Any new combat/class system projects?

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               Forgive me for going a bit out of order, but some things seemed to be a larger priority.

WebShaman wrote...

I would like to hear FunkySwerve's comments on that area, before I make any type of decision here.  The more I hear your negative comments towards HG, the more I begin to ponder what your actual motive here is. HG is not WoW, and WoW is not D&D.

HG has a large playerbase, especially for a NWN PW.  I rather begin to suspect that you are somewhat biased here, but I am not sure as to how yet.  My experiences with HG are very different than what you are posting here (and when one looks through youtube at the different videos for bosses, etc, it seems to reinforce what I am posting here).

My motive?  If you recall, you're the one who brought Higher Ground up.  And Higher Ground is certainly a popular PW.  But based upon the comments the original poster made, it is exactly the opposite of what he wants.  The OP is trying to get away from crazy build dependencies, extremely specific gearing requirements, and battles usually being decided before they start.

All three of those are ramped up to the extreme on Higher Ground.  And again, some people like that.  But the OP isn't looking for that, hence I recommend he stay away from Higher Ground.

If, on the flip side, the OP wanted an Action PW full of immunities, necessary build types, insane gear dependency, and planning mattering nearly infinitely more than playing...I would heartily recommend HG.  It has its own play style and it's a well-crafted world.

This is NOT a "BASH HIGHER GROUND" thread or something.  Many of its systems are amazing (like its banking system).  I'm very impressed by the whole server hopping, special tools it has, and how smoothly it runs with its population.  But it's not what the OP wants.

For reference, I believe my three characters there were...

53ish Weapon Master
35ish Fighter
35ish Sorcerer

Highest "dungeon" I completed was first level of Hell.

WebShaman wrote...

As for HG - well, you were what, two characters?  Perhaps you should have brought a party for that area.  I personally find it curious that you and your friend (Fighter and Archer) run into a place and you complain about things miserably.  Would also having a Cleric type and a Wizard type have helped things (buffs, etc)?

No, buffs wouldn't have mattered.  Our weapons were equal to or better than what GMW would give at that point.  The boss had resistances that would have soaked up any minor elemental damage.  And hitting the boss wasn't the problem, damaging it was.

Thus, even bringing a party of 10 fighters wouldn't have helped.  With pretty much the best weapons for our level, we couldn't scratch it (while standing there for 15 minutes, I did some math...the boss had 75% physical immunity, at least 15 damage reduction (meaning we needed to do 60+ damage per hit to scratch it, but it could have been beyond 20 or more reduction), and critical immunity).

That said, having a Cleric or Wizard would have tremendously helped...because they could have done more than 10 damage per round to it.  In fact, I soloed said boss on my Sorcerer with little effort.  Just spammed IGMS on it a bunch of times.

WebShaman wrote...

After the players realize what is needed to defeat said area(s), normally it is a pushover to repeat (although occasionally things will happen).  Then it is on to the next.  Rinse, repeat, yadda yadda yadda.  So goes the PGer.  After everything has been experienced and reduced to a red smear, on to the next PW, and so on.

The whole point of the OP is that he wants something where it isn't a pushover to repeat.  Where even realizing what is needed doesn't guarantee success, where you still have to play well to win and can very easily fail.

WebShaman wrote...

HG is a PG PW.  One needs to be aware of this, and to play accordingly.  MM, you say you and another was basically doing the environment there.  Are you certain that the environment you and your friend was adventuring in was "balanced" for two adventurers?  I rather tend to believe that it wasn't.  Therefore, you were (purposefully, though perhaps you were not quite aware of this) intentionally increasing the challenge of the area, by reducing the number of adventurers AND abilities that you had available to defeat the area.

The number of adventurers didn't matter.  As mentioned above, it was easily soloed on my sorcerer.

The problem was that melee couldn't DO anything.  And archers barely could either.  Let's say we had a party with 3 fighters, 1 cleric, and 1 mage.  Two of the fighters might as well go sit in the corner and AFK.

It's not a matter of saying "Well, caster damage is twice as good on this fight," it's saying "caster damage is hundreds of times better (or infinitely better)."   And the reverse is true, I remember an area on my sorcerer where I literally could not do 1 point of damage to any of three boss enemies.  Not with spells, not with familiar, not with buffed summon (and summons are far more powerful there).

I am perfectly fine with not being able to solo or duo stuff.  If anything, I encourage it.  But I despise trying to achieve this by saying "X will be completely useless here so you need Y" and then also saying "Y will be useless here so you need X."  I think certain classes or roles can be more useful without making the others useless.  However, bringing along four extra fighters should be as good or better than bringing one mage, in my opinion (comparing a party of fighter/cleric/mage/rogue versus fighter/figher/fighter/fighter/fighter/cleric/rogue).

But if you disagree, then many NWN worlds, including HG, will work perfectly for you.

WebShaman wrote...

In the case of the player playing a 40th level cleric - it seems almost incredulous to me that someone can reach level 40 WITHOUT being aware of what their spells are for!  It boggles the mind.  I cannot begin to fathom someone complaining that they could not hit with their cleric without at least trying to use the resources available to change the outcome (or at least influence things).

To make things short - I do not think one should create environments with the ignorant in mind.  Perhaps beginning areas, etc - to get beginners used to the D&D system, etc.  But anything in Epic and above should be created by taking standard resources into account - and having special areas for those inclined to min/max things (ultra PGers, so to speak) is also something that I personally enjoy.

For the latter, part of the problem is that you generally have to start over to fix a bad build, which I consider a huge flaw.

For the former, they played through the OCs and then on an RP world that was made to be easy.  Mobs with mid 40s AC at most at level 40.  They picked spells they thought were cool and figured melee would be their back-up if they ran out of spells.  The idea of expecting full battle buffs was foreign to them.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

My note about re-inventing a wheel was meant for you and pope_leo actually.

I know.  Hence why I said you likely wouldn't be interested in it!

ShaDoOoW wrote...

It seems to me that you both trying to make something that was already tried to be done without taking these previous tryes in account. Ive seen lot of balance changes and speaking of HG or for example HoW/DeX it only make the game ridicuously fussy. There is so many changes that the new player coming here have no chance to orientate in the mess.

Except HG isn't what we're talking about.  Higher Ground effectively takes the issues we're concerned about and ramps them up to extremes.  It is the opposite of what we'd like.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

PS. whatever it seems from my comments, I still consider HG to be great server, every action player should try it, there are lot of interesting things and moments in gameplay that I enjoyed when playing there. Its definitely good server. And when there is someone looking for action type of module I always recommend the HG.

As long as you walk into it with both eyes open, sure.  Just be aware of the insane gear dependency, plenty of ways to instantly die, and balance design that I dislike.  If you're fine with all that, it is definitely an amazing server.  But not for me.  And not for the OP.

Aelis Eine wrote...

There will always be a gap between the casual and hardcore, but ideally, a game should be designed like chess - easy to pick up, but hard to master. The problem here is that designing based on instant wins and instant win counters creates a very high barrier to entry, because it requires casual players to be aware of the metagame - the multitude of ways by which they can instantly win or lose and how to prevent them. And that makes the game difficult to pick up. In chess, there is no instant win - it's a chain of events where a player slowly gets funnelled into a loss, so every step of the way they can analyze and learn what went wrong.

Exactly.  And in NWN, you often have to completely start over to fix any mistakes in character building, which makes this problem worse.  It's not a matter of leveling up, saying "Wow, I did some dumb stuff" and fixing it, you need to make a new character.

And the only way around this problem is to limit the player's options when it comes to making a character, sadly.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

The whole server is about getting all immunities which are found on items. Each ability is separeted here so mind-affecting immunity will not protect you against daze, fear, stun, paralyse - Im unsure if the mindaffecting immunity even exists there. (good idea)

So whatever I picked, it was always about get as much AC possible in order NPCs couldnt hit you without rolling 20. Get as much immunities as possible, or at least those that are spammed in that dungeon (for beholders player needed all of them). Get at least 10 scrolls of resurrection just for case your teammate dies, and get potions for each ability, barkskin, and fullheals. All this from very early stages of game, later you just bought better potions and better items.

Also damage immunities.  If you don't have 75% or 50% damage immunity to certain types, you'll just repeatedly die in many areas (in addition to repeatedly dying from all of the above).

Mind-affecting does exist, but it doesn't DO anything past level 40 for most stuff.  Aka, even though you're immune to stun via it, you'll still get stunned unless you specifically have Immunity: Stun from an item.

pope_leo wrote...

@MagicalMaster
I like your idea about the innate health, especially if it's largely in lieu of potions.  It reminds me of the change from the Grass [1] in Demon's Souls to Estus Flasks [2] in Dark Souls.  It added a nice new dimension to the game, IMO.

Yeah, the idea was that you had certain amount of healing per day along with spells per day.  You could balance damage from enemies without having to assume infinite healing potions.  Finding a potion of full healing would be a treasure only to be used in the most dire of situations.

It also means a healing cleric or druid is a nice bonus (they can allow the party to survive something like 50%-100% longer) but not mandatory.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MagicalMaster, 30 septembre 2012 - 09:20 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

pope_leo wrote...

I've been working on a combat related project off and on again for awhile.  Like MagicalMaster, I'm wasn't sure how much interest there'd be.  It's a Linux nwnx plugin + Lua library tho, not a game balance thing.  Basically it allows you to script the melee/ranged combat roll with Lua among other things.

Some of the things I am working on.  Some of them are already doable by other means of course and not all of them are immenintly 'practical'.

- A simple interface for combat modifiers.  I.e. AB, AC, Damage Bonus, maximum Hitpoints bonuses/penalties can be easily modified by area, classes, feats, combat mode, race, creature size, skills, versus favored enemies, etc.
- Control of how combat rolls are calculated.  e,g. AB, AC, Damage, Crits etc.  Or you could remove them all together.  i.e. replace crit rolls with crit effects (e,g, x3 crit does knockdown not x3 damage)
.- Control over how effects stack.  eg. Could do Pathfinder style stacking.
- Control over effect maximums on a case by case basis. 
- Expanding effects to be capable of being VS subraces, dieties, individual targets.
- New combat modes and overriding old ones (that function identically to hardcoded ones)
- New special attacks and overriding old ones.
- Abstracting Sneak/Death attacks and Coup de Grace under the rubric of "Situational Attacks".Idea being making it a simple process to add new effects/combat modifications based on target and attacker state.
- Weapon attack bonus ability, damage bonus ability (always strength in the NWN engine), critical hit bonus damage (i.e. from overwhelming critical), critical hit range, critical hit multiplier, and iteration (i.e. amount a creatures base attack is decremented each attack) are all totaly modifiable on a creature-by-creature basis.

It's all still in an quite alpha state, lot of bugs to work out, but everything is beyond proof of concept.

If any one is interested, a slighty out of date repo is here: https://github.com/jd28/Solstice

This is some very exciting stuff! I could definitely use a lot of that - it solves a lot of workaround hacks I had in mind, since so much of melee is hardcoded. If it can do floating point crit multipliers and D100 combat rolls that would be a dream come true, and the way it's looking, I think it can...

My biggest two wishes for NWN though, is first a UI mod that will grey out an icon and display a cooldown timer before it can be used again, a la NWN2, and second, a UI mod that displays a Mana or Energy bar. I highly doubt they will ever come true.

It should be apparent that I am looking beyond D&D/NWN at this point. I want to create a homebrewed, IP-neutral class, spell and feat system that, while birthed on NWN, is almost completely wiped clean of stock NWN content at the 2da level so that it can be easily ported to say, Multiverse or a future Dragon Age game that supports PWs. I won't say it's "reinventing the wheel" per se, because the majority of the groundwork for modern CRPGs has roots in PnP D&D and its peers, and I won't say they reinvented the wheel as much as they gave it armor plates or put monster truck tyres on it so that it can navigate a different kind of terrain.

And with the system I want to create, I definitely don't envision all classes being equal, but I do envision them having a basic set of tools to handle a variety of situations.

For example, I plan to give all classes a basic single target attack. For the melee classes this is straightforward enough - the left click autoattack works fine, but I'll be giving out Weapon Finesse for free, so that Dex-based characters can go with melee or ranged as their preferred style right from the start. For casters, there will be one caster class geared towards each mental stat, and these classes each get an infinite uses per day single target spell based on their respective stat that will let them do comparable damage per round to a melee character.

I also plan to give all classes a basic AoE, which does less damage per target than the single target attack, but will do more total damage over 2 or more targets. Also infinite uses per day, but different classes get different AoE shapes, like Str-based fighters getting a circle right in front of them, Dex-based getting a fan-shaped knife throw/arrow shot etc etc.

Every class also gets a healing skill, set to 1x/day but scripted to recharge after 5 rounds or thereabouts, and different classes use different mechanics for their heals, like maybe Druids get an AoE plant growth that they have to stand inside for some fast regen per tick, Necromancers get a vampiric heal or a heal where they sacrifice a summon and heal themselves for a percentage of the summon's remaining HP, Fighters probably get a very straightforward "Push button for HP" deal to reflect that they're a straightforward class etc. These heals are drawn from a shared pool, such that using one heal will drop all other heals to 0x/day.

After that, I'm planning to have each character being able to select 6 more skills, out of a possible pool of 12 per class, split into tiers such that level 1-8 in a class can only select from the first pool of 4, then level 9-14 gets an additional 4 skills to choose from and 15+ gains access to the full list. These skills are limited uses per day, but are either stronger than the basic skills or expand on a core mechanic of the class, like Rogues might be able to learn Invisibility, some stuns and blind skills to set up Sneak Attacks, Rangers get to learn Web shots and short duration movement buffs to help with their kiting. Necromancers learn skills to apply, spread and take advantage of diseases and debuffs on a target.

This sounds like a lot of work, but I think in the long run it will save effort, because I'll be paring down the number of classes from 24 to maybe 9, and the total number of player skills, assuming 12 selectable, 2-3 basic per class works out to 129, which is smaller than the Wizard's entire spellbook
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Aelis Eine wrote...

This is some very exciting stuff! I could definitely use a lot of that - it solves a lot of workaround hacks I had in mind, since so much of melee is hardcoded. If it can do floating point crit multipliers and D100 combat rolls that would be a dream come true, and the way it's looking, I think it can...

Both of those would be amazing.

Aelis Eine wrote...

My biggest two wishes for NWN though, is first a UI mod that will grey out an icon and display a cooldown timer before it can be used again, a la NWN2, and second, a UI mod that displays a Mana or Energy bar. I highly doubt they will ever come true.

The former is definitely a huge wish.  The problem is not establishing a cooldown, the problem is communicating it to the player.

Also, you can simulate mana/energy/whatever using feats.  For example, for Energy, make a feat that has 20 uses and regenerate 2 uses per second or something.  Can use this type of system for a lot of things.

Aelis Eine wrote...

It should be apparent that I am looking beyond D&D/NWN at this point. I want to create a homebrewed, IP-neutral class, spell and feat system that, while birthed on NWN, is almost completely wiped clean of stock NWN content at the 2da level so that it can be easily ported to say, Multiverse or a future Dragon Age game that supports PWs

Yeah.  The thing we love about NWN is the idea of toolset, not the game mechanics themselves.

Aelis Eine wrote...

For example, I plan to give all classes a basic single target attack. For the melee classes this is straightforward enough - the left click autoattack works fine, but I'll be giving out Weapon Finesse for free, so that Dex-based characters can go with melee or ranged as their preferred style right from the start. For casters, there will be one caster class geared towards each mental stat, and these classes each get an infinite uses per day single target spell based on their respective stat that will let them do comparable damage per round to a melee character.

Dex/ranged characters not working properly at level 1-2 is definitely something I think is flawed by default.

Aelis Eine wrote...

I also plan to give all classes a basic AoE, which does less damage per target than the single target attack, but will do more total damage over 2 or more targets. Also infinite uses per day, but different classes get different AoE shapes, like Str-based fighters getting a circle right in front of them, Dex-based getting a fan-shaped knife throw/arrow shot etc etc.

I wouldn't do 2 or more targets, I'd do 3.  I'd suggest 40% of the single target damage.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Every class also gets a healing skill, set to 1x/day but scripted to recharge after 5 rounds or thereabouts, and different classes use different mechanics for their heals

I'd consider doing multiple uses initially but only recharge 1 use per minute or something.  So it's like a pool you'd wear down versus "if you take more than X damage in 5 rounds, you die.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MagicalMaster, 30 septembre 2012 - 09:18 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

Also, you can simulate mana/energy/whatever using feats.  For example, for Energy, make a feat that has 20 uses and regenerate 2 uses per second or something.  Can use this type of system for a lot of things.

That works, but I suppose I was thinking of an Energy system that interacts with the UI, so that if a character is out of Energy, they wouldn't be able to cast a spell, rather than spend 3 seconds casting the spell only to have it fizzle out because it failed the energy check at the spell hook.

Unless... I were to do a energy builder/spender system with it instead, so that I can use very small denominations that make it easy for the player to keep track of which skills they can use, e.g. 1 for most skills and 2 for big ones. Then I could hook autoattacks and the single target infinite use spells to build energy. And it solves a few other problems like perma-stuns or fears, since energy building is required to maintain it, and rest restrictions '>!

I wouldn't do 2 or more targets, I'd do 3.  I'd suggest 40% of the single target damage.

Why do you suggest 40%? I'm still in the air about the exact number myself, but my gut feeling is that around 70% should be fine. My impression of Aion and RIFT, which I assume to be the case in WoW, is that PvE is largely designed around quality over quantity: mobs are usually statistically equal or superior to players, but rarely come in superior numbers to the player's party unless it's an overpull or a mechanic like boss adds, so lower AoE damage might work there since the idea is to not overaggro.

On the other hand, the more actiony RPGs like Guild Wars 2, Champions Online and Torchlight make it a point to swarm the player regularly, but they get stronger AoEs to handle that. Single target skills might also have better utility, like in the case of archers, the autoattack range goes as far as the screen can clip, while casters may have a higher chance to apply their spell effects on their single target skill.

As for NWN... I suppose in some cases it can be considered 100%, because an instant kill Wail does the same theoretical DPS as any other instant kill a mage throws out, and in some cases it's 0% because characters like a ranged Ranger might have no AoEs at all.

I'd consider doing multiple uses initially but only recharge 1 use per minute or something.  So it's like a pool you'd wear down versus "if you take more than X damage in 5 rounds, you die.

5 rounds could be a little strict, and I might drop it to 4 or even 3 with testing, but I think the idea of dying after taking X damage in 3-5 rounds is fine. As I mentioned, I wanted all classes to be able to function as a self-contained Trinity. In a Trinity, apart from healing to increase survivability, there is also damage mitigation/prevention - straight up defensive buffs or control skills like Fear used defensively, or even killing something outright because dead mob = 0 damage. Healing skills should really be considered a last line of defense.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               Well, as you both are discussing things not remotely D&D related, I will bow out here.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

WebShaman wrote...

Well, as you both are discussing things not remotely D&D related, I will bow out here.

That's not quite true.

We're still talking the NWN toolset.

We're still talking AB/AC.

We're still talking the D&D classes and the idea of feats/skills.

In fact, if anything we're talking stuff similar to 4E D&D, I think, if I understand how that works roughly correctly.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Unless... I were to do a energy builder/spender system with it instead, so that I can use very small denominations that make it easy for the player to keep track of which skills they can use, e.g. 1 for most skills and 2 for big ones. Then I could hook autoattacks and the single target infinite use spells to build energy. And it solves a few other problems like perma-stuns or fears, since energy building is required to maintain it, and rest restrictions '>!

Indeed.  It's what I set up for fighters in the second project I mentioned.  I can show you the system if you'd like (and it can easily be converted to casters as well...the only catch is that you can only check when the spell finishes.  But easy enough to say "if you couldn't check to see if you had 5 mana, too bad" if needed).

Aelis Eine wrote...

Why do you suggest 40%? I'm still in the air about the exact number myself, but my gut feeling is that around 70% should be fine

Two main reasons.

One, to control the difference between AoE and single target damage.  Imagine if there are 5 targets.  With your value, you're doing 3.5 times the damage per round in AoE.  In mine, it's 2 times the damage.  Still a large increase, but it doesn't get too insanely too quickly.

Two, to make using AoE a decision.  It's still technically more with 3 or more mobs, but with 3 mobs you have to ask yourself if the 20% more damage is worth not focusing the target down.  But as you move to 4+ mobs it definitely becomes worth it.  Otherwise, you could still do reasonably well spamming AoE on single target.

Aelis Eine wrote...

5 rounds could be a little strict, and I might drop it to 4 or even 3 with testing, but I think the idea of dying after taking X damage in 3-5 rounds is fine. As I mentioned, I wanted all classes to be able to function as a self-contained Trinity. In a Trinity, apart from healing to increase survivability, there is also damage mitigation/prevention - straight up defensive buffs or control skills like Fear used defensively, or even killing something outright because dead mob = 0 damage. Healing skills should really be considered a last line of defense.

Well, there's two main lines of thought regarding healing.

One, you should be able to survive indefinitely.

Two, you should have a steady drain on your health and eventually run out.

In your method, if the player ever takes more damage than their max HP within 30 seconds, they're dead.  Period.  Doesn't matter if they played amazingly for 5 minutes and then messed up.  Perhaps you want that.

In my method, they might still gain a heal every 30 seconds, but they start with 3-5.  It acts as a buffer of sorts.  It means you can introduce segments where they have to heal more.  It means that if they get down to 1 heal but play perfectly maybe they can get "ahead" of what's intended and have some margin for error.  It helps protect against burst damage or a series of bad crits.

In my idea, you can imagine the player with a total health pool that steadily decreases as the fight goes on.  Eventually they'll run out of heals in most cases.  In your idea, every 30 second window is a self-contained event.  I prefer the former idea, generally speaking.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

Indeed.  It's what I set up for fighters in the second project I mentioned.  I can show you the system if you'd like (and it can easily be converted to casters as well...the only catch is that you can only check when the spell finishes.  But easy enough to say "if you couldn't check to see if you had 5 mana, too bad" if needed).

Sure '> And I had a feeling it would be like D&D4E, but I haven't actually seen that system in action yet. Waiting for Neverwinter though, to at least give it a look/chance.

Two main reasons.

One, to control the difference between AoE and single target damage.  Imagine if there are 5 targets.  With your value, you're doing 3.5 times the damage per round in AoE.  In mine, it's 2 times the damage.  Still a large increase, but it doesn't get too insanely too quickly.

Two, to make using AoE a decision.  It's still technically more with 3 or more mobs, but with 3 mobs you have to ask yourself if the 20% more damage is worth not focusing the target down.  But as you move to 4+ mobs it definitely becomes worth it.  Otherwise, you could still do reasonably well spamming AoE on single target.

Let me try some theorycraft here. Suppose an AoE does 7 damage and a single target does 10 damage, and mobs have say, 25HP. Mobs die after either 4 AoEs or 3 single target hits. Lets say mobs do 1 damage in the time it takes a player to do an attack. With a spawn of 3, spamming the AoE means the player takes damage from 3 mobs 3 times, for a total of 9 damage.

However, taking range into account, suppose the player pulls from max range and gets 2 attacks off, then drops an AoE, 1 mob goes down with 0 damage taken, then the remaining 2 get into melee range. Now suppose the player uses a breakable CC like Sleep and disables 1 mob, that's 2 damage taken so far. The player then does a single target on the second mob and takes 1 damage in return, but if the player manages to proc say, a Slow or a 2x Critical, they can avoid taking more damage either by kiting or because the mob died outright. The player can then reposition to kite the remaining mob. Total damage taken is either 3 or 4, but instead of taking 4 attacks, the player takes 8 attacks, so half the DPS, but half the damage taken in return.

Of course, this is all theorycraft, but the point I am trying to make here is that raw numbers can't accurately reflect actual combat situations all the time. AoE is a big brush, but it's also a clumsy brush and sometimes the finesse of a smaller brush might get the job done better. I think while theoretical numbers point towards 40%, practical testing might suggest a higher number for AoEs to be considered attractive.

Well, there's two main lines of thought regarding healing.

One, you should be able to survive indefinitely.

Two, you should have a steady drain on your health and eventually run out.

In your method, if the player ever takes more damage than their max HP within 30 seconds, they're dead.  Period.  Doesn't matter if they played amazingly for 5 minutes and then messed up.  Perhaps you want that.

I'm guessing mine follows the first line of thought? =p I think it's fair enough that if a player messes up enough in the span of 18-30 seconds, they die, provided they mess up a lot in that timeframe. Typically, after a heal I'd expect the player to play more defensively, like kiting or pressing an emergency button like an AoE fear, going into Invis/Stealth, popping a bubble etc. A combination of that and lesser CCs like roots/snares, knockdowns, attack debuffs etc will tide them over to the next heal, or at least cover their escape.

I think most MMOs follow the first line of thought as well - as long as you don't run out of mana pots, you can survive indefinitely because your healer manages to make it from one big cooldown to the next.

Also, I'm put crit-increasing feats and access to Keen very high up the Dex tree, and I don't plan to have crit multipliers higher than 2x. Mobs will follow the same rules, so a series of bad crits won't be nearly as bad as it is on stock. With Leo's plugin, hopefully I can set 1.5x as the base crit multiplier for most weapons to alleviate this further, with scaling crit damage based on Dex or feats related to Dex.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aelis Eine, 03 octobre 2012 - 12:39 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Squatting Monk]

               Had a thought today on how to give feedback on cooldowns. NWNX allows you to get and set quickbar slots. Assuming these changes show up immediately rather than requiring relogging...

Create dummy feats (they don't have to be granted to the player, since feats the player doesn't know can still be added to the quickbar) with icons displaying a number corresponding to the number of rounds remaining in the cooldown. (You would only need the numbers 1 - 10. Cooldowns lasting longer than ten rounds would need a 1m, 2m, etc.). Then, when one of the abilities is used, swap its quickbar slot out for the dummy feat and use a pseudo-heartbeat to update it once per round until the cooldown has expired, at which point the ability is returned to the quickbar and made usable again.

So if you used an ability with a cooldown of five rounds, its quickbar icon would change to a 5, then 4, 3, 2, and 1 in succession, followed by the ability being returned to the quickbar.

Of course, you'd still want to decrement the number of uses on the ability so the player can't just turn around and use the ability from the radial menu. All this system would do is give visual feedback to the player to tell them how much time remains before they can use the ability again.

You'd also need to find some way to restore all the quickbar slots in case a player logs out while some abilities are still on cooldown.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Squatting Monk, 04 octobre 2012 - 09:21 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Aelis Eine wrote...

Sure '> And I had a feeling it would be like D&D4E, but I haven't actually seen that system in action yet. Waiting for Neverwinter though, to at least give it a look/chance.

Never played DnD of any type, so no idea.  I'm working on the last 4 test chambers for Fighter atm (the abilities themselves are functioning but still setting up the tests).

Aelis Eine wrote...

However, taking range into account, suppose the player pulls from max range and gets 2 attacks off, then drops an AoE, 1 mob goes down with 0 damage taken, then the remaining 2 get into melee range...Total damage taken is either 3 or 4, but instead of taking 4 attacks, the player takes 8 attacks, so half the DPS, but half the damage taken in return.

That's not a fair comparison.  To use your idea, the player would pull from max range and drop 3 AoEs before the mobs get there.  And then drops one more AoE, so each mob hits once.  So you take 3 damage and take 4 attacks.

Aelis Eine wrote...

Of course, this is all theorycraft, but the point I am trying to make here is that raw numbers can't accurately reflect actual combat situations all the time. AoE is a big brush, but it's also a clumsy brush and sometimes the finesse of a smaller brush might get the job done better. I think while theoretical numbers point towards 40%, practical testing might suggest a higher number for AoEs to be considered attractive.

The combat situation you outlined isn't even really an AoE situation (at least not the second one).

I suppose one of the main points is we need to figure out what AoE means.  If you mean 2-3 targets max, then 70% or so would be needed, yes.  But if we're talking 5-6+ mobs in AoE (which to me is what AoE really means), then 40% is far more reasonable.  That means you're dealing double the total damage with 5 or more targets.  And it becomes a total damage increase at 3 or more targets.

Aelis Eine wrote...

I'm guessing mine follows the first line of thought? =p I think it's fair enough that if a player messes up enough in the span of 18-30 seconds, they die, provided they mess up a lot in that timeframe. Typically, after a heal I'd expect the player to play more defensively, like kiting or pressing an emergency button like an AoE fear, going into Invis/Stealth, popping a bubble etc. A combination of that and lesser CCs like roots/snares, knockdowns, attack debuffs etc will tide them over to the next heal, or at least cover their escape.

"Mess up a lot" is awfully vague.  The thing I also don't understand is theoretically a player should *already* be playing defensively like that before they take damage.  Or will be, if the content is hard.

I think the question to ask is whether you care about how many total times the person messes up or solely how many times they mess up within a small window of time.

Aelis Eine wrote...

I think most MMOs follow the first line of thought as well - as long as you don't run out of mana pots, you can survive indefinitely because your healer manages to make it from one big cooldown to the next.

I can't speak to MMOs besides WoW, but that's definitely not true in WoW.  Even initially, you could only use a mana potion every two minutes.  And for a while for, you can only use one potion per combat.  The whole point has been, in fact, to get away from "spam potions to win."

Also, in most MMOs, bosses typically have a mechanic that makes them kill everyone after a certain length of time (aka, after eight minutes they start doing 1000% more damage), has tem ramp up something to achieve the same effect (so adds start off spawning every 60 seconds, then 55 seconds, then 50 seconds, etc), or they run the healers out of resources simply because the healers steadily lose mana.  Unless you're planning to include one or more of these in your fights, they'll hugely reward defense over offense.

My method still allows for the "instant death" stuff or the "ramping up," but also effectively creates that steady drain to ensure fights can't drag on.  So you'd start at 5 heals, for example, and will require a heal, say, every 15 seconds and regain 1 heal per 30 seconds.  Second column is heals available, third is heals used

000 *** 5 *** 00
015 *** 4 *** 01
030 *** 4 *** 02
045 *** 3 *** 03
060 *** 3 *** 04
075 *** 2 *** 05
090 *** 2 *** 06
105 *** 1 *** 07
120 *** 1 *** 08
135 *** 0 *** 09
150 *** 0 *** 10

And then you'd die at 165 seconds.  If you played poorly and took extra damage, you'd die sooner (and could be unable to heal in time as well, of course).  That's just an example to show what I mean.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Squatting Monk wrote...

Of course, you'd still want to decrement the number of uses on the ability so the player can't just turn around and use the ability from the radial menu. All this system would do is give visual feedback to the player to tell them how much time remains before they can use the ability again.

I thought any feat not gained from leveling up had unlimited uses?

And yeah, that sounds like it would be hell on the quickbar slots.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Squatting Monk]

               No, I mean decrement the number of uses for the special ability that cools down. Isn't that what you did in the demo module you had?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

That's not a fair comparison.  To use your idea, the player would pull from max range and drop 3 AoEs before the mobs get there.  And then drops one more AoE, so each mob hits once.  So you take 3 damage and take 4 attacks.

As I mentioned in a previous post, some attacks, like Flame Arrow and normal bow autoattacks go as far as the screen can clip. I definitely wouldn't give AoEs the same amount of range. Neither will I give them the same chance of proccing secondary effects.

The combat situation you outlined isn't even really an AoE situation (at least not the second one).

I suppose one of the main points is we need to figure out what AoE means.  If you mean 2-3 targets max, then 70% or so would be needed, yes.  But if we're talking 5-6+ mobs in AoE (which to me is what AoE really means), then 40% is far more reasonable.  That means you're dealing double the total damage with 5 or more targets.  And it becomes a total damage increase at 3 or more targets.

Probably 3-5, with the 5s having uneven HPs so that some of them will drop faster than others. Some AoE skills might even cap at precisely that amount, either as a hard cap (max 5 arrows fired, max 3 targets chained) or an effective one, like really small melee range AoE that typically hits 3 targets at best.

"Mess up a lot" is awfully vague.  The thing I also don't understand is theoretically a player should *already* be playing defensively like that before they take damage.  Or will be, if the content is hard.

I think the question to ask is whether you care about how many total times the person messes up or solely how many times they mess up within a small window of time.

I'll probably go by a per-encounter basis, in keeping with an ARPG-style design. It seems anti-climatic for a player to die because they ran out of "ammo", so to speak.

That said, I also don't plan to have encounter difficulty as a straight line. I think having spikes and valleys keeps things interesting - adding random situations that can make people panic, like random ambushes, traps triggering hidden doors that open up a flanking attack etc. When there's a valley in difficulty I wouldn't expect players to need to use any defensive skills or heals at all, and when there's a spike they might have to pop everything.

As for messing up a lot within a small window, suppose there's a caster mob with a big debuff, a CC and stacking DoTs, and a melee mob with sneak attacks, both relatively squishy. Trouble is, the caster mob is relatively far away compared to the sneak attacker, but there's a conveniently placed pillar or corner in the room.

The "model answer" would be to use the pillar to block the caster's line of sight, take down the sneak attacker, then ambush the caster as it turns the corner without taking a single point of damage.

The slightly less ideal solution would be to go straight for the caster, eat the debuff and maybe a few sneak attacks but CC and take down the caster, pop a defensive skill to cover the heal, then kill the sneak attacker.

The worst solution would be to go for the sneak attacker because it's the closet target. The player eats the debuff, maybe gets a few attacks, including a knockdown skill evaded by the sneak attacker due to the combined debuff and the sneak attacker AC, gets CCed, eats sneak attacks, pops the defensive skill and heals, then finally kills off the sneak attacker but takes a few non-sneak attack hits and eat a couple DoTs while that happens. The player then runs up to the caster with a bunch of DoTs ticking, gets CCed again and dies.

When talking about larger groups, say, a whole room with spawns of 3-5 with varying movement speeds, sight ranges and more complex terrain like cliffs, fences, destructible obstacles and other variables, the potential ways to mess up rises almost exponentially.

I can't speak to MMOs besides WoW, but that's definitely not true in WoW.  Even initially, you could only use a mana potion every two minutes.  And for a while for, you can only use one potion per combat.  The whole point has been, in fact, to get away from "spam potions to win."

On Aion I could set up my character to more or less sustain an indefinite supply of mana, and potions were on 30 second cooldowns, while treatments were on 16 seconds. On Champions there were no mana potions, instead they used the energy builder/spender on all characters, and added other ways to potentially sustain attacks indefinitely as well. GW2 did away with mana/energy altogether, except for Thieves who used a small, finite energy pool with fast regen.

Ultimately, I suppose it boils down to how resources in the game are designed, as long as there's a sufficient feeling of scarcity of resources that necessitates some strategic decision making (i.e. can't just spam your best heal/damage skill/CC-lock etc all the time), how you go about doing it is really just minor details based on the desired flavor/feel of the game.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               Haven't forgotten this, just been very busy last few days, will reply in-depth tomorrow.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Squatting Monk wrote...

No, I mean decrement the number of uses for the special ability that cools down. Isn't that what you did in the demo module you had?

Yeah, I think I see what you mean, the question is making sure the new "icon" is put at the correct spot on the quickbar each time and is removed each time.

Aelis Eine wrote...

As I mentioned in a previous post, some attacks, like Flame Arrow and normal bow autoattacks go as far as the screen can clip. I definitely wouldn't give AoEs the same amount of range. Neither will I give them the same chance of proccing secondary effects.

Secondary effects being?...

Slows?  DoTs?  Stuns?

And why wouldn't a Fireball have the same range as a Flame Arrow, out of curiosity?

Aelis Eine wrote...

Probably 3-5, with the 5s having uneven HPs so that some of them will drop faster than others. Some AoE skills might even cap at precisely that amount, either as a hard cap (max 5 arrows fired, max 3 targets chained) or an effective one, like really small melee range AoE that typically hits 3 targets at best.

If you're keeping it that low, then yeah, that might work.  The main thing you want to avoid is a situation where a player feels they might as well spam an AOE attack on a single target OR multiple targets because the net effect is basically the same and it's a lot simpler to only worry about one ability.

Aelis Eine wrote...

I'll probably go by a per-encounter basis, in keeping with an ARPG-style design. It seems anti-climatic for a player to die because they ran out of "ammo", so to speak.

I'm talking per encounter.  When I say "small window of time" I mean your 3-5 rounds.  When I say "total times" I mean for the whole fight.  Presumably you'll have fights lasting several minutes, right?  So, assuming none of the mistakes are instant death type mistakes, should the player die if they mess up more than 6 times in a 3 minute fight or die if they mess up more than once within a 30 second window of that fight?

Does that distinction make sense?  Not sure if I'm explaining it clearly.  A health pool for the entire fight or a health pool for a 30 second window that resets?

Aelis Eine wrote...

Ultimately, I suppose it boils down to how resources in the game are designed, as long as there's a sufficient feeling of scarcity of resources that necessitates some strategic decision making (i.e. can't just spam your best heal/damage skill/CC-lock etc all the time), how you go about doing it is really just minor details based on the desired flavor/feel of the game.

Provided the strategic decision making is good, yeah.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MagicalMaster, 09 octobre 2012 - 03:50 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

MagicalMaster wrote...

Secondary effects being?...

Slows?  DoTs?  Stuns?

Very likely not stuns, unless they're very short stuns that would effectively make them just interrupts. Slows, very likely. DoTs, quite likely too. Attack or Damage debuffs, or maybe something that procs a buff on the player.

And why wouldn't a Fireball have the same range as a Flame Arrow, out of curiosity?

There's a lot of ways to handwave that in lore. As an infinite cast maybe it takes more energy to maintain a longer ranged Fireball because of the higher explosive power it packs, and maybe there would be a longer ranged Fireball with limited uses. Or maybe the Flame Arrow is simply more aerodynamic and better for longer ranges, at the cost of AoE payload. Either way, Flame Arrow being good for long distance sniping and Fireball for closer range kabooms makes sense to me.

I'm talking per encounter.  When I say "small window of time" I mean your 3-5 rounds.  When I say "total times" I mean for the whole fight.  Presumably you'll have fights lasting several minutes, right?  So, assuming none of the mistakes are instant death type mistakes, should the player die if they mess up more than 6 times in a 3 minute fight or die if they mess up more than once within a 30 second window of that fight?

Does that distinction make sense?  Not sure if I'm explaining it clearly.  A health pool for the entire fight or a health pool for a 30 second window that resets?

On trash? A mob would probably die in a matter of seconds. A zerg of mobs might take a minute or slightly more, not so much because of DPS but because of the need to divide and conquer by kiting and line of sight. I'm aiming for an average dungeon to take 20 minutes to clear for a party of 3, and slightly under an hour solo.

Also, it isn't really a 30 second window that resets, because the heals are not full heals. It could very well be a character having 300HP and losing 200HP over say, 18 seconds, then healing back 120 to go up to 220, losing another 200, healing back to 140, winning with 80HP left and resting to reset cooldowns.

I should dust off my old mod and see if I can make it work with CEP2.4, then I can show you a bit of what I mean.

Anyway, moving on, how many active abilities should a player have access to? i.e. buttons to press that make something happen - AoE, Single Target, Buffs, Debuffs, Heals etc. This is in the context of NWN specifically, i.e. 36 hotkey slots max, but a good majority of them are bound to less than ideal keys with no way to rebind - how does a player hit Ctrl+F12 while trying to kite in a circle, for example?

Also, what are the bare minimum skills that every character should have? I listed 1 single target, 1 AoE and a heal, but there's a few others I'm not sure about so I thought I'd ask a second opinion.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aelis Eine, 10 octobre 2012 - 01:08 .