Speeding up battles

[st.patrik]

by the way, not to frustrate Arryn, but I agree with IW that it would be a bad idea to have a readout of every action in a battle. If you want that you should play pen and paper D&D, IMHO.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by st.patrik:
I agree with IW that it would be a bad idea to have a readout of every action in a battle.

Why would this be a bad idea, if it's an option that can be turned on and off at will? If you, or anyone else, didn't want to use it you wouldn't have to. I fail to understand the mindset that says having fewer options is better ...

If you want that you should play pen and paper D&D, IMHO.

Easier said than done. First, such games cannot be played solo. Second, gathering a group of players, when you are older and no longer in a college crowd, is very difficult to do. Things such as work, family, etc. tend to interfere with gameplaying.

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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Originally posted by st.patrik:
I agree with IW that it would be a bad idea to have a readout of every action in a battle.

Why would this be a bad idea, if it's an option that can be turned on and off at will? If you, or anyone else, didn't want to use it you wouldn't have to. I fail to understand the mindset that says having fewer options is better ...

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The explanation is that as many hours as Illwinter works on this particular extra feature are hours they don't spend on other (IMHO) more needed extra features.

Plus which I think I question the idea that more options is necessarily good - we don't need options so much as we need a good product. I think the hundreds of channels on cable tv in the US is a good example of this: lots of choice; little worth watching. In theory there's nothing bad about adding choice, but in practice it ends up decreasing quality - like a buffet restaurant where you can get whatever you want, but none of it is freshly cooked (i.e. it's been under warming lamps for a half hour). I'd far rather go to a place where I can only order one thing, if I know I like something they make, because most often it tastes better.

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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If you want that you should play pen and paper D&D, IMHO.

Easier said than done. First, such games cannot be played solo. Second, gathering a group of players, when you are older and no longer in a college crowd, is very difficult to do. Things such as work, family, etc. tend to interfere with gameplaying.

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I hear you on this one - good D&D games (and gamers) are hard to find. However, it does seem more like what would scratch your itch (so to speak) in terms of the detailed play-by-play combat.


*edit* I should make it explicit that I'm not trying to get you to leave Dom II or this community - I think you make a contribution which is worthwhile and obviously you enjoy the game. I'm just saying it seems like what you are looking for in a game would be more fully found in D&D, or something similar.

[ March 07, 2004, 17:48: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Arryn:
It's also a patronizing attitude for any company to assume they know better than their customers what the customers themselves want/need.

How dare the developers make the game they want to make!

Illwinter! You're my slaves! *whhaa-pish* Mush! Mush!

While you're at it, add some length 8000 fear-inducing whips - this one doesn't seem to reach Sweden

[Kel]

How dare the developers make the game they want to make!

Illwinter! You're my slaves! *whhaa-pish* Mush! Mush!

While you're at it, add some length 8000 fear-inducing whips - this one doesn't seem to reach Sweden

How dare the consumers give input on the games they buy!

Consumers! You're my slaves! *whhaa-pish* Mush! Mush!

While you're at it, add some length 8000 communion spells - this one doesn't seem to reach Sweden

- Kel (just a counter-point)

[Davidious]

I hate to kick a dead horse... well one more good kick and then on to other matters.

If it's on a switch then no one who doesn't want to bother would have to mess with it. Those that did would write utilities to make analyzing the file easier.

It wouldn't nessecarily have to have every single roll (although I'd like that best), so file size could be managed to a degree by what information was included in the file. Wouldn't have to be very 'readable' to a human in it's straight output format for that matter.

The idea that we should be playing D&D if we want detailed combat info is a Apples & Oranges kind of thing. I don't really see the connection.

btw...

The way things are currently, I could read a 400 page text readout of battles faster then I could watch the replay a coulpe time to try and figure out what happened


PS: In case it wasn't clear.... I love this freaking game, thanks for all the hard work IW!

[ March 07, 2004, 19:00: Message edited by: Davidious ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by Arryn:
... Despite being wrapped in a humorous tone, this is a rather patronizing reply. It's also a patronizing attitude for any company to assume they know better than their customers what the customers themselves want/need.

That reply had me laughing out loud! Better than just not answering, in any case. Imagine a company that did not think it could decide which customer requests to implement or not.

...
But to simply tell us that we don't need it "because you say we don't need it" is poor customer relations at best. At worse, it's a disingenuous smokescreen to keep hidden the detailed mechanics of combat resolution, which would be odd given how open IW has been in the past about answering questions on the subject.

So it's clearly not that, eh? I see that reply as a much-needed injection of light-hearted humor into this thread. I rather like that Illwinter gives amusing teases sometimes. Remember they don't have to pay attention or reply at all.

Seems pretty easy to decode or guesstimate this into a logical reply, to me anyway. How many Users really want IW to spend time adding and testing hyper-detailed combat logging and the option control to turn it on and off? Even if they have detailed debugging logs, the hint was that they'd have to make them human customer (English) readable, which sounds like it could be a major chore. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to allow these devs who gave us such a fun game to continue to focus on what they want to, even for features that aren't only going to be useful for a slim fraction of their rabid fans.

I wouldn't mind such a log, and I might use it to find out what exactly happened sometimes (search for commander name...). I guess I'm a lot more content than some. Again, pretty much my only gripe is the AI not avoiding friendly fire. Arrow time is kinda long in some battles, but I still watch them all, at least until there is a rout with no risk of friendly fire deaths.

PvK