maggotheart

Getting a 'dying breath' quest is a great idea. Along those lines - After someone dies, their spirit could be accessed by a necromancer or spiritual medium, allowing you to talk to them and get information or more quests. In Planescape, the Nameless One brings along Deionarra to the Fortress of Regrets with the intention of killing her so that her spirit may serve as a voice on the inside. Maybe something along those lines could work, if a companion dies in a certain place, his spirit could gain information about the location, making killing a companion a consideration if you wanted to learn something you couldnt in the physical world.

Some ideas for dungeons at great heights instead of great depths: An airship that is currently flying through the air at a thousand feet. There is an engine room, crew quarters, mess hall and so forth. One wrong move can send an adventurer hurtling to their doom. The party must take care not to damage the vessel or it could crash, killing everyone on board. This could be used for a stealth mission, where the party must find a way to fly up there, grapple hook onto the side of the ship and sneak onboard through a porthole, before taking control of the bridge without damaging the ship. A village situated in the canopy of a rainforest. The locals use wooden platforms, vines, crude ladders and bridges to get around. The lower levels of the jungle are filled with nasty insects and predators. There could be some kind of chase going on, with the party rushing through the precarious network, possibly snapping vines and cracking platforms under their armour weight. Or some kind of flying monster has nested in the village, driving off all the locals and the party must get up there and deal with the thing.

I like 'belly of the beast' type areas. In Farscape they had the Budong which was a creature so large whole 'mining towns' could be built inside its carcass. Locals tried to scavenge valuable materials from within but had to deal with the obviously bizarre terrain, exploding acid nodules and predatory monsters feeding on the remains. In PE perhaps the soul of a creature that massive could have a great effect on the physical world - maybe providing unlimited magical energy within the carcass for several years after its death. It would also be cool to see some kind of underwater quest: A vibrant, colorful reef teeming with life could be very interesting, perhaps with an ancient sunken ship or ruins of a city washed out to sea to explore. Something about underwater monsters seem so terrifying - tentacled monstrosities emerging from the depths, packs of sharks looking to feed and venomous serpents lurking in shadowy nooks.

I said this in the other thread: critical hits and misses diminish the importance of the players tactics and skill and increases the reliance on simple luck and I think that's a bad thing. Ever played Arcanum where every time you swing your weapon there is a chance of damaging your armour, dropping your weapon, falling over, scarring yourself for permanent attribute loss, etc? How about all of those things happening at once? How about having that happen right after you've spent 10 minutes fighting your way through a mob and getting wiped out because of it? Another one was Fallout, though it tended to happen much less often (a good thing), but if I'm in a battle and my gun jams, I'm usually dead and have to reload. That's only amusing the first couple of times it happens. It's really annoying after a while and encourages reloading, regardless of how interesting it may seem on paper. I don't want to have to reload constantly because of an overly luck based combat system. Realism shouldn't matter in this regard. In BG1, your weapon could break at any moment, just like in real life. However, that mechanic was (imo) extremely annoying and they removed it for BG2. Critical hits should do more damage, and critical misses should just miss.

I think all characters capable of joining your party should always follow the level of the PC closely, whether they are in the party or not. Having characters fall behind in terms of experience only means one thing: that character will not get used. I didn't even like how dead characters wouldn't gain any XP from encounters in the IE games, it just encouraged you to reload because the penalty for not doing so was having weaker companions throughout the game. I'm not saying it's realistic, but I'd rather play with a game mechanic that works well than have it be entirely realistic. I've heard some talk that there may not be XP for killing monsters, but rather solving encounters - without the option of grinding monsters to levelup companions, it exacerbates the problem of falling behind in terms of XP even more. If there must be some mechanic where companions fall behind in terms of XP, maybe make it that you can take them to an arena or trainer where you can pay gold to catch them up to the PCs level quickly. That way there is a cost barrier, but it still allows you to pick companions without having to worry about them being woefully underlevelled.

I like this idea, but really I'll just be happy if something could be done with thievery/pickpocket where a failure doesn't instantly make the entire map turn red to me, which only forces a reload. I'd always abuse that trick where you could pause and immediately re-engage the shopkeeper to prevent him from going hostile.

How about having the favoured bonus transfer to the entire group - so for example, the Ranger is great at fighting cyclops, the group encounters one and the Ranger starts calling out 'go for the eye! They're weak on their left sides!' and so forth and everybody in the group gets a bonus against that creature. This would make having a ranger around a much more useful role for the entire party.

Monks could be like 'mystical ninjas' with their own signature spellcasting ability - throwing out smoke screens, teleporting across the battlefield and unleashing lightning fields to stun groups of enemies. They could also use all kinds of different unorthodox weapons, (chain and sickle, jointed staffs, etc) or even turn everyday objects into deadly weapons (ancient martial artists could kill with a coin). Perhaps there could be different schools of martial arts that focused on them (weapons, unarmed and mystical energy) For druids, how about instead of turning into an animal straight up he takes on properties of animals as a special ability - for example, his arm turns into a tentacle to grab distant enemies or objects, skin takes on a chameleon like quality so he can camoflage himself, or his hands become sticky like an iguana so he can climb sheer surfaces. This way, he gets all sorts of useful abilities without having to worry about how to incorporate a wolf with spellcasting and whatnot - it would also eliminate the redundant forms. Rangers are harder because they are basically just a 'woodland warrior'. I think the key here is to make travelling through wilderness actually difficult - you have to find water, trap animals to eat and avoid dangerous terrain like quicksand and so forth. If these hazards were in the game and actually mattered, then having a Ranger around would be very useful - he can find food for the party, make travelling take less time and guide them through dangerous areas with his woodland knowledge. I never much liked the concept of a 'favoured enemy' because it was just so minor and situational, yet was supposed to be one of the defining elements of the class. How to fix it? Maybe broaden the categories and reduce the overall number of choices - so have 'humanoid', which gives bonuses against ALL creatures that are humanoid in shape, regardless of whether they are undead, infernal or what have you. The other choices could be 'beast' (covering all other animals and monsters) and 'formless' (like will o the wisps, slimes and other non-formed creatures). This way the Ranger gets the bonus against at least 1/3 of all the monsters that may be encountered, making it a lot more useful.

As others have said, as long as there is some way to know when you will face an instant death mechanic and some way to defend yourself against it (that isn't dependent on a random roll) I have no problem with it. It could be difficult to implement though, since there will be limited options to revive fallen party members. This issue isn't just limited to an 'instant death spell' either, I have played many games that used 'instant death' in one form or another, such as in Doom when you walked into a room, and the door shut behind you while springing a horde of monsters on your head. Another good one was Final Fantasy where you would fight a monster for 20 minutes, only to have it regenerate all its health and become invincible for 3 minutes once its health got low enough (you were supposed to save up all your best shots until right before this happened and kill it immediately). If it lacks any way for a player to be prepared, then it just becomes a trap where you will have to reload - and that's just plain annoying.

Just for the fun of it. For the challenge. For giggles. Didn't you ever try oddball character builds in Fallout or similar games?

It's mentioned in Update #7 under Non-Combat Abilities: Design Goals In putting together our non-combat system, we have made a list of goals for the design of these skills and the rules they need to follow. Non-combat skills are gained separately from combat skills. You shouldn't have to choose between Magic Missile and Herbalism. They should be separate types of abilities, and you should spend different points to get each one. I'm not sure what I think about this and it's hard to really say without more information. If I use a game like fallout 2 as an example, where all combat and non combat skills are using the same 'points', I don't think that splitting the points up and grouping the skills under 'combat' and non-combat' headings would have really improved the game for me. It would have limited my choices and that would have been very detrimental to the replay experience. I guess it comes down to what they mean by 'different points' and how you accumulate them.

I really don't like this idea. If I want to spend all my points on Herbalism and create a character that sucks in combat I should be able to do that. I shouldn't be restricted from that because some people have trouble creating character concepts that work.

Planescape Torment had a great story, setting and characters - easily my #1 vote. I loved Baldurs Gate 2 - though I was not a fan of the first one (too many little annoyances that were fixed in the sequel). It had better combat, choices as well as co-op so I could play with my friends. I was not a fan of the Icewind Dale games - way, way, way too much of a focus on combat and not enough attention paid to story. I fought through it but damn - would not play again. TOEE's interface was just bad and I couldn't get past that to really check it out. My greatest hope would be for a Baldurs Gate 2 like game with a healthy dash of Planescape. EDIT: people, COD is not bad, it's just a different genre. It is possible to like RPGs *and* FPSs

A staff actually has an advantage over a sword due to its greater reach, versatilty and relative cost. I'd like to see some justice for this weapon as well.

I think I read somewhere that this is what they were considering for PE, same for crafting items.

I don't think that design decisions should be made that cater to people who don't have time to play the game. I think design decisions should cater to the market. Most of the "classic RPG" market is now in their late 20s / early 30s. We now have jobs, many of us are married now, some have children. Practically none of us have as much free time as we did when the Infinity Engine games first came out. This is kind of comparing apples to oranges. TV shows are limited by their running time, so they're often challenged to squeeze everything into an episode. Games, on the other hand, are often padded out to reach "expected playing times." Like, for example, a TV show which gets renewed for a second season while the writers only planned on one season, and thus they either have to write all new material or pad out each episode to make their existing plot last across two seasons. We don't want the padding. I would argue that last part in bold. Just because they took a long time to finish doesn't mean that it was a requirement, or something we should emulate going forward. I certainly don't play with a stopwatch on my desk, recording the length and duration of every game session to make sure that I "get my money's worth" or something like that (which is a ridiculous notion since who really judges their entertainment based on duration instead of enjoyment?). I have no idea how long it took me to play through Planescape or Fallout, as their length was not what made those games memorable. If a game ends and leaves me wanting more, I call that a success. It's far preferable to a game overstaying its welcome, or me losing interest part way through, or wishing that the game would just hurry up and end. In DA:O, I'd bet there were 10 cries of "Why won't these Deep Roads end already?" for every person who thought "These Deep Roads are amazing! I hope they go on forever!" A game that leaves you wanting more is, imo, the goal to aim for. It leaves you excited to replay it, and excited to play the expansion. When I think back to the Infinity Engine games, I think of their great writing, interesting characters, meaningful dialog and choices, and party-based combat. That's what I want to see in PE. If given the choice between Obsidian adding more content or polishing the existing content to make it better, I'd chose the latter every time. I think the market is for a classic RPG like we all remember, not something different that is designed so I don't have to spend a lot of time playing it. I think the disconnect here is that what you view as 'eliminating padding' I view as 'watering down'. Please cite some specific examples from Baldurs Gate or Planescape Torment where the game was padded and what you would recommend eliminating from those games in order to make a more "adult friendly" version.

I see this sentiment a lot. I don't think that design decisions should be made that cater to people who don't have time to play the game. It's a little like saying "I love baseball, but I don't have time to watch all the innings - can we please only have 3 innings? I love this show but I don't have time to watch a 42 minute episode... can we make them 10 minutes?" It's a classic RPG, it should be rather dense with lots of things to do and take a long time to finish. Now, that doesn't mean the question itself doesn't have merit - sandbox or linear storyline? I think the key is to strike a good balance (how I voted). Keep the storyline tight with enough side stuff to do that makes the game more interesting but doesn't totally lose its focus.

I would buy the crap out of a new Planescape game.

Of course but that requires ALL spells that are on cooldown to be such spells that are not that useful to cast early in a battle. I have yet to get a reasonable explaination as for WHY cooldowns are necessary DURING combat? The only logical explaination is that they're shooting for more "action" ala Dragon Age. From the videos I think the answer is that they want to make the mage more like a fighter or a thief instead of having special limitations. They'll be able to use their spells like how a fighter uses his regular attack or special abilities without having to use a rest system.

I'm not sure this is such a big problem. I can see what you're saying, mages will throw out their big guns right off the bat to get that cooldown timer going so they can cast it as many times as possible during the combat. However - those big guns might be needed in the middle of the fight, and they're now unavailable because they were used already. There would still be strategy: do I throw it out right now to get that timer going, or do I hold off so I'll have it available when I absolutely need it. Also, since the entire spell level will become unavailable, do I throw out a fireball right now so I can throw another one sooner, or do I keep that level available so I can cast Stun (or whatever) that might become needed before that cooldown expires.

All good ideas but I'd rather just see more depth in the skill systems for the ones we already have.

Although I support the idea of a Save&Quit style for certain dungeons, I wouldn't want to inflict that on a person who wouldn't enjoy it.

You could play solo, and if you did all the XP was directed to the Nameless One and he became insanely powerful. If you've played the game before a few times, it's worth a try for the different experience. I should be able to play through solo, with an NPC party, with a group of built party members, or with a mix of both so everyone can have fun the way they want to. My only problem with it is that it is being defined as a stretch goal and not a core mechanic. Fair enough, but not a very exciting stretch goal IMO.

The big problem I had with DA:O is the same problem I have with a lot of modern RPGs: It is shallow. It had a basic story, limited NPCs and even more limited possible party combinations, too few members allowed to be active at one time, mostly bland magical items and races werent that different from each other. Then there was this: It's not that I didn't appreciate all the different backstories, extensively voice acted NPCs or the cinematic experience of the game - it's that those things should be the secondary consideration to the issues mentioned above. They focused on the fluff instead of the substance.

I've played and enjoyed all sorts of games, from ancient to brand new but I think this game was pitched to a certain audience - those who enjoyed Baldurs, Planescape, Icewind Dale and other similar types of games that don't get made anymore. It is those fans and that style that should be catered to and emphasized IMO. Making the game with more 'modern' elements with the motivation of increasing sales seems wrong - after all, the game will be fully pre-funded by fans who were pitched a 'classic' style game. If they wanted to make a 'modern' style RPG, I doubt they would have had such an issue finding a publisher to work with to do that. I'm not sure that there actually is a huge faction wanting something more modern, but the idea of it makes me feel a little upset when there are already so many games like that out there - let me have my niche classic RPG, and if you want something more modern, go play one of the many publisher model RPGs that are available today. I'm not saying that the game must be a rigid BG clone, but the clear focus should be for an old-school classic RPG. I'm also backing Wasteland 2, and Brian Fargo quite bluntly and clearly stated that he is making a classic, old school type of game and he doesn't care to attract a younger crowd who might not be into that or might want more modern elements. Those people are already being served, the classic niche is not, and he intends to serve the classic niche with that game. Since the pitch for a classic niche game has been made for PE I would hope the devs on this project would take the same direction.