Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Ivefan]

How do you sneak attack with a bow, anyway? I mean, it's not like you can pinpoint your opponent's vital organs with the kind of precision you'd have at dagger range.

Consider shooting that guy looking at you, ready to at least try to evade the arrow, then compare that to the dude relaxing and smoking a pipe or whatever...
Which one is the easier target?

[ShoesandHats]

Maybe a better approach would have been to apply some deviation to the arrow's direction.

Because nothing's more fun than trying to sneak attack a guy with a bow only to miss because the RNG hates you.

Maybe, just maybe, a mediocre archer SHOULD miss some of the time. And a newbie archer should miss a lot of the time. Otherwise, what's even the point of having an archery skill?

If you're a master with every weapon and able to cast any spell from the minute you stumble wide-eyed out of the tutorial prison, well, that's just not the kind of Elder Scrolls game I was expecting. Maybe I'm just out of the loop? I mean, the latest Fallout game I played was Fallout 2. It's been a while, but I seem to recall missing all the time. I also missed a lot in all the Infinity Engine games. Not being able to hit monsters in Morrowind felt just natural. And at some point, I found roguelikes, and learned to appreciate permadeath and suffer the whims of the RNG without actually punching my monitor.

And now Fallout is a FPS, and the kids are whining about guns not being flawlessly accurate? Bah! Get off my lawn!

How do you sneak attack with a bow, anyway? I mean, it's not like you can pinpoint your opponent's vital organs with the kind of precision you'd have at dagger range.

I love Fallout 1 and 2, along with the newer ones. It's just that the chance-of-hitting thing only really works well in turn-based games, and when the chance to hit is actually displayed. I do think that the newer Fallout games got it right with how accuracy is handled, which is best seen while using a sniper rifle. The higher your skill is, the more steady your aim is. That's how I think it should work.

Basically, I just think that for the most part, your accuracy should be determined by your skill and not that of the character. Not entirely, though. You shouldn't be able to pick up a bow and some arrows with no prior experience with archery and hit a bullseye. Same (kinda) goes for melee weapons, though I guess the difficulty would go up with the size of the weapon.

FAKEEDIT: Kind of what Forsaken said!

[fqllve]

Maybe, just maybe, a mediocre archer SHOULD miss some of the time. And a newbie archer should miss a lot of the time. Otherwise, what's even the point of having an archery skill?

If you're a master with every weapon and able to cast any spell from the minute you stumble wide-eyed out of the tutorial prison, well, that's just not the kind of Elder Scrolls game I was expecting. Maybe I'm just out of the loop? I mean, the latest Fallout game I played was Fallout 2. It's been a while, but I seem to recall missing all the time. I also missed a lot in all the Infinity Engine games. Not being able to hit monsters in Morrowind felt just natural. And at some point, I found roguelikes, and learned to appreciate permadeath and suffer the whims of the RNG without actually punching my monitor.

And now Fallout is a FPS, and the kids are whining about guns not being flawlessly accurate? Bah! Get off my lawn!

Kid? I've been playing Fallout since 2, and if you think having to use VATS instead of actually being able to hit the things you're aiming at is fun, ok, but pleast don't talk down to me as if I'm new the to series because I didn't. Actually, I just checked and I'm older than you.

And the thing is, there are a lot of variables that need to be taken account of. A long prepared shot from the shadows in an attempt to assassinate the target isn't going to be as inaccurate as one fired in the heat of battle when you're being fired upon as well. The game isn't going to take that into account and it isn't fun in any sense when it doesn't. It does, however, take into account your ability to perform sneak attacks, and you can get more damaging ones as you level, which is good.

Fallout 2 is not a first person action RPG, it is a third person turn-based RPG. So are most roguelikes. What is acceptable in one style of game (one that lets you plan your actions allowing you to perform well and compensate for the whims of the RNG) isn't necessarily fun in the other (one which relies heavily on player skill and reaction). I have no problems with an RNG or for misses, but I do have problems when they happen real-time.

[alexandertnt]

If you are playing a game from a first person point of view and you fire an arrow and see said arrow hit the target, having the game tell you that you have 'missed' is beyond annoying. If you're going to tie success to an arbitrary number, remove player skill entirely from the equation and just make it a strategy game. Select target, press fire. Whoops I missed.

I completely agree. Its better to have the character aim and miss out of their own lack of skill, or to hit the enemy when the arrow clearly intersects with the target. Otherwise what I am seeing and what is actually happening contradict each other, and it is jarring. It is also not fun from a gameplay perspective (at least for me).

Missing enemies that my sword clearly connected with in Morrowind was fustrating.

[WillowLuman]

If you are playing a game from a first person point of view and you fire an arrow and see said arrow hit the target, having the game tell you that you have 'missed' is beyond annoying. If you're going to tie success to an arbitrary number, remove player skill entirely from the equation and just make it a strategy game. Select target, press fire. Whoops I missed.

I could not agree less. Its better to have the character aim and miss out of their own lack of skill, or to hit the enemy when the arrow clearly intersects with the target. Otherwise what I am seeing and what is actually happening contradict each other, and it is jarring. It is also not fun from a gameplay perspective (at least for me).

Missing enemies that my sword clearly connected with in Morrowind was fustrating.

Aren't you two saying the same thing?

I don't think a sandbox rpg such as this can even really have a great leveling system. However I think Skyrim's leveling system (and that in Fallout 3/NV) was decent, although there were some big problems. Getting penalized for leveling up, especially non-combat skills is awful. There's no sense of increasing challenge in more dangerous areas, I only had a few moments in the game when I found something too hard, and came back after a few levels and was able to deal with it. It also led to improvements in weapons and armor really being meaningless to, they're more like reskins than anything. Plus certain things become ridiculous, I was more afraid of fighting a bear when I was level 20 than I was of fighting a dragon at level 4. However, at least some enemies do stay weak.

I don't think the bears in Skyrim scale to do a proportional damage to your level. Rather, they just hit the exact same level of extremely hard throughout the game. Skyrim scales the stats of very few enemies, and instead throws in increasingly powerful variants as you level up. For example, a level 1 character will encounter only Draugr and Draugr wights in a barrow, while a level 40 character will also see Draugr Deathlords, Overlords, and Scourges. The level 40 character will still run into Draugrs and Wights, though, and will more than likely kill them in one hit.

I started off dreading cave bears and saber cats, as they hit fairly hard, but once I got decent health and AC, I just punch them to death as despite the slowness they won't do much to my armored dude in all the time it takes.

[alexandertnt]

Aren't you two saying the same thing?

Whoops, wrong phrase

[Graknorke]

Skyrim is an RPG. You are supposed to be playing from the perspective of that character, which means that what that character is good at should be due to the actions of the character, not the skill of the player. The player makes choices; the character acts.

[WillowLuman]

Right now, they don't have anything about accuracy of shots, which depends on player skill, but they do currently represent character skill by having less skilled people just do far less damage with their weapons, which to me seems much less annoying than adding some kind of miss animation.

[alexandertnt]

Skyrim is an RPG. You are supposed to be playing from the perspective of that character, which means that what that character is good at should be due to the actions of the character, not the skill of the player. The player makes choices; the character acts.

(From the point of a strawman traditional RPG which it looks like you are referencing) But there is no character. Only a small collection of statistics and some trivial functions to calculate damage etc. You don't "tell" your character to do anything, you only have a pseudo-random number be generated, and a dodge value generated, and a range check performed on those value to determine if the game should subtract damage away from the other instance's HP property or just print the word "miss" onto the screen.

Plus your not "supposed" to be playing it in any particular way. Play it in anyway you want. Hell I spent a significant time tweaking and modding the game so it is probably more of a toy-box than an RPG for me.

[fqllve]

Skyrim is an RPG. You are supposed to be playing from the perspective of that character, which means that what that character is good at should be due to the actions of the character, not the skill of the player. The player makes choices; the character acts.

But Skyrim is also an action game, and player skill is a greater determiner of success than pure stats. And I do role play my characters, but it is actually harder when the game mechanics get in the way and arbitrarily determine something for you. Aim sway I can agree with, but arrow deviation would break immersion for me because TES games aren't pure RPGs.

[Graknorke]

Skyrim is an RPG. You are supposed to be playing from the perspective of that character, which means that what that character is good at should be due to the actions of the character, not the skill of the player. The player makes choices; the character acts.

(From the point of a strawman traditional RPG which it looks like you are referencing) But there is no character. Only a small collection of statistics and some trivial functions to calculate damage etc. You don't "tell" your character to do anything, you only have a pseudo-random number be generated, and a dodge value generated, and a range check performed on those value to determine if the game should subtract damage away from the other instance's HP property or just print the word "miss" onto the screen.

How is an RPG with more action any different? And I never said anything about having it just decide that something missed either.

[fqllve]

Because an ARPG does rely on player skill. Even in pre-Oblivion TES games player ability was a significant factor. If you don't want a game that takes your own skill into account, why are you even playing an ARPG?

And the discussion has been primarily about RNG misses, so I'm not sure what your point was otherwise.

[Graknorke]

I was asking how a character in an ARPG is any more of a character and less a collection of numbers than one from the type of RPG alexander was describing. And are we seperating motor-control skill from strategic skill now? Because traditional RPGs do also require the skill of making good choices and risk assessment etc.

As for RNG misses, there's been other things discussed like aim reticule shaking on bows.

[PanH]

Honestly, I don't have any issue with the miss shots of Morrowind. Oops, my character missed his move and didn't reached the enemy (of course, it would have been better with an animation, that sort of thing, but animation wasn't Morro's greatest point, and that's understandable). So what ? It's the exact same mechanism that there is in Skyrim about the range of damage dealt depending on your skill. Except instead of random damage numbers (based on skill), there's random miss attacks (based on skill). I would highly prefer a game where my character can miss (with animation, the arrow go off, or something), than just the random number. At least, it's visual, and more immersive.

From my point of view, Skyrim is not a RPG, just an action game in a medieval fantasy world. There's no choices, and your character has no influence over what happens. I do like it, but I wish there was something more than 'Get a quest, go to dungeon, empty linear dungeon, kill boss, loot chest, return, and repeat'.

[alexandertnt]

How is an RPG with more action any different? And I never said anything about having it just decide that something missed either.

Because it is not obvious the precise mechanics that govern your character, and the mechanics behind this are more complex and less bluntly obvious. I gave a big explanation of my feelings on RPG a couple of pages back.

My example was to show that in most games where your character's "skill" governs the gameplay, the gameplay itself makes it almost impossible for me to precieve my character as an actual character rather than an object subject to the games simple logic (which is displayed straight onto the screen). It has nothing to do specifically with the hit/miss mechanic itself (except that it is probably the best example of a game mecanic that exposes the game logic).

In other words "what that character is good at should be due to the actions of the character" is all fine and dandy until the actions of your characters destroy any perception of the characters actual existance.

I was asking how a character in an ARPG is any more of a character and less a collection of numbers than one from the type of RPG alexander was describing.

I already explained this. Internally the charcter remains a collection of numbers (its a computer after all). But the players perscption of their character should not be. Using descriptions instead of numbers when showing the player information on their character is a step in the right direction.