Monokli

I am starting to like the pte method, but the problem is that while it is indeed "encouraging", the encouragement comes from punishing the player instead of rewarding, and everyone knows positive reinforcement is a stronger motivator than punishment, and "encouragement" from punishment is known as "forcing", which is not something most people like. Adding a back-up passive regeneration, or even a free regeneration skill with only a recharge timer (20-40 seconds) would give the players a different method to manage energy other than one of the 2 types of auto-attacking. On a personal note I'm behind the free regeneration skill to make that backup system a little more active. I'm not all for cheapness, but being restrictive not only in story, character creation, but in gameplay so hard that you can only do 2 types of autoattacks (because maces won't ever appear in this game, so much for weapon variety), and possibly use powers from the accumulated pool. To prevent retreating and using the free regeneration skill, it can only be effective if within range of an enemy mob: You just have to dance around it to get the regen, and that takes skill to pull off! On a different topic:why are there only 2 types? Shouldn't the greatsword have both a wide arced swing attack and an overhand stroke attack(crowd and single-target)? Shouldn't a 1h weapon have both a 1h weapon attack and a shield bash as normal attacks? (different attack speeds are a must have in these cases). The shield bash would sacrifice protection for the disorienting/stunning effect it could potentially do. _________________ You dodge. There's enough combat videos to see: bosses don't just spam unavoidable auto attacks, they use sweeping attacks every once in a while that are easily dodged if you pay attention. What is the cost of dodging? is that a free maneuver? and what do you do with Lucas against a Melee boss where inevitably you have to go toe to toe with it? Even worse with only a small amount of health and minimal energy from a previous battle.

Then tell me what you do when you encounter a nasty boss who chips your health down a little more than you would prefer and to up that has life stealing? Hope you got more damage in the end than his life steal could heal up AND at the same time heal yourself from your quite abused energy pool? Or what happens if you play Lucas against a strong melee boss? If you do not know then let me tell you: You die. And if you like dying, then fine by me, as long as you don't actively encourage game difficulty to be plunged up to levels where playing the game is commonly known as a masochistic occupation. If you like feeling you are ****ed because the last fight wasn't exactly good for your health, and comes a bad mini-boss with minions, then it's your problem. Maybe seek out a psychologist, or play something where you can see the text "Defeated" every ten seconds despite your gaming skills are on par with the best players of the world. If you don't, then you will want some way to re-think the situation. A slow health/energy regeneration with keeping the punch to gain energy would be an ideal system, because it let's you learn from your mistakes without having to see some more or less creative game over screen, and/or loading a previous save. I am also against potions despite the clear differences between our opinions, and would keep the attack to fill up energy bar system (with a slow natural regeneration which would be an extra safety net).

My problem is not that it's not 99.99% like Baldur's Gate or NWN, my problem is that it's not like Dungeon Siege at all. The strong points of Dungeon Siege are the beautifully implemented combat systems with a variety of auto-attacking (at least on the mage side) and a constantly regenerating mana pool that made retreating and re-evaluating your strategy a viable choice, as there were no artifical incentive elements added to propel you on the storyline. You were simply pointed towards the general direction you needed to go, got told that there are monsters and loot, got your party members, then nothing more was needed. The variety of environment to break up the constant hacking and slashing also worked to get you moving, simply to have a sightseeing tour. What you "added" was an artifical mechanic with no natural regeneration (and it is really adding a few lines to the source code/script here and there, which I'll explain in c++ if you don't get it), which essentially took the most hated element of dungeon siege 2, and made it a basis of the combat system, where you can get to unwinnable scenarios which is a frustrating experience to encounter, and is the polar opposite of the game's goal (to entertain). And no pmp10 your distance from understanding my previous text is astronomical, I suggest reading it whole, not just the first and last few paragraphs. The problem with dungeon siege 3 is that it looks a little TOO MUCH like one of the diablo series. Again I expected the a dungeon siege game to be a dungeon siege game, not some random console hack and slash with weaboo mathfag mages and poorly thought out combat mechanics. I'm not complaining about being pressured not to die in combat, I'm talking about the lack of mechanics that let me consolidate should things not go as planned, where consolidation itself should be a challenge on it's own. I'm complaining about the lack of the systems and mechanics that made the previous games great. I'm also talking about how Obsidian essentially made the combat system "Dungeon Siege... for dummies", a.k.a. devolving it to a much more shallow and much less interesting system DS2 had.

WARNING: Insane big wall of text follows: I'm a big fan of the Dungeon Siege series. It was the first game ever where I completed the campaign as a 9 year old kid. Ever since then I played DS1 campaign five times over, and many more times I played in multiplayer mode to explore the hidden reaches of the Utraean Peninsula, and had a jolly good time. In 2005 I played through Dungeon Siege 2, and became immersed in it's world editor. It may not be a very outstanding editor by itself - though it is very good - but it led me into the neat structure of the game itself, though my first impressions were undoubtably influenced by my overally positive feel towards the game. Later I completed Broken world and I enjoyed the heck out of it, it was so much more! Proper multiclassing and reagent recipes on a world that despite it's destruction-riddled theme looked gorgeous. DS2 took what was good in the first game, then added Systems like properly branching dialogues, pets, and even powers to shake up the combat system a bit, so that's unquestionably an improvement upon what they had. In terms of the combat system it was originally autoattacking for melee and ranged, and - mostly - autocasting offensive spells as nature and combat mages, occasionally switching to healing when the situation demanded it. For those who don't know what Nature and Combat mages are - it's obsidian forum after all, so I don't expect everyone to care about the previous games, though it is recommended as they are both great pieces of art - they are the two spellcasting lines of the original games. Combat is the offensive one(lots of damage types and curses), while nature is a bit more defensive (buffs, armor, more healing). In DS1 the difference was less visible, but it was there nevertheless. Mages used mana, warriors and archers didn't(which was a bit of a shame though: warriors could have had some nice special attacks while archers could have laid traps). Mages also had access to useful buffs and curses, which they cast from their always regenerating (BIG POINT HERE IS THE REGENERATING) mana pool, where certain spells could be used for temporary improvements of regeneration. (In future I will refer to it as classic spellcasting for clarity) Spells were bought at vendors, so they could be considered part of the "gear" the characters had. Spells also benefitted from both magical weapons and armor with certain bonuses. To add some variety on top of that, Dungeon Siege 2 added the system of specialties to the mix, where specialties also affected how powerful certain spells, attacks, you, and even powers were, and governed special mechanics such as ricochetting, critical hits, arcing, ignition and freeze. Specialties had dependency trees, so you could only put points into a speciality after you put some on it's requirements. Specialties were also tiered, so some could only be obtained at a specific skill level. You could put more than one points into specialty, which made it's effects more powerful. A specialty could have an all-time maximum level of 20(even with item bonuses). Broken World set the maximum point level to 20, but allowed item bonuses to surpass that up until 30 points. Specialty or Skill points were earned one per level, maximum level was 100, and there were quite many specialties to play with, even inter-character class ones such as Natural Bond and Arcane Renewal for Nature Mages, and Brilliance and Quickened Casting for combat mages. Any of these four were VERY useful for the other type of mage: Brilliance added more to the hungry mana-pool of the Nature Mage, Quickened Casting allowed faster use of slow-casting Iceballs and heals. Natural bond on the other skill class, could be vital for fire mages who wished to continue chucking expensive fireballs at things they didn't like, while Arcane Renewal sped up both nature magic power and combat magic power recharges, and needless to say the combat magic powers were really, really destructive and being able to be a bit more liberal about using them could never ever hurt the party. This (and the shared intelligence stat) made combat mages likely to take a few and some more levels in nature magic and vice versa, for the benefits more than surpassed the drawbacks of having one or two less levels in any of the two. Not to look like I'm all for the mages, even though I totally am as evidenced by one of my recent projects being "rock DS2 with a mage-only party!", I would mention Toughness on the warrior side which grants some health to anyone who spends points in it (And really who doesn't like to be a little less squishy?), and Dodge and Survival skills in ranged, where the former gives a percentage to dodge attacks (very useful on a melee character or anyone casually wading into the fray) and the latter boosts resistances to magical attacks which is also very VERY useful, pretty much for anyone (and don't mind the random harvested health potions). In ds2 powers had their requirements in specialty levels, and were special abilities that were charged by dealing damage. Some powers had recharge rates which determined how long it took to fill your power orb(resource) with the power selected. A filled power orb then could be used to release any kind of power. The system was unfortunately flawed as one could switch to a filler power with fast recharge, fill the orb, and release a deadly blast of doom which would have otherwise been inactive for much more time. Previews of Dungeon Siege 3, and commentaries both showed what the combat system looks like. It's basically punch people with one of the two autoattacks you get, then use the energy gained this way to release special attacks. To add to the mix, you added power orbs that can be used for releasing more than simply awesome powers, at least that's what you guys say. You also gain health from monsters you kill or from life orbs you find between the heaps of gold under those determined pants (ie. your loot). There is no natural health or energy regeneration, so you are hard pressed to continue slaughtering creeps. It is a frustrating system because one can run out of energy, and the boss/miniboss he is fighting is a little too strong for his liking. He has no backup systems to help him through the fight, and no regenerating resource to permit him to bide his time and try a different tactic or combination. It is also somewhat like DS2's Power System, but with powers having completely taken over classical spellcasting, no regenerating health, so god save your mouse and keyboard from getting contact issues, accidental coffee/any_drink spill, the nice purring cat in your room, a phone call, or even a little kid. Because when your health gets low after(or worse while fighting) a small group of monsters, you really got no way to get it up. The monsters will eat you for breakfast no matter how great micro you have. You can even be the best micro-ing protoss player who won the highest-level starcraft world championship, if that boss/miniboss/group gets even a single blow at you, you are dead,( taken out, sleeping with the fishes, killed, slaugthered, murdered, TERMINATED... mind the parrot). When you can not escape from a bossfight, and you can not possibly get enough blows at it to activate some form of self-healing, you are doomed. Surely, you may be able to dance around it for like 4 hours, but it doesn't matter how good you are, you are ****ed up. Severely. This is a problem with any similar system. It generates unnecessary pressure on anyone who played and enjoyed the first two dungeon siege games, where you could sit in a corner if needed, recuperate your wounds, restore your mana, and after switching some equipment (including spells) you could have another run against the bad boss who gave you a nasty surprise before. And even if such retreat is not possible, (see Gom fight) you can always draw him away from the unconscious party members while evading him, as they automatically regenerate. Hard tactic but possible, and can save a situation where players of the third game would give up, reload, and even possibly ragequit yelling "why did they even introduce this crap in?" and "****'s sake they made the game powers only? I hated that stuff in DS2 and what that game had was lightweight compared to this piece of garbage!" and I'm discounting the numerous cluster-f-bombs including the titular f-word many times with the name of the developers and the word "mother" or "mom" interjected in almost artistically (in a negative sense) picked way. It's a problem with FNV's ammunition: Sure you can buy what the stores have. Then you can manufacture, but what if you run out of that ammo as well? Your 1337 skills in guns/energy weapons won't do you much when it comes to that. The main point of this "new" and "improved" system is that it provides incentive to the player to move forward and continue on. This is completely unfounded, as experience points, loot, the environmental varieties (see you in the arctic caves - Jeriah!) and the story which is said to be your (Obsidian) forte. Adding a restricting system while removing classical spellcasting is will not make this game any better, instead, it will only cause frustration to the player, who usually plays to get the frustration OUT of his or her system, not vica versa. To solve that problem, in my opinion, the good old tactical way of classical spellcasting has to be brought back with a somewhat good variety of spells so you are not restricted to like 3-4 abilities where you can choose the ratio of two possible bonus effects. Classical spellcasting is not limited to mages, though the term "spellcasting" is indeed limiting. Warriors (melee people such as Luke) should get.. what they seem to have now: PBAoE attacks, mobility skills, melee Crowd crontrol and short duration defense boosts, and the others, well they really got what they need (except for Katherina to get herself proper combat footwear) I'm not telling you to scrap everything you have worked on for who knows how much time (It's 23:13 when I'm writing this and I had a pretty tiring day), in fact nothing could be further from the truth. the current system of normal powers can be quickly changed to accomodate a few more options in the forms of more powers and a simple regeneration variable would do it. You can even leave the energy gain for autoattack/button mashing, and by the way please PUT AUTOATTACK IN! I don't want to wreck my LMB again!!! For managing the new and by now Actually improved power system, you can add in either multiple spellbooks (like in the previous games), or something like an ability selection which you can only change at a specific type of but otherwise quite common NPC (take bed or campfire for example: great places of meditation). Beyond that I'd like to see powers of the same class(like Reinhart's class) interacting with each other: As an example, create a Fire Aura spell in the dynamic magic tree, which can add fire damage and AoE ignition around punched foes, but when you cast lightning orb while it is active, [fluff]it will cause the orb to explode from the heat energy contained in the electric field of the orb [/fluff] [crunch] dealing some fire damage over time (ignite) to enemies nearby to where the lightning orb exploded.[/crunch] As for the awesome orbs of purpliness (or is that purply orbs of awesomeness?), you can switch them to an accumulating resource like adrenaline, which fades over time, and when you chose to release them it boosts the next power/spell dependant on how much energy or something you accumulated into these awesome purple sparking balls. After than you can add fluff like names such as elliptic affinity which is related how elliptically the heat of battle and dealing blows warps the flow of magic in the world, bending it to an elliptic path around the caster (for the math-obsessed Reinhart - oh how I like punching him for no other apparent reason than his kung-fu-santa art and animation style) or elemental shift for Anjali, which tells how much she has faded into the elemental plane (she is an elemental duh), where Katherina gets something related to her nice ornamental guns (runes accumulating the energy for example). In theory the empowering effect of releasing the orb powers is directly dependent on how much of it you filled: the empowered power's effect recieves percentage bonus to a maximum of +75% (or it should vary between empowered skills) with an exponential curve of progress (small energies get small bonus, but after 75% attained, the power curve would rise sharply) to reward those who go quickly instead of punishing those who decide to keep themselves on the cautious side of the game. As for the superpowered superstances, they should consume a fixed percentage of the accumulated orb power. As for storing these if you are really into these ds2 power-wannabe stuff, you could use one type of spell which is also using this adrenaline stuff as a resource, but instead of spending it right away, prepares a spell/ability for later quick-launch. What you get as a result is something that is finally NOT what ds1 fans absolutely HATE in ds2, (the powers as you have it now) as all the resources are dynamic and it is quite hard to get them lost. The game does no longer punish you for having the accidents mentioned far above, and you get a much more tactical and a lot less frustrating game to play with. I understand that a month before release is not the best time to change the roots of some of the core combat mechanics, and I believe that you do not wish to create a frustrating and restrictive game for the community, but these are problems from my and many dungeon siege fans' points of view, especially because the most disliked feature of ds2 -powers- got become the core of the combat system. Again, it should be fairly straightforward to switch it to classical spellcasting with regen and variety, and revamping the purple jelly balls of power should not take more than a script change and possibly adding a new float variable to the spells' templates: empowerment_bonus (doc = "value between 0 and 1 defines the amount of maximum percentage to add to the spell's 100% effect: 1 for +100% means the spell is cast at 200% power"); Closing the insane wall of text (I haven't written anything on this scale for quite a time by now) I would like to see at least your opinions on the points mentioned above. (Both the fans here and if the devs find some time to respond, then them as well too!) PS: Don't introduce the inn bug.

afaik nowadays they have been focusing heavily on PC controls.

In an article I read, it stated there would be more than achievements and trophies. Which leads me to believe you get in-game items or power-ups. Personally I'd like a power-up. http://www.destructoid.com/obsidian-explai...ns-195120.phtml "Achievements and Trophies earned in multiplayer are still saved to your profile as normal and there are additional awards that you can only receive from playing in a multiplayer co-operative game." Either way, I like achievements. Rather it be lame or great. This game is cool and if my laptop can play it, then I will get it. I am boycotting Diablo 3 after all because of it's satanic theme and name. And yes I know DS3 is a lil bad too, but it's a lil better than way demonic. What is it you have against demonic and satanic stuff? You know it doesn't exist? That's a matter of opinion. Even if you're an atheist (and therefore don't believe in God or the devil) it doesn't mean you have to be comfortable with that kind of stuff. The fact that diablo uses that theme on steroids doesn't seem help the matter. Though that can be a positive thing: When you are done killing all these gory and hellish stuff, you are going to hate them so much that when some random satanist guy comes up to you, you'll be more than happy to whack his face or lobotomize him as a servitor.

BTW is there any standardized measurement system for video card processing output? It's quite annoying not to know a proper way of comparing two or three of them. (like Hz or something)

Ha! After seeing some gameplay videos, I`ve reached to the conclusion that I'd never brofist Reinhart. Lucas is braindead Naaah. He is too baby-faced for understanding biig and coomplicated stuff such as a huge gauntlet saying "DON'T TOUCH! 230V/50Hz HIGH VOLTAGE." and stuff "NOT FOR BABIES"

Hey! DS2 was awesome! -balance ofc "Nature magic+combat magic+maxed Energy orb=Game Breaker" The only reason I like this new character system. (though it amuses me that while diablo 3 finally manages to get gender selection in it, dungeon siege 3 devolves back to diablo 2 level) And the BW ending (credits roll) was magnificent.

Okay. Closed up, and indeed there was no explicit nipple nor genitalia texture on Anjali/Archon, but it should be noted that it needed a very, VERY close up to be sure. Otherwise thanks for pointing it out and clarifying. Personally I don't have any problems with both the Archon and the linked picture, so if it goes by the rules(and it is now clarified that it does), then fine by me.

Well, It would be a lot cooler if we had the option of a game mode somewhat less focused on story (read: Not fixed to a single set of characters && no two characters of the same type), and more on the adventuring aspect, which would be somewhat less focused on fluff and more on crunch. Traditional character classes would be welcome, (Read:CLERIC OR DRUID[zilla]) sidekick system and scaling monsters would be implemented. It would work in the way described below: 1: When you join a game, you can join with your own character you created in the character creation, and would be either lowered down to the Host player's level, or if the host is higher level than you, boosted by a sidekick system, so you could chose your crunchy bits above your current level, or if you felt like, completely rebuild your character's skills and stuff from level zero. 2: When you play such a multiplayer game, the experience your character gained would be retained. /a:Experience works as: You gain 100 experience from mobs on the same level. +-10%/level difference, so powerleveling is out of the question! /b:After you log out of the multiplayer session you joined into, the gained experience gets added to your experience pool, and you get to level up your own character, for the games you are going to host. 3: Loot: You can retain loot, though high-level items will be toned down to your new level. This toning is done AFTER the gained experience is added to your character. /a There is no uber-ultra-super rare loot. There are only maximum-ability weapons, which are easily attainable without grind(See a weaponsmith), and modifiers that are gained from Reward Tokens which are dropped for everyone in the party. (no NPC henchies). 4: This should, in any case, not affect adventure single player. There is also no need to point out that original Obsi single player should be completely unaffected. 5: Parties!!!!!!!! Well, I'll talk about them a little bit later.

/support!!! Those mp3 files are in the original game, you just need to untank them.

Also Lucas needs bigger pauldrons. Cuz the shoulders are vulnerable. Katherina's Laser rifle design is... interesting. Hah I was joking. Lucas fits the style perfectly. Young buck out to save the world, faced with real big problems due to jesse's anti-legion crap, and there is probably something bigger and worse in the background that choses this convenient time to wreak havoc on Ehb. --Jokes aside-- Katherina is still a problem though(nonexistent armor, high heels). She looks like the type of woman you see in shopping malls(minus lasgun of course), yet she has the animations of an olympics athlete, which are kind of controversial. It would be somewhat acceptable if she was a raw wizard (like Reinhardt Mengsk[sorry again, but I never saw his last name written properly] who has the animations of a monk rather than a normal mage), cue the more reserved moves and reduced stamina. Last complaint/qq/whine/objection/thing I noticed: The archon_descent.jpg, which shows Anjali in her Archon form, does not look like to fit to the forum rules, because that elemental form is in essence, a fully naked floating woman. I know it's game render, posted by one of the artist team, and it WAS done in good intentions to have a healthy relationship with the community, to give us some information we really craved for, but it's still opposite to the forum rules (sexual content). Not that I have any objection against Anjali/archon, but I want to see it resolved instead of being shoved under the carpet/rug, because that Never helps. PS: And Yes I did notice the Jade_Gargoyle sounds from DS1 Crypts in the Katherina and Anjali trailers, huge positive bonus. Wonder how many references we will see in the game. I'm anticipated. PPS: Can I have my Dragon Minigun back for Katherina please? That shiny flashlight (slang for lasgun, which is a shorthand for laser gun) is cool, but I'd rather scythe stuff down with gatling goodness. PPPS: Ok this will be the last, but where are the awesome goblin inventory stuff from DS1? Gatlings, 'Nade launchers, Teslas and flamethrowers? Katherina would have less problems in close combat, as foes wouldn't get there because of... a wall of flame? Anjali would surely love that weapon too.

IMO just fixing those eyebrows and the chin on the IGM would help with all the babyfaced problems.