Ninjamestari

So murder-bots with a personality? I'd still prefer just getting more proper companions, but I don't think I can hate this idea anymore ^^

These are all points on why crafting should be limited to characters that actually have invested in the ability to craft via skills. That and I don't really like the Enchantment system in PoE either. Crafting is an interesting part of a fantasy RPG and in my mind does have its place, but it is important to not let it disrupt the overall game inventory of loot. This on the other hand ties to my whole multi-classing argument of keeping things simple and instead of re-inventing the wheel, building around what is already there and expand the current systems. I strongly believe in a design philosophy of sticking to the path you've chosen and expanding and building that to the fullest potential, rather than trying to re-invent everything all the time. Re-inventing things forces you to start from scratch, and usually nothing significant is gained in the process, while building and expanding upon what you already have leads to cumulative gains in depth, and over time becomes a lot better system for it.

Yeah, I really don't know what they're going for with the whole sidekick thing. How about just having a six person party and more potential party members instead?

A character doesn't have to rely on a heavy backstory and psychological issues to be a freak. I prefer freaks who are freaks due to their personality rather than circumstance. A wizard who is interested in some freakish phenomenon doesn't have to have a deep backstory with that phenomenon, they could just find it absolutely fascinating, and as far as magic goes, see the potential to gain power, knowledge or insight by studying that field. The whole "I'm weird because my metaphysical destiny is weird" is incredibly dull basis for a character, and although an interesting addition to an already rich character base and an integral part to any fantasy story, they should be the exception rather than the rule. PoE suffers a little from this, as Aloth is really not that interesting a character, and Iselmyr's personality is the whole carrying force behind him rather than the awakened soul dilemma. Grieving mother already kinda fills that niche role.

Don't sweat too much about the poll; ultimately the collection of brainstorming ideas as a source of inspiration will be more useful to obsidian than any poll results. I trust in their creative vision to cook up something awesome; we'll just help in the gathering of the ingredients.

I'd just like to point out that nothing prevents from going with some weird combination of some or even all of these ideas presented in category C). For example, Eothas destroying the ship with some sort of magical attack might be the cause of the crew's souls being bound to the shipwreck, a soul inhabiting the ship might be a malevolent one intent on capturing or devouring souls of the living and the crew might be her servants, willing or otherwise etcetera etcetera.

I think you are all seriously underestimating just how many problems and how much extra work this sort of system brings with itself, all the while severely overestimating the amount of freedom it would truly give you. All in all, I hope they emphasize the cool-factor rather than balance, as what I've been trying to say all the time is that trying to solve the balance issues that 3rd edition style multi-classing brings with itself will eventually create more problems than it solves. I'd rather have the issue of dominant 17/1 builds than some weird balancing scheme that butchers the fun out of the entire system. All that said, I'd still prefer they wouldn't waste time trying to patch a broken idea and would just adopt the seamlessness of AD&D multi-classing and spend the time and money saved this way to design more variety within classes, more interesting abilities, talents and skills. Not only would this preserve the balance of the game better, but it would also preserve the integrity of the fantasy much better.

The moon godlike looks like a chanter/druid. But where's the token dwarf? Passed out drunk under the table? I hope so, I want my trusty rowdy dwarf

I don't think the name should be too respectful or soft spoken. These are the Black Isle Bastards after all, they're pirates and not some fancy-pants little girls.

And that mathematical model restricts class design, it restricts encounter design and it takes a lot of time and effort to tweak. To me the trade-off isn't worth it, because you really don't gain that much by having free reign over the levels. Class design should always begin with the fantasy first, and then creating mechanics that reinforce and represent that fantasy, not through a mathematical model just so the system can pretend to be fancy.

Have to agree with Osvir here. A strong no to emotion-porn from me.

Solving those problems isn't that simple. Let's take the current class system as a base and have a fighter 17 / cipher. How do you solve that problem without creating new ones or removing essential class abilities, such as the soul whip? If you add a super-ultimate level 18 ability for fighters, what happens if and when the level cap is raised? If you scale the effects of soul whip with class power level, how do you make sure that low level ciphers still feel like they're worth playing? The thing about problems of this kind is that there are no silver bullets, an eloquent, perfect solution doesn't exist, which means the designer has to make compromises. Another thing about problems of this kind is that solving them takes time as new systems need to be designed around them, which bloats the overall design and not only takes time that could have been used more productively elsewhere, it often introduces a whole new host of unforeseen problems. Game design is difficult, which is why you really want to stick with relatively simple systems, and I'd rather that Josh spent his time coming up with new and interesting abilities and talents rather than wasting time trying to create workarounds for the numerous issues caused by a system that is a complete nightmare to balance in any way. EDIT: I take your point on immersion though, immersing into a PoE character with all the soul-stuff and attributes that are completely divorced from reality takes a ton of effort.

Fair points. Don't get me wrong, what I've seen thus far is a definite improvement over third edition multi-classing, I just think they should have taken the AD&D approach and built up from there instead. That system wasn't perfect either you know. The thing that really bugs me about picking your levels while playing is that the leveling becomes entirely divorced from the fantasy. How does my barbarian suddenly learn how to cast complicated wizard spells after killing a few xaurips with an axe? How does my Goldpact Knight suddenly develop Cipher abilities in the middle of a dungeon run? With the seamless AD&D approach, a fighter/mage begins their journey as a fighter/mage, they have both martial training and magical education in their background. The whole system is so much cleaner than the "pick your levels" mess. I do have faith in Josh, from what I've seen he seems like a guy who does have vision which is a rare trait in this industry, but I still think that he could better spend his talents improving a system that delivers more seamless game-play and a stronger fantasy. I hate playing a character that becomes the character I envisioned only after I've beaten half of the game. The AD&D approach also avoids the 17/1 build pitfall and it doesn't have to provide game-changing abilities at max level, which is also something that I find rather distasteful in gaming, and it doesn't easily bend into increased level caps either. The freedom to choose your classes level-by-level introduces a lot of problems, not only from a game-play standpoint but from a design standpoint as well. The AD&D model of multi-classing is a lot easier to work with, which translates directly into less work on the core system and more room for polishing. It also translates directly into less flaws. A forgotten virtue in all software development is that a simple and eloquent solution is usually the superior one, and this is especially true in games. The point is, the choice to go with 3rd edition style multi-classing has unavoidable negative consequences. From a design standpoint, there are so many things you can do with the AD&D approach without having to worry about breaking the game balance with some gimmick-build in the process, where as the 3rd edition approach places so many restrictions on things like the level at which certain abilities are accessible, how powerful can certain abilities be, can they scale with a percentage at all etc etc. The AD&D approach doesn't affect the class design process that much, but the 3rd edition approach does turn everything around on their heads. EDIT: also, an AD&D style multi-classing is something they could also easily introduce into the first PoE via a patch without ruining the existing experience, helping with the continuity.

Then again, if the ship was named "black" + something, it could be turned into an internal joke where the crew fights over what they should call the ship and complain how the captain is obsessed with the color "black", never wears anything but black clothes, became a pirate so he could have a black flag etc. This could work if the crew is an incompetent one and partially made into a comedic relief.

If Paladins still don't have many active abilities, I'll dip Pallegina into a cipher so that all those normal weapon swings she does can generate focus. Eder could dip into a Paladin to get an aura and those defensive bonuses to help with his tanking, Aloth will get Chanter levels so that he'll be able to buff the whole party AND generate a secondary resource while casting his wizard spells. The fifth party member I'm not so sure about.

Probably not, by that time the plans have already been set in motion and changing them would negatively affect the whole project.

Actually you need like 10000 stones. Otherwise you're stone population becomes susceptible to erosion. Well, really you could make do with maybe 4400 stones, if you were careful and kept them polished Priceless ^^ Now perhaps we should shut up before we get into talking about the color of those stones and completely derail this whole thread :D EDIT: on a second thought now that I think of it, considering how easily the retarded gender-politics get into games and derail the whole thing these days, I'm beginning to think that it might just be better if there were no romances at all.

Now that I think of it, I'd definitely say yes to singing pirates! Anything inspired by the Monkey Island must be good ^^

A couple more name suggestions. "Haunted Harlot" "Harbor-Bay Bitch" Another idea that came to mind in the innkeeping shipwreck scenario is that the crew's souls being bound to the ship could still work, maybe they were a group of mutineers who ganked the only competent seaman on the ship, were cursed to inhabit the ship for all eternity and then in their incompetence crashed their ship in the first storm they ran into, and now they're just screwed.

If the name of the Pirate Crew is Black Isle Bastards, then it could stand to reason that they might view their ship as their symbolic mother of sorts and thus call her "The High Sea Harlot" or "Whore of the Black Isle" or something like that. The ship of such an infamous pirate crew should obviously be something special, maybe an advanced 'prototype' warship of a large nation which would give the ship the edge the pirates need to be successful, or on a completely opposite approach the ship could be really old and have partially mystical origins. The latter approach would fit well if the crew's souls are bound to the ship idea takes flame. If on the other hand the innkeeper route is taken, then it might be hilarious to have the crew be utterly incompetent as pirates and seamen, and then have weave the shipwreck and inn together and neatly have their inn built inside their beached broken ship. If this is the route taken, there should definitely be a quest where you could obtain your own little monkey. Or a foul mouthed parrot.

It might not be selfless but it is still good. The deed perhaps, but not the character.

Yeah, you need 2 stones to make a spark. That's all you need though, you don't need 4 stones, 6 stones or any other number. 2 is all that is necessary. All the other stones are more or less expendable. You can throw the stones at bears and wolves as much as you want as long as you can pick up two of them afterwards and you're good to go.

No gays please, I have a too strong mental association between gays and poorly written Bioware characters to handle them ^^ Seriously though If it fits the character, go with it. I trust that if they write a romance it'll be because it felt natural for that character. In past Obsidian games, there have been deep feelings between characters even without a romance. That Blind Sith from The Sith Lord, Visas I think her name was, is a good example. I genuinely felt for her even without a romantic connection, and to me that character was beautiful, and a shallow kissy-kissy romance would've completely butchered the experience. The worst offence Obsidian has ever done with characters has been boring characters, I've yet to see them come up with an actually bad one, so I think we're in good hands with this.

It's not truly being good if you do it for the stat bonuses. If you want to be congratulated with stat bonuses for doing the right thing, then you're not really good, or doing the right thing, now are you. I definitely oppose giving characters stat bonuses because they were 'good', in fact, I think a truly good character should have an opportunity to demonstrate his/her willingness to self-sacrifice by taking a permanent penalty to their stats in order to save another meaningful character.

While I like the idea of retired pirates who run their own inn and provide smuggled merchandise, I think that since this is a fantasy game they should rather be more mystical. Perhaps their souls are some how tied to the island or their ship, granting them some form of pseudo-immortality; a lich-like process that when they die, they slowly begin to generate a new body to inhabit where-ever they have their hideout (or ship). I know it's kinda cliche, but I can't help it. As far as interaction goes, I think that less is more if one tries to build up a mystery. No interaction directly with the Pirates, but dealing with an aftermath of their raid, yes, stumbling upon rumors and clues about them on other quests, yes, and perhaps even getting to explore one of their former hide-outs as part of some other quest to find a missing person or something. That, or the retired innkeeping smuggler-merchant-pirates. EDIT: oh, and if they go for the innkeeper route, one of the pirates should like Wine instead of Rum. The other pirates obviously make fun of this guy.