ALL GAMES SHOULD BE DARK SOULS
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It's kind of moot in Pokemon games anyway because they're not in any real sense action games. -
It would if you're talking about small differences, which you would be if there were the kind of range that there is in Dark Souls. Not everything is the difference between hitting something with a club and hitting it with a sword, unless you're thinking of a much simpler system. I have a feeling that you could go to all the trouble to implement this incredibly nuanced system of visual feedback and find it's just not worth it. Games work with abstractions and symbolisations for good reason.Tempy wrote:If it intuitive enough it wouldn't be an issue.
I've never played Pokemon. How precisely do you know? And how is that effectiveness conveyed - are there no numbers?mistercrayon wrote:In pokemon I know how effective a move will me 8/10 times just by the name. -
They worked with them because they had to when the tech wasn't there for much else.
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JonB wrote:
I've never played Pokemon. How precisely do you know? And how is that effectiveness conveyed - are there no numbers?In pokemon I know how effective a move will me 8/10 times just by the name.
There's a bar to measure HP, but when for example, I use a fire move (flame thrower, ember, etc) it will most times be good against a grassy looking pokemon but shit against anything that looks like it might have come from the water.
@Brooks, for an action game a similar mechanic works in Ikaruga for example. I think new sophisticated games could/should be more subtle than colours though. -
JonB wrote:
It would if you're talking about small differences, which you would be if there were the kind of range that there is in Dark Souls. Not everything is the difference between hitting something with a club and hitting it with a sword, unless you're thinking of a much simpler system. I have a feeling that you could go to all the trouble to implement this incredibly nuanced system of visual feedback and find it's just not worth it. Games work with abstractions and symbolisations for good reason.If it intuitive enough it wouldn't be an issue.
I'm maybe not being clear, but I don't see the point in having +1 and +2 weapons. A spear is a spear. A pike is longer. A halberd has a blade on the end. These weapons exist and have pros and cons. I think the amount of range in Dark Souls is a bit pointless at times, beyond PvP.
Make weapon choice down to the physical attributes of the thing instead of whether it scales better with strength or not. Of course, I'm not talking about changing the design of Dark Souls, these ideas can't be retroactively implemented into an existing system. I'm suggesting this be the basis of an entirely new game that takes a lot of the core ideas of souls and takes it further.
I'd rather see someone try this and fail at it than just go "nah, i'd rather have numbers" -
The proliferation of pickupable stuff is only as compelling as the stuff actually is in the first place. If your arsenal is smaller the nuances can be made starker, as we know. Plenty for plenty's sake strikes me as a bit lame or actually sinister i.e. keep 'em hooked longer.
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I would suspect Borederlands is victim to this +1 ing as well. If I was a man on a quest I don't think +1ing would occur to me. It's a throwback from pencil games, which had to work with dice rolls.
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Brooks wrote:The proliferation of pickupable stuff is only as compelling as the stuff actually is in the first place. If your arsenal is smaller the nuances can be made starker, as we know. Plenty for plenty's sake strikes me as a bit lame or actually sinister i.e. keep 'em hooked longer.
Exactly, limit instances of weapons and have the differences be greater than just pure damage. Logical uses of weapons. Great scaly beasts? Equip your spear and turtle them whilst waiting to stab their weaker areas. Great hammers for crushing heads etc. -
It has an impact on the quality of enemy design too. Mechanically, DkS opponents are thick and predictable, the only thing that keeps them threatening is the damage they can deal if you're under-equipped. If you base difficulty on the sophistication of their behaviour instead, you get rather better mileage out of less gear.
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Also if you want to keep motivation for a 100 hour game the theory probably goes you give lots of tiny (imperceptable, perhaps)rewards but if you had to play 1/5th of a game with one weapon maybe people don't necessary dig this.
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Thumbs up for Tempy's banter in here. Made a post with a similar point in the new Dragon Age thread.
Next gen should see this stuff realised. If I hit a guy on the bonce with an axe I don't want to see a stock 'Ow you sod, you hit me!' animation followed by some numbers popping up and a health bar draining, I want to end that guy with one hit. Similarly if the blow was to glance off his shield or armour, I'd not expect if to take off an equal ammount of health as a direct hit. I want injuries, limbs being hacked off, armour being dented and cut from the body, and I want my opponent to react to it. -
They do when it's done with care. Plenty of FPS titles manage to make their initial weapons relevant throughout.
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Have any of you ever played Bushido Blade? I know you're not talking about 1v1 beat-em-ups, but that game was a joy for basing weapon choice on the physical thing, and not having it inflict [number] damage on the enemy. Yours and your opponents condition is entirely from visual clues on the character models, not a health bar.
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Almost mentioned Bushido Blade in my post, but sadly I've never played it.
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Bushido Blade is absolutely a touchstone title for this kind of thing. I didn't like much else about it but its heart was right.
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Deus Ex (1999) had zonal damage (shoot in the arm to make him drop the weapon!) but it just meant he'd run off to the alarm and call his friends. So while the option is there and the tech available for first instance zonal damage, in reality you need natural looking behaviours to back that shit up.
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Despite having not played it, yeah, Bushido Blade did crop up into my mind because of what I know about it. There's other ways of doing it that are visual but beyond helath bars: limps, broken armour/sheilds/ bleeding/wounds, the way the Angels in Bayonetta crack up; although it's more important in a fast paced game like that to know exactly where the enemies health is there is no reason a similar idea can't be made real in a more tactical game.
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mistercrayon wrote:Deus Ex (1999) had zonal damage (shoot in the arm to make him drop the weapon!) but it just meant he'd run off to the alarm and call his friends. So while the option is there and the tech available for first instance zonal damage, in reality you need natural looking behaviours to back that shit up.
MGS2 had that. All the limbs were targets, and you could even shoot the guy's radio to stop him from calling for help. -
In Barbarian you could also stop the enemy from calling for help.
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Whilst I think that Tempy's suggestions are great, I also suspect that they mostly apply only to PvE (i.e fighting NPCs)
If I come across another player (which imo is one of the most compelling aspects of Dark Souls), I don't want to stand no chance simply because he's wearing an armour type that I don't have the appropriate weapon to deal with. The effect of increasing a single weapon's stats, either by +1 upgrades or buffs/enchants means that you can take practically any weapon and be on a fairly even playing field, assuming that you have taken the time to learn the playstyle required by that weapon.
Case in point, I got absolutely wrecked one time by a guy using the painting guardians sword, which on paper is one of the smallest and lowest-damage weapons.
That said, there's definitely a case to be made for different attack types (thrust, slash etc) to have a much bigger impact. One of Dark Souls failings is the fact that it includes different stats for these, but the effect is practically negligible.The janitor. -
I think two handing the painted guardian sword makes it the fastest swinging weapon in the game, very short range but deadly when combined with a buff. I love that knowing how every weapon works completely changes your approach to a fight.
I suppose they could have worked more on the 'bleed' mechanic, that could've been a way limb specific damage could have been implemented. -
For the record I was only ever talking about PvE, couldn't care less about PvP in Dark Souls.
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Tempy wrote:For the record I was only ever talking about PvE, couldn't care less about PvP in Dark Souls.
Why? I don't think I've ever read your opinion on it, I'd be interested. Feel free to post in the DkS thread if you can be bothered to go into it.
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It's not what I played Dark Souls for.
The uniqueness of the online mechanic is emphasised by its paucity. Investing time into it doesn't interest me.
It's probably great, but I've no care to find out. -
I think what you're suggesting is fine, but for something like a Zelda game. Here's a set of weapon types, match the right one to the enemy type. There's nothing wrong with that as such, but it requires dumping a lot of the customisation and minor differences between many weapons that DS is based around. You're talking about a different type of game basically, rather than a way of improving on a game like DS.Tempy wrote:I'm maybe not being clear, but I don't see the point in having +1 and +2 weapons. A spear is a spear. A pike is longer. A halberd has a blade on the end. These weapons exist and have pros and cons. I think the amount of range in Dark Souls is a bit pointless at times, beyond PvP. Make weapon choice down to the physical attributes of the thing instead of whether it scales better with strength or not. Of course, I'm not talking about changing the design of Dark Souls, these ideas can't be retroactively implemented into an existing system. I'm suggesting this be the basis of an entirely new game that takes a lot of the core ideas of souls and takes it further. I'd rather see someone try this and fail at it than just go "nah, i'd rather have numbers" -
Do you also want it to be possible for your opponent to suddenly hit you in the head, killing you instantly? Honestly, it probably would be a good idea for some of you to play Bushido Blade, to see that's it's actually a bit poor, and not just because it's badly executed.Paul the sparky wrote:Thumbs up for Tempy's banter in here. Made a post with a similar point in the new Dragon Age thread. Next gen should see this stuff realised. If I hit a guy on the bonce with an axe I don't want to see a stock 'Ow you sod, you hit me!' animation followed by some numbers popping up and a health bar draining, I want to end that guy with one hit. Similarly if the blow was to glance off his shield or armour, I'd not expect if to take off an equal ammount of health as a direct hit. I want injuries, limbs being hacked off, armour being dented and cut from the body, and I want my opponent to react to it.
Another thing is it's one thing to say a FPS lets you do head shots, arm shots etc. and another to expect it from a hand to hand weapon based game. When shooting I can pinpoint an exact spot, but what's the equivalent control system for a sword game? How do I get that precision? -
I do want one hit death, even for my guy, yeah. I should point out that I'm not talking about Dark Souls, just ideas for some next gen game that no one will buy but I would love.
As I'm talking PvE in this imaginary game, I quite liked the precision mode from Revengeance. Depending on the timing of your strike, you'd get more time to aim your weapon. If you've just parried an incoming attack, you have ages to aim. I'd have a button for slash attacks and one for stabbing (assuming your weapon is capable of both).
This might not work at all, but I'd like someone to try as the press button to reduce numbers has been done to death. I've never liked the way that an enemy on 1% health moves and fights in the same manner as an enemy with 100% health. I want to be rewarded for getting in attacks.
If I played Bushido Blade now what would I make of it? It's borderline ancient now. -
I played it when it was out. Was ok for a while, but we got bored of it pretty quickly.
The other difficulty with implementing a system where you can injure folk is that fights tend to get one-sided early on and it's hard to recover from that. Either you've been crippled and there's not much you can do, or you've crippled your opponent and they're easier to finish off. -
Tempy wrote:The uniqueness of the online mechanic is emphasised by its paucity.
The paucity is (mostly) a choice that you, as a player, make. If you want to treat the game purely as a PvP experience, you can via in-built mechanics, and it's just as valid as never once turning human or invading another world. That blend is one of my favourite aspects of the game.The janitor.
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