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Stun

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Everything posted by Stun

  1. Stun
    IWD2 also had another design issue that I don't want to see: The best magic items were in shops. According to the Devs, this was done intentionally to allow people to specifically choose the ideal items for their builds from a list, instead of creating their builds and then hoping and praying that they'd eventually find the "right" items during their long treks through the countless enemy infested dungeons in the game. The result, of course, was that 95% of the game went like this: Kill a group of monsters, loot their bodies, find 10 bullets of piercing, let out a sigh. Move on, Kill the next group of enemies, loot their bodies, find 10 +2 arrows, let out a sigh.... lather, rinse, repeat....over and over and over.....
  2. Stun
    Throne of Bhaal loot dispensing was a travesty. It was almost as if the devs themselves knew it and wanted to make a comentary about it. In Saradush, in the Sewers, there's a Barrel/trash can containing a +4 greatsword (!). LOL That was their message: +4 swords have become meaningless, so we're going to throw them in the trash in the sewers. It got even worse when you were going through the slave pens in Sendai's Enclave. You could literally fill up your bag of holding with all the +3 Hammers and Halberds that Sendais slaves dropped. Ridiculous.
  3. Stun
    I voted rare, but only because the poll option specifically said "armor and weapons". Had it reflected the actual poll question, I would have voted for the second option (abundant). The permanently enchanted stuff should be special. They should drop from unique and formidable named foes only, like bosses and their hoards/chests, or enemy parties, or high level assassins who have been hired by powerful people to come and kill you. On the other hand, limited use/magical consumables should be common.... the norm even. There should NOT be a shortage of potions, scrolls, and wands etc. by mid game. Of course, this game is going to have a crafting mechanic, so I'm not sure how relevant this discusion even is. If it's like most games that have crafting, the rarity or non rarity of magic weapons and armor is up to the player.
  4. Stun
    lol That guy used the most powerful spell in the game.... on a group of Lemures.
  5. Stun
    No, he's not saying that. Not exactly, at least. He's focussing on just lumping the Skills together (combat and non) and arguing that they shouldn't be seperate from one another when it comes time to dole out the level up points for them. That is to say, he prefers a system where, when you level up, you get, say, one point to spend, and you have to decide whether to spend it on combat skill, or a non combat skill. Thus forcing you to think hard and make tough choices with your build. I see his argument but personally don't agree with it. Both the NWN games, as well as Temple of Elemental Evil seperated the combat and non combat skills and gave you points to spend in both columns at the same time, and it worked fine. Didn't hamper roleplaying any build in the slightest way, and it still managed to eek out a few head scratching "where whould I spend this point?" moments. For me at least.
  6. Stun
    LOL! It would suck monkey balls in Icewind dale, for a slew of obvious reasons, not the least of which being that if you could talk your way out of combat, the game would end up being like 30 minutes long. And there'd only be about 3 non-combat skills to put points in 1) lock picking, 2)trap disarming, 3) talking The system would work great in a game like Planescape Torment.
  7. Stun
    Bah, I said I was only half serious about that torment comment. Obviously there's various different ways to create a masterpiece. And yes, I'm totally happy with build/class exclusive quests! I advocate them to every Developer who will listen.
  8. Stun
    Just throwing this out there: this'll be a party based game, so if you wanted to, I imagine you could decide to not actually use your non-combat skills ever, if you're trying to roleplay a sword-saint or whatever, and just let one of your other teammates do the talking, lockpicking, potion making etc.. Or at least I hope you can do such a thing.
  9. Stun
    I have, sorta. In the Overland map in NWN2 Storm of Zehir, you could bribe hostile humanoid creatures, like orcs, ogres etc. into leaving you alone. As cool as that sounds, it got really *really* old after a while (and for that matter, so did fighting them lol). I don't know. This is one of those wait-and-see things for me. I'm feeling ambivalent right now.
  10. Stun
    That's a good question. I have a gut feeling that Tim simply didn't address how xp will be doled out outside of quests, or if it will be at all. Just watched his video again, nothing he said rules out the notion that you can also get xp for disarming traps or making potions. He did say one thing, though, which might end up being a decent consolation in the event that performing skills outside of quests doesn't gain you xp: you get loot instead..
  11. Stun
    Badly. lol
  12. Stun
    I voted yes, but only because there wasn't a: "Yes, and please put in more than one!" option.
  13. Stun
    They wouldn't. The execution you used as an example earlier, however, I think would have benefited from either timing or just if it noticed that you'd turned around and walked away. After all, you can't tell me that walking away from an execution isn't a clear choice regarding what you want to do about the execution. LOL sure. I suppose it is. (But if we wanna get picky, lets keep in mind that this particular quest takes place outdoors, where a... well.... a war is going on, it's not inconceivable that your character turns around to, you know, fight back against that Glabrezu that's trying to Eat Annah. or that mage who's firing Chomatic Orbs at you from the roof.) Regardless, that quest/situation itself could be timed I suppose, and it would fit fine into the game as such. But it would also be completely pointless, since that quest doesn't really require you to do anything but show up to start it and finish it in one go, which most players do, and once you show up your dialogue choices do the rest. Who needs a timer for that? That's not Urgency. That's just plain old consequence. And again, for the umpteeth time, a quest does not have to be timed to contain consequence for inaction. The Witcher 2's Monster contract quests aren't timed. They just simply Fail if you go on to the next chapter before completing them.
  14. Stun
    In fact it could work quite well. Morality should be something of an instinct and work more with your real life morality system and not some words in the character stat screen. Suppose you come across an unit of knights pillaging a village and killing everyone in it. The peasents beg you to intervine. You must decide fast or there won't be much of a village left. If your (the player not the player character) morality system is truly what you belive it to be you will decide under pressure and with little information what to do in accordance with your OWN morals and not what you belive the game wants you to do. Being of the lawful good type you jump to help the wretches but while doing so you remember that you heard rumours about this village in that other village and supposedly vile things happen here. Without a limited time span in which to decide you could just do the 5 days journey back to the other village question the **** out the peasentry and learn that the knights are justified to kill those other peasents since they are a bunch of sadisctic child raping cannibalistic demon worshiping necromancer-clowns. With limited time, being of the lawful good alignment you jump right in to bring justice and peace and universal healthcare to the miserable child raping cannibalistic demon worshiping necromancer-clowns and thus proving once again that good is stupid and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. OK, I'm trying (honestly trying) to apply what you're saying to PS:T, but I'm getting nowhere. (Well, there is One situation similar to what you're describing, where you have to decide whether to save the governor of a town or save one of its hermits, or Both. But they're both standing in the same place and it's literally impossible to incorporate a time limit since the entire situation happens in a paused cutscene lol) Can you give me an example of, say, how timing the "retrieve the bronse sphere" quest would benefit PS:T. Or how the "Solve the Foundry Murder" quest would benefit from being timed?
  15. Stun
    If you're spending 3 months resting because you're out seeing the sights instead of doing those quests, I really don't see what the problem is. You've clearly decided they're not important enough for you to deal with, and the game should reflect that. Its your choice to ignore the urgency of those quests, and you only have yourself to blame for that. "Getting lost" in Sigil and failing to find a quest that had a timer of 1 in game week means you were doing something wrong, or not actively trying to finish the quest. Maybe you should have stopped to ask for directions or something. You still seem to believe Timed Quests need to have some sort of short duration real time clock. They don't. Measuring it in game time actually makes much more sense than using real time. If we're gonna argue that the only way to fail a timed quest is to miss by 3 in-game months or some other massive number, and that by 'timed" we mean "you have a couple of game weeks to finish them", then the entire notion of such quests being timed is pointless, as there's no Urgency in a quest that gives you 2 weeks to complete, and no real importance to slapping a timer on any quest that allows for such forgiving leaway.
  16. Stun
    Planescape Torment also tended not to tell you that your quest needed to be done yesterday or the village would be destroyed. It did actually. The narrative clearly projected the "Time is of essense" theme in Carceri, in many of it's "bring order" quests. In one of them, You literally walked up to a situation where someone was on the block about to be executed. Yet nothing stopped you from walking away, taking care of some other quests, sleeping for 10 days in the potion shop, then coming back and successfully preventing that execution. You're also not told if the execution actually occured, if you decide to skip it and go face the Diva. Instead, the choice you got was a moral one, involving whether to let the execution happen, or prevent it. Which is then a flaw within Planescape: Torment's writing, because it's telling you one thing and not backing it up. LOL The problem is that Planescape: Torment is nigh-universally praised for its writing and role playing. It's held up as a standard even by Obsidian (check the PE trailer). Not to use an argument ad populum fallacy here, but that's how it is. And the fact of the matter is that with its extremely heavy emphasis on every single quest decision affecting your morality and alignment, a timed quest system would flat out ruin the game. Players would be taking undeserved "evil" or "chaotic" hits simply because they got lost in Sigil or whatever and thus took too long to complete some quests, so they'd fail them and then the game would count it as a "you didn't care enough".
  17. Stun
    Planescape Torment also tended not to tell you that your quest needed to be done yesterday or the village would be destroyed. It did actually. The narrative clearly projected the "Time is of essense" theme in Carceri (for example), in many of it's "bring order" quests. In one of them, You literally walked up to a situation where someone was on the block about to be executed. Yet nothing stopped you from walking away, taking care of some other quests, sleeping for 10 days in the charms shop, then coming back and successfully preventing that execution. You're also not told if the execution actually occured, if you decide to skip it and go face the Diva. Instead, the choice you got was a moral one, involving whether to let the execution happen, or prevent it. Edit: Actually, upon further contemplation, Planescape: torment is a better argument against time-sensitive quests than I first thought. The entire game is based solely on your moral decisions. Morality is actually tracked with a point system, and your alignment is constantly being affected by every single decision you make. How then, can a timed quest system work well in it, when you could find yourself in a situation where you honestly attempt to do a quest, but fail to finish it on time.... would your alignment take a hit as the game interprets the quest failure as: "you didn't care about saving Trist" Or, "you slacked off and Dimtree died as a result, therefore, +3 evil?"? That would have outright ruined the game.
  18. Stun
    Yep, that's a pretty good executive summary of the last 5 pages or so. I approve.
  19. Stun
    They are, however, unrelated. Or the game forced it, with an encounter/ambush along the way, which you couldn't avoid. I think I made a rather good one on the last thread: Planescape Torment didn't have them, therefore they're not needed for a masterpiece. I'm only half serious about that, btw, as I tend to be when trying to counter someone's meaningless personal opinion.
  20. Stun
    I disagree, I find timed quests totally fun for the player. ME Fixed. Speak for yourself.
  21. Stun
    You mean delve into the moral choice-consequence such as "Do I stop my current quest to go save this elf princess, or leave her and risk her being sold off to slavers"? Yeah, I can see your point where time doesn't have a moral choice oh wait that's a moral choice right there. Try again. No, that's a time management choice. Maybe its your turn to stop splitting hairs. PS: No, I mean getting sidetracked and missing the deadline by 30 seconds. Timers are timers, and that is their nature. If a human is added to allow for "close enough", then you can no longer call it a timed event.
  22. Stun
    The risk of failure if you waste too much time instead of dealing with it when you hear about it. As opposed to the risk of failure if you do the quest wrong, or aren't careful during a violent rescue attempt. Yeah, not a very notable difference in the grand scheme of things. I'll take the latter, as it can delve into moral choice-consequence, which I rank significantly higher than simplistic time management issues. How isn't it a moral choice? I can make decisions without having a dialogue box to choose options. Choosing to go shopping for potions and drinking at the pub are both choices you made. That's essentially you choosing "Meh, she can wait." And here I thought you all weren't in favor of a system so strict as to not allow you to run to the nearest shop/tavern before setting out on the "beat the clock!" quest. But whatever, there's a huge difference, from a moral standpoint, between dragging your feet/apathy, and siding with the killers
  23. Stun
    The risk of failure if you waste too much time instead of dealing with it when you hear about it. As opposed to the risk of failure if you do the quest wrong, or aren't careful during a violent rescue attempt. Yeah, not a very notable difference in the grand scheme of things. I'll take the latter, as it can at least delve into moral choice-consequence, which I rank a little bit higher than simplistic time management issues.
  24. Stun
    That's a different something different, though. Choosing to side with bandits versus not getting to the bandits before they do their banditry are unlikely to have the same ramifications. Again, says who? There's also no one telling me that the princess is in need of urgent assistance before I talk to the quest-giver. There's no narrative urgency for the game to support. Correct. In other words, events are still centered around the player, instead of occuring regardless of the player. So again, what does a timer bring to the equation besides a sense of urgency... which decent writing should already cover?
  25. Stun
    Try and explain how a TIME BASED SUCCESS/FAILURE might work purely through a NARRATIVE style. Why in the world would I waste my time explaining how a feature I dislike can work?
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