Company News Troika PA engine

[M0rphz0rz]

Sorry, but what are you talking about? Let me rephrase this, do you even know what you're talking about? Maybe you should look up the relevant thread on the Co8 board before jumping to conclusions. It's possible to assign different AI patterns to each spellcaster depending on the situation, and that's exactly what the modder in question is planning on doing. While the whole thing is still a work in progress, the changes do sound very promising. The modder's aim is to make the combats more challenging, but not downright impossible. I don't see what's so "ridiculous" about this, but maybe you can enlighten me?

Currently, enemy spellcasters often cast useless spells on their allies (like, enlarge person on a ranged fighter) and even sometimes cast beneficial spells on YOUR PARTY. That is about to be fixed as well. Wanna complain about this too?

Dude, I played ToEE with the newest Co8. I talked about how it WAS, not what is planned, dumbass. read what you wrote - "THEY ALREADY IMPROVED IT".

Well, they did and they fucked it up as well. Not only the spellcaster AI, but some other npcs ready for attack or spell and just stand there doing nothing. The node guardians got butchered as well. All in all, the only battle that is made more challenging than unmodded is the broken tower fight.

If it's possible to assing different AI to each critter, that's cool, but it certainly doesn't seem like they did it yet and that's exactly what I was saying.

As I played ToEE fairly recently with that patch, and probably around 20 times total I can describe most of the behaviour which I found ridiculous. But if I felt like doing that, I would have already at the Co8 forum.

As bryce777 already pointed out, one of the earlier Co8 patches had a bug that caused certain problems with the enemy AI, like bugbears not using their trip attack. That has been fixed long since.

However, the enemy AI was faulty to begin with. The AI you're currently seeing in the game is exactly as Troika designed it. As I said, you don't know what you're talking about.

Instead of spouting garbage on the Codex, why don't you head over to the Co8 board for some constructive criticism?

By the way, where did I write "they already improved it"? The improvements I wrote about aren't even part of the Co8 patch yet, dumbass.

 

[Elwro]

Also, as far as I know witcher has only released STILLS, and the stills in witcher don't look nearly as good as those for the unfinished troika game.

Some Witcher stills look great to me (e.g. a picture of a cathedral, iirc), but anyway, they've released a video quite a long time ago. It was nothing revolutionary, though.

 

[Jinxed]

As bryce777 already pointed out, one of the earlier Co8 patches had a bug that caused certain problems with the enemy AI, like bugbears not using their trip attack. That has been fixed long since.

I played with a few Co8 patches. I can recall at least 3. The last one I used was 3.0.4. Bugbears used their trip attacks properly, at least for me. I don't see a problem with them. Though there are some if you really want to be anal about it. for example, the bugbears suck their potions down all the time, while this seems realistic, the threat ratio they represent actually falls as they waste their turns to gain a few hit points by drinking a cure light wounds potion or a bull's strenght potion that sometimes lasts 1 turn.

However, the enemy AI was faulty to begin with. The AI you're currently seeing in the game is exactly as Troika designed it. As I said, you don't know what you're talking about.

That's something obvious. They probably didn't have enough time to balance it out.

Instead of spouting garbage on the Codex, why don't you head over to the Co8 board for some constructive criticism?

I make my own decisions but thanks for the all so constructive input.

By the way, where did I write "they already improved it"? The improvements I wrote about aren't even part of the Co8 patch yet, dumbass.

The shallow NPCs & the non-existant story can't be fixed with a patch, that's right. However, the combat could be MUCH more challenging if the buggy enemy AI was fixed. And one of the Co8 guys is actually working on that right now, he's already vastly improved the spellcaster AI.

I was under the impression that in the last part of the quote you were talking about the 3.0.4. patch. I don't recall anything newer and the "he already improved it" states that something is done since it's past tense.

 

[M0rphz0rz]

I was under the impression that in the last part of the quote you were talking about the 3.0.4. patch. I don't recall anything newer and the "he already improved it" states that something is done since it's past tense.

Fair enough. Maybe I should have expressed myself a little bit clearer. The AI fixes that are currently being worked on aren't part of the Co8 mod pack (yet).

Sorry for sounding slightly pissed off in my last post, but a) I don't like being called "dumbass" and b) you basically said Co8 fucked up the enemy AI, which is way off the mark. The current mod pack (3.04) doesn't actually change the AI patterns. Enemy AI has always been crappy, thanks to Troika's sloppy programming & testing - but it's now hopefully going to get fixed.

 

[Reklar]

"Making glib comments about Troika's perceived weaknesses is in poor taste, especially if you haven't taken the time to watch the video."

Bullshit. What's poor taste is having the gall to protect a company that doesn't need protection. Troika is owned by grown ups. They don't need to be babied. One can like the video, and still blame Troika foir their problems and point out their weaknesses. Continue crying all you want; it won't change the facts.

Volourn, I was pointing out that Marfish should not be cirticizing the video if s/he hadn't watched it yet. All Marfish needed to state was that s/he had seen it and thought it was crap and I wouldn't have called him/her on it. As for your reply, I thought you were above making ridiculously puerile comments simply to further your own arguement. Of course Troika is owned by "grown ups", but so is every other company that gets criticized and defended by the people in this community. Both BioWare and Bethesda are good examples, and I've seen you defend BioWare on more than one occasion, so does that mean you think they are incapable of defending themselves simply because you support them? I can understand where you come up with your hardline approach on Troika, but sometimes you should just keep repeating yourself instead of trying to add nonsense to support your arguement.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)

 

[Volourn]

"Both BioWare and Bethesda are good examples, and I've seen you defend BioWare on more than one occasion, so does that mean you think they are incapable of defending themselves simply because you support them? I can understand where you come up with your hardline approach on Troika, but sometimes you should just keep repeating yourself instead of trying to add nonsense to support your arguement."

The difference is when I defend BIO; I don't say it was someone's else's fault. If there's something I dislike about a BIO game; I blame it on BIO. If some criticizes something about BIO and I happen to disagree with that particular criticism; I say so and I epxlain why. I don't say, "Don't blame BIO for that; blame x instead."

Example: Most everyone complains about TOEE's story, and priases its combat. Troika fans will say wya to go Troika; awesome combat. That's fair enough. But, what do they say in 'defense' of the story? Simple. One of two things. 'It's just a dungeon crawl' or even worse 'blame the module they were copying'. I say WTF? No, the story for TOEE is crap; because Troika did a poor job with it. Period. (unless you like TOEE's story which is fair)..

Give credit to Troika when theyd eserve it. Blame them when it's their fualt. That's all I ask. Don't make exuses. I tend not to make exuses for BIO (though; I'm sure there are one or two exmaples where I was a dink espicially long ago); but I do defend their games when I like the games in question.

Big difference.

 

[Sol Invictus]

TOEE's poor module was Gary Gygax's fault!

I kid.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I didn't think ToEE's story was that bad, especially not considering it was a dungeon crawl. Considering the game is about a huge ass dungeon, it's kind of obvious that's what it's about. There are a lot of little clues and story bits that aren't easy to uncover, though, and I think that's part of the problem a lot of people had with the story. Another thing is to get the whole story, you pretty much have to play the game twice, both as good and as evil. The whole story won't be apparent from just one side or play through.

That said, I would have prefered a less dungeony game instead of ToEE. My big problem with the game wasn't the story so much as I really don't like huge ass dungeons in D&D CRPGs. There's no easy way back to town for one. There's having to find rest spots, which ToEE didn't really have in the temple itself. If Troika had made spots in the temple where you could clear out a section and rest there, it would have been better. If the temple factions offered shops, it would have been better. I just don't like the prolonged romping of a gigantic, four level dungeon - plus the nodes.

 

[Seven]

That is such a good description of your own behavior, I will leave it to that. You have yet to show any evidence that my previously presented facts are wrong.

Nope, that's not how it works. You made statements about devs and their relationships to publishers and claimed those statements to be fact. You made statements to the affect that devs get a free ride here. You made statements to the effect that certain devs are regarded as heros. All of your meanderings have been addressed by myself or others who have taken issue with your bullshit assumptions. The way this works at the codex is: you either put up or shut up (I don't have to prove or disprove anything for you, you're responsible for backing up your own claims. Shocking, isn't it?).

So prove your case, or run a way with your tail tucked between your legs (BTW, you didn't "previously present facts", you presented bullshit and said it was fact, big difference).