Merin

I never mentioned Vancian casting in that post -- I mentioned people railing against D&D style casting by using D&D rules, unknowingly, as a refuting point. For one - you said "if you don't know what the systems are or if you are only familiar with 2-3 games' style of magic systems" I think they know what they are talking about, and you might not. Project Eternity speaks about Infinity Engine games, refering back to specifically Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment. All use 2nd ED D&D - no Sorcerers nor Bards with non-Vancian casting, as you refer to. It is possible a lot of these people haven't played D&D outside of Infinity Engine games... but, regardless, when you brought up "bards and sorcerers" as being non-Vancian (yes, you didn't use the word Vancian, but you did say - "people keep using D&D Sorcerer and Bard casting rules in an effort to refute "D&D style casting"", and that's using non-Vancian against Vancian (memorization, "fire and forget")) you are referring to only 1 of 4 versions of D&D. 25 % of all versions of D&D. 1st, 2nd and most of 3rd had Vancian as the Arcane magic system. They get what they are arguing against... you maybe don't? Just from the first five pages of the thread, below, are quotes with "Vancian" being what they don't like, sometimes with relevant extra stuff left in the quote to show they are against "fire and forget" as I'm short-handing it. -- ------ To be even clearer, here's me and Enclave discussing this very thing earlier... I can't speak exactly on 3rd ED, but in general... yes. Sorcerers don't memorize - they have fewer spells, but they have "spell points" - or so many spells of each level they can cast per day. So if they have Magic Missile, Burning Hands and Sleep for 1st level spells and they can cast 4 1st level spells per day (4 level 1 spell points, as far as I'm concerned), they can cast 4 Magic Missiles or 4 Burning Hands or any combination of those 3 spells. Better. Not great, but better. I won't. You are mocking people for attacking D&D style casting with D&D style casting... which I'm not going to quite call a straw man here, I just think you might be confused. Hence the "pot, meet kettle" comment about "not knowing what systems" are being discussed. People aren't for or against D&D magic specifically... they are for or against Vancian magic. Or cooldowns. That's what the poll and thread discussion are almost entirely about. Not "all D&D magic." But I'll concede the point if you prove me wrong on it. Find me, oh, three... find me three people on here who say a version of the paraphrase - "I hate D&D magic, they should use (description of 3E sorcerer and bard magic) instead of what D&D does!" Three will convince me that you had actual people and not a straw man you were arguing against. Three quotes and I apologize. Heck, two and I'll concede you may have just exaggerated the problem.

Absolutely.

But game gives player an option to go solo. Then if your main character is caster, then you get bored. If it is as bad as you are somewhat hinting at, you won't be bored... you'll be dead.

I'm hoping for a big surprise as opposed to more of the same. But I'm fairly confident that whatever it is will be good.

They are against Vancian memorization "fire and forget" spell systems... which D&D 3E's Bard and Sorcerer are NOT Vancian. Pot, meet kettle.

Wrong - you need a case where it is enabled. Because if you can't heal, you can't use that tactic. If the trap immediately kill a cahracte,r oyu can't send them in either (unless you can spam ressurection, whihc you generally can't) But... I could use that tactic. I'm not quite sure what you are telling me I'm wrong on. I did it all the time. All. The. Time. So it worked in 100% of my experiences. Giving me hypotheticals on how it could have NOT worked is irrelevant to my point - in Infinity Engine games, rogues were excessively unnecessary. You took them because you WANTED them, not because you at all needed them. ---- Even, for a second, ignoring the fact that you are telling me that my example was wrong even though it happened... ... and going with your argument about insta-kill traps and no healing ... What game is that? How popular is it?

And this is the biggest problem with every edition of D&D save the much maligned 4E (and, hopefully, Next - which, while nothing like 4E, has the devs constantly talking about this very point) - every class should stand alone as fun, competent, competitive and playable in it's own right... especially in a game as combat-heavy as D&D... and D&D never really managed to get this right, save one time (almost - not perfectly) and that's when they get slapped silly by a loud minority of their "fans." IF (big if here) a game is going to have combat be, at most, 33% of the content... then lack of balance in the classes is not really that big an issue. Or if you can avoid 67% of the combat fairly easily with a combat-poor build. But if combat is going to be the second biggest thing that a player is going to do in the cRPG (the biggest is almost always WALKING from place to place... grrr) then that is where the rules have to be focused. If Obsidian comes out and says that combat will always be a minority of the player's actions in the game (discounting travel time!) then I say screw class balance for Project Eternity. Who wants to take bets that they are going to say that? I'll give you good odds.

In IE games rogues were so unnecessary that I almost never had one. Locked doors? Knock spell. Traps? Run through them and heal the damage. That's how I played all my D&D cRPGs. Magic really made rogues absolutely unnecessary. That's because you didn't have Nakia Nightshadow. You was fantastic. Could sneak under things normal folk couldn't. Had high charisma so was good for talking. Scouted. Lead enemies into ambushes. Did a lot more than locks and traps. Never became a pickpocket either. She was and is my favorite character ever. Played forum PbP RPGs with her. You just never had the right build. I'm also ridiculously biased. I don't like playing bad guys or evil guys or even criminal guys. So games like GTA or Assassin's Creed are a lost cause on me. I've only ever played a "rogue" in 4E for tabletop, and that was a swashbuckling charismatic rake - no stealing, no lock picking, no stealthing, no back stabbing (unless, you know, it was flanking an opponent in combat)... so Rogue was something of a misnomer. So everyone should take my "rogues are useless" with a grain of salt. Again, this is even more why DA:O deserves praise from me for getting me to play a rogue (and an elf to boot) for my first time through the game!

I only need the one case - the case that exists. Infinity Engine games. And pretty much any other RPG game with rogues short of, I think, Bard's Tale. Traps have been boring to me until DA:O, where I played the rogue for other reasons and suddenly I saw I was getting XP for disarming all the traps in my way. Was that in other games? Sure. But the rogue was being played for story reasons, so I had the rogue as my MC, and suddenly I paid attention to the traps in my way. After that, replays of DA:O? I ran through traps. It's quicker and more fun for me. Now the Bard's Tale series... there having a rogue was worthwhile to me. It was turn-based, and when you found a chest the options popped up in front of you and it took no more time or effort to hit the D button than the O button. Also - Thief of Fate. (ancient spoiler) You kinda needed that thief to win. --- In over twenty years of table-top role-playing, I've rarely seen rogues and rarely seen traps. I guess somehow the groups I played in just dodge the issue. And then I joined a group playing Pathfinder, people I hadn't played with before. And I finally saw the group who did that sort of stuff... well, strike that - I had played with most of them once before, my last attempt to enjoy 3E. The 6 hour session of the game consisted almost entirely of setting up camp, rotating through the watches and dealing with random encounters on our journey, and then rolling on random tables for treasure after the encounters. I had NEVER played D&D like that before, and that was my only session of that game. Back to the Pathfinder game - the guy running the game was great, so I enjoyed it despite the rules overall. But there was a guy playing the traditional rogue... and man did moving through locations become a slog with everyroom, every door, being checked for traps. SLOOOOOOOOW. As an aside - the group was full of munchkin gamers, the kind who spend a good portion of the game explaining to you why their character could kill your character? Well, I played a fun RP build that was NOT combat effective (I had poisons and fire bombs, and half the stuff we faced was immune to poison and fire so...) but, after nearly a year of playing, I was the only player who's character hadn't died. I learned something new about munchkin'ers - they have deathwishes. Whether that was due to wanting to make EvEn MoRe pOwErFuL characters or what, I don't know... but the rogue player? He was on his third rogue before I moved.

An example of another successful KS game campaign - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/355932838/crowdsourced-hardcore-tactical-shooter Wait, that one was poorly managed at the start, and barely crossed it's goal-line. Plus is was only raising enough money to start the project and they were then going to find traditional backing. But, well, they raised their goal. So, yeah, successful. This next campaign isn't over yet, but even if they lose nearly half their pledges between now and then (I don't think anything like that has happened on KS) it will be successful - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity. Successful because, yes, they've out-raised their goal and only needed to make their goal. .... Why is this thread still going?

Early development, yep. But I'd be careful about that "majority of their target audience" claim. It's really hard to know that kind of thing. It may be true, it may not. Vancian wasn't universally loved by role-players in the past, let alone today. And cool downs are not universally hated. All we have with a thread like this are the vocal people speaking on their preferences. You can't take around 300 votes and treat it as a scientific sampling of the 50k backers... not how these polls are done, especially. Besides, if you WERE to use this poll for anything along those lines - the majority voted against Vancian. But, again, it really doesn't mean much at all either way.

I just said this in a different thread - I almost never (I think I fiddled once or twice with a fighter/rogue halfing or a mage/rogue elf once or twice) had a thief in my party in the D&D games. Not only could you have other characters handle the duties (or ignore the duties... oooh, traps, run through them and heal) but it was effectively a wasted slot - a second cleric or wizard would do you much more good, and even a second fighter (one more tank or an archer) was a better choice. DA:O is the first game where I CREATED a rogue to play, and on my first play of the game - but that was because, narratively, with the background choices given and the one I picked, I wanted to role-play a rogue for the first time in my life. Say what you want about BioWare, that was an achievement in my book. All the IE games, and D&D prior to 4E in general? Yeah, no thanks, negative interest in rogues. 4E, however, made rogues quite interesting to play tactically.

In IE games rogues were so unnecessary that I almost never had one. Locked doors? Knock spell. Traps? Run through them and heal the damage. That's how I played all my D&D cRPGs. Magic really made rogues absolutely unnecessary.

lol Don't let the door hit you on the way out, right? "My way or no money from me." The less of those responses on the forum, the better.

I'm not sure I like it, overall, but it does seem like the kind of thinking outside the box I'd personally like to see overall.

Obsidian is doing an above average job overall. And, for the most part, they are doing a great job. They could have been more enthusiastic and optimistic going in. That's the only fault I'll give them. Otherwise, after day one they really ran with it. Would I have them do somethings differently? Sure. But I don't think they are doing anything poorly.

But without that many companion characters, that risks limiting players to just a handful of viable party constructions. I think we are kind of at that. Even with all the stretch goals we've reached we have 5 companion slots and 7 potential companions. That's with the two additional companions from the stretches, so originally we would have had JUST enough to fill out the party. Unless I'm really misreading stuff. You have 5 companions plus your MC. Initially there were 5 classes, but now there are 2 more. That implies 1 companion of each class - and they've also said that each companion is of a different class, so yeah. You ARE limited in your options - the only clear way to get two of one class in the party is when you make your MC. You get to shuffle around 2 slots out of 5 now, really. It'll be like most BioWare games post BG2 for me - replayability is hurt by the limited number of companion combinations (which was only kept at all fresh by limiting it to 2 or 3 your can bring with you (or 1, in Jade Empire.) Digressing a bit there - anywho... we were very limited, but two stretch goals have given us some options.

In the end, I too will be happy with any system they use ....UNLESS they settle for an action/DPS system that makes mages feel like nothing more than archers with colorful arrows. because nothing can be more stupid than that. Agreed. As I said before - spells should NOT be like ammunition for guns or bows (got my fireblast / incendiary rounds / flame arrow; my magic missile / armor piercing rounds / razor arrow; etc.) Magic should be fantastic and do things that no mundane things can. All the blasts and buffing kind of take the magic out of magic for me, really.

I think there's plenty of strategy in only being able to cast so many spells in a given encounter, or 24 hour period (not based on resting, but one time passage in the game), based on some mechanic (in this game's case, the soul) only allowing so much energy to be filtered through it in a given period of time. If the spell caster knows how to use that energy to make fireballs, he should be able to cast as many fireballs as his energy allows. Anything outside of that feels artificial... unless you include some kind of component requirement, and then you need to have enough bat guano or some such (I am not advocating components - hate it!) Magic shouldn't be a gun with special ammunition... or bow with special arrows. Personally, I also wish there were other down sides to casting spells - Warhammer does this pretty well, and theoretically Dragon Age's setting (even if not the game mechanics) does so, too. People are really locked into the spell schools, spell lists, number of spells per day, realm. There are so many other ways this could be done. I guess suites of spells is a possibility, but it just sounds like tinkering with the underlying mechanisms and logic of Vancian. If the suites work off of "I am a fire mage, I can choose these spells" or "I work with illusions, these are the spells I can choose" I can live with that. I don't think that's what's being suggested, though.

This just feels like a 3E vs. balance argument again. People who like 3E like character creation freedom. They don't like limits on what they can make They love multi-classing, min/maxing, and using skills and such in unique and unusual ways. This isn't wrong - but it does cause a problem for game balance. Since they chose to go with classes, I have to believe that balance and clearly defined roles are exactly what they want. They have said as much, I remember specifically in the Reddit questions that Tim Cain answered. And since they are looking to balance things, especially for tactical choices with companions and such, classes being built for specific roles seems like a no-brainer. They are doing it. --- Outside of this, while the terms like tank and such came out of RTS and MUD's (sorry, they existed before MMO's, guys... the terms for the roles, at least), the concepts are older. D&D, the very beginnings, you had front line combatant, support, ranged, flankers, and artillery. Yes, magic items gave some leeway on some things, and spell selection in particular, but the concept of specifically trained people filling specific roles is how militaries work.... Phalanx soldiers weren't also archers. Skirmish troops weren't used to absorb initial charges. Heavy cavalry didn't hold back to fire trebuchets. I am not a fan of MMO's, but in this concern all they did was codify and focus on what already existed. You can even see this in most classic super-hero teams - Justice League: Superman, Wonder Woman - your bricks; Batman, Aquaman - your flankers; Flash - your skirmisher, Green Lantern - your artillery; Maritan Manhunter - support. Fantastic Four: Human Torch - artillery; Invisible Girl - support; Mr. Fantastic - skirmisher; Thing - brick X-Men: Angel - skirmisher; Beast - brick; Cyclops - artillery; Iceman, Marvel Girl - support. Did they mix it up for a good story? Sure... but they clearly had roles in the field. It's kind of archetypal. How many fantasy stories do you read about wizards going toe to toe with barbarians? How many thieves or archers? How many stories are the barbarians in back, covering the backs of others or tending the wounded? I'm sure there are exceptions out there (or you can pick the odd occasions like Robin Hood and John Little having their quarterstaff match) but, for the most part, these "roles" really existed before MMO's.

I agree - the Fallout 3 beginning is great, on a first play of the game. But any veteran of TES games will tell you that you should create one permanent save game - right before you leave the tutorial area, right before you can make those final changes to your character - so on replays you can just load there and "create your new character" then. But I also agree - a toggle / ability to switch this would be better. Even better? Tutorial is optional and part of the start menu.

In tabletop games, the "Vancian" systems do make strategic gameplay more important, but a lot of that is lost in a game with reloading. Especially if the choice of spells has a dramatic effect on efficacy (e.g. did you memorize dimensional anchor before fighting creatures that are constantly teleporting all over the battlefield), failure to select the "right" ones can result in catastrophic failure. In the absence of information required to make informed decisions, those choices aren't strategic; they're just guesses. After a reload, they're meta-strategic, but I doubt most players feel clever for making a retrospectively obvious choice. ... I think this may be a fairly strong indication that Vancian isn't likely. If so, let's now all join in hoping for Obsidian to come up with a great system of their own!

I don't know why it's that strange. Those are some of the ways that games handle character creation... and it's a "mark as many answers as you want" so if you want, say, what Bethesda has (answer questions, but then get a character sheet to adjust however you want (or, in earlier TES games like Morrowind, the option to skip one of the processes), or you want some kind of tutorial introduction where your stats are chosen for you as you play only, or you want random rolls that aren't explained outside of the manual.... It seems pretty straightforward to me.

Story != RPG Correct. I know many people are upset at BioWare for "romance"... but what I'm upset at BioWare for is that they have successful upended precedence by making people believe story + recruitable companions = good cRPG. Story, or companions, are as "vital" to a cRPG being a cRPG as gold, swords, class-based leveling and transferring of characters between games.... that is to say they can be part of a cRPG, but a cRPG certainly doesn't need any of them to be a cRPG. Grrr.

Query - if this isn't a game for you it, the wrong game as you say... did you donate to it? Why - to just support Obsidian? And whether you donated or not (especially if you hadn't, but it's not that important) - if it's isn't for you, why are you advocating for changes to it? This forum is not restricted only for fans of this game. Of course he has right to voice his opinion as much as any of us do. This wasn't a "go away, you aren't allowed" question but a "why do you care if you already know the game isn't for you?" I mean, I don't like Call of Duty. I'm not a FPS fan. I think it'd be an absolute waste of my time to go over to an Activision forum and start telling them that I want to be able to create a character and engage in dialog with characters for a game I'm not going to buy anyway. Of course, in a public forum, he can say what he wants. But why would he want to? I don't understand the motivation, the return on effort. "Here's a game I don't want, it isn't for me... and I'm going to tell them how I'd prefer it to be created anyway." It's a silly waste of time, but his time to waste I guess. --- That said - if he's not a backer, he doesn't actually get to have an equal voice in how the game is made. He can say what he wants about the game where ever there's a public forum for such things - but someone who isn't putting money down shouldn't really have his voice considered with much weight. It's like someone who won't vote in an election complaining about politics. Yeah, sure, they CAN - but why if you aren't really part. --- If he DID donate, even if the game isn't for him, I still think it is something of a waste of time for him - but as he put money in, then his voice should carry some weight.