Kylotan-

Right on. (god I hate that phrase) In fact, the Final Fantasy series is mainly what prompted me to post. Sure, the stories were great, and I''ve seen worse combat systems, but every sequel seems to take more control away from the player. In fact, when I beat FFVIII, I set the controller options to remember the last command, plugged in my turbo controller and walked away when there was a long fight, or when I had to Draw magic from beasties. Who plays games for the tedium? Show of hands? Yet these are some of the best selling "RPG"''s?!?! (and I use the term loosely)

Taunting is always fun...

My friend was suggesting that there should be a scream button in Diablo II for during the battle. Just picture the scene where the battle is drawing to a close against either a boss or a hoard and it is not clear who will survive. You have just used your last potion and you are standing your ground. As you are attacking, hold down the scream button and you just scream as you attack and I can just see the great scene it would make! We can only do this with text at the moment

-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)

quote: Original post by dwarfsoft

My friend was suggesting that there should be a scream button in Diablo II for during the battle.

A friend was telling me that this is part of the Barbarian''s natural ability. He''s screams are so terrifying that he can make enemies flee...



--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Kaon

Random encounters need to be more controlled by the player. I remember I used to save/load about 100 times in Baldur''s Gate and Fallout II just to avoid getting an encounter. That used to annoy me alot. Instead I think there should be a choice for the player. Because if you make the player fight every encounter, he''ll just save/load 1,000,000 times to avoid it (I will ).

I think you should be able to avoid random encounters. As mentioned in another thread, this should be a function of some ability or stat, like Perception.

I also think you should be able to run away from any fight, or you''re right, the player will just restore around it and get annoyed.


--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster.

If you pick up any tabletop DnD module, (well, a good one, anyway) you'll see a better random encounter table than in any CRPG I've seen. They're modified by time of day, terrain, a slim chance of a "special encounter", (well, at least fallout had _those_) current status in the campaign; and then, when you go to the lookups, you see at least some sort of quickie description of what the creature/person was busy doing when you happened along. You would never see a creature "just hanging out". Also, not all encounters had to end in combat. Wouldn't it be nice if in a CRPG, you once in awhile encountered something other than a group of hostile monsters, like a knight returning from a Holy War, a "monster" who was cast out of his/her tribe, some unemployed serfs from the castle you just sacked & looted, anything?

Whoa. OK, shame on me. I wasn't even thinking of making a table with this depth, and yet this is exactly the kind of thing I need. Any pen & paper suggestions to take a look at (geared toward science fiction, if possible)?



--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Edited by - wavinator on August 23, 2000 1:47:29 AM

quote: Original post by C-Junkie

If you ask me, It''s simpler if you just make the game turn based.

But, unless you''re going for infinite accuracy...Try giving each npc priorities for running. Closer ones have priority 1. further have 2 etc..

then run them like 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 4 1 2 1 3 1 2 etc...

But keep track of "timeframe" in each NPC and give them orders long enough to bring them to the next time they''re AI runs.

So 1 runs every say 2 frames, 2 every 4, 3 every 8, 4 every 16 etc.

Thx! I''ll look into this. I''m (maybe overly) fearful of processor load because I''m shooting for a BIG friggin'' universe. Not all of it''s planned to be populated, but if you think a Star Trek RPG and the idea that you could travel to a number of worlds, you maybe see my fear.

I think what might work is tracking random encounters after the encounter, up to a certain point. So if you meet a merchant, and remain near him, he''ll be tracked. But as soon as he gets far enough away, the game can get rid of him.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Of course, you could just do away w/ random encounters and make every encounter meaningful. But that is kind of unrealistic in terms of player expectations & development schedules, unless you''re going w/ the idea of making a short, compact experience. So the next best thing would be what we''re describing, basically giving the illusion of meaningful encounters through better random tables.

Paul, do you have an idea for implementing random lairs & such in pre-made maps? As a matter of personal taste, I''ve never liked random maps.

I think a good design approach would be to consider these random "encounters", not random battles. Let me explain: If from the start, you''re going w/ the supposition that not every encounter will end in combat, and allow many other options to the player before combat even starts, such as negotiation, stealth, tactical choices such as plotting an ambush or whatever would work w/in the context; and if there''s exp. pts. in your game, grant appropriate experience for each course of action (a barbarian would get less experience for negotiation, a thief would get more experience for using stealth to ambush or avoid combat). You could even have small side-quests based off of random encounters.

Still, I think overall that random encounters are a kind of clumsy feature to have in a game. I would much rather see logical encounters that further the story. In my eyes, any section of the world where you can''t travel twenty paces w/out encountering a malicious beast should be rather remarkable, and the existence of civilized towns in the midst of this turmoil is also something that should be explained.

If these are non-sentient creatures, it doesn''t make much sense for them to attack every passer-by, unless they''re hungry or you''re invading their territory. On the other hand, if these creatures think & feel, it would seem they would have some sort of organization & purpose to their attacks, however crude. This could be done w/ better random encounters, but once you''ve gone to that extent, why bother? I think that if I were working on an RPG, I would have randomly wandering wild-life that would attack if provoked, but I would be alot more careful w/ creatures that are supposedly able to think. One design goal that I hold dear is that when players think about the gameworld and characters, their actions will make sense in retrospect.