CrazedWeevil

Same here, though mine were working for a while, but then stopped again. However I think the abilities are still working with the bonuses though, or at least some of them are (Mental Binding seems to hit outside of the shown area).

Yesterday it started working correctly on my Cipher's Soul Shock & Eyestrike abilities, showing the extended AoE part. I fiddling about Alt-Tabbing and changing the AoE highlight setting on & off and suddenly it started working. However this morning it's gone back to before and now it's also doing it on the level 2 ability Mental Binding as well and I can't get it to work again.

Has anyone else noticed any problems with the extra AoE highlighting on using abilities? Two of my abilities / spells on my Cipher, Soul Shock & Eyestrike, only show the base highlight, and not the extra bit for high intelligence. Other spells like Wizard & Priest stuff seem OK. I've seen videos where it was working on them, but for some reason it doesn't work on mine machine. P.S. Is there suppose to be a targeting highlight on Antipathetic Field as well? It would be nice if there was one...make it easier to line up and not clip my tank with it!

Forgive me if this has been answered before, but with regard to a Cipher's focus generation via the Soul Whip modal is the amount of focus generated dependant on the amount of damage done or is it fixed? I'm trying to work out which would be better, big heavy hits that do a lot of damage but are slow, or small rapid hits that are fast.

Ah yes, the old 'Look! A Clue!!' thing that everyone seems to do nowadays. I blame people like my dad who would get confused with even the most basic plot... Since you mentioned Knights of the Old Republic though I would like to add that didn't do it too badly, but it was still obvious if you were paying attention. I just wish that if they would do this sort of thing and hint, you can call it out before the 'twist'. Would likely kill replay value though...

There will of course be some sort of scripting language for making AI routines since they will need one to make the enemy AI for us to fight against. These languages are often almost as complex as general programming languages so they can have the control they need to make a good enemy AI though. Converting them into something that a non-programmer can use is not a simple task however. IE had a pretty good AI scripting language and though the unmodded BG's enemy AI wasn't always that good, it is surprising what people have been able to do with it in mods, but I don't think anyone made a simple non-programmers tool to make AI scripts with (did anyone? I don't know for sure). Dragon Age's AI builder worked quite well (if you ignore the fact they limited the number of tactic slots you could use) because they used a cooldown based ruleset which meant you only really needed to worry about basic targeting and a few cross class abilities since each ability / spell had infinite use. With this it was possible to create a simple AI script with 10-12 conditions to fire off abilities as needed to beat any enemy with a little puppet control here and there. You could argue however that you could get away with this because Dragon Age's enemy AI and encounter design was so bad it didn't need a lot of effort to roll it over. A ruleset similar to DnD though, where you have a limited set of resources you can use 'each day', you are going to need a lot of extra conditionals for targeting; for example not burning the high level spell you can only use once a day on the first little thing you see and saving it for when it'll do the most good. When is that? The moment the boss appears or when he going to cast that big 'kill the party' spell? You've only got one shot so make it count. This immediately increases the complexity you'll need to make a competent AI and of course would also increase the complexity of any tool you use to make them. You are also going to end up with much larger AI scripts than you would in Dragon Age, especially if the encounter design and enemy AI is more like Icewind Date / Baldur's Gate. Don't get me wrong, it can be done, but just bear in mind you could end up spending a long time making the companion AI scripts that can deal with a world similar to Baldur's Gate not the little ones in Dragon Age. If they can't make you one though (time / money constraints, or they include good scripts you can use already so why make the tool) it would be a good challenge for someone to make a third-party tool for...

In BG2 you can always send your rogue to scout the area ahead of the team to prepare yourself accordingly. That's what I do. I used Wizard Eye and Clairvoyance. Both valid points, but they are very dependant on the level design allowing you to scout first. Wasn't always possible unfortunately in BG2 due to map transitions and the like...

Are you trying to create a holy war?!

Well, unless you were a dwarf Noble, then just about every single NPC in Orzammar, including the main plot givers, changed their dialogues to reflect the fact that this is a homecoming. Oh, and unless you were a Human Noble, in which case, the entire Storming of the Royal Palace changed to reflect the fact that you were getting revenge. Or unless you were a Circle mage, then all the dialogue with Irving, Uldred, Gregoir, Cullen, Wynne etc. drastically changed to refect that homecoming, as well. Nope, you can't, in the spirit of honest debate, short-change this. DA:O has a billion flaws, but this isn't one of them. I would also add that they gave you a good idea of what sort of role play options you could have available to you with the dialogue. They didn't always do a good job of it, but they did make an effort for most part...

I don't think Dragon Age's tactics would work with a game based more on the party control system of an IE game, especially if it doesn't use cooldowns for abilities and spells. There were very useful in Dragon Age even though it was, in typical Bioware fashion, gimped due to a poor design choice (limiting the number of slots was just stupid) and being very buggy. But I can't see a good use for the system in an IE based combat engine. I, like many people here have mentioned themselves, controlled all the party at once and pausing to issue orders so I didn't really need to rely on any AI scripts to do anything for me. The only script I ever used was the 'default' script in Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale since the only thing that seemed to do was make a character respond with its basic attack if a hostile was nearby. This is mainly due to the very limited resources you have to play with in combat...I didn't want the AI burning a good spell on the first little thing that gets near it, especially if you can only cast it twice a day for example. It also doesn't help co-ordinate the party as a whole and a lot of encounters need that for you to succeed. I suppose there will be a scripting language that is used by the developers to make the enemy AI that you could also use to control targeting and co-ordination for a party, but it's going to be very complex compared to Dragon Age's do-it-yourself scripts and wouldn't be far off being a full programming language. May be a bit much for Obsidian to make it as easy to use as Dragon Age's.

The letter U to be returned to its rightful place in the english language... Stand up for the letter U!!

I wouldn't mind any of the things listed to be in Project Eternity, however controversial they may or may not be. But neither do I want to see them in the game just because they can. I'd like to see a clear reason for why things are the way they are in the world. If you look at human history you can often see the reasons way certain points of view happened during different times and why they change as well. It would be good if PE has the same attention to detail so that view points made a logical sense for existing. I thought Dragon Age did a good job of this, especially explaining the main religion and the hatred of mages. It made the setting much more believable and to be honest it was main reason I liked the game and its setting despite its other flaws.

Things I don't want to see in PE: Inconsistent or poor save game mechanics, specifically autosaves & quicksaves - I hate it when the game doesn't to have any logic behind its autosaving (Dragon Age is a good example) and seems to only do it when it feels like it. This is very frustrating with games that like to crash a bit. It would be nice if the game would autosave on map transition and or key points and had multiple slots to help with save corruption as well Illogical encounter placement - this doesn't happen quite as much as it used to, but it's still there in a lot of party based RPGs. Basically it's when you go to a dungeon and everyone seems to have been standing there waiting for you to arrive and kill them. It is as if that is their only purpose in life. I would be nice for there to be some hint that the bad guys have a life outside of being murdered by <charname's> party. Or as a friend of mine put it back in the mists of time 'how did those guys get to work in the morning?! The place is loaded with traps, there isn't anything to eat or drink, not even a bucket to answer the call of nature with!' Major combat after a cutscene without autosaving after the dialogue finishes - nearly every bloody RPG does this and it's really bloody annoying . If you insist on having the main villain, or anyone for that matter, delivering a thundering great speech before we go toe-to-toe can you please put an autosave point when the combat starts so that if I have a party wipe I don't have to go and listen to the whole bloody speech again...please! One rule for them, one rule for me - it would be nice if the game enemy AI used the same combat mechanics as me, the same ruleset and didn't have to cheat to compete. Baldur's Gate had some major problems here, especially with mages casting uninterruptible spells where as my mages could be interrupted by someone coughing in their general direction. Thankfully BG / IWD can be modded to fix a lot of that but it really shouldn't have been like that in the first place IMO. Non-survivable Instant death spells / abilities or 'Press X to not die' mechanics - I've mentioned this before in another thread, but I really dislike 'Power Word Kill' type spells that you cannot defend yourself against. It would be nice if there was a counter to every possible attack that you can rely on if you if you have prepared for it. Going into combat blind - it would be nice if there was a way to prepare yourself when facing an enemy without having to rely on save & reloading. The only game I can think of that did something like this is The Witcher (though I'm sure others have as well) with all the books you could get on the many different creatures. It gave you a good idea what things would work and what abilities you would likely have to counter. I thought this was a really good idea if it could be made to work on non-creature encounters in a sensible manner like say having an intelligence gathering skill to find things out about potential enemies and then also providing some sort of passive boost so they remain useful on replays.

I like the idea of the fatigue system, especially it was used across all classes so everyone had a reason to rest and pace themselves in battle. This would also be a great way of showing the raising power of a mage as they level up as they become more efficient at casting so they are able to channel more power and hence use more powerful spells. It would be similar to how a swordman learns not just new 'moves' but how to swing their sword in a more efficient and effortless manner as they gain experience.

This really depends on the type of firearm they plan to have. If we are talking magazine fed or breach loaded bolt action rifles or better then I would say no as they would be hopelessly overpowering if they were at all realistic. But if they were based on muzzle loaded muskets or rifles and had their fire rates and power then I wouldn't mind. Consider that a muzzle loaded firearm is not that dissimilar to a crossbow, in both reload time, armour penetration and the fact you didn't need a lot of training to use one. Even the best muskets from the 19th century though could only really fire 3-4 shots a minute if the user was well trained and wasn't too concerned about aiming or range. The major difference between them though is the accuracy at range (which the average musket being not very good unless in the hands of a very skilled marksman) and of course the noise and smoke (which if you aren't used to hearing would be very scary).