Tartantyco

Sarex is basically just trolling at this point.

Dealing with the ogre, that specific ogre, is an objective. It's an objective because the farmer wants you to deal with the ogre. Nobody wants you to deal with the beetles. If somebody wanted you to deal with the beetles, then you could get XP for it. To make it really simple, you get XP because the developers wanted to give you XP for dealing with the ogre. That specific ogre. It's not meant to be "logical". XP-for-kills, as explained sooooo many times already, isn't "logical" either. Why? Because XP levels you up, and you can assign your leveling points in any way you want to. How does a thief get better at lockpicking by stabbing beetles? Explain that to me, please.

What I've gathered from the Gamescom demoes is that everything in them is in the backer beta. I seem to remember Sawyer saying the backer beta consists of 3-5 hours of gameplay and includes two wilderness areas, plus 2 or 3 other areas(Including Dyford Village, I think). The two wilderness areas are Stonewall Gorge and Dyrford Crossing:

Will players be able to put markers on the map so they can leave descriptive notes about things they come across that they may not want to, or be able to deal with at that time? Or maybe you need to mark stuff in case you won't be able to play for a while, and want to make sure you remember where you left off. For instance, you come across a horde of rabid weresquirrels(The greatest danger in all the lands) defending a very attractive chest, but your party is too weak to deal with them right then. So, you just stick a pin in the area map and attach a note saying "Chest defended by 10 rabid weresquirrels". Then you get a tiny red tab on the region map for any area maps you've pinned something on, so you can easily find them. It would just be a nice thing to have.

I'll be using Baldur's Gate 1 portraits regardless, so I care not one little bit. The only thing that ever came close to the BG1 portraits was Icewind Dale 1, everything in any other style is just crap.

Fixed. Go burn your straw man in someone else's face. Oh, I'm sorry. Was it not you who made this post? Or this post? Or this post? Do we have another member on this forum called Stun, using your avatar? (Also, if combat is fun, then it does have a point, and it is rewarding)

I know what we're discussing. You said "randomly generated loot is aRPG territory". I retorted - and included random placement into the discussion from the start. You haven't made a single solid argument how that leads to ARPG territory beyond some vague references to "further implications of such a system". Why not finally show us your hand? You don't get to decide the parameters of my argument. And i, as well as others in this thread, have already explained what those further implications are. Loot hoarding, loot fatigue, leveling-by-loot, etc.

And I have no problems with common items being taken randomly from (Restricted or unrestricted) item pools. But that is not what we're discussing. Any meta-knowledge affects replay value in some way. Knowing all the quests, for instance. I do not believe that item randomness has any significant effect on replay value compared to quests. I do see random loot bringing with it a lot of destructive tendencies, though. But once again, I'm not saying that having a small pool of pre-made unique items to draw from for one drop is an issue. That is not what we're discussing either. I'm sorry, but you have to learn to draw within the lines. And I have made no such claims.

You simply can't refrain from misquoting and misrepresenting the arguments of other people, can you? We were talking about where the fun comes from in combat, and you(Among others) have consistently argued that combat will be extremely boring without being rewarded with XP. Genre is irrelevant, according to your argument you simply cannot have fun with combat unless you're rewarded with XP. Pretty much every FPS game ever is proof to the contrary. Let's make this simple. Stun, do you believe that combat will be boring in Pillars of Eternity if you are not rewarded XP from kills?

Why should combat have meaning? And why should combat have meaning over other actions in the game? Will you also demand that Obsidian pay you to play the game? Once again, most combat games do not reward you for combat. Because the combat should be good on its own. I have read the entire thread, and there have not been any counter-arguments that hold up. It's just generic "give XP for every approach" without providing a system for doing so. Or "it should be logical" arguments where "logical" is restricted to a very narrow and inconsistent definition. Or the argument you're making right now, that because you're not getting XP for kills the game will automatically become boring, without actually providing any reason for that other than the fact that you apparently only play the game to get XP.

Which is bad how? As I have said, I don't want this to be some loot hoarding, loot fatigue, leveling-through-items game. That's aRPGs, not IE games. How exactly does that work? How does me having a 50 DAM sword instead of a 50 DAM spear improve my replay value? I think you need to define exactly what you mean by "random loot system". Because I don't think that making three unique weapons and then having an encounter with a chance of dropping one of those weapons as a random loot system. Yes, you said that those would not be random(Except placement). That is not having a random loot system.

I think he's being sarcastic, guys...

The reason why kill-for-XP is bad has already been explained, Stun. Manually placing XP will not improve anything either. It has also been explained that, while the IE games XP system didn't completely wreck those games, that is not a good reason to emulate it. It didn't add anything, either. If this makes for a better game, then that's a good thing. Pillars of Eternity is meant to emulate the feel of the IE games, not their mechanical underpinnings.

No, the only thing you tried to address was powerful or level-scaled weapons. But the answer, "whatever the developers want" is also achieved by manually placing the items. And more successfully so. However, we're not talking about what the developers want or will do. We're talking about the effect of various systems. By "lack of narrative character" I mean items that either have no backstory or reason for their presence which is in character with the local or global narrative. And you're talking about it on a general level.

If the combat in Bloodlines bores you, maybe you shouldn't roleplay as a crazy killer? It sounds to me like you just want the game to reward you for how you want to play, regardless of how that affects how others want to play.

I think you went to great lengths not to address any of the issues I raised in your reply, Caerdon.

While some common randomly generated loot is okay, I do not like the idea of magical items being randomly generated because of the further implications of such a system. Generic items, level scaling, lack of narrative character, loot hoarding, etc. It's never just as simple as "random vs. not random", there are effects beyond just the individual systems. In Baldur's Gate, you could get some extremely powerful items just straight from the start, and you wouldn't do much item replacing as you got better and better items. A big part of aRPGs is that items are also a function of leveling. You can't use a weapon you picked up early in the game in the late game. I don't want that rat race gameplay in the spiritual successor to the IE games. I don't want anonymous statistics-providers in my weapon slots, I want items with a history, items with a reason for being where they are.

Nope. Divinity: Original Sin has turned-based strategy combat and has implemented random loot in a pretty well balanced manner. They have some fixed drops, mostly random. I'd like to see PoE have some random and mostly fixed for the good stuff. And I consider D:OS more of an aRPG, partially for that reason.

Not to be a smart ass, but come on. The internet. UTC = PDT+7 I am fully aware of that, but how damn hard is it to take into consideration that the internet does not solely exist within the US, and put it in UTC? It gets annoying for people to have to look up time zones when they know their UTC offset off-hand, and if the UTC had been there from the start it would have been easier for everyone. It's just easier on everyone, and it limits error potential(Messing up time zones is extremely common, by the way). Anything else is just lazy.

And provide the time in UTC.

How are you guys not able to even follow your own arguments? I'm not saying that you made that statement, I'm saying that your argument necessitates that you believe that. It's quite simple: Is it or is it not logical for a Rogue to improve his lockpicking ability by stabbing beetles? It is not logical. Did you or did you not say that you wanted the XP system to be logical? You did. Does or does not having a kill-for-XP system let your Rogue improve his lockpicking skill by stabbing beetles? It does. As a consequence of your own reasoning, a kill-for-XP system is not logical and you should not, by your own admission, support it. You do however support it. As a consequence you must necessarily not believe that a Rogue improving his lockpicking ability by stabbing beetles is illogical.

You did, when you said you wanted XP rewards to be "logical". In some way, you have managed to convince yourself that getting XP for killing the ogre, but not getting XP for killing beetles is "illogical", but you don't find a Rogue being able to improve his lockpicking abilities by stabbing beetles to be "illogical". You can't have it both ways, I'm afraid. Either you want the XP reward system to be "logical" or you don't.

You know, Volourn, being purposefully dense isn't really something you should wear as a badge of honor.

Those guys have long since traded away reason for incoherent rambling, Doppelschwert.

The current XP system is perfectly logical. You get XP for completing objectives. The problem here is that you're looking for realistic logic in an abstracted system. How does it make sense that you can allocate leveling points wherever you want them, regardless of how you obtained that XP? Why can you get better at thieving skills by killing beetles? If you want "logical" then you'd better argue for logical. You sure as hell aren't now.