Briareus about VB's combat engine

Dan

Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
In this thread over at the forums at DAC, Chad "Briareus" Nicholas made the following comment:<blockquote>When you attack someone, only those individuals that can detect the combat will come running to your target's aid. So, if you can lure someone to a nice dark alley and kill them quickly and quietly, you should have no problem getting away with it.</blockquote>Atoga then replied with the following comment:<blockquote>Of course, Briareus, that depends on you having a well done system for others detecting combat. Which I hope you will. Care to give some details?</blockquote>Getting this response from Briareus:<blockquote>Detecting combat is a pretty simple deal -- either the NPCs see you in combat or they hear about it (via cries for help, or a gun shot, etc.). Whether or not an entity actually ends up hearing the action's sound will depend on how loud the sound is and their perception.</blockquote>Sounds pretty good... It opens up all kind of options for the sneaky roleplayer.
 
It would really be cool if you could deploy cover sounds or other distractions to be able to carry out covert acts.
 
NgInE said:
c'mon! this is Fallout, not Thief The Dark Project...


And that matters because.......?

I am a strong proponent of multiple ways to complete the game without direct combat. An intelligent or sneaky character would be a good alternative way. How difficult would it be to add such things? I give the Briareus's idea two thumbs up.

Actually I never heard of that game until now and it does seem very interesting. A more reactive environment is definitely missing in Fallout. I'm going to look for this game....
 
NgInE said:
c'mon! this is Fallout, not Thief The Dark Project...
The game also isn't Pac-Man, should we not have the player running through hallways because Pac-Man did? :roll:
 
Damn straight, no running through hallways...erm...no wait.. :P

I think these features sound really interesting, good working !!
 
Remember that assassination mission in Fallout? Where you have to kill merchant Hightower? That was always one of my favorite quests. I'd always come in the middle of the day, taunt the guard or waltz right into Hightowers office and tell him that his life is in danger and that I'm here to kill him. That was fun stuff...I hope there'll be plenty of missions like that in Fallout 3...uh, I mean, Van Buren!
 
FO3 said:
When you attack someone, only those individuals that can detect the combat will come running to your target's aid. So, if you can lure someone to a nice dark alley and kill them quickly and quietly, you should have no problem getting away with it.
Lure your foes out one by one!! Then bump them off! Think of maps like the Hub in FO1 where killing all the police in combat armour is something done ONLY when you've got the goods to take on 20 guys in combat armour. Now think of that in FO3. Lure the cop near Bob's Iguana Stand inside the little building where that kid just gave you the big pistol. MULTI-HAND-SILENT-ATTACK-DEATH-H2H-COMBO

Because of the low punching sounds, only one cop in the vicinity hears the noise. He comes running, sees you and... MULTI-HAND-SILENT-ATTACK-DEATH-H2H-COMBO x2
No-one else hears the noise... Two cops down, some more to go.

Makes FO3 pretty easy to wipe out towns and get fat loot.

John: Hey Bill, where did Ted go?
Bill: Dunno. Might wanna check that alleyway over behind that building there.
John: Okay.
[Later...]
John: Bill! It's Ted! Ted's dead! Dead in the alleyway! Looks like he was lured in there and killed! The callous thief has just left his body lying there!
Bill: Oh, shit! What should we do?
John: We'll, guess there's nothing else to do other than just stand here and wait to be lured away and bumped off ourselves.
Bill: Hmm... Guess you're right John.

Yar. Interaction++

You find they always go some way, but never far enough to actually make it worth it. It's like that video I watched about interaction in Half-Life (Number 1). Apparently, each sequence was not scripted, so every-time I encountered a new area, ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN!! OHMIGOSH!!

Game Translation: When you turn the corner and come across an encounter, sometimes, instead of the alien killing the combat soldier with two whacks to the head, it took three.

OHMIFUCKINGGOD WHAT A DIFFERENCE!! IM REELLY IMPRESSED!!11!11!

My talking $10 note says that NPCs WON'T HAVE A CLUE that someone's gone missing. You can bump off half the town secretly and leave the other half still standing there, not even wondering what happened to everyone else. Talk to them and will they say "Be careful here stranger, a lot of folks have gone missing about"? Nope, they'll say "Hi, how are you." PC "Come with me into the dark alley over there. [Persuasion++]" NPC "Okay."

The problem is they have no self-awareness of other people. They don't realise that half the town is missing and there's some strange new guy in town carrying a big gun...

Yeah, I'm really excited about the ability to simplify potentially large and exciting battles by just whacking everyone one by one.

Thing is, just because you don't hear something doesn't mean you don't notice it. If half of the office where I'm working walked out, I may not hear them, but I'd damn well notice that they've gone missing when I turn around. Kill someone in FO3 and go away. Come back a week later, will anyone notice that they've gone missing?

FO3 said:
Detecting combat is a pretty simple deal -- either the NPCs see you in combat or they hear about it (via cries for help, or a gun shot, etc.). Whether or not an entity actually ends up hearing the action's sound will depend on how loud the sound is and their perception.
Oh, I'm sorry, I just pointed out a horrible flaw in your system.

OH WELL.


Hrm.. I'm having questions about this new "NMA brought to you by..." thingy. I just had to log in twice in order to post this. Even then, I only had it because of my 'keep things in notepad until you're sure it's gone through' forum policy.
 
Hall Monitors: Pac man's World View: tunnel Vision....

Hall Monitors: Pac Man's World View: Tunnel Vision....

B. say...

The game also isn't Pac-Man, should we not have the player running through hallways because Pac-Man did?

No, one will be channeled through ""hallways"" because that's the nature of the medium. Time and money, and OH MY F'ing God, the story, limit the rendering of game space-time-reality to focused zones.

It's still a Dungeon Crawl.

So is it all a Dungeon Crawl.

The magic of the medium is when our perception of the Dungeon Crawl is suspended. Rat killing or dot chopping are the tedious means to an end. Running from the ghosts of Past, Present, and Future Past Perfect are the high dramatic pinnacles. Eating all the dots or snuffing the almighty end boss opens another level, another path, another ""hallway"". The spectacular ''fin-alley'' is the terminal cull-da-sac of the Big Foozle, be it a ''king of the hill'' highest score (the most toys wins), or mega hit point AI monster, with or without the Achilles Heel for dramatic irony...

Any rational cause and effect of sight and sound (and pesistance of AI memory) will paper the ''hallways'' in a vaporus real world. Why a RATIONAL REACTION by socially linked AI entities? The towns folk that some here want the option to prey on like vampires, (or Deer Hunters), might only be fodder for the body count, DOTS to be eaten by a 3D Real$Time Pacman. A RATIONAL REACTION of the AI sheep might cramp the style of the target market....

Pac(k) men..... consuming to infinity ...

and market share leads to sales, and sales leads to more "hallways",
and a larger corporate Pac Man eats it's dots and runs from it's own ghosts.


4too
 
DarkUnderlord said:
Oh, I'm sorry, I just pointed out a horrible flaw in your system.

OH WELL.


Assuming that the game designers over at BIS aren't total fucking idiots I can't imagine this worst case scenario actually coming to fruition. Even in FOT there was a communication variable among the entities. If the communication was high then more entities in that player index would be aware of things happening to their compadres. What, you say? Microforte designers actually added some impressive functions in their games?? In my Quartz custom level I avoided the issue of silent one-by-one takedown by making some enemies stay within sight of each other so the player would need to take them on in a specific way.

Methinks that is simple to design and should be in Game Design 101 at the Sawyer Institute of Van Buren. It seems as if more organized groups like police would even have more open communication like radios to alert everyone to your evil presence when PCs attack. Things like this seem as if they should be simple to add;
IF NPC/POLICE ALONE THEN CALL HQ FOR THREAT LEVEL.
IF NPC/POLICE SEES SUSPICIOUS PC THEN CALL HQ.


Even when evil things are done secretively within a populace there should be a bad blood variable that hits your charisma for each nasty back door act. Of course if the designers are graduates of the Cuevas School of Kewl FX then we should obviously assume that anything beyond the superficial would not be implemented...
 
JJ86 said:
In my Quartz custom level I avoided the issue of silent one-by-one takedown by making some enemies stay within sight of each other so the player would need to take them on in a specific way.

Don't mean to derail, but are you making a Wasteland campaign JJ86, or is your Quartz unrelated?
 
Briareus said:
NgInE said:
c'mon! this is Fallout, not Thief The Dark Project...
The game also isn't Pac-Man, should we not have the player running through hallways because Pac-Man did? :roll:

no, it's a cool idea, however, bringing in such realistim could get a real bother. Example: how is a person going to hide from an enemy? just by standing in the shadows, or by hiding in the closet or by covering his eyes with his hands? I mean, we are talking a RPG here, point and click that is, while most games with such advanced functions are played using keyboard controle. it could work offcourse...just by not overdoing it...and this sounds like overdoing to me.
 
Montez said:
JJ86 said:
In my Quartz custom level I avoided the issue of silent one-by-one takedown by making some enemies stay within sight of each other so the player would need to take them on in a specific way.

Don't mean to derail, but are you making a Wasteland campaign JJ86, or is your Quartz unrelated?

Yeah it was based on Wasteland but wasn't a campaign, just a single mission based on the city in the original. But I implented a way to go through the mission several different ways depending on quests that were taken. It played a lttle more like a real RPG rather than a tactical game. It is downloadable here at NMA.
 
DarkUnderlord said:
FO3 said:
When you attack someone, only those individuals that can detect the combat will come running to your target's aid. So, if you can lure someone to a nice dark alley and kill them quickly and quietly, you should have no problem getting away with it.
Lure your foes out one by one!! [snip]
I'm going to snip the rest of your post. While your logic is sound, it is based upon a scenario that won't exist. The system is setup so that designers can create situations where the PC can take out a small portion of NPCs without alerting the whole town if the designers want to. It just isn't going to be possible to do that gloom-n'-doom scenario you wrote.

Also, when you kill someone, most areas will start a timer. When the timer is up, the "town" will assume you did it. The duration of the timer could be hours, days, weeks, whatever.

DarkUnderlord said:
My talking $10 note says that NPCs WON'T HAVE A CLUE that someone's gone missing. You can bump off half the town secretly and leave the other half still standing there, not even wondering what happened to everyone else. Talk to them and will they say "Be careful here stranger, a lot of folks have gone missing about"? Nope, they'll say "Hi, how are you." PC "Come with me into the dark alley over there. [Persuasion++]" NPC "Okay."
Right, because they should immediately react to events they didn't percieve? That makes even less sense. Now they're reacting, but in a totally non-intelligent manner.

"Oh hello Mr. Stranger that I've never met before. Be careful, I have a feeling people are dying, but I'm going to talk to you and give you quests because new strangers in town carrying guns and having robots and dogs and super mutants and ghouls following them around doesn't cause me any concern what-so-ever." :roll:
 
JJ86 said:
Assuming that the game designers over at BIS aren't total fucking idiots
That's assuming a lot... ;)

Remember, these are the guys who put an ARMY OF ANTS in Broken Hills (or have those people left now? I can't remember).

JJ86 said:
What, you say? Microforte designers actually added some impressive functions in their games??
Actually, I'd say "What? Microforte designers implemented a standard feature for a tactical combat game?" (Standard feature for any game actually.)

A tactical combat game revolves around: Good Guys, Bad Guys. Good Guys on map kill Bad Guys on map. When both sides see each other, they start attacking automatically. All that's happening is the Bad Guys are being told of the PCs presence without seeing him. It defeats the purpose of silent kill. It's becoming less like a play style and more like those loan sharks in the Hub which you could wipe out without anyone raising an eyebrow. Suitable only for one or two NPCs which the designers hand-pick.

JJ86 said:
In my Quartz custom level I avoided the issue of silent one-by-one takedown by making some enemies stay within sight of each other so the player would need to take them on in a specific way.
Linearity? Yay. Also remember the army of ants... Oh, and did you forget the part where they mentioned luring the NPC away?

JJ86 said:
Methinks that is simple to design and should be in Game Design 101 at the Sawyer Institute of Van Buren. It seems as if more organized groups like police would even have more open communication like radios to alert everyone to your evil presence when PCs attack. Things like this seem as if they should be simple to add;
IF NPC/POLICE ALONE THEN CALL HQ FOR THREAT LEVEL.
IF NPC/POLICE SEES SUSPICIOUS PC THEN CALL HQ.
That's a nice idea. It'd be interesting to find out how long ago JE thought of it. That is, presuming he's thought of it. By the way, everything starts to look easy when you put it in an overly simple IF statement like that. Doesn't mean it works in game and it doesn't mean they'll think of it. Again though, we're back in a situation where the feature may as well not exist. The PC is luring these people away, not starting all out combat with them in the open. If you're luring someone away to kill them, why the hell would you give them the chance to reach for their radio? Maybe the PC needs a saving throw against NPC radio usage?

JJ86 said:
Even when evil things are done secretively within a populace there should be a bad blood variable that hits your charisma for each nasty back door act.
It's funny reading this comment by you, and then Briareus' comment about NPCs reacting to things they didn't percieve... Regardless, it results in "Silent Kill = Combat with whole town" which, once again, defeats the purpose of the ability. So we've boiled down to the PC killing people and having everyone attack him because "they know". Gee, that sounds just like Fallout 1 & 2. Whatever happened to that silent kill ability? Oh, you get to use that on that one guy on level 19...

Briareus said:
While your logic is sound, it is based upon a scenario that won't exist.
... because the PC won't actually be able to lure anyone away unless it's scripted, right?

Briareus said:
The system is setup so that designers can create situations where the PC can take out a small portion of NPCs without alerting the whole town if the designers want to. It just isn't going to be possible to do that gloom-n'-doom scenario you wrote.
Wait, I thought we were talking about individuals detecting combat as well as the PC being able to lure people away and silently knock them off? Now you're telling me it's just a scripted event? I can do that in Arcanum TODAY.

What a great non-feature!

Briareus said:
Also, when you kill someone, most areas will start a timer. When the timer is up, the "town" will assume you did it. The duration of the timer could be hours, days, weeks, whatever.
Funny feature to add. The ability to kill an NPC quietly (sorry, scripted event), then come back weeks later to find the town hostile and screaming "You did it! MURDERER" (psychics!). I'm sure that'll be fun when it happens in a town you need to travel to so you can complete one quest, just to find the whole town attacking you because you SECRETLY LURED AWAY and murdered some guy a couple of weeks ago. In fact, what's the WHOLE POINT in a silent kill and combat detection/perception system if it's ultimate result is delaying combat until the next time you enter the town?

Feature to add:
Prison: Why should police attack you? Make 'em approach the PC, have a conversation which a persuasive PC can talk his way out of, but lock the PC up if he fails (of course, the PC is held for a few days then released depending on the crime, or can break his way out, or can just initiate combat).

I look forward to extra features like these.

Briareus said:
DarkUnderlord said:
My talking $10 note says that NPCs WON'T HAVE A CLUE that someone's gone missing. You can bump off half the town secretly and leave the other half still standing there, not even wondering what happened to everyone else. Talk to them and will they say "Be careful here stranger, a lot of folks have gone missing about"? Nope, they'll say "Hi, how are you." PC "Come with me into the dark alley over there. [Persuasion++]" NPC "Okay."
Right, because they should immediately react to events they didn't percieve?
What's better than NPCs reacting immediately to things they didn't perceive? Why, reacting to things they didn't percieve with a delay of course! At least in my lame example, they only knew people had gone missing. In yours, you take it one step further and have them blame the PC as well! After all, that's what they're doing when the timer ticks down and they somehow *know* that the PC is responsible for the death of someone murdered a week ago. They may not have even seen the PC at all, yet they know he's a murderer?

You might also want to think about what you've said. Just how many things are going to occur WHEN THE NPC IN QUESTION DIDN'T PERCEIVE THEM? How many quests will the PC be doing where he'll say "Yeah, I did that" and he'll be taken at his word? How many times will a "Bad Guy" see the PC and start shooting because the "Bad Guy" instinctively knows that the PC is his enemy? If you don't have ANY situation like that, then you're making one hell of a break-through computer game.

Briareus said:
That makes even less sense. Now they're reacting, but in a totally non-intelligent manner.

"Oh hello Mr. Stranger that I've never met before. Be careful, I have a feeling people are dying, but I'm going to talk to you and give you quests because new strangers in town carrying guns and having robots and dogs and super mutants and ghouls following them around doesn't cause me any concern what-so-ever." :roll:
I suppose more intelligent ways of reacting would be:
COMBAT! (Which defeats the purpose of the silent-kill ability).
NO QUEST FOR YOU! (Which does nothing more than pisses the player off and makes them go for combat anyway).
NO REACTION! (Which is where we started and lets the PC silent kill everyone).

This must be a revolutionary computer game where NPCs will react intelligently and the WORLD'S FIRST RPG where NPCs don't give quests to complete strangers. How does the meet and greet go? Is it like The Sims where you build up a reputaion over-time before they'll give you anything? I wonder, will the dialogue to handle this be self-generated by a super AI embedded in the code, or are you going to hand write it all?

Oh that's right, it's only for those one or two scripted NPCs.
 
Hi all, new here and just wanted to chime in.

I certainly understand some of DarkUnderlord's criticisms but, overall, I must admit that current implementation seems sound to me. So long as the game has realistic consequences for players committing murder in such a setting then all will be well. For example, who cares if two weeks later everyone finds out you killed some random thug in an allyway? In a well done system, some may like you more, less or the same. Even if, for example, you killed a bum, the whole town wont necessarily whip out the torches and pitchforks right? Hell, some cops might not even care. Every quest wont be denied you in a well done system and Im sure decent charisma and some ok speech skill will go a long way in setting things right if you off someone a bit higher on the totem pole. Also, I certainly hope that some areas, like particulary bustling ones like the Hub, might never be able to pin stuff on you (though it makes perfect sense in smaller places - this way those of us with murderous tendencies have a nice outlet =). Also, Im curious, will players be able to commit non lethal takedowns without having his mark or anyone else notice? Can I sneak up behind someone with a blackjack and put him down? That probably isnt in but would be pretty cool. =)

Better support for sneaky gameplay and increased player accountability for nefarious actions are both good things. Frankly, Im much more concerned with the implementation of John Woo like akimbo gunplay, the oversimplification of the skill system and what changes like these mean to the design focus of the game.
 
Man, I only have 30 some posts there and my reputation already precedes me. :shock:

*wonders if this is bad*

Anywho, thanks; good to be here.
 
Shevek said:
Man, I only have 30 some posts there and my reputation already precedes me. :shock:

*wonders if this is bad*

Anyone that's willing to try to talk some sense into Volourn is ok in my book :D
 
Shevek said:
So long as the game has realistic consequences for players committing murder in such a setting then all will be well. In a well done system.
Agreed.

Shevek said:
Also, Im curious, will players be able to commit non lethal takedowns without having his mark or anyone else notice? Can I sneak up behind someone with a blackjack and put him down? That probably isnt in but would be pretty cool. =)
I agree that it would be pretty cool. After all, I play Thief as well as Commandos (two games which cover aspects of what's been discussed here). My only 'problem' is that Commando's is Commando's, Thief is Thief, and Fallout is Fallout. In Commando's you sneak through entire levels, killing everyone in the map stealthily. The main reason you do it that way is because if you do it any other way, you die horribly or fail the mission because the alarm goes off and your objective canot be complete (IE, in an assasination level, the target flees at the first sign of trouble). Again, in Thief, Garrett is a pretty weak guy. Sure, you can take everyone on sword to sword, but it is just a bit hard.

Fallout, on the other hand, has you in Uber-Armour, carrying Uber-Weapons and dealing out Uber-Damage. The SMG can one-hit-kill a lot of the early enemies when you're skilled enough. Likewise with the Plasma Rifle and the Sniper Rifle. Put 'secret kills' in a game like Fallout and maps full of bad guys become way too easy. Picking them off one by one when you're not-so-Uber would be the way to go. Now it would potentially be fun, but as I said. I play Commandos and Thief for my sneaky kill games and I play Fallout for my 'deal some damage' games. I like putting on my Power Armour, walking into the middle of 5 or 8 or 12 highwaymen, and dealing some major damage.

I don't want to lose that aspect of Fallout, or have that aspect replaced with an 'easier way'. Suddenly, 12 highwaymen or a town full of officers becomes a cake-walk.
 
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