Ziggurat Zagger
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Re: Make trog and oka stop showering you with needles
Overestimated: AC, GDS
Twin account of Sandman25
Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Dungeon Master
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tealizard wrote:For my argument, the key difference between the games I'm talking about and crawl targeting is that in these games, targeting is seamlessly integrated with movement/orientation controls and the firing interface is simple usually consisting only of a trigger button (but perhaps also involving advanced options like alt-fire, subweapons, scopes, etc.).
I do not claim that there are no games that have targeting that resembles crawl targeting, only that this sort of targeting is not the rule in general. One point here is that arguing from a position that it is somehow ridiculous not to have crawl-style targeting reflects a very narrow view of video games. Many of the best video games have position-based "aim" or targeting precisely for the reason I advocate it here: It is concise and fluid. Arguments being made here about "running around" the targeting system look silly in this broader context. You would never hear someone say it's a problem that you have to maneuver in particular ways to hit a koopa with a fireball -- that's the whole point.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Nekoatl wrote:tealizard wrote:The targeting so beloved by many in this thread does not, in fact, offer a lot of real decisions in actual play -- the situation where clever targeting is used is very much the exception.
Even if it's true that the majority of targeting decisions are not tactically relevant, there's still 2 problems with using this as a justification to get rid of targeting:
1) Meaningful decisions are important, and so we shouldn't remove them just because they don't happen all the time.
2) In cases where target selection doesn't matter, players can just accept the default target; and even in many cases where targeting does matter, players can quickly cycle through targets using the + and - numpad keys, meaning that any sizable efficiency gain would only be gained by removing targeting from cases where selection does matter. For ranged weapons in particular, there wouldn't even be any efficiency gain at all over Shift+Tab.
That said, I don't see a problem with adding an option to repeat the last cast spell (if it targets monsters) on the default target while some version of Tab (perhaps Alt+ or Ctrl+) is held. It wouldn't negatively impact cases where target selection does matter unless the player wants it to or is careless.
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Ziggurat Zagger
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tealizard wrote:Some have suggested that there is something overly dumbed-down about moving to spell effects that do not have explicit targeting via the targeter, yet I have still not heard anyone speak to the point that many spells already have such mechanics and everyone seems cool with that. I don't hear a lot of talk about how these spells are just too dumb.
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tealizard wrote:I think I gave good reasons to prefer melee-style targeting to arbitrary ranged targeting in my opening comments on the thread.
tealizard wrote:As for this counterfactual version of super mario bros., I would want to see this version of mario become an all-time classic before taking it very seriously.
tealizard wrote:Some have suggested that there is something overly dumbed-down about moving to spell effects that do not have explicit targeting via the targeter, yet I have still not heard anyone speak to the point that many spells already have such mechanics and everyone seems cool with that. I don't hear a lot of talk about how these spells are just too dumb.
tealizard wrote:I don't think you have to make formal argument in coding theory to see that arbitrary selection of targets at range necessarily involves a significantly more cumbersome interface than melee combat or the sort of implicit targeting I advocate.
tealizard wrote:To circle back to a point I mentioned earlier in the thread, beyond the interface and gameplay issue, there's also the issue that many of these explicitly targeted ranged spells are extremely similar to ranged weapon and evocable effects. There's potential for more diverse play here. (On the other hand, I think there's some agreement on this forum that the set of explicitly targeted ranged spells in this game is fairly repetitive and unimaginative.)
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Snake Sneak
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Ziggurat Zagger
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CanOfWorms wrote:tealizard wrote:I think I gave good reasons to prefer melee-style targeting to arbitrary ranged targeting in my opening comments on the thread.
yes, your argument is that ranged UI is bad. your proposed solution is "ranged targeting should be automated so it can be done in a single keypress", which is undeniably a user interface improvement, but it's not clear that this is necessarily a gameplay improvement.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Ziggurat Zagger
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VeryAngryFelid wrote:I am not sure, Siegurt. When some people want to have targeting, that's because they like to make decisions (and feel smart when those decisions are actually smart), not just to increase their chance of winning. I mean if DEWz played like MiGl with tab and o because autotargeting/aitocasting would always choose the best option, why would I play DEWz?
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Siegurt wrote:VeryAngryFelid wrote:I am not sure, Siegurt. When some people want to have targeting, that's because they like to make decisions (and feel smart when those decisions are actually smart), not just to increase their chance of winning. I mean if DEWz played like MiGl with tab and o because autotargeting/aitocasting would always choose the best option, why would I play DEWz?
Tab is not always your best option as a MiGl or DEWz. It is *an* option for either one. It's probably the easiest option for non-challenging fights for both (presuming you have automagic set up for DEWz) For possibly-dangerous fights, DEWz has a wider variety of "optimal" options than MiGl, for example the optimal option for DEWz a lot of times is to use conjure flame, place it tactically, then use some sort of attack to kill things, however sometimes it's to use meph cloud, sometimes it's to summon a bunch of imps, etc. etc. Whereas MiGl usually has fewer options, particularly early on, to deal with threats (although it's primary methods of dealing with threats will usually deal with a larger number of them) I'm not sure how you're comparing the two.
I think I don't understand what you're trying to say here, in what fashion are decisions "smart" if they don't increase your winning chances? I assume you play DEWz because you like variety (?)
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