Hormalakh

AI doesn't change with difficulty, only the enemy make up

There are eight characters in the game, if you want to mess around with multiple class mechanics either pick five of those characters that aren't your class or make a new char at the adventurer hall. I don't think obsidian should really tell us anything about the story even when it comes to the classes of joinable npcs. Really, all you're asking for is meta game knowledge.

You don't like the lore for the game? Well not much you can do about that. Sorry it's not up to your high standards of DnD.

Chris avellone, again in his updates, has mentioned that having multiple members with the same class will allow players to access certain benefits either through story or through mechanically interesting methods. So it shouldn't be a problem with you having two rogues in the party. Also, the game mechanics are being made in a way where being a rogue should still allow you to go down a different path than another rogue. Basically, you shouldn't really care what the make up of your party is: they've already taken that into account and are doing things to remedy those sorts of situations.

Please see Chris avellone updates on companions. Companions shall be written in ways that allay many of the old fears. If there's one thing I trust obsidian to do, it's to make the companions a non-issue.

^not if the campaign's on the computer. Black puddings and rust monsters just become encounters with high reload rates. Now if their effects were unknown until after the party finished the quest... ... Players would be pissed and feel like they were really sucker punched.

It is unlikely that this information is available due to spoilers etc. Some of the characters that we know of May or may not be companions. Aloth Sagani Eder Pallegina Orlan cipher Forton Red headed priestess whose name eludes me at the moment.

This was a concern voiced earlier when engagement was first described. Ultimately, the devs were told by many players that the AI needs "to be good" but nobody really came up with a strong algorithm. As mentioned, it's tough to do. Ultimately, if I was to think through this, I think there would need to be a risk/reward algorithm in place for the computer to decide whether the risk of disengaging from current enemy is worth the reward of engaging in another action. How one does this might be tough to figure out. Considerations in such a risk/reward question: Damage done by engaging enemy. Damage done by "protected enemy" whom AI is currently not engaged with. Health remaining (even if it's roughly approx.) of both engaging and protected enemy. An almost dead enemy would have a higher value than a uninjured enemy. Randomization factor. Whether protected enemy has another AI currently engaged (archers or melee). Etc.

Why does it matter if players savescum anyway? In the nicest possible way, why does it matter what other players do in a single player game? Actually, why is it even considered 'savescum' to reload the game if the battle goes horribly wrong, and ends with you losing a character whom you've no chance of getting back? Where is the line between normal saving/reloading and savescum? I must confess, I like to save a lot, and reload when a battle goes horribly wrong, so does that make me a savescum? I would rather have petrification be harsh (but recoverable with a bit of effort or forethought), and face the possibility of having to reload, than have it nerfed for the sake of preventing people who want to quicksave a lot from doing so. Fr the sake of brevity see Josh's comments on designer's roles for creating a good game and game degeneracy. Check any other thread and you'll find the arguments. Let's not devolve the discussion into this conversation all over again.

I have to emphatically disagree with all the people who say this music should be more epic. The music is trying to imply something about the scenery, whatever that may be. If it's bland, forgetful or dreary, perhaps it is meant to evoke that feeling. If it is evoking the wrong feeling, then fine, it should be changed. Otherwise, I think too much "EPIC" gets tiring fast. There are likely going to be pieces of epic music, but sometimes you want to evoke a different feeling. I don't think hearing baldur's gate epic introductory music in a sleepy village is very appropriate.

One other thing I'd like to add to the discussion, and building off the "jarring" feeling one can get when switching between musical themes (dungeon/battle/wilderness/etc), this is especially true when it comes to engaging in battle and coming out of battle, if I'm not mistaken I think the IE games had sort of a "transitional song" that transitioned between the different scenarios. That would be good. To be more clear, when the battle is over (and the combat song is not) there should be a way of "wrapping" up the song before switching back to non-combat music.

The music gave me a distinct feeling that this village was old and likely run-down. Probably part of the "old world."

So, newest Project Eternity update talks about Heartbleed. Go ahead and change your passwords.

"Heartbleed..hmm. K, gotta change password..Eh? What's this? Words in my music? ...Hmm...Commute...ok...Bach...ah. AHH I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE" Scroll down to bottom on page, see Drumroll with video. "YEAHHHHHH!" Scroll back up.

I've got to say tht Stun is right about the kits being classes. If a paladin is a class (where in reality he's a LG fighter with cleric spells and restrictions in charisma), then a kit with specific mechanics that are distinct with equal restrictions, equal bonuses to combat with maluses to "balance" are "classes" regardless of what a game wants to call them.

Innovation also includes the new technical aspects of map design and visual art. Dynamic lighting being done for the first time in an IE-like. Dynamic maps (water moving up and down) in a 2D map. A much more robust scouting/sneaking mechanic. The whole combat mechanic for this game is completely new. It's not 4e, 2e, AD&D - it's an amalgamation of all the best bits with a few adjustments here and there.

I also vehemently disagree with the notion that BG2 was "counter the mage." BG2's magic system was very excellent. You could play counter the mage with such a wide array of spells, but that wasn't the only way to play.

A weapon leveling-up? Hmm...that's not a bad idea actually. Maybe one of the things that a modifiable weapon needs to become more powerful (through crafting for example) is that it has been "tested" against the mettle of difficult enemies. That way you can't just make every weapon into a 2+ sword and sell it off to a merchant. It's probably a little late to add such a mechanic into the game, but it's a good idea.

The thing with entangle is that you can save against it - as is the case with a lot of these spells. Jut because you're in an entangle area doesn't mean you'll get entangled. It's the same with pretty much all of the other spells too - if you can roll a high enough dice, you don't take the effect. Contrast this with a spell that you can't save against with a lower duration. Which one is better? I don't think it's easy to anser to that. Ultimately, I agree with Sensuki that difficult status effects will make the game more interesting and varied. I don't agree with him that they are pissy because we don't know what the specifics are in this case - as with a lot of other things at this point.

Josh, the lead designer of iwd2, stated that the story was written in 2 days almost right before the game was finished. This is not something that had much control over. The production cycle for it was extremely short.

Don't push back the release date. Finish what you have when you said it. "Better quality" doesn't exist. If it's a good game, it'll be a good game and we'll fund a sequel or an expansion or whatever. If it's late or sucks, we won't.

But...but ...that's boringggggggg! So sayeth the wise "pro-players" who disagree with you.

The danger in this is people like to do blind runthroughs with 1 character, and then maybe metagame with further characters. My "canon" play throughs are always my first runs through the game. However when you have to go back and replay the game with a new character to experience the new content, rather than continuing the new content with your first character, it just doesn't feel as genuine. Your first character has his story shut without experiencing for example...Durlag's Tower so it's simply just not as magical. Not to mention all the issues I mentioned in op. Balancing, story continuation, etc

While I love your scenario here, it's actually technically not a sucker punch, since bosses on their own turf tend to know what's going on, and seek out intruders with no mercy, especially when they are weak and vulnerable. While in theory, it's nice with groups of baddies replenishing themselves if the party leave a few of them behind, it leads to a number of problems: - so-called xp-farming (as any respawns will be farmed, unless there's a pool of baddies that gets depleted) -annoyance (you thought your party made it pass Fargath Falls, but no, lo and behold! The death crabs are all back again, with a vengeance) -stinginess on behalf of the game itself (cf. in early D3, if you jumped into an area waypoint or onto a portal pad to save your sorry ass, the critters got back to full health when you peeked in again to see how much they were bleeding, also need I even mention the disaster of enrage timer on everything. In short, Blizzard removed these features and never looked back.) First and foremost, the game should be fun and that includes the gameplay. Any kind of monster-replenishing features needs to be top-notch if it should be included at all. No xp farming as no xp is given for killing individual enemies, only completing quests. Annoyance: Beating each encounter is the challenge, not beating each individual goblin. If you can't beat the encounter as a whole, you can run away, heal up and try again. If you can't do that, shift the difficulty downward or try another strategy. This is the idea behind degeneracy after all. I don't understand what u meant about your last point with ds3.

Missing the exploration aspect goes against the design goals. Having fast travel as described above is both expensive and goes against the exploration feel. Really, just giving players the opportunity to change game speed would make this just so much easier without all these extra mechanics