Game News Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #44: On Melee Engagement

[Infinitron]

Of course, there's probably a lot of that tied up into the fact that the only major dev houses that have done RTwP are Obsidian/Black Isle and Bioware

Only if you restrict yourself to pure CRPGs.

Just as TB fans lionize Jagged Alliance 2, which isn't really a proper RPG, RTwP fans can hold up games like Freedom Force, as well as various larger scale RTSes.

Characters with more movement points just fall into the category of "cool character design"

Having more Agility points (or whatever) than another character is "cool character design"?

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Edit: I didn't feel like addressing your action points remark because it seems really, really silly to the point where I'm pretty sure even you didn't mean it seriously, but here goes: yes, but since the system requires you to use movement points to make attacks or any other significant action, you're just talking about a relative comparison of power. If both characters have the same number of action points, kiting and attacking again becomes impossible. Characters with more movement points just fall into the category of "cool character design", since it comes at the cost of something else. I can think of ways to abstract this into the RTwP system, but they basically all boil down to "making RTwP more like turn-based".

Arcanum actually provides a good example - Dexterity gave you more movement points in TB combat and increased animation speed in RT combat. It was kind of poorly implemented, but the concept of an attribute allowing more movement and attacks in a given period of time does the same thing without making RTwP more like TB.

Also if you can kite at all in a TB game, its pretty easy to do it flawlessly as the micromanagement skills required are pretty low. Who cares if you don't do as much damage? If you never get hit it's kind of a moot point.

 

[Zeriel]

Of course, there's probably a lot of that tied up into the fact that the only major dev houses that have done RTwP are Obsidian/Black Isle and Bioware

Only if you restrict yourself to pure CRPGs.

Just as TB fans lionize Jagged Alliance 2, which isn't really a proper RPG, RTwP fans can hold up games like Freedom Force, as well as various larger scale RTSes.

Characters with more movement points just fall into the category of "cool character design"

Having more Agility points (or whatever) than another character is "cool character design"?

Because it means you have garbage in every other area, yeah? Not sure how this is controversial. When this is always the best strategy, it's generaly a failure of game balance. That's definitely a different sort of argument, though--my main problem with RTwP as implemented in the Infinity Engine games is that movement is basically free and universal. There is (almost) no variance, it is done in addition to/simultaneous to attacks, and the only quantification of "speed" is the D&D attacks per round cap. It's entirely possible that the reason RTwP sucked in Infinity Engine/NWN games is that they were using the ruleset of a TB system for a non-TB game, but I have yet to see any reason to believe this new version will be significantly better.

 

[Infinitron]

There is (almost) no variance, it is done in addition to/simultaneous to attacks, and the only quantification of "speed" is the D&D attacks per round cap.

Eternity is changing this.

 

[Zeriel]

There is (almost) no variance, it is done in addition to/simultaneous to attacks, and the only quantification of "speed" is the D&D attacks per round cap.

Eternity is changing this.

How? (Not being aggressive/sarcastic here, I am actually curious. I don't read every Formspring post, just the main updates.)

 

[Captain Shrek]

There is (almost) no variance, it is done in addition to/simultaneous to attacks, and the only quantification of "speed" is the D&D attacks per round cap.

Eternity is changing this.

Yeah. It will be like WoW instead with DPS and Tanking.

 

[Infinitron]

There is (almost) no variance, it is done in addition to/simultaneous to attacks, and the only quantification of "speed" is the D&D attacks per round cap.

Eternity is changing this.

How? (Not being aggressive/sarcastic here, I am actually curious. I don't read every Formspring post, just the main updates.)

It's not using a round-based system with "attacks per round". Characters attack and cast spells asynchronously at different speeds, which are affected by armor (heavy armor = lower speed) and presumably by class and stats as well

 

[tuluse]

It's not using a round-based system with "attacks per round". Characters attack and cast spells asynchronously at different speeds, which are affected by armor (heavy armor = lower speed) and presumably by class and stats as well

Not too many things though because multiple inputs is confusing.

 

[Zeriel]

There is (almost) no variance, it is done in addition to/simultaneous to attacks, and the only quantification of "speed" is the D&D attacks per round cap.

Eternity is changing this.

How? (Not being aggressive/sarcastic here, I am actually curious. I don't read every Formspring post, just the main updates.)

It's not using a round-based system with "attacks per round". Characters attack and cast spells asynchronously at different speeds, which are affected by armor (heavy armor = lower speed) and presumably by class and stats as well

That has potential! I'm not actually of the idea that RTwP has to suck, but I do kind of prefer TB (not across the board, but definitely really well done TB like X-COM), and feel that excellent TB is _better_ than excellent RTwP. I can only hope that Eternity's Path of the Damned + Iron-Man mode will be more challenging than BG2.

 

[Infinitron]

There is (almost) no variance, it is done in addition to/simultaneous to attacks, and the only quantification of "speed" is the D&D attacks per round cap.

Eternity is changing this.

How? (Not being aggressive/sarcastic here, I am actually curious. I don't read every Formspring post, just the main updates.)

It's not using a round-based system with "attacks per round". Characters attack and cast spells asynchronously at different speeds, which are affected by armor (heavy armor = lower speed) and presumably by class and stats as well

That has potential! I'm not actually of the idea that RTwP has to suck, but I do kind of prefer TB (not across the board, but definitely really well done TB like X-COM), and feel that excellent TB is _better_ than excellent RTwP. I can only hope that Eternity's Path of the Damned + Iron-Man mode will be more challenging than BG2.

Path of the Damned is being tuned to be at least as difficult as Icewind Dale 2, according to Sawyer.

 

[Zeriel]

There is (almost) no variance, it is done in addition to/simultaneous to attacks, and the only quantification of "speed" is the D&D attacks per round cap.

Eternity is changing this.

How? (Not being aggressive/sarcastic here, I am actually curious. I don't read every Formspring post, just the main updates.)

It's not using a round-based system with "attacks per round". Characters attack and cast spells asynchronously at different speeds, which are affected by armor (heavy armor = lower speed) and presumably by class and stats as well

That has potential! I'm not actually of the idea that RTwP has to suck, but I do kind of prefer TB (not across the board, but definitely really well done TB like X-COM), and feel that excellent TB is _better_ than excellent RTwP. I can only hope that Eternity's Path of the Damned + Iron-Man mode will be more challenging than BG2.

Path of the Damned is being tuned to be at least as difficult as Icewind Dale 2, according to Sawyer.

Oh, dear! I didn't find IWD2 difficult, so I don't know what that says about me. (Unless he means IWD2 on Insane difficulty--though come to think of it I don't even remember if IWD2 had a difficulty slider like BG2. I just remember it being normal difficulty on whatever the default was.)

 

[Infinitron]

Oh, dear! I didn't find IWD2 difficult, so I don't know what that says about me. (Unless he means IWD2 on Insane difficulty--though come to think of it I don't even remember if IWD2 had a difficulty slider like BG2. I just remember it being normal difficulty on whatever the default was.)

It had a Heart of Fury Mode, although that wasn't as well-balanced as IWD1's.

I don't know if he was referring to IWD2 vanilla or HoF.

 

[J_C]

Oh, dear! I didn't find IWD2 difficult, so I don't know what that says about me.

It tells you that you are the master of RPGs, a genious, the messiah of hardcore gamers.

Spoiler

You are also a faggot.

 

[Zeriel]

Oh, dear! I didn't find IWD2 difficult, so I don't know what that says about me.

It tells you that you are the master of RPGs, a genious, the messiah of hardcore gamers.

Spoiler

You are also a faggot.

I prefer "someone who likes a specific type of game", but faggot works well enough, I suppose.

 

[villain of the story]

So, Feargus & Co do it again:

GRIMOIRE SLAM-DUNK !

 

[FeelTheRads]

Path of the Damned is being tuned to be at least as difficult as Icewind Dale 2, according to Sawyer.

If he means IWD2 without HOF then -> Base game confirmed to be "push button to win".

 

[Infinitron]

FeelTheRads Zeriel
Just to be clear: IIRC, Josh was specifically asked by somebody else about how PE would compare to IWD2 on the Something Awful forums. So the idea of directly comparing PE with IWD2 isn't his.

Personally, I don't remember IWD2 being particularly easy.

 

[Zeriel]

FeelTheRads Zeriel
Just to be clear: IIRC, Josh was specifically asked by somebody else about how PE would compare to IWD2 on the Something Awful forums. So the idea of directly comparing PE with IWD2 isn't his.

Personally, I don't remember IWD2 being particularly easy.

And lots of people find XCOM on Normal difficulty overwhelming. Of all the game design particulars, difficulty is almost certainly the one that is most in the eye of the beholder.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Personally, I don't remember IWD2 being particularly easy.

But wasn't that Path of the Damned thing supposed to be the equivalent of HOF? If that's only as difficult as regular IWD2...

 

[Zeriel]

Personally, I don't remember IWD2 being particularly easy.

But wasn't that Path of the Damned thing supposed to be the equivalent of HOF? If that's only as difficult as regular IWD2...

I am ashamed to say I never played Heart of Fury (as I recall it was patched into IWD long after I had beaten it). What level of difficulty was it?

 

[FeelTheRads]

I am ashamed to say I never played Heart of Fury (as I recall it was patched into IWD long after I had beaten it). What level of difficulty was it?

XTREEEME!!!1

I've only finished HOF in IWD1, kinda got bored in IWD2. It's just not as replayable, not even with the extra challenge.

 

[Gozma]

Literally the first major design decision we hear about for this Kickstarted squad tactics RTwP game, a system that has never been done acceptably before and was created for entirely LCD reasons, is Attacks of Opportunity - which is a turnbased design kludge. The alarm bells I get for this leading to "FIGHT HARD? PAUSE MORE" pathing micromanagement are deafening. If they insist on keeping the system for nostalgia's sake they should have started this by doing triage on what they can rescue from the wreckage of RTwP, not immediately repeating previous hamfisted mistakes. If there is a good RTwP game it won't be a shitty half-measure between TB and RT, it will be orthogonal to both.

Keep in mind this developer made NWN2, a RTwP game that is 75% combat and every trace of it is perfectly awful

 

[Infinitron]

But wasn't that Path of the Damned thing supposed to be the equivalent of HOF? If that's only as difficult as regular IWD2...

It was.

I don't know. It's been a while since that comparison was made. Perhaps we could ask Josh about this again.

 

[Rake]

I am ashamed to say I never played Heart of Fury (as I recall it was patched into IWD long after I had beaten it). What level of difficulty was it?

XTREEEME!!!1

I've only finished HOF in IWD1, kinda got bored in IWD2. It's just not as replayable, not even with the extra challenge.

I remember the discussion. Someone asked Josh if we can excpect the game to be as difficult as IW2 and Josh said "in the higher difficulty yes".
What excactly means by that is anyones guess, but i don't think he mentioned Path of the Damned at all, nor would i consider it a part of the difficulties he meant. Wasn't it supposed to add the enemies of ALL difficulties?

 

[Roguey]

What excactly means by that is anyones guess, but i don't think he mentioned Path of the Damned at all, nor would i consider it a part of the difficulties he meant. Wasn't it supposed to add the enemies of ALL difficulties?

Yup, plus it boosts their stats.