Sensuki

What? I don't see how it's that difficult to understand. You have a bunch of combat stats that could be used for attributes - Damage, Accuracy, Defenses, Durations, Health system etc etc and they have to be balanced against one another. The simplest way to do this is to keep them simplified and to not break them down any further so you can iterate quicker on the system. The reason there are four defenses is because it's IE/D&D-like. I don't want to turn this thread into an attribute discussion thread as we've already had enough of those and I accept the system as it is. I don't see anything wrong with interrupts as they existed in the IE games external from attributes. If Interrupts/Concentration can be balanced to make them a compelling reason for picking an attribute then I'm all for it, but I think it will be harder to do. Concentration seems like a no-brainer for some classes specifically (such as for spell casters) but Interrupt, why would I want to take that over accuracy (which it is dependent on), damage, or durations/AoEs as an offensive ability? If it proves to be a valid tactical choice then that's good. The problem with interrupt is it's effectiveness as a combat stat is entirely dependent on accuracy. We aren't sure if interrupt checks are made on grazes, maybe they are but at a reduced rate or something. The issue is you don't get something out of it every attack. What an interrupt actually does is reduces the overall damage/durations of status effects that are inflicted upon your party over time (by a fractional amount). Bonus damage from Might (or Duration from Intellect) is applied on grazes and hits, so you get something out of it each time. This makes Interrupt a difficult one to balance compared to the others. I know you were, but in this game I'm pretty sure the system for pre-enchanted weapons and enchantments is the same (JES big fan of unified mechanics), and that's why it's most likely a percentage for everything.

Oi Lephys I've got a job for you buddy. Make a video where you blow something up with an explosive spell, press the slow-mo button at the right time and turn your character around and walk out of the AoE and zoom in to the closest level. Then edit those frog sunglasses in over the top and have them come down from the top of the vid and go over your character's eyes.

I'm assuming with the Xaurips you can change the color (or maybe even pattern) of their tattoos / cloth.

Actually I think that no dump stats is the main reason. The way Josh is doing the 'balancing' is (in his own words) limiting the number of inputs into a system. Personally I'm a little bit iffy about the addition of Interrupt/Concentration into the attribute system. For me, their inclusion struck me as grasping for combat stats to use, having taken deflection out of the equation, but we'll see how it feels in the beta. Consistency. Remember the game also has enchantments. If +4 to damage was an enchantment, it would be more valuable on a fast 1H weapon than others, because it would give a larger bonus percentage of damage overall. There always is.

Nope, it's up to the designers to convey that information to the uninformed player through the game. I can think of a number of ways that they can provide the information, but there also needs to be an incentive to read it. BG2 used loading screens to give players tips, and BG1 had the Candlekeep Monks to explain the mechanics. I wonder how PE will go about involving the player in learning the mechanics. I personally really like Knights of the Chalice hyperlink style way, but hoverable tooltips on the Character Record is another one. I think there's also some sort of rules screen, which was also there in the IE games.

It might just be me, but I don't think the systems and how they interact as whole is difficult to understand. That also may be because I have read literally *every* statement about them, sometimes more than once. This is my understanding of how it works First and foremost, the amount of attention you have to pay to the systems depends on the difficulty setting you intend to play on. Play on easy? Probably don't need to worry too much about it. Equip your characters with whatever gear you want them to use, switch them over when you find better stuff and have at it. That is my impression of what easy is going to be here. You will probably have to still use different tactics (ability selection / spell selection / formation / positioning) in combat however, as tactics, rather than strategy is the core focus of combat in this game (so I've read anyway). On normal and hard you may need to pay more attention. Different individual enemies will have different strengths. For enemies that use gear, it will tie into the weapon and armor systems. For other creatures, you will learn about them through the Bestiary/Tooltips. Here are some examples: For simplicity, I'll just talk about melee weapons. A creature with a very high DT will not suffer much damage from 1H Fast weapons because their damage ranges are low, Dual Wielding because the trade off for dual wielding is damage, or perhaps even 1H normal weapons. In this situation to do more weapon damage you will need to equip Two handed weapons or weapons with the -DT property (Stiletto, Mace, Estoc). If this creature has a weakness to a type of damage (of which I believe there are seven - slash, crush, pierce, fire, cold, corrosion, shock) then you'll do more damage by using abilities/spells and weapons with that damage type. A playable race enemy that is not wearing any armor will be most vulnerable to 1H Fast weapons and Dual wield attacks because they don't have any or much protection from damage. 1H Fast weapons attack rate is 0.667 seconds plus recovery time. We are not sure what dual wielding does exactly regarding the time it takes to perform a dual wield attack just yet but apparently dual wielding 1H Fast weapons will do the most damage to a 0 DT opponent. Now the question you may ask is, which weapons to use in this situation? You have a choice of six base weapon types - dagger, stiletto, club, hatchet, flail and rapier. This is where the bonus property of the weapon comes into play. If this opponent has a high deflection, higher than your accuracy, you may want to equip a dagger, club or rapier as they have an accuracy bonus. Furthermore you may want to go one-handed, no shield for a further +15 bonus to accuracy. This may give you more overall damage (due to more hits than grazes) against this foe. If the opponent is using a shield, a flail negates a portion of the shield's bonus to deflection, so using a flail or even dual wielding them might be your best option there. Maybe this unarmored opponent has a high accuracy. Therefore you might want to use a shield against him, so you swap from dual wielding a flail to a weapon set with a shield (for deflection bonus) or for maximum protection, a hatchet and shield combo (as hatchets also provide a small deflection bonus). Perhaps you're a rogue and your accuracy is really nice, and you score a lot of crits. Perhaps you should equip a battle axe do deal more damage on critical hits. Anyway, there's some examples of how to take advantage of the weapon bonuses. It may not be necessary to have the correct gear and the correct party member attacking the correct unit every time, but some of the time, these strategical decisions may be useful.

The IE games had a feedback slider which controlled when circles around units were displayed. I personally prefer selection circles around everything all the time like Baldur's Gate 1. BG2's default setting was circles around player controlled units and enemies, and blue NPC circles were visible on highlighting the unit, and during pause. The IWD guys made enemy circles only visible during pause by default (Perhaps they just reduced the feedback slider setting for default) At any rate, I think PE includes these options in some form or another. A feedback slider for when to display selection circles would be nice.

720 or 1080p in Matroska (.mkv) would be ideal for the Documentary

Nice sensible lore for the creatures. Would have been cool to see them from the isometric perspective as well. Don't mind about the DVD/Blu-Ray. I'd rather see a longer documentary than have a physical copy.

There's a run/walk toggle in PE btw.

Anyway, the content for PE is finalized so we can only scrutinize what they've done and bring it up for a sequel.

Replaying BG2 atm and in many cases it has smart re-use of areas: Umar Hills and Temple Ruins are used for a number of unrelated quests (Ranger and Paladin Stronghold quests mostly).

I do recall Boots of Speed giving Hasted attacks in one of the versions of BG (maybe non-ToB BG2) but in the latest patch that isn't the case.

There's an update on new creatures or something in about 6 hours.

I imagine there'll be a few people who'll want to buy a beta key / upgrade their tier or something. Hopefully they get that part of the Backer website sorted out before then.

Yeah but then they have to build the arena We'll probably get a wilderness area or two.

Wasn't the character creation spoken of a little in one of the interviews? It wasn't asked about but Josh talked about it somewhere. I remember reading that at Character creation, you're actually viewing your character in the starting level, and the CC menu is an overlay on one side of the screen.

Just after my birthday

Did you ask them what difficulty they played it on? Argument could have been avoided. I remember when I was 13 I played it on Easy, and yep, it was easy (though not AS easy as easy settings are today).

Yeah I don't even know what this argument is about I just saw "Liches are too hard for early level BG2 encounters".

I made that exact comparison in the OP of the thread ...

He didn't summon a Pit Fiend for some reason, but yes I do recall him doing that on other occasions. I was using the Blade of Roses +3 which you can buy after you do the Slaver stuff in the Copper Coronet, and the Namarra +2 as offhand.

Okay I beat the Lich on the first go. All I did was cast Improved Invisibility on my PC (Kensai), use an Oil of Speed and walk in and attack the lich to death. Due to Improved Invisibility he was unable to target me with any spells, and for some reason he has no True Sight trigger in the AI (this is the City Gate Lich). Didn't send any other party members through the door This obviously wouldn't work on any Liches that have True Sight (and I believe some of them do) but that's a simple way to kill that one at an early level.

Pretty sure I've beaten a lich with just the Breach spell and some tanking. YMMV. Fortunately I'm replaying BG2 right now so I can go kill the City Gate lich at my current level (9) and report back.

Something like the NWN loader or whatever would be fine. Dunno where you'd host the files though (for the DRM-free DVD version / GoG version etc)