Sabotin

I actually took it as a good sign, specially after watching the presentations on later days, where he breezes through the same encounters. For me that's a sign that the combat will be challenging and still retain that "puzzly" quality from the IE games. After all the discussions about grinding down the randomness/hard counters/difficulty spikes (both up and down) it started to become a concern that the game would be kind of bland, with the players' combat goal shifting from just winning a battle to winning a battle with an optimal number of resources. But if what was shown is any indications we will still be challenged to overcome specific things.

How about something like what mobas usually do: The "standard" info like spell level and cast speed could be put right under the name like in the IE games Another way to go would be to have the description include dynamic numbers, which would show the formula used when you mouse over them.

Well the models are noticeably meant for zoomed out/iso perspective. I'd keep them the same for the menus too, but it doesn't really bother me that much as it seems to other people. The areas look great I think. I was a bit afraid they'd be sort of "sterile" after what was shown until now (stuff placed in a scene), but my fears are alleviated. That nostalgia feeling . What bothered me was more of the vfx/animation stuff. "Throwing" magic missiles with a hand and then they come out of the center of the character instead, etc. And I might be missing some indicator, but it's hard to tell if a character is attacking and waiting for the reuse or not attacking at all. Also it still happened one time that a character wanted to go through another one to reach an enemy and got stuck in the process.

I don't think you need a special understanding of the system to use it. Unless the difficulty is so high that you need an optimal setup to get through an encounter (which I suspect would be reserved for optional bosses and such). I think you can sort of intuitively change your setup or approach based on how your fights are going, what enemies are giving your trouble etc. I mean I doubt a +2 bonus against shields would be the game changer...

3e was more about making a combination of a dozen prestige classes when it comes to customizing your character though. I'd like to see lots of gameplay changing feats available when it comes to customization. Like replacing one ability with another, changing an aspect of the class, giving an active ability, that kind of thing. I would not like to see the stacking of small bonuses (like fighters in 3e taking 3-5 feats to improve one weapon) when the feats are so sparse. Rather than your character being defined by your class it should instead be an aproximation of what you want to do with your character. An underground fighter and a master assassin don't need their own class, they can both be rogues, just with different setups and tactics. Maybe I'll go for something like a whirling dervish from 3e. I think the best base would be barbarians, with more focus on dexterity and speed. The frenzy can dub as the "dance". Maybe there will be some feat that changes the toughness to evasion, too? Etc.

Fighters have the highest deflection, so they take the least weapon damage just by default. I think the improved stamina:health conversion is more of a crutch for barbs to make them viable for longer terms. For example if the barb takes double the dmg of a fighter, then he goes down twice as fast each encounter and stay at same health over time. For the reason of the change, I would guess that during playtesting barbarians had to either rest too often or use their abilities too sparingly compared to other classes. I think the advantage of fighters would be their high base. You can react to other classes using their powerful abilities to counter them or minimize the effect. I'd assume that harder to do with a fighter and they're able to keep constant pressure. You don't really wanna waste resources on him, but you can't really ignore him.

They could make some sort of more balanced tribute thing I think. A nice long history of great deeds, a small quest with a powerful foe, a famous sword. I'd say it's like a staple of rpgs . The holy and maybe even the sword part don't really matter, I'm sure the writers can come up with a nice solution. Maybe the holy avenger's secret is that it feeds on the soul of the wearer to fuel it, thus only paladins with their burning souls can wield it effectively. Instead of a hard limitation it can be that you get different stat penalties or that it's more powerful in the hands of a paladin or both. And it kinda fits with the "singular purpose" of paladins and being martyrs for their cause. As for the original question: I think multiple paladins in a group could be viable with those aura synergies, but I'm expecting that other classes will also complement each other, although maybe in less obvious way. Anyway if it's properly done, it should just make you better at certain scenarios and worse at others. I mean you could have 3 barbarians in front then, even with a lower accuracy they should altogether be hitting more often than 1 buffed? Or you could have enough crowd control to buy time for your damage dealers to deal with them one by one.

I'm hoping for some extra stuff as well. I think they've mentioned somewhere that chanters will be able to find extra verses through the world so I'm hoping for similar things for other classes, too. NWN2 had those achievement type feats and DS3 had those small bonuses accumulated throughout the storyline, stuff like that. Even BG had you get those dream abilities.

I don't think the speed of leveling is the thing that determines if it feels like a grind or not. I can't really remember how it was with the first IWD specifically, but DnD games in general rushed you through the first 3/4 levels. I believe there's some room for "smoothing out" and extending the leveling curve here, since the game is using a custom system with less variance.

I hope they keep it more subdued or subtle though, rather than the standard "Pfah, I don't talk to accursed pointy-ears, get out of my sight you scum!". I know, I know, medieval type realism and grittiness and all that, but honestly I'm kind of tired of all the time the same thing. I think peoples' brains wouldn't explode if they took a more modern and complex look at the issue.

I seem to recall The Transcendent One from PS:T had a couple of different stat sets depending on the player's level ? But that may have been there cause of that mustard sphere. Anyway are there actually people who play through games as these where they purposefully skip most of the side quests?

I think you can fake a lot of city life with just sound. I mean who doesn't remember BG's taverns or the unintelligible shouting noises of Athkatla. I didn't even realize there's this many.

Non-optional optional content would be non-linearity I guess. The BG2 2nd chapter also comes to mind. Stuff scaling... I can't really point to any good examples, but I don't think it's an inherently bad idea. You ideally have a bunch of play styles and options (which I think are defining traits of an rpg) and I don't see people changing difficulty settings every other encounter. If it has to be there I'd use the same mechanics as difficulty settings, since they're there already, manipulating stuff on a per-encounter basis instead of the whole game at once. And I think it's also important to keep it nicely under fluff wraps, so it doesn't feel like the game cheating. For example if you're fighting a certain boss early you have some npcs to help you, but if you come later they're unavailable. By the same notion a lord could have some extra guards around after he'd heard some of his friends got burgled. Scaling like this could be turned into a strength if done properly I think, with people calling it world reactivity instead.

Maybe a useful compromise would be that charity and donations amplify the reputation gained from other sources?

As it happens barbarians are supposedly very good at dealing with multiple enemies. Not sure whether that's cause of AoE or some other mechanic, but there you have it.

It really depends how the developers go about it. How I envision it would have some tangents with medieval (or something) psychiatry; mental diseases are still seen as a whole different thing than physical ones, with often scary symptoms. So too could soul manipulation and effects be seen as an abomination while in reality being much more down to earth things. The practitioners of animancy could also be like old time medical researchers with the body smuggling and secret autopsies and such, but instead they could come to graveyards to collect traces of souls or even set up equipment around dying people. It wouldn't be a stretch then for the whole thing to be associated with the macabre, as opposed to other branches of "purer" science.

I would assume it would be relatively easy for someone in power and with lots of money to satisfy his vices. I mean it's not like they go around biting people like zombies, it's just that the steak they have at dinner is a different meat. And I'm sure the necromancers would be willing to provide everything necessary for a comfortable undeath for a small fee.

Real life kiting is even better than the one in games : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_shot

You can almost see some sort of patterns circling in the Dire charm effect. I'd like those to be less glowy and sharper (almost a 2d effect basically). You don't even need to have it animated. For the after effect on the characters maybe a miniature version around their feet with the selection circles going over for visibility? While we're at it, are you visually defining all of the area of effects of spells? Looking at the BG2 picture the firestorm and storm of vengeance you can just "sort of" tell where the danger area is. While it's providing less information it also doesn't clutter the screen as much as it could. I can't remember what was decided about spell targeters, but I guess both of these decisions should be similar? I'm not really sure about the icons over head either. If I remember right that was also used in the IWD series to make spells more distinct? From the top of my head I remember the rose from horrid wilting, a dungeon keeper hand for something (finger of death?) and a bluish cloak for something else. It seems a bit weird in the context of the ingame world (It would be really weird to see in first person a random object appearing over the enemy head) but it would really help to make stuff clear and distinctive. Btw, so I don't get too ahead of myself, is this effect style used for everything or is it just a coincidence that you've shown two similar effects that look like NWN2? In the gameplay teaser, the effects seemed pretty diverse. While there was a shiny buff one (where the characters are like walking in grass made of light) the projectiles had a shape, the lightning was thin and the globe bufff didn't shine at all. And the web thing looked very sharp and great I think. Also, what about various passive and toggle auras and such, are they visible all the time? Thinking of the chanter here particularly, since it's made to stack buffs and could get out of hand if every chant has their own effect. On the other hand a buildup could show when an invocation is ready to be used.

The portrait is pretty nice. I'm kinda glad to see happy faces, specially with something like shark people; nowadays you'd think they'd all be grimdark badasses and such. The chanter concept sounds fun. While other classes are depleting abilities through time, chanters keep on stacking the buffs. The priest's Salvation of Time seems to be a good combo (since chants last longer you can stack more of them I guess?) I love the names, too. The first thing I thought when I read them was Darmok . I'm hoping some names will be references to some stories or events in the game. Priests seem priestly? Nothing special, but that's not necessarily bad. No need to reinvent hot water everywhere. The little bit of flavor with their abilities and their "alignment" being connected seems nice though. Sounds like it's a "softening" of cleric domains/spell lists from dnd. Or you plan on changing available spells based on deity still? Now for something negative. I can't say I like the appearance of the spell vfx shown. They look to be in the same style as NWN2, which I didn't like that much. Too fuzzy and shiny, which only gets worse when you have multiple on your party (you are considering that I hope?). Besides, you don't wanna hide the pretty backgrounds .

Having a character be higher level is pretty important in dnd, especially for mages whose power increases exponentially. It also gives you more tactical options I think, despite the smaller total number of abilities in the party, because some just appear at certain levels and don't have similarly useful analogues up until then. I think the party member power/size ratio will be more in line with expectations in PE though, due to more limited high-end stuff (e.g. 1/encounter instead of 3/day) resting. You might actually want a larger resource pool instead of a higher quality one.

I think it would not change anything or even make death more fearful. Without the comfort of an afterlife and with the certainty of disappearance of self it would become even more imperative for people to leave a mark on the world. That or you'd have a bunch of nameless ones running around .

I have to disagree with that, I've always found ragdoll physics to be weird. I can't really put my finger on it but it just feels "unnatural", even more so than death animations for me.

Be it rumor dispensers or loot drop-off points (or even just a "trade" button attached to some NPC or other", I think merchants and shops could stand to get some attention and personality. While I guess there won't be any "not buying x" types of deals you could have different things be worth different prices to people? There could be some rules, traits or themes certain shops have, not even necessarily affecting the player, like a sign in front telling you to wipe your boots on the doormat before entering. Interesting shops like Sorcerous sundries, Lucky Aello's Discount Store and Adventurer's Mart come to mind. There could be some advertisement going on for the bigger shops, like the criers in the BG line. Or the merchants could just be shouting at you when you pass their booth. Going from there, merchants could have some comments on the stuff they're selling, beyond just "my goods are awesome". Perhaps when you click on the fancy flaming hammer you could get a line or two about where the merchant got it or how he it can shatter a dragon's claw. There was a shop with something like this in PS:T I believe? Same thing could be applied after you buy it instead. Or when you talk to him the first time he points you to the items that he wants to sell the most. Maybe in a different shop they try to push on you that overpriced golden adventurer gear. How about some "scams", too. I'm sure you've seen some telecommercials with plenty of half truths and distractions to "technically not trick you" into buying stuff. Conversely it's possible that the dented worn mace you bought for cheap turns out to be a fairly good wand or something. Some merchants could be into good customer service and offering discounts and deals for frequent partons. I think stuff like this would improve the feeling of connection of the world and the economy, even without such extensive consequences as the iron shortage in BG.

I find it interesting how the animations are tailored to the camera. In the video, the ones on the left look kinda wonky, while from the camera angle they look much better in my opinion. Is that more work ("fixing" animations to look good from camera angle) or less (only has to look good from that angle) or the same? I never really thought about the extra considerations a dynamic camera requires (or should, anyway )