Next gen solutions for old problems? [Gameplay]

[Ulfberht]

[info: Have to wait for PayPal. Therefore I only can write for category “Meta”]

For what I have seen until now, KCD will be great anyway. But here are some classical problems of game mechanics which need next gen solutions in my opinion. Does KCD have some proper solutions? I only have some stupid ideas.

Stream of consciousness (I am no native speaker):

1. Numbers
   Q: „What a fight! Are you ok?“
   A: „Yes, I have still 78 of 100 health. Next time I have to bring this sword with me, wich delivers 10 Points more damage. But before I can do this, I have to increas my strenght to 50, so I can put it on.“
   Problem: Numbers for health, skills and item values kill immersion. This numbers are bare code you can see in game.
   //Look down on your body and see if you are hurted/bleeding. Unable to walk correctly.
   Monkey Island 2 had this Option „look at“ or so. Then Gybrush just sad what he thought about some items. The hero is blacksmith:. „I think this sword is better than mine. It is sharper, longer, …“; „this type of armor is best combined with …“, „This Weapon looks heavy, I will be slow with it“

2. Death
   Problem: In reality you would be very afraid of death. In games you can load. But if the game is over after 30 hours playing, starting from the beginning is uncool .
   // Explanation of Warband why you are not dying: Knights have thick armor. They dont die in battle. Also it is cool for enemy to get ransom for you.
   So maybe: If you know people who pay ransom for you, enemy will beat you up, but dont kill you, to get ransom. Or if you are a man of honor and they wont kill you because they respect you. But if you kill other people or have nobody who pays ransom for you, you will be killed and have to start from beginning. (Also lets you choose degree of difficulty
   Also: pay a guy for carry you away when you fall in battle. He brings you to a doctor who can bring you back from nearly death. But he wants much money for this… So try to avoid this situations

3. Inventory
   Problem: Killed 3 bandits in forest. Put all there stuff in my inventory. Also killed 2 pigs. Put them in inventory too and run 1,5 km to my house. Not possible because thats 430/300 Inventory points? See „1. Numbers“. Not possible because there are not enough squares in my inventory feeld? Im not playing tetris! Wasnt this the inventory solution of Diablo I?
   //What about animating a sack with the real 3D objects in it. Like the organs in the body in surgeon simulator. You see when the sack is full.
   Or: Carry what you can. Hide rest of your loot in bushes. In town give little boys a bit money to bring you that stuff at home. You need a place where you feel like home. Has to give you the feeling that all your stuff is safe there and you wont be killed while asleep.

4. Reaction on Player behavior
   Problem: If you wear poor clothes rich people dont like you. They wont let you in or talk with you. If you wear rich clothes bandits like you. People dont like it, when you jump on there tables, or if you cant keep enough distance. You cannot change your trousers on marketplace. People will be irritated if you run all the time. Nobile wont talk with you, if you sleep in a stable together with pigs.

5. Perc items
   Problem: A ring wont give you +3 strength.
   // Today people are better in selling insuranes if they have cool cars and montblanc pens. Golden rings and stuff will do it in medieval times. A spring bush (?) on your helmet wont make you stronger but irritate your opponent. Some things make you feel stronger. Maybe a Amulet which reminds you on a killed person you liked. It brings agression in your heard and makes you stronger like a drug. They had cool solutions in Risen 2.

6. Atmosphere
   Problem: Thats what is missing in Mount and Blade. It just have to be cool to breave the air oft he game even if you do no quests in the moment.
   // Pyranha Bytes are sometimes good in that. In Gothic 1 you had special feelings in every camp. No idea how they made it. –
   Problem: In the game the quests are your job. But sometimes you want free time to do other stuff. And there have to be some things you can do. Making ham out oft the pig you hunted? Fishing? Watching musicians? Being musician??? Taking time to cook your food over open fire? Eat together with other people? Sitting there, just celebrating the moment? I dont know…

7. Screen menus
   Problem: Coming from first person view to a screnn menu is killing immersion. A menu for clothing the hero (with medieval backround) gives me the feeling of playing a medieval doll dressing game for girls. I will prevent that anybody looks at my screen while using that menu. The same thing with the menu for trade.
   // A merchant has his stuff in his shop or will present it to you in his hands. Also he want to force you to buy it. A first person map like in minecraft is good for immersion.

8. NPC
   Daily cycles of npcs live is cool. But there is more. Maybe one marketday in week. Maybe you have to wait for this day if you want special stuff. On Sunday everybody is in church and nobody will work. Peasants stay at the same place but some npcs have to be more active. Otherwise it feels like you alone do important things while all other people do nothing but waiting for you at there places. – You want to visit this nobile in his castle? Sorry, he is not here today. He is hunting in that forest. Or is visiting this other nobile. –

9. Charakter progression
   Problem: Starting as noob is classical for rpg. But for realistic rpg there is a Problem in chrakter progression. If you have trained your skills and gear in fantasy rpg far enough to win a fight against 3 kinights, you can continue to train until you are able to kill a Dragon. But in a realistic one, dealing with 3 knights will be the end. In reality you cannot be better than this (at least, if you where a noob three weeks ago). So how will charakter progression look like, after you reach that border???
   // Dont use money to buy better sword, but to hire more companions. But what about training your skills? Training your skill to lead your troop? Will this be as cool as training your strength in order to be able to use that cool sword?
   Problem: You collect Points and invest it in percs of your Charakter progression tree? And imediatly you have that perc? Thats strange! Also: see „1.Numbers“ and „7. Screen menus“
   // They already sad that you slowly getting better in things you do often. I hope that will be cool and there are no messages like: you gained 1 point in archery …
   Problem: You are always the stupid guy who does stuff for other people. A realistic progression would be, if you get into a position where other people do stuff for you. Not getting quests but giving quests.

Stream of consciousness ends…

[YuusouAmazing]

I like the way you think of immersion. Regarding the “no stats” issue you have I think an RPG still needs those values. I backed TUG (The Untitled Game) which is far away from being finished and also far away from being immersive. The inventory is slot based, the crafting is as simple as putting things together on ground, hit the craft button and there you go. No immersion in my opinion but they want to be very immersive.

However I believe KCD wants to get immersive through realistic medieval content like the sword fights or historical background. You can see your whole body in first person view and when you get hit, your whole body reacts to it and your head and view changes accordingly. Of course I would like to see many different NPC actions throughout the day but I’m still waiting for that game to show this kind of nature / behavior.

Just to respond on your points:

1 and 3 regarding numbers means less of being an RPG, because an RPG was always about numbers.

2 is true, MB:WB put some nice work into the “dying”. However each life wasn’t worth a lot, because you could replenish it whenever you visited some villages. The question is: How much was a single life worth in medieval times?

3 could be solved via the horse which might have some kind of baskets or even a carriage.

4 is definitely true, however the opposite should also happen: wearing rich man’s clothing and the poor won’t like you anymore. This is difficult to manage if you happened to have relationships with poor people. How should they act when they meet you again?

5 is typical RPG-like but I think those perks should be more of a visual property like showing your status (rich, poor, catholic…) which then leads to certain reactions of the people surrounding you.

6 is true for MB:WB. The only way to get leisure time is to have no contract with any faction. But KCD wants you to experience the medieval time as good as possible. The problem for any game is the coding of AI behavior and randomising events so the world appears vivid and realistic. Also offering lots and lots of gimmicks without benefit won’t be included in KCD. How do you want to be a musician: Creating own music or playing pre-recorded music? What is the benefit to be a simple musician? It only supports you if you’re some kind of intriguing character whose task is to reach people in a short distance and get information from those people or their partners. Words have power and I hope the role as a bard makes good use of it.

I don’t know how a game can be a game without menus like described in 7. Four layers of clothing is IMHO pretty difficult to apply without a proper menu. I just wear two layers and it already takes time to dig through all the clothes to find a good match. If it wouldn’t be like The Sims, how else should it be to have immersion and realism?

For number 8 see number 6.

9 is true regarding training. Without training you get no special skills. However this is an RPG and the immersion should be happening in the story, the moment of action and the historical background but not in the customization and progression of the character. If you want it to be so immersive and realistic, you’d be pretty sad if someone did it that way. A knight for example couldn’t really move in his armor. When he got hit, it really hurt him and if the armor got dented it put some pressure on the knight’s body, especially on the wound. That way he looses his ability to fight. That means a fight could be over really quickly and you’d say you don’t play the game because you don’t have any chance. But this is what the real medieval was about: chances (usually just one). Also giving quests only happens if you were the king. Anyone else always got orders to do something. Some might even pass the task to another person of lower rank. However would you give someone a task and take responsibility for whatever is emerging from another person’s (NPC’s) action? I basically want to be part of the story instead of letting someone else taking part in it. Giving tasks away means giving control away. But you as a knight are always under control of your liege and your liege doesn’t care about an unsuccessful task of some peasant whom you’ve passed the task to. What kind of quests do you expect to give an NPC?

I think this should be enough commenting for this post.

[OmarTheBest]

Hey there. Well I think WH are actually counting with lots of points you have written. They want the game to be as immersive as possible. But still lots of things can’t be done as easily even on next-gen.

1. It sounds nice that If you look at you, you can see your wounds as an indicator of your health. And initially it would be fun, but after some time it will be more annoying than you would think and you will appreciate classic health bar.
2. They already said that dead is not the only ending of any combat. You can let your opponent go, or your opponent could spare your live as well. In the medieval era this was quite common, lots of warriors fight with honor. But I guest that it will have some impact on your story - when you spare someone’s live, he will own you, but if someone spares your live, you’ll have to work for him probably.
3. You will have some inventory, your horse will have one too and at your home you’ll probably have some big treasure for your staff. But I think it is still more comfortable to have it in a table with numbers and slots.
4. Actually this is one of the planned feature. They said that clothing will have huge impact on perception of yourself. I think they will say more in the Monday update with video about equipment.
5. Interesting idea, I would like to see something like that
6. I think the atmosphere will be really strong. Combination of abilities of Cry Engine, their focus on accuracy and realism, I don’t doubt that the whole world will breath and live.
7. I also hope that they will get rid off menus as much as possible.
8. This is planned feature as well. We will see more in the video update about it. One example for all. If you kill the innkeeper, he will not respawn immediately. The inn will be closed for several days and all customers will move to another pub or inn within the city.
9. After all it is still RPG and even though they will try to do it as realistic as possible, there should be some shortcuts which ensure that the game will be fun.

[Klogg]

Hi, I finally stumbled upon a really nice post, that made my gears grind

Numbers

I like your point. I have been constructing a huge post about perks and stuff when the idea hit me straight. What if you could actually see your character as you see yourself? Instead of ‘‘Your skill with sword has increased to 57’’ you would see your character actually improving over time. Not instantly in a moment. You could see yourself wounded, any wound will noticeably affect your body as well as your mind. There is a plenty of other games simulating fear, why not have a blurry vision and hear your heart throbbing, when facing a fully armored knight with a fork in your hand?

A few examples:
Weapon skills - you could see the animations improving. You could watch your moves, clumsy and slow in the beginning starting to look like ones of a knight or a swordsman. Also depending on your combat style and weapon type. Hefty and sweepy, or fast moves with finesse. Also when getting better with a hammer, it would make you better with other weapons (similar weapons like mace or axe more than other). And this could affect other characters as well! Do you see a peasant, who had never been in a fight picking up an axe in a desperate attempt to attack a well trained, battle-hardened soldier; swinging his poor weapon in all directions, unable to reach the soldier, getting killed in a few seconds? Or can you imagine the possibility to hide your skills, dressed in poor clothes, so that your enemy would attack you like he attacked the peasant before; only to expose himself to your final blow, not focusing as he would, if he faced a knight in a shiny armor?
Crafting - you could actually tell the difference between a good and a bad sword on sight. Your first sword would be a throw-away, crooked piece of metal. With more time spent in front of an anvil with a hammer in your hand, your weapons would become cleaner, smoother and detailed, looking luxurious in the end.
Wounds - what would you do after getting hit by an arrow? You would certainly not miraculously heal after three hours of lying in a bush in the forest. With no experience in wound treatment, you can at least break the shaft and seek help. If you are lucky, and the arrow gets through, without any serious damage to your body you can take it out and use a bandage to stop the bleeding. With an arrow half stuck in your thigh, you can’t expect yourself to push the arrow’s head through, as it cannot be removed differently. If you try to and faint, someone could find you after some time, friend or foe. This is the kind of thing, that makes the world live and breath. I would love to have these situations emerging in front of me on the go, not put straight in my face.

I know, that what I just described is extremely difficult to put in a game. It may also sound a bit hardcore to play, but I think this is the way to go. It would make a whole new experience in RPGs. The thing is not to want too much of the player. To create a realistic world like this and then, and only then try to put together a story, that would work in this world. The experience will be immersive only when everything on screen will look probable and believable (not in gaming world, but in the real one)

Menus

Something to allow players to interact with the ingame world is always needed. There is a plenty of information that you unconsciously receive in real life. For example trading - you see a lot of stuff in the store, you can heft a sword in your hand to see how it is balanced, you can put a helmet on to see if it fits you, or you can smell food to find out if it fresh. This is something that can not be achieved without a menu. An ingame menu can provide a huge amount of information in a short time, which is desirable, because you don’t want to spend all of your time in some kind of a trading minigame. It would get annoying over time, for sure.
Inventory is a whole other story though. I like the idea of hiding stuff and sending someone The Diablo-like inventory would be IMHO the best. You can carry a few bulky items, or a lot of small ones. Plus there is your horse and your home.
Map I am not sure if I want one. Are there a lot of maps covering just a little area? And how common were maps in 15th century? If I am told to kill a rat in a nearby cave (not exactly a quest I expect in KCD ) and I do not remember the directions I was given, I simply ask someone. He could possibly draw me a simple sketch with landmarks. Someone else could improve the sketch a bit. Maybe I would then talk with the NPCs more than I do now.

Progression

This is the last thing you mention. What if winning a fight against three knights would actually be barely possible? It depends on the creators. Maybe they achieve to create a world, where your personal goal is not to kill a thousand of dragons, but to defeat one single knight. And if it is not enough for you, you can always grab a new weapon and learn how to use it.

Combat System & Battles

Speaking of combat system and especially battles. Make these as brutal as possible. I would like to point out, that there had been more bashing and beating than dancing and cutting in medieval combat.
Simply said, I WANT THIS!