Added thread for new Goblinworks Blog: Gentlemen, You Can't Fight in Here! This is the War Room!
Interesting, very interesting... But it's no Tech Demo video.
Also reminds me of the Dragon Age gameplay function of Injuries.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Love the concept; I assume you've considered making focusing on critical hits at the expense of damage viable.
I'm seeing a bard with a rapier using invisibility to make only a few attacks in a skirmish, but picking the right time and targets for those few crits to swing the overall course of the fight.
Goblinworks Founder
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Absolutely brilliant concept. One of the major problems in PvP MMOs (Especially themepark) are the way critical hits are calculated and how stats that increase critical damage become almost mandatory. I love this idea and especially how different weapons will imbue different penalties. I especially love that some debuffs will require spending time in a Tavern or Inn to rest and recuperate, bringing a social aspect to having a penalty promotes a healthy community.
Goblin Squad Member
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Before it was mentioned in the article it reminded me of the Critical Hit Deck. I do love this aspect of combat.
I do wonder, though, will Goblinworks be bold enough to incorporate the Critical Fumble Deck as well. As this isn't aiming to be the typical themepark MMO and the idea of "fumbling" should be more familiar to this crowd I think it would be interesting to see at least in testing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would love to see critical fumbling. It always adds to the fun.
I dunno about critical fumbling... It's one thing to occasionally deal some bonus damage to your enemy, or in this case hit them with a debuff, but no one likes accidentally shooting themselves in the foot because the Random Number Generator decides it's time to be a jerk.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would love to see critical fumbling. It always adds to the fun.I dunno about critical fumbling... It's one thing to occasionally deal some bonus damage to your enemy, or in this case hit them with a debuff, but no one likes accidentally shooting themselves in the foot because the Random Number Generator decides it's time to be a jerk.
Well, one thing is for sure, you can't say noone. That and many don't see it as the RNG being a jerk. Frankly, even the most skilled swordsman will indeed trip over an unseen rock or the most talented thief will thrust when he should have parried.
If anything it adds another challenge to overcome which makes success that much tougher to achieve. I know that I am personally tired of the "guaranteed to win every fight" that the industry has locked on to as a design staple. I would like to think that evenly matched the battle could go either way. Unfortunately that is not how things are these days.
If anything I'd like to see it implemented as a "switch" so those that don't want it can turn it off. However, with it on I think I'd like to see a bonus XP gain for fighting at a less guaranteed to win and thus tougher level.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Did anyone besides me read the title of the post in Peter Seller's voice?
Very old-school TT concept transferred to the new genre. Sounds promising, but natch have to reserve judgement until we see it in play. It does a different job than the injuries in Dragon Age, as in DA the character was always down before receiving an injury whereas here it seems those critical debuffs could sway a fight rather than be a reason to whip out one of your four hundred healing effects during the after action review. DA's injuries were basically a forced unstable equilibrium, where a player who was unprepared for a combat situation and didn't have supplies and resources would rack up more and more penalties, falling further and further behind. If you weren't going down, the penalties for injuries never mattered. If this works as I believe they want it to, the debuffs from suffering a critical could very well take someone out of the fight long before HP attrition has put them down.
@ V'rel: Indeed sir. Upping the random factor always aids an underdog while regression to the mean helps the top dog. I also view it as a good push towards teamwork. If you are at risk of suffering a long-term debuff which will leave you critically weakened, the reasonable course of action is to distribute that risk over several individuals who can undo the damage and cover a damaged team-mate.
If I compared it to anything, is like a less heavy-handed version of L4D's special infected, forcing players not to play lone wolf for fear of suffering an incapacitating attack while alone and unaided.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We have worked out a term that we're happy with! We're doing some detective work to see if anyone owns it or anything close to it. We didn't get that done in time for the blog tomorrow but we should be able to reveal it the following blog. :)
Any news on this?
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I like what I see in the blog, just one thing though. With the removal of 'usual' critical hits, will there be ways to simulate the spike damage play-styles present in most games? I don't want to see something like Diablo 3 where crit chance building is the only way to go, I'm thinking like the one-hit-wonder characters that throw a bunch of high quality short duration buffs/debuffs out then follow up with a single large strike, either take a good chunk of health, or kill/nearly kill them if it 'crits'. To me this has always been a fun way to play, it's not something everyone can do, but it's one of those 'high-risk/high-reward' builds that your average gamer seems to hate.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Brief but nice. It would be cool if some of these longterm buffs had an affect on movement speed (hit in the legs) or other combat abilities. For instance you take a critical hit in your non-primary arm, this could then affect using a shield, or anything else you might have eqiped in that slot (holy symbol, spellbook). It would certainly encourage players to get there characters healed, if it's have an actual ingame affect.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of crits being something that has a more long term effect. So even if a bandit loses to a wandering paladin, he may have inadvertently killed him if he is seriously wounded in a dangerous area with no healing or sanctuaries in site.
Also seems to encourage grouping which is always a good idea. A more heavy handed approach would simply require larger parties to travel abroad. A well designed game however incentivises grouping on multiple levels, allowing players to discover the benefits organically and form a party of their own volition, not because of an arbitrary rule.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Last week we had a whole crew of Goblinworks staffers playing adventurers and goblins as Art Director Mike Hines gave everyone directions on where to go, how to fight and when to die.
Sounds like the mobs are going to be super canny in the demo, then?
I have to say, I've always loved the "critical hit tables" in TT games that lead to a major incapacitated injury eg broken arm -> can't fire that bow and arrow for remainder of game. Roll to heal at the end of the game etc. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's just cool!
I really like how combat is starting to shape up in PFO. Nice idea. Reminds me a little of the old Role-Master damage tables though less severe (ear-wax! yuk!), pain in the butt to do as a DM but pretty easy for a Computer. The fact that it's a debuff rather then a straight kill or massive damage spike really helps out....it still can make a significant difference in the outcome of a fight, but at least the suffering player is given the opportunity to understand that the fight is not going thier way and maybe try to do something about it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of crits being something that has a more long term effect.
I'm not sure they're going to be long term unless you don't have access to a healer.
An Injury is a long-term debuff that continues to affect the character until the character receives a certain amount of healing, with the amount depending on the severity of the critical.
I suppose it depends on what we mean by "long term". It sounds like some will almost certainly last until the battle's over. It also sounds like the only time they'll last until you get back to town is if you don't have a healer, or if you're heading back to town anyway.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I suppose it depends on what we mean by "long term". It sounds like some will almost certainly last until the battle's over. It also sounds like the only time they'll last until you get back to town is if you don't have a healer, or if you're heading back to town anyway.
I am sure you could pop a Cure Potion as well.
CEO
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Good short blog but, since Thornkeep came out last week its to be expected. Was hoping to hear about the Tech Demo Video Progress though.
I just saw a rough cut of a big part of the video today. I know that Ryan is going to shoot some interviews tomorrow. We are hoping to have this done and out to you very soon. Thanks for everyone's patience! I think you are going to really like what you see!
-Lisa
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just saw a rough cut of a big part of the video today. I know that Ryan is going to shoot some interviews tomorrow. We are hoping to have this done and out to you very soon. Thanks for everyone's patience! I think you are going to really like what you see!
-Lisa
Thank you Lisa. You just made my day.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of crits being something that has a more long term effect.I'm not sure they're going to be long term unless you don't have access to a healer.
An Injury is a long-term debuff that continues to affect the character until the character receives a certain amount of healing, with the amount depending on the severity of the critical.I suppose it depends on what we mean by "long term". It sounds like some will almost certainly last until the battle's over. It also sounds like the only time they'll last until you get back to town is if you don't have a healer, or if you're heading back to town anyway.
How healing is handled will also be a large factor as well in terms of defining "long term". If the magic mechanic reflects the "spells per day" of the TT then a critical hit my debuff a player for, possibly, 30 minutes or more considering that the magnitude of the debuff having so many factors into the equation per the blog entry.
Again, it depends on how magic is handled and if there will be a rest requirement to refresh/memorize spells and how often one can use the rest option.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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We use the Crit Hit Cards but my players voted to drop the Crit Fumbles ...
Generally the Crit Hit cards don't give that huge damage spike (and my players love seeing those when they confirm the crit).
With their Crit's now doing less damage, and a 1 in 20 chance of a confirmed fumble happening, they felt they were being punished.
As V'rel Vusoryn pointed out,
"even the most skilled swordsman will indeed trip over an unseen rock or the most talented thief will thrust when he should have parried"
I believe that is true, but the more experienced the swordsman or rogue is, the less likely it is to happen. So that same 1 in 20 chance happening to a level 20 character should be less then it happening to they young girl who leaves Sandpoint for the first time to "adventure" in the Varisisan wilderness (even though she has by that time seen lots of adventure in Sandpoint alone ... :))
I agree crit fumbles make the game interesting (as do crit hits), but I think they should be done slightly different, with maybe on a 1 being rolled, you add your level to the confirmation for the crit fumble.
That way a level 1 character has to roll to confirm the fumble, but adds +1 to hit to make it just a miss, and a level 20 character gets to add 20 to their roll (of course, if they then rolled very badly, that 20 bonus may miss, therefore they do have a crit miss)
Sorry, a bit off topic, but just had a "What-if" moment :)
Looking forward to the Tech Demo :)
Noobie
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Goblin Squad Member
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@noobiegameplayer - Our group uses both sets of cards, Hit and Fumble, as well. In our current King Maker campaign we are level 7. Thinking back over the number of hours and sessions we've had I can only remember confirming a Crit Fumble 4 or 5 times. If it isn't confirmed we still do the "out next round" to show that while you didn't hurt yourself you still had a misstep.
If I compare that to the number of times we've confirmed Criticals we've done so at least 3 times those numbers or more. I wouldn't put the high end of that value past 5 times. If I add in the number of times our DM
has confirmed Criticals against our party then it would get there.
The idea of being punished doesn't exist with our group, I suppose. We collectively agree that sometimes even "heroes" had a bad day or suffer misfortune. We've already had one player have to reroll due to character death. We've also had to retreat from 2 or 3 dungeons after venturing in a few rooms to realize we weren't high enough level to prepare ourselves for their foes.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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@ V'rel Vusoryn - Oh, I agree wholeheartedly with you VV :)
My guys have just started the 2nd part of Serpent's Skull -- having passed the initial trials, they are on about day 6 of an estimated 110 day "cross country" trek.
My players didn't complain when the Magus critted and teleported the giant spider to another plane of existence :)
What they didn't like was when they rolled a 1 and confirmed the crit, it wasn't as simple as "you break your bow string" or "you throw your melee weapons x yards to the x direction", it was you damage your armour, weapon, etc
They were in a jungle, no civilisation anywhere near, and suddenly the limited supply of weapons / armour they had were being damaged and no one could repair them.
They didn't have the "luxury??" (perhaps that is too kindly a word) to retreat back to town and resupply / repair items.
Our next game is this Wednesday, so I'll suggest the concept I discussed above to make it harder to confirm criticals as they get higher level (they've very close to level 6 now) and let you know how it goes :)
Caio for now,
NGP
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Goblin Squad Member
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@noobiegameplayer - Hehe, I know the feeling. Our group is founding a new Human nation on a newly "discovered" island that has no other humans (as of yet) and a Dwarf kingdom fighting an Elf nation.
We have one small town with 3 or 4 buildings and a couple of houses so far. So yeah, we lose gear we have to scrounge. We've played together for more than 15 years, though, so everyone is pretty good at taking "support" skills (i.e., Craft Armor/weapons/etc/) so that if we are in need and have at least some limited resources we can McGuvyer something.
That's one of the other great parts of the crit Hit (and Fumble) systems is that they can, on occasion, drive you to think outside the box a little to come of with a solution to your troubles.
Yes, let me know what they think of it. I'll run it by my group this coming Saturday as well.
Love this approach, and the possibilities it opens up for those of us that prefer well rounded builds over typical crit builds that enjoy 1-2 shotting people before they can react.
Question tho. Will there be counters to critical effects other than healing?