Keyrock

Grand Theft Auto 4 is driving me insane. It's been a long time since I played a game that I liked this much and also pissed me off so much. The problem lies with GTA's horrific combat mechanics. This wasn't as evident in earlier GTA games simply because on foot combat was a smaller part of the game. Each successive GTA game has put more and more of the focus on on foot combat with more and more and lengthier and lengthier firefights. They're crime games, so it's understandable, and it would be fine if the combat mechanics weren't so ****ing awful. It kills me too because the cutscenes and story are great, full of twists, betrayal, tragedy, colorful over the top characters, and dark humor. Pretty much everything else in the game is a blast too. While the driving mechanics aren't the greatest, you get used to them and they still make for a great time driving like a mad man through the city. Hanging out with your buddies or dating girlfriends is cool, even if some of the mini-games are a bit meh. Pushing old ladies down staircases, going on a rampage to build up a 4 or 5 star wanted level then leading the cops on a frantic chase through the city, even just listening to people talk on the street are all really fun. Unfortunately you have to wade through horrendously frustrating firefights to get to enjoy all those other fun parts of the game. I'm at a point now where I'm assuming I'm really close to the end and the majority of missions include extended firefights. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks "let's just get this crap over with" every time I have to go through a mission that involves a firefight. /bangs head against wall

I would think fractured limbs could be healed in a camp as long as at least one party member had a decent healing skill so he could set the bone correctly, and of course it would take extensive amounts of time. Other than that I agree with your list, but I'd like to make an addendum: Concussions: -have a chance to happen any time a character is knocked unconscious or takes a large amount of physical damage in a single attack (let's say 40 or 50 percent). -defensive penalty, penalties to all perception skills, spell failure chance significantly increased -will heal itself after a period of time (whether resting or not) or can be healed by potions or divine spells Another thing to maybe add. If you chose to press on when injured and got into another fight there would be the risk of aggravating any injury, making it more severe, which would increase any penalties and require more time or more powerful spells or potions to heal.

3 million is still very reachable. Most Kickstarter projects experience a push during the last 2 days or so, sort of like a lesser version of what goes on during the first couple of days.

I'm definitely pro injuries and being able to treat them while camped. Maybe make it an option for Expert Mode whereas otherwise injuries magically heal themselves after battle. Injuries would add another tactical layer to any time sensitive missions and/or if the world had time triggered player independent events like I described in another thread. This way if you were on a time sensitive quest or trying to get to a place where an event was going to trigger at a certain time and you had injured characters in your party, you would have to chose between camping to treat injuries and losing valuable time, or pressing on and trying to get through the situation while injured.

It's almost as if the game knows I want to play an Embermage for my next character as my Engineer just picked up two sweet Embermage-specific uniques. I'm up to lev 51 and am (presumably) really close to the end of the game (Broken Mines). /places items in shared stash

The new logo also makes it look a little bit like a cog, sort of like a Fallout vault door.

For whatever reason, the more I read about the game details the more my brain says Might & Magic. Maybe it's because of the slight sci-fi untertones or the 2 games in 1 Kickstarter stretch goal, which makes me think of M&M 4: Clouds of Xeen and M&M 5: Darkside of Xeen. That certainly wouldn't be a bad thing since I really liked that series.

It's nice, it elicits the memory of the Planescape: Torment logo a tiny bit.

As long as the skill system is flexible and robust enough, I expect Fighters, Rangers, and Rogues to all be able to produce viable archer builds.

Well the major, plot-centric events would be scripted and dependent on the character, you couldn't miss those. What I mean is having some events that just happen whether you intervene or not. These events would not be essential for the main quest, though they may alter some small aspects of the main storyline here or there. And yeah, the completionist in you would really hate what I'm suggesting since I'm suggesting it would likely be straight up impossible to do everything in the game on a single playthrough. That would definitely lend itself to replayability though.

Of course I'd want both, but if I had to choose I'd say plot. The two kind of go hand in hand though. You need an interesting and well fleshed out world to have a strong and impactful narrative.

And you did. Your point is definitely a valid one and were it within the means of what could reasonably be done, I'd be all for it. It would definitely add another layer of tactical depth to the game. Do you concentrate your forces to maximize your chances of achieving one goal or do you split your forces and risk losing both (as well as your lives), but with the possibility of attaining both goals? That would be really cool. My concern is that adding in dynamic events events to make the world "living" may already be beyond the scope of what Obsidian can reasonably do with Kickstarter funding without having to make major sacrifices in other parts of the game. Adding another layer of complexity on top of that by allowing you to split up your party and tackle multiple tasks simultaneously in a dynamic world I fear would definitely put it beyond the scope of what can be done with this limited funding.

How about splitting the party sending 2 characters (rogue and priest) to stop the assassination attempt and the bulk of the melee group to fend of who is assaulting the village? Fair enough. But then what if your 2 characters are not enough to stop the plan or get themselves killed in the process or your remaining group of 4 isn't enough to stop the village attack? In reality splitting forces might be the best course of action but this I think would add way too much complexity to the game and would be beyond the scope of what could be done with Kickstarter funding. Better to keep the group as a whole for the sake of ease of programming/resource conservation.

Agreed. One of the things that having time progress on its own and having certain events occur at a certain time adds to the game is forcing the player to make choices. There could be certain events that occur far apart but at nearly the same time. Since the player can't be in both places at once and, barring long range teleportation, can't travel fast enough to arrive in time for both events so he has to choose to intervene in one or the other, or neither. For example the player could choose to foil an assassination attempt on a noble or defend a village of farmers, but not both since they are two hundred miles apart but occur within a 2 day period. This could obviously also be done with scripted sequences that are dependent on the player, but having these things occur naturally within the world gives it a more dynamic feel.

I'm all for Bards or some other kind of Rogue specialization/offshoot/hybrid as the stealth/utility area is somewhat lacking with Rogue being the only stealth/utility class in the game. The game has plenty of warrior types already (Fighter, Ranger, Monk, Barbarian) so I say "nay" to Paladins.

It depends on how the class is constructed. I found them useful in the D&D type games as long as I was able to have a large enough party. If playing with a group of only 3 characters then I'm very unlikely to pick a bard as I like to have at least one class focused for each vital area (e.g. a fighter to tank, a priest to heal, a wizard to AoE damage). In a game like Project Eternity, where you have a party of up to 6, I think there is plenty of room in the party to have a bard type character. They kind of do a bit of everything, but the important thing they provide is bard songs. Bard songs are extremely useful as buffs/debuffs, especially at high levels. High level bard songs are quite powerful and can completely change the complexion of a battle.

Vary it up all the way from facing one super powerful foe to a multitude of smaller foes. One of the many really disappointing things about Dragon Age 2 was how each battle was essentially the same: Encounter a group of enemies, dispatch said enemies, bunch more of the same enemies magically spawn all around you. Lather, rinse, repeat. Even boss battles followed that same pattern (Boss appears, bunch of smaller mobs spawn all around you, kill smaller mobs, more smaller mobs appear all around you. Lather, rinse, repeat). Make encounters different from one another. In one encounter you may get trapped in a pass, pinched in from both sides by highwaymen. In another maybe you could be the one with the potential to hold a strategic pinch point where enemies funnel through. Maybe another could be in a wide open space with just one or two powerful enemies that are highly maneuverable and super quick making your melee troops less effective (as they spend a good deal of time chasing said enemies). Basically, what Jarmo and Aedelric wrote.

Good to see one of Obsidian's own back in the fold and one less person without a job in this brutal economy.

The game already has 9 character classes (I'm counting Barbarian & Cypher because I'm completely confident we'll meet the 2.5 million goal) and warrior (Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Monk) and caster (Wizard, Priest, Druid, Cypher) type classes are covered really well but there's only the Rogue to cover sneaky/utility type classes. Maybe add something along the lines of a Bard or some other rogue type class to a higher goal (2.8 million or whatever) which would round the number out to a nice 10 classes and bolster the one type of character that's least represented in the classes we already have confirmed.

Nice. So the classes seem to have plenty of warrior (fighter, ranger, monk, barbarian) and caster (wizard, priest, druid, cypher) types but seem lacking in the sneaky/utility area (just Rogue). Maybe they can add a Bard at 2.8 or 3 million or something?

Fair enough.

You already got the game but I thought I'd chime in for anyone else on the fence. Definitely worth picking up in my opinion as long as you go into the game knowing that it's going to be nothing like DS1 or DS2. The main areas the game is lacking in is multiplayer is mostly worthless and the loot is disappointing, also I wish areas were more open. Still, the action is great, some of the most engaging combat in a loot em up. Plays extremely well with a XBOX360 controller. Bottom line is that I had a blast playing as Anjali and plan to do another playthrough in the future.

Yeah, I'd say it was Wasteland 2 that started the old-school RPG Renaissance and really the credit should go to Tim Schafer for starting the Game Genres Thought Dead Renaissance. Kickstarter was around before the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter, but DFA blew the roof of of it and introduced it to a whole bunch of people that had never heard of it before (I count myself in that group). Edit: As far as this new Kickstarter campaign goes, I wish them all the luck and hope it succeeds, but I have doubts I will be able to pledge. I've pledged to so many Kickstarters that I'm really tapped out. Still there is over a month so never say never...

You can reclaim gems but, to the best of my knowledge, not enchantments, those get destroyed with the item.

Just made my PayPal pledge at $43 (35 tier + 8 ), wish I could pledge more but I'm poor. I'd like to join as Obsidian Order Rodent Tamer