J.E. Sawyer

The back end/data for fog of war is implemented, but not the rendering side. Also, if the room were obscured by fog of war, that would be a pretty crummy screenshot.

The character models only have one shadow cast from the scene's directional light. Per-character point light shadows (especially multiple point light shadows) would get computationally expensive very fast. The characters are lit using dynamic lights placed in scene, but real-time lighting is never going to perfectly match the pre-rendered lighting of the scene. The stronger/less diffuse our environment shadows are, the more difficult it becomes to place characters in the scene and not have them stick out. We tended toward relatively diffuse shadows in the IWD games for that reason as well.

Changing what units are doing based on the circumstances of combat is the essence of tactics.

It's only maintenance-heavy if the circumstances require you to switch modes often. Unless you think circumstances will shift so rapidly that characters will change modes as frequently as a wizard casts spells (unlikely), it's at least going to be lower maintenance than triggering a sequence of active abilities. We have different mode channels because not all modes have logical overlap. D&D's Rapid Shot and Power Attack don't really have any overlap because the former is for ranged attacks and the latter is for melee attacks. Shutting off one when the other is active isn't necessary.

3.5 clerics and druids can be extremely powerful in a variety of roles.

Initially spotting a hidden object highlights it automatically for several seconds. The highlight key is only required to highlight it after that initial duration.

PE's ruleset is about as different from 3E as 3E was from 2nd Ed. AD&D. As a reminder, IWD2 was a 3E D&D game, not a 2nd Ed. AD&D game.

Yes. Modes all have an assigned "channel" and you can only have one mode active in a given channel at a time. E.g., the paladin's Zealous auras are all on one channel. In the UI, we would like to visually group all same-channel modal abilities together so it's very clear to the player. A wizard can't cast more than one spell at a time and a monk can't perform more than one special attack at a time. The use of modal abilities, like active abilities, is typically a tactical decision based on the current circumstances of combat. Whether or not you want to buy multiple same-channel modal Abilities/Talents depends on your strategy for how that character will work in the long run. Many/most of our abilities are already designed around limited use and a specific tactical application. The rogue's Finishing Blow does much, much more damage if the target is under 50% Stamina (and, in fact, increases proportionally the lower the target's Stamina is). The paladin's Reviving Exhortation can bring a single target out of a 0-Stamina state with a big Stamina bump, but if it's done too early in combat, the revived party member will have a Stamina crash before the end of combat. The ranger's Marked Prey ability grants a bonus against a single target once per combat, but it can't be switched once it's assigned.

In fact, we use a lot of percentile modifiers and damage ranges that would be very slow and difficult/impossible with standard dice.

Yeah, we call them modal abilities internally. The idea is that you're turning modes on and off rather than gaining a passive benefit or activating a single-use ability. If a class has more modal abilities, we're designing them to be more low-maintenance. Fighters fall into this category. That said, you can buy Talents that make fighters more active if you want to, but their core design leans more heavily toward passive and modal abilities.

If the entire party has blown out movement bonuses (most don't), it's less useful, but still useful. There are three aspects of haste that make it a Big Deal even without the extra attack: 1) the non-movement bonuses are unnamed/dodge, i.e. they stack with everything 2) it can be cast at range (unlike heroism) 3) it can affect the entire party. Standing back and giving the entire party a free-stacking attack bonus, AC bonus, reflex save bonus, plus an enhancement speed bonus is pretty good. E: A bonus standard is nuts considering most spells take a standard action.

A lot of soldiers wore lighter armor for a variety of reasons, some having to do with practical matters like cost or maintenance, but sometimes arguably due to the circumstances of battle. Linen padded jacks were actually surprisingly effective against arrows (more than mail, in some cases). We have most of our base armor types in the game now (still working on leather and brigandine). We may revise things a bit in the future, but I think most of you will really like where we're going with the designs. They are pretty firmly based in historical references (though they aren't derived from historical suits 1:1), they're distinctive from each other, they allow for the use of player-customized colors, and they are well-grounded. This last point is important to me because it allows us to "grow" the style of armor more over time. If armor starts out crazy or elaborate, things can get super-sized really quickly. Ours are practical but cool-looking (IMO) and it's very easy to tell the male and female characters from each other. Hopefully we can show you some more of it soon. The character artists have also been developing the weapons more. Like weapons in the IE games and older AD&D artwork, the weapons are relatively realistic in their size and proportion (with slight exaggeration for things like warhammer heads that might not read well at the small character size). We just got in a pollaxe and two-handed morning star, both of which look like bad news (in a good way). As with the armor, I think you'll like the base options and where we can "escalate" into fancier weapons over the course of the game. Heutzutage, sprechen nur alte Leute Bairisch, ja?

We have a 3rd level Haste-ish spell. It will not be as gnarly as it is in 3E/3.5. In my current Pathfinder campaign, I removed the extra attack from Haste entirely and the party still casts it all the time. It's that good.

Correct. Once you've detected a hidden object, the highlighting shortcut will reveal it like other objects. On a related note, finding hidden objects can happen due to sheer proximity (very close), but will trigger at much greater range if you enter scouting mode, which is our combined stealth/search state. BTW, another reason why we would like to retain a highlighting key in PE is because with an isometric perspective and occluded geometry, it's very easy for bodies/items to fall "behind" something relative to the camera.

In F:NV, specifically, the lines were all recorded and the bark strings didn't necessarily pop-up depending on your settings. A long line that included a greeting took up time -- recording time and listener time. PE will allow for more verbose and varied replies, including simple greetings. Variety often requires time, which is something we didn't have a lot of on F:NV. We wrote about 65,000 lines of dialogue for the game and a lot of quest/world states to respond to across a lot of different factions. Because it was all voiced, the game's release date wasn't the deadline -- it was the recording schedule, which started months earlier.

“This is false,” he replied. “We can't choose to ignore it. As soon as the words are read, they have already hit emotionally.” You simply can't not take it to heart. After dozens or hundreds of instances, it honestly doesn't have any effect.

We're designing all of our companions to have a direct interest in one or more threads connected to your central conflict. They may not have the same stakes in it that you do, but they have some stake in the outcome. That's what provides motivation for them to comment, critique, or praise you for your decisions and behavior. And because your stakes are often different from theirs, it can provide fuel for conflict. During any given crisis, you may have a very personal concern while they have a more abstract, philosophical or social concern -- or vice-versa. At times, they will want to question or advise you. Other times, they will want your advice or understanding.

Jorge's.

Polina and Dimitri grew up in the U.S. but... they both have slight accents, IMO.

There are an enormous number of features/systems that people have complained about that I have not changed because I believed (and still believe) the game would ultimately be more enjoyable as-designed. I always listen to/read what people have to say, but I only rarely make changes based on what they say. I don't think anyone would benefit from me ignoring all of the points that people put forward.

A few points of clarification: * "Crafting" is one skill, but the crafting system uses multiple skills. I.e., the crafting system does not rely on the existence of the Crafting skill. * Other than reaching the edge of a map to access the world map, there is no fast-travel in PE. That said, we will likely avoid the IWD-style 5-level dungeons without semi-regular shortcuts back to the surface (N.B.: this does not mean Skyrim-style loops). * Most items do take up space in personal inventories! The party Stash is unlimited, but the Pack (made of personal inventories) is not. Crafting items (and quest items) always go into (and come out of) the Stash. We are doing this specifically to address common complaints about crafting items cluttering the inventory. Since crafting is typically done at camps or other non-combat locations, allowing the items to come out of the Stash doesn't seem to create any problems. As I posted on SA, Crafting (the skill) and its associated subsystems (like durability) were the elements I felt least confident about in our skill system. I strongly believe that choices within an array should give the player reasonably balanced benefits. Because certain fundamental skills (like Stealth) can clearly benefit from multiple party members taking them and can contribute to party effectiveness in combat, I believe that other skills should do the same in their own way -- enough to make all of them appealing choices on multiple party members. This also has the benefit of making the uses of skills much higher-frequency than the individual uses that depend on designer content (e.g. unlocking doors or gaining a dialogue/quest option). As an example, Medicine in its various Fallout forms contributes to the efficacy of stimpaks. There are many other places were Medicine can be used in quests and dialogue, but it has high-frequency use with stimpaks (in or between combats). It's a benefit that can apply to any character who has the skill, even if a character with a higher rating in a party may be "the guy" to perform the high-difficulty actions. With all of the skills other than Crafting (specifically), those high-frequency benefits/uses were easy to come by. Crafting presented some difficulties and, as I wrote previously, I was concerned about the lack of systemic drains in the economy. Many people have mentioned a lot of potential uses for wealth. Most of them are great ideas and ones that we plan to use, but the vast majority of them are not systemic, rather content-dependent or scripted instances (e.g. bribes). However, it is clear from discussions here and elsewhere that the long-term balance of the economy is not a concern for most players who voiced their opinions -- and almost certainly not in the endgame. Based on discussions on the forums and conversations I had with people on the team, we will be doing the following: * Removing durability as a mechanic on items. * Removing the Crafting skill (specifically). The crafting system and its associated mechanics will remain, as-is. Ultimately, solving skill imbalance and endgame wealth abundance problems is not worth what players perceive as uninteresting and unenjoyable gameplay. I can still solve the skill imbalance problems by removing the problem skill. As for endgame wealth abundance, we will continue to create places for you to use wealth in the economy: unique items, the stronghold, optional quest/dialogue gates, etc. Ultimately, if those options go unused, I'll have to trust that the majority of players won't be significantly troubled by an excess of wealth in the late game. Thanks for all of your feedback.

It's true that we will have to tune whatever values we wind up using for money you get and money you spend, but my higher-level concern is systemic. If there aren't core systemic drains, many players will simply wind up with a lot of money toward the end of the game. Many of you don't seem to care about this, but as I said earlier, I've heard complaints about it on every game I've shipped.

I've heard people complain about having too much gold in every game I worked on. Until the end of F:NV when we introduced (entirely optional) GRA unique weapons that cost a fortune. Then people complained that the items cost too much.

Arguably one good thing in this regard is that we're going to have a boatload of unique items thanks to our backers. For the sake of sanity, we may very well need to put many unique items in stores to prevent barrels from overflowing with them (slight exaggeration).

I'd like to tune standard, at-level encounters on normal difficulty to not require the use of consumables. However, efficiency will be a bigger deal both on higher levels of difficulty and if you're under-leveled for a specific encounter. In those cases, consumable use will likely be, if not mandatory, extremely helpful.