light487

More than 2.. in old games with limited resources we are presented with a single stat "HP".. then as things get a little more resource friendly we get HP and Endurance/Stamina and so on.. but why should it be limited to old ways of thinking? We could dumb the whole thing down to "Vitality" and leave it at that.. Vitality would include everything related to health, physical and mental (yup! MP included!).. but that would just be silly to go backwards in the amount of detail. Instead, we can take many different things and combine them together... race, class, endurance, constitution, training/skills, family background, upbringing, heck.. we could even go as far as to include environmental effects like air quality (in dungeons for example).. some of the "stats" could be directly affected by player choice, some could be chosen once (eg. race), others would not be something the player has direct control over.. The more complexity, the more realistic it is.. but the more complex it is, the harder it is to ensure balance throughout the entire gameplay experience. After all is said and done.. you still end up with basic stats.. Health and Stamina (or whatever you choose to call them or represent them in the game).

"if allowed" Indeed... IF ALLOWED. We're all making assumptions here based on a quick and simple explanation of a design idea that hasn't even been fully fleshed out by the designers yet. There are so many other variables other than health and stamina. At the end of the day, I'm not too concerned which way they go because I have faith it will be a fun game regardless

I expect the game to be atleast 40 hours for a single play through as a minimum. Anything less than that and I will feel a bit short changed.. even if it were the most high quality game.. it's just too short for an RPG. Heck, even Borderlands 1 felt short.. yet Borderlands 2 feels a good length.. and that's not even a true RPG.. So somewhere around the 40 to 60 hour mark with the quality that can be gained through that.

Defnitely not hard to find, have to search and scour the land for companions. I also don't want them falling into my lap.. other than perhaps the first one.. but even that one would be something that happens as part of the main story.. I want it to be basically like BG.. where you start out alone and through your "normal" travels, you come across people who want to join in your cause.. you might need to help them out in some way first, or reach a certain level of fame.. or whatever to "qualify" for them.. and yes, there should be ones "off the beaten track".. but not ALL of them.

Take Stamina out of the equation completely for a moment. So in the example Josh posted you had around 25 Health (and 30 Stamina.. whatever.. doesn't matter).. Some guy attacks you with a dagger.. the first hit took 4 HP from you (and some other amount of Stamina bringing you to 8 Stamina.. but again.. whatever.. not important as Stamina is NOT health). You are still Alive because you have 21 HP left.. then the second hit deals a further 2 HP.. now you're STILL alive but have 19 HP left. This health (HP) does NOT regen.. not inside of combat, nor outside of combat (unless you rest, apply first aid etc). If you were hit for 15 HP, with a more powerful weapon, and then the second hit was for 10 HP, you'd be dead.. plain and simple (maimed in the easy difficulty setting). There's no ressurection in this game. There's no "Stamina Shield".. this no artificial HP or anything like that at all. Now Stamina.. think of it not as a factor directly tied to HP but instead think of it more as Action Points (like in the Fallout games).. AP allow you to take actions in a combat situation. If your AP is too low, you can not take certain actions.. when it falls to 0, you pass out. That's what the Stamina is. When you take damage, things happen beyond simply losing HP.. you might even get poisoned, for example. In the system described, when you take damage HP is deducted, Actions Points (Stamina) are deducted, if they were to put in armor and weapon degradation then perhaps some points would be removed from the armor's durability. So you have TWO SEPARATE stats that relate to Vitality.. Vitality is NOT health.. Vitality is a combination of a variety of statuses of which Stamina and Health are two.. but they are separate. As per the example, if you start with 30 stamina and the first blow reduces your stamina to 8.. you might not be able to attack because your only attack might require 10 stamina (or Action Points) to take that action. Reducing everything back to a single stat, HP, removes this level of detail to the character's vitality feedback... so we need things like Stamina (or Action Points) to show that the character is not only alive but is also not so weak, stunned, tired to take actions. Now, no one has said that the maximum Stamina is tied into the amount of health you have.. no one official has said that.. but I would think that if you had a big gash across the right side of your abdomen, you would have a little less Stamina than you did before.. if you had a broken leg, you'd not be able to endure as much as if you didn't have a broken leg. You'd still be alive.. you might have a decent level of health, no sickness, no infection from the wounds and so on.. but you're certainly not going to be able to take as much action, for as long as the next person who doesn't have a broken leg. Maybe it doesn't reduce the max stamina.. maybe it increases the amount of stamina you use or get taken away when you are hit... Stamina is not directly tied to health but then nothing is completely unaffected by the other things around it. Stop trying to limit this game with limited thinking and embrace the new ways this game could bring an even greater level of detail than ever before.

No thanks.. I want my 2nd big city to be its own thing.. could the stronghold be the fortress of that big city? Maybe.. but only if it was first owned by someone else as part of the game.. maybe you do some quests and all that stuff and you later become the owner of the stronghold through that method... Having said that, I would much prefer that my Stronghold be in a separate place to a city.. a place I can build up from the ruins of an old abandoned castle maybe? However, my idea of a stronghold isn't the same as others.. they might want a den underground.. underneath an inn somewhere... or perhaps they want to set up in the sewers under one of the cities? Stronghold doesn't have to mean an actual castle-like structure..

I really don't like HP and MP potions in many games... but having said that I do like crafting potions and then being able to use those potions. If potions were made a little more rare, a little more expensive than usual but crafting rewarded people by making them more readily available through alchemy.. that could work. Not so much that it becomes an exploit to just make sure you have an alchemist in your party.. but to make it rewarding to have an alchemist if you choose.

I'm a bit torn on this one.. I certainly don't like killing NPCs personally.. maybe it's my Lawful nature. Sure.. I might get angry and have a brawl with them.. but murder is completely out of the question. I wouldn't want the game to be limited in this way though.. just because I don't want to because of my Lawful Neutral playstyle and approach to RPG gaming, doesn't mean I don't acknowledge that there are people who like to play chaotic characters out there that want to do that.. The only characters that shouldn't be able to be killed outright would be the main quest ones.. though those chaotic people could still hurt them.. and be penalised accordingly.. no quest giver is going to want you to help them if you just tried to kill them... but if you work your way back in to their good books somehow.. or if you prove that you are just too valueable to their goals being met, then they might begrudgingly give you the quest.. though I wouldn't be expecting any monetary rewards for doing it etc.

Let's get one thing straight before moving on.. Stamina is not Health. There are two things that relate to the overall vitality of the player and only one is Hit Points (Health). The way I see it is that Health would not automatically regen, unless you're out of combat and are resting.. and even then I believe you should have received some form of first aid, whether that be in the form of physical bandages, herbal ointments or magical spells. During combat one should be able to have hit points restored by a magic spell (no potions.. pulleeease!). Stamina on the hand does regen over time when the player is resting, even during combat.. part of the damage that is inflicted on a character is taken from the Stamina pool and part from the Health pool.. the smaller amount will be from Health.. and I would assume that the maximum amount of stamina would reduce as the amount of health is reduced also.. meaning that someone with a lot of wounds would not be about to endure for as long as someone with no wounds (unless of course their stat points are higher.. of course!). Once out of combat, the stamina will regen very quickly but, as stated above, the health will not unless first aid is given and rest taken. So what might happen if you're on a time limited quest is that you will end up at the destination quite battered and bruised and barely able to stand because you don't have time to regen your health but could still fight (though at a much reduced ability/efficiency) because your stamina has regen'ed.

If I use a skill, whether it is a combat skill or a stealth skill or avoidance skill etc.. then I should be rewarded for that in seeing my ability to use that skill increase.. whether it is a matter of being able to use that skill better or a matter of being able to use that skill more often is not the concern.. but having absolutely no rewards for combat (which involves using skills and using items that requrie skill) then this is going to be a very weird and potentially boring game for a lot of people. So you just spent 2 hours going from one side of the map to the other, during that 2 hours you get absolutely ZERO rewards because you have yet to reach the objective yet.. yer.. that's going to work.

By making a guard or NPC immortal after a quest objective is completed, you've suddenly introduced an artificial constraint into gameplay. Why can't I kill the guard? Maybe he looked at me funny? With your "simple" solution, you've created a mechanic many times more intrusive and heavy handed than removing kill experience ever did. Besides, in the objective based system there's nothing preventing you from killing everything in sight if that's what you want to do, it's just that you won't get any in-game, mechanical reward for doing so. He didn't make the guard immortal.. he put in a simple IF statement that checks if the quest has been completed before and if it has been then no XP would be awarded for killing that guard. You could still kill the guard a hundred times just that you will only get the XP for the kill on the first playthrough that quest. Either way.. kill xp for quest-based mobs aren't really the concern here.. it's more to do with random mobs and mobs that can be recycled and grinded upon.

I don't think it actually needs "live" recordings as long as the artist(s) who are making the music are good enough to create the atmosphere the game deserves.. if that does mean adding a few live recordings here and there.. that's fine.. but I wouldn't want money thrown away on specialist musicians who demand a high price because they're the only person in the world who knows how to play a specific instrument from ancient times..

Woot I'm on the list

While I acknowledge the need to not have "Kill XP" and Quest XP as the entire mechanic for level gain, I think that XP gained through combat is still a correct and proper reward for the player's efforts. The final kill blow itself is not as important as how you got there. Maybe there won't be levels at all.. maybe it will be just about increasing your individual skills to this epic levels by end-game.. either way though, calling it XP or not, there is still gains through combat.. and if you were to NOT gain XP from combat whatsoever, I think it would be a mistake. Parrying, slicing, dicing, pounding, bashing etc.. each successful use of a skill or action should be rewarded in someway. So as I use my sword more, I should get progressively better at using it as I succeed in using it.. each time I use a skill, I should get pogressively better at doing that skill as I succeed in doing it and so on. I definitely don't want it to be ONLY Kill XP.. but what I would like to have is a "General XP" pool that you do get from things like "final blows" (kills) in a combat.. This type of XP is used to enhance other skills etc.. but the amount you get would be very minimal compared to the amount of Skill/Action XP you'd get from the actual combat part.. Take training dumbies for example.. you can never kill them, so there's no "Kill XP" to be gained there.. but the point is to refine your Skills and Techniques, so you would get "Skills XP" for the combat but no actual 'Kill XP" Try to remember, when discussing XP, that is an abstract term.. Experience Points.. they're just a way of representing progression or experience to arbitrary "levels" or milestones. There' no such tangible thing as an experience "point"..

Haha.. wish I could listen to the stream, let alone watch it.. just not possible here at work..

They also have some amazing new tools to work with.. most notably Unity 4.0.. which is pretty amazing all by itself..

Yes.. I think there was some confusion over which "Likes" needed to be done.. heck it doesn't even need to be the backers "Liking" it.. it could be anyone! Your friends, family, work colleagues.. anyone you can get to "Like" the page..

Yup.. this is not going to be a game like the ones mentioned through the first couple of posts. I would still expect a 2014 release, whether it is April or not. There's going to be less reliance on voice acting and more on text conversations.. and so on.. while I certainly wouldn't consider this to be a "low budget" title with all the connotations that implies.. it's certainly not going to be like Mass Effect or KOTOR etc

Just added $8 to my pledge. Title: Parrot Keeper of the Obsidian Order Or: Obsidian Order's Keeper of the Parrots Either way is inline with everyone else's title

I don't want stupid classes.. vampires and werewolves and soul eaters.. I actually want generic classes that I can use to build my own character with. Basically this post from eimatshya sums up the degree to which I would want the game to "impose" specialisation and even this is starting to get a bit into the "stupid" classes.. Divine Divinity did this very well.. they basically gave you the choice of 6 classes, which gave you "starting skills" and "starting conditions" but then left it up to you to decide what skills from each of the class trees you wanted.

Despite the top vote being "Fortress" thus far, I certainly don't want a fortress.. at least not straight away I wouldn't. I would like a list of choices that can be had throughout the development of my character(s). And at some point I would also like to have that place of residence become a shop as well. A shop very much like Recettear: An Item Shop Tale's setup. So after the game is done, or at least at some point in the later stages of the game, I can open a shop.. and then use the items and things I get through questing as things that can be purchased and use crafting to make things as well. So it's like a mini-game within the main game. So with this in mind, a fortress could have multiple shops in the courtyard area, which services a nearby village... but a fortress by itself, without any other function than to display trophies, would be too big and boring.