Do you prefer NWN:EE Combat's System to keep the 5 second rule or not ?

dreamtraveler

The 5 second rule means that the attacks wont be instant as they are in BG:EE and IWD:EE

JohnnyOnslaught

Not to be a negative Nancy but I'm not even sure that this is something that can be changed. The entire game is built upon the 6 second heartbeat.

MadHatter

They'd have to retime all the animations and recode the heartbeat and everything. It won't happen, but I definitely prefer games with faster action timers. The NWN dance of death is painful (not fatal to the experience, but ugh).

Dele

i liked animations it brings for the most part, only problem i really had with the dance of death is monks circle kick being horrible

Sylvius_the_Mad

MadHatter said:

They'd have to retime all the animations and recode the heartbeat and everything. It won't happen, but I definitely prefer games with faster action timers. The NWN dance of death is painful (not fatal to the experience, but ugh).

I love the dance of death. I'm particularly fond of how the PC moves unpredictably during melee, increasing the risk of fighting near traps.

MadHatter

Sylvius_the_Mad said:

MadHatter said:

They'd have to retime all the animations and recode the heartbeat and everything. It won't happen, but I definitely prefer games with faster action timers. The NWN dance of death is painful (not fatal to the experience, but ugh).

I love the dance of death. I'm particularly fond of how the PC moves unpredictably during melee, increasing the risk of fighting near traps.

Nothing in video games is as rousing as a good old level 1 NWN fight "Swing... miss... side step... swing... side step... miss" Many a sandwiches have been made.

dreamtraveler

MadHatter said:

They'd have to retime all the animations and recode the heartbeat and everything. It won't happen, but I definitely prefer games with faster action timers. The NWN dance of death is painful (not fatal to the experience, but ugh).

Then i guess that is the deal breaker for me

Futabot

Ideally yeah, but I think we would need to explore how it would affect the game.

Sylvius_the_Mad

MadHatter said:

Sylvius_the_Mad said:

MadHatter said:

They'd have to retime all the animations and recode the heartbeat and everything. It won't happen, but I definitely prefer games with faster action timers. The NWN dance of death is painful (not fatal to the experience, but ugh).

I love the dance of death. I'm particularly fond of how the PC moves unpredictably during melee, increasing the risk of fighting near traps.

Nothing in video games is as rousing as a good old level 1 NWN fight "Swing... miss... side step... swing... side step... miss" Many a sandwiches have been made.

I genuinely enjoy watching NWN melee combat. I find it exciting.

Hawkwinter

I'm inclined to agree it could be faster. Halving the time between actions (so 3 second rounds) would make things a lot more lively.

Valgav

Hawkwinter said:

I'm inclined to agree it could be faster. Halving the time between actions (so 3 second rounds) would make things a lot more lively.

This would also affect all the bonuses with duration in rounds so spells, skills. Taking to account all the laggy behaviour when you are chasing someone or running away through multpile areas it could be really painful experience.

Also it would break backward compatibility as some people uses hearbeats for many other things.

AKMatt

Sylvius_the_Mad said:

I love the dance of death. I'm particularly fond of how the PC moves unpredictably during melee, increasing the risk of fighting near traps.

You can use keyboard to manually sidestep without breaking melee, and control which direction you sidestep. You’ll still randomly step back sometimes, but you can safely avoid stepping on traps!

Sylvius_the_Mad

AKMatt said:

Sylvius_the_Mad said:

I love the dance of death. I'm particularly fond of how the PC moves unpredictably during melee, increasing the risk of fighting near traps.

You can use keyboard to manually sidestep without breaking melee, and control which direction you sidestep. You’ll still randomly step back sometimes, but you can safely avoid stepping on traps!

I'd rather not. I like that risk. It seems more realistic to me. It simulates the ability of an opponent to limit your movement options.

Baratan

This is a DnD game. Time has to be dictated by rounds in order for the rules to function.

Raduziel

You can always roll a Wizard and just blow things up.

scriver

dreamtraveler said:

MadHatter said:

They'd have to retime all the animations and recode the heartbeat and everything. It won't happen, but I definitely prefer games with faster action timers. The NWN dance of death is painful (not fatal to the experience, but ugh).

Then i guess that is the deal breaker for me

I'm not sure why you think it's any different in the BG and ID games. They're also on a 6 sec timer. It's just how DnD works.

dreamtraveler

scriver said:

dreamtraveler said:

MadHatter said:

They'd have to retime all the animations and recode the heartbeat and everything. It won't happen, but I definitely prefer games with faster action timers. The NWN dance of death is painful (not fatal to the experience, but ugh).

Then i guess that is the deal breaker for me

I'm not sure why you think it's any different in the BG and ID games. They're also on a 6 sec timer. It's just how DnD works.

@scriver Options--> Gameplay --> Feedback--> No Cosmetic Attacks

scriver

Turning of cosmetic attacks changes nothing about the underlying system, which is set on 6 sec timer.

dreamtraveler

scriver said:

Turning of cosmetic attacks changes nothing about the underlying system, which is set on 6 sec timer.

@scriver it changes the visuals which is what i like about BG & IWD

Jidokwon

I'll bite. Toggling off cosmetic attacks is something I've been curious about, but never actually done. With it off, do characters only move when fully attacking? No feints and such at all? While D&D is known for its turned based combat, I've always imagined that a lot more is going on each round than characters fully committing to attacking. As D&D is turned based, getting rid of that kind of combat system entirely isn't reasonable at all, but if people really want to see their characters just standing and doing nothing for the duration of rounds, turns, and such, I guess that I don't see any harm in allowing them that option. I, for one, much prefer seeing the other things that go on during combat, though.

Mizzajl

Combat is pretty much based around those *6 second rounds and initially we have 1 attack per round so I don't think changing that is a good idea, but I do however think that it would be nice if it was possible to spread out the attack animations evenly over a round when you have more than 1 attack per round instead of having those 3 bursts per round.

TrentOster

The combat round in NWN is subdivided into segments of time. A player needs time to play multiple attack animations (including two weapon), evade / parry incoming attacks / play hit animations. When you cut a six second round into portions to allow enough time for all those animation options there isn't any time to shrink it down. We added the flurry attack (plays part of attack 1, 2 and 3 in a condensed chunk to shrink the seconds used in combat. To reduce below a six second round would require a re-architecture of the combat system.

1130210

No, please keep the 5 second rule. I don't want you to mess up the OC. :l

Trinital

TrentOster said:

The combat round in NWN is subdivided into segments of time. A player needs time to play multiple attack animations (including two weapon), evade / parry incoming attacks / play hit animations. When you cut a six second round into portions to allow enough time for all those animation options there isn't any time to shrink it down. We added the flurry attack (plays part of attack 1, 2 and 3 in a condensed chunk to shrink the seconds used in combat. To reduce below a six second round would require a re-architecture of the combat system.

But you guys speed up and slow down attack animations all the time. No?

AKA Parrying an attack then doing a quick attack right after before the round ends.

... Or using Greater Cleave in a group of level 1 goblins.

I guess maybe some people would rather not watch two characters slowly side step each other for 4 seconds until their 1 attack per round starts. Maybe do some 'Fake Attack Swings' like Baldurs Gate?

Honestly I don't mind.. I really like NWN1 combat!

1varangian

I like the dance of death. It makes combat look much more realistic and exciting. I also wouldn't mind combining multiple attacks into one animation if combat could look better that way (shield blocks, dodges and parries are what makes combat look good). When there are too many attacks in 6 secs it can start to look a bit silly - the attack animations become too fast they lose their 'weight'.

tbone1

TrentOster said:

A player needs time to play multiple attack animations (including two weapon), evade / parry incoming attacks / play hit animations.

Oh, great, now I have that Daffy Duck Robin Hood cartoon running in my head.

werelynx

If there was a slider with games speed that would be multiplier - i.e 6seconds x 0.5 = 3 seconds round and every animation plays twice as fast. This would be nice, don't know if doable.

Jimbobslimbob

werelynx said:

If there was a slider with games speed that would be multiplier - i.e 6seconds x 0.5 = 3 seconds round and every animation plays twice as fast. This would be nice, don't know if doable.

I like that idea. Perhaps doesn't even need to be so drastic. Have it go in smaller increments, decreasing round time by a percentage of 25%, 50% etc.

If some new animations were added (I know there is a really good fan mod for this) it would also spice up the combat a lot in my eyes. Think what they did with the KOTOR animations for combat - they were awesome.

1varangian

You can't just double animation speed and expect it to look sensible. It will look like fast forwarded.

NWN combat already looks too fast when combatants all have 3+ attacks per round.

Sylvius_the_Mad

Those cosmetic attacks are how D&D was supposed to work. It was BG and IWD that did it wrong.

The attack roll didn't represent a single attack. It was the opportunity to land a damaging blow within a block of time. That block of time was expected to contain parries and feints and dodges as well. Most CRPGs just ignored this aspect of the rules, but NWN came along and finally got it right.

The tabletop rulebooks were very clear on this.