Codex Interview RPG Codex Interview: Serpent in the Staglands (Now on Kickstarter)

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I prefer the Fallout system. It told you your hit percentage and expected damage range. No need to calculate anything.

In Rtwp it will be more difficult to do this. But perhaps they can have damage numerals pop up beside you enemy when a hit is performed or when your cursor is over them. That way if your quick enough at addition in your head you have a good idea of how much damage your doing per second. And intime can estimate the hp level of your opponents. This would give you an edge in combat, but would be an optional feature you could switch off if you like.

Being able to estimate your opponents hp level also means they can introduce a damage/performance system. In that the more damage your opponent suffers the less effective they become in combat. Which is alot more realistic and adds another layer of tactics into combat. (Always thought it was kind of wird my almost dead barbarian dwarf was still wailing away with his dual axes like on speed)

A hotkey activated pop-up percentage and expected damage rating for all enemies would also be helpful. And make Rtwp combat just a little more tactical and skill based, less hack and slash till your opponent dies.

Rtwp is more intense in the sense that it's more visceral. Combat is encouraged to occur at a vastly faster pace than turn based and as such combat decisions and effects can be felt more strongly. Turn based combat is more cerebral, rtwp is more instinctual. According to the myer briggs personality test. Turn based are for the Thinking types. While real time and Rtwp are the Sensing types. Turn based = Logic, Rtwp = sensuality. Chess vs sex.

That some Thinking personality types trying to play Rtwp games like they are turn based games, demonstrates it's increased flexibility and thus superiority. But if you want to cater for every personality type every crpg should include all three types of combat. Clicky diablo type + rtwp + turn based. But budget and time constraints mean most developers must focus on one combat system.

Also don't see how performing mathematics in crpg games is at all relevant to the rpg experience. It's easy to argue that performing mathematics detracts from immersion in the rpg. Since the only time I do math, is with money or when I was in primary school.

Are you arguing with yourself O_o ?

Except that Fallout's/X-Com combat was much more visceral than in BG. Also, number crunching vs. intuition is a more abstractfag vs. realism thing.
Thinking mans RTwP cRPG would obviously include reading about historical combat and about world background to understand the principles of combat. And then applying tactics. Probably it would also include some sort of logistics and hiring hirelings and stuff.

Since you can pause at any moment, RTwP allows too much logic. Much less than one would be able to apply in RL situation.

 

[Abelian]

In Rtwp it will be more difficult to do this. But perhaps they can have damage numerals pop up beside you enemy when a hit is performed or when your cursor is over them.

The floating numbers remind me too much of WoW. I would prefer a combat log, like Fallout and BG. Or like Infinitron suggested here, allow players to toggle which one they want to see.

That way if your quick enough at addition in your head you have a good idea of how much damage your doing per second. And intime can estimate the hp level of your opponents. This would give you an edge in combat, but would be an optional feature you could switch off if you like.

It sound like what you care about is the average damage, which can be simply calculated as (min + max)/2. If the weapon's damage range is shaped like a normal distribution (which will be true if dice are used), then the average will also be the (min + max)/2, so you only care about the min-max damage range.

Ironically, using dice will give you a much better idea of the average damage dealt, since there is is a much higher probability of rolling a number in the meaty part of the curve centered on its mean.

Using the example from the previous page, a weapon that deals 2-12 damage will deal 7 damage on average. However, the probability that the weapon will deal 5-9 damage (inclusive) is 24/36 = 2/3 ~ 67% using the dice, while using a simple 2-12 range, the probability is 5/11 ~ 45%. This allows you to be more confident in your estimates of how many hits the enemy will take.

 

[set]

It's not like it's a question of dice vs no-dice, the issue is that in rtwp the game is usually faster paced -- more attacks per minute of gameplay. You're not going to try and even guess the number of hits required to kill something in rtwp even if you have all the numbers in front of you. If you used dice with rtwp you'd see dice rolls every fucking second; wouldn't mean shit.

Turn based combat is slower and more methodical. In tbs it doesn't really matter whether dice is or is not present, provided the UI and game mechanics are well designed (well, less convoluted -- if game mechanics are convoluted, it's difficult to mentally determine what the best course of action is).

In the case of either system, it has its ups and downs. RTWP worked well with BG/BG2 -- there are a fuckton of encounters, can you imagine how slower of a game it'd be if you had to go through each turn to kill shit? TBS games by nature have fewer encounters and more tailored encounters and let players choose their own pace. I think this is criticall; as much as I like turn-based games, if the difficulty becomes too easy or too hard the rigid nature of the game's flow can make it require a lot of endurance to to get through.

 

[pipeboyjam]

BG's combat was alright. The goal should be to have the realtime portion of rtwp combat be as good as Diablo and Warcraft III. And have the paused portion of rtwp combat be as good as X-com. I don't know of any game that has come close to this.

The speed problem with realtime can simply be fixed by having time go in slo mo for 5 seconds or so after pausing, that way you get to see your combat decisions while paused take effect and not just whiz by. This can be an option and you can choose how slow you want it to be. This idea as well as the time slider idea was given to me when my game would slow down in combat scenes in BGII, i thought it was a game feature cause it was cool, but then later realised it was just my crappy pc not being able to keep up.

Expanding what rtwp can be is more difficult but would involve learning a.i so that you don't need to micromanage every turn based combat decision.. Another thing I'd like to see is a time slider that slows down the passage of time. (mapped to your mouse wheel) Apart from making things more cinematic (300 the movie style), it would give you more control in combat.

 

[Luzur]

im gonna look out for this one.

 

[pipeboyjam]

Regarding Staglands.
- They do state they are making spells more useful and there being less of them. Which is good. But that's it.

- Here's the comments for the kickstarter, alot of extra information.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1649838104/serpent-in-the-staglands/comments
And webpage just zoom in..
http://serpentinthestaglands.com/

BG1/2 combat had many flaws.
- 90% of the time you had no idea what spells were being used against you. Making it impossible for you to defend yourself against them.
- Casting spells due to the interface was a major pain, so unless the fight was hard you didn't bother.
- Most spells were of little value, and those that weren't you had no idea if they would work on an enemy.
- Melee fighters were boring but overpowered, so you just ganged up on one guy, killed him then moved onto the next. And that's how 99$ of fights were won.
- Archers weren't worth using.
- Obsidians complaints that there was a 'healing limit' constraining how far you could go are entirely valid.\

Some things they could add.
- Positional damage. (they say it won't be included in the game)
- Warcraft III 'special attacks' for melee fighters. (they mention stun, slow, stop etcetera attacks, not sure if they apply to melee)
- Be able to control melee fighters with fps controls. aswd movement keys, run, walk and strafe.
- Dedicated keybinding screen. So that you get a visual representation of your keybinds, making them easier to memorize or change. Essential for controlling your party fast enough in realtime combat.
- Advanced 'aswd wheel' character selection. Instead of needing to click on a person in combat to select them. There would be a dynamic centrepoint among your party from which like a wheel, you would be able to select your character using the aswd keys. This selection method is fast enough for real time control of a party in combat.

 

[set]

I fail to see how WC3 is a good icon of balance. Melee heroes pretty much sucked or were only used for their non-melee abilities. I can only name a few truly potent melee heroes that were limited in their range.

Paladin - Healbot, worthless besides that.
Death Knight - Healbot, worthless besides that.
Dread Lord - Shitty, only used for vamp aura.
Crypt Lord - Used for impale (aoe line stun)
Blademaster - Only notably good melee hero, stealth harrass with mirror images and critical strike.
Tauren Chieftan - Mediocre - awful mana pool, but good enough abilities to make him competitive choice over Far Seer and witchdoctor.
Demon Hunter - Only used for mana burn
Warden - Only used for fan of knives, blink makes her not trash compared to the other heroes
Pandraen - Used for drunk debuff
Pit Lord - Used for RoF and not much else
Beastmaster - Used for summons, literally functions as a caster.
Dorf - Storm Hammer nuke, pretty much.

Of course, any hero is fearsome with their ult, but so are casters. Most caster heroes are ridiculous once they have their ult, while melee heroes just 'stop sucking' at that point.

Basically, all of the good heroes in WC3 were casters or ranged, the melee heroes that were mediocre had a good enough long-distance aoe to make them worth using or were basically casters themselves. The only reason to even use a melee hero in WC3 is add extra bulk to the front line - which is what melee fighters are good for in BG. If you want to devatstate enemies you use as many casters as you can in BG or BG2. The best hero compisitions in WC3 are basically casters/ranged heroes + melee wall to surround and protect - notably because melee heroes are often the most vulnerable in WC3 due to the power of surround.

 

[pipeboyjam]

In BGII wouldn't casters just get hit and have their spells interrupted, then get promptly killed due to having low armour and health? (And come to think of it, micromanaging casters was a pain in the but, so I tried to have as few of them as I could get away with)

Combat wise generally speaking, I mean Warcraft 3, DOTA, WOW, Diablo 3 Are big improvements on BGII realtime combat.

It's too bad the devs aren't considering flank attacks in combat, as that would be the only thing to make melee characters interesting. Doesn't seem hard to implement. Perhaps they fear the control issues, but they should seriously try my suggestions to resolve those problems.

 

[Nihiliste]

This looks pretty cool. Might make a solid pledge after I get a chance to look through what they've said in more detail.

 

[MicoSelva]

To elaborate on the dice roll outcomes, as you grow higher in level, your dice rolls have a larger range. For example, at level one, you could be rolling a 1d4 for your attack damage, and at level ten, due to skill upgrades, better equipment and buffs, you could be rolling a 1d24. Your characters aren’t reaching heroic levels of strength and intelligence, so much as increasing their odds of surviving against more and more challenging foes. We are trying to avoid the idea that your players become hyper-powerful, and are aware that death is always around the corner, even if you’re level 20 and facing a pack of wolves.

Hey, that's almost like they're going for anti-Eternity approach with this - combat will be much more chaotic and less gamey.

Spoiler

I quite like that.

We’re aiming firstly to get on GoG, both because we love their site and to support the DRM-free distribution of games. We’ll be using Greenlight
thereafter to also try to get on Steam! We think early access can certainly be beneficial for some developers, but believe our narrative-driven game is best experienced in its finished form for players to engross themselves in, so we will be sticking with closed beta testing.

I was going for a 'wait and see' with this, but this interview has almost convinced me to back it - except the early adopter tier is unavailable through Paypal? Why?

 

[Crooked Bee]

MicoSelva We've just negotiated with Whalenought that everyone who donates at least $15 to the Codex fundraiser gets a digital copy, so you can just donate with Paypal here.

 

[MicoSelva]

I shall do that, thanks.

 

[kazgar]

MicoSelva We've just negotiated with Whalenought that everyone who donates at least $15 to the Codex fundraiser gets a digital copy, so you can just donate with Paypal here.

Rad, might donate now.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Aside from that, we've negotiated for two additional exclooosive stretch goals for our campaign, at $750 and $1000:

Since right now you can definitely design a monster, if you get to $750 you can do a second monster, or if we make it to our next campaign goal [= the $25,000 stretch goal] you can theme your own merchant island that can be sailed to.

If you get to $1000 we'll throw in an NPC with minions on top of the monster or location of the previous amount, you can decide a story/quest to go along with that of course to make it your own. If it turns out anything like your previous designs of creatures in the works, I'm sure it will be something to behold.

We'll have more art examples coming soon and combat designs, but right now the monsters are designed to act as mini-boss battles with unique attacks and possible minions, so once we show those examples those might spark some more ideas for your creations.

DU should update the campaign info later.

 

[DwarvenFood]

MicoSelva We've just negotiated with Whalenought that everyone who donates at least $15 to the Codex fundraiser gets a digital copy, so you can just donate with Paypal here.

This is great, I will up my pledge.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Archers not worth using? Did we play the same game?

 

[Decado]

Archers not worth using? Did we play the same game?

For reals. The Archer kit was a fucking machine gun. The only limitation that Archers suffered from was a lack of +5 Longbows so you could participate in Kangaxx/Lich fights.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I always want to have 3 or even 4 melee guys thanks to all the awesome magical melee weapons - but the crowded, narrow dungeons and the rate of fire with bows means that I usually have only 2 melee, rest being ranged.

 

[Abelian]

Archers were overpowered in BG1, where I used to give every character a ranged weapon (bows, if class restrictions allowed it) so they could take a couple of potshots at approaching enemies before they were in melee range (although it was annoying to equip and unequip the bow for characters like Khalid who had bow proficiency but also used a shield).

I think BG2 nerfed the ranged damage compared to BG1, but I can't say for sure.

 

[Applypoison]

Sounds promising, the look & feel hits that sweet spot of old school for me.

If I understand correctly, they're going for the "toss in wild RNG and make it work out at least half the time" approach, for the meat of combat, and this makes me a bit wary. IMO that's one of the weaker design aspects of recent Blizzard games and even older D&D rulesets, because too much of the game ends up relying on it at the expense of the player. I think it's better to consistently put the player in difficult spots, then offer a polished skillset where the player can make wrong choices/good choices and apply a bit of creativity to solve the situation. Staring down a "game over" screen as a result of mistakes/learning curve and some RNG actually feels kind of good, whereas staring down that same game over screen because your spell targets all made their saving throws and your melees all rolled below-average, does not. I think character progression like...

1-7 > 2-8 > 3-9 > 4-10 > 5-11 > 6-12
...is better than...
1d8 > 1d10 > 1d12 > 1d14 > 1d16

This way an enemy might take 3, 4 or even 5 hits to kill (not counting critical hits/fails), instead of anywhere between 2 and 10. That's plenty enough RNG for all but P&P purists. And this is why I feel restricting the variance to classic dice systems in CRPGs is just asking for inconsistencies and design traps.

Anyhow, the game can still be good if they balance it out with other features. This little bit from their Kickstarter page's "Risks and Challenges" keeps me optimistic:

2. Testing & QA. Having a polished and bug-free game is a high priority. While the bulk of the testing will fall on us, getting beta testers through this kickstarter will help us ensure that we have the best product possible before release. To offset the risks of a buggy game, we’ve set aside a couple of months in our development schedule solely for QA. Testing can be unpredictable and realistically may push back the game if a lot arises, especially if co-op is included (though this could be launched after release and tested separately to fit schedule). While we’ll aim to set aside that time and begin testing and pushing builds out to those who want to participate as early as we can, this can be a definite deadline risk.

It's honest, transparent and it shows professionalism. Not to mention, this means they can criticisze their own product, or at least are willing to - not as common as one might think. Backed through codex.

 

[set]

In BGII wouldn't casters just get hit and have their spells interrupted, then get promptly killed due to having low armour and health? (And come to think of it, micromanaging casters was a pain in the but, so I tried to have as few of them as I could get away with)

Combat wise generally speaking, I mean Warcraft 3, DOTA, WOW, Diablo 3 Are big improvements on BGII realtime combat.

It's too bad the devs aren't considering flank attacks in combat, as that would be the only thing to make melee characters interesting. Doesn't seem hard to implement. Perhaps they fear the control issues, but they should seriously try my suggestions to resolve those problems.

Better? I mean, BG and WC3 are two different beasts, they aren't even comparible. The most abilities you can have before requiring scripts in WC3 per hero is 7, maybe 8 if you get really fiddly with the UI. In BG/BG2 you have potentially dozens of spells at your disposal. Interruption was never a problem for me, but then again I never did try a full mage party. But between haste and casting range interrupts aren't too bad.

Teams of mages are definitely more potent than teams of warriors, barring the initial starting conditions of BG1 and the obvious micromanagement required. Teams that are more warrior heavy require less thought, but are probably easier to wipe - especially when healing/recovery come into play. Does no one remember level drain?

Wc3 is faster paced and simpler, even when you take into the account of micromanaging an army. The only thing that makes Wc3 maybe seem more complex is its base management - you have to micro and macro at the same time (and well, you can't pause obviously). My point was that WC3 suffers from the same balance concerns - a lot of the unique melee heroes in WC3 seldom attack with their melee weapons or are used hardly at all in a serious sense.

 

[Avellion]

I am completely fine with this being RTwP. Sure I may prefer Turn Based, but some variety is always nice.

The low bar should be your average 15 year old or less. In the staglands outline they have a table with algebra. If you need a table with algebra to explain your combat mechanics, your doing it wrong.

I guess you joining this site was an april fools joke.

Seriously, I had the probability theory figured out by myself when I was 11 years old (due to wondering why they used multiple dice rolls instead of just a bigger dice), and if you cant understand simple algebra by the age of 15, I feel really bad for you, when I was 15 years old I was doing matrices, trigonometry and calculus.

 

[pipeboyjam]

I'd say the maths and calculation of tabletop rpg's is an important reason why tabletop rpg's aren't more popular. Needing to return to my high school maths book to understand my crpg's combat system is poor design.

How is me joining a joke? Are my opinions so absurd you say I have no place here?

Regarding the randomness. One benefit of their system is it's more realistic, as it reflects the chaos of real combat. Bad luck is a dimension of combat that should be planned for. I wager there will be alot of 'running away' and rescues of almsot dead characters, which sounds entertaining.

Problem with most crpg's is that once your reach a certain level, you can kill lesser enemies like a god, never fearing death. Which just isn't realistic. Even at extremely high skill levels, luck plays a large role in combat.

In the latest update surprised at how bad the UI design is. Text is far too small everywhere, icons are identical with no colour or shape coding. Mouse use is mandatory, doesn't seem to be any catering to keyboard use in selecting abilities.

Similiar problems with BGII and indeed all crpg's, sure you could use dozens of spells in combat, but who bothers? Due to the poor UI, selecting the right spell is cumbersome at best. It's a turn off for sure. Not sure where this bad influence comes from, but inventory/UI management has become a minigame in itself for many crpg's. Perhaps it's got something to do with hoarding/looting/collecting stuff, this greedy drive practically guarantees your UI will be cumbersome. Why not focus on the roleplaying and less hoarding minigame?

ps
Given the ubiquity of widescreens, their main UI element should be on the left, with character selection on the right. This will also enable bigger text size in the dialogue screens. The group inventory stash is a great addition.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Needing to return to my high school maths book to understand my crpg's combat system is poor design.

5d6+2 vs target number of 10, SUCH COMPLICASHUNS

 

[pipeboyjam]

Pretty complicated considering most people have never rolled more than two dice in monopoly. I don't even know the what 5d6+2 means, it's never explained in BGII, you never learn it in high school (or if I have it was promptly forgotten like most things in high school maths class). Ignorance of how arrogant it is to expect everyone to know what dice roll notation is, is at best bad design. But what can you expect from smug tabletop rpg players, unwilling to let unwashed non tabletop rpg players into their wonderful little fantasy world?