Ieo

Great update to wake up to, but dammit, I have to get ready for work...

I just prefer significant in-game character development during gameplay. The actual amount of prewritten (nonplayer) backstory doesn't matter to me. Some might argue that player RP creativity is limited with prewritten backstories, but just look at PS:T... You don't get much more "locked in" in terms of backstory than that, but the significant in-game character development supercedes that limitation (well, still within the limits of good/neutral/evil, but thankfully PE doesn't have that). Obviously that sort of implementation is going to depend very heavily on the nature of PE's storyilne, but it can be done. As in real life, while background can significantly affect advantages and disadvantages and there is no such thing as a level playing field, you can't choose your parents or place of birth or upbringing. But what makes a person after that is choice, whether because or despite those beginnings. Maybe as an Orlan, you experience discrimination in most places. But it's still your choice how to react to that, in both dialogue and action. The thing about allowing a lot of player backstory is that it likely won't affect the actual gameplay content at all with what we're expecting in Project Eternity, which is PS:T-type world/NPC branching content. Even adding a few additional variables for starting character backstory over our existing choices of character sex and race would, if Obsidian were to make those matter, affect too much content going the branching route, and that sounds like it would just be too much work. After all, the primary thrust of the Kickstarter in relation to content depth and breadth was pointing to the "world-affecting choices" in PS:T/BG2. In terms of development resources, I imagine the relationship between player backstory and world reactivity on an inverse scale. Assuming those variables would matter to world reactivity, then the more freedom you give players for backstories would be inversely correlated to available branching world content due to complexity (in addition to usual "choices" in quests). Likewise, if character backstory is prewritten, that would IMO allow far more freedom in developing branching reactive content with more emphasis on choice. I'd rather Obsidian just keep "baseline reactivity" in terms of character backstory limited to sex and race, and let the world react to your choices after that.

I'm not anti-romance. I'm not romance has to be in the game either. If romances are included, I want them to fit the game and the characters and not limit the viability of not romancing NPCs. If they're not there I still expect robust NPCs to have other kinds of human relationships with. Bolded, my feeling about it. PE doesn't have enough companions compared to BG1/2 for a bunch of them to have significant romance content and no/very little non-romance content. I mean, then what would be the point of taking those characters if you didn't intend to romance them, rather than one of the adventure hall mercenaries... The BG2 romances failed because there was minimal content for female characters--not even friendship paths. I think there was a friendship mod for Viconia that would work for both male/female PCs, but I didn't try it. And Anomen, well, when I was going to try his content out of curiosity, I killed him after the first conversation. My romance implementation suggestion in sig that should make everyone happy...the trick to that is how much time/money Obsidian is willing to invest into the requisite content writing. I want to see some honest bromance/womance/adoptive-brother-or-sister/family content. That's a content area in which Obsidian can make real inroads because most games don't have that kind of textual nuance, besides PS:T. Like Lurky and others would say, there's too much risk for "miss" when there are only 8 companions that are supposed to have PS:T depth. Leave romances to modders.

NOOOOOOO!!! Frankly, those peope who perceive maintenance as uninteresting or unenjoyable gameplay are crazy people. It's another opportunity to make decisions about how to deploy your available resources. In-character decision-making is basically what roleplaying is. It's like those people who don't enjoy inventory management. What is up with those people? I, for one, will absolutely be troubled by an excess of wealth in the late game. I get the feeling that a lot of the people coming on after Josh's update to complain didn't read the thread and the General posts containing arguments against their proposed implementation. In sum: * Tying a required mechanic to crafting (usually an optional side system) is a bad idea. * Durability as primarily a gold dump (besides "making crafting more attractive") is a poor reason when there are any other number of options for economy dumps that can be actual positive content. (I don't mean "positive" as in good, but positive as more than zero-sum.) * Durability makes sense in MMOs and surival-genre games. Is PE aiming to be like that? * The durability mechanic as originally proposed was not intended to be real resource management because items would have "high" durability units, was not tied to the difficulty levels at all or any other nuance of combat (like being crit or relative monster level), and did not apply to unconscious party members/whatever. If durability was really a legitimate resource management tool, it should matter a whole lot more. Like every other battle, with reduced units also reducing performance long before reaching zero. I'm definitely not the only one who suggested that if the durability mechanic was separated from the crafting system AND was tied to difficulty levels, that'd be okay. Though I'd personally mod it out ASAP because none of the IE games had that, being different types of games than MMO/survival.

My favorite answer in the interview too. (OMG the blob fish is disgusting.) Also, kendo? Racking up the cool points there. You've done great concept art for PE so far (though plenty of people didn't seem to understand the difference between your concept sketches and actual marketing art).

It deem seem like a small group was angrily howling at the moon over a detail that was really pretty minor. I wasn't impressed. So basically y'all admit having no faith that Sawyer and his team would have: good judgment to recognise minor "whinage" as exactly that--minor and forgettable; the intellect to prioritize their own mechanics and systemic design; and the decision-making balls to keep and discard what they feel is both true to PE and beneficial to player enjoyment. (You must have missed his responses later in the update thread, too.) If a "minor detail" is received between lukewarm and negatively by some significant number of players, at least those interested enough to follow the KS updates and actually voice opinion, obviously it should be easily discarded or heavily tweaked precisely because it's "minor." (Though I'd argue it wasn't minor when tied to crafting that way, and the mere addition as a "gold sink" and little else beyond making crafting more useful are all the wrong reasons. They weren't adding it as resource management.)

Indeed, either we get this Kickstarter-and-Obsidian model where sloppy forum explosions happen here and there, or we can go back to the traditional route: Company invests 3-5 years and meeellions developing a secret hush-hush game, making decisions based on "what we think players like" and "what players should like." Then gamble that consumers will actually buy the game upon release. Additional gamble that consumers will like the game enough to buy more games. Consumers invest $$ or $$$ and a bunch of hours playing a game they may have read a few reviews about or whatever. And gamble that they'll actually like it. No refunds, by the way. I really want to post that Josh quote where he's describing trying to develop for so many different people and we have a bunch here taking something personally and then another bunch there taking something else personally and everyone has their flaming vorpal pitchforks +5. Can't find it at the moment, off for hot dogs.

I saw four camps, basically. * Hate crafting * Hate durability * Don't care either way * Hate "You Must Take Crafting If You Want Durability To Be Less Annoying" I'm in that fourth bracket. Either may be implemented well for the right reasons, but shoehorning the two together like that just felt manipulative, which in turn tainted the feel and potential of both systems/mechanics for me.

The topic of item durability (in this form, anyway) is closed from the update thread:

uh, you mean randomly breaking? Besides which BG1's "durability" wasn't a mechanic for the sake of gold sink or whatever. It was a symptom/byproduct of the game's actual storyline, so I don't think BG1's weapon breakage is a good model to imitate as a systemic mechanic unless the reasoning behind such an implementation is supported much better.

Honestly, my favorite "durability" mechanic out of the games I've played is "soul damage." It doesn't apply to gear but rather your character soul health. With each death, you lose 10%, and if you fall to 0% soul health, all your stats are reduced by... I think 50% until you get yourself healed up, and it costs more to heal the more soul damage you've taken. So while it can be a gold sink, it also encourages players to play smart as resource management. Edit to add: Obviously this would work less well in games where you have instant reload, but hey, we have expert modes. So.

I'm confused by the posts above mine, but yes--changes due to feedback. I wouldn't have minded durability if it was tied to difficulty levels and used as real resource management and NOT related to crafting, but this is fine with me too. Since the IE games didn't have durability, I doubt the majority of players will miss it. We can now go back to your regularly scheduled discussion about the merits of the crafting system proper without that other thing to sully conversation.

I've heard people complain about having too much gold in every game I worked on. Until the end of F:NV when we introduced (entirely optional) GRA unique weapons that cost a fortune. Then people complained that the items cost too much. How about a progressive taxation system based on the player's chosen home faction, real estate and stronghold location? Even if a player doesn't opt for the stronghold, they still get a house, right? Let's see. I seem to remember the BG2 Thieves Guild stronghold required weekly payments or something.

Hmm, people don't want consumables, crafting, durability? I don't even know what to say, my English skills are failing me. They tend to be different audiences and/or different playstyles and expectations. * I like crafting... if it's meaningful and not overly busywork (for difficult encounters, customization, whatever) * I don't like durability... unless it's meaningful like in MMO implementations that encourage smart play and avoid death, as resource management. * I don't like consumables when I don't know when I "should" use them (thus hoarding the "special" ones that are either rare on vendors or hard to make), but I like consumables when they're easy to make or somewhat common and I don't have to worry about my conservative hoarder mindset. Keep in mind: * The IE games did not have significant crafting; many have pointed out that BG2's implementation is a very easy form tied to content. * None of the IE games had durability. (Edit: Besides BG1, which is entirely story-based!) * Consumables were an issue in IE games, particularly the non-healing potions (hoarding and inventory). Crafting might mitigate that. Dunno.

Thanks for the transparency. I remember finding basic stuff in a BG1 vendor like plate mail and getting all excited that I needed to save my gold. Same thing in BG2, the collector's edition vendor with Vecna's Robe and the like. So I don't mind spending off vendors for stuff like that. There's nothing wrong with the loot path either (indeed, that's the classic approach--I was really excited to slay a dragon in BG2 and ran to loot it). Thus I suggested that there may be multiple ways to get shinies that are essentially equal in quality but with some variation: highest faction reputation, a super long and difficult quest chain, crafting, dungeon loot. I personally do not see these paths to shinies being mutually exclusive, so long as they are indeed somewhat different in nuance and cosmetics but equally useful in combat. For consumables... potions were a problem in BG1/BG2. There was a separate thread about this and I don't remember the gist now, but what tends to happen with having diverse combat potions is that many players simply hoard them "just in case," and then hedge their bets at the end such that they don't even use the vast majority of potions in their inventory when the game is done. What other consumables are there? I rather like basic "cheap bonuses" like adding 1 point fire damage as a temporarily oil to my mace or something. I'm much less likely to hoard something like that and will craft/spend for it quite freely. I like crafting in general, but crafting systems tend to have more dubious functionality in SP games compared to MMOs. It's important, I think, to ensure that crafting remains optional but there are still cool things you can do with it, like custom enchantments. I actually enjoyed the crafting in Dragon Knight Saga. Minus the durability thing, I'll end up trying PE's crafting anyway. Perhaps Obsidian can implement discrete quest-based/discovery "crafting" the way BG2 has it on top of the proposed crafting system, as I expect that system has the fewest naysayers given the IE homage. (Durability... I think I'm pretty clear in my thoughts about that.) Where else can the gold go? How does travel work? Road tolls? More storage or mobile storage for the campsite mechanic? Rentals? Real estate investments based on faction that unlocks side quests? Faction donations? NPC bribery? Durability isn't a great way to do it, especially tied to another mechanic as an "excuse," though buying crafting items is perfectly fine to me in itself. In an SP game, I'm not particularly concerned about how the gold economy works, I suppose, but I haven't read the academic discussions about it either.

This is the problem, you are comparing an MMO to a Single-Player game. In MMO, it's a viable choice to either grind dungeons or participate in crafting. Single Player game should have "dungeon grind" option to begin with! MMO is persistent and rewards time investment, neither of these things is true for single player games. There are factions in PE. I'm saying that, at the higher development level, it may be feasible to implement different paths to shinies anyway, when talking about crafting versus loot. You're saying that it's not viable to craft in SP games? (I guess you mean SP games should "not" have 'dungeon grind to begin with'.) Take out the whole scary "MMO" bit for a moment and consider that Obsidian has already been designing different paths to different things, like shifting xp/reward to quest objectives to make noncombat roleplay viable.

I believe it was LotRO that had the concept of "comparable incomparables." The basic idea is to reward players with roughly equivalent shinies through different paths of progression. So a player who couldn't or didn't want to sit for four hours straight in classically difficult end-game content (e.g. raiding) could eventually craft raid-quality gear. But the paths are very different, and the shinies themselves also differed in stats, but were roughly equivalent in quality. The raider would earn tokens from the big fights and barter or get something as loot. The crafters would have to work their way through multiple levels of faction reputation and buy expensive materials or find something behind a puzzle and the like. It was an approach lauded by that community because it celebrates multiple playstyles without depreciating the items received from other paths, which have different cosmetic appeal and some different stats. It could work in PE. Maybe you could craft your way to an awesome 2H sword given enough time and elbow grease, or you can get that glowing awesome 2H axe in the mega-dungeon. Maybe one has special on-hit abilities and the other has on-use. Or maybe they both talk but have different personalities. But in battle, they're both pretty much equally awesome.

It's not durability in itself that I take issue with but the implementation approach. Durability itself has no mechanical meaning in the PE world except to manipulate the player into the crafting mechanic. I've seen this general development approach many times in many ways in different games, and they're always negative. Examples: A developer created a bunch of discrete content, like mini-dungeons, and found that players played only certain ones multiple times. In order to "encourage" players to utilize the other content, the developer decides to reduce the rewards in the popular mini-dungeons. A subset of players does not participate in crafting. To make crafting more "attractive" to this group of players, the developer decides to make certain highest-level gear shinies crafted-only. It boils down to this concept: When a choice is not choice in terms of either normal play or "decently efficient" play, it becomes mechanical manipulation, and that's just wrong. (Edit to add: This is outside the context of actual content; if you want to run the difficult dungeon to earn something, that's still a good choice to make.) In general I like crafting and I don't mind durability (for the reasons it's implemented in MMOs, fine), but the only way to remove the semblance of outright manipulation is to make alternatives roughly/equally viable, giving back choice. Or separate the crafting mechanics from durability proper, and make durability a legitimate resource management issue, and crafting gets its own cool items and effects. A good crafting system should not need an arbitrary mechanical crutch to lend it value. It should stand on its own merits.

I'm between #2 and #3. I would accept the durability stat in a single-player game if it's a legitimate resource management tool, tied to death/unconsciousness, perhaps tied to difficulty levels, and not too closely wedded to crafting. Maybe if you choose to fight enemies higher level than you, durability is reduced; if you're crit too often, your durability also takes a hit. Then there's the issue of how repair actually works out in the game, whether it feels like a nonstrategic chore or what. Some of my thoughts from the update 58 thread (including this and this), but ultimately, I expect we'll be seeing a mod for this anyway: Two points to that quote: First, why should there be economy sinks in a single-player game? In MMOs, the minority raiders tend to have the most money because because they get access to the best shinies to sell, but while raiding they risk a lot more death and require expensive consumables and some "durability" stat, all of which serve as gold sinks to even out the player economy. The difference is that PE durability is going to favor players who skip as much combat as possible, so that other poster's suggestion that the intent is to balance the economy against combat-players who gain more loot might make sense. But I honestly do not understand why a single-player game must have economy sinks at all; if a player ends up spending the time farming gold and whatever, what exactly does that break? Second, let me clarify what some of the other posters are saying in their discomfort with tying crafting to a durability mechanic: Under no circumstances do players enjoy being manipulated by an arbitrary mechanic in order to achieve normal gameplay. There is no real choice involved in this durability stat as it stands, vendor repair aside, in terms of true resource management, because this doesn't apply to what spells to cast or combat strategy or anything like that besides "do I even want to get into combat in this hallway?" But this is not "encouragement" to try out crafting. I'm sorry, but when it comes to these types of systems, they should stand on their own merits. There are players who enjoy crafting and those who don't. There are those who like playing ranged archer characters and those who don't. There are players who prefer hacking everything to death as they go through an enemy stronghold and those who don't. Typically when we talk about these types of systems for which the definition of "fun" varies from player to player, we need options and thus choices. Unless vendor repair is quite inexpensive and the only inconvenience is finding a vendor NPC out in the wilds, crafting plus durability this way is not a choice. It's a disappointing manipulation.

Two points to that quote: First, why should there be economy sinks in a single-player game? In MMOs, the minority raiders tend to have the most money because because they get access to the best shinies to sell, but while raiding they risk a lot more death and require expensive consumables and some "durability" stat, all of which serve as gold sinks to even out the player economy. The difference is that PE durability is going to favor players who skip as much combat as possible, so that other poster's suggestion that the intent is to balance the economy against combat-players who gain more loot might make sense. But I honestly do not understand why a single-player game must have economy sinks at all; if a player ends up spending the time farming gold and whatever, what exactly does that break? Second, let me clarify what some of the other posters are saying in their discomfort with tying crafting to a durability mechanic: Under no circumstances do players enjoy being manipulated by an arbitrary mechanic in order to achieve normal gameplay. There is no real choice involved in this durability stat as it stands, vendor repair aside, in terms of true resource management, because this doesn't apply to what spells to cast or combat strategy or anything like that besides "do I even want to get into combat in this hallway?" But this is not "encouragement" to try out crafting. I'm sorry, but when it comes to these types of systems, they should stand on their own merits. There are players who enjoy crafting and those who don't. There are those who like playing ranged archer characters and those who don't. There are players who prefer hacking everything to death as they go through an enemy stronghold and those who don't. Typically when we talk about these types of systems for which the definition of "fun" varies from player to player, we need options and thus choices. Unless vendor repair is quite inexpensive and the only inconvenience is finding a vendor NPC out in the wilds, crafting plus durability this way is not a choice. It's a disappointing manipulation.

The only SP crafting I ever got into was the BG2 style "discrete quest-type" discoveries. However, I get deep into crafting for every MMO I've played because crafting has direct bearing with the larger game economy; it's a legitimate and significant way to earn gold in those types of games. SP crafting doesn't seem to work in an economic sense unless Obsidian implements things like item quests (you create and deliver) or work orders (like you need to craft # stuff for certain factions--this can be a way to earn reputation?) or give crafted items certain vendor silver value... This is besides the usual "you can make epic crafted stuff" per the functionality argument, but then I'd point to BG2 having that ability without any busywork. In addition to my original thoughts: The proposed durability stat isn't even resource management because it happens ALL THE TIME to all players as they get into combat. I think this is my real problem. Durability should have a purpose, and it can't be a gold sink in an SP game, so the only legltimate reason to have this stat is, IMO, as resource management, which means applicable only in death (or unconsciousness in PE). Or something.

I was puzzled in reading this. What is the purpose of the durability stat in a single-player RPG? In MMOs, this type of stat exists to balance out the macro-economy whether as gear/death repair gold sinks (to mitigate MMO economy inflation) and to discourage haphazard play leading to death. Per the latter point, in all the MMOs I've played, there are additional gear/soul/whatever durability penalties upon death. I'm not a fan of gear durability stats in general because often only melee characters suffer direct degradation, and worse, the heavier the armor type, the more expensive to fix (in some of the games I've played). Of course, in a single-player party based game there's no concept of inequitable gold sink distribution among multiple players, so it should balance out either way. Given that there does not appear to be any "death"/unconscious penalties to durability, then "smart play" or "death prevention" isn't a design motivation. There is no reason to prevent economic inflation in a single-player game so durability as a gold sink doesn't make sense either. So we come to crafting, which is the bulk of the update, and that's an interesting way to hook the durability stat into the game, but it's a fine line between development creativity here and "busy work." Crafting, in particular, has always been an optional side activity in all the games I've played, single-player and MMO alike, with varying degrees of usefulness. Fortunately, players who dislike crafting can go to vendors for this, but that leads to separate issue of game economy--will players who choose to craft end up spending or saving money similarly to players who shortcut and skip that option? Because we're talking about a mandatory mechanic here that covers every single playstyle (well, besides those who choose to skip as much combat as possible). What if the durability mechanic is tied to game difficulty levels? Honestly I would rather see durability as a measure of death/unconscious penalty than a universal ongoing thing, but I don't know how Obsidian's proposal will play out. Hmmmm.

All right. I was wondering what was going on and decided to check in. Fortunately I'm at a vanilla tier with no add-ons so I don't have to worry about remembering additional math. I'm pretty patient when it comes to these things, having worked Web project backends myself, but this is still a little... I can't imagine it would cost very much to outsource the survey, honestly, given what Obs got from the KS? That would take time/pressure off. At least we're still getting development updates so I know they haven't run off with our money completely. (I kid.)

I actually got one early. That blew me away. I don't typically pay close attention to these things, but I wonder what the most popular times are for game releases. October-November seems like a hot time to me, to compete for the holiday shopping season. @LadyCrimson: Prizes?

If Obsidian feels the game needs to be moved back for the sake of quality, then by all means... The only real issue is the "silent" part. But that won't happen, because Obsidian should know that they've invested so much communication already in the backer community that we're the most powerful marketing force they have: So long as they stay in our good graces in terms of honest and forthright communication, including anything "negatively" impacting release, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of backers will be forgiving. In actual practice, it's amazing how even simple and short communications from developer to player can assuage concerns/fears and maintain a level of loyalty. This sort of relationship is much more tangible in the MMO industry because game development is ongoing; some developers are much better at communicating with their constituents about bugs and "how things work" versus others, and silence on issues becomes a dark mark very quickly. Any sub/cultural phenomenon gains power and longevity solely through the power of fandom. From my perspective, Obsidian can't risk their entire reputation as a developer studio in failing to deliver a polished final product on the KS model, especially with some tarnish from previous works. The only choice is thus "it's ready when it's ready." Then happy fans will carry this phenomenon ever forward. P.S.: LadyCrimson has a chinchilla avatar. She is now my favorite mod ever.