Karkarov

Personally I hate pink. If they find a way to never use that color in the game I really won't mind. But whatever floats the art designers boats.

The character models are actually 3d models, not sprites. Yeap, the only thing that is 2d is actually the environment maps themselves. All characters, enemies, and objects in the game are 3d.

I understand what you are saying Osvir, but that's what we call a hard counter system. It is "Irenicus casts Power Word Kill, but you have Death Ward". The only difference is now I have to cast Death Ward during the fight instead of before the fight. It is still save or die, or hard counter or die. I will try one more time. How to survive a meteor... I could.... have my character use a self buff that makes them take half damage. I could cast an anti magic field that lowers all magic damage in that area 25%. I could use a spell that temporarily gives me an elemental form making me immune to fire. I could simply step outside of the aoe range of the meteor. I could use a fire resistance spell on the party. I could use a limited teleportation to move out of the way. I could use a buff that doubles my stamina temporarily making it possible for me to take the hit. I could use a skill that gives me a 50% chance of dodging all aoe based damage. I could simply kill the person summoning the meteor. I could silence the caster too. Etc Etc. You are beginning to get the idea by now right...? Lots and lots of ways to defeat the Meteor. I am not even listing them all this is just off the top of my head. Meanwhile VS the death spell... it isn't an aoe... no moving away, no 50% chance to dodge it, no teleporting out of the way... It doesn't do damage it just "kills you" so doesn't matter if I buff my HP, increase my damage resistance, turn into a fire elemental, etc etc. 50% of death is still death. I could still kill the caster, try to "silence" him, which are valid tactics for any spell... but the only tactic I have besides the one of two that work on everything is hard counter cast Protection From Death. Which of those two spells sounds more tactically interesting to you? Which of them sounds more fun for the player to counter? Which of them punishes you for forgetting to bring that "one spell"? I will borrow a quote from Alton Brown the guy who did the cooking show "Good Eats". "There are no uni-taskers in my Kitchen." In other words, a tool that can only do one thing is not as useful or interesting as a tool that can do two or three. Protection from death can only protect you from death, death spell can only kill you or not kill you.

Well there is a reason why in my "suggestion" post there was no actual charisma stat and nothing relating to physical attractiveness. I actually wrote a really really long bit of theory on how I would handle things like character creation and physical appearance and such on this forums some time ago. I am not sure how well it went over, I think it either went over a lot of peoples heads or the just didn't like the fact that it was somewhat complex in implementation, though fairly simple to control once actually in game.

Uhh..... y.hgwegg gs rhj..... no. Obsidian has already been fairly clear on how the "Godlike" races will appear in game. They can already be from any race in the game, Orlan, Human, Elf, etc so there is your subraces right there. We don't need to start inventing subraces for "Godlikes", they aren't a race they are just mutant versions of races that already exist for lack of a better term. They don't have their own culture, their own towns, or any of that stuff. A Human "Godlike" probably is gonna live with other Humans. In reality "Godlikes" are just normal races that look weird because they have like bright green hair, or glowing red eyes, or golden skin, etc etc maybe the "soul powah" of the world has effected them a bit more deeply? But in reality they are no closer to the gods than any other generic Dwarf, they just look different and have slightly tweaked racial abilities/stats. I will say it one more time... nothing released about Godlikes so far (unless they released something and I somehow missed it) suggests Godlikes are actually related to gods at all. People just "think" they are. Some societies may even consider them to be freaks of nature that need to be killed on sight. They are not Aasimar who are people that have like a Solar as a parent... they are normal races that just look weird, both parents were from whatever race they are. At least that is the way it has been implied from what I have seen.

Come on guys this debate is just stupid. If you zoom in on the image you can clearly see tufts of fur behind his ears and large brown fuzz splotches. It is obviously a Flying Monkey. You can even see his little drum behind his wings.

No... not the same. There IS a difference between "Stop this Meteor spell or we die!" and "Stop this Death spell or we die!" One of them is killing me by simply doing more damage than I can take. This means that, theoretically, I could prepare myself in such a way or eventually be strong enough that I could actually survive being hit by it. A death spell is just death.... it either hits you and you die, or you don't. It doesn't matter if I am level 100 or level 5. If the death spell fires and the "conditions" are met I am dead. I could, again, theoretically survive the meteor if that spell goes off. You can not survive "you die" spells. That's the difference.

Yeah, if you look at recent footage like the rezzed demo you can even tell graphics are further along than these pics. For example you can see the players shadows are tied properly to their feet and they aren't "floating" so much. This is obviously really early images from when they were starting the vertical slice.

You are talking about going back to the mage combat puzzle that was most of BG2, no thanks. I want my combat to be less about .... "Ok so the mage has these buffs and is chanting this spell... lets get my mages to cast that to counter this and...." It is not fun, it isn't tactical. It is RPG Combat via tic tac toe. I have no issue with mages calling a meteor out of the sky that will kill me if I don't do "something". But that could be taking the mage out, silencing them, moving out of the aoe, buffing myself to survive it, using an ability that cancels out the mages powers, whatever. That's fine. I can counter that in lots of ways, heck... if my party is strong enough it may actually be able to survive even if it gets a clean hit. There is no surviving a death spell though. No spell if not stopped or mitigated should simply "kill you" the end.

That is not what he said Osvir. He said he was opposed to save or die effects and they would not be in the game because they always came down to "Did I make my save?" or "Did I have my hard counter buff prepared to block the spell in advance?". Power word kill can be defended against if you have more than 50 hp, but if you dont? Save or die. He said there would be no abilities like that in game. In short, there will be no instant death spells or effects. It will never be "Have buff or die" in PE, those are hard counter spells and buffs and he specifically said he was against them and they had no place in the game. The fact that many posters keep overlooking the reality in that PE has no rezzing doesn't help. This isn't BG where "Oh gosh imoen died, well Jaheria cast raise dead....lol". When you die in PE you dead, game over, you aren't coming back.

If you see the pic zoomed in her brow ridge is fairly slanted, I would assume she is some type of elf as a result. These pics are obviously works in progress, but they already look good enough to show my point I have made in many threads. 3D models of today, even small ones, can show very real and discernible detail. All these pics tell me is the game is heading in the right direction and the dev's have nailed the proper scale this time which always felt off in BG.

Because like all good forum mods they don't want to close a thread that is seeing discussion unless it is against forum rules or going overboard. This one isn't there.... yet.

Those two read more like selfish people seeking to further their own power through good publicity. Really? He is already the King. How much more power can he get? If he doesn't fix the overpopulation problem he will have to put in food rations, his people will starve, sickness may become as issue as people weaken and are forced into overcrowding situations. The countries very viability is at risk and it is his responsibility to protect the people as King isn't it? That is what a good King does. He has to make a hard choice, but he has to protect his people above all else, this is key. The land he seizes is not "politically" valuable, there is no arms being manufactured, no gold mine, no strategic cross roads, but he needs that land for his people and he won't fail his people. Also no, the Merchant donates a large portion of his money, far more than he "needs" to donate to get respect, he legitimately wants to help his city and such. It is just those merchants aren't as giving as he is, they are in it for themselves, and if they get powerful it will cut his profits and thus hurt his ability to help the people. We can't have that now, can we? No it is best for society if he maintains control of the market, thus the proper donations can be given and the city can flourish as it should. The saying isn't "The Path to Hell is paved in good intentions." because everyone following it is all about number one and doing only whats best for them.

I see the troll, oops I mean Stun, is still at it. Let me break it down for you one last time. Sawyer said no instead death gimicks, spells or traps. Your entire conversation is a waste of time. This game is not Baldur's Gate. There is no "rezzing" the dead guy, they are dead. Including the kind of cheesy, boring, stupid things you think of as tactical in a game with permadeath would be beyond stupid. It would be a flat out bad design in every sense of the word. It would only promote save scumming and the "degenerative gameplay" they have been saying they are totally against from day one. Fortunately Obsidian actually understands game design and realizes this. The guy with the Firkraag screenshot isn't saying how cool that was, he is pointing out how lame it was.

I have no idea what the multi classing style of the game will be, people are saying it won't be allowed, that's fine with me. Personally multi classing shouldn't exist in my mind, you should be what you are then at specific moments should get the chance to "refine" your skills and progress in different ways. But you should not be able to stop being a fighter and suddenly be a full on mage. It doesn't make sense in D&D, it doesn't make sense period. That out of the way... going solo should not be balanced around, or even supported. If it turns out you can solo the game with the right game settings and playstyle, fine, whatever. But if it were outright impossible to solo the game I wouldn't be bothered. This is not Skyrim, it is a real time with pause based isometric rpg, and half the point (or more) has always been that you would have a party.

I cant believe any of you got excited about that ui in those pics to begin with, this was alpha footage, the ui in it was blatantly just going to be placeholder.

Yeah, nice idea, bad way of selling it. Yes the player should have the option to be "evil". "Evil" has never been about getting rich or doing what benefits you the most. Good and evil are ideas, not tangible things you acquire. You CAN be a hero and be a brutally evil baby killer at the same time. The grand knight who saved the village from a bandit incursion is evil. Because he saved the village by poisoning the local lake water supply which resulted in all the bandits dying, but it also killed tons of local wildlife, made part of the forest uninhabitable for years, and tainted a local travellers well which incidentally killed 5 pilgrims. But he saved the village and killed the bandits. King Godfrey is a noble ruler and a great leader who has made his country prosperous! But he is evil... because he fixed his countries overpopulation problem by attacking and killing most of the population of his peaceful neighboring kingdom to make room for his people and compensate for their lack of farmable land. The master merchant is a great man who cares for the people, but is evil. Because while he may donate tons of his money and contribute to the local bards college, and help fund irrigation research to help the people.... he got rich by paying assassins to kill rivals, bribing bandits to raid other peoples stores, blackmailing local officials, bankrupting smaller businesses, etc etc. All three examples are people that many will consider heroes, morally sound, even champions of good. They aren't "trying to be evil" or "doing it for themselves" their motivations are good. The knight wants to protect the village, the King wants to save his people, the Merchant wants to give back to the place he grew up and the school that taught him.... it is just the way they do it that makes them evil, not their motivations. Also Frenetic Pony... great post, dead on accurate.

That would be nice if Obsidian did that.... just sayin...

if they need to push it back, fine, whatever. But if I wake up and it is late November 2014 and the game still isn't out I am going to scratch my chin and wonder why. If April 2015 gets here and it isn't out yet I am going to come here and quite vocally complain about it. It is a top down isometric view real time with pause RPG using Unity Engine. It shouldn't take more than 2 years to make.

Not really. Just apply common sense. You can "learn" to be a Carpenter by reading about it. However you can only become a good Carpenter by actually doing the job and gaining hands on well ..... experience. To put it in different terms when you are going for a technical job the application asks if you have a degree, but it also probably asks how many years of on the job training you have had. There is a reason they are separate on your job app, there is a reason they should be considered separate in game mechanics.

You should become exactly strong enough to feel like you made progress and gained something, but not strong enough to feel like the enemies you were fighting 2 hours ago are now inconsequential meat you can just steam roll.

Knowledge is that stuff you get through reading books and watching TV. You get experience if you were there and took part directly or indirectly. I am not drawing a line in the sand or even saying "this is how it should be done!". This isn't about a UI. There are only so many "good" ui designs out there, but with stat based systems there are literally dozens and dozens of ways you could do it that all have pro's and con's but are all equally valid for a number of reasons. What I posted was more just a "hey, if you want every stat to matter here is a way you could do it" sort of thing. It was by no means a finished product or even close. I don't like some of it's aspects myself but I felt like it got the idea across and showed that could could make stats like "Int" matter to a raging barbarian blood drinker. Also yeah pretty much. Knowledge is what you "know or learned through study" experience is gained through practice and doing.

You really have three ways of limiting who uses a weapon. 1: Taking away or changing bonuses if Class X uses it. Maybe the bonuses are good but they are only really optimal for Class X. 2: Giving a debuff to anyone who uses it that isn't Class X, you will never give it to anyone other than Class X due to the debuff... but you could if you had to. 3: Putting in a gameplay limitation and saying only Class X can use it. In options 1 and 2 I ultimately give the weapon to Class X or don't use it at all/that much. Because, simply put, only Class X can really get the full benefit of the weapon. Ultimately I the player am making the choice who to give the weapon to and if anyone else should use it. In option 3 though all player agency has been removed, I have no choice, the game devs have told me only Class X gets to use it. I prefer leaving the choice with the player, even if the choice is a no brainer. Hence I think out right restricting a class from certain weapons is a bad idea and I think a weak design.

I like everything I saw and read. I especially think the wild orlan design is very well done, I like the direction so much I am considering having one in the party in fact. The "small race with furry parts" normally doesn't rank high on my priority list for party members. Paladins are about what I expected, maybe slightly more defensive/buff minded than I expected but it is still a good direction for the class.

The best way to avoid a dump stat would just be to create a six stat system that filtered into "merged stats" like what they tried at one time in an optional 2nd edition D&D rules book. Basically you take 6 stats. Strength - Your ability to pull of feats of power such as moving a boulder. Constitution - Your physical fitness and general shape. Dexterity - Your ability with minute detail work such as painting. Agility - Your ability to do acrobatic things like somersaults or back flips. Knowledge - Your literal knowledge, how much stuff you know and have learned. Willpower - Your mental fortitude and toughness, how well you can deal with stress, etc etc. These stats alone don't do anything, they are just numerical representations of your characters overall shape. They combine to merged stats though which do in fact effect things, and this is why you have no "dump" stat. Each merged stat is the existing stats, added together, and divided to an average. Strength + Con = Health, how many wounds you can take before death. Strength + Dexterity = Accuracy, your bonus to landing hits with physical attacks melee or ranged. Strength + Agility = Speed, how fast you can make attacks, initiative if that's a thing. Strength + Knowledge = Force, your ability to inflict damage with weapon based attacks based on pure strength and knowing enemy weak points. Strength + Willpower = Determination, ability to resist mental attacks and bonuses to blocking with a shield or parrying. Constitution + Dexterity = Grappling, your talent at certain unarmed maneuvers, climbing, etc Constitution + Agility = Endurance, how much stamina you have, or your bonus to it. Constitution + Knowledge = Conditioning, how strong your natural resistance to disease, poison, etc are through knowledge of medicine and natural body function. Constitution + Willpower = Resistance, ability to mitigate raw damage from elemental or magical attacks and survive harsh elements. Dexterity + Agility = Nimbleness, bonuses to picking locks, pockets, stealth, moving silently, etc etc. Dexterity + Knowledge = Craft, how skillful you are at creating things like traps, weapons, brewing potions, all of which takes knowledge and technical skills. Dexterity + Willpower = Direction, your ability to aim and project certain soul powers making them more likely to work such as bolts of fire or illusions. Agility + Knowledge = Talent, bonuses to a variety of things such as fast talking a guard using wits and histrionics, performing complex dances, spotting secret passages, etc. Knowledge + Willpower = Wisdom, understanding of and ability to harness powers of the soul making many skills do more damage, last longer, etc. You get the idea. Every stat matters in this sort of system and if you do ignore something like willpower just because you are a barbarian you will likely pay for it.