Speed...

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Written by BuckGB on April 13th, 2001

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...here's a past series of posts from Rob Bartel, NWN Co-lead Designer, on the whole PC movement speed issue that delves into their decision making process and the reasoning behind their choices. These are all from one thread, it's a long, but very informative, read ;-).

Quotes:

The plan is still to have encumbrance slow you down, definitely, and spells like Haste speed you up (the animation system has no problem handling either of those situations). Both are specific effects over which the players have direct control (if they want to return to their normal speed, they just have to drop that anvil of slaying +3 or wait for the spell to wear off).

The danger comes when base movement speeds, over which the player has no direct control, start to vary. The pen and paper uses an abstraction of its own movement rules -- it's assumed that the party travels together at roughly the same pace and the different movement rates only come into play in customized instances where they make sense.

A computer game has to take a literal interpretation, however, and if there are different base movement rates within the party, then that party is going to have a very frustrating time staying together during basic adventuring. 'Frustrating' is not a word we want associated with NWN, of course, =) and we certainly don't want to be hampering players' ability to form a cohesive party.

But we still wanted to reflect the different racial and class-based movement rates in the game. To do so, we've decided to reinterpret movement in terms of endurance rather than speed. A monk may not run faster than his fellows, but he can certainly run longer. We'll be playbalancing the system once we have it in place and making sure that it all works well, looks right, and keeps the game balanced.

:AND:

Good debate, folks. I'm enjoying it (though this will be my last post of the day -- I'm making a pass of the skills and feats this week, so it's demanding a lot of my time).

Klamath had an interesting point about using party discontinuity as a penalty for running. I don't agree with it, but it *is* interesting.

Here's the concern: If you provide running as an option, people will run. If it causes party discontinuity, then people will still run. They'll just complain more about how the fast people have to spend all their time waiting for the slow people (resulting in the community breaking down into 'fast parties' and 'slow parties'). It's weird psychology but it's the way our heads function as human beings -- not near as clear-headed and logical as we like to think.

As for Rolo's tortoise and the hare argument, I agree with the old wizard: the hare encounters a small tactical anomaly under this system that he wouldn't under a speed-based system. However, keeping the walk speeds uniform and varying only the run speed isn't the solution. It all ties into my earlier point: If you provide people with the option to run, then they will run. Just to do a straw poll out of honest curiosity, how many of you walk rather than run when you play "Planescape: Torment" or "Diablo II?" Personally, I run wherever possible and I'm guessing that most of you did the same.

:AND:

I told myself I wouldn't post but here I am again. =) Ssh, don't let word get out.

Thanks for the ongoing feedback, everyone, especially Rolo. Earlier, I explained why we backed away from the 'common walk, variable run' option. The reason why we backed away from the 4-speeds issue is an easy one: interface complexity. Most games stick with just a single speed, as it's the easiest for everyone to understand and control. A number of good interfaces for two-speed games have emerged, including the 'run toggle' and the 'Shift-click run.' Both often coexist within the same game.

Thus far, however, games with more than two speeds have maintained relatively complex interfaces. The 'Shift-click' model breaks down as it now forces you to keep track the difference between 'Shift-click,' 'Ctrl-click,' 'Alt-click,' and the dreaded 'Ctrl-Shift-click.' The modal system also breaks down because it can be a pain to constantly swap back and forth between the different different modes (and the more speeds you have available, the more often people will want to switch between them).

The only viable system is the scalar model, where you have speedometer that you adjust with some form of 'gas & brake' input. It's the easiest of the three to manage but it still requires constant control. Driving, flying, and console games are the most common ones to use this system and almost all are optimized towards custom peripherals (gamepads, joysticks, and wheels) that greatly limit your ability to use the keyboard. As the keyboard is integral to Neverwinter (chat, interacting with NPCs, etc), I'm afraid that it's not something we're willing to give up.

So those are some of the reasons behind our decisions, thus far. Keep the thoughts coming, though.

:End Quotes

Cord Grimwinder
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