Sabotin

Talking about camp conversations, I'd like if they took some time to bookend them or something. To me the conversations often come off as something separate from the game and I can practically see the global variables in my head.

I wouldn't really consider IE games striving to be a pnp experience. Even if it was, does the group of people you play with kick you out when your character dies? Do you start the same adventure from the beginning? Do you scratch it altogether and start a different one? I can't say I'm an expert on this matter, but I think the usual policy is that you make another character that joins in the middle of things or that you do something else like co-dm... I don't really have a problem with save/reload when you fail. What I'd take issue with is save/reload to get a dice roll right. To help this I think it's the game's job is to get the players in the right mindset of what will and what will not work and provide options for solutions. The players might not see all of them (I lured the inn assassin downstairs where the guards helped me deal with him, but didn't even think of backstabbing him), but they should not get the feeling that there is one thing to do and just a matter of trying enough times. I realize that it's just as much the players' fault, but that's a poor excuse for game developers.

That sounds good. Also possibly bad

Awesome, more pictures! The picture with the gear, lower right part, those are all wizards with grimoires in their hands? The map mockup really reminds me of BG1. Btw, won't that kind of tall grass look really bad, since characters have to move on top of it rather than through it, or is there some magic involved again? And all the areas seem pretty wide, that's cause of the perspective change I guess (my other thought is that it's to avoid such large pathing issues as IE games had )?

I think the characters will be written with these systems in mind. I guess the starting dialogues will be more neutral with the "flavored" stuff appearing deeper in the tree (or subsequent conversations), when you have somewhat of an idea about your interlocutor or when it's a more public display. For more extreme opinions there might be a backtrack option or something, too. There will be various descriptions in conversations, too, which might provide clues. Probably not every conversation will matter for this either. Anyway, correctly done it should feel relatively natural I guess. I wonder if companions and other people close to the protagonist will be aware of these things, e.g. "You just don't know him! Deep down he's a good guy!" etc.

Depending on how diverse/active enemies will be I think knowing some of their stats might not even be such a big deal. The player classes seem to have a bunch of different abilities and I believe someone said that enemies will have some unique ones, too. For example something like the monk that gets power from taking damage. You'd quickly learn to not get fooled by the low defenses. Or maybe a bunch of weaklings that powers up at low hp. AoE damage might not be such a good idea after all. Etc... But if such "tricks" are there then I guess the stat transparency doesn't even matter, expert or not. On a related not, what about knowing what spells are being cast? 3e had you make spellcraft checks to recognize a spell iirc. Considering the cast times will be 0/3/6 seconds long this might be a factor? An extra unknown for expert mode?

How I imagine expert mode is that it does away with the conveniences of being a game and tries to be more "realistic". The information is technically still there, but requires the player to gather it instead of it being presented in a convenient format. It may not feasible in this kind of game, but I was thinking visual and aural cues could be helpful. Maybe even have the player/companions/enemies provide some subtle hints (I don't mean "This weapon has no effect! This weapon has no effect! This weapon has no effect!...")

I was thinking it might be deliberate for certain areas to have similar flora, to form some sort of regions that the player notices while he travels around the world. But maybe I'm being optimistic.

I guess it's kinda naive to think that there wouldn't be filler encounters and everything can be hand crafted . It probably also comes down to how many encounter and enemies there are, what difference does swapping stuff make, etc. Anyway as I said these things can probably be modded in even if they are absent. I can't really cite a source for this but if I remember right there are some similar systems in place, like difficulty swapping numbers/types of enemies instead of +- stats and backer designed drops being available as replacements for default but similar ones. I don't really have any experience with these kind of things, but it seems there should be some kind of hooks there.

For an example of exciting looking combat in real time, look for videos from "Overgrowth".

Well the thing is, that a console UI can work fine on PC, but a PC UI needs to be reworked for consoles. That's why, in my opinion, multi-platform games always go with a console type UI. And a console type UI is in some aspect pretty much always a pain to use on a PC. A controller lacks the speed/accuracy combination that a mouse has (they're trying to solve it since a while with the sticks and touchscreens and various software tricks), so the interface has to be deliberately designed to account for it, usually by having everything compartmentalized, large and button oriented, which slows down work with it. If you consider you have to control every move of 6 characters that's a pretty big workload, so much in fact that one of the main concepts of the system is the active pause. Although it probably has a lot to do with what people are used to (I get annoyed in 1min of using a laptop without a mouse), I just don't see a solution without compromising performance on either side.

I really hope the running animation is good. That's what you're looking at for the majority of the game I think. In NWN2 for example I've found it to be kinda "floaty"...

Perhaps we have a different view of things. Let me try to illustrate my concern (extremely simplified): With hand placed enemies you have let's say one encounter with 10 swordsmen, one with 10 pikemen and one with 10 archers. With random you'd have 3 encounters with 3-4 of each. The second method is I think at higher risk of becoming predictable and tedious. I've been thinking some more and I believe more could be done with the tools already at hand - weapon switching and consumables, to add some spice to encounters while keeping their structure. Enemies should have similar thinking as the party, going in with a strategy, but adapting their tactics to the situation. So a good AI wouldn't hurt either.

I don't think that building around an item is really a concern, that just happens on subsequent playthroughs. I mean it's up to the player to decide how they want to play it, isn't it? If they want to prevent that anyway, I'd rather they just take more care when placing loot and consider the usability of the item through the game from the point of acquisition. Carsomyr wasn't that powerful just because of all the pluses it had, but you could also get it fairly early and it was the best against everything up to and including the end of the saga. I mean even if it was a sling you'd still stick it on your paladin. I think there's even some use-any-item classes that built around it? It also really bugs me when a non-random enemy in a game has entirely random loot. It creates a kind of disconnect, when everything is the same as if it's my first time playing - except the stuff that drops. The game is half acknowledging it's a game and half trying to keep up appearances. Might as well have randomized dialogue results and abilities... Now for the mooks that might be a bit different, since they're usually just padding (or I don't care about them). it looks bad when they're all clones and worse when it happens that their animations sync. If they make them randomly equipped I think it'd be interesting to make some kind of weighed system that takes into account role, job, culture, etc. For example, army enemies would have standard issue gear for their unit, being different only in sizes. A town militia would be less restrictive, with stuff just preferred rather than mandatory. A group of prates would have whatever is on hand, but maybe restricted to stuff suitable for close quarters? Etc... In PE the gear type would seem to have a more important role, so that would have to be kept in mind as well. Using a mace instead of a sword isn't just cosmetics. I would like to see if the small encounters would have some structure, too, not just be a sampler dish every time just because it's random, since that would defeat the purpose. And I forgot to mention mod support. That could be a thing. I believe there is some random loot mod for BG even.

Are you talking about cooldowns or what now? I can't remember for Drakensang, but DA had both those and mana/stamina use. Even toggles had a nominal reuse on them and there were no rounds. As far as I understand, OP, you were saying that the spells/abilities in IE games essentially had a form of cooldowns, which consisted of the time between you finished casting something and the beginning of the next round. So that depended on the cast times and when in the round you decided to cast it, right? There's no rounds in PE I think, so technically you can probably cast stuff back to back as long as you have uses available (per-combat/rest abilities or whatever they said they'll do). I think this would make micromanagement quite a bit more intensive, so perhaps they'll adjust cast times to compensate. Another form of regulation might be the importance of positioning, since you can't cast while moving and you can't move while casting (right?). This thread actually makes a good point: they promised the "IE feel", but eliminating rounds does change certain aspects. To be honest I quite disliked that I couldn't really tell when I can take my next action or if I'm wasting time running/attacking when I could already be casting. The thing I did like though was that it was practically impossible to counter-cast. It was very unlikely that when you see someone casting you could cast something else (with a shorter cast time) as a counter, since the round dynamic would prevent it. So the game play was more on the planning side rather than having twitchy fingers (as far as spell casting goes).

Yeah, I think it's more of a problem of the linear leveling system in DnD. At the start, the dice rolls are like 90% of the whole number you use somewhere. Later you at least have a chance for things to even out (and even later the dice are almost unimportant). Also if you look at it this way: going from lv1 to lv2 is a 100% increase, going from lv10 to lv11 is only a 10% increase in levels (but by then you get more powerful stuff per level). If I remember right most games are aware of these issues, starting you off at level 3 or something after the tutorial. But I don't necessarily agree with this, because often it feels like that's just something you want to "get over with", while I think the low levels should be there so that a player gets some sort of base game play (positioning, function of classes/abilities, timings, etc.) which is then upgraded and expanded as you level up. On the other hand, at these fragile levels you're just too weak to test anything without reloading a lot and if it's made that much easier then there's no need to try anything other than headbutts. It's also probably pretty subjective how the difficulty should be. Some people don't like to waste lots of time on a random lv1 enemy (me), while others may want to try dozen times to best it (me 10 years ago). The first time I played BG I must have reloaded a dozen times for that stupid assassin at the Friendly Arm Inn, to kill him before he could one shot someone from my party with his 3(!!!) magic missiles.

I think there's still room for more discussion . (from RPG Codex, but originally SA forums I think) This is really going in a non-standard direction. In D&D I think that the stats are the "realistic" base, with more abstract functions then derived from them, but in PE it's the other way around apparently.

Kinky. And you know possibly not even a bad idea. The party cypher whipping the party monk seems like it could be a nice combo.

Other than a mention of stunning blows as a monk ability I think we have here with mind wave the first instance of a disabling ability? In fact the effect even seems a bit strong. Squishies hiding behind a fighter is kind of a standard setup and this skill attacks it specifically (the "low saves"). And consider it's largely unavoidable so far. With their reliance on allies or enemies themselves they seem to have a lot of situational potential (i.e. devastating at the right moment, but just enough to pull their weight otherwise). I'm guessing the focus mechanic is there to put a cap on these things, functionally the same as reuse. There's nothing mentioned about this, are these abilities using the same per-encounter/day thing like spells or are they at will?

I may be talking out of the wrong hole here, but I think fighters could need some time to execute special maneuvers. I can imagine a smart and/or experienced fighter attacking in such a way as to lead an opponent into a position which makes it possible to then hit them "just so". And at the same time try not to get themselves caught in the same trap. Though I'd take the statement more at face value. It wouldn't surprise me if most of the stuff was instant for fighters, having the cast time descriptions be the same just for clarity purposes (and possibly easier balancing).

Well, the mechanics for the cypher look very fun for the most part (that echo thing has the potential to be hilarious to watch even). The spider people look interesting, too, though I'm generally not really a fan of animal people. The fingers make it seem like it would be hard to use utensils, but I guess they use their own variations. I probably don't want to ask what those protrusions on their chests are. The nature shot I like. I don't find it negative for it to be reminiscent of BG1. The simpler environment makes the place seem more a part of the world instead of part of the area. I do have some questions about the lore though. Will it be expanded upon why these stones were broken? It seems like a lot of effort for no reason. And secondly, what's the relationship between psyche and soul, because they are used almost interchangeably in this update. Does being a psion make you able to manipulate other souls or vice versa? Either way it would probably have implications for other classes. And that purple glow really made me chuckle. Would it be so bad if cyphers weren't instantly recognizable? Is that the only function it has?

I'd like to see some, but just as a kind of bookends to chapters, not popping up randomly during game play. About the style, maybe slightly animated 2d pictures and some text/narration next to them? I think that shouldn't be as expensive as having Blur animations in the game and it would perhaps fit more with what we've seen to date (this and similar). Also +nostalgia.

I think it's that most people don't need an active deterrent to killing children. I'm probably not gonna kill any, so it does not matter to me if they can be killed or not. However it would probably be a good idea to have NPCs not get in the way. By which I mean if you want to kill a neutral person you need to actively try to kill him, or at most exhibit gross negligence.

Well, since this is more of a niche game I think Obsidian has somewhat of an idea about what people expect and are used to. For me personally, I'd say immersion is more of a binary thing - either I'm engrossed in something or not. You can't "add" to the immersion. I think the goal is to point the person somewhere and have them enjoy the ride, the surroundings are of a smaller importance then.

I just have to butt in here: You guys are talking about purely subjective stuff. It's just as easy for something in real world physics to go against common sense as it is for magic to seem real. It really just depends on the knowledge and expectations of each individual and the depth of the design. Logic isn't something nature is subjugated to, it's a human designed way of thinking. 4 is 4 and 5 is 5 because we decided it is so. You have to remember that the only way people perceive reality is through our limited senses. We developed "prosthetics" to sense things we normally cannot, but that still means we perceive through our senses in the end. And there's another issue, how detailed the design should be. Just as for some people it's not enough for magic to just be, it might not be good to try and explain it in too much detail (ask most Star Wars fans about midichlorians). The systems needs to be designed relative to the world it is placed in and the audience it is meant for. Besides you can rationalize almost anything related to magic, just throw more fluff at it. That squirrel doesn't sound any more fantastic than the 6 squirrels supposedly making up the Lady of Pain from Planescape. And a unicorn floating upside down? I challenge it with a floating blob of flesh with a big mouth and a dozen eyes that shoot lasers!