What Do YOU Want Out of Legends of Aria/Shards Online?

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Magile
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What Do YOU Want Out of Legends of Aria/Shards Online?

Post by Magile »

We've had polls, we've had "a consensus," we've had debates and we've had discussions.

Everyone has an idea of what they'd like to see coming out of the next ALFA3. This is not about edition, this is about what you feel like you'd like to see attempted to better quality of life or game play, as the game system seems very, very open to good coders.

What I would like to see is something I had suggested in voice chat several nights ago, which has seemingly picked up a lot of speed and a lot of positive comments - tactical turn-based combat. If you ever played the Divinity Original Sin series, it would be like that - isolated based on where PCs encounter a fight, not affecting the rest of the server. People who aren't quick with their fingers for spells suddenly have a bit of time to think. People who like to RP their fights can throw in some RP. Is your PC a battlefield commander? Well now you can organize the fight - and, of course, this all applies to the DM as well. With careful tweaking, it is possible to pull it off (or so everyone seems to believe), with even a timer for players and DMs (DMs having a bit more leniency) coming into play.

This would be one step closer to PnP, without having to worry about all the dry erasers, papers, iPads and spilled drinks (unless you spilled your own, then shame on you!).

What would you like to see?
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Re: What Do YOU Want Out of Legends of Aria/Shards Online?

Post by Rumple C »

I like the sound of turn based combat.

Allows for more RP, more dm descriptions, and more mounting dread when he ogre lumbers towards your pc.

(oh, and improved targets for wizzies!)
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Re: What Do YOU Want Out of Legends of Aria/Shards Online?

Post by FoamBats4All »

I want to see a digital gaming experience that is as close to PnP as possible. I want a game that encourages player choice, progression, and story. I want a setting that isn't terrible -- or is, at least, familiar enough that I forgive how terrible it is.

I want a game that lets us bring visions to life, be it a builder, a programmer, or a DM. I want flexibility and fewer restrictions/hacky implementations that we have in NWN2. I want a game where I pause and get to think through implementations, rather than groaning at how difficulty and round-about and hacky any solution might be.

I want more in-game tools and options for building persistent worlds for DMs and players. We made a lot of progress with ZSpawn and the like. We need in-client tools for making content, so that you don't need to enter the toolset to do so much. Editing an item shouldn't take a server restart and twenty minutes of the DM's time out of the client.

I love Magile's suggestion because it tones down the hack-and-slash combat, and puts it more about tactics, rounds, and the like. You don't have to worry about fighting the UI either. Your character's friend's life depends on you making the right choice, not you clicking the button fast enough. And, most importantly, the DM doesn't have to fucking fight for a smooth experience. Your wizard won't be an idiot, because you get to choose his actions when you're overseeing combat.
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Re: What Do YOU Want Out of Legends of Aria/Shards Online?

Post by shad0wfax »

As we discussed at length in the spoopy voice chat discord channel last evening, I'm all for a Divinity: Original Sin style combat system that is turn based on a timer, based on initiatives. I think that this solves almost all of the problems that nwn2 and nwn1 had when trying to handle "D20 system combat" in real time.

I think that if we are going to implement any edition of D&D, that turn based combat is of paramount importance and as we discussed, making the system as close to the core D20 rules as possible, the better. The less "equivalent class abilities" we make, and the more fully we implement the core rules, the more true to our pillars we are.
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Re: What Do YOU Want Out of Legends of Aria/Shards Online?

Post by Ithildur »

A few things off the top of my head:

1. I also would love a localized turn based or semi turn based combat in the interest of both promoting RP and improved tactical gameplay. Localized means it'd only be the pc's and npc's that are directly involved with the battle that go into turn based play, player x on the other side of the server delivering mail is completely unaffected. Optionally get 15-20 seconds (vs indefinite amount of time, some tabletop groups do this too) to make your decision, emote, and act, or else your turn is over and the next character is up.

2. Having said that, a distinct benefit of CRPGs vs tabletop is that things that take 1 hour to resolve in PnP can be resolved faster/easier. In a nutshell, it's a visual/visceral tool to set the gameworld/stage, let characters in that stage interact with the surroundings, and resolve interactions relatively quickly. Especially from a DMing perspective (which should be a pretty high priority in a project that's DM reliant by the pillars), it's a boon to have less need to make 10 dice rolls manually, look up/review 12 paragraphs of text from DMG/SRD etc. to resolve things. Even a simple grapple check calculator that resolves automatically and indicates winner could be handy; even better something that does so and implements an appropriate mechanical/physical result in the game engine for the most common/iconic types of actions (grapple, trip, disarm, jump, swim, maybe even climb, falling, scripted divination results, or even very simplified flying). This becomes even more important I think the more we try and move to a ruleset that's close to pnp 3.5/whatever - stuff like 3.5e grapple is not for the faint of heart.

ALFA does a nice job giving players and DMs tools to make these things viable with easy to access PC tools dice; the next generation platform can take this further and make them more streamlined and visceral.

3.
I want more in-game tools and options for building persistent worlds for DMs and players. We made a lot of progress with ZSpawn and the like. We need in-client tools for making content, so that you don't need to enter the toolset to do so much. Editing an item shouldn't take a server restart and twenty minutes of the DM's time out of the client.
Couldn't have said it better Foam. Again, would be tremendously time and energy saving for DMs which should be priority if we intend to continue to abide by the DM reliant pillar(s)


4. Aesthetics. Yeah, I said it. It needs to look and feel good, or at least 'right', in a way that fits ALFA sensibilities. Things don't have to be uber high graphics (I couldn't even run it on whatever system I upgrade to I'm sure) or ultra HD or whatnot, but part of the reason I personally found enjoyment in IE games and NWN1 was a certain sense of aesthetics, being able to see what the characters looked like and were interacting with in the story, even if it's 2 dimensional sprites from 1998 or blocky NWN1 avatars. We're telling stories, but we're not reading printed pages; what we're doing is closer to on-stage or cinematic storytelling at times. Visuals, sound and music are important and do matter, even for ALFA. In my view that was not one of the strengths of NWN2 especially when it first came out; in spite of access to far superior technology and graphics than nwn1, aesthetically nwn2 was just a little off, from the way characters walked and moved, to their static movements during combat, even little things like the way they stand vs NWN1 toons moving their heads just so. And then there's just the plain flat out ugly faces, which got even uglier with motb reshading/coloring, compounded by motb replacement voicesets for casting, etc...

Like it or not, this stuff matters for a CRPG platform in the digital age, even if it might not matter AS MUCH for alfa as say Diabolo 5 or WoW 8.
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Re: What Do YOU Want Out of Legends of Aria/Shards Online?

Post by shad0wfax »

Divinity Original Sin is localized turn-based play. The moment you get within range, you become part of the combat initiative and you're no longer able to move about freely. Outside of combat you walk around as normal.
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dergon darkhelm
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Re: What Do YOU Want Out of Legends of Aria/Shards Online?

Post by dergon darkhelm »

I want most of what we strive for in current ALFA (D&D system, prefer 3.5, Forgotten Realms, lots of geography covered, permadeath RP, true persistent world).

I just want it with more high quality players and DMs.

I long for the days of looking at 6-7 servers, all with 10-20 players and 2-3 DMs humming along on a friday night.
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Cast_No_Shadow
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Re: What Do YOU Want Out of Legends of Aria/Shards Online?

Post by Cast_No_Shadow »

I second much of what's been said.

Turn based combat in a local area would be huge. Combat in nwn1 sucks as a player and is even worse as a dm. Especially when you have a party across multiple levels. The extended options and flexibility is super awesome.

Making life easier for DMs is high on my priority list. Being able to make npcs on the fly would be nice, although renaming would probably surfice. Making items on the fly would be really good, or loot generators we can configure.

Being able to make dungeons on the fly would be increadible but who knows if that's possible, I liked how easy it was in nwn1 since you know it's only going to be used with a dm you can just do the basics real quick.

One thing I really want is a smart solution to area covered vs playerbase and the distribution of levels across characters.

Area wise I like hub and spoke type model, we should be clear that area x is the primary place to base from and then we can freely build out areas of interest from there. Or something smarter. But concentration of players is vital to fun.

Level distribution wise something that works to naturally and mechanicslly clump players on a steep bell curve without removing a sense of progression would be awesome. The idea being if everyone is fairly close it's easier to build for, dm for and have fun with.
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