ogrezilla

In general, I think control schemes and UI are the biggest advancements that would be able to improve the old IE games at this point.

no artificial level cap. just don't have unlimited xp available. The only time I should stop getting XP is when there is nothing left for me to do.

I have to say, I love the League of Legends option of holding in spacebar to keep the camera locked, but having it free any other time. I would great appreciate that feature. Since we have multiple characters, just have it center on the highest ordered character we have selected. If nobody is selected, have it go to the PC. I'd also love a minimap that you can click to place the camera. Wouldn't let you see anything you couldn't normally see, just as an easy way to move the camera to different parts of the map.

Of course. But my point is that leveling what the 12 first levels of D&D represent seems a bit too much, regardless if those 12 levels are represented as 4 or as 70 by PE. Which is what I understood from from Mr. Urqhart. fair enough. I can see that. I personally have no problem ending the game as a "mover and shaker" in the world. Though I guess with a sequel being planned, that might leave little room for growth. I suppose that's really your point huh? Well I've convinced myself that I agree with you haha I personally enjoy the act of leveling up because it tends to be where you can really shape your characters. I'd rather do it more often even if each isn't as dramatic of an increase. Not so often that each becomes meaningless, but often enough that I have had plenty of opportunity to shape my characters. I also just think it makes sense that you see a more gradual increase in strength instead of major jumps. It really depends on the skill system too I guess. If my fighter just occasionally gets a new weapon proficiency point, then I'm not that worried about leveling often. But if there are skills and feats that he gains each level, I prefer more, smaller levels.

Why do you care how the designers intended the game be played? Play it how you like to play it. because odds are the difficulty depends on it. I'm an optimizer. I want to be as strong as I can be. I want to feel like I'm doing the best I can. Gimping myself to add difficulty goes completely against that. I don't enjoy it. If I'm playing anything competitive and the opponent isn't good, I don't think of ways to handicap myself. I think I need to find someone better to play against. At the same time, just playing a harder difficulty doesn't always work. I will always assume -- at least the first time I play through -- that the game is designed to be played in the most obvious way. If I have a ton of potions, I will assume I'll eventually need them. If I have access to a store that sells unlimited arrows for 1 gold a stack, I will never go without arrows because I'll assume the game wants me to be fully prepared. If the magic system allows me to cast spells whenever I want and gives me a way to recharge them whenever I want, I will do just that. Why would I have the option if I didn't need it? The next encounter might be crazy hard. I will always just assume the game is properly designed to encourage the intended behavior. I should have to go out of my way to abuse something. If design doesn't naturally lead to the intended conclusion, the design has a problem.

i would wait till josh or adam say something about this - should be a more reliable source, after all it's their game. 12 level seem a bit more like a faster leveling process, considering that eternity and bg1 should be similar in amount of content. I hope so.

Sylvius, I agree with everything but the last bit. I would want to level significantly more often than that. Probably about double. It doesn't take 10 hours to learn how to use new abilities and enjoy them.

But it is a strong inspiration and influence *to take into consideration. EDIT: See * Right, but not to let themselves be limited by.

he actually didn't even want WASD controls. Just click and hold and the characters follow the mouse as far as movement controls go.

i don't think we need the levels to fall perfectly in line with what D&D would do. This is not D&D.

Because if everything people suggest here were made optional then the first thing every player would have to do is wade through 400 checkboxes to figure out which options they want. And I think this question is one of the ones least amenable to being made an option since it has significant implications for encounter design. Though I guess they could disable FF on super-easy mode (let's call it 'storybook mode') and not even bother about balancing the game for that mode. Having an option for disabling FF seems sufficiently extreme that it feels a lot like just having an option for 'automatically win fights'. Well maybe we should have that too in storybook mode... That is not true, and you are just being hyperbolic. I'm really not. How do you design encounters if you know that some people, on otherwise identical difficulty settings, are going to choose one option that makes combat several times easier than otherwise? I don't really think you can. I think the only option is to design for one of those settings and accept that the other is either going to be trivial or brutal depending on which you picked. Can you imagine how trivial BG2 would have been if you could just throw a fireball into a crowded battlefield whenever you felt like it? Having it tied directly into the difficulty setting is more workable because generally the encounters are going to be balanced differently there anyway, but even then this would make such an enormous difference that it would mean a huge jump between settings. I'm not in principle against having this sort of feature baked into the lower difficulty settings, as long as the standard difficulty is balanced assuming normal rules, but having a toggle-able option sounds terrible. Read around this forum and see how many controversial ideas people have which they think have no reason not to be a toggle. If you say 'these are the four options there should be' that's all well and good, but what about a guy that wants a different four options? Whose opinion is more valid? Do you decide to put them all in? You could spend an hour at the beginning of the game just deciding what options to tick! It would be impossible to have all the combinations gameplay tested because the combinatorial explosion would mean that there could be literally millions of variations. The game would need to be designed for one or the other. In this case, almost certainly balanced for FF on. Then people who turn off FF would knowingly be reducing the difficulty by quite a bit. This is where it might be good to allow difficulty to be adjusted with several sliders for basic things like enemy damage or enemy HP to make up for it. Though I don't think that's even necessary. People turning off FF would be doing so knowing they are making it easier.

I'm ok with that amount, but I don't know how I feel about them planning things in this game around the assumption that there will be a sequel. Just seems like a bad idea. I disagree - unless it's taken to the extent of intentionally not doing cool things because they're saving them for a later game that might not happen. As long as it doesn't actively harm the gameplay in the first game it makes a lot more sense to plan for a sequel than to try to bolt one on to the end later. that's true I guess. I'm more thinking of superstition haha

you don't seem to be able to separate the difference between having options available and having time to think them all through or to execute your decisions. If pause is removed and nothing else changes, every single strategy and tactic you had with pause is still valid, just much more difficult to execute. But the strategy and tactics are completely unchanged. not having time to think of the best solution doesn't mean that solution doesn't exist. What difference does it make if an option is "available" if there is no time to choose it intelligently or in some cases even to use it? there is time to implement and execute SOME strategy and tactics. Its just a matter of you thinking of the right ones fast enough. The strategy and tactics are still there. The difference is they aren't the only thing that matters anymore.

because you have a different opinion than they do. you mentioned action RPGs in a positive light. Just be happy you didn't suggest anything like an MMO. I loved Times of Lore for the C64 - one of the first games I played where you could kill NPCs (including quest givers, making it impossible to continue on). Nothing wrong with action role playing games, IMO. That said when I first played Baldur's Gate (the first PC game I'd played in a long, long time) I couldn't figure out how to move the characters for some time. Oops! Once I got used to it I had no problem. It was also relatively easy to highlight the party and move them all as a group, so once I got the hang of it, it was fine. I had played Warcraft before any of the IE games, so I was good to go with movement. It was everything else that confused me because I'd never played any sort of D&D beforehand and my RPG experience was Final Fantasy games.

I'm ok with that amount, but I don't know how I feel about them planning things in this game around the assumption that there will be a sequel. Just seems like a bad idea.

because you have a different opinion than they do. you mentioned action RPGs in a positive light. Just be happy you didn't suggest anything like an MMO. I'm serious. that's why. really though, I do hope some of the newer camera options and keyboard controls are implemented. I hate not having a key to center my screen on different characters. Maybe some of the games had that, I don't remember. I know PST and IWD don't seem to. Holding in the mouse to continuously move makes sense too. I wouldn't hold my breath about the auto attack thing.

you don't seem to be able to separate the difference between having options available and having time to think them all through or to execute your decisions. If pause is removed and nothing else changes, every single strategy and tactic you had with pause is still valid, just much more difficult to execute. But the strategy and tactics are completely unchanged. not having time to think of the best solution doesn't mean that solution doesn't exist.

I like the idea of rogues simply being better than other classes at being in position to take advantage of backstabs and flanks.

ya sorry I was really responding to him.

You assume every TB system is turn-per-character. It's not. Sometimes it's player-side vs. PC-side based. Like something where you tell all of your units what to do one at a time, but they play out simultaneously? That sounds interesting.

Did anyone claim that? Where? yes, metiman did. he keeps supporting that view too And for the record, I disagree with the notion that switching from TB to real time even reduces strategy or tactics.

ya this is my issue with TB too. I mean, its still a lot of fun. But its not like fighting at all. Its like playing a board game. The fact that two things can never happen at once works because its a video game, but it leads to strange situations like you described. Its not the time you have to decide that annoys me -- I love RTwP -- its the prescience of it.

Removing time to think even to the point of real time does not remove strategy or tactics. It just doesn't. You are objectively wrong. It is harder to make the correct strategic or tactical decision in real time, but they are just as valid in real time as in turn based. Other factors that go into those games may remove the need to use strategy and tactics, but that's game design and not a direct result of the real time control. Many developers surely consider the lack of time to make decisions and thus make the decision making process simpler by removing options or making problems more straight forward. Again, that is a game design issue, not a real time issue. Say you are presented with two identical scenarios with the same options. One is real time one is turn based. Both have enemies performing the same series of actions. They are both tactical and strategic because they are the same scenario. The real time scenario is more difficult to deal with because you have less time to think, but if the AI is going to do the exact same thing in each scenario then the same strategy and tactics should be effective in each scenario. The difference is that in most games, the AI would not do the same thing. The Turn Based game would probably be designed for you to make good decisions every time. The Real Time game would probably be more forgiving by giving you advantages to make up for it. But again, that is not a direct result of the real time or turn based difference, it is a design choice. If the AI was equal in both scenarios, both scenarios would be equally strategic and tactical. The real time game would also have the added difficulty of reaction time, reflex and quick decision making.

If you have two chess players and only one is on a timer, the same strategies and tactics will be effective. One just lets you choose more carefully. The time you are given to choose has absolutely no effect on how strategic or tactical a game is. A lot of real time games are probably more forgiving for your choices, but that's the game design not the real time.

front line fighters who have to actively keep enemies off of their allies would be a dream. Imagine an orc charging your mage and your dwarf fighter sprints over and tackle hims. Another tries to get to the mage and your rogue kicks his legs out and stabs another angry orc in the thigh to slow it down.