Jarmo

In a given example classes are not equal. Fighter still have to go to close combat, therefore takes more damage from melee attacks/kiting. I know what it wasn't your point, but it shows how balance could be missed even in abstract speculation. Shortened my post for clarity.

This isn't really true at all for jrpgs, it's really only true of dark souls in fact, which ironically uses more western/european designs for it's gear than most other japanese games, and furthermore isn't really an rpg. Thought of mentioning something to this end, but eyah, pretty obviously so. A bit worrying anyway if you take it as a trend. But also, japanese have always been a bit better in designing heroes that are not pumped up testosterone freaks. I blame sly and ahnold. And here's a pic of my favourite jrpg archer, because it totally shows how awesome and practical jrpg armor design can be: D&D just gives you options, the filtering is up to you. Like not filling the dungeon with every creature from the beastiary. To be fair though, they are pushing their default hodgepodge world in every game with the licence (and don't think they'd allow deviations).

That's if AI was clever, which is not quite the same thing. If it's something like a berserk ogre, realistic might be just attacking the nearest opponent, or even the nearest ally if the nearest enemy is too far.

All enemies chase 1 guy who runs around and the rest of the party slaughters the enemies because they are too stupid to change targets. Oh yeah, had to do that as well in BG2. Usually with near death Imoen. Boots of speed and all that. Not quite as crazy as the orcs looking at their friend "oh, wonder why bob burst into flames and rushed into the corridor, takes all kinds..." Firkraag... faced an endless line of pit fiends, elementals and deval. The party stayed behind, watching and munching popcorn.

Of all games, Skyrim is actually pretty good at this. All nearby enemies would rush at you once alerted. Also pretty bad, in how the bandit chief would go "bah, it was probably just rats" and go back to doing his stuf if you managed to stay hidden, nevermind the arrow stuck deep in the back of his skull.

Cast your buffs and protections *save game* Cast your instadeath at the boss, fail Boss casts instadeath on you, success *reload* Cast your instadeath at the boss, fail Boss casts instadeath on you, success *reload* Cast your instadeath at the boss, fail Boss casts instadeath on you, success *reload* Cast your instadeath at the boss, fail Boss casts instadeath on you, success *reload* Cast your instadeath at the boss, fail Boss casts instadeath on you, success *reload* Cast your instadeath at the boss, fail Boss casts instadeath on you, success *reload* Cast your instadeath at the boss, success Challenging battle over, hooray! Fulfillment! \o/ *save game*

Besides, the symbol isn't used anywhere in Eternity pages or forums anyway. Even the name "Eternity" or "Project Eternity" is supposed to be just the working name. (Though I'd expect it's going to stick, harder to change the longer you have to get used to it). My suggestion: The Elder Pergaments: Eternity of Oblivion. Of souls, in skyrim.

There's plenty of ways to balance things in an interesting way no? 5+5=10 2+7+1=10 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=10 If this was damage it would result in very different damage patterns. Maybe some spells buffs work well with one type and not with others. Interesting things can come about even if they all amount to the same value. That should only be true during the first levels, after a while enemies should be more resistant to different types of attacks. I'm not saying the battles wouldn't be tactical or enjoyable, or that there'd be absolutely no difference between classes or attacks. I'm saying that the class differences would become more superficial and thus the party building would lose an aspect I enjoy. Sure some enemies would be more easily dispatched with fire than lightning, and there's a difference between 30 and 3x10. But the difference between classes is diminished if fighter can hit 4 snap hits for 10 pts each or one strong hit for 40 pts, while the wizard can poink 4 magic missiles for 10 pts each or one firebolt for 40 pts. I'm talking about the fundamental difference between classes, deeper than the flavour of doing attacks. It might be more fun for the player of individual character if he can manage the situation just as well as the other character, only doing his own special attacks and manoevers. But to me, that lessens the fun of managing the party. Opinions differ and I hear 4th edition D&D is well liked by many players, well disliked by others.

Shadowdancer is actually what I mostly had in mind as overpowered feat. It'd have been much better if every thief could "hide in plain sight", only less well or maybe with pooling multiple feats together. The other shadow-abilities as well, rather see them as a developement tree inside thief class than chopped into a prestige one. Maybe a PE Rogue(since they have soul powers) could have a shadow power tree, but in 3.x, the Rogue did not have any supernatural abilities so Shadow Dancer powers would have seemed strange. We won't really be able to argue about what a PE Rogue should be able to do until we find out what they can actually do. 3.x rogues had shadow powers if they picked the prestige class, just like that. First you don't have supernatural abilities and then *click* you have a bunch. I'd much rather there was a sneak tree, or in D&D terms feats with prerequisite feats, where you get progressively better at hiding, until reaching actual invisibility (at epic levels). Or learn to lay traps like a master, or wicked sword skills, climb smooth walls, become a poisoner, whatever. Or be a "regular rogue" with a bit of this and a bit of that.

Shadowdancer is actually what I mostly had in mind as overpowered feat. It'd have been much better if every thief could "hide in plain sight", only less well or maybe with pooling multiple feats together. The other shadow-abilities as well, rather see them as a developement tree inside thief class than chopped into a prestige one.

No, there's too many classes in already. If there had been only warrior/caster/rogue multiclassing would have been just fine. Prestige classes were always a bit stupid, usually simply giving some overpowered feat to justify their existence. It'd always be better to just give the feat to general consumption, just not in such overpowered form.

Sounds like a lot of work but if they feel it's worth it then who am I to argue. But this does open a new avenue for "easy difficulty is actually harder". Assume you meet a bunch of goblins with wooden clubs and smelly leather loincloths on easy. On hard you meet a couple of plate armored bugbears and a bugbear shaman. Loot: easy - couple of clubs and soiled loincloths hard - 2x plate armor, 3x potion of healing, 1x wand of frost Obvious solution, you don't loot what they use -> Jarmo is unhappy

A related note, I kept noticing the same thing in BG2 when replaying it a while ago, but I also noticed the epic battle music sillyness. Level 20 party comes across a lame wolf or a lone goblin and the BADABOOOM TSAGADABADOOOM DU DUMM DUNN DADOBOOM* battle music starts at about the same instant the bloody bits of the opponent splatter all around the field. So not only the opponents, but the game itself couldn't tell if the battle was going to be of life or death or a 1 second splat. * cant remember how the battle music actually went.

At worst when the classes are all balanced out, the difference between them is down to visuals. 1st level fighter can hit 10pts of damage with claymore and is protected 4pts by scale armor. 1st level wizard can cast 10 points of damage with magic missile and is protected 4pts by weak magic veil, 1st level ranger can shoot 10 points of damage with composite shortbow and is protected 4pts by padded armor. 6th level fighter can hit 2 times for a total 30 pts of damage with valyrian claymore and is protected 10pts by lamellar armor. 6th level wizard can cast 30 points of damage with lightning ball and is protected 10 pts by magic veil, 6th level ranger can shoot 2 times for a total of 30 points of damage with composite longbow and is protected 4pts by armored jack. 12th level fighter can do 15 pts of area damage 10ft radius with whirlwind attack. 12th level wizard can do 15 pts of area damage 10ft radius with fireball. 12th level ranger can do 15 pts of area damage 10ft radius with area suppression fire mega attack. There, classes are all balanced out, everybody has their own way of fighting, everybody is equally effective. The game is robbed of class differentiation beyond visual flavor, doesn't matter one bit which class you choose or what kind of party you build. Or maybe fudge around and give fighter 2 pts more damage and armor, since the other two do ranged damage. Makes no difference.

As long as the discussion is not about game romance.

Not easy to use the mouse when messing about with PS3. I gave up during the practice mission on my first attempt, on the second try I finished the training and then gave up because I didn't learn to play.

Going with separate skill sets doesnt mean every class gets the same amount of "points" to spend. Could be a fighter gets a weapon skill every level, and non weapon skill every 3 levels, while rogue gets a weapon skill every two levels and a non weapon skill every level. Could mean a whole lot of things.

That's only if things you do out of combat are not as important. If you bleed money when not having someone good at bargaining, or able to make bombs or potions, then having the extra supply of material will redeem the lesser combat effectiveness of group members. If a diplomat gets better rewards for quests, or better quests, better have a diplomat around. I'd rather see something like Fighter: 40 offensive, 50 defensive 10 noncombat Wizard: 40 offensive, 10 defensive, 40 support, 10 noncombat Ranger: 40 offensive, 20 defensive, 40 noncombat So the Ranger in wolfskins is just not as effective a fighter as a real fighter, he might be close but he still splits his effort instead of fighters tight focus.

Nah, the Chanter (if he's the bard) would do the intimidating as well, "now do good or my fighter friend over there will go medieval on you". And no, if you build a group with 5 diplomats and a dishwasher, you shouldn't do good at combat, you should die horribly. If you build a group of 6 barbarians with big axes and hairy pants, you're not going to go very far that way either. I want the game to force building a balanced party, not a pick whatever you like, it's all good.

So there'd be: Pure combat classes like fighter, who excel at combat and have no other abilities. Multitalent classes like maybe chanter, who are just as good as fighters in combat, and have bunch of additional talents. That's madness filled with crazy!

I'm all for choices that actually make harder difficulties harder and easier difficulties easier, not the other way around. So no nothing like "less xp at easy" or "bonus items at hard" or anything else of the counterproductive sort. Actually, why not just give less XP at hard and more XP at easy and things will start getting hard or easy soon enough? More gold from missions at easy and less at hard and you'll have to make do with less stuff at harder levels. And while scaling monster hitpoints and damage up in harder mode can lead to frustration, just scaling them down at easy is a working non-frustrating solution. And yeah, might be a good thing to add extra monsters on hard difficulties, here and there, but if there's like 6 difficulty levels, it'll be a whole lot of work and I'm not at all sure that's a well placed effort. And no smart enemies at hard level, stupid monsters at easy. If there's different levels of intellect in the game, make smart enemies act smart and stupid enemies act stupid. That'll be a whole lot better way to justify the effort, adds immersion and variety into the game no matter what difficulty level you play.

Yeah, hated how golem and sten were portrayed as something superstrong, but then the golem puts all stats into con and ends up puny weak compared to alistair and the sten from the beginning is no different or stronger than any other random fighter you'd roll up yourself.

I wouldn't mind at all everybody being able to hide and sneak. (Everybody can hide and sneak after all, just not as well as someone else). Guess even a fighter in plate could stay quiet behind a bush, though not sneak past a guard undetected. Wouldn't mind if rogues hiding (and other) skills were near magic/actually magical at higher levels. Run on water, climb smooth walls, vanish in a puff of smoke. In the same way, I wouldn't mind rogues dodging out of sight when not in actual combat, sneaking behind an opponent and sneak attacking. (that'd take a couple of rounds) Or using a flashbang smoke bomb to help disappear when in actual combat (maybe more reliably at higher levels). BTW, the definite Rogue/Thief D&D mostly picks from is The Gray Mouser from Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber. The smaller one in the picture: Picture from http://www.stormbringer.net/tmouser.html

DA:O was awesome, probably the best RPG I've played. Not without its problems, some more and some less annoying. (and seems it's the last "real" bioware game) Good. Origins: very well made. Enough that I played all of them, though continued past the beginning only a few times (not all of them with male/female choice though). Combat: great camera (especially after suffering through (NWN2), good action, enough stuff for everybody (even fighters) to do. Companions: Memorable with lots of character, (BG2 was otherwise on par, but not as fleshed out and less dialogue), party banter was the best ever. The plot: Yeah, some dont like straightforward plots, and while I like complex ones as well, this was a good one, well told. Opinions differ. Weapon enchancing: Simple, not complex. In most games I don't get much of anything crafted on the first playthrough, here it worked out just great. Bad. Enemy scaling: Fight darkspawn in the beginning, fight 10x more powerful darkspawn in the end. Boh-rign. Equipment scaling: bandits drop iron daggers in the beginning an you get 50 copper for doing a task. Late game, you find emeralds in the dumpster. Spells/skills variety: Youd need to pick a tree and max it, or you're toast. So basically you'll be casting the same few spells all the time, and then the high tier variety. Instant healing after fight: everybody gets up and poof is just fine again, took something away. Sidequests: chanters board and such were just padding, not fun. Romances: couldn't get morrigan and leliana at the same time, no group romancing

Yah, I remember how you'd fast travel into NCR and before you'd have time to tell everybody to holster up, the guards would be opening fire. It needs to be automatic. Or there will be blood.