Dragon Age Forum News (Oct. 04, 05)

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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

Is there Adult Content in DA?
Yes. Although I think you can have something added to the rating that says that it may change if you download official content.

Sort of like the ESRB labels for other types of online games... 'Game Experience may change during online play' or something like that.

Or hell, it might be possible to get the content expansions (if they're large enough) rated separately.

Turn-Based Combat: A Reprise

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Yes, that is true. In fact if you look back to the previous page that is exactly what was proposed and what Brenon was arguing against by saying you COULDN'T resolve that stuff after the spell was cast, which isn't true. It COULD be but it then becomes a question of whether that is better than the current system of casting a spell then having everyone you were trying to hit move out of the area you originally chose. Personally I think the latter case just plain sucks.

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*sigh* Yes... you could do it another way, but it's not better. All you're doing is swapping one set of problems for another.

You're committing to the idea of having to have auto-pause in for singleplayer spellcasting with queued actions. That means it's not an option, it's baked into the system.

Not to mention multiplayer with some sort of "Hey, you should totally switch to your mage and select a target for the spell he's been casting for the last five minutes because you've been busy killing goblins with the rest of your party..." message if auto-pause features are off... or I suppose that could also not be an option, who likes those anyways?

And what if you have no line of sight? What if someone has drained your mana down to the point that you could no longer cast the spell... what if you're out of range... what if your target is dead...

The spell becomes useless and you've just wasted x amount of time. That's not annoying at all...

You're going to have problems with real-time casting no matter what you do. Mostly because there is going to be a small amount of user control required with area target spells only.

I'd like to stress that because this isn't as big of an issue as it's seeming to be coming across as. AoE spells are traditionally a small subset of the total number of spells.

Is an issue with targetting fireballs on a group of running people serious enough to warrant a re-design of a spellcasting system that hasn't even been remotely finalized? Really?

There are other ways we can make area target spells easier to cast, like say a reticle appearing on the ground showing what kind of area the spell will encompass. Maybe some sort of predictive display which will show you where creatures will be (if they continue moving in the same direction) when you cast your spell... who knows?

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Not really, because your fighters would be acting without pause and you could still queue the spells up, just having to pause when they went off.

Of course, it would be better if they did make a full turn based game.

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It'd be interesting to work on one, who knows... maybe someday.

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As for pausing in multiplayer, theoretically you wouldn't have to have pausing since each player would control his own character.

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Oh?

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It was my understanding DA would have autopause in for those of us who like TB? IF that's true then it's already baked into the system.

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Yes, we've said we're looking at including autopause options. Meaning there could be an array of situations that you could have autopausing enabled or disabled.

The question is though, if someone doesn't have autopausing for spellcasting on how can they cast queued spells in the system you've described?

That's what I meant, sorry if that was unclear.

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Well, I would have said that each person would only be controlling his own character... but looks like you hinted against that in a later post. Frankly, without autopause I think it would be pretty difficult to control multiple characters in any case.

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I won't disagree with that statement.

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Same LOS problem if you resolve the spell at the beginning. So they started in line of sight, but since then teleported away or dropped into a pit... should the spell still go off?

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When you resolve at the start of the spell though, the game can detect range issues and move your character to within the appropriate range.

In the alternate solution, you'd play your cast animation and then at the peak of a sexy looking cast with all sorts of lovely sounds and visuals you'd what... Stop and move closer and try again (blowing away your action queue)? Or fail because the guy you wanted is too far away?

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As for mana, just subtract that at the beginning.

Those are problems when you have to pick the target first. There is almost 0 chance of picking a dead target if you select the target at the end! I covered range before, just have the spell go in the chosen direction until it's max range is reached and then detonate there... or stop there if it's a projectile spell.

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How is that better though? You're essentially wasting that spell as well - and in this case you don't even know if it will reach the target.

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Sort of like when everyone runs out of the area your fireball lands in?

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I'm not saying that it is a good thing, just that (to me) there seem to be more issues for potential annoyance in the suggested spellcasting system than with a standard one.

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Err... if it's not finalized then now is pretty much the best time to "re-design" it.

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The question you need to ask, is "What problem does this fix?".

For example, if we were to use a spellcasting system like NWN's... There are problems with NWN's spellcasting system, but in fixing those we wouldn't want to come up with a solution that changed the *entire* system for no reason. Baby. Bath-water... whee.

Instead you'd want to make targetted fixes aimed at solving specific issues ie: 'Only the things that are broke'. The applicable case would be AoE targetting.

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That sounds suspiciously similar to determining LOS for all creatures in range.

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No, the targetting reticle thingie would basically just be based on the spell size (for AoE spells) and we'd just project a nice little graphic of some sort onto the ground as you move your mouse around.

As for the predictive thing, that's just an idea I had yesterday... basically all that would be would be an extrapolation of positions based on current movement rates. Both of those are relatively minor things, and unfortunately a world different from LOS updates on all spellcasting objects every frame.

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Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.

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Heh, maybe some day...

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Maybe a popup message with the focus automatically going back to the casting character as an option.

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That's possible... but I personally don't really like that idea. If I'm doing something else with another character, it's usually important.

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Which creates the problem of your character wading through a bunch of enemies to get in range, often drawing AoO's (if DA has that kind of concept) or at least putting himself in danger you wouldn't want! You essentially lose control of the character for a short time, which is just plain bad.

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But, as you say later on - you selected that target. If it's in range when you start casting the spell, it will go off. If the resolution is front-loaded as it has been in the past, then this case does not occur.

The only time this happens would be if you were attempting to cast a spell on a target that was out of range to begin with and the target was moving away from you on the other side of a mob of enemies.

Is that a smart target to choose?

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That's exactly what happens when the character automatically moves closer to his chosen target. This is a problem with choosing the target at the beginning.

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The assumption is that if you select a target, you want to cast a spell on that target... oddly enough.

So if you choose to cast a spell at a target, the game will move you close enough to cast the spell on that target.

Which divests the user of the responsibility of having to micromanage all the movements of their spellcasters to make sure they're in range before spellcasting. An annoyance I'm not sure is really needed.

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Pick a different target that IS in range. That's the advantage of choosing after the cast is complete. Much, MUCH better than running through all the enemies because the one you targetted moved to the back of the group.

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That can't happen. If the target was in range when you started the spell, it will go off (assuming we're still talking about single target spells in a NWN style system, which I believe we are in this case).

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Should have known better than to try and cast out of range. You could have picked a target in range since you can pick at the end.

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So if I have a silence spell and I want to cast it on the mage to stop him from spellcasting. He moves backwards while I start casting and is now out of range by the time I get to the end of the spell and the targetting phase. The only in-range targets are an Assassin and a Warrior.

Not very useful, in my opinion.

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"Traditional system"
1) Character moving autonomously.
2) Interrupt casting animation to move into range autonomously.
3) Enemies moving out of area.
4) Target dying before spell goes off, thus wasting it. (Happens all the time in NWN, especially when enemy priests are trying to heal other enemies!)


"End Cast Targeting"
1) Autopause practically needed to make it work well.
2) If NO targets are in range spell may get wasted.

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I would have listed it as:

Traditional System
* Targetting issues with AoE spells.
* Status changes during casting. (ie: Targets dying during casting)

End Cast Targetting
* Autopause is not an option for spellcasting, it must be on (alternatives are not attractive)
* Multiplayer implementation is a mess, for multi-character control.
* Forced to micromanage range
* Situationally, you can be denied your desired spellcasting target.

I'm not quite certain what you mean by some of the things you've mentioned in your list.

1) You clicked on him, you chose to cast the spell on him. Implicit contract.
2) I'm not sure what this means. If it's what I think it is, I don't think that actually happens. If a target moves out of range during spellcast the spell goes off anyways since the target was in range when you started casting the spell.

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At least that's the way I see it. All the problems listed for the traditional system are solved by choosing the target at the end. The biggest problem with End Cast Targetting derives from using realtime combat in the first place! The second problem (wasting a spell) is vastly preferably to wading through a bunch of enemies (without choosing to) to get in range.

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Well, sadly (depending on your point of view) DA will not be a turn based game.

Secondly, that will only occur (as I mentioned before) if you select a target in the back of a group of foes that is out of range.

It should be pretty obvious, especially if some range indicators are added, if a target will be in range or not. If it's not, that is something that can be fixed rather easily.

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See above.

Doesn't change the entire system though, it just changes when spells are targetted.

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But it's not just that simple. There are a whole bunch of systems that are impacted by what is, to be quite honest, a fairly major change in a spellcasting system.

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I just meant predicting their paths, obviously the reticule is different!

You need to go through each mob, grab it's speed do a calculation to see how far it will move and then draw a line which stops at any obstacles it hits. LOS is pretty much the same, except for doing it every frame which is just an OPTION you gain with the system. Just doing LOS at the end (when yo utarget the spell) is certainly fine, and much better than a spell going through a wall just because you targetted the guy when he was visible or the character autonomously changing position to get LOS!

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Yes, there are ways that we could mitigate the number of checks required.

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Actually, I think this is the kind of issue that could have a big effect on the way spellcasting works in the game.

If you guys know that AOE spells are of very limited use, like Fireball in hardcore-mode NWN, you probably won't put many AOE spells in the game, period. Maybe a Fireball or two, but only as a small part of a mage's repertoire.

But if you structured the spellcasting/combat system so that these spells are more viable, you could do a lot of interesting things. Not just fireballs, but AOE buffs or debuffs, movement effects, walls...

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Yep, we sure could. The issue is, define what the specific problems are and fix those.

So for example, if AoE targetting is a problem... we could change the targetting scheme. Point Blank AoE buffs, AoE spells centered on a target, Friendly Fire AoE spells, Ground Target Displays, etc...

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By the way, what's this "charging spells" that Brenon is talking about as one possible solution? He compared it to touch spells in D&D, so I'm guessing you have a casting time, then you can move around again and choose targets and stuff?

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It was just an idea I had when people started talking about choosing the target after the spell had been cast already.

It doesn't really solve any of the problems that have been brought up in the discussion with Sarvis though... *shrug* . I should mention that it *was* just an idea... not indicative of anything.

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Hmmm..I read that as him saying you either add an action to a queue, or toss the queue and start on it immediately, not that you bypass any lengths of time.

IE, let's say you have the "Kick 'Em In The Shin" and "Give 'Em a Noogie" actions queued up, which would take 3 seconds a piece. Then you realize you need to get really serious and perform the Sucker Punch that takes 5 seconds. You can either add it to the end of the queue (such that the Sucker Punch connects in 11 seconds after the previous two actions) OR you toss the other two actions and just go straight for the Sucker Punch after five seconds.

That's how I read Brenon's statement, anyway, not that the Sucker Punch suddenly executes immediately ( 0 secoonds). Then again, developers' minds do work in strange ways....

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Yes... that is what I meant.

I guess you must speak gooder than me... because that now seems fairly clear.

James Henley, Designer

A question to the developers

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The main reason I asked this, is that I know one writer who told me that while he writes, he's so immersed in what he writes that only after a few months (!!) pass after finishing the last draft is he able to judge it with a completely cool head. So I was wondering if it's the same with games.

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One writer examining their own work is not the same as an entire team of designers/artists/programmers/QA/etc. examining each other's. It's easy to get lost in your own work when you're alone, but that's not really the case when you have dozens of pairs of eyes around you to view it in a different light.

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I get it. Thanks for the reply.

So it *is* a marketing strategy then.

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We wouldn't be developing our games if we didn't have some faith in them. Take that how you will.