Resonance WIP - Community Input Appreciated

Hosted Games Works In Progress
881

@aetheria All good thoughts, and it makes eminent sense. However, I’d say that even when factoring those things in, thjere are some things that are off. I agree that the player character was never intended to be their Powerful at this point in time, and it shows. However, pure/raw strenght isn’t the full measure of a soldier, but training, discipline, and the ability to think is. As the game stands now, it seems like it’s underestimating the effects those can have on the situation (in particular, the quality of Imperial training, equipment, and your tutoring by actual elite warriors).

The comparison to Kelly or Traynor becoming Spectre is apt, but I also think it exposes another issue with the overall structure. The issue I have under these circumstances is not that you get Pwned if you walk into the throne room or if you choose to attack the thieves, because with proper set-up it could be clearly seen that- training, equipment, and what have you be damned- you’re still not up to that yet, and if you’re too reckless to appreciate that fact you are going to get beaten up by any two-bit thug on the street.

However, the issue I had with Barith that I didn’t have with the would-be-robbers is that you’re never offered any way out of it, which is directly counter to a lot of the plot and character development you’re offered since then. What do you do to get past the thieves? *Intimidate them without actually risking a direct fight.* What could you do in Barith to ensure you don’t walk in to a known suicide mission? I don’t know, but you’re not strapped for opportunities or weaknesses. The situation is clearly decaying, and the King is unpopular enough that eve if his close guards are insanely loyal, the entire system is still fragile and could be up-ended.

If you know you’re not up to the task physically (and the player character isn’t), then why not have them know enough to not go into situations that put them at such disadvantages? Why not at least *try* to find ways to minimize your disadvantages but maximize theirs?

That’s really my main problem with the situation in Barith as it is. I can understand if we’re not going to be able to hack and slash through the situation directly, but there are plenty of ways to finesse around that issue. We just aren’t allowed to exploit them. The fact that you’re woefully under-qualified for both Reavership and even being Harking’s second doesn’t mean the advantages you accrue under those positions are worthless, and it also doesn’t mean their lessons aren’t good. Finally, being under-qualified for Reavership in the Empire is probably still more formidable than people might believe in comparison to-say- Barith or Jeon.

Finally, I’d like to beg to differ about the situation in Barith. If there’s one thing I didn’t have a problem was, it was establishing that going in and doing that was never going to work. That’s why from the getgo I was looking for a way to kill the King, because an appeal to reason was obviously never going to get far. It’s just the way he seems to be. So I think CS got that particular hint in very well indeed.

Really, I’d say the problem with the situation is that even if the PC is meant to be under-qualified and ludicrously wet behind the ears (and I agree that was a mystery I was expecting to unravel), it’s still doing something that even the thieves on the road scene didn’t have. It’s forcing the player character to bumble around like an idiot and walk in to a frankly unimpressive trap set by the most obvious villain we’ve seen in the game so far. Even if you’re not set to walk the walk of a Reaver yet, you can at least apply what you’ve learned. To further the Mass Effect analogy, Kelly and Sam are not suited to be Spectres, but they also know they’re not ready and adapt accordingly. If the player character has these sorts of self-realizations and *even goes so far as to adjust accordingly* (like again with the thugs, or with Sy during the sparring), then why are they unable to do the same here?

Of course, if you actually are full of yourself and try to take this like Doom, then you’re still going to get screwed up. But that alone doesn’t mean it’s the only way.

882

I’m surprised that we can’t set fire to the throne room with a bow! I mean there is no mention of windows (if there was then why can’t we escape through one?) so I’m assuming they have to light the place with torches and thankfully the king (who’s level of idiocy is comparable to that of (if you will) team rockets boss (I mean seriously! They spend millions of company money just to catch a effing yellow rat, and he lets them!)) has tapestries just laying around (that would be a very nice option since it’d piss him off all the more so (it’s time to burn some money! Literally, like, the kings money) and it׳d provide a distraction!

883

@aetheria
That’s about the gist of what I tried to do, but obviously failed at. I’m trying to make it far clearer with the opening chapters that the player is the exception, and it’s turning out much more like the game I initially set out to write.

I’m still not sure how much of a role I want combat to play, but I also see that leaving it out entirely is a bad idea. Toning it down is probably what I should be aiming for. I mean, dedicating yourself to learning something, and learning something whenever you happen to have a spare minute make for two very different results.

I’m also somewhat in agreement with @Turtler in that Barith should have other options. Maybe not the refined ones that I’ve set in later missions, as this is still a new situation, but something.

I appreciate you sharing your perspective and I’ll definitely take it into account with other recent feedback.

@Headhunter180
And the only thing the townsfolk see is an Imperial Reaver casually walking away from the flaming Royal Palace. If I’ve learned anything from Dynasty Warriors, it’s that ambition tends to end in flames. :-))

884

@CS_Closet Now *that* I can get behind, a great deal. It makes a certain amount of thematic sense, especially from what we’ve seen in the earlier scenes. It seems like the Empire relies as much on bullying, coercion, and persuasion as actual violence, and when it does actually come to blows things tend to end less than optimally for them (like the incredibly obvious PR nightmare that Barith would be). Likewise, the player’s had similar experiences; they assume that the four mooks on the road are “just” bandits and so dooms themselves to likely humiliation by charging in when a more elegant options presents itself.

While I do figure you will become more powerful in combat as things go on, the most powerful weapon of war is the human mind, and like Sun Tzu said, it is best to achieve victory without battle. So seeing that philosophy put into action would be highly interesting indeed. As an addendum to that theme, perhaps by dedicating yourself to learning something you find doors open up to you like learning about-say- the political/social/military weaknesses or Barith, and later on the mysteries behind Dain and the Monaire Empire itself to help propel the plot?

That way it seems like you’re still keeping the player character in play and not overly neutering them, but at the same time making it so that you can’t just rely on HULK SMASH for every little thing, just like you can’t for-say- sparring with Sy.

And in regards to Headhunter180’s quote, true indeed… but you gotta admit, it would make a hilarious nonstandard game over as the mob rips you apart, no?

885

@CS_Closet I think that you did a fantastic job implementing the combat that already exists. It’s descriptive, there’s a variety of ways to fight, there’s a large number of weapons you can use, there’s various fighting styles.

The very idea of even trying to write such a thing and take into consideration all the variables is something so immense that I would never implement it. Writing combat is extremely time-consuming, especially with the amount of options your combat has. It’s not just the choice of actions, it’s also the vast variety of armour and weapons which all need to be taken into consideration, your skill in those weapons, your skill at combat, any special maneuveurs you have.

I find implementing those sorts of things not only extremely time-consuming to ensure that you take into consideration every variable, but also mind-numbingly boring. For the amount of effort that goes into writing combat you’re still left with the same end results, win or lose.

And if you’re not playing a combat character you’re not even going to see most of what’s been written down.

Now I’m sure you’ve got some short-cuts to deal with what just seems to me to be one huge headache with very little reward.

So if anything has to go I’d like to see it being combat as opposed to the stuff I’m interested in. I’m selfish like that. :slight_smile: I’d rather have more plot, more interactions.

However it’s not a case that I didn’t appreciate the level of detail that you went into with the combat and the variety of options that you provided.

@Headhunter180 Hahahaa! Although how I think it would actually go is someone would sniff the air and go. “Hey do you smell burning?” assuming they didn’t spot the arrow in the first place. They’d then grab the tapestry off the wall and beat it out, or throw a bucket of water over it. Now if you did really want to cause some problems you’d set the fire where no one could find it, so the King would like escape, but you can still cause a certain degree of destruction and he’d need to find somewhere else to hide from the invading troops. Or you could pick him off with another arrow as he flees.

886

Error: line 3290: label ‘autosave’ already defined on line 1481 when i start chapter 3

887

On the contrary, I think it could

  1. Be blamed on the rebellion. (Not that I think there’d be any retaliation from the citizens to them, I mean the king was a complete and utter jackass).
  2. Why would the citizens fight me exactly? I literally just burnt down the palace and its moron of a king, you’d think they’d be scared out of their minds of me, or at the least a little, not to mention I’m armed and the best resistance they can offer is ragtag at the most.
  3. Tapestries tend to be huge and freaking heavy, it’d be quite a job to put the fire out.
888

@Heahunter180

  1. Again, if they see you striding away that’s probably not the first thing that would come to mind.
  2. Ragtag perhaps, but they’re still probably able to muster a lynch mob, and that would be game over material. The situation in Barith is so volatile I could see it breaking any number of ways in such a scenario, and while some might see them do nothing or otherwise not bother you, not all of them do. That, and even if I were that elite, I wouldn’t want to have to fight through an entire crowd.
  3. No contest there.
889

@Aznxa
Should be fixed.

@Turtler
What you described sounds nice, but it’s probably beyond my abilities as a writer to do something like that well. I’ll try to keep the theme in mind, just don’t expect too much to come of it from me.

@FairyGodfeather
But I liked making the combat system. It was challenging and interesting! I only dreaded filling in the front-end TODOs and the three hour randomtest attempts. I would gladly code something similar for someone else’s game when I don’t have a serious time limit looming over my head. Just as long as I don’t have to write anything. :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, I’m glad I can dedicate more time to plot related things. I’m sure I’ll find something else to make extremely intricate and complex in time, though.

890

Turtler, it takes 10 thousand hours to master a skill, the PC gets the opportunity for 2 lessons, a sparring session, and one session of practice. That’s practically nothing.

And as I pointed out the soldier is of the top two combat backgrounds, and he’s “only passable” in his own words, every single background other than the elf is worse at combat than he is.

So I stand by my earlier statements, you're assumptions don't move me.  

Like the assumption that passable for the PC is superior to passable for any single military on the continent.

An assumption based on what, where does the game say the imperials have better training than any other military?  They're success might  be because of superior generals, that might be because of superior numbers, superior group tactics, it might be because their leader might be a probability warping "god of success."  

You also assume that the PC's equipment is better, yet the PC is impressed by the elf's sword and inquires about her making him something.  That hardly suggests that the imperials have the best gear if the reaver who can afford to buy the imperial best is looking to an elf for a weapon.  So where does it say that the PC's equipment is better than the king's guards?
891

line 369: Non-existent variable 'barithplanned when chose to kill the king

892

@Aznxa
Whoops. Updated the wrong thing. Oh, well. Should work now.

@stsword
A lot of stuff might seem off depending on how you look at it. Don’t get me wrong; your viewpoint and my viewpoint are probably about the same, but people tend to interpret things differently. Probably my fault for mostly deferring to CRPG logic instead of something closer to reality.

893

line 3567: Non-existent variable 'baritking when i ask nicely to be let out.
Also just curious what does debug do?

894

@cs_closet You liked it? Ha! You’re crazy! Or maybe I am because I looked at what you did and it make me start gibbering at the idea I’d ever have to create something like that for my games. :slight_smile: It is a good system. It’s just so much effort for so little effect.

I am so in awe of you and your patience for all of that. For me combat is “You swing your sword and he’s dead/notdead.” Which of course has no drama, no build-up, no excitement in recreating the action, no trying to pick the perfect weapon or any of that. Just win/lose.

I really admire what you’ve done. That you could sit through all that testing of the code.

895

@CS_Closet I figured as much. It was just an odd motif that seemed to be popping up, even long before this thing started.

@stsword “Turtler, it takes 10 thousand hours to master a skill, the PC gets the opportunity for 2 lessons, a sparring session, and one session of practice. That’s practically nothing.”

For the sake of being pendatic, you overgeneralize that much. For example : I assume it took you 10 thousand hours to learn to type correctly? Please, no. But in this case, it would hold true. The skills we’re talking about are advanced to the point where such a time and effort commitment would be necessary. That being said, you’re clearly underestimating (yet again) the prior training the PC received in *any* background under Harking.

I’m aware it takes a long time; that’s why I’ve flatly agreed the player character is no Jedi Master. Those sorts of skills take time and refinement, which is why training is so omnipresent and necessary. It’s also part of the reason why I’ve been advocating agaisnt people underestimating the benefits of said prior training, but it certainly isn’t going to help overestimating it.

As it is, the player is no natural prodigy (argh. Just reminded myself of Heroes Rise…), and getting beyond that will take time, effort, and a healthy knowledge of when *not* to overextend himself for the risk of getting swamped and destroyed (I think the prior experiences with the common criminals was very helpful in illustrating that much, personally), none of which have come into play in near enough numbers to become anything like Sy or Harking or what have you.

“And as I pointed out the soldier is of the top two combat backgrounds, and he’s “only passable” in his own words, every single background other than the elf is worse at combat than he is.”

And again, both have been under Harking for quite some time, and both have been exposed to Imperial training and equipment standards, which would hardly hobble his performance, especially vis-a-vis nations like Barith and Jeon. He shouldn’t be a god of war yet, but you’re grossly overstating the situation. Especially given the numerous other problems I’ve pointed out.

“So I stand by my earlier statements, you’re assumptions don’t move me.”

Oh, how trite.

I don’t give a flying damn about whether or not my words move you at all; you’re not my target and it isn’t my job to bring enlightenment to you or to tutor you in the military arts. Merely to argue my point, and to put the corrections out there when I see a problem. Like the many I’ve been seeing as of late.

“Like the assumption that passable for the PC is superior to passable for any single military on the continent.”

For one, I never said that the PC’s “Passable” was superior to any and every other nation’s “passable”, especially given that we have at least one technologically advanced entity out there if I remember anything from the game or the prior discussions. But the presence of opposing forces that advanced hardly matters when dealing with the very limited border states like Jeon and Barith! Especially since the former has been heavily mauled by the time you arrive and the later is in the throes of really bloody serious political and societal problems that would undermine the effectiveness of their soldiers. You don’t just get to ignore those points because it is more convenient for your argument, just like I can’t shove my fingers in my ears and ignore the fact that by any measure (especially with this clarification and news of the update plans) the PC is not up to the tasks he’s in yet.

As it is, the overall assumption stands firm. A large empire equals more resources equals a better military overall, as does a genuine meritocracy (with some exceptions), as does competent leadership. That doesn’t mean a nation with all those attributes necessarily has the best military on the planet! It just means that it follows that their curriculum is better than that of the Wolf King, who thinks letting his people stave and luring you in to an incredibly obvious trap is a nice substitute for competence.

This isn’t PhD level history, mate.

“An assumption based on what, where does the game say the imperials have better training than any other military?”

Again, I never said or assumed they are better than *any other military.* Merely that they are better than MOST militaries, which stands to reason given what we’ve seen. And again, whether or not they are better than all other competitors is irrelevant to the point of whether or not they are *better than Jeon and Barith.* Which is something else entirely.

“They’re success might be because of superior generals, that might be because of superior numbers, superior group tactics, it might be because their leader might be a probability warping “god of success.””

All of which are very good points, and given what we’ve seen I’d say that it’s clear the superior numbers is evident as well, and at least as far as your “fellow”/actual Reavers go Gillen and Sy prove the superior generalship. However, going off of the broad historical patterns, you generally get a better military the more resources you can access to pour into it. You need a big, competent military machine to hold an empire like this together regardless of whether or not Dain is God of Success, and from what we’ve seen before the ICF is nothing if not very hardened indeed. They certainly can destroy the Baritians even if you get your ass handed to you by them, which indicates that in practice they certainly are pretty good.

This isn’t very controversial stuff, mate. It just requires half an idea of what resources do to a state, and how it utilizes them. A larger empire can almost always draw on better resources, and a competent leadership can ensure said resources are used appropriately, that there is more time to train and better, and above all that they can adapt to other threats. Heck, the Monaire Empire is operating almost exactly like a Medieval-esque version of the Roman Legions or the Renaissance Habsburg Empire under Charles V and I, and have already racked up a number of accomplishments and conquests under their belts. So no, this is not nearly as controversial as you make it out to be. How they fare against a nation in their own weight category is another thing and might end badly for them, but as it is they’re doing pretty damn fine as it is, and that follows that part of it (but again, *part* of it) is from having a very good training program and doctrine hashed out.

“You also assume that the PC’s equipment is better,”

Than whatever Barith can field? Absolutely.

"yet the PC is impressed by the elf’s sword and inquires about her making him something.
That hardly suggests that the imperials have the best gear if the reaver who can afford to buy the imperial best is looking to an elf for a weapon. So where does it say that the PC’s equipment is better than the king’s guards? "

*Sigh.*

This is where i have to introduce you to the concept of master craftsmen, isn’t it?

Newsflash: this is pretty clearly shown to be something of a Medieval-esque world. Most nations didn’t *have* much to speak of in the way of uniforms at the time, because most nations didn’t have a huge industrial-level set of factories spitting out high quality death dealers on a conveyor belt. They usually had to buy them off of someone or make them themselves, which is why we don’t see much in the way of uniformity or standardization. As a result of this, the equipment they tended to rely on was very, *very* uneven in quality and quantity, to say the least, which would be especially biting into poor nations like Barith, who can’t splurge on military equipment (you don’t ever see the player character comment on their highly advanced weapons when talking about where the money is going, no?).

896

Wow, what kind of buggy file did I upload?

Anyway, @Aznxa, should be fixed.
The debug menu?
It’s the trigger for any number of doomsday devices, selected by chance with the *rand command. The countdown timer starts from 12 000 000, so you don’t really know what you’ve done until, like, four months later. I figure that’s enough time for someone to forget what they might’ve done arbitrarily one night while entering some strange combination of animal names into a text field, thus absolving them from any form of associated guilt in their own version of personal reality. Doesn’t save the rest of the world, but hey. Small victories.

Or, it jumps to the last scene of the game with a premade character. Whichever. :slight_smile:

@FairyGodfeather
Didn’t take me that long to do. Coding’s the easy, enjoyable part for me. It’s all those words that people need to read that I have trouble with.

The win/lose outcome can do far better with a good writer, anyway.

897

@stsword Cont.

The Imperials are actually somewhat ahead of the curve on this. For one, the ICF have their lovely Reichy-ish uniforms that are… actually uniforms (in that they’re very obviously standardized across a huge chunk of the military). On top of this, you and Sy know where to go to get your new sets of armor, which tells me the Empire is actually paying for their soldiers (especially on the level of Reavers) to receive weapons from what we’d call local subcontractors to ensure relatively uniform and “pretty good” quality. That’s a very modern thing to do, and again *given the sheer size of the Monaire Empire* that means they have a lot of options to evaluate and choose from, and can and are doing so. We certainly never see the Player Character commenting that their equipment is crap, to say the least.

Now, does that mean that these mass-produced equipment sets from various subcontractors are TEH MOST UBAREST STUFF IN TEH WORLD? Of course not. Especially since they need to be able to churn the stuff out on a regular basis to a specific standards. Now, if you’re a master craftsman (like they probably are) but are not focusing your effort into making 10,000 swords/pikes/armor pieces, but into making one sword for yourself and maybe a few other pieces for those who pay you, you’re obviously going to have a lot more time to refine the design and get it better. This doesn’t mean it’s a sustainable policy to equip umpteen billion soldiers with (which is what a professional military needs), but it does mean you can get higher (sometimes very higher) quality than the normal line. If you’ve played Dragon Age, Wade and Herren are a useful benchmark for that particular dilemma.

It doesn’t mean that Imperial equipment sucks uniformly, it just means that our dear friend Nil is a master craftswoman who can pour that much more time, energy, and care into a far smaller amount of things she’s working on, with predictable results.

"So where does it say that the PC’s equipment is better than the king’s guards? "

Nowhere explicitly, but again: it pays to read a situation, guv’ner. Barith is repeatedly described as being dirt poor, with the King apparently paying more attention to his tapestries (may they be ever flammable!) than to trifling things like the ecconomy, internal dissent, and shoring up the national defense. Take a look at how it describes the capital city. Does that look like it’s home to a thriving and advanced metallurgy industry, and a horde of master craftsmen? Of course not. Those things require resources, wealth, and safety, and Barith clearly has none of those. There might be a few hidden away here and there, sure. But clearly not enough to balance the scales. And it shows. The player doesn’t comment on Barithian weaponry at *all*, which means that they’re obviously not wielding blunt wood sticks sticks, but it also doesn’t mean that they’re overly impressive. Especially not on the level of Nil’s. And by rule of averages, the Monaire Empire is almost certainly pouring more care and resources into its’ equipment (certainly for Reavers) than Barith could even hope to do.

On top of that, we have the fact that the King is an utter fruit loop and Caligula, and I would not be surprised if he saw his guards trying to kit themselves out in the best of the best as a potential security risk to be crushed. Which would naturally drive the quality of his guard down by dint of everybody else being too afraid to suffer the same.

898

I just want to play the game without fight or at least without a weapon? could I? because I see all focused in combat weapons … and for me is the less interesting thing in games. Your lore is brilliant and amazing well written. I even feel real my character and npcs a political advisor charming and intelligent who come from a more advanced culture has a lot of sense. Dain could want a political reaver at least same level that a pure warrior one.

So if the warrior could kill the king I have the right to seduce convince him but maybe general attack any way or a attempt of murder the king for a noble using me like distraction . I don’t like the idea you only win like a warrior you waste your choices vibe I capt from the scene I only want a posibility of a little victory like warriors have.

But the game is amazing and I still playing it is only I felt sad that my character never had a chance if success because she is a scholar or a politician

899

@Marajade - Have you ever tried to be Inspiring for once? It let’s you bribe and
make Polite Conversation with people. It’s really hard not to be oppressing people when your one of the other races, sadly. Being an Aslyian Painter gives you a +10 bonus to inspiring while you Paint Masterpieces to further raise the stat. As a Linguistics Professor, I fell to 30% inspiring and 70% oppressive.

900

Thank you