175 replies to this topic

[Qwinn]

This is good news. So that means we're getting the HP fix and the next release is soon! I can't wait! I promise I'll report whatever I discover on my run.

-That- would be awesome, and very much appreciated. I can only do so many test runs myself without making myself more bored with the game than I'd really prefer if I'm going to keep maintaining this thing.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Sorry guys. I know I said in another thread it might come out tonight, but won't be possible. I gotta get up at 8am and won't be around all day tomorrow. I've almost finished my test run (at the Fiend FMB now) and everything looks good, but I still gotta document everything and get it into the readme, and that's gonna take... ugh... several more hours.

So look at Wednesday afternoon/evening for release. Sorry for the delay.

Note that the version that comes out Wednesday will NOT have the two big new fixes regarding HP and THACO. If you hate the changes, have a ball. But if you really want a thoroughly new and balanced experience with the game, I suggest waiting the additional week or two for those fixes. Not that you can't do both. As scient mentioned, it will be backwards compatible, you just won't have a balanced/fixed game for the period you play without them.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 15 December 2008 - 08:10 PM.

[Qwinn]

Ok, back to work.

For the Minor Restoration part of the Fixpack: In Curst Underground, there's a cornugon named Tek'elach that you can talk to, and there's two black abishais nearby which have the same dialogue as wandering abishai from the Hive. I believe this is a bug, because there exists creature files for -red- abishai, along with dialogues for red abishai that clearly refer to Tek'elach (of the "no talk me, you go talk Tek'elach" variety). So, I'm replacing the black abishai with the red abishai and giving them the dialogue they're pretty clearly supposed to have.

One of the abishai gets moved, too. They were bugged by sharing the same script that returned both of them to the same location, which is why the two were always standing right on top of one another. The second abishai will now stay near his true starting location as he should have.

I've got my eye on some other possibilities. There's dialogue for Tek'elach that only works if you can talk to him in Curst Gone. Now, I was pretty sure he was hostile to you as soon as you enter the zone, but reading the dialogue, that may be a mistake. So... we'll see...

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 16 December 2008 - 06:14 PM.

[Qwinn]

Okay, having tested the RunningAttack tweak everywhere, I've decided that it's going in the Fixpack. Having now playtested it, it's inconceivable to me that most creatures being 60% slower than you was truly intended. I have found that is pretty much the single biggest reason for the lack of balance or challenge in combat in the game. It's still not -hard-, your party still clearly has the upper hand, but with creatures moving like slugs in combat it cuts the challenge at least in half and lets you walk away totally unscathed from battles where you should at least get -hurt-. Half of your enemies aren't even swinging at any point in time as they sloooowly manuever around the battlefield to get close enough to you. Once you see the creatures unnerfed you'll see how silly the way it works now really is.

You know where I think this came from? The fact that you -can- run in PS:T at all is, I think, unique to IE games. All other IE games have a single combat speed for all creatures, yourself included (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). So all of the BG and BG2 creatures just use the Attack() command, and it all works out. The PS:T designers followed suit in their scripting methods, but when they gave -your- party the ability to run, it pretty much broke the balance in combat, and they didn't go back and give the enemy creatures the combat speed to keep up.

Seriously, when you play it, you'll see what I mean. It's my considered opinion that walking enemies is a pretty much combat-breaking imbalance, and fixing it is seriously seriously necessary.

Note: I'm still going with most creatures in Sigil staying the way they are, with some rare exceptions. Thugs being skulky as they move up to fight you doesn't seem inappropriate, zombies certainly shouldn't run, and so forth. (And it's a lot less game breaking when you haven't gotten Nordom with his crossbows yet). But pretty much everything in UnderSigil and outside of Sigil, yeah, there's no rational reason I can think of for why they should be utterly unable to move more than 30% or the speed of you and the rest of your party in the heat of battle.

It also makes the game a lot more -fun-, by the way. Having things crawl toward you like slugs before swinging an axe, and being able to kite mobs at 250% of their speed with absurd ease, is deathly dull. But with both sides running, it actually makes it as much or more exciting than BG/BG2 battles where everybody's pretty much just walking.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 17 December 2008 - 05:21 AM.

[ghostdog]

You know qwinn that I really love these changes that will make the game a bit more challenging combat-wise, but I'll be a bit of a purist here
Can we actually be sure that the developers overlooked the running attack, or did they simply decide to make the combat easier? I agree that this change definitely makes the game better, but should it be a fix or a tweak? We could assume that in contrast with the other IE games it would make sense that this was a left-out, but if we don't get an actual confirmation from MCA or maybe Dan Spitzley, my suggestion is to keep it as a tweak.

[Qwinn]

I can't consult the designers on every decision, honestly. I have to request that you try it out before passing judgment. Hey, -I- initially called it a tweak, I had to actually -see- it before deciding that yeah, absolutely, this needs to be a fix.

Just apply basic reason here. Why should your party, and your party only, be able to move 250% faster than every other creature in game, even when you have a dexterity of 9? It's essentially a permanent haste effect on your party, for no rational reason I can think of. Give me a rational reason to believe that all creatures in game should move like they have cement boots on in combat, and I may well change my mind.

Immortality is enough of an advantage, I can't rationally see a reason or in-game explanation why your party has super-speed as well.

By the way, in case it doesn't come across otherwise, I actually do consider myself a purist too. I'm just gonna have to ask you to trust me on this one. Give me the benefit of the doubt, play the pack with it automatically installed, actually see the difference it makes, and if you can come back afterwards and still tell me that the way it used to work could -possibly- have been any rational person's intent, I'll definitely give it another serious rethink. Promise.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 17 December 2008 - 05:55 AM.

[Daulmakan]

This seems too serious of an issue for the devs to not include it in the shipped game if it were intended. I don't think it belongs in the fixpack.

Just apply basic reason here. Why should your party, and your party only, be able to move 250% faster than every other creature in game, even when you have a dexterity of 9?

Because you're the PC, and slow moving characters in games suck.

Immortality is enough of an advantage, I can't rationally see a reason or in-game explanation why your party has super-speed as well.

What's the point in promoting 'balance' with this component if, as you say, your character can't die?

If someone wants this, they could easily install it as a tweak.

[Qwinn]

Still awaiting a rational explanation for why it makes -sense-. An in-game explanation for why your party has super-speed. Or else why every other creature in game is in such a depressed suicidal funk that they can't bring themselves to run in combat. Given your condition, it'd be easier to believe that -you- are mired in infinitely-emo ennui.

I think I've given a rational explanation why this would have very easily happened as a bug. Give me a rational explanation for why it would have been done intentionally.

This seems too serious of an issue for the devs to not include it in the shipped game if it were intended.

The game was rushed out the door. We know this from interviews with the designers. Fixing this with WeiDU is easy, but without that tool, it would've been a serious and time consuming pain in the ass to fix. We've already discovered -many- bugs that are definitely positively bugs where one could say the same thing. We just spent the last several days talking about what we now know to be bugs that were very serious and should definitely have been fixed, didn't we?

What's the point in promoting 'balance' with this component if, as you say, your character can't die?

I honestly can't even think of a way to respond to this question besides, C'mon.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 17 December 2008 - 06:17 AM.

[Qwinn]

Here, let me put it this way.

In the end, the controversy over the last couple of major fixes (that were serious, and surely the game wouldn't have shipped with them in it) that I'm putting in the Fixpack were put to bed by declarative statements in the game manual confirming how it was supposed to work.

Can you possibly imagine the game manual saying "Only your party can run, and with a single toggle in the game options menu will do so at all times. Other creatures in the game will only run in the case of morale fleeing or under the effect of Litany of Curses. Oh, and the Harmonium guards in the Clerk's Ward can run too (no other Harmonium guards can do so). But that's it."

EDIT: Oh wait, I take it back. There's one other runner in the game. Trelons in the Curst Underground can run. Trelons in UnderSigil and in hell (Acheron) cannot run. I'm having difficulty believing that was intended as well.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 17 December 2008 - 06:31 AM.

[Daulmakan]

Still awaiting a rational explanation for why it makes -sense-. An in-game explanation for why your party has super-speed. I think I've given a rational explanation why this would have very easily happened as a bug. Give me a rational explanation for why it would have been done intentionally.

I just gave you one. The PC always moves faster than most of the other characters in games, because he's the PC. Slow moving is always frowned upon. Combat balance is attained despite this, by other means.

The game shipped like this. That can easily be argued as intentional. While they did get several stuff wrong, most of it was right.

We've already discovered -many- bugs that are definitely positively bugs where one could say the same thing. We just spent the last several days talking about what we now know to be bugs that were very serious and should definitely have been fixed, didn't we?

This is something missing altogether, instead of badly coded, and I don't see a reference to it in the manual or something of the like that that would further strengthen the point of including it in the fixpack.

I honestly can't even think of a way to respond to this question besides, C'mon.

Well, that's kinda my reaction to this. You say it clearly belongs in the fixpack, and I say 'what?' Your rationale for proving that it was developer intent is merely based on your particular vision of how fast a PC should move. Why shouldn't the only character controlled by a human move faster than the others (either absolutely or relatively)?

I don't oppose the component per se, in fact I'll play with it when the mod is released to check it out, but this isn't something that should be enforced on players. I see people posting in IE boards about how they play BG2 for the story and NPC's interactions and how they care very little about combat; that is much truer for PS:T, which is a lot less combat-based. I don't think this kind of gamers would enjoy this particular component.


And the fact that the manual doesn't say anything about it is actually a con to your argument, not a point in favor.

[Qwinn]

I just gave you one. The PC always moves faster than most of the other characters in games, because he's the PC. Slow moving is always frowned upon. Combat balance is attained despite this, by other means.

This to me is a 4th-wall breaking level of illogic. Giving your character a 250% boost in speed over other creatures in combat just because players like moving quickly is extremely bad design. Can you name a single other game, anywhere, ever, that has done this? Why isn't Baldur's Gate like that? Or BG2? They use the same -engine-. Hell, in most games, some creatures move -faster- than you, to make up for poor AI versus human intelligence, not the other way around.

Combat balance is attained despite this, by other means.

I think the vast majority of players would disagree that combat balance has been achieved in PS:T. Check out the RPG Codex thread where I discussed the other two fixes. If there's one thing that's pretty much universally agreed upon, it's that combat balance in PS:T is terribly broken.

http://rpgcodex.net/...=...asc&start=0


And I submit this is a MAJOR reason why.

The game shipped like this. That can easily be argued as intentional. While they did get several stuff wrong, most of it was right.

This bug does not mean that most of what they got was wrong. It's entirely understandable why it happened. Much more understandable than a lot of other stuff I've found, believe me.

This is something missing altogether, instead of badly coded,

Incorrect. There are exceptions. About 50% of the Harmonium Guards in the Clerk's Ward run. Harmonium Guards elsewhere do not. Trelons in Curst Underground run. Trelons in Acheron and in UnderSigil cannot. Creatures fleeing during morale break, or under the effect of Litany of Curses can run. That's all I can find. Do those inconsistencies -also- make sense to you?

Well, that's kinda my reaction to this. You say it clearly belongs in the fixpack, and I say 'what?' Your rationale for proving that it was developer intent is merely based on your particular vision of how fast a PC should move.

No, it's based on my life's observation that the human species tends to move at a fairly consistent rate, and that all creatures, everywhere, will move as quickly as they are capable of when under physical attack. I don't think the burden of proof rests on me to explain why TNO, Morte, Dak'kon, Ignus, Nordom, Fall-From-Grace and Vhailor, alone out of almost all of Creation, aren't the only ones capable of the physical feat of running when under life-threatening distress.

Why shouldn't the only character controlled by a human move faster than the others (either absolutely or relatively)?

Because they don't do so in any other game I can think of? Because there's no precedent or explanation for it? Because it provides such an overwhelming advantage that it's indistinguishable from cheating? Because it's just plain silly?

And the fact that the manual doesn't say anything about it is actually a con to your argument, not a point in favor.

I disagree. I think something as utterly unprecedented and inexplicable as "In almost all cases, your opponents will move 60-70% slower than you" would get a mention in the manual, if only to explain why.

What you're suggesting is that it is common practice in game manuals to say "Your opponents do not move 70% slower than you." Please.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 17 December 2008 - 06:59 AM.

[Qwinn]

Oh yeah, just remembered. It's a spoiler, so highlight to read.

Spoiler

Wererats in the Lower Ward are capable of running when stealing Morte. Wererats trying to kill are you incapable of running anywhere else in the game.

That makes perfect sense.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Incidentally, this is how I plan on listing the entry in the Fixlog for the Fixpack:

"AI Fix: Most creatures in game will now move as quickly as they can when attacking or being attacked. This raises their intelligence to that of a vertebrate, sentient or otherwise."

I challenge anyone to disagree with that statement, or to cite a vertebrate, sentient or otherwise, that does -not- move as quickly as it can when attacking or being attacked. Well, there's possums, but I think that's a reasonable exception.

/em prays that at least one person will read that and say, "LOL, ok, when you put it that way, I see your reasoning." Please. Just one person.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 17 December 2008 - 07:21 AM.

[ghostdog]

I see your reasoning

But, a bad design decision is something different from a game bug. And it could simply be a decision from the developers in order to make the combat easier. Don't get me wrong , I like this change and I will definitely install it whether it's on the fixpack or the tweakpack, it's just that I don't think that we can be certain if this was intentional or not.

[Qwinn]

Why would they have made the "design decision" to only give 50% of the Harmonium Guards in the Clerk's Ward the ability to run, or only the Trelons in Curst Underground but not elsewhere?

There's easier ways for the designers to make the game easy that don't totally dumb it down for people or make creatures act with all the intelligence of earthworms for ALL players. For example, they could've said "Okay, this game is too hard" (which, c'mon, let's think about it, is kinda a laughable premise) and taken whatever setting they previously had for the game as "Easy" difficulty, and made that normal.

And if players really don't want to deal with combat at all, they can also of course put the difficulty slider on easy. But IMHO, if you want to play the "avoids combat all the time" type of player, that's a lot more fun to do by having to be sneaky, diplomatic, etc. It shouldn't be because the AI of almost every creature is so dumb that they're actually incapable of -chasing- you. And if you're going to run away from everything, which is perfectly fine, you should at least have to -run-.

Note that this will also effectively restore -hundreds- of graphical animations previously unseen for most creatures, unless they fled or Morte did Litany of Curses on them. It seems an odd design decision to waste almost all of the intensive graphical work necessary to make creatures capable of running. Cause it's not just drawn as a "fast walk".

s it possible to make a creature move at different speeds, like for example walking fast till it's relatively close to it's target then going to a full sprint for the attack?

There's no "walking fast". There's a slow ambling casual walk, which is what almost all creatures do in combat and once you think about it and look at it having seen what it is otherwise, is just plain silly looking, or they run.

Also since I haven't played the game yet, just speculating here wouldn't larger creatures run more slowly than smaller ones etc..

This question, and my earlier formulation of "make them move as fast as they can when attacking or being attacked", makes me think there's a good way to test the question. Guys, understand, I'm not upping their running movement speed, I'm just making them capable of running. But what happens if I -do- make a zombie attack with RunningAttack(). If it's still pretty slow, then I actually think that makes a very strong case that the designers themselves -did- pick how fast a creature should move in combat, and it's all set in whatever their running speed is, and that really this should be a global fix to all scripts. If a larger creature is supposed to move slowly, then it's running speed will have been set so.

Lemme go run and do that test and see what happens, I'll report back.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 17 December 2008 - 07:54 AM.

[Qwinn]

Urf. No. Zombies -do- look weird using RunningAttack(). It looks like that's one case where they didn't even bother doing a real running animation, that one really -is- graphically just a faster version of their walking animation. (It actually reminded me of fighting ghouls in Fallout). They really need to keep using Attack().

So I'll stick with the original plan of doing it selectively. So far, running creatures have looked fine or better in all the areas I've applied it to.

And by the way, you ARE still faster than other creatures at full running speed, at least it seems so to me, and can still easily outrun pretty much anything. You're just 20% or so faster instead of 300% or more.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 17 December 2008 - 08:43 AM.

[Qwinn]

Okay, thought of a way to try to explain what I meant when I said "You really have to see it to get it."

The combat AI for walking creatures seems significantly different than for running creatures. When a walking creature bumps into something, it stops, pauses for like 2 seconds, then finds a new path and ambles on it's way. For walking creatures around the Hive or whatever, this is fine, because they're not -constantly- bumping into things. But in combat, everything is -constantly- bumping into stuff. So it's not just a matter of the creatures getting to you faster, but when there's more than a couple, half of them are losing half their attack rounds due to all these bumping pauses that keep happening. This doesn't happen to running creatures nearly as badly. If they bump into something, they find a new path right away, just like your guys do.

With the fix installed, combat looks -real-. -SO- much more real than without it. It's hard to describe, but I promise when you see it, and if you then go back and look at the way it used to be, you'll see how silly, bugged and broken the old way looks. It becomes very obvious then. Seriously.

Bumping pauses makes sense for zombies. It doesn't make sense for cornugons and greater glabrezu.

Qwinn

P.S. I think the reason a lot of us, including me, accepted the way it used to look is because we're all used to older games where it wasn't a problem, it was simply the best that computer games at the time could manage with the computing resources available. So when we see the crappy AI of walking creatures in combat in PS:T, it just looks like older games always did. But no, PS:T isn't -that- old, and the game is perfectly capable of handling real-looking fast paced combat. You'll see, and you'll like, trust me.

P.P.S. Ghostdog, another reply I've thought of to your "what if it was a design decision" argument is, if they really wanted to do that, they could easily, and I think would have, just slowed the creatures down to some degree while still giving them their running animations. Making them so slow that it's their walking animation is just too much of a difference for me to take seriously. As I mentioned, you are already 20-30% faster than they are running even with the fix. The way it is... you know, I've said you're slowed down 70% or you're at 300% of their speed, but I actually think it's more accurate to say you're about 5-8 times faster than they are. The difference in speed between your running and their walking is -huge-, too huge, it leaves way way too much middle ground that would've simply been much better, wouldn't have effectively eliminated a ton of graphical animations, and been more reasonable a difference for the sake of easing game difficulty for me to believe it was intended. You know?

Edited by Qwinn, 17 December 2008 - 09:11 AM.

[InTourette]

the whole way fighting works in pst can just be a bug. Everything which makes it more difficult is therefore a fix
so I agree with you Qwinn. If every creature has running animation, why they never run?