Sabotin

First I would like to say that keep in mind that all game mechanics are an abstraction. In dnd, number of attacks is not supposed to be the number of times you swing, hp is not supposed to be a health gauge and back stabs are not just "hitting from the back". This is just the crunch behind the fluff. For games it would be a) too complex to implement and b) too abstract for people to comprehend what is happening if they've tried to make it more "imaginative". Why other classes can't back stab? Here's my rationalization. It's not about hitting someone in the back (ok, it is, up to a point), it's about hitting someone in the back precisely. Out of combat this can be done rather easily, but I think the "d&d term" for that is Coup de grâce, which everyone can do. In combat I would say it's another matter. With all the flailing and moving, even an unaware opponent becomes hard to hit in a weak spot. Not to mention different kinds of armors and combat styles the opponent can be using - some weak spots can not be there or some new ones can appear. I would say that the combination of a rogue's observation skills, his dexterity and his quick wit are required to make an efficient back stab. That is also my reasoning behind why they use light armor and weapons (as to not impede their skills) and subsequently why they hide (as to not die from their lackluster defense). Traps wise I think balance is needed to make rogues useful. Referencing other games, traps can be of 2 kinds - those that injure and those that kill. In games where they kill a rogue is required, period. If you don't have one you will need to reload a lot. The player can get frustrated due to the feeling of being forced to use a certain character or play style. In case the traps are there just for some damage it happens often that a rogue is useless in this aspect, due to either tough fighters all but ignoring the damage or healing being readily available. I can't really think of much that could be done to fix this, since everything can be undone with a reload... Then you have the standard, stealing, picking locks, fast talking etc. that a rogue would have expertise in. Could other characters do it? Sure, but I doubt they have time with all their combat training, book reading and meditating, hehe. I hope there won't be multiclassing either. In my mind a level 1 rogue should be someone who grew up as a rogue, not a commoner who took 1 level of it. I don't think a class based game has the required scope to show that someone is now learning to do x instead. In conversations I would like to see rogues having the ability to "outsmart" people. Instead of just being charismatic or convince someone to tell you something there could be some roundabout arguments or confusing questions basically tricking someone to reveal extra information, maybe even without them knowing it. Perhaps incorporate various scams to improve prices or get money and ways to gather information. Something that could be called street smarts.

From a mechanics perspective I'd be really careful with this. While combat injuries may be more climatic than a "near death" popup scroll, I think the 12th time you have to very slowly limp to a resting place or look for a dungeon exit while not seeing two feet in front of you the idea would lose its appeal and you'd just feel frustrated. Or people would feel compelled to reload every injury instead of every death...

Just don't give them alignments. They may be ok for personal use, but for the companions I'd rather figure it out myself how they work. People you meet might make a good or bad first impression and then turn out to be the opposite. Though I guess if the original question wasn't so specific to alignments: Yes, I would like to see the player's impact on the companions' personalities. It's not even necessary for me that there's some large shifts of world views, but maybe just enough that at the end of the day they make a slightly different decision or take a different path. You can even have some backfires where the player does not achieve the desired effect or just strengthens the companions own convictions.

I believe the only thing that they have to do is provide a strong explanation and derive details from there. In the world of PE we have these so called strong-souled people, who are a step above the common folk in that they can perform extraordinary acts. Now I can't assume that magic ones are stronger than the warrior ones, but I can assume that magic is more suitable for large scale warfare. So a strong kingdom would have some magic guild/tower/whatever, seeking these special people and teaching them the ways of magic throughout their lifetime. Perhaps there's even magocracies around. On the other hand you have people that either gained riches or were born into them, but are nothing special themselves. They can coexist with strong souled people, but are inferior in practice. So to solve that they invent firearms. Weapons of superior strength, range and accuracy usable by practically anyone. And from there you can make some more stuff up. Maybe some magocracy would just plain outlaw firearms. Other magic focused towns would not even flinch as their archmages continue to be far superior. Some towns would continue relying on magic purely because of lack of resources. Some other city known for its blacksmiths and iron would be overflowing with guns, making them the preferred weapon of soldiers and thugs alike. The mage guild there found a new calling in enchanting and magically improving these weapons - they are a powerful weapon for covering the mages weaknesses. And the small village at the edge of the forest would continue relying on their traps and bows... Really I don't mind however it turns out as long as the use of magic and firearms is sensible (avoiding handwaving like in Arcanum). That's what "realism" for me is all about, not historical similitude.

Storms of Zehir had a nice system, but I think that one is more appropriate to "adventure" type settings where you have multiple user created characters. For narrative driven games (They did say that companions will be the fleshed out kind, right?) I am expecting more of an interjection type banter from party members, with their personality (and skills related to it?) driving it. However if that is the case I would urge the developers to find a good balance between the amount and extensiveness of the interjections. Having every companion say a one-liner comment at the end of a conversation can quickly start feeling artificial, especially with multiple playthroughs. On the same note a lack of input can make them feel removed from the game.

Just don't make me play bullet hell games with more than 1 character...

I believe sorting armors into categories would still be a good idea, for the sake of simplicity and understandable mechanics, with the standard alterations in damage resistance and decrease in mobility and whatnot. A simple and robust base to build upon. After that different armors can be fleshed out, with various bonuses and penalties to various stats. Without really tiers, but with different crafting techniques, materials and magical enchantments to offer upgrades (mechanics wise: 3 hidden "upgrade slots", some permanently in use, a la KOTOR2?). This would also allow for different "regional" armor types - blacksmiths in this and this area prefer to use this and this material and this and this technique - here's your Vailian plate. Players specialized in crafting could learn stuff from the various regions they visit and craft themselves a specialized item (limited by what can be used together of course), that is otherwise not available (or rare or expensive...). I do believe that some armors could become inferior in time, base stats wise. But the additional effects could keep some of them feasible to use. That hide armor for example: perhaps it offers to rangers an increased hiding ability outdoors or resistance to cold (deceive search dogs that rogues cannot?); maybe barbarians would want to use it to further add to their scary appearance, making untrained enemies' morale drop faster. What I don't want to see is generically better armor. You know, merchants at the "start" selling the cheapest stuff, merchants at the "end" selling +5 gear, just because. Another thing thing I would like to see avoided is to steep of a power curve. Taking D&D as an example once more: at the higher levels in 3e the various bonuses often far exceeded in importance the base statistics of armors and weapons. (reading more in this thread I'm realizing I'm just echoing other peoples' thoughts )

Whatever is done with the spell system, I am hoping it will not be encouraging wait periods after fights. (e.g. let's wait 50s for cooldowns and mana before we open the next door, we wanna be ready).

I'll take it that unwinnable actually means not possible to win. In my opinion this should be avoided. Due to the range of player capabilities it would be too easy to slip into either extreme: after the 20th reload you accidentally discover that you're not supposed to win and smash your keyboard in anger, or an apparent victory gets snatched from your grasp by a scripted event and you then proceed to smash your keyboard in anger. This is one of the instances where I'd say that a cutscene would be appropriate. I know, that something like getting your behind handed to you can be humbling and an interesting experience for the player, even make the world feel more natural, but on the other hand a player may start asking himself if he's supposed to or not supposed to win an encounter, which is in and of itself meta-gaming, possibly disrupting the immersion. Of course this also largely depends on the linearity of the game and players' expectations as well as the combat mechanics. For examples of "unwinnable encounters" cutscened, we can look at the beggining of BG1 and 2, or perhaps the finale of MoTB (here I particularly liked how the player is shut down if he/she is being hard-headed).

I just know it'll be a great game. Just hoping it's finished and polished, too :D .

______NO ___SLEEP _____FOR _____THE WATCHER Maybe? :D

There's a zoom-out option for the radar, but I don't know the ps3 button for it. On PC it's tab.

No, your cursor should change only for you, not when your AI companion wants to use a skill. What you have is some kind of bug. Did you take a look at your keayboard and maybe keyboard drivers, perhaps some buttons are getting stuck?

How do you enable this mode, is it available on the pc? For me abilities are cast at the target the mouse is over at the time, or if not mousing over any enemies it's cast at my character's feet.

Doesn't really matter/have any consequences. Maybe destroy it before confronting the boss for that extra one line of dialogue and a bit harder fight...

Yes, no penalties. Well, you do loose buffs.

The controller is probably more natural, though I'd still say the mouse is still the most accurate tool. I actually switched back to the default setting from wasd/rmb as I found out it suited me better to play this game -> mouse is more accurate at targeting/moving, left hand is largely free to use skills and you can chain rolling arround more easily. Though it's harder to juggle attacking one side and rolling into another.

I think they're more generally Slavic names, I know a couple of variations for a couple of countries, all from ex-Yugoslavia and someone was recognising Russian names. There's a pretty present eastern-Europe theme in the game, specially the Lescanzi have a heavy Romani people vibe about them and the royalists are reminding me of he Russian Empire. I think it's kinda refreshing, you don't often see such viewpoints of these cultures in games.

That's very strange. I don't remember anything looking like a silver orb except those white orbs for hp/focus combo that sometimes drop. Do you happen to have a screenshot of it? Also what platform is this on?

Buffs are skills that temporarily improve you character's staticstics. It's a general term for all such skills. A good analogy would be doping in sports.

The "no movement after combat bug" is there since forever it seems, with people having various levels of success at fixing it, mostly with vsync as SummerDay said (also disable it in the graphic drivers if you have it turned on there). I just had to get used to qucksave/quickload if it happens... For the movies - as I recall they trigger when you reach a certain point in your alignment (light/dark side), so if you used any cheats to change that?

You get people pretty much automaticaly. Once you got them they'll be on the Ebon Hawk and you can change them either by going in and out of it or using the button on the map screen. Blocking with lightsaber - depends how you look at it. Whether you're hit depends entirely on stats and chance, but the animations themselves sometimes show you blocking with your weapon. You can passively block blaster shots, but that again depends on stats. So, under the line - no active blocking. Oddly enough I never tried to make Handmaden evil, but I believe it can be done. Your companions depend a bit on your own alignment. Who/what's Evelyn? Technichally you can become a sith lord, but that doesn't mean that you join the others. P.S. It's been a while since I played, I hope I didn't mess up something xD .

Did you update the game and do you have any mods installed? You can try playing with the graphics options, too or try change some stuff in the .ini I had this problem long ago, too, but I just cannot remember if/how I got it fixed.

Nope, you can't. The console makers won't allow it, maybe ever. Perhaps PC/360 in the future if it was a Live game, but I don't see it happening soon.

Did you equip any gear between your last save points and your death? Clicking "continue" actually reloads the game.