Forked Thread: GTS 2009 D&D Seminar - 4e video game

[hong]

@hong
I remember resting was a thing to consider in the countryside when traveling-exploring and in dungeons when exploring.

Certainly. This is why you make sure to double back to already-cleared areas before resting.

Anyway, you are suggesting that a 4e video game should not have any resting. I am not sure about that. You do realize that you have to have a structure of some standard variables tied to exploration to make a game open ended gameplay wise and not browsing wise right? Does 4e has enough of this? It has more than enough on the tactical side of things, on the tactical combat map but not out of it.

If you mean that there has to be some constraint to keep exploration tense and exciting, rather than simply a string of fights where the PCs are always at full strength, then 4E already has that. They're daily powers, magic items, and healing surges.

What I might do to replace the half-hourly fade to black is replace the "per-day" recharge mechanic with something a bit more fine-grained. Maybe a daily power recharges every hour, with each power having its own recharge meter. Maybe you could have storyline-defined super-milestones, where you get back all surges and dailies. It's not hard to think of alternatives to the conventional per-day mechanic.

 

[Cadfan]

I believe what Xechnow is fumbling towards is the player developing the skill of knowing when to stop and rest, and when to carry on.

That's precisely the same decision calculus for when to quick-save.

It doesn't have to be, but historically it has been.

"Do I go through a rote task and sit through a cut scene, or do I keep fighting with my existing resources and risk dying and having to do it all over again?"

vs

"Do I go through a rote task and watch a bar fill on the screen, or do I keep fighting with the possibility that I may die and have to replay already completed material?"

This is one of those situations where I think a drive for open ended gaming (rest almost whenever you like, etc) has done more harm to the game than good. A decision so open ended has been placed in the hands of the player that it has overwhelmed the programmer's abilities to create realistic consequences. So at most you get attacked, or a time counter increases, but usually nothing at all.

 

[xechnao]

BG had plenty of areas that were not easy to clear or that got cleared at all. The only certain areas were in towns, inns, homes and the like.

If you mean that there has to be some constraint to keep exploration tense and exciting, rather than simply a string of fights where the PCs are always at full strength, then 4E already has that. They're daily powers, magic items, and healing surges.

All those three get recharged by one thing: rest. This is just one variable. One variable just wont do it.

What I might do to replace the half-hourly fade to black is replace the "per-day" recharge mechanic with something a bit more fine-grained. Maybe a daily power recharges every hour, with each power having its own recharge meter. Maybe you could have storyline-defined super-milestones, where you get back all surges and dailies. It's not hard to think of alternatives to the conventional per-day mechanic.

It is hard. Those you are mentioned are hard to implement. It is easy to talk about "maybes" but coming to think about how to develop such an ambitious game with ambitious gameplay is not an easy thing and it is not a fact that there is a way to do it withing certain limits and parameters.

 

[hong]

BG had plenty of areas that were not easy to clear or that got cleared at all.

But none of them placed specific restrictions on when or where you could rest.

All those three get recharged by one thing: rest.

Just like spells in AD&D. Which is what BG used.

This is just one variable. One variable just wont do it.

It certainly worked for BG!

It is hard. Those you are mentioned are hard to implement. It is easy to talk about "maybes" but coming to think about how to develop such an ambitious game with ambitious gameplay is not an easy thing and it is not a fact that there is a way to do it withing certain limits and parameters.

Nonsense. You have already come up with a solution for immediate actions. See how easy that was? By comparison, coming up with a basic recharge mechanic is child's play.

 

[xechnao]

snip

Only MMOs can deal with the quick-save problem in "explorative" games in a significant way which is player competition. There are also games where you cant lose, no game over (in Planescape Torment for example there was such a thing) but we are not talking about this kind of development here I guess.

 

[Cadfan]

Maybe you could have storyline-defined super-milestones, where you get back all surges and dailies.

This one.

One of the consequences of the pseudo open ended gameplay that we're familiar with from these games is that dungeons, castles, cities... all tend to be places where enemies sort of mill about, and attack if you get too close.

If you change that so that battles take place in specific scenarios with enemies who are there for a reason, and where retreat isn't an option without accepting defeat, its easy to come up with defined milestones where powers might recharge.

For example, raiding a castle in a previous game tended to work something like this: you break into the castle. There's maybe a fight in the courtyard. Then you travel around, from room to room. Whenever you get too close to an enemy it activates and attacks you. Sometimes this creates whole scenes, like when you bust down a door and activate a lot of enemies at once. Sometimes it creates regions like big rooms that don't fit all on the screen at once, where you fight some enemies on one end, then some more on the other once you walk over there. At any time you can retreat to a safe area and rest, and when you get back to the battle, things will be basically the same as before.

You could also run things this way: Raiding the castle involves several discrete scenes, each of which portrays the castle's defenders responding to your raid in different ways. There might be a courtyard scene, followed by a scene where the defender's rally, and then followed by a final stand in the throne room. Retreat at any given point would count as having failed to storm the castle, or perhaps as a partial failure that entailed a specific, defined penalty that occurs in game and is built into the plot. Multiple paths to success wouldn't involve multiple places where you could stop and restart with all of your powers, it might instead involve multiple routes of invasion based on your character's skills and tactics. Perhaps a stealthy party might skip the courtyard scene, and instead encounter a "break into the castle through the secret tunnel" scene.

There are a lot of options. And really, this style of gameplay should be familiar to everyone since it mimics tabletop gaming.

Just to be clear- please don't attack the example. Its not the most creative writing, I know. You could also include things like not raiding the castle at all. Or non violent encounters with the castle's staff. Or whatever. I know. You're not adding anything by fighting the example.

 

[hong]

Only MMOs can deal with the quick-save problem in "explorative" games in a significant way which is player competition. There are also games where you cant lose, no game over (in Planescape Torment for example there was such a thing) but we are not talking about this kind of development here I guess.

CRPGs are very much in the "you can't lose" category of videogames. That includes BG.

 

[xechnao]

But none of them placed specific restrictions on when or where you could rest.

There were risks based on your performance and what you had/could have discovered in the game. These were the informative restrictions on the players decision of whether to rest or not.

Just like spells in AD&D. Which is what BG used.
It certainly worked for BG!

BG had more variables than resting. Tied to the equipment and a little bit to the leveling aspect. But the equipment ones were vast. Equipment management was there along with resting.

Nonsense. You have already come up with a solution for immediate actions. See how easy that was? By comparison, coming up with a basic recharge mechanic is child's play.

We'll see when and if they announce a 4e game and what kind of game this will be.

 

[xechnao]

CRPGs are very much in the "you can't lose" category of videogames. That includes BG.

I remember losing in BG lots of times.

 

[hong]

There were risks based on your performance and what you had/could have discovered in the game. These were the informative restrictions on the players decision of whether to rest or not.

Very, very minor restrictions. Trust me, d00d. I have played every Bioware game since BG because I am an unrequited Bioware fanboy. (They even named a star system after me!) Their formula has not changed, and it does not depend on AD&D-style resource management the way that you are making this song and dance about.

BG had more variables than resting. Tied to the equipment and a little bit to the leveling aspect. But the equipment ones were vast. Equipment management was there along with resting.

It is possible that you played another game that was called "Baldurs Gate" but was almost, but not quite, entirely unrelated to the one I'm remembering. In the BG I know, you recharged your spells _and_ equipment by resting.

Actually, to be honest, I'm having trouble recalling any items that needed recharging at all. Every item in BG was always-on, and it was only spells that recharged after a rest. (The same goes for class abilities other than spells.) But I suppose it's possible that there were some pieces of gear that needed recharging and operated on a different recharge mechanic, and I am failing to recall them due to time and advancing age. Name three.