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Delterius
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Posts posted by Delterius
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If trolling, 4/10;
If not, no.
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No. "rope kid" is J.E. Sawyer.Does the difficulty scale with the number of people in your party?
There goes my only question for now, it seems.
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My ideal choice would be hidden percentages with a fluctuating 'Difficulty Check' depending on the [Diplomacy] dialogue chosen.
I like that idea. Like following:
1. Dismantle the NPC with your spell of dismantle weapon [43-67% chance of success]
2. ....
3. ....
Actually, I envisioned something like applying bonuses for certain skills and whatnot.
1. Persuade <faction member X> with the following words <A>.
2. Persuade <faction member X> with the following words <B>.
You'd get, say, 5% bonus for being a member of faction X, - 20% if you're member/sympathetic to rival faction and words <A> and <B> could be a game unto themselves, <A> happens to be good (+5%) and <B> neutral or bad (nothing or -5%).
I can't stress enough that these bonuses and the difficulty check would be hidden. You gotta have some suspense (which, incidentaly, might even punish save scumming if it turns out that neither [pure dialogue] choice is actually beneficial).
So a spell of disarm could be affected by the spellcraft skill or whatever (mind you, that sort of thing is best left to combat itself - if a character was estabilished as having relatively low morale, disarming him might cause surrender, Gameplay and Story Integration and all that).
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The problem with vancian systems in computer games is that they reward you for constantly resting and for having spoiler knowledge.
You don't have to (and apparently wasn't supposed to be able to) spam resting in games like the IE ones. Resting wasn't well implemented.
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My ideal choice would be hidden percentages with a fluctuating 'Difficulty Check' depending on the [Diplomacy] dialogue chosen.
But that's a bit much, so either Hidden percentages or even Hidden statics are fine by me.
Percentage chance to succeed. There should never be an "I win" button in the dialogue.
A bad argument would be to say that the reload button kinda becomes braindead 'I win' in there. But limiting save scumming isn't something you regularly see in western developers so whatever.
@RogueBurger
I want to play a game not a LARPing simulator.
Then play the game, restrict your actions to your arbitrary scale of choice, and have fun! The beauty of freedom is that you can you're perfectly free to give that freedom up! But as long as the freedom is there, everyone choose their restrictions personally. Why must your choice of restrictions restrict everyone else? Enjoy your character however you want! And everyone else can do the same.
No, thank you. Excusing thorougly bad game design isn't something I like to do.
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I voted on the fifth option because I don't expect a game larger than life. That said, the last few words kinda bum me: 'siding with most people' feel like choosing a guild in Skyrim. There's no dilemma if there's a fourth 'EVERYTHING' option.
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That's certainly not a priority for party-based games.
For turn-based maybe. But with RTwP an AI with at least moderate awareness is a good thing to have, or you'll end up playing in the "P" part forever.
I meant that 'making you feel like you're a member of a part, as opposed to controling the entire party' isn't a priority for party based games. I actually am fine with moderate AI awareness.
And, yes, I do believe that the pause function should be used multiple times in a good encounter. That's (real-time party coordination) the whole point of RTwP, wether its well implemented or not.
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Darn, I had hoped I accomplished an understanding. That the core concern was enemies having difficulty or ease beyond justification, making the setting appear silly.It must be said that the last line of your post has nothing to do with the thread's proposal. If anything, a sickly beggar is more likely to be a 'challenge' to seasoned adventurers in scaling (kill it with fire) combat systems.Are sickly beggars a challenge in Baldur's Gate? Certainly not.
Unfortunately, supposed common city guards in Amn are. But that's scaling game design scaling everything. Sure, they probably didn't want you to burn the city because you aren't low level anymore, but that's not reason to make everything in the city a high level opponent. A better option would be to add high level oponents to places of interest (such as important magic shops) and make the player suffer his low reputation (if all he does is pillaging without care and no PR work).
So while this shows that scaling game design isn't abolished just by rules-based game design, its also clear that the latter is a good first step to keep writers and encounter designers from causing the former without justification.
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It will make you feel like you are a member of the party fulfilling it's role and not some god manipulating and babysitting your puppets.
That's certainly not a priority for party-based games.
Ideally, the game's design won't let AI to take over your party members and do everything efficiently. To delegate some actions efficiently might be important, nonetheless.
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Wat.
What then?
Trent Oster is coming to save us.
=D
In all seriousness, let's wait and see.
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I imagine, but never really looked, that the infinity engine games fudged stats rather often. But whether or not they did, they became too swingy at times and while it wasn't outright objectionable, it was one of the rough edges.
I'll say this though. If an enemy is strong, he should have a reason for being strong. No sickly beggers that are a fine match for seasoned adventurers.
If they did, then they did a good job at it because there are very few arbitrary design decisions I remember. Such as Kangaxx's Imprisonment spell.
It must be said that the last line of your post has nothing to do with the thread's proposal. If anything, a sickly beggar is more likely to be a 'challenge' to seasoned adventurers in scaling (kill it with fire) combat systems.
I can't disagree more. Even the classics were not about how reality works. The abstraction was too great for that. The characters should understand the literals, but the players have long argued and struggled on it. I can see value in easy translation of data for the player sake. But that's achievable with a limited asymmetry.Why wouldn't we be looking under the hood? The numbers and calculations are how the game tells us about the details of how reality works, something our character should already understand.
I hope the combat log isn't yet another marvelous tool cut because its 'out of character'.
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I just like gameplay and story segregation to be avoided where possible.
It's always possible.
The gameplay is part of the story; there very idea of segregating them is nonsensical.
Worse, to use the concept of gameplay and story segregation to justify bad game design.
Rest spamming is encouraged by the paltry consequences to pressing the rest button in the middle of the dragon's lair. If rest wasn't spammable, Vancian system would (and from personal experience, do) encourage strategic resource management. That's even a major design decision behind the Storm of Zehir expansion of Neverwinter Nights 2 (though wether rest was really limited or not, I can't tell, I played it as I am playing the OC and the IE games, limiting rest myself).
If you need the 'right' resources then either the game should give you means to find that out before hand be it by hinting at the dangers of a coming adventure ('There are trolls in those mountains!'; 'I want you to investigate a Prison'). The emphasys on resources is supposed to highlight that, no, a spellcaster shouldn't have means to solve every issue at his finger tips. This is a party based game. Think you're really going to need Knock / Detect Traps? Prepare it beforehand and/or get another party member to fill your shoes.
And I'd still reserve my judgement for your magic system. There are still too many questions left unanswered.
You don't need Vancian memorization for resource management at all. Some spells can require rare ingredients or focus items to cast (pool, large mirror, portal.. things you can't take with you).
Spells that "solve issues" can be easily limited in this fashion. I'm not at all suggesting spellcasters should be able to do a Rogues work at will. I actually don't even think there should be spells to open locks and detect traps, I was just using them as examples. Telekinetic power to smash a door down.. yes.. pick a lock.. no. Want to get in undetected? Bring a rogue.
Some spells being limited isn't enough of a resource management for me - for one, its just some spells (so choice isn't global) and for another, game balance. If spellcasting itself isn't limited, then every spell that isn't is going to be nerfed in game balance. Which is why spellcasting is noticeably more powerful in vancian systems than otherwise.
Then again, you can't just limit the spells you won't use in combat.
I am not disputing that other magic systems can't be limited. But the only spell point system that has been lately is spontaneous Vancian. Nowhere else is spellcasting anything more than tactical.
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But then we've accepted that the PC can hit vastly harder (and more regularly) than his enemies.I'm still not sure where I fall in this debate. I like the idea, but I don't like the idea that a single encounter against 6 guys should end up being a 50/50 shot unless the opposition are played like idiots. And a single encounter against 1 guy ends up totally dominating him.
You can do things like underleveling or overleveling encounters to adjust the balance, but then you've stopped being symmetrical.
I don't agree that overlevelling or underlevelling makes the combat system asymmetrical. The rules still all work the same way - you're just sometimes facing opponents stronger or weaker than you.
Aside from the issue of friendly fire and status effects, I'm not sure I recognize the distinction unless you're looking under the hood. The functional results are achievable either way.
Problem is, I guess, the word symmetry, but the OP didn't have many options - aside from 'rules based system' which might not be very informative. The idea here isn't about fairness or equality, but rather consistency.
Essentially, opposing this idea is kinda opposing its source material as well.
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But if they are going to include friendly-fire in the game then should be legitimate in-univer ways to work around and/or reduce it.
From the top of my head, in the IE games:
Elemental damage can be negated via magic, potions, equipment. Think Protection from the Elements.
Specific spells can also be used to negate other specific spells. Think Resilient Sphere.
AoE spells can, you know, be cast from afar.
Crowd control can be used to hold people in place.
So can party positioning.
But, I must add, that AoE damage should not be easily negated. Otherwise friendly fire loses its meaning.
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Here's the deal. It's not just "roleplaying". It's also a game. And games have rules and limitations.
Why? I remember playing hours of Age of Empires as a kid typing in cheat code after cheat code, and I had a blast!
Oh for the love of God.
You know what? I did that too. Do you know what that stopped being? A game. You cannot roleplay in a world without rules because there's no such thing as a world without rules.
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0.02$: Stamina for weak spells and costly ingredients for powerful ones.
OTOH we have these "souls"... feeding on souls to restore magic potential? Leeching powers from long dead souls or enemies?
Well, anything that strenghtens your soul, I guess. Depends on the setting. But I'd prefer if there's more than just necromancy involved (which isn't bad, but more options and bla bla bla).
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Well, in danger of quoting myself. This should go without saying, but then the last decade happened. I remember advocating this is in the BSN forums and getting flamed for it in bizarre ways.
I'd like to add that a rules-based combat system kinda forces the devs to do more with less. If HP and damage dealing isn't bloated on the enemy side, encounter design and AI gets more in demand.
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No Candlekeep / Irenicus' Dungeon! Replay should take you straight into the action!
Oh, people are going to hate whatever's the introduction. The IE games, IWD and BG in particular, caused a lot of character re-rolling.
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In that case I wouldn't want to see constant camping and resting for 8 hours just to memorize a Knock or Detect Traps.
A game like Baldur's Gate was actually designed around limited resting and you can totally go through entire adventures without sleeping at all. Unfortunately, what consequences it offered for inconsequential resting were not enough. If you play a D&D game without rest spaming, the whole game improves, otherwise its kinda mediocre.
You do realize a stamina bar might just be called mana? Its another spell point system, which incurs the danger of too abundant resources limited by the poor cooldown mechanic. A real twist would be if you casted directly from hitpoints from the start, and then I'd reserve my own judgement.
The rest spamming is a problem and vancian memorization encourages resting whenever you need the "right spell". So best to move away from that.
If losing Stamina incurs physical penalties it's not the same as Mana. Stamina can also be universal for any class while Mana is not.
Rest spamming is encouraged by the paltry consequences to pressing the rest button in the middle of the dragon's lair. If rest wasn't spammable, Vancian system would (and from personal experience, do) encourage strategic resource management. That's even a major design decision behind the Storm of Zehir expansion of Neverwinter Nights 2 (though wether rest was really limited or not, I can't tell, I played it as I am playing the OC and the IE games, limiting rest myself).
If you need the 'right' resources then either the game should give you means to find that out before hand be it by hinting at the dangers of a coming adventure ('There are trolls in those mountains!'; 'I want you to investigate a Prison'). The emphasys on resources is supposed to highlight that, no, a spellcaster shouldn't have means to solve every issue at his finger tips. This is a party based game. Think you're really going to need Knock / Detect Traps? Prepare it beforehand and/or get another party member to fill your shoes.
And I'd still reserve my judgement for your magic system. There are still too many questions left unanswered.
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Just because 'you' don't doesn't mean the millions that do should suffer
What about the billions who think it's simply waste of time and money with a project this small?
Actually the polls here are shaping up to show that more folks want romance options. I would rather have the option for romance and have some players not engage in it than to deprive the majority that does want it in the game.
Not really, my numbers here are shaping up to show that the entire multiverse is against romances in RPGs, our universe is a anomaly.
In case you're wondering. I think the entire pyramid quote was silly.
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AutoReiv I understand your potion of view, but for me it will be always somehow forced. Why don't introduce showers, toilets etc it is also part of everyday life. Carrying supplies of food is realistic but it usually doesn't work. I'd rather leave it all to imagination
Because showers and toilets is something you'll find in The Sims, a obsessive simulationist game. Keeping track of rations is a true component of dangerous adventuring and just grows exponentially in importance the more dangerous the story grows. Suddenly starving or suffering due to misfortune is something I can certainly picture in a heroic fantasy novel, taking a dump might be there for comic relief.
I'm not saying that rations is needed, but your comparison is, with all due respect, very, very stupid.
Another thing is that rations might just turn some decisions more personal. If you come across a starving man, giving him some of your limited food supply (provided the system is well-balanced). then the decision becomes personal because you're taking a risk to uphold your morality. Which would bring me to why morality systems suck lately, but that's another story.
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In that case I wouldn't want to see constant camping and resting for 8 hours just to memorize a Knock or Detect Traps.
A game like Baldur's Gate was actually designed around limited resting and you can totally go through entire adventures without sleeping at all. Unfortunately, what consequences it offered for inconsequential resting were not enough. If you play a D&D game without rest spaming, the whole game improves, otherwise its kinda mediocre.
You do realize a stamina bar might just be called mana? Its another spell point system, which incurs the danger of too abundant resources limited by the poor cooldown mechanic. A real twist would be if you casted directly from hitpoints from the start, and then I'd reserve my own judgement.
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One which is tied to my character's class, personality, overarching plot, does't just serve to stock loot and has related quests and stuff.
And there's my vote.
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I can't believe in how many votes for certain skill checks, that absolutely remove all suspense.
Sex and Romance Poll
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
No one did it 'right'? Well, that's not necessarily true.
The people that is mostly pro-romance have been mostly satisfied by it, hypotheticals rarely attract such a large following. The amazingly deep (cleavage) and romantic (witty cleavage) choices for love interests in this very poll kinda is a show of it.
So if you do think that Romance has been a rather shallow feature, geared towards instant gratification, then you have many reasons not to like Romance in video games at all.