Let's Design a Videogame Gameplay thread

[warty goblin]

Since after all, Second Life aside, you can't have a game without it.

Since I seem to have generated most of the gameplay ideas so far Dragonprime asked me to start this thread, and like a good minion I complied.

In the spoilers below are the three main posts I made on which all current gameplay ideas are based. Below them is a summery of the key points, so that unless you really want to, you don't have to sort through quite so many walls of text.



In order to convince you that you in fact want my sage wisdom, here's my idea on incorporating gun kata into the game.

1) Have two sorts of movement in combat, light and heavy dodges.

a light dodge is your basic evasion and makes you somewhat harder to hit. You can still use items and attack in a light dodge. Basically you want to be doing this about 90% of the time. Think of all of the positioning moves that the Clerics do in Equilibrium while still staying on their feet. Light dodges are also basically free movement, that is apart from collision detection it doesn't interract with the enviorenment at all.

a heavy dodge is a very good evasive maneurve, ala a swan dive or doing a backflip or something. In general while performing a heavy dodge you cannot attack, but are almost impossible to hit. Most heavy dodges are also triggered off of various pieces of the enviorement- for example Preston's diving role to pick up those two clips he tossed in the middle of the floor. Most of these enviorenmentally linked heavy dodges would also gain you some other benefit- like an instantainious reload, or a knockout move or getting behind cover or something. You would also have a more readily accessible heavy dodge move, but it wouldn't gain you anything except not getting shot. Like light dodges it would be free movement.

For all of this to work I'm envisioning a sort of Tomb Raider like camera and lock on system (although better, obviously), along with a heavy dodge lock-on system, which would allow you to perform heavy dodges off of the enviorenment with the press of a button when close enough. When in combat by default you would move in light dodge mode, so pressing "Left" would move you left in an evasive yet awesome sort of way. Similarly pressing "Left" and the "Heavy Dodge" button would move you in that direction via heavy dodge.

2) Have three weapon modes for ranged weapons, full ranged, mixed range/melee and full melee.

Full Ranged just allows you to shoot people, but you can't make melee attacks or block.

Mixed Ranged/Melee allows you to make basic melee attacks and very inaccurate ranged attacks, and also gives you a rudimentary block.

Full Melee Basically allows you to beat people to death with your gun, and block other people trying to do the same to you.

The idea would be that you want to use full ranged in a gunfight, full melee in a swordfight at close range if you don't have a sword of your own, and mixed to score very high damage hits at close range without allowing a person in full melee to beat your skull in too easily.

3) Integrate all of this into the leveling system. Have two sides to the combat tree- attack and defense. Moving up the defense side gets you better light dodge moves and cooler and more effective heavy dodges. The attack side of the tree gives you more accurate fire, more damaging melee attacks, faster blocking, and the ability to fire your weapons during some heavy dodge moves.



More thoughts on combat/leveling etc.

1) Don't have character classes. Have different skills/proficiencies, but allow the player to distribute them as they see fit. That is if I want to be a gunslinger type character who also specializes in diplomacy, I take the skills that allow me to do so. Or if I want to be a diplomatic medic, that's cool as well. The background choices would simply determine your starting characteristics, so your choices would effect what your character started out good at, but not neccessarily what they ended up good at.

For skills I'm seeing three major branches, laid out below.

1) Spiritual. Allows you to perform better exorcisms, resist demonic/divine forces better etc. Probably split into sub-trees focusing on exorcism and spiritual defense, respectively. One thing that could be interesting to do is to tie progress up these trees to factional progress, that is if you follow the Destroyer faction they give you access to books and materials that allow better forms of spiritual attack, and counter attacking defensive powers or something. Moving up the spiritual pregression would give you access to new spiritual powers, as well as the ability to use higher level Bibles/other religious texts.

2) Physical. The killing stuff tree. Split into guns and melee weapons, each of which would have an offensive and defensive path. Moving up these would grant you new weapon moves, more damaging attacks and better defenses, and the ability to weild better weapons.

3) Social. The talking to people tree. Pretty much allows you to get people to do what you want, preferably via a Mass Effect type Paragon/Renegade system. I'd tie progress up this chart to in game actions.

Combat: Keeping melee weapons relevant.

1) Make ranged weapons very inaccurate, particularly at low levels, giving melee characters a chance to close.

2) Enforce reloading: Since everybody's gonna be packing single action revolvers and rifles, this should take considerable time. Make the gunfighters worry about each shot hitting, not just blazing away.

3) Give melee characters access to the light/heavy dodge system as well. Make backing up much much slower than moving forward, again allowing a melee character to effectively close the distance unless stopped.

Keeping ranged weapons relevant:

1) Allow a character to wear armor that is effective at blocking melee attacks, at the expense of mobility. Thus when fighting melee characters you want armor,when fighting ranged, you don't, since the armor will offer little to no protection against bullets. This would also be an additional incentive to use the mixed melee/ranged style, since you would be reasonably proof against melee attacks between armor and blocks, and also have access to firepower.

2) Make particularly damaging shots (say those that do at least 75% of maximum damage) stagger anything they hit, slowing them down. Make extremely damaging shots(<90% damage) knock the target over completely. Allow skills to lower these numbers as well, so a skilled gunfighter has a good chance of knocking someone over or staggering them if they empty their revolver into them.



Why thank you. As for the platforming, I'm not terribly fussy. I've never really liked traditional platformers ala Mario, although Tomb Raider (at least the new ones) are pretty fun. It would also fit pretty well with the highly mobile combat- I mean really, you can instantaniously position yourself to minimize incoming fire, do a one handed cartwheel over a barrier to kick a guy in the chin, roll behind a fallen log and shoot three guys in the face, but can't manage to climb the occasional rock face? Talk about frustrating.

More on the skills- I realize I left the social skill tree pretty naked, mostly because I'm pretty bad at coming up with ideas for social type stuff. One thing that would be interesting is to use a sort of combo or gambit conversation system, where instead of simply clicking a dialog option (passive and hence dodgy in terms of gameplay worth) you actually had to use various forms of dialog at your disposal to frame the question (active, challenging and plays in nicely with the RPG aspect).

I'm thinking here of something like you make up a 'sentence' each time you select a conversation option, which would serve as the 'seed' or 'topic' of the sentence, and would provide you clues as to what to put in it. Each sentence would have, at it's most basic level, say four slots. Each slot could be filled with some sort of conversational element, like a joke, insult, curse, compliment or similar. All of these would add together to produce a total 'conversation value' for want of a better term, the effectiveness of which would vary based on who it was directed at. So for example swearing a blue streak at the preacher isn't gonna work very well, and cracking off color jokes at the bar will. As an easy analogy, think of it like the elemental damage system in a lot of games- you don't go throwing icicles at yetis, and you don't go telling lightbulb jokes at a funeral.

The best part is all of this is easy to tie into a skill tree. Level up your conversation skills to get better jokes, more punishing insults, and language capable of igniting small brushfires, or perhaps go up the rhetoric side of the tree to get access to longer sentences, or sentences that give bonuses to following certain elements with certain other sorts (like a joke with a threat to better intimidate somebody for example). Essentially you build combos and throw them at the other person, which, if they rated high enough would overcome their resistance and give you the result you wanted.

For example say you meet an old missionary out in the wilderness and start a dialog with him. One of the options is to try to convince him to give you his +5 Holy Bible of Religiosity. He's been around and seems pretty tough, so a threat probably isn't the way to go, and he doesn't exactly have a sense of humor either, so you decide to go with a three part combo sentence building off of religion and morality. You happen to have worked extensively with this missionary's side of the church, so you have access to high level conversation options about his faith, which you combine with a reference to your own work as an exorcist, and finish with a generic religion reference.


In summery (Major points in Bold):
No character Classes. Choice of background determines your starting stats/skills, but you are free to work your way up the skill tree as you see fit.

Skill Tree The skill tree is the place where you spend all of your upgrade points freeform, based only on meeting the prerequisites for new skills. Also some skills will have story/RP prerequisites, for in order to learn a faction's spiritual secrets, you must have sufficiently good relations with that faction for them to teach the secrets to you. How exactly upgrade points are earned is yet to be decided. The Skill Tree has three major devisions, spiritual, physical and social.

The Spiritual Tree:
This tree is split into two major branches, one focusing on spiritual defense, one on offense (exorcism, you are after all projecting spiritual force). Defensive skills would increase your resistance to spiritual attacks, increase your spiritual reserves (mana) and generally make your character more resiliant. Offensive would concentrate on damaging sprititual enemies/projecting your will on the world and similar- telekineses comes to mind as a possibility here.

The physical Tree:
This is a very combat heavy tree, focusing on your ability to beat/shoot/stab things to death. It is split into two major trunks, melee (swords, axes, etc) and ranged (guns, possibly bows?). Each of these two trunks would then be split into offensive and defensive catagories. Offensive melee would concentrate on things like more damaging strikes, special moves and crippling strikes, while defensive would be more movement and block oriented. Offensive gunplay would be about better accuracy, the ability to use more powerful guns, and new special moves, while defensive would be almost entirely movement oriented, with only a few blocking upgrades. This tree would, in it's current state, also be almost completely divorced from story progress- skills would probably not have prerequisites like knowing certain people so well.

The Social Tree: The social tree, probably even more so than the sprititual tree is very much based on prior gameplay decisions. It is focused on improving your conversational abilities through a two sided tree, one focusing on content, and one on form (these were called language and rhetoric in the original spoilerized post). Working up the content side would give you access to new jokes, threats, curses, compliments, references and so forth. Progress up this side would ve very heavily tied to story choices, earning the trust and learning more about a faction would give you access to higher level references about that faction for example. The form side of the tree would upgrade the number of elements you could put in a sentence, and, as you learn new forms of speech, allow you to use new rhetorical devices, special sentence structures that would grant you bonuses if you used certain types of elements in certain places. This side of the tree would probably be much more story independant than the content side, since it reflects your ability to use what you know, rather than what you know.

Gameplay descriptions:
The Combat system
The combat would probably be played out from a third person perspective, and would focus on fast movement and use of the terrain through special moves. Key to this is the use of two forms of movement when in combat mode. These are light dodges and heavy dodges.

Light Dodges Underpinning this is the idea that every move you make in combat should be tied to both increasing your ability to hit, and decreasing your opponant's ability to hit you. Thus the default movement in combat, triggered simply by pressing the movement keys, is the light dodge. This lowers your chances of getting hit while still allowing you to fire, and does not interract with the enviornment in any special way.

Heavy Dodges Are generally triggered off of some special enviornmental feature, like doing a roll behind cover or similar, during which you would be almost impossible to hit, but also unable to attack normally, although many heavy dodges would give you access to powerful context sensitive attacks. If light dodges are the basic form of combat movement, heavy dodges are the cool moments that make combat worthwhile, and also make you pay close attention to the terrain, which keeps it involving.

Both light and heavy dodges would be available to all characters, no matter what weapon they were wielding, although one would learn more advanced heavy dodges in the physical skill tree- so a novice would be able to roll behind cover, while a master could vault that same cover while reloading their weapon, or firing a single highly accurate shot, or channel their momentum into a devastating sword swing.

Weapons
Weapons would come in two varieties, melee and ranged. Melee would be fairly self explanatory- run up to something and cut it in half. Keeping this interesting is tying movement to damage- move towards a target when attacking to do more damage, and move away to avoid hits, but do less damage on attacks. Ranged would have three 'modes' available however. The first is full ranged, which allows you the greatest firepower, but does not allow you to protect yourself from melee attacks. Mixed Ranged/Melee lets you make innacurate ranged attacks and weak melee attacks and blocks, and full melee basically means you are using your gun completely like a club and cannot shoot with it. Full melee is the strongest melee mode available with a gun, but is still worse than a dedicated melee weapon.

The camera and HUD: As previously stated, the camera would probably be some sort of reasonably far back third person view ala the Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games. The HUD would be pretty minimal, showing current ammo, health, and other neccessities. There would also need to be some sort of enemy locking feature, and icons indicating where heavy dodge moves could be performed. These would change color dynamically based on the move- for example yellow when out of range, green when in range, and red when doing the move nets you a special attack.

Conversation:
Conversation uses a combo based system, where you string together elements such as compliments and threats in a sentence, which is simply a set of slots to hold elements. Each completed sentence would be rated on it's effectiveness in several different catagories, such as humor, politeness, faction orientation and so on, and then compared to the preferences of the person you are having the conversation with. For a reference think of stringing together attacks into combos against foes with elemental resistances- you don't use fireballs against firedragons after all, you concentrate on your ice attacks. It would be up to the player to guess the nature of the characters they are dealing with, and decide what conversation elements to use. The sorts of sentence available, as well as the elements in them can be upgraded in the social skill tree.

Current problems:
- The spiritual side feels weak, although until more is known about the setting and so on, this probably can't be helped.
- Melee combat still feels a little lacking when compared to ranged, although I'm not sure how to fix that.
- Complexity could be an issue, since there's a lot of stuff to manage.
- The conversation system could harshly penalize melee focused characters.

Anyway, that's all I've got. Have at it with suggestions, comments, criticisms and whatever else comes to mind, since it's currently pretty skeletal.

[Corrupted One]

I think the spiritual tree seems a bit bear because we don't really have any attacks that directly affect the corporeal world. Telekenesis sounds pretty good to me. Perhaps Pyrokenesis as well?

[Setra]

Healing for defensive.. and bolts of holy fire for Offensive.. maybe enchanting your sword/bullets with holy energy? Which would be useless except when exorcising I suppose

[Corrupted One]

Healing for defensive.. and bolts of holy fire for Offensive.. maybe enchanting your sword/bullets with hoyl energy?

Making them more effective against spirits/monsters twisted by the crazed god. Maybe curses that hinder you opponent as well?

[warty goblin]

I think the spiritual tree seems a bit bear because we don't really have any attacks that directly affect the corporeal world. Telekenesis sounds pretty good to me. Perhaps Pyrokenesis as well?

Good idea- nothing says fun like burning heretics with your mind! Would be a particularly good power for the Destructive side of the Church.

Also something I should have made clear in the OP, none of the ideas in there are final, they're just repostings/refinements of the systems I outlined in the original thread, which met with pretty good reception, but don't feel bound by them.

[String]

I like it, and the only major forseeable issue that hasnt already been adressed would be within the Feasibility section. I dont know much about video game creation, but I think that these systems might take a whole HELL of a lot of money and time to create, likely needing systems built from the ground up. that said, I love these systems.



Also, just a mini plug so that we dont miss it: Voting for project leader is on until Sunday at noon West Coast USA time. Nominate and Vote!

[Corrupted One]

I like it, and the only major forseeable issue that hasnt already been adressed would be within the Feasibility section. I dont know much about video game creation, but I think that these systems might take a whole HELL of a lot of money and time to create, likely needing systems built from the ground up. that said, I love these systems.



Also, just a mini plug so that we dont miss it: Voting for project leader is on for the next 2 hours. Nominate and Vote!


Bah!! Ruining our Fantasia with reality!? :smallfurious: Begone, foul vanguard of sanity! You've no place here! :smallbiggrin:

[warty goblin]

I like it, and the only major forseeable issue that hasnt already been adressed would be within the Feasibility section. I dont know much about video game creation, but I think that these systems might take a whole HELL of a lot of money and time to create, likely needing systems built from the ground up. that said, I love these systems.



Also, just a mini plug so that we dont miss it: Voting for project leader is on until Sunday at noon West Coast USA time. Nominate and Vote!

It would be difficult, but then nearly any decent realtime combat outside of a disgustingly stripped down shooter would be. And with a decent engine, I'm particularly thinking of the Assassin's Creed engine, or the older Prince of Persia one, it would be reasonably doable. The hardest part would be integrating a very stat-based approach on top of realtime controls in some ways.

Also I wasn't under the impression that anybody was actually going to try to program this thing, although heavens know it would be awesome.

[Corrupted One]

Also I wasn't under the impression that anybody was actually going to try to program this thing, although heavens know it would be awesome.


Same here. Is there someone somewhere willing to attempt this?

Also are we going to vote on things, or simply assume it is fine unless someone points out some flaw/ requests a vote?

[Dumbledore lives]

If someone where to make this it should have a crime level thing, like in Oblivion. But with more visible effects if you've been in prison alot, like people being scared of you.

[Setra]

*blink blink*
Won't we need to come up with mathematical formula to calculate the damage?

[DraPrime]

Random gameplay idea I had. Since we have exorcisms, why don't we have special benefits involved in performing these exorcisms? The way I envisioned it is that B takes the possessing spirit into himself, and controls it. This gives you some unique benefits, making exorcism an interesting part of the game.

[Geno9999]

*in ref with let's design a video game thread* this is bigger than a hutt in mcdonalds Anyway, I thought of Swords are faster to use but if you're fighting against a ranged foe, you have a lot of bullets to dodge before you get upclose to kill him/her/it.

[SilverSheriff]

I'd like to see some Parkour skills in this, y'know; the whole climbing, wall running, jumping walls/gaps/off buildings. also, more martial arts than just Gun-Kata, different sword styles whenever you weild a different type of sword, sneaking, social stealth, etc.

[DraPrime]

I'd like to see some Parkour skills in this, y'know; the whole climbing, wall running, jumping walls/gaps/off buildings. also, more martial arts than just Gun-Kata, different sword styles whenever you weild a different type of sword, sneaking, social stealth, etc.

Just be careful with adding too much stuff. I've seen some games have the problem where they tried to add in too many different gameplay elements.

[Trazoi]

I like it, and the only major forseeable issue that hasnt already been adressed would be within the Feasibility section. I dont know much about video game creation, but I think that these systems might take a whole HELL of a lot of money and time to create, likely needing systems built from the ground up. that said, I love these systems.
I do know a bit about video game creation, and I agree with you. In reality, the first element a game design needs is to be implementable, and to do that you need to know how big your development team is, what skills they've got, how much money and time you've got etc.

This also feels a bit like some design ideas I've seen that hinge around globbing together as many good ideas as possible in the hope that the end result will be amazing. Again, it doesn't quite work that way. It has two main flaws; it hinges around creating lots and lots of content, which is expensive; and you're more likely to just throw together a dozen half-complete mediocre elements instead of polishing one strong element until it shines.

Most of the really good games I've seen are based around one really great idea, with all the other smaller elements added in to enhance that. That's a much better approach, as when you run out of time (and game developers always run out of time) you'll be able to cut elements without harming the core of the game.

But don't let me stop you having fun going through this as a thought exercise :smallwink:.

[SilverSheriff]

Just be careful with adding too much stuff. I've seen some games have the problem where they tried to add in too many different gameplay elements.

yeah, but if your going to add Gun-Kata you have to have other martial arts (like Parkour and Ju-jitsu).

[warty goblin]

yeah, but if your going to add Gun-Kata you have to have other martial arts (like Parkour and Ju-jitsu).

Um, no?

All adding those would get us is another combat system, which would increase the skill tree massively, and the only benefit would be another set of animations for hitting guys at close range. That is to say, it adds breadth,but no depth. The current system takes account of two approaches with actually different applications- shooting people and stabbing people, and hence is just as deep as the same system would be with a couple other martial arts.

[Inhuman Bot]

The trees seem pretty good, but the converastion tree seems like it would be weak. How much can it be used for?

[alexeduardo]

The trees seem pretty good, but the converastion tree seems like it would be weak. How much can it be used for?

persuasion
intimidation
insult
praise
seduction
barter
convince
lie

the list goes on and on...

[Inhuman Bot]

What I meant was, do you only use it to getpeople to like you, or do stuff for you? or can you get them to do stuff for you via the social tree?

[warty goblin]

The trees seem pretty good, but the converastion tree seems like it would be weak. How much can it be used for?

Well, my thinking would be for pretty much every conversation where there could be some doubt as to your success. Essentially the game would present you with a bunch of dialog choices when interacting with NPCs, as is standard, and some of them would be automatic (buying things from merchants, recieving orders from a commanding officer etc) while others would require you to work at them (getting someone to talk about their traumatic childhood, betraying a friend, etc). For the automatic options simply clicking them as is standard in an RPG would work.

For the non-automatic ones however you would have to use your conversation skills- think of the Oblivion system on steroids, except that instead of simply playing a minigame over and over, you would get one or maybe two shots to do as well as humanly possible by building combos to appeal to the nature of whomever you are talking to.

For example let's say you were trying to talk the location of a weapons cache out of an enemy. Sweettalking him might work but would be pretty difficult since you were trying to kill each other a few minutes ago, and he's from the other side of the church, so you can't talk about religion very effectively with him. This leaves intimidation. You select the sentence form "Threatening joke," which is three slots long, and if the middle section is a joke and it ends with a threat, adds half the joke's value to the total threat value of the sentence (think of making a pun based on the person's name and using their bones as toothpicks or something like that). The topic "weapons cache" then has to fill the first slot, so the game knows what you are trying to do.

You look over your skill tree and pick the "Improved Dirty Joke" skill, which has a value of six, and, not generally being much of an intimidator the "weak threat" skill, which has a value of 2, and slot them into the second and third positions of the sentence, then hit the done button. Your sentence then has a topic of "Weapons Cache" a humor value of 6, and an intimidation value of 5. This is then compared to the target's vulnerabilities (for want of a better word) on the subject, which are Humor 10, Kindness 10, Intimidation 4, Religion 8 (these would of course be hidden from the player). This means that it's very hard to tell a joke so good, or be nice enough to make him cough up, but a very religious person would be able to appeal to him, and he's not hard to frighten. You are intimidating enough to succeed, and he shows you the cache.

[alexeduardo]

Great goblins think alike, don't we, o warty one?

[Inhuman Bot]

Somewhat complicated, but it seems like a good idea.

[alexeduardo]

Also, just a mini plug so that we dont miss it: Voting for project leader is on until Sunday at noon West Coast USA time. Nominate and Vote!

wait, what?
I thought this was supposed to be a communal project!

Dagnabbit!
Oh well, where do we vote? or how is it gonna be handled?

[String]

Alex: Believe me, it was not my idea, but I'm not against it. It's still a communal projec,t but this way its the PLs responsibility to make sure that we vote on thorny issues and then to post the result to make sure that everyone is clear on the solution that we reached. At this point it's between me and Catseye, but feel free to nominate others. The place for it is the original thread.

[warty goblin]

Great goblins think alike, don't we, o warty one?

Yep. we do.

@ Slaanesh, yeah I know it's a little complicated, and could probably be simplified considerably. What I was trying to do was to integrate dialog into gameplay, as opposed to having it be a completely different system with very little advancement, as in most RPGs, where at best you get new dialog options, and they almost always work. There's no suspense most of the time, which can serve as a breather, but also as a momentum killer.

This should also make playing a diplomatic character not only possible, but more interesting than "I have a CHA of 29, so I win all fights before they occur automatically." You might be a very good conversationalist with more CHA than God, but if you misjudge a character you can still fail.

[alexeduardo]

Um, no?

All adding those would get us is another combat system, which would increase the skill tree massively, and the only benefit would be another set of animations for hitting guys at close range. That is to say, it adds breadth,but no depth. The current system takes account of two approaches with actually different applications- shooting people and stabbing people, and hence is just as deep as the same system would be with a couple other martial arts.


hey, the more varied the combat and animations, the better the critics like it. And the better the critics like it, the more ads we can proudly have.

But, we should learn from the downfall of mexican cinema and be wary of having too many branches but no trunk

[warty goblin]

hey, the more varied the combat and animations, the better the critics like it. And the better the critics like it, the more ads we can proudly have.

But, we should learn from the downfall of mexican cinema and be wary of having too many branches but no trunk

I'm not saying having diverse animations is a bad thing at all, because it isn't. What I'm saying is as a player I'd rather have one way to do everything I want to do in a game than two ways to do one thing, but no way to do another.

[alexeduardo]

I'm not saying having diverse animations is a bad thing at all, because it isn't. What I'm saying is as a player I'd rather have one way to do everything I want to do in a game than two ways to do one thing, but no way to do another.

Well, why not two ways to do each thing?

[warty goblin]

Well, why not two ways to do each thing?

Finite resources. Adding a completely new martial arts skill tree is as much work as adding either of the existing skill trees for less payoff than adding them gave. Using that same time and effort to build something completely new however would be quite different, since it would allow me to do a whole new set of stuff.

[alexeduardo]

Finite resources. Adding a completely new martial arts skill tree is as much work as adding either of the existing skill trees for less payoff than adding them gave. Using that same time and effort to build something completely new however would be quite different, since it would allow me to do a whole new set of stuff.

oh well, another idea for anothe game I suppose

[warty goblin]

oh well, another idea for anothe game I suppose

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, or that we shouldn't have it, but at this point I'd rather focus on expanding the Spiritual tree a bit from it's currently vague state of "it lets you do spiritual stuff."

[alexeduardo]

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, or that we shouldn't have it, but at this point I'd rather focus on expanding the Spiritual tree a bit from it's currently vague state of "it lets you do spiritual stuff."

well, maybe we can put paladdin-like powers in it

[Sneak]

Just out of curiosity, are we still working with the gun-kata idea?

Because if so, we need to find some way to integrate it into the setting. Right now it's kind of just a disjointed idea.

Gun-kata was developed in Equilibrium through the use of advanced technologies—recording thousands of gunfights and analyzing them to statistically predict the geometric distribution of enemies and the trajectories of return fire. Our world is much less advanced than Equilibrium's. How would gun-kata have been developed? Also, there would need to be major institutions or academies to train people in gun-kata (it deals with complex rote memorizations).

Or is our "gun-kata" just dealing with the avoidance of fire and not with statistic aiming? Because if so, that's fine (we don't need to include the whole statistics part), but we should probably stop calling it gun-kata, because that's not really what it is.

[alexeduardo]

Just out of curiosity, are we still working with the gun-kata idea?

Because if so, we need to find some way to integrate it into the setting. Right now it's kind of just a disjointed idea.

Gun-kata was developed in Equilibrium through the use of advanced technologies—recording thousands of gunfights and analyzing them to statistically predict the geometric distribution of enemies and the trajectories of return fire. Our world is much less advanced than Equilibrium's. How would gun-kata have been developed? Also, there would need to be major institutions or academies to train people in gun-kata (it deals with complex rote memorizations).

Or is our "gun-kata" just dealing with the avoidance of fire and not with statistic aiming? Because if so, that's fine (we don't need to include the whole statistics part), but we should probably stop calling it gun-kata, because that's not really what it is.

well, maybe it's traditional martial arts adapted to use guns!

btw, I'm watching some Fallout 3 videos on ign (and they rock) so I was wonderin' if we could have towns like Megaton. (If you don't know what the heck I'm talking about (http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/901269/fallout-3/videos/fallout3_Gameplay2Megaton_082908.html))

[Corrupted One]

Yep. we do.

@ Slaanesh, yeah I know it's a little complicated, and could probably be simplified considerably. What I was trying to do was to integrate dialog into gameplay, as opposed to having it be a completely different system with very little advancement, as in most RPGs, where at best you get new dialog options, and they almost always work. There's no suspense most of the time, which can serve as a breather, but also as a momentum killer.

This should also make playing a diplomatic character not only possible, but more interesting than "I have a CHA of 29, so I win all fights before they occur automatically." You might be a very good conversationalist with more CHA than God, but if you misjudge a character you can still fail.

Just a thought. Since we have already brought up pyrokenesis and telekenesis why not add telepathy to the social tree? I don't mean outright readong of the mind, but rather the abillity to tell what that person dislikes or like. Maybe an example would be better.

For instance those stats you mentioned about the warrior being hidden. If your telepathy was high enough, you might be able to get an inklling of what he is more prone too. You might sense he seems rather cowardly. Or perhaps detect that he is vulnerable to humor. Also to make some social encounters easier maybe we could add something to the spiritual or social branch that involves a spell similar to suggestion?

[String]

I like the idea of being able to select 'abilities' (Skills? We should come up with working names for these things you "buy' with your 'points') that would give you hints as to peoples Mental resistancy scores (thats my vote for that), but I think that it shouldnt be labeled "telepathy". I think that divorcing it from the spiritual tree period would be a good idea, because somehow, telepathy doesnt seem "Spiritual", and therefore I think it would be better represented as a mundane skill (most likely mid-level) that gives you hints as to their status. Like: "His Religious score is lower than his Kindness score"

Thoughts?

[Corrupted One]

I like the idea of being able to select 'abilities' (Skills? We should come up with working names for these things you "buy' with your 'points') that would give you hints as to peoples Mental resistancy scores (thats my vote for that), but I think that it shouldnt be labeled "telepathy". I think that divorcing it from the spiritual tree period would be a good idea, because somehow, telepathy doesnt seem "Spiritual", and therefore I think it would be better represented as a mundane skill (most likely mid-level) that gives you hints as to their status. Like: "His Religious score is lower than his Kindness score"

Thoughts?

Yeah I noticed that telepathy didn't seem very spiritual but for the life of me couldn't think of one. Also I think maybe we shouldn't use the word points in game. I was thinking of hints describing their character or some such. Like He does not stand up well to insults. Or While he rarely smiles, his devotion to the god is legendary.

[alexeduardo]

I think maybe we shouldn't use the word points in game. I was thinking of hints describing their character or some such. Like He does not stand up well to insults. Or While he rarely smiles, his devotion to the god is legendary.

great idea.

Also, FaceReading could be used a lot like the telepathy you propose

[Corrupted One]

great idea.

Also, FaceReading could be used a lot like the telepathy you propose

Facereading ( or something like it) sounds fairly brilliant to me. Any suggestions?

[String]

Facereading ( or something like it) sounds fairly brilliant to me. Any suggestions?

I suggest that we make "Face Reading" a mid-to-high level "Skill" (once again, we need definite names), that compares some relevent social skill of yours to some sort of 'bluff' rating of the opponent. If yours is higher, then you get get a little blurb like Corrupted One proposed to help you figure out the best way to proceed.

[alexeduardo]

Well, I had in mind a system in which you could get data in real time during conversations on what does every move, word, twitch or wrinkle mean. The higher the level, the more accurate and specific the information

[String]

Hmm. Color me intrigued, but I'll be damned if I can figure out any sort of specifics.

[alexeduardo]

Hmm. Color me intrigued, but I'll be damned if I can figure out any sort of specifics.

Well, you'd be taking to a dude, let's say....uh...A refugee on the dessert. So you come up to them and your facereading skill allows you to see a small box of text connected to a scar in her chin, in the box you can read "level 3 burn, possible traumatic experience, proceed with care".
You then ask her for a missing priest of the Shepherd, she then says "no s-sir, no priests round here". You then see a text box which says "level B stutter, high possibility of lie".
You then say "don't lie to me, I am a powerful man". She answers "oh, well so is my dad". The text box is now connected to her mustache and eyebrow areas and reads "frown and heavy wrinkling of nose, high risk of anger, evacuate topic".

What do you think?

[String]

Hm...I like it. It needs some polishing but I like it. I'd like to se ewhat Warty has to say on the subject as well.

[alexeduardo]

Hm...I like it. It needs some polishing but I like it. I'd like to se ewhat Warty has to say on the subject as well.

is my goblin comrade even on?

[Corrupted One]

Hm...I like it. It needs some polishing but I like it. I'd like to se ewhat Warty has to say on the subject as well.


Same here I'm sure Warty could come up with a great system. But if he doesn't log on soon we could try one ourselves and I'm sure he could fix any flaws or start a new one if ours doesn't work

[alexeduardo]

Well I say that we have it as some sort of sub-skill tree. With several branches such as:
scars
voice
wrinkle (natural)
wrinkle (involuntary)
eyebrow


and on and on.

or, we could have it as a single branch of the "conversation" tree if you likes it betters

[Sneak]

Personally, I would divide the facereading system in ways like:

-Behavior
This would tell you about nervousness about a certain topic (from licking lips, looking around nervously, etc.), lying (sweating, not making eye contact, etc.), and stuff like that.
-Physical Features
This would tell you about things like profession (from clothing and equipment and muscles or lack thereof), place of origin (facial structure, hair color), etc.

So Behavior would let you tell what a person thinks about a certain topic once you bring it up in conversation, while Features would allow you to make an educated guess as to someone's stance on a particular issue before you bring it up in conversation based on their background.

Or something like that.

You should probably leave the mechanics to Warty. :smalltongue:

[String]

Yeah. I like the Behavior/Physicality division.

While we've reached a basic consensus on that, I think that we should get backl to the 'gun-kata' repolishing. Making it fit better within the setting. Since it's mostly just fluff, who would like to take a stab at it?

[Corrupted One]

Personally, I would divide the facereading system in ways like:

-Behavior
This would tell you about nervousness about a certain topic (from licking lips, looking around nervously, etc.), lying (sweating, not making eye contact, etc.), and stuff like that.
-Physical Features
This would tell you about things like profession (from clothing and equipment and muscles or lack thereof), place of origin (facial structure, hair color), etc.

So Behavior would let you tell what a person thinks about a certain topic once you bring it up in conversation, while Features would allow you to make an educated guess as to someone's stance on a particular issue before you bring it up in conversation based on their background.

Or something like that.

You should probably leave the mechanics to Warty. :smalltongue:

Excellent. Sounds pretty good to me.

In reference to the gun kata thing... Maybe not the whole cool unbelieveable awesome gun kata thing. They had autamatic weapons/pistols.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tINWl0gzQWI

Now picture that with old timey pistols/rifles.

[Sneak]

I say we scrap the "gun-kata" and just refer to it as "artful dodging" (:smalltongue:) or some such. Because the rules that Warty constructed, while nifty, aren't really gun-kata anyway. We can just say that it's a form of traditional eastern martial arts, and it is often taught at upper class elite schools and, of course, martial arts institutions such as dojos and the like. Being able to dodge artfully would be a sign of belonging to a long-standing influential and well-off family.

So it would be more common in the east, in the later part of the game, leading to harder enemies.

[Corrupted One]

I say we scrap the "gun-kata" and just refer to it as "artful dodging" (:smalltongue:) or some such. Because the rules that Warty constructed, while nifty, aren't really gun-kata anyway. We can just say that it's a form of traditional eastern martial arts, and it is often taught at upper class elite schools and, of course, martial arts institutions such as dojos and the like. Being able to dodge artfully would be a sign of belonging to a long-standing influential and well-off family.

So it would be more common in the east, in the later part of the game, leading to harder enemies.


Sounds pretty good.

[String]

Artful Dodging. String gives it a Thumbs Up!

Now if we could only incorporate a bunch of pickpocket urchins singing showtunes....

[DraPrime]

Actually I thought that we could do gun kata as some sort of mystical power. As in, you can sense where it's most likely that enemies will come from. Perhaps a part of your view will display where it's most likely that enemies will come from. And it shows you were there's going to be the least amount of fire. All this can manifest as something like arrows pointing at stuff, or maybe transparent red circles that only B can see. It seems to fit a lot more in with what gunkata actually is, and it makes it more than just "martial arts" with guns.

[Sneak]

Actually I thought that we could do gun kata as some sort of mystical power. As in, you can sense where it's most likely that enemies will come from. Perhaps a part of your view will display where it's most likely that enemies will come from. And it shows you were there's going to be the least amount of fire. All this can manifest as something like arrows pointing at stuff, or maybe transparent red circles that only B can see. It seems to fit a lot more in with what gunkata actually is, and it makes it more than just "martial arts" with guns.

Hmm.

Maybe that could be one of the benefits of the Spiritual tree? Because so far, it seem that that is the weakest tree right now.

And it seems that that could work with melee weapons too, not just guns.

[DraPrime]

I'm not sure it would work with melee. You can really know where your enemy is less likely to hit, except "out of their melee range". I think this could be called something like "Battle Clairvoyance."

[Corrupted One]

Sounds good to me Sneak. Two birds with one stone. But if we make the gun-sensory abillity part of the spiritual tree, should we make the actual dodging and avoiding abillities part of the tree gun kata was originally in?

[String]

Well, I would put Combat Clairvoyance (I like the alliteration, Btw), the ability to get a quick heads up as to where your opponents are likely to strike from in the Spiritual tree, and the Artful Dodging abilities in the combat tree, as suggested earlier. I would also suggest that "Light Dodging" be the starting point of ALL the combat trees, unless someone has a better way to not waste programming space on a immensely complex movement structure that a player may ultimately choose not to be able to use.

[String]

Sneak, since I think it's just you and me on for the moment, let me know what you think of this idea:

I keep envisioning the 'Skills/Abilities' trees set up like one of those funky grid pattern things, where you can get to different abilities different ways, but you have to work your way up, and some are crossovers, but are quicker gained from one tree or another. Idunno, I just picture Combat starting with "Light Dodge" branching off into "Reload Roll", "Wall Step" and "Dashing Draw", and a Ranged Ability branching off into better ranged abilities , and a "Powerful Blow" branching off into other melee attacks. I dunno... thoughts?

[Sneak]

Sneak, since I think it's just you and me on for the moment, let me know what you think of this idea:

I keep envisioning the 'Skills/Abilities' trees set up like one of those funky grid pattern things, where you can get to different abilities different ways, but you have to work your way up, and some are crossovers, but are quicker gained from one tree or another. Idunno, I just picture Combat starting with "Light Dodge" branching off into "Reload Roll", "Wall Step" and "Dashing Draw", and a Ranged Ability branching off into better ranged abilities , and a "Powerful Blow" branching off into other melee attacks. I dunno... thoughts?

You mean kind of like the sphere grid from FFX? Or the license board in FFXII? I didn't like them in those games, but I think for this game, that might actual work. I had been imagining the trees as WoW style class skill trees, but your idea is much better.

Just a question. Would you be able to control the grid / level up and choose skills for your party members, as well? I personally vote "no," to keep the game more focused on you, but maybe I'm wrong.

[String]

I'm not sure. I think that if youir party members run on the same system (which I think would be easiest on the programmers, but Im not a programmer), then it might be good to, but I'm not sure either.


EDIT: Not having played FF ever, I wouldnt know, but just hearing the phrases grid sphere makes me think that their similar

[Corrupted One]

I'm not sure. I think that if youir party members run on the same system (which I think would be easiest on the programmers, but Im not a programmer), then it might be good to, but I'm not sure either.


EDIT: Not having played FF ever, I wouldnt know, but just hearing the phrases grid sphere makes me think that their similar

Sounds neat. If I know you were still on in addition to Sneak I never would've taken a nap.

[Sneak]

Sounds neat. If I know you were still on in addition to Sneak I never would've taken a nap.

Aww...so I'm not good enough, you have to have String too, huh? :smallfrown: I see how it is. :smallmad: :smalltongue:

If we're still looking to make the spiritual path more powerful beyond the addition of gun-kata to the spiritual path...lemme think.

We all agreed on some sort of divine fire, right?

What about healing?

If we're using the grid idea for the trees, maybe there could be some sort of social bonus when dealing with religious figures only that could between the spiritual and social trees?

Maybe a "Smite Evil" type of thing, or temporary God-granted invulnerability or super-strength?

[Corrupted One]

Aww...so I'm not good enough, you have to have String too, huh? :smallfrown: I see how it is. :smallmad: :smalltongue:

If we're still looking to make the spiritual path more powerful beyond the addition of gun-kata to the spiritual path...lemme think.

We all agreed on some sort of divine fire, right?

What about healing?

If we're using the grid idea for the trees, maybe there could be some sort of social bonus when dealing with religious figures only that could between the spiritual and social trees?

Maybe a "Smite Evil" type of thing, or temporary God-granted invulnerability or super-strength?


We can just group the invulnerablilty and super strength under blessing and come up with the specific spells later. Healing should be in its own category, with things like cure and the like. And as for fire someone suggested divine ( setra I think) but I suggested pyrokenesis to go along with the telekenesis thing. But divine fire sounds better. If we add fire lets cover the bases and add lightning as well. Along with cursing spells (slow poison and things like this)we seem to have quite a bit of spells now.

Also, is it just me or does magic seem to be kind of an after thought right now?

[String]

it sounds like generic magic. Like something out of RPG maker 2k3.

[Corrupted One]

it sounds like generic magic. Like something out of RPG maker 2k3.

I was just making random suggestions. It seems pretty bare and I was just saying whatever came to mind. I don't see you with any suggestions Mr. "Project Leader" If that is your real name! :smalltongue:

[Sneak]

Well, what would you propose instead?

Personally, I'm not so sure about telekinesis, pyrokinesis, lightning, or cursing. They don't seem very spiritual or divine to me, and I think the magic should be limited to those areas.

[Corrupted One]

Well, what would you propose instead?

Personally, I'm not so sure about telekinesis, pyrokinesis, lightning, or cursing. They don't seem very spiritual or divine to me, and I think the magic should be limited to those areas.

hmm... Maybe a look into some clerical spells from d&d would provide the necessary inspiration..

[String]

I think that, depending on the nature of the enemies one is likely to be fighting (i would think more soldiers and swordsmen in the east, more gunmen in the west, but what about abberation-type things created by the splitting god), that a 'spell' (i would prefer Prayer or Chant or something. One idea is to have a sort of native american-inspired people whom you can learn nature-ish magic from) that increases damage to those aforementioned abberation-ish creatures would be good. A sort of Holy Bullet, if you will.

[Corrupted One]

I think that, depending on the nature of the enemies one is likely to be fighting (i would think more soldiers and swordsmen in the east, more gunmen in the west, but what about abberation-type things created by the splitting god), that a 'spell' (i would prefer Prayer or Chant or something. One idea is to have a sort of native american-inspired people whom you can learn nature-ish magic from) that increases damage to those aforementioned abberation-ish creatures would be good. A sort of Holy Bullet, if you will.

Someone (dragonprime?) proposed a holy bullet type spell. Maybe we should extend it to any weapons wieldable. Granting them a bonus for ( however long it last) against creatures tainted by the rift.

[Inhuman Bot]

btw, I'm watching some Fallout 3 videos on ign (and they rock) so I was wonderin' if we could have towns like Megaton. (If you don't know what the heck I'm talking about (http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/901269/fallout-3/videos/fallout3_Gameplay2Megaton_082908.html))

I haven't read anything after this, but I say, Yes, It's a very good idea (Well, to me. And I do reliaze I used alot of commas)

[alexeduardo]

Someone (dragonprime?) proposed a holy bullet type spell. Maybe we should extend it to any weapons wieldable. Granting them a bonus for ( however long it last) against creatures tainted by the rift.

Good idea.

Also, I propose some sort of spiritual conjuration of angels and the like

[warty goblin]

Sorry for my long absense from the thread. I personally like the mind-reading aspect to gain further insight into a character's social preferences, and think it would be a good addition to the game. Since the conversation system is basically a rip of normal elemental damage, clues must be provided particularly given that each person should have more or less unique conversational preferences.

On the leveling system- one thing that I would be curious about is if we have a normal D&D type system where you gain so much XP and you get a level to do with as you will, or a more granular system where XP you earn in say, conversation is kept seperete from combat XP from spiritual XP, and then you spend the XP directly on skills as you earn it. I would shy away from a full on skill based system ala Elder Scrolls, since in my opinion it tends to punish character diversification overmuch, but that is another option as well. I would personally prefer the middle approach, since it allows for a wide varietyof character costumization, yet also gives us the designers a good level of control over a character's progress- we could for example know that by the time a character reaches X point in the main story, they will have so may skills in conversation, even if we don't know what they are.

I've also got some thoughts on the Spiritual system which I'm still refining, and should hopefully get concrete enough to post by this evening/tomorrow sometime.

[String]

I'm not sure exactly which one you mean by 'middle'. You mean giving Spiritual, Combat and Social XP separately (similar to fable?)? Cuz I like that idea.

[warty goblin]

I'm not sure exactly which one you mean by 'middle'. You mean giving Spiritual, Combat and Social XP separately (similar to fable?)? Cuz I like that idea.

Exactly, my thinking is that a character who talks the pants off of people a lot is going to get better at doing so, not better at shooting them in the face. On the other hand leveling individual skills by using them always feels rather constricting to me, as it just leads to me getting overly set in my ways, and discourages me from branching out. Essentially think of Oblivion's system of Combat, Stealth and Magic concentrations, but when you kill somebody with an axe, you don't earn XP towards raising your blunt skill, you earn XP towards a skill point that could be spent on improving any combat skill.

And as I said, it leads to a nice way to gauge the minimum proficencies a character will have at any given point along the main storyline, since we will know how many dialog, combat and sprititual XP they must have earned by this point.

[alexeduardo]

Exactly, my thinking is that a character who talks the pants off of people a lot is going to get better at doing so, not better at shooting them in the face. On the other hand leveling individual skills by using them always feels rather constricting to me, as it just leads to me getting overly set in my ways, and discourages me from branching out. Essentially think of Oblivion's system of Combat, Stealth and Magic concentrations, but when you kill somebody with an axe, you don't earn XP towards raising your blunt skill, you earn XP towards a skill point that could be spent on improving any combat skill.

And as I said, it leads to a nice way to gauge the minimum proficencies a character will have at any given point along the main storyline, since we will know how many dialog, combat and sprititual XP they must have earned by this point.

And then we can calculate the CR of the plot more accurately. (!)

Great thinking, warty, I don't know were we'd be without ye

[String]

We'd be without a combat system, for one thing. :P

Another question: Damage and Attack. Now, since I believe we're working off manual aiming, what determines the damage a strike does? The weapon itself? The weapon, plus any Ranged Skills the player chose? Do we also want to have a semi-realistic AI in regards to shot placement? I'm recalling Gun and one other game that I can't quite remember (RE4?), where the enemy reacts to where you shoot him. Obviously this has become pretty standard throughout Shooters and most games with Real Time combat, but I just wanted to make sure we're all on baord.

[alexeduardo]

We'd be without a combat system, for one thing. :P

Another question: Damage and Attack. Now, since I believe we're working off manual aiming, what determines the damage a strike does? The weapon itself? The weapon, plus any Ranged Skills the player chose? Do we also want to have a semi-realistic AI in regards to shot placement? I'm recalling Gun and one other game that I can't quite remember (RE4?), where the enemy reacts to where you shoot him. Obviously this has become pretty standard throughout Shooters and most games with Real Time combat, but I just wanted to make sure we're all on baord.

Aye!
Also, how about a spiritual skill that guides your bullets and proyectiles towards evil enemies?

[String]

Like a "seeker" bullet/projectile (arrows were suggested earlier, and I think that would be cool)? That sounds cool. Maybe have it only be "your next shot", and then have a better version that allows it until you reload, and then again for a certain time?

[alexeduardo]

Like a "seeker" bullet/projectile (arrows were suggested earlier, and I think that would be cool)? That sounds cool. Maybe have it only be "your next shot", and then have a better version that allows it until you reload, and then again for a certain time?

And bingo was his name-o
(btw, who the hell names his dog "Bingo"??)

[String]

Apparently some farmer. Although, the way the sentence is syntaxed, you could make a case that the FARMER's name is Bingo, and that's even weirder.

But I digress.

I think we could start do some suggestions for skills. Combat, Social, Spiritual. I'll write up some baseline ones in a bit and post them.

[alexeduardo]

I think we could start do some suggestions for skills. .

Holy Accuracy-bullets and proyectiles seek the enemies of faith

FaceReading- you recive information regarding your conversation buds in real-time

QuickDraw- can end or begin a conversation by drawing your handgun faster than the rest.

CPR- 30% chance of saving a dying person

(any good?)

[String]

I'm confused about what you mean with quickdraw. Is it just literally a faster weapon-drawing animation?

[alexeduardo]

I'm confused about what you mean with quickdraw. Is it just literally a faster weapon-drawing animation?

And a huge bonus for someone who lives in a warzone

[warty goblin]

We'd be without a combat system, for one thing. :P

Another question: Damage and Attack. Now, since I believe we're working off manual aiming, what determines the damage a strike does? The weapon itself? The weapon, plus any Ranged Skills the player chose? Do we also want to have a semi-realistic AI in regards to shot placement? I'm recalling Gun and one other game that I can't quite remember (RE4?), where the enemy reacts to where you shoot him. Obviously this has become pretty standard throughout Shooters and most games with Real Time combat, but I just wanted to make sure we're all on baord.

There's a couple approaches we could take here, totally manual aim, a Halo-esc sort of passive auto-aim, or full on target locking. Given the rather gymnastic nature of combat as so far described, I'd think we'd have to at the very least have a passive aim assist going, and quite possibly a lock. There are obviously advantages and disadvantages to both- a passive aim system gives the player more control but potentially makes the game harder for a certain segment of the gaming population, namely those who don't snipe the wings off of flies.


A lock-on system however has the advantage that it allows the game itself a greater level of control over hits, which emphasizes the character's skills as opposed to the player's. This means much tighter control of damage rates, hits and things like knockdowns and so forth. With a passive auto-aim people are gonna be annoyed if they get a headshot and don't kill their target, but with a lock the game can decide when they get a headshot (like say any time they do max damage on an attack and do lethal damage) which leads to fewer breaks in immersion.

Another thing question that needs to answered is what sort of camera people want, since with a non-locking shooter you need the camera much closer to the character than you do with target locking. Since the game takes place in a desert a wider angle camera might help to emphasize this desolation, and so make a locking system more attractive, as well as giving the player better envioremental awareness during combat. My preference would be for a target locking system, but I could see this one going both ways.

[String]

Hmm. A major issue was just brought up to me. Earlier stated wa the fact that a limited HUD would be optimal. But that means that we'll have to make it easy to select the abilities you want and to use them quickly, since you cant just assign every ability to a key like you can on a PC (not saying that this couldnt also have a PC port/version, but I thought we were going for a Ps3 or Xbox360 game?)

[alexeduardo]

Hmm. A major issue was just brought up to me. Earlier stated wa the fact that a limited HUD would be optimal. But that means that we'll have to make it easy to select the abilities you want and to use them quickly, since you cant just assign every ability to a key like you can on a PC (not saying that this couldnt also have a PC port/version, but I thought we were going for a Ps3 or Xbox360 game?)

In that case, I think we will hace to design a funky HUD.

And, warty, I say autoaim be turned on/off with the press of a button (possibly the bumpers?)

[String]

Expecting to be ninja'd again, so excuse me if I double post.

Warty: I agree with your analysis, and support a full-locking system, although for the record I generally prefer the passive auto-aim system (but I've been known to run through Red Steel only doing headshots, and Halo is definetly a good game for me). However, for this game ,I do support the full locking system, but my question would be if it's automatic (i.e. always active) or if the player has to hold or press (obviously we could leave this up to the "options menu") a button to activate the lock-on.

EDIT: Ha. Ninja'd.

Anyway: Warty, whats your thoughts on the Ability selection issue, and also on QuickDraw? I dunno, it just seems too...nebulous an advantage.

[Corrupted One]

Expecting to be ninja'd again, so excuse me if I double post.

Warty: I agree with your analysis, and support a full-locking system, although for the record I generally prefer the passive auto-aim system (but I've been known to run through Red Steel only doing headshots, and Halo is definetly a good game for me). However, for this game ,I do support the full locking system, but my question would be if it's automatic (i.e. always active) or if the player has to hold or press (obviously we could leave this up to the "options menu") a button to activate the lock-on.

EDIT: Ha. Ninja'd.

Anyway: Warty, whats your thoughts on the Ability selection issue, and also on QuickDraw? I dunno, it just seems too...nebulous an advantage.

I was thinking being able to turn it off and on and the camera would adjust to suit fit. Zooming closer for one and zooming out for the other.

[String]

So, for clarity, Corrupted One, you're suggesting that pressing a button ( i agree with who ever suggested the shoulder buttons, and Suggest we make the other one a fire button, but that can be decided later) would bring the character into the Full Lock mode, and that releasing it would do Passive Lock? or releasing it would eliminate any sort of locking?

[alexeduardo]

So, for clarity, Corrupted One, you're suggesting that pressing a button ( i agree with who ever suggested the shoulder buttons, and Suggest we make the other one a fire button, but that can be decided later) would bring the character into the Full Lock mode, and that releasing it would do Passive Lock? or releasing it would eliminate any sort of locking?

ahem, I suggested the bumpers. And I meant that pressing it and releasing it switches to a different lock option. That way the player can choose how to rpg

[Corrupted One]

So, for clarity, Corrupted One, you're suggesting that pressing a button ( i agree with who ever suggested the shoulder buttons, and Suggest we make the other one a fire button, but that can be decided later) would bring the character into the Full Lock mode, and that releasing it would do Passive Lock?

That's the jist of it.

And no need for the whole Corrupted One. We're all friends here CO, Corrupted, c-man, ect. are all cool with me.Corrupted One is kind of a pain to type out every time you need to reference me.

[Inhuman Bot]

Allright so: Sorry if I say something non-sensical, as I've been busy and have not had time to fully read the 3 threads.

I like the idea of the bumpers, alexduardo, as that would increase the ease of play, rather then making the switch more complex.

How is currency going to work? Has it been disscussed yet?

[alexeduardo]

That's the jist of it.

.

Actually, esteemed c-dog, I find it to be a pain in da buttocks every time a game asks you to press a button while expecting you press two more at the same time.
Just my opinion

[alexeduardo]

How is currency going to work? Has it been disscussed yet?

I say we have at least 3 established forms of moneys, but have the desrt dudes use traditional trade

[Inhuman Bot]

Allright, regional currancy then?

Secondly, I would assume everyone speaks the same language. So I would suggest trying something like Final Fantasy 10 did, having a second language that could be learned/

[alexeduardo]

Secondly, I would assume everyone speaks the same language. So I would suggest trying something like Final Fantasy 10 did, having a second language that could be learned/

yeah, and we've gotta come up with tons of regional slang

[String]

Well, I think a currency system should be worked out after figuring out if it's strictly neccesary for the plot, and then figuring out what currency the west and east should have, and then figuring out how we want to use the currency.. (i.e. I think we should work that out in the Plot/Setting thread first, and then bring it here)


Edit:...I think we should be extremely careful about regional slang. I like saying Frakk as much as the next guy, but it can definetly go into NARM territory. And I think that its also a discussion for the plot thread

[alexeduardo]

Well, I think a currency system should be worked out after figuring out if it's strictly neccesary for the plot, and then figuring out what currency the west and east should have, and then figuring out how we want to use the currency.. (i.e. I think we should work that out in the Plot/Setting thread first, and then bring it here)

aye, that kind of smartassness is why you're project leader

[Corrupted One]

Actually, esteemed c-dog, I find it to be a pain in da buttocks every time a game asks you to press a button while expecting you press two more at the same time.
Just my opinion

Kind of confused here. I think I am agreeing with you. Press them for one. Press them again for the other. Unless you were proposing something else.

And I agree with String on the topic of currency. Let's discuss it in the plot thread.

[alexeduardo]

I think I am agreeing with you. .

of course you are, I'm a genius.

and above grammar

[warty goblin]

I'm still cogetating on the Spiritual tree. I've got a few ideas that I like, but I don't think there's enough meat on them yet to be very useful.

Similarly some of the camera ideas that have been banging around are really good, and I'm revising my opinion on the issue, and trying to combine it with the existing combat system, a project on which I'm getting close.

On the quickdraw question, I see a few possibilites. The first is to create some sort of "shoot out at high noon" mechanic, whereby you have a dual with one or two other people, and quickdraw nets you a shot before anybody without it. Another possibility that I think might be a nice spiritual replacer (aka somebody who is really good with guns) is a quick loader. Remember everybody's gonna be using six shot single action revolvers, so reloading is going to take significant time, and having a boost to that would be most helpful.

A final thought, which I'll pose as more of a question- how lethal do we want combat to be? Should a battle between individuals of roughly equal skill take a minute, or seconds? How much damage should a bullet do relative to a character's health bar? A tenth?

[String]

Cogetating. Awesome. That mean something like "Thinking" and "Contemplating'? I learned a new word!

Also on the topic of quickdraw, and leading into other things: I dont like the thoughts of having a Dueling system, but I had a thought about the Quickdraw ability (which I would classify as Physical, RangedOrMelee, Offensive, meaning that its in the physical tree, but accessible through both ranged or melee's offensive branches.): Perhaps drawing a weapon requires one to press the 'fire/attack' button once to draw it, and then requires another press to attack with it. The Quick draw ability would, once selected, always be active, and simply make it so that when you press the trigger button to draw your weapon, you also fire at which ever enemy is currently targeted (or, if you are not Full Locked on, the nearest hostile creature). The main issue I can see is that you might accidently shoot someone you didnt mean to. Perhaps make it only active if you're Full Locked?

Also, I'm trying to draw up a rough Ability grid for Physical tree, but I need ideas for low level abilities. Melee, ranged, offense or defense doesn't matter.

Battle Lethality: An interestingly 'realistic' thought about battle occurs: I like the thought of the fighting lasting perhaps anywhere from 4 or five seconds to a minute, depending on where you are. FOr example, two gunmen of equal ability with no cover would probably come down to who can fire the most shots (Fan The Hammer, anyone?) quickest, or get the other guy caught reloading. Like I said, 4 or 5 seconds. But with cover, I can see a mini stalemate until one guy gets gutsy or lucky. However, (this is the realistic thought from earlier) what if even after enemies (and concievably B) 'die' (i.e. lose all of their health), they can keep coming for a very short (no more than 2 or 3 seconds) time? It's vaguely more realistic, as some people can live for minutes without even realizing they've been shot, let alone falling immediately to the floor. These 'dying' enemies would probably stumble more, and move slower, to give the player the visual clues to know that they've almost one, and if we let B. do this, then it could give players a sense of "Ha.! bastard" if they manage to let off a few more shots while dying. If we go with that, then I would propose that the spiritual enemies (the abominations brought on by the god's madness included) NOT have this 'dying' period, but simply have more health or better defenses.

[alexeduardo]

Also on the topic of quickdraw, and leading into other things: I dont like the thoughts of having a Dueling system, but I had a thought about the Quickdraw ability (which I would classify as Physical, RangedOrMelee, Offensive, meaning that its in the physical tree, but accessible through both ranged or melee's offensive branches.): Perhaps drawing a weapon requires one to press the 'fire/attack' button once to draw it, and then requires another press to attack with it. The Quick draw ability would, once selected, always be active, and simply make it so that when you press the trigger button to draw your weapon, you also fire at which ever enemy is currently targeted (or, if you are not Full Locked on, the nearest hostile creature). The main issue I can see is that you might accidently shoot someone you didnt mean to. Perhaps make it only active if you're Full Locked?

.

Aye!!!

Also, bullets should be lethal if they get you in the face, the heart or the throat. Likewise, other parts of the body carry varying values. Y'know, like in call of duty

[String]

I can has Critique?
This is a low-mid level ability from the Defensive Ranged tree.
Rolling Reload: This is a Heavy Dodge. You may use this ability if you have 1 or 0 bullets loaded in a gun you are currently wielding. You roll, reloading as you do so. You cant do this in Mixed or Dual Pistol configurations.

[alexeduardo]

I can has Critique?
This is a low-mid level ability from the Defensive Ranged tree.
Rolling Reload: This is a Heavy Dodge. You may use this ability if you have 1 or 0 bullets loaded in a gun you are currently wielding. You roll, reloading as you do so. You cant do this in Mixed or Dual Pistol configurations.

Awesome, but it should be higher up in the tree.
Also, what did you think of Holy Seek?

[String]

The seeker bullet spiritual thing? I liked it, but It would likely be higher in the spiritual tree, and I'm trying to concentrate on Physical tree, since it's the least reliant on Plot/Setting.

[alexeduardo]

The seeker bullet spiritual thing? I liked it, but It would likely be higher in the spiritual tree, and I'm trying to concentrate on Physical tree, since it's the least reliant on Plot/Setting.

oh right. stupid me.
*bashes head against wall*

[Sneak]

Good work, guys! I like all the ideas here. I would help more, but I don't have much time...and I honestly think you guys would probably be better off without as far as gameplay mechanics go.

Just one thing. I couldn't help myself...


Cogetating. Awesome. That mean something like "Thinking" and "Contemplating'? I learned a new word!

...if you're going to learn a new word, you should probably learn it by the correct spelling, which is "cogitating." :smalltongue:

[warty goblin]

Cogetating. Awesome. That mean something like "Thinking" and "Contemplating'? I learned a new word!

Also on the topic of quickdraw, and leading into other things: I dont like the thoughts of having a Dueling system, but I had a thought about the Quickdraw ability (which I would classify as Physical, RangedOrMelee, Offensive, meaning that its in the physical tree, but accessible through both ranged or melee's offensive branches.): Perhaps drawing a weapon requires one to press the 'fire/attack' button once to draw it, and then requires another press to attack with it. The Quick draw ability would, once selected, always be active, and simply make it so that when you press the trigger button to draw your weapon, you also fire at which ever enemy is currently targeted (or, if you are not Full Locked on, the nearest hostile creature). The main issue I can see is that you might accidently shoot someone you didnt mean to. Perhaps make it only active if you're Full Locked?

Great minds think alike. Well, you and I think alike, although whether or not that's a good thing is a matter of perspective...
I'm personally with you on the dualing thing, it was just an idea I was throwing out there. I like that Quickdraw, although I was imagining that the lock-on system would turn off when you didn't have your weapon out. One way around that is to make the first press of the attack button lock you on the second draw your weapon and the third fire, wheras with quick draw the first press would lock you on and draw your gun, then the second fire, although this might be too cumbersome and simply result in everybody taking Quickdraw.


Also, I'm trying to draw up a rough Ability grid for Physical tree, but I need ideas for low level abilities. Melee, ranged, offense or defense doesn't matter.

Great idea, I've got a few thoughts I've put in below


Battle Lethality: An interestingly 'realistic' thought about battle occurs: I like the thought of the fighting lasting perhaps anywhere from 4 or five seconds to a minute, depending on where you are. FOr example, two gunmen of equal ability with no cover would probably come down to who can fire the most shots (Fan The Hammer, anyone?) quickest, or get the other guy caught reloading. Like I said, 4 or 5 seconds. But with cover, I can see a mini stalemate until one guy gets gutsy or lucky. However, (this is the realistic thought from earlier) what if even after enemies (and concievably B) 'die' (i.e. lose all of their health), they can keep coming for a very short (no more than 2 or 3 seconds) time? It's vaguely more realistic, as some people can live for minutes without even realizing they've been shot, let alone falling immediately to the floor. These 'dying' enemies would probably stumble more, and move slower, to give the player the visual clues to know that they've almost one, and if we let B. do this, then it could give players a sense of "Ha.! bastard" if they manage to let off a few more shots while dying. If we go with that, then I would propose that the spiritual enemies (the abominations brought on by the god's madness included) NOT have this 'dying' period, but simply have more health or better defenses.

Now this I like, particularly the bit about dead guys walking around for a few seconds. It would also jive nicely with some sort of critical hit system, since shooting people in the head tends to mean they go down immediately. This would nicely emphazise critical hits, as opposed to making them just a really damaging hit, and also allow for awesome headshot animations. Win all around. Here's some Physical Skill Tree thoughts.

Sniper {This one is fairly high level} Activated Ability. When using a rifle, you may temporarily slow down time to make a single high damage attack at any enemy in LOS, with an increased chance of a critical hit.

Barrel Blazin' Heavy Dodge. In a stunning display of badassery you empty your gun into a target while performing a spectacular feat of acrobatics, albeit at a slight penalty to accuracy.

Jumpmeister Heavy Dodge. You hurdle a physical obstacle and translate all of the force of your move into a single devastating sword strike (bonus to critical hit chance).

Good Shot Your bullets have a way of finding important pieces of an enemy's anatomy. Passive bonus to critical hit chance.

Foot Shot/Strike Heavy Dodge. While rolling away from an enemy attack, you spy a golden opportunity and shoot/stab them in the foot, doing minimal damage, but substantially slowing them.

Knee Shot/Strike {Upgrade of Foot Shot} Heavy Dodge. You've worked on your shootin' skills a bit, and now know that hot lead/cold steel to the knee hurts a hell of a lot more. This attack immobilizes an enemy and does considerable damage, since you can now glimpse scenery through their kneecap.

[String]

Woot for spelling and new abilities!

Thoughts on crits and weapon damage: I dont think that the damage range for weapons should be too large. If a swords lowest damage is (warning:random number) 10, for instance, then I would say that it's max should be 13 or 14, with a crit being a flat 20. I also think that guns might have higher crits (x 2.5 ish?) but lower basic damage.

Thoughts on your abilities: I like them. I'm having trouble placing them level wise. At this point I have

Light Dodge branching off into a ranged ability and a melee ability, and each of those branching into two offensive and defensive each, and no idea what to put where.

[Inhuman Bot]

Hmm... A mid or high ability for the physical tree could be something like:
Evasion. I was thinking it would allow your dodges to be automaticly used, or increasing their effectivness.
Garrote Using this skill, you sneak up on the enemy, and lower their defense.

[Corrupted One]

Wow.... These ideas are amazing. I'm gonna folllow String's example and stay in the plot thread...

[alexeduardo]

Thoughts on crits and weapon damage: I dont think that the damage range for weapons should be too large. If a swords lowest damage is (warning:random number) 10, for instance, then I would say that it's max should be 13 or 14, with a crit being a flat 20. I also think that guns might have higher crits (x 2.5 ish?) but lower basic damage.

.

Yes, with the focus of ranged combat being getting a crit

[warty goblin]

Wow.... These ideas are amazing. I'm gonna folllow String's example and stay in the plot thread...

Please don't we need more feedback- even if you don't post any ideas, another set of eyes and brain looking them over and pointing out rough spots is invaluable.

Now onwards to my ideas for the Spiritual tree. First off I think perhaps we should keep the Spiritual tree rather orthogonal to the others, that is to say leave the dialog to the Social tree, and the combat to the Physical, and not fill the Spiritual with a bunch of different Social/Physical skills with a spiritual twist. Some of that is obviously a good thing, but it seems that if we want an entire tree devoted to the Spiritual, it should do it's own thing, not just reinterpret the other two trees.

Now that said the thing to do is to develop a unique use for the Spiritual tree. Obviously that would be to solve spiritual problems. But what sort of spiritual problems does our hero solve? Well he's an exorcist so demons/evil spirits of some sort are involved, but what about others? Why not things like reconcilling a husband and wife after one of them...shoots outside the other's range? Or provide last rights to a dying man? Or hear the last confession of a criminal before he does the hemp fandango? There's plenty of room for interesting and unique gameplay here.

Unfortunately I really have no idea on how to actually structure this in terms of gameplay.

[String]

Just a quick correction (not major): I don't know as B starts as an exorcist. He definetly has the ability, though, so its really a matter of semantics and player choice. Howevre, I'm a semantic Nazi. Anyway!

I like those ideas you've put forward. However, I'm also stumped on how to represent these things. I mean, a Spiritual ability called "Anull" or "Marry" may be awesome from a perspective of "Cool, I can d othese things", but are rather lackluster outside of the sidequests (or portions of the main quest) that require them.

[Corrupted One]

Please don't we need more feedback- even if you don't post any ideas, another set of eyes and brain looking them over and pointing out rough spots is invaluable.

Now onwards to my ideas for the Spiritual tree. First off I think perhaps we should keep the Spiritual tree rather orthogonal to the others, that is to say leave the dialog to the Social tree, and the combat to the Physical, and not fill the Spiritual with a bunch of different Social/Physical skills with a spiritual twist. Some of that is obviously a good thing, but it seems that if we want an entire tree devoted to the Spiritual, it should do it's own thing, not just reinterpret the other two trees.

Now that said the thing to do is to develop a unique use for the Spiritual tree. Obviously that would be to solve spiritual problems. But what sort of spiritual problems does our hero solve? Well he's an exorcist so demons/evil spirits of some sort are involved, but what about others? Why not things like reconcilling a husband and wife after one of them...shoots outside the other's range? Or provide last rights to a dying man? Or hear the last confession of a criminal before he does the hemp fandango? There's plenty of room for interesting and unique gameplay here.

Unfortunately I really have no idea on how to actually structure this in terms of gameplay.


it's good to know you care so much about me warty :smallcool:

But seriously, I like the idea of B performing duties that seem uniquely spiritual. unfourtanately I don't have a whole lot of ideas either. Maybe cleansing haunted houses and things like that? Although that seems like an exorcism just for a house.

[alexeduardo]

it's good to know you care so much about me warty :smallcool:

But seriously, I like the idea of B performing duties that seem uniquely spiritual. unfourtanately I don't have a whole lot of ideas either. Maybe cleansing haunted houses and things like that? Although that seems like an exorcism just for a house.

hmm, maybe..


conjuration?
transmutation?
making water appear out of nowhere?
Healing?
Delivering a baby?
Getting a ghost to fly up high and make a map of th area for you? (this could be more awesome if we put areas with several ethereal creatures in the sky, that way, you have to choose a battle-worthy spirit to do the job)


Just some random ideas...

[Corrupted One]

hmm, maybe..


conjuration?
transmutation?
making water appear out of nowhere?
Healing?
Delivering a baby?
Getting a ghost to fly up high and make a map of th area for you? (this could be more awesome if we put areas with several ethereal creatures in the sky, that way, you have to choose a battle-worthy spirit to do the job)


Just some random ideas...

Getting warmer.

[alexeduardo]

Getting warmer.

Let's just hope the thread doesn't die or anything

[warty goblin]

Let's just hope the thread doesn't die or anything

OK, I've spent a bunch of time thinking about the spiritual tree, and I've come up with some basic gameplay for it that *should* feel distinct from the other two.

This is going to focus more on the exorcist side of the tree for the moment.

So my basic thought was how does one 'lose' an exorcism? One's faith is not great enough, the demon is to diabolical and undermines one's faith sufficiently that you no longer have the will to cast it out, usually through use of various horrors and blasphemies. This tells me that the "HP" of an exorcism is actually your Faith, since if you lose all of this, you are out of the fight.

Now, what does one use to actually exorcise a demon? Holy words, blessed artifacts, and so on. Now as one proceeds through the exorcism one usually becomes tired, and it becomes more and more difficult to call upon the Holy Powers. Hence this suggests some sort of 'energy' (here called Willpower)meter from which one draws one's Holy Words. Each Holy Word depletes this, and it is recharged your Holy Artifacts. After all somebody with the Nose Hairs of St. Bob is going to have a much more available source of divine intervention than somebody working off of a piece of paper that says "Go for the big one, it just might work!" from a Fortune Cookie.

So now on to the actual nitty-gritty of ousting a demon, who is playing by more or less the same rules, it has a certain amount of raw Evil that keeps it in this world, and draws from it's store or Heresy to pronouce Blasphemes against you, etc etc.

Now you would have access to defensive Holy Words that keep your Faith from being corroded by the evil before you, and offensive Holy Words that bring the Light to the darkness you combat. Each costs so much of your Willpower, which is recharged by your Holy Artifacts. The actual mechanics of this are as follows.

- You would have some number of slots for Holy Words (I'm thinking maybe five), which you would fill out before entering into Spiritual combat. These count as your preparations, once in an exorcism you cannot switch out your Holy Words short of high level skills or certain artifacts. This makes research into the type of demon you are facing all the more important. One would have to question NPCs, consult books and so on. All good stuff.

- You would also have a few slots (perhaps 2?) for Holy Artifacts, which act to recharge your Willpower throughout the exorcism, and quite possibly grant other sorts of bonuses. Like Holy Words, these have to be chosen before the exorcism begins.

- Each of your Holy Words has a cooldown timer, so you can't spam them, and must instead use them strategically. When the demon attacks, you have a certain amount of time to choose a defense, while keeping in mind that using too draining of a defense might not give you the Willpower for a good attack, but on the other hand, failing to defend could lead to a major loss of Faith.

- Faith does not restore itself automatically between exorcisms, or at least does so very very slowly. This can be aided by performing religious functions, speaking to Priests, or finding really bitching Holy Artifacts. You also get a Faith kick after you beat an exorcism.

What do ya'll think?

[alexeduardo]

Wait, are you suggesting...
A card battle minigame????

[String]

Alex: SHHH! Don't let the players know that!


Warty: I actually really like this.

[warty goblin]

Wait, are you suggesting...
A card battle minigame????

A realtime card battle game I suppose. It's about the only thing that I could come up with that made any sense.

[alexeduardo]

A realtime card battle game I suppose. It's about the only thing that I could come up with that made any sense.

...
so the final boss battle is going to be a minigame after all, huh?

[warty goblin]

...
so the final boss battle is going to be a minigame after all, huh?

All bosses are minigames, some games just disguise this better.

[String]

Hmm...I'm not 100% sure thats true, Warty (I'm thinking of Gun, RE4 and Fable, specifically) but I will agree with most.

[alexeduardo]

Okay, maybe they are, but card games are kind of a little hate of mine

[warty goblin]

Okay, maybe they are, but card games are kind of a little hate of mine

Well, there are a few things to keep in mind.

1) Pretty much anything can at some level be represented by some sort of card game, even if it plays nothing like a card game.

2) It won't play anything like a card game owing to cooldown timers, a completely different interface and so on. Think more like Penny Arcade: On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness than Magic: The Gathering.

3) Done right it could actually be pretty cool I think.

[String]

I agree, and am willing to give it a shot.

[Dallas-Dakota]

After all somebody with the Nose Hairs of St. Bob is going to have a much more available source of divine intervention than somebody working off of a piece of paper that says "Go for the big one, it just might work!" from a Fortune Cookie.
?
I feel discriminated now.


:smalltongue:

[alexeduardo]

stuff.

yeah, sorry if I came off a bit angry, I just read "card battle" and my fingers started to cramp

[warty goblin]

yeah, sorry if I came off a bit angry, I just read "card battle" and my fingers started to cramp

Not a problem. As a former Magic player with a couple hundred dollars of cards I definately feel where you are coming from. But fear not, there are no booster packs in this game!

[alexeduardo]

Hey!:smallyuk:

that doesn't mean we won't have downloadable contnt, right?

[warty goblin]

Hey!:smallyuk:

that doesn't mean we won't have downloadable contnt, right?

Heh, don't get me started on DLC.

[Corrupted One]

OK, I've spent a bunch of time thinking about the spiritual tree, and I've come up with some basic gameplay for it that *should* feel distinct from the other two.

This is going to focus more on the exorcist side of the tree for the moment.

So my basic thought was how does one 'lose' an exorcism? One's faith is not great enough, the demon is to diabolical and undermines one's faith sufficiently that you no longer have the will to cast it out, usually through use of various horrors and blasphemies. This tells me that the "HP" of an exorcism is actually your Faith, since if you lose all of this, you are out of the fight.

Now, what does one use to actually exorcise a demon? Holy words, blessed artifacts, and so on. Now as one proceeds through the exorcism one usually becomes tired, and it becomes more and more difficult to call upon the Holy Powers. Hence this suggests some sort of 'energy' (here called Willpower)meter from which one draws one's Holy Words. Each Holy Word depletes this, and it is recharged your Holy Artifacts. After all somebody with the Nose Hairs of St. Bob is going to have a much more available source of divine intervention than somebody working off of a piece of paper that says "Go for the big one, it just might work!" from a Fortune Cookie.

So now on to the actual nitty-gritty of ousting a demon, who is playing by more or less the same rules, it has a certain amount of raw Evil that keeps it in this world, and draws from it's store or Heresy to pronouce Blasphemes against you, etc etc.

Now you would have access to defensive Holy Words that keep your Faith from being corroded by the evil before you, and offensive Holy Words that bring the Light to the darkness you combat. Each costs so much of your Willpower, which is recharged by your Holy Artifacts. The actual mechanics of this are as follows.

- You would have some number of slots for Holy Words (I'm thinking maybe five), which you would fill out before entering into Spiritual combat. These count as your preparations, once in an exorcism you cannot switch out your Holy Words short of high level skills or certain artifacts. This makes research into the type of demon you are facing all the more important. One would have to question NPCs, consult books and so on. All good stuff.

- You would also have a few slots (perhaps 2?) for Holy Artifacts, which act to recharge your Willpower throughout the exorcism, and quite possibly grant other sorts of bonuses. Like Holy Words, these have to be chosen before the exorcism begins.

- Each of your Holy Words has a cooldown timer, so you can't spam them, and must instead use them strategically. When the demon attacks, you have a certain amount of time to choose a defense, while keeping in mind that using too draining of a defense might not give you the Willpower for a good attack, but on the other hand, failing to defend could lead to a major loss of Faith.

- Faith does not restore itself automatically between exorcisms, or at least does so very very slowly. This can be aided by performing religious functions, speaking to Priests, or finding really bitching Holy Artifacts. You also get a Faith kick after you beat an exorcism.

What do ya'll think?

Sounds great. but I don't really like card game mini-games either. But it sounds really good and innovative and I think if executed right we could pull it off.