SGray

Oh, weren't those your words? So, as I understand, you couldn't prove this position anyhow now, neither you could answer question you asked yourself. Wouldn't you admit that your exaggeration and comparison altogether were a little out of the place? And logics like: "if we have X we definitely should have Y, and if we not - there shouldn't be X" - is ill by its nature? To kenup: To BasaltineBadger (wall of text!): ^And the whole argument is to tell specifically this: If there are no emotional ties to the game world (both positive and negative) - there would be little to no motivation to the player.

Well, just as I expected ) You simply have no idea on how important the right way of breathing during the battle. Do it wrong and you'll be dead in a minute. And if to consider stealth? Unable to manage your breath - and you are completely revealed yourself. Could you ever imagine mage citing spells after fast run without proper control on his breath? (should resort to spells without vocal part if he fails to manage his breath, quite an interesting gameplay feature, I'd say) Would you provide any reasons to implement general plot line and not to implement such crucial to every aspect of game feature as breathing? Or couldn't you answer your question totally in your terms for some reason?

It's really important to control your heart. During dialogs, especially while bluffing. Such control is even more important when you are bleeding, or when you are poisoned. Same importance when your protagonist is freezing or overheating. So much useful and entertaining, each time wrong choice could cause even death! Such choices could have far consequences also! How could we miss such an important part of gameplay? And what about breathing? I asked specifically about it.

Well, you have a point. Then we'll go one step further and implement breathing mechanics! And hartbeating mechanics! Everything controlled by the player! Few things are more important than this! If you wish to refuse common reason and want to intentionally exaggerate - you could happily play your "being mundane human" simulator and give orders to each one of your muscles every time you want to move or to breath in. Quite an immersive gameplay I'd say. If you are able to make such things interesting to most of the players - good luck with that. Some running simulator was quite a success as I remember. P.S. I'm really interested in your justification of any plot (without romances) versus manual breathing. All on your terms, prove your position is better (not mundane troll), I'll listen carefully )

Good luck with that, I hope it would create beautiful rhythms ) I could be balancing on the edge of assumptions with priority of first statement over second. (Though most of the polls prove I'm not completely wrong.) But I'm absolutely sure that Minsk and Boo solely are refered at least as often as the whole baalspawn plot altogether. Try to google it.

So, you said that. A tiny part of game. Worth very little in development hours. And how much exactly does it add to gameplay? Many that played BG2 will firstly remember their romances, then other companions, and only then general plot - baalspawn, etc. Majority, i dare to say. If it works so good - why not to consider spending a little more effort this way? Twice or trice more text than in BGs(1,2,TOB) would be absolutely great and enough.

//mostly offtopic wall of text In fallout - 20 caps are worth killing someone. And if chip is worth hiring a courier - any normal person would know it definitely worth killing for someone. You were hit by the car. It vanished in the night, you survived. Would you devote your life in chasing that driver? If he deliberately targeted you and your family - that is. If not - that's plain stupid, hurts it more or less, no matter. At first - you didn't have info about other couriers or about that chip being some technological artifact. Next thing - you weren't aware of real scale of value of that chip, so you didn't expect organized and targeted ambush indeed. Third thing - agency didn't pass contract for couriers in blind, previous courier (more informed one) refused this mission and he was contacted personally. By the time you are dealing with Cesar this village is lo-o-ong forgotten. So you have to think in such way: i won't be able to ask any non-scripted favor from Cesar no matter what i do, village is long forgotten by plot, so there definitely won't be such option, sooo, he could probably be bad to them. Well, let's slaughter all legion, just in case. And (surprise!) no one bothers about goodsprings in the end, no matter who wins the global struggle. Oh, really? And you couldn't do this by yourself, without ruling the region with army of robots or without help from some NCR slowpokes? And where are all the cries about moral ambiguity in FO:NV sides and decisions? Wow! Such an argument! Don't add much to in-game motivation though. All lesser fractions (with single partial exception of followers of apocalypse) were shallow and unwilling themselves. Main ones... To chose from: stupid and mean because of that, or selfish&mean / selfish&mean&protagonist, and very mean ones - without other variants and personal attachments... Such attachments could be provided by your companions or outstanding not joinable characters. But they mostly fail to. Can't name any NPC's not from dlc except House or Cesar, but they were equal to their sides. Your companions are tumbleweed just as you, not matter much to them what will happen in that particular part of wasteland, they can handle themselves. One bright exception - Boon, he is not quite a deep person, but at least willing to do something. Another one - enclave man, but he is much less entertaining and caring about conflict. Cass? Veronica? Others? No one else cares about global struggle (clearly seen in endings). There is some negative feedback on certain sides from your companions but not any positive one. ...have deep enough personalities and lacking feedback to be such, or interesting ones if to be precise. I hadn't mentioned this, but if it bothers you so much: Two lines of "I want to **** you" wouldn't add much to their personalities neither to plot motivation. I need a plot to care. If main plot is lacking in motivation - romances are possible tool to add more personal in and fix it, or to add even more if it's enough already. Not absolutely necessary thing though - loved Fallout 1 and 2.

Save one, and get additional one... Specifically that I tried to avoid ) When it goes down to "save your party member" or "get another party member" it's mostly no-brainer. You simply don't want ever to miss everything tied to party member vs any reward. Don't like any significantly distinguishable person is instantly joinable and don't like new party members introduced by sex. Why would you want her in your party? Take every random hot chick with you at first glance? Going down to wandering brothel. Why would she stay after fulfilling her promise? Not psychological at all if you forced such oath, if you not... In my scenario there would be pretty much same quests after that, chasing those who ignited the house (bad nobles), with good nobles as quest givers or with rogue as information source, and after completion of that quest branch - there you could became a noble yourself or get a party member if she still not hates you. Much later consequences and equal rewards, imo.

You want more detailed situation? Not too hard, really, to fleshen such event in proposed mood, say: Exploring the city you accomplish some righteous quests for respectable and noble family, in fact representing the law in the city. They are always generous with rewards and quests are doing good for city, they are obvious good guys and you sympathize them. On one of the quests you cross your ways with some rogue who leaves the trail of dead bodies after himself and occasionally helps you by distracting enemy attention elsewhere. You have some clue that rogue is not "he", but "she". Later on you hear the rumor of some horrible murderer was caught and sentenced to execution. Some time later you find mansion of your respectable quest-givers burning. You manage to enter it through the basement, where you find mentioned above rogue, locked in one of cells. She is absolutely clear female (imagine Viconia as a reference) half-naked and all other fanservice and begging you for rescue. She couldn't offer anything but herself literally in reward (not as a companion, no reason for that, but bluntly as sexual favor), proving her words with some oath or magic adjuration. Key to her cell is somewhere on the first floor, so you have to find it and return before the building crumbles, instead of trying to reach family barricaded by someone on upper floors. So we have classic (or not-so one) "damsel in distress" vs some loyalty. No oaths involved from your side, just what you think is right and what you decide to do. You have to consider if you could trust her, if she knows something important about what's going on, won't you get a stab in the back anyway, could you really save those men upstairs at all, couldn't they handle themselves etc. So i could double that: moral choices and Romance\Sex options can be interchangeable. They don't have to have this dichotomous relationship.

"knowing why the hell were you shot in the head" - wasn't that absolutely obvious? Someone needed your package. Nothing was added later. "Getting revenge" - on who, for what? Just business, nothing personal. On your employer, who was using you blind? Possibly, but not an urge. "finishing the job" - for employer, that didn't intend to provide you enough information and was using you as mere pawn? No, thanks. Is not good enough motivation already. At least for me and some people i know. I care more about folks in first village, that rescued me, than about all the above. "After killing Benny there was no reason not to go further" - since i don't care about anyone here (except apocalypse followers mb), and I'm bad-ass enough to stay on my terms with anyone who will win - first intention is to set back in my chair and watch the fireworks. "you can be one of the most important people in Vegas by siding with one of the factions" - If and only if you really care about your "importance". You already could get anything you want for yourself by yourself. Without serving to anyone or ruling anyone. If you haven't anyone you care about or someone to protect - at this point game becomes pretty much pointless. (I know some people newer finished it.) At this point you have to artificially imagine reasons why to continue as game not providing any except supposedly-default-functioning-as-intended-by-plot ego and exp rewards. Out of the game curiosity and wish to see every dialog don't count. All said above pretty much fits "courier" philosophy. And as quite well depicted in one of the dlc's: If there is nowhere to return - all the journey is pretty much pointless.

So it was not no-brainier decision? Which is definitely so, when you are familiar with her already. What i tried to tell is that same situations observed from different points of view (different experience) could lead to much more or much less obvious decisions even with same morality in mind. And personal relationships is often the thing that matters. Romances only promote this to higher extent and add more meaning to player's actions. That's why i love Witcher - everything is up to who you like and emotionally/morally attached to, you understanding why are you doing this. And that's why i don't like FO:NV as much - I don't care about anyone here, there is simply no motivation to not to settle in some remote village and shoot everyone who approaches. Pronounced with pathos: It has be done for...!! What? Revenge? - don't care anyhow. Abstract Greater Good? - sounds funny, but i don't care also. Exp? - uh, well... ok. Games without strong emotional connection feel just empty. Romances are good and reliable tool (true for majority of players, as all polls depict) to create more ties for player with a world, to make him actually care about the world around. Well written romance could be a good addition to any role-playing game. Only if they are not purpose by themselves.

Exactly. Brought back some memories. Some black-skinned, clearly evil and murderous chick tied to a pole and a crowd of lawful citizens waiting for the the start of righteous barbecue. Goody-good character, hesitating about slaughtering the whole crowd if he walked through BG1 with her? Not really. If he not?

I liked DAO pretty much. Hasn't ever compared it to BG and others, though. It has good plot (nothing unusual but quite well done), It has meaningful character stories, reactions and sidequests. It has greatly written and totally new world lore, and the whole game tightly connected to it. (Some calls to warhammer series, but that's even better.) Is has not bad dialogs, which in connection with good characters left good impression. Overally it left wishes of more of it. (Screwed badly in DA2.) Battle system in DAO was flashy and attractive, but cant say it was good. Call me munchkin, but I literally oneshotted anything I encounter with my mage on highest difficulty. No any challenge, almost no thought involved, no preparations, no elixirs used except 1 or 2 battles through the game. There were too few enemies indeed, cant ever say they were boring as they lasted too short. Nevertheless it was fun. What good things could PE peek from Dragon Age, imo: Extensive lore. BG, IWD, NWN - relied much on D&D lore, assuming player already familiar with it. In PE there would be the new lore, so it'll be worth to take a look on how it's presented in DAO, which was good in it. Same with lore integration with the game and character behavior. Character recognition through the game. The whole game shouldn't turn around this (need to create much unique content), but couple of words from someone in late game about who you are, some additional quest paths somewhere - adds greatly. Campfire. Not about talky mechanics (was not bad too), but about party management. You could equip every character with rather convenient interface, without need to "come with me -> take this -> stay here" every time. I knew people spent hours dressing every party member with gear better suitable for it. Traveling with the whole team. Every special one who wants to join your quest - travels with you or rests at some kind of a base, not standing ever ready in some dark corner where you found him. It's good for the above case, and more than that - allows more complex in-party interaction without the most part of it to be skipped by most of the players. Forbidden knowledge really worth it. Was occasional imo, in DA, but still - blood mage was absolutely overpowered. Blood magic was really tempting. Pity that there where almost no consequences about becoming one. People, really, stop making pure pathos statements like "make everything not like in DAO", it's just no-brain-involved flood. Try to formalize what was bad in it and what was good, and how that could be used or avoided.

Not equipment only, if equipment at all. I'd say it would be good if your party have some "firepower" stat. Mostly based on lvl and main stats per class. Naked wizard is almost as dangerous as equipped one. Could involve some appraisal checks from enemy - is he dumb enough to not to notice all those sparkling effects on your party. And some bluff multiplier from your party - add some sparks, polish your armor add some red paint stains to your weapon...

If character with low perception would get only "You see a young girl", and with high - all of the above, and if that information is important (or somehow useful) in dialog, not solely descriptive - that would be great.

Specifying the individual animations is totally possible. There are many games which allow such thing for modders - play animation of X, set effect of Y. Though, more often it's casting real ability to totally immune target, then applying effect by script. I think that generating script just from visuals of battle and state of participants - would be a very troublesome way. Recording and replaying actual battle log (if there is complete one as said by Ralewyn) would be much easier way to achieve just the same thing, with same trouble of creating another logic layer (separate from actual battle mechanics) for replaying. Another way it could be done - fixing in-game random seed and replaying just the user input. Less work on replaying itself, but possibly much more hassle with random seed implementation.

Make each stat and probably some skills matter in dialog. Mage, rolling fireball in his hands could be quite as intimidating as brutish barbarian smashing bricks with his head. It will cost them though - spell cast for mage an few hp for warrior. And both could fail such attempt: first - to someone not-so-intelligent or on the contrary - more skilled in magic, or someone fire resistant, second one - to some more bulky ogre, or to some ghost with little respect for material. About companions - I'd like to see them being able to participate in dialog on player's request. Say - "what's that crazy wizard talking about? <Party mage's name> try to talk to him." "Thugs? <Party barbarian name> convince them they'd better pass by." Except from obvious outcomes - first one could result in: "And you are pretending to be a wizard? Die ignorant fool!" Second one in: "We were passing by already, but if you are seeking for trouble... - here you are!" All based on your companion's (speech?) stats. Same (unexpected) outcomes can occur if you give a word to your barbarian on wizard congregation, or your wizard in the barbarian tribe. These outcomes should be predictable somehow, punishing for silly decisions, but rewarding you if you stray from common reason consciously, based on collected lore or lucky intuition.

Hm, interesting information. Is it so, or they simply enhancing and adding what's missing to old&working one? More often such scripted battles are either hand-made script sequences (play animation of a skill, explicitly apply specific effect to be sure) or spawning two groups of mobs with hand-tweaked parameters (immunity, insta-kill, etc) one near another. Hasn't ewer seen implementation of something like discussed in this thread in anything Unity-related. So, it has to be written by someone. Am I wrong?

I'd prefer something like 3+1d5 or better 2d4 - ie more reliance in weapon damage, with still some random parts. Higher damage output could be mitigated by implementation of partial success on hit for attacks (like direct hit/not solid hit/glancing hit/miss), not binary hit/fail as usual. Not really seeing reason to split single hit in two separate fully random parts. Such split Its good for tabletop games, but has no reason in cg where you could have more complex calculations and overall more numbers in background.

It's "hard drive space eating monster" indeed, if implemented as video recording. More reasonable way is - in-game, engine based replay, like in WarCraft 3 or World of Tanks. Not quite trivial piece of a code if not the most simple cam. What if there are multiple killings simultaneously? Or multiple sequential kills in separate locations? Jump (glitch) through them instantly? Not good? So we should have separate entity analyzing battlefield somehow and trying to predict what'll be more interesting to watch (record)? Imo - the best decision is to allow player to control cam during replay (possible only in engine-based ones), and decide what's good for himself, without bothering to analyze replay programmatically. Replay analysis done well in in LoL, but i don't know how it was done and if it could be applicable to more complex gameplay.

It's not already in engine, so it'll take time to implement such a thing, and i don't think devs have time in abundance. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be too hard to implement: Place autosave locations before any major battle, as usual. Make "system" copy of this autosave and add saved random seed to it. (This step could be the most troublesome, as i doubt that ingame random functions are using any seed. Not hard to override, but could be time-costly. And main concern - could lead to bugs in replay result if some rnd call is overlooked.) Add user input log with timings to save from previous step, until the battle ends. After battle completion save all from upper to ordinary save/allow user to start replay on hotkey confirmation/replay based on settings. Part that'll definitely take time, but doubt that too much - replaying mechanism itself. After loading save marked as replay - translate stored input (if not translated before) to per-character commands and execute them sequentially. Lock ui for the duration of replay. Zoom camera out to picture whole battlefield, but better - allow free camera. (Possible issue: what to display if party is split and fighting in the opposite corners of the map?) If, by any case, engine developer ever find himself drowning in free time - it'll be a good thing to do. Really, such feature could enhance immersion greatly, especially if somehow backed by lore. If you are "in" the game such battles are played in head, but it'll be good to have some visual footage of battle flow. Side-profit from this feature could be in ease of creation of scripted battle scenes, without glitches like "oops, 3 crits in a row, wrong side won" or additional scripts. If to be real - this feature is, most likely, for next major expansion pack or for PE2, not for the first release. Though, having such possibility in mind while developing current tasks could help a lot later.

Agreed, hasn't considered damage rolls ) Nevertheless: mechanics for dodge should be implemented anyway, so why to create completely separate thing? If i have something solid on my shoulder or on my hand - it'll allow me to dodge less to mitigate a blow, while weight of such armor could still limit my mobility. Implement partial success for dodge probably?

Voted for 1 & 2, not found of percentage reduction at all (3). 1 - chance for glancing hit fully deflected by armor, or totally avoided one (should depend on armor type, character's dex, attacker's aim... D&D like). Armors like chainmail should provide more of this than full plate imo. 2 - represents direct hit. If you try to pierce gothic full plate with a fork - you shouldn't do much with common direct hits anyway, unless it's crit to the eye. So, my vote is for 2-stage armor mechanics: to hit + point by point armor damage reduction (armor reduction could be mitigated by crit damage multipliers, or crit ignoring portion of armor) As for percentage reduction - i think it's silly. Say, full plate protecting from 30% of anything. (in epicenter of nuclear explosion as well). That leads to strange mechanics, where you either could totally ignore armor and rely on health (even 30% hp saving at cost of mobility? - screw it (fallout 3 style, no-brainier on harder difficulties)), or stacking those percents as high as possible (if possible) (same fallout 3, heavy armor + drugged = ignoring anything). While anything in the middle is pointless. Combining 2 & 3 is funny for munchkin like me, but not good. Often leads to utter invulnerability that is much easier achievable than if 3 only. I'd say - avoid any global percentages if possible or be careful and make them affectable somehow if not. Oblivion's 100% chameleon 100% magic resist were... just dull, newer finished the game. Had split feelings about magic resist in BG/BG2. Before you had spells affecting it - it was just annoying, after - it was great. (hurling 3 of "Lower resistance" in a sequencer at in theory magic immune demon...)

Just make it matter to surrounding world. More stat checks, and not only for "do you have epic [statname] to do smth epic", but to perform ordinary (to char with default stats) things too. Ask for directions with cha 1 - good luck. Run through the forest with dex 1 - not better. (latter - tough to implement properly) The lover the stat - the tougher consequences. As for strongly fixed per race maximums on stats - on my thought not so good idea. But good point about +2/-2 easily compensated, if not min/maxing. There could be another decision: set some default stats per race an give some free points to tune it to your likings. Points could be of two different types: first one - for decreasing default stats & adding to second ones wich you could directly add to your stat value. Number of pre-assigned & free points could vary per race, for ones are more suited to some things others not, ones are flexible, others - not-so. (possible male/female differences according to race too) The idea is to limit not maximums per race, but minimums.(with additional bounces to more strictly predefined, ofc) Little bit more complicated and tougher to balance than standard system, but that could legit why it's rare to see omniscient ork-weakling, or ugly elf. Humans are again the most adaptable ones, lol.

Not gray choices as a whole. As fact i'm quite fond of doubts and uncertainty. And i told that earlier in that thread. But if i made to choose from bad, stupid and unreasoned, only to make choices more grayish - quite sure hate it.