IndiraLightfoot

Update #32: The Torment site gets a relaunch, and all the backers will have to confirm all their choices and add-ons by October 31. Also, for those of us who get to have texts in T:ToN or get to make items and other-in-game stuff, some of our designing can begin as of right now. They also call for us to upgrade our pledges a bit for more George Ziets-goodies in the form of the Gullet in the Bloom. Yum!

KP: Absolutely true! And I have also paused the game a large number of times to make this playthrough of mine documented, and I have really stopped everywhere, read everything, listened to all the NPCs, etc, so I'd guess even with a full party, I'd would have gotten there by half that time.

All that matters is this: Josh read Sensuki and Matt's paper, and he really appreciated their effort and agreed with most of their scientifically based conclusions and suggestions, the aim of which is to achieve a great enough balance between attributes so that all of them are attractive in their own right. Josh had himself already pondered along very similar lines and made some similar calculations. Unfortunately, there are a few individuals that turn on even the best and most reasonable suggestions, and the reasons for that aren't always clear, so some people call them shills, fanbois or jealous persons. As long as they have good reasons that they can back up with equally good arguments it's one thing, but if it all just boils down to obscure agendas, personal insults and no real counter-arguments, then we have a problem.

Here's an idea: When the attributes have been re-balanced and inserted into a patch, how about exaggerating their effects - i.e. how about increasing the bonus points, bonus effects and so forth granted for each attribute - this would facilitate our checking out the balancing effects? It would hit two birds with one stone, since we'd also get to see what would happen to the system if attributes had much more weight to them. Either it's catastrophic or really fun.

Gorth: I had almost forgotten about him. I did remember Prism, though - a sweet little NPC with a cute story. I have spent most of my money I've got on magical missiles for my ranged weapons and on plate armours for the dwarves in me party, plus a magical shield for Sparkur at that. Still, here, I got lucky, since, as you can see, Anarcon, merely had a splint mail on, so when you have low-levels like this, as low AC as possible on a few characters and at least a handful healing potions on a few of them are life-saving investments.

I'll heed your warning, Bos_hybrid, so I will cast on this thread.

Why, Almost Human? Why this autumn!? Why!!!??? There are already so many good games coming up, and now you've just added another one. I hate to have backlogs that entice me into game-hopping over and over. Thanks, I guess.

In Sparkur’s words: ”Around the Nashkel mines, after we returned the worthless dagger to the half-starved Kylee in the mine, we have found tough, but precious winterwolves. Their pelts are worth a fortune in Nashkel. Unfortunately, there were even bigger beasts around in those craggy and kobold-plagued forests. An enormous cave bear immediately picked us out as a potential multi-course meal, and we rushed to get up our best missiles and launch them at the beast. And yay, all of them hit, with Indira’s magical arrow sinking into its withers, and my mighty bolt of lightning frying its behind!” ”At a cliff ledge, we found a fancy fellow named Prism. He had stolen some emeralds that shall be the eyes of his love Ellesime, or rather his huge relief of her face jutting out from the cliffside. Unfortunately, a bounty hunter is after him, and it happens to be Greywolf, the one we pretended to be, just to get free gold coins." "We agreed to defend Prism from this bounty hunter, and sure enough, the burly thug turned up, and he knew who we were too. Greywolf was just as hard-hitting as the rumours about his cruelty preceding him, but thanks to our brave dwarven frontline, a great number of magic darts and arrows killed him in the end. Anarcon, however, needed every drop in his healing potion to survive the onslaught. When Prism finished his lithic masterpiece, he vanished into thin air and did perhaps join his beloved. Tulippa immediately recognized Greywolf’s blade as a Verscona, a very powerful blade, vengeful and blood-hungry in the hands of any rogue, bounty hunter and swash buckler. Indira could use a sword like this, I’d imagine." Day 25, 26 Mirtul, 1368: ”The storekeep in Nashkel loved our winterwolf pelts, but he’s no darts left, so we had to journey all the way back to Beregost to stock up on them. On our way there, we found a little boy picking fruits for his mother by the road. We scared him off, just to teach him a lesson. Another kid, this time a girl named Chloe, said that a sturdy woman, an officer Vai, at the Jovial Juggler is looking for Indira, and she said we’re famous around here for saving them mines. Outside the smithy, Elminister, one of them bookworms, disturbed our mood. We all detested the old man, the very same man that insisted on us going to Friendly Arms Inn (which was wise advice, though), as soon as he opened his cracked lips and let his learned ways seep out in the air like smoke from a funeral pyre. Indira said that he knows nothing of our burdens. He warned us of bandits to the north-east and left, tail between his crooked legs.”

Nice examples, Labadal. And I haven't even counted M&M X Legacy, which was surprisingly good. I put in a good 70 hours in that game and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

OE, don't be stingy on the sound effects. Many CRPGs have been over the years, and they have suffered from that decision. Actually, plenty and varied sound effects for the same actions are the cheapest and easiest way to get great atmosphere, nice polish and improved replayability of the game. If you add different animations for the same actions (which is also always nice), it's much more labour-intensive and thus expensive. I'd love to see OE be in the forefront here and really go wild sound effects-wise, even having cast spells and such sound slightly differently, for instance. You'll not regret it, OE!

I make this topic, since I believe the sound effects will be really important for the longevity and polish of PoE. Essentially, I don't want any flaws in this regard get overlooked or even swept under the rug. One important aspect of making the invo shuffling not just ho-hum okay, but great, in PoE, will be the sound effects of each and every item moved and dropped into slots. In BG, all heavy weapons, armours, gems, keys, scrolls, arrows, bows, etc, etc, etc, have different sound handles and most of them sound good (I even think BG:EE has added in a few extra sounds - if not, I'm blown away of the sound array - perhaps it's added stuff from BG2). The in-combat sounds in the BB build, however, have been extremely limited, almost placeholder all of tthem. The same goes for the invo sound effects stuff. I mean, we are supposed to play this game for hours on end - so the sounds need to be not only sufferable, but great and varying - like three effects on a gem moved, four effects of an arrow shot, five sounds for taking a hit by a blunt metal weapon, well, you get the idea.

PJ: That's another rumba I like! One secret aspect of making the invo shuffling not just ho-hum okay, but great, in PoE, will be the sound effects of each and every item moved and dropped into slots. In BG, all heavy weapons, armours, gems, keys, scrolls, arrows, bows, etc, etc, etc, have different sound handles and most of them sound good (I even think BG:EE has added in a few extra sounds - if not, I'm blown away of the sound array - perhaps it's added stuff from BG2). The in-combat sounds in the BB build as been extremely limited, almost placeholder all of it. The same goes for the invo stuff. We really should make a thread about those important little sounds - OE would do well not to miss that kind of polish. I mean, we are supposed to play this game for hours on end - so the sounds need to be not only sufferable, but great and varying - like three effects on a gem moved, four effects of an arrow shot, well, you get the idea.

I have honestly no idea why I like the invo shuffle so much, but I do. It's like meditating - it's a perfect mellow cop-out thing to do in-between combat and travelling, so it helps with the pacing. This is slow food, remember, not some ARPG a la D3 (which actually has a lot of invo rumba as well).

Hiro: I've begun my little D:OS journey right now, and that's exactly how it works there too - just that the arrows have a much larger impact, literally. It will be a shame if PoE misses that kind of opportunity. And it actually is fun.

Alright! This autumn seems to be, at least for me personally, the true start of CRPG incline, as it were. -Not only have I picked up BG:EE, finally, with its a new quick loot feature, and I have given it tens of hours, and it just keeps giving sweet stuff back. -Yesterday, after its latest big patch, I just started playing D:OS, and it's unbelievably excellent so far. Even the tutorial is über-fun! -And in two days, I'll get my hands on WL2, which looks absolutely stellar! -Add to this that I most likely we'll cave in and get Origin just in order to play DA:I. I've been sceptical, but this latest gameplay video made me change my mind. I really want to try it out. It's an open world with a rather interesting approach to combat and tactical AI: -Well, then, of course, Pillars of Eternity, is on the horizon. -And in early 2015, most likely, The Witcher 3, will be available. Hopefully, I can get to like CD Red's third instalment, at least. I can honestly say that it feels like the late 1990s and early 2000s again. Wow!

HoonDing: Blame it on the womanizer gene that runs in their royal family, and "manizer" gene for the co-called opposite sex.

Like I wrote in my thread about things that would fix the PoE beta as it stands, I have changed my mind quite a bit concerning the inventory UI. Like Sensuki and Stun, I'd prefer something in the vein of BG2. Furthermore, I've lost the excitement I had over the stash, and now I really don't like it. As much as I love to ransack places and take everything with me, including fixtures, it's a pretty bizarre and cumbersome addition to this kind of CRPG. Also, I'm pretty alone in this, but I'd like to see a return of limited ammo, and might-based carrying capacity limits for party members - I actually like the so called "invo game", I realize this now when re-playing BG. It adds an interesting, although not always "fun" ( TM).

Sure, none of us advocating the in-action-icon UI suggested it would fix any of that. It's supplemental and sometimes superior to looking at the characters on screen (which can be very spread out) and it's much faster than trying to use the combat log just to see which guy is using/doing what. For instance, with BG:EE, I immediately spot if some character gets empty-handed (also, the combat log isn't crystal clear in its feedback on stuff like this), and then I can cancel weird actions like a dart-throwing sorceress running up to some big ogre boxing it with her fist.

Volourn: At the time of Interplay, I just played the games. I had no knowledge whatsoever about the dev teams and the companies behind them. I loved that Black Isle intro, that's as far as my insight stretches. And that Bard's Tale-remake never interested me. Please enlighten me.

Well, introduce a tiny panel, box, circle, whatever, right by your precious portraits, then - as long as we get to keep that perfect function for a party-based CRPG - one glance, and I see what everyone is up to or not. I really like it. Perhaps they should have a symbol for idle as well, like in COH2, but an hourglass.

Heh, yeah! They are not exactly aesthetically pleasing. They are but functional. EDIT: The UI in BG:EE really works, though. Kudos to Beamdog for the changes to it. Having the party to the right with action icons on the portraits is very nice, as this leaves the combat log at centre stage, which it probably deserves - that's the only way you see what happens during the game and in-non-combat interactions. Below it, you have the action bar, as it were, which change depending on active character. And that red diamond on it to the left, if I press it, I can have all stuff in a radius being picked up - and then the character doing the fetching actually does walk over to all bodies and collect it (except money, which ka-chings instantly).

Sensuki is right, Silent Winter. Also, the marker rings of your party members are double circles. As I am playing through BG:EE right now, I can show you a pic where marker rings perhaps suffer the worse: The worst case is above: -complex outdoor areas -Having a party member with red as base colour (the elven sorceress Furia to the left) -Down in the lower left corner, you have a neutral NPC with a light blue marker ring (compare to that my sorceress Tulippa, with her blue marker ring to the right) -While the enemies have singe ring markers -Having a NPC temporarily added to your party (in this case Neera in front of the Amnian mage casting a spell) - and she has red as her base colour -Also, note how the active Amnian mage has his ring turn into a clover when doing his action. -And of special note: See that even in BG:EE, marker rings do overlap, although just by a tiny bit.

sorophx: Thanks for the heads up! Bryy & Marceror: I'm salivating as I type this because of your posts. As soon as the manual was pre-released, I downloaded it, and I have worn it down to the point of digital corrupt file. If you have the time, read the manual. It's actually great reading in itself - a manual! Its graphics and font are spot on too. Fargo seems to be a perfectionist. It's a bit nostalgic for me, as I recently saw Brian Fargo's name and Interplay text in the original BG manual. Character creation itself is very cool, so many non-combat skills to pick, and apparently the manual warns you of not including all sorts of skills in your party. You need to cover all of your bases when rolling up a party.

OT: The best thing about the low-level combat in BG is the pretty quick and very varied (even within single classes) resolvement of encounters, as opposed to the dragged out combat in PoE (where ironically, the baddies move very fast, but then the facepalming begins. )

ctdavids: I got to commend you for your well-argued post. The clarity of it makes me envy you. 1) As for my preference for a really slow pace: It's a bit like that Marathon speed mode in Civilization. Sometimes, slower gives you more time to savour each phase (level) of the game, as it were. 2) Although some of my weakest party members die a lot more than the "stronger" ones in BG1, especially when they are so weak bad luck at level 1 and 2, I have so far yet to experience a worse gap than two levels, and both BG1 and BG2 handle such a party level imbalance very well. With a little skill, and some luck, I would be so cheeky as to suggest, the challenge of combat gets even more intriguing and refined. 3) As long as I don't have to experience lock-step level progression, seemingly working cog-in-cog, I'm happy enough. 4) More of a question: In the BB, and somewhere else, I do recall (probably just my imagination playing tricks on me) that self-made adventurers will be one level below your party when you pick them up (at least - it's a matter of money), whereas companions will be automagically levelled to your level when you accept them in your party.