Hormalakh

I also had a problem with the concept sketch of the dungeon, but for a different reason. It seems like the "bowels" of your dungeon look too much like actual bowels: the dungeon looked a little too linear with a pre-selected path. There had been a lot talked about in the forums about good dungeon design and Jaquaying your dungeons. Please please please consider this if you have not already. This is a highly important aspect that you should consider in your vertical slice! http://www.thealexandrian.net/archive/archive2010-07c.html#20100723

If only that were true... Heh. It's more like "A patient without patience is a patient without a doctor."

Just as long as the AP arrows work like they're supposed to. I'm looking at you, Fallout.

A doctor without patience is a doctor without patients.

Great update and game mechanic. Was wishing to see some updates on previous mechanics (like hit/miss and armor mechs) just to see where we stand, but that's probably a WIP still. In terms of Engagement, I'm hoping that the computer AI is smart about this and isn't open to work arounds or players being able to take advantage of the mechanic. For example, having enemies constantly switching engagement between enemies and thus limiting the usefulness of this. I can't come up with actual examples right now, but computer AI is notorious for sucking when complex mechanics are put in place. Just wanted to give a heads up on this and wondering if the devs had anything particular to say about this. EDIT: Also, I'm loving the camera work and the new style of updates. Very professional and it seems like this would be a great addition for developer commentary on some DVD in the future ...

I concur. I didn't realize that when they said the god-like would be similar to the plane-touched that they might turn out exactly like the plane-touched in all but name. It is still too early to tell, though, so I am hopeful that these are initial drafts towards a more original race.

No random nonsense in character creation....absolutely not in any way shape or form. Different variations of alterations based on the god you choose are cool IF you get to choose them as well in character creations. The last thing I have the patience to put up with is "Oh hey it's random so you got a green butt......forget about cool hair or horns and so on, you get to have a green ass." Ok let's not make it random. Let's have several aspects for each god-like, but then make it a bunch of checkboxes for on or off. Take out the randomization, but allow different aspects of the god-likes to stay. If someone only wants the horns or the ears, then allow them to do that. Different god-likes should be "touched" by the gods in varying amounts, in my opinion. How about now? Is it still a sucky idea? I'm not too adamant about the randomization, but I would like the ability to choose particular aspects.

Wanted to throw out an idea @Rob Nesler. Maybe you guys should talk to the other devs about coming up with specific god-touched characteristics for character customization and then make these qualities randomized. An example would be like this: let's say there is an earth god/dess and the first art example you showed was several different aspects of a god-touched (ears, horns, mossy hair, green eyes, etc). Then, the player gets to choose the specific god that their character is touched by. However, when it comes to the specific attributes/aspects that the character "gets" (and thus displays) from the god, those are randomized. So not all earth-touched look like they have horns and ears, with mossy skin. Some have only horns, some only have the ears and mossy skin, some might only have green eyes, etc. Some get more, some get less. These appearances can be re-rolled at character creation to get the "right" look for your god-touched. It introduces even more variability in character creation and doesn't have an effect on gameplay (all god-touched have the same bonuses/maluses).

So we have fire, water, earth, lightning (air?), air (talons?). I thought they were going to be "touched" by the pantheon that existed in the world, not by the "elements." (Not that I mind). Unless the pantheon aren't really gods and these guys are touched by "natural gods"... Or it could be that there are these gods (elements) in the pantheon. Great update in either case. Thanks! Keep up the good work.

Just wanted to throw this up here so someone could see it. Basically, it's a dialog mechanic. What I was thinking was to have a more "robust" dialogue mechanic. It would be a mixture between the Alpha Protocol and the old-school dialogue. You have 3 or 4 "tones" to your comments, and then 3 or 4 options for topic conversations. Based on the topics and the way you ask them, you get varied responses from different people. It allows you to lead the conversation down a certain path while allowing your "tone" to also do part of the talking. Different people would react differently to different tones. Anyway, it's probably a pretty bad idea (so much dialogue rewriting!) but I thought it might be a nice thing to try out one day... Example: At the top of the dialogue box you have 3-5 tones (aggressive, timid, professional, suave, etc) and you also have your multiple choice dialogue topics like in old-school games. Each tone you click gives you a new set of lines but the topics are the same in all the different tones. Aggressive: 1- Give me the quest, I don't have all day. 2- I'll only do this job if you pay me, you moron. 3- Out with it! Where's the nearest tavern?! 4- Out of my way pleb! Professional: 1- Sir I would gladly accept your quest. 2- I must ask that I be paid for this quest. 3- Would you mind telling me where the nearest tavern is? 4- Excuse me, I must be leaving. Suave: 1- Yeah baby. I'll take your quest too *smirk* 2- You gotta put your money where your mouth is... 3- Hey there good looking. Where can I get a drink around these parts? 4- Catch you later! Yeah, it's a pretty bad idea, right?

If a certain door is meant to really keep someone out, the creator of that door would have chosen better materials (unbreakable) for the job. If it's a wooden door into some pleb's house, I should be able to break it down. It's that simple. Then the thieves and the lockpicks still have a job, and the door smashing monsters are happy too. Many have said this, and I agree: breaking down doors was a mainstay of the older games. It wasn't always easy (and feasible for every door) but you could do it and was an option sometimes. Most of the old games had this, at least. Fallout 1/2, Baldur's Gate 1/2.

Cool stuff in here. I guess one of the questions for me was what was the difference between a Project Eternity dwarf race and a human race with achondroplasia? Are these two the same or do dwarves have different physiologies than humans (and are thus unable to mate)? It would be nice to know about some of these differences. What adaptations do dwarves have that make them well-suited to live in Project Eternity and yet have a evolutionary lineage that diverges from humans? Hopefully we can get some answers to these questions either in the game or in the manual (or even here).

Please. Explain why you hated receiving xp when you engaged in combat. This conversation is stilllll going on? I hated receiving xp for my druid when he killed animals.

Gaaahhhh! Monks have all the appeal of fingernails on a chalkboard. Oh well, to each his own. Maybe I can burn down a monastery in the game... Ah the sweet sweet melody of fingernails on a chalkboard. I don't think "monks" are a great class either: I don't think they were very well imagined, but that's fantasy for you. I had/have similar issues with the "barbarians." Alas, I'll take what I can get at this point and maybe the monks will be slightly different in this game.

The way I see it, doors should be breakable if they're breakable. (HUh?) I mean that if they're wooden, they would be breakable. If they're solid steel doors, then no, they shouldn't be. Fallout had something like this, didn't it? Some doors were mechanical and some were "energy" and some were "electrical." Obviously, the wooden doors can break, the metal ones need to be picked, and the magical ones burn you to a crisp.

That's fine, but my fingers are crossed that none of the companions with particularly profitable, informational, or moving sidequests happen to be monks as I'm likely to leave them in the Hall of Adventurers or their monastery. I completely agree with this. It would break my heart if Tsuga C missed out on monk related content, and would really appreciate it if you could make the monk companion devoid of content and totally boring to play. "Keep them in the game, but 'take them out'"

The dwarves look great! i'm assuming the Orlan ears are proving to be a problem in terms of clipping when trying to put on helmets. There should still be circlets that they can wear. Or crowns. Small detective hats would be nice Something like this for my Orlan would be nice. I think it also fits his theme, eh? All the best.

Pretty sure about this and wanted to put it in spoilers in case I'm right Very cool. Also liking the god update. Can't wait for an animal god/creature god.

Then clearly we have no disagreements. I think the old mechanic did this well enough. Intuitive? Not at first.

I'm really liking your ideas Nonek! Keep em coming. ---- Steampunk, I'm not so fond of. At least not for this game.

Don't make me quote the entire last two pages of this thread. edit: rereading your text, I did not direct my posting at you rjshae. You used the word "muddle" which I took to mean that it wasn't the most tactically sound of decisions (and probably allows you to beat some(/many?) of the mobs in a normal or easy difficulty) and unlikely to be the most effective way. I was directing most of my disagreement toward other posters.

I am vehemently opposed to the idea of "lazy gameplay" where players expect to lazily pass through any and every combat scenario without tactics or strategy (i.e. just playing it for the story). This includes the comments being made regarding using only one weapon throughout the game (and only one armor) until you find the ubersword or the uberplate. Limiting tactics by disregarding two aspects of combat (weapon choice and armor choice) is NOT why I invested in this game. This game was not sold to the players that way and it should not cater to players who want that. That being said, an obnoxious or overly unintuitive combat mechanic, is -I am sure- not wanted by most players. At this point, since there is another Armor vs DT mechanic coming up, I'll wait to see what that is before arguing for or against any mechanic.

Hey. So I remember that Aumaua thread from a while back and I had been thinking about it for a while. My thoughts on it have slightly changed a little. I think that the aumaua can derive some physiological traits simiilar to some Samoans (big, built, etc), but I'm not too keen on all Aumaua being of the Samoan culture. I'm not Samoan/polynesian, but I doubt I'd be happy if I knew that a game has taken my culture/people and made them the orc-equivalent in a game. It can be seen in a good or a bad light, depending on the person. There really is no reason for a species to be based on a culture. However, if you want an island culture to be based on polynesian culture, I'm all for it. Just not a whole race. My 2 cents.

The DT changes with fancier chainmails, as long as they affect the DT system as a whole, will not terribly affect it. The equation would distribute evenly among all armors. I've tested it with the spreadsheet. The rules stay the same. Piercers do best in their piercing category. Crushers always do best in the higher end. Slashers do best at the beginning tiers. It's just that now, every weapon hits for less damage. Because ultimately a masterwork chainmail (or platemail or whatever) should be a better armor in general. It's always better to have a +1chainmail over a regular chainmail. It's just another multiplication that you add to the beginning of your equation (1-armor bonus) X everything else. Where armor bonus is a % between 0 - X% where X < 100. I also tested it in a scenario where if armor bonuses increase, the base DT of that armor slightly decreases (nothing more than 1-3 points). The numbers change and ever so slightly shift, but the rules stay the same. Anything more than that and you're starting to change your armor tier designations. If the shifts become 5 points or more, you're effectively shifting your armor to a different tier. Which would "make sense" in the real world. As you add more chain to your padded armor, it becomes less and less a padded armor, and more and more a chain mail. So you really shouldn't be calling your padded armor with 51% chain mail, a padded armor anymore. You should be calling it a chain mail with 49% padded armor.

I'm going to try explaining the mechanic one last time with a different perspective altogether. First of all, the system is set in a way where there is no "best weapon" that you use every time. That's kiddie stuff. In a real tactical situation, you want to use the right weapon for the right armor. With that out of the way, let's show the weapons you've got. I'm going to simplify this a little at first. We're going to start with 2handers to keep our speeds the same and so as to not worry about single/dual wielding. Generally, faster speed and dual-wielding = better. I've given some numbers in parentheses and I'll get to them later. I've used the spreadsheet Josh has on page 6 to come up with the first example. So if you're looking for numbers, you can follow that spreadsheet (but I promise you won't need it). Claymore: 45 damage No piercing (DT 0) Minimum Crushing Damage (MCD): 30% (13.5) Two-handed Dagger: 26 damage Leather piercing (DT 20) Minimum Crushing Damage: 30% (7.8 ) Troll's club: 34 damage No piercing (DT 0) Minimum Crushing Damage: 60% (18.36) Now, the way to figure out which weapon works best is to always start with how deep you can pierce an armor. Your two-handed dagger can pierce up through Leather armor (20 DT). Therefore, you will always get the best bang for your buck with the highest piercing weapon, even if your damage is low. Much lower than the troll's club(34>26) and the Claymore (45>26). Those are significant increases in damage (8 and 19 points), but when dealing with armored enemies, the best thing is to always by-pass/pierce their armor and get to the squishy center. Now, let's say your enemy starts deviating away from Leather armor. If the armor starts getting better and heavier (plate), then you'll want to start thinking more and more about moving towards the troll's club. Your other weapons have no piercing damage, so you can be sure that the further away they get from their piercing class, the more likely they are to hit for Minimum Crushing Damage (MCD). You can calculate this quickly: multiply the MCD with the damage. Now whether the devs want to show you this calculation instead of the "minimum crushing damage" as a percentage, that's fine with me. The calculation doesn't really help/hurt you. It just gives you more information. Hence, I put them in parentheses in the original weapon descriptions above. As you start moving away from your highest piercing damage, you're more and more likely to be doing the MCD for that weapon. Since you have those numbers, it becomes fairly easy to calculate which is the best weapon for the situation (not considering things like speed, although between the three weapons I've given above the speeds are the same). So, now you have a good starting paradigm for any situation: You are fighting an enemy with Leather armor, you go for your Leather armor piercer even if it does something close to 10-20% less damage (here, the dagger does up to 40% less damage than the claymore!). Armors much higher than leather armor, you go for the crushing weapon (troll's club). Less armor than leather? Go for the highest damage weapon you can (claymore). So that's our basic scenario. Now let's move on to something "weird." You have three new weapons. Now. Let me give you scenarios. 1- Plate wearing enemy (DT 45) 2- Mail wearing enemy (DT 30) 3- Padded wearing enemy (DT 10) Your answers are In fact, I don't even have to go through the numbers to know any armor much higher than your highest piercer needs to go for the highest MCD. That would be our first scenario. None of my weapons are plate-piercing, so I'll want to go for the flail since it has the highest MCD. In the second scenario, even a 50% reduction in damage between my samurai sword and my pike has no effect on the mail-piercing efficacy of the pike. That is to say that the pike still out-deals damage in this scenario! Since you've got a mail piercer and an enemy who wears mail armor, make his armor not matter at all. Finally, the samurai sword can pierce up to padded AND does the most damage, that this would be absolutely destructive on my padded wielder. Now here's one more example. Same weapons as given above. Which weapon would you use for a leather wielder (DT 20)? Answer at the bottom. ---- The Answer ---- My work (for any devs reading or to verify my answer with a spreadsheet)