KOTOR 2 suggestions: Beyond stupid

[Vault Dweller]

http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=606

Here is where I come in, I feel that the combat system never made KOTOR look as realistic as it could have, so I am simply going to suggest that the following be done to "enhance" the current system:

Dont make feats like flurry, critical hit, or power attack. For one, you never have enough feat points to master them all, and all of them except maybe flurry where useless.

Make combat, specifically lightsaber combat, seem more real-time instead of turn based, no matter how hard BioWare tried I could still see the "turn" part of there system which definitely took away from the experience.

Last, but most definitely not least, make feats that give you certain lightsaber styles--such as the one you see Malak using in KOTOR. I would also like to see a curved-hilt lightsaber style(which, of coarse, requires a lightsaber with a curved hilt) that you saw Dooku use in Episode 2, that by far is the coolest thing in all of Star Wars, in my opinion. I would also like to see Obsidian come up with their own special lightsaber styles.

http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=490

Make combat(lightsaber or otherwise) look exactly like the combat seen in the movies(Ep1, Ep2, and most definitly Ep3)!

A better skill/feat/force power system is needed. Make it more configurable and most importantly make it so that if you buy a feat or power u didn't want or if you had a feat u used along time ago but is no longer necessary u can just click a button and get the feat point u used so u can use it on something else

I want some hand to hand combat! U know some Teras Kasi! And dont slack off on hand to hand combat either it should look just as realistic as the lightsaber combat should.
Think of it this way, I want to be yoda, have his powers, and fight just like him.
So make KOTOR 2 the game that lets me do just that!

I think an enhanced combat system could make KOTOR 2, legendary!

But one thing Obsidian shouldn't do is totally ignore Episode II, after watching that people are going to want to do what the Jedi did in that movie so it should be examined thoroughly.

I'd like to see some cool jedi-like abilities when my character reaches a certain level. (Examples: deflecting a lazer blast with my hand , tossing stuff that's lying around at your enemies with the force, and absorbing a sith electricity bolt & tossing it back at them ala yoda in episode 2.)

I also think it would be cool to see more cool light saber animations. Slicing off an appendage or head for example. Also, I think rare cool finishing animations would be sweet if your building your character into an exceptionally evil badass. An example of this would be to finish off an enemy by slicing off the limbs, head & torso in a quick saber movement & then use the force to lob the pieces in opposite directions all while laughing like an evil bastard! I can't stress enough that you should only be able to see a particular finishing move only a few times throughout the game so you really appreciate when you do see it.

Wow!

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I still think we should have selective breeding so we can breed this type of animal out of existence.

 

[dipdipdip]

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

 

[Spazmo]

Some of the ideas aren't worthless. Hand to hand combat worked in Fallout 2. The whole "deflecting a lazer blast with my hand , tossing stuff that's lying around at your enemies with the force, and absorbing a sith electricity bolt & tossing it back at them ala yoda in episode 2" thing is doable, too: deflecting laser bolts and force lightning would simply be a sort of defensive force power or feat. Tossing random objects at enemies also just makes sense--if I can crush my enemy by throwing that big 'ol boulder at him, why not?

But yeah, a lot of it is delightfully asinine.

 

[Transcendent One]

The first quote from Fearless Jedi is just ground breaking in terms of sheer idiocy. The last two weren't so bad, though still some stupid suggestions managed to slip in.

I think they shouldn't focus on something as silly as animations - maybe instead they should actually make combat that doesn't suck by giving us some real combat options.

 

[Seven]

I still think we should have selective breeding so we can breed this type of animal out of existence.

Forget about selective breeding, I say we just put'em on a rocket ship and aim'em at the sun, a'la the armageddon episode of Simpsons.

 

[Human Shield]

The first quote from Fearless Jedi is just ground breaking in terms of sheer idiocy. The last two weren't so bad, though still some stupid suggestions managed to slip in.

I think they shouldn't focus on something as silly as animations - maybe instead they should actually make combat that doesn't suck by giving us some real combat options.

A well-done real time system would be better then their pause-based suck-athon.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah, that first post by Fearless_Jedi is about the most idiotic thing I've read in a while. I'll tell you two reasons why it didn't look as realistic as it does in the movies.. Because you can't just wack the shit out of people with a lightsaber until they die and most people don't carry metal swords to a lightsaber dual.

I think it's funny he wants to be able to master every feat, though. I think any good role playing system should include the concept of mastering something, but if you do decide to master something, you can't master everything. Master one, maybe two, but if you can master everything, every time, what's the point?

And a feat that gives you more styles of hilt? WTF? Power Attack is a useless feat, but something like that wouldn't be? What a damned idiot.

 

[Rosh]

At least the kid is going along the story of "thousands of years...but the tech is still the same" logic, but only back-assward. Take something from a movie that occured thousands of years in the future and cheapen it for the sake of that mental midgit. I hope BioWare has enough sense to not...BWAHAHAHAAH!!! Who am I kidding? Those whores are interested in nothing BUT fanservice.*

You know that bullshit is going in. Maybe Drizzt too if they can license him.

* Which would suit Fo2-era BIS back in the day, so this is a perfect match for Obsidian as well!

 

[Transcendent One]

The first quote from Fearless Jedi is just ground breaking in terms of sheer idiocy. The last two weren't so bad, though still some stupid suggestions managed to slip in.

I think they shouldn't focus on something as silly as animations - maybe instead they should actually make combat that doesn't suck by giving us some real combat options.

A well-done real time system would be better then their pause-based suck-athon.

It's hard to tell exactly what he's asking for. KotOR's already real time, it has pause and personal initiatives though. I don't know what the guy means by making it seem less turn based, I assume taking those things out, but it's hard to tell cause of his obvious ignorance to what TB is actually like.

 

[Fireblade]

The first quote from Fearless Jedi is just ground breaking in terms of sheer idiocy. The last two weren't so bad, though still some stupid suggestions managed to slip in.

I think they shouldn't focus on something as silly as animations - maybe instead they should actually make combat that doesn't suck by giving us some real combat options.

A well-done real time system would be better then their pause-based suck-athon.

It's hard to tell exactly what he's asking for. KotOR's already real time, it has pause and personal initiatives though. I don't know what the guy means by making it seem less turn based, I assume taking those things out, but it's hard to tell cause of his obvious ignorance to what TB is actually like.

Perhaps he means have it play like a shooter, aiming with the mouse & clicking to hit, etc.

On the other hand, maybe the problem for him is just that the rounds are too long. If they reduced the # of seconds in each round, the fights would seem a lot more "fluid". The amount of time it took in KOTOR to get blaster shots off, for example, did seem a bit awkward sometimes.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

It's hard to tell exactly what he's asking for. KotOR's already real time, it has pause and personal initiatives though. I don't know what the guy means by making it seem less turn based, I assume taking those things out, but it's hard to tell cause of his obvious ignorance to what TB is actually like.

I was caught off guard when he said that one. Hard as i try i can't see any turns in the system, but whatever.

Although, i've been going on for a while promoting a proper realtime engine for Star Wars: KoTOR, something in the vein of Jedi Academy or Jedi Outcast. I don't think KoTOR was immersive with the system it used. It might've been a combination of both the system and the shallow, melee-driven combat model, though. I certainly didn't felt immersed with the retarded AI, either.

But a system like the one seen in the afforementioned games, specially Academy, would be in my opinion, great.

 

[Whipporowill]

I bet he had end of turn-pause on and didn't know how to remove it...

 

[Azael]

You know, a combat system similar to that they use in Gothic 2 could work for a game like this, provided that you don't have to manually block blaster bolts, higher levels (and lightsaber proficiency) enables you to pull of more advanced moves and combos, faster attacks and blocks, etc. It might be more fun than the crap in the previous game.

The Force powers suggested in the second post makes sense (but are probably not possible with the engine), since they are stuff shown in the movies, i.e. a hell of a lot more canon than ghaffi sticks blocking lightsabers. It's not as much the ideas that are stupid (well, some of them are) as the presentation of them.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Advanced lightsaber proficiency for instance, could allow for a higher chance of deflecting blaster shots. This could involve a combination of weapon (lightsaber), stance (defensive), and have the character automatically perform deflection moves.

Combos could definetely be good. Alternating between possible combat stances, lightsaber moves and whatnot could add a whole new set of gameplay elements that would make combat actually fun, not a passive snoozefest.

 

[suibhne]

We've been around this particular block before, but blasters need to be buffed up in the game, at least by the time that most of your enemies are jedi. I don't know d20 Star Wars, but the game really needed some anti-jedi feats for non-jedi characters - some way to partially counteract blaster deflection, for example. The end result of the game's "balance" was that you pretty much had to pick Jolee and Juhani for your Star Forge party or you were screwed.

As for the infantile suggestions in the topic-starter, I have to admit I loved this one:

An example of this would be to finish off an enemy by slicing off the limbs, head & torso in a quick saber movement & then use the force to lob the pieces in opposite directions all while laughing like an evil bastard!

See, the purpose of the jedi is to flip out and kill people.

 

[S4ur0n27]

Blasters don't need to be buffed up : They just suck in the SW universe. Watch movies or read the books, Jedis always beat the shit out of anyone using a blaster.

I think the frist game was immersive enough, it would be even better if it had been a REAL non-linear, open-ended game. The combat is just fine, they just need to polish it a bit.

 

[Country_Gravy]

Why can't they just make the game so that I can be maxed out in everything at the very beginning? They need to make it so that the combat takes zero strategy. If it just played itself, so that I could just sit around and rub one out while the game plays, that would be great.

Oh, and then when the game does something very cool (on it's own, of course, since it is playing itself with no involvement from me) I want it to tell me that I am the best Jedi in the Universe and that I am cooler than ANYBODY in the movies.

Boy, that would be sweet.

This dude has some whacked out ideas about what makes a great game. I think that my ideas would make the game just as good.

 

[Human Shield]

The first quote from Fearless Jedi is just ground breaking in terms of sheer idiocy. The last two weren't so bad, though still some stupid suggestions managed to slip in.

I think they shouldn't focus on something as silly as animations - maybe instead they should actually make combat that doesn't suck by giving us some real combat options.

A well-done real time system would be better then their pause-based suck-athon.

It's hard to tell exactly what he's asking for. KotOR's already real time, it has pause and personal initiatives though. I don't know what the guy means by making it seem less turn based, I assume taking those things out, but it's hard to tell cause of his obvious ignorance to what TB is actually like.

They took a turn-based ruleset and hacked it into real-time, creating crap.
If they created a real-time ruleset to start with that was balanced and designed for RT it would turn out better.

How Diablo has better combat then BG2, design the combat system correctly from the start.

 

[Transcendent One]

Perhaps he means have it play like a shooter, aiming with the mouse & clicking to hit, etc.

On the other hand, maybe the problem for him is just that the rounds are too long. If they reduced the # of seconds in each round, the fights would seem a lot more "fluid". The amount of time it took in KOTOR to get blaster shots off, for example, did seem a bit awkward sometimes

I agree that the rounds were a bit long, mainly because it seemed like often you just watched your characters do nothing. The fancy animations hide this for a while, until you start realising how the whole thing works. Aiming with a mouse and clicking to hit has problems too, for example Morrowind used that system and combat was a bore.

I was caught off guard when he said that one. Hard as i try i can't see any turns in the system, but whatever.

If you look carefully into a melee fight between two characters (no outside interference) you'll notice that the attacks go something like "player 1 attacks, player 2 attacks, player 1 attacks, player 2 attacks, etc. etc.", cause the two personal initiative rounds have a slight timing difference in them (one starts and thus ends earlier than the other). At least that's what it seemed like to me when I tried to search for anything even remotely turn based about the combat system. That said, I have no idea how the hell the initiative rounds work aside from that.
I've never played Jedi Academy, so can't comment about it.

They took a turn-based ruleset and hacked it into real-time, creating crap.
If they created a real-time ruleset to start with that was balanced and designed for RT it would turn out better.

How Diablo has better combat then BG2, design the combat system correctly from the start.

I personally think Bioware did a decent job converting to real time in terms of balance (I always felt the rules had some initial balance issues in them anyways). My personal gripe with them going real time in games like BG is that rather than add stuff like dialog skills to make actual open ended dialogs (the lines are there, too bad they don't lead to anything), they chose to fix and edit something that worked just fine without them.

 

[Human Shield]

I personally think Bioware did a decent job converting to real time in terms of balance (I always felt the rules had some initial balance issues in them anyways). My personal gripe with them going real time in games like BG is that rather than add stuff like dialog skills to make actual open ended dialogs (the lines are there, too bad they don't lead to anything), they chose to fix and edit something that worked just fine without them.

Ranged characters always got shrewed. Shoot arrows while they run up and hit you, or keep running backwards faster and fire some shots. And melee combat was drawn out hack-athons watching two health bars drop.

Turn-based is an abstraction of actual combat, the damage tables are set to work within a turn-based timeframe. If you shove them into RT you get retarded combat.

Diablo was made to be real-time and the damage, enemy movement, attack speed is balanced around this.

 

[S4ur0n27]

Too bad Diablo sucks.

Bioware didn't want a RT system, they wanted a RT that you could pause and decide your next moves, for that, you need a turn-based system.

 

[Anonymous]

You know, a combat system similar to that they use in Gothic 2 could work for a game like this, provided that you don't have to manually block blaster bolts, higher levels (and lightsaber proficiency) enables you to pull of more advanced moves and combos, faster attacks and blocks, etc. It might be more fun than the crap in the previous game.

Have you played Jedi Outcast? What your saying is similiar to how that game plays.

 

[Azael]

Yes, I've played it but I decided to use a RPG example instead.

 

[Roqua]

What the hell are some of you talking about? Turn an RPG-lite game more actiony? Model KoToR2 off of Jedi Academy? That is just silly.

This thread is worse than the original posts thread. Jedi Academy is not an RPG at all. Gothic is not an RPG. It is an action game with rpg elements. In order for me to play a role my personal timing, clciking ability, and keyboard skill are irrelevant. I don't know how best to swing a sword or when, the fighter I am supposed to be playing does. If my personal reaction and dexterity are factored into combat then I am not playing a role, I am the role. Hence, I am not playing a role playing game, since I would have to play a role to be playing a role playing game, not play myself.

That doesn't mean that action games with rpg elements are not good games, they are just not rpgs. KoToR is supposed to be an RPG, not an action game. Why make the only SW rpg there is not an RPG? That doesn't make sense at all. Wait for a new Jedi Academy. If anything, you should be thinking of how to make KoToR2 more of an RPG, not less.