Adhin

Actually yeah, that right there when it happens to often, in one game, starts to get a bit grating but it depends on the role your character has. DAO, being a grey warden made some sense. Mass Effect made some sense due to Shepards role and whatnot but it just is a bit weird when your character has no real station or job involving that stuff but he/she does it anyway. I can see city to tribe related stuff in PE. Think they've mentioned tribes of some kind roaming the wilds, could be misthinking that though. Anyway that I could see being a far more believable thing with out being some magic peace man between 2 warring nations.

Double-sided weapons where always a bit bizar, I felt like they should of required less feats but they never really did.

Heh, funny, but D2, 2000, had a more complex 'character' system then 2nd Edition had. Unless you start counting the sea of 'class kits' that attempted to change that. Granted it was light on the actual roleplay aspect but as far as building a character Diablo 2 beat the turds outa 2nd edition. Now 3E, that was a thing of sheer beauty... but it also came out a year or 2 later. D2 has a good feel to it, control wise, but the way they handle there skills and general gameplay leads to a lot of mindless spam which is where the real issues start to kick in for me. As for 1k hp, outside of epic levels 1k HP is asking a good bit from a party (depending on lvl). Now my epic lvl Barb/Psion could handle far more then that but he has about 1k hp enraged so he doesn't count, hes a goddamn monster and has no business being in any real PnP like campaigns. That said no fighter is gonna only be doing 5.5 dmg unless hes finesse and heavy DEX/AC based, and by lvl 11 has 3 attacks. First 2 of which generally hit with relatively high percentages. I remember doing the math for a lvl 20 fighter with 24 str vs a Balor (35 ac) and the general 4 attacks a fighter has and the BAB totals that involves with proper equipment. Basically game down to 95/80/55/40... anyway point is you usually always hit with 2, about half the time you hit with 3, sometimes hit all 4. That's also about 20 damage per hit on average, so more like 60 damage per turn. That's not counting critical hits or the like but that's a hell of a lot more then 5.5 dmg a turn. Basic 3E stuff, and Balors I think have closer to 300 hp, its the energy resist and spells that really kill.

BG is actually a kind of awkward example due to the A/2E rule set. 2E was literally a 1-10 game. BG2 going past 10 was mostly just because they needed growth, you didn't really gain much for going past 10 up till you got into the expansion stuff with epic skils stuff that was pretty heavily influenced by 3E stuff (like Barb/Monk class where). I mean your health heavily stints at lvl 10, 1-9 is the main HP growth then its all 2 or 3 + bonus. Beyond that higher you go up, the longer it takes. Pretty sure they'll go for a lower level limit then compared to an ARPG like diablo or something, probably 1-20. And as fun as carrying your character through games is, I also enjoy just completely new ones. BG1-2 kinda got lucky with how they did that, partly cause BG1 has so many characters they didn't really do anything with that BG2 had a lot of growing room for some of em while adding in a few new ones. I mean look at PST, if they made a second one I don't even know what they'd do. Continue the story? From which ending, and would any of the old party members make sense to show up again? Not that anyone can really make a sequel, DnD dropped the planescape setup years ago but.. yeah. A BG3 as Obsidian (back when they where the true Black Isle) was going to be a completely fresh start for the player character, completely new guy and just touching on past events kind of thing. That right there is what I'd like to see to be honest, new PC, some returning characters, few years later touching on past events as a new story unfolds. That and once you get into a more complex leveling system like 3E or what PE will have in comparison to 2nd Edition which was as basic as it gets, a few lvls tends to leave a lot to be desired. I 'love' building characters, I like coming up with an odd ball concept and figuring out the most effective way to make the character even if hes gimped. 5-10 lvls is rarely enough to really dig into that stuff and often feels a bit hollow. Only reason it works in 2E is because there is no character building past starting stats, just static, extremely basic lvl progression that usually brings nothing but HP and 'maybe' some THAC0 drop.

100% in favor of time stuff and having the different times serving a purpose. Shops closing, maybe a shady magic weapons merchant in some back ally becomes available at night, amongst other quest related things. One thing that bugs me, however with most games is the day/night cycles to quick. 2 minutes per house is an absurdity and tends to draw me out more then bring me in. Generally speaking I prefer a more 1:3 ratio, that being 1 hour = 3 hours in game. You'd want a wait option and preferably the ability to pick a general time frame to wake up when you hit up and inn or your camp or whatever. Nothing we haven't seen before and most of that stuff works pretty solid regardless of the speed of the cycles. Pretty sure they'll have all that but... can't remember if IWD2 had a day/night cycle. Probably did... meh.

TES level scaling in Morrowind and Oblivion was an issue not because of the actual level scaling per-say. Though bandits in glass armor was an immersion breaker. The real issue, and Skyrim has this issue to some extent but in reverse was you could stay lvl 1-2 or whatever in Oblivion by taking skills you weren't going to actually use. Plan to play a Warrior? Take a bunch of magic skills you wont actually use, you can still max out all the warrior skills, it'll take a bit longer, but your level wont go up but you'll be a super crazy master with your chosen combat style. Then you could use the magic stuff to train lvls at your own pace and ultimately it just let you exploit there horrible lvl scaling system. Encounters changing with numbers and/or harder variants isn't the same thing, and ultimately I don't feel is to bad. Bosses generally don't count for that and the boss wont be a super low lvl. Probably be made a good challenge if all you did was the main story and add helpers beyond that if your a higher level. The main quest can also account for 60-70% of the XP thus controlling the general level of players through out the overall story and allow a lot of side stuff not to interfere to much, but still allow that few bonus levels to show for your extra work. Ultimately, BG2 and the infinity engine games did this to a small extent and it worked great. The real issue with TES, vs infinity engine games was TES had to free roam of a leveling system that 'still' used a leveling system along with it. That was one of the major changes with Skyrim and, for the most part, fixes those issues. It has other failings, generally not sticking to 1 thing till your 20-ish will lead you to sucking hard with difficult enemies later on. It really kills you for being a jack of all trades early but allows it as later growth if your careful. But there's no real way to 'game' the system to allow you to be low lvl but be functionally a master badass at it all like Oblivions poorly thought out system did. I highly doubt PE will have this issue, none of there games really have had that issue in the past, and while they never had the issues they've noted them being an issue in said other games and worked well on that in New Vegas as there most recent example.

There are a lot of historical examples of dual wielding (some legendary samurai and romans arena stuff to name some) the Rapier and 'Parrying Dagger' isn't one I'd consider proper dual wielding. It's the 'dagger' is literally just a buckler replacement. Granted you can still stab a guy with it but its primary purpose, its whole existence is based around parrying so you can riposte with the rapier. Now granted a sword/dagger combo like that should be allowed and make sense, though it's more likely you'd hold a dagger/knife differently then a parrying dagger (most fighting styles do anyway). The few that don't use a dagger or knife like you use a gladious, mostly just gut stabbing. So grapple and stab in the gut (or shield and stab in gut). As for 'whats the point' of a shield with magic? Same reason a for a sword I guess? Magic means you can enchant that shield, which in turn can make that shield exceptionally useful against magic. I think they should make a bunch of 'styles' like there defensive stance thing that're universal to what your doing. Anyone can be more defensive regardless of what weapon there using or use a style, with any weapon type or combination that's more defensive, more aggressive, more whatever. Add some special moves that're weapon dependent (regardless of 'style'), set dual wielding to be halfway between single weapon vs 2 handed weapons. I'd also say they should have special moves that require the off hand to be open. That being 2-handed weapons, a single weapon and no shield, and not dual-wielding, to allow for grapple like specials or whatever. Basically I'd rather they do more general stuff and setup systems for it then be to awkwardly rigid with things, I don't need 5 types of defensive stance skills, one for each type of 'style'.. just do 1 and let me equip whatever I want. I can use my imagination for how im utilizing that. Also any kind of finesse like skill should really be allowed for more then just small weapons. You can finesse a spear or an axe just as much as you can a short sword, it's just a matter of grip and maneuvering.

Yeah dual halberds is a bit crazy unless your 8-9 feet fall. Dual bastards or katanas I can understand (hell 2 katanas has been done often enough in history). 2 Claymores is stretching it not due to the weight but due to the length, after awhile it just gets to a point where the maneuverability starts to kill it. I mean a normal 1h'er is like 3 pounds, a 2h'er is about 4-5. It's not a massive difference and the real killer is the length. That said I dislike it when games forcibly disallow stuff in such a finite broach term it starts to kill it for monster types. NWN had that issue to some extent, took some modding to deal with, and a lot of that was also animation issues. Basically a giant shouldn't have issues using a halberd as a single handed weapon with length as an issue. Actually lets say Ogre, giants tend to be taller then 8-9 feet. They'd be using a tree trunk at that point. Either way base game, from the players stand point, we wont be playing character/races big enough to handle that. As to my jumbled mess of non-sense in my previous post, I was meaning dual wield should just get a 50% speed increase. They aren't using 'turns' like in past games. Personally I think a single attack a second fits just fine for this kind of game and making it 1.5 attacks per second while dual wielding would not be as silly as 'double the attacks!' but still allow it to hit the middle ground in dmg for sake of auto attacks, special abilities not withstanding.

I think in general a good way to handle it would be to have abilities require a weapon be in the main hand or off hand, depending on the abilities. Have some abilities require 2 hands, some require a shield, so on, and so on. Would also be nice to have dual-wield only attacks that use both in a heavy attack or some kind, or a quick chain of attacks using both weapons. I could see a rapid-strike like move be used for everything and, in the case of dual wielding, actually increase number of attacks. That said for the base 'auto' attack, not just skills to use, I think is kind of where peoples arguments been back and forth on. That being, everyone's mostly been arguing the want for more tactical options and the like which are use abilities, but comparing it against DnD's base auto-attack function which are 2 very different beasts. So for base, auto attack that's a bit more awkward I guess. I do kind of like the idea of a passive parry system involved and DW giving a good base passive bonus to that so you would ultimately end up with more attacks but the extra attacks would end up being via the parry setup. Generally the character I intend to dual wield is my Barbarian, Kurn. He dual wields Shorties, Scimitar or longswords (of the 1h variaty), or if given the option some large hiltless cleaver like weapon. He's brutal with them, but in DnD, barbs get DR as a natural thing. He cares less about taking damage as hes capable of literally absorbing it, wares medium armor and just uses his heft to cleave things to pieces. He's fast and brutal basically. In the end I think they need to come at it from 2 perspectives, one being how to figure out the auto-attack and then special use abilities based off weapon styles. And frankly I'd like a lot of those styles to not require DW or 2H. Good example of what I mean is Power Attack from DnD, it doesn't matter what your using you can always just get more reckless and brutal with your attacks. Weather that's a shield and sword or 2h or DW'ing. I'd like to see more things like that, and have them be a bit more universal, the rapid attacks thing could easily be used for any weapon and just have 1h, dw, or 2h determine total number of attacks in the chain. As for auto attack that's... an odd one. Personally I think, in general, DW should do 50% more dmg then SnB, and 2H should do double. I've always prefered Dual Wielding to be the middle ground (for auto-attack, not counting special moves and tactical use stuff). Instead of making off hand crap, bring both down by 25%, don't screw with your chance to hit. Allow 2-handed to do twice the damage and let shields be more defensive (for auto attack purposes). Special attacks make up the difference beyond that. That way, with out ANY special stuff taken into consideration, each has its own basic roll for just basic damage output with out dual wielding overshadowing everything. And if they do a parry thing that can be the middle ground on defense or whatever. Anyway, more options and those options not being to blindly specific but change depending on what weapons your using. Though there should still be some special abilities that require 1h, a shield or dual wielding, or a single weapon and an empty off hand (best for grappling).

I could see pack mules being an 'upgrade' to the camp and the said abstract stash. But I don't want a mule following me around in a town or a dungeon or having to deal with much of any of that. I could see random encounters from zone to zone being centered around your 'wagon' and mules and whatnot as you fend off bandits, that'd be a nifty thing to deal with in general. But in the end I'd rather just see mules or chests being buyable as upgrades to the stash and keep the stash generally abstract as someones said before. Personally the idea they came up with I think is the best solution I've seen to date for a cRPG to handle inventory like PnP does. You don't have slots, you don't do tetris, it's just weight and more often then not the DM just decides you carried whatever back to whatever and its mostly handwaved. The whole overbearing inventory management thing is literally a cRPG invention as a, in my opinion, bad way to handle the translation from PnP to computers. So, rock on Obsidian for figuring out some less irritating way to let folks loot a lot of stuff with out dealing with clustered inventories and weight issues. And here's hoping the Stash (not the shared pack inventory) is upgradeable in space some way.

I personally like Sawyer's answer in the recent video to damage types. Partly because outside of trying to model out different wounds and all that (such as heavy internal bleeding vs external that clots)... it works fine. They're using damage threshold like they did in New Vegas. Ultimately it means regardless of weapon type you'll always do a % of your damage if the DT ends up removing to much. Usually it's something like 10% or 20%, forget what new vegas' was. Other games have used this setup before, and there is usually a wide enough range of enemies that there is rarely a reason beyond being more efficient to always swap weapons. My Barbarian will pretty much always dual wield his swords, may have a maul as backup just in case there is some extremely strong enemy that happens to also be heavily armored. Your average enemy that's also heavily armored, the only major difference will be the fight will last a bit longer due to me using the swords vs the maul. But in those instances the archers using piercing and mages can make up the difference if need be. Now I can see with difficulty jacked to max with all the hardcore and insanity related toggled turned on you'll be pausing and doing a fair amount of weapon swapping but with weapon set slots (like in IWD2/other infinity games) that's not much of a chore in the end. Piercing makes good middle ground if you don't want to swap often, Slash/Blunt swap makes best use for most situations. It's simple, it allows for tactical depth - I like it.

I would... never want half hour boss fights. MMO I've had some fun with it but then I had 30-ish other people to talk to and laugh with over the 20-30 minute boss fights. Diablo they don't really last that long unless your severely under leveled but they definitely last longer then any DnD stuff. But it usually just comes down to absurd HP totals and you spamming a single skill or 2 as you run around like a mad man till the boss eventually dies. Only way I could see enjoying an actual 30 minute (5-10 minutes I can see) boss fight in a single player game would be for the boss fight to be in stages, and it to have save points between stages. And I'm not talking about it just shifting in front of you. I mean you have a 5-10 min fight, then it escapes (maybe into a secondary form) and you finish it off later in another 5-10 minute fight after you catch up with it again. I mean, 30 minutes for a single player game... that would have to be one entertaining fight to not drag on.

@Lephys: Hah yeah, nothing like a freakishly white infinite space room where time is extremely stretched to allow you to get years of training in in a short time frame. -edit- As far as the whole fighters in MMO's and fighter types with supernatural like abilities. My biggest issue literally sits more with how it often looks vs actually having active skills. Fighter skills shouldn't have flashy graphics unless it's literally explained in some manner. Though I think Barb/Fighter should be less flash in general, should mostly be internal oriented soul stuff. I love my anime, I love the idea of flinging energy stuffs at things via your fists or swords but... yeah, I wouldn't mind some of that but that sounds like more of some kinda Mage/Fighter combo or some special requirement Fighter talents. Not sure how they'd go about that but I'd rather it not be a primary part of the class, but some off line that either requires a class combo (if they allow that) or stat requirements or whatever to allow said weapon-flinging explosive soul bolts. Doubt they'll do any of that though, I just hope something that enhances strength or doubles your dmg for a short time cause RAWR SOUL MAKE HULK STRONG doesn't equal crazy ass glow and sparkles like your some fake-day-vampire of a mage.

Said it one to many times before, I'll say it again, gods only know if it'll be the last but... Third Edition DnD already did this. It works great, people love it, its freakin' fantastic. If they do it right it'll be great in PE as well.

I wouldn't say the 'only' thing. I mean, ultimately the power they use in DBZ is the same as PE (sort of). The idea of manifesting your energy, or the energy produced from your soul, to great an energy ball that explodes when you throw it is a nifty idea. But it's not really unique to DBZ either so... yeah. Always having something that's a challenge regardless of lvl is a good thing to take from it - that and they always had weaker crap to show how far Goku had come. -edit- The power to blow up planets with said energy balls... bad for an RPG really. Should be left up to freakishly ancient rituals that your attempting to stop (or get going).

Yeah I think the Qunari looked fine in DA2, there horns weren't that big in general. That and horns tend to be hallow, they're not very heavy, they got thick necks, they'd be fine 'moving their head around'. A lot of the dawkspawn just kind of fell short for me though. And Qunari from DAO where literally tall humans, they had no distinctive feature unless you consider pale skin to be distinctive in which case I must be a hairy qunari! It's all opinion in the end, and when someones opinion doesn't match your own it doesn't mean they lack any sense. And there where plenty of people wondering why they didn't have horns back when DAO came out. Least folks who where following the game.

I hope there is a path for it, I love shapeshifting.

@Somna: Oh hands down I think you should get an attack after a portal. Then again they wont be using 'rounds' like in DnD but a psion's abilities are mental, should be instant, single attack after it would just make sense. Be like an advanced bullrush DnD wise. Just imagine a Barbarian flying into a rage and soon after disappearing only to show up in the middle of everything he aims to murderize. Just makes me a little gitty to think about being able to do that.... had a character like that in a NWN PW, but sadly Psionics took a whole lot of time to deal with. I mean they where a single turn, not a half, and often times you had to wait, for whatever odd reason a second turn to do anything. Teleport in, attack target, wait 3 seconds aaand... wait 6 more then the attack kicks in. Was an issue with how NWN handled when you attacked and all that, had issues picking up mid-turn. Basically you stop for any reason to do anything you got 6 seconds coming before you'd go into auto-attack. But all that said he was a very fun character to play as, dual wielded bastards too. Good chunk of DR, high HP, whore chainmail. Dark Red cloak, dark red skull helm (literal skull, not a skull cap). Good times.

Well, all of them. But the 3 main I wanna know about are Druids, Barbarians and Ciphers (more or less in that order). Also I'd love to know if there is some kind of multi-class system in place as I'd love to make a Barbarian/Cipher. I always loved the idea of a Barbarian and Psion mix. People often view them as opposites but they both work off the same, general principle. That and A LOT of Psionic races are extremely chaotic by nature. Something about a mildly calm Barbarian with Psionic abilities (self oriented not mind-melding stuff) that can go into a rage and teleport to targets (dimension door) always just felt real satisfying to RP.

Ahh man I think DBZ is part of why I like the concept of using your soul as the power source for spells and whatnot. Granted I don't want DBZ the RPG going on with PE, I prefer fantasy and all that but something about everyone having the ability to tap into that and with enough training become something great... also I hope the monk class can throw energy balls. Cause... yeah.

Heh, yeah true enough, I never got why they all have grey skin in DAO or DA2. DAO said Bronze, DA2 said metallic-hues, bronze, gold, silver... all we ever saw was Grey, and not a metallicy grey. Anyway I liked there DA2 appearance though it reminds me to much of demons I guess. But other then horns they look like large humans. And really horns isn't as far flung of a feature or to far off what you could otherwise consider a human. Well, or at least I consider horns less weird then a full on lizardman being considered 'relatively human'. That just seems crazy (and I like lizardmen).

100% agree there Lephys, personally never had a nostalgia with that level of forced class stuff heh. I loved BG man, always held it above other things back then, was so revolutionary and all that to me. But I just kept wondering why I was so forcibly restricted in what any given person could do it never made sense to me. I got real excited when I was reading up documents and the approaches being taken for 3E and all the customization and 'everyone has skills now' and all that. Felt like all my internal whining and complaints about 2E was getting dealt with heh. As for PE, their whole soul premise along with the design philosophy (that's a newer, updated reminisce of the 3E advances) has me just as excited.

@Quadrone: No, see DnD 3E, 3.5E or Pathfinder variations past that point. 3E set out to do 'exactly' what Sawyer mentioned, and for the most part it did a good job at that. Ultimately what hes been getting at, and to use DnD as an example again, it depends on what the DM does in relation to the players. If you take a skill, or a feat that's only good at 1-2 things, and the DM just decides that, tough luck, they don't want to include a means for you to utilize your lore in ancient magic blah blah whatevers then... to bad. Thing is, this is a computer game, any skill or feat or whatever they call there whatevers... they can directly link that to gameplay. They know whats in the game, they know how those skills will interact with all of it. That's all it comes down to. If you compare 2nd Edition to 3rd you should, hopefully, see what im talking about. 2E, need a Thief, why? Cause they're the ones that can pick locks and disarm traps. 3E? ANYONE can, doesn't matter what class or class combo you are, you can pick a lock, and you can use special tools/potions to enhance your skill if you so need. Now a Rogue is the 'best' at it and DC checks up a certain point (extremely high) 'require' a Rogue (kinda like needing a specialist for a safe) but a few points in said skill and anyone can deal with a good number of locks. Which makes the high DC the outlayer, the thing a DM can easily take into consideration, something he could whip an NPC together for, something in a cRPG would be 1-2 rare, well hidden chests only a 'Rogue' could get. As for healing, the stamina system covers the DnD style of 'requiring a healer' (if you ignore potions/other methods). It basically gives you an artifical 4 times normal health for the sake of extending rest times. 'Healers' or self abilities will help bolster moments directly in fights to keep a character from passing out or maybe getting them back on there feet. But beyond that it's all non-combat and combat related stuff and, 3E or PE - it's all what brand of combat flavor you prefer in the end... it's RP stuff. All they got to do is make them interesting and feel different from each other with out making one of them a living nuke and it'll all be gravy. And, frankly, no forced 'Thief is the only one who can pick locks' role is going to make that any better. Also 2E had 'class kits' to get around a lot of there own pole-up-ass restrictions (and alternate rules).

I ended up voting in mild contradiction but then none of them really fit. That and I voted with in A, what they've said - everyone basically has what someone would consider 'supernatural powers' (in your party, anyway). And B, everything (hopefully) posing some level of challenge, even if it seems 'super easy if your paying attention'. Personally that's the kind of balance i like for a basic difficulty for good bit of the encounters. Basically, the world of Project Eternity, every class has abilities fueled by there soul. Warriors/Barbarians will have abilities to regain stamina, im sure some kinda strength enhancing, or damage mitigating abilities fueled by there soul. Personally I like this idea more then DnD as you get these kind of things in the base of how DnD handles stuff but for warriors its less explained. Monks get a 'well its monk magic!' then other 'sources' of power for arcane, divine, psions or whatever. But in PE, regardless of class, its your soul fueling your power. So yeah, everyone has the potential for supery like powers due to there soul but I want all the encounters to be challenging to some extent. I mean when everything has the potential for that kind of greatness its evening the playing field to some extent. -edit- On a side note - in relation to Realism, always preferred believability... it's really just semantics but that's ultimately what folks mean when they talk about 'realism' in fantasy worlds. The 'Fantasy' being governed by rules to make it believable. PE has already done a good job of that by using the creatures soul as the source of power that makes magic and magic-like abilities possible. If a person is capable of superhuman strength its because they where able to tap into their soul to bolster their body... also fireballs.

I agree with most of what your saying Barothmuk and this bits nitpicking but Qunari 'original' and, in lore as of Dragon Age Origins are they have horns. Ogres darkspawn are created from Qunari broodmothers, they're the only ones with horns and the horn stuff has always been in the lore (or the lore as far as any fans had a chance to read). The only reason Sten (or the 2-3 fake ones in the dream stuff in the mage tower) was due to it not 'meshing right' with helmets and they ultimately just upped a human models size. The DA2, as funny as it is, are actually closer to the original concept and is in line 'with' the lore of Dragon Age. Some of the darkspawn though... they messed up some ****. Anyway like I said in another thread I like the recent concept art and wasn't expecting some kinda weird half-animal creature. I mean the description literally states they only look somewhat 'different'. Lizardmen aren't somewhat different, there damn giant lizards that 'happen' to walk on 2 legs instead of 4. I get the feeling the tattoo like markings are probbly skin coloring and that with the head-ridge thing I think is 'different' enough with out being lizard men or cat men or whatever. I like it (and seriously, qunari have always had horns, DAO just failed at it).