SGray

He stated that he don't want or unable to create a good romance plot himself alone. But: And George Ziets is promised to be in project already. As an addition to the team. So-o-o? *Not the biggest fan of MoTB romance though, BGs and PS:T worked much better for me. *Strange behavior of spoilers Meh, I understand, that you could've given up reading the whole thread long ago, but I'm really interested in your arguments against the colored part of that and below: http://forums.obsidi...00#entry1275894

Well, that definitely prove that constant situations with danger to life and saving each other involved - wouldn't let much space for estrangement in group. If there are only men in squad - it's bromance. Otherwise - anything more.

Rly? And this also applies to all RPGs? And to 2D isometric view? With corpses as simple flat decals on the ground? In 2d it not an issue for a lo-o-ong time (Diablo 2 is dated to 2000). In 3d - the only thing rendering is what is in your view, so it's an issue only when there are repeatable spawns on the same place and stacking happens, or when the corpse has a complex physics model. Yup, couple of int's per corpse: X,Y, corpse type, probably rotation angle. To 3d model - add Z, and another rotation angle. Thousand of corpses would take like 48kB at max. Such a huge bloat? Main point of this thread is that reasons for corpses disappearing in isometric RPGs are solely gameplay and immersion based, not technical. It isn't a shooter or a strategy that could push nowadays, or 5 years ago (10 even) existing calculating power to the limits by mere numbers. Talk is about: is it worth it to write separate logics on corpse disappearance only for immersion and credibility and how to better do so. Also mentions of: how to handle corpses to make looting process handy. Probably there are other features to discuss, but doubt any would relate much to performance issues.

Ever tried a crossbow with a whirlwind, with different arrows? Some crossbows deal damage by additional effects to fully buffed demilich neglecting in-born 5+ immunity and magic weapon immunity, with wrong arrows even. Mage couldn't cast anything significant under such barrage. Paralyzing catana is another interesting thing. Do not forget invisibility potions also ) If you got caught in time stop flatfooted - yep, it's bad, but for warrior with 100+% or much more magic resist - not necessary deadly. You'll spend half of your time debuffing his magic resistance even if you had your sequencers and contingencies charged, and still wouldn't drain his hp pool most of the time (horrid wilting has not so hard save, you know, so either debuff for saving throws also, or cast at half damage, further it deals magic damage wich could be further halved by potion and nullified by potion and belt) Maze? So what? On success - he'll get to you slightly later, with your spells already drained. Imprison? - cheesy one, but still - try to imprison raging berserker, you would be surprised ) Wish? - you mean greater wish with clones and replenishing your spells? - you wouldn't have time for it in fight, and it isn't absolutely reliable thing. Or cast wish solely in hope of another time stop? - bad idea. All other effects are irrelevant, imo. And, in the end - If he survived that - you're screwed. You have time until your debuffs fade, and he is 100% magic resistant again, and you have little to no spells spells to debuff him again. Rly? Not necessary so again ) Done so with wizard (cheesy wild mage), my brother done so with warrior/berserker (potions heavy).

I meant that if you understand well how the mechanics work - any class could be demi-god like killing machine, not much less than other. And magic users are not so hard to counter if you know what you are doing. Newer used any of not mine builds in my playthroughs, but such builds show maximum potentials of a class, which are equal. It's a major advantage if you are more independent of equipment, indeed. But it's also a major advantage if you are independent from rest and buffing yourself each time.

Why should they slide or bend at knee at all? Couldn't they simply stick up over the knee? Not the most practical design for man without shield, but still viable. Was surprised myself how difficult it is to find such an evidence in web, but: Last pic is quite an interesting concept, imo, which I'd like to see in game (lowest tier mb) . My sincere apologies ) Further offtop:

Had BGs and NwNs in mind. Take a look at power PvP NWN(1 or 2, doesn't matter) builds. Are they solely mages?

Look at this (really big pic): So at least such "reconstructions" are dated to 1878. Have seen myself armor sets with vambracers in museums, but couldn't google image i want fast enough ( More so: As much as brigandine is invisible armor. They hadn't any sleeves mostly. Vambrace is a separate part of armor. And yes there are findings of different bracers including cloth and metal ones (the easiest to craft btw), that are not showing steel outwards. Like this replicas: Said from the point of man (woman) who newer tried to swing anything in such outfit. Long mail sleeve (not one-layered) weight's roughly a kilo and all that weight is on your arm. That's bad. While there could be short and wide sleeve that lays on your shoulder and around 0.3 kg bracer is on your hand, and such weight distribution means much even if it's same in weight. Tested that myself and it proved obvious: flat and solid distributes blow much better then flexible one. Look at the upper picture. Full plate on arms, bracers, sleeved mail in equal quantity, clear depict of bracer on one arm (man in red, man in scale armor). Sleeved mail is rather heavy armor by itself, and still it's often reinforced by plate bracers, both or on weapon arm. Rly? Any historical depicts of not barebone (light, intended for archers, riders or spearmen, barely to cover torso from arrows) armor without reinforcements on hands? One pauldron that'll doubtfully be hit ever vs weapon arm speed and mobility loss? Not the weight itself, but weight on moving parts of body (shoulder) or on long arms (bracer), that is slowing or limiting your movements. (interesting ambiguity btw, meant physics term) Not quite a no-brainer decision. UPD: Platings are not intended to bend anyhow ) Simple high boot with 4 separate metal plates stapled to it. Quite a comfortable thing on it's look except plate on the heel.

Rly? Epic lvl warrior with 10 attacks per round? Nearly invincible monks or unhittable and shadow-dancing rogues, using any magic protection from items? More dependent on loot - yes. Much weaker? - hardly so.

Reasonable enough. But such enumeration feels gamey. Mua-ha-ha! Object collision and dragging is never a small thing. In addition if corpses simply fly away unrealistically to avoid collisions why to let them here at all? --> This leads to complex algorithm solely for solving the task of placing bodies artistically and conveniently looting them. Confined spaces? Overlapping with trigger or travel zones? This. Good idea.

Thanks for the exact term ) Archer's bracers and vambraces are things with different purpose indeed. From wiki: "Vambraces formed an integral part of the Great Steppe, Central Asian, and Islamic warrior armour. Vambraces remained in use long after the high mark of Renaissance armour in Europe. They were worn in Poland until 1770s, in the Caucasus region until the second half of the 19th century, and in Asia at least until the mid-19th century in Persia and the Indian subcontinent" Half of men on those pics are in vambracers: It's pretty important to protect your arm with weapon even if you carry shield. And long mail sleeves at first - are heavy, at second - don't protect hands well. Good hit would just break the arm without solid protection. There is often one vambracer on arm without shield. Probably that's because if metal bits are not on leather but in cloth (like in brigandine) they are hardly distinguishable from doublet sleeves. Right feeling ) It looks just painful. Thats what sword guards (garde) are intended for. Before appearance of complex plate gloves there wasn't any way to protect fingers from being smashed by direct hit without hindering movement much and loosing control of weapon. That's wrong. At first that is not pair equipment by it's origin. To strengthen armor which is taken more blows is fairly common practice: left one of greaves, right one of vambraces, left or right pauldron, depends on fighting technique (more often left one, with smaller shield). Everything is for sake of more effective protection at cost of less weight. Second thing, on how it's held: more often it's chainmail collar, probably with short chainmail sleeve with pauldron attached to the other side. Webs of straps and belts at taste and design quality, for additional stability and weight distribution. Provides neck and shoulder protection, often on top of brigandine. Quite a good and handy protection at cost of twice less weight than symmetrical for the sake of symmetry ones. Rational armor/weight distribution on light armor as it is: Underarmored imo, it would be better with something more on hip and at least one of vambraces, but still represents the concept.

Not intended to address sleeves explicitly, when it's shown on picture, but doublet + chain sleeves for upper arm and doublet + plate (or any other) bracer for lover arm. Won't ever fight without bracers, btw. Puff sleeves could also count as bracers of some kind... but personally I wouldn't rely on such defense. And not sure if it's possible to wear slashed sleeves with any more reliable bracer.

First thing - "more colors for the sake of colors" aproach existed only when good paints were as expensive as gold on your fingers or belt. And I'm not against colors, long as they are not too aggressive and you're not looking like jester of some sort. What I'm against are - "puffs". That things could be partially justified like: hiding weak spots in leg, shoulder and arm plating, even providing some protection, but still it's mostly for boast and it's absolutely impractical for off-road travel. Just imagine that puffs on legs after climbing on some mud slope. There would be couple of kilos of mud in it, while In normal armor you could just shake that mud off. Armor with puffs don't behave good (actually pretty bad) in wet environments. Was able to test that myself once ( And really strain movement by it's weight when so. One important thing, imo, is not to mix landsknechts - semi regular military, mercenaries with adventurers in RPGs - mostly explorers, travelers, all-around experienced specialists for hire. How often would landsknecht explore ancient ruins (overgrown with bushes ), or narrows of dark tombs filled with web, dust and traps? But it's pretty common for an adventurer. And, imo, the adventurer would much prefer not to use "wide clothing". Btw, ever imagined sneaking or traveling for a long time in such? ) Not sure if that was in previous topics, but I'm convinced that such (brigandine, half-cuirass, cloak) would much better suit the adventurer, and that's much more fit for tearing through anything: Why against asymmetrical pauldrons? Do you use both your hands equally? Would you stand flat to your opponent, not one shoulder forward?

It isn't a tech problem it's looting interface problem indeed. Overlapping bodies or loot bags with loot you don't want to pick up could be hard to sort through. Loot bags are just smaller and overlap less. Could be solved if there would be "ground" in inventory interface. But either way there could be dead bodies as graphics and loot bags. And it wouldn't be hard or too resource consuming (nowadays) to tie body disappearance to in-game time, a day-two decay time or so.

Wut? Newer! Magic part was one of my favorites in BGs battles. Partially agree with first statement - sometimes fully buffed chars looked too sparky, but can't imagine other way to quickly visually distinguish separate buffs. Hadn't much trouble with aoe spells also. And again, partially agree with the second one - it was difficult to track round end visually, it was helped by togglable automatic pause on the round end, but it would be good if there would be some visual representation of rounds passing (rotating smth in the corner of the screen, where PS:T timer was), if there would be rounds at all.

Not only anachronistic, but strange picture itself. One layered lamellar bone(?) (wooden?) scales - too little protection against direct hit as for heavy armor, but it's made unwieldy, cause no any belt intended - therefore no flexibility there. Could be justified if it's ethnic for some very northern sub-nation, if it's really unavoidable to have really thick clothes in addition to armor and under-armor. Axe from stone or bone near the spear with clearly steel tip don't add much realism too ) Same with much-work-involved leather/wooden shield without steel reinforcements if steel is available. Such outfit could be made in extreme harsh of resources and lack of producing industry - distant coastal tribes or smth similar (abundance of whale bones, abundance of time, lack of wood lack of metal). Adventurers =/= mercenaries, which wore very garish outfits indeed. Doubt that they wore such outfit everyday, tho. Couldn't argue that )) But they were wealthy compared to average citizen, and all the colors were intended to show that. Grey and brown - peasant, colored - not a poor man, certain color combinations - nobility. Paints were expensive that day. Other cultures and time periods used other things to show off - belts, rings, hats, cloth quality etc. Comfortable and flexible - yup, for in-city life and short trips between close state-cities by rather good roads. Practical for specified circumstances - possibly, universally - totally nope. I think you could've walked in such clothing in knee-deep grass, cowered with morning dew? Was it good? Or try to tear through a bush? Or would you look at yourself after climbing from some ravine? Or, if to think of PE adventurer - explore some old tomb in such outfit? Colorful, but I doubt that colors are authentic ) And if they are authentic in some way - it's at least late 16-th. Also, doubt that in a world of magic colors would be same expensive and remarkably distinguishing as in that time period in Europe. Ehm, nope, parrotish. But that's tastes. UPD: Love knights from above. Russian and Osman style?

Yes to all above amours except some strange-looking bronze-age Russian(?) one (out of date, definitely) and this one: Such outfit could be appropriate for wealthy citizen or for freelancer when he is proposing himself for the job or when he is on guard duty, but such parrotish and impractical for off-road journey outfit is no-use for adventurer, imo. Aside from said - pretty much dislike this European fashion. And it's too late one for the setting, imo.

Illithids? Githzerai? *Btw could be good examples of two paths for cipher. Manipulate other's will or form the world with your's. Imo, what's difficult about psyonics and ciphers - they are too specialized by theirs nature. So to be equally useful with other classes they had to be either made generally same as others (just another kind of mages) or based on completely another options and still viable somehow against any opponent. Either way - it becomes a class exceptionally suitable for munchkins (as myself). it's tough to balance completely new mechanics and foresee every exploit and cheesy way for character to become unstoppable killing/dominating machine (well, more so than others), without trimming most of skill applications and mechanics. So, on my experience, most of the time, such "special mage" classes are approached extremely carefully, not allowing them any really outstanding differences, but still becoming the most abusive and overpowered class. I'd like if it were in mind when the class would be designed so it would be not another all-around with unintentionally broken abilities, but really different class with it's pros and cons, not derived from mage class. Personally I don't mind if they don't do as well as others in straight fights if there is something to make such choice worth it.

Doubt that there won't be any xp from mobs at all. Times less (10 times) than regularly, compared to quests - possibly. With epic monster roughly equal to small quest in exp. Either that or sub-objective "kill everything" per most encounters, which I'm pretty fine with too.

As mentioned above difficulty-related enemy spawn system in encounters is sorted out long ago. (Was pretty happy when I've first read that update.) But there really is important (imo) matter about exp and loot scaling with scaling the encounters. If simply scale down exp gained on higher difficulties it could have cumulative effect later on. That could lead lead to stucking on certain points if difficulty is high enough. Say, a battle designed to be hard for 5-th lvl party, but you've done everything and couldn't have higher than third lvl. Avoiding such thing is possible when available to the current difficulty at current moment exp is taken into account. But that's additional work and could lead to opposite side: start is hard, but as you gain wider access to the world you gain more and more unaccounted exp and getting above and above expected strength, so encounters become easy again. King's Bounty: Armored Princess on max difficulty is a good example of this. So, imo, the best decision is to assign exp per encounter, not per enemy and divide that exp between critters on spawn. More difficult - is to balance loot drop rates. It could be done when some creatures are replacing other, but requires different approach when they are all in (Path of the Damned), though I'm not against such boost in loot when toggling this option on. P.S. Managing difficulty by dumbing down AI is always a bad thing. Costly one, and gimping game experience for those, playing on lower difficulties. (Little care about it myself, but still.) Same with removing/adding unique abilities from enemies. Giving enemies some or adding more consumables (fire arrows, scrolls, poisons) or other buffs, justified by game mechanics - is pretty fair though, imo.

This. And not only locks, but difficulty class of every possible random-based action. Where and when all those numbers will be sored and generated exactly? At the game start? And carry all those numbers in a save with you through all the game? What if some content is added? Not at the start but, before entering the location? Save at the entrance, run to target, try, load. There are middle- decisions but all are equally bad and can be abused. And any of such systems would require creating lists, enumerating all possible difficulty classes for all actions. Mentioned above XCom 2012 seed system was just as bad and abusive - move to adjacent square and retry, take action with another squadmate and retry again. I'm in favor of static skill checks or fixed maximum random roll when not in battle. And ironman (one save, only for save and exit, diablo like) option for those who'll like it, which is already announced.

Meh ( Hasn't done so ever. It could take as much resources as simple quest, and still be an important and deep part of the game. Just to think: the whole text specific to romance story in BGs (per character) could fit to one or two pages of printed text. It's comparable in volume with npc-npc in-party interactions. So a good but barebone romance story (if characters are good enough already, BG-like) boils to: one page of a text from "narrative designer" and couple of global-variable triggers already accessible from dialog mechanics. While some short generic quest is: 3/4 of a page of text from narrative designer (dialogs and quest plot for area designers), some work from area designers (creating areas, mob spawns, behavior scripts, event triggers, reward balancing) and some work from artists if there is anything unique in there. Meh, isn't a quest. Think of BG-like. Ok, told so myself. A little something to consider: to double what amount of work? Definitely not the whole character creation. Definitely could argue that. When general concept of character is established, his/her reactions and intentions are well understood and there is enough depth in it to be interesting not solely as sword-swinging dummy - its not hard to add romance line (if appropriate) at all. A little more effort than to add some more regular conversations but not much more. Otherwise if character wasn't intended as more then flat armor-hanging dummy - this could take rewriting it from scratch. Similar thing when forced to implement romances inappropriate for specific character. Comrade warriors suddenly turning gay and hastily trying to justify that... bleh. Mentioned that above. Not more than any other thing. Such feedback is really good thing and you always want more, but that's applicable to anything. There could be some generalized feedback on single/not single protagonist (mention protagonist is single/fill blank spaces in template with names and descriptions and mention he is not). Such feedback could be fun to non-romancers also, since it's recognizing their decision. Could double that: So to my mind this stuff isn't minor and isn't trivial. But not taking such a huge amount of work that could hinder game quality if implemented or enhance the game significantly by redirecting used resources to other things if not.

Osvir, really great concept with this two: Picture One and Picture Two Couldn't imagine such could be done with so small alterations. Mb pack to gif - original + changed ones, for better presentation? But there should be at least ten to twenty such expressions for each character for them not to feel out of the place most of the time, or you should use default picture mostly and emotional pics occasionally. Another part of work - those expressions should be generalized to fit most of possible dialogs and named properly so not only text writer could attach associate them to dialog lines. Not such a huge work nevertheless and this definitely could create deeper understanding and attachment to characters. I prefer minimalistic style in telling such stories. Static image and text is enough for me, if this could be added with pre-created pictures, showing emotions and mood it could be great. Modern technologies could overcome gap of disbelief (don't remember exact term) graphically, but still fall in it mostly when it comes to mimical expressions, not because of graphics quality, but because of complexity of model. So it has to be either some tremendous work involved, implementing facial mechanics to make it believable (definitely not related to PE) or kept simple - hand-drawn portraits and many lines of text, so your imagination is doing main work.

Monte Carlo, that's pity that you don't do the courtesy to read the post at first. Thanks for numbers (not ones I asked for, but nevertheless). Agreed, it's a hard job. Now: how much exactly did romance part take from character development in BGs? How much work romances took by themselves? With already written and complex characters? You are just refusing to think that way (and ignoring what I've already written), cause i strongly doubt you are unable to understand such a simple thing. Where had i mentioned that? Are you *that* obsessed with it?). Of a single minor quest. So, on your opinion Baldurs Gate's and Planescape romances are equal to "next-gen biocrap hated"? Pity you, if you really think so. So Read. Please.

? Newermind. So everyone can agree with that: After that: All romance-haters just couldn't figure one thing, imo: It's totally possible that reality is |=====general character content=========|Y/N romance = Y|-------romance content-----------| with |=====general character content=========|Y/N romance = N|-----non-romance content-------| (friendship, disdain, hatred, anything) And that would take not much more work from devs. As already mentioned in this thread romances in BGs were tiny part of the game. And it would less then double amount of work and content required for creating romances to properly implement the second part of comparison. That romances proved themselves very good for big part of BG community. So there is a reason to spend more effort on that part of a game than it was done in partially experimental BG. On worst assumptions - let's triple the amount of text used in BGs romances (anyone with numbers?), split it equally to "romance accepted" and "romance refused" paths, and (surprise!) we have one and half more than in BGs which will make pro-romancers happy, and not hindered anyhow but enhanced experience for no-romancers. All that at cost comparable to trice a "tiny" part of a game. (In fact - less: companion motivations and personalities are already written, so it's much easier for writer to add something to already defined character. Also - count the part of a text should be written anyway to cover the gap when romance is refused or impossible, wasn't so small in BGs as I remember.) So, to sum above: anyone who cries for "there shouldn't be any romances" is just unreasonable, imo. Or just don't get some things. The ones who say: romance shouldn't be the only way of interaction with romancable character and that refusing romance shouldn't cut further dialogs at once are pretty much right. And I could join such a plea myself. There are not so many pro-romancers that like harems, you know. The ones who say: refusing the romance shouldn't affect your interaction with party member and shouldn't have any consequences are just weird. Or totally unsocialized.