Dragon Age Forum News

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(Originally posted by chevalier)

Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Derek French, Technical Producer

Active vs Static Dynamics

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The problem is the graphics engine their using. Look at the screenshots, it's going to be NWN all over again. You just can't do anything in an engine like that.
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You are free to assume that the engine that took the screenshots is the final engine. You would be wrong, but you are still free to assume that.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Ultima-esque?

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Speaking of big bad foozles, I'd love to see at least the option for a non-violent ending like the Ultimas had. Maybe I'm just jaded, but boss fights often turn out to be either anticlimactic or annoying in my book, at least after you've gone through so damn many of them.
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HotU had options for a nonviolent ending

Tim Smith, Tools Programmer

Linux client?
You can get an alternate license for GPL software to allow it to be used in proprietary software. But at that point it is no longer GPL. MySQL is an example of this.

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

how many dragon ages will we have to wait before this game hits the shelves?
#NaN

(Sorry, geek humor)

On a slightly more serious note, because the above isn't very useful. I will quote the following words which should be very familiar to you:

'The game will be done when it's done.'
Nothing would give me more pleasure than to tell you all my personal thoughts on when the game might be released... however, you can understand that that sort of thing would most likely be taken as gospel, misquoted and twisted until things were 'out of hand'.

Parrying

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Quote:
They're doing it in Jade Empire, so why not?
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Jade Empire is a completely different game. It works differently as well, DA will be a rules bound game. There will a rule that determines whether or not you hit your opponent. This is not the case in Jade.

In Jade you hit the kick button (like you do in a fighting game) and your character kicks, if something is in the way then it is hit (there is some resolution for special abilities, guards and whatnot - but that doesn't really matter for the context of this discussion).

In NWN, we had a representative system - meaning that we actually modeled the combat system on swings, one swing was one attack roll. This translated fairly well... though we did end up with some odd circumstances.

As an aside, it's much easier to think of hit points in DnD as vitality (stamina/energy) instead of a straight health attribute.

Star Wars on the other hand was not a representative system, though you have to look fairly closely to notice it . In SW, the combat sequences just happened and the rules gradually reduced your hit points as you fought and your opponent 'hit'...

As for what we'll be doing in DA, well that's still up in the air (officially ).

In regards to parrying systems - in NWN, parry was more supposed to be a defensive fighting mode where you're concentrating more on parrying than attacking, but things got a bit garbled in there somewhere.

One thing to consider, in reality most fights are full of parries, blocks and voids (evasions, either moving out of range, or moving your body [body voiding]).

Consider other games that have a representative combat system. Meaning:

1 swing = 1 attack roll = 1 damage roll (or something thereabouts)

In a representative system, what is better? A hit heavy system where you slowly whittle your foe down or a parry/block/dodge heavy system with very few hits? Or some kind of hybrid of the two? Or perhaps something else altogether?

Also, what do you prefer? A representative system (1 sword swing = your attack) or a non-representative system (the rules are divorced from the animations you see on screen).

Before you jump to answering though, consider a couple things.

* As gamers/players, we like to see our characters succeed... in combat this translates to progress against an enemy we're fighting. Meaning if I'm fighting big uber boss guy, I better be doing damage or at least have some way of measuring if I'm 'winning' or not.

* Representative systems would seem to work better with games with vitality levels (like WoD or 7th Sea). Since the hits that do get through can be quite serious (even fatal), as in those systems everyone is equally mortal (to one extent or another).

Disclaimer: Nothing in the above text is indicative of what Dragon Age will be like, this is purely discussion.

Parrying

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Well, the following question is that of one who is by no means an expert: is the 5 seconds delay really necessary? Couldn't it be 2, 1, 0.5 etc seconds, for instance? I mean, couldn't such a delay be adjusted so that rolls and animation would be synchronized in a pleasant way for the eye?
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It all depends on the system really. KoTOR was a d20 game and there was a combat round type of structure.

The main problem with real-time combat is that you have to have an intelligent way of figuring out the order of actions.

If for example you have one fighter and one goblin, things are easy. You have your initiative or some other arbitrary method of determining the order and A attacks B, then maybe B attacks A... rinse, repeat.

Things get more interesting when you have multiple creatures in the mix though and that's where the complexity arises, as figuring out who visually reacts to what and when becomes a bit tricky. Looking at what we have planned out in DA, there shouldn't (in theory) be any pausing/pumping or long gaps in the combat sequences (this was a major complaint and has been something we've had an eye on remedying).

Once we get into it a bit more we'll have some more details.

Parrying

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The real problem I see with representative systems is animating parries and dodges against multiple opponents.

I think the best way to handle these animations is define several attack animation types, and several specific parry and dodge animation types that are matched up with them.

In order for that to work with multiple opponents though, I think you would need to prevent two people from attacking at the same time. Or even so close to each other that the previous animation didn't have time to finish...
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That's it exactly.

What you've just described is essentially the meat of the combat system, scheduling what will occur when. Also, since it's a rules bound game we generally do a bit of precomputing, so we know a few of these things in advance.

We're currently looking at a varied number of attacks and styles, dodges, parries and damages that should look pretty nice if we get them even close to what we'd like.

Unfortunately in my experience, any time you have an encounter that is not limited by the AI you will not be able to react to every attack. We can fudge it a bit to make it look pretty, but if you're getting attacked by thirty goblins (non-DA specific example) there's no way you'll be able to play a full damage animation for every attack.

Now, that said... we're exploring some new technologies in our animation systems that may let us get away with a few tricks.

Parrying

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Well in real combat only 4 or 5 people can get at you at once because there is simply not enough room around one person, would limiting the amount of bad guys that can actually get at you at once help out this problem at all?
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Well, a few things... you can get about nine or so smaller creatures in combat range in NWN, but even if we restricted it to a few you'd still have issues. Essentially, whenever you have more than a 1 vs. 1 situation you're going to have some conflicts.

As I mentioned before though, we're hoping that a few new methods can fix some of these situations up.

By the way folks, there are some really good suggestions in this thread - keep it up.

Active vs Static Dynamics
The only thing to keep in mind is that we want a 'somewhat' level playing field. If there was a reflex portion to combat (besides interface ) it shouldn't give you a significant advantage in a fight over someone who is less gifted in that particular area.

The case of Soul Reaver is a prime example, being able to avoid attacks completely if you get good enough at it is quite fine for a game like that. Action games tend to rely more on the skill of the player than the skill of the character... whereas we're looking at the other end of the pipe.

I'd be interested to hear any other suggestions you might have for sprucing up combat systems though...