el pinko grande

Yay. Romance threads are back. My feeling on the matter is this: there is no point having pre-made companion NPCs unless they have fairly deep storylines and complex relationships with the player character. If we are delving into relationships with the companion NPCs, I think it would be really strange if romances weren’t a part of their stories. People pair off, especially people spending months and months tromping through the wilderness in small, mixed sex groups. I can only imagine that the stress of fighting monsters all the time increases that tendency. FWIW, I don’t think there should be sex scenes. I don’t think they add anything, and they’re invariably clunky and ridiculous. Hell, I’m a big fan of DA:O, and even I thought the diaper sex was ridiculous. And if people really really want sex scenes, they can always download a mod to that effect, or else write some fan fiction. Personally, though, I don’t think this game’s engine is going to lend itself to that kind of thing.

I don't think that's true at all. I think the common complaint is that RPGs dumb things down, but when I bitch about that, I'm talking about gameplay systems being simplified. I want my RPGs to be as accessible as possible. Arguing otherwise strikes me as unrepentant neckbeardism. Regardless, my opinion on the matter is this: no one would try to tackle a dungeon like this all at once. They'd set up a secure camp on the surface, hire retainers to guard the camp, and return on a nightly basis to drop off loot and rest. They'd be methodical about it. Hell, I don't think adventurers would be able to carry all the food they'd need to clear a dungeon that size in one go. It would probably take weeks and weeks if they were even a little bit methodical about it.

I definitely like the idea that the dungeon isn't something you complete all in one go- tackling three or five levels at a time seems like it would be reasonable, with whatever sort of requirements they want to set barring access to lower levels until you progress further in the game. I also like the idea that the lowest levels aren't even accessible until after you beat the game- that way the awesome experience and loots to be found down there don't adversely effect the story's final battle, and it gives players something to occupy their time with while they wait for the expansion to come out.

$140 tier + $20 for the expansion + $8. I guess I could have done the $165 tier, but I something about the fact that you got Wasteland 2 at that tier made it feel like a waste, since I already backed Wasteland 2.

I could certainly see them cutting companion content- dialog and sidequests and so forth. But I don't see them cutting entire companions.

Well, except it's not a strategic decision in that case, it's panic. That is weird. Choosing to run away from a fight is something entirely different than a failed morale check.

I think that's more of a story thing, though, than a combat morale system thing. Like in DA:O, you could end up fighting your companions depending on the decisions you made. I'm all for that kind of thing happening in P:E. Regardless, I love Total War games, but I'm not sure having a morale system would be in keeping with the tone of the IE games that inspired it. You and your companions were typically supposed to be pretty badass in those, and I imagine they intend for P:E to be much the same. It would be weird if half of your crew of world-shaking heroes decided to run away from the evil arch-lich they were fighting.

I'm definitely part of the crowd that hates any kind of ressurection magic. Death needs to be meaningful, IMO, and it isn't if a few thousand gold donated to the right god can reverse it.

I turn the music off in every video game I play. So I have no opinion about how they handle the music. They could compose the entire thing in MIDI and I wouldn't care.

I'll cop to being a Biowarian. I've played all of the games mentioned in the KS video, and plenty of other old-school RPGs going back to SSI's Gold Box games. Despite that, my all time favorite CRPG is Dragon Age: Origins. The funny thing about participating in this forum is that in most other contexts, I'm something of a grognard. Even though I think Dragon Age was largely a step forward in respect to the style of combat established in the IE games, I still don't think the companion AI is as good. I also really dislike the MMO-ification of combat. Not in terms of cooldowns- I think those are clearly better than Vancian magic, and most people on this forum are taking crazy pills- but in the way that crowd control and taunt-based tanking are required to succeed in combat. I feel like there was a lot more flexibility in how one could approach encounters in the IE games than in DA. Hell, 90% of the encounters I played in BG2 I did solo with my stalker ranger, just backstabbing everything and hiding again. Totally not possible in DA. The thing is, however Obsidian chooses to handle the game mechanics, my contribution isn't going to change. I'm mostly here for the story. I like Obsidian's writing, and I want to see them tell the kind of story that goes along with high fantasy. I'll be annoyed if they go with turn-based combat and Vancian magic, but it just means I grit my teeth and deal with the combat and complain loudly in the forums in the hopes of them changing things for the second one.

I want a fey labyrinth that's basically a forest that moves around you as you wander through it. So paths close behind you, and new ones open up in another direction, and so on. And there's all kinds of ****ed-up fey-warped monstrosities wandering through it you have to fight. Oh, and at the center there's some kind of minotaur-style myth beast that tries to eat you.

The context changes if you quote the entire sentence instead of just cherry-picking: "The paladins and their associated exploits are largely later fictional inventions, with some basis on historical Frankish retainers of the 8th century and events such as the Battle of Roncevaux Pass and the confrontation of the Frankish Empire with Umayyad Al-Andalus in the Marca Hispanica." So yes, there are historical "paladins." No their exploits do not resemble the Song of Roland. You're welcome.

I've never understood the mystique that turn-based games seem to have for some people. The argument that they're somehow more tactical than RTwP strikes me as backwards. Not that I think that turn-based is less tactical, per se, but I think most of the attraction to turn-based lies in the fact that it simplifies things for the player. Instead of having to manage multiple characters and situations simultaneously, it breaks things down into discrete, easily comprehended little chunks. Certainly some turn-based games can be pretty serious- ToEE springs to mind. I think that's the exception rather than the rule. I think more often than not, turn-based games are pretty simplistic, stuff like Heroes of Might and Magic or Final Fantasy Tactics. And I like both of those games. But the idea that they're somehow more tactical than a RTwP game strikes me as absurd on the face.

I'm in favor of toggle-able friendly fire, definitely. As for FF for mundane ranged weapons, well, I have fond memories of winning an otherwise unwinnable fight in Fallout 2 by running around in such a fashion that the enemies kept shooting each other in the back. But I'm not sure it would work in a party-based fantasy game where your archers are regularly shooting past your tank. Sure, you could make an ability that negates the possibility of friendly fire, but it would be such a necessity that it would basically turn into an ability point tax on ranged characters, since all ranged characters would have to buy it.

Well, they established that guns were an effective anti-mage weapon, which isn't precisely the same thing as having an anti-caster class. To my mind, an anti-caster class would have to have excellent mobility to bypass the meat shields, and abilities like spell resistance or evasion to avoid the direct damage effects, and finally good saves (or whatever the equivalent might be) to avoid being paralyzed or polymorphed or whatever.

I'm not a fan of the concept art monk. I want there to be monks. But I want the inspiration for them to be Japanese sohei, or else the monastic characters from Jin Yong novels. I think either could be integrated into Western-style high fantasy with very little trouble. I don't want them to primarily be an unarmed class. I want their conceit to be that theyr'e unarmored or lightly-armored skirmish-type warriors who use their souls to enhance their basic properties of their bodies, allowing them to move and react faster than regular warriors. Basically, I want them to have the sort of abilities that d20 monks have, but without the silly cultural trappings that WotC burdened them with. Oh, and I'd also like it if at high levels they could use attacks that damage other people's souls. I sort of see them as a powerful anti-caster class. That's just my two cents.

I dunno, if soul power lets you move sufficiently fast and hit sufficiently hard, I think lightly-clad barbarians make a lot of sense. Hell, I can see a lot of soldiers choosing to go with less armor rather than more if soul abilities that allow you to pierce it are relatively common. All that aside, I love elf barbarians. Played an elven barbarian/warlock in D&D once, and it was one of my favorite characters of the last few years. Wasn't the most efficient of builds, though....

Uh. Okay. Clearly it wasn't accurate, since we have no historical basis for reconstructing the fighting styles of Mycenean Greece. Complaining about the fighting in Troy is a little like complaining about the fighting in Lord of the Rings- there's no basis for the complaint, since it is entirely made up, anyway. They could have gone with equipment that was accurate to the era, but that would have made a ****ty movie IMO. Nobody wants to watch Brad Pitt fight in this.

I like the idea of stances, assuming that by stances we mean martial arts. I like the idea of there being different schools of fighting that melee classes can draw upon depening on what abilities they've bought.

I think this can be accomplished reasonably with flashier combat animations for higher-level abilities and spells. Especially since they mentioned that even melee characters are going to have mystical, soul-fueled attacks that let them do superhuman stuff. Seems like a pretty obvious road for them to go down. And also, yeah, higher level armor should be fancier-looking than lower-level armor. I don't think anyone wants the sillier WoW-style of armor, with smoke-spewing skulls stuck to your pauldrons and so on. But you can still make things look awesome without falling into the WoW trap.

This poll really needs to be reworded. What people really object to, I believe, is MMO-style tanking based on taunts. Which yeah, is lame. But there definitely needs to be a threat/aggro system where the enemy AI reacts dynamically to whichever target they perceive as being the biggest threat. And it should take account of more than just who did the most damage to the monster most recently. If your healer is throwing out massive heals, he probably should be a target, yeah. If the mage keeps casting Hold Monster on his buddies, then the mage should become a preferred target.

I think the best argument in favor of the spear + shield combo is the first few minutes of this fight scene:

I like human-centric plots. I definitely want politics and intrigue, and I have basically no interest in the classic "adventurers exploring long-abandoned crypts seeking fame and profit" story model. That said, I love beautifully-rendered wilderness areas and ruins, so I want there to be reasons to explore those places. I just want exploring those places to be a means to an end with the story, and not the end itself.

Deerwood here.

Arh, just noticed, yeah, they are one of the seven. Meh. Never liked monks in classical fantasy, I'll admit. I like the role that monks play in games. What I don't like is the way they end up being generically Asian. Monks are Asian, and nunchucks are Asian, therefore monks use nunchuks. It's really off-putting for me.