-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
MSFD on Bethesda's uber next-gen skill system
- Thread starter Twinfalls
- Start date
bryce777
Erudite
HardCode said:
I know that, but it was not used in reference to computer games very much until then. Suddenly all these supermega magazine with 200 pages of ads bought out the old computer gaming magazines and turned them into the tripe we see today, full of advertisments cum reviews.
GhanBuriGhan
Erudite
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2005
- Messages
- 1,170
Section8 said:
That's all very well laid out, but it doesn't change the fact that spell firing artifacts are as old as TES itself, and the main change here really is that at least one group of magic items now works as it should, animation wise- that's really all that is new about these staves, plus that they can be used as a purely defensive blocking "weapon". Nor do I think it has taken all that much away even in the past games, although I would agree that it was too easy to acquire these items in Morrowind. In fact these items added a lot of flavour to the world, and are intircately linked with one of the most fun and unique features in TES, the enchanting or item maker.
Thanks for the "uncharacteristically" I guess. But really, why shouldn't I counter a little baiting with a little counter- baiting of my own? And waste smart arguments on ill-begotten posts?Zomg said:
OverrideB1 said:
Oh come on Override, now a classic mage is someone who whacks people over the head with a stick when he runs out of magica? How about he either invests his considerable intelligence in planning his attack so that doesn't happen, or hurls his weak little behind out of whatever mess he just got himself in?
The magic system should be balanced so that the mage class is viable without ANY weapon use, staffs included.
Staffs are great and a natural fit for a classic mage, and I am unhappy they are out, but that has no bearing on the playability of the mage class. There is enough to criticise about Oblivion, no need to invent new problems.
If I want my mage to have any weapon skill, I will not be too terribly dissapointed to use Hand to hand, a dagger, a mace or even a sword. Hey, Gandalf used a sword as well as a staff, and he is still my favourite Wizard.
Section8
Cipher
Bullshit. I know that we're a haven for elitism here at the Codex, but you need to have a red hot look at yourself when you make statements like that. Let's adapt your strawman into a more appropriate analogy. Let's compare, say Billiards to Pool or Snooker. They're about as different as PC games and console games.
There is nothing that can't be accomplished on one platform that can't be accomplished on the other. Consoles these days are becoming modular enough to be comparable to PCs in terms of flexibility too.
Bullshit again. "Video games" as a term, has been used for fucking eons.
Likewise, distinctions have been made across platforms for as long as I can remember. Up until now, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "Console Games and PC Games are two completely unrelated entities that cannot be classified under a single moniker." Now I'm getting two of you!
Why the fuck wouldn't you lump them together? It's like saying that hard covers and paperbacks don't belong under a blanket classification of just plain "books," or that broadsheets and tabloids shouldn't be collectively called newspapers.
Even the fucking Argus doesn't have enough eyes to roll in order to adequately show disdain for that statement.
Customer: "Hi, I'm looking for GTA:San Andreas, do you have it?"
Clerk: "Yes we do. PC Version?"
Customer: "Actually, I was after the PS2 version."
Clerk: "Well, fuck off then sonny. You'll have to go to another store for it. Even though both versions are basically the exact same game with a few interface based modifications, we don't believe the different platform versions are similar enough to warrant stocking them in this store."
Now if you want to comment on how commercialism has greatly marred the games industry, I'm with you. If you want to spout off about how a collective classification for two very closely related products has ruined the industry, then we're going to have to disagree on the grounds that I can't reconcile myself with such unfathomable idiocy.
Section8
Cipher
That's fair enough, but I honestly didn't like magical items in Morrowind. For one, they were cheap enough that if you looked in the right place, you could find items enchanted with a reusable spell for cheaper than the price of a scroll, or actually learning the spell. That greatly diluted the choice of being a mage with the ability to perform a wide range of utility functions, such as teleportation, levitation, feather, water walking, etc.
Secondly, the actual implementation was fucked. There seemed to be no recast timer on item use, so I could wander into combat, and trigger off about 10 charges in the space of a couple of seconds. As a pure mage, I have to wait for animations to play, deal with being interrupted and so forth.
Thirdly, it seemed a bit too easy to get your hands on godlike equipment. If nothing else, the game could have been limiting in an artificial but plausible manner. "This enchantment is too powerful for you to handle/channel." For one, magic is powerful stuff, and not to be trifled with, and secondly, you'd assume the creators of these artifacts would build in some kind of defense measure that doesn't allow your average joe to suddenly become the most powerful being in existence just because he's picked up something he found somewhere.
Fourthly, it would have been nice if these enchantments weren't just something you could just buy somewhere without qualification, or stumble upon in the course of your adventures. It would have made enchantment as a skill far more desirable and useful, and would have also made progression through factions such as the mage guild more profound.
While I don't necessarily believe that the ES world shouldn't have magical items and artifacts, I'd like to see them handled in a more mature fashion by the setting, less dramatic effects, where they don't become a substitute for character strengths, (or a great compensation for weakness) and aren't compartmentalised away from the games core systems.
7th Circle
Scholar
bryce777 said:
I don't really think you can compare the "complexity" of a TBS game to a RPG without giving a very specific definition of complexity (which will probably be biased towards one genre or the either).
For instance, it could be argued that civ 4 is a more complex than fallout in the sense that the player has a far more "autonomously dynamic" world to deal with. While there are some exceptions (and these are obviously important from a plot perspective), there isn't a great deal that changes in the Fallout universe indepedently of the PC's action. However, do nothing for a while in civ and the world will be greatly changed (e.g., in terms of units, cities).
Of course, you could just as easily argue that fallout is far more complex than civ in terms of the detail in the world. Civ has cities, armies, terrain, improvements etc. but not a great deal more and (assuming you have units in the right places) these are all easily viewable while of course a game like fallout has a lot more under the surface.
GhanBuriGhan said:
Even intelligent mages make mistakes every now and then...
If a pure mage uses a "rocket laucher" staff and runs out of "ammo" (e.g., due to poor planning, underestimation of enemy strength) then I honestly don't see why anyone should deny him/her the option of attempting to whack an enemy with it? Of course, being a pure mage, his/her relevant skills might make the attempts rather frivilous but from a role-playing perspective it makes a certain sense, as a poorly swung staff will still hurt more than a poorly swung fist.
This shouldn't matter even if you treat these staves as artifacts. Again, what would a mage do if he/she had used all his/her spell casting capabilities (through bad planning etc.)? Personally, I would make any artifact useable as a (rather poor) weapon in this regard although I would also include a dice roll to see if it breaks.
bryce777
Erudite
Section8 said:
In the past, computer games were a geek thing. Computers were not in every household, and hardly any of them at first. Computer games and console games in the same store never happened until comp usa started to go the way of electronics and other bullshit in its stores.
I never, ever, ever heard people who played computer games say video games unless they were talking about games like thexder or whatever. Only grandmothers and people with no idea what they were ever did. The dinstinction between games on computers and arcade games was very strong. Now, it is basically nonexistent. If you only started playing computer games 5 years ago, of course you have not heard that. Most computer game players of old have dropped out in disgust at how poor the new generation fo games is.
The reason this classification is harmful, is that computer games are now judged by the standards applied to console games. Basically, blithering idiot reviews who think an RPG equates to Diablo are the ones doing the reviews, and if a game requires thinking or reading, and doesn't take the player by the hand then they hate it. Because they are console playing morons, and console games and computer games have jack shit to do with each other.
bryce777
Erudite
7th Circle said:
Well, personally I don't care enough. There is a great deal of complexity to the traditional RPG. Fallout is RPG light in mny ways. It is very dialog driven. Its combat is not terribly complex, you don't have a party of adventurers to create and balance out.
I think this is EXTREMELY OBVIOUS to anyone who has played a lot of RPGs, as I have. And I don't mean these people who have played diablo and BG and think that that is all there is to RPGs, or even fallout.
Obviously, fallout is not as complex as civilization in some ways, but in others it is fairly complex, with all the ways the world reacts to you through dialog and how stats affect everything including dalog. They are different games though, so that is obvious.
I don't see how my contention that traditionally RPG games are quite complex can be denied, though, because it is simply obvious. The fact that he doubted (and I suppose you do) my statement was surprising,a nd just shows how pathetic the games out lately with RPG slapped on the side of them are.
I didn't play civ 4, but the civ games are hardly the pinnacle of complexity and many rpgs have been much mroe complex. the gold box series,jagged alliance are good examples. But, the point was never to compare to civilization, but to make a point.
Basically, he is saying gee it has a sword so it's an rpg, but to me, that is just an action game. As well call gauntlet an rpg as oblivion.
Everyone has their own definition of what an RPG is. The definition a lot of people ehre give only lets fallout be an RPG at all. Which is ludicrous. I would think the fact that oblivion is nohing at all like RPGs were for the first, oh, 20 years they existed, might say that perhaps it is not an rpg.
OverrideB1
Scholar
Yes, the magic class should be balanced so that it is a viable option even when out of magicka. I'd be willing to bet real money that it isn't. Either because you're too low a level, or through bad planning, it's going to happen sooner or later. So you then have to rely on an alternate weapon (and not all of us are Glamdring-wielding, staff-toting Gandalf wannabe's), or run like buggery.GhanBuriGhan said:
And the problem with running like buggery is that now the monsters will chase you because you've no recall to get your scrawny asse out of harm's way. Nor can you (as I understand it) warp out of there using fast travel because you're in a combat situation.
So, what's a poor mage to do?
Well, because the game mechanics make him too fucking moronic to use that length of wood in his hand as anything other than an impromptu shield - he now has to devote training to an ancillary weapon's skill.
Now, a sword/blunt/bow wielding magic-user does not fit the template for what I would consider to be a 'pure' magic user. There is no situation that a magic-user should find himself in whereby there is not a solution based in the arcane arts at his disposal. No whipping out a bloody big sword and laying about like Conan the Destroyer, no lonbow skills that would put Robin of Loxeley to shame, no axe-wielding skills that'd make Druss blush - a pure mage should never need those skills.
But I'm pretty damn' certain that your 'pure' magic-user in Oblivion is going to need them.
And I consider that to be a pretty big flaw amidst a whole raft of other flaws.
Does that mean they need to be implemented in the same unimaginative "rocket launcher" style though?GhanBuriGhan said:
If something is a bad aspect of a game, it doesn't matter that it's been in the series since the beginning. If it is bad, it should be changed.
You mentioned Gandalf. A fine example of a wizard, who used a sword and a staff it is true. However, in all the writings of Tolkien, I have never seen the sentence "Gandalf ran like hell back and forth across the room, ducking and weaving to avoid spells and arrows, while pelting his enemies with fireballs.".
The Morrowind magic system doesn't lend itself to well considered, interesting magical attacks and defenses. It encourages *running with a rocket launcher* gameplay. It seems Oblivion's system will be similar. This is understandable - constructing games where you run around and shoot things in first person real time is well understood and safe. Constructing games where you stand relatively still and best your opponents through cunning choice from an array of unique spell effects in first person real time is not.
To devise a good magic system that captures the feeling of being a mage, rather than a commando with a staff, would mean more work. It would mean careful design and balance of a genuinely new system.
Many different combat spell casting effects could be used, e.g. (and these are all old ideas):
Illusions: of barriers (chasms / flames...) / powerful creatures / the caster transforming / multiple images of caster...
Barriers: walls/cages of force / rock / fire / ice, pits, quicksand, water...
Non damaging attacks: blinding, sound, burden, charm, fear, confusion, slow, hold, web , entangle, disarm, clumsiness, teleport opponent, wind, flood, reverse gravity...
Other stuff: short range teleport, haste, transform caster, timestop, darkness, light, fog...
There are many more possibilities.
To be fair, some of the above were in Morrowind (blind, charm, sound...), but weren't really that interesting. Also, some effects would have been difficult in Morrowind (wind / reverse gravity...), but probably possible in Oblivion. I guess a flood is not going to be practical any time soon.
With some of the above included, as well as a reworking of some damaging effects, mages could act like mages, and have an impressive feel. Magic duels could be a contest of wits rather than of running and dodging. This would be harder to implement than the *run around and shoot stuff* model, but a vast improvement. It is understandable if Oblivion improves little over Morrowind in terms of the variety of magical options, but it is not something to be happy about.
As a specific example of a very easy change, why not have most targeted spells arrive from the area around the target, rather than as a missile fired from the caster? This wouldn't change the gameplay mechanics in itself, but would take away the "rocket launcher" feel.
Spells could appear to gather in the air around the would-be target as you prepare them - so you can see where your spell will hit. Then as you cast the spell, fire (or whatever) could converge on the target from all directions, consuming it in flames - or possibly other close targets. Perhaps the spell would fail if you hadn't looked at the same target for a second or two (focusing your magical energies) - making blind/running fireball pelting impossible, or much less effective.
Mainly though, I would like to see more options for a mage in defense than:
(1) Run like hell.
(2) Stand there and soak up the punishment with shield / absorb / reflect spells.
With such options, it would be quite reasonable to impose a "No spell casting while running." restriction (or at the least, slow / expensive / less effective casting while running). Then you'd be only a bit of thought, and a few graphical changes away from a good system.
You beat me to the punch.galsiah said:
I would agree that enchanted items that can cast spells has always been in TES, but my big problem with the "new TES" is that they now seem to be a 'coolness' selling point. In the past (even as recently as MW), enchantable items were billed as cool complications that could allow clever players to improve their PoWAz! In earlier games it was even somewheat complicated to be _able_ to enchant items. In other words, the existence of 'rocket launchers' was a consequence of interesting gameplay systems (not pefect systems, but at least they were trying).In Oblivion, the existence of 'rocket lanuchers' is being billed as an Uber-Cool feature in its own right.
It's the change of focus from intersting, complicated game systems that can produce rocket launchers as well as many other things -- to rocket launchers for their own sake -- that sucks balls!
GhanBuriGhan
Erudite
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2005
- Messages
- 1,170
Galsiah, I honestly think you do the TES magic system a great injustice if you see rocket launcher magic as its only capbility. I have played very few games with a wider range of spells, and none with as much flexibility to the magnitude and combiantion of effects. Sure you can do destruction magic, which in any game is essentially the same as using missiles with slightly more fancy effects. In TES you have the option of having them touch, range and with or without area effect.
You can also use buffs, summon creatures to fight for you, drain strength from the enemy, control him, give yourself invisibility or flight, grab objects from afar, enchant your own items, now een raise the dead... You listed many yourself. I agree that there could be even more (ther alwasy can be more), and that some could be better implemented (the effects of blindness or burden etc. should be more obvious, and balanced, (and we will see some of that in Oblivion as we already know), but I am sorry, if all you could do with all these options is "rocket launcher" style gameplay, than that's your own damn fault.
I play a pure mage in Morrowind right now (well, she also uses hand to hand sometimes), and I love it for the challenge it presents, and the multitude of options. They are there, you just have to use them.
And I have some serious doubt that your own vision would end up being a superior system.
The one thing where I am totally with you is magical barriers. That would really be a nice addtion and add additional tactical options.
You can also use buffs, summon creatures to fight for you, drain strength from the enemy, control him, give yourself invisibility or flight, grab objects from afar, enchant your own items, now een raise the dead... You listed many yourself. I agree that there could be even more (ther alwasy can be more), and that some could be better implemented (the effects of blindness or burden etc. should be more obvious, and balanced, (and we will see some of that in Oblivion as we already know), but I am sorry, if all you could do with all these options is "rocket launcher" style gameplay, than that's your own damn fault.
I play a pure mage in Morrowind right now (well, she also uses hand to hand sometimes), and I love it for the challenge it presents, and the multitude of options. They are there, you just have to use them.
And I have some serious doubt that your own vision would end up being a superior system.
You could basically already do that with area effect spells. Anyway, what you describe is mainly a visual update (nice one too), but it would not really affect gameplay much. However I *gasp* enjoy hurling magical missiles at my enemies, so I have no need for this wondersome balancing you pull out of your magic hat. The same with no spellcasting while running - not for me, thanks, it's about as moronic a restriction as old D&D's "mages can't hold weapons".
The one thing where I am totally with you is magical barriers. That would really be a nice addtion and add additional tactical options.
GhanBuriGhan
Erudite
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2005
- Messages
- 1,170
AnalogKid said:
No, it's taking one phrase out of a long article and a pool of further info and reducing the entire system to that phrase that sucks balls.
So, you dispute that the focus of that "pool of other info" supports the "rocket launcher as cool feature" point of view? You think the body of all information released is emphasizing "complex systems that allow for interesting gameplay"? Obviously the Radiant AI propaganda has tried to take that flavor, but every single example, without exception, has contradicted the marketing speak in regards to Radiant AI. In all other areas of propaganda, I personally don't see any information at all about complex systems integrating to give a good gameplay experience. None. Not an emphasis on it, not a de-emphasis on it. Zippo. Zero. Zilch.GhanBuriGhan said:
Plenty of Patrick Stewart, plenty of rocket launchers, plenty of casting-while carrying making it easier, plenty of dodging your own way out of harm's way, plenty of condensed or eliminated skills, plenty of flashy graphics, plenty of jeuvenile GUIs, plenty of homogenized races who all can wear boots and have boobies. No complex game systems.
You really think that their emphasis is where it was in previous games? Really? See, because I think exactly the opposite, and I don't think that my statement was at all out of context. I think it was entirely and accurately IN context.
One of us has some blinders on, and I've just spent 20 seconds to list the things that happened to come to my mind to support my point of view. Not really even trying that hard, actually. How about some actual information that supports your point of view that the focus of Oblivion development was complex, interesting game systems?
(I didn't include soil erosion because I actually think that's a neat thing that the developers didn't spend too much time on, but has been blown out of all proportion by reactionary bashers)
GhanBuriGhan
Erudite
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2005
- Messages
- 1,170
AnalogKid said:
I am not here to defend Oblivion. I do indeed have my own issues with it and the decisions they made. And I can't say I know where there focus lies, as the game isn't out yet. But nevertheless there are things I am looking forward to and see as gameplay improvements, or good signs for gameplay opportunities. And the paint it lack attitude here irks me sometimes, so I will go for the bait one more time . So let me try to list a few:
- Return of Guild priviledges - thsi improves the interst of the mages guild, and should help balance magic gameplay.
- Necromancy, raising the dead. Nifty, or what? Great roleplaying value.
- Scripted spells - this basically means there are now spells in the game that fit none of the classic TES standard categories. This should be able to handle just about all the complexity you could ask for.
-Magic interacting with physics. This allows a whole new level of planning: Set a fireball to knock an enemy over the edge, or use telekinesis to trigger a trap.
- Barriers of sorts (not quite what galsiah meant but sort of: "Cast a Frost Damage spell, for example, and a cloud of icy vapor will issue forth, enveloping the immediate area. This cloud will hang in the air for the duration of the spell, afflicting anything that enters.")
- In addition the fact that most of the things I listed in my last post that were in Morrowind are most likely still possible in Oblivion.
- The promise to make pure magic work and to have more interesting quests. Sure promises are a dime a dozen, but if they talk about it, I can still hope they actually have improved this area.
- rocket launcher staffs
As I said before, a vast improvement over shooting fireballs from my enchanted tights.I find the complexity of spellmaking quite exhilarating compared to any other game that just allows me to use premade spells. The tactical options are many. And all that is void
because someone said rocket launcher in a dev diary?
Rocket launcher! Rocket launcher!
True, there are many effects, but most amount to aiming damaging effects of some sort at your opponent, or casting defensive spells on yourself.GhanBuriGhan said:
You can spend half / all your time levitating, but that's less than ideal, since it removes the challenge for many encounters. Summoning isn't really a viable tactic in the vanilla game, though a few mods make it a nice addition, it is true.
Your objection to the "No casting while running" bit is quite predicatable (and a popular view I'm sure), which is why I suggested more expensive / less effective casting while running. I don't think that's too awful - Morrowind already did this to a degree through fatigue affecting casting chance. I'd just argue for a larger degree - casting spells on the run should surely be hard.
As I said though, my main objection is the lack of variety in defensive spells, and the lack of variety of tactics this implies. You can't put a magical barrier between you and your opponent, you can't put a difficult to cross object in the way, you can't slow him through magic (burden / drain strength only really do little or stop the opponent entirely), you can't cause him to run in panic, you can't confuse him, you can't distract him with illusions, you can't block him with illusions, you can't teleport him, you can't teleport yourself away a short distance... You can paralyze him occasionally, and you can fly out of the way - that's about it.
Being a pure mage in Morrowind is an interesting challenge, but for all the wrong reasons. Morrowind is generally too easy. Mages are generally pretty pathetic. The two cancel out to a degree to provide a challenging game (though long term nearly every mage will end up being a mage/fighter if not a mage/fighter/thief). There is very little variety in tactics though.
I'm not saying that it isn't fun, just that it could be more fun, and a lot more interesting.
One of the constant gripes here about games is the move to real time and the limitations on strategic play that implies. If you've only got half a second to respond to an attack, you can't do much thinking. Usually there is no way around this problem - real time will mean less strategic thought, and more knee-jerk reaction.
However, clever use of various magical attacks and defenses really could be made a strategic element. There was even a glimpse of this in Morrowind - summon a creature to distract your opponent, buying time to move away / find a better vantage point / recover health... If magical attacks and defences were really varied, playing a mage could capture most of the strategy of a turn based game - for those that wanted it. A variety of defensive tactics including delaying ones don't need to be unbalancing: the most powerful could perhaps require "Concentration", i.e. being unable to cast offensive spells (or only weak ones...) while active. Nothing should provide an indefinite defense though - cheap constant effect levitation doesn't really provide much challenge either.
Magic in Oblivion might not be bad, but it might very well be an opportunity missed.
I'm in no way saying Morrowind is a bad game, it's just badly flawed in some areas. I wouldn't devote so much time to modding it if I thought it were a bad game. I just see it as a shame that something so wonderful in some ways is so flawed in others. Oblivion is (or was) an opportunity to correct these flaws, but seems unlikely to go as far as I'd like.
My comment about targeted spell graphics was only a detail, but I think it would be an advantage. I'm not saying all spells should work like that - just some of them. That way you get away from the default "rocket launcher" mode, and have some choice and control over the style of attack. In Morrowind you don't choose to fire spells at your opponent rather than calling them from the sky / the air / the ground - you do it because it's your only option. If it were a choice, it'd be more fun when you did it. You could choose to attack using certain spell forms because you were that style of mage. In Morrowind you choose a long range attack, but all of them look and act pretty much the same - there's no issue of style, only of practicality (and there's not too much variety there - you can just damage/drain/absorb/fortify a lot of different stats)).
What I'd like to see is a magic system with some imagination, strategy and atmosphere. Not one that's really accessible because after you've selected your spell it works just like Doom.
The *staves == rocket launchers* comment doesn't sum up the entire magic system, or tell us much about the details. What it does tell us is that someone who knows how the game works in detail, thinks that one of the coolest / most enjoyable ways to play as a mage is to run around with a "rocket launching" staff. To me that doesn't say "We've significantly expanded the range of strategic possibilities in the magic system.".
Perhaps they have, but if so it seems strange that the rocket launcher aspect is one of the first things they choose to highlight.
Perhaps they are highlighting this to keep the masses interested, knowing that the RPGCodexers of this world will look below the surface (eventually
), and will then be impressed by what they find. I have my doubts.EDIT:
GBG - I hadn't heard some of that about the magic system. It does sound better to be fair. What is meant exactly by "scripted spells"? In Morrowind you could script "spells" - how are things different?
The area effect hanging in the air is a nice addition it is true. We'll have to see how it all works out - I'm still sceptical that defensive magic will be effective / varied enough
. Perhaps there is hope though.MrSmileyFaceDude
Bethesda Game Studios
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2004
- Messages
- 716
Wow, you don't really know too much about the magic system in Oblivion, do you? 
Want defensive magic? Silence is a good. Paralysis. Demoralize (or Turn Undead depending on what you're fighting). Calm is pretty powerful on enemies in combat. Heck you could cast Dispel on an opponent and get rid of their buffs & shields. Frenzy might make enemies fight each other instead of you. There's also Command. Need to get away in a hurry? Cast invisibility. The AI will react realistically. In addition to summonings, there's also Reanimate -- raise your own army of the dead to fight for you. You can also poison opponents. And of course there are buffs -- elemental shields, resistances, fortifies, reflect & absorb magicka, etc. Tactical stuff like Detect Life and Night Eye. I think the magic system allows for a tremendous amount of strategy and variety. It's not all about inflicting damage.
Oh, and it's not "scripted effect", it's "Script Effect." A Script Effect is a magic effect that runs a script on the target of a spell. Our designers have done some pretty far out things with it.
Want defensive magic? Silence is a good. Paralysis. Demoralize (or Turn Undead depending on what you're fighting). Calm is pretty powerful on enemies in combat. Heck you could cast Dispel on an opponent and get rid of their buffs & shields. Frenzy might make enemies fight each other instead of you. There's also Command. Need to get away in a hurry? Cast invisibility. The AI will react realistically. In addition to summonings, there's also Reanimate -- raise your own army of the dead to fight for you. You can also poison opponents. And of course there are buffs -- elemental shields, resistances, fortifies, reflect & absorb magicka, etc. Tactical stuff like Detect Life and Night Eye. I think the magic system allows for a tremendous amount of strategy and variety. It's not all about inflicting damage.
Oh, and it's not "scripted effect", it's "Script Effect." A Script Effect is a magic effect that runs a script on the target of a spell. Our designers have done some pretty far out things with it.
@ Galsian
@ MSFD
A question:
Is it possible, like Galsian suggested, to make effects issue not from your hands, but, say, call lighting from the sky, or attack him from beneath the ground?
If it's not, is it possible to make VERY fast-moving effect (preferably instantaneous, like lightning, only w/o the lighting), invisible effect that would trigger scripted effect like:
Place an activator 2000 units above the target.
Cast lighting from that activator at target?
He means scripted effects, not spells. It was possible to script spells in MW, but certainly not effects, and it was VERY hard to script 'targeted' spells.
@ MSFD
A question:
Is it possible, like Galsian suggested, to make effects issue not from your hands, but, say, call lighting from the sky, or attack him from beneath the ground?
If it's not, is it possible to make VERY fast-moving effect (preferably instantaneous, like lightning, only w/o the lighting
), invisible effect that would trigger scripted effect like:Place an activator 2000 units above the target.
Cast lighting from that activator at target?
Astarsis
Novice
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2005
- Messages
- 41
galsiah said:EDIT:
GBG - I hadn't heard some of that about the magic system. It does sound better to be fair. What is meant exactly by "scripted spells"? In Morrowind you could script "spells" - how are things different?
The area effect hanging in the air is a nice addition it is true. We'll have to see how it all works out - I'm still sceptical that defensive magic will be effective / varied enough
In morrowind you had to work them through either a dll (Aerelorn stuff... but I don't think he did those, but he explained they were possible) the otherway involved running a golbal scrip - running all the time - a very bad thing !!! Basically cortex told me it wasn't a good idea to have a lot of such global scripts running at the same time. there was no core system supporting it. it was all hacked out by expert modders. And some of Morrowind scripts functions had bug (check my container mods, or all the run-arround made by peoples.
In tes4 it's supported the right way, right at the start. It also seems a lot of common spells (summonning cratures and items) will be expandable, great for modellers adding a new creature
The other thing that;s cool is combining that script effect with radiant AI
*Astarsis cast love spell*(script effect)
*Lady Butterfly start following Astarsis until death part them*
*Astarsis cast Ravenous hnger*
*Fargoth start eating everything he can get his hand on. the whole town die of starvation !*
(ok, exagerationg, eating isn't mandatory
)It's harder to build up a spell system for a computer game, because contrary to pen & paper game you actually have to model that *phantom beast* or the *blades of despair* spell effects or my Rolemaster's favorite, lvl 100's RAZE (basically give you a dragon size flamethrower/fireball thrower than last for a fair amount of time, sufficient to raze whole towns. you basically summon elemental fire all over the place. mmm... I never heard of anyone getting strong enought too use that :D
IMO the best spells systems ever built were rolemaster/harnmaster/chivalry & sorcery. very detailled in all aspects. especially like C&S enchantment, where making the items *enchantable* involve a time factor. it does away with making unlimited arsenals, when it take you a year to build that enchantable sword.
computer games still have a long way to go. but morrowind (and even more true with tes4) is fairly flexible. it cover a lot more variety than just blast-blast-blast (Diablo).
If you want to play the invisible illusionist, you can.
On that leveling/stat problem... the truth is they try to push a level concept in a system that don't need it. they should care about resistance, life points, etc through separate skills, and perhaps have *power* indicator for combat/stealth/magic.
or actually:
offense (melee/ranged/magic)
deffense(armor/acrobatics/magic)
magical might (summoning/buffs/utility)
stealth rating...
you get the picture :D
it's really what they should look at for the monsters/challenge
If I'm level 20 bookkeeper, with speechcraft 100/mercantile 100
I'm not going to last long against that golden saint
one can even wonder why that bookeeper got 30 + 20*3 = 90 hits points
I guess lifting books build up the health
for the sake of realism, I tend to set my major skill to offense/melee/physical oriented skills (hopefully those that are not easy to explot)
Morrowind:
Acrobatic/Athletic
Block
Hand2Hand/Marksman
LongBlade/ShortBlade/Axe/Blunt/Spear
TES4:
Acrobatic/Athletic
Block
Hand2Hand/Marksman
Blade/Blunt
There is a easy explot for armors: summon a lousy creature and let him hit you, while quafing potions, rinse and repeat. rise real fast.
armor skills should rise base on amount of time wearing them. much more disuasive.
really ? did you try to take down all 5 almalexia guards at once at level 20 ?
not too easy, unless you start using explots.
summoning did a nice job of weakening/distracting them
don't expect them to do the job for you. it's not diablo's necro
granted mw would walk right through objects. but invisibility/chameleon and paralysis worked fine
the problem was in part the lack of regen, and in part the lack of speed boost, quick/short range teleport. that's one thing diablo II did well. a real battlemage move fast. usually appear in a cloud of smoke
I agree on that. especially the fact that focused characters are artificially too powerfull. enchanted rechargeable items really made magic useless. and the enchant skill itself was just a recharge skill. if you used a nord/warrior you could start with skills in the 60 range. the worst by far is they way they then punish you for focussing on a single class (stats don't raise) I hated how just upon reaching 9/10 (close to level up) you would check your status and go train some skills before level up to max the stats boost.
it should automatically raise all stats relevant to skills that were used. not jut 3 stats.
yipsl
Scholar
GhanBuriGhan said:
Fun is ephemeral to game design, but it's not ephemeral to the reason games are designed. Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier on the difference. No one but the Pentagon defines games as something to be played that aren't fun. Fun is a given, fun is an axiom, fun is the bedrock a game is designed upon.
Fun is not something that can be coded into the game while it's being developed. If they tell you that they're making the game more fun, then they're doing spin worthy of the O'Reily Factor. They are giving in to marketing, which uses fun as a hook to capture sales.
Yes, marketing is important. While shareware designers might design a game out of a desire to communicate their concept of fun, companies do so to make money, but if they didn't want anyone to have fun with their product, they'd work for Microsoft and code Excel.
So, game designers need to make money both during the development process and after the game goes gold. That means they have to first convince publishers that their games are really fun, because often publishers aren't game designers but just a bunch of MBAs, and they then have to convince the potential market that their game is fun.
IMHO, marketing is bunk and if I wanted to know something about marketing, I'd hire a marketer to tell me. History is more important. Whereas captains of industry and politicians who forget history are dooming the rest of us to relive economic or political mistakes made in earlier eras, game companies have it easier.
All they need to do if they had successful games in the past is to build upon that success by improving what works in the series, by targeting the core audience while not alienating potential newbies and by making sure that their product is as bug free as possible, or at least has 'new more interesting bugs' to paraphrase one of the devs on the Oblivion boards.
Bethsoft went into mildly dangerous territory this time around by not building enoughupon their successful game design in the past and by targeting an entirely new audience while taking the hard core audience for granted. It's still not a total disaster and I have hopes for Oblivion, but I wouldn't want to be playing it on the 360 because I don't think official downloadable content will fix everything that's broken.
In reality, it's not too broken, but the skill system IMHO is. I don't mind the combat per se, it's as big a change from dice rolled combat as Daggerfall's skill use system was over Arena's more generic xp system. I'll give it a try, but I'm still wondering about franc chaos' question. Did Daggerfall's dodge and Morrowind's unarmoured get axed because of the new combat system? Do pure mage and flash thieves suffer by not wearing armor?
Regarding NPCs, know there are technical limitations to today's hardware that can't give us the number of NPCs found in a late 2D era game like Daggerfall. We can hope they have enough NPCs to make the world, the quests and the culture full of life. They've probably under done the number of possible NPCs so they can add more with mods and expansions.
They're shorting us on the factions, even from the time period of the first preview in Game Informer. Not to rehash all the arguments in the Nine Divines poll thread, but a significant minority of TES gamers play religion based characters.
When weapons inclusion, when factions or when any other feature found in every TES game, in one incarnation or another, is left out this time around based on marketing studies and all we're told is that it will be more fun for more people, then something's gone wrong.
GhanBuriGhan said:
My custom class Juggling Mage prefers hand to hand, but I developed blunt when I acquired a Wizard's Staff. I agree with you that a melee staff is not really necessary to a mage, but they are necessary to two classes that aren't brought up much on the official boards or here:
Religious and martial arts characters.
Whether healers, monks or pilgrims, a melee staff is quite common in folklore, in real world history and in CRPG history. Regardless of custom class name and hybrid skill set, TES has always considered religious class characters as handicapped, but has allowed the option and made staves available. I played through Arena with a Healer wielding a staff instead of the more advantageous mace and shield combo.
Staves were also the weapon of peasants in the West and probably in the East too, that is when peasant levies weren't fighting as a mob with cheap polearms fashioned from farm implements. Martial arts developed in the East among both religious and peasant groups who did not have the advantage of armor, expensive military weapons and mounts.
I do see the issue of magical Hexenish staves as being the one of the reasons melee staves were left out of the game. Now that we know they're rare and some are overpowerful, I have to wonder why they weren't made wands instead. That way, the staff would be "out" like the spear if the devs simply didn't want it and they wouldn't have any excuse beyond poll numbers. Magical staves have been an excuse from the first day they revealed melee staves weren't in the game.
While I disagree with Bryce and don't see the game as crap, I do wonder if the series is going down the road to "Battlespire 2". After all, stressing the three categories of Combat, Magic and Stealth as if they were pure classes instead of broad categories for classes is almost in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic's three class "Half Life Too" system.
Atrokkus
Erudite
Though I do not feel with some of what people said about Morrowind's features, I do feel that aside from not being an RPG as advertised, it also has a very flawed magic system. The problem stems from enchatments: they are way too powerful and quite easy to acquire. Suppose I play a dumb human (dumb orc clichè is pissing me out), I pillage the caves, kill stuff, get the jink, visit the nearest enchanter and voilà : now I am an über Destruction-specialist with a multicharged fucking mitts of celestial fury! I exaggerate a little, of course, but the point is clear: enchantment is imbalanced, it's got to get out of the game, or be limited as much as it is required to give room to natural magick proficiency, to make magick specialists *always* superior than fucktard barbarians that happen to get their hands on enchanted artifacts. A very good idea would be to impose a certain link between the item's power and that of its user, so that there was some sort of interplay between these two magical energy conductors.
Through enchantment disbalance, the battle-mage class has been basically the überest class in the game. Pure mages were a joke. ONly with lots of plugins they become at least partially viable. WEll, of course, you could argue that hey -- mage is a difficult vocation, so playing her must be a pain. Well, in case of Morrowind, it's a little different: the difficulty is not planned, it's derived from the imbalance. A class may be more difficult than others, but the difficulty must be rewarded: this class then must be really the most powerful in game. What do we have in Morrowind? The most powerful class (well, one of, at least), is a battle-mage, which is cheesy to no end, a 4-yearold could play it properly. This is fundamentally wrong.
What could be done to make a pure mage a challenging and powerful class? Well, a completely reworked skill-system. Specialization must be impelled. A skill synergy must be imposed: you can't be a fucking archmage if half of your primary (or even secondary) skills are unrelated to magick in any way. A pure mage must be a pretty unversatile character early in the game, being pretty weak and being forced to rely on summons and clever tactics (sometimes cowardly, even). But this pain must be rewarded: in the end, it should be the most powerful character in the game. It would be a planned imbalance, and the difficulty of the class will actually make it less of an imbalance, and more of a clever feature.
And do something with mana system, for Oden's sake! It should be addressed in accord with the issues above, of course. Non-specialist mages should suffer the same fate as pure mages suffered in Morrowind: have severe restrictions on mana pool. HOwever, the more you specialize, the more synnergies you activate, the bigger should be your mana supply. ANd when I say bigger I mean actually bigger. A high-level archmage should have enough mana to slaughter, say, Seida Neen wtihout having to rest or quaff a potion. ANd that should be achieved not only though larger mana pools, but also through extensive mana regeneration bunuses that result from said synnergies and higher skill specialization, or a separate skill.
But of course, even a flawless magick system will not ever make Morrowind a pure RPG. Hence, Bethesda should focus on social elements -- verba interaction and NPC personalities as well as choices of the player -- in order to trule imbue Oblivion with all that makes a game *ROLE-fucking-PLAYING*.
Good luck.
Through enchantment disbalance, the battle-mage class has been basically the überest class in the game. Pure mages were a joke. ONly with lots of plugins they become at least partially viable. WEll, of course, you could argue that hey -- mage is a difficult vocation, so playing her must be a pain. Well, in case of Morrowind, it's a little different: the difficulty is not planned, it's derived from the imbalance. A class may be more difficult than others, but the difficulty must be rewarded: this class then must be really the most powerful in game. What do we have in Morrowind? The most powerful class (well, one of, at least), is a battle-mage, which is cheesy to no end, a 4-yearold could play it properly. This is fundamentally wrong.
What could be done to make a pure mage a challenging and powerful class? Well, a completely reworked skill-system. Specialization must be impelled. A skill synergy must be imposed: you can't be a fucking archmage if half of your primary (or even secondary) skills are unrelated to magick in any way. A pure mage must be a pretty unversatile character early in the game, being pretty weak and being forced to rely on summons and clever tactics (sometimes cowardly, even). But this pain must be rewarded: in the end, it should be the most powerful character in the game. It would be a planned imbalance, and the difficulty of the class will actually make it less of an imbalance, and more of a clever feature.
And do something with mana system, for Oden's sake! It should be addressed in accord with the issues above, of course. Non-specialist mages should suffer the same fate as pure mages suffered in Morrowind: have severe restrictions on mana pool. HOwever, the more you specialize, the more synnergies you activate, the bigger should be your mana supply. ANd when I say bigger I mean actually bigger. A high-level archmage should have enough mana to slaughter, say, Seida Neen wtihout having to rest or quaff a potion. ANd that should be achieved not only though larger mana pools, but also through extensive mana regeneration bunuses that result from said synnergies and higher skill specialization, or a separate skill.
But of course, even a flawless magick system will not ever make Morrowind a pure RPG. Hence, Bethesda should focus on social elements -- verba interaction and NPC personalities as well as choices of the player -- in order to trule imbue Oblivion with all that makes a game *ROLE-fucking-PLAYING*.
Good luck.
yipsl
Scholar
MrSmileyFaceDude said:
How does Calm work with the yield feature? Does it make an opponent more likely to yield in combat? I used Calm Humanoid and Calm Creature rather often in Morrowind, but found that I had to quaff potion and recast while, for example, I was looking for an artifact in a Dwemer ruin. That's because the spell didn't last long and didn't change their disposition towards my Juggling Mage. Though logically, it should make them more angry that you cast a spell upon them.
Also, creatures would end up running towards me down the road, even though once the calm wore off my character was barely in sight.
I doubt I'll even pick up one of those magical staves the first time I play through the game, there seems to be more of a chance to do magic and stealth without killing everything in sight this time around.
MrSmileyFaceDude said:
This I'm looking forward to. One question, does Acrobatics take the place of Unarmoured? Since there's no Dodge, does a pure mage or flash thief get no damage avoidance beyond casting protective magic or using player skill to dodge an attack? So far, I haven't seen an answer to this one.
If you just can't discuss it them please let me know. Many of us expected Acrobatics to be improved to include Dodge now that Unarmoured is out, but I guess that's not going to be.
Deathbane27
Novice
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2005
- Messages
- 10
yipsl said:
http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic ... ics#152052
http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic ... ics#156176
"There's also an Acrobatics skill perk that adds a fast dodge ability."
"One of the high end Acrobatics skill perks allow you to do something similar to that (although the controls are block + direction + jump)."
So yes, above 60 (or 80?) Acrobatics skill at least. Whether it's helpful before you get that perk is something I'd like to know too.
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.