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Enmity
author=Craze
Regarding "puzzle" targeting: ew, gross. There's more to worry about in a fight - dynamics are important, but a gimmicky way of dealing damage is just a gimmick. For some bosses, yeah, sure, that's fine. For every area in the game...? Bleh. Sounds annoying as fuck.
I agree with that to an extent, but just as I view random targeting as not making sense, I see all enemies behaving similarly to not making sense as well.
I know they're more or less restated from what I typed above, but here are a few examples:
- When you walk into a forest, you encounter pixies. You don't know how pixies behave, so your first few battles are more cautious, because your learning how to best handle them. You figure out that the pixies are targeting your mages more often than not. You shift your tactics to handle that, understanding that spells and casting will generate an unusually higher amount of threat in these encounters. The battles near beginning of the area are pretty easy, because it is understood that you need a small area to figure out what makes pixies angry. As you venture in deeper, the pixies become more challenging (naturally).
- Your party is now encountering wolves. Wolves target whoever attacked them last - no matter what. You adjust your strategy when battling them to accomodate this - employing a Cover-type ability on whoever you know the wolf is going to attack next.
- Simple-minded ogres are the new enemy. Their intelligence is so low that they get tunnel-vision and only attack one character until it's dead. Then, they target something else (until it, too, is dead). You figure this out, and when you deal with ogres in the future, you have your tank attack first, and then you make him defend as he gets cure/heal-bombed. Your damage dealers are free to go all out, because they are not at risk.
I'm not saying that we are going to go this route, but it is something we are considering. I read a thread over where LockeZ talks about unnecessary battles. I don't mean for this thread to go down that route, but he (and others in that thread) had some interesting points. There's not a lot of fun, to me, in just jamming through a bunch of normal attacks, mowing down the typical, cannon-fodder enemy, on the way to the boss. I think it's interesting to have to figure out how an enemy(-type) works, and then defeat it as efficiently as possible.
I also run into the problem of never using my items in games - even if they're something cheap like potions. This gives reason to employ potions, in some instances, over healing spells.
And lastly, I absolutely despise the same old, tired gameplay mechanics that we are force-fed in nearly every RPG. I hate sliding ice puzzles. I hate push-block puzzles. I hate redirecting mirrors to aim light beams. I hate stand-on-tile-to-open-door puzzles. To me, these are annoying. At this point in time, I can't say whether or not I would hate "puzzle targeting". There is a good chance that I might. I, however, would like to find out!
Enmity
author=UPRCI can see that point of view. I'm just tired of games where the enemy seems to target players at random. That doesn't make any sense in combat, and it feels sloppy to allow things to run off of a random number generator like that.
I honestly feel that threat management should stay in MMORPGs where it belongs. It just doesn't feel right in any single player experience.
Enmity
To Mateui:
I guess I should have been more clear. My understanding of the word "enmity" in how it relates to games seems to be different from yours. I'm not talking about how an enemy reacts to your tactics in general (or I should say, your understanding of it seems more broad, and I'm speaking of something very specific). I'm talking purely about who the enemy focuses its attention on.
Your attacks and abilities generate a certain amount of hate/threat/enmity (as do healing, buffs, and debuffs). If you use something like Provoke on an enemy, in should focus on you. This should be done until another of your party members deals enough damage to be viewed as a larger threat to the enemy than the Provoker.
When you do something like this, it makes characters with high defense (be it magic defense or physical defense, depending on enemy type) more valuable, and it puts you at risk for dealing too much damage too quickly. Typically, a character that is geared to deal damage is wearing attack-oriented gear rather than defense-boosting gear. The system allows you to specialize. It's standard fare for MMOs, but it seems like it's not often used in single-player RPGs.
Some examples of different enmity types:
et cetera
I guess I should have been more clear. My understanding of the word "enmity" in how it relates to games seems to be different from yours. I'm not talking about how an enemy reacts to your tactics in general (or I should say, your understanding of it seems more broad, and I'm speaking of something very specific). I'm talking purely about who the enemy focuses its attention on.
Your attacks and abilities generate a certain amount of hate/threat/enmity (as do healing, buffs, and debuffs). If you use something like Provoke on an enemy, in should focus on you. This should be done until another of your party members deals enough damage to be viewed as a larger threat to the enemy than the Provoker.
When you do something like this, it makes characters with high defense (be it magic defense or physical defense, depending on enemy type) more valuable, and it puts you at risk for dealing too much damage too quickly. Typically, a character that is geared to deal damage is wearing attack-oriented gear rather than defense-boosting gear. The system allows you to specialize. It's standard fare for MMOs, but it seems like it's not often used in single-player RPGs.
Some examples of different enmity types:
- a monster-type that targets characters based on standard enmity conventions
- a monster-type that targets whoever attacked it last
- a monster-type that targets ONLY whoever attacked it first
- a monster-type that gives targeting priority to magic-users (I assume it would give a "bonus" level of enmity to casters that have casted during this combat event, and it would target the caster with the most enmity until someone else exceeded that level)
et cetera
Enmity
In your games, how do you handle enmity (enemy aggression/focus while in combat)?
Would it be welcomed to have different enemies handle enmity differently? Or would that be frustrating to deal with as a player? Do you prefer one static and predictable system?
We're toying with the notion of having different enemies deal with enmity in different ways. I think hate/threat management is fun to explore, but it also means that enemies at the beginning of a zone/area should start off relatively weak so that the player can figure out what they're dealing with, exactly. My view is that this turns dealing with each different enemy type into a puzzle of sorts.
What are your thoughts on this?
Would it be welcomed to have different enemies handle enmity differently? Or would that be frustrating to deal with as a player? Do you prefer one static and predictable system?
We're toying with the notion of having different enemies deal with enmity in different ways. I think hate/threat management is fun to explore, but it also means that enemies at the beginning of a zone/area should start off relatively weak so that the player can figure out what they're dealing with, exactly. My view is that this turns dealing with each different enemy type into a puzzle of sorts.
What are your thoughts on this?
Whatchu Workin' On? Tell us!
Wrapping up the script for chapter one of the game we're building. Gameplay will probably be at somewhere between 5-8 hours. How long are chapters for you all, typically? And when you all do demos, how long do you typically let them run for?
What do you want from a ShMUP
I liked how you could change your ship's speed in Phalanx. That was very useful depending on how many bullets you had coming in or how treacherous the area was to navigate obstacle-wise.
How do you decide to make a story into a game?
author=Ronove
I know I have a lot of troubles taking game-ideas I've had and adapt them to a different medium (novel/comic/illustrated fairytale) because I always realize "I made this to be for an RPG, so there are spots where I wanted people to explore/do whatever". Great kudos to anyone who can take a game idea and adapt it to a new medium, but I always have a hard time. And thus I have a hard time trying to take a novel idea and make it into a game without completely redoing large portions of it to make it fit within a "game" and not just have 2 hour cutscenes, 5 minutes of exploration before a 2 hour cutscene.
This is pretty much what I'm running into. I'm writing up the script with the intention of it being a game, so I'm including camera pans and character cues - all of that - in the write up. The only problem is, I feel it may be too much dialogue. I can't say for certain how it will feel.
I'll probably make a mock up using placeholder sprites and maps real quick so that I can gauge how wordy it is. I think dialogue is very, very important, but I also know that there are people out there that have no desire to sit through a book. When writing the script, it feels like there's a lot to it, but then again, playing through, the dialogue may flow more quickly than I imagine. I guess I'll just have to see.
I may put things on hold for a few days and start on that tomorrow (Ace!).
How do you decide to make a story into a game?
author=chana
When you write "shared", you mean how, by which medium; making it into a game would be one way of sharing it (but of course there's other ways)or do I misunderstand you?
When I write "shared", I just mean "to get the story out for people to read".
And I don't know that I necessarily agree that there is more immersion in a game than in a book. It is all dependent upon these things at the very least:
- the strength of the author and his/her style
- how good the visuals of the game are (I am not saying you have to have great graphics)
- the reader/player
I have read many books that I would never want to see in film. That may stem from a stigma that assumes Holywood will screw it up, though.
It's hard to say that anything that can be done in a book can be done in a game, and then some. I recognize that books are text, and I know that you can put text in games. So really, anything you can do in a book can be done in a game. I still feel that something may or can be lost in translation.
I'm not trying to talk my way into one option or the other right now. I'm just interested in how others feel on the subject.
author=Essenceblade
Whereas in a book you can read on and on without much thinking, because the physical challenge isn't there.
And I disagree with this statement. Just because you're reading, that doesn't mean your brain is not engaged. I've used the same argument that you're using now whenever someone challenges video games versus books, and only right now in this instance do I recognize that this is an invalid statement. It may be true some of the time, but certainly not all of the time. If there's a game that engages the brain more than reading something like The Fountainhead, I haven't played it. I don't think that when most people read, they go on auto-pilot like when watching tv. I may be wrong, though. When I read and come to something that I think is a really interesting point, I tend to reread the passage a few times to try and get the full scope of what the author is saying or implying. I've never really done that with a video game.
I feel more of a connection to Howard Roark than Terra, Fei Fong Wong, or any character from Dragon Quest.
How do you decide to make a story into a game?
I'm having a bit of trouble. The game I'm working on has a really, really great story. I know that everyone says or thinks that about their stories, so it's almost worthless to say it. But when you (the RMN community) have a great story, how do you decide that it should be made into a game?
The answer seems obvious, I know. "You make it into a game simply because you want to." But is that enough?
I have been teetering back and forth on this subject. I feel that the story is good enough to stand alone, and while I want to make it into a game, it seems like it may take away from it or detract. How do you determine that your story shouldn't just be made into a comic/manga/webcomic/etc instead?
Does placing it into a game enhance it?
I am almost of the opinion that you shouldn't make a game unless you're bringing something fresh in terms of gameplay. Because of this, I have almost (almost) come to a fork in the road in the form of two questions:
- Is it important that this be made into a game?
- Or is it more important just that the story is shared?
I guess there's no problem in doing the story both ways.
Does anyone else feel this way? Why do you choose a game to be the medium of choice?
Thanks!
The answer seems obvious, I know. "You make it into a game simply because you want to." But is that enough?
I have been teetering back and forth on this subject. I feel that the story is good enough to stand alone, and while I want to make it into a game, it seems like it may take away from it or detract. How do you determine that your story shouldn't just be made into a comic/manga/webcomic/etc instead?
Does placing it into a game enhance it?
I am almost of the opinion that you shouldn't make a game unless you're bringing something fresh in terms of gameplay. Because of this, I have almost (almost) come to a fork in the road in the form of two questions:
- Is it important that this be made into a game?
- Or is it more important just that the story is shared?
I guess there's no problem in doing the story both ways.
Does anyone else feel this way? Why do you choose a game to be the medium of choice?
Thanks!
Number of Characters?
author=Biggamefreak
When I think about RPGs with a lot of characters, I think about Pokemon. Looking at Pokemon as a traditional RPG, it is the exception to the "character number rule" which RPG designers encourage having a small and manageable amount of characters. Traditional RPGs are focused on having a select group of heroes to complete a story. Having a select number of characters allows players to switch characters from time to time while progressing through the game's story. Having too many characters in RPGs overwhelm a player and he or she will stick to using a specific team and stick to it. The other characters end up becoming neglected or worse..unused. People who play Pokemon don't want less characters, but demand more.
If you analyze the game's "character rules" like a traditional RPG, we get some interesting lessons that I was going to post, but the effort in this post might turn into my first article......Pokemon is so damn brilliant.
But Pokemon aren't really characters in-game. I mean, some are (like Zekrom, Reshiram, Kyogre, etc) due to the fact that they drive the story, but even still, I would say they are plot points more than actual characters. Pokemon are characters as much as Materia is a character in FFVII. They are your attacks, and you don't really interact with any.
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