Running

If running (by double pressing the W button) so long you loose all of your focus, there should be a mandatory stoppage of your character where they are "out of breath" and an animation where they have to double over with their hands on their knees grasping for air.

There are PVP implications for this, but all strong PVE implications. Players should not have a "turbo boost" button that requires no skill to use.

 

@Drocis,

I like the spirit of your suggestion... But, honestly, this never happened to me when I was sprinting. When I was in school I would frequently have to run several miles at a time... most of the run was a jogging pace, but I towards the end I might start to sprint... and get tired before reaching the finish, but I'd almost always be able to return to a jogging pace. Never had to completely stop though.

 

Thumbs up for this. Is also annoying to see people running while out of focus... run for a step - stop running - run for a step - stop running... players doing that seems as if they were about to land on their faces.

@redfish, that's because you never ran until you had no focus

 

Disagree. Don't need more "immersive" game mechanics that slow down movement in the game and impair players' ability to explore and play. Movement speeds in in scenes and on the overland map are already pretty slow.

 

I pretty much did :> That's why I had to slow down, couldn't sprint anymore -- was too tired to.

Though, it would be pretty hard for me to "regain Focus" that way. Even if I jogged to the end, I'd be in no condition to fight a battle if I had to. Realistically, Focus would regenerate slower the lower the meter was, and faster, the fuller the meter was.

 

redfish, I understand what you're saying...(and budner, I get what you're saying too)

But it's too much. I see people running everywhere for no reason at all. There has to be some throttle control.

 

After watching the Hangout about food I suspect running continuously will deplete nourishment counter faster and you'll reach a point where you have to stop to replenish or be unable to run.

 

Reaching 0 focus should be imho nearly as bad as reaching 0 health and you should probably faint or something. That being said, there should be toggle in settings never use focus if you are under 10%, so most people could paly it safe, I mean I normally slow down when I am getting exhausted. I do not get this feedback of pain all over my body in the game. However for thsoe who want to have possible advantage of more focus to use, there should be option to do so and the risk of running out of all the focus.

 

This is kind of what Darklands did, but not with movement or something like focus cost; they had Endurance and Strength, and you could lose both during battle; Endurance depleting rendered you unconscious, while Strength depleting killed you.

Though I really don't see fainting because of self-exhaustion really being like real life, save other factors added into the equation, like some type of other stresses.

What reaching zero focus would do, IMO if it was an analogy to stamina and was something like real life, is leave you functional but extremely vulnerable and impotent. So, for movement this would be -- lets say the jogging pace in the game actually took a marginal amount of Focus, and if you really wanted no Focus drain, you would go at a walking pace. Normally the focus drain from jogging wouldn't be enough to make a difference, especially if you pause to rest. But lets say you sprint and wind your focus down to zero, then you have no focus left to jog and end up being forced to go at a walking pace. For combat, Focus regen would be slower at low levels. But also your auto-strike would be slower and do less damage.

Though, I don't really think as its planned Focus is designed for this. If you change from a bow to a sword with a deck switch, you eat up half of your Focus. So unless they change this it doesn't really model exhaustion / stamina well. Switching decks two times would bring you to zero focus and bring you to total physical exhaustion.

So its really not even a practical way to approach Focus unless they change the whole system around.

 

Please, please do we have to control everything, it drives me crazy? I am with Budner on this. We are trying to test a game in development here, and don't want to stifle everything.

 

Regarding annoyance, the same complaints were made about not having jumping in the game. Thus, jumping causes a focus hit. Sprinting does as well.

Do we need a "stop and pant" mechanic from sprinting? I'm not completely against it but if the intent was to mitigate annoyance, no. If the intent is to penalize you when focus=0, just as health=0 causes death, then yeah I can see something being done but it depends on what benefits we gain from whatever penalty we impose. What benefit does this have?

And that does imply for all actions, not just sprinting since focus is a catchall for actions. Anything that causes a hit to focus where it can be completely drained would need their own "stop and pant" mechanic. Magic users would perhaps close their eyes and rub their temples? Because it wouldn't make sense for them to stop and pant as they're not out of breath. Perhaps a generic "dazed" with stars spinning around your head would suffice for all actions?

 

I think the current system works really well. I can't imagine how annoying it would be to be forced to stop and "double over" when sprinting.

 

When I say "running" I mean "sprinting".

 

I think the current system is just based on an assumption your character is acting with some sort of self-preservation.

If they put some type of penalty for reaching zero, all that would happen I think is that people would stop a couple of points above zero. So, in the end, it wouldn't stop anyone from sprinting, if that's whats bothering you; it would just give sprinters a hoop to go through, and I think most people who are sprinting now all the time would go through it.

I think the discussion of how the game should handle zero or low focus is interesting, though.

 

Not only that, but with health and focus potions, you can continue any activity basically non-stop.

And good point about focus=1 vs focus=100 not being any different. Same goes for health. Should our actions degrade the closer we get to fainting or death?

 

One penalty for sprinting I can't see a reason to have another.

 

Yea, that's a more interesting discussion to me than to focus on the number zero, because I'd guess you'd start to feel some effects before zero. Though, just like with focus, its not even clear what health represents. Blood loss? RG said he found the idea of sustained injuries in the game interesting, so we'll see if that gets in and if that can augment the health system.

I kind of like the idea that any regen is slower the lower the meter is, though, if nothing else.

 

Just wait until encumbrance comes in... Doesn't anyone read anymore? You're playing in a "construction zone"...

 

I'd rather there not be an additional penalty to sprinting. Draining focus is more than enough for me.

Running out of breath (focus) while in combat already has a two-fold penalty: you slow down to normal running speed and your focus is now 0.

Running out of breath (focus) while not in combat doesn't really amount to anything other than slowing down a bit. It's not a flight or die situation; it's just inconvenient to not getting to the other side of town any faster.

If someone is really hell bent on being immersive, then stop for a second or two and emote out of breath.

 

Well, at first it seemed a good idea to me, but after reading all the counterarguments i must recognize it's a concept that oversteps the line between funny immersive and annoylingly immersive, so i change my statement; it's probably not needed even when i like the idea. Hell, i must even recognize that redfish ran until being out of focus! I'm still annoyed by people running a step and jogging another... but it's something i can live with

I think the system is devised from a D&D point of view; your character HP pool means the amount of superficial wounds (cuts and bruises) he can sustain before reaching an state where he can take a fatal wound. I suggested an alternative system on this post, and even when combat math improved since i wrote that, i still think it's an interesting way of making resource management interesting (but maybe it's also too much, don't know).