PrimeJunta

That's not what Vancian casting means, MC.

Not anymore you don't, I'm sure. But did you, the first time you encountered these games? I certainly did. And more to the point, the games have strong incentives that push you to play that way.

Walp, I'm now officially resident in Denmark. Got the CPR number, electronic ID and everything. Was very easy and pleasant, perhaps especially so for a Nordic brother. Don't wanna change my avatar yet though.

IMO "will I hit or not" was only an issue in BG1 and the IWD's, and there only during the tutorial. From there on out it would take more than one hit to bring an enemy down, or get brought down yourself. And I found the L1-2 gameplay frustratingly rather than enjoyably random.

@Sensuki Actually Vancian casting and trial-and-error set-pieces are kind of two sides of the same coin. The rhythm becomes fight, get beat up to know what spells I should have had to win, reload, shuffle spells around, rest, fight again, win. It breaks mah immershun to have to consciously play with meta-knowledge like that. A lot of the encounters were did require rather specific resources to beat, a lot of these resources were spells, and if you didn't know what was coming you were somewhat unlikely to have them memorized. I realize this is a preference, and that many feel differently. Edit: also the games were different between each other in this respect; the IWD's made much less use of this than BG2 for example.

There's the rub, Indira. There is no objective way to decide what's core and what's not. Of your three core elements, I'd only count two, as I don't care about the dice. (I do care however that the numbers are understandable, which currently needs work.) It's a good question though, and a tough one. It's also hard not to let your preferences blur the picture, and just concentrate on what was central to the experience. My "core feature" list would include... Isometric, painted backgrounds (not rotatable) Party-based, RTwP XP- and class-based advancement XP from quests and combat <- yep, you read that right... Scads of gear to choose from Scads of different enemies to fight

Meh, those are IMO a poor fit for a cRPG when you can just reload if something really bad happens. Either the breaking weapons are disposable in which case it makes no difference, or they're not in which case you'll reload. I don't feel the randomness contributed much positive to the combat in the IE games. It was tempting to abuse (Feeblemind Firkraag, reload if it didn't bite), while it rarely did much to enhance the experience when playing at all well. If an encounter went bad, Hail Mary passes hardly ever turned them around, and if you played well you didn't rely on them. The only thing it did when playing at all well was occasionally make your perfectly sound tactics fail, forcing a reload. So yeah, I prefer more deterministic combat.

I quoted that line three posts up, Indira.

I wouldn't want that. There was plenty I didn't like about the IE games, which I feel is nevertheless quite central to the experience. I would not want them to reproduce that just because they want to get it "down to the bone." Off the top of my head, the straitjacket classes/kits, Vancian casting, various completely arbitrary restrictions on what your class could or couldn't do, set-piece battles designed to be won by trial and error, haphazard overall layout, masses of filler combat...

That is true. (Oh, and I forgot classes and ability scores. They did mention those too.) Personally I don't think it's even possible to break down "the IE experience" into a feature list, especially as the IE games themselves were so diverse. PS:T was almost a JRPG/adventure game in isometric format, BG1 was all about exploration, BG2 was all about quests and wildly varied combat encounters plus massive scope, the IWD's were dungeon crawls. I.e., beyond the specifics, they promised to deliver their interpretation of a spiritual successor to the IE games. That's all they could promise, really: they can't very well be beholden to someone else's. How closely their take meshes with any given player's remains to be seen.

Sure. Bolding the specifics. "Project Eternity is an isometric, party-based computer RPG set in a new fantasy world developed by Obsidian Entertainment." "Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment." "Combat uses a tactical real-time with pause system - positioning your party and coordinating attacks and abilities is one of the keys to success. The world map is dotted with unique locations and wilderness ripe for exploration and questing. You’ll create your own character and collect companions along the way – taking him or her not just through this story, but, with your continued support, through future adventures. You will engage in dialogues that are deep, and offer many choices to determine the fate of you and your party. …and you'll experience a story that explores mature themes and presents you with complex, difficult choices to shape how your story plays out." That was from the main pitch only. There's more in the updates. Check out #3 (game basics), #7 (non-combat abilities), #9 (modes), #15 (core four classes + cipher and barbarian), #18 (paladin and chanter), #24 (health/stamina, healing, death). I won't paste in quotes from there for now; check 'em out yourself.

Edit: never mind. Not getting sidetracked anymore.

One approach would be to accept the current state of affairs, i.e. that armor is not great for people who don't expect to be beat on a lot... and mitigate this somewhat with encounter design. For example: 1. Remove the penalties from light armor, or reduce them to near-insignificance. A 5% hit to recovery time is not much and probably worth the additional protection even for a caster or archer who doesn't expect to be targeted much. 2. Add clothing with no DT but other interesting properties. 3. Add more enemies with ranged attacks, and tweak the AI so it picks its targets more intelligently, e.g. targets the squishiest ones first. 4? Make some heavy armor more attractive by making it contribute to deflection as well as DT. (This would also be intuitively correct IMO, as plate armor does deflect blows in addition to distributing their energy.) Since second-row characters would be targeted more and would pay less of a penalty, on balance light armor would still be worth wearing. First-line troops would still want the high DT and newly-introduced deflection bonus from heavy armor and would want to wear it.

@Monte Carlo Message received. Carry on, then. :salute:

@Monte Carlo so, do you have any ideas on how to fix it? "This sucks, is awful, is like Twilight to Lord of the Rings, it's too late to fix it, imma take my toys and go play elsewhere, WHAAA! :temper tantrum:" is, IMO, not very likely to make any difference besides making this forum kind of a sucky place, and reflecting rather poorly on your emotional maturity at that. Basically, if you really believe it's irredeemable, then I would suggest you get good and drunk, have a good cry, and... leave. There are some of us here who believe there's a damn good game under there somewhere and want to help dig it out. (And no, we are not being uncritically positive.) Even if you don't agree, surely you'll be willing to grant an infinitesimal possibility that it might be true--and leave those of us willing live in hope and do the work to it, then maybe check later when it's finished. Basically, I do not see what good could possibly come out of your incessant whinging and moaning. It's just bloody irritating, especially as it seems to get worse as the beta gets objectively, obviously, and dramatically better (like with this update). It's like you want it to fail, despite your protestations that you're a fan and "just want the game to be good." Short version: sh1t or get off the can. Sh1t meaning constructive criticism the devs can actually use.

@Infinitron @Sensuki Nope, please read it again before commenting. I'm removing the speed penalty and introducing a different penalty, which bites characters with low CON and who move a lot the hardest. I.e., second-row archers/casters would suffer the least because they mostly stay put (who also benefit from heavy armor the least), whereas front-line characters who rely on positioning would both benefit and suffer more, and highly mobile characters (e.g. the melee rogue) would suffer most. That said, I don't really like the idea all that much myself. I just can't think of any better solutions. (Nor have I seen any ITT.)

I agree. The incentives on armor are all wrong. Can't think of an obvious way to fix it though without introducing new mechanics. @Valorian's idea for a fatigue mechanic would help here, though. Not sure if it wouldn't make the combat feel way more RTS-y and way less IE-ey though. For example: 1. Characters have, in addition to Endurance and Health, a third CON-related stat, Fatigue. 2. The Fatigue meter runs down whenever you move, attack, or use special abilities, and recovers (relatively quickly) when you're standing still and not doing anything. 3. Heavier armor makes Fatigue run down faster. 4. When Fatigue drops below certain thresholds, penalties are applied, and eventually you won't be able to run, only walk. It should be balanced so that a heavily-armored, high-CON melee combatant can get through a typical encounter without falling over from exhaustion, but a low-CON character who runs around a lot would. Can't think of anything else ATM and I'm not sure introducing new mechanics is the way to go.

Eeh, the design isn't fundamentally broken, it's superficially broken. I.e. the numbers are all over the place and the way their effects are communicated to the user are not clear. In theory I like the system where accuracy, damage, and DT penetration are all sums of what your character can do and what the weapon is like, but it does make things murky. The basic question of "Why am I only doing 0.5 damage?" remains not-obvious to answer. Better combat feedback would help a lot. If I could see with every hit what the base damage was and how much was soaked by the guy's defenses, it would give me an idea of how well my weapons are working. Low/low means I'm grazing (i.e., not enough accuracy against target's deflection), high/low means I'm not getting through DT or other resistances, and high/high means everything is hunky-dorey. Perhaps make the floaty damage number a pair? Show 18/13 instead of just 13, if 5 points got soaked by DT?

Why would second-row characters wear armor anyway? I'd guess to defend against archers and such. We haven't seen many, nor massed, and currently they don't appear to target second-row characters much.

@Helm, You're making a big, potentially even actionable claim here: that Obsidian has reneged on their promises. Which promises? Please point out the specific, concrete promises they have made during the KS from which they have deviated. Specific. Vague generalities like "the IE feel" do not qualify, because they involve a lot of subjective judgment. Also, it is unreasonable to judge the "feel" of a game before it has been polished and balanced, since it is an emergent property of how the various bits and pieces in the game fit together. Here, let me help: you can't, because there aren't any. That, Helm, is why you lie. You have no actual facts to base your vitriol on, so you're reduced to lying about Obsidian, about its lead designer, and about the game. (And about me, for that matter -- that I'm lying about going over the KS and comparing what they've done to what they've promised.) That's pretty sad, really. (For the record, in my opinion the P:E beta does not have "the IE feel" at this point. However, the second build is already a lot closer than the first, and I am quite optimistic that it may get there by release. However, even if in my opinion the game did not have "the IE feel" by release, it would still not mean Obsidian had reneged on their promises. All it would mean is that my opinion about what "the IE feel" is differs from theirs. It should be blatantly obvious that the only way to make a game that undeniable has "the IE feel" would be to make it in the IE engine, and we all know that wasn't going to happen. That means the judgment is necessarily subjective. Sheesh, do I really have to even explain this?)

What's your solution to that tactic, Valorian?

'K, got TPW'ed. Decided to fight the cult boss instead of going with my natural good Communist instincts and siding with the oppressed. He opened up with something that took nearly half the stamina down from my whole party. My opening was with a brand-new level 4 cipher ability that was supposed to be an AoE stun, but that didn't really appear to have all that much effect. Then one of those Symbol things doing DoT. That one means business. Made the mistake of using BB Priest to heal stamina rather than suppress hostile effects. BB Fighter went down first, followed quickly by PC and BB Rogue, then BB Priest. BB Wizard had time to cast Wall of Fire which nuked all but one of the opposition, who then proceeded to hit him repeatedly until dead. Arcane veil put off the inevitable for a few moments, but that's about all she wrote. Oh well, back to the ol' drawing board. Think I'll try a druid next; haven't played with those.

Eh, I'm not losing any sleep over murdering a model, rig, and a few lines of script.

That tactic works IRL too though. I've been at the receiving end of it as a kid. Wasn't nice.

Doesn't sound too bad in practice. There are animations for the switches which cost time. Doubtful you could gain a significant advantage that way.