DCParry

Here would be a twist - You are a suspect in the detective's investigation. A series of killings in which the victim is spiritually and physically mauled in a particular way which fits your, umm, let's say "unique skill set". When first introduced, the orlan begins following and trying to gather evidence of your guilt, so he is an antagonist of sorts. You could even be in the process of being framed. The resolution could be handled with a number of options: you could join with the detective and catch the real murderer, and he then joins with you when he finds out that the murderer is a pawn in a larger scheme; you could discover the truth and skip town and avoid the detective, at which point he becomes a long antagonist; you could just kill (or try to kill the detective) and continue on your own way.

No. This is mostly for obsessive achievement driven systems. Just use a console command to level up your PC and give them a bunch of crap. Problem solved.

Not necessarily. Attacks (some? all? I think they are still deciding) do both stamina AND health damage. So a whack with sword could do something like 10 stamina, 2 health damage. Perhaps critical hits do more health damage? The two bars are set as resource management over two time periods. Stamina is per encounter, with multiple ways of protecting, enhancing and regenerating, and health is a longer, let's say per "outing" resource. The management of this resource seems to one of avoidance, as opposed to the more fluid method of stamina.

It seems a lot of "hard core" people want their cake and to murder it too. If you want to murder everyone in sight, there has to be consequences. If you are stupid or psychotic enough to kill a major quest NPC, you should not be able to finish that particular quest.

Sure, if you so choose, you should be able to go out and slaughter whomever you want. More importantly, as some have suggested, if you do so choose this, there has to be consequences. If you are walking god of death, then eventually you will be attacked on sight in major cities, bounty hunters, crusades against you and so on should be implemented. Supplies become unavailable unless you steal or intimidate to get them, people won't willingly help or tell you things and so on. As far as main plot problems go, you should suffer if you kill a major element and the game should become "uncompletable". You can't have it both ways. If you don't want false limitations such as plot armor then you don't get false plot helpers like convenient letters from your victim's extremely personal and detailed diary that has just the information you need. As for the DA2 example, the game was just terrible. As a mage I would have never gone to Meredith or anywhere near the Circle. If I did, I certainly wouldn't have been a big enough idiot to attack the knight commander in a citadel full of templers. I mean, sure, they could have let you do that, but the game would be over, you would be dead, regardless if you killed her or not. Because, you know, of the army, of mage fighting templers.

Again, there is a difference between the PLAYER and the PLAYER CHARACTER. The PC may not necessarily be calling shots. You might want to play him as a reluctant participant in the entire affair. The addition of this does not present a barrier to your stereotypical alpha dog model, but opens up options that are more robust as far as individual role playing experience.

How do you deal with magical/spiritual classes in that scenario? It takes physical training to improve physical attributes. You don't become stronger and able to run farther, faster, by reading books. I think we should do away with this justification. Perhaps when a character starts out, there could be a differentiation of starting health/stamina values, so let's say the diplomat is not as strapping as the former gladiator. Makes perfect sense. However, once the game starts, once your progression starts, everyone (in your party) goes through the same trials, everyone fights the same monsters, and undergoes the same hardships. I think this makes an argument for MORE uniform health distribution. You could counter that a magic profession spends his free time praying or reading or whatever, but then does that mean that physical focused characters spend their free time running marathons and free lighting conveniently passing dwarves? Also, in tabletop you could make the argument that training for each level for each class is vastly different (you would spend a month in the salon of noted fencer to train as a fighter or you would fast weeks with a hermit as a priest), but since training for levels is not customary in CRPGs (personally, unless written into the story, which would take a HUGE investment for panoply of classes, I think it shouldn't) this won't hold up either. Back onto the main topic, I would like stamina at least to be spread out among more than one stat. My major issue with computer recreation of things like D&D is the need to game the system and min/max out the wazoo. Now, that is all fine and everything, there is nothing wrong with playing like that, but I would like a system that encourages a diversity of stats for a successful character, or if not encourages, perhaps awards it in a different way. Maybe have a stat like willpower feed into a bonus for stamina, that is you have the wherewithal to withstand fatigue which lets you do more with your stamina pool. Now of course, this wouldn't affect your actual health score (unless you are a monk I suppose, there could be a training to add that bonus as you have mastered your body to such an extent that you no longer feel pain the same way). So, the sum up for health I would say a base score based on class or background (can be increased with starting perks or something) modified by a physical score (such as constitution, endurance as a term has too much variance I think), with increases coming either - the same every level for all characters OR only based on stat investment. After the initial creation, I would like to see no more d10/d8/d6 hit dice sort of things. For stamina, a combination of a physical and mental (will power) score would be interesting. As for increase, as opposed to that, I think we should concentrate on how each class and its skills can make inventive use of the pool (warriors get reduction for physical actions, returns on stamina for certain moves or conditions, moments where they do things with stamina costs and so on).

This sounds a bit strange to me... Why would I lose Stamina from getting hit (and not from attacking)? I know it is just a mechanic, but it should at least make sense. Because this game will likely become a test site where Josh and Tim can go wild with extravagant and fancy ideas. No xp for kills, HP regenerate on their own during combat (so you can take cover) etc. No ****. Looks like they never heard of "don't fix it if it isn't broken" and "never change a winning formula/team". These changes to the mechanics are substantial - the game is starting to look more and more like a Dragon Age 2 / New Vegas Hybrid every day. wtf. Really? How many times must it be said, this is not a recreation of whatever game you have so much nostalgia for that you pee your pants every time you see the box cover. This is a setting that the designers have free reign to implement the ideas that they have always wanted to you in the spirit of their previous games without the strangle hold of IP and publisher demands. If you don't want that, then pull your pledge and move on. I am all for critical discussion, but enough with the whining hyperbole.

No. No. No. No. No.

Or, you know, they were always planned and part of the design philosophy for the game.

I honestly don't see what this rant has to do with the topic. He wanted to show he was one of the cool kids who hated DA:O.

I thought you were leaving?

I am extremely excited about the spell-casting/skill system. It sounds really interesting. I like the idea of have different "load outs" for a wizard, adding a bit more strategic depth. For example, you stumble upon a bunch of crazy cultists performing a ritual where they are sacrificing various virgins and wood land creatures and you attack them, and start to slaughter the evil doers. Despite your best efforts they complete their ritual, sort of, a giant tentacled face demon (mmMMMmm tentacles) appears, bent on consuming both the cultists and you. Does your wizard stick with his or her standard anti-personal grimoire (hold spells, AoE spells, and so on), or let the front line take the brunt while he pulls out his demon smiting and spell countering book?

Thank the space pope. From Tim Cain: In addition: Again, system appropriate approaches as opposed to dogmatically adhering to mechanics for mechanic's sake. Good job obsidian. EDIT: Prepositions are for jerks, apparently.

I think some simple, mostly flavour things would be fun, like being able to tell when an NPC is lying to you. Of course, only useful in relevant conversations, but still.

I guess I am against multi-classing. It has always been something of a tricky creature, and either one takes a power hit for role-playing purposes when doing (which is perfectly acceptable) or they are exploiting cheesy loop-holes to power game (which is fine too, but introduces other problems in the long run). I like the idea of advanced classes that might allow for flexibility or kits that are acquired sooner to help specialize characters As for stats, again, they always present an interesting problem. Increasing stats is a great way of providing the player a metric for the power of his character. However, every fighter is a Herakles about a couple levels. Maybe there is a way to re-conceptualize a stats. Slower progression with the raw stats (i.e. dexterity) and a quicker progression for applied stats (something like quickness? an application of a raw stat to a specific activity - of course, this could be taken care of by a robust skill system).

Are moderators even doing anything? I mean, this is supposed general discussion of Project Eternity. This post is 1) not about game, 2) purposely inflammatory and 3) makes generalizations with such such abandon that there is no way to even have a discussion with OP, even if the subject was somehow appropriate for the forum.

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. If only that had designed a game where FF was a toggle at some point in their past development history. If only, lets say NWN2, had various settings that enabled things like FF and others that didn't. You see, it is completely possible. Who cares if an encounter is absurdly easy with FF off? Is Josh Sawyer going to come to your house and point his blunderbuss at your head and make you play with FF off? (Hmm, maybe this should be a stretch goal). You know what, I think they should design encounters with the idea that FF is enabled. I think players should be able to turn it off and play super easy if that is what they choose. Also, my list was an example. I ended it with "and so on" in order to express that those were examples, not a definitive list. The devs, I am sure, know what might and might not affect difficulty.

I don't see how. A Rogue is more Fighter oriented with stealth and sneak attacks, whereas the Bard is more on the Mage side of things with spells and songs. Bards have an arcane source similar to Mages. According to whom? This isn't D&D. Rogues are basically a rename of an Expert class, a class that relies primarily on skills (as opposed to physical attacks or magical energies). As a class that is associated with knowledge, intrigue, spying, disguises and such, Bards fit the expert part of the class perfectly. The magical abilities that bards MAY possess are often part of an eclectic set of skills as opposed to serious study. D&D is not the only bard archetype. Also, can't we be done with the MMO shooting lasers from my lute bard classes?

Shouldn't you guys have your own forums for things like this? I mean, technically, this is a bit OT.

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 always play with FF, but I think it should be an option. I think in NWN2 there was even a graduation of friendly fire? Something like 25%/50%/Full to friendlies which might good. This is a single player game. Difficulty sliders and options should be quite varied. You are not a tough guy if you hate weenies who turn off FF. You just have a different playing preference, Get over your self and your video game "cred". Oh, I also think it would be nice to have a FF toggle independent of difficulty level. Ideally, all the options (spawn numbers, AI, FF, resting restrictions - if resting is needed, please god, not this! ;-) - and so on) should be toggles. As you increase difficulty levels (easy, normal, hard, superterriblehard and such, that appropriate toggled should be activated. If there is something someone doesn't like, they can turn it off. Or on. Or whatever. There should no crap like achievements or other things anyways.

Go reread the description of the rogue class. We are already going to have what you want, it seems, to the extent that the technology of the setting allows So yes, it seems like there will be a rogue variation that allows this.

I am almost positive from the description of the rogue class, bard will be available as an option. Skills like diplomacy and persuasion (courtesan and diplomat) are already mentioned in the description.

Seriously people. Taunt was a word before MMO and aggro mechanics. I can go out and taunt the old lady at the flower stand if I want. It sounds like a great skill for distraction and control. The literal mindedness of these boards is mind boggling.

I am really against. I am sure Dragon's Dogma was a great game, but I don't want any semi-social media stuff here.