Roles in Sui Generis

[Humblerbee]

Sui Generis is a very promising game- you wouldn't be here on it's boards if you didn't think so. It's making strides and innovations in the genre, and yet, I fear it may be distinctly backwards in others, and a victim of a modern gaming trend towards simplification and paring down on complexity. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, old RPGs were filled with extraneous bits and redundancies, and sometimes simplification can be quite elegant. But I'm worried by their approach to character building and the elimination of roles from a otherwise promising rpg.

Let's start with a worry of mine, thaumaturgy. Now, thaumaturgy sounds like a very cool approach to magic in an rpg, and I look forward to it's unique and creative applications. That being said, I hate that it's completely non-optional, that your character is automatically a thaumaturge- if I want to be a warrior, I'm a thaumaturge who's good at fighting, if I want to be a sneaky assassin, I'm a thaumaturgic rogue, you get the picture. It's like Skyrim with being a dragonborne and getting shouts, and you get dragon souls from slaying a dragon, or thaumaturgic essences from killing a thaumaturge. Both are essentially just wizardry forced upon the player whether they want to play a magician or not- too bad, this game has decided the roles are all half wizard from now on. It's limiting to the player, and cuts down on our playstyle choices because we are shoehorned into thaumaturgy. It's not just that the options there either, no, the game will be actively built around you having to use thaumaturgy; for example, Madoc was responding to a comment about Piggy, the flail-wielding ogre from the videos, saying that he could not be taken down without thaumaturgy. Again, it's not the end of the world to be forced to play a certain way, it's just a step backwards in a game that makes so many forward strides.

Another thing is the elimination of a variety of various skills from old-school rpgs, instead placing them under umbrella categories or eliminating them entirely. Sure, we probably don't need seperate skills for katanas, long-swords, gladiuses, short-swords, etc, but again, it feels a bit dumbed down. Now, I don't know the ins and outs of their system, but it still just seems odd, there are no skills for stealth, pick pocketing, persuasion, traps, etc. For better or worse, they're removing choices. Some of it is removing redundancies, some of it is collapsing things into broader categories, but as it stands it's something I feel nervous about.

Roles in traditional rpgs have been defined by your choice of class, skills, weapons, and stats. Sui Generis eliminates classes, eliminates stats, rolls all weapons onto a spectrum of light to heavy and severely pares down the skill selection while making everyone take spells and play a caster. It's an odd approach for a game that toutes freedom and personal choice as central tenants of it's design.

 

[PipesOfMadness]

Let's start with a worry of mine, thaumaturgy. Now, thaumaturgy sounds like a very cool approach to magic in an rpg, and I look forward to it's unique and creative applications. That being said, I hate that it's completely non-optional, that your character is automatically a thaumaturge- if I want to be a warrior, I'm a thaumaturge who's good at fighting, if I want to be a sneaky assassin, I'm a thaumaturgic rogue, you get the picture. It's like Skyrim with being a dragonborne and getting shouts, and you get dragon souls from slaying a dragon, or thaumaturgic essences from killing a thaumaturge. Both are essentially just wizardry forced upon the player whether they want to play a magician or not- too bad, this game has decided the roles are all half wizard from now on. It's limiting to the player, and cuts down on our playstyle choices because we are shoehorned into thaumaturgy. It's not just that the options there either, no, the game will be actively built around you having to use thaumaturgy; for example, Madoc was responding to a comment about Piggy, the flail-wielding ogre from the videos, saying that he could not be taken down without thaumaturgy. Again, it's not the end of the world to be forced to play a certain way, it's just a step backwards in a game that makes so many forward strides.

Even though I agree with you that it's unfortunate that you must be a thaumaturgist, the reason for this approach is because of their limited time I think. Having extremely different play-styles (Like sneaking and traps for instance) would be a substantial increase in workload and tweaking. They would have to make 3 or 5 different ways to drop the ogre if not by thaumaturgy. That ogre will physically dominate you because of his sheer size and strength. You've seen the fight in the prototype. So you will need thaumaturgy to perform feats of superhuman strength if you want to even stand a chance against that giant. To me, BME is going for a more realistic approach, and I think their engine is well suited for the job.

Having them concentrate on thaumatugy and having those powers from the start seems like they're concentrating their efforts into making a polished experience in the time frame they have. Those powers will probably be used for puzzle solving and such. So that could be why magic will be a part of your character from the outset. But these are just my thoughts on that matter.

Roles in traditional rpgs have been defined by your choice of class, skills, weapons, and stats. Sui Generis eliminates classes, eliminates stats, rolls all weapons onto a spectrum of light to heavy and severely pares down the skill selection while making everyone take spells and play a caster. It's an odd approach for a game that toutes freedom and personal choice as central tenants of it's design.

I think removing classes and stats isn't necessarily a bad thing. Getting rid of class archetypes and stats is not the same as taking away freedom and personal choice. It's just getting rid of predefined labels and unnecessary stats fiddling and character builds. Character building can be fun, but it's not very immersive and it requires a lot of tweaking to get right. I don't think BME are going for a traditional D&D type character development and progression.

I would want weapon and armor choice to be mostly cosmetic with adjustments to mobility, reach and types of attack. A friend of mine mentioned that some armor is especially effective against some weapon types. So a heavy plate would give you excellent protection against bladed type weapons for instance. But you might want to switch to lighter armor if you're going against spell casters for extra mobility to evade their attacks.

Basically, you can choose how to play the game yourself without having to make any preliminary choices for the rest of your play-through. You can role-play that your character would wear this type of armor and would use a specific weapon. Personalize your character by not being constrained by class or stats-related equipment.

 

[Valvar]

I agree with both of you.
I really don't like being shoehorned into certain gameplay elements. It should be possible to defeat the ogre by pure skill (something the game engine should support surprisingly well) and thaumaturgy should definitely be a means to facilitate the fight. But making it a requirement? Hell no.
Personally I think thaumaturgy is a too convenient way to solve problems (this happens in a lot of mediums like books, movies and of course games) and I would prefer it if thaumaturgy remained somewhat exclusive. That's just personal preference, and not shoehorning people into using thaumaturgy would, with decent modding possibilities, allow users to change the game to their liking.
I do think that cutting down stats is a good thing, though. With a good engine it allows player skill to be the main deciding factor, and not stats. Another reason for why I would like to avoid thaumaturgy.

 

[Morul]

I would like to point out that it hasn't been explicity defined as to how much different things you can do with thaumaturgy (ok, thats just hard to type, I'm using TM from now on). I'm guessing that there would be at least one application where it would mostly just enhance your natural abilities, so instead of raising the dead or knocking things around you would become faster/stronger. Presumably, these would fall under body (at least, that would be a sensible category). By doing this, you could play more towards being magicless, seeing as TM would act more as an adrenaline rush than real magic

 

[Tony]

Basing this upon the bits of info they've already shared, I'm guessing that TM is a main part of the story and will play an important role in how the world around you progresses. In order to tell a strong, convincing story some parts of a character must be predefined. If not then the story must be vague in order to encompass all the possible variables a player might choose (think: Skyrim, Oblivion, etc. - very weak stories). They've already stated that how you choose to use TM is up to you. It seems to be pretty diverse and I like how you can combine elements of TM to create unique effects (like the shield example they gave).

 

[Valvar]

My main gripes with some of the better recent titles; DE:HR, Skyrim, Dishonored; was that they shoehorned the player into TM. Sure, you CAN play without it but it's not very viable. The entire game is designed around the use of TM. It's like saying that you can play Thief as a brawler. Sure, you CAN do that but it's probably not a great idea. In a sandbox-esque game I think it important that the design is made as broad as possible. When making a specific scenario, it might be a better idea to just make it realistic from the point of view of the world and then let the player solve the scenario with the tools that the game has given him/her. Just don't design the game with a specific playstyle in mind; it could very well mean that an encounter will be near impossible without TM.

 

[nox]

I think TM should be a necessity to solve some of the problems in the world (like taking down the ogre) but it should, like Morul said, be different ways to apply it, so if you want to play a fighter you could boost your strength or speed, because a normal person could never hope to defeat such a big enemy. That to me makes sense and makes the game feel more realistic. But I hope it's not made so you have to use, say a lightning bolt or something to kill it with range and kiteing. But I am confident they won't make that mistake.

 

[Valvar]

Balancing the game in a way that assumes that the player has access to powerful TM is in my opinion shoehorning, though. I would much prefer it if power TM was hard to come by, thus making the use of it in a fight which is not specifically designed for it more rewarding.

 

[arthureloi]

Hey guys. I had a question and I thought it would be answered via Kickstarter but it did not. I'd like to know your opinions about it. I'll copy it down:

<<
arthureloi 1 day ago

@ BARE METTLE:
As much as I loved the last update, rereading it lead me to some questions.
If we're to really roleplay, will we be able to create a merchant or blacksmith character, for example?
Like, my merchant character is always selling stuff and does not go out fighting too much but even like that the world, the story still unfolds and the game can come to a finale (or not at all)?
If so, will be there a skill set for these activities that wouldn't involve combat?
I understand if I'm fully able to roleplay, stuff like that should be in. Especially because of the ultima series mention, I imagine I could be able to be just a fisherman or a carpenter and still have much fun in the game, whereas the NPCs would buy stuff from me, go out hunting and killing monsters while I just lead my quiet life.
>>

What are your thoughts??

 

[Tony]

As far as I understand (based upon the info they've released so far), those types of roleplay will not be possible in the main game. They've listed some of the available feats and given a general idea on how the skills will work and it's definitely a combat oriented system. Meaning that the majority of your skills and stats will revolve around combat as opposed to trading, fishing, blacksmithing, crafting, etc.

Where I believe the roleplaying comes into play is... things like being able to put on a costume to disguise yourself to attempt to fool NPCs; choosing who to help, who to kill, and how to complete whatever goals you choose to tackle; etc.

 

[Venom]

Seems bland if your only options are deciding who, when and how to kill (much like Dishonored). Being a natural-born killer is just strange. I'd like more variation. Maybe different alignments, at least. You could be joining mercenaries or joining a city guard or joining a band of monster hunters, etc. It could work.

 

[Tony]

Seems bland if your only options are deciding who, when and how to kill (much like Dishonored). Being a natural-born killer is just strange. I'd like more variation. Maybe different alignments, at least. You could be joining mercenaries or joining a city guard or joining a band of monster hunters, etc. It could work.

Except it will be nothing like Dishonored They've said you're not a natural-born killer since you start out as a random villager. They've said that every opponent you face will be a tough battle and that fighting will not be too common. They've also said people in the game will treat you differently based upon several things in the game. I wasn't implying that the game was all about kill-kill-kill. I'm fairly certain you will have many options on how to handle different situations.

 

[Venom]

That's better to hear, then. I don't want everything to be based on deliveries and killing.

 

[Tony]

It's why I previously stated the disguise example. It demonstrates using trickery instead of lethality as being a valid option. What I do think is awesome is that if an NPC is annoying it's up to you if you want to attempt to kill them or not. I hate when games make it impossible to kill NPC's. This is an important part of roleplaying and shouldn't be artificially prevented in games.

 

[Madoc]

Hi,

Yeah, our game revolves around the adventuring life, you will have plenty of freedom but the context is essentially limited to that. Our general idea is that we want to avoid anything schematic and make this almost more a simulation than a game. Making this role subset realistic is already a lot of work, making any role realistic is just too much work. It would be great to make a realistic simulated world where you can do absolutely anything and maybe with time we can take more steps in that direction but for now we have to be realistic about what we can actually deliver.

We have considered game modes where you are not a thaumaturge and we think this could be an interesting alternative experience. I don't remember where exactly I made that statement about killing "Porky" but I believe what I said is that you may need thaumaturgy or perhaps some help (as in from other characters). We intend many encounters in the game to be optional and extremely difficult to beat. Making a poweful character, multiplayer or getting some help from NPCs should be things you do in order to accomplish some really difficult things. Porky doesn't represent the hardest opponent you may face by any means, it is possible to beat him as is though you need a little luck and we believe shields may go a long way to making this easier. Note that shields have an entire skill dedicated to them and you will have few precious skills.

Thaumaturgy does not make you an offensive caster, it has many possible uses such as bolstering your abilities in combat. A character that specialises in thaumaturgy is in fact an advanced build, you will probably need to start out as more of a warrior and retrain to become a pure thaumaturge gradually once you have become quite powerful. It won't be easy. There are also 3 entire skills dedicated to making thaumaturgy more efficient leaving little or no room for your character to be skilled in anything else.

With skills we have put much thought into the division of them to make different builds. We have gone over many iterations starting in fact with many more skills and umbrella categories. In all our designs we wanted weapon skills to capture the fact that skill in combat should translate to any weapon. The non rigid division between light and heavy weapons also reinforces this. We do plan to have skill milestones that allow you to further specialise in specific weapon types.

This is quite a broad topic but hopefully this answers some of your concerns.

 

[nox]

Sounds fantastic to me!

 

[Humblerbee]

Hi,

Yeah, our game revolves around the adventuring life, you will have plenty of freedom but the context is essentially limited to that. Our general idea is that we want to avoid anything schematic and make this almost more a simulation than a game. Making this role subset realistic is already a lot of work, making any role realistic is just too much work. It would be great to make a realistic simulated world where you can do absolutely anything and maybe with time we can take more steps in that direction but for now we have to be realistic about what we can actually deliver.

We have considered game modes where you are not a thaumaturge and we think this could be an interesting alternative experience. I don't remember where exactly I made that statement about killing "Porky" but I believe what I said is that you may need thaumaturgy or perhaps some help (as in from other characters). We intend many encounters in the game to be optional and extremely difficult to beat. Making a poweful character, multiplayer or getting some help from NPCs should be things you do in order to accomplish some really difficult things. Porky doesn't represent the hardest opponent you may face by any means, it is possible to beat him as is though you need a little luck and we believe shields may go a long way to making this easier. Note that shields have an entire skill dedicated to them and you will have few precious skills.

Thaumaturgy does not make you an offensive caster, it has many possible uses such as bolstering your abilities in combat. A character that specialises in thaumaturgy is in fact an advanced build, you will probably need to start out as more of a warrior and retrain to become a pure thaumaturge gradually once you have become quite powerful. It won't be easy. There are also 3 entire skills dedicated to making thaumaturgy more efficient leaving little or no room for your character to be skilled in anything else.

With skills we have put much thought into the division of them to make different builds. We have gone over many iterations starting in fact with many more skills and umbrella categories. In all our designs we wanted weapon skills to capture the fact that skill in combat should translate to any weapon. The non rigid division between light and heavy weapons also reinforces this. We do plan to have skill milestones that allow you to further specialise in specific weapon types.

This is quite a broad topic but hopefully this answers some of your concerns.

This addressed a lot of my concerns, thanks Madoc. I think my problem was that I was viewing it from a old school RPG perspective, and I still have to wrap my head around how much Sui Generis is shaking everything up. I'm really glad to hear that Thaumaturgy is not going to be required to play- or rather, though you are a thaumaturge, and possess the innate potential for thaumaturgy, allowing the player to forgo that route to pursue alternative playstyles is a great choice. Thus far, we've heard that you can play a warrior, thaumaturge, and, since you mentioned ranged weapons, I made the assumption that you could also specialize into a ranger role, though now I realize the folly of assuming anything in the world of Sui Generis. I'd appreciate it if you could briefly touch on whether you'll allow ranger style classes playstyles, or stealth based classes playstyles, or whether there will be a stealth option in this game at all, and if so, will it be the standard invisibility followed by nukes from behind?


EDIT: Also, will there be abilities or special attacks, etc, that you can perform by specializing into melee combat, or will it be entirely passive improvements?

 

[Valvar]

I'd be very happy if the stealth system could be somewhat similar to that in Overgrowth; enemies detect you based on the amount of sound you emit, the direction of the wind and your smell and of course wether they can see you or not. So, you would need to stay out of your enemies line of sight and move up silently behind them (and if the enemy has a good sense of smell and/or hearing, make sure the wind is not blowing their way). Possibly (and preferrably) your silence could be improved by a stealthy movement-scheme (crouched down slightly, walking slowly on the tips of your toes and making sure that you don't step on any loud debris). Over time, perhaps your movements can be trained and improved thus making you even more silent. I'm thinking that you attach a sound property to everything that makes a sound (including for example heavy armours while moving and rivers) and a hearing property to every creature. Once the sound property from a concentrated direction matches certain levels the creature would become alert.
This, to me, would be the best and most natural way to deal with stealth. Fuck that invisibility bullshit!

 

[Humblerbee]

I'd be very happy if the stealth system could be somewhat similar to that in Overgrowth; enemies detect you based on the amount of sound you emit, the direction of the wind and your smell and of course wether they can see you or not. So, you would need to stay out of your enemies line of sight and move up silently behind them (and if the enemy has a good sense of smell and/or hearing, make sure the wind is not blowing their way). Possibly (and preferrably) your silence could be improved by a stealthy movement-scheme (crouched down slightly, walking slowly on the tips of your toes and making sure that you don't step on any loud debris). Over time, perhaps your movements can be trained and improved thus making you even more silent. I'm thinking that you attach a sound property to everything that makes a sound (including for example heavy armours while moving and rivers) and a hearing property to every creature. Once the sound property from a concentrated direction matches certain levels the creature would become alert.
This, to me, would be the best and most natural way to deal with stealth. Fuck that invisibility bullshit!

Since the creatures in Sui Generis aren't anthropomorphous, (insofar as I am aware) I think it'd be less based upon wind direction and scent, though it could still play a factor. Basing it off of aural cues and making it realistically registering movement with AI would be good, but of course there's the question of line of sight. In most stealth games that don't rely on invisibility, they get around it by offering you multiple paths in any scenario, for example traversing through the vents in Deus Ex, or hiding under the grilles in Batman and crawling about. That is to say, though they are using line of sight and sound based detection mechanics, it's much easier to avoid being seen because you have a whole other dimension to operate in, while Sui Generis's planar nature as an isometric RPG really limits the potential y-axis movement and sneaking. Since everything is on a (mostly) level plane, you can only approach if you have cover of some sort between you and the enemy, they are facing away, or if you somehow occlude their senses or make yourself undetectable to them. Now, hopefully Madoc and his team won't make enemies face walls in a cop out way that some games do, giving them really dumb pathing that makes it so they expose themselves, while they intently study the details of the cave wall. There probably won't be such a proliferation of debris and cover so as to allow you to sneak up on all foes undetected, and that leaves the last option, directly inhibiting their ability to spot the player. There is a light focused branch of thaumaturgy, which has some obvious synergy and implications for stealth gameplay, but I would hope they have some way to implement stealth without solely relying upon thaumaturgy. Quite curious to see what they have planned in this department.