2x2 strafing undermines character building [edited]

[Darlos9D]

Sorry. The vitriol was more for the game design than it was for... uh, the guy I was respond to. His post was sufficiently thoughtful.

[Whisper]

Forcing a team to go toe-to-toe on hard mode is absolute killed.

We ask for additional difficulty, you are not "forced" to play on it.
You can still enjoy your supposed-to-be (but not, since you can dance easily through all game) Hard difficulty.

Without the ability to 'strafe' in a 4x4 area I would not have made it through. This game is ROUGH on hard mode and straffing is all that kept me and my team alive.

Hard mode is supposed to be hard.

Now game is quite easily can be won on Hard with level 1 character. Just keep "dancing".

[Friendlyhobo]

With this type of game its almost impossible to eliminate the 2x2 strafe killing,
But with some clever level design and a change to some if not all monster's to include that if attacking from side's or rear the monster never miss's.

You could include it in the difficulty settings,
Easy - Side and rear never miss for party vs monsters only
Normal - Side and rear never miss for both monsters and the party members
Hard - Side and rear never miss for monster's vs party only

Imo, you would only apply this to monsters that would recognize how to take advantage of a distracted enemy.
If you applied this change you could design your level's to include monsters with this ability in and around open area's.

The idea could do with more refining, but you get the point

Friendlyhobo

[qeurul]

I wouldn't touch the strafing, because this is very core of the combat system that makes it fun to play and is the hallmark of the genre itself. My following remarks consider mainly possible expansion / sequel.

Yes: gridtanking Ogre is currently quite neat and easy, BUT this can be easily made a lot more harder, without touching the combat system itself.

Grimrock currently has only the basic monsters that do not have any abilities worthy of mention. For example, someone already said that we are yet to see paralyzing attacks. Ogres could come with small mob packs that acts rather intelligently, low hp critters to block your escape route and maybe some paralyzing mage to make your day even better.

Those of you who have played roguelikes know that they are full of tricks that could easily be imported into Grimrock gameplay:
-slowing / paralyzing attacks
-area attacks
-mages that summon / heal / resurrect / etc.
-invisible monsters
-teleporting monsters / or that teleport you next to them. ofc they come with large pack of smaller monsters
-aura monsters: haste / rage / resurrect / slow(you) / damage
-exploding monsters
-special attacks: cleave / reach / knock back -this could be weapon dependant so that you would have to pay attention to your foes gear
-secondary attacks in general

AH could add just some of the aforementioned abilities to make combats more dynamic and uncertain.

The point is: it doesn't take much to make the current grid tanking more unpredictable. That should mean game would become more harder and of course, more fun! Its pretty much the same as in good driving games. How do you recognize a good driving game? You get satisfaction with every well performed corner, ie. it doesn't go 'on rails'.

Same goes here, if you tank 10 ogres one after another 'on rails' in utter stupor, the game quickly loses interest.

I dont know if there is much to be done to the original Grimrock itself, because what I'm suggesting would pretty much replace monsters in some degree on every level (hardcore option?) but sequel could have more indepth mobs.

[Thels]

Forcing a team to go toe-to-toe on hard mode is absolute killed.

We ask for additional difficulty, you are not "forced" to play on it.
You can still enjoy your supposed-to-be (but not, since you can dance easily through all game) Hard difficulty.

Without the ability to 'strafe' in a 4x4 area I would not have made it through. This game is ROUGH on hard mode and straffing is all that kept me and my team alive.

Hard mode is supposed to be hard.

Now game is quite easily can be won on Hard with level 1 character. Just keep "dancing".

You are missing the point entirely. Removing "strafing" from the current game would make it impossible to win certain fights, such as against Ogres. Most monsters are a lot stronger than the party to balance around the fact that the party is smarter than those monsters.

You can't just add an additional difficulty "no strafing" without tweaking most monsters around that. Thus, monsters would be made weak enough to be able to tank and spank them, thus you would tank and spank all the fights, thus the game would actually be easier rather than harder.

[Stamm]

Now game is quite easily can be won on Hard with level 1 character. Just keep "dancing".[/quote]

Sir, that is clearly not so, and I challenge you to prove it with save stats.


"Hard mode is supposed to be hard."

I agree, but "hard" is never the same for all players.
Still, it should be relatively easy to adjust monster speed - to what ever level.
Meanwhile, perhaps it could be healthy for us to practise with Pacman highest speeds. (I only have played this with atari monochrome, but it was deadly enough)

[Whisper]

You are missing the point entirely. Removing "strafing" from the current game would make it impossible to win certain fights, such as against Ogres. Most monsters are a lot stronger than the party to balance around the fact that the party is smarter than those monsters.

I am asking for this "Impossible" mode. Where party setup, skill selection, tactics would matter. Instead of mindless "dancing"as of now.

I dont understand what is problem for some people if to addition to Easy-Normal-Hard, devs add "Impossible" or "No dancing, pure fighting" difficulty setting. Why you oppose it as if they take other 3 difficulties away by implementing 4th one?

[Whisper]

Sir, that is clearly not so, and I challenge you to prove it with save stats.

If just by dancing around you avoid 100% attacks - which is possible and quite easy, what prevents you from winning?

[Thels]

You are missing the point entirely. Removing "strafing" from the current game would make it impossible to win certain fights, such as against Ogres. Most monsters are a lot stronger than the party to balance around the fact that the party is smarter than those monsters.

I am asking for this "Impossible" mode. Where party setup, skill selection, tactics would matter. Instead of mindless "dancing"as of now.

I dont understand what is problem for some people if to addition to Easy-Normal-Hard, devs add "Impossible" or "No dancing, pure fighting" difficulty setting. Why you oppose it as if they take other 3 difficulties away by implementing 4th one?

I'm not talking as if they take the other 3 difficulties away. I'm explaining to you that stats would not matter in your "Impossible/No dancing" difficulty level, because no matter how well you stat your party, you will die. Most monsters are not made to be beatable by standing still and hacking away at them.

In order to make your difficulty level playable, they would have to tune down the monsters to make it possible to beat them. When that is done, your difficulty level will actually be easier than the existing difficulty levels. You could beat all monsters by just standing there and cycling your attacks, because that's the only thing you can do. Ergo, the game would be more boring, not less.

[WaterKnight]

I am not going to read the entire thread but yes, the 2x2 strafing was pointless, especially on hard difficulty where you are practically required to do it permanently because you hardly can take hits and do not have the own damage output either. And yes, there are ways to correct that. Afaik higher difficulty only meant higher offensive/defensive stats for enemies, so the movement pattern did not scale and was therefore the way to go. "Dancing" itself and using the surroundings was not the buzzkill, on the contrary making your path through the enemies gave a pretty epic feeling, kind of running the gauntlet. 2x2 strafing - always the same pattern is to avoid.