Hassat Hunter

This isn't about objective XP vs. kill-XP, that's the other thread. This one is more about how to make hard harder without ramping up damage/HP of foes. And I just think this works perfectly for PE (sure, combined with Objective XP but that wasn't the point of the thread). I agree with Jarno that making the AI "better" only at higher difficulties would be bad. Making proper AI is difficult enough, dissecting it for different difficulties, making them very stupid on easy... I don't see it being a good idea. They should work together by default. Rather no more "everyone rushes to their dead" most modern RPG's have, like old FPS used to have. We can do better nowadays. Having said that, ideas you had like giving them potions and spells does sound good. However they have nothing to do with the AI. Nope. That's just extra difficulty modes... not an easy/medium/hard (and whatever else there may be). What's what's discussed here. The modes are just on *top* of that again. I've read it thrice, still not sure what it says... :confused: I was personally more thinking the entire encounter is created as if it would be the hardest difficulty. However each opponent has a difficuly setting. If set to easy it would appear on easy and above, set to hard only hard and above, etc. Alternativily checkboxes for all difficulties, which could offer even more leverage, like making enemy x appear on normal and hard, but it's replaced by the veteran x on very hard (which has only the very hard checkbox marked), without having both. It's the system the Deus Ex mod "The Nameless Mod" used, and it's very effective.

Discussing things in the XP thread, one good thing someone mentioned that I think deserves it's own thread. Which is; Objective-XP allows encounters to be enhanced, without giving more XP. While in most RPG's, even the BG's, higher difficulties would mean higher enemy damage and lower player damage, how about in PE we just adjust the encounters instead? On Normal you might meet the Ogre solo. On Hard he might have 5 kobold archers firing fire arrows, making the battle harder, without artifically giving the ogre zillions of HP (DA:O I look at you). However in a kill-per-XP system this would mean XP from these 5 kobolds, and all other enhanced encounters, which end up giving you enough extra XP to compensate, making hard not hard anymore. The fallacy of BG, where easy wasn't easy at all, but harder than normal because you got a 50% XP cut. The more we can prevent that, the better. Same with rewarding higher difficulties with powerful items, as another thread suggested, it would just make harder difficulties not harder. Which shouldn't be why difficulties exist in the first place. Of course this does require developers to imput more time into encounters, since they need to setup not just the encounter, but any potential reinforcements on a higher difficulty. Which isn't an issue if you just make "Hard" a +50% damage bonus to all enemies. So I would ask the players here, would it be worth the time investment?

Rogue takes them all down, fighters lift away the hoard. It's not like this is a single-character game. And if you really cannot carry one can always demolish, though that might lessen the reward. Splitting up the team? Their weakened status and time. But yes, eventually they would probably be strong again. As stated, if you fear that you can just kill them. However it's not really required if all they do is threatnen the city. Heck, they might even be useful to people since they clear dangerous monsters plaguing near where their hideout is... According to your description, that didn't seem the case. However it might be. Does that need the player to evaluate his opinion? Up to the player. And suffer the consequences. One way or the other. Which is better than a forced "kill them all". That's why armed guards and adventurers live in cities to protect the typical civilian. Think Flaming Fist.

I hardly want 50 people in the street, and 1 only having a quest, and all named. The BG/PS:T way of just naming random people "commoner", "wealthy man" etc. worked. You could still talk to them for banter. But the real interesting people had names.

That couldn't be further away from what I was suggesting here, or even the more complex system of my linked thread. Basically, I have no idea how you could have made THAT out of my words. Especially since that was your idea and I stated checking if anything was "stealthed past" was impossible. Kind of an odd thing to say if 'my system' was build around that. (are you confusing me with yourself here per-chanse? It sounds a lot like your system after all.) A has objectives, B has objectives. Do the devs force you to do A before B with objective-XP. Nope. Problem solved. As stated before, we are dealing with a full fledged RPG here, with sidequests, exploration etc. Not just one long path with increasingly hostile enemies to slash, like Diablo, where there is only one predetermined linear path. Quote me once saying either that my goal is player-guiding (the so called behavior management argument). I dare ya. Once! So far, so good. God. Damn. It. So close. Read my FORUM POST: QUESTS != (that means ISN'T) OBJECTIVES. 4 MORE YEARS. I DID NOT SLEEP WITH THAT WOMAN... what were we talking about again? Except for the many pros mentioned before; * Making encounters harder with more enemies, more powerful enemies. Without giving more XP for that, taking down difficulty a notch again. * No grinding for XP on foes. * Easier to balance areas, instead of tweaking all foes (which might be elsewhere) just look at the objectives and tweak them. Mainly, it's pretty hard to balance XP values of foes, since they aren't exclusively to one area. Tweak them, another areas balance is modified too. You could use a system of unique enemies per level like KOTOR2 does, but that adds even more issues. So many enemies are having completely different stats there. Map A-B-C, and on A and C they match, and suddenly B the same enemy is weaker. Same planet. No explanation. It also gives more XP. And changing that requires about multiple files per area to be modified. Having a single "template" and working with that is so much more efficient.

Let's see, playing Deathspank just now... it has enemies you simply cannot harm and have to run from until much later when you find a special weapon. And that's a casual action RPG. Then there is the Alaska sequence in Freelancer. And the Alien docks. And the New York minefield. And the attack on the Order Planet. All unwinnable, all great fights. So if a casual action RPG and a space sim can pull it off, why the heck can't a proper RPG like Project: Eternity do so?

^ Good. I think BG, BG2 and PS:T did fine in this regard, so see no issues for PE. Also thought this thread would be about abandoned cities. I wouldn't mind having a big ghost town, fully intact. Rather than the ruins you find. Heck, it might not even be hostile at all. Just a regular city. Except, everyone is dead (not in the undead "I kill you!" kind of way). With all the issues that gives .

The ME3 way? Fine by me, even if it wasn't really much of a choice, one of the 2 always seemed superior to me. But that was just bad balancing anyway...

Use the mouse? The cursor and block will be disconnected, but that's not really an issue (aside from possibly distracting you), it just looks silly.

Well, no-one said solo play should be easy. It will be a challenge. Not much challenge if you super-level past all encounters. Also remember there will be about 12(!) levels, not 50 of Diablo. So thinking of leveling as "buzz moment", "just a few skeletons away" etc. isn't the right way to go. With the amount of content in PE leveling will take time and be far away, so these qualifications wont run here. You only get it about 11 times in the entire game. And removing kill-XP is another step in just making it that little easier to manage, so not everyone is lvl 12 at 40% of the content, that's just bad design. It was pretty much stated. However after some fuzz, Fergus said it wasn't set in stone after all. Personally I hope they don't turn back from this because of some fans not understanding objectives (as this thread clearly proves) or being stuck to the old ways. My opinion anyway.

Objective is pretty wide. It can be finding something, completing a quest, getting somewhere, pretty much anything.

There will be enough battles... it's a CRPG. So I am sure why you would think anyone would think 'I can never attack *sob*'... you can... but you can't MINDLESSLY attack everyone, as that ends up getting you killed. The way it's meant to be. If you can't beat it, return later and try again. Or not if it's like a God or something...

Well, in the AGX-17 example you could still take away all their weapons and armor while unconscious. While not dead, they are severly weakened so. Wheter it will be enough to deter them to attack? That depends on the group itself. It may, it may not. Do you want to kill them all just to "make sure"? Go ahead. That would work just fine for PE...

Deathspank 1 on Hard is pretty easy, Deathspank 2 on Hard is a little harder. Generally only because enemies are 2 levels above you even if you do all though. Still pretty casual, especially with the instant-respawn after dying and just getting your money back is easy. Also... trilogy? Did I miss something? EDIT: Apparently I did... but The Baconing wasn't in my Steam Deathspank pack, and costs twice as much as they did... time to wait for an x-mas sale xD

You wont really see it in isometric view though... Anyway, while it would be important for, say, The Witcher II to have sheeting look 'on the character' the PE devs could easily take the easy path out and have them "floating" behind them. There is no need to go through all the trouble of making it look good up close when you never see it up close. As for sheating itself... the world is dangerous. Cities are dangerous. You might end up getting killed when breaki... ehm... entering the wrong house. So it makes sense for me that expert adventurers keep their weapons at arms at all times. Bar fight? Stab a sword into the person still needing to grab his weapon. Ambushed? The unsheating time may be the difference in life and death. So as such I really didn't see an issue with adventurers always being on guard in those games. It comes with the profession...

For the hacking... Don't search for what you need to find. Instead, find the one block that doesn't "move"... that's your target. Using that hacking is as easy as it can be. Not sure why so many people have problems with it (they probably try the much harder route of actually checking for the block and ignoring movement and non-movement?)

That's not a random quest... that's cause and consequence. Of course people want that in. And it's a much better way to add replay value than random fetch/kill quests...

Aye aye aye *sigh* *sigh* Ask his post to be read, doesn't read other posts well. *sigh* QUESTS != OBJECTIVE. Goddammit man. Let's see you have objectives A to Z. All around your level. One may do ABC... the other ZYX... another KTAM... the other ZALRP... etc. etc. And the fun thing is... you aren't forced to do all of them. You aren't forced to do any of them. They are all side-objectives, completely seperate of the main plot. Tell me where there is linearity in that. Also expecting people to do so called 'lvl 10' while they're level 5 obviously shouldn't happen under any situation... :/ Very well. Predict me what point the player is when it's done Z. I dare you. Keep in mind what I said before... Not so predicatable now, is it? So far so good. **** **** **** ****. QUESTS != OBJECTIVE GODDAMMIT... Also are you posting under multiple accounts. It's suspicious multiple people post this exact faulty deduction. It's called exploring, not grinding. Well in your system it's called grinding, true enough. Do objective, get XP. No ups or downs to compensate for level, no checks if sneaking, no having to take into account whats done to complete the objective, no killcounters. Nothing, just 1 XP point. I am pretty sure it can't get any less convoluted than that... I guarantee. Also it will be have zero effects on the system, easy to implent and adapt for developers, easy to debug. Yeah... it's so horrible. Kill it with fire. I am not sure what exactly you think I wrote, but if "click altar = XP" (to really simplify an exploration objective) requires constant world checking, multiple conditions, entities, background running stuff and god knows what else, you're doing something wrong. I am pretty sure it was your system with the "sneak past" that added such complexities just because the game can't possible know what the hell 'sneak past' means without adding a serious margin for error, which isn't good. Again, not sure what the hell you think I suggested other than "objective solved? XP!" Just a bool, nothing less, nothing more. No "modifier table", no "entity base class", nothing. And if one issue must prevail XP-wise (say, killing the dragon) just add that XP on top? Solved the dragon issue? 5XP. Kill the dragon? 2XP. Immediately solve the dragon problem with violence instead of another way 5XP+2XP (=7XP). Yup... that simple. It really is... that simple. EDIT: If still too hard to grasp... while this could work, making it slighly more 'advanced' can add a lot to easier modification in the future and for modmakers. Both for their mods, as well as modding the base game... read all about it in my thread here; http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61612-most-developermodderfriendly-xp-system/

While randomising smaller rewards (no point in the devs manually adding small coinage to crates) randomness to that high a factor are only good for ARPG's, not RPG's. Especially the "quest randomniser" will be a no-no for good quality quests. The less fed-ex or kill x of y the better, random or not.

BG2 had some scaling yes. About the same they want in PE. So the feeling of progression will be there. As does the experience of meeting a powerful foe early and dying merciless. Also, it does surprise me so many people state "but if XP is fixed by objectives, you get stuck! You can't grind to unstuck" like PE will be some railroaded Diablo II or something. If you are "stuck" just do more sidequests. Explore more. Complete those objectives. And you get all the XP you need. If not, you probably should look at improving your strategy or turning down the difficulty slider. Like some people honestly believe that if you're so called "stuck" the only way is back and grind, and you can't sidestep on another adventure. So many people just unfamiliar with the BG/PS:T serious, or am I missing some fear or something? Or do people get here expecting Diablo IV? EDIT: For the record I dislike crafting. The best "crafting" would be Cespenar (BG2:ToB), but of course, that's not crafting at all as we know it in modern games. All the pro's of crafting (good items, hunting for upgrades) without all the cons (carrying 50 wood and 50 iron to craft, overpowering too fast, mundane stuff creating, becoming a moneyincreasement exploit etc. etc. etc.). *sigh*

I rather not havine one combined inventory, much for the reasons listed. Also it just doesn't "feel" right to lump it up together so instead of making individuals, well, individuals. It's leaning awefully close to sucky system like carry-all-lists. And I rather not add inventory tetris. For one char (Deus Ex, Diablo) okay, but an entire team? Way too much pain in the ass to be good.

Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue. Made it my goal to burn every book in the library. Even if repetitive, unnecessary travelling, and no reward what so ever but me knowing I torched them all...

Everyone forgot the reason why most where so attacked wasn't the consoller, but the OP stating he has "grown up, and thus can't game behind a desk" So easy to just forget, I guess?

It's hell ugly compared to BG2 though.

This is basically my assumption too. Especially seeing it "released early fiscal year" makes it seem highly like a delay for strategical financial reasons, rather than for polish and improvement (though I sure hope they spend that time and nto just put it on ice like happened to AP apparently).