triCritical

Hasn't Baldur's Gate sold the most copies over any other game they have made? That happens to be the only Bioware game I like too. Oh well...

And all I wanted to know was if Obsidian was going to ditch it? I don't make as many typo's.

What does this have to do with unnecessary mandatory dull combat? What does this have to do with unnecessary mandatory dull combat? Afterall Malaks assassins, or BG ripoff plot, only make up a very small percentage of the enccunters. And for the most part are some of the less mundane and redundant encounters. So what does this have to with unnecessary mandatory dull combat? Just about every PnP game I have every played was void of dull and unnecessary mandatory combat. Maybe you are just to daft to realize its a filler. Your are being worked by corporate Canada to make you think the game is longer then it really is. OMG you are so stupid, lets try this again. I DON'T WANT the combat removed, I just want an option to avoid the mandatory combat for characters who don't want to do it. Your probably going to accuse me wanting a pacifistic solution again aren't you. :D :D :D :D Your about as predictable as day and night. No I brought up a design philosophy of Dave's. Which debunked your argument that talkiness should be removed. However, you just twist facts around because you are a drama queen.

I did so well ignoring you in the past, I think I will start again. Here's why, Shoulda, woulda, coulda... What does this have to do about anything. I am not talking about pure anything you putz. You and other drama queen's kept on bringing that up and I guess I am the dip for biting. no more... This makes no sense, since Sith have no idea if I am sith or not???? Here's where you go off the deep end. WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???????? STICK TO THE TOPIC ON HAND, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT GAMES!!!!!! ARE YOU DAFT???? CAN YOU READ????? I am asking for the mandatory to be removed you putz!!!!! That means it can still be an options, DUH!!! Huh?? Again you bring up the complete extreme, which was never what I intended. Your just laughable, I can tell you over and over and over again, that this was not my intent and you will keep on bringing it up like a stupid little doggie chasing their tail. Your stupidity frustrates me. I always forget that you keep on responding with more and more gibberish.

JE Mr. Audi S4 Sawyer once stated that he invisioned a game in which there would be no XP for killing monsters. Afterall its not necessary and he has GM'd campaigns in, which XP was only given for accomplishments such as finished quest. I agree with him. BTW, quest experience is not phat l3wt. I never said everyone did. I just said make it a choice, like a good CRPG should. If you want to fight hordes and hordes of inept enemies be my guest. My elitist evil jedi has better things to do, that is my point.

This is why your a drama queen that just like to argue. IMO its has a lot, but what does this have to do with reducing the number of mundane combat encounter, which have absolutely no bearing on the game? If it makes you happy IMO if a game offers you the ability to play a certain character then that same game should allow you to play that character to its fullest. Games like Fallout and Arcanum come very close to letting you do that. Others don't even try. But again, you the drama queen, raises an issue that has no bearing on the fact that there is no need for redundant and mundane combat in a game, which plays more like an adventure game. IMO they should keep the encounters low in number, not whoring out my jedi abilities. Actually I am. The reason is because Dave dodge the question Gaider loves to state how important the story driven nature to the game is and how important character and NPC development are. I want to get rid of the excess fat, which serves no purpose but pad 4-5 extra hours of unnecessary combat just so they can say its a 30 hours experience, which its not. If the game was meant to be a tactical combat RPG like ToEE, Silent Storm, or JA2 then I would have no problem with other people saying to remove unecessary talkie bits if they reduced the quality of the game. My question to Obsidian is does all the redundant and mundane combat improve the quality of the game, or does all the whoring of jedi combat reduce the quality. IMO if it does not improve the quality, which I am sure it does not, then let the non-combat character have an oppurtunity to avoid it. Now your turn to make absurd analogies and pointless examples which do not pertain to topics on hands about topics on hand like pirates. My god your a loser...

Well that is why I said it should be more like PS:T. And tell me where I said that the game should be void of combat? I think I said in the very first post that Star Wars would be pretty damn stupid without combat. Its just that a lot of the drama queens around here like twisting facts and baiting people into arguments. I am pretty sure what I said was. back to you. I don't think there were too many people that tried a pure diplo solution first run through, that is pretty hard. However, after visiting the Fallout boards over the years I would say that the two most tagged skills were small arms and speech. Showing a balance between combat and diplomacy. Why would someone play a pure diplo game? Or about a pure stealth game? Or even a kill everything game? Because a lot of people like to see if it could be done and had fun doing it. Anyhow it makes perfect sense in the Fallout universe considering what the game was all about. It was a stat based roleplaying game that tried to explore a socially/economically/morally different world in a post apocalyptic world. Your character starts from a clean slate, and may have come from an environment where violence was non-existence. Given you have weapons, but as most defense contractors will tell you, there for self-defense... In case I didn't get the point across already. It would be very difficult to get through the game first time through, with no exposure without killing anything. And most first time players I have talked to just about always tag small arms. In Fallout, its stupid not to. If you would like to make the comparison with KotOR, what I really want to get rid of is all of the mundane mandatory combat that add nothing to the game but boredom. Again I favor a small number of tactical encounters, over many easy redundant encounters. IMO this makes the game less fun for people not playing a hack and slash game. And while there will be the drama queens that dispute this fact, its only logical to allow different characters to approach things differently. I think there was some of this on Taris, but not enough, and it completely dissapeared for the remainder of the game.

I really hope this is not the case. I believe Taris, with a couple of modifications, really showed hope for Bioware. I think if Obsidian uses Taris as an example in which the different classes are allowed to approach things differently for the mundane combat and extrapolate on this, KotOR 2 will be a much better game. Also I thought all the planet hopping was rather dull, especially since the planets themselves, were nothing more then little dungeons around a hub based linearity very similar to the linear portion of the plane hopping PS:T.

A ninja is a trained japanese assassin. While a ninja may have to fight, its is pretty obvious that he has failed in his primary function, if it resorts to this. Unless of course you think revenge of the ninja is gospel. Knowing you you probably do. However, having a game that allows stealth and diplomacy solutions with the ability to fail, does not in anyway contradict your ninja analogy. In a game like Fallout you can play a ninja if you so desire. see... Fallout Ninja Courtesy RPGcodex.

I think you need to learn the difference between a role, and a character dispotition and attitude. A characters role in DnD, that old hack and slash rule set, is FIGHTER, PRIEST, etc. There strength in these roles is determined by their skills and attributes. This is their role in life, their occupation, their calling. A person attitude does not determine if they use swords or spells. A persons personality does not determine if they sneak, or announce their arrival. A person dispotition does not determine their proficiencies with bows to make money to take over the world! Your stats do, and that is your role. Anyhow its all semantics. I can't play DnD without stats, but I can play it without personality. That kind of makes it pretty obvious, which is more important.

Precedent has shown that a smart man can carry more then a strong man. In a good game it would be a characters charisma. In KotOR, I don't think there is a good reason for it. Although they are there anyway... Its difficult because FO's crit calculation are totally F'd up. If you are going to tell me that you played Combat boy and never got hit with a crit that tore you a new arsehole, I will just simply assume you are a liar. Although, I am still certain there are some people that beat it as combat boy without reloading just like there are people who beat it as talk boy without reloading it. Play it enough times and its not so hard. Of course you will probably say you did it your first time, with both arms tied behind your back. You do talk the talk...

Its only the most logical way to determine how much someone can carry. And fight can mean more then one possibility. That is what the NPC's are for. However, the NPC AI is worse then a rigged craps die. And controlling the NPC's yourself makes the combat more drawn out then Pool of Radiance 2's. If anyone can beat Fallout as a combat boy without reloading I would be very impressed. As a matter a fact I do not think it is possible to beat FO as a combat boy without reloading. Anyhow, the reason that beating FO as a diplomat is so hard, is because it would not be very fun if it was too easy. That is pretty good design...

Don't be stupid. A characters stats should define their role. I just determine there mindset and personality.

Says who? There is no limit stopping everyone from stockpiling everything. Another reason KotOR was less then good. BTW, while I love to ignore your you are getting too stupid to pass up. And if I was president I would guarantee jobs for everyone... WTF does this have to do with the price of tea in china. Yeah because I should know ahead of time what the game is going to have in store for me. Are you part of the lame developers of the world fanclub?

With regards to minibosses its not all relative. Because chances are you will not be able to your classes abilities to your advantage. And this is what I am talking about forced, level playing field encounters. There is no bloody point to these things as far as I am concerned. Minibosses are something that should be left to action console games. As for your example, it was about as informative as a 4th graders research paper on nuclear power.

Well KotOR did not do other. When you design a game, then designer needs to ask himself what kind of game they are making? Are they making a combat oriented game, or are they making CRPG that allows your to play different roles! Suffice it to say when I played DnD, which KotOR is in space, not everything resorted to combat. And while DnD 3E is certainly more combat oriented, I hear many people talk about solving problems non combat. If a game is going to allow the person the ability to play different roles, then there should damn well be sufficient paths in the game to act out their abilities! Thats just common sense. BTW, my two favorite games are Jagged Alliance 2 and Fallout, one which is very combat oriented and very good, and the other which allows you to play roles. They are good examples of games which have very good design. While I personally believe a game like KotOR needs some combat, I am of the opinion that it does not need a lot of combat. Especially the pointless mundane boring combat with the terribly cumbersome and trivially stupid combat engine it uses. I think combat for a jedi is pretty much the epitome of the its profession. However, Fallout was a much different game. There were no preset professions, and it was very likely that your character came from a completely non-violent life as they new it. The very act of hurting someone might have been completely foreign to the vault dweller. Not to mention more then half of the skills in Fallout did not pertain to combat. The nature behind Fallout, however, IMO was a lot like KotOR in the sense that they both could be played like adventure games. Fallout just did it a lot better.

I am telling you, KotOR AI is a random number generator, randomly selecting feats and attacks. I even asked D. Gaider, which acknowledged one of my other post, and he was just silent. Keep in mind that these are the same people who built the Infinitely poorly coded Engine. There is no logic or reason behind any of the AI's attacks. ITS A BLOODY RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR!

Fallout is a good example of how to do combat in a game correctly. With the exception of the rats, which can easily be killed and/or ignored in Vault 13 exit, there is NO unavoidable mundane character. If you choose to do so you can go on caravan trips, or places like Vault 15, but there is no point is you are talker. However, let us think about what KotOR did right, and IMO that is the adventure game aspect. So it is only logical that Obsidian you design a game more closely to a Fallout, or at least PS:T, where the adventuring aspect is more ubiquitous then the lame combat. And last but not least don't force us to fight with the mini-boss foozles, that is just lame. How much more unbalanced can a game be then force a scoundrel which has sneaked buy everyone to fight a miniboss on a level playing field as a soldier? Its funny none of the rags mentioned this unbalancing, which is almost on par with Arcanum's...

In FO1 you only have to blow up the military base, and have the option of using a loud count. Anyhow its just like saying you can't be a total pacifist in Texas since people on death row die all the time, and its the state of Texas, hence the citizens, which are condemning them to death. Anyhow your mission is to destroy the Master and destroy the Supermutants. While blood will spill inevitably, you can beat the game without engaging in any combat, and have NO kills marked on you character sheet. I have never seen another game that allows you to play that game. What you are saying is much more misleading then someone saying you can play a pacifist.

Well, the droids on Dantooine are extremely simple like you said, and the battle is over in about 10 seconds because of that. It couldn't "last forever" unless you had no way to damage them. That's what I meant. I initially fought them with lightsabers and made no progress at all.. then I put Zaalbar in my party and they were easy. Most droids in Kotor have energy resistance but at least you have some devastating force powers or special saber crystals to use against them (too late for dantooine, however). I agree that lightsabers are too weak. Even Jedi should consider a melee weapon for all the advantage a saber gives you. I found lightsabers to be pretty damn useless too. I used vibro blades, and that is when it took a long time. I think the major problem was just the amount of hitdice the droids had, and the fact that the combat wasn't challenging, just an exercise in futility.

The fun is in designing a better game. For one thing Jedi's can kick the crap out just about anything that is not a jedi, agreed? That is why the adventuring aspect was the good idea and all of the mundane combat was the bad idea. I am a firm believer in a low number of difficult and tactical encounters over many easy ones like in KotOR. I guess I am just not a big fan of a hack and slash game with a weak combat engine. Star Wars should not boil down to DnD in space, but I guess since that is all they have been able to do for all but two of their games I should not be surprised.

Its funny that you mention your character acts like a childish bully until he becomes a sith lord. Especially since the majority of sith jedi's on Korriban act like retard bullies in the 5th grade. Playing evil characters in Bioware games has always been painful, KotOR is not exception. Until a developer tries to capture intent and motive, I don't think you can capture a good evil character. I think this was done to some extent in PS:T giving you the option to say good stuff, however, it being prefaced as a lie.

They were exteremely simple. That wasn't not my point. THE BATTLE LASTED FOREVER, and it was not the only battle that dragged on. Never once was any of my characters in danger. My point is not that KotOR combat was hard. Its that it was dull and boring and only required patience not skill and smarts. And your raise an interesting point with the light sabers and droids. One of the biggest things that irritated me about the DnD'afication of Star Wars, were all the rules and laws that made absolutely no sense. In all the non-Bioware Star Wars I have ever read a light saber could cut through anything especially droids and solid metals. In KotOR, my saber was only slightly better then a bastard sword.

What are Obsidian's thoughts on Mandatory combat in KotOR? One of things that really turned me off KotOR was its combat. It was probably the worst combat I have ever played since SoulBringer. Anyhow one of the things that clearly annoyed me is that you have multiple classes that are either not good, or good at combat. However, when faced with combat options the playing field is completely the same, hence there is a serious unbalancing issue. Obviously a soldier is going to do better in combat then a scoundrel, and unlike games like BG, and Arcanum where you can rely on the strength of your NPC's, the KotOR NPC's normally, for me at least, were not that effective and the AI was nothing more then a random number generator selecting combat moves, it was awful. Yeah I know you could alternate party members but this would have made the combat even more dull. I think Taris was a good example of Bioware trying to make good level design, its too bad the rest of the game devolved into linear hack and slash levels. But giving different classes different ways of solving quest and infiltrating would take a huge burden of the dull combat especially for those characters not combat friendly. And for those characters that are combat friendly please don't make us do speeder races and inconcievable quest to save a jedi. Just let us blast a hole in the wall and let us kill everything inside, or die trying. I know the Bioweenies have always loved to make hack and slash adventure games, with pitiful combat, so I was wondering if Obsidian was planning more of a PS:T approach. In other words, understand that the weakness of KotOR was its combat, much like the IE's weakness, and instead make an adventure/roleplaying game more along the same lines as PS:T. IMHO, this would dramatically improve KotOR, to the point were I would actually be able to finish it. Worst combat moment in a game ever, was fighting those two robots at the first star forge! BIOWARE STOLE 10 MINUTES OF MY LIFE WITH THE EQUIVALENT OF STANDARDS AND I WANT THEM BACK!!!!!!!!!!!

You mean it had swords that looked like lightsabers. Considering, that swords and lightsabers are mechanically indifferent in this game, aside from a new feat selection, I would say that this was a step backwards in CRPG fencing. Afterall, the Bioware lightsabers where pretty much incapable of doing anything different in combat, with the exception of crystals for munckining, and tossing. But I could not use my lightsaber to cut a whole in walls to rescue pathetic jedi's instead of doing ridiculous plot devices like mini games. And what was that combat void of anything more innovative then what was done in games made 20 years ago? Oh, yeah I forgot about the cinematic fx. Anyhow, I really think Bioware should spend more time developing good combat for their games, rather then good looking combat considering that it is ubiquitous in their rather ROELPLAUYINGE shallow titles.