Lord_Mord

The forensic stuff is not my problem. Bones is. And the Angel-guy. And the cheap production. And the cheap humor. Basically almost everything about that show except the forensic stuff. Now that I think ybout it: They could have made the forensic stuff a little bit more realistic.

That really doesn't make it better.

That's not entirely true. The moment I saw the sketch I thought: "Oh ****, the anime crowd has taken over". Without reading anything in the forums. I don't know why I thought that. As I said earlier, I don't think, that she really is anime. But that picture has something on it that makes me feel ... I dont know. A foreshadowing of something not good. I could imagine other people felt the same.

I want Sailor-Moon-like animations for every attack.

I didn't say middle aged. I said medium aged. In my definition that means old/young enough to be cute and admirable. In the case of Eder more the older brother type in the case of Aloth more the cute boy about your age type. In the case of Ydwin more the gothic schoolgirl type.

At first I thought this was an anime problem, too. But it isn't. What reminded me of anime was this: Everyone of the new companions is medium age, medium attractive and not too edgy overall. Like in an anime, action movie or your average RPG. Identification figures for the fanboys/girls. Ydwin just makes it obvious, that's why she receives that much hate. Why does she even have to look good? She could look like this scarred dwarf in Concelhauts tower. I really liked her (Sadly I had to kill her. If I really could have chosen sides, I would have picked hers.). I tell you why: Because than she would not have a fanclub. All this people posting about wanting to find out more about animancy, wanting to have a "darker" companion and stuff. Would they be that hyped if she was a scarred dwarf? No "OMG my soul is so scarred, because my body is"-dwarf with a whiny background story. Just a scarred dwarf that does not care about anything but animancy. I don't think so. P.S.: Is scarred the right word for someone who has scars?

Leave those poor writers alone. It's not as easy as just including a conditional: If might and fighter – Beat the guy to death. If might and wizard – Burn the guy to death. What if I want to beat the guy to death with my muscle wizard?

That's funny. I had a similar idea. I even started writing it down, but then there was this thing with the ninjaguy and I lost interest. I copied it to a text file. Here it is: Might/Strength wouldn't affect the impact of lets say a fireball, as this does not have something to do with strength. That would be intellect, resolve or whatever. But apart from spells that already require might indirectly, like for example Concelhauts staff (Why would I use it, if I was a weakling. It is a melee weapon), a set of spells could be created that directly use it when it makes sense. Like for example an arcane fist striking down from the sky. It's impact would be a product of your physical strength, as it follows your movement. You could push or pull enemies with some kind of magical chains, whips or rams. Or imagine spells that require physical strength to be executed. Like ripping up a portal, wrestling down some kind of summoned force to gain control over it or compressing some kind of magical energy. I'll give an example: Imagine a forcefield that you create between your hands. As long as you hold it, it gains power until you are not strong enough to hold it back anymore. Than it explodes, pushing anyone in the area including you back, dealing damage and knocking them prone. As you were prepared for the impact, your strength or resolve or whatever determines how much it affects you. This way Strength wouldn't be a dump stat for your mage. Just your choice if you want to to be that kind of mage or not. Your version is better, by the way. Mine focused too much on might and intellect.

I felt the same. But most of it was about not knowing what the **** was going on and what everyone was talking about. It will be hard to repeat that.

That's basically it.

I never claimed that you said anything to me. I just don't like your tone. You didn't contribute to the discussion either. But at least you tried.

You started that. Now try your own medicine.

I never claimed that he never has a valid point. Sometimes I agree with him. But that does not mean that I like him. Because noone does. And in this particular discussion he not even has a point. And certainly no right to talk to people like that. I see you edited your answer to sound more eloquent. What a wise decision. But it didn't really work out. Because there's nothing to understand. Your whole "truth" is bull****. No matter how often I read it. The only unflattering truth her is: You are a ****. And it wasn't even necessary to bring it to the surface. It was already obious to everyone. You are the one in the echo chamber. Its name is noone-understands-me. On the doormat there's a message: "You're worthless". You think it is for your visitors. But the only one that comes visiting you is yourself.

Hey, what a coincidence. I don't tolerate bull**** either. And you, my mentally disadvantaged friend are filled to the brim with pure, brown, fresh bull****. There's no need to be filled with bull**** to not like you, because as I said: Noone likes you. Stupid people don't like you, smart people don't like you, women don't like you and men don't like you. Even german people don't like you. You are just not very likeable.

Noone likes you. Did you know that? Noone really knows what you wanted to achieve with your "system". Did you know that too? Your "system" is crap. You certainly didn't know that.

I don't think this neccessarily means it has to be an amulet or whatever. What about a bastard sword with some kind of guarding spell? Because the property lies in the material, it does not have to be a certain kind of item.

Same thing in Germany. But here the first is the better one (There is also a "modern" one. In my opinion it is silly). Tolkien himself helped working on the first. Luckily he had this thing going on with germanic languages. He also published these guidelines on how to translate things. Maybe Obsidian should do the same. In my opinion Tolkiens guidelines would apply to Pillars in many ways. I notice that he probably would have translated Defiance Bay or Gilded Vale. On the other hand: Dyrwood is not The Shire. The german hobbit names work pretty well. Trutzbucht does not. It has a totally different feel. I almost forgot about this thread. I still owe you more examples. And I remembered where I got this idea about gilded vale from. I once stumbled upon a forum discussion about Dr. John's "I walk on guilded splinters". The name of the song is spelled differently on different versions of the album. So they talked about if this was a mistake or on purpose. Different theories came up and when I remember correctly the conclusion was that Dr. John meant gilded, no double meaning or anything, but used some kind of regional spelling. In my head all of that was confused to that strange theory of mine.

Please! No ship pimping stuff. That's pointless.

I think the point I made (if there was one) is that this archetype comes from another genre. You could use it in this genre, but either it would change the game (I dont really want to see PoE heading towards either of those genres) or be pointless (Would feel like a pop culture reference or whatever). Plus: Obsidian tries to make themselves free even from the classic fantasy stereotypes, why introduce new ones? Cause that is what your archetype is: A stereotype. PS: I did not speak about your mom. I did speak about your archetypal mom.

Fat ugly english chicks about the age of your mom is also a character archetype. But one that is not relevant for this kind of game. And one that I would like to keep out of discussions about this game.

Second wind. Please find a less cheesy way to make athletics useful. And a less cheesy way to keep my party members from dying. If I'm not min-maxing everything I always come to the the point where I have to take some athletics points because I need an emergency button. But I hate having to use that button. It just feels wrong.

No we can't.

I think part of the problem with Pillars mages is, that Obsidian is kind of unsure what the goal here is. Its no secret that Josh does not like the Vancian system, but on the other hand wants to provide one, just because a lot of people want it. In my opinion the outcome is already a bit half baked and while reading the stuff about enforcement I get the impression that it wont get better. They should finally decide wether they want it or not. A half assed vancian system is worth nothing. My personal solution would be the most hardcore one. Programmers would hate it. Every class would have it's own system and the goal is to make them as distinct as possible while keeping them balanced. That means: If mages are vancian, they are 100% vancian. No compromises. In my game mages for example would work like BG mages. Ciphers, monks and priests could stay the same. Druids could work something like current Pillars mages with per encounter spells and enforcement. Fighters would have cooldowns, while Paladins would have per encounter ablities and so on and so on. Classes would not share spells. If for example you have more than one class that could summon, summons would work totally different for those two classes. (The chanter makes combat-only chants that are more powerful but get destroyed after the fight, while that mage can create weak minions that actually come to life until they die, the druid calls creatures from the forest that stay as long as the druid upkeeps the spell...) That system would be complex as hell, the more complex, the more I would love it. One would have to find ways to balance that, like an underlying mana-like logic and conversion tables to keep track of the value and cost of all abilites.

It's hard to argue with what you said. OK, a mana system is interesting, too. Now I'm even interested in playing a game that uses such a system to it's full extend. In fact I agree with you in every point but the one I cited above. A core system does not necessarily have to be as simple as possible it has to be designed as simple as possible. It all depends on what you are achieving. If for example your goal is to create a Vancian system, well then that is the system of your choice. You don't choose it the same way you would choose your graphics engine, you choose it just because you want to. If you wanted to create a card game, you wouldn't say: I want it to be like poker, because poker is simple. You might say something like: I want to create the most complex card game in history and it should be something like bridge, just because I like bridge and my players like it too. Now if you've chosen your system you come to the hard part: How can I get this complex bitch of a system under control? Now your math comes in. You want to design your system in a way that is easily understandable for your players and easily balancable for your programmers. That is hard work but you shouldn't change your design goals to make it easier for you.

OK, originally I just wanted to troll a bit, but this has gone further than intended so I feel the need to give a serious answer. Personally I made the experience that using the KISS rule usually leads to dumb outcomes, that's why it is kind of a red rag to me. I dont know if that's how this rule is meant or if people just use it for a good excuse not to think. I'm a web developer, so I knoow what I'm talking about. The people that are too lazy / too dumb to write clean and simple code are usually the same ones that justify lazy decisions with what they call "simplicity". For me Diablo looks like a good example of how close simplicity and stupidity are too another (I played Diablo 1+2 very often, but never finished one of them). It's dead simple, easy to learn, has a very addictive gameplay, but sooner or later the point comes when you ask yourself: What the hell am I doing here? It's like the pumped up version of some internet game. Of course a mana system would simplify things. But the question is: Why do you want that? Just because KISS? Well, maybe you should consider switching back to Pong. You won't get more KISS ever again. I for one want above all things that the magic system feels like magic. Magic isn't just pumping energy into something and getting damage in return. This is no space shooter. Magic should have it's own mysterious rules and they should be complicated. That's why I like the Vancian System. That's why I like BG. Of course, it's not balanced. Who cares? At least I never get the feeling that all that magic does is converting energy into certain damage types. In my opinion Pillars is already leaning to much into that direction. It's OK for the cipher or monk, but the other casting classes should be more clearly set apart. I fear that the enforcement system will only make it worse. Excuse my terrible english, I'm in a hurry. I should be working already.