moridin84

that's a question of pacing though. If minigames exist, they should be spaced out accordingly. I'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot of lock picking. A single dungeon would probably have at least 1 door and 3 chests to be unlocked.

BS. There are fan made modules for NWN which return reagents to their proper place. Developers are just afraid to go there because they know they'll instantly get a load of problems with other parts of their game mechanics (like economics and encounters). What's your problem with range I have no idea. Proper place? That wording makes you seem kinda... fanatical. What I mean about long range is that a "paper wizard" could explode a group of orcs (or whatever) a mile away but in a computer game you are stuck with casting spells at a most closer distance. So the "long range" thing wizards haven't isn't as strong in the computer games.

I'm on about the flawed logic of "Some people hate this, so it obviously has no reason to ever exist." What happens to be your opinion is also true, as an RPG can be made without lockpicking and it remains an RPG. Hell, you could make a game set in a world without the invention of locks. Do you know what's equally non-integral to an RPG? A lack of complexity in lock-picking. Half the people playing RPGs probably don't want to bother with a specific class, no matter how fun you make it. It obviously doesn't follow that we should only implement classes if more than 70% of the player populous wants to play them. Every class isn't integral to an RPG, and yet various ones get implemented in various games, and no one decides that their very existence has ruined the whole game while they play through without ever having to play a given class that they dislike. I remember the science unlock minigame in Fallout 3. It was alright, it wasn't super fun or anything but it wasn't that annoying. I hated the one in Fallout: New Vegas, so much so that I basically never played a "science character" since I wasn't going to be doing the minigame. That kind of sucks you know?

Reagents certainly. The "long range" thing as well. In any game a "long range spell" is one that can hit someone half way across the screen, same as the range of a bow and arrow. Not very long compared to the range of a pen and paper wizard. Why is everything 100% one way or 100% the other with you?

Precisely the point. Why not just make sure the integral lockpicking is ultra easy (or uses keys), and the optional lockpicking is the only bit that's actually more complex and tricky? If you want potatoes instead of broccoli, why would you demand that broccoli be on your plate, but that it taste as much like potatoes as possible? Also, if someone inherently is more interested in combat than they are in picking locks, then "Because it just so happens to not be interesting to me" is not a reason why it shouldn't have any depth in a game that's going to be enjoyed by oodles of people. One's opinion or preference is not wrong. Pretending opinion and preference are valid reasons for the way things must or must not be? So pointlessly, pointlessly wrong. I'm not sure what you are on about. In my opinion lockpicking, or at least a lockpicking minigame, is not integral to an RPG and I think most people, even the original poster would agree.

Most people like dialogue and combat, they is quite integral to any RPG. Lock picking? Half the people playing RPGs probably wouldn't want to bother with it even if it was fun.

IE fans aren't necessarily DnD fans. For me the IE games just happened to be DnD based games. While I'm sure it works fine in PnP there are a lot of issues with DnD in a combat focused computer game. It's horribly imbalanced for one. Most of the stuff you are talking about simply doesn't translate very well into a computer game. Anyway, I've already given examples of how a melee wizard would work. A regular wizard would use long ranged spells with cast times and no cool downs (or high casts per day), while a melee wizard would use short ranged spells with no cast times and large cool downs (or low casts per day). A melee wizard shouldn't be just a warrior with a few spells, he should be a wizard who likes to get close and personal. Well okay. I don't think it's something that can be changed at some point.

The problem is that you have a specific idea of what a wizard is. It seems to very DnD based. I mean "high preparation costs"? What preparation costs? In any case. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/321413 As you can see, Obsidian are okay with the idea of a melee wizard and are designing the game with'flexible' rather than 'fixed' classes.

Well it's supposed to be a conversation. The orcs right? That part is pretty bad. I mean, slaughtering your way through an entire army of orcs sounds cool but it's a tad tedious. The best part of Neverwinter Nights 2 is the characters, and the castle thing. So yeah, probably skip to MotB. It really is amazing.

I don't think mini-games are appropriate for this type of game. I've seen mini-games done for RPGs but in every case I can think of it's been a first person RPG. Or possibly single-party zoomed in third-person RPGs, there might be some of them. We are going to have lots of party members with a variety of skills right? I think trying to organize your party so you have the most skills available to you is a good enough mini-game.

I disagree with the idea that you cannot "go beyond mid level spells in either". That sucks. How I would like it work is like this.... You have 10 abilities available to you. If you are a pure wizard than you will simply choose a different set of abilities than if you were a melee wizard. They should be equivalent in power. I think you've misunderstood me. I'm not saying that Melee-Mages should be limited to mid-level spells, I agree, that would absolutely suck. I'm saying you could have either high level spells in combat oriented magic, or utility magic, but not both (where as without the investment in melee you could pick up both high level combat and utility spells). Do you see what I mean now? I'm advocating the loss of some magical versatility as the price of taking on a secondary combat role. I like the way you've described it though, I'm just thinking more in terms of skill trees with linear power progression that a pool of abilities though. I love the idea of abilities staying useful throughout the game (that's something else Dragon Age does well). If you go decide to become a melee wizard then there definitely needs to be some kind of trade-off. However, I think this should be more 'organic'. For example, there shouldn't a restriction of wearing armour and using swords, nor should there be any 'spell failure'. Instead, staffs and robes should give bonuses to spells whereas swords and armour give bonuses to melee damage and defense. If you choose armour then you are trading offensive for defensive, without feeling "punished" by some awkward mechanic. It should work the same way with abilities. You're in melee so you need more defensive and close range abilities, by taking those abilities you lose long range ones. You will be in melee and getting attacked so much of the time you it won't be practical to use any spells with a long cast time. By giving a spell a long cast time you are discouraging melee wizards from using in without forcing them. Organic.

Charge-based buffs do make sense. It's just a different type of 'short term'. And on-hit thing is just an "effect", it could be a short term or long term buff. Well it's an interesting idea. I think it makes things more complicated and doesn't really add much 'fun' though.

I refuse! When I play an RPG the character I am character controlling most of the time is my main. I control the other characters as well, just not as much. So it is very important that the character I create is fun and interesting to play. Besides, I don't want to be forced to bring along a "tank" companion just because I don't like playing as a "tank" myself. With hybrid characters I can "make do". I found it pretty fun to play that in DA: O. Basically you toss all your AOE magic at the group of enemies, turn on all your buffs and wade right in the middle of them. The main problem is that you need have much mana after that and didn't have any instant cast spells to use. That's why I'm suggesting short-range instant cast spells in this game for melee wizards. I disagree with the idea that you cannot "go beyond mid level spells in either". That sucks. How I would like it work is like this.... You have 10 abilities available to you. If you are a pure wizard than you will simply choose a different set of abilities than if you were a melee wizard. They should be equivalent in power.

In NWN2 or rather in any DnD based game the buff durations were all over the place. You had ones at 24 hours, 1 hour / level, 10 minute / level, 1 minute / level, 1 minute and 9 seconds. Despite that, once I got past level 10 I treated all buffs from 24 hours up to 1 minute / level as "long term" and everything else as I couldn't be bothered, I'll just cast FIREBALL instead short term. So I think buffs should be split into short term buffs and long term buffs. Long Term Buffs The long term ones can be either be AoE (affecting all party members) or self-cast and should last until you rest (or whatever) I remember in NWN2 where you had stat boosting spells like bull strength and owl's wisdom. These spells were level 2. By the time you got past the halfway point the level 2 damage spells were pretty crappy. So the best thing to do was fill your level 2 slots with buff spells. This meant that every time you rested you ended you having to cast a ton of single target buff spells onto the relevant party members. Annoying. By making long term spells either AoE or self-cast you are limiting the amount of times you can need to cast them after you rest to precisely one. Short Term Buffs The short term ones won't have the self-cast restriction but should only last up to the duration of the fight. I'm not sure how long fights are going to last in this game but imagine on average fights last for 2 mins. In this case, the maximum duration of a short term buff should be roughly 1.5 minutes, though it can be as short as 5 seconds.

Personally I don't think that melee wizard should get "fighter perks", I think a wizard should simply be using a different set of spells. I assume that a wizard will have access to a large variety of spells. Defensive, short range, long range, aoe, instant cast, long cast etc. A regular wizard would probably use a few defensive spells and concentrate on long range attack spells. A melee wizard on the other hand would have a bunch of defensive spells and a concentrate on short range instant cast spells. I don't think anyone would mistake a warrior with a melee wizard if he's setting people on fire in between melee attacks. Assuming warriors won't be able to set people on fire that is.

The best stories tend to be more personal then just "save the world". NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer had a much better story than NWN2 for example. Don't get be wrong, I actually like NWN2 (once you get to Neverwinter anyway) but that's more because of the characters than the story.

If there was an option between two lines, one with a [Lie] tag and one without, where the [Lie] tag would cause a bluff check then I would pick the one without the [Lie] tag. Regardless of whether I meant it or not. I think 99% of people who play the game would do the same.

Hmm I think the developers said the game is going to have something equivalent to the "acts" that were in Neverwinter Nights 2, where only certain areas are available until you get to passed story "bottlenecks". By "acts" I read "unlocked sites". But there's no reason that shouldn't prohibit you from exploring the rest of the map. It just means some locations won't show up until you reach that part of the story. (Like a hidden ruin or some street in a city.) Well I can see it working that way too.

Hmm I think the developers said the game is going to have something equivalent to the "acts" that were in Neverwinter Nights 2, where only certain areas are available until you get to passed story "bottlenecks".

That's basically how Fallout 1 & 2 worked. The problem with that was dearth of locations and the ability to blunder into Enclave Patrols and get exploded with one shot by a Gauss Pistol at level 1-2 with only a 0AC, 0DR, 0DT Vault Suit for "armor." I don't find "blundering into Enclave Patrols" to be a "problem". They do exactly what the are supposed to do. And anyway, Fallout 1 and 2 are actually proper open-world role-playing games. Just old-school ones. Right. But they don't have to use the fine grid of a Fallout or most of the old Gold Box Games; they could simply use an area grid like they have in many of the strategy games. (Kind of like point-to-point movement in "Curse of the Azure Bonds".) You move into a grid area and you are presented with some number of target locations within that area. Movement between the grid areas is what generates random encounters. There's less fiddling around that way with the pixel-by-pixel movement. Firstly, I'm definitely against random encounters in this game. Secondly, maybe like Neverwinter Nights 2?

That's basically how Fallout 1 & 2 worked. The problem with that was dearth of locations and the ability to blunder into Enclave Patrols and get exploded with one shot by a Gauss Pistol at level 1-2 with only a 0AC, 0DR, 0DT Vault Suit for "armor." I don't find "blundering into Enclave Patrols" to be a "problem". They do exactly what the are supposed to do. And anyway, Fallout 1 and 2 are actually proper open-world role-playing games. Just old-school ones.

Sounds kinda neat but I doubt it's worth the effort of implementing.

I think it depends on your definition or linear and open world. They definitely aren't doing "sandbox", e.g. Bethesda games. I think the are going to split the game into "acts" (or something) with each act having a certain number of locations to visit.

No, not really. The game is going to be designed differently if the inventory space is limited than if it was unlimited.

So is the rift in opinions between people who find inventory management "exciting" and people who don't? I'm of the latter and find the former baffling. It can be a bit of a hassle to run around to 12 different vendors though. Disastrous if you decide that only Hatters will buy hats and Blacksmiths armour/weapons/etc.