Radwulf

@Hassat Hunter You could have an icon with portraits and names on the side for easy and intuitive character management. @Lephys Done!

Save games should be organised in distinct character profiles. One problem that I've found in many rpgs is that they seem to be designed for multiple playthroughs yet only have a single pool of savegames making organisation a pain. Could we have a profile system for convenient management of our various characters? Linked from: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64018-save-games-organised-in-distinct-character-profiles/.

One problem that I've found in many rpgs is that they seem to be designed for multiple playthroughs yet only have a single pool of savegames making organisation a pain. Could we have a profile system for convenient management of our various characters?

The point of the thread is to provide a central point of reference for things that have been discussed. I stated explicitly that the points I've added have been from polls and that they each have their dedicated threads, which tells readers that these things first have been discussed and second that there is a thread directly related to that subject which they can reference for more information rather than just trawling through 21 pages of threads. If you think I should provide a direct link to the threads I could do that but I think it would get too messy. Yes I have created this thread to help developers but also to help the community to keep track of what has been said. This would help keep duplicate threads down whilst also garnering increased debate in those threads should the conclusions here be strongly disputed and could later be changed. The only results I've included are pretty clear cut results from polls and I've tried to keep the points of comparison clear where it isn't obvious. I don't think it's likely that people will try to cheat the polls (perhaps I'm naive) but I am aware of the risks of the small sample size which is why the ones I've included are clear cut. Finally I don't know why you seem to think that by doing this I'm trying to stick a demagogic shotgun to Obsidian's head and say 'this is the will of the people, do it or else'. I'm well aware that Obsidian is a talented developer that has created great games without reference to 'armchair developers'. I have complete confidence that if they use this, they will use it as intended, that is for strictly reference only. I think that a centralised point of reference for ideas that have been discussed would be useful. Perhaps I've framed and presented it wrong in which case I'm open to suggestions. If this doesn't point developers and forum readers to raw discussion and points that are useful and interesting whilst cutting out duplication then it simply won't be supported or referred to and therefore not create misconceptions and problems.

As we've been getting a fair number of threads now I thought it might be a good idea to have a centralised location for all points that have a firm majority or plurality backing as a point of easy reference. This list I've added only includes polls but doesn't need to be limited to them. As there are so many threads if you feel something should be added (and that this is a good idea) please include it yourself. Each point should have strong and uncontested backing, be described in a short and succinct sentence and be backed up by a dedicated discussion thread. If there's disagreement over any point that is included please discuss it in another thread and leave this on topic and easily navigable. - lockpicking should be skill based with no minigames - no planescape style spell animations (no time pause) - want non lethal damage - party members should be levelled when they join the party - want multiclassing - classes should be balanced in combat and non combat skills, not necessarily just for combat - BG style resting in safe locations for as long as desired - want experience points only for completed objectives - independent companions that can leave if sufficiently angered - prefer PST style dialogue presentation over BG style (novel-esque) - text should be both dialogue and descriptive - deep relationship and influence system with reactions to your party makeup - making a system that works takes priority over easy comprehensibility, although both desirable - offer stat/skill dialogue options that are obviously a reward - party members should contribute to conversations when appropriate - no timed dialogue choices or only in a few appropriate situations - BG style spells (unique quirks and low level still useful later) over NWN or Arcanum - forced party members shouldn't need to replace existing ones - if you can get quests you should be able to finish them or at least remove from journal - pack animals desirable but not a make or break issue - game should respond to your actions dynamically and you should see the result - most people play with manual pausing - there should be a goodly number of weapons divided into subsets (that behave identically) - little interest in a merchant class - no quest variance with difficulty settings (presumably stick to ai, no. of enemies) - want extra characters walking around cities as long as it isn't too resource heavy - want to loot everything (skyrim, BG) - humans should get bonuses too, not just be generic - you should start alone and put some effort into building your party - no repeatable quests - want BG style artist portraits - want BG sized parties (6) - characters should sheathe weapons when not using them - health and stamina should be handled by at least two stats - critical hits should have status effects (like stun), so should critical misses - NPC's should be fully equipable - all stats should be useful so there are no easy dump stats - ammo should be limited - don't want aggro mechanics - scrolls and potions should be quite rare if included - want fog of war - want long term wounding and sickness effects, perhaps optional - companions follow same rules as you but could have some unique feats - gods and religion should play a prominent role - want crafting

I generally don't like having my companions die. I don't mind so much if you can resurrect them but unless you have a means to do so I'll just reload. I wouldn't mind having a couple of dialogue lines, for example to the family of the dead party member as part of the game's recognition of their death, but I don't want substantial resources devoted to quests for dead npcs because I won't ever experience them and if they are good I don't want incentives to kill off my companions. If they have a personal quest line and die before it's accomplished I suppose an alternate ending could be a good idea.

Just to clarify on this, I'm arguing for a separate optional tutorial at the start but the characters and location could be visit-able later in the main game.

I'd like to add my view that species are definitely not interbreed-able. Many of these races would have been living in proximity with each other for millennia and if they could breed it would lead to mixed races distinct in themselves which would have to be represented in the world lore. You could have them as being sterile but if you are going to do that when the only reason they are in the world is as flavour so there isn't a great deal of point. They are different species and 'romantic relations' between them should be considered closer to bestiality, physically possible but unproductive and frowned upon. Rather than using half races as a point of contention when it comes to racism and other themes what they could implement instead is that although the different races are distinct from each other physically, reincarnated souls can transfer between the playable species easily (or not so easily; certain species can be suspected of breaking souls through trying to fit them into the wrong container. If a great elvish whole soul was found fractured reincarnated in a dwarf this could be part of the world's racism).

What they could do is have a class related faction/place which you could start in if you want to do the tutorial which is asked after character creation. This would teach the generic principles and a short overview of how certain things like spells are cast even if you aren't a mage, perhaps in RP terms to defend yourself from them. Then it would go into detail about how to effectively use your particular class. In addition to this new characters could have some slight in-character tutorials when they join your party ('how are you useful?') In order to minimise development time these different training areas and characters could be included in the main game. This would mean in BG2 terms that that a rogue would be trained by the shadow thieves or the warrior in the De'Arnise Keep for the tutorial. Furthermore this added background could lead to class and background specific quests.

Given that mobile devices and in particular laptops are becoming more dominant I would prefer it if Nvidia started placing a much greater focus on power and heat efficiency over total output to bring laptop and desktop cards back in line with each other. They have been sacrificing these for performance for too long. The trend appears to be that more and more pc gamers are using laptops and as next gen console specs seem underwhelming it doesn't look like huge increases in brunt will be fully taken advantage of unlike improvements in performance for non desktop platforms.

I really don't think there should be multi classing. I found when playing NWN2 that the fact that I had to research and prepare my multi class build before I played sucked a lot of the fun out of it, and it's almost like the entire system pushes you in that direction. With separate classes they can focus all of their balancing efforts on create distinct roles and abilities that can complement each other whilst providing sufficient flexibility to accommodate different items (such as armour) and play styles within the theme of that character. Whether to play as a traditional or armoured mage and other similar choices as well as appropriate feats and skills should be their equivalent of prestige classes. You could get a prestige class subtitle according to your sub class playstyle dependent on your feat loadout and achievements.

This is a very good idea. Having some party (or non party) members which you can influence to act differently in ways they otherwise wouldn't is something I've always liked in RPGs. Unfortunately they don't tend to cater for personalities that I would like to play. Having an evil but not psychotic PC who brutally but not tactlessly takes advantage of Jaheira's and Aerie's issues to corrupt and break them is something I would love to do although it probably wouldn't fit in with their personalities (I'm not sure why. I think it's because they're often irritating and you can 'redeem' Viconia). Such adjustment should be consistent with their background and motivations though. Some people seem to dislike alignments systems and I agree such things can be crude and prescriptive but I like having an at a glance look at the rough nature of an npc's character and their affiliations. Planescape Torment is a good example of this as it showed their alignment and faction. If we can influence characters to change, it would be good to have some sort of visual feedback. Given that you'll apparently gain reputation according to your actions in the game it will be interesting to see how this is implemented for your party companions. After all, if we want proper autonomous npcs with objectives of their own it makes sense they have their own track records of factions and reputations.

Just building on my previous post regarding more powerful spells requiring greater mana and the more mana used slowing recovery; this idea isn't fully incompatible with a memorised spell approach. Certain types of spells could be prepared beforehand (presumably writing glyphs or somesuch to help focus the power) which could change the effects of certain spells. The obvious one would be to reduce mana use, but it could also mean increased damage or other similar effects quite similar to how I've heard Diablo 3's rune system works. This would reward preparation for specific engagements whilst also granting access to your whole spellbook for one off requirements that would otherwise waste preparation slots, require a rest or use items; and generally reduce tedium. The disadvantages for combat though would be significant compared to a well planned selection, especially on higher level difficulties. In terms of collecting ingredients for spells I can't imagine that would be practical for everyday spellcasting but it does seem like a good idea for some optional plot related quests to make them easier. The other option of course is to create high powered one off consumables via arcane crafting. They also need a decent counterspell system. Baldur's Gate 2 had an awesome system but most games barely seem to bother. Even in BG there were significant issues. If Obsidian are going to have a good magic and counter system they need the feedback systems to make it usable. I don't want to have to trawl through text because I can't tell what protections I need to strip.

Buffing before fights is the big one as is limited number of spells. Buffing is boring, generally is only properly viable before fights and encourages meta-gaming. Limited numbers of spells has advantages such as increased use of strategy, but again relies heavily on meta-gaming and knowing what you're going to have to face to do right, or else just suffer resting abuse. It also imbalances the classes and makes game balance more difficult to implement. The way to solve buffing would be persistent abilities. Sacrificing the ability to cast active spells for passive benefits allows you to get involved straight away and provides trade-offs and tactical options. Many spells could be cast as persistent spells until deactivated manually and not just buffs. One of your fighters is bottling the enemy up and getting pounded, cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere as a persistent giving him time to recover his stamina and then let him back into the fight. You can also include situations in the game where you use non combat persistent abilities to avoid combat and screw up and so can't immediately bring your entire fighting power to bear. The problem with repeatable spells is you just repeat your most powerful spells every fight which gets pretty boring. One way to get around this is for all spells to draw a certain amount out of your mana pool but that the more of your mana pool you use up the longer it takes to recover. This means that higher level spells will be used less as they are either gambles on a quick and decisive victory or a desperation play. Lower level spells are used more often as the safer choice outside of those two extremes and can be tactically used to win through a battle of attrition.

In the D&D games potions and wands tend to have similar abilities to arcane and divine spells and in many cases are used as a means to counteract the limited number of spells per rest mechanism (see BG). As PE doesn't have such a limitation in large part they simply aren't needed in that role. The only justification for having them would be to provide unique and distinct capabilities. These abilities should not be spammable, both in terms of the mechanic and what they actually are needed to do. This could justify taking points in potion crafting for character or class creation compared to alternatives in order to get greater combat and non combat tactical options (both on your party and everyone else). If this is done potions should be available but not common but also not rare.

I think that the numbers should be limited both in terms of single engagements and in terms of the overall game. Battles should be skirmishes with a limited party against limited opposition that requires tactical use of one's environment and skills. The occasional battle against a single boss is acceptable from time to time. Battles against hordes should be limited to plot situations and give AI or environmental support (or force you to escape). Although this will be a big game and there will be more variation in play-styles I don't want this to turn out like my current game of Baldur's Gate Trilogy where I'm close to finishing the second game and have 2,250 kills with just my main character in a three (wo)man party. It defies belief somewhat when your individual kill count is enough to wipe small towns off the map.

I think that ammo should be finite but that there should also be different types of ammo outside of enchanted/special materials. For example you could have the traditional barbed arrow do more damage as well as a Bodkin arrow which does less but has much better armour penetration/chance to hit. Similarly rather than just having guns shooting a lead ball you could also have flechettes turning the gun into more of a shotgun/blunderbuss weapon. The real issue with this apart from the mechanics though is the micro-management aspect. It requires a solid inventory system.

The reason I said Fallout has better exploration is that it has high content areas which are linked by parts that you can opt into and out of at will and present random encounters (ie. content) when you travel through it. It's to the point and excludes padding which is to my tastes. There may not be the travel for five minutes without seeing anything of substance which I'm getting the impression you consider exploration but then again I may be wrong as you seem to prefer to play coy and give oblique statements than explain you positions. So please, help me get the point. I've never played Storm of Zehir but from what I'm hearing here it could be a good model to follow.

@Few Not precisely sure why you disagree but maybe I should clarify. In 'modern history', especially the last 300 years, the UK has been the most, or among the most, consistently powerful European country and the only one to achieve true global pre-eminence. It has achieved exceptional accomplishments in every area of human endeavour. Since the second world war the UK has been less successful economically but has been steadily catching up to the likes of France and Germany with consistently higher levels of growth and is likely to surpass one or both within the next few decades even with the effects of the crisis, if only for demographic reasons. When it comes to changing your ways of doing things to 'fit in' in helps if you are smaller or less successful. Given that Britain is not smaller or significantly less successful (all things considered) with such a relatively strong track record there is little incentive to change substantially which leads to opposition against those who try. NB. The reason I've added these bits on how European Britain is is in response to a debate earlier in the thread.

@rjshae I think that you may have misunderstood my focus. I'm not opposing item progression per se, just the fact that better items have to be magical. The reason I support the low magic approach is that using magic on items BG trilogy style both stretches credibility and is frankly in many cases completely token. How many items are there that are just generic item +n? More powerful items just keep inflating the number so that despite legendary items being +3 you can soon be crafting +6 items (in say NWN2). If you want to maintain the item progression there is no need for this token system when you can more credibly use a system built around build quality and materials that performs exactly the same function. Leave magic for rarer items that are distinctive and add special and perhaps unique tactical options to your character. Powerful characters should still be powerful with fairly mundane gear though.

I find it strange that you deride the opinions of those who dislike the exploration system in BG vis-a-vis BG2 whilst blatantly flaunting Fallout which probably had a better system than either.

I prefer a focus on character and player skills over items. Furthermore I prefer low magic worlds. Rather than lots of magic items there should be gradations of build quality and materials for most gear. Magic items themselves should be quite rare and be distinctive with preferably their own unique back-stories. I would also prefer it if there were no gear which was massively better than everything else so that you were constantly funnelled to a very similar setup for an optimised character. All characters should be similarly item dependent as well. One of the advantages of being a mage in D&D is that you don't need equipment as much as fighters to be powerful but at the cost of a limited number of spells. If you remove that limitation you should also remove their equipment advantage.

D&D has some great monsters in it. Those that immediately come to mind are the Illithid and Beholders. Although I don't expect or want PE to copy these or other D&D monsters, if they can create some that are similarly interesting and distinctive to fight as well as have unique and interesting lore I'll be very happy. 2nd Gyor on having a journal bestiary.

Initially in BG the wilderness areas gave a good impression with exploration, beautiful art and supporting sound. The problem arises when in each area you criss cross to get rid of all the black and fighting assorted enemies only to find there's only literally one or two non-combat related interactions on the map. This is extremely tedious and repetitive and leads to either the use of walkthroughs to cut out the crap or simply to skip entire areas altogether. I'm all for rewarding exploration, and I usually like to explore all the areas except where I'm supposed to go first, but it must be fun. A good half of BG simply wasn't, it was just padding. In addition they need to implement a better quick movement system. I've found that the cheat teleport function is crucial in enjoying repeated playthroughs of the Baldur's Gate trilogy. I would appreciate it if in-game functionality removed the need for it.

Planescape Torment is definitely the front runner in terms of general game tenor. But Obsidian/BIS/Troika has such a strong pedigree that one can't help but be excited by including elements from the Baldur's Gate Trilogy, Fallout, KOTOR 2, NWN2, MofB and Arcanum.