Stun

Hmm... And here I was just about to suggest a system like TOEEs, since it's the absolute best of both worlds. All it requires is money and actual character skill/EXP. None of this "go out and find the recipe, then gather 13 troll eyes and mix them with the 11 goblin intestines you've been cluttering your inventory with for 30 hours, then find a crafting table" crap Also, did we play a different Temple of Elemental evil? Crafting wasn't the least bit mandatory in that game. Not for balance, or uniqueness or survival. In fact, I think I had beaten the game, like, 5 times before I ever even tried to craft an item. Part of the reason was because TOEE's Balance was broken right out of the box. You only needed 3 things to utterly plow through every single encounter: 1) Fragarach (which, btw, was far more powerful than anything you could ever craft), 2) A wand of Fireballs, 3) A Wand of Stoneskin. And you get all 3 (and multiple copies of the last two) throughout the course of the game.

After seeing this video, my mind can't stop racing. The potential here.... Wow. I'm trying to picture this kind of environmental awesomeness manifesting itself in, say.... the Endless paths dungeon. Or one of the cities... or anywhere that isn't the waterfall area we've seen for the past 6 months. This all makes me happy. And I'm with all the people here who are asking for a "store" where we can up our pledges. As even aside from the new good stuff we're seeing, I find myself in a better financial position now than I was back in October and really wish for another chance to contribute more.

You know, it's interesting. Me, and many, many other people will always hail Planescape Torment as one of the best games EVER. But if one takes a piece of paper and objectively writes down the pros and cons of PS:T, They come to a strange realization: On paper, Planescape Torment is a horrible game. Consider the gameplay mechanics: 1)extremely limited character customization - no armor choices, no race choices, no class choices at the beginning, and even later you only have 3 very *bland*, uninspired classes to choose from (fighter, theif or mage) 2) The combat is utter crap. even the most ardent PS:T fan admits that this is PS:T's weakest point. 3) The game is filled to capacity with fetch-quests. In the Hive, you are, quite literally a messenger from start to finish (go talk to this guy, go deliver this message to that guy, go find this, go get that. Over and over and over. And this doesn't change from chapter to chapter nor is it limited to just side quests (the Bronze sphere is a fetch quest). 4)Arcade-game-like tedium (see: the modron cube. which, btw, you can do over and over again. And for that matter, *every* dungeon respawns) And the dungeons themselves are simple, single-level maps. (see: under sigil, curst prison; Hive catacombs) It's a testiment to PS:T's outstanding storyline and world richness that 1-4 are dismissed away as nothing of consequence. That they're all acceptable features in an RPG according to the 'old schoolers', and in some cases, seen as wonderful parts of the game! I can assure you though, that these are not the *current* standards of anyone on this forum. If Josh Sawyer comes here tomorrow and announces that Project Eternity will not allow your protagonist to wear armor, or use Ranged weapons, and that the Infinite Dungeon will be just as mindless and monotonous as the Modron cube, it'll cause a sh** storm. It will constitute something UNACCEPTABLE. But again, Planescape got away with it....

I didn't back this project. I know I may end up regretting it, and perhaps when it comes out, and gets good reviews I'll still buy it. But aren't we putting a little too much blind faith in Kickstarter and In-exile? I love what they're trying to do and I love everything that these kickstarters represent, but we've yet to actually see the end results of in-exile's first kickstarter game. Perhaps if Wasteland 2 had already come out and we could play it and say: "Yes. It's actually a great game", then This Torment thing would have been an easier sell for me. But as it stands, I'm getting a "used car salesman" vibe from this entire project. They haven't proven themselves, yet their stretch goals are filled with traditional marketing catch-phrases... stuff like "if we reach 3 million, we'll make your choices matter even more!" That said, I did gamble and donated $165 for Project Eternity, But that one was a no-brainer. It's a safe bet. Obsidian has already proven itself. They always deliver, Their games always meet the expectations.

Yeah, It's not a huge undertaking if we're just talking about mounts for the enemies. Icewind Dale 2 had Goblin riders.

I'd like something a little more open than all of the above. Note: But it would depend on the plotline's subject matter itself. Non-linearity is a story-telling method that simply doesn't work well with some plots, but it can work *great* with others. In general, mysteries (murder mysteries; who-done-it's, Secret conspiracies) and personal stories can really shine when they're non linear. Because in those situations the "fate of the world" doesn't hang in the balance, and thus the player can be given the freedom to "find clues" and chip away at the individual entities involved in the plot without the narrative itself forcing the order of the story's "episodes" or even their results. And of course, in a personal story the sky's the limit. the world doesn't need saving, you do, so it should be completely up to the protagonist to fix his own problems (or not) in whatever order he wishes. At the risk of uttering an unspeakable blasphemy, I'd argue that Planescape torment's plotline would have benefitted greatly from a more non-linear approach.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/29/chris-avellone-interview-torment-project-eternity-and-beyond/ Mostly stuff we already knew but I did find Avellone's personal takes and insights interesting. Some snippets: The storyline/theme potentials here excite me. People always gush about how great Planescape: Torment was from a story-perspective. But One of the reasons why Torment's story is so memerable was because much of it spawned from the setting itself. It had a bizzare game world that facilitated a good story. It Allowed for a rich narrative to grow out of it (ie. Traveling the planes; having companions and NPCs from truly different realities) My gut is telling me that we might have something similar being built here, albeit a little more grounded in "history". And if that's the case, Avellone's and Zeits' story-writing could come out in awe-inspiring fashion. </optimist>

No offense, but I sure as hell hope the Beta is NOT open to just anyone. The Beta key entitlement was something we backers had to specifically pay for. It started at the $110 Pledge tier and was then avaliable to Backers who added +$25 to their pledges for it. I specifically upped my donation accordingly so I'd have beta access. If I later find out that I didn't need to do any such thing in order to get access to the Beta, I'll be pissed.

Which still represents something that isn't *instant*, which means your hypothetical is a straw man. If I can't count on a consumable or spell to work the instant I consume it or cast it, then YES, I'd rather have a regeneration system. But AGAIN, those are NOT the options facing rpg gamers gamers after a painful combat session. The options facing RPG gamers after a painful combat session are: 1) Consumables/spells to heal yourself up right away... or.... 2) a quick regen system to do the healing for you. So... lets employ some honesty, now, and stick with debating the merits and pitfalls of *those* two.

Well, since it does happen,Really? It does? Where? Cite me an example of an RPG where a Healing potion takes 5 minutes to work. Aah, the desperate, and pointless semantics argument is it? Actually, No, this is untrue. In the vast majority of RPGs (and especially in pen and paper) there's a distinct difference between limb and organ regeneration and health regeneration. in D&D there's actually seperate cleric spells that deal with the two different types. But, like I said, this is yet another pointless stream-of-consciousness subject change on your part. Health Regeneration is health regeneration, whether or not it happens instantly or slightly slower than instantly is irrelevant. it's inclusion in a game automatically eliminates the consequences associated with reckless combat behavior.

They're not.... unless they're ridiculous hypothetical examples of something that never happens, but you're making them anyway in order to "prove" whatever crazy point you're trying to make. And that's exactly what you did. In video games, Healing potions/spells provide instant healing to those who consume them. Thus, they are a viable, more creative alternative to an auto-health regeneration system. Period. You will never be able to overcome this fact, no matter what bizzare "hypothetical" you deign to dream up. BS. Of course you were. Your whole point was centered around the notion that manually healing yourself up after a fight is a "waste of time", when we could, instead, simply have a system that automatically regenerates your health. So what better way to "prove" this than to come up with a hypothetical where potions take 5 minutes to work, then say: "See? why would anyone want to consume potions after a fight when they can just have a system that "does the same thing but does it automatically?". <gag> Who are you kidding?

No offense, but you have an uncanny ability to ramble for whole paragraphs and not actually say anything in them. I have No idea what your point is. I have no idea anymore what you're even trying to argue, since you're jumping back and forth with an almost stream of consciousness writing style But I do get this part: It's an awful shame I was simply making a point with a hypothetical exampleYou mean you were building a big straw man and got called out for it. Of course when you give a gamer a choice between auto health regeneration and something really silly, like a consumable that takes 5 minutes to work and then doesn't actually heal you back to full, they're going to choose Auto health regeneration, because the other option is completely pointless. DUH. But that's not even *remotely* close to the choice they actually WOULD have in just about every single fantasy RPG ever created, like potions and spells that heal you back up instantly... you know, options that would actually make an auto-health regeneration system look like the lazy, uncreative, dumbed down mechanic that it really IS. So yeah, come up with a more intellectually honest argument or Stop wasting my time.

You're not? My apologies then. I'll go debate with this thread's other Lephys LOL AHEM: Agreed. Auto-regenerating health bars are a stupid mechanic in cRPGs. They make it so that there are no consequences whatsoever for allowing yourself to get seriously hurt in an encounter due to your own reckless behavior, since you know that all you have to do is survive and the game will give you all your health back when the fight is over. And that's the bottom line here. The inclusion of a dual-health/stamina bar or whatever does not suddenly change the nature of an auto-Health regeneration system. And Likewise, whether this regeneration is instant, or whether it takes a few minutes doesn't change things either. You're still dealing with a system that heals you up without making you have to pay any consequences. Thankfully, this discussion is much ado about nothing, since the System in PE will not have auto-regenerating health. PS: I did get a chuckle out of this little gem: Say what? In which RPG, exactly, does a healing potion ever take 5 minutes to work? Or 1 minute? Or anything longer than instantly? None that I've ever played. And certainly none of the IE games.

Rest-spamming is a degenerate gameplay tactic bred and encouraged by (among other) IE games. What has it to do with modern RPGs? Well, in the context of this discussion (quick health regeneration), we're simply replacing rest spamming with "waiting around for your health bar to go back up" I think PE's system is going to be pretty cool, since it actually doesn't promote rest or waiting around.

Speak for yourself? Often times (in fact, almost all the time) in the IE games if my party lacked the resources to fully heal themselves up after a bruising encounter (or if I simply didn't want to use up my resources), I *didn't* wait (or rest) until I was healed. I moved on, confident in my party's abilities and my own gameplay strategy to be able to take on the next encounter in my wounded state and still do fine. So no, don't be imposing your modern-rpg degenerate gameplay habits on the rest of us.

Am divorcing myself from this thread since the core debate seems to pit the preference of convenience (keep my inventory capacity unlimited!) against the preference of strategy/ choice-consequence (make me have to make due with a limited inventory space). Such a debate goes nowhere, and even less so without Developer engagement, of which we've had none on this thread But just to tie up an Unrelated loose end... Ugh. I don't! I don't dislike them at all. My point was that I generally categorize JRPGs as their own genre, since at their core they're so deliberately different than your standard WRPG, Like the ones Obsidian and its individual developers make, and have been making their entire careers. To even mention JRPGs in such a context is to basically change the subject.

So is health management, yet you see ways of regaining all your HP in a timely fashion, rather than recovering 10HP-per-hour (of actual playtime.)And? Instant hp regeneration is not health management. It's the opposite of health management. It's a mechanic designed to eliminate the need for health management. um... no? The fact that IWD2 made it easy for a normal party, employing minimal, reasonable gameplay strategy, to get through a dungeon without filling up their inventory completely is a testiment to good design, not a nod to unlimited inventory capacity. There is a huge difference here. IWD2 also made it so that if you created a party of 6 sorcerers with 9 strength, and you deliberately set out to grab every single item you see, while refusing to use bags of holding and scroll cases, and refusing to ever sell anything to merchants, you WOULD eventually suffer the consequences of such retarded gameplay decisions. Can we say the same for the system proposed by josh here? Or is his system, in fact, specifically designed to be Idiot proof, like just about every other DUMBED DOWN rpg mechanic invented in the last half decade or so? <gag> if I wanted to include Japanese RPGs in my claims, or for that matter, hybrid shooter-type games like the Mass effect series (no inventory system at all in the latter iterations of those games!), I would have said JRPGs and "Bioware hybrids". But since PE is not, and never was, envisioned as either one, theres no point in even mentioning those types of games in any discussion on this particular forum.

Inventory management is a staple of party based RPG gaming. If you consider that a waste of time then perhaps the genre's not your cup of tea.

First, why are we setting this up as an either/or? Both scenarios should occur. The need to heal should happen both in combat and after combat. Second, No, it's not "just busy work" to have to heal out of combat. Having to heal yourself back up after combat is over represents the consequences of allowing yourself to get hurt in the first place. (ie. due to bad combat tactics, or simply not giving a sh** because you don't have to - because modern regen systems make losing health inconsequential) When translated to a computer game, forcing the player to heal his wounds after combat also prevents players from just mindlessly plowing through encounter after encounter as if the entire dungeon was some sort of race track, and its challenges just speed bumps.

I don't get the "running back and forth" argument. Did any of you play Icewind dale 2? There was very little "running back and forth" to free up inventory space, manly because almost every hub in the game had a merchant, but also because your inventory was big enough to hold the stuff you found. So... No. Can someone come up with a better defense of Sawyer's new system?

Right, to be replaced with the "Oh ****, I don't know what's more valuable, so I best spend 5 trips picking everything up, going to the merchant, checking it for value, selling some things which will turn out to be useful later, oh **** maybe I should keep it then. (and then it turns out you never need it) much better LOL I had that problem with BG1 and IWD1's inventory systems when I first played them. And yes, the inventory systems in those games was crap, and it promoted pretty much exactly the type of worthless gameplay that you're describing. But those were 2 of the earliest IE games. And those problems were fixed in BG2 with the addition of the various bags and higher stackable numbers. And then Icewind dale 2 came out, and massively refined the system even more: 1) The number of inventory slots was doubled. 2) Inventory weight limits were increased 3) In addition to containers, they vastly increased the amount of permanent ammo items (everlast arrows, returning darts, etc. The end result was that pretty much the only thing you had to think about with regards to your inventory was the stuff that *mattered* Ie. weight limits, and who gets to carry what. This is as it should be. The system Sawyer is proposing makes it so that you don't have to think about ANYTHING. The common vernacular of this is to call it "Dumbing Down" (because that's what it is. By definition). But that term gets thrown around too much IMO, so I won't use it for my argument. Instead, I'll just point out that its a system that does away with a very fundamental gaming strategy associated with gear management. And NO, The inclusion of strange arbitrary inaccesable "levels" of inventory does not create strategy. It Just promotes metagaming. People will simply reload their games if they come across an encounter and realize that the items they have that would help them in that encounter happened to be tucked away in the "deep stash" where they can't access them. They'll reload from an earlier save when they had access to the deep stash, then they'll take the item out and put it in the "equipped and ready" section or whatever its called. This is NOT a substitute for TRUE inventory strategy that weight/volume limits promote. And again, I'm befuddled that a game like PE, which has to really make every funding penny count, would have devs willing to waste their time overhauling a PERFECT system they themselves already created a decade ago.

What totally baffles me is that Josh flat out said that they're using IWD2's inventory system as a starting point. A starting point? IWD2's inventory system was great. Why the hell would they want to change it? See, this is precisely the type of mindset that has driven the cRPG genre down the gutter over the past decade: Developers trying to fix things that aren't broken.

Also.... a minor nitpick here: It'd be more accurate to say that if an individual character's inventory has a finite, single-page space limit, then there would be no need for item categories.... since the entire content of the inventory can be seen at a glance. (The infinity engine games did this) The number of items in such a system are still potentially infinite, assuming the system allows for item stacking (for example, you find 10 identical longswords..... they stack and all ten would take up just 1 slot. ie. Longsword x10)

What do you mean by 'slot based'? A Slot based system is when one item takes up one slot, regardless of its size. This is different than a grid based system, for example, where the number of slots taken up by an item depends on the size/shape of the item. With the latter, you're playing "inventory tetris", while with the former, you're merely adding 1+1.

The IE games used a slot based inventory system, not a grid based one. And the need for item categories goes away the moment you scrap the convoluted list + pages + unlimited space nonsense