[Update #62: Production 01 - State of the Project]

Giddy I am. This is one of the coolest updates ever.

 

Nice to see them jumping right into developing the first City and the Stronghold. Can't wait to hear similar info on the mega dungeon!

[Option to disable level cap?]

For what it's worth, there are ways aside from providing level ups by which doing more quests can grant you an easier time of things. Quests could provide unique equipment, or narrative-specific tools/information that allow a different approach to the final portion of the game, or money (with which to buy a plethora of useful things you couldn't have otherwise afforded), or they could even provide direct stat/skill/ability ups, separate from leveling.

If doing quests provides skill, stat and ability increases, then by definition, questing is leveling you up, it's just not using an EXP system to do it.

 

That's how Skyrim does it, btw. You don't get EXP for doing quests in that game. You get everything else instead.

 

 

 

 

 

Or, to put it another way, if the level ups are the only thing that makes a difference, then you're not really utilizing plenty of other mechanics.

That's not necessarily true. It Depends on what leveling in a given RPG entails. Leveling could very well be the only thing that matters, IF enough of the game's mechanics are tied to it, which is usually the case.

 

For example:

 

-Information/secrets about the final boss' weakness (read: how to beat him the 'easy' way) may be only acquired via successful interrogation of the Boss's henchmen, which a lower level character may fail at, due to his speech skills not being high enough, because he didn't advance enough levels to GET it high enough.

 

-Then there's the notion of using gear to compensate. Frankly, there should be no such thing. Magic items powerful enough to be seen as a viable alternative to Leveling should never EVER just be lying around in a shop to be purchased by a player who did nothing but click the "buy" button. That kind of nonsense can Ruin an RPG faster than anything else. Instead, Such items should be buried deep in the bottom of a long, difficult and deadly dungeon, or guarded by a nasty, high level enemy that an underleveled party shouldn't be able to defeat. Or Hidden in a far away place requiring significant adventure time to get.

 

-Then there's "sneaking"/"stealthing" your way past all challenges. I'm all for that. But IMO, stealth is a mechanic that should get the love and respect it deserves. The skill itself should be difficult to master, and success should very much be based on how many level up points you put in it. In other words, The higher the level, the more successful you should be at it.

[Option to disable level cap?]

But, I would ask... why would there need to be a choice to specifically not improve your "natural armor"? Does he specialize in offense SO WELL that he never beneficially develops his endurance or ability to cope with injuries? To put it another way, you could just as easily ask the same thing about the hitpoint system. "What happens if I focus 100% on offense and never gain any hitpoints? Will I maintain the same amount of hitpoints as a small city child?"

Well, see, that's why we have a leveling system. With a leveling system, the character automatically gains that "toughness"/Hitpoints every time he gains a level. And it happens before he's asked to choose any new skills.

 

Without a leveling system, that toughness/endurance/hp has to be acquired some other way.

[Option to disable level cap?]

When you get hit hard, in any game, do you say "Oh man, I know how bad that hit was, 'cause it did (enter number here) damage!", or is your first thought something more like "Dear lord! That took off nearly half my health! That guy can probably kill me in just a couple of hits!"? If all you had was a health bar, and no numbers whatsoever, you'd still know which enemies were tougher, and which were weaker, based on how much of that bar they took off when they hit you, and how capable they were of hitting you.

Sure. There's no denying that everything that can work in a triple-digit health system can work equally well in a single or double digit system, so long as you keep the proportunates.

 

Still, I'm having trouble picturing a legendary warrior who kills dragons, demons, saves the world... and has 10 hit points. Tough to take such a system seriously.

 

And none of this says anything about leveling. In a decent system, there should be a huge difference in the pain/damage threshold between a common city urchin and, say, an experienced, battle hardened Barbarian. But if one has 5 health and the other has 30 then I'm not sure the system is representing them correctly. Which is why I'm in favor of a system with a... wider range?

 

But without leveling, I don't know how you'd be able to capture such a concept. I suppose you could just incorporate a "damage resistance" skill to represent toughness, but then, what happens if you've got an experienced, battle-hardened Barbarian who chose to focus strictly on offensive skills instead? Will his damage/pain threeshold be like the common city urchin's? Well, Without a leveling mechanic, it has to. Or am I missing something?

[Option to disable level cap?]

 

I shudder to think of starting a game with the standard 1-8 hp, and then staying that way till end game, even as your spells are doing 50-100 points of damage, and so are your enemies' spells, while your warriors and rogues are flanking opponents on the battle field left and right with their advanced melee combat skills doing far more than 1-8 points of damage per attack.

I'm a bit curious here: If you were designing a game in which leveling/progression wasn't ever going to result in the increase of HP pools, what on earth would compel you to start with "this is only this low because the game's designed for it to increase as you go" HP values?

 

LOL touche.

 

But what's the alternative? Making it really high at the start, thus killing any semblance of challenge/threat until damage potentials "catch up" later on?

 

Or worse, keep things the same (damage and health) from beginning to end, thus eliminating that wonderful feeling that all good RPGs have, that you're actually becoming more powerful?

 

Edit: Note.... this discussion strictly assumes a combat centric RPG, as opposed to something like Planescape Torment or whatever where combat does not define the game.

[Option to disable level cap?]

You could just not give the player stamina /health increases, they're usually pretty redundant in games anyway as the enemies just start doing more damage to compensate.

That's a symptom of level scaling, not leveling itself.

 

I shudder to think of starting a game with the standard 1-8 hp, and then staying that way till end game, even as your spells are doing 50-100 points of damage, and so are your enemies' spells, while your warriors and rogues are flanking opponents on the battle field left and right with their advanced melee combat skills doing far more than 1-8 points of damage per attack.

 

Thankfully, we're getting an RPG here, not some whacked out adventure game masquerading as an RPG. All real RPGs have leveling.

[Option to disable level cap?]

I'd still be interested in a RPG that had no "chr. levels" at all ... where half the motivation does not come from watching an xp bar increase. You'd still have skills to improve/acquire, things to craft, item upgrades, quests to do etc. just that the xp/chr. lvl isn't what dictates when you can do/increase those things. Something else does.

 

eg, I'd like another type of carrot. That there will be a carrot, or multiple carrots, seems unavoidable, but another flavor would be nice. I don't really know how to go about it, however.

You'd go about it the way the Grand Theft Auto games do it.

 

Those aren't RPGs, however.

 

 

Edit: Or you could do it the way Skyrim does it with the individual Skill advancements, and then just eliminate the over-all character leveling... but then you'd have to find another way to give the player character health/stamina increases.

[Option to disable level cap?]

The concept isn't bad in and of itself. It serves its purpose. And can be done well. But there are a *ton* of better ways to prevent flagrant, out-of-control "overleveling", without resorting to the lazy, hamfisted design of: "Hey, you just reached 20th level. And the Gods have decreed that this is it. No going higher because.... Well, because our game testers have determined that if we let you get to level 21 <shudder!>, you will not be able to experience the challenge that WE wish for you to have."

 

The *ideal* way to handle level caps is to do them "half-way", or "soft". For example, they could make make it so that your fighter receives his final special talent/skill/ability at level 20, but he can still continue advancing and receive more health/stamina and do more damage per swing with subsequent level ups.

 

 

The inherant flaw in a level cap (especially in a non-linear, combat-centric game with exploration,) is that once you reach the cap, you've just eliminated 1 specific motivation to continue playing. Devs then have to substitute another motivation to take its place. And usually they choose to use loot as the new motivator. So then you end up with an ever increasing Monty Haul campaign post-cap, which can ruin an otherwise good game. (example: BG2, Throne of Bhaal)

[Option to disable level cap?]

Neither do arbitrary power ceilings, but most devs absolutely love 'balancing' their games with them anyway.

[More Mega-Dungeon Discussion.]

I'm trying to think back at how the IE games did it (w/ regards to progression and keeping the "curve")

 

Well lets see... BG1 handled it a couple of ways.

1) the game had a level cap. You could try to do Durlag's tower straight out of Candlekeep, and if you succeed, it will cause you to hit the level cap before chapter 4 lol. As silly as that sounds, the second half of the game was sill super fun, even if you were at the cap.

 

2) BG1 employed what I call "test" guardians for an area. if you could defeat them, then you earned the right to break the so-called curve. For example, the 2 Doom Guards that guarded the path to Durlag's tower. They were Nasty opponents for a level 2 party. you pretty much couldn't defeat them, and thus couldn't exploit Durlag's tower to get the unbalanced early edge you were seeking.... unless you were a really *really* good player. And if you were, then all talk of Game curves was irrelevant at this point, since you probably already beat the game about 10 times.

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

Planescape Torment, NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir weren´t great because of the D&D mechanics...infact that´s probably the weakest point of those games...

Wow, I completely disagree with this.

 

First off, The bajillions of attribute checks in PS:T (wisdom checks, intelligence checks, charisma checks etc) ARE D&D mechanics. in fact, you could argue that of all the IE games, PS:T is the only one that got it right. And it's one of the two things that made that game so special (story being the other).

 

As for Storm of Zehir, take away the 3e skill checks that played a part in the overland map and in party-based conversation, and that game becomes incredibly dull and totally unremarkable.

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

For INT, look at Marvin Hagler v. Sugar Ray Leonard. Hagler was the very high STR/CON fighter who lost to the very high INT/DEX fighter (probably no real dump stats on either guy).

Yes. in a nutshell.

 

Although to be fair, if we were to map out D&D-like stats to Hagler and Leonard, neither one of them had low intelligence. I'd place Hagler's pretty high --above average-- (15 or 16) But lower than Leonard's, who was a pure ring genius (18 INT for him).

 

Minor note: If anyone associated with that fight had 3 intelligence, it was probably the Judges. lol

[More Mega-Dungeon Discussion.]

Maybe 5 levels can be accessed in one location, while another 5 levels require some sort of portal stone, which you can only acquire some point later in the game. etc

 

At least that way there is pacing so the dungeon won't drag.

I agree with the reasoning behind this, but I'm against any sort of thinly veiled "limiting" or "corralling" of this mega dungeon experience, be it for "balance" purposes or story.

 

IMO, The best way to prevent low level characters from doing the entire dungeon all in one go straight after the prologue is to do it *naturally*. Let them try, then fail, with great amounts of pain. At say, dungeon level 5, place a boss-level opponent that a low level party simply cannot beat, or a deadly trap they do not have the skills to disarm, or hell, make the door to level 6 require a lock picking skill check that is a bit too high for a low level rogue to reach.

 

In other words, Let the player figure out for himself, the hard way, that he's probably not ready for the rest of the dungeon and that he should come back later, after he's experienced more of the world. But to ruin the immersion/plot flow in such a hamfisted manner by flat out telling the player that he cannot go further down until "chapter 3", or until he completes part X of the main plot is just.... bluh.

 

 

 

Edit: And on a semi-related note, I have a serious request to Obsidian Devs. Can you please, pretty please, make this dungeon self contained? By self contained I mean, don't overly intertwine it with the main plot or the greater politics of the world. I don't want to have to search this dungeon for a plot item that I need for the main quest, nor do I want to have to leave the dungeon, and go to another part of the world to grab a plot item required to advance further down in the dungeon.

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

Well, The IE games allowed for that kind of build, but good luck finding any halfway decent DM of any pen and paper D&D campaign that would. a Paladin with 3 INT cannot logically have a moral code. He would not be able to understand the laws of any society, let alone the strict tenets that rule a Paladin Order and its patron deity.

 

It'd be like this:

 

Prelate Gordrad: Egbert! Why did you kill that priest of Helm!?

Egbert the Aspiring Paladin: Me hungry!

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

 

 

So, who would win in melee: a fighter wearing light armor and using a dagger, against a mage wearing full plate and swinging a claymore?

The fighter. Unless we're talking 3e D&D and higher, where an armored mage can cast spells.

 

 

They can both cast spells.

 

Well, that's a pretty significant piece of information there. One that changes everything, because if both can cast spells then this "duel" is no longer Fighter vs. mage. It's now Fighter/Mage vs. Mage.

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

So, who would win in melee: a fighter wearing light armor and using a dagger, against a mage wearing full plate and swinging a claymore?

The fighter. Unless we're talking 3e D&D and higher, where an armored mage can cast spells.

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

 

Or would the game be stronger if a variety of character archetypes open up a variety of different ways to play through the game?

To use fighters as an example, I like the idea of high Str/Con fighters, high Dex/Int fighters, or medium-high combos of the aforementioned stats, but characters with mediocre or low statistics in those categories should simply not be viable as fighters.

 

I agree. It has been the trend lately for devs to design a "fail safe" chargen... insuring that you simply can't create a character who's too woefully weak and unable to meet the challenges that the game will throw at you. They do this and then They then spin it by arguing: "hey, this system allows you VARIETY! Wanna role play a weak, crippled warrior with Steven Hawking's Brains? Done!"

 

In the meantime, they have forgotten what *true* Variety means: That successful builds and unsuccessful builds are possible.

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

Of course I can. In a typical RPG, the entire party will be in the same level range at any given moment. Whether one class becomes better at combat a higher level is irrelevant to how they're performing right now. I realize that there's a certain long-term satisfaction narrative in "shepherding" a weak low-level mage until he becomes powerful enough to kick ass and outshine the rest of the party, but I'm pointing out that that approach has many disadvantages.

Aah. Ok, I get what you're saying. Lets keep one thing in mind. Unless we're talking *truly* low level (as in level 1), the "balance" differences between a Fighter and a Mage are not as massive as you're making them out to be. For example, at 3rd level (which is, by all definitions Low, yes?), a mage will be able to invisibly slip past a band of orcs when a fighter can't. A mage will be able to Shield himself from an arrow barrage when a fighter can't. And on occasion, a mage will be able to launch one magic attack that may automatically kill one equally leveled opponent, while a fighter has a good chance of missing his one attack. etc. Non-combat wise, mages at 3rd level are not less powerful than warriors AT ALL. They're the ones with the Brains. They're going to be the ones who can engage in conversation and come out on top. They're the ones who will be able to speak different languages, build campfires and makeshift shelters. of course, the "balance" here comes in the fact that fighters will be better swimmers. Better food hunters, better rock climbers, etc.

 

However, from a pure survivability standpoint, I agree with you, of course. But like I said before, I most definitely would NOT want it any other way. If you give me a game where a mage is just as *tough* and durable at level 3 as a fighter, I will dismiss that system as boring and....redundant.

 

 

 

"Sufficiently powerful"? In what game, I ask? And I answer - in any game that has been made sufficiently easy such that high level fighters and high level rogues can get by despite being so much weaker than high level mages.

Sufficiantly easy? Who claimed that? I didn't. If any challenge is sufficently easy then you can no longer call it a challenge, Can you. No. I'm talking about D&D. a 25th level fighter in D&D can slay a Balor. He can enter an enemy General's stronghold and wage a war against his troops, and come out on top.

 

A mage can do the same. Unfortunately, computer gaming has bastardized Mages and made these challenges a bit easier (or quicker, to be more accurate) for them. But in *true* D&D, this is not the case. In Pen and Paper D&D, a mage must contend with the difficulties involved in getting his spells off. And it's not just "Damn, my spell got disrupted by a stray arrow". No, it's more like, "Sh*t, half of my spell components were ruined this morning when they got rained on!, Now a good portion of my Arsenal is LOST to me..

 

Wouldn't you rather play a game where the high level challenges kick everybody's ass, not just the fighter's and the rogue's?

???

 

Are you suggesting this can't happen in D&D? There are enemies in the system that are specificially designed to indescriminently kill whole parties at once, and not just your Mage, or your Rogue. or whatever.

 

My turn. Do you really want to play a game where Your Mage and Fighter have the exact same health and physicial toughness as each other, exact same armor rating as each other, and exact same damage output as each other from first level to 20th level?

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

 

And this is where I'll ask, again, Did D&D fail to make the different classes good at combat in meaningfully different ways?

 

Or was it, in fact, balanced in precisely the way you're describing it?

 

Only if you look across the entire level spectrum, which isn't what I meant.

 

Say what? We're discussing game balance. You can't make a relevant point about game balance without taking into consideration the entire class and class level spectrum that the game/system offers.

 

 

 

Low level mages = fairly useless, high level fighters and especially rogues = fairly useless.

This is vague nonsense. High level Rogues and Fighters in D&D are sufficiently powerful to deal with just about any equally high level challenge, be it combat or non-combat. The fact that they won't be exactly as powerful at all times as an equally high level mage, is, as Josh points out, irrelevant, since apparently, Balance does not = the same.

 

And this is, by the way, why D&D CRPGs have tended to be a lot easier than they could have been - because they can't be designed with the assumption that your party is fully combat-capable at all times and at any level range. The cost of the imbalance that you think is such a great thing is EASIER GAMES.

Not sure what you mean by this. Can you give me a couple of examples for comparison sake? Say, a more "difficult" party based RPG that doesn't use D&D, so that we can compare it with one that does, and so that we can accurately assess the reasons why it was more difficult?

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

Project Eternity isn't doing any of these things, so I don't know what point you're trying to make.

 

Your ideal of an unbalanced system is based on a simplistic combat model, where any given class can only be "good at combat" or "bad at combat" and that is the only meaningful trade-off that exists in the game. You fail to realize that in a sufficiently complex game, different classes can be good at combat in meaningfully different ways. The long range specialist will have a significantly different experience from the melee specialist, the critical hit specialist will have a significantly different experience from  the accuracy specialist, the heavily armored guy will have a significantly different experience from the fast, dodgy guy.

And this is where I'll ask, again, Did D&D fail to make the different classes good at combat in meaningfully different ways?

 

Or was it, in fact, balanced in precisely the way you're describing it?

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

Except that what he's describing is an Ideal. One that invariably falls by the wayside the moment magic items are brought into the mix.

 

You can have a "perfectly" balanced system, but then, how are you going to deal with loot dispensing? Are you going to deprive a warrior of his ring of invisibility because Balance dictates that only Rogues should be able to turn invisible? Should Clerics not be able to "lift" a Hammer of Thunderbolts because it would cancel out a Warrior's melee advantage? Should mages be unaffected by magics that increase armor ratings and health pools since physical Durability is what balances warriors with spell casters??

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

If classes excel and suffer at different elements of gameplay but are still roughly as viable as each other throughout the game, the challenge isn't the same at all.  "Balanced" does not mean "the same".  Playing different classes should make challenges out of obstacles that were previously easy and turn cakewalks into struggles in equal measure.

If that's the case, then I don't know what the gripe is with D&D. It was a balanced system. At least balanced in the way you're defining "Balance".

 

-Clerics, for example, will own powerful undead in any battle. But Warriors of equal level will have a tough time.

-Warriors can plow through Golems. Mages, on the other hand, will suffer a world of hurt against Golems.

-Rogues can make short work of a heavily trapped Corridor.... the other classes can't.

-Bards can smooth-talk their way out of a bad social situation, Barbarians can't...

 

etc.

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

The problem with the D&D system is that balance never seems to have been a concern of the designers.  There's maybe a little sweet spot somewhere in the levels 5-7 range where most of the core classes are moderately well balanced with one another, but the rest of the time classes are all over the place.

This is.... True.

 

But I don't see it as a problem, or a flaw. I see it as the exact opposite. I see it as the soul... the color and the human-like realism of the system. Classses are like Careers in real life. They're not supposed to be equal and balanced. They're supposed to vary wildly in terms of power.

 

In D&D, you have a class like Mage. Very weak early on, then they evolve and become the most powerful class. And you've got Warrior-types. Their progression is Slow and steady. They'll never be the weakest class, and they'll never be the most powerful class. They'll be something in between from beginning to end.

 

This is as it should be. I shudder at the thought of some boring, soulless, robotic system where everything is equal, thereby removing all motivation to replay the game (after all, why bother Playing a warrior for your new playthrough, when you know that the game's challenge will be exactly the same as it was when you played as a mage?)

 

 

But this is a pointless discussion. The Balance issue is a moot point in a party based system. If Mages are more powerful than Clerics, then.... who cares? Your party will have BOTH.

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

And presentation is extremely important.

Right. So what's the better proposal here? How else do you present a character's hit chance in a way that can actually fit on a character's stat screen?

 

personally, I don't see a whole lot of difference (in presentation) between "Thac0" and "attack score". When presented with a Person's AC, you have to do the exact same Math to figure out what you have to roll to score a hit.

[Are we getting the PE we were led to believe was on the horizon during the KS?]

When I say that IE games have bad combat, I don't mean the coding, more the 2e rules that obviously they couldn't control. Seriously **** THAC0. But that's my point, the games used a horrible (or horribly outdated, whatever you prefer) ruleset and saying that PE should be more like the IE games is really backwards thinking.

That's quite a bit different from your Originial statement on this thread, where you flat out condemned the IE games' gameplay.

 

Gameplay encompasses a hell of a lot more than just the combat ruleset.