TLD: Suggestions

[Merlkir]

Ron: the version of HW I am playing has normal sized arrows flying. Those blured arrows have only been suggested imho. The ones that are in are great imo.

AW: those arrows are a good thing, not hard to do I think and it looks great. Also the soundpack from Eisenhouwer Holy War uses has some great sounds in it...

[Ron Losey]

Maybe it's just the frame rate on certain mods, but I was pretty sure the arrows had been modified the first time I saw them.  I looked around and found the trick later.

Of course, the background and lighting could have something to do with it.  Arrows screaming across open dessert are easy to see.  Arrows in the forest just come out of the trees from somewhere.

The wild sound effects in "Holy War" are interesting too, but they strike me as being overdone.  Maybe the volume is just unbalanced, or maybe the stereo sound wasn't quite right - but I like the smooth sound transitions in TLD a lot better.


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Still waiting on either Python code or offers of help for the weapons model.
Ron

[Merlkir]

I like that you aren't really able to see the arrows until very last moment...it's very similar to my experience from RL when I've been shot at.

[Ron Losey]

I like that you aren't really able to see the arrows until very last moment...it's very similar to my experience from RL when I've been shot at.

With arrows?  Because I've stood down-range for some archery practice (mostly under cover, than God - I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid), just to watch and listen.  We were deer hunting, and we were trying to get a perspective on what the deer could see and hear, trying to reverse-engineer how they were so effective at evading arrow fire.  The arrows I saw fired at or past me were not at all like a passing bullet.  They gave more the impression of impending doom like when you look up and see headlights of an oncoming car headed straight for you.  They seemed to approach for two days - and mathematically, I know the flight time was way under 0.1 second.  You can hear them coming, complete with massive Doppler shift as they pass - it's wild.  It also explained how the deer were jumping arrows - if I was on my toes, I could have made myself a pretty hard target too.

Had a few bullets pass me too - under less controlled conditions, I must say.  Rifle fire really does pass you before you hear it.  Those were some of my many experiences that I don't care to repeat.

But enough of everybody's old war stories.

Fake motion blur is still a good trick for computer games.

Back to my earlier question ... who wants to help me implement/test a combat realism model?  The model is done.  It just has to be ported to TLD and tested for playability/public opinion.

Ron

[InvertedPantsMan]

Dude however much I like wargames, firsthand stories of the real thing chill me to the bone.

[Ron Losey]

Dude however much I like wargames, firsthand stories of the real thing chill me to the bone.

That's because you're smart.  Sane people don't get into knife or gun fights if they can avoid it, for a good reason.  The ones that can't avoid it usually try not to let it happen again.


One of the reasons I try to get more realism into these games is related to this.  If more people realized how fast a real conflict happens, they would be more cautious in real dangerous situations too.  Games where your character can take 6 hits in the chest with a hatchet cause people to forget, and then when some fool pulls a knife on them and demands their wallet, they're like "It's only a little knife" ... and they get killed.  Truth hurts.


But again ... this is a game suggestions thread.  Let's try to keep it that way.  Especially since many of us who have seen this sort of thing for real would rather not talk about it for longer than a passing reference.

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On the game issue, I have at least one volunteer willing to help me code those changes and test them ... but I still need the Python source.

Ron

[Damien]

Well, I still have M&B version .7xx saved on my computer with TLD on it -- so I can help you test it out, if you like.

[Ron Losey]

Well, I still have M&B version .7xx saved on my computer with TLD on it -- so I can help you test it out, if you like.

Send me an e-mail address where I can mail you the files when we get them.

Whenever I get the Python files, that is...

[Ron Losey]

Hey, has anybody seen or heard from AW in a few days?  I sent him a couple of personal messages, but I haven't heard anything back.

We're about ready to wrap that damage model I described for ONR ... and I have a couple of volunteers standing by to help me with converting TLD.  I can start running tests to see if it's playable (and/or popular) just as soon as I have the Python files.  As far as I know, AW is the only one with them... and I can't seem to get hold of him.  ("Holy War" is also planning a conversion to this system, but I'm only testing for it, and they're not ready yet.)

(This model is looking pretty good on ONR.  Can't wait to get it into the next release over there.)

Ron

[Grocat]

Honestly, it sounds to me like he'd rather not deal with the whole power rebalancing system.  It gets a lot more complicated then just the numbers and damage when specific factions are built around certain combinations of gear and skills, as they are in this mod, meaning that currently balanced factions will become lopsided.  Gear will have to be completely redistributed and re-evaluated with extensive testing.  It's really hard to judge how that could affect the overall war.  Also, he might be more open to the idea once there is a current release of it that is approved of by the community in a mainstream production like Onin No Ran.

Or he could just be too tired to bother with the forums right now.  Just throwing this out there as a possibility.  I mean, if it works, why fix it?

By the way, your idea does sound really neat.  I'll be excited to see it implemented in ONR.

-Grocat

[Ron Losey]

Well, certain factions are built around gear and skill - but a total rescale doesn't throw that off.  It just ups the risk factor from getting hit.  By lowering speed on the really heavy anti-armor weapons, it still balances out.

There are gameplay issues already.  Archers are too effective because neither armor nor blades get the desired results.  That's why there's a huge dialog at the beginning so everybody can try to tweak these bugs out of it ... but it's still not right, just adjusted.  The real issue with archers is that armor is not effective, at least not to realistic levels.  When you add that plus the idea that hit points will absorb blows from some pretty heavy blades even without armor, it skews the numbers pretty badly.  There's been a lot of discussion on this ... somebody said that a single player could wipe out the entire Great Host of Mordor.  That can't be right.

Anyway, I've got a couple of people willing to help me test it... and I'm volunteering to make the changes, so it's a zero-cost proposition.  If the vote is that nobody likes the new model, then the only time lost is mine.

This model should be up on ONR pretty soon... the next release, whenever that is.  I think Fujiwara has a couple of unrelated bugs he wants to squash before the next version.  He, Triglav, and myself have been on this for the last three days, plus a little help from Raz over at the Holy War mod (who is trying to implement a version of this model there) - and we're just about to get it debugged.  (Good thing, so I can get some sleep.)  It's pretty cool ... I can't wait to see the reaction when it's released.

That's why I figure it's time to line up the next project, i.e. try to get the Python files for TLD, so I can start playing with it as soon as we wrap the ONR release.

[The Pope]

High damage games are usually more exciting than low damage ones, so the gameplay over realism argument is misplaced. The only time you'd want a bit more health is to make single combat last longer, and there's not much of that in TLD.

[Ron Losey]

High damage games are usually more exciting than low damage ones, so the gameplay over realism argument is misplaced. The only time you'd want a bit more health is to make single combat last longer, and there's not much of that in TLD.

Yeah, and single combat is normally done with your best equipment - which means heavy armor.  Heavy armor means either that the combat lasts longer again, or the fight has to be done with very heavy, and therefore slow, weapons.

Single combat can also last a long time if it involves a lot of running around and not much swinging.  Since running is usually your first reaction when out-classed, this can happen too.

[Merentha]

If I may ask, what are you planning to do with the obviously unearthly items, like dragonscale, mithril, the blade of westernesse, or other armory items?

[Ron Losey]

If I may ask, what are you planning to do with the obviously unearthly items, like dragonscale, mithril, the blade of westernesse, or other armory items?

This is just a rescale.  If a "magic" item is about 20% better than its conventional counterpart, then just factor that in ...

Actually, my Tolkien is a little weak, but I think Mithril was supposed to be REALLY tough.  May have to tweak that a bit to get the feel.

That's the easy part.  The hard part is getting my hands on the files, because apparently AW has been out of town or something.