watch/scan/listen/guard changes

[Bilanthri]

I've always been a big fan of realism in RPG's, and it's one of the things that I've always liked about Arm. The fact that this realism is still being refined is commendable. However, taking a hit to you mental fortitude because you are more attentive to your senses is completely UNrealistic. If I sit in a bar and watch the door while listening to the people talk in the booth next to me, am I really expending any energy? I'll be distracted from other things, surely, but to actually become fatigued, either mentally or physically, is pretty ridiculous. I just don't see how either Stamina or Stun are applicable stats for this function....maybe there should be an Awareness stat that you can tie up in attention based skills....use to many skills and you start missing things happening around you.

That being said, I'll still enjoy playing, despite my current char being one of those "perceptive" types people keep mentioning. But everytime I find myself getting tapped for keeping my eye on that shady elf at the bar, or drifting towards sleepy time when I'm trying to spot that halfling that I KNOW is hiding around, I'll be just a little bit put out.

*plink plink*

[a strange shadow]

Please note, irritated tone of my post aside, my love for all that Morgenes does (and listens to) is unabated.

Stun loss is still not something I agree with. The other changes penalized the appropriate classes plenty.

[Bushranger]

If the stat lost by using Guard, Scan and Listen were changed from Stun to Stamina then it would help a lot of things out and be more believable.

If you're a hunter out hunting for something like a Jozhal around Allanak, which hides quite a bit and is almost the only thing new to mid experience ranger can hunt, you'll have scan and listen up to try and find it. You might also be guarding your friend. This means you loose 20-30 stun, and that Jozhal just found it easier to kill your character because you can't toggle off scan before initiating combat with it (or you would loose sight of it and not be able to hunt) and that 10-20 stun reduction is still gone from the beginning of combat after you now toggle it off after entering the melee.

If this was changed to Stamina loss, you couldn't walk as far while you were hunting because you're moving slower and looking over more of your surroundings while hunting, but would not enter combat with 1/4 to 1/3 of your stun missing. I find this situation realistic for a hunter.

Similar for a guard, or a city dweller, who is using these skills to watch out for elven pickpockets. Moving through the streets would be slower as you pay more attention to your surroundings and watch everything. It shouldn't make you easier to knock out and potentially kill.

If you're sitting in a bar trying to overhear the next tables conversation and watch out for elven pickpockets, the reduction in Stamina isn't going to mean much because you're inside and not going anywhere, and this agrees with being able to watch everything in one area more easily while you're stationary.

--That or return it to how it was coded a few days ago. Scan, Listen and Watch should drop when engaged in melee combat, and that was a great addition to the code. If you feel like you character is an uber scanning, uber listening type person it is easy enough to turn them back on after the melee combat has ended.

[Dalmeth]

A stamina penalty is ridiculous.  The classes that rely on the relevant skills need that stamina a lot more than the classes that don't.  It gives them the flexibility to respond to situations where they can't get their way out through brute force, which is a lot of different situations.  I know what people want.  It's to be able to ride around on a mount and maintain the ability to respond to whatever occurs.  Let me tell you, riding around on a mount is the worst combat position for these classes.  Period.  The story is over.  If you want that sort of freedom to take on any situation, be a warrior.  The character who gets blown off a cliff and knocked out hasn't figured out that you can stop your fall.

As for the argument that actively listening and scanning doesn't strain your concentration, that's fairly ridiculous, too.  You might be able to watch a doorway for five minutes, but do it for hours.  Follow someone at a distance while they move through a busy street.  You might be able to pick up on every detail at first, but sooner or later, you start getting sloppy.  This is called tired.  Yes, it is an exertion, believe it or not, and that's what stun is, a measure of how mentally, "fresh," you are.

Now I do think the penalties are a little severe.  I would suggest more like seven or eight for scan and a little less for listen.  Lessening the penalty for listen doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but there's the fact it's a little too broad.  I'd be all for two grades of listen, one that lets you know something is happening in a different room and another that lets you hear specific words.    In terms of the survival of the classes that use it, listen is largely most useful in detecting other presences nearby, so I'd like it to remain functional in that regard without too much penalty.  Otherwise, you shouldn't be able to hear everything said in perfect clarity  as if it was the birthright of your class.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Morg,

Let me offer a suggestion. Instead of applying penalties to stun, stamina, or any other numerical stat, why not simply slow down the combatant just a bit, much the way weight does.

Using hypothetical numbers, let's say that a fighter with no bonuses or penalties fights at a speed of 1. Let's say that at heavy but manageable encumbrance, he fights at a speed of .6. With scan on, provided that the fighter has no penalties, he fights at a speed of .9. With scan and listen on, he fights at a speed of .8, and so on and so forth. Now these numbers can and probably should vary a bit more than that, but you should understand the concept I am presenting. Furthermore, I'd suggest that scan and listen suffer a penalty, but not go on hiatus while you are fighting.

The slowing of the fighter represents that he is using attention span to maintain his scanning and listen. It's putting him at a disadvantage without reducing critical stats that should probably not be affected the way that they are. IRL, rather than being easier to knock out when you are paying attention, you tend to lag a bit in your responses, particularly when you are looking for something.

[Jingo]

What 7DV said.

[FantasyWriter]

What 7DV said.

Ditto.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Morg,

Ratios might be hard to code into such a formula as the one that governs penalties while fighting. That never occurred to me. What might be simpler, and perhaps even more realistic than slowing down the fighter, is applying a -1 to all skills that stacks with each mode of attention the PC engaging in.

These numbers, -10 for guard, scan, and listen and -5 for watch regarding stun, would become these numbers, -2 for guard, scan, and listen and -1 for watch, regarding all skills. This does mean that if you are guarding, scanning, and listening, you will suffer -6 to both these skills and every other skill you use during this period.

[a strange shadow]

.....

What was so wrong with the way things were?

Honest question.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Nothing was wrong with it, but we seem to be headed down the road of realistic code additions and modifications. If we are, the important things is to get them right. I have no problem with the concept, it's the implementation that bothers me and just about everyone else. I am simply presenting concepts for penalties using other methods which might be more practical.

[Lizzie]

Actually, I'm sort of okay with the idea of *incremental* difficulty..but skill-based difficulty, not stat-based. An example:

If you have listen running by itself, you have the ability to listen at whatever your max skill is. If you add scan, you will lose some of your maximum ability to use listen, plus your ability to see hidden things won't be -as good- as if you were -only- scanning. Then when you add guard to the mix, you'll be able to guard, but not nearly as well as if you were ONLY guarding, and not listening -and- scanning at the same time. And your listen and scan skills will be less than if they were being used by themselves, as well.

[brytta.leofa]

If you have listen running by itself, you have the ability to listen at whatever your max skill is. If you add scan, you will lose some of your maximum ability to use listen, plus your ability to see hidden things won't be -as good- as if you were -only- scanning. Then when you add guard to the mix, you'll be able to guard, but not nearly as well as if you were ONLY guarding, and not listening -and- scanning at the same time. And your listen and scan skills will be less than if they were being used by themselves, as well.

This is the best idea yet.

[fourTwenty]

Guard needs to be separated from the scan/listen changes.

Shouldn't watching somebody make it easier to guard against them and less likely to get KTFO by them?

[Bilanthri]

Actually, I'm sort of okay with the idea of *incremental* difficulty..but skill-based difficulty, not stat-based. An example:

If you have listen running by itself, you have the ability to listen at whatever your max skill is. If you add scan, you will lose some of your maximum ability to use listen, plus your ability to see hidden things won't be -as good- as if you were -only- scanning. Then when you add guard to the mix, you'll be able to guard, but not nearly as well as if you were ONLY guarding, and not listening -and- scanning at the same time. And your listen and scan skills will be less than if they were being used by themselves, as well.

I agree that this is probably the best suggestion yet, as for realism. The only caveat I see is, if you are watching a target, you should be more capable of listening to that one target, since you are looking at, potentially, their mouth and gesticulations. Otherwise, kudos to Lizzie's sense of realism. 

[Morgenes]

Based on the feedback here I have decided to implement a solution suggested by you. 

Next reboot, your skill will factor into the amount of stun drain taken while using these abilities.  This reflects the idea that as you get better at them it becomes more like second nature and you can do it without as much concentration.

I know it's still not the most popular idea, but we feel this makes these abilities have a 'cost' associated with them.  We will continue to investigate how this works out and listen to your feedback on how this actually plays out.  Thanks for your encouragement and support and for hanging in there as we continue to tweak Armageddon.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Thank you for not feeling angry while reading our replies. We all dig you, Morg, and we are so FUCKING HAPPY you are working on 1.0. We know why, so that you can test ideas for the next incarnation, but it is awesome to see regardless. Thanks for listening, and thanks for adjusting and responding and caring. Yeh, we are opinionated and irritable and sceptically of everything, but under it all, we are all freaking happy to see you presenting change and showing interest in things.

You are the wyn.

[Clearsighted]

Based on the feedback here I have decided to implement a solution suggested by you. 

Next reboot, your skill will factor into the amount of stun drain taken while using these abilities.  This reflects the idea that as you get better at them it becomes more like second nature and you can do it without as much concentration.

I know it's still not the most popular idea, but we feel this makes these abilities have a 'cost' associated with them.  We will continue to investigate how this works out and listen to your feedback on how this actually plays out.  Thanks for your encouragement and support and for hanging in there as we continue to tweak Armageddon.

Thank you for being so receptive to feedback, Morgenes. It is more appreciated than you realize.

[Bilanthri]

Thank you for being so receptive to feedback, Morgenes. It is more appreciated than you realize.

Hear Hear!

[Lizzie]

I person can loathe a change, while loving the changer. Thanks for letting us vent, and for considering our ideas and suggestions! I'll chime in (as usual) after I've experienced "perception changes v6.10).

[AmandaGreathouse]

Thanks for the attention to detail and for the new tweaks. Can't wait to see the updated version.

[musashi]

Morg ... you rock socks! (along with Belenos)

[Reiloth]

So all it really does is help warriors with bludgeoning weapons who don't scan or listen anyways.

Having played warriors who use bludgeoning weapons and don't scan and listen, I can't help but agree.

You suckers are fucked.

In all honesty, I am completely down with these changes. I do agree with the modification, that it is based on skill and the penalties are in a grey-scale.

I also believe Fathi has better ideas as to how to penalize over-aware, listening-too-hard, trying to find sneaky people warriors/rangers/assholes.

Making it harder to accomplish something, such as spotting a sneaky halfling flanking you while you're fighting his friend, or hearing a branch break while fighting for your life, makes much more sense than having a blanket 'loss of stun' that is arbitrary, and not applicable to every situation, while also loosely making playability of characters with 'Average' endurance completely fucked.

Morgenes -- You've got great ideas, and your changes are both welcomed and well-recieved, as far as I am concerned.

[Bushranger]

Next reboot, your skill will factor into the amount of stun drain taken while using these abilities.  This reflects the idea that as you get better at them it becomes more like second nature and you can do it without as much concentration.

This is welcome news. As always I'm impressed by the speed and attention that is paid with working on the Armageddon code.

[Nusku]

.....

What was so wrong with the way things were?

Honest question.

Nothing wrong, necessarily. As noted by someone, somewhere, I think maybe in this thread... you guys get to experience some of the concepts we're trying out for Arm2 in Arm1. It gives us a chance to do some testing and balancing before we ever get to the new game.

One of the things we're trying to do better is consistency of design. Skills which serve similar purposes should have similar tradeoffs, similar costs, similar methods of performing skill checks, and similar ways of being used. Another concept we want to work into the game is the tradeoff - nothing is free. The principle applies to magicker, mundane, and psionicist alike - we want people to have to sort through the pros and cons of the actions they take, rather than just stacking on everything they can get their hands on and turning into Voltron.

So, yeah, we're still sorting through exactly what all of the consequences are, which is why we're paying attention to feedback, watching how things play out in game, and making all of these tweaks. Ultimately, this will help us design the game better.

[mansa]

Fuckin' Voltrons.