Avernum 5, June Update
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Guardian
Member # 6670
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written Friday, June 29 2007 07:28
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By Syn: quote:Well, it was fairly obvious that he would return sometime in the future. Most villains who shout the desire for revenge as they jump off-stage do. :P EDIT: Figures I'd get second page. Quote for context. -------------------- Tinsel is really snake mirrors. - Steven Wright [ Friday, June 29, 2007 07:30: Message edited by: Dintiradan ] Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 7638
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written Friday, June 29 2007 12:25
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Fatigue? Interesting that the first screenshot had it and the others didn't. Perhaps it limits what you can do in your "battle disciplines". Edit: Stupid typo. I blame Ocean's Thirteen! [ Friday, June 29, 2007 12:26: Message edited by: Leftover Sauerkraut ] -------------------- "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981 It's time to meet your maker! Posts: 152 | Registered: Monday, November 6 2006 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Friday, June 29 2007 12:31
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Regarding fatigue, there are two versions that I can think of from gaming. Advanced dungeons and dragons had it as temporary damage that heals faster than normal damage. Hackmaster had it as exhaustion from continuous combat where you start losing combat abilities as the fight drags out past a certain point based on endurance. I think it will be related to combat and the battle disciplines where it will be somewhat like spell energy. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2759
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written Friday, June 29 2007 13:10
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I seem to remember Morrowind also had a fatigue system, where you got tired from fighting and had to go rest up (separate from health). -------------------- "Blink and you're dead... Don't turn your back, don't look away and don't blink." Geneforge 4 stuff. Also, everything I know about Avernum | Avernum 2 | Avernum 3 | Avernum 4 Posts: 1104 | Registered: Monday, March 10 2003 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Friday, June 29 2007 13:36
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Dungeon Master was the first game I know of to use some kind of fatigue stat (it used stamina). Wizardry 6 and up used it as well. I am skeptical Jeff would put this in Avernum 5, though, as it would significantly change the logistics of combat. (Well, either that or it would be the kind of meaningless fluff Jeff always crusades against.) My guess would be that it's somehow parallel to spell points, but is used for battle disciplines, and perhaps has different rules for replenishment over time. (Essence and spell energy, anyone?) -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 7472
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written Friday, June 29 2007 13:55
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Perhaps it works like temporary encumbrance. A slight penalty to AP and hit chance, until you get rid of it. -------------------- Scenarios need reviews! Please rate these scenarios at the CSR after playing them! Amnesia • Witch Hunt • Where the Rivers Meet • Foul Hordes Posts: 2686 | Registered: Friday, September 8 2006 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Friday, June 29 2007 14:04
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quote:All special encounters have to be scripted. Do you mean random encounters? Jeff has already said that he'll have some monsters return after you've killed them, as I recall. —Alorael, who likes how the introduction picture evokes the splash screens of E3 and A3. He also likes the idea of getting stuck on a lift, because everyone who has ever been stuck in an elevator knows that the only thing that could make it work is getting shot at. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Board Administrator
Member # 1
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written Friday, June 29 2007 14:12
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"Alorael, who likes how the introduction picture evokes the splash screens of E3 and A3." Indeed. This is what I like to call Shameless Fan Service. About fatigue. This is where that is at now. Fatigue is the limiter of battle disciplines. Each discipline makes you fatigued for a certain number of turns. As long as you're fatigued, you can't use a discipline. Some items and skills will reduce fatigue. Some enemies and special encounters may muck about with your fatigue in amusing ways. Enemy warriors have battle disciplines and fatigue too. Watch out for damage spikes! It's a new system. All of this is subject to change. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Friday, June 29 2007 14:34
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Will magic cause fatigue as well? The partial reason magic was so overpowered in GF 4 compared to weapons skills was that the player could consistently do lots of damage to lots of creatures over and over again. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Board Administrator
Member # 1
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written Friday, June 29 2007 22:59
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"Will magic cause fatigue as well? The partial reason magic was so overpowered in GF 4 compared to weapons skills was that the player could consistently do lots of damage to lots of creatures over and over again." Yes. Magic will drain these things called "spell points." When you run out of them, you are "magically fatigued", and can't cast any more. :-) One thing about battle disciplines is that not only do they help archers, but some of them can also be highly beneficial to spell casters. I'm not saying that they'll be worth pumping the points into weapons skills to get them, but, if your caster did have them, it'd be hawt. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, June 29 2007 23:31
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What I think *i was getting at is that it might be worth considering making spell points and fatigue the same stat, which would be drained by casting spells and exercising battle disciplines alike. For in-game rationale, you could simply drop the mumbo-jumbo about spell energy, and say that spellcasting causes fatigue, which seems reasonable. For game play, the good part would be having a somewhat simpler system, with only one fatigue stat. It might also be nice to make casters and fighters more explicitly balanced in their power. The obvious problem is deciding what stats would raise fatigue: intelligence, as for spell points; or strength or endurance or whatever, which is more appropriate for warriors? This is quite likely a deal breaker for this idea. But perhaps not. Since fighters are still going to be physically able to do normal attack and defense forever, the fatigue that limits advanced battle disciplines might be more mental than anything else. So you could let intelligence contribute to fatigue, just as now with spell points. This would force warriors who want to add the new moves to their repertoires to invest some points in intelligence, and thus distinguish them from vanilla grunts. Or you could argue that the fatigue that limits spellcasting is partly physical, and let endurance or strength boost fatigue as well. If battle disciplines took considerably less fatigue than spellcasting, and intelligence raised fatigue much more than strength and endurance did, then you'd still have spellcasters pumping intelligence and fighters pumping the physical stats. But it would leave the option for a fighter who really wanted to use lots of battle disciplines to throw a few more points than normal into intelligence. And it might make a 'battle mage' character a little more viable, which could be cool. It's quite likely too hard to balance. But worth a thought. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 8872
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 04:46
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I think I would like it if there was ever something like fatigue that forced you to rest. So that for once, you would need to buy rooms in the inn or have food. Or something that would require you to eat. I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy... -------------------- "The mouth is like the city gate. Opening it lets the soldiers of stupidity into the world." --Shaper wisdom from G2 Porcrastinators Unite...Tomorrow! The Mystic: "Vista is a rather funky and finicky OS to begin with." Posts: 197 | Registered: Saturday, June 2 2007 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 7252
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 05:13
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So, um..if Fatigue is for Warriors..and Spell Points are for Mages..is there Energy for Rogues? :D It may be too late to say this but..how about an in-game minigame..you know, like in BoF4..you sometimes need to finish a certain minigame to continue on..minigames also has rewards..be it stat bonus or material rewards.. "Wack the Goblin!" -------------------- Oh you're a cute Adze-Haakai you are.. ----------------------------------- A warrior takes sword in hand, clasping a gem to his heart. Engraving vanishing memories into the sword, He places finally honed skills into the stone. Spoken from the sword, handed down from the stone... Now the story can be told... The Zodiac Brave Story.. Posts: 732 | Registered: Saturday, June 24 2006 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 06:10
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I don't really miss food. My only real experience with it was BoE, and it didn't add a lot to the gameplay. I also don't know about this idea of combining magical and physical fatigue into one things. It seems like fatigue is supposed to work very differently from spell points, so the two aren't meant to be mixed. There has never really been a "rogue" character in Avernum. Maybe in GF, if you count Leadership-and-Mechanics-based characters, but not in Avernum. Basically, there are melee fighters, missile fighters, priests, and mages (usually multi-classed in some way, so a melee fighter may have some missile skills). Which leads to the obvious question: will battle disciplines also influence missile attacks? [ Saturday, June 30, 2007 06:12: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 07:56
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Originally by Student of Trinity: quote:If it's just a matter of preventing overpowered magic users from blasting everything repeatedly, what about reducing the amount of spell points that casters get so that they are likely to run low in major battles? Then make it really easy to regain those spell points outside of combat (first aid, items, wandering around) so that the party doesn't have to retreat to town to recover very often. Dikiyoba might as well suggest an option to turn off the tutorial in the first few sections of the game while Dikiyoba is posting here. Not any of the plot-related stuff, just the game mechanic-related stuff. It's fairly tedious to learn how to equip a dagger for the dozenth time. Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2820
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 08:14
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I think spell fatigue would be a worthwhile addition to the game, and there are a few different implementations I can think of. 1) A magic fatigue could be added. More powerful spells would drain more fatigue. The capacity for fatigue would increase with stats and levels. It would function almost like spell energy in GF. 2) Only powerful spells would drain fatigue like the combat abilities. 3) Add a maximum number of spell points that a caster can use during a turn. If he has been out of combat for a while, he starts with an additional bonus reservoir, and if he doesn't use his entire quota for a turn, some of it would rollover to the next one. -------------------- Thuryl: I mean, most of us don't go around consuming our own bodily fluids, no matter how delicious they are. ==== Alorael: War and violence would end if we all had each other's babies! ==== Drakefyre: Those are hideous mangos. Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 08:15
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I really just like the idea of having a simpler system if possible. Having two major status bars, each of which is ignored by half of all characters, seems inelegant to me. And since they're both doing the same basic job, of limiting how many big zaps people can pull off, why not combine them? The hope is that you could still tweak the effects on different classes by monkeying with the fatigue costs of spells versus battle disciplines, and adjusting the effects on fatigue totals and recovery rates of the various primary statistics. All without allowing any game-breaking battle-mages. Ah, it's probably too much trouble, really. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 08:56
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I agree with SoT, combining the two seem to be a way to go. Things like strength and dexterity could affect the power of the battle disciplines, and intelligence could affect the power of the magical ones. Endurance is where fatigue could be handled. Perhaps endurance could be used to set how much fatigue the PC can handle before becoming unable to use more of the given ability. For instance, an endurance of 6, would mean that the PC has 6 points of "fatigue" to spend. A skill costing 4, points could be cast leaving the PC with 2 points. The PC could not use that skill again until the PC has 4 fatigue points. Fatigue recovery could be handled by endurance itself or some other skill. Weak spells, like Bolt of Fire or a standard attack or archery, could give a fatigue of 1, which is automatically recovered the next turn. Of course, a hasted PC could fall victim to accumulated fatigue. Strong spells, like Divine Retribution, could have a high fatigue cost meaning repeated castings of the thing become impossible. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 09:10
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quote:The problem with this is that spell points don't actually pace casters in Avernum. Energy potions are easy to come by, and don't even take a whole action to quaff. If the more useful spells used fatigue in addition to SP, and so could only be cast every so often, it would balance things a lot. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Board Administrator
Member # 1
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 10:18
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"Which leads to the obvious question: will battle disciplines also influence missile attacks?" Heck yeah. I won't pass up on a chance to make missile weapons more viable. As for adding fatigue or such to magic, no. I am not looking for ways to enable the player to do less. And remember, outside of the jaded auld gamers on these boards, players in general aren't finding anything on Avernum 4 or Geneforge 4 overpowered. If you do, that is why Avernum 5 will also have much tougher Hard and Torment difficulty settings. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 7032
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 12:07
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When A5 comes out, I'll buy it, set difficulty to torment, and play my first game like that! -------------------- _ _ _____________________________ _ _ Power to (the) Mas(ses) Posts: 102 | Registered: Friday, April 14 2006 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 14:07
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quote:Please really make it a challenge. Nethergate: Resurrection was getting there during beta testing. The advantage spellcasters have over fighters is the ease of recharging with energy potions. Geneforge 4 had the big change that essence pods also recharged spell energy. This made it possible for spellcasters to keep going with the draining high powered spells that normally they could only cast a rarely. Jeff mentioned items that would allow fighters to reduce fatigue effects so this would mean that later in the game you could keep attacking with the better battle disciplines. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 15:02
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quote:Sometimes, less is more. To use an extreme example: if there were an ability that let you destroy every enemy instantly and you could use it every turn, that would quickly take the fun out of the game. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 17:04
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There is an ability, it the cheat code to kill everything. It doesn't seem to affect the enjoyment of some people. They're the ones that will enjoy using the character editor to make themselves gods at the start. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2820
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written Saturday, June 30 2007 17:42
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But we are not talking about the character editor or cheating. We are talking about the aspects of the game that could be exploited by players in the course of normal, intelligent play. EDIT: From Jeff's quick description of the fatigue system, it appears as if each battle discipline or ability immediately fatigues you; that is, there is no endurance counter that must be gradually depleted before the fatigue effect sets in. For example, in this screenshot, I take it that Aldous cannot use any abilities for 4 turns because he used Well-Aimed Blow this turn. [ Saturday, June 30, 2007 17:49: Message edited by: Garrison ] -------------------- Thuryl: I mean, most of us don't go around consuming our own bodily fluids, no matter how delicious they are. ==== Alorael: War and violence would end if we all had each other's babies! ==== Drakefyre: Those are hideous mangos. Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00 |
