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No keyword dialog system like the one Wasteland 2 will use please. Or do anyone argue for this in this game too? Wasteland 2 discussion link: http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3417

I paused manually but I also have the game pause automatically on certain "events" like weapon unusable, character hit/death, trap found etc.

The biggest flaw with the armor dodge mechanic is that many armors become literally useless against good hiters. i.e. in BG2, wearing no armor or a standard full plate mail against a dragon makes NO difference whatsoever. That is flawed and why I think damage absorption is better. PnP games that used damage absorption worked very well imo. I think that was one of the main reasons that the PnP game "Dragons and Demons" were a lot more popular here in Sweden over "Dungeons and Dragons".

Actually the swedish PnP games "Dragons and Demons" and "Mutant" both featured damage reduction from armor. They also allowed you to target specific body parts that had individual armor class and health for each part.

Personally I dislike systems were you either get hit for maximum damage or not at all. If you face a tough enemy (with a high chance to hit) with such a system you'd do just as good playing without armor than with average armor. Such systems feels really pointless as your choice of armor is ignored. I was thinking of this when I recently played the new XCOM game. As I ramped up the difficulty the enemies got much greater chance to hit. The effect of this was that cover (sort of like armor) got pretty pointless and you did just as good without it. Much too random imo. I don't like game mechanics that "lumps choices together" by i.e. ignoring armor. A sliding scale is much less random and frustrating imo.

If a AAA title gets you a game like Dragon Age and 4$ million dollars get you a game like BG2, what would you choose?

This in spades! This cannot be stressed enough. I'm so sick and tired of all games that balances all combat choices so notoriously similiarly that it really doesn't matter what you choose. Interesting choices should be designed like traits with both pros and cons. The more similiar the pros and cons are the more boring the choice is to make. i.e. controlling a mage or fighter in BG2 is worlds apart, while in Dragon Age they are quite similiar due to so many similiar mechanics like spells/talents/coolsdowns/damage output etc. All I'm saying is; this is a single player game. Don't be so afraid the make drastically different traits/mechanics between classes and other choices just because you're trying to make everything 100% equal. That might be fun in a deathmatch where competing is in focus but in a single player game it's more important to have meaningful choices. The mage class in BG2 is a perfect example of this. This sums it up nicely. I want it the way BG2 did it. Period.

It's more like: I'll use X now so that the cooldown will be complete by the time I would need Y. I don't want combats tactics to be mainly about considering cooldown timings like it is in Dragon Age. I remember that fight from nwn2. The most annoying combat in the entire game imo. In longer fights your other classes could play a bigger role while the spellcasters would be more effective to use their powers more sparingly in such fights. IMO spellcasters should overpower other classes while they have plenty of spells to cast. i.e. in BG2 their weakness is their limited number of spells. If you remove this fact, like Dragon Age did, other classes become just as much spellcasters as mages are. In fact I see all classes as mages in Dragon Age. They just have different "spells" imo. Cooldowns ruins the dynamic between different classes by demanding that all classes are so evenly balanced in matter of damage/time. That's precisely what makes spellcasting fun imo. You have to be very careful with what spells you select to cast. I want this chioce to be important. Cooldowns cheapens this choice a lot. They better not. I can't believe how boring the combats are in Dragon Age thanks to cooldowns. Especially if you replay the game. Unfortunately having lockdowns per level wouldn't help all that much if spells regenerate during combats. Having just bought the new XCOM I can sadly say that all modern games seem to "strive" for a more streamlined kind of combat. Maybe I'm an old fossil but I really prefer the combat in the older "turn-based" games. I somehow feel I'm left with fewer meaningful combat choices in newer games.

Of course but that requires ALL spells that are on cooldown to be such spells that are not that useful to cast early in a battle. I have yet to get a reasonable explaination as for WHY cooldowns are necessary DURING combat? The only logical explaination is that they're shooting for more "action" ala Dragon Age.

That is actually a cool idea

Exactly! Regaining lower tiered spells between fights are bad enough, though a tolerable solution to the resting problem, but regaining spells DURING a fight is the core for why I really hate cooldowns. Also I don't understand why it's needed to regain spells during fights if they only want to fix rest spamming? Having cooldowns in affect during combats will definitely impact desired casting order imo. I really dislike being "deprived" of the casting order choice in that way.

Why not the reverse then? If you don't like reloading just pick the easiest difficulty. Most people wants "normal" to be their level of normal because lets face it; most games do not handle other difficulties besides normal in a very "well designed" manner imo. They are usually just implemented by scaling some basic numbers like health and damage often leading to a frustrating experience because battles haven't really been overlooked and designed on all difficulties. It may be a bit unorthodox but I have always wanted game designers to drop the "named" difficulties like "easy", "normal" and "hard". Instead just giving them a numerical name of maybe 1-4. Then I would also propose that all games should "default" to the highest difficulty only allowing you to turn it down one step at a time once you fail/reload. Alternatively feature a tutorial that would guide you better at picking a suitable difficulty. I've always had major problems knowing what difficulty to pick when first playing a game so I've started to use this strategy.

Yet some people like the text in BG2 but not the text in PS:T. Also I think the IWD fans might be more interested in combat? I'm fine with both styles as long as the dialog focuses on your choice rather than only giving you a fixed book to read. Somewhere in the middle of PS:T and BG2 for me I think.

I agree that there is a fine line between "fun" difficulty and "aggravating" difficulty. I usually get angry when I feel the game is using "unfair" or "cheap" techniches against me. Having to reload a few times because I wasn't trying hard enough is just fun for me. It makes me crack my knuckles and really bring out the "big guns" to the fight. If I don't have to reload then I usually get bored in the long run because any extra effort I put into combat just feels excessive and wasted to no use. Completing a game without having to reload at least more than a handfull of times definitely means it was too easy in my book. It meant that I could play the game in a very leisurely and careless way and still be successful. That's not fun for me. Neither is hardcore modes like IronMan. I want both easy and hard combats. Maybe people who can't see the relation between #reloads and difficulty are always giving 100% of their effort in every fight. I don't. That's why I like reloading. It means I have to step up my effort and that is what I think is fun. Once you feel you've reached your ~100% effort level and still aren't successful that's when you should lower the difficulty level imo.

Yeah maybe with a COOLDOWN that only allows you to start the game after 10 minutes have passed. No seriously I don't think that would be a good idea. IMO restricting saves can easily lead to a frustrating experience. As an option maybe?