PrimeJunta

About that 'spiritual successor...' I checked with Google, and I couldn't find anywhere on the KS that Obsidian actually used the phrase 'spiritual successor' to describe P:E. Outside the comments, the only instances of that phrase I found referred to T:ToN, and... to Path of the Damned, which they did promise is a 'spiritual successor' to Heart of Fury. Interesting how the mind works. I could've sworn 'spiritual successor' was headline-level there.

Paralyzed and Petrified are two different status effects. The description of Petrify is something along the lines of 'turns you temporarily into stone.' It is supposed to be extremely nasty. It feels wrong though. Petrification isn't supposed to be temporary. I know it goes against Josh's no-hard-counters/no-death-effects philosophy and all, but it just feels wrong. Either make it permanent, no-hard-counters be damned, and give us a number of ways to de-petrify them, sigh regretfully and merge it with Paralyzed, or name it something else.

@Hamenaglar I think you're misreading Josh's intent. I believe the primary reason for the stam/health system is priest gameplay, not rest-spamming. In DnD the priest is the primary strategic health resource, which has a number of consequences: (1) you kind of need one and (2) much or most of his casting capacity will be spent on heals. He wanted to change this dynamic so players would be freer to use the priest's spells more freely for other purposes. His solution is to make the strategic health resource integral to the character mechanics. You're right about his priorities, I think: he does go mechanics and gameplay first. I think that's the right way to do it, though. Going roleplay-first would lead to similar problems as the IE games had -- cookie-cutter builds, massively exploitable systems, massive imbalances between classes, etc. -- and while some here are totally OK with that or even like it, I don't.

and a pony

I think P:E captures the feelz excellently... outside combat. I also think P:E is closer to capturing the feelz in combat than many people here seem to think. Most of the problems with it are superficial and relatively easy to address; others are merely a matter of adjusting numbers to get the pace and space right; yet others are consequences of poor AI and pathfinding issues. The combat doesn't feel poorly designed as much as simply unfinished. I'm extremely confident the combat will improve in leaps and bounds with the upcoming builds. Just how far it'll carry remains an open question of course. But I'm optimistic about it, more so than, say, stealth or exploration which currently also leave something to be desired, especially stealth. Not because they're any harder to address, but because they're not central to the game (stealth) or the crucial work has already been done (map size and content in exploration).

I agree, circle spell effects are not needed unless the spell is stationary, like wards or something. But it is probably too late to change this. The P:E equivalent of Bless is a stationary circle though, as are most priest spells. I quite like that actually. The FX would be quite easy to fix, too. Just tone them down: flash them brighter when they take effect and end, and keep them rather faint in the meantime.

@Fiebras I definitely want combat clarity, but I believe that clarity requires both more and better feedback. I also dispute that there's all that much of it in right now. There are spell FX, for sure, and some do provide meaningful feedback. Most don't; they just obscure what's going on. On the other hand, at least the following -- off the top of my head -- have either poor or no feedback (mouseover counts as poor feedback; it's good for supplemental info but not essential and immediate): Engagement. Needs link, arrowhead, or similar, connected to the selection circle. Hit. Needs sound effect and blood spatter, scaled with how successful the hit was. Crit. Let's have the screen shake from the IE games, m'kay? (We can ignore grazes and misses, I think; they might just clutter up feedback too much.) Most damage eaten up by DT. At the very least, a "My weapon is ineffective!" bark. Preferably something more informative. Also needs a sound effect. Perhaps change the floaty numbers to show how much of the attack was soaked by DT. Mouseover feedback connecting the portrait and model. Mouse over one, the other one brightens. Current action displayed as icons on the portrait, clearly separated from the status effect icons above them (which are rather small and hard to make out ATM). Now all we have is that teeny little sword, move, or cast symbol in the circle near the model. Not sufficient. Visual and auditory feedback for characters like the monk and cipher, when they gain wounds or focus; for ciphers additionally when their focus goes up enough to permit a new spell level. I would flash the portrait border and have a sound effect or associated combat bark. So yeah, clarity. And transparency. But also feedback. And yeah, those and more were all listed in Sensuki #008, which, I must remind everyone, is exactly how Obs ought to do it.

I'd be curious to see how the game would play with the following changes: Less punishing stam/health damage ratio (=more fights before having to rest) More powerful wizard/druid/priest per-rest spells, relative to chanter/cipher/paladin per-encounter or persistent spells Scarcer camping supplies It would nudge us to more strategic use of the scarcer but more powerful spells, while lengthening the day somewhat. I know I'd play more carefully than with the current "I'll need to rest soon anyway so might as well fire all barrels" balance.

Oh, the priest is extremely useful. Almost vital in fact. The game would be a lot harder without a priest in the party. My problem with the class is that it's essentially a mobile buff-o-mat. The spells are incredibly useful buffs, heals, and related things, with the odd occasional offensive one thrown in. So during an encounter, the priest basically just stays put and casts one buff or counter after another. That's kinda monotonous compared to the versatility and general awesomeness of a DnD3 priest, for example, or several of the P:E caster classes. The druid, cipher, and chanter are seriously interesting with a broad, varied set of spells, and even the wizard can be/has to be positioned tactically if you want to make the most of the cone- or line-shaped spells. The priest just stays parked safely in the back and goes buff, buff, buff, and occasionally plinks with a ranged weapon. Very useful indeed, but somewhat dull.

Something as recent as the "how to play" post in the BB forums explicitly state that stealth is per-character, not full party. So it sure looks like i'ts not intended that way. In any case it does need an overhaul.

I use slow-motion quite a lot. Pausing not that much. I'm quite convinced it can get seriously good once the pacing, feedback, and balance issues are sorted. (Also more variety for some classes, but that's not strictly combat-related.)

Yeah, that. Or roll a druid and paralyze them with that second-level spell, or a cipher and hold/halt them with that one thing that... holds or halts them, or any of a number of other things. The beetles aren't hard at this point, only annoying because they take a while to whittle down.

If there's one game that changed cRPG's for me forever, it's Fallout 2. And it isn't even one of my favorites anymore. Knowing where and how to get that power armor kind of ruined it for me forever. Also I only played the original Fallout afterwards, and it was so much better. Another of the gamechangers for me was Morrowind. I was completely enchanted by that beautiful and alien world I could freely explore. Joining the Telvanni to rise through their ranks, exploring the tombs of the Ashlander ancients, coming face to face with the living god Vivek, delving into mysterious ruins from a people disappeared ages ago... pure magic. (Despite all the !$@#!! cliff racers.) And then Oblivion ruined it for me. Then there's Planescape: Torment of course, the one that refuses to be categorized, that showed that computer games can become a real, serious art form. But the rest? Entertaining, exciting, challenging at their best, but none of them truly moved me the way those did.

Oh, the beetles. I'm getting heartily sick of beetles to tell you the truth, only because they're always the first thing I get to fight. Yeah, you'll have to adjust the tactic for the beetles, i.e. omit the opening fireball, or only fire it after the beetles have picked their targets.

Yeh, I wondered about that too, but quickly pushed it away to the back of my mind. Like, say, interiors being way bigger than exteriors. Space behaves strangely in this type of game.

I think it's very dangerous to come into the beta with heavy emotional investment. It will hurt. This is a bit like a sausage aficionado visiting a sausage factory. It's not pretty and it just might ruin sausages for you forever. Personally I really dig that sort of thing. I once even took a sausage-making course with a sausage master. We made different kinds. It was gross like you wouldn't believe but the sausages were delicious, and my appreciation for them only grew in the process.

I agree about the somewhat boring spell selection, but not about them being useless. I've found both the fireball and the cone-shaped spells highly useful, and the line-shaped ones pretty handy too. Open up with a fireball, then when the battle lines settle, move your wizard to the side and use one of the cones or lines. Or just make a muscle wizard, kit him out in heavy armor, and put him in the front line and blast away from there. Works great. I too would still like more variety in the spells beyond [apply damage of type T/debuff of type D to area shaped A].

Wait, who's complaining about the combat being too hard?

No, but you can CERTAINLY improve Baldur's Gate. :ducks:

Ehhh... color me skeptical, until this is independently verified. This is just the kind of thing where even extremely solid professionals can get carried away and produce the results they want to see. And even if it is, it only proves that the guy was one of her johns, not that he killed her. We already knew there was a high likelihood of that; he wouldn't have been a suspect otherwise. (I would also be extremely surprised if there was no other DNA on that scarf other than his. There's DNA everywhere, and certainly more on a dirty scarf than most places.) Edit: even so YAY! Finland FTW.

Some friends of mine found a medieval vaulted cellar under their home, leading to the crypts of a nearby abbey. True story.

Curses, my cover is blown. Initializing a reset of the matrix.

What doesn't work, the Numenera combat system, or the resolution mechanic? There are a whole bunch of things wrong with Numenera, but the resolution mechanic is not in that list IMO. Much was gained by boiling down the standard attack to a single die roll against a Difficulty Class with flat damage - Armor. It's not only faster, it's also more transparent; easier to see what's going on. It would be extremely easy to build on that to make a more traditional combat-heavy game. You just need to define more things you can do in combat, instead of leaving most of it up to improv. (I'm fairly certain Shadowrun Returns uses a similar system -- flat damage adjusted by accuracy, x0.5 for graze, x1.5 to x2 for crit. That mechanic works fine there too IMO, and that's about as combat-heavy as stuff gets.)

@Indira I'm not going to try the EE. I've read up thoroughly on it and am convinced it would want me to gnaw off my foot at the ankle. The things I didn't like about BG1 could not possibly have been fixed in the EE, whereas the things I did have been messed with.

...within the constraints set by the designers, who set the constraints based on their ideas of what's fun or reasonable or what not. This is the part that's confusing me about you humans. Some of you act as if the game was not an artificial construct. I know we've fooled most of you into believing the physical world with its laws isn't, but it ought to be pretty obvious that a game world is. And that the 'laws of nature' in that game world have been created based on the creators' ideas of fun. Meaning that they also consider what's not fun and try to minimize the amount of that in the world.