[Of Magic and Muskets...]

I'd really rather there not be firearms in the game, just doesn't go well with medieval games, but oh well.. =)

 

Good thing this isn't a medieval game.

 

And, yes, I'm being pedantic but to make a point.

[Unofficial P.E. Relationship/Romance Thread pt. 3]

If anything, that picture is a good point for romance subplots in PE. All of them by Avellone.

 

Every single phrase, every single word, every single point and comma from the pen of a guy locked in a dark, cold and claustrophobic room - the only lighting nearby a television, depicting the most mellow and fake moments of love in the history of cinema and the only source of sanity a single page of Lovecraft's best (lest it be a distraction).

[Lie: P:E would be a better game if all our dialogue options express our character's true intentions exactly]

Well, the situation you proposed earlier isn't necessarily binary. If there are only two possibilities, saving the children or not, then the distinction isn't necessary. But what about trying to save the children but failling? It might be easier on the programmers to differentiate earlier wether you're lying or not.

What about trying to save the children but failing? What exactly do you expect the endgame of that scenario to be, if not identical? If the game treats it any differently, then it threatens to invalidate the deception.

Let's say the child is endangered by a gang and that you have a few minutes to keep them from dying. I could lie and do nothing, I could lie and even walk away - but I could also lie and pretend to save the child, engaging a few of the enemies but making no real effort at it.

[Of Items and Progression.]

I just found myself comparing my experience in Baldur's Gate and Diablo 3: Raiders of the Infernal Department Store. Two wildly different games, true, but I found it ironic that, while one of Diablo 3's selling points was compulsive and awesome looting, I simply couldn't be any excited when Demon Invader number 667# would spill another pair of pants.

 

I was once told that one reason for that is the attribute metagame in the Diablo series was simplified, items don't compete with each other simply because one yields more 'DPS' than the other. There's no question of what is actually best for your character (which is fundamentally equal to every other character).

 

I can't tell if that's true since I haven't played Diablo 1 and 2, but my own experience with other 'diablo-likes' supports that argument. But I think there's more: I believe that the attribute metagame isn't enough. Which brings me to Baldur's Gate.

 

In the first game, simple enchanted items are relatively rare. Items with specialized and higher bonuses (such as +X against Undead) are even rarer. Items with special abilities are almost self-contained to the expansion. This denotes one difference between BG and Diablo 3, loot that is meant to be interesting are rarer and, therefore, actually interesting and meaningful. But progression is still linear, since its still mostly about the attribute metagame. Every party member fills a niche, meaning that each party member will benefit the most of a given attribute increase, items are still simply better than each other.

 

Granted, if Diablo 3 had managed to accomplish this much, I'd have been pleasantly surprised. But the IE games, I believe, went beyond that.

 

In Shadows of Amn the structure is mostly the same, but there's more loot and the stakes are a higher. And with a higher power level, you can have more diverse items when it comes to special abilities. I remember hoarding a number of rings, cloaks and such, not because of different attribute bonuses and the like, but rather because of special abilities.

 

This is something else that loot in Diablo 3 didn't have, creative and situtional spell effects. For the most part, I might wear that cloak of +X protection, but I'll occasionally switch into that other one that transforms me into a troll for healing purposes. And it might even remain useful levels and levels after I acquired it.

[Lie: P:E would be a better game if all our dialogue options express our character's true intentions exactly]

With some lies, the words itself are what is important.

For those lies, what's the point in a mechanical distinction? It's exclusively in intent, a value of no worth outside an alignment system.

 

Well, the situation you proposed earlier isn't necessarily binary. If there are only two possibilities, saving the children or not, then the distinction isn't necessary. But what about trying to save the children but failling? It might be easier on the programmers to differentiate earlier wether you're lying or not.

[XP Sharing]

Player A: Kills a group of ogres that have been terrorizing the countryside for years and gets the stolen quest item. He spends a fair amount of time defeating the ogres and using a variety of combat tacticts. These ogres won't be terrorizing anyone ever again.

 

Player B: Sneaks past the ogres and gets the stolen quest item. Ogres are still alive and kicking and killing peasants. Sneaking past them took a lot less time and skill than killing them. / Bribes them by clicking a dialogue option to go somewhere else. They keep killing peasants at the new place.

 

XP reward for both cases: Same. Why in the hell?

 

Isn't it a custom to give experience in PnP to players who use their character's skills?

 

And I don't agree its harder to kill than it is to sneak. Every situation is different. It might even be harder to talk your way through the situation (a more fitting test to 'Bard' characters than butchering) than either sneaking or killing.

[Lie: P:E would be a better game if all our dialogue options express our character's true intentions exactly]

Are we talking about "[Lie] I will save the children" options or just the options to say "I will save the children" and you simply don't do it?

 

I prefer the latter, in all honesty.

Both options would be ideal, I believe.

[Some issues with the timed-lockout spell-casting system]

You're using past tense so I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about. What are you referring to?

 

I was actually describing the IE games.

 

The only way for this to happen is if there's no situational value to the spells. Why would you blow Mass Heal when you only need to Heal one person? You might get Mass Heal back before the fight is over, but you're going to spend who knows how long without it available and you might actually need it.

 

Of course but that requires ALL spells that are on cooldown to be such spells that are not that useful to cast early in a battle.

 

I have yet to get a reasonable explaination as for WHY cooldowns are necessary DURING combat? The only logical explaination is that they're shooting for more "action" ala Dragon Age.

While its true that cooldowns shine in action games, PE isn't implementing them as they exist in Dragon Age or action games.

 

As a example: In WoW, cooldowns are A) rarely shared between spells and B) you have a large number of abilities (I remember binding over 30 hotkeys). Cooldowns are there to either keep you from using one ability directly after the other ('Global Cooldown' of 1.5 seconds) and to force you to diverse a continuous spellcasting routine (to keep a handicap on the more tactical abilities, such as powerups, incapacitators and so on).

 

But in PE, cooldowns are shared between entire spell levels. Meaning that, instead of putting a handicap or molding a continuous spellcasting process, the cooldowns are actually limiting how often you're casting the spells themselves. And if you add Spellbooks into the mix, you also have a smaller number of abilities in each encounter.

 

The difference is that in WoW, a Action game, its more important to perfectly time a vast arsenal whereas in the IE games, RtwP party based games, the idea is that there's both party coordination (Action based) and the management of limited resources. In PE, the resources (spells) are going to be unlimited in between battles and, maybe, less (but not 'un') limited in-battle.

[Lie: P:E would be a better game if all our dialogue options express our character's true intentions exactly]

If Obsidian can support Bluffing, I'm all for it.

 

But it took me so long to get the title that I'm a little ashamed.

[Idea: Remove of quest markers and inclusion of detailed journal.]

Quest Markers and Minimaps are the worst. They lead to incredibly boring TESlike quests like "Get to some place, kill the monsters, take trophy, come back". It takes much enjoyment out of the game when the quests are designed around questmarkers, so that devs get lazy and don't put a way in to play the quests without, because it would be too obnoxious.

 

Best part is when TES gives you the option of removing said quest compass... but won't even hint at where your objective is through text in 95% of the quests.

[Screenshot... what ya'll think]

Its my new wallpaper.

[Some issues with the timed-lockout spell-casting system]

The issue here is that the optimal method of spellcasting may be casting spells all same level spells together in a sequential order and or spell levels in a sequential order (up or down), which does not make combat that tactical really.

 

However this issue is tied to the time encounters take, the lockout times of spell levels, what spells are available in the grimoire and how many spells of a level a grimoire holds, the developers may be able to fix this problem.

 

I do question wether this is a issue or not. Its only natural that your higher levelled spells are a priority if you're under pressure, scenarios outside of this maxim are/were common, certainly, but they weren't the rule. Often encounter, monster and spell design minimized or outright dispelled this possibility. A lower level spell might actually be more useful in a given situation, depending on how it interacts with your spellcasting 'routine', as well as the attributes of our enemies.

[Minimizing Save scumming. Or is it too much of a hassle?]

My point is if you don't abuse the save system, the problems you mentioned literally do go away. If I am misunderstanding your point (and I think I might be), I apologize.

 

If there was a spell in every spell level that completely outclassed their peers, would you believe its a good design decision to expect players to not make use of that resource? After all, the problem would 'literally go away' if you just don't 'abuse' the system (a word that I don't like to use in these cases, but I fail to avoid anyway).

[Minimizing Save scumming. Or is it too much of a hassle?]

There's a rather long list of game mechanics, ideas and even classes that lost their value in the IE games because save scumming was allowed.

Only for those players who couldn't control themselves.

The choice to not exploit bad design doesn't make it any better.

can you give a few examples of game mechanics, ideas or even classes that lost their value in the IE games because save scumming was allowed that can't be ignored by simply not save scumming? As of page 12 I have yet to see a single example.

 

I don't understand the point of the last part of your question. The poster I was responding to seemingly agreed that, if a player abused save scumming, a number of mechanics lose their meaning (and I already discussed this with you, character death is one of the single largest mechanic that loses meaning - other examples are most everything based on randomness, such as healing touches, wizard spell learning and the wild mage kit from BG2 ToB, and so on). Building up on that, I stated that, just because we can pretend that the unbalance isn't there, it doesn't make it go away.

 

And I highly doubt most of us did even that.

 

You can lower difficulty to learn all spells at 100% and max HP rolls.

 

True, that does make that one specific example bad.

[Minimizing Save scumming. Or is it too much of a hassle?]

Any system can be abused. Check point saving can be abused. The game mechanics can be abused. If gamers want to abuse a system, they'll find a way. It's up to the gamer whether they wan't to abuse it or not.

 

In what specific ways do you believe my suggestion can be abused?

[Minimizing Save scumming. Or is it too much of a hassle?]

There's a rather long list of game mechanics, ideas and even classes that lost their value in the IE games because save scumming was allowed.

Only for those players who couldn't control themselves.

The choice to not exploit bad design doesn't make it any better.

can you give a few examples of game mechanics, ideas or even classes that lost their value in the IE games because save scumming was allowed that can't be ignored by simply not save scumming? As of page 12 I have yet to see a single example.

 

I don't understand the point of the last part of your question. The poster I was responding to seemingly agreed that, if a player abused save scumming, a number of mechanics lose their meaning (and I already discussed this with you, character death is one of the single largest mechanic that loses meaning - other examples are most everything based on randomness, such as healing touches, wizard spell learning and the wild mage kit from BG2 ToB, and so on). Building up on that, I stated that, just because we can pretend that the unbalance isn't there, it doesn't make it go away.

 

And I highly doubt most of us did even that.

[Minimizing Save scumming. Or is it too much of a hassle?]

There's a rather long list of game mechanics, ideas and even classes that lost their value in the IE games because save scumming was allowed.

Only for those players who couldn't control themselves.

The choice to not exploit bad design doesn't make it any better.

[Update #18: George Ziets, Paladins, Add-Ons, Rewards, and More!]

Ha, I wrote that kind of late last night. I use the term DPS as synonymous with high overall damage (in this case increased because it is an AOE) when talking to other designers, even though said damage is not being calculated on a Damage Per Second basis. Just force of habit. So a high damage, area of effect, in a small radius, is what I meant.

 

Which is a relief. Though it already felt like the actual connotation wasn't what you were aiming for.

 

Anyway, would anyone clarify what 'centered AoE' means? Is that a radius centered on caster?

[Making the game support 1 handed (cursor only) play - disabilities]

The one feature that makes one-handed play viable is having a clickable pause button in the UI somewhere. That way the game becomes playable with just the mouse even without having extra buttons on your mouse.

 

Also, it's not just disabled players who would use such a feature. Many of us have kids now. It's a lot easier to play these games with a baby on your lap if you only need one hand (otherwise you risk having the baby roll onto the floor, and that's an awkward one to explain to the wife).

 

There's even another option: since mappable keys are a given, we might be able to map the pause function to the mouse's scroll button.

[Update #18: George Ziets, Paladins, Add-Ons, Rewards, and More!]

I've been pestering Josh about getting a leader archetype in the game for quite a while. I'm a really big fan of the 3.5 D&D Marshal. The Warlord in 4E was based off this class as well. When we started discussing a kind of Marshal/Paladin mix for a class I got pretty excited. PE's Paladin will be a very fun class to play.

 

So am I reading the description correctly that the PE paladin's skills may be centered AoE? Possibly both offensive/defensive/heal? Because that sounds all sorts of cool to me...

 

Of course the balancing of classes is subject to change, but this is what Josh and I discussed last night. In a nutshell: Party Buffs/Centered AOE DPS/Self Healing/Good Martial Ability.

 

Party buffs will be the Paladin's commands. The centered AOE DPS will most likely take the form of a soul-based, short-range (or centered) AOE, and the ability to heal himself/herself. This is above and beyond the Paladin's martial skill, which will be good, but not as good as the Fighter or the Barbarian. Of course, the player will be able to tailor their Paladin to suit their playstyle should they wish to enhance/specialize certain aspects of the class.

 

I suggest you avoid using the term 'DPS' in the future. It carries certain negative connotations.

 

If I may add as a example: such as designing combat over steady damage thus inflating health pools and creating fake depht, which sounds counter intuitive given your dual hitpoint system.

[Dragon Age-style Tactics and other non-pause combat interfaces?]

The scripting nerd in me loved the whole DA tactics game.

The gamer in me hated it.

 

If you do decide to include it please give us the option to completely turn it off. I want FULL CONTROL!

 

That kinda goes without saying, I don't remember any of those AI customizations without the option to turn it off or minimizing the AI's action to 'auto-attack nearest since you're not doing anything anyway).

[What was your singular favorite spell among the IE games?]

Projected Image on a Sorcerer, about the most unbalanced thing in the game.

[If I had to craft a new class, that would be... Writer!]

"Leave me alone Demon Lord, or by all that is mighty and proud I shall write a scathing review of your dungeon and slander your name in a manuscript that some may dub pure character assassination!"

Slander is a 3rd level spell - something for the adept Writer to wield. But to face a Demon Lord, thou shall need to be a true Archwriter, capable of Epic spells such as: Ambiguous Writting and Dubious Punctuation to properly fool the evil spirit into a unfavorable contract.

[Journalism]

When playing Baldur's Gate a situation came up and I had to stop playing for a while, so I used the journal to try and remind myself that Thaerom was making me some Ankheg Armor. Months later and not only had I forgotten about the whole thing, but I'd only remember towards the game's end - only to discover Thaerom was bugged and the Ankheg shell was lost forever (he would never finish his work).

 

That aside, I don't see why not include the feature.

[Minimizing Save scumming. Or is it too much of a hassle?]

I think the freedom to save whenever you want should be a basic part of a game's design, yes. And yes, I died in IE games.

 

I am not asking if player freedom is important, I'm asking wether its more important than balancing game mechanics since you can pretend the 'exploitable' (which is a fallacy unto itself, since the player isn't exploiting anything, he's playing the game as it is: badly designed) parts don't exist.

 

But back to the second question. When you died, did you fight that same battle or was there some cheesy, unbalanced 'skip the battle' button?

Yes, that freedom is better than the alternative. And when I died, I fought the same battle. I really don't think I get your point.

 

And what is the alternative? Repeating combat because you made a bad decision? Well, you did fight those same battles more than once, didn't you?

I don't want to repeat the battles I have already won.

I'm not surprised that you're very selective of what you consider fair and acceptable or not, most gamers have become just like that. You've isolated single encounters as single challenges, which is a entirely valid viewpoint, and you don't consider those challenges should be re-run, even if the player comes to make very bad decisions later on, which is also fair.

 

However, I actually disagree with that. I don't believe encounters are isolated into themselves, but rather that they are designed with entire adventures in mind, and adventures are what should be taken as 'single challenges' to finish. A really good party-based RPG should have a bit of strategy, with the need to manage resources throught the entire that entire quest. This falls in line with the fact that, generally, you can't restock in the middle of a dungeon and how you, also generally, gain the greatest rewards (experience and otherwise) when everything is finished. When the Hero has actually attained a victory.

 

You can disagree with me, which is ultimately reasonable. But I do hope you can see your 'repeating content sucks' argument no more a gospel than my own words, since repeating things because you did badly in any game is kinda of a staple.

 

I am not asking if player freedom is important, I'm asking wether its more important than balancing game mechanics since you can pretend the 'exploitable' (which is a fallacy unto itself, since the player isn't exploiting anything, he's playing the game as it is: badly designed) parts don't exist.

 

But back to the second question. When you died, did you fight that same battle or was there some cheesy, unbalanced 'skip the battle' button?

 

I know you didn't intend the question for me, but I wanted to chime in anyway. I do think player freedom in regards to saves is more important than a few exploits. I find it unrealistic to expect the devs to find all exploits and design them out. It becomes a question of what is more enjoyable. Do they design out save scumming and exploits, something which the player has to actively want to do, at the cost of player choice and freedom, or do they not limit our choices and freedoms and reasonably assume that exploits will be ignored by anyone who does not wish to use them? I hope they choose not to limit our choices and freedom.

 

Well, there's also another logic that I'm trying to describe here. But for that I need you to answer the question fully: I'm not talking about 'exploits' only - the discussion here is another level: I'm talking about game mechanics in general. Do you believe that balancing game mechanics is a second priority to player freedom?