TrashMan

I never said I ALWAYS hate some principle everywhere. I said I hate it in RPGs. Jagged Alliance - tactical strategy with minor RPG elements. Arcanum, New Vegas and upcoming PE - RPG. I like to see basic human body needs in survival game, but that doesn't mean I would be happy to see them in role-playing or racing game. I KNOW I cannot see durability in Infinity-like RPG in a positive way, regardless of implementation. For example - you hate time limits, and in the next update Obsidian states that Project Eternity will have a time limit. That is enough for you to know that you would not like it. No matter how it will be implemented it is the same time limit. Remember how Bethesda said, "Fallout will be first person shooter now, you would all like it" - and to this day a lot of people consider that Fallout 3 is just an accident, just like Master of Orion 3, Star Control 3 or Duke Nukem Forever. It's not a matter of positive experience, it's just some aspect that you can't accept in any form. That just proves you are either exceptionally close-minded or exceptionally prejudiced. Nothing more. You dont KNOW. You THINK you know. And that very mentality only digs you deeper. Meaning, you have created your own prison.

Frankly I'm dissapointed. People overreacted (as usual) and declared the durability system horrible a priori, the devs got scared (as usual) and followed the brainless masses (as usual). Fools forever blind to the potential.

Wut? No one commented on my wall of text? I am dissapoint.

And this has EVERYTHING to do with power progression. How come BG1 didn't have that problem with stores? Becasue it didnt' have a vast gulf in pwoer between items, and starting items were still usefull. In other words, you dont' start with a pointy stickand work your way to the uber-super-extra sword of badastititude +200. You start with a good, usefull weapon and MAYBE get a better one.

But that is redicolously redundant interpretation of HP. It made sense in YE OLDE DAYS when your character had 3 stats. If HP is your abiltiy to defend yourself, when WTF are armor rating, defense, block, dodoge, parry, stamina, etc? HP should be health. Plain and simple. Other varaibles are for other things.

You are not going to eat food you hate only because it is in a different plate. I, for example, hated every example of durability system in single-player games, with the exception of JA2, and I know that I will not like any form of its implementation in PE. My experience taught me that if people hate some principle, they will hate it regardless of form. It's like time limits - you can introduce them in different ways but in the end it is the same time limit. My experience has tought me that your experiecne is wrong. Exceptions prove the rule. Including your rule that if you hate something on principle you will ALWAYS hate it in every instance. People change. Tastes change. Perceptions change. Even preconceptions can change. You say you hate something on principle - but why does a person hate something on principle? For lack of prior positive experience.

Frankly I think wepons and armor should be degradable, but on a more simpler basis. Basic menatinance always restores a bit of durability - but no more than that. It means that between combat and any time you rest your dudes mantain their weapons and armor. Swords can break. But they don't desintegrate - you can always re-forge them. Armors remain usable even when "broken", but with a much reduced effectiveness. Leather armors can be repaired in the field. Plate ones require a smith. The durabiltiy formula is much simpler - you only use a durability point if the material you're hitting is stronger than yours...or on criticals Let's say a steel sword has 10 durabiltiy points. You attack a guy in leather - no loss of durability for you, even on criticals. You attack a guy in steel or parry a steel sword - 1 point of durability lost (5% chance). On critical, 10% chance. After each battle you can get 50% of lost point back (rounded up) - the other half can ONLY be restored by proper repair I puled the numbers out of my anus, but you get the gist. Weapons degrade very slowly and there is a element of randomness to it. You can go trouggt the game without a weapon breaking, or you can have several break.

I don't think it is supposed to be creative.

Kinda like Drakensangs wheatstones? It gave the weapon +1 for a the next several strikes

To me, the perfect thing is to be poor in early game, wealthy enough to purchase high quality stuff halfway through and to be very wealthy in late game. Disagree. The player should never be super-rich. He should NEVER have enough money to spend around frivolously. Funny that you complain about money sinks not making sense, and then providing examples htat dont' make sense. So the PC is so rich he erects giant golden status of his **** everywhere, has a small army and salves/servants at his beck and call..... and then he slogs into sewers and dungeons to rob bandits of a few coppers?

While swords can break, it doesn't happen often, since a massive amount of force, applied to a specific point is required. Mythbusters did an episode on that and they only managed to break 1 sword - while using machines to swing them. Machines that can swing faster and harder than a human. Swords BEND.

I'd post a video link with an ARMA guy goign trough the basics, but I can't find it ATM. Also, YouTube blocked at work.

The police form my county should be on that list....on opposite day!

The problem is with people playing it too tightly. It was a straighjacket insted of a direction.

Meh... I personally preferred NWN2 over MotB...inculding most of the characters. The only MotB character I liked was that angel chick. I can't even remember the name of any character from MoTB. HM..there was a bold psycho chick too that LUVED me even tough I never did anything. From NWN2 I remember most of them. Sand was cool.

Also not a big fan of crafting, as it tends to create super-adventurers that outdo master smiths who spent their whole lives honing their skills. As long as things we can craft are rather basic....

You don't use them because: 1) you can save/load so you don't REALLY need them in this fight 2) they are good forever, so no reason to use them now 3) hoarding conditioning

Flase. Arms and legs are parts of the body that move the fastest and are hardest to hit. Fighting techniques focus on gettinga hit, thus targeting parts of the body that you are most likely to hit. Torso and head and the center focus of swordplay.

I finally found that article I wrote a little ways back. Here's the first part of it that deals with he issues of oppinion: ************************ If you are a fan of anime, you surely faced a lot of prejudice. People looking down on you, or considering you weird for watching it, since they consider it childish or stupid. Even friends and family. This can hurt and even more importantly, it can irritate and cause depression as one feels helpless in the face of such...atmosphere. But from where does it come from? The simplest answer would be misinformation/ignorance. But that is only one of the causes, and the second cause might be far more important. Both causes are interconnected, so we will start with the first one: misinformation. Can you really blame people? Think a bit what exposure to information regarding the subject people have? The vast majority know nothing about anime other than what they occasionally see on TV commercials or glimpse a kid watching. This gives them as much of an insight into anime as watching "The Cat with the Hat" movie gives you insight into all movies. And I say "all" because anime is a very wide net to cast. It really is no different than saying "Hollywood movie". One doesn't say much with that. Which movie? What genre? What director? When was it made? And so on.. Two movies can be so utterly diverse that any general claims on the value of all movies is null and void. The same holds true for anime. There are numerous art styles - raging from realistically drawn people to total caricatures with “giganormeous” eyes (although styles like this are mostly used for comedic anime). Like in movies, there are plenty of different genres, some rather intrinsic to anime, and some the same as in the rest of the world. And anime also changes with time within a genre; consider Hollywood action movies of the 80's and today. That is the same thing. Imagine if an alien comes to Earth and asks to see a movie. And he happens to see whatever movie you consider to be horrible or made for kids. If he were to claim to you that movies are rubbish and earthlings are stupid for watching them, you'd go "hold on. That's not right. You cannot judge all moves based on that." And that’s exactly what a whole lot of people do when judging anime, wether they want to admit it or not. Now, I said before that misinformation is a smaller problem. That's because human psyche and culture can make it useless. Even when faced with compeling evidence of contrary, people often won't change their oppinion. Scientific studies have even show the opposite to happen. The longer a belief/prejudice/viewpoint was held and the more important it was, the greater the chance was that the person would reject all evidence and be even further entrenched. Here's the thing: A human mind has associative memory. We form connections within our "brain space" between feelings, concepts, descriptors and pretty much everything else. Even actions. Think of the brain as overgrown forest. Every time you take an action or make a decision, you're taking a walk trough that forest down a path. Repeated actions and thoughts reinforce existing paths, almost literally like a well-threaded path in comparison to a overgrown, unused path. Hence our behavioral patterns and thought patterns are formed. And when you already have a nice paved road to take, with a destination (conclusion) you want to reach (cartoons are for kids), your brain is not likely to take another road. And evne this comparison to a road in not accurate – in reality it would be more like a highway with many branching roads, eahc of these roads connecting to another preconception, concept or emotion. So you're effectively challenging an entire established network – a multitude of roads. Many of those side-road links have to be weakened or broken in the process. A similar thing is with concepts. I said before that your average western man(or woman) has no experience of a mature animated movie. That's why such connection was never formed. But the opposite did. A connection between animated movies and silly/childish. Because that's all they have been exposed too. You have to keep in mind that these connections have been reinforced for years and years, and they are not changed easily. Worse of all, these connections are partially subconscious. Even if you consciously acknowledge that anime can be mature and interesting, your subconscious is working actively against you. If you were to sit and try to watch an anime, you'd find that nagging little voice at the back of your head, telling you how silly it is, how you shouldn't be watching this. You'd be actively looking for anything silly, strange or childish. And due to the wonders of psychology, you are going to have a more negative experience, as such a mindset not only increases the chance that you will label something as „silly“ that you normally wouldn't, but also such issues appear bigger. This problem applies to all pre-conceptions, not just anime. They simply aren't easy to fight. And among those pre-concpetion is also one of what being mature and adult means and how adults should behave and what they should like. Another problem is the visual one. Either people will have trouble taking any story seriously if the characters are animated at all (regardless of how well or how realistically drawn) or, best-case-scenario, they will be put off by only some art styles. This is because the sense of strangeness. Humans have a tendency to react with hostility towards unfamiliar or strange things, and they aren't accustomed to looking at animated moves the same way as regular movies. For both of these issues there is only one cure I know - awareness & exposure. One must be aware of these pre-conceptions and one must power trough the initial negative reaction. One must give the brain time and opportunity to form those new connections and to become familiar with the art and cultural conventions. This doesn't mean one will get to love all anime art (I don't. There's styles I really don't like, but I can watch). What it does mean it should ease ones mind enough to enjoy at least some.

My point was that I have spent months studying global warming and wrote a paper on it. I'm not talking out of my ass here nad my research has led me to one clear conclusion. Wut?

A pack mule would be nice Ranged weaposn are typicly incredibly innacurate and hitting an armored, moving target in combat is unlikely to happen.

Because exponaential anything sucks. "It's fantasy"? So why not have a face on our ass? Because it's fantasy! No reason to hold to any sense or realism. Hell no.

Defeine "a lot" You won't be going agaisnt babies. The difference between the weakest and strognest human is really big, but the weakest human wont' be competing out there. So it won't be "total n00b" vs "archer master".