Ninjamestari

Why on earth would anyone complain about that?

Because I hate clickbait-titles. You're too quick to judge here. The OP might lack in the title, but the text does present a genuine, albeit minor, issue.

I think their problem is that they create the categories to which the characters have to fit first, and only then start writing the actual characters. That's what you get when artistic direction is headed by faceless men with suitcases. Systems and categories. When you expect artistic expression from a group like that, you're bound to be disappointed. It's especially funny with ME1, where all the romanceable characters, Aidan, Ashley and Liara are utter bull****, while the rest of the crew is actually quite nice. There is quite a contrast there demonstrating what happens with characters that start as categories that have to satisfy a certain plot-formula.

I don't know, I wanted to kill Hiravias the moment I saw him. Something about him just rubbed me the wrong way.

I'd like to see Durance again, see how he could develop as a character. I really don't understand why everyone hates him, he's the only truly interesting companion in the first game.

What? Even Tali, Wrex and Garrus?

Pfft. I'd at least demand that they make me a sandwitch ^^

I see, you're worried about the "finished product suffering" even though you don't know the end result yet. K. There are different consequences to different design approaches, the concept shouldn't be that difficult to understand. The "we don't have the finished product so we can't make accurate hypothetical predictions on the consequences of different design philosophies" - line of thinking is just kinda stupid; that way of thinking doesn't serve any purpose whatsoever when one is trying to have a discussion. The only thing it leads to is the end of thoughts and discussions on the subject matter to which it is applied to. Be careful of that attitude or it will keep you ignorant.

The White Coast Wardens of course, they've been trying to catch that crew for more than a decade you know.

If you try to please everyone, you'll end up with a product that isn't really the thing for anyone. Too much choice takes away from the overall narrative by restricting plot developments and such. One should pick an approach and stick with it, trying to give everyone a "choice" to pick what they want works for mindless mass-produced entertainment, it doesn't work if you're trying to create a piece of art. If there is choice, it should be meaningful in the context of the themes of the story and the setting, not just "I want two slides of romance, one bad guy and some cheese and ketchup with my fries please." PrimeJunta already mentioned Planescape: Torment, that's an excellent example on how to make choice right.

A GUN! I don't think we've ever had a talkin kick-ass GUN before!

Have to vote for Xoti. It's been ages since I had a somewhat ordinary girl in my party of heroes, I'm beginning to miss the feeling. She's no Thief/Mage, but I think she'll do.

I think he meant "Anyone can be good if it's in their best interests. But True Virtue is being good when you don't benefit." *insert image of Zen Monk bowing* Just about perfect clarification, thanks. I like that Zen Monk quote, where's it from and who said it?

You could always keep track of those who want their money back and those who don't, so that those who don't want their money back don't have to make a separate donation, have a "money back in case of failure" option for those who donate. I'm not one of the donors, but I'd bet *some* of them would still wish their money to go for obsidian. Unless that is too much of a hassle ofc.

That is kinda taking this whole thing out of context; real life doesn't have "good" and "evil" in it, those are arbitrary human definitions in the first place. If you want to use them in a game, you should do so properly or they lose their philosophical meaning. "do I rescue the child and be rewarded, do I do nothing and get nothing, or do I butcher him and be shunned" really is not a moral dilemma in a game where the risk to your person and the physical effort involved are not real.

A fair concern. Do you think the Black Isle Bastards should somehow be a special group of pirates or just another pirate crew that happens to simply have the name?

Oh dipping can be balanced, the balancing solutions simply are liable to cause trouble.

I would appreciate less condescending tone even if we disagree on things, thank you. That's not a condescending tone, that is a whole point and argument, neatly wrapped in a single line of text. It's funny how you chose to ignore the one line in my post that had meaning and chose instead to focus on the expanded fluff below.

I know the game doesn't, but this thread takes on that assumption that "good" does exist and should be rewarded, and the idea of rewarding players for "being good" with stat bonuses is something I'm strongly against, hence my original arguments. Also, the fact of encouraging "good" behavior with rewards robs the game of real moral dilemmas, reducing the whole good/evil thing into a binary choice of "which bonuses do I want". I think the way PoE handled it was good, you paid a heavy price for that stat increase you gained from sacrificing a companion. Since good and evil are not universal forces in PoE like they are in D&D, I'm inclined to agree with you here; having a reputation system instead a morality one is a good thing, but it doesn't work unless the developers are as aware of when *not* to use that reputation as an indication of something as they are of when to use it. Ie, having the reputation for benevolence shouldn't award you some abstract universal goodness points that give you power. Nor an automatic approval, should that omnipotent mind-reading creature happen to cross your path.

Gypsy children asking for money on my way home is thought provoking experience. A gameplay that punishes you regardless of what you do is simply boring. I’m not sure what game you talking about but PoE already is a game where you sacrifice personal power when you do good (you don’t get stat bonuses most of the time). The point of good is to do good. The idea that it is not good unless you make yourself suffer is simply ridiculous. Well, you did learn the lesson of those 10 coins quite well if you still remember it. Your failure to understand and appreciate that lesson is hardly the game's fault now is it? ^^ Good is not an emotion, good is not a feeling. You're not truly good until you understand the circumstances of your help and their consequences. I wonder if those Gypsy children really provoked thoughts in you, or was it merely emotions around which you built thoughts afterwards? Did you take into account the possibility that their parents might have put them up to it so that they don't have to work, and those little children bring in a lot more empathy money than a couple of junkies, or did you just wonder how the world must be so evil when little children have to beg? Did you actually draw insights from that experience with the gypsies? My point is that the well of good and evil is a lot deeper than you think, and the details *do* matter; they're the only thing that matter in the end. Helping someone because you're emotionally compelled to do so is actually quite selfish, it is the easy way to go, not the hard way. Helping someone against your emotions, now that is difficult, and that could be considered selfless, unless you're getting something out of it.

The whole thread, titled "Good people need some perm ability score bonuses" implies that we're acting under the assumption that the game *is* tracking goodness. Whether the game actually will, or if it should (I don't think it should, morality is difficult to determine properly and PoE1 didn't attempt to do so) is an entirely different discussion. The multiple degrees of potential benefits belong to the gray area that can't really be tracked, hence "Good Points" should only be awarded when certain logical criteria is being met. Helping a beggar out by tossing him a coin isn't "good", sacrificing your left leg to save another on the other hand is quite safe to categorize as "good". Not completely safe, if you're just roleplaying and adrenaline junkie who did it for the heck of it, but I'd consider it safe enough bet. The whole idea that "good" deeds are to be rewarded eats away the whole morality of it, but if they are punished, then only truly good characters would reasonably consider doing them. The whole "I refused the reward but got a ring that's worth more as a reward" completely takes away the moral dilemma from the whole scenario. Yes, there are gray areas to morality, but I challenge you to design a logical system that takes that accurately into account for the purposes of a crpg where the honest communication between the DM and the player do not exist. Technically he didn't outright say "people like you". He merely strongly implied it Fair enough, I had completely forgotten that I had made that comment, although I'm glad that this distinction wasn't lost on everyone. Apologies.

Not being an **** isn't enough to be considered good, there's more to it than that.If you help someone, and you benefit from it, your morality was never tested and thus the deed cannot be viewed as good, as your intentions and motivations are unknowable to an outside observer, such as a game that isn't even a sentient entity but instead a logical construct. Hence, unless the selflessness of your actions are truly tested, they cannot be considered good. This whole concept is quite simple, so your assumption of the logic leading to good people having to be suicidal idiots is intellectually lazy at best and downright dishonest at worst, so don't start this whine about arguing in good faith when your behavior warrants none and actually indicates the exact opposite.

Do you realize that your solution can still be for the most part bypassed by returning to an inn? Looking at a loading screen does test player's patience and is most certainly not meaningful. It's just tedious. And no, testing patience does not in any way, shape or form make for meaningful gameplay. What exactly would that accomplish, if resting only recovers your character from fatigue, it doesn't replenish hitpoints or spells. If untreated wounds fester, then should the inn be far away, that trip is actually harmful to the party rather than beneficial. All in all, the point never was to implement this system in PoE, i made it merely to illustrate the point of what kind of a system would need to be in place if resting was to be meaningful in the first place. I'm glad that even if the point was lost on so many (not all), I at least managed to spark some thought, so the post wasn't a complete failure.

You've been building up your cruelty score in order to take advantage of those evil stat-bonuses, remember? ^^

No no no, I'm all for priests and vulnerable women. I like where that is going ^^