The Sharmat
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If you read further in this thread/other threads you'll see that I'm in favor of romance arcs in general. I'm just saying that if it's unworkable it can be ditched. It's not the highest priority in my view. -
Depended on what kind of weapons we're talking about. Piercing weapons? Arrows? Hacking weapons? Draw cut weapons? Equipment standards changed quite a lot when plate became more common, and that's because plate WAS effective against certain kinds of weapons. You started seeing shields discarded, two handed weapons becoming popular, and a heavy focus on piercing things like war hammers (which are often confused with mauls in RPGs) and flanged maces. Generally I'd probably prefer a chain hauberk. Though they're really heavy and expensive. Dan: Why does one standard of realism apply to every other fascet of the game but female fighters?
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No romance means you cut out some side content. No combat or no dialogue and you start having an entirely different kind of game. Cut both and you don't even have a game, much less an RPG.
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Roman Legionnaires of a certain time period were required to buy their equipment as well. It didn't stop them from deploying tens of thousands of men. Armor is not as expensive as some people think. Though of course it depends on the socio-economic conditions of the area we're speaking of. Fun fact: Chain was actually more expensive than plate unless you went REALLY fancy with the plate armor. Edit for Dan107: No, it doesn't work that way. Realism applies to the logical, internal consistency of the setting. Magic isn't real either. That doesn't justify all humans being able to breathe underwater with no explanation. At least throw out a "someone cast a global ritual to make everyone breathe underwater" justification at me.
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Even if I were to accept your premise, how is saying "X is unrealistic, therefore adding Y to X and making it even more unrealistic is ok" a valid argument?
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Given modern distribution methods blurs the difference between the two, I guess we're primarily measuring DLC vs. Expansion Pack by amount of content? If that's the case I greatly prefer expansion pack levels of content to dozens of microtransactions.
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Yeah, I'd prefer no romance at all to a poorly made one. Given that most lines in this game won't be voiced I don't think we have to worry about companions running out of content if you don't pursue a relationship with them, though.
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Note that I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be women in skimpy clothing in this game who care primarily about being attractive to males. Just keep it in the appropriate context.
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Neither did the men in her army, in general. Not entirely true. The era when plate was really great protection was brief, but it did exist. And it wained due to the proliferation of the crossbow, and later gunpowder. If your setting has neither, heavy gothic plate could be a great force multiplier. Also: average weight of plate armor? 50 or so pounds. Modern female soldiers (though not front line general infantry, as most militaries, wisely in my view, don't allow it) carry more in their kit anyway. This is a useful thing for you to read, I think: http://www.metmuseum...ams/hd_aams.htm So you are willing to make concessions to gameplay that go against realism, however minor? Why not just ignore the penalty altogether then, rather than saddle male characters with an utterly arbitrary stat penalty for the sake of balancing female characters' stat penalties? EDIT: Where did you get the idea that even with armor on, you're dead in one or two hits anyway? Why do you think people even bothered to make armor if that was the case?
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Humans have races too.
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Pretty sure Boudica at least did actually fight in hand to hand combat, as would have been expected of a woman in her position in her culture.
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And don't forget magic. It could be an even greater equalizer than gunpowder. Especially if it can be used to give you super strength or turn a sword into a lightsaber or something. I'd also like to comment on the implication that post gunpowder warfare takes strength and endurance out of the equation. Forced marching is forced marching, and modern soldiers carry up to 100 pounds of equipment on their backs.
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Now I want to meet the race that calls them "dwarves".
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Depends on what you mean by oppression. I can't think of any cultures that mirror the extreme of the most patriarchal cultures in history, IE men being property; but there are cultures where women were given a good deal of authority. Certain native american tribes, for example, gave women the primary say in what went on on the domestic front. And if I recall certain Celtic tribes actually went so far as to define their family as matrilineal instead of the more common parilineal. Naturally, I'm not suggesting a token matriarchy be thrown in just to fight perceived male oppression in the real world. Just suggesting that options be kept open.
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Are you seriously taking the position that because the general trend in human sexual dimorphism is that women are physically inferior to men, that a female fighter defeating a male fighter is actually impossible? Men are generally taller than women, but there are women that tower over men. They're just rare. And in any case, we're not talking about a military unit. We're talking about an adventuring party. They tend to be kind of rag tag. I'd rather have a female soldier helping me than no soldier at all, strength be damned. EDIT: The raw weight of plate armor is overblown. The primary issue is endurance. You're wearing it for a long time and doing a lot of repetitive motion while wearing it. I don't see why both fighters wearing plate changes the scenario at all, either. Plate is plate. it has the same weaknesses and exploitable gaps as every other armor of its make. Women would generally lose, but a minority of victories would go to the female. And a victory is a victory.
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It happened in real life though. It just wasn't the norm, and varied with culture. A woman can murder a man. The average man is stronger than the average woman, yes, but an average woman is still lethal, and a very above average woman vs. an average man could end very badly for the male.
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I think we can trust Obsidian to avoid genre cliches entirely. On the sexism "debate": I think we should focus on arguing against points actually brought up by posters in this thread, rather than arguments we've seen and been annoyed by on other parts of the internet. There's a wide spectrum of opinions on this. Hating the opposing side and assuming that the most extreme faction of that side is representative of the whole makes any discussion impossible, since we're all arguing past each other at strawmen.
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I know they'll listen to fans. Listening is not agreeing, though. I trust them to take the good ideas and discard the bad for the most part. Just remember: Consumers don't always know what they actually want. In my example, Mass Effect spoilers follow. be warned: My very first playthrough of Mass Effect, I did the Virmire mission as soon as it became available instead of doing the last of the starter planets and sidequests. Hey, it seemed urgent. This meant that I didn't do Wrex's sidequest. And since I'd been roleplaying instead of gaming the system, I didn't have enough paragon/renegade points to persuade him not to betray me. So Ashley shot him. By the time the mission was over I'd lost two party members, and even though it was a Bioware game I was actually worried that the end game would see all my characters picked off one by one. It was sad, yes. But it was tense, suspenseful, exciting, and FUN. Of course for further playthroughs I made sure that Wrex survived instead of taking the plunge and sticking to my "failure" for the rest of the series, which ended with me cheating myself from even more content. Game's are made to be won, and this cognitive bias leaks into narrative based games such that many of us simply can't help but chicken out and redo a segment when a choice proves suboptimal, even if it makes the story less interesting. This extends to all forms of fiction. People hate seeing favorite characters killed off. But they LOVE to hate it.
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I understand what you're saying here, but the one place where realism should yield to utility is player choice and fun. We also have a save function so we don't have to replay the whole game from the beginning when we die. While it would be realistic for female characters to start with a strength penalty before assigning stats, it discourages female characters from taking "tank" classes. Which again, might be realistic, but limits a player's choices. EDIT: You're missing the point. There are women in armor in real life. And it renders them asexual outside of the face. And we were talking about armor, not clothes. That character isn't in armor. That's a perfectly acceptable outfit for her activities.
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1. That's not a real life example. 2. That's not armor anyway. She's wearing clothes.
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It's a pipe dream, but I kind of like it when equipment effects character interaction every once in awhile. It was a tiny and almost useless detail, but in Morrowind if you talked to an NPC with your weapon unsheathed their disposition was lowered. Same if you were naked. Stuff like that would be nice, but pretty low on my list of priorities. Perhaps if you obscure your face people won't recognize you on sight? That kind of thing.
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Stretch Goals
The Sharmat replied to NateOwns's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
First stretch goal: 1.2 million to get stretch goals announced. -
Wood elves in the Elder Scrolls universe were obligate carnivore cannibals that refused to harm any native plants (foreign ones were ok though, they imported all their timber despite living in the biggest forest in the world) and ate their defeated foes. That's the kind of new spin on an old archetype I like to see.
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But that's what armor does to women. Look up modern female soldiers on google. CEREMONIAL armor is a whole other matter though. Hell, I've seen dresses forged out of metal.
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Thing is, even in the Succubus example: armor that exposes all your vital parts is not armor by definition. A metal bikini is just that: a metal bikini. If a character is wearing that it shouldn't actually give them any statistical defensive bonus. It should be treated as a fashion statement.
