Dragon Age Forum News (Jan. 02, 06)

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Here are today's Dragon Age forum highlights, taken from the Dragon Age Official Forum. 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.

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

What do you prefer in terms of enemy AI?

Yes, there are situations where that sort of thing might make sense... if you're fighting a war for example. Also assuming that an enemy group is there specifically to kill *your* party... and not just waylay anybody.

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Or if you use a setup with melee fighters in the front and ranged fighters in the back, enemies could try getting a few melee fighters behind you - without trying to go in a straight line to your archers and mages.

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It depends on what you think the role of the AI is, I guess. Is the AI there to continually force the player to develop new strategies? Or is it there to provide an enjoyable fight? Yes, I'm well aware that those are not necessarily mutually exclusive (within reason).

Eventually (assuming a learning AI) it'll come up with something that you're unable to beat (without a significant number of reloads)... we had something like that in-house a while back. Guess how fun it is to fight?

Can we use one-handed weapons as two-handes?

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Well, in D&D

1. It takes time to draw a new weapon
2. It allows you flexibility, while being efficient in feats
3. You might not have a two handed weapon of comparable quality available

Personally, I'd wonder at the practicality of lugging a large two handed sword with you if it's not going to use it normally. I bet those things are a pain to pack.

How much that would apply to your game is impossible for me to know, as is the work required for it to be possible, but I think there are legitimate reasons for it's inclusion.

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Possibly... though I think the time cost to equip a new weapon is a good thing. It applies a cost to switching 'styles' of combat.

The main issue I have with bastard swords and the like is simply that in order for them to be useful and relatively balanced there should be a trade off for the additional utility. ie: They shouldn't be as good one handed as regular one-handed swords and they shouldn't be as good two-handed as regular two-handed blades.

Otherwise, why would you ever go for a regular two-handed or one-handed blade instead of a bastard sword which provides more utility?

Effectively you're talking about a new pseudo style in between a one-handed and two-handed style... which kind of muddies up where the separation is.

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I really don't see where is the problem with the animations.
I guess you got a single animation for all one handed weapons and another single animation for all two handed weapons. (plus the flickers).
So, how does an item increase animation complexity which might transfer to another item which uses the other animation.

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In terms of animation, we store a fair amount of additional data on animations. Information about ranges and contact points for various weapons. Taking the same weapon and applying animations meant for two different sizes of weapons could be problematic (ie: It might look bad)...

I can't say for sure without doing some tests... but I do know that it's not just as simple as swapping the weapon out.

Edit: Sometimes it'd be nice to make sense without an edit...

More:

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What we are saying is that I should be able to use my LONG SWORD either one handed (with shield, for example) or two handed. This is NOT as effective as a true two handed sword being wielded two handed. In D&D terms, you are trading the increased damage of the two handed weapon for increased flexibility.

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Is eliminating a weapon swapping penalty by using two hands really worth a reduction in damage versus sucking up the penalty and using a two handed blade?

In your example, you're still going to have to put your shield away... so really the only case where this is probably going to apply would be for a single weapon (no shield) style.

In that case, the only real use I can see for it would be for a power-attack type situation where you're trading accuracy (there has to be some kind of penalty) for damage.

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I am more interested in the 'coding' issues than the animations. I am willing to forgive some sloppyness in the animations if this can be made to work (just guessing, I would expect that the most likely problem is that the weapon might appear to miss its target rather than 'making contact' on a hit).

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That would be a concern. Some of the interactions can be rather involved.

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Just out of curiousity, what proportion of the necessary work would be due to animation requirements and how much due to changing the game engine to wield the weapon differently based upon whether the off hand is empty or full?

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At a guess, the substantial portion of work would be in how the engine deals with the animation combat data and potentially any animation tweaks required... If any significant animation changes were required then any remote consideration of anything like this would probably not happen.

Changing wielding code is rather small by comparison.

Persistant Worlds

This has pretty much been answered, so I'm going to shut this thread down.

PW's are not a focus for DA. As was mentioned in the linked thread they *may* be possible in the end... it's really too early to tell.

That said however, they're not something we're aiming for... so I wouldn't go out and start up any grandiose plans for PW's in DA.

*click*

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Save Points?

On a PC, disk space used by saves is rarely a problem, so the save always, save anywhere approach makes usually the most sense.

I don't like using savegames as part of a game's difficulty scheme, pretty much for the same reasons Derek mentioned (well, not kids, but maybe boiling teapots and burning christmas trees).

Derek French, Technical Producer

Save Points?

While I don't think that any official comment has been made on this point yet, I would expect to see a continuation of the save-anywhere idea, as we have done before in our previous games.

Save points are something that drive me personally insane, unless they are so frequent as to not interfere with my playing. Games, while important to me, are brushed aside for a number of issues. I want to be able to save at anytime and head off and deal with whatever has come up. (And by Issues, I usually mean my kids. )

David Gaider, Lead Writer

Control - NPC - Multiplaying Alone

In the single-player game, you create a single character and then start. You don't create an entire party and then begin simply because you don't start with an entire party. If you don't like the sound of that -- well, that's tough, but I suppose the game can't be everything to everyone.

As far as how characters are dealt with after the beginning, that remains to be seen. At the very least there's going to be an array of pre-made NPC's available to take along (or not).

The multiplayer game will work differently, but I have my doubts that even then you will be generating an entire party right off the bat a la Icewind Dale or ToEE -- most likely the mechanic of creating a single character and entering the game will be the same either way, though the mechanics in either case are bound to change a significant amount prior to release as we test things out.

is it possible to have half-breeds?

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Inquiring minds want to know.

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Well, that's tough. Inquiring minds will have to learn to deal.

Really, though, trying to bring up questions of genetics and cell properties in a world where magic exists and the planet has managed to evolve numerous sentient races who may or may not have common ancestry is iffy at best.

Trust me, it's this kind of thinking that led to the notion that the whole metachlorian concept was a great idea.

Can we use one-handed weapons as two-handes?

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What we are saying is that I should be able to use my LONG SWORD either one handed (with shield, for example) or two handed. This is NOT as effective as a true two handed sword being wielded two handed. In D&D terms, you are trading the increased damage of the two handed weapon for increased flexibility.

The advantages are (as noted in previous posts) that you can carry a single weapon which can be used in either mode (less weight/ encumberence), you might have a better one handed weapon then you have availabe in two handed mode, you might have feats which apply to your one handed weapon and that you can avoid the time necessary to swap weapons. This is BALANCED BY the reduced damage done by that weapon.

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The thing is, though, is that there's no real need for you to be using your longsword (or whatever one-handed weapon) with two hands.

If you have a superior longsword, use it one-handed. If you wish to switch to a two-handed weapon, then you use that in two-handed style.

Why implement the whole rigamarole so you can use a one-handed weapon with two hands when the benefit you get from it (and the benefit to gameplay in general) is negligible? Even if such a feature were available, how many people would actually use it? Seriously, just because you can sit there and piece through it all and it sounds logical doesn't mean it's a good idea.

[ January 03, 2006, 00:33: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

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