Game News Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Update #25: Reactivity Up The Wazoo

[Oesophagus]

Well, I'm also not too sure about the typing in keywords thing. There should be a definite disjunct between what the player knows and what the PC knows

 

[Excidium]

You can just not type them...

 

[Lancehead]

You can just not type them...

And toggle full dialogue lines always on (do they have this option? They should), and enjoy the non-keyword system.

 

[Alex_Steel]

You can just not type them...

Exactly! Having a good distinction between in-game and off-game knowledge and not using it, is a sign of a mature player.

 

[Severian Silk]

Homeworld 2 had p. good camera controls:

1. Move mouse to edge of screen to pan.
2. Hold down RMB to rotate.
3. Scroll wheel to zoom.

My 2 cents.

 

[Excidium]

What the hell are you trying to say?

 

[Excidium]

The player has to figure shit on his own too. It's part of playing a game, I don't see how it invalidates skill usage. You don't have to be applying your stats directly to resolve situations in RPGs all the time.

Now you can say that that it does not change the fact that the player can get any skills that suit the situation and still get everything. The objection is that don't do it the NWN2 way where it was possible to be a skillmonkey. Make skills difficult to get and fixed around classes so playing each class is a different experience (like in AoD).

Having skills that cover a variety of situations give you actual choice on how to approach each conflict instead of simply being led passively by the choices you made in chargen. It's why most RPGs offer all those different type of character builds and smart people try to cover as much ground as possible compensating the weaknesses and strengths of each character in the party.

 

[Excidium]

This is hardly passive, my dear watson. YOU made the choices, meaning you actively drove your character in a direction. Now take it fully there.

I was responding to your AoD example. It's passive because you are pigeon-holed into a path of the game depending on which type of character you are playing. Or at least that was the experience with the demo, the correct response or solution to problems was always obvious because it was the skill you have out of the three choices.

Nothing of what I said above this post, was about playing the game the first time.

So what the fuck? You are concerned you will already have previous knowledge that you can use for your advantage when you replay the game?

 

[Saduj]

Well, I'm also not too sure about the typing in keywords thing. There should be a definite disjunct between what the player knows and what the PC knows

I don't see that as being a problem because unless you are reading walkthroughs, you're not going to know anything about the game world that you didn't learn from playing the game. At least for your first playthrough that's going to be true. Realistcally, the PCs, having lived their whole lives in the game world, would know a hell of alot more about the enivronment than the player does anyway.

In the demo video, they did use the type-in feature to ask about some Rangers from Wasteland 1 but those are names anyone in the organization would know anyway....

 

[Excidium]

As I see it, Ideally all checks should be hidden and you should have to figure out what you said makes SENSE. For example in a situation where telling a lie gets you off the hook, you get multiple 'lie' options but your character only knows the right one which is contrived enough to do the same successfully if he actually makes the check (Which you do not see explicitly). This as you can see only works the first time you play that game. Nothing stops you from reloading until you get it right. But that in mind is fine. I don't care about re-loaders. Why should I? I care about the fact that the choice which was the right one made SENSE in context from the story perspective and was well integrated into the text. Angthoron can shed more light on the issue I believe since textual analysis is hardly my strong suite.

Hidden active skill checks are just retarded. You can hide the outcome in this sort of situation, but the player should know that he is lying/using his bluff or whatever to the best of his skill.

On the contrary I am not concerned at all. I'd rather not want repetitive game play with all my characters.

Why would it be repetitive? Even if you can cover the vast majority of the skills with your 4 characters, you can't kill a guy and interrogate his slave and then ressurect him and barter for the slave and then ressurect him again and wait until night to sneak and release the slave to interrogate him. Once you make your choice it's done. The difference is just that, you have choice.

 

[Excidium]

Hidden active skill checks are just retarded. You can hide the outcome in this sort of situation, but the player should know that he is lying/using his bluff or whatever to the best of his skill.

Wut?

Of course he does. How else is he doing it? Also, if he exclusively invested in it (maxed it out) and the game has no random component then I guess he succeeds, right? Unless the game has a certain failure for an action and as long as that is well written why would you mind that?

Isn't you example that the player would have multiple lie options but only one is actually correct?

I don't get you. Why would you be able to cover all skills with 4 squadmates? That sounds like a suspiciously broken mechanic of skill allotment to me like in.. NWN2!!!

In classic PnP DnD or even Wasteland or Darklands for that matter (the latter had way TOO many skills though) you never actually cover the entire skill array and guess what, that adds to the fun and the value of playing the game.

I'm using an extreme example. With all the situational skills in Wasteland 2 it will hardly be the case. My point is that covering a variety of skills by having each character specialized in a different role gives you actual choice unlike a game like AoD where you're forced into specializing due to the semi-fixed skill check system and the fact that you only have one dude severely limits your choices outside of multiple playthroughs.

 

[Excidium]

It's more of a fundamental flaw with popular CRPG design, the way your options are handed in a plate. As long as you can succeed on that option (have the skill) you're set.

It's like, if adventure games were designed like CRPGs you'd need to have 30 different verbs to unlock because the puzzles already come with the solutions.

 

[Angthoron]

As I see it, Ideally all checks should be hidden and you should have to figure out what you said makes SENSE. For example in a situation where telling a lie gets you off the hook, you get multiple 'lie' options but your character only knows the right one which is contrived enough to do the same successfully if he actually makes the check (Which you do not see explicitly). This as you can see only works the first time you play that game. Nothing stops you from reloading until you get it right. But that in essence is fine. I don't care about re-loaders. Why should I? I care about the fact that the choice which was the right one made SENSE in context from the story perspective and was well integrated into the text.

Ah, so it would function as a double layer of skill check, one on the player and one on the PC's side? That's kind of nifty actually, and certainly a little underused. Unfortunately I just don't see it used in the dialogue version that Wasteland 2 is going for, as it would enormously overcomplicate the interface. What would possibly be a reasonable thing to do with an interface like this, though, is to add drop-down menu to the context words, so if you click once, it does default thing, but if you keep mouse depressed for a moment, you'd be able to apply some of your skills to it. Granted, it's extra work, but I could see an interesting future for a system like that in the long run, perhaps even a more proper departure from the dialogue trees through it.

Generally, too, it would be rather interesting to have player dialogue options to reflect the things they've been doing around, like, say, use bluff on a bully, saying something like, "You want to fight me? Don't you know I just solved problems of this entire town and killed like three dozen mutants? You want to try your luck with me, punk? You know what, YOU give me all your cash" and things of that nature, as it's always amusing to see some two-bit thugs trying to take on a guy that's clearly going to decapitate them within seconds. Sounds like WL2 team is promising some degree of this, so I'd be curious to see how it'll be implemented in their dialogue system, and, well, in general.

 

[MicoSelva]

One of the suggestions from the fans was that the Ranger party should deliver a line of dialog instead of just barking a keyword. We really love this idea. Having full sentences creates a natural conversation flow. Additionally, this approach allows us to remove the ambiguity of keywords – holding your mouse over a keyword will show you a preview of the sentence your Rangers will say.

I suggested this kind of solution for Mass Effect type of dialogue system ages ago. Here it could work even better, but implementing something like this seems like a huge amount of work.

 

[Israfael]

How is that different from Morrowind? Not that i mind the idea, its better than bioware 'wheel of duum(b)'...

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Great update!! Have EG and Captain Shrek stopped crying yet?

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Oh yeah? Well I your mom The Brazilian Slaughter too!

 

[EG]

I was crying about something? o_O



Twinkie, you are mean and you've adopted your mother's flamboyant style of dress!

 

[Irxy]

Of course, some people still aren't satisfied: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2/posts/412225?page=1#comments

I still don't like it, not a deal breaker for me though.

 

[Brother None]

The potential problem I see with this keyword system is when they said player input keywords are "never required". So e.g. the party fails the perception check to identify NPC Bob belonging to Red Skorpians, so that keyword doesn't appear in the list. But if the player types in "Red Skorpians", I imagine Bob will react to it same as if the party had passed the perception check and selected Red Skorpians from the list.

Hmm, interesting point. Player skill, in my hardcore RPG? Of course this is a problem that also existed in 80s games - if you already knew a keyword from a previous playthrough, you could use it to sequence break.

Brother None, what do you say about this

I say...it depends! If the character can only find out about it through skill checks, like a perception or spot lie or toaster repair check you have to pass to make the keyword appear, then it won't work the same way if you type it in. That would be the case in this example, if you don't pass the skill check it won't react to typing in "Red Skorpions" as it would if you did pass the perception check.

However, it's more of a regional thing where you can learn in many ways, like through descriptor texts, but could *also* learn about it from using a perception check... if you type it in then, we assume you simply paid attention and saw it in the general descriptor text and the game will respond the same as it would if you passed the perception check.

 

[Jaesun]

THAT would be pretty fucking sweet.

 

[Lancehead]

The potential problem I see with this keyword system is when they said player input keywords are "never required". So e.g. the party fails the perception check to identify NPC Bob belonging to Red Skorpians, so that keyword doesn't appear in the list. But if the player types in "Red Skorpians", I imagine Bob will react to it same as if the party had passed the perception check and selected Red Skorpians from the list.

Hmm, interesting point. Player skill, in my hardcore RPG? Of course this is a problem that also existed in 80s games - if you already knew a keyword from a previous playthrough, you could use it to sequence break.

Brother None, what do you say about this

I say...it depends! If the character can only find out about it through skill checks, like a perception or spot lie or toaster repair check you have to pass to make the keyword appear, then it won't work the same way if you type it in. That would be the case in this example, if you don't pass the skill check it won't react to typing in "Red Skorpions" as it would if you did pass the perception check.

However, it's more of a regional thing where you can learn in many ways, like through descriptor texts, but could *also* learn about it from using a perception check... if you type it in then, we assume you simply paid attention and saw it in the general descriptor text and the game will respond the same as it would if you passed the perception check.

I would hope that the text descriptions that contain keywords are also controlled by perception checks for those descriptions to appear, to begin with (like in the video), so the perception check during dialogue is just there in case the player hasn't paid attention earlier.

It'd also be neat if there are keywords that only appear in text descriptions (which in turn appear due to perception or some other skill), but not anywhere else.

Always prefer player skill+character skill to get the job done, not either of them alone.

Also, can the player change the active character mid-dialogue? Or is it just at the start that the speaker can be chosen?

 

[Brother None]

Also, can the player change the active character mid-dialogue? Or is it just at the start that the speaker can be chosen?

You can switch the speaking character to anyone in active range at any point during dialog.

 

[Lancehead]

Nice, what I expected. Infinitron, get your facts straight!

 

[Alex]

(...snip)

The foundation of the keyword system is the player building up a keyword library through interaction with NPCs and the world. The keyword list starts out empty, and as you speak with NPCs they will reveal new keywords to you. If the revealed keyword is only of interest to that NPC, it will go into a local list. You can click on words in the keyword list to navigate through the conversation. If the revealed keyword has importance beyond that particular conversation, it is put into the regional keyword list. These keywords are of interest to most of the NPCs you encounter that region. A third option, which is never required, is to type something in – a nod to Wasteland 1’s system.​

God damn it, what the hell is the point of the keyword system then? Hey guys, here is the keyword system from wasteland. Except it is really just like the conversation system from fallout. If you are going to have whole phrases instead of keywords and not really challenge the player in any way with it, why not just scrap the whole thing?