PrimeJunta

@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.

Fine, I'll start another one. Kobolds quiver, for here I come. Again.

Whereas I didn't even like BG1 one much, so...

The feel I get is that Might is tied to intimidation in conversations. I thought Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects was pretty damn frighteningly intimidating, but Kevin Spacey is no Hulk Hogan. I would have no problem describing him as Mighty though.

I'm already sure this will sail past NWN2 and laugh as it sails. That game was mostly derp. Decent character-building if you like DnD3, and the trial was cool although it fell completely flat with the conclusion, but other than that... derp.

At this point? A qualified yes. The combat is the big ? right now. If there's time to get it properly sorted, it will almost certainly be a resounding YES! I'm not at all worried about the central hero, memorable companions, emotional writing, mature thematic exploration, or dungeon-diving; the small dungeons in the BB are already pretty cool and Obsidian can write all three legs off a donkey. Miiildly worried about the exploration; if all the wilderness maps are as small as in the BB, that's going to be a let-down; OTOH if some of them have really cool stuff to find, that'll make up for it. So for that part we'll have to see. All in all it's looking pretty good from where I'm at. Of the planks they listed, combat is clearly unfinished and exporation is a little worrying, but the others are all good.

@Karkarov yeh, I dig... although I only agree, like, 50%. My only real beef with the encounters is those $!#@!! beetles. Get rid of at least two groups and make the remaining ones wander around a bit. Maybe have the stone beetles lie in ambush underground for more excitement. A bigger map wouldn't hurt either, those drakes and wolves and totally-not-shambling-mounds were crowded quite close together. I liked the spider-infested cave -- man, there are a LOT of spiders there, and it builds up kind of nicely from the crystal spider to the real mob with the spider queen -- although I would've liked to see some rationale for the friendly cohabitation they were having with the ogre; I'd have thought that one or the other would've seen 'lunch' rather than 'roommate' there. The Dyrford ruins and the Pwngwllwenhwhwatever dungeon were right cool. But overall there was way more variety by way of enemies and encounters in the little beta than I would've expected. Dozens of different critters, not just three or four. Felt like a bigger variety of beasties here than in all of Dragon Age.