Turn Based/Real Time Bastard Hybrids

[Visceris]

I hate that SecuROM bullshit.

 

[Volourn]

Tuvok: I defend the combat as I find it great as implemented. Heck, anyone who likes the IE combat (not saying you do) should like it pretty much since the combat mechanics is pretty much the same except you control less characters. Heck, even Viceris likes the combat mechanics - then again, he changes his mind about everything every two seconds. I enjoy the combat,a dn find it very strategics - at least compared to the vast majority of crpgs to be sure. And, fun, which counts the most. As for things I dislike about the game, anyone with a search button can find that info.

X: I suffered the 1.31 patch abortion bug. However, the critical rebuild fixed that easily. The cool think about BIO, unlike many companies, is they'll fix the problems; and not simply ignore them.

Visceris; Hey, I've never been a victim of SecuROM. HAHA! :shock:

 

[Visceris]

Neither have I, but I still hate it.

 

[Volourn]

Aye, it's a nasty looking zit. However, I'm oen fo those people if my game works fine; I'm not too worried about others in their suffering. Only my gaming fun matters.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

Volourn: I prefered IE combat to NWN's; altho it has been criticized as "rock-paper-scissors" I rather enjoyed the mage combat in the IE games, something I didn't like nearly as much in NWN. Maybe that has to do with party v solo I dunno.
I agree tho, if it is fun then that is all I care about really. Which is why I like Deus Ex despite the fact that it doesn't fit almost any of the crtiteria for an RPG that I am usually spouting off about.

SecureRom sucks syphlillitic donkey balls. At the very least there is a wicked performance hit most of the time. Give it up corporate - you will *never* stop e-piracy. You are only encouraging an arms race.

 

[Volourn]

Yeah, it is probably the fact that there isn't a full fledge party that makes NWN combat seem so different than IE combat. however, that may change come HOTU. It seems BIo is working on multiple henchmen. At least they haven't denied it, or said no like they do when people ask for other stuff like robes, and cloaks, and other stuff. We shall see...

Sucks to have Secrum... hopefully; I'll never be effected by it. :evil:

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

If Bio can implement a full party mechanic in HotU's SP and do it moderately well then I would be willing to give it a try despite my current misgivings about the title.

 

[Markman]

Man, its like NWN is the only god damn game on earth.
These POS hyped up games are never for playing, only for collecting.
I have every IE game but it took me more time installing than playing them.

I really do believe that BIS and BIO lack the competence to make a good RPG.
They just suck at it. Mainstream dumbed down bullshit with romances.
If thats the best thing on the market than I dont want to play RPG's anymore.

 

[Voss]

Collecting? Its not like they appreciate in value, and there isn't any bragging rights to picking up anything everybody else can.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

If we follow your fruit analogy, we could say it is similar to fertilizing your oranges with fertilizer meant for pears in a climate, soil and overall condition meant for the growing of pears and not oranges! Simply put, it doesn?t work out correctly. When you have oranges, which are inherently oranges, but grown as pears and are susequently expected to be eaten as either oranges or pears, it will cause people to vomit because they just don?t know what to expect, as it?s neither truly an orange, nor is it a pear. It?s a pear in essence (i.e. Baldur?s Gate) but because it tastes nothing like one, the farmer insists that it looks and tastes like a pear ? but alas, it isn?t. The people would rather eat real pears than oranges which ?resemble? pears.

Could've used the fruit analogy he had. Think of it this way. You can buy TEH BESTEST ORAYNGES IN TEH HOEL GODDARNED WORLD for $100. Like-wise, you can buy TEH BESTEST PEARYAS IN TEH HOEL GODDARNED WORLD for $100. If you want both, you have to spend $200. BUT, what we've got is a situation where with only $100, they want both PEARS and ORANGES. So they spend $50 on each, and end up with not-so-good oranges and not-so-good pears. Chances are, they'll be fine for those who don't mind, but NEITHER THE PEARS, NOR THE ORANGES are as great as they could be. They may be slightly rotten, a little old and not as sweet and juicy as they would've been. If the fruit-wholsesalre had just made up his mind in the first place about which product he wanted to sell and chosen one, he'd be renowned for great fruit, instead of trying to please everybody and failing.

So quite simply, the comic has it wrong. Vault Boy should've bought an ORANGE, not a pear. Then complained about the rotten poor quallity of the orange, as he can buy better oranges elsewhere. That, as you say, is the point behind the complaints against a combined RT/TB combat system. People who like oranges can buy better oranges elsewhere. LIKE-WISE, the people who like pears know where they can get better pears.

EDIT: Just found an interesting quote on the Lionheart forums (Page 5, "Why all the complaining?" thread):

The thing about Lionheart is it falls into the trap of all hybrids. It doesn't cater to any particular crowd. You have the pure hack and slash action crowd with the margin of excellence being Diablo. You have the pure roleplaying crowd with there margin being Fallout. Lionheart isn't exactly Diablo, nor is it Fallout, so neither crowd is pleased. In the end in order to appreciate Lionheart you have to not belong to either group.

Oranges and pears.

 

[Anonymous]

About the whole Deities and Domains that NWN fudged, there was a Christian review of NWN and they gave it brownie points because you could type 'Jesus' as your deity.

I dont recall 'Jesus' being in the player's handbook.


As for no domains, you can't just go 'Ehh, oh well, it was bad, but I can over-look it', considering it makes the Cleric a chainmail wearing,mace wielding sorcerer that just makes sure people dont die. It strips a cleric of usefulness and roleplayability.

Also, healing others is shit, when's the last time you needed to do it? In Single player and Multiplayer, you can just load up on potions as keep them hotkeyed.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

EDIT: Just found an interesting quote on the Lionheart forums (Page 5, "Why all the complaining?" thread):

The thing about Lionheart is it falls into the trap of all hybrids. It doesn't cater to any particular crowd. You have the pure hack and slash action crowd with the margin of excellence being Diablo. You have the pure roleplaying crowd with there margin being Fallout. Lionheart isn't exactly Diablo, nor is it Fallout, so neither crowd is pleased. In the end in order to appreciate Lionheart you have to not belong to either group.

Oranges and pears.

That group would be the BIS can do no wrong fanboi group. Lionheart wouldn't appeal to Diablo fans because the ph4t l3wt tables suck ass and the combat sucks ass. There's no random dungeons, either, so.. That pretty much kills all the good things about Diablo 2.

CRPG fans probably won't like Lionheart because of the same reasons as above in addition to the fact the roleplaying elements suck ass too.

 

[Section8]

So quite simply, the comic has it wrong. Vault Boy should've bought an ORANGE, not a pear. Then complained about the rotten poor quallity of the orange, as he can buy better oranges elsewhere. That, as you say, is the point behind the complaints against a combined RT/TB combat system. People who like oranges can buy better oranges elsewhere. LIKE-WISE, the people who like pears know where they can get better pears.

There's more to it than that. The fact that the oranges and pears are halved, stapled together and sold as one. You might get some half decent pear goodness on the outer edge of the pear half, likewise the orange half. But when you get into the middle, the flavours are inseparably combined. Even if you bought two hybrid fruit, took out the staples and tried to make a pure pear and a pure orange, where the halves meet is still "contaminated."

 

[Sol Invictus]

Thank you for elaborating my thoughts into words, Section8. That's exactly what I was trying to get at.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

So quite simply, the comic has it wrong. Vault Boy should've bought an ORANGE, not a pear. Then complained about the rotten poor quallity of the orange, as he can buy better oranges elsewhere. That, as you say, is the point behind the complaints against a combined RT/TB combat system. People who like oranges can buy better oranges elsewhere. LIKE-WISE, the people who like pears know where they can get better pears.

There's more to it than that. The fact that the oranges and pears are halved, stapled together and sold as one. You might get some half decent pear goodness on the outer edge of the pear half, likewise the orange half. But when you get into the middle, the flavours are inseparably combined. Even if you bought two hybrid fruit, took out the staples and tried to make a pure pear and a pure orange, where the halves meet is still "contaminated."

Actually, I think that comic was about Visceris, who says he doesn't like real time at all, but buys NWN, IWD2, Lionheart, etc. then complains about the combat.

 

[Visceris]

I will always complain about real time, though I hate Hybrids even moreso.

 

[Volourn]

SP, he complains about everything.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

You know what I don't get? Why not address the "boring combat" issue where your high level party is forced to fight pissant kobolds and rats the way it was done originally - auto-resolve combat as an option for each fight. That's the way most 4X games still handle things, so why don't CRPGs stick with their roots and add that as an option still? At least you're not fucking up rules to do that.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Why not address the "boring combat" issue where your high level party is forced to fight pissant kobolds and rats the way it was done originally - auto-resolve combat as an option for each fight.

While it definitely sounds like a good solution, I'd prefer to have the problem removed, not fixed. If the creatures are intelligent they should know better then mess with a walking death dispenser, if the creatures are rats and basic predators, they should either run away after you kill one or switch their attention to the corpse you've just made. It shouldn't be a big deal to compare group/character level to that of a creature(s). If the chances to kill PC and his party are very small, he should be left alone. It would be much better then introducing progressively tougher monsters, for example, as it does not create a very believable environment.

As for your auto-combat idea, it would require a solid AI and instructions giving capability, as I don't want to auto-resolve rats encounter and find out that my party wasted half of my best ammo in burst fire or half of the spells to kill a dozen of rats in the most spectacular manner

 

[Section8]

It makes sense. Given that most RPGs consider combat to be a discrete state, with clear boundaries including the start and end of combat it couldn't be that hard to implement. All you need to do is run a simulation of the combat under the hood with Player Characters controlled by AI. It's even simpler if it's an encounter based system, like the Fallout world map.

But like Vault Dweller said, I think there are better ways to address the problem. Anything sentient should be able to gauge what they're up against, and even fairly unintelligent critters have enhanced senses to gauge a victim. Think vultures. The player still has the choice to attack, and then it's their own fault for initiating a boring combat because they're desperate for XP or something.

 

[Jed]

If it were my game, I would design a middle way: encounters with creatures far enough below challenging wouldn't necessarily go hostile. Maybe they would just hang off to the side eyeing you warily. That way, no combat if you don't want it, or if you do...smackdown. Maybe some types of creatures are stupid or suicidal enough to attack anyway, but I think a good chunk of unchallenging combat could be avoided.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Enemies smart enough to run away if they know they don't stand a chance against you was one of the things I mentioned when I was arguing with the Static guys about turn based. Even so, a pack of wild dogs might not be smart enough to leave a high level guy with special armor and a big, nasty weapon alone simply because it'd be rather hard for them to tell the difference. Even if you fudge that and say that all animals, no matter how dumb or how hungry, run away from high level Bob, you'll still have the problem with going back and doing n00b quests at a later time. Some situations just might call for dogs to fight.

Area of effect weapons and spells would also be a good way of removing these pissant critters in one turn or so. If grenades worked better in Fallout, I'm not sure too many people would have complained much about the ants under Broken Hills, even though it was silly to make a giant ant dungeon so late in the game.

 

[Ibbz]

As for no domains, you can't just go 'Ehh, oh well, it was bad, but I can over-look it', considering it makes the Cleric a chainmail wearing,mace wielding sorcerer that just makes sure people dont die. It strips a cleric of usefulness and roleplayability.

You should try playing on some persistent world servers without a cleric party member. You'll soon see their usefulness.

 

[Nomad]

XJEDX,

Your link to the nwvault is no longer valid since it points to the front page and that headline has been moved into the archive.

Here's another link (although I'm not entirely confident that this link won't expire in a week, too):
http://nwvault.ign.com/archive/arc.shtml

Update : I found the solution for my situation. The press copy of SoU that I was using is being rejected by whatever new copy protection has been implemented in 1.31. If you are experiencing this problem and using a backup CD, definitely try using the original. Also blindwrite users also seem to be affected. If you find any other solutions, please let me know so we can share it with the community.

Notice how Maximus updated his headline to indicate that it was _his_ mistake?

Also, it wasn't new copy protection, it was that Maximus' original press copy _had_ no copy protection to begin with so when he ran the _real_ update his _unprotected_ disk wouldn't work. That's not BioWare's fault, that's Maximus' fault.


N.

 

[Nomad]

Oh, and just to be a pain, NWN doesn't fail as a Turn-Based game and it doesn't fail as a Real-Time game because it's not trying to be either (i.e. one can't lose if one doesn't play).

However, it succeeds as a RT / TB hybrid game!


N.