Sensuki

Obviously did not read the thread properly - I did indeed make a few mockups, the best one I posted in this thread earlier, if you actually read the thread properly then you wouldn't have to make these type of posts. Just like you failed to notice I had a link in my Attribute theory thread and then complained about the lack of a link for consolidation. The mockup in the OP (and the Karkarov style mockup) were not intended to meet the requirements. They were to talk specifically about those styles of UI and were quickly thrown together in a couple of minutes in mspaint. There's nothing wrong with your little invention there, but remember that there also needs to be a third bar for class resources - such as the Monk wounds, and Cipher Powers. The Portraits in eternity are small, and the number of different status effect buffs will be hard to represent whether they are done on the portrait, or on the UI itself. Karkarovs 'icons' idea is not a bad one for a UI that is claustrophobic. It is possible that they will have to group status effects together and have them show with a mouse over or something.

The TToN team is different, and they have an experienced Project Manager in Kevin Saunders. Adam Heine is Design lead which also gives me hope.

Since damage affects ALL attacks (including spells) that do damage, it does actually make more sense than it being on Strength like I predicted.

Very cool. Glad to see something a bit more non-traditional. I actually like how Intelligence affects damage - makes more sense Well I am a simulationist - not an extreme one, and those are fine to me. Better than I hoped they would be too.

ToEE is the best implementation of D&D combat in a game. Followed by Knights of the Chalice. It's definitely not 'bad'. Though I admit I am not well versed in Gold Box.

They did that so the story would be more interesting. I also played as a female character.

Expeditions: Conquistador has been the most surprising Kickstarter RPG so far. For their budget $80K - they did an amazing job. The writing quality is also better than Wasteland 2, I would say. There are some issues with that game - such as the combat design, but overall for a first effort - very promising and I look forward to more Logic Artist games.

It is you who is trying to prove that RTwP takes more skill than turn-based - not the other way around. Actually yes you can. If you make a mistake and realize it - you have lost time. There is no way to take that back, but you can correct your actions with a certain efficacy loss, which you cannot do in turn-based. There is a difference. If you realize that you made a mistake in turn-based after you have issued a command, there is no way to undo your move. In real-time IF you realize that you made a mistake you can revert your actions. All actions (and discrete rounds) in the IE games can be interrupted by a move action, and because the game is round based, a lot of the time when you go to cast a spell you have the time to cancel the action, or pause and issue another one. The stakes of individual actions are not as high as turn-based. Most people have a reaction time of about 180-300ms. Realtime with pause is not a game that tests reactions like a first person shooter ... or perhaps an RTS game does - at least, no RTwP RPG game designed today. Action RPG - maybe, but not RTwP. Pause and auto-pause also trivialize this argument. In some games, there are so many auto pause conditions that the game 'pauses' more often than a turn-based game. The pause feature in RTwP can effectively be (and likely is) "abused" by anyone you call 'sluggish or inept' to their favor. The other big difference between RTwP and TB combat is that in RTwP - actions happen simultaneously, you can react to 'currently happening' actions, such as if a Mage in BG2 begins casting a deadly spell with a long cast time, you can interrupt that cast with an Archer, and try and cause spell failure. In a turn based system, one unit moves at a time - there are different types of turns in TB though - team turns and individual unit turns. In either case, you do not know what the opponents are going to do, you cannot interrupt their actions (they also cannot interrupt yours). Pause in RTwP allows you to pause the game time and issue commands - the AI cannot do that, effectively giving you an advantage. AI can only react to certain conditions. AI for turn-based combat is simpler because it does not require real-time reactions to actions - so it is easier to provide a more effective AI, whereas for RTwP it does and the levels of AI are not very sophisticated at present. I will not say that there are not people who do not like RTwP because they find it somewhat stressful by nature, but there are also a lot of people who think that there is yet to be a good RTwP system - or that RTwP encourages filler combat. Remember, that I enjoy RTwP systems - it is you who is trying to discredit turn-based as a system. Not the other way around. It is hard to say whether easy turn based combat is easier than easy RTwP combat. I would classify easy turn based combat to require almost no deliberation of actions, and that if you just attack and if you can't attack, then move closer is a failure of a turn-based system to be even remotely difficult. Easy real-time with pause is essentially you clicking to attack ... doing little to nothing else and maybe using a couple of abilities and potions. Both require little effort. You have also not stated your preference for difficulty.

Too much fog. Hope we can turn that off.

Pretty much all games have the action bar at the bottom of the screen. This is not a valid argument as to whether portraits should be as close to the action bar as possible however. Remember the user has to make three mouse movements (let's use your dragon use case). Select their character - which in an IE style game can be done by selecting the avatar or the portrait, select the ability/spell they want to use and then click on the dragon. There has been no evidence given in this thread that supports the notion that action bar icons on the bottom center of a 16:9 screen and the portraits on the left side of a 16:9 screen are a bad idea. Mouse travel distance is the only thing you can really use and that is trivialized by the actual facts (which I have stated) about current mouse movement today. The developers have merely stated a preference for it, they haven't really been able to back up their argument about it either - but then again they don't have to. earlier ITT you have stated that your mockup was not targeted at crowd Now apparently it is. Please be consistent. Truth. At least you're 100% guaranteed that first wish, not so sure about the second one anymore though. If they end up going for a centered UI with gaps at the side, it will likely be one whole non-segmented piece of UI art.

Usually hardest. I am asking because I think there is a direct correlation between enjoyment of turn-based combat and the difficulty setting preference of the player. You missed the point. Turn-based places higher stakes on individual choices. Once you've made a move in turn based, you cannot correct it, you cannot take it back. In RTWP if you make a tactical error you can correct it by pausing the game and re-issuing a different command. Individual actions in turn-based when difficult are very important, and you can only make a certain amount of wrong moves or you have to reload/you've lost. Realtime combat has a greater demand on the moment to moment decisions of the player and in some cases their reactivity. Pause trivializes this to some extent (depending on how far you abuse it). Difficulty is often handled very well in turn-based combat, but it is often the opposite in RTwP, where difficulty equates to higher damage and hit points of enemies rather than better computer AI. In turn based games, AI often makes 'smarter' decisions. Turn-based on easy is generally pretty bad because unless you are terrible, it offers little challenge and it does take longer than RTwP to resolve combat. Difficulty in RTwP sometimes is handled well, and is in fact really fun, but most of the time it just ends up being grindy and not overly demanding of tactics/strategy - especially in games with cooldown abilities.

I disagree. ToEE's selection wheel was better than Neverwinter Nights 1, but oh god it's still a horrible way to do things.

The combat in Torment will likely encompass 5% of the total game time, and be avoidable. So yes if anyone gets up in a ruckus over that I cannot help but laugh. They must realllllly not like turn-based - which is also funny.

You didn't answer the question though. And by the way what difficulty do you play games on? Marketing is a blight on the earth. And luckily inXile's decision was based on what they thought would be best for the game. Turn based also won the vote, if only by 200 votes. It's true that some die-hard turn-based fans don't like the 'stress' of real-time combat. RTwP suffers less from this, because of the pause feature. You are talking about real time with pause here, not real-time. Allow me to quote the illustrious Vault Dweller: For the record he's talking about the early 90s XCOM, not X-COM: Enemy Unknown.

Too bad, l2play turn-based .

To be honest I think people's frustration towards consoles and console gamers is very understandable. People back Projects like this to REMOVE the console from infecting their gaming experience, and it's no surprise that when someone posts a thread like this that they are met with disdain.

Or one that allows no negative comments about their games or you get banned - and if you mention the word RPGCodex - you get banned, which was my point - but yes, you're right. And regards to the other people calling bottom bar skeuomorphic designs cumbersome and saying that UI's need to have a good mix of keyboard and mouse use - some people only use the mouse whether by choice or by handicap (one arm etc). If you are designing for accessibility you need to be able to provide all of the required functionality. You can't just go - well I don't use the guard interface, take that off the UI and make it just a key shortcut, I don't use formations, take that off the UI, make it a shortcut, I don't use the select all button, take that off the UI and make it a shortcut. I also really cannot fathom how a UI is intrusive if the UI elements are all contained within the UI. A UI that is based on pop-out elements has more characterisitics of being obtuse and intrusive than a contained UI - that has no functionality or menus that leaves it's boundaries. As much as some people may not like the BG and IWD UIs - they are all contained. Nothing takes more than a couple of clicks, unless you have a Cleric/Mage that is high level and you are trying to select a level 9 Wizard spell to cast that is not a quick spell. They made great use of the available space, provided all of the functionality and accessibility required and no UI element left the UI. It was also partially and fully collapsible. Any statements otherwise are baseless - and those people have a fixation with seeing more of the screen. Fine if people don't like them but I'd like to see someone try and prove that they are bad. Skeuomorphic designs are mostly synonymnous with blobbers, RTS and tactical RPGs. You don't see many of any of these types of games anymore - which is why the 'modern' 'minimal' design is more popular today. There is nothing dated about the design.

Yep. Will also be available in Russian language.

Sounds like Feargus overhyping nothing to me. Not like that's never happened before.

Cows. Actually not joking.

Okay, so.. If you don't read the Attack Resolution description thoroughly it can seem like that the numbers are set. The key point is that the 5% miss chance is when the Attacker's accuracy and the Defender's defense is even (ie 18 Accuracy and 18 Fortitude). However this will almost never be the case - values will usually be skewed one way or the other usually between 5-25 points. If your accuracy is higher than the defender's by five points, then you will have a zero percent miss chance. I am not 100% sure how durations work, whether they are a set number or if they work the same as damage and have a discrete range. I think it's the latter. So if that is the case, let's say a Confusion spell has a duration of 8-10 seconds. You roll a graze on your attack with the spell and an 8 on the Duration roll. The Grazed Confusion spell will last for only four seconds. There is no save. It's just the attack roll and that's it. An attacker that casts an AoE spell will probably roll to attack once, and the value will be compared against the target defense of all of the units within the AoE.

The specific attack is an active ability, not a default attack. Fortitude is pretty much the same as Fortitude Save, except the defender does not roll for the save - it works the same as AC, it is a set number and the attacker has to roll against it. The Attack Resolution system in PE is different to D&D - look it up on the wiki

This is not the Bethesda forums.

No, the Beamdog Baldur's Gate Encumbered Edition and Baldur's Gate 2: Encumbered Edition UI is awful. The BGEE one provides the same functionality but has horrible art and low res art assets. I have not played BG2:EE (I refuse to purchase another Beamdog product) but I have seen the UI and it looks ghastly, but the art is at least, better than the BG:EE one.

Yes it may indeed be the same information (if you look back to my first class primer I say exactly that) presented in different ways. Further clarification is needed.