TrashMan

An excellent question. And the answer is no. Becasue at that point, you are no longer designing one system. You are designing two, inherently opposed systems, and then trying to cross-balance them. An excercise in futility.

Why is it a problem? Because it rewards illogical behavior. Let's say that in the game, you can keep running head-first at full speed at the wall...but insted of getting a cracked skull candy pops out of htewall each time you do it. You get people running into walls and feeling smart while doingit, all the while the world talk how dangerous such activity is. In other words, the player egnages his PC in a behavior that anyone in the world (and anyone sane) would regard as insane and is rewarded for it. Such "gamey" approach is bad for a living, breathing world that's supposed to feel real - in no small part due to it pulling you right out of the experience. Yes, such glaring exploit and flaw hurts my game too. It's very existence hurts it. Let anyone play how he wants? HA! That's an illusion. We all only play within the confines defined by the delopers. Now the developers can makes those confines sensible

Except...ya know..being a seasoned adventurer and all. People loosing control of their bladder is a rare occurance in general, and doubly so among fighting men - and even then, it doesn't stop people from fighting. Uncomfortable and embarrasing, yes, but not much more than that. Also, there is nothing stopping any person from relieving yourself at any point. There is no chocie involved. No skill. Not to mention that people have been known to hold it in for hours. Food and rest depend on resources and planing. Trying to model bowel movements is not only pointless, it also adds nothing.

The biggest problem with resting in old IE games was that it was essentialyl free XP. A normal, rational human being in the PC's shoes would avoid danger and would not look forward to resting in dangerous areas. A power gamers is like "Yay! Monster encounter. XP and gold for me!" You can scale the danger of the encounter, but it is pointless (and downright silly at times), given save-scumming every battle will eventually be overcome. It would only mean more XP for the player. I've seen players deliberately rest in dangerous areas to farm XP and gold. As long as the encounter leaves the player better off, there is NO reason to avoid it. So it's not a fix to the problem. resource managment and a revised health/wound system is.

While I disagree with most of your post in the context of this thread, I agree that the repeated arguments for 'realism' do display an odd juxtaposition between using historically accurate armour while you use your magic spells to kill a Dragon. I often find myself arguing on the other side to people in favour of 'immersion', but it does seem to hold a rather more sensible base position in the context than 'realism'. It only appears so. For armor you have real-life knowledge of it's working and examples to draw from. You have a basis for realism and believability. You don't have that for magic. and evne then you can make magic more or less"believable".

I wonder Amentep - are you also baffled by the inabiltiy of the PC and gang to make up fighting strategies on their own, or pick and equip loot on their own? Because - you know - that's TOTALLY something they should be capable of doing without your input. It's not like we want to manage finances and equipment (food being part of finance managment and equipment both) It's funny how arbitrary these complaints feel. Not that they are, but it in tthe end it all amounts to "I didn't find the implementation of mechanic X fun in game Y, therefore it will suck here too". Let's be honest here people, all attempts at some "logical, objective" reasons agaisnt food/rest mechanics can only fail, because in the ends it's never about it, now is it?

By that logic they should add in mechanics for taking a dump as well. Once a day you have to take a **** and if you don't have any TP you have to either risk infection or chance it with a leaf. If you choose the leaf then you again run the risk of getting a rash (unless you have a high outdoorsy/****ting skill). So fun. Ah...the s*** argument (both literaly and figuratively). Maybe you fail to realize that taking a dump doesn't actually have any important choices or consequences, and that it isn't tired directly to what you are doing (traveling and fighting). Not sleeping or eating WILL tire you and will affect your combat performance. Travling requires resources and is part of survival and adventuring. Takign a dump is something that is utterly unimportant - you either took it before the battle (if you really had to go) or you don't really have to go and thus can hold it untill the battle is done. This arguments that seek refuge in absurdity are a waste of everyones time...and can hardly believe I wasted time even answering. But for a thought experiment - by your logic, lets remove everything we absolutely, positively don't have to do.... like fighting, selecting spells and managing itmes. Let's just have a "win game" bottun. A redicolous argument you say? Yes it is. And now you know how I feelt reading yours.

Outside of tES, then only games I can think of that did the learn-by-doing model were Wizardry 8 and Dungeon Siege 2. Wizardry 8 had a lot of very seperate issues that make it difficult for me to say how well the leveling system worked. Dungeon Siege 2 had a fairly reasonable half-way model where your skill allocations were capped by your learn-by-doing rating. It was enjoyable, but I wouldn't have said it was half the system of BG/Fallout/IWD. What, and I ask with genuine interest, were the LBD models that did things nicely, in your opinion? For example, Jagged Alliance 2

Question: Do you feel stupid in RL for not robbing a bank? You'd have more money. A RPG isn't about loot - it's about experience. And I'm talking about the experience of adventure not XP.

If I understand this correctly, this is yet another one of those issues of 'Realism vs Gameplay'. It is, to paraphrase what you say, a ridiculous situation that killing boars should make you a better locksmith. Yet as a gameplay mechanic I infinitely prefer the 'Allocating Exp as you choose' system over the 'Using this makes you better at it' system. I understand that it is rather illogical (save that the chances are you will be improving skills you use the most), but it just tends to make for more interesting and satisfying levelling experiences and rewards than the Morrowind model where I used to spend hours jumping up and down hills to boost my acrobatics, and going away and making a cup of tea while a rat attacked me to improve my armour. There's no question that it's the less realistic model, but it just seems to be the more rewarding and is certainly one of the key elements of the IE games that P:E seeks to imitate. I like it how everyone keeps brining in Morrowind, as if it's the OLNY learn-by-doing model in existence. LBD can be done nicely, all it needs is some checks. Not to mention that the "standard" XP system can be also abused like hell.

All the soldiers in xenonauts are essentially the same though apart from minor stat differences, they are not really "characters" as such, the main difference is their equipment...which is visible. Given that I've seen people care more for those "not characters" than any RPG NPC in the history of forver, I'll have to disagree here. Also, difference in equipment is only visible if they carry different equipment. 4 people in the same armor with the same weapon will look exactly the same. Which is true for PE too...except in PE you have more armor parts and accesories, so you can make them visually distinctive despite that. *YOU* don't watch it for that. *YOU* don't want realism (altough the amore accurate term would be believability/versimilitude) But that doens't mean others don't. People ultimatively want different things from their entertainment - often depending on mood and what you feel like watching/doing today. So blanket statements like that are the true trash argument. And political correctness? What does that have to do with political correctnes? Hmm... I guess can see a possible link in thinking that more unigendered armor equals hiding the female form as soem sort of PC agenda. But the truth is that I don't really care about PC, as I find the most vocal proponents of it to be just as abbrasive and judgmental as the vocal sexists/mysgonists/racists/whatever.

You control 6 people in battle, but you are't NOT them. Only the PC is "you" or your character. The others are followers who follow the others the PC barks during combat..which is abstracted away. And? It still doesn't matter. 100 poeple or 6, if they wear the same, they wear the same. And percisely because they are in your party, you should know where everyone is without even looking...which is how peopel generally play games like X-Com. You know Bob is first, Sam is covering the left flank and John the right flank and Suzy has the roocket launcher. Even without any cues whatsoever. Combined with all of other cues and it's near impossible to ever get confused. OH THE HORROR! You have to equip a different weapon or change cloak color or something. Truly the most work-intensive and boring activity. OH poor little player you! I weep for you hand, it is surely broken by that one extra click. And it doesn't need not be a package deal either. Actually, one could argue that it should be.. [qutoe] Guess what? In a video game, it doesn't MATTER if you stray 15% from reality. You can get out your calculator and say "Wait a minute! Her armor would actually have a 1.2-point lower rating than Tom's, because of the way the developers decided to fit the armor slightly differently!" all day long, and it doesn't matter, because there're no inherent video game world physics that dictate whether or not the armor is any less effective. It might matter to some. You'll find that people are like that and different things matter to different people. And therefore, we should accept any abstraction? No thanks. I already told you that "it's a game" is not sufficient justification for anything in my book. Are you arguing that a billion other players would prefer X (abstraction in this case) over Y (realism)? That would be hard to prove...even morese because often people don't even know if they will like or hate something, and often end up liking what they thought would hate or vice-versa. Trying to play the numbers game is kinda pointless, since the game isn't made only for you, or anyone for that matter either. Yet at the end of the day any single feature will still be to the liking/disliking of one group or another.

Rewards? Meh... I don't feel a need to get rewarded for every click or action. That's skinners box talk right there. When quests do have reqards, they should be logical.

You are right to be confused, since I want both. And you can be even more confused because I sometimes do not discuss what I want, but what *is* in a broader sense. Chainmail bikini's have their place, but in a game where the zoom is limited and you cannot fully appreciate the fine details, it is wasted. Besides if I want to oggle b00bies, I got the internet in all of it's perverse glory...

I'd rather player has to cast the spell himself. Imergent gameplay born from the existing mechanics and abilities beats a conversation option any time.

Never tell a player they are "playing the wrong way" like that. Ever. They are playing the wrong way. PERIOD. Trying to ignore the logical consequences of their actions is not a sound way to play, nor is it a playstyle that should be encouraged OR supported. RPGs are supposed to thrust one into a living, breathing world. Which means, acting like that world is real and your character demonstrating ownership of some basic ammount of grey matter. NOT acting like a spoiled brat who wants to go do whatever he feels like and then complain whenever things don't go how he wants, despite it being very much common sense they would. "Do whatever you want without any conseqence" is for some other types of games. Maybe. You want to go slaughter children in the game because youre bored? You then want to complain that the game is harsh for the town guards going hostile? How about this? I want to play in a completley non-intuitive way. I want for enemy stabbing me to heal me, I want to kill dragons with my bare fists and I want to solve quests by ignorign them completely. If I can't get that than you're a mean developer who doesn't want me to have FUN! If you're having fun breaking character and the world, then I'd say you're playing the wrong types of games. There are games exactly for that, and those fall under hack-and-slash and similar categories. Also, a "small tick" "few"? Yeah, did the thought ever occur to you that maybe that kind of bulls*** system completely ruins MY f.u.n?

The idea that the game has to be "Wasteland survival" to have food is redicolous. Is this a living, breathing world you are thrust in? does food have an impact on traveling and dungeon exploring? Yes? Then it belongs. Period.

No it doesn't. There is no real need for it. Again, if you want visual difference, there are more visible and easier ways. And it's not like it's a big problem in RPG?s like this, because you can pause and contemplate your moves whenever you want. The pace of these games is slower, it's not an action-romp where you have 0,25 seconds to identify everyone on screen and issue commands. Case in point? http://www.hookedgamers.com/images/3559/xenonauts/screenshot_pc_xenonauts006.jpg All soldiers look the same there. Men and women. And there's 16 of them to command around. And yet not a single complaint has been made reagrding visibility issues.

You are asking for a cake and eating it too. You want your characters to travel makes as bland and generic, so they don't attract attention, but don't want them to look bland and generic? Or is maybe "a guy in plate with a red cape" so incredibly unique that all the assasins in the world witll immediately poin-point your loaciton? Your own examples are undermining your poision with how redicolous they are.

There actually is a reason, that you keep ignoring (you're not even addressing it and arguing why it isn't a reason, you're just pretending it doesn't exist), and that's that, in real life, you don't control 2 different people who could be confused with one another, and in a game, you do. That is, factually, A reason for visual distinction between characters. Additional cues being inherently all optional things is A reason why you shouldn't have to use them to achieve some semblance of visual distinction. In real life you are "not" 6 people. Technicly neither are you in the game. You control the PC and have a party of 5 NPC's..you are the PC, but are not hte NPC...if that makes sense. But also, in real life poeple worked together and went int obattles together, facing the same problems you describe. Visibility. Generals and commanders also had a group of people under their command. And they went around it with armor decorations, tabbads, plumes, fancy hats, colorfull garb and stuff. You insist that visual destinction *must* ALWAYS exist a-priory without player intervention. I say it doesn't. If similar poeple in similar armor look similar, then you SHOULD have to use aditional cues. That's what they are for. Note that this is redicolously overblown issue to begin with, because it's highly unlikely you're gonna have 2 members of the same race in your party in the exact same armor anyway. Especially plate - since I understand it's supposed to be very rare and expensive in PE. Subjective objectivism apparenlty exists. Because you subjectively belive that abstraction is better and that whatever you declare as "objectively true" is. .... what? Stop playing the poor victim here. No, I never called you unreasonable and disagreeing with you isnt' an attack against you. By your logic, you have been callign me unreasonable since this debate started. Plan on apalogizing? No? Didnt' think so.... I guess you didn't understand my points at all. Because I didnt' call your stance "wrong", I called it "not right". You are starting with some assumptions and deriving logical conclusions from them. So from an objective/logical point of view, those are fine. Except that those aren't the only possible starting assumptions.

Spoken by a man who doesn't even know what realistic combat even looks like.... Boring? Quite the contrary.

And as I showed you, fitted armor beign real makes no differnece, because you sill can't tell them apart in realistic armor. In fantasy armor, yes. But then you have do decide what kind of armor you want, or do you want to make female armor differnet just for the sake of differnece. What I am saying that being able to tell them visually apart at max zoom distance is *NOT* something that HAS to be there. If that is part of the reality of the setting (that male and female armors are practicly the same), then it's a part of the setting, period. No debates there. Wht I am saiyng is that THERE ISN'T A ONE CORRECT WAY TO DO THIS. You can make armors compeltely different with overblown details so you can tell everyone apart. Or you can shoose not to. There is no "right" or "wrong" And all your arguments are equalent to white noise that bores me to sleep. You so like to drag my arguments into extreemes and misinterpret them and then constantly complain that I'm doing that to you. I get it you can't wrap your head around the concept of people appearing conflicting, when they actually aren't. Like for example, I'm playing a tennis match with my friend. I want to win, but at the same time I don't want my friend to loose. Yet it is perfectly normal. You seem to miss some subtile nuances and the "exceptions prove the rule" clause. You say "This is what you said:" and then write something that sounds suspiciously like what I said, only a lot mroe sensless, and just differnet neough in all the importnat bits that it really isn't what I've said. No, I'm saying that because PE will have several leves of zoom apparenlty. And that is basicly what you are asking. You want physical differences regarldess if it makes sense for that zoom level. As Isaid before - if In real life I can't tell the difference at that distance wihout additional cues, there is no reason I *MUST* be able to se it in-game. You can trot the "but it's a game! Visibility!" like all you like, but that's where the "additional cues" part comes in. If visibility is al lthat matters, then the method of achieving it isn't that importnat, now is it?

Thne real life must have a crappy art director. And what is visual clutter is also largely subjective, sin't it? Oh? Is that what I've been "exuding"? You know, attacking me like that (and these comments can certanly be viewed that way, just as my can aparently be seen as equalent of "Nu-Nuh" nad "Too Slow") isn't going to endear me to go into extra effort to explain things to you. I have made my position clear - at least I belive I did - several times, and I really have little desire and energy to go over it again. I have no aim really. I like to challenge some preconceptions and notion that things have to be done like X or Y. What does anyone of you hope to goin by arguing agaisnt me? What does anyone hope to gain in this whole debate, period? You're asking some very broad and loaded questions. I want the game to be to my liking. Sometimes I like debating stuff (that may or may not be direclty linked ot my prefferences).

Because in real life, you're IMMEDIATELY aware which "character" is you, and which is not you, because you're only controlling YOU. In a game, you have an interface, reliant HEAVILY upon visual representation, that functions as your control board for multiple different people. How is that incomprehensible? You ONLY need to know who's who amongst those you're controlling because it's a game and you're simply interfacing with a set of characters you're supposed to have direct and intuitive control over. I give up. You closed your mind to my reasoning a long time ago. I don't even know why you've been responding this long on this particular matter. And in a game you also have portraits, selection circles, floating names and about a dozen other indicators which makes aditional cues unnecessary. So to answer your question - I rarely had any problem in any game - even those that use the exact same character model - to know which character is which. The few situation where I did were oh so easily solved by just checking...because...you know.. hold tab for floating names (or have them auto-displayed). Not like there's some time limit with there beign a pause bottun or anything. The biggest point of conflict here seems to be that you think the game has to give a middle finger to realistic representation here. But wether you can tell all of your characters apart visually at maximum zoom if all wear the same is such a non-issue, that I'm also wondering why this whole debate.

Up close. Key word. If I walk right next to you I can recognize you by your face. How about if I'm 100m away? 200? 500? Slight changes in physique will also become indestinguishable after a certain distance mind you. A man and woman in a same plate armor (as shown in many videos and images) are practicly only destinguishalbe by size. And you have short men and big women, soooo .... yeah. If you want them to lock exactly the same (by equiping them completely the same), then why would you complain that they look exactly the same? And unlike the real world, you have the GUI to tell them apart. If I, as a human being can tell people far away apart by size/shape, then I should be able to do it in game too without any "artificial" enhancments. My bad. Physiological. You don't represnet it. Easy. You can add some GUI element to signify it if it's really importnat (like an icon next to hte portrait), but otherwise, unnecessary. You lost me here with all that lunacy talk. I'm not saying it would be redicolous. Fantasy armors come in all shapes and sizes.I'm saiynyg that any historical and Real World plate armors make it next to impossible to tell if you're fighting a short man or a woman. That depends completley on the scale of physiological difference. A dwarf and a human have a VERY different build. And while a human male and female aren't identical, the very design of plate armor is mono-gendered (withn arrow waist and uniform, curved chest). In other words, both can wear the exact same piece of armor and there is no need to "shape" it differently. Fitting is tiny details (mostly adjustment of padding and straps) and in no way does it equate "distinguishably different from a distance". You CAN wear an unfitted armor and fight in it, but it probably won't be comfortable. Unless of course, the armor really is pretty much identical? The armor is shaped to deflect blows, matching the specific body shape is NOT a top priority. If I can't tell a man from a woman in armor - in Real Life and up-close, then why should I demand that from a game?