved quite a bit to give you more control over your party members.
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The party AI allows players to set the standing orders of the party before combat so that they can focus on the actions of a single party member during combat. And really, it all boils down to one simple concept: more fun and interactivity in combat, especially since players will still have quick and easy access to all of the party's powers. </blockquote>
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...and that's all he had to say. That's the diary, pretty much.
 

Reklar

Liturgist
Joined
Jun 22, 2004
Messages
395
Location
Port Orchard, WA, USA
Sounds like the combat is evolving into Baldur's Gate. I suppose that's an improvement over the previous game, but it's hardly new. Still, I guess they should be encouraged to make the game more interactive. I doubt I'll be buying it though.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)
 

PennyAnte

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Messages
769
Location
Here instead of playing an RPG.
I thought it sounded a little more KOTOR, but either way, close enough.

Scripted real-time party behavior is pretty much always annoying. I'm on another KOTOR 2 run through and party members get in each other's way, never use force powers the way I would (read: effectively) and do other lame things like use the standard attack after I've maxed out a special attack.

Iif DS2 can get party automation to work well at all, that will be an innovation in itself.
 

AZ

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 6, 2005
Messages
467
It's sad to see, that they really don't understand the point.

Combat sucked, because it was boring, so simple that a primitive ai could have done everything. I think - it needs a better magic system, special attacks, perks, targetable bodyparts.. tb.. sweet dreams.. :cool:
 

Sarvis

Erudite
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
5,050
Location
Buffalo, NY
Yuck.

Well, better than party members being under full AI control I guess...

Bring back turn based!
 

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