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Wirdjos

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Posts posted by Wirdjos

  1.  

    But, yes, they can have minor effects, but need to worsen with time (like an infection you just don't do anything about). Maybe there's even a chance your character's body can fight them off on its own (Constitution? Fortitude?)? And, while they can totally affect stats and skills and whatnot, I think they should affect much more than that.

     

    There's the beauty of the snowball effect. As in real illness, the initial symptoms would be localized and not all that bad. However, when left untreated the illness tends to spiral and affect other body parts. Say the first signs of the disease is a little stiffness in the limbs. Well, that gives a -2 to dexterity. Ignored, that develops into a nasty cough. Add -15 stealth to that -2 dexterity. That cough becomes a fever which weakens the character. -6 strength. After having a high fever for a number of hours, the character develops delirium. This is where things spiral widely out of control. Delirium starts with -7 intelligence and -9 charisma. If you hold onto that modifier for a relatively short amount of time, it turns into a general confusion and the character randomly goes into a berserk state, possibly attacking party members in the middle of buying supplies. So that's -2 dex, -6 str, -7 int, -9 cha, and -15 stealth on top of an unpredictable effect. I'd say that's quite a lot of things being affected by a disease that could have been prevented if you'd just been paying attention.

    • Like 1
  2. Amazing username post combination, OP. TRX850 and Lephys, wonderful banter. With that recognized, on to content!

     

     

    Diseases could have a life cycle where the penalties start small, then grow larger over time (presumably until resting)

     

    I really like this idea. Not only does it add to realism, but it forces me to take the mechanic seriously and pay attention. What's only a minor (unnoticed) nuisance in the encounter I contract it turns the sick party member into dead weight once I've travelled around a bit and run into another encounter.

     

    • Like 2
  3. I mentioned this above, but it bares repeating. I am absolutely loving this "culture is distinct from and more important than race in deciding personality" direction Project Eternity is taking. This game could shift into some strange action/FPS monster and I would still play it just to see how this design choice plays out.

     

    Sawyer, or whoever is supporting/creating this content bend, bloody good work. Please keep it up.

    • Like 1
  4. I like the idea of not so much a cultural weapon modifier, but an exotic weapon modifier. Where I disagree with the OP and Heresiarch is the bonuses. I think it would make more sense to implement penalties. If, like Heresiarch mentioned, a Western knight who spent all of his time in say England encountered a katar, he wouldn't know how to use that weapon effectively. In reality, he would use the weapon less effectively than a regular person from India who is more likely to have seen the katar used properly and thus doesn't have to make up a use for it. This would be a great mechanic to have if P:E ends up using an Arcanum-like backstory in character creation. Using that mechanic, you could add meaningful flavor to your Western knight by having a backstory of him spending time in India thus removing his katar penality. If the penality is one of a lack of familiarity, it would make sense to let the character outgrow it. This works well with BG's style of weapon proficiencies. All you would have to do is add a minus mark to a certain character's weapon proficiencies in certain weapons and allow that to be corrected with the next specialization point. Then that character would be able to use the weapon as if he were familiar with it.

     

    I can understand using bonuses if they are based on race rather than culture. Perhaps a sort of weapon was build with a dwarf's size in mind and doesn't translate as well to average human stature. Well, it would make sense for the dwarf to permanently gain bonuses with that weapon type. The human would still be able to use the weapon type, it just wouldn't fit him as well. This of course only makes sense if there is significant physical differences between races.

    • Like 2
  5. I have been wondering about how different races are going to be handled in P:E. I like the idea of different ideas of beauty, especially when your whole genetic makeup is different, and I'm hoping for a great deal of visual differences. However, P:E as it stands now seems like a world of great cultural diffusion. It seems like there has been enough mingling between the various races to make culture, and thus perceptions of beauty, a thing not tied to race. I'm really interested to see how this state of the world (if it does turn out to be the state) plays out.

     

     

    I hate beards on female dwarves ....please no to that...

    its not even original, it's just a cliche that died out...I was kind of thinking about playing a female dwarf..and I'll be pissed off if they have beards...

     

    I'm all about options and giving the option to create a beardless dwarf seems like an easy one, time and money wise. Would it ruin female dwarves for you if any of them had beards or only if you had to create a bearded one?

  6. "Go kill a bunch of these majestic eagles so I can make a headdress!" or "Let's show them not to mess with us!" Since when has that been a noble solution that ever worked in the real world? I *know* this is a fantasy world, yes, but my suspension of disbelief only goes so far. Maybe I just expect more realistic, deeper, or believable stories as I see more of them. Anyway...

     

    It makes me think less of a game, that it is NOT well written, or simply disregards a player's time and/or emotional investment in their character/game choices.

     

    I feel the need to second this sentiment. There are times when I don't want to kill whoever has happened to go hostile in front of me and not having any non-lethal options, even options that won't work in this instance, takes me out of characterization. I thought the rope binding idea mentioned earlier was a good one. Punish me for worrying over the lives of enemies by making me buy rope and/or train a noncombat skill, but still allow me to care.

     

    While the rope and  the skill to go along with it sound plausible inexpensive, I can understand the interrogation idea taking too many resources to do right. I definitely think it would add to the game experience, if in no other way than replayability, but it is not nearly as important to me as not being restricted to only violent characters.

    • Like 2
  7. This might be a little left field, but I'd be interested in seeing something like dementors. In a world that so deeply revolves around souls, it makes sense to have a direct parasite for the soul. Depending on the lore (ie whether souls are actually important or just thought to be the source of power), the dementor-like creatures could have evolved to fill a niche or have been created by wizards to attack their enemies. The latter is more appealing to me. What better way to totally and completely defeat a rival than to sap him of all possible power sources? Efficient and devious.

    • Like 1
  8. While the continued historical arguments are important and even necessary, we do have to remember that this will be a world where (presumably) bands of adventurers are a thing. It is also my impression that adventuring parties will be a fairly common phenomenon (mostly based on IE games). Thus the historical has to be adjusted for that cultural difference.

     

    While I understand the argument that fighting arenas have been done quite a bit already (just look at the number of examples in the OP), I find them to be fun and think they could fit in with a world of adventurers. I'm not interested in fighting for the feature as I agree with rjshae to an extent and don't want time/money being wasted on anything that is not directly suited to this game. It would probably make great expansion/modding content though.

  9. But he said enough. If you FAIL SNEAKING, then you just have to engage in pointless combat. EVERY CLASS CAN SNEAK. Etc. my god. What do you think will happen if you fail sneaking, will your party instantly die or what? :facepalm:

     

    Not to mention that you can just avoid combat without sneaking.

     

    BTW, you probably do believe me (I don't think you are stupid), you just hate making the most demanding wise choice, you just want to sneak past every single combat situation and receive the exact same rewards for doing so.

     

    Yup. You are true combat haters.

     

    I don't think enough has been discussed about the sneaking system to make those judgements. We don't know how a character gets the ability to sneak, we don't know how that ability is improved, we don't know how all classes will gain the ability, and we don't know what limits different classes might face with the ability.

     

    As for possible punishments for failing a sneak attempt: you could alert far more enemies than you could reasonably fight, you could lose the ability to properly position your party, or you could damage relations with various factions. Any of those things would cause me to think twice before trying to sneak my way through combat and that's coming from someone with no game design experience. I'm sure others could think of more.

     

    I would also mention that I do tend to enjoy combat and often find sneaking tedious and boring. I personally will likely directly engage in combat more often than avoiding it.

    • Like 1
  10.  

     

    Avoiding combat by sneaking past every encounter is not demanding

    HA. You're stating an assumption as fact. That may be true in the Infinity engine games, but You have no idea how difficult successfully stealthing past encounters is going to be in this game. Josh has been deliberately vague on the subject. And for that matter, we don't know how easy combat is going to be either.

    Sawyer has already described the sneak mechanic a little. Check the links I posted (the one you apparetnly refused to check).

     

    And why is sneaking so much more demanding? LOL. If you fail sneaking, then you just have to fight. Wow, what a demanding mechanic. :facepalm:

     

    Underlined, bolded, italicised, and increased the size on that one for you. Stun is right, Sawyer has been deliberately vauge on the actual mechanics for sneaking. Nowhere in those links you put up was the actual gameplay mechanic for sneaking explained. We know very little about what it will take to sneak and what the consequence for failing to sneak after attempting it will be. I feel that you are assuming a lot here.

     

    And the reason you keep having to repeat yourself is that you have scant little evidence for the bold claims that you keep repeating. (Hint: People don't agree/believe you)

  11. Thanks, Gfted1. Like I said, I have no formspring experience. I was missing quite a lot there.

     

    After seeing all of the comments, it does look more heavily implied that all classes will have some access to sneaking. A more pacifist route being possible also seems to be somewhat implied, though it is directly stated that pure combat 'challenges' ( I take that to mean objectives or quests) are currently in the design. I still haven't seen either thing directly stated though. While I wouldn't consider that part of the 'burden of proof' for making the claims you have, Helm, I would appreciate having any direct statements of that sort to pull out when making my own arguments.

  12. Well, there are more links, but most of the info is in those.

     

    Just relativize the facts all you want. Sawyer could write something about this, but he avoids threads like these. So don't expect that to happen.

     

    Oh yeah, here is more about the sneak mechanic Yes, all classes can sneak (and yes, you can always sneak).

     

    Again, thank you posting dev comments. I don't frequent formspring, so I miss anything that's posted there and not here.

     

    My intent was not to relativize your evidence. I wanted to point out how heavily you are relying on interpretation and extrapolation. What you are saying those comment mean is not there at all. You are stretching the available information to suit your conclusions, and stretching quite a lot if the things you posted are what you are basing everything on.

     

    Your new link doesn't even mention sneaking. I'm starting to think I'm missing something, so please quote out the sentence or so I should be reading. I'm don't see where you are getting your conclusions from. The only thing I'm getting from that link is that Sawyer is attempting to design an xp system that encourages different approaches to any given problem and doesn't specifically reward grinding. None of that sounds bad to me.

  13. Here are the links some of you have been bugging me about:

     

    1. stealth is for all classes

    2. no combat xp (because a player cannot stop himself from killing everything)

    3. people will kill "just for phun" even if no xp is rewarded

    4. your prefered playstyle will not be punished (avoid all combat or kill everything, it doesn't matter)

    5. avoiding combat will not be punished with less loot

    6. avoiding combat will not be punished with less loot or xp (at least not substantially)

    7. avoiding combat will (almost) always be possible

     

    Awesome. Thanks for posting actual developer comments. On to the issues I have with them.

     

    Your first link does not prove that stealth is being added to all classes. The only thing that post proves is that stealth, to a lessened extent, is being considered for other classes. Those other classes, and the limits those classes would face, are never mentioned.

     

    I really wish you would stop with this 'phun' crap. A game should be fun. Parts of that game should be fun individually. A game does not need to be all about pushing forward. If it was, what made BG2 great in your option was largely for 'phun', because it wasn't strictly necessary to complete narrowest definition of the game. As for quote 3 itself, all Sawyer says there is that he wants to make combat fun past watching a little bar rise.

     

    Quote 2 does not say the reason for xp to be tied to something other than combat is because the player can't stop compulsively killing things. I was directly stated that the decision was made because the game rewarded the player for compulsively killing things and punished the player for not compulsively killing things.

     

    Quote 7 doesn't make any claims about what will or will not be possible. It is only a sarcastic comment that implies player freedom will be supported over linear design.

     

    The rest of the quotes sound like good things and only support the impression I've had (and locomotron, I think) of the general direction of design.

  14. But that is not what we will be getting.

     

    It probably shouldn't, but this phrase is driving me nuts. You have no idea what we are getting. You have no idea what this game is, what it looks like, or what it will develop into. You don't know, stop claiming you do. This may be a fully pedantic concern, but you, and anyone else that would use it, need to think up a more honest rephrasing.

     

    All of us have to remember what we are looking at here. This is preproduction. To almost everyone here, other than industry insiders, this is brand new. Contradicting statements are not flipflopping at this point, they are experimentation. No one has pulled out any stone tablets. Nothing is decided. So noone, not even the devs, know what this game is going to be yet. If you think something presented is a poor design choice, explain why. That is the end of your involvement. There is no need to extrapolate to the point of misinformation. Thank you.

     

    [End Rant]

    • Like 1
  15. I got a definite Ravel tingle off of 'The Strangler' manifestation. I am really liking the idea that the enforcer of oaths is a withered (and possibly half crazied) hag. I am also pleased with the whole manifestation approach. Perhaps the gods appear different to other gods and/or perhaps each god would have many forms.

    Three cheers for (more) official Orlan art as well!

     

    All in all, an excellent update. Bravo for maintaining quality alongside so much quantity!

  16. I've been following this thread for awhile now and I'm starting to get rather confused.

     

    It could be me, but I don't think it was common practice to award XP on the spot during DnD sessions, usually exp was awarded after the session, and then exp was calculated per encounter, not "per monster", meaning you could get exp for avoiding or talking down an encounter.

     

    Could be me, but that's how I've always played it, and I found that satisfactory, and that's also how I'd like to see it in PE; you get experience per encounter, not per monster, I'd even be fine to receive it after quest completion, as long as it does reflect the challenge the quest presented.

     

    What locomotron is talking about here is where I was under the impression of P:E heading. Exp is not quest based, but goal based. I don't remember any number of dead orcs being mentioned at any time. A goal can be as simple as getting from point a to b or making sure some else doesn't make it there.

     

    You don't get any xp for combat. Not after you kill every enemy, not after you finish a quest, never ever ever. NEVER. No xp for killing anything. NOTHING. No kill xp. No combat xp. Zilch. Nada. Noooooothing. :)

     

    I don't understand how the design in the Helm quote is the same as the design in the locomotron quote. Did I miss an update, a post, or am I just misunderstanding something? Could someone please point me towards the information coming from Obsidian that supports assertions like the one Helm is making above?

  17. Other than things like adding George Ziets, I imagined that the stretch goals existed as a statement by the devs that this is the game they wanted to make and this is how much it will cost to make, as opposed to the game they could make with a more reasonable/reserved amount. I never felt like (with P:E, I don't have experience with kickstarter otherwise) things were being tacked on with stretch goals. There were some, again like Ziets, that seemed to be added as a response to fan requests, but also seemed to fit the game advertised. The others just seemed like less guarded optimism. I don't think they ever expected to get so much money to work with.

  18. Between this forum, Formspring, the Kickstarter updates (one of which is coming today!), and SA, I really could not tell you where I read that. Sorry.

     

    EDIT: Which means you shouldn't take it as gospel truth, because I am a stupidhead and I get things wrong a lot. But I'm pretty damn sure that was A Thing That Was Said, and ATTWS with great certainty.

     

    I was under the same impression, that multi-classing was a no go. However when searching for place it was said, all I found was this way back in Update #12.

     

     

    Bonus question: Are you considering multiclassing?

     

    Answer:

    Bonus questions are cheating…but yes, we are considering adding

    multi-classing to the game. A better way to put this answer is that we

    are not ruling them out at this time. If they work well with our final

    system, we will offer them.

     

     

    So maybe we're wrong? Odder still, I didn't see anything mentioning multi-classing after November, making it look like the question was settled. Perhaps my google-fu is just not up to the task.

  19. I like the idea of P:E's world having a certain sound it. I don't like the idea of attempting old english or any other archaic language/dialect, because, as others have said, it's rarely done well. I would nomally point to P:T as an example of a game creating a dialect and thus a sound for their world, but as beerflavour pointed out, P:T just used a modified dialect spoken in Britian.

     

    Regardless, it worked quite well. Perhaps then answer then is to avoid creating a new dialect and simply use existing ones your target(or local) audience is unlikely to have heard.

  20. Well we do already know that multiracial(/cultural?) communities exist in P:E (see "Free Palatinate of Dyrwood"). As mentioned before I was just working off the assumption that the aumaua were one of the more isolated peoples.

     

    When the peoples of Drywood were introduced, I got the impression that there would be a lot more mixing between the fantasy races than is usual. I thought, especially with the slant towards the time in real history the game is having, that cultures would be more of a local than racial thing. I was thinking it would be more like the culture of Drywood or Pearl Coast and not the culture of the Dwarves or Elves. If culture is more of an area than race thing, that would help with the common issues WorstUsernameEver mentioned.

  21. I really like what you are advocating here, Osvir. It adds to the believability of the game system which in turn enhances the role playing immersion. However, I think the reason you want this system is the exact reason Obsidian would avoid it. (Based on what I've read of course)

    As I understood it, the reason for going over to a system that rewarded the player based on completed objectives instead of combat was to allow for more choices. If two different experience pools are used, then the player is still being punished for avoiding combat as it is likely combat will be unavoidable at some point and their combat skills will be underdeveloped when they do. I think the whole choice here hinges on whether or not I will be asking myself the very metagaming and immersion breaking question, "Should I avoid this combat and complete my goal more efficiently or should I kill them all and soak up the EXP?"

  22. I haven't seen the 'original' desgins for the Qunari, but I'm calling BS on the horned apparence always being the intention too, Barothmuk. I understand one (and speical one at that) having the 'rare' genetic quirk of no horns while the rest do, but the other qunari you actually see in DA:O also having it seems odd. I don't know if the metaltic skin tones were abandoned, but it's been decided that "Tal-Vashoth" (ie the Qunari that don't follow the Qun religion) means 'true grey' implying that whole race is generally grey skinned.

     

    As for the Aumaua, I too prefer that other races lean more towards the human/familiar. I think it helps to keep the world a little more believable and less outlandish. I'd really like a colored bit of concept art before I make any judgement other than that.

  23. And an aesthetic choice should be fine for lower difficulties. Players there might just want to have the npc's they think are the most fun to have around, and choose the powers they think are the coolest, all without regard to how the party works together.

     

    But for higher level difficulties I suspect players are going to desire, even expect that optimizing each characters build with respect to the party as a whole to be incredibly important. This is an area where DIablo 3, among many other modern RPG games, went wrong. They see simply that there's a section of players that don't enjoy the challenge of building out there characters in an extremely optimized way; and so they get rid of that. This completely ignores a large section of players that DO enjoy optimizing numbers and character builds.

     

    A game can have it both ways if the work and effort is put in, but many game developers don't even recognize that otpimization players are even there (loud and vociferous as some may be). Personally I hope Project Eternity is a game that can accomplish both goals.

     

    This is a great point, Frenetic Pony. I actually fall into both of the catergories you mentioned depending on the day. Sometimes I do want combat to easy almost to the point of triviality because I'm only there for the story. Other times I want to metagame and min-max my way through soul crushing challenges. For people like me, and I doubt the way I play is terribly rare, a game that has a vast range of difficultly (in combat especially) between the easiest and hardest settings is ideal. It would be so ideal that I feel it does surpass the 'if it's in the budget' barrier that so many optional options should and do run into. I really do hope they are able to develop an AI that can scale difficultly through strategic means and not power/health adjustments as I think it would help to create that range and keep each difficulty fun.

  24. Thanks for posting this, Horm. I wouldn't have ever seen it otherwise.

     

    While the constant reminders that posters need to relax and not be too negative are getting old, I certainly prefer it to a developer backlash followed by silence. It would be great if we could just point to things like the OP to calm people instead. Nothing inspires more confidence in me than an eleven minute video from a lead developer answering a random question by a random poster.

     

    As for the content, I really like the direction Sawyer's proposing. I can see a system in which all classes have the ability to do important things like heal but do them in vastly different ways creating a different experience. All I know is that I am sick of having to have a thief in my BG party or accepting that traps are just going to blow up in my face.

  25. Fallout and Planescape only needed to sell 100,000 units to be profitable IIRC. EA announced recently that if a game doesn't sell 5,000,000 units it's not worth continuing the series.

     

    I think we are using different definitions of 'profitable' here. When I mentioned profitablity, I was referring to the net gain of a game measured purely in dollars/euros/yen/whatever. This is the definition I believe that AAA companies like EA use when considering making and marketing a game. You seem to be measuring profitability in the percentage of return on investment. While valid and likely more economically sound, I don't believe large companies like EA currently consider that definition when creating a product, which is why they accept so much overhead and why they are so unwilling to take 'risks'.

     

    The PC market is easily the most profitable in many ways from games like WoW to games like Minecraft. Publishers ignore it, because the console platform allows them to force studios into slavery.

     

    Please elaborate on this statement. It sounds very interesting, but I don't know exactly what you mean here.

     

    I would also argue that your conclusion is incorrect. While the Playstation generation might not jump on en masse, they're really a tiny fragment of the total market. The average gamer is 37 years old according to the 2011 survey. This group is quite familiar with the mechanics behind Baldur's Gate and Torment. Further, once you get outside of America and Japan, such as into Europe and Russia, games like Torment and BG are embraced.

     

    I think you might have misunderstood my conclusion. When I say that if progress in the RPG genre (and games in general) is ignored it will create a forgettable game, I don't mean that older beloved games like BG and P:T should be forgotten and left to the past. If I did think that, I wouldn't have much interest in P:E as it seeks to revisit old mechanics like the isometeric viewpoint and handpainted (or retouched) backgrounds. What I mean is that if P:E sticks with the familiar, reproduces older games as closely as they can, then it will be bland and uninteresting because it is doing what has been done before. The truth is those games that have stood the test of time are still quite flawed and in ways that would take more than a patch to fix. Some mechanics were just frustrating and added nothing to the experience. What I mean by progress is the steps others have taken to refine or outright change those mechanics to make a more interesting and fun experience. All I was saying was that we, as a community, shouldn't be so hostile to change because change is required for improvement.

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