metiman

When did Tim say this? It's not in the video, is it?

Abuse? No. Should the warrior have a recharge time before he can swing the sword again? Should the warrior need to reequip/replace his armor after every hit? Or rather should the warrior's armor only protect against a hit or two and then have the warrior wait a recharge period before replacing it? Haste just increases movement speed, big deal....wizards should have some benefits too. So why shouldn't a wizard/cipher have a basic attack that is always available? Seriously people, please think before you post. Apples and oranges. The system is not between-spell cooldowns. It's by-level cooldowns. If you are going for fairness then I think that fighters should have a fatigue pool and should have cooldowns every so often to simulate the fact that no human (or presumably humanoid) can continuously swing a melee weapon for all that long. At least not without his swings reducing in power. Frankly they probably should have just gone with a game-wide fatigue system as has been suggested in the forums where every class has a fatigue pool they have to manage.

Bye, Uomoz.

The melee combat sounded fine. It's the magic system that doesn't. I suppose I could stick to playing melee characters only. For those who would like to see me leave the forums, unless Obsidian reverses their position on cooldowns yet again you will get your wish on October 17th when I am certain that there is no longer any chance of them changing their minds. After that you guys can quit arguing and have a big slumber party like the one that seems to be going on in the kickstarter comments. Not my cup of tea at all.

As far as where the lines are drawn for factions: whatever. As far as there being groups of people on these forums with similar opinions with respect to newer style or older style combat I think that is difficiult to plausibly deny. Even Sawyer had that impression. Also just because a combat system was not designed specifically for consoles does not mean it will be any different from one that is if the designers believe that a particular console combat system is superior, as does seem to be the case here. In terms of factions I think I would definitely add: 1. People who like pretty much anything. 2. People who are picky about what games they like. Perhaps those could be subfactions. I also mostly agree with MReeds analysis in terms of some people backing Obsidian and others backing a specific game with certain features. I was expecting a BG2 sequel with similar game mechanics. The system revealed in Cain's summary is nothing like the IE games at all.

Thanks for asking it, diablo. You saved me a bunch of money.

Well 100% cooldown based magic is now confirmed. So my faction lost. Badly. Enjoy your victory and your modern games. I think I'll go replay BG2 with SCSII. To the Traditionalists and Old Biowarians: If we want a real BG3 I think we are going to have to make it ourselves. Or maybe Inxile will do one.

Does that mean you will stop posting now please? No. I will stay here just to annoy you, MC. Although I must admit that I'm starting to feel like I'm posting at the Bioware forums now. Which is not something I would do.

Well it looks like I won't be backing this project after all. Or at best only at the lowest tier. Maybe I should camp at the kickstarter site and wait for a $20 slot to appear. Damn! I wish the devs could make up their minds about the combat dynamics. Sawyer was just on the forum yesterday saying how BG2 combat is going to be nearly indistinguishable from that of PE and now this. Summary of magic system: DnD 4th Edition meets Dragon Age 1. Magic will be 100% cooldown based. In-combat cooldowns are in. Just per-level and per-grimoire instead of between castings as in Dragon Age. 2. Low level spells will be spammable without limit. 3. Resting is irrelevant. Too much tedium for a modern game. Justification for cooldown based magic system: Spell casters are otherwise too weak compared to melee classes. Hehe. I'm trying to think of an example of a game where this was true but I'm drawing a blank. To me, this system does not sound superior to the one in Dragon Age, but then Obsidian never actually promised that it would be. Edit: Oh yeah. And no mention of being able to turn off cooldowns in expert mode. No mention of an optional hardcore combat system as the Sawyer quote in my sig seems to imply.

I think the IE games were flawed in terms of combat mechanics. And with the exception of Torment, story as well. BG2's story and writing was juvenile and totally cringe worthy. IWD had practically no story at all. IWD2 was even worse. BG2 was the best in terms of combat IMO, but the AI wasn't very good. Sword Coast Strategems fixes the AI, but that's a mod. If you want to improve on the IE formula you have to head in the direction of ToEE with it's clever, fun, and relatively sophisticated turn based combat with enemies that made a point of going after your weaker party members. Not in the direction of modern Bioware or Bethesda or Blizzard or even CD Projekt (roll playing) games. I think the point some people are missing is that, as flawed as they were, the IE games, or at least BG2, had much, much better combat and game mechanics than nearly (maybe just a few obscure exceptions) anything that has been made since. So the problem is that the modern games are even more imperfect. Designed specifically for fast nonstop action, twitch based, popamole, click-to-death, and frankly console combat. Modern combat mechanics are basically designed to be bad. The worse the combat is the more money the game tends to make. So it's understandable. Their whole point is to make combat suck as much as possible. At least if you see combat more as a game of chess than as some kind of console fighting game. Which brings us back to the factions. The strategic battlechess faction vs the nonstop action popamole faction.

Wow. That video seems to demonstrate that at least low tech, cheap chainmail, which is probably precisely what combatants had back in the day was more or less useless. Well, worse than useless because it was heavy and (in warm climates) hot. Obviously high tech, modern, well designed chain mail does not have to be that way. Chain mail has shown to be useful against shark bites for instance. Today it would probably be made of a titanium (perhaps a beta alloy although that might just shatter like glass) and engineered better. Basically all you are trying to do is spread out the contact area of the melee weapon or arrow/bolt so that it converts from a penetrating injury to a blunt injury as much as possible. Of course, nowadays we wouldn't even use metal. We would use kevlar or some other cloth with kevlar like properties, combined with some metal or ceramic plates. This video has convinced me never to use chainmail again in an RPG. It no longer seems plausible to me as a protective device. Plate mail or splint mail maybe, but not chain mail. You may as well just wear leather armor for all the good it would do. I am curious though whether the metalworking was more sophisticated than we are giving them credit for. I mean were they really that stupid? Why wear something that heavy and expensive if it is nearly useless in an actual battle? Could their chainmail have looked very different? Perhaps using very thick wire like a chain link fence but with smaller loops? If the quality of your steel is not very good that seems to make a lot more sense. Just make a suit out of 1/8" - 1/4" diameter (#8 to #2 AWG) steel wire loops or mesh. Ideally properly heat treated for hardness.

I don't think the heavy text is going to be a problem for the kickstarter campaign. That part of the pitch doesn't seem to be at all controversial. I'm sure it will turn off some segments of buyers when it goes to retail though. That's the price you pay for making the kind of game you want to make I guess.

Is it off topic to say that Czech girls are hot?

Actually I didn't mean that the dialogue was awful. I didn't read much of it so I don't have an opinion on the quality of the dialogue itself. I meant that the system of just indicating your mood instead of actually choosing a response was awful. Designed for an action game. I guess you could try to design a text heavy, philosophical game that way, but the very idea makes me cringe.

It's not going to have dialogue like BG2. It's going to have dialogue like Torment. So I don't think that awful dialogue system in AP would 'work' here.

IIRC, Wasteland 2 will be available for direct download. You don't need a 'client'. Download. Install. Play. No serial number. No need to keep a disc in your drive. No need to have an internet connection.

Oh I see. That is an interesting idea.

you don't seem to be able to separate the difference between having options available and having time to think them all through or to execute your decisions. If pause is removed and nothing else changes, every single strategy and tactic you had with pause is still valid, just much more difficult to execute. But the strategy and tactics are completely unchanged. not having time to think of the best solution doesn't mean that solution doesn't exist. What difference does it make if an option is "available" if there is no time to choose it intelligently or in some cases even to use it?

Truces are boring. War is hell, but it's all we've got. I'm not sure you are one of my true enemies anyway and it's not important enough to me at the moment to go through your previous posts to find out. If you are not in favor of cooldowns, insta-rest, or other DA:O, Oblivion or other NextGen game mechanics then I don't consider you any kind of real enemy regardless of our disagreements in other areas. As far as said adventuring party I would nominate Vince Weller as the party leader. Other than that I dunno.

Not to defend the Archvillian or anything, but remember that Bioware probably has kids in mind as their target audience. Judging from the story and, say, Minsc, that may even have been true for BG2 as well. I think they think that only teens and preteens actually play comptuer games.

I suppose a real time game could be strategic if you could slow down time. Just an implementation detail I guess. So you people are actually saying that you have just as many strategic or tactical options in a battle against, say, Kangaxx in real time as you do when you freeze time by pausing? Makes no sense to me at all. If you could think through all of your options in real time then fine, but most people cannot do that. The enemy has time to be strategic only because it is controlled by a fast thinking computer. For me a real time fight against Kangaxx or Firkraag without cheese would only have one result: the death of my entire party. With pause available everything changes.

I like the magic snakes. Reminds me of that snake head cane in ST:TNG - Time's Arrow.

I don't think I ever played an actual cRPG for any length of time until Ultima Underworld and Arena. So in that sense I guess I'm not that old school myself. Never played any of the original Ultima games for instance. Only computer I had until the 90s was an Atari 400. I did manage to play the Keep on the Borderlands module around 1980 after which I became completely obsessed with DnD for a few years. Still love those owlbears. I was one of those kids who used to bring The Monster Manual to school with me. I did play Zork and Wizard and the Princess on my Atari 400 though. Made me hate Adventure games forever after. Those damn dam controls. Grrr. It was addictive without being enjoyable in the slightest. Sort of like MMORPGs I guess.

I'm curious as to why you think the traditionalists are younger than those who prefer newer games. That seems counter-intuitive.

Interviewer seems a bit hostile.