Idea: Encounter Escalation System (from conversation to fisticuffs to lethal attacks)

[Kayzee 4,032]

Here is something that has been poking around in my head for a little while. In most RPGs enemy encounters tend to get violent at the drop of a hat, no matter what the feelings of the characters in battle may be. I have seen a few different ways to do it, but I think the best way I can think of is to simply have different levels of combat escalation that are increased dependent on what skills you do.

 

For example, level 0 skills could include guarding, healing, escaping, using a "talk" command, or maybe other conversation skills. These are non-threatening actions that may resolve the conflict before anyone actually lands a blow. Level 1 skills may be unarmed strike skills and some status skills that can neutralize a threat without actually killing. Level 2 skills are fatal attacks that can and will kill the target dead. We can even in theory go on and have level 3 skills which may cause a lot of collateral damage, and level 4 skills which basically are forbidden skills of mass destruction.

 

The basic idea is that combat has a escalation level and using skills above that level escalates the combat to that level. Most enemies will avoid using skills that will escalate the combat unless they are in dire straits or are evil. Players probably should have a "karma" system where you gain karma for handling combat with low escalation level skills, and lose it for escalating the combat level. One effect of having low combat should probably be enemies being much much more willing to escalate combat before you do, and the effect of higher karma should include a much higher success rate of talking enemies out of combat.

 

Of course, some troops may have a minimal starting escalation level. It doesn't make much sense for an encounter with mindless zombies to start at the same level as an intelligent person. There could be innocent looking critters that are actually demons and would break the rules and use high level attacks right away... but if you used them first you would still be escalating.

 

I would like to know if anyone would be interested in this kind of system, and if anyone has ideas about how best to implement it. I could do a lot of the basic scripting myself of course. I just wonder if stuff like a "stun damage" meter for unarmed attacks would be a good idea. I am not sure if or when I will get around to actually coding this kind of thing, but I wanted to share the idea at least.

Edited August 22, 2014 by KilloZapit

[Intocabille 21]

I think it would also depend on what kind of encounter systém you use?

I mean it is probably not good for random encounters, unless you make random encounters only for unintelligent things... then again you could like... scare away a wolf by waving a torch in his face. Hmm...

If the encounters are scripted, eg you can see the enemies on map there is no reason why the creator can't add a "show choices..." menu before calling the "force battle". In that case the scripting needed here would be to make the options menu dynamical to consider the skills of the adventurers (eg lvl of escaping, lvl of diplomacy etc)

[Euphoria 147]

Sounds like a really cool idea! It would definitely make certain games more interesting.

[Kayzee 4,032]

I think it would also depend on what kind of encounter systém you use?

I mean it is probably not good for random encounters, unless you make random encounters only for unintelligent things... then again you could like... scare away a wolf by waving a torch in his face. Hmm...

If the encounters are scripted, eg you can see the enemies on map there is no reason why the creator can't add a "show choices..." menu before calling the "force battle". In that case the scripting needed here would be to make the options menu dynamical to consider the skills of the adventurers (eg lvl of escaping, lvl of diplomacy etc)

I am not really a fan of random encounters anyway, but it could work with them. My idea was more that the conversation level was actually part of the battle scene, you just had player characters that used a special set of skills or party commands just for it. Like a "truce" skill that could make enemies leave battle. Actually with skills that call common events and such there is no reason I think why choice menus can't show up in a battle scene.

[ShadowCoatl 3]

 

I think it would also depend on what kind of encounter systém you use?

I mean it is probably not good for random encounters, unless you make random encounters only for unintelligent things... then again you could like... scare away a wolf by waving a torch in his face. Hmm...

If the encounters are scripted, eg you can see the enemies on map there is no reason why the creator can't add a "show choices..." menu before calling the "force battle". In that case the scripting needed here would be to make the options menu dynamical to consider the skills of the adventurers (eg lvl of escaping, lvl of diplomacy etc)

I am not really a fan of random encounters anyway, but it could work with them. My idea was more that the conversation level was actually part of the battle scene, you just had player characters that used a special set of skills or party commands just for it. Like a "truce" skill that could make enemies leave battle. Actually with skills that call common events and such there is no reason I think why choice menus can't show up in a battle scene.

 

 

I really like your idea, would it be something like...?

 

Encounter,

 

-Greet.

-Attack.

-Negotiate.

-Steal.

-etc

 

And some other commands about speech for example, (Maybe even a class with all kind of passive or speech skills that can tame, trade or pay enemies to leave?)

 

It´s interesting.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Hehe, I also thought about having some pacifist characters that have a trait or passive skill where they would refuse to escalate combat themselves, but would gain double karma or something, or other ones that would refuse to use skills above level 0 or 1 but would gain even more karma.

[Bunni89 85]

I had a similar idea to this once, where it would use Galv's Battle Favour script. http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/8338-battle-favour/ Except I gave up because I couldn't think of how to make it work the way I wanted XD

 

Basically the idea would be that the Favour (renamed Conflict) bar becomes an alternate win condition. Something like if you max it out, then the battle ends. So you can either kill all the enemies, or you can "negate the conflict" and end it peacefully. Because bar-boosting skills would be stuff like "talk", "bribe", "hug", "dance" and whatever. It would lower the enemy party's hostility if you use the right skill on a monster that likes it. So you either win by destroying enemies or just making them leave. (And you'd get the same amount of EXP either way, but different morality points and different item drops. Like.. gifts versus stuff you swipe off the creature's body.)

And similarly doing scary/dangerous/angry things to foes would boost the other side of the conflict bar, and if it maxes out then it stays there, freezes the bar and it's now impossible to reason with these guys.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Hehe, yeah, there are a lot of possible ways to have peaceful resolution to battles. I am also reminded of this awesome RPG demo.

Edited August 31, 2014 by KilloZapit

[pencilcase27 66]

I like this idea in theory. I really do. But everytime I play a game that goes in this direction, including the UnderTale-demo in Killo's last post, I get a uncomfortable feeling while I actually play the game. And I asked myself: Why? The idea sounds great but I almost always end up blowing stuff to pieces with a well aimed fireball rather than talking to them, not because I am a violent person, but simply because it's more interresting. So I grabbed myself some sweets and walked up and down my room to think about this and I may have found an answer.

 

It all boils down to one simple fact:

I know how talking works, but I don't know how to summoning a fire ball works.

 

Computer Games are always a reduction of reallity. You cannot do everything, so you have to leave things out, and those left out things always have the potential to ruin your players immersion. Those are the boundaries of your game the player has to move within. Lets play Modern Battelfield of Duty (or Call of Warfare? Geeeh, who cares...): I have a pistol, a SMG, a chainsaw and a goddamn rocketlauncher, but for some reason I need a purple keycard to open the next door? It's made of wood, why can't I just blast it into bits...?

See what I mean?

 

Now lets replace the grim brown in brown hyper reallistic shooter with something different. Same scene, but instead of a SMG, I have a water pistol that shoots black ooze, and the door is not made of wood but out of... dunno... starlight? Or fairy dust? Or fairys shooting laserbeams out of their eyes. Yeah, that sounds good, lets go with that. If one of those fairys would ask you to bring them the red flowerpot of friendship to proceed, would I question them for even one second?

No. No I would not. Both examples have the same premise, the same boundaries, the same "left out" thing mentioned before, but only in one of them you notice it to kill your immersion and pull you out of the experience. And why?

 

Because I know how wooden doors and chainsaws work, but I don't know how laser-fairys work.

 

If you ask me to shoot a fireball, then my brain has no idea how to do that, because it has no comparison. I don't shoot fireballs at a regular basis, so all that comes to my mind is: How? And you answer: Here, press this button. And I press this button and I shoot a fireball and awesome.

 

But if you ask me to talk to this guy and convince him that crushing my skull with his bloody axe might not be the best course of actions, then I don't have to ask how. I know how talking works. And when the game presents you 3 buttons with "negotiate", "compliment" and "charm", then you feel the boundaries of the game, because you as a human beeing could come up with so much more than just those three words. Anyway, concersation isn't just about words. In the real world you hear not only what, but how people say something. You see their body language. You are used to use those methods, and when they are suddenly missing out, you'll notice.

 

If you want to artificially re-create the real world, you have to keep the theory of the Uncanny Valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley) in mind. If you base your gameplay on something as realistic and natural to us as having a conversation, then you better put some effort into it, or you will end up in that valley.

 

This means that a ) combining combat and negotiating may be a bad idea, because a well build conversation system next to a click-skill-shoot-fire-combat-system looks silly, and b ) building such a conversation system will probably exceed the limits most of us developers have.

 

Not saying it's impossible, but a simple "Conversation" skillset next to "Thunder Magic" and "Frost Magic" probably won't do the trick.

Edited August 31, 2014 by pencilcase27

[Anderson88 26]

I think that although the idea is pretty sweet, it needs a lot of extensive testing and even more content placed into battles. People are going to get bored of negotiating with enemies if...

 

1. It takes too long to negotiate or is boring compared to chopping the enemy down

2. It's not rewarding to negotiate/talk, etc.

3. Karma doesn't have a huge impact on the rest of the game.

[Kayzee 4,032]

I like this idea in theory. I really do. But everytime I play a game that goes in this direction, including the UnderTale-demo in Killo's last post, I get a uncomfortable feeling while I actually play the game. And I asked myself: Why? The idea sounds great but I almost always end up blowing stuff to pieces with a well aimed fireball rather than talking to them, not because I am a violent person, but simply because it's more interresting. So I grabbed myself some sweets and walked up and down my room to think about this and I may have found an answer.

 

It all boils down to one simple fact:

I know how talking works, but I don't know how to summoning a fire ball works.

 

...

 

Funny I see it in a completely different way. For me the whole point of a RPG, and maybe all games is to take things and invent a model for them that has interesting implications. I don't think of computer games as a reduction of reality, I think of them as an abstraction of reality. It doesn't need to be perfect, and it doesn't need to suspend disbelief, because it's a gameplay abstraction. If you think every that game element that models something in an unrealistic way must be fantastic to be fun, I think your sort of missing the point.

 

On the flip side, I also sort of think the idea that not knowing how fireballs work means you can do anything with them without worry is kind of misguided as well. It's probably more a personal thing, but I am always happy to have a work of fiction explain exactly how and why it's fantastical elements work. Even if it's not realistic, at least it could be self-consistent and metaphysically interesting. Just saying "A Wizard Did It!" all the time strikes me as more then a little boring.

[Heretic86 14]

Its a good idea but needs to be used in moderation. Lots of the MMO games classify enemy types as being sentient, like a human, but lesser creatures like wolves or vermin cant be reasoned with. As a result, some enemies you can talk to, some you cant. The idea has merit, but it is also time consuming if based on conversational outcomes, which can be frustrating to players if the conversation takes a long time, ie, longer than just fighting and getting it over with.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Depending on how it's used, it wouldn't necessarily even need conversation or dialogue, it just need actions. You could do it either way, having skills trigger bigger multiple choice conversation options, or having them just have a animation with word bubbles and have a percent chance of succeeding or failing. And anyway even if you can't talk to animals, doesn't mean you can't say, throw meat at them or otherwise pacify them, or even distract them and run away. How the individual actions or encounters work and how the overall system works are not necessarily the same thing.

 

I should point out I doubt I am ever actually going to use this idea myself, but I may end up making a script for others to use at least. I like fiddling around with different mechanics but I still have yet to decide on a complete game idea to go with them.

[pencilcase27 66]

Funny I see it in a completely different way. For me the whole point of a RPG, and maybe all games is to take things and invent a model for them that has interesting implications. I don't think of computer games as a reduction of reality, I think of them as an abstraction of reality. It doesn't need to be perfect, and it doesn't need to suspend disbelief, because it's a gameplay abstraction. If you think every that game element that models something in an unrealistic way must be fantastic to be fun, I think your sort of missing the point.

 

On the flip side, I also sort of think the idea that not knowing how fireballs work means you can do anything with them without worry is kind of misguided as well. It's probably more a personal thing, but I am always happy to have a work of fiction explain exactly how and why it's fantastical elements work. Even if it's not realistic, at least it could be self-consistent and metaphysically interesting. Just saying "A Wizard Did It!" all the time strikes me as more then a little boring.

 

The answer to your second paragraph is quite easy. Since I don't know you very well, it's probably hard to find an example to which you can relate to, but do you know those movies where som nerdy guy in glasses hacks the white house in three seconds with a programm that displays the words "HACKING" in bright green colours? I don't know if you are the kind of guy who grinds his teeth at those scenes, but since you are quite into codding and stuff, you may at least understand that there are people who do so.

 

Well, I study physics since three years, and when someone tries to explain magic to me, all I can think of is:

 

 

I can't fight it, thats just how I am :/ And I know some people who think the same way, even if they don't study this subject. If you can't explain something correct, don't bother at all. But that probably differs from person to person, as you already said.

 

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The first one is a little bit more complicated, maybe because of my struggle with the english language. You treated reduction and abstraction like they were some kind of opposites, while I, as I wrote this last post, actually had to ask myself which one of the two words I should use. So I looked them both up in a dictionary. And yes, I know, this sounds like nitpicking, but you cannot imagine how often people talk past eachother because they have a different understanding of a word.

 

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reduction

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abstract

 

Abstraction is the progress of making something abstract, and something is abstract if it is "apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances"

With this definition you could say, that a reduction from reality and an abstraction are one and the same thing.

 

I don't think our views are that different at all. Your second sentence is something I could copy-paste into my signature. There is a reason why I grew up with pokemon instead of quake, and why I play turn based rpg's instead of FPS. Because I too like systems and models and the possibillitys that come with those games, and those glorified reflex based point-and-click adventures like CS and Battlefield just don't have those. You may have noticed that I am not a big fan of them in my last post.

 

I don't need my games to be realistic. As a great man once said:

"They who can give up essential fun to obtain a little temporary realism, deserve neither."

And I don't need my games to be fantastic. But what I don't like are games, that try to be realistic, and then fail to deliver in that department.

 

The huge problem I had with UnderTale was the implemention of the non violent combat. You have to choose between two or three talk options, then you see some text and thats it. Why sould I talk to those people? (Especially if the combat is so freaking brilliant).

If talking is one option to escalate or de-escalate the situation in your game, then I think it's important to actually make it feel like talking.

 

I hope it's more clear now what I am trying to say. And sorry for the (second) wall of text

Edited September 1, 2014 by pencilcase27

[Kayzee 4,032]

Hehe, I understand. I think one thing about magic where we differ is I think of magic as metaphysical not physical. I love, for example, stuff like Discworld, where narrative concepts exist as metaphysical fact. I personally like to link magic to ideas like the manipulation of platonic forms. It's not based on physical rules at all, but something more like mathematics. Provided you believe mathematics is an actual thing that exists independent of the universe or the human mind anyway, but that is debatable.

 

I don't mean to say reduction and abstraction are opposites, rather that they are subtly different and are done for different reasons. Reduction makes me think of grinding down a principle or idea to it's simplest expression, and abstraction is more like building up a simple framework to interact with the idea indirectly. Of course an abstraction can be a reduction, but doesn't always have to be. Things like levels and stats, for example, are an abstraction used for a character getting more skilled as they learn, but within the fiction of the game, there is usually no such thing as levels and stats.

 

In a way I could say I understand the problem you have with Undertale's non-violent combat, but I kind of think of it from the opposite direction and almost say it isn't quite abstract enough. It's almost entirely a series of reading comprehension puzzle, not a abstract set of mechanics. I am not really thinking about having a conversation in the middle of battle, but rather asking how I can make an interesting abstraction of a conversation that accomplishes the same goal, to end combat non violently. That said I like Undertale's system a lot not necessarily because it is deep or interesting on it's own, but because it has interesting consequences. You still have to dodge attacks most of the time and can never really gain any experience, but the story still pays attention and changes. The thing that makes not just killing everything worth it, is entirely a personal and emotional one, which I find interesting. I would necessarily make every game like that, but it's good to see a game that does that kinda thing every once and a while.

Edited September 1, 2014 by KilloZapit