Lionheart: the missing features

[Vault Dweller]

First of all, I get it, it's an action RPG, emphasis on action. It was never supposed to be a game of Fallout or even BG caliber, and anybody who was caught by surprise should definitely consider getting Gain Perception perk. However, and unfortunately for many of us, LH turned out to be a rather mediocre action game that fell short of its potential. I wonder why developers did not see it or didn't do anything about it if they did.

1. The combat is a very important feature in an action game, because this is what action games are all about. It makes perfect sense to throw in a couple of combat moves to avoid the boredom of mindless clicking. That's clear to anybody who played and compared Diablo 1 to 2. Yet nobody did that, and combat is awfuly repetetive. A simple thing like adding another option like attack speed would have helped a lot, some things could have been even tied to the attack speed, like fast attacks let you select attack mode that target multiple enemies, slow attacks open posibilities for penetrating, more damaging attacks, etc

2. The skills. As I'm adding another point to one of my combat skills, I'm wondering what does 175 make me in terms of my fighting ability and whether or not I should continue throwing points there. It seems to me that the logical step would be to have combat sub-skills with spells functionality, i.e. the more points you add the stronger all the skills get. It would have added flavour and gave players a good and visible reason to develop a skill. Sub-skills like bonus damage (that's already in the game but you have to look at your weapon stat to notice the difference), increased attack speed (allows to use faster attacks with lesser penalty), finesse (more criticals) should have been there and wouldn't require a lot of work, but Reflexive missed this opportunity as well.

3. Active Skills. My char tagged 2-handed, diplomacy, and fortitude, put some points into lockpick and traps and that's pretty much it. I am under impression, correct me if I'm wrong, that the game does force you to pick 3 skills and stick with them. I would be nice if there were ways to have 4-5 decently developed skills for variety's sake. What happened to the Tag perk?

4. Items. First, what's with creative way to use coma in a name? Second, where are the items? The other game (Zax?), if I recall correctly, let you upgrade and customize your gun. Why the items are so boring in LH? Where are the wondrous, wicked, magical, awe-inspiring, cleverely constructed, glowing in the dark items? The thing is that there aren't many things to do in an action game. Items are one of the things that make it fun. There is something wrong when you go through 2/3 of a game with the sword you bought at the beginning, don't you think?

5. The spirit. Don't you think it would have been nice and logical if I would have been able to communicate with my spirit when I want, not only when the spirit decides to show up. You could have asked the spirit for advice (actual advice not a free hint line), for info on new enemies, background info, etc; anything at all that would give you the feeling that you actually have a spirit within.

I'm not bitching, I'm simply curious why these obvious and easy to do things weren't done to improve the game and make it fun. If you notice I didn't suggest switching to TB combat, adding more cities, having deeper conversations, more intricate quests, etc. Like I said in the beginning, I get it, it's an action game, but I'm talking about things that should have been there, but were ignored. D2 is a king of action games without doubts, Blizzard practically wrote a fucking book on how to make a good action RPG, why nobody at Reflexive read it?

 

[DarkUnderlord]

One of the things I said a few weeks ago was that Lionheart would be a luke-warm hit, mainly because the dialogue would save it. I said that because the feedback from the demo was that combat was pretty bad, but that the dialogue was interesting. My perception of the game was that there would be a lot more dialogue, even though there was all that talk about 'action-RPG'.

I find it funny now that the one thing that could've saved the action RPG, was half-assed. Arcanum fell into the same boat in a ways. I thought the combat in that was pretty bad, but talking to all those people made the game incredibly interesting, from a background/story point of view. Talking to people and seeing what they had to say, or what I could do with them, is one of the reasons I like and still mod Arcanum.

As it did you, it surprised me that Lionheart had such poorly implemented combat. I agree, for an action RPG you would've thought they'd spend a bit more time there, hey?

 

[protobob]

I pretty much agree with you.

1. Fast attacks, slow attacks. You can change this. Click on the 'aim' button and you get a slider that lets you change how fast you attack. The faster you attack the less likely you are to hit, vice versa. I find it handy to take down those monsters that are hare to hit.

I know what you are saying though. Pure melee is going to be boring as hell. I ended up going with a demonkin with unarmed, thought:fire, and thought:protective taged.

I go into battle with an AC buff, a ring of fire that travels with me and damages monsters, and then other fire spells to drop as needed. Reasonably enjoyable. But anything gets old after spending two hours fighting the same five monsters over and over.

2 Yep. If the game would tell me what bonus I get for uping my unarmed skill I would be happy. As it is the only reason I bump it now is to get it to 200 for the lvl 33 slayer perk.

3. You can increase other skills. The problem is 1) you have to really dump points in a skill for it to be usefull (read: worth a spot on a hotkey) and 2) you have extremely limited number of hot keys for spells, why put points into them if you are never going to use them since it's such a pain in the ass to get them activated? The only non-tag skill I've put points into is evade.

4. The loot in this game is ass. I used the same armor for the first 7 hours of the game (hard leather!). I got a pair of str +1 guantlets at level 4 (!), guess what I'm still using? Where are cool weapons for unarmed types? Atleast some specialty bracers/gloves, something?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Fast attacks, slow attacks. You can change this. Click on the 'aim' button and you get a slider that lets you change how fast you attack.

I know that, what I meant is to have another slider that allow you to have different attack types that can go with different attack speeds, or simply different attack types that can be useful in different situations. The problem with the speed slider is that once your skill is high enough, you set it to fast and forget about it. Different attack types would have been more useful and thus used more often creating at least an illusion of strategy if not strategy itself.

I go into battle with an AC buff, a ring of fire that travels with me and damages monsters, and then other fire spells to drop as needed. Reasonably enjoyable. But anything gets old after spending two hours fighting the same five monsters over and over.

That's one of the problems with limited number of active skills: you have one routine and you stick with it or stuck with it for the rest of the game. My routine is melee, heal, divine assistance. That's it. Very boring after several hours

 

[Skorpios]

I still haven't got the game yet and I'm still deciding whether I will or not. Probably I will, just to satisfy my curiosity about it now. It has been released in Oz but I haven't seen it yet, living in 'regional' Australia as I do.

The more I read in reviews and in feedback like this from players it strikes me that Reflexive simply was overwhelmed by the whole 'RPG' experience. Everything I've read from them showed they had some really exciting ideas about this game and in the end I think that was the problem.

With so many new things to try and tackle, in the end I think they simply ran out of time and the final result shows it.

I guess it boils down to inexperience. A team with more RPG experience might have solved many of these problems or avoided them in the first place, leaving more time to create content and improve combat and implement some of the features you've suggested.

Vault_Dweller, I'm not sure whether adding ANOTHER layer of complexity to combat is the answer though especially in a realtime environment. Although I'll admit that I don't have anything else to offer to improve combat (at least until I experience it for myself).

I do agree with your comments on the Spirit issue - it is a crying shame that there wasn't more interaction - especially as the spirit is the defining characteristic of you as the 'Hero'. If you hearken back to Eric's appearance on the boards here it was obvious that a larger role for the Spirit was always their intention.

So it does look a lot like time was the great enemy for Reflexive here - the potential of the game was as obvious to them as it was to us. I can't believe that they simply turned their back on that potential, in the end I think they just ended up doing what they could with the time they had - doing their best to finish a game that was at least playable.

I am curious though - what is your opinion of Barcelona as a roleplaying experience? Does it show potential?

 

[Vault Dweller]

The more I read in reviews and in feedback like this from players it strikes me that Reflexive simply was overwhelmed by the whole 'RPG' experience. Everything I've read from them showed they had some really exciting ideas about this game and in the end I think that was the problem.

I don't think so, and I spent a lot of time thinking about it. Lionheart was bound to fail, it was inevitable and clear to anybody. The reason for that failure was not the RPG part of the game, but the action part. It sucks so badly that I can't even play anymore. It's not fun, it's boring, redundant routine. It's amazing how Reflexive's managed to ignore all advances in action RPG genre completely.

I guess it boils down to inexperience. A team with more RPG experience might have solved many of these problems or avoided them in the first place, leaving more time to create content and improve combat and implement some of the features you've suggested.

Don't defend them, Skorpios. It does not take a super geek to figure out what makes combat fun.

I am curious though - what is your opinion of Barcelona as a roleplaying experience? Does it show potential?

Yeas, it does. It has some small issues here and there, it's not very deep, but hey, comparing to the rest of the game it's fucking awesome. Let me put it that way, it was a very solid foundation, upon which they can build another game given another chance and assuming that they realize what went wrong and why.

 

[Skorpios]

Don't defend them, Skorpios.

I guess it is up to me who I'll defend, but that is a separate issue :wink:

For all the criticism thrown at it, the game strikes me as far from unplayable. Many people, even very vocal critics have played it through several times, so it must be entertaining some of them or why put themselves through so much pain?

Also, seeing as some people find RT combat fun, and other people find TB combat fun, and others find pause'n'play combat fun, there does seem to be more than one way to make combat 'fun'. If you accept that then that makes 'fun combat' a little more complex than you seem to suggest with:

It does not take a super geek to figure out what makes combat fun.

My point was simply that given more experience or time or both, chances are Reflexive would have improved many aspects of the game, combat included. The concept of 'fun combat' might be simple, but it all comes down to putting it into practice. Maybe the complexity and openness of the SPECIAL system was a hindrance in this regard. Trying to balance a combat system for every kind of character from Diplomatic Necromancer to Tribal Unarmed Thief must have been a challenge - even for a 'super geek'.

That Reflexive didn't seem to get the combat balanced is disappointing, I'd agree.

If we take Diablo as the 'fun' yardstick for realtime fantasy combat, then the secret seems to be simplicity rather than more complexity.

 

[Vault Dweller]

For all the criticism thrown at it, the game strikes me as far from unplayable. Many people, even very vocal critics have played it through several times, so it must be entertaining some of them or why put themselves through so much pain?

Dunno. Masochism? Different mental pain treshold?

Also, seeing as some people find RT combat fun, and other people find TB combat fun, and others find pause'n'play combat fun, there does seem to be more than one way to make combat 'fun'. If you accept that then that makes 'fun combat' a little more complex than you seem to suggest with

It's not about RT vs TB. It's about RT done very, very poorly. D2 and IWD2 had much better combat. In fact, Lionheart made me appreciate these 2 games more. Trust me, it's that bad.

The concept of 'fun combat' might be simple, but it all comes down to putting it into practice. Maybe the complexity and openness of the SPECIAL system was a hindrance in this regard. Trying to balance a combat system for every kind of character from Diplomatic Necromancer to Tribal Unarmed Thief must have been a challenge - even for a 'super geek'.

You seem to be missing the point, for which I don't blame you, btw, as you haven't played the game yet. It's not about SPECIAL, it's not about pause'n'play, it's not about balance, it's about the combat itself, the single act of dealing with enemies, and that the part that sucks. Had they got that right, then we could have talked about finer things like balance and systems, but they didn't, so there is no point to drag anything else into the discussion.

If we take Diablo as the 'fun' yardstick for realtime fantasy combat, then the secret seems to be simplicity rather than more complexity.

Well, first of all, D2 is not all that simple, second, if you think that it's simple, then prepare to be really surprised with Lionheart. D2 allows you to develop all kinda combat skills and use different attacks which is entertaining. LH doesn't have any of that, you pump all points into one or two skills that you are going to be using for the rest of the game and then you click on one monster after another and that's pretty much it. Throw in the worst and the most unimaginative loot ever, and you have a complete picture.

 

[Skorpios]

Fair enough.

My point about the simplicity of Diablo's combat wasn't that it had no depth at all, but it involved the simplicity of good design as well. I'm not denying D2 had options, but tie that together with the predefined classes, and balancing those options is more straightforward. Plus Blizzard simply did an excellent job of that balancing.

Again, I'm only going on what I've read so far, and there does seem to be serious balancing issues (amongst many others) with Lionheart. I'm not so blind as to miss that.

Still, there are some people who seem to be enjoying the game despite this, combat and all. I guess it does just point out how 'subjective' the 'fun' factor really is.

Yes I am handicapped in this discussion because of my ignorance, but let's see if I can work out what you would like to see to make combat fun in Lionheart.

More attack options? Having to pause the game to choose from even more options will improve things? How would you implement this?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Still, there are some people who seem to be enjoying the game despite this, combat and all. I guess it does just point out how 'subjective' the 'fun' factor really is.

Overall, the reaction is somewhat negative, wouldn't you agree?

More attack options? Having to pause the game to choose from even more options will improve things? How would you implement this?

Ok, my problem was that combat's boring, you spot enemies, you click on one of them, wait till its dead, click on the next one, repeat. As monsters gets tougher, it takes much longer to kill one with the same crappy weapon. An option like a power attack would have been nice, an option to deal with multiple enemies would have been useful too. How to implement it? The same way attack speed slider works, move the slider to the left, damage increases, defense decreases, etc. No big deal, doesn't even require a different animations. It adds tactical element, it gives you something to do, it makes it easier to deal with waves of monsters. It's not an ideal solution, it's a fix, so take it as such. Given a choice, I'd have prefered something entirely different, something that has been actually thought through.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

Why is it that everytime a game comes out that is generally regarded as bad, missed potential etc...someone always pulls out the "not enough time" excuse. I think I can speak for most gamers when I say I would rather have a delayed game worth playing than a timely one not. Moreover this makes good biz sense - LH is gonna tank and thus not as much $ and thus bad for biz. And plenty of good games have come out that had the same dev time as LH so I don't even buy it in this case. Perhaps they did not have the requisite experience to make a good RPG or a good action RPG but there are plenty of examples of both to which they could have looked for direction or asked someone at BIS for input and advice.

I'll say it again -it is a damn shame this game is as bad as it seems; what a waste of setting that is pretty damn cool. Unlikely now that we will get a chance to see the setting used in a good game at this rate.

 

[Section8]

Forget it. Game publisher business "sense" is beyond human comprehension, Interplay's especially.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's a shame indeed. What I want to know is how it happened? I refuse to believe that everyone who had a chance to see LH action sequences - developers, managers, BIS folks, testers, occasional previewers - thought that there is nothing wrong with that. After all there was a reason they did not show it at E3 and avoided publicity (GS review and others) till the game was shipped. Gaming industry is like a twilight zone, logic and common sense either don't exist there or twisted beyond recognition.

 

[Voss]

JE Sawyer implied recently that he warned them about some of the directions they were going in. (In a thread in the Black Isle forums about why did BIS approve Lionheart or some such)

Part of the time/money issue has to do with getting a game build to the point where people can really take a look at how it works. And if it sucks, is there going to be approval for further time and money to be sunk into it. I think in Lionheart's case, Interplay is in a bad enough situation that they couldn't just write it off and can it, with no money for what they put into it in the first place, but weren't willing to sink extra money to really fix it once it was clear that it was fairly fucked. So it comes out more or less as is, for whatever money they can actually get out of it. At least, thats how I see it playing out.

Edit: Woops. The thread is actually what would a good Diablo/RPG hybrid be like?
The quote is this:

Why is it so easy to make these valid points now, yet not over the period that
reflexive spent developing LH, a game that BI apparantly 'oversaw'?

If you believe this is the first time I have stated these opinions, you are mistaken

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

Part of the time/money issue has to do with getting a game build to the point where people can really take a look at how it works. And if it sucks, is there going to be approval for further time and money to be sunk into it. I think in Lionheart's case, Interplay is in a bad enough situation that they couldn't just write it off and can it, with no money for what they put into it in the first place, but weren't willing to sink extra money to really fix it once it was clear that it was fairly fucked. So it comes out more or less as is, for whatever money they can actually get out of it. At least, thats how I see it playing out.

which is incredibly stupid from a money-making perspective; "Well we have kinda a crap game that if we put it out now, mislead the public in interviews as to certain features (i.e that you could play a diplomat, interesting loot etc) and don't allow anyone to see an advance copy we can milk at least a week or two of sales out of it before the reviews and word of mouth hits"

"Or we could delay the game, give the team some more time and money since we have already spent plenty to get this far, and put out a game that will sell and continue to sell over time"

but from what I gather the business sense in the industry is nonexistent so the former it is!

 

[Voss]

Not necessarily.
They do projections as to likely profits.
If the extra costs to fix/improve a project exceed profit projections (even with improvements)...well.

From a strictly monetary point of view it makes sense.
But customer satisfaction is something of a secondary concern- it can be important, but can be like worrying about a paper cut when you've just lost a leg.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It's a shame indeed. What I want to know is how it happened?

Here's what I've heard.

Interplay QA was testing Lionheart several months ago. IPLY QA found a number of bugs that you actually see in Lionheart's release, like the infamous companion bug. Interplay QA sent the list to Reflexive, and Reflexive said they couldn't get the bug to do what IPLY QA said it did, it wasn't a bug, or for whatever other reason, couldn't fix the problems Interplay QA reported. Interplay QA refused to sign off on Lionheart sometime after this, and Interplay decided to stop paying Reflexive after this. So, Reflexive basically responded by hammering the game out "as is".

There's more to it than that, but that's the nutshell.

Oh, and if anyone wants to spoil themselves on the ending to Lionheart, and how awful it is.. read this thread over at Quarter to Three. That thread pretty much spells out how the ending was kind of tossed together.

 

[Voss]

I'm surprised the guy found enough good things about the game to play to the end.
But some people get a kick out of crawling through a room filled with broken glass, so...

 

[IgnusDei]

one has to wonder if there even was a companion bug to begin with