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Karkarov
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Posts posted by Karkarov
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While I agree with you in general, I'm not going to rule out the rare possibility of a weapon with metaphysical features that not only don't function for a person of the wrong soul-resonance persuasion, but also function negatively for that person.
Think Sword In The Stone. Nothing stopped anyone from "using" that sword, but it sure as hell wasn't coming out of that rock for just anyone. So, a weapon could feel your grip, sense that you dedicate your life to a deity, and just say "Nope," multiplying its own weight by 50 until you let go of the hilt. I honestly think that'd be pretty interesting.
Don't get me wrong. I am not saying I have an issue with weapons being in game that just plain suck for specific classes. Like a bladed fist weapon with "soul powah" that had limited sentience and just doesn't feel like anyone without the soul (class) of a monk is worthy of using it's power. So a fighter finds it, equips it, and etc. That doesn't mean he isn't getting penalized because it wants to be used by a monk. It only means the fighter "could" use it if they want to.
See what I am saying?
Also as far as the sword in the stone goes (AKA: Excalibur), it wouldn't let anyone other than Arthur draw it from the earth, true. But once it was "out of the earth" it wasn't quite so picky. Case in point Merlin is the one who put it in the stone in the first place after stealing it from Uther, Arthur's father. Reason being is he felt Uther was abusing Excalibur's power.
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There are plenty of games out there already that do "realistic" combat in a fantasy RPG environment well. I put realistic in quotes for a obvious reason ;p.
Do something insane and try to leave the comfort zone of isometric games and play something like Dark or Demon's Souls. Or even go for Mount and Blade Warband is you have to get really bare bones. Meanwhile look at the recent games like Chivalry and The War of Roses too.
An isometric view, top down, party based game will never have "realistic" fantasy combat. For you to have the needed control in a game based on that type of combat mechanics you need to be considerably closer to the action and you can't do it while playing more than one character.
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Weapon restrictions are stupid. Period. I don't care how much of a lilly livered sissy finger wiggler you are, you will be able to understand the concept of pick up sword, put pointy end in other guy.
Now if you want to make "soul powah!" weapons that don't fully function, or have different effects depending on the soul (class) of who uses them? That's okay. But there should be no weapons at all that require X class to use.
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All of them are viable choices and have different advantages and disadvantages. But only one of them ends up with you in possession of the Thief Guild Leader's gauntlets of stealth that enhance all rogue talents and his short sword +3.
Hmm, Im not so sure about that. If weve learned anything from prior "degenerative gameplay" discussions its that apparently most players are utterly incapable of controlling their actions and will always take the path of least resistance or whatever rewards the best loot, even if it destroys their own enjoyment of the game. If the only way to get those boss gauntlets is to pry them off his cold dead fingers then that's what everyone will do.
That's perfectly fine. As long as they are okay with becoming enemies with most thieve guilds in the world and having a contract put on their heads and suffering random bounty hunter attacks and assassination attempts. You know how it is, whatever floats their boat.
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This isn't D&D the "holy avenger" as you are referring to it is a D&D magic item. There is no reason for it to be in game. The devs can create their own unique magic gear and lore weapons, they will be cool enough for me.
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It makes sense to me as well that certain attributes would be more useful to specific classes, but ultimately we want every attribute to have enough use for each class such that it doesn't just become a dump stat. This is because dump stats are pointless and might as well not even be included, for the reasons above.
Well said.
Like I said before I personally have no issue with the concept of a "dump" stat as long as the player gets punished in some way for ignoring a stat. That said.... if choices aren't hard then they aren't choices at all and they lack any real meaning.
So making stat distribution harder and something where you can't just choose to ignore one stat completely would probably be a better design and make for a more interesting game.
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Personally I hope the game keeps grinding to a minimum. No EXP from combat? Who cares. Combat still has lots of perks. For example.... lets say there is a objective where you have to get a thief guild leader off a powerful merchants back for whatever reason. There could be all sorts of ways to do it..... for example:
You could join the thieves guild, work your way up, and at high rank use your clout to call the guild off.
You could break into the guild or the guild leaders home and steal evidence and use it to blackmail him.
You could simply earn a crap ton of money and pay the guild leader off to leave him alone.
Or you could charge into his hideout, scream "EAT COLD STEEL!!!" and kill everything that moves.
All of them are viable choices and have different advantages and disadvantages. But only one of them ends up with you in possession of the Thief Guild Leader's gauntlets of stealth that enhance all rogue talents and his short sword +3.
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Not really, no. It seems like you're trying to argue that Insta-death spells are some weird thing in a combat that stick out like a sore thumb. But the fact of the matter is that they, invariably, only rear their ugly heads at the high levels, when your party and your enemies already have a bajillion tools at their disposal. Thus, they do not affect game balance, nor do they impact combat enough to render it untactical.Do you understand what I'm saying now.
Actually it sounds like you almost did understand what I was saying.
In a world of prismatic spray, black blade of disaster, chain lightning, fly, stoneskin, anti magic shell, bigby's crushing grasp, tenser's transformation, and god knows what else I would hope the lack of death magic has little to no impact on how you approach a fight with a powerful caster. There are a million ways to kill a character that are far more effective and way harder to stop than "power word kill".
Taking instant death out of the game doesn't actually effect how you tactically approach a powerful caster at all does it? So if it only encourages a forced pre buff for no other reason than "just in case they cast that", and degenerate gameplay if they do and you aren't protected... I don't think the game really suffers for it's absence. It is just one less boring buff for me to waste time casting.
That said I actually got real tired of the end game of BG2, because it became less about tactical fights and it became more "counter the mage: the game". Too bad countering the mage was all combat ever boiled down to a lot of the time at that point.
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Except that in WoW you use cheesy aggro manipulation tactics to keep the heat off your rogue so he can keep hitting. It won't be as simple in PE.
Can you provide a link to where they discuss aggro mechanics? I hadn't heard of that and am interested in reading up on how it will be handled.
Considering even WoW doesn't use them anymore I hope they don't use them here and instead opt for good enemy AI. Understand when I say WoW doesn't use aggro anymore I don't mean it isn't in the game, it is just tanks are so good at generating aggro now holding threat over others is very very easy. When i quit at the end of Cataclysm it was at the point that my guild which was into end game raiding didn't even require you have one anymore. You just cant pull threat off a good tank anymore, unless it is a part of the fights mechanic and designed to happen.
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Hopefully you're right Infinitron, and it's limited to attempted assassinations.
Eh it is just going to be like a WoW rogue. Lots of prep, perfect positioning, unload with a set of specific skills.... then start prepping again so in 30-40 seconds you can do damage again. Meanwhile the guy with the two hander does steady reliable damage to multiple enemies the entire time. On a "pure damage" number crunch the two hander guy probably wins.... but the Rogue will still be better for one on one bursts of massive damage at a short time. In other words two hander is for trash killing, rogue is for precision strike on high threat target.
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What's the problem? If your mage finds some utility spells he can put them in his spell grimoire and memorize them, but he might need to switch them out for combat spells for tougher battles.
Granted, you will gain some spells on level up. I suppose you're referring to a situation where a mage could choose non-combat spells exclusively on level-up, or something like that. I don't know, maybe they won't let you do that. Or maybe it won't matter because you'll find enough combat spells in the game world to compensate.
The point is magic is not clearly a combat or a non-combat skill. If it's similar to AD&D, it will be mostly, but not entirely, combat, but some will be non-combat related. Meaning they either need to shave off the non-combat spells as skills, or spellcasters really do have less combat utility than non-spellcasters.
I don't think that is the case. Many classes are likely to have out of combat utility abilities. I imagine since the whole game is based on SOUL POWAH and not on spells and such there will be no memorization per se. Likely each "SOUL POWAH" for casters will just be categorized based on how powerful it is and for each different catagory of power you just have a limited number of uses per time frame. However inside that given time frame you have access to all the powers you actually know without needing to specifically prepare them.
At least that's how I would do it for PE but who knows. I just know it isn't D&D so that system for spells likely won't apply.
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This is kind of a non question. Obviously if you behave in a highly greedy, violent, and self centered way it should effect who is your friends (assuming you have any), what factions you can ally with, how the story plays out, etc etc. I don't think anyone will suggest anything else. The game shouldn't be "totally different" but there should be obvious and clear differences between the game of a person playing the uber good guy honor nut and the mentally disturbed in it for the thrill and money chap.
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Oh, side question, are you against the inclusion of the Maze spell? (Or non-WotC equivalent)
So yeah, just like every other ability or attack that takes all planning out of the equation I don't like Maze either. Also it isn't me who is deliberately missing the point. Take instant death out. Get rid of it. Now... I want you to tell me how you approach a fight with a high level caster knowing that he has no instant death attacks. Not maze, not power word kill, not anything like that.
You have your plan?
Okay.
Now assume he has power word kill.
Has your plan actually changed in any significant way?
Do you understand what I am saying now?
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I'd actually be much more open to sharing the loot equally if the companions didn't expect me to
feed and cloth and arm them and keep them in potions and supplies from my 1/6th of the loot.
If they upgrade their armor and weapons, keep a steady supply of potions and bullets and stuff.
Well.. that'd change the ballgame pretty much.
Great post, and this is part of my point.
In BG I paid for their inn rooms, I bought their arrows, I distributed and sometimes bought them gear. It wasn't like they weren't getting "rewarded". If Minsc doesn't like how he is getting treated he can just hand that full plate armor I bought him right back.
If you really do want to do a game driven on the idea of soliders / adventurers for hire than they need their own cut sure. But they also need to be responsible for themselves. They need to buy their own gear, have their own inventory, and pay their own way. After all I am paying them a wage, they work for me. My boss doesn't pay for my lunch, he says he paid me and I can buy it myself.
A system where an npc wants a wage AND wants me to front all their costs is just as ridiculous as one where a mercenary will take a one time 100 gold pay off and never ask for compensation again and let you totally control his inventory.
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This would be the ideal solution, but unfortunately, it's been the one solution explicitly ruled out. I don't have the quote at hand, but Sawyer said, that this would effectively mean designing each area twice and there's just no budget for this.
For sure. I was just trying to make a logic point on why respawns don't make much sense. Who wants to repopulate the area when a group of wandering death dealers is still sitting around. Leave and a week of in game time goes by? I could understand a full respawn then. But an 8 hour rest, while you are still in the same area? No way.
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Im for a resting mechanic exactly like the IE games. You can rest most places, some places you could not, and there was always a threat of random encounters unless you were in an inn.
I don't get why some of you just want a game where every mechanic has some form of punishment, all in the name of your ideas of "realism". Why wouldn't the thieves respawn? Because they are dead. The whole camp isn't going to be reinforced while you rest for 8 hours. The dungeon should respawn full every time you rest? What? Even if it did, whats the point? Lets say you get half way through a dungeon level and have to rest because your friggin Health has zero mechanics to replenish besides sleeping (
). So your party pops a squat and rests. Now the enemies behind you that you already cleared have respawned and you still have the enemies ahead of you that you didn't go through yet. Who cares about the respawn behind you? Nobody going to go back through that area anyway because you already cleared it. Unless you are proposing that the player should have to evacuate the entire floor and go back to town to rest, which sounds like a pile of suck.This isn't really how I would have said it but... yeah.
Some respawn is fine, but you should not have total respawn because you rested. Not only is it not realistic, it makes on logical sense either. I am a bandit, I heard sounds of death and murder from the forest base we use... I go back there to find all my friends dead and butchered. 100 yards away 6 guys are napping. I may be a bandit, but I am not stupid, I aint hanging around to get the same treatment.
Also limiting it to needing an item like a Tent or Cabin ala final fantasy is not a good idea. If you do that I will just buy tons of tents which defeats the whole purpose behind having them, I mean... that's what I did in Final Fantasy and it worked fine there. Keep it to limited resting spots, maybe have "some" respawn but not total. That's plenty.
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-Tactics is camoflaging or otherwise rendering invisible your party members who have low saves when in the presense of a powerful mage or other deadly, spell slinging opponent who can kill you with one spell.
-Tactics is silencing that mage at the very outset of an encounter.
-Tactics is dazing that mage, or stunning that mage, or blinding that mage, or deafening that mage or Holding that mage, Or even directly engaging that mage in a spell battle, where he's forced to focus on counter/defensive spells, instead of the nasty offensive stuff he or his AI had been planning to toss at you.
-Tactics is surrounding that mage with summons, so that if he does cast Disentigrate, it will be at them, not your party.
-Tactics can even involve willingly sending your most useless party member to engage that mage in the hopes that the mage will waste his nastier spells on him instead of your vital-to-winning, big players.
-In the meantime, other gameplay tactics include keeping an eye out for scrolls, wands or other magics that can Raise dead party members, you know, just in case your tactics don't succeed as planned.
You realize nothing you just posted has anything to do with instant death attacks? Silencing a Caster in D&D is a viable strategy regardless of what spells they are casting. Even if the best tool they got is "Magic Missile" having a rogue sneak up and stun them is still a reasonable thing to do.
There is only one strategy for specifically dealing with instant death spells. Have a protection from death effect on the character. Removing instant death magic has no effect on the depth of combat, it just means I don't need to buff myself to specifically protect against death attacks anymore. I can still cast hold on casters, I can still surround casters with summons, I can still send my weakest party member to distract casters, I can still focus fire casters with ranged attacks, etc etc etc.
None of that hinges on them having death spells.
But I want instant death to exist in that game.Fair enough Morgulon but my point is really simple. Death magic is a farce and actually adds no depth to the game. It just encourages save scumming or forces precasts of specific buffs "just in case". If it adds nothing worth having to the mix, it shouldn't be in game. Death magic doesn't add anything worth having.
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I think that companions all too often are overlooked as expendable assets, their worth only measured in how much they concur with your opinions. I'd prefer them to have worth with or without the protagonist, and to easily justify a fair days pay for a fair days work.
No.
First off by now after 20 years of friendship I have helped Carry the Cat Burglar more than enough times to make her plenty of money. Who do you think bought her the magical short sword she is using? Pauly the Pure tithes his own money, not other peoples, and as a holy knight probably plans to assault the Onyx Citadel with or without me. He smites evil, he isn't a church tax collector. Bob on the other hand will be great sure.... until we get into a situation that is near 100% assured death and he does the math and mentions how he isn't being paid to die leaving me Carry and Pauly high and dry.
That photo posted a bit above here is hilariously ironic in this regard.
It isn't like these guys are paying for inn rooms when we stay in them, or they buy the healing potions they quaff.
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Nope. Instant death still occurs if he fails his save.I am just checking to see if you noticed the lead designer of the game already posted saying they won't be including save or die mechanics in PE.
It may just be me but I think you critically failed your disbelieve check and now think the illusion is real. The illusion being that save or die mechanics are interesting, fun, add any depth to gameplay, or have any chance of being included in the game.
Tactics is not casting protection from fire when you know you are about to fight a fire elemental, that's called common sense. Tactics is using your fighter to taunt and lure it to a cliff edge, having your rogue stun it with a smoke bomb so it's dazed, getting your mage cast a freezing spell on it, then ordering your priest use a powerful divine spell that knocks enemies away to push it off the cliff.
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Maelkith, Stun, Sensuki...
First off you guys do realize replying with flames and personal insults makes you look like a bunch of third graders?Second.... Diablo 3... king of the mix/maxer lets eek out every little stat point and build the perfect toon designed to maximize every single aspect of combat games this gen... Has no combat log. When a game that is 100% about nothing but min/maxing and combat doesn't think it needs a combat log that speaks clearly to designers thoughts on how important a combat log really is.
Lastly, specifically for you Sensuki. The first major forum uproar happened when Sawyer said there would be no experience from combat because they wanted to design a game that did not encourage degenerate gameplay such as killing everyone you could just because it got you the most EXP. He even said many objectives in the game could be completed without any combat at all. At one point they apparently actually played with the idea of making it possible to beat the entire game with no combat. I don't think they went that route, but they thought about it.
That should tell you something about how "combat focused" the game really is.
Combat will be important, no doubt, but it is not the be all end all of the game. Nor are people who don't stare at the combat log "casuals who are killing RPG's" because they don't need to see (roll=10 modifer +4+1+3=18 THAC0 14 Enemy AC -2 : hit) to notice they just hit a mob.
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Also, is it really necessary to completely avoid min-maxing and dump stats? It can lead to some fun characters too, and there are characters out there whop are...not well-rounded.
To me the issue is when an attribute is so fundamentally useless for any single class that every build will minimize it, there's very little point in including it for that class.
That's a good point. I don't think dumb stats are a problem, but if you make a character who has a blatant weakness it should be exploited enough times in the game to make you feel regret at least a few times that you went with such a lop sided build.
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Depends on the companion..... scratch that.... it depends on if they are a companion or a mercenary.
If I am going to storm the Onyx Citadel I don't expect Pauly the Pure Paladin of the Holy Mother to start rubbing his fingers together and begin talking about how light his coin purse is. Likewise I don't expect Carry the Cat Burglar who is my childhood friend of 20 years whose life I have saved 7 times to do more than moan and complain a little. Bob McMoneygrubbins the Dwarven Sellsword though... I think it would reasonable for him to want some remuneration for taking on such a tough job.
Of course if I were going to assault the bastion of death and plague that is the Onyx Citadel in what is likely to be a near suicide mission... I wouldn't want to take people motivated by money to begin with. Money is only useful if you aren't dead after all.
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I am for new game plus under specific circumstances.
1: It has to make sense in the games lore and story. Games like Dark Souls or Dragon's Dogma having new game plus works thematically because of the type of world and story they are telling. The concepts of PE with the main character being unable to die possibly, the soul being the source of strength, etc... I could see the story working for new game plus. But we don't know enough for sure.
2: There has to be something new for new game plus. For example ... the Souls games make enemies stronger on each play through raising the challenge level and keeping the gameplay interesting. One of the best new game plus modes ever done was Chrono Trigger. There was nothing new added to the game on new game plus in it... but there was events, endings, and hidden things that you just could not do or see on the first play through. Maybe it was because you weren't strong enough for them, or you were missing a key item, but something prevented you on playthrough one. The game didn't change at all, you just have new options you didn't before. That one unwinnable fight from playthrough one suddenly might be winnable... that locked door you had no key for... might strangely be in your possession now. Etc etc.
3: The real catch 22 which probably makes this a pipe dream. For new game + to work well the game has to be designed around the idea of having new game + from the very beginning. It is not a feature you can really tack on as a stretch goal or something unless it is going to be nothing more than a shallow power trip.
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Well said it before... say again... this isn't D&D so we don't know enough about stats and how they will work to know if a fixed or scaling with level system will work best. If it is going to end up being a similar system to D&D where stats are mostly fixed and rarely increase there should be no rolling involved. Just give everyone perfect middle stats (say 10 out of possible 20) in all stats, add in racial mods, and then give them X number of points to distribute plus the ability to lower the stats already in place if wanted.
But mostly just to be sure it is out there.... please, no rolling.
). So your party pops a squat and rests. Now the enemies behind you that you already cleared have respawned and you still have the enemies ahead of you that you didn't go through yet. Who cares about the respawn behind you? Nobody going to go back through that area anyway because you already cleared it. Unless you are proposing that the player should have to evacuate the entire floor and go back to town to rest, which sounds like a pile of suck.
Attributes - Fixed or Increasing?
in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted
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.