SGray

if there were c1 variant - say, to target monster to pick local criminals, and c2 - to target it to storm local baron castle or raze rich city block (half a thousand men in it, all kinds of them, baron's men & townsfolk) with your help (it's fed for long, you got some shiny things) - such quest could be really interesting. Otherwise - just hate "grey" choices implemented so. They are leaving taste of poorly thought and crudely implemented (walled) quest. If you cant manage obstacle, monster this case - well, so be it. But... There is whole world around suddenly. IF you wish to spend your time and effort - why can't you find some archmage to aid the town, relic sword to slay monster, dominate spell to get a puppet, even worse monster to replace that, just for fun & completion of contract? Such artificially grey choices could only happen if you are very limited in time, though there should be choice to bluntly take the fight, even if monster is 10 lvls higher and is "obvious" instakill to the whole party. Though again, such fights shouldn't be scripted to end one way. Give it enough stats, not script immunity. (Funny and silly moments - it's on 0 hp, arms&legs broken, poisoned, cursed ten different ways, but just won't die - and sudden inspiration: ehm, i ought to loose here... Should let it chew my boot now.). Another thing about such quests - a hero suffers sudden amnesia after it's completion. Been humiliated by some creature/monster/man/obstacle or anything - our hero will newer seek satisfaction neither for greater good, not for his trampled pride. Such artificial and imposed gray choices force you to hit walls (game limitations) that you'll newer mark yourself, therefore - quite dampen your association with a game.

Meh, should resort to original, if so. Most likely, at least. Still - haven't seen any actual references to 1С as localizer.

Wow, such an argument! "I'm right by default, others should obey" is quite a funny position. If i accumulate fatigue from day to day, not able to refresh myself fully in not extreme situations - i'm bad at handling simplest things. More understandable? Again, no direct answer ( Gladly, developers already not headed for enforcing binding rest mechanics. Was done solely to introduce rest for fighters-heavy parties, for them not to skip any resting completely. Mages-heavy rarely seen that at all. And, do you recall how often was that and how was it implemented? You could explore half of a map, without this, or leave you game unattended for couple of minutes and viola - all are tired. I'll repeat that again: constantly stacking fatigue is only plausible hard-tied to constant in-game time flow. Which, in it's turn strongly tied to quests and plot design. Which, written so - not always good to play. Maybe. Not much more than ordinary day. If you are accustomed to traveling - no more at all. Hasn't understood, why this is said again. I understand this difference perfectly well, and vote myself for those two to clearly differ. So, again, your char himself sleeps for, say, 4 hours per day an you should correct him by pressing "sleep" button once a couple of days? So, or not? My point: if not currently decided otherwise by plot char should handle routine himself. Otherwise you'll have hard time justifying ignoring one routine and focusing on another. Well, I thought you were reasonable interlocutor. Mb i'm mistaken. If your only source of knowledge about medieval weaponry are videos such as shown... Well, pity you. Newer the less: from their words common armor (chainmail + helmet) weights not more than 10 kg, just as i said. Next, don't know if their sword is made from lead or smth similar, but 15 pounds (roughly 7 kg) for one handed sword is clear idiocy. Their sword - standard oakeshott, it weighed in at about 3 to 4 lbs. Any other normal one-handed sword - up to 2 kg. Their's 15 pounds is more than weight of full-sized european two-hander (1.5-1.7 meter length, up to 5 kg). Such an experts... Next, about shields: normal wooden shield 70 cm in diameter (quite enough) with metal edging and metallic umbon - weights about 3-4 kg. Again, their weights double than that. It's possible, if it's made from wet wood or totally inappropriate one though. And the last about this video. Their chain-mails are bad, really bad in any aspect of this word. (had plenty words to add, but self-censored it) Clearly seen at 3.40, 3.53, 4.48. They are made from thin wire, huge rings, one layered(!) (at least one), and in total - transparent(!!) (last timing, rofled at it). It's a fishing net, not a mail. Can't say anything about quality of steel, but regarding upper... A kid could make more authentic thing. To sum all that text: medium equip - armor + weapons, weights not more than 16 kg. Nothing ordinary man can't handle. Men, whose life depends on it on every day basis - will not notice such weight at all. Thats first. Second one: video clearly proofed that man given sword first time cant do anything vs shield. If you think that one such man (or even five in a row) could ever tire professional swordsman more than just standing still... Well, it's only up to your faith. Same, if you try to duel professional fencer or kendo sensei. (Doubt you ever met any of them though.) Looks like it's going down to flaming. Let's end this. More so, rest system considering combat is decided already.

My main wish for inventory is for it not to be list-based. It's just huge waste of the time, scrolling down such list, while in grid-based or any inventory with displayed different looking and sized items it takes up to 2 clicks to get what you're needed (5-30 secs vs 1-2 seconds, simple UI efficiency). Many modern games are implementing list-based inventory only because they are console-unificated, where you haven't decent pointer. Some words about proposed system: like it, especially if it's taught gently, say, by old adventurer telling stories in the inn. But there are some important for me things, that should be considered, on my thought. If there is autosorting for all items you obtain - inventory screen should be shown not for individual character, but for entire group + what's behind their feet. Perhaps, 2 views of inventory: "loot" for entire party (highlighting char, who is carrying specific item), and "equip" for individual chars. Additional to that - total number of free slots in your group displayed numerically. Weighted money leads to 2 things: bank paychecks & pouches with diamonds, first are less reliable, second are good for rogues. So you'll trust to carry your money only to char with high perception/wisdom. Think, gems shouldn't be common to buy or to sell, but necessary for rich adventurer without his own treasury. So, max is gold or platinum, gems handled separately. Always wanted in such games for poach with gems, hidden for the bad day to make sense. This leads to limited vendor cash. Possibly - some of them can give you paycheck (wit almost unlimited sum) but from less respected ones it could be fake. For not to drop fortune-worth loot to local village trader/wandering merchant. Possibly, those checks could be cashed not in banks but by same vendor later.

I understand that system perfectly well. Simply don't like to manage rest meaninglessly, just to compensate character's inability to handle his daily routine without you clicking a button. Epic hero, tired by sitting in the chair, that's... something new ) Are you sure, that "exhaustion" from doing nothing all day would anyhow prevent you from being effective in battle? If character is stacking exhaustion from day to day, while not performing anything special - that means he can't handle ordinary things. Maybe another button for brushing his teeth? My point is: is it fun to manage ordinary daily fatigue, happening as you said whenever you doing something or not? Is it fun to explicitly send you character to bed every ordinary day? Newer was fun of sims. If you are forced to rest too often it is just simplifying things to: why not to rest another time, just in case? Other side: If that's something special and happens only occasionally - you could make such rest more restrictive, more demanding in resources (if any), and more dangerous. More fun and memorable overall. After 20 hours of walking around i'll drop half-dead. Presumed i hadn't stopped for a while, camped to have a meal, or simply sat on my back to respire. So, everyday 8 hour sleep, controlled by player as a must? Haha what? Do you not believe that ordinary human can accustom to additional 10 kg on his shoulders? Hell, differences in self weight could be twice more than that. Do you really believe that you ever could tire master of sports in fencing? No matter what are you doing with your cold weapon. Running straight from him possibly, the only thing.

If i've done 99 of them last week, and today after next cast i'll tire - nope, not enough. Same for traveling, same for beeng indefinite time in places where you can not sleep, but can perfectly rest (real world meaning). That's possible to solve by enforcing constant in-game time flow, regarding quests, characters, etc. Is that really what you want? Is it easy to implement, balance? Is it really universally fun to play? (Rare times i liked implementation of time-dependent quests.) Ever argued this? )) As for real life - third day you wearing 3-layered chainmail (with short sleeves, my case), you won't much notice it on your shoulders. Anything thiner and/or you are more used to, and you wouldn't notice any change from normal daily fatigue at all. And there could be a simple cloth west on hero. Exactly. How more adds daily rest if you're not significantly exausted, and almost as battle-ready as usual? Perfect point. If every one is battleready, just waiting to crush unlucky trespassers that place or another, defendable or not - that's dull, and routine. Completely other thing when your teem really needs rest and much more vulnerable. Why to let repeating dull things be and require player attention? Can't hero handle himself in not extreme situation without player directions? On my thought, fatigue shall only stack when character is outperforming usual/routine to him. (breath&fatigue system, for example) Mage apprentice with 5 strength in full plate armor? Yep, he'll fall from his legs fast enough. Born-in-chainvest 9-10 str warrior - would not notice such armor at all. Seasoned warrior, boredly and methodically chopping another single low lvl goblin? Nope, nothing unusual, no exhaustion. Same warrior fending off goblin horde, fighting with giant, or in need to finish this goblin as quickly as possible to help surrounded fellow mage? Yes, that's demanding - deal with your exhaustion. Low lvl mage casting fireball - after that he'll be no much use. Archmage, doing same with finger snap - will forget about this in a minute. Same archmage forced to cast same fireball 3 times in a row - will complain about not wanting to do so again, and'll suffer some fatigue. Same with spamming sparks, magic missiles or anything else. It's demanding for young mage to hold anti-missile veil. For archmage it's as natural as breathing. Not so, if he already supports number of defense barriers, or casting something else. Same for deflecting arrows with shield for warriors. So, no need to deal with routine, but interesting mechanics when you're pushed to your limit by any ways possible.

Then, player not rushing for nuke variety using, say, 2 nukes, control and debuff, 4 in count, simply is not able to play with that. Could be stretched to bigger numbers. Then you'll never look on lower level spells when you get same number of higher lvl ones. Firstly - how many? Second one - exactly what i'm trying to say: using various spells not because they are different or more useful in different situations, but just because you are forced to stack up more nukes. So-o-o, whatever you're using you'll have at least 4 spells on cd. Bad for those who aren't stacking nukes. Me - just stretch rotation with more? Yep. Well... That's good! Even if not-too-easy to implement properly and ballanced. Then why to artificially enforce variety if it already works so? Well, i cant perform well without looking at the screen, sort of an achievement ) So-o-o, spam nukes of proper element, others are no use after all. Any other variants? Again one rushing for number and variety (of more various) nukes clearly wins, and one pursuing higher lvl but less in number spells, or for variously acting and more situational spells looses. (Just worse rotation most of the time.) Great. Except that first - viable in-game by mechanics (and incurable, i think (individual cooldowns -> rush for variety of nukes)), second is metagaming (say that quests are bad, cause you could read the walkthrough) and possibly curable, without affecting convenience of playing, by some tweaks. Difference? First iteration: Individual cooldowns: Cast fireball 10 times, it's power decayed (or on cd), bad. But i have feirball! And its on full power! Not artificial? Second iteration: Spell school based cooldowns: Cast fireball 10 times, it's power decayed (or on cd) same as the whole destruction school (feirball included). But i have reduction school! And its on full power! Not artificial? Third iteration: Global cooldowns: Cast fireball, oops, standing still for another amount of time. Just unplayable. Closer to real still. Fourth iteration: Global limitations: Cast fireball or anything else N times, need to wait for a while. Who said mana??? Viable, but not-so-tempting and too straightforward, on my mind (Diablo). Fifth iteration: Mix of former: Not crippling cooldowns + mana, for example. Abusive, or takes much work and time to balance. (First - Dragon Age, second WOW) Vacanian system is totally different approach. It's artificial to it's max and full of boundaries, but quite an elegant and time-polished construction (using one paradigm, with minimized top level rules), conveniently backed by lore (though with some gaps, i think), and providing tempting, thoughtful and challenging gameplay. What is bad in it - stumbling upon some walls breaks the immersion. (Can't fit this magic missile in upper lvl slot? Cant cast a spark instead of meteor swarm? Why?) The point in forum discussion was: to invent something completely new (and not falling apart), or to polish or create more challenging variants of what works well. To dig in long-passed iterations will rarely produce fruit, or it'll be a hard work. Your system could be polished, but just think about amount of additional rules it'll require.

Any cooldown mechanics is broken to idea - "need to find some new nukes (from another school)". There won't be reasonable mages dedicated to smth in such setting, if it's not enforced. Master your fire knowledge, or stop at first viable spell and search other schools? Definitely second one in such conditions. Without school-based system its far worse though "more nukes to create rotation, and screw anything else", and, sadly, that'll work. As for realism - i'm against degrading over time fatigue condition, and against fatigue stacking by minor actions. It shouldn't be an annoyance and should take part in the game only when you call it by yourself. Not "damn, i'm just walking by the street, wtf?" or "i've killed 3 rats and 5 fleas over 2 hours and he is exhausted??", but "well, that was tough fight, i could take some rest". As for food & drinks - could be a resource, needed for rest. If more - will become annoying.

Thought myself about "2 types of fatigue" system. Current (breath), and overall - fatigue. Breath is very limited - less than required for 1-st lvl spell for 1-st lvl mage, restores quite fast but not instant. Couple of 0-lvl sparks could be cast in a row, then breath depletes, but not too long until it's enough to cast another one. You are not forbidden to cast more when your breath is out, or to cast more powerful spell that you can with only your breath, but there it starts taking from fatigue and appears cast time (non linearly scaling mb), and, probably, chance of failure, based on how far over your breath you trying to perform. The more you're fatigued - the less breath you have, prob less fast it restores. After some more lvls of fatigue you suffer some minuses to spell power, spell failure chance, minuses to defense. So what do we have here about magic: Persistent spells could be easily implemented, taking part of your breath bar. (Liked that in DA) Should cost some breath to activate, i think. More than that, you could up as much shields/auras/summons as you want, but, if you overextend yourself - they'll fall by themselves after a minute, left you unprotected and with trembling hands. Memorizable/Prepared spells could be easily implemented. Prepared spells take normal breath, unprepared are castable, but cost twice or trice more. That means you could still cast that desperately needed flame shield/cure poison but it'll take time and endurance to do so in counter to prepared ones, so you'll have to think. 0-lvl sparks or magic missiles could be not fatiguing for higher lvl mages even if not memorized. Only if not spammed, due to times more breath reqired. (still could spam it, if you are archmage and prepared magic missile instead of smth more high lvl, and that's good) Mage novice could possibly cast his fireball after couple of hours of preparations and casting, after success or not - he'll be deadly fatigued. Archmage is not limited to number of sparks and can show some spectacle without catching his breath, but he could tire if it's city wide. Even most tired mage can possibly squeeze out of himself another magic missile, but he'll prefer not to be ever in such state. In-design mechanics and lore for epic/quest spells, spells requiring more-than-one-man/artifacts/potions to cast, battlefield wise spells ("hold off them for awhile!"), last-hope-spells and so on. Simply high breath cost. Qute a place for perks/abilities/modificators to show off. Breath consumption/restoration/quantity, performing out of breath/reliability of such, easing fatigue consequences, etc. Fine place to implement soul differences too. What's in it game-wide: Almost everything said above could be applied to fighter or rogue class. Spending breath for weapon swings (amount depending on weapon), parry(? based on enemy weapon), special moves/strikes. Not novice warrior easily can stand at his full breath fighting with someone usual (not giant, for example). If not to take in account battle stances, passive modes, and armor he is wearing. Seasoned warrior can chop with his ax for quite a long time. Not so if he had to focus on where he steps, be ready for enemy sneak attacks and block incoming missiles/spells by his shield. He can hold in described above situation, but if he needs to attack somehow or perform some feints - he'll get exhausted quite soon. Same for fending off multiple enemies. And the last, but most important - variety of roles could be achieved without any additions to mechanics. Battlemage, wearing plate mail enchanted himself to the max, seldomly casting spells, relying mostly on the sword, but beeng able to throw fireball if really needed... Rogue-mage, in light armor, running fast and bursting his enemies with medium lvl fire or melph's arrows... Mage, in classic concentration enhancing robe, standing, carefully casting smth like great withering from behind of his teammates while they fight... Agile warrior, with two swords, able to do extreme feints, roll up to enemy, disarm or cripple their limbs... Warrior, with sword and shield, able to stand surrounded by enemies... Barbarian, able to shred his opponents in seconds, but other second being almost dead/deadly tired... Archer, flooding air with arrows, or relying on single precisely aimed shot... Quite a few to name ) P.S. Just imagine party of heroes, exhausted after won great battle, almost falling where they stand, but forced to run from bunch of goblin scavengers, and having trouble defending themselves from most impudent of them. While whole goblin tribe could be slain by one of those heroes, if only they were fresh. And "fair" ritual duel between adventurer's best warrior and goblin chief, for others could rest...

Haven't explained correctly. Take all possible low level nukes that restoring not too long and just circle through them. 3-4 would be enough for not to decay efficiency too fast or to not to decay at all, otherwise you are too limited on spells when not using such tactics. If there are more of them - conveniently pack them to combos, to maintain 3-4 click quantity. Just ignore other spells to maintain proficiency. Use one more button for one high level nuke when you're bored. *Flaw very similar to cooldown's one, i think. Using upper - all your top lvl nukes are untouched before the boss, so why not to drop them on his head in sequencers couple of times, even if low proficiency?

Perfectly fit for spam of low level nukes, or better - their combos, on my mind. Am i wrong?

Nope, whole system was quite cheesy - you could simply max out magic power and burst everything you encounter without any problem on max difficulty. No need for large mana pool anymore, if everyone around is dead from first casts. No need to care about cooldowns, if you have 3-4 almost same nukes. With blood magic included (and/or health for mana spell from one of dlc's) + vampiric spells + near 300 spellpower at end - ehm... Fun, but no challenge or tactics at all.

On what i understood they are implementing that either to control unique/quest item drop from regular mobs, and/or to limit amount of loot and gold could possibly be retrieved from every given location (random encounters(?) included). First for easier implementing of sidequests, second for balance purposes. That's better then pure random, where you could never get this quest ring from group of bandits, and sometimes better then manual placement of this ring to specific bandit's pocket, when you know its on him after playthrough or reload. Additionally that's convenient to story writer to know how much money player can possibly obtain before entering specific part of the game, not looking back on munchkins that could farm 1 copper per respawning rat.

Was strongly against the cooldowns at first, now realized that could be made good. If only we have more info... If it's like vacan system with day-wide cooldowns based on in-game tame with no specific spell cooldown before you depleted your prepared - that could be great and time-proven. You can still rest to replenish your spells but you can replenish some spells used in previous fight during current. (Still thinking mage running rounds waiting for last seconds of epic spell cd is hilarious, but why not?) If they planning to do this another way, that'd be hard to avoid common bads of cooldown systems. Hate having Firebal, Fireball, and Feirball to do just the same spamming.

Just bored with games where you have constant unreasoned, but conveniently sorted top down good/neutral/evil replies on each step. Smile to him/ignore him/spit to his face. Protect by your life/ignore/stab at the back. For me talk is not about overused "shades of gray", but about not polar choices. I think all three of saint, damned and ignorant are often inadequate and silly. To be made to choose only from them is... strange. Not to go to the other extreme - if you forced to choose from artificially gray options being unable to choose obvious morally good or bad decision - that's not good at all too. Reasonable choices, carefully described circumstances, decisions with lack of information without good-bad-ometer instantly popping up - that'd be tempting. *Wait, we are talking about game by Obsidian? Being developed according to their likes? ___ Looks like i've been ninja'd by Caerdon ) Or simply should refresh more often )

No, because those bonuses are too questionable. Clumsy ork with spear against smth nimble with 2 shortswords, able to dash in close? Taking minus to defense and more possible crit for wearing spear instead of longsword with low agi character vs high agi char? While human for example could take advantage of spear length an get bonus to defense, and dashing to him would only nail you? Another example - long 2-handed mallet vs fencing rapier: IF one, holding mallet is strong enough to swing it fast without delays - he'll had no problems smashing one with rapier (rapier couldn't block such a thing and rapier is shorter). Otherwise - IF he is not enough strong and IF rapier-wielder is agile - mallet becomes burden (easy to trick, big time to react because of mallet length and light rapier could use that delay). Either it had to be thoroughly developed and include conditional bonuses and checks for your and enemy stats, number of enemies, epic character feats, etc, etc... (which i'd like, but is overcomplicated if to be real) or rely on player stats and static weapon parameters to make a picture. *Reconsidered: one more option - to have warrior perks to remove drawbacks of chosen weapon. That'd be nice. Though i'd really like all weapon classes to be unique and useful, but cant invent smth much better than standard weapon range, attack speed, crit stats... Maybe with addition of parry chance and weapon vs armor bonuses. Ignoring some armor or armor class when hit by specific weapon? As spears are good at puncturing chainmails and mage's armor, swords are good vs cloth/leather and hitting agile enemies, maces good vs plate armor, axes vs shields... Not easy to balance, but better then nothing.

Voted for weight, no matter the difficulty level. If gold has weight it should be for reason, there should be some interesting game mechanics, using it. For example storing your gold in some stash (bank?) you have access to it in every part of civilized world (magically verified transactions, bank checks, etc). Going somewhere off the civilization - you should rely only on what is in your pocket (shiny pieces of metal, gems, beads?). Same concerning black markets (park karts with gold at the back entrance , literally), dealing with rogues, helping poor - only cash. If there isn't such mechanics - gold weight is just an annoyance. If there is - turning such part of a game off based on difficulty level would be wrong. *Moments where you preserve small or not-so-small fortune in gold in your pocket after ship wreckage, being woke up by angry mob with torches, been suddenly teleported in the middle of nowhere, or preserving cash even in hell - were funny, but a little ruined the immersion. More so - when all your millions where taken from you somehow or even stealthily pickpocketed by someone small, while it'll take him a cart and few men to move it. Same to robbing whole royal treasury without bag of holding or dozen men to carry sacks. That should be an interesting way to limit players wealth in certain locations or timeframes, while allowing him to be rich as Croesus still. Also that could be used to make player think twice before openly messing with law/government/banks(?)/mages(?). "Your account was arrested, apply to local authorities" - oops. And above all - that'll perfectly fit in the late medieval setting.