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Zombra Offline OP
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Last year I had a thread about competitive characters in single-player, my favorite feature in DOS1, which was implied for the sequel and developed but later cut from the playable version, not because it wasn't possible (it's doable right now in dev mode!) but because Swen wanted us to play his way, as a Chosen One.

Now a new mode is being introduced to not only play "your way" but to even make your own stories ... again all in multiplayer only. Yet single-player is still chained by the insulting Chosen One format.

Why? Why not let a single player try competitive questing? (Besides "I don't want you to?")

Last edited by Zombra; 09/05/17 04:14 PM.
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That's quite the overreaction.


Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
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Originally Posted by Tuco
That's quite the overreaction.



not try to be devils advocate here but after some research they spend descent amount of time on this that could been used on the single player fan base just saying.

so his claim reasonable legit.

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Originally Posted by Tuco
That's quite the overreaction.


So what would constitute a "reaction"? laugh

Last edited by Zombra; 09/05/17 06:03 PM.
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I am a single-player person myself, and am not especially interested in all the multiplayer stuff, but it has been no secret that multiplayer would be in the game, it was known at the time of the kickstarter.

So to complain about it now is pretty ridiculous.


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Originally Posted by Zombra
Why not let a single player try competitive questing?

Because it's impossible to play multiple characters at the same time, race against yourself or sabotage yourself. You can choose which quest path to follow when the avatar's quest conflicts with a companion.


Originally Posted by Wouter445
not try to be devils advocate here but after some research they spend descent amount of time on this that could been used on the single player fan base just saying.

If you take away all of the pledges made specifically for Game Master Mode, and all of the pledges/purchases based on attention of and promotion by those interested in that, would there still be a net positive amount that could be diverted to single player?
People were hired because of the Kickstarter. If the GM mode stretch goal wasn't met, and there wasn't continued interest in the feature, the same number of people wouldn't have been hired to work on extra things for single player.


Originally Posted by Zombra
So what would constitute a "reaction"? laugh

How about 'I hope the usability features and extra attention for modding due to GM mode result in more mods available for single player, as well'?

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Originally Posted by Raze
Originally Posted by Zombra
Why not let a single player try competitive questing?

Because it's impossible to play multiple characters at the same time, race against yourself or sabotage yourself. You can choose which quest path to follow when the avatar's quest conflicts with a companion.

I mean...was this not something people expected? It makes about as much sense as if someone wanted to play chess against themselves. You don't really get even remotely the same effect as with multiple people. So how is it that no one just assumed this was the answer here? There are just some things that really aren't practical with only one human playing.

I for one happen to know that while I may not get a chance to play the GM mode as much as I'd like, as a huge fan of tabletop RPGs I'll have a ton of fun with it. Sure, I'll mostly be playing single player, not even co-op, but additional features are a good thing.

Also let me assure the doubters, at least the alpha version's single player is pretty awesome. I have it on GOG.

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Originally Posted by Raze
Originally Posted by Zombra
Why not let a single player try competitive questing?

Because it's impossible to play multiple characters at the same time, race against yourself or sabotage yourself. You can choose which quest path to follow when the avatar's quest conflicts with a companion.


Originally Posted by Wouter445
not try to be devils advocate here but after some research they spend descent amount of time on this that could been used on the single player fan base just saying.

If you take away all of the pledges made specifically for Game Master Mode, and all of the pledges/purchases based on attention of and promotion by those interested in that, would there still be a net positive amount that could be diverted to single player?
People were hired because of the Kickstarter. If the GM mode stretch goal wasn't met, and there wasn't continued interest in the feature, the same number of people wouldn't have been hired to work on extra things for single player.


Originally Posted by Zombra
So what would constitute a "reaction"? laugh

How about 'I hope the usability features and extra attention for modding due to GM mode result in more mods available for single player, as well'?


I don't know it's kickstart history only step in the game a few weeks ago.

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Originally Posted by Raze
It's impossible to play multiple characters at the same time, race against yourself or sabotage yourself.

It's really, really, really, really not.

Last edited by Zombra; 10/05/17 05:30 AM.
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It is impossible, to play all characters at the same time. You can play them one after another, but not at the same time.

I guess, you can hardcore role play them, if you really want to compete to each other.

But honestly I'm not even sure why there even should be competitive play.

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Originally Posted by Kalrakh
It is impossible, to play all characters at the same time. You can play them one after another, but not at the same time.

Combat is turn-based anyway, isn't it? No one here has a mechanical problem playing multiple characters.

Originally Posted by Kalrakh
I guess, you can hardcore role play them, if you really want to compete to each other.

I do. It sounded awesome in the Kickstarter pitch.

Originally Posted by Kalrakh
But honestly I'm not even sure why there even should be competitive play.

Same reason an author writes a book with both a hero and a villain. Because it's interesting.

(It's even more interesting when the author doesn't know which one is going to win.)

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It may not be intended, but you can do exactly what you want.

Run the game twice. start character creation in multiplayer (set it to LAN only) and join with the second open game. Now you have everything what you want. Im not sure if you still get the multiplayer "benefits" when you continue with only one game running, but with 2 games open its just like the multiplayer (except its just 1 person playing) Its quite tedious (you have to move with 2 characters that cant be linked together) but possible.

Once splitscreen is in the game its even easier to do and not as tedious, you'll most likely need two controllers though.

This should be doable even in game master mode.


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Originally Posted by Zombra
Originally Posted by Kalrakh
It is impossible, to play all characters at the same time. You can play them one after another, but not at the same time.

Combat is turn-based anyway, isn't it? No one here has a mechanical problem playing multiple characters.



but out of combat you have to do everything sequentially.

sure, it might be possible from a mechanical point of view. but it seems rather awkward from a gameplays standpoint


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Originally Posted by kcnik
It may not be intended, but you can do exactly what you want.
Run the game twice.

Interesting. Running two instances of the game doesn't sound very healthy for my system, but might be worth investigating. Does it seem bizarre to anyone else that the devs would force players to go the long way around like this instead of just including the option in the actual game? (When they already have the option in developer mode?)

Originally Posted by 4verse
Originally Posted by Zombra
Combat is turn-based anyway, isn't it? No one here has a mechanical problem playing multiple characters.
but out of combat you have to do everything sequentially.

sure, it might be possible from a mechanical point of view. but it seems rather awkward from a gameplays standpoint

Awkward? It's not that bad. Switching between different characters is pretty much second nature to me. Adventure Construction Set, Wasteland 1, Jagged Alliance 2, Icewind Dale, Temple of Elemental Evil ... there are tons of games where you can change viewpoint between several characters.

To be clear, I'm not talking about playing a wargame with four characters who are out to kill each other every moment; I'm talking about playing four characters with different motivations who sometimes work against each other. I want my elf character to be able to choose the "enslave the dwarves" dialogue option and my dwarf to "free the dwarves" and see what happens and maybe they end up fighting each other. Maybe one of them gets the opportunity to poison or steal from another and so I make them do it. This is very simple gameplay, nothing complicated or difficult about it.

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I want my elf character to be able to choose the "enslave the dwarves" dialogue option and my dwarf to "free the dwarves" and see what happens and maybe they end up fighting each other.


It seems to me that multiplayer would be a perfect fit, because all player characters are equally "the chosen one" and they all equally can be the winner, and they have quests with competing objectives.

If you are unable or unwilling to play in multi-player, though, then what you want... that's not really possible to do in single-player. You are controlling one or the other and you will choose the winner. At best you flip a coin and decide who wins.

The only way I could think of a way for that to happen at all would before someone to invent some absurdly powerful AI which could control a player character and navigate them through quests all on their own, and even if one existed, adjusting it to make it challenging without losing the freedom the game gives you would be very difficult. A smart AI would bee-line for quest completion while players are busy rummaging in barrels and talking to NPC's. I can think of no easy way to get the AI to dawdle just long enough to be a competitor without being a guaranteed winner.


Originally Posted by Zombra

This is very simple gameplay, nothing complicated or difficult about it.


So can I assume that you've written up some source code or even pseudocode which can handle it?

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Originally Posted by Stabbey
If you are unable or unwilling to play in multi-player, though, then what you want... that's not really possible to do in single-player. You are controlling one or the other and you will choose the winner. At best you flip a coin and decide who wins.

If only there were some mechanism by which a random outcome could be determined, perhaps weighted by various factors including a complex statistical system and rules for resolution ... like in every RPG you've ever played ... perhaps exactly like the one that already exists in DOS2 ...

Originally Posted by Stabbey
Originally Posted by Zombra
This is very simple gameplay, nothing complicated or difficult about it.

So can I assume that you've written up some source code or even pseudocode which can handle it?

I'm not a programmer, but if it's already possible to do this right now in DOS2, it shouldn't be that hard to do it right now in DOS2. Call me crazy.

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So... I think I get what you are saying, but let me ask cause I don't understand. By Competitive questing, do you mean the competition that exists between npc-personalities? I am a bit confused here.

However to say that yesterday was an FU, I cannot agree with. Yesterday was the last stretch goal, and some insight that there is probably going to be a ton of player created content in our futures. Does that mean it will all be multiplayer? I find that doubtful. So you should be at least a little existed about this, as like Neverwinter Nights, the single player game was vastly expanded by this type of tool set.

As for my previous comment. I really just am not sure what you mean by Competitive Questing.

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Originally Posted by Elimin
So... I think I get what you are saying, but let me ask cause I don't understand. By Competitive questing, do you mean the competition that exists between npc-personalities? I am a bit confused here.

Confusion is understandable. The competitive questing thing means that each player character can be doing different things and even take different sides sometimes. Like a city guard will want to take the witch back to the stockade, and the Lawful Paladin player character might say, yes, take the witch back, and the Chaotic Warlock player character might say, no, set the witch free. Then there are various ways to resolve that conflict, both through questing and outright combat. Right now you can do stuff like this in multiplayer. It was teased that you could do this kind of thing in single-player also - that is what I want. I want to be able to control more than one character, not just have one PC say "arrest the witch" and have the rest of the party go, "Yes, sir, yes, sir." I want an "ensemble cast", not a Chosen One with sidekicks. I want to have party conflict without knowing who will win.

The rudimentary systems for party conflict in DOS1 were innovative and entertaining ... not perfect, but still a huge step forward for RPGs. Now in DOS2 they're just cutting it all back out and the single-player game will play like every other RPG. It's really discouraging to see Larian just throw it all away like that.

Originally Posted by Elimin
However to say that yesterday was an FU, I cannot agree with.

Well ... you may be right. A robust GM mode certainly isn't a bad thing ... but seeing a huge multiplayer update did inflame my old annoyance that single-player creativity was cut and crapped on.

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Originally Posted by Zombra
If only there were some mechanism by which a random outcome could be determined, perhaps weighted by various factors including a complex statistical system and rules for resolution ... like in every RPG you've ever played ... perhaps exactly like the one that already exists in DOS2 ...


So do you want some kind of system where you press a button inside the game and a quest auto-resolves? For quests which are resolved through a dialogue choice, that already exists, it's the dialogue choice. There's no need to program in a coin flip for the very very few players who have no opinion and only want to flip a coin to decide. They can just flip a coin in real life.

For quests which are resolved through more complicated means, an in-game "coin flip" would not make any sense.

Originally Posted by Zombra

I'm not a programmer, but if it's already possible to do this right now in DOS2, it shouldn't be that hard to do it right now in DOS2. Call me crazy.


The rest of my post was me saying that it is NOT already possible to do. But from the sounds of it, it sounds like we have very different ideas about what exactly we each mean by the AI competing with players to solve quests.

Take for example player-controlled Sebille vs Hypothetical, AI-controlled Red Prince. Sebille has a goal to kill Stingtail, Red Prince has a goal to talk to Stingtail. What I am thinking is that the hypothetical advanced AI would take the Red Prince and have him wander around the map looking for a Lizard Dreamer.


Originally Posted by Elimin
However to say that yesterday was an FU, I cannot agree with. Yesterday was the last stretch goal, and some insight that there is probably going to be a ton of player created content in our futures. Does that mean it will all be multiplayer? I find that doubtful. So you should be at least a little existed about this, as like Neverwinter Nights, the single player game was vastly expanded by this type of tool set.


Actually, after seeing a glimpse of the GM mode, I am not any more optimistic that there will be a ton of player-created content than I was the day before. I also have doubts that much of that will be for the GM mode.


Originally Posted by Zombra

Confusion is understandable. The competitive questing thing means that each player character can be doing different things and even take different sides sometimes. Like a city guard will want to take the witch back to the stockade, and the Lawful Paladin player character might say, yes, take the witch back, and the Chaotic Warlock player character might say, no, set the witch free. Then there are various ways to resolve that conflict, both through questing and outright combat. Right now you can do stuff like this in multiplayer.


Ah, okay. I believe that stuff is coming. There are several spots where you answer for all your party members, but I think that is temporary and they will answer for themselves at some point when that system is added.

Last edited by Stabbey; 10/05/17 08:47 PM.
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Originally Posted by Stabbey
The rest of my post was me saying that it is NOT already possible to do. But from the sounds of it, it sounds like we have very different ideas about what exactly we each mean by the AI competing with players to solve quests.

You completely, totally misunderstand what I am talking about. I don't want AI companions at all! I never advocated for an AI system. Of course that would be a horrendous burden on the devs. No one is asking for that.

I WANT CONTROL OVER MULTIPLE PCS. Even when those PCs sometimes choose to be at odds with one another. Exactly like exists now in multiplayer, except with only one player. Just like they have in dev mode but don't want to let us access.

I want to press

1) Elf PC: enslave the dwarves.

then switch characters and press

1) Dwarf PC: free the dwarves.

and then see what happens.

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