Grand_Commander13

How is giving you XP for completing objectives different than doing something successfully? If your objective is to remove the spirit haunting the house, you haven't completed your objective until you've removed the spirit haunting the house. You don't necessarily need to give identical XP rewards for completing something different ways, but since ME2 and ME3 lacked for easier/more difficult ways to accomplish the same goal it wouldn't make much sense to not have the awards be identical. Anyway, I fail to see how giving awards for combat is any different. Combat is a major form of gameplay; if combat is only interesting if I'm getting a reward then it's very poorly designed; if that reward is only that I get better at that combat that bores me so much, I fail to see how I'll care about that for long either.

Stamina are basically HP that regenerate on their own at the end of a fight and can be magically restored. A faction of your life is lost as Health with each hit, the rest as Stamina. Health is there so that you still need to watch how much damage you take over time, but because the Stamina regenerates relatively quickly each fight can be a lot tougher without forcing you to do only one tough fight in between rests. I don't think heavy armor makes sense if it cuts your evasion down so much that the average damage taken isn't noticeably lower with it. Exediron had a lot of good ideas though: I've been advocating for a sort of fatigue system to go with the armor (and the heavier weapons), and we could link that to some kind of endurance attribute, maybe even a physical conditioning combat skill as well. To make hammers and maces better armor crackers you can give them separate DR versus cutting, piercing, and bludgeoning damage without it being cumbersome at all in play (thank you, computers!). I don't think that, historically, plate was more expensive than chain though. If anything the chain was more expensive, because it took so long to make. If your plate armor is taking as long as chain to make then you're getting a very, very high-grade suit made just for you. In the Renaissance you'll notice that when equipping their fighting men they made cheap cuirasses for them rather than chain shirts.

While I can find a general consensus that leather armor wasn't particularly popular during any time around the middle ages, hardened leather would be at least as effective as the padded armors against slashes; you wouldn't argue against padded armors (a very well-documented armor type) by saying to put on a down jacket and stab yourself with a kitchen knife, would you?

That armor is padded, but I don't see how wearing the armor could possibly be worse than being unarmored; your skin is going to have the same resistance either way. Anyway, are there any Infinity Engine games or Obsidian games where heavier armor isn't better than lighter armor? All I can think of is Alpha Protocol, where people who needed to be stealthy would use the lighter armor, and the D&D 3E games where rather than getting the best AC from your armor you would aim for the best AC from your combined armor and dexterity.

Crafting location is just like it is in KOTOR 2: you need to use a workbench unless you have a particularly tech-savvy companion with you (and remember you can only have one in New Vegas). There are a few instances where you craft pure upgrades without taking a perk, but they're all from the DLCs and they either require rare materials (for a small upgrade to your armor), exploring for the recipe, or aren't all that big an improvement (and some add a small downside to using as well). There are chems you can craft with stronger effects but less duration as well. You don't craft armor: as I said you can upgrade it with one of the DLCs, and you can upgrade some of the DLC weapons as well. What you craft are the higher-powered shorter-lived chems, ammunition, medical supplies, and food. Since the chems are a side-grade it's a money loser to craft it, since it has the same value; crafting is, however, your sole source of those chems.

Have you played Fallout: New Vegas? I ask because it is both Obsidian's most recent work, as well as a great example of a crafting system where the player crafts gear that is unique rather than superior. (Alright, the Hand Loader perk gives purely superior stuff for you to craft, as do a couple other perks, but those recipes are specifically from perk selection and you still can't make hollowpoint or armor piercing ammunition.)

I know Fallout's armor is an example of one-true-armorism, but it's not such a bad thing. Power armor would definitely be cheapened if it was merely one equally valid choice of many. Remember how hard you had to look to outfit your entire party with power armor? It was something you spent a good portion of the end game doing, and it was the end of a long progression of improving armors. Heck, once you had the power armor you could get some of it hardened and get an even better suit from somewhere else, and I believe the very end of the game had one of the very newest models. If we're using historical precedent for our armor we'd probably want a similar progression. But armor is such a passive thing; it's almost boring; it's just there to protect you. Weapons are where the action is at; they're what you build your character for. If the game models weapons much like real life weapons then swords would be a defender's weapon, most able to parry and able to cut through unarmored enemies with ease while still having a chance to stab through the weak points in plate. A character who wanted to deal pure damage might prefer an axe, able to outpace even the sword against unarmored enemies and able to at the very least ring the bell on heavily armored enemies. For dealing with armor you might specialize in techniques with maces; who needs to pierce the armor when the man inside is tenderized meat? And of course you can specialize in the two-handed version for added range and power.

You'll note that almost as many people want the game to mirror PS:T as want it to mirror BG2. If Fallout or Arcanum were on that list they'd take a lot of votes too.

Two words for a good villain: Jade Empire. The best villain in any cRPG I can think of at the moment, and used very well by the writers. To clarify in a non-spoilery way: he's, if not evil then certainly doing things for his own selfish ambition; he does plenty to get the main character mad, above and beyond the "he must be stopped" (which was, itself, pretty bad) by making it personal (and in a way that again reflects how he thinks of no one but himself); and he is definitely a credible threat with some powerful minions who you face before fighting him.

I love lifepaths. It's a fun way to distribute stats besides point buy, and gives your character a background that can be referred to whenever it makes sense in-game. I'd recommend lifepaths without any stats attached though, since the ones that boost combat stats will be most popular. Unless you made every path just about as good at boosting combat stats, but I just really want to see us able to color in our characters' backgrounds in this game.

The logic of reducing the chance to be hit when you're wearing armor is for the enemy to succeed in striking you but the blow glancing off the curvature of the armor rather than piercing it or transmitting damaging force through the armor.

Mikaw, the vibe I'm getting from your post is that of course we can balance the armors so they're all viable but no we could never balance the weapons so they're all viable. And I've already covered why you'd wear something other than plate even if it was best. Remember getting your first suit of power armor in Fallout 2? Can I get a "heck yeah!"?

Well, making it so there was one superior weapon would be pretty unrealistic. The guys with the money to buy whatever they wanted all agreed it was best to wear plate, but they would use swords, axes, spears, hammers, and polearms for different reasons, and if we had grappling I'd include daggers too. All you need to do is put some thought into the weapon system and you'll have plenty of customization of your warrior's kit there without stepping on reality's toes.

So you're saying you'd be fine as long as the plate armors looked different from each other?

Where do you get the idea that just because two warriors are dressed in plate armor that they are clones? I'm pretty sure warriors are going to have more to differentiate themselves than just their gear, or else nobody would want to play them because they're boring. I'll play a character that actually has choices in combat, thank you. None of the games PE is meant to emulate give you any reason to use any armor but the heaviest you were allowed to equip, why should PE do so when doing so would require nonsensical rationalizations of this behavior? I will add another reason for the "why not use plate if it doesn't restrict your movement and it's the best protection?" list after pondering Arcanum and Alpha Protocol: rogues can't sneak very well in plate because it's noisy and (usually) shiny. So we're up to upfront cost, repair cost, availability, fatigue, and stealth as reasons why you'd choose something else.

Yeah, studded leather didn't just not exist, it doesn't even make sense. If different armor and weapons are good against each other, why would a kingdom use the same weapon/armor setup on all of its soldiers? That's like in Pokémon where the different gym leaders all use teams that are easily countered because they're all the same type, except gym leaders are supposed to be beatable gate keepers so at least they have an excuse. Armies play for keeps, and I don't care how much they want to standardize things it just wouldn't make sense for the Iron Kingdom to wield swords and plate armor if any idiot who wanted to take their lands just had to equip their men with cheap spears and studded leather to crush their armies. If the party can fast-switch their armor at the start of the combat to adjust for what weapons the enemy has, what's stopping the NPCs from doing the same? And what's stopping them from fast-swapping weapons to account for the players' new armor?

Rather than nitpick your strong/weak against I'll ask this: if different armor is better in different situations then how am I supposed to know what to put on before a fight? Wouldn't enemies carry multiple weapons to better crack my armor no matter what I choose? Would plate and leather armor cost the same amount of money, or would I just have to pay a lot more to be strong against bludgeoning (should be slashing) than I'd have to to be strong against... Studded leather never existed. You get the idea.

I don't understand the problem with starting dungeons. Sure the Temple of Trials was a little tiresome doing it more than a couple of times in Fallout 2, but Chateau Irenicus was nice (and I only liked BG2 up until you found Imoen) and I loved Peragus in KOTOR 2 even after several playthroughs. BG2, I think, suffered terribly from the D&D ruleset. Then again, what I most dislike about that ruleset is a huge draw for some of its fans: battles are so much wizard versus wizard, and you need to spend an inordinate amount of time preparing spells to be able to terminate enemy wizards.

That's a really nice summary. Also a really great mechanics suggestion: you can easily accomplish one of my criteria for limiting plate, by limiting how many you can buy, by forcing the good stuff to be custom-fitted to the person who it's for if there are only a few people who can make high-grade plate; just make them back-ordered and have them whip up a suit for you as a quest reward (likely at least one suit would be a reward option for a main quest). Characters who still want plate can get the lesser munitions-grade plate, which is less protective and more restrictive; there can be a mobility trade-off between low-grade plate and your brigandine armor, but fitted plate? Again, our characters aren't our gear, it's okay if there's a "best" item to equip.

This is a big thing for me. I loved Arcanum's smoking jacket because it gave me a great excuse to change out of my armor in town! I'd like to see more of a stick causing you to want to take the armor off in Project Eternity, as part of a wider system where your clothes set peoples' reaction towards you. Different characters would respond differently to different clothes (not necessarily better or worse, but a priest might ply a well-dressed character for donations and inquire whether one dressed in rags has a place to sleep for the night—even if he would still extend charity to a well-dressed traveler). As for there being a best item, I don't think it's a huge deal. Fallout's armor customization was non-existent, but since it makes sense I'm fine with it. I'd prefer a sensible progression from "armor I can afford" to "best armor money can buy" over a system where armor is comically unrealistic in an effort to force diversity in armor. My character isn't his gear, and I do have other ways to differentiate him from other characters: attributes, perk selection, skills, even less-obvious pieces of gear like what rings he wears (assuming we have the traditional setup with two magical rings).

Gatt9, I think you had it right with the first half of your first sentence: crafting is really hard to implement well in a game. I thought Arcanum did a pretty good job, all considered: somehow I think it really helped me think of my character as a tinker having him root around in garbage cans looking for rags to make his molotov ****tails. Though New Vegas's crafting system is growing on me I still think it leaves a bit to be desired. The crafting ingredients are all pretty much useless except in one recipe and take up a lot of weight, so I'm not going to be watching out for very many of them (the ingredients for the weapon repair kit are the only ones I watch for) and I think that's what makes the system so hard to work with. If I had reliable places to scrounge for or buy these, and if I didn't need to make industrial quantities of these things to feel useful (likely an interface problem) then I could enjoy it a lot more. It took Honest Hearts to get me to do much crafting, and even then it was mostly for reloading (though I've always loved being able to cook animal meat with a high enough Survival skill) and the Sierra Madre Martini in Dead Money to really get my attention. So, quick takeaways: Make the ingredients easy to find near where you'll be doing your crafting Failing that, since I believe finding ingredients on our travels is a design goal, make the ingredients easy to carry Pay special attention to the crafting interface so crafting small quantities feels meaningful and not like a waste

Cost to purchase Cost to repair Limited quantities available for purchase Fatigue to wear when exploring (and just to head off one obvious criticism: clearly you'd disallow fast-swapping of armor after pausing and going to inventory) All much better ideas than deciding that if it's actually good at its job then you can't be good at yours.

I find the idea of lighter armors being better than heavy armor at anything kind of silly. Unless fatigue is in the game, then cost should be the big thing determining what kind of armor you want. Heavy armor doesn't slow you down all that much, and it certainly shouldn't be any more vulnerable to arrows. I doubt having armor affect the stamina/health split is in the cards anyway. Stamina is something you worry about in individual fights, and determines how long until you're knocked down; health is something you care about over the course of several fights, and when it gets low is when it's time to rest for the day.

Didn't Fallout and Fallout 2 have a slider for how chatty everyone would be in a fight? I liked 'em pretty gabby, I know that. Myron's barks, in and out of combat, really were the best though. I hope as much attention to the companions' barks will be paid in PE as was in Fallout 2.

And the distinction in first-person shooters has long been that shotguns spray as wide as a man's torso at three meters and that SMGs and assault rifles are less accurate than pistols. What's your point? Do we need to keep making the same mistakes?