Infinitron

It's being designed as a game where failure comes from failing to master the game's content rather than its systems. You don't lose a battle because you picked the wrong stats to improve. You lose a battle because you didn't use the right tactics and abilities. It's a different paradigm than the "system mastery" school of RPGs.

There are other ways of designing an RPG besides making it a game which is basically based around choosing to be the dumb guy who can fight good vs the smart non-combat guy. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad design, but for ****'s sake, not every RPG in existence needs to be a reskin of Fallout. There are other sorts of choices we can make, other aspects of roleplaying we can explore. It's not all about "combat vs non-combat". A hardcore gamer isn't the guy who restarts the game ten times to create the perfect munchkin build. A hardcore gamer is the guy who ironmans the game with the first character he rolls up. A well-designed game should cater to the latter at least as much as to the former.

Actually, that's incorrect, because Larian's game is mostly self-funded. They have their own money in addition to what they got from the Kickstarter. The Kickstarter funds are purely a bonus.

Well, there's this: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/483854030943058867

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63982-has-project-eternity-been-silently-delayed/

1. I don't think these attributes are supposed to be literal representations of the characters' physical and mental traits the way D&D's ability scores are. 2. There's no need for monsters to work off the same set of stats as PCs. Plenty of TTRPGs embrace PC/NPC asymmetry and I see no reason P:E couldn't do the same. We know PE will be mostly symmetric: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/411197934789476762

The funny thing is that even if the attribute system does end up being too simplistic, even that won't matter. That's not what will make or break this game, because nobody played these games to be able to play "Attribute Manager 2000". In Baldur's Gate, you set your attributes ONCE at chargen and never thought about them again. They simply weren't very important to the core experience. In the end, the game will be judged by the quality of its content - the story, the setting, the dialogue, and the tactical combat encounters. Nobody's going to boot up the game for the first time, see the weird attributes and scream "OBSIDIAN!!! THIS GAME SUUUUUUUUUCKS!" and throw it in the garbage. All this raging over individual mechanics and systems is a huge, huge waste of time and effort.

Likely the latter. *sigh* What the heck happened to "a modernized version of the old IE games"? Define "modernized". Josh Sawyer on D&D: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3506352&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=453#post417623878

Heh, I created the other thread in the Game Mechanics forum so people would discuss that issue there, but it didn't really work.

Hormalakh: The only problem with that is that it might break down for the effects of shared abilities (talents that many classes can pick and use)

For better or for worse, that is not the policy of Obsidian Entertainment.

Thanks for the link. I wonder what he means by unconventional. Even this bit doesn't sound too different from some systems I've seen. I appreciate the intent well enough. Well, as you can see, some people do consider this system highly unconventional indeed.

It is not a good thing. This is not his money. This game is not for the realization of his childhood ability fantasies. There's nothing creative in dumping completely unrelated effects together and calling it an attribute. Since pretty much every other CRPG in existence works the way you want, I'd say it's creative enough. BTW, we already knew this was coming last month: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/467028439484888174

Well, they won't be reflected in this particular RPG. Thankfully, thanks to the Kickstarter Revolution, you'll soon have plenty of RPGs that DO simulate those basic characteristics. So there is indeed no reason to cry. Come on, even you can do better than "buy something else if you don't like this feature". What else is there to say? We might be able to affect minor things like that Crafting skill, but ultimately, Josh Sawyer has his overarching design philosophy and we're not going to change that. Whether you agree with it or not, it's a good thing that he can now pursue his creative vision to its fullest extent.

Well, they won't be reflected in this particular RPG. Thankfully, thanks to the Kickstarter Revolution, you'll soon have plenty of RPGs that DO simulate those basic characteristics. So there is indeed no reason to cry.

I agree that is kind of what they seem like at the moment, although we need more information. Months ago I asked Josh whether the game would even have attributes, because it seemed like it would work perfectly fine without them.

You know that's not the same thing. Anyway, yeah, that's not going to happen. In all likelihood, all the attributes will have combat and maybe some non-combat applications.

Wouldn't that be basically turning the "story-mental" attributes into "conversation winner" social skills?

PE's system will be different since presumably the same attribute will govern damage for all classes. Dragon Age 2's system of a separate damage stat for each class was kind of a silly half measure. It's hard to judge that system in isolation though since the game's combat was so bad.

Pretty much. Generally whenever Obsidian announce something new and unfamiliar like this, people immediately start crying "BUT JOSH THAT WON'T WORK BECAUSE IT'LL CAUSE X!!"...even though the stated reason for implementing the mechanic is to prevent X. It's kind of funny. I mean, have some faith that the guy knows what he's doing.

It's not just different melee weapon types. It's also ranged weapons, spells that do damage, abilities that do damage...

Well, keep in mind that many of the class abilities and talents will actually be passive, ie, not so different from upgrading a numerical stat or skill.

Sure, I agree, the attributes system as described sounds like it might be too simplistic/boring. We'll have to wait for more information from the developers to see if that's really true, though. Keep in mind that we don't even know yet whether PE will allow improving of attribute scores on level-up, as in D&D 3E, or whether they will remain mostly static after chargen, as in AD&D. That alone might have a huge impact on how this system works in practice.

Says who? Different system, different rules. It's been very clear to me that Project Eternity is being designed with talents, skills and special abilities as the core of the system, the main differentiator between characters. But let's see if Josh has anything to add to this discussion.