[Stephan1980]

Hello!

I really didn't know where to post this message. I hope it is in the right place here and doesn't annoy anyone.
I used the search function for "combat" and didn't find a thread that I could put this into. So I created a new topic.

My name is Stephan. I have played Ua for many years.
I really loved it and played almost every module. I sometimes had the impression that I was the only one actually PLAYING Frua. It seemed that almost everyone was there for either discussing new art or art hacks, new rule set hacks, world hacks, wish lists for hacks, collaborating projects, their upcoming megasuperbig campaign design using all dungeons and all overworld maps. It was great to read all that but I wondered what the use of it was, if designers put an adventure together with great effort and nobody played it.

Well I was playing and tried to give feedback. Then it became more difficult to play UA because of Windows and then Windows XP. I somehow managed to get it to run even though I really have problems with everything that goes beyond clicking the start icon on my desktop.

Eventually the discussion rose, that UA was dying. At first I thought, "no it isn't", but I soon realized that designers became more and more frustrated, because very few people actually played their designs. Ben Sanderfer said that he can fully understand Harri Polsa for going to Neverwinter Nights because of the bigger audience he has there.
And I understand that perfectly.

I asked myself why nobody was playing the games anymore and eventually I lost interest in UA, too. While I can't speak for someone else, I think I know what the reason was that I stopped playing.

I remember reading somewhere something like "FRUA is a game based around a combat engine". And I got to realize that that was the "problem". In many posts people were complaining about "too many combats" in this or that design. Designers tried to stretch the engine far beyond what it was meant to be. While this could be a good thing, I think it came to a point where they were denying FRUA's origin.
Many of the adventures that came out were all about a new set of rules and then railroaded text events from the beginning to the end.
I think that if you want to create a good UA design, you have to accept the combat system and build an adventure around it. If you don't like it, then you won't really have fun creating or playing an adventure.

What struck me the most was, that many of the big designers stated their annoyance and predicted the end of FRUA and most of the positive "No it will never die, everything is good"-people didn't seem to play UA. They seemed to be there to discuss about new rule sets and hacks and storytelling possibilities.

When I first read about Dungeon Craft I was so happy you can't believe it. I was looking forward to play thousands of designs and actually I thought of creating some of my own. No more dos emulating problems!
But then I started to doubt if there actually was an audience that would play all the new adventures. I surely would play new goldbox style adventures.
But I got the impression that even more than in UA, people didn't really think of new adventures but new rule sets, world rules and so on. and while I think it's great that people request features like this or that special race ability or spell thing, I wonder if they will ever see the light of day in an actual design.

I think we should remember what goldbox games really are about. Of course, they need to be improved! I have played so many FRUA designs, that I got tired of it. Yes it took a really long time for me to become tired, but in the end I just didn't want to play the same thing over and over again.
But I think the solution to this problems are not new races, classes, skills and so on.
--> Goldbox games are build around a combat engine and I think improving the combat system would make
it playable again. When DC was announced back then as "UA forever", many people wrote wish-lists.
and I always wondered why there were soooooo little wishes regarding combat.

I love goldbox style combat and I think that in order to get people to playing the games DC should:
- allow the designer to have more control over the actual combats
- give the player better handling
- give the player more options

Some of my ideas are:
1) Allow the designer more freedom than to place monsters east or west of the party. for important battles, he or she should be able to place every individual monster freely on the combat screen. this would allow tomake ambushes more effective. you could place archers behind defensive structures, bodyguards around the boss and so on. the player had to really use tactic to win.

2) allow the designer to set boxes to "chasm" or the like. for example there could be a chasm on the combat screen. any combatant standing next to it and getting hit, is likely to fall down the chasm. this would give more tactical options.

3) the "attack from behind" was one of the few tactical options in frua. you had to set up your heroes perfectly, sometimes skipping the turn of one, to attack later. you could elaborate on that. there should be bonuses or maluses when someone is surrounded by creatures. this could even make kobolds and goblins more fun, because they then really could make use of their numbers. in UA it didn't matter how many goblins there were if you had reached a certain level, because no goblin could hit you anymore.

4) comparing UA to modern games shows that the only combat option was "Deathmatch". Wouldn't it be great to have different settings? There could be:
- The party has to reach marked boxes at the other end of the combat screen. The battle is won if they reach the boxes. This could make for exciting escape situations with an unstoppable amount of monsters. (of course that's not the only possibility: you could also use it in a siege situation where the party battles thorugh the defenses.)
- The party has to survive for x numbers of turns or a certain NPC has to survive x numbers of turns. You could use this in epic battles against a superior enemy until help arrives. And the latter option would allow for the typical escort missions, like in "x-wing". hehe, yeah, it's funny to name x-wing here. but why not. it gets the point across.
- Possibilies are endless. "Capture the flag" "domination"....all the ego-shooter options would make sense.

5) I didn't use ranged weapons(except when it was really necessary) because it was a pain to unequip sword and shild and then equip bow and arrows. It would be great if the player could make two or more configurations. One for ranged weapons and one for melee combat and switch easily between them.

6) Perhaps monsters should lose some of their abilities when their hit points are seriously reduced. A monster with 1 hit points fights as effectively as the same monster with 200 hit points.

7) Initiative was often bugging me. An example was in one of Harri Polsa's "Jade" adventures. This is not against the great design by him, but against the combat system. There was a tough battle against a white dragon. I started the battle for numerous times and the dragon got initiative and immediately hit all of my characters rendering the mages helpless. then after loading about twenty times, my party got initiative and I almost won. Then I had to load another twenty times until I got initiative again, and this time I beat the dragon and his minions without any effort.
While I understand that initiative is one of the d&d rules, I think it doesn't make sense in situations like this. The battle can't be won without having the first turn. So I have to wait until I get the first turn.
The designer should have more control here, beeing able to give the party initiative.

8) Destroyable structures that have an effect on the combat. Destruction of them could result in ending the combat, ending ongoing waves of monster reinforcements, killing certain monsters (eg destroying a cursed altar killing ghosts on the battlefield or the like).

9) Having control over NPCs should not depend on the paladin skill but be a choice of the designer.

10) I like the fact that combat screens are generated out of the dungeon automatically. But for important battles the designer should be able to do individual combat screens. i don't know how exactly, perhaps in a similar editor like the dungeon editor. you could place different blocks, make them blocked are not, trees, boulders, castle structures and what not. make them destroyable, make them burnable (more use for fireballs), make them freezable (rivers and icestorms perhaps? cross that river and get that archers by surprise), make them portals, make them closable...... you could even make blocks like tables that are passable by characters but give defense bonuses against archers.

11) One of the most annoying things in FRUA was, that you couldn't surrender in a combat. For example if your mages were all killed and you really didn't have a chance to win, you couldn't end the combat. You had to wait until all your remaining party members were killed. This could take ages. (best way was to unequip all armor and the walk away from monsters so that they could attack you from behind). A simple button to take you to the "load" screen would have made FRUA ten times better. The fact that I read all kinds of complains about the restrictions of FRUA concerning rule sets, art and so on, but never read a single thing about this problem, gave me the impression that most people didn't really play FRUA.

12) New skills and abilities that really show in combat. Stealing from Neverwinter Nights: Give the player the opportunity to knock down enemies, attack harder with the chance to do more damage but with the risk of not hitting the enemy. Again, the possibilities are endless.

13) Stealing from other games. I like "Tony hawk's pro skater" "return of the king" and "The punisher" a lot. Just because they reward you for playing flawlessly. It isn't just a matter of loading a save game over and over again until you master a certain situation. You really have to get better to get more experience points.
Panzer dragoon saga gave experience points depending on how well you fought. It was an rpg, too.
It's just an idea, I don't really know how to have this in a goldbox style game. Perhaps more experience points for fewer lost hit points? or you could have secondary goals in some battles ( you win the battle if you beat all opponents but get more experience points if all of the peasants survived. this could even trigger some event where a mayor thanks you for saving all the peasants or the like). or you could get more exp if it took you just x number of turns to win. as I said, it was just an idea, I wanted to show that you could steal from games of different genres to make the fights more fun.

and this brings me to the whole point of my typing: FUN!!
the battles have to be fun. Everything and I really mean everything is going to be ineffective IN THE LONG RUN if people don't like the combats. The game is built around a combat system.
Automatically darkening overland maps would be great, thief's skills would be great, perfect adaptions of greyhawk/ravenloft/dark sun/superhero settings and rules would be great.
But if you really want people like me to play it, the core of the game itself has to be fun.

I really wanted to like Neverwinter nights, but I hated it because of the combat system. I played the main campaign and shadows of undrentide. I really dig the underdark and started to play hordes of the underdark for nwn, but I couldn't stand it, because I didn't have fun with it. Story and characters are great and important but Neverwinter Nights is a GAME and it is not a good game. I don't want to struggle through the game parts just to see how the plot continues. I want to have fun DURING the game and not only when the story continues.
Yeah, it's great to have the d&d rules and endless possibilities to create your hero, but what is the use of it, if it isn't fun to play the game with him or her?

I wrote this, because I have the impression or rather I fear that many designers will stop creating new adventures because of the lack of feedback. Yes UA needs to be improved, but I think the efforts don't always go into the right directions.
I admire everyone who plays a role in designing, programming and creating for UA and DC. I really do! You can't imagine how much I bow my head to everyone. I have had so many memorable playing experiences back then and I often think of these times.
I have never created anything for UA or DC, so you could think that I don't have any competence to talk about it. And I wondered if I should write about UA and DC for a long time.
But now I think it's right for me to write this.
I never created anything for UA or DC but I played hundreds of designs and I wrote feedback to the authors when I liked it.

Yes, the goldbox enginge is not dead. The community is there! But I'm convinced that most people in the community don't PLAY the games, they want to create. They have their vision and a story to tell. I'm asking if DC is the right platform for this vision if you don't like the combat system and try to tweak the enginge beyond it's limits to make a text adventure out of it. Or a perfect "rule simulator" that allows to play in your favorite world with every rule detail perfectly but without any fun.
It's great that there are so many creators here, but without an audience, I'm convinced that there won't be a future.

Thanks for reading this, I'd love to hear your opinion.
Bye
Stephan