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Gareth
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« on: June 29, 2010, 03:35:06 pm »

Urk, too long without an update, too long. Let's get the ball rolling with a post about an idea I had this weekend.

It was inspired by this thread on ITS. A new response resurrected it from the depths and I found myself reading through it again. A really excellent thread on non-combat design for RPGs, if you haven't read it, it's certainly worth a read.

Some really good points were made, not only by Vince but in the responses to his posts. Vince's argument is that RPGs are fairly 1-dimensional in their offerings on how to solve conflicts. It tends to come down to different flavors of violence. Vince argues that offering alternate paths through a game would result in a much richer experience, and I doubt anyone reading this blog disagrees.

But, as a couple of the respondents in that thread pointed out, one of the problems of non-combat gameplay is, well, the gameplay. I've talked about how combat is actually an advanced form of mini-game before. Though mini-games are hated in general, combat is one of the few that are done well enough to be considered a core gameplay system, probably because RPG's started out as little more than combat simulators, that combat gameplay had to be engaging enough on its own to keep people playing.

Combat is such a success as a mini-game because it offers a few things which most mini-games crucially lack.

1. Depth. By making the combat system complex enough and varied enough, you ensure the player spends the entire game learning to master it. Most mini-games that people complain about are too simple, the player masters any challenge they present in a fraction of the time it takes to complete the game itself. Once there is no 'play' left in the mini-game, it becomes a chore.

2. Interconnection with the other gameplay systems. Combat has many inputs and outputs into the other gameplay mechanics. Quests and dialogue often lead to or trigger combat, the loot system is deeply tied to it, character leveling is tied to it. There are feedback loops, choosing different skills and item loadouts will affect your performance which in turn affects how quickly you can level up and feeds back into determining what skills and items you get. Combat is deeply tied to the 'resource management' that is at the heart of many RPGs, resources in the form of skill points, money and loot. A satisfying RPG will allow you to regularly make choices about how you build up your character, offering options for you to weigh up in seeking to build a strong character and to beat the game's challenges.

So, returning to non-combat gameplay. The problem with all non-combat gameplay that I've seen so far, with the exception of stealth, is lack of depth. There just aren't enough moving parts to these systems. You pick a lock, you hack a computer, you persuade your way past a guard...it tends to fairly binary. You have the skill, you get the job done, maybe with a small reflex/pattern matching interlude. Don't have the skill, sorry, you're locked out. Imagine a combat engine with the same lack of depth, it would be deeply unsatisfying. Roll the dice, check vs skill, determine outcome. Meh. Not much of a game.

Combat uses skill checks too, certainly, but the possibility space of actions and opponent configurations in combat keeps things interesting. You pass or fail individual skill checks, but the overall success of your combat encounter is based on the net output of a range of skill checks and <strong>decisions</strong> made throughout that combat. (Hopefully, if the combat system is decent)

It's the decision part that I highlighted that is the crux. Making interesting decisions is at the heart of gameplay, and this is where non-combat gameplay (again, with the exception of stealth) tends to fall down. If you choose the Speech Guy or the Hacker/Lockpicker, you have made one decision, which skills you want to invest in, what your character focus is. After that point, few if any decisions are made. You come to a computer, you pit your hacking skill against it, the dice roll is made and you either access the computer or don't. There isn't really a decision in that process. When you chose the Hacker archetype, you chose to try to hack computers. It isn't a new 'decision point' every time you hack a computer unless there is <strong>another factor</strong> involved. Likewise, putting another point into a skill you've already chosen to focus on isn't a real decision either. Choosing perks that support that skill as in Fallout, or Feats in Dungeon's and Dragons, those are decisions. Deciding to put another point into hacking when your entire character concept is 'I'm a hacker' isn't a real decision.

Whereas combat is filled with interesting decisions thanks to the resource management you need to do. What, you don't think combat is about resource management, except maybe for making sure you have a stock of potions? Nonsense.

Time is a resource in combat. Each action you choose to make is a decision to not take any of the other actions you could have. ( Interesting that the Latin origin of the word 'decision' is 'decisio', meaning 'A cutting off' ). Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in a turn-based system.

Equipment is a resource, and not just potions. You have limited slots on your character for armour, weapons, magical items. To choose to equip Sword A is to choose NOT to equip all the other weapons in your inventory. And items should have many properties to balance, attack speed, weight, range. Choosing an equipment loadout is all about making decisions, and a good RPG combat system will force you to think about your equipment loadout vs specific enemies, instead of simply picking the type with the highest modifiers. Money also plays a factor, unless the game is a Monty-haul setup (which most RPGs are, sadly), you will be forced to think about where to spend your gold, too.

Your stats and skills are resources. Mana/stamina is obvious, but all the skill points you invest in are decisions you make, choices about how you want to approach challenges. Hopefully, if the character system is good, you aren't simply pumping points into a single combat skill, you are choosing from a palette of options which shape your combat strategy. Good systems should allow players to work out interesting skill synergies aka 'builds'.

All of these resources offer players a rich fabric for decision making. Again, let's return to non-combat skills. You encounter a guard and there is a persuasion option. You have a high persuasion skill, or you don't. You could argue that this is simple to fix, that you simply extend the dialogue to a number of skill checks. But there is still no actual decision to be made there, all you've done is increase the opportunity to fail at Persuasion by forcing the player to meet 5 requirements instead of 1. Even if you make it a bit 'fuzzy', by saying that the player needs to only pass 3/5 checks to succeed, it's still not very good gameplay. You aren't making much in the way of resource management decisions.

I've not covered the breadth of possible ways to make dialogue more interesting, but I think I've illustrated the problem that I'm focusing on here. The lack of decision making. Choosing to try use the Persuade skill when you've built a social character isn't really making a new choice. If there were 3 Persuade options, each leading to potentially different outcomes, then it would be. That is the case with combat, there are many paths leading to your goal (kill dudes) and the player makes choices on how to get there. But, when your goal is to get through a door, putting up a skill check which is a no-brainer for characters with that skill and out of the question for everyone who doesn't, there is no choice there at all.

So, what to do? Well, I'm sure you see where I'm going here. The problem is lack of resource management...so introduce a resource. Some games have something like this for their mini-games, EMP grenades for Alpha Protocol, for example. But I'm thinking specifically of social interaction now.

What I was thinking was...what about a 'Favour' resource? What if the player can accumulate that Favour resource with certain NPCs and Factions? Favour that can be earned and spent on certain actions/for certain bonuses.

Let me give an example. Say you have 'Sten', Captain of the City Watch. You have 0 favour with him. You do a quest that helps out the City, and because he is grateful, you gain 10 points of favour with him. Later, you have another quest to do with the Mayor of the city and you know Sten has information that could help you, but he would consider it unethical to share that with you. The option comes up to try persuade him to give you the information...but it comes with a Favour cost. 5 points. You can persuade him, but you're using up some of the good will he feels toward you for past actions. This means you have to think about whether you choose that option, it isn't simply that you automatically click on any speech options available to you.

Later, you hear about a gala ball which you want to get into, but the City Watch is guarding it and you don't have an invite. You can go to Sten and try to persuade him to get you into the ball. But now there is two options. As a minor favour, he can get one of his trusted sergeants to turn a blind eye and let you in, but the other guards won't know about you and that only gets you through the gate, once inside you'll have to avoid the other guards. This costs 5 favour. Or, he can get you in disguised as one of the guards. He'll give you the guard gear and arrange for your name to be on lists. But this could get him in trouble if anyone finds out, so it costs 10 favour.

If you called in the favour before, you won't have enough left for the more expensive option. However, there is a way for you to gain enough favour with Sten to go for option 2, even if you've spent some of your favour. He wants you to infiltrate some street gangs for him...

You see how it goes. Different characters/factions have this measure of 'good will' that you've earned with them, which can be spent for various things, to get you through checks, help with missions, acquire special items, etc. A few more examples :

Say you commit a crime. Persuade Sten the Watch Captain that it was all a mistake, call in some of the Favour he owes you so he can pull some strings to get you a sympathetic judge.

You need gear for a job. You approach your faction leader and tell him about problem, because you're a trusted lieutenant he directs you to go to the faction vaults and pick yourself up a few things. You go to the store and you can 'buy' items from the faction vault, except each item costs you Favour instead of gold. In SoW merchants generally won't sell special or magical items, however your Faction might have some in their vault.

It's a bit like the dossiers you can buy in Alpha Protocol. I liked that idea, even if I felt they could have done more with it. And, of course, you could tie stats into this. Persuasion could decrease the Favour cost of persuasion options, meaning that Speech characters could lean more heavily on their allies. And Charismatic characters could receive bonuses to the Favour rewards they earn.

There are some problems with this idea, though.

For one, how do you communicate the fact that these options are open to the player? It's fine in the example of the Watch Captain, above, because the NPC involved in the quest is the one you have favour with. But I've been thinking further. Imagine you are part of a Faction, and you receive a quest to deal with some bandits/assassinate a guy. Now, you could do it yourself. But maybe you prefer not to get your hands dirty. Wouldn't it be great if you could go to your faction leader, tell them you have this 'little problem', and get the Guild to send over a few of their best bruisers/assassins to take care of it for you? The idea excites me, but I don't want players running back to their Faction NPC every time they get a quest to see if it has opened up an option to spend Favour to solve it. It's something I'm mulling over. AP solved it by having the extra options you could buy come from your black email market connections, which you can access between missions. Something convenient like that would be good.

Secondly, difficulty of implementing this. In some cases, it's simply extra dialogue. But even that starts to scale up heavily. And would it annoy people, if I did something like the above in one quest, give them the option to send assassins after a dude, but I didn't give the option in another, similar quest? Should I reduce scope to ensure it is universally an option, or do I limit it to a percentage of quest content?

Thirdly, it requires keeping the plot focused on a core cast of characters and factions, instead of a larger cast. Alpha Protocol did this, for a similar reason. If Favour is something you need to earn and choose when and on what to spend it on, the NPC or Faction you build favour with needs to be present in a large enough chunk of the game content to make that decision interesting. If you build favour with an NPC who you only interact with for a short period, it won't work. Look at the Captain of the Watch example, you need enough 'hooks' involving him to make gathering Favour with him interesting and to offer difficult choices on when and where to spend it. It's simpler with Factions, luckily, because they're more widespread. And SoW is already focused on those factions. But it will still take some effort. I figure most hubs would need to have the majority of their plotline built around 2-4 core characters as well as factions. Which isn't a terrible thing, for the sake of character development. But it could cause exponential growth of dialogue trees, eek.

And finally, hoarding could be an issue. Look at potions in RPGs. Lots of people never use them because they are worried they will need them later. What if people hoard Favour because they are afraid they will need it later?

Well, that's the idea I've been thinking about. Does it idea solve the problems I mentioned above, about non-combat gameplay? No, not really. But I think it might make it at least somewhat more interesting.

Anyway, feel free to discuss or make suggestions. I'm still thinking about this one.
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Tuomas
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« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2010, 04:31:44 pm »

I think this would be a great way to make conversations more interesting.

And finally, hoarding could be an issue. Look at potions in RPGs. Lots of people never use them because they are worried they will need them later. What if people hoard Favour because they are afraid they will need it later?

Make the progress of a persuasive player dependent on calling up favours. People hoard potions because they don't have to use them. Make it so that the player could easily find his talkative character at a dead end in the storyline if he's afraid to play the game as it's meant to be played. Write loading screen messages that urge people to call up favours.

Quote
You come to a computer, you pit your hacking skill against it, the dice roll is made and you either access the computer or don't.

Have you played Return to Krondor? While its lock-picking and disarming mechanic needs some improving, the idea is good and could be explored further:

"One of the cool features in RtK, though, is the trap disarming. As opposed to the word lock puzzles of BaK, RtK chests are opened in an arcade-like setting. First, you click your Probe on each of three different areas on the chest to determine what trap is set on it. Then, you choose one of three tools for each trap piece. You then click on a rotating arrow, trying to stop it in a gold area of a circle. The gold area of the circle is differently sized based on the appropriateness of a tool for a given trap. When you successfully disarm a trap, the tools you used are remembered in a list on the left-hand-side of the trap disarm screen, so that you can use them again if you encounter the same trap or pieces of that trap."

You could expand this by introducing new kinds of instruments that could be bought from shady bazaars and black markets. The knowledge of how to disarm different traps could also be taught by trainers and designs of traps could be bought in specialized stores. Character skill could be tied to the ability of actually using the intstruments to get the desired effect.

« Last Edit: June 29, 2010, 04:35:18 pm by Tuomas » Logged
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« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2010, 05:19:55 pm »

Note: There are two parts in this post, for response to Gareth's post read the second part after the separating line.

I once had an idea of how social interaction in an RPG could be turned into a literal social combat game. The idea I had, Negotiation Battles, revolved around the idea that when you need persuasion skills for particular social goal, instead of trying to pick the right choices, as is the tradition of adventure games, or purely relying on skill checks as in rpg's, you'd abstract the social interaction into a turn-based combat. It's perhaps best explained as a sort of card game:

Basically, the goal of the game would be to succeed in a certain feat of persuasion. The goal would be neutrally described such as: "Tell me about person X", "Give me your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle" or "Have sex with me". How you choose to try this goal would then depend on how you do in the negotiation battle, but basically, depending on how absurd the thing you want is, a certain pre-defined difficulty is set. This would measure the opponent's "health", modified by skills/attributes. On the other hand, if you fail too often, your failures would be measured as well, and if you get too much, you botch the thing, get slapped on the face, kicked in the nuts or executed on the spot - depending on what it is you tried to achieve. This would literally be a measure of your "health". If either runs out, the battle ends. Or sometimes you could just give up.

The basic idea of the battle is that you have argument cards and stances. Stance would mean how aggressively you want to pursue your goals, meaning the more aggressive your stance, the bigger both potential gains and losses. The arguments you may choose from could be a little like the infamous oblivion's wheel-of-speech, (but meaningful), like: intimidate, bluff, seduce, beg, insult, compliment etc. A few handful available. In addition, drawing from the favour idea, you could have a few trump cards such as blackmailing, calling for favours, bribing, or other a little less generic things that could be used to persuade someone.

Basically, it'd work much like physical battles, meaning each argument would have both an attack and defense value, based on the character's skills and attributes and other modifiers. E.g. scary outfit gives you bonus to intimidate but penalty to seduce etc. and also things such as social standing could affect the subject's defense versus certain attack. E.g. it could be a lot harder to seduce a high-born woman than a peasant - neither'd be impossible, but the amount of skill required would differ a lot.

In order to add in resource management, you could make it so that clothing, equipment, hairdos, hygiene and whatever emphatize certain approaches. E.g. certain appearances certainly are more intimidating, while others are sexually pleasing or some give a more reasonable first-impression. Sure, many have tried this (e.g. fallout 3's hat-of-plus-20-speech), but it's never turned out very good. Regardless of the apparel worn it should affect certain social aspects. E.g. scary big spiky bone armor would be more intimidating than a polished plate armor etc. Basically, it'd be about figuring out certain key variables related mainly to first-impression you get from people, then attaching those variables to equipment you can wear, representing what people generally think about you.

To make changing clothing based on situation difficult, it's relatively easy: Just add realistic pockets and carry space, i.e. no massive suit of +200 intimidating in your pocket together with the 100 swords you just looted. Also, taking into account that changing clothes take time (the chick you tried to impress runs away while you're changing from your blood-splattered armor to your sexy gigolo outfit) and undressing in the public might not be considered decent, it'd already be difficult enough not to do it casually.

Of course, taking into consideration how many examples of such a social game we have, designing one might be a bit tricky, and might be it'd not be even worth it, but I think the thought deserves some consideration. And now that I think of it, it might make a neat card game  8)



Now to commenting Gareth's Post

Now what it comes to a system of favours added to a more "standard" persuasion system, I believe it's a good idea. I suggest that you'd use kind of like a "tagging" system, so to speak, to determine which people are able to give which favours, and how much they value them. This way you could tie the same tags to quests, and with some nifty programming remove the need to manually write each and every favour dialogue line for each and every NPC. Just automate it, make it a universal system, instead of a handcrafted complicated dialogue tree. Make it a feature instead of just a fancy extra option every now and then.

E.g. you have a quest with an assassination-tag. Say you know three people who owe you favours and each are able to give this particular favour. Let's say person A is in your faction, so you have a good standing with them, meaning you can buy this favour with relatively little cost. Person B on the other hand is not in your faction, but they value you enough to be able to give you this favour, though it costs more. Person C is also able to give this favour, but since they don't know/trust you well enough, they won't present this even as an option.

Now as to how to represent these things being an option, I suggest simply having a dialogue option with anyone you have any favour points with, something like: "Hey, I need a favour from you...", then switch to a simple list of what things they got available, further branching each line to to any open quests, with the same favour tagged. E.g. if a quest has a smuggle tag and an assassination tag, you could have one for each and another for both.

Of course it'd be important to give subtle hints about the kind of favours a person would be able to offer. But it should never be too apparent, and maybe only become more clear after a longer chat, meaning you could guess that some brownnosing with this guy is worth it, 'cause he's got connections... To make it easier for player to track down possibilities of what favours each NPC can provide, you could include these in the player's journal etc. once found out through the dialogue. In case of certain unique and rare favours, it might be even more important to give subtle clues as to who might be able to bestow such.

Overall, I'm sure that many might enjoy such a system, since it would be a matter of choice and consequence: whether to spend this guy's favour on this small thing and maybe miss a better opportunity, or risk failing what I'm doing now? As to hoarding favour, the only way I see to keep it from happening would be that it'd be possible to renew this favour nearly indefinitely, after it's dropped down some. This would probably involve some petty randomized quests to do for the person in question, or something similar and less-imaginative... But like said, it might not even be necessary. Some people hoard, and the best way to minimize it is to make sure your resource has plenty of useful uses. Make it count, but also don't make it too rare to be afraid to spend away.
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« Reply #3 on: June 30, 2010, 03:42:35 am »

Looks pretty similar to what Mount & Blade does. Doing quests for lords gets you reputation points, which can later be spent on favors. It is also interesting that those points work in two ways. The direct way is simply "Spend X points to get lord Y to do X". The other way comes into play when, for example, lords gather to decide who is going to be the general -- their votes depend on the reputation point distribution.

The latter aspect of reputation/favors, in my opinion, really deserves further exploration. For instance, if your reputation with someone is very high, they might want to give you free favors without you even asking. Which, in turn, could lead to unwanted favors, that actually make the player's situation worse, not better.
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« Reply #4 on: June 30, 2010, 07:25:05 am »

With faction gameplay, favor as an exendable resource makes sense, that is a good idea. You could use it also in more general gameplay terms, e.g. as a currency to reduce prices on items the faction has for sale, as the currency of access to faction privileges etc.

However, as a gameplay feature I see only a limited effect. Sure there is a decision now, and you tied it into a larger framework outside of the dialogue itself, which is good. But there still is no real gameplay.

Ultimately I think something like catmorbid outlined is a more suitable way if you really want to make social/dialog gameplay. I also thought about a similar concept where you acquire "social skills" that have effects reminiscent of spells. You could learn jokes, threats, etiquette suitable for different cultures and social tiers, etc.. Specific bits of information about an NPC or his faction could also be used. Dialogue trees could be structured as normal, but more difficult options would be locked by default. If you want to unlock the content you basically would challenge an NPC to a "dialog duel. NPCs would display a number of resistances (to charm, threat, logic, compassion...) and to succeed you need to break down one or several of these. The NPC on his end would try to break down YOUR resistances to obtain a "leave dialog duel" result. There would be a limited number of turns (maybe you can buy more with your favor?). One side would have initiative first, the other side replies. Certain replies, or failures of the initiated skill would result in initiative changing sides. So, then you make your dialog moves until either you win (and obtain the or one of several possible results), or loose (NPC wins or turns are up). Additional results (increased resistances against further attempts, social "scars", e.g. reputation damages, etc. could add additional spice.

I realize it sounds a bit like Oblivions terrible persuasion minigame - but I am thinking of a much more complex system here, with fully written lines.
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« Reply #5 on: June 30, 2010, 08:33:35 am »

Ghan's post made me suddenly think of the monkey island swordplay system Tongue Something similar combined with a bunch of other features and made more complex could certainly make persuasion interesting and something never done before, really. What I'm thinking of however is how to make skills apply to this battle. Maybe each "line" would also need a skillcheck in the background, meaning even if  you had the "joke of +20 nobility humoring", you'd still need to be good at telling the joke. Basically, to make it simple, each line would be like a one-shot weapon with both "accuracy" and "damage" variables (plus maybe a bunch of others, depending what works), and you could only use each of these lines (or weapons) once per battle, Or if you use the more often, they lose effect and make you susceptible for a counter-attack - I mean, a good joke is funny the first time, but certainly loses effect the second time.

Favours could be like Alpha Protocol's EMP bombs that when spent let you slip past the battle. The actual difficulty of the persuasion battle would then affect how many locks you need to bring down, but the person itself would influence how strong these locks are. You could try to attach some sort of composure attribute to measure this, i.e. some sort of social healthbar Tongue
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« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2010, 09:06:35 am »

Not sure turning dialog system into another combat mini-game is a good idea. If you want combat, there's already that path available. Seems like it would get gimmicky quickly. The best implementation of dialog I've seen is the NWN2 trial. If you did your homework, and you pick the logical response, and you use your dialog skills, then you win. Having reputation with factions which helps you is a good idea, but I'm not sure having that reputation shrink depending on the favors is going to add anything but a headache. Although it could be interesting in a limited number of cases.
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« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2010, 10:28:41 am »

Then it's a good job the OP was talking about favours rather than reputation; there's a difference between someone liking you and someone owing you a favour.  Think of the Marquis de Carabas from Neverwhere; practically everyone owed him favours, and because of this he could get practically anything done.
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« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2010, 03:32:32 pm »

Something I thought of, which I don't know how feasible it would be, but would provide an interesting mechanic for dialogue. In many RPG's, if there is a Persuasion type dialogue you are trying persuade someone to do something, believe you, etc. Usually you only have one option, and you know because it is highlighted or if your skill isn't high enough, not available to say.

I realize it would require more writing, but what if a small system was designed wherein instead of doing a hard check if you have 5 persuasion points or not in order to convince someone, having multiple choices of something to say. What I mean by that, is giving the player a few choices of things to say, each having a different chance of persuading the NPC to do what the player wants. What I mean, taking the example of the City Watch guy, and you want him to lend you a guard uniform. You could say something a little aggressive, something friendly, something to guilt him, etc. Each one will have a preset chance of success, which would then be modified by the persuasion skill, the NPC's disposition towards the player.

Obviously it would be more coding and setting up then a simple skill check, but I think it would be more immersive. Hope I explained that well.
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« Reply #9 on: July 12, 2010, 11:41:59 pm »

Great post, Gareth! I think you really hit the nail on the head on that one. There is just one thing that I would add. You see, there is little element of risk in these iterations, and they are two straightforward. I think you can solve both problems by simply allowing for more than one kind of Favour. For example, disfavour would simply be negative favour, which would happen when you piss people off. Besides the old idea of sending hired killers after the player, it could also work as opposite to favours, with the npc making come quests harder/more dangerous than before (obviously the player wouldn't have any control over triggering this). Friendship might be another measure concurrent to favour, affecting different types of benefits. Intimidation might be much like favour, but generates disfavour, and you never know when the intimidated party will decide it had enough, and so on.

I am sure you can come up with different types of social links more appropriate to your game, but my point is just that you can make the game more rich by having different types of relationships.
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« Reply #10 on: July 20, 2010, 01:10:11 pm »

Beware the feature creep monster Smile
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« Reply #11 on: July 22, 2010, 06:03:45 pm »

Great post, Gareth. 

I like the general concept, and combining some of the other ideas in this thread (save catmorbid's; as the scope is much more derivative) might help to flesh out the system.

As was mentioned (in a way), the list of feats/traits/perks could expand to include all sorts of active and passive additions to dialog options.  Passives are obvious, modifying cost/gain of favor for example.  Actives can include some of the concepts sketched by earlier posts.  It would work nicely with a "Fate Point" feat ala Arcanum that would allow a PC to have a favor granted even if his Favor Pool is too low to allow for the option - and keep the points rare.  The dialog feats would significantly broaden the scope of choices at level-up.
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« Reply #12 on: October 03, 2010, 11:29:44 am »

FWIW, here are my thoughts


I'm not sure if you mentioned this, but another aspect that makes combat appealing is interactivity between the player. Take the most well known hack'n'slash game, Diablo, as an example.
You have to constantly interact (click) to survive. And the fact that in latter levels if you aren't careful you can easily be killed, that fear of dying creates a bit of tension and leaves you on the edge, while the loot system keeps you addicted to the game as a monkey on bananas.
How can you create such an interactivity for the other tasks? What other type of interesting mini-games can you add? That is the main problem IMO.

I think RPGs would have a lot to gain if they brought into them some puzzle solving. Simple things as in Tomb Raider, and more complex things and in Monkey Island. Maybe it's possible to bring the Intelligence stat (besides defining the number of dialog options) to decide what type of puzzles you have access to. This would also shift the game from the action/combat genre to a more intelligent/profound/whatever one.
But this doesn't solve the issue with things as lockpicking or alchemy. Should a mastermind or checkers mini-game be added for those? The problem with that is that it seems out of place.
Another thing to keep aware is the possibility of the mini-game difficulty being inversely proportional to the PC skill level. At least that is what happens with combat.


About the equipment and the Monty-haul setup.
In most cases you shouldn't have a big inventory that allows you to scavenge a whole area. It shouldn't be bigger than a camping backpack. If you're a soldier and are wearing an heavy armor, that also means you can carry less. There's lot of room for potions, scrolls, jewels, small firearms, daggers and swords (funny enough it would be possible to carry 2 or 3 shields if you tie them up outside the backpack), food and even clothes. But barely no room at all for a heavy armor (which would probably be damaged from battle in almost all cases anyway), unless we're taking about a contemporaneous bullet-proof vest.
Another aspect is making sense out of the the monetary value of items, or even the access to high-value items.
Besides, most adversaries should be normal guys with just a weapon. And most heavy-armed/high-tech/rich guys would probably be in a secure area (ie, lots guards nearby), so it would be very difficult/impossible to get a hold of all that shiny loot.
What happens with most RPGs is that you have to kill everything, and thus be able to loot everyone, which in turn makes you very rich. If the focus of the game shifts from killing to reaching objectives, then that could balance the monetary aspect of it.



Quote
For one, how do you communicate the fact that these options are open to the player? It's fine in the example of the Watch Captain, above, because the NPC involved in the quest is the one you have favour with. But I've been thinking further. Imagine you are part of a Faction, and you receive a quest to deal with some bandits/assassinate a guy. Now, you could do it yourself. But maybe you prefer not to get your hands dirty. Wouldn't it be great if you could go to your faction leader, tell them you have this 'little problem', and get the Guild to send over a few of their best bruisers/assassins to take care of it for you? The idea excites me, but I don't want players running back to their Faction NPC every time they get a quest to see if it has opened up an option to spend Favour to solve it. It's something I'm mulling over. AP solved it by having the extra options you could buy come from your black email market connections, which you can access between missions. Something convenient like that would be good.

Secondly, difficulty of implementing this. In some cases, it's simply extra dialogue. But even that starts to scale up heavily. And would it annoy people, if I did something like the above in one quest, give them the option to send assassins after a dude, but I didn't give the option in another, similar quest? Should I reduce scope to ensure it is universally an option, or do I limit it to a percentage of quest content?

Thirdly, it requires keeping the plot focused on a core cast of characters and factions, instead of a larger cast. Alpha Protocol did this, for a similar reason. If Favour is something you need to earn and choose when and on what to spend it on, the NPC or Faction you build favour with needs to be present in a large enough chunk of the game content to make that decision interesting. If you build favour with an NPC who you only interact with for a short period, it won't work. Look at the Captain of the Watch example, you need enough 'hooks' involving him to make gathering Favour with him interesting and to offer difficult choices on when and where to spend it. It's simpler with Factions, luckily, because they're more widespread. And SoW is already focused on those factions. But it will still take some effort. I figure most hubs would need to have the majority of their plotline built around 2-4 core characters as well as factions. Which isn't a terrible thing, for the sake of character development. But it could cause exponential growth of dialogue trees, eek.
Combat wise I think it shouldn't resort the help of the faction (at least most of the times), as they're probably busy. Favor could be used instead for help in other situations, especially in terms of information. Suppose you ask the faction leader to have someone killed, he tells you he can't because - insert reason here - but instead tips you on someone he trusts for that kind of job.
On another note, the PC could hire some thugs from the shady area of town even on a regular basis. This would allow for a non-combat PC. Implications of this: if you go to the shady area too much you'll get labeled (imagine the consequences of that), you could even get mugged yourself during there which would be unfortunate since you're not a fighting PC, additionaly, you may go wrong with the guys and they get your gold but don't do the job, or they get killed while at it (and the targets now know that someone wants them dead), or they get caught and spit their guts out on you.

By the way (and somewhat off-topic), one thing that annoys me in all RPG games is that when you enter a confrontation (started by you or someone else), there is no "I had enough point" and start talking... "ok you win, I tell you what you want/give you my gold". Off course there are situations where this is not possible, but on many of them this should be possible.
Implications: killing someone can draw a lot of attention by the police/guards. Not killing someone can backfire if that person knows you or can find you.

About the potion hoarding, unless the game is in a magic setting, there shouldn't even be any potions in it. You can have a first aid kit or go to the doctor or just rest. If it's a magic setting, well if people can hoard them it's likely that the game has too many potions in it Smile
As for the favor hoarding, if they hoard favor they are likely to have a very hard time completing tasks, so you have C&C and role playability here.


Off course all I said above is easier said than done. Implementing things in a good way is the difficult part.





Quote from: Tuomas
Have you played Return to Krondor? While its lock-picking and disarming mechanic needs some improving, the idea is good and could be explored further:

"One of the cool features in RtK, though, is the trap disarming. As opposed to the word lock puzzles of BaK, RtK chests are opened in an arcade-like setting. First, you click your Probe on each of three different areas on the chest to determine what trap is set on it. Then, you choose one of three tools for each trap piece. You then click on a rotating arrow, trying to stop it in a gold area of a circle. The gold area of the circle is differently sized based on the appropriateness of a tool for a given trap. When you successfully disarm a trap, the tools you used are remembered in a list on the left-hand-side of the trap disarm screen, so that you can use them again if you encounter the same trap or pieces of that trap."

You could expand this by introducing new kinds of instruments that could be bought from shady bazaars and black markets. The knowledge of how to disarm different traps could also be taught by trainers and designs of traps could be bought in specialized stores. Character skill could be tied to the ability of actually using the intstruments to get the desired effect.
That seems like a good idea. But the PC stats should be factored in this as well.
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Forral
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« Reply #13 on: January 24, 2011, 03:28:24 pm »

The introduction of Favour points as a dialogue resource does feel quite analogous to consumable items in battle. A player hoarding consumable items such as Potions or Wands with limited charges is usually capable of doing so because his combat prowess is above the required level. If his character or characters were weaker because of build decisions or lower levels, he'd be forced to utilize his resources to wrest victory from the enemy. I presume the same would go in Favour system, i.e. the characters with well-developed conversation related skills could probably choose to have things done their way through diplomacy and choose to save their precious Favour points for a rainy day.

Like the combat oriented character can choose to keep or sell his unneeded consumables, it makes sense that the socially inclined character would have the option to gain something else with them as well, like purchasing items from faction vendors. With this sort of view I am inclined to feel that Favour points would both have benefits Combat oriented characters, as it would allow the rare opportunity to have something done 'their way' without having to smash skulls, and also provide in-combat benefits for the diplomatically inclined characters as they would be able to acquire resources that would aid them in more effectively handling difficult situations where they are forced into combat.

In a round-about fashion it works as an interesting tie-in between combat and dialogue. These ties between various systems I think is something worth looking at. Nearly everything you do in a game somehow ties back into the combat system, such as accumulating gold or equipment, gaining experience, encountering new types of foes, gaining levels and so on. Combat, as you say, remains the core in gameplay. Far fewer things tend to tie back into the conversation systems somehow. A few things that would add depth is allowing the player to spend money in conversation, as bribes and payments to advance his cause, detaching the accumulation of treasure from only affecting your combat prowess. Another thing that I encountered in a so-so Russian game called Planet Alcatraz, was the introduction of an intimidation score of sorts based on what you were wearing and holding, where some things just looked bloody intimidating, which would tie equipment into dialogue as well. Strange game that one; it worked poorly, had horrifying voice acting and poor writing but still somehow reminiscent of the first two Fallouts. I kind of liked it and hated it all at once.
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old_school_gamer
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« Reply #14 on: March 25, 2019, 07:17:54 pm »

Anyway, feel free to discuss or make suggestions. I'm still thinking about this one.

I hope you'll forgive me but so much of what you said immediately brought "dating sim" into my mind. Dating sims are so popular here in Japan with shelves and shelves full of just them in lots of gaming stores (they might even be arguably more popular than any other game genre here) -- but very few of them get translated and released in other countries. But they have many of the non-combat elements you mentioned.

Most of them have time as a finite resource. You might have only 60 in-game days to sleep with as many women as possible. And you have a favor system in place -- start doing nice things for girls and remembering things about them and giving them presents they like increases favor with them, along with training skills they admire.

And you have training and a feedback loop. If you spend your days studying hard for class, that nerdy bookworm girl might start to like you a lot and show you her genitalia. But all that studying might come at the cost of not being able to participate much in sports, and that busty cheerleader might not be so impressed and not show you her genitalia, so you have very difficult decisions in terms of trying to figure out whose genitalia you want to see based on your actions while trying to see as much genitalia as possible.




Most of these games are rather perverted and crude, but they actually showcase an implementation with many of these noncombat ideas in place. I might recommend Princess Maker -- that one was translated to other languages, including English, and it's light on the perverted stuff. It also has combat even though you don't have to focus on it unless you want to get an ending that involves being a soldier or wizard instead of a princess or prostitute or master cook or something like that.

With PM games, they also have annual tournaments including non-combat tournaments, like beauty pageants and cooking contests. So that also helps the player see how relatively good they are at non-combat skills in a competitive way against the other NPCs studying and practicing their own non-combat skills, and rewards them handsomely if they win gold, silver, or bronze. There are even rivalries that occur with unique NPCs, like some girl might want to be the most amazing housewife and then she wants to personally challenge you to a cook-off to see who is the best housewife in all the kingdom, and that rivalry that arises motivates you to train harder in cooking and cleaning. Further she might turn really jealous and bitter if you defeat her at the cook off which gives the player a feeling like, "Yes, I whooped her butt! My cake was so much better than that disgusting soup she made. I am the best housewife ever! My future husband is going to be so lucky." There is also that kind of competitive element to combat in lots of games that is often absent outside of combat, like being able to test your character's fighting prowess against some NPC as well as sizing him/her up that way, and PM managed to achieve that sort of thing going in areas outside of combat.

Another angle that popped up to me which is less about mechanics is that combat is a rather social interaction. In some RPGs, it is the most social and meaningful interaction you can have with someone else, and there could be a whole lot of meaning and emotional investment behind it, like fighting a former ally who betrayed you, fighting the person who murdered your family. There becomes a competitive element and rivalry there which is inherently a social kind of thing. Whereas a game that involves you spending a lot of time mining on your own isn't very social, unless it has frequent mining tournaments to determine the best miner and the people you are competing against become very memorable rivals -- perhaps some having good sportsmanship and others being really sore losers who might even challenge you to a brawl afterwards because they're so upset. Everything I'm doing always feels deeper and more interesting to me when there's a social context to it. For that reason perhaps, I always enjoyed games with tournaments testing our skills against our rivals, especially when that's the only way to test them outside of combat. It also gives you a sense of your skills being relative ("I'm way better than that guy, but that guy is still way better than me -- he really deserves to be called champion and I'll have to train twice as hard next year if I'm to have a chance."). Absent the social element, we tend to lack that kind of compass and ways to measure our own worth and find our own place in the world. It's like the added depth you get in a racing game where other racers are on the race track as opposed to an empty race track where you just try to beat your former record over and over. The other racers add a whole lot in the way of a competitive social element and give you a better sense of where you stand.

The Quest for Glory games were fairly nice like that, because it wasn't like lockpicking skill was just a way to get into people's private possessions in an antisocial way. They had thieves' guilds and often tests you had to pass to become accepted and treated as one of them, making even being a thief a very social kind of activity along with being a skilled climber and so forth.


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