RPGVault has a Lionheart interview

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Thu Jun 20, 2002 12:06 pm

[ -> N/A]

Good old Jonric of <a href="http://rpgvault.ign.com">RPG Vault</a> has posted an <A href="http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/362/36 ... terview</a> with Chris Parker, the old man of <a href="http://www.blackisle.com/">Black Isle</a> on the subject of <a href="http://lionheart.blackisle.com/">Lionheart</a>. Here's a bit to whet your stones: <blockquote>Jonric: Given that the system was created for a turn-based game in a non-fantasy environment, what significant adaptations have you made it to for Lionheart? For example, how complex was adding magic? Chris Parker: There are really only two major changes to the SPECIAL system for this game, the addition of magic and the move to real time. Going from turn-based to real time has actually been fairly smooth - after those many hours of debate, of course. We retain Action Points - these were used in Fallout to determine how many things you could do during your turn in combat - and use them to determine how quickly your character acts. Finally, every action has been given a cost in time so that you will be able to use a small fast weapon more often than a large powerful one. These changes allowed the system to get ported to real-time in what we feel is an accurate and balanced fashion. </blockquote>You can read the full thing <a href="http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/362/36 ... l">here</a>. There's also a neat tidbit where Mr. Parker says that skills range from 0-255 in SPECIAL, I assume that's a change from <a href="http://interplay.com/fallout/">Fallout</a>.

Doyle · Post by **Doyle** » Thu Jun 20, 2002 1:34 pm

The other big change he mentioned is that primary stats might be able to go above 10.

Red · Post by **Red** » Thu Jun 20, 2002 2:48 pm

*grumbles something about the perversity of FOT

Quite frankly I don't mind the 255 limit, as it makes code sense (takes a single byte instead of 2). The original Fallout had a 200 limit, so it's kinda slab in the middle of FO1/2, and I found the 300 limit way to high and totally useless.

Post by **DarkUnderlord** » Fri Jun 21, 2002 9:49 am

Red wrote:The original Fallout had a 200 limit, so it's kinda slab in the middle of FO1/2, and I found the 300 limit way to high and totally useless.

I'm still going for my 110% idea. Even 200% seems a bit much in my opinion.

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Fri Jun 21, 2002 10:31 pm

Red wrote:*grumbles something about the perversity of FOT

Quite frankly I don't mind the 255 limit, as it makes code sense (takes a single byte instead of 2). The original Fallout had a 200 limit, so it's kinda slab in the middle of FO1/2, and I found the 300 limit way to high and totally useless.

Yeah, it makes sense to me because they're going to adjust the skill point cost to raise skills higher and higher as they go up. That is, if they're just going to use a char instead of int.

DarkUnderlord wrote:I'm still going for my 110% idea. Even 200% seems a bit much in my opinion.

Your little idea makes no sense given that 110% would be mastery. It totally ignores the idea of having penalties for lighting, range, called shots, blindness, and other non-ideal situations. Having a range that goes up to 200% or 255% or even 300% makes a lot more sense because it's more flexible.

Araanor · Post by **Araanor** » Sat Jun 22, 2002 5:56 am

20 skills? That's a difference between 20 bytes or 40 bytes (or, by a common size of integers, 80 bytes). The space saved by capping skills at 255 is infinitesimal. The numbers aren't used for anything computationally intensive either, some subtraction and addition.

Red · Post by **Red** » Sat Jun 22, 2002 7:16 am

Yeah, I know, but whoe cares? Does it need to take more space? no. Might as well save it while it's easy.

It's thinking like that "who cares about a bunch of extra bytes" which end up making bloated crap which requires 1+gig of RAM...

TheReaper · Post by **TheReaper** » Sat Jun 22, 2002 4:29 pm

According to a preview from PC Gamer, Lionheart has a very strange story and is real-time, apparently the combat is gonna be handled like Bladurs gate or Planescape torment. They say that fans of planescape will enjoy it greatly.

Post by **DarkUnderlord** » Sat Jun 22, 2002 5:23 pm

Saint_Proverbius wrote:
DarkUnderlord wrote:I'm still going for my 110% idea. Even 200% seems a bit much in my opinion.
Your little idea makes no sense given that 110% would be mastery. It totally ignores the idea of having penalties for lighting, range, called shots, blindness, and other non-ideal situations. Having a range that goes up to 200% or 255% or even 300% makes a lot more sense because it's more flexible.

300% is too high, and as Red said, was completely useless. You were better off getting your other skills up higher, then to push a 200% skill beyond that.

It's just my personal opinion that having a 200% skill in something seems odd. If the limit is 200%, why stop there at all? 200% for mastery just seems like an odd figure. In terms of people putting 200% effort into things.

The idea behind the 110% was that a master puts 110% into things. To get your skill to 110% would cost a lot of skill points, and would take into account all the light effects and so on. The idea then is to make the skills all take more points to get. Instead of very easily getting a skill up to 100%, it would take more skill points, the system adjusted accordingly. So that, 100% becomes the expert, the remaining 10% is an extra effort.

In a sense, compressing the 200% scale down so that it only goes to 110% as the highest, and the scale is adjusted to take everything account.

Araanor · Post by **Araanor** » Sun Jun 23, 2002 3:26 pm

Red wrote:Yeah, I know, but whoe cares? Does it need to take more space? no. Might as well save it while it's easy.

It's thinking like that "who cares about a bunch of extra bytes" which end up making bloated crap which requires 1+gig of RAM...

The good way of thinking is "save space where it matters" so you don't spend time on things that isn't of much importance... Turning the argument the other way: does it need to be capped? no. Might as well take some flexibility at the mere cost of a few bytes... But I understand what you're saying.

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Sun Jun 23, 2002 6:54 pm

DarkUnderlord wrote:The idea behind the 110% was that a master puts 110% into things. To get your skill to 110% would cost a lot of skill points, and would take into account all the light effects and so on. The idea then is to make the skills all take more points to get. Instead of very easily getting a skill up to 100%, it would take more skill points, the system adjusted accordingly. So that, 100% becomes the expert, the remaining 10% is an extra effort.

Um, under your system, you're either having penalties that are cummulative that can't be overcome or your having all those penalties falling in a range of 0-15, which makes those penalties meaningless. Neither one is a good solution just because you don't think it "looks right".