Karkarov

Sounds like a bunch o nancies on these forums. Give me my plate armor, sword, and grin death in the face any day over you finger wigglers! That being said covering the people designed to counter the "heavy hitters" seems like the most logical follow up as well.

Uh couple things. 1: 4th edition D&D is VERY MMO like. It took most of it's design and mechanics ideas from popular MMO's, it is a fact don't try to deny it. Anyone who thinks it has more in common with 2nd Edition than it does say.... World of Warcraft is kidding themselves. It steals from WoW just as blatantly as WoW stole from Everquest. 2: That isn't necessarily a bad thing for a single player based strategy RPG on the PC. Is it bad for a table top RPG? I won't go into that... So the new image was cool, the grass particularly looks better and the trees are much improved as well. Great work art and environment peoples! Now just get us a high res version As for the classes... Rogue seems a bit OP. I don't understand enough about engagement yet but from what I see a Rogue NPC can break it at least 3 times in one fight, which makes me hope Fighters/Barbarians have something more exciting in their toolbag than what has been implied so far. That said their damage abilities (still missing key details yes) seem clearly more powerful at a glance than that of the Cipher or Ranger. I guess the idea being the Cipher has some defensive options and the Ranger is well... at range so as long as they aren't crazy with the animal companion they are normally safe. Ranger wise... I am disappointed but not for the same reason as many others. I have no problem with the way animal companions are handled health/stam wise, that they are there, or might not actually just be a giant wad of useless fur that serves no real point. What does bother me is how unexciting the class sounds, seems to not have any clearly stand out "heavy hitting" ability despite being a "heavy hitter", and is blatantly ranged only with no apparent option for melee at all unless you count the pet. Likewise the Rogue seems to be melee only as well and seems to be worthless with a bow. It just scares me when I see things that seem to removes choice from classes. Also I would change the ability about AOE's, unless I read it wrong it sounds like they get a bonus if "both" of them are in an aoe. However the class design clearly implies your ranger is at ... range, and the pet is in melee. So how often is that going to happen? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Also what happened to Paladins (and monks for that matter)? What category do they fall in? With their buffs I would figure they are front line or "band leaders". Anyway I want to see front line next because if you aren't wearing a suit of full plate using a big sword and stabbing things in the face you are just a namby pamby anyway.

Trust me if you knew the margins on that "cheapo" hamburger you might not feel the same way. So while mcdonalds won't charge you for your pickle remember this.... they don't give you a discount for leaving it off either.

They changed it to be only ~15 years ago recently. Yeah, I will not be surprised if this is not the event that basically "kick starts" (lol c wut I did thar) the game.

Well first.... That dudes charts are factual, and you can't deny it. Will some of the projects he is currently counting as "failures to deliver" pan out? Yes. But I think anyone who believes the majority of kickstarted games that had successful campaigns will be delivered and will be quality products is... well... kidding themselves and should stop drinking the kool aid. The vast majority of video game kickstarters will never pan out, or will turn out to be bad games. That is just the cold hard reality, it is how the real world works. I personally back VERY few kickstarters and it is always from people who either have a bang on campaign that shows progress already being made or developers I already trust. Way too many people back when it is nothing but a speech from some guy who hasn't made a decent game in 10 years (or ever) while they flash concept art on the screen. Personally I backed Wasteland 2 for very little and I wish I could have that money back because all evidence is showing that game is going to turn out pretty par. Long story short Kickstarter will never produce a Mass Effect or a GTA or any other large budget game. When you back you need to be ready to accept the fact that the game might suck, and that it may never be delivered in the first place. Because those are the two most likely results of a successful video game kickstarter.

Wouldn't really worry about any review. What they played is basically still an alpha, people shouldn't even be giving opinions on things like that other than saying something around "It looks like they are on their way to getting combat where they want to be, it will be interesting to see if the final product meets their ideas" or something.

Well like I said in some other thread somewhere this is a concern because the idea that a character is a "social" or "stealth" character and not a valid "combat" character is frankly.... a stupid way to make a game. Every character needs to be viable in combat on some level no matter what I do with their "skills". If a character can be made that is basically useless in an actual fight Obsidian needs to scrap that character build or adjust it to fix that issue. There should be no such thing as a character who is straight out useless in combat.

Don't get me wrong I am just using that as an example. I personally see nothing wrong with timed quests and think they are great as long as they are not overdone and have real results for not doing them, as opposed to say "well you just don't get the rewards". I am sure there will be plenty of mutually exclusive quests in game, I just hope they don't over do that one either.

Again, hard to find a reason to use some drug when all reasons that make sense won't apply to your character. You are a "watcher" you can probably already see souls on your own just fine so why take a drug to help see souls? Like I said I have no problems with them being in game. I just don't understand why people want to play a character addicted to them. On a min maxer perspective they are always bad because you always have a negative side effect if you aren't using them and the negatives ALWAYS out weigh the normally minor benefits. On a role play perspective it seems hard to find a reason a "main character" would even need drugs to begin with. Look at Geralt. He takes potions and "drugs" sure. However they are also non habit forming, he is immune to most poisons because of rituals he went though so there are no penalties to them, and if you read the books he only ever uses them to combat severe magical or monstrous threats. He doesn't use them casually and he doesn't "need" them day to day. So he is actually the anti example of a PC drug user, especially since almost no one knows how to make his "drugs" and most of them are lethal to normal people.

Objective XP works, it is that simple. I have seen it used in other games, some even RPG's, and it played fine. After awhile you stopped even noticing that you didn't get exp for things like kills or disabling traps. It also made it nice to not break up the flow of a mission/adventure since no one got exp until an actual objective was "done" you never had to stop at a strange time such as right before a climactic encounter to level people up etc etc while the big bad calmly stood there and tapped his boots waiting for you to finish assigning stats or skill points. You stay immersed in what you are doing and things just flow as they should. Which is another reason I think they should maybe consider controlled resting (within reason, like there is no reason you shouldn't be able to pitch a tent pretty much anywhere in the wilderness). As for sneaking and fast talking. I honestly doubt there will be many cases where you can complete an entire objective just doing one or the other. Sure you will be able to on some, such as say solving a murder plot at a fancy gala held in some mansion. I see most missions/quests etc as being multi tiered and more complex though and I expect there will be points where you can solve one part of it with some stealth for example but will ultimately need to fight your way through other parts. For example you have been hired to take out a local group of bandits, maybe you can stealth through their outer perimeter at the camp but once you get inside the main parts it is too well patrolled. Maybe you can even bribe or intimidate the leader to pack up and ship out once you get him alone. However once in that heavy patrol interior those guys will spot you and you have to fight your way through. See what I am saying?

As an aside I have no problem with "urgent" side quests. If they are handled intelligently. A great way to encourage replayability and uniqueness in a single game is to have forced choices. Say there are three factions who all have a "urgent quest" that you can stumble upon at roughly the same time through different means. You are made aware the factions need your help, and soon, and maybe even get told you have like 1 week to respond. If you don't either the window closes and the faction loses it's shot at whatever it was or maybe someone else took the job. In theory you could accept each quest but you are told clearly in game it is urgent and you have only a few weeks or something to resolve it. Then the way the quests are laid out, with travel time, objectives etc, you basically only have enough time to do one. The simple travel times etc will push the others out of the window so you are forced to make a choice in game about which (if any) you want to do. Then based on your choice other side quests open up later, even if you helped none of them who is to say this wont result in a fourth faction gaining power and suddenly needing your help? That said just throwing all three out there, saying they are urgent, then 4 months later in game you can still complete all three? That is just bad design from a world building and RP perspective.

I never got the concept here. If you want have them in game sure, I even took a little buffout here and there in Fallout when I felt I needed an edge. But getting addicted to a drug in a video game? That always struck me as something a adventurer of the main character/world saving caliber would not be doing. Most people get addicted because they are bored with nothing better to do, reliant on them and need them to cope with "something", or feel the constant need for them to keep their "edge". When you consider that in Skyrim for example you are Mr. Badass of Prophecy it seems silly that you wouldn't have something better to do, would need them to "cope", or need them for an "edge" you already have unique magic powers and can eat dragon souls ;p. That said sure put it in game, why not? I just think it should be more of an NPC thing.

Not sure about you but that was easy for me I always had a godly setup. Well here is the thing... there is nothing tactical... or even fun about resting after every encounter and using one strategy for literally every fight in the entire game. I had no problems beating the game. I have beaten BG2 more than once. That doesn't mean the encounter design wasn't bad though, in this case you just had to game the system in one of a few ways. My preferred method of mind flayer handling was to buff my main character (brutal killing machine fighter) with haste, chaotic commands, death ward, protection from negative energy, a strength buff just to push him to 24, and hand him all the healing potions just in case. Then he would open the door, walk in, turn, close the door. 5 rounds later when everything else in the room was dead because nothing they could do worked on him he opened the door again.

I know, this binary or "trinary" way of thinking really bothers me too. Hopefully PE will prove people with such black-n-white notions wrong. Well those preconceptions always helped me in D&D when I played my favorite character who loved pretending to be a traveling bard who played the harp and was a painter on the side. Then when combat started he turned into a berserker killer with a two handed sword and a fondness for throwing darts laced with contact poison.

What I don't get is the constant balance in these games around the idea that you can't be a strong combat character who also happens to be a smooth talker or good at stealth. I am pretty sure that just because you are a fighter doesn't = has to be an idiot lout who talks at the third grade level.

While I feel you on that Stun this is the thing... there is still a reason for doing it. Combat is now less about "yeah EXP!!!!" and more about "this is how I want to resolve this situation". In many cases combat will be the only choice, for example the mega dungeon. However it isn't like that's all there is to it. The mobs have loot, money, who knows what else. Also the goal is to clear the mega dungeon not "get exp" when you look at it this way there is tons of meaning in the fight because you have to do that fight to in fact "clear the mega dungeon". Basically this system is all about thinking long term goal instead of short term. I think people should give it a chance, you might be surprised how will it works and how you don't even notice you stopped getting exp for killing things specifically.

I thought shadowrun returns was great myself. I was looking for a game in the vein of the original snes shadowrun and I got that game. Was there some things it needed but didn't get? Yes. But they were up front about what they failed to deliver, they didn't make excuses, and the game they did release was fun, well written, played nicely, and bug free. That's a lot better than what most people put out on pc these days, kickstarter or otherwise. Wasteland 2 I expect disappointment. I don't think they have properly managed their money, the updates never really "impress" me, and the fact that they had to release a buy in beta says they are off on their budget. Also I don't really hear anything "good" about that beta. I am conversely not concerned about Eternity. The devs are mostly upfront about what is going on, the updates and pretty steady and normally interesting and fun to read/see. They checked peoples feelings on raising additional funds instead of just going "we are getting close on budget, lets go out and panhandle for more money", and they listen to the community and communicate with us on a variety of forums and through numerous events. Also Obsidian isn't a kickstarter business like most of these (inExile) or famous for going over budget and over promising (double fine), they have some publisher backed games too and have a proven track record of making great games recently, not 10-15-20 years ago. Manage your expectations and you will be fine.

Just as an aside, yes it is. There are certain things mechanically that happen behind the scenes. No you can't summon help... but you also can't be invaded. Additionally mobs actually do less damage to you when you are in undead form. It isn't "huge" but it is there. I find solo 9 out of 10 times is easier. Save for maybe Ornstein and Smough.

I love how everyone in this thread so in love with hard counters and tons of reloading thinks that "challenge" and "dies tons" are the same thing. We will take Dark Souls as an example, dying in that game is not bad. At all. Why? What do you actually lose? Theoretically speaking absolutely nothing as long as you are able to get back to the spot where you died. You keep all loot/items you found, your level doesn't go down, the game is actually EASIER when you are in undead form, you lost at worst some souls (exp) and humanity. Both of which can be farmed easily once you learn how. You are supposed to die in Dark Souls but death in the long term actually has very little impact in that game beyond the resources you might have used and thus lost like buff items. Eternity is not like that. If I go through a dungeon, get an hour in, find some hot loot, etc etc, then die and didn't save at some point (we don't know save rules yet, maybe I couldn't save?) I lose EVERYYHING. I lose the exp, the levels, the items, the progress, the money, all of it. So I have to repeat the entire last hour. That is frustrating. In Dark Souls I didn't really lose much at all and I was going to have to repeat the area again sooner or later anyway because there is not a single place in that game you probably don't end up visiting more than once. Challenge =/= dieing a lot and tons of reloads. Challege = fights that require some planning, effective use of your parties skills, and knowing when to tell you are just out of your league. I beat Dragon Age Origins on it's hardest setting and never had to reload a single time, my party literally never wiped. I would still say many of the fights were tough and I had plenty of close calls. Had my team not been well built, had I not given them the gear and items to be prepared, and had I not deployed them well I can promise you I would have wiped plenty of times.

It was possible in the IE games I am sure they will figure something out.

Hmmm sorry for not visiting this thread in awhile, I am having flashbacks to the death spell thread where Stun made it clear he loves hard counters and pre buffs, which is nice I guess, but most people well.... don't. This is not an MMO RPG. I do not expect to fail 3-5 times before I learn "certain tough fights" like Kangaxx or a Demi Lich. I am not taking down a 25 man raid boss, it should not take multiple wipes. If they design a encounter that takes multiple wipes (3 or more) to beat it better be because I am just underleveled and not getting the message, or playing REALLY badly. If it takes me more than 30-40 minutes to clear any encounter in this game, I don't care what it is against, how bad ass it is, or anything else, they have gone over the line of fun vs frustrating and I won't be a happy camper. Bear in mind I am counting wipes, time looking up strats if you do that, experimenting, all that in the 30-40. If they design ANYTHING that is combat based and one "pull" (mmo terminology lul) takes more than 10 minutes to win (or lose) I am going to be giving the game the serious stink eye anyway. Like many have stated... combat needs to be about strategy and playing to your parties strengths. If you can't do that well then you deserve to lose, but you are going to learn eventually or quit. The game shouldn't be forcing gimmicks or putting you in "use this strat or lose" scenario's ever, not even as a one off encounter. BG2 is a "classic" to most people on this forum, some would even tell you it is the best game ever made. I will tell you it is a great game hampered by some absolutely terrible combat design that was cheap, unfun, boring, repetitive, badly balanced, RNG driven, and all about hard counters/countering the mage.

Seriously, it is the holidays, no one should have expected anything from week of christmas to today. I am sure next week or the week after they will have some stuff to share. I also hope they put updates on the backer site from now on, need to get more traffic there.

I am not totally opposed to unlimited merchant gold but I think it work's out better if it is limited. Basically they should go "mostly" the Elder Scrolls route (and it sounds like they sort of are), limited gold per merchant, merchants can sell some good items but it is extremely rare to see anything legitimately powerful. One thing I would change from the Elder Scrolls concept is just add in no random stock, what they sell is what they sell, let the quantity be limited but regenerate over time, and let anyone buy anything but if you sell a weapon to a weapon smith the smith should pay more for it than a pawn broker would but would pay less for a gold ring. Oh and PS: No high level loot on merchants. Let them have some "decent" stuff but if I want a +5 sword of badassocity and death-dealing I need to go find that beast, you feel me?!?!?!?!

That is a little tough to answer. I don't think scope is a concern. I don't mind if a game is really long or has a huge world, in fact I consider those a plus cause they save me money from buying more games , That said you do have to reign it in and keep focus on the things the matter and avoid meaningless busy work quests or factions that are sort of boring and trite. I think New Vegas did at least one thing right, and that was the scope of the game. The world was large enough, but not too big, and there was plenty going on but everything did feel like it thematically fit. Difficulty... well I want to be clear on that. Demon's Souls was my game of the year when it came out. I have a let's play of Dark Souls which I did blind, solo, and offline using no tips... So obviously I am not averse to challenge. I don't mind a game being "hard", what I mind is it being "cheap". Let's take X-Com Enemy Unknown as an example. There was one fight I remember where my sniper took a hit from an enemy at extreme range with less than a 20% chance to hit, then despite only taking one damage (they were full on health) panicked and one shot killed one of my own men. Then later in the same fight a assault unit of mine went on to miss on a 99% chance to hit .... twice. That isn't "challenge" it is just ridiculous RNG BS. Like I said earlier.... it would be good if you could avoid BG2 mind flayers, a cheap enemy that either killed you in seconds or you killed in seconds because you pre cast 2-3 buffs making you immune to everything they do. Essentially fights should be tough, but not punishing (at least on normal difficulty). I should also be able to win any given fight regardless of class make up or gear as long as I am a reasonable level for it and don't use poor tactics. When you put players in a situation where only specific tactics or classes, or specific buffs/immunities are required to have any chance of winning you have designed the type of encounter I won't appreciate very much. BG2 had A LOT of those encounters.

Oh as an additional thought in case Obsidian is listening . That illithid level from BG2? How about we don't do something similar in Eternity? Just saying, that's the the kinda BS encounter design that is just frustrating and stupid and makes people quit a game instead of work through it.