Valorian

So... strength and intelligence would affect weapon damage? I don't know. I can understand if a high intelligence Barbarian gains a better understanding of an opponent's anatomy, thus he receives bonusses to damage/criticals, but that's simply the definition of accuracy. So, basically, intelligence here is taking the place of Dexterity, rather than strength. When it comes to the subject of weapons, Strength is Brute force. Dexterity is accuracy. So what's intelligence in this equation? Do we have a situation where the Barbarian is so smart that his blows have more force behind them? Or is he so smart that his blows are more accurate (ie. he was keen enough to aim for the vitals)? Personally I'm fine with either one, so long as there's some sort of believable explanation instead of just: "well, we wanted intelligence to be more useful!". We've all asked for No-More-Dump-Stats, but IMO the solution isn't to double up and have 2 different stats do the exact same thing. Because that just seems like.... Lazy Design. If you ask me, though, I think Intelligence should have an indirect effect on weapon damage. The smart barbarian should be able to master more weapon types/styles. He should be able to make better use of poisons and other types of weapon coatings. Stuff like that. Yes, intellect could potentially affect weapon damage, but not like strength. I'd prefer strength to be the main source of physical damage, but maybe there's room for a talent that lets you increase your crit range with intellect. Strength shouldn't directly affect spell damage or healing though. I'm in favor of intellect increasing talent options. Hmm, it would also be interesting to know if there's a wisdom-like stat. Anyway, while witnessing the unfortunate mental breakdown of a fellow forum member, I realized that attributes should be much more integrated with each other. I'll explain on an example. If you have a character with low intellect and wisdom scores, the negative effects should be considerably greater than the simple sum of individual low intellect or low wisdom negative effects. The character would surely suffer from serious functional deficiencies such as persistent blackouts, but could also gain peculiar talents such as causing hysterical laughter and bewilderment (something like "Tasha's hideous laughter") by forcefully slamming his or her head into random objects, for example. But I guess it would be too complex for this particular Project, oh well.. Seeing as in PE there is no "direct link between defeating a foe in combat and gradually becoming better at combat", your hypothetical character would be wrong. There isn't? Oh my, thank you for letting me now, I almost forgot that we weren't discussing why the lack of kill XP is unreasonable. XP is an abstraction, that's correct. If something is an abstraction, it doesn't mean that it should also be unreasonable. If a character is made of 90% combat-centered statistics / 10% non-combat statistics, both of which are advanced through XP gain/level up... the unreasonable abstraction would be to not award XP -- when?

Excellent point. I like (role)playing a character who's doing things the smart way and avoids combat if it's the optimal thing to do, even though as a player I really enjoy combat. The character needs the incentive (in the form of XP), not the player. Wait what? I mean, this is literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard in this context. I can feel my IQ drop by just repeating this sentence, nay, by looking at it. First, no, your IQ hasn't dropped even by a single point, because if it had -- you wouldn't be able to turn on your computer anymore. So don't blame your IQ stat on me. I had a slight feeling that someone who had his Intellect attribute score neglected at character creation would eventually turn up and waste no time to let it be known he didn't comprehend the sentence. Now on to the point. The character doesn't know there's an XP bar ticking, no. However, the character does notice, assuming average or above average cognitive skills, that there's a direct link between defeating a foe in combat and gradually becoming better at combat. People often roleplay someone who is to some degree similar to them, so I'm not surprised your character would be oblivious to this connection. Speaking of attributes: A strength-based wizard would get the benefit of becoming better with weapons and dramatically enhancing the gish aspect, no? Do you fell that's not enough? The synergy between strong melee capabilities and spells like fire shield or mirror image is tremendous. If you feel that's not enough. Would it perhaps be better for the damage stat to have a different effect on spellcasting without directly increasing damage? For instance, strength could lower the action speed penalty for armor (everyone would benefit from this), but wouldn't increase action speed otherwise. Of course, for balancing reasons, lowering the damage bonus for weapons would be a side effect of this change. On the other hand, Intellect could believably affect damage for both spells and weapons, and Strength would be the attribute that affects damage dealt with weapons. Similarly, the accuracy attribute could increase accuracy with weapons and certain spells. For example, accuracy with targeted AoE spells, but not the accuracy of a spell that affects the enemy's psyche. This way there'd still be a substantial benefit with a focus shift, without smashing believability with a sledgehammer.

The "bypass DT stat" would be wasted on targets with low or no DT. Raw damage is always useful. You keep failing to understand that Josh is planning to make all "attributes" very useful for all classes. The damage stat, Strength, will be very useful for damage-dealing or stamina-healing classes. A smart thing to do for a wizard would be, among other things, to also invest in the damage-dealing stat. Therefore, if you enjoy playing a useful damage-dealing wizard, you will be bound to play a physically strong wizard.

Excellent point. I like (role)playing a character who's doing things the smart way and avoids combat if it's the optimal thing to do, even though as a player I really enjoy combat. The character needs the incentive (in the form of XP), not the player. Are you all right, Lephys? Your post sounded rather hysterical, again. Sure, connecting the dots is unheard of, that's why you were extremely reluctant to assume that the number 5 in PE translates to... 5. @ J.E. Sawyer Lengthy. I read it all. Active vs passive/modal abilities. Why have you decided to not allow the player to select between two or more abilities on level up and customize the character to be less or more action oriented?

yes i get the picture i think but hmm eater it is brilliant or o/ v \o look closely at this picture the /\ being for number 1, an o being Zero so in truth there is written 01 v 10 INFACT the link google show up with containing there INN! 01 ---> moves to be like 10*10*10*10=10000 bits of information may i say ding ding! Ding ding indeed! You're one of my favorite posters in the universe. @Gfted1 I wouldn't worry about PE being potentially stressful. I believe one of their design goals is to incommode the player as little as possible. For instance, they could level scale the entire critical path so that players, who don't want to be disturbed by anything off the beaten path, can devour the story straight away. They could design attributes with the goal to make your character concepts viable regardless of how you distribute them. You imagine a character concept, close your eyes and then click-click-click -- voilà, there's your viable character concept with his or her universal attributes. (Josh, don't mind me, I'm just joking.. a little bit) Also, they could build the game so that you can avoid 80% of meticulously designed enemy encounters by playing a micromanagement minigame of avoiding enemy circles with your own, farm exploration and objective XP to advance your stats -- which are almost exclusively combat related, and finish the game. They could remove item degradation too... and I really wouldn't care. Classless systems are monotonous and boring, especially in a party based RPG. Ohi new party member, you can also be a wizard, warrior, rogue and everything we desire, yes?

Sorry, this is another critical failure on your logic roll. Let's do this step by step: 1) The desire to build a powerful damage dealing wizard, yet physically weak. 2) To be able to deal solid damage with spells, it's ok to invest in the accuracy attribure, but more importantly, it's better to invest points in the damage attribure (strength). 3) Therefore, your wizard will have to be STRONK, physically. 4) Back to point "2". Why "more importantly"? 5) Because PE's mechanics, DT + grazes, favor high damage over high accuracy. 6) With a miniumum damage of 50, you deal 25 damage on a graze. There's only a 5% chance to outright miss, if acc. and def. are equal. Of course, if your accuracy is outclassed by the target's defense, you're going to miss more often. But you still need damage, too. 7) With low damage and high accuracy you risk to have your damage outright blocked even on normal hits. Start from point "1" again.

A wizard who wants to do any damage with his spells will have to invest in the damage stat -- strength. Therefore, this negates the existence of physically weak yet powerful damage-dealing wizards. This is not true; as accuracy and crit range are equally important to damage potential, and that doesn't even begin to look at other potential scaling points (casting speed? DT reduction?) that all can have a huge impact on damage output Also; at this point calling strength "the damage stat" is speculation at best. You first need to understand that accuracy won't do a thing if your base damage is horrible. DT, right, DT. Especially in a game with a flat damage reduction system, raw damage is essential. So a wizard who focuses on dealing damage will have to invest... *drum roll*.. in the damage stat! In strength. Oh yes, disregarding all the logical implications of the word, all the games that use strength as a damage modifier, defying the unsettling bounds of reason I'm sure strength could be used in PE as a measure of charisma or agility.

Anytime, Vlad. Animations are indeed important and I hope they have a solid variety of combat animations, certainly more than in the IE games.

I will answer your questions as best as I can: 1) Will the animations for skills and abilities differ There's a very high probability that abilities will have their own animations, but will be often reused. 2) how will enemies react to being hit with a strong attack Hit reaction animation. "You (or an enemy) can choose to break Engagement, but if you're hit with a Disengagement Attack, it does more damage and you stop to play a hit reaction (unless you're a barbarian using Wild Sprint)." http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3506352&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=473#post419367474 3) being equipped with a shield (will it break) The shield will not break most likely. 4) are there different animations for weapons ranging in similar lengths? (I.e. spear and a long stick) Josh on weapon animations back in January: "We're starting out with one basic attack for each weapon type with variants as a lower priority. Making all of the weapon attacks unique/good is more important (IMO) than having variants." http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63169-update-38-meet-the-developers-with-mark-bremerkamp-lead-animator/page-3?do=findComment&comment=1300857

*looks at photo* I agree with everything. I want a stronghold.

Yes, almost.. Apart from the little difference that in the real world holding the "objective" trophy in your hands on the podium doesn't improve your hunting skills at all. The act of hunting itself is what does the job.

They could try. But I don't understand the advantages. Most of the time the prerequisites would make no sense, as zen archery in nwn2. But I see a lot of disadvantages: - The system is complex for the player, because the player must know all the prerequisites at the beginning to make a specific build. - The system is diificult to balance. - It's difficult to avoid must have stats, e.g. I can get new abillities with high int but I still need high strength for the standard attacks. - They need to make a lot of talents for each build to make the different builds viable. - You will have a lot of min/maxing e.g. if you have int 16 you can take a good abillity but there is no reason to raise int over 16 The prerequisites will all make sense if they're included in a way that makes sense. Zen archery in NWN2 in no way makes attribute prerequisites as a concept senseless. Also, there will be prerequisities for talents in PE, such as level or background. You don't understand the advantages because: a) your premises are wrong and b) you support the current atrocibutes. - A complex system is preferable. Ignorant players who refuse to read ability descriptions shouldn't be rewarded. - Complex systems are harder to balance than vapid and banal ones. - Yes, you'd need both. You need to decide what attributes are the best for the role you prefer. If you want to smash things you're not going to focus on charisma. PE will function similarly, but will (hopefully not!) use atrocibutes and have universal dump stats. - They don't. - That's not min-maxing. A wizard who wants to do any damage with his spells will have to invest in the damage stat -- strength. Therefore, this negates the existence of physically weak yet powerful damage-dealing wizards.

Or not.. if we'd end up in a situation where they give as many creatures the same basic name to avoid awarding too much XP. :/ Maybe just reduce the overall impact of combat XP compared to " objective XP ".

Oh, you're welcome. They could at least award XP for the first creature of a given type that you defeat; first "wolf", first "dire wolf", first "Dyrwood bandit", for each named individual and unique monster etc.

They did confirm this nonsense. Supposedly, the point is to let players consistently avoid combat (in a combat focused game with combat focused gamey attributes, yes), by absurdly diminishing the incentive to engage in combat.

But on the other hand you prefer "take this if you want to be a magic dude" and "take that if you want to be a scholar dude". How so? People can imagine all sorts of things and make it seem sensible in their heads, especially if it's endorsed by a developer. That's not the point. Wizards are wizards for a reason, fighters are fighters for a reason. Attributes are the skeleton of a character's concept - is he smart, is he strong, is he charismatic.. Why do completely different types of characters, for ridiculously different actions, draw their damage potential from the same attribute? It makes the system banal. "Because less dump stats"? No. If attributes offer universal bonuses for every class, players will soon figure out the best attributes. You'll have a situation with universal dump stats, which is way worse than situational dump stats. They could make a nice attribute system without the universal attribute mumbo-jumbo and avoid dump stats. The answer is: Attribute prerequisites, when it makes sense. Wizard? You want to wear this horribly heavy armor and move around at normal speed and have the standard action speed penalty applied (instead of an increased one)? You need some strength for that. Warrior? You want to pick this powerful ability? You need some intelligence for that.

Rhetoric: Yes and no. I want to learn more about it, and I am asking questions because I don't know enough about it. We seem to be on the same level of speculation, I wouldn't be surprised either if it was A, B & a variant of C (See Tamerlane's post). Different difficulty levels would (or at least should) affect this imo, IF Resting functions like your ABC. Casual = Heals to full health, can Rest as much as you want. Hardcore = Heals little health, can Rest once-in-a-while and/or once every in-game Day. That would be an awesome solution but I don't think its in the scope of their budget. Fingers crossed. Not at all. Unless it is super advancing coding. A) Health will be given when you Rest. This much we know. So this variable is already in the game code already. Example: Switching the 1-3 Health gained by Resting to 10-15 Health gained by Resting is a very simple solution. Because Obsidian programmers will decide how much Health you will gain when Resting, then they could possibly tie that too different Difficulty levels as well. Concept: Psuedo-code~~~ [iF] Player Picks [Casual Difficulty] = [Rest] Heals 10000 (Caps at Max) Health, [iF] Player Picks [Easy Difficulty] = [Rest] Heals 10 Health, [iF] Player Picks [Normal Difficulty] = [Rest] Heals 5 Health, [iF] Player Picks [Hard Difficulty] = [Rest] Heals 2 Health, [iF] Player Picks [Hardcore Difficulty] = [Rest] Heals 1 Health B) IF there are intervals (Let's say you can only Rest once every 8 in-game hour) it would be as simple as the above to modify as well. Concept: No psuedo-code =*( Casual = Rest 1000000000 times (virtually unlimited, there's probably some sort of Loop code you can put in here) Easy = Rest every 2 in-game Hour Normal = Rest every 4 in-game Hour Hard = Rest every 6 in-game Hour Hardcore = Rest every 8 in-game Hour So the difficulty here is measured by the player's willpower to wait for x in-game hours, doing nothing? I'm pro rest limits, even limiting the total number of times you can rest per game (I impose this limit myself), but there needs to be a clever way to do it.

Enough with irrelevant non sequiturs. The problem is not that a stat affects a character in a way "that may not fit my core character concept", but that it affects the character in a nonsensical way. Your analogy (maths, languages) wasn't good. The ability to learn languages and mathematics is a mental ability and therefore it is not such a stretch of imagination that it's tied to intelligence. While yes, intelligent fighters should clearly have an advantage over dumb fighters, that still doesn't mean that strength should augment damage from spells. Charisma is important for bards, obviously.

To the extent that I'd love to make a wizard who deals massive damage with spells and is exceptionally accurate with them but can't speak eight languages and is bad at math, yes. Simple. Because the wizard speaking/not speaking eight languages and being good/bad at maths is an integral part of combat mechanics and is overall very relevant to gameplay, yes?

In the end, I want to be able to create a wizard who deals massive damage with spells and is exceptionally accurate with them, but when you give him a mace he can barely lift it, let alone hit anyone. Simple, right?

It's not an or/or sort of thing. It would be preferable to have a bit of variety in auto-attack animations and a decent variety of monsters and spells. Anyway, they can reuse and slightly rework spell animations (recolor, add a new effect etc.) and the same is true for monsters. I wouldn't care about a few additional monster animations if I have to endure the same attack animation throughout the entire game.

2 of my top 3 concerns have been mentioned above, in no particular order: 1) Exceptionally odd attributes 2) No kill xp 3) ... [mystery] o/ ---> . . ^ \o o/ v \o *** o/ ---> \O \O ˇ \o o/ v \o

I don't know.. if they decided they can make a mega epic 15 level dungeon (isn't it a shame that the actual number of levels isn't a surprise for the player..) coupled with two huge cities and a whole wide world* around it in 1,5 years, then a few extra animations won't be a problem. Attack animations, of course. *I hope, I really do, the number of outdoor areas and the scope of the world won't get shrunk down because of all the epic concentrated content. Take 6 more months Obsidian, I won't mind. And sorry for hijacking the thread, okkoko. Well.. *hugs okkoko*

Abilities have not been presented to us as choices. The wording has always been "At x level, y class gains the ability to z". I believe based on this, as well as the sheer number of abilities they would have to create to function in this way points us towards abilities being hard baked. You pick a class, and you know what your ability toolkit will ultimately look like. That would be unfortunate. Basically having a predetermined character, with a couple of selectable Talents thrown in the mix, is not a good thing. I remember reading that they were experimenting with Talents being available every other level and selectable Abilities (e.g. between 2 options), which would be neat, but can't find the quote. Hallucination maybe.

I want a distinction between physical and mental attributes. Therefore, I find attributes that mix and match these two completely different aspects of a character problematic. This is not a taste sort of thing. A taste (and style) sort of thing is, for example, my preference for the usage of smaller numbers in RPGs. Instead of swords dealing 50 damage and characters having 400 HP I prefer 5 damage vs. 40 HP. I associate it with the IE games and d&d, in contrast with the unnecessary number bloat that I associate with other types of games. Apart from it being more practical for the player to calculate things on the fly, of course. A fine example.